Life is about connections.
Rick Rubin, (season two, episode 7), invited me for dinner with Benedict Cumberbatch, where Benedict talked mostly about the food he was cooking for his children. Cary Fukunaga, (season one, episode 4) recently asked me to find a fishmonger who could teach Benedict how to fillet a sea bass for his role in the thriller Blood On Snow. JJ Abrams, (season two, episode 9) texted “Ruthie, Benedict must not be of this earth. Describing him as a limitless talent somehow feels like an understatement.” And Wes Anderson, (season three, episode 1), described Benedict as one of the great actors of our time. “He's like an Olivier or a Gielgud mixed with a DeNiro or a Hoffman”
Benedict thinks about the food he eats, the issues of sustainability, fairness, and civil liberties. He's here with me now in The River Cafe to talk about food and film, family and friends.
What a connection.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
We have good news. Ruthie's Table four is launching on YouTube.
Starting with today's episode with Benedict Cumberbatch. You'll be able
to watch the conversation in full, and then throughout the summer,
we'll be posting some of our favorite interviews across the series.
To watch, go to YouTube dot com slash hat symbol
(00:27):
Ruthie's Table four pod. I can't wait to see you there.
If life is about connections, I feel connected to Benedict Cumberbatch.
Rick Rubin season two Table four seated us together at
a dinner a few years ago, and I remember it
as if it was yesterday, Benedict talking about the food
(00:49):
he was cooking for his kids this morning at breakfast.
Carrie Fukenega season two recalled asking me to find a
phishmonger to teach Benedict how to fill out a sea
bass for his role in the thriller Blood on Snow
and how he passed with flying colors. Jj Abrams season
three texted me late last night saying, Ruthie, Benedict must
(01:11):
not be of this earth, describing him as a limitless
talent somehow feels like an understatement. And Wes Anderson season three,
when I told him I was seeing Benedict described him
as one of the great actors of our time. He's
like an Olivier or a Gielgud mixed with a de
Niro or a Hoffman to fit. Keep going out of here. Bye,
(01:33):
there was somebody here. We're going to put on this podcast, Okay.
Benedict and I are also connected by values. We're both
politically and socially active. He thinks about the food, he
eats the issues of sustainability, fairness, and civil liberties. He's
here with me now in the River Cafe to talk
about food and film, family and friends. Benedict is someone
(01:55):
I respect, I admire, and I love. That's the real connection.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So we start with reading the recipe and then we've
got that over the edge and you can read it
anyway you want. Okay, you can read it. Okay, that's ruthy.
I heard that. I don't know. I try.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I try to read it. Okay, do you want to try?
I find impression. I can also do impressively, and I
feel really cruel.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, you could be cruel.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Okay, I'll take that introduction back and actually, what.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
A ship ship? Okay, I'll try. I'll try spilen and
roasty Langstein's to have Langastein's tables dried three to for.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Three chill lower my ten extra version of it's getting quite.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Kathleen, were getting Kathleen? Okay, Split and roasted langostinees twelve Langstein's,
two tablespoons of dried oregano, three to four dried chilis,
two lemons, extra virgin olive oil. Preheat the ovens to
two hundred and twenty degrees see gas seven. Cut each
langostine in half lengthways, Sprinkle the flesh side with oregano
(03:10):
and crumpled chili in season drizzled with olive oil, and
squeeze over the juice of one lemon. He's a large tray,
and place the langostine's on it, cut side up, side
by side. Roast in the preheated oven for four to
five minutes. Serve hot with lemon. That sounds within my capability.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Is now, but your cook, I do cook?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, I love it. But I love this the story
of a place, Ruth. I love that this grew up
with the limitations of being somewhere for people to eat nearby,
and then you've got a Michelin star and blew it
out of the water. It's just insane like orget.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And we use the word organic because we're just looking.
We've never done another restaurant, and this one just has
grown from being four seats.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
It's all organic.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, it's how you grow, you know, how you do.
You look at your doing films that way, the.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Kind of films I mean, yeah, that's the nicest way
to do it. You just kind of a conversation grows
around an artist or a particular story or an actor
actor as an artist. But you know what I mean,
there's so for example, Olivia Coleman and I have friends
who have been friends for years.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Episode what episode episode four?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
She's good. She might have been season two, but you know,
we've been friends for a while, and we said drunkenly
every time we we should do something to you know,
never have happened. And then some grown ups had a
good idea, and here we are and The Roses comes
out in August, which is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I cannot wait to see that. I think I'm probably
the only person in this one that really remembers the
War of the Road, right, you know, and Kathy and
they voice double yeah, but tell me about it.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I mean, so, I'm playing an architect Olivia Comman you've
already had on the show, who plays a chef, and
it's about it's about their relationship based on the original
book and then obviously the iconic film m Kathleen Turner,
Michael Douglas and Danny Devita who directed it. You know,
it's based on that paradigm of a couple who start
with a furiously wonderful, beautiful archetypal romance and they're impulsive
(05:18):
and physical and they have a family, and one person's
career is kind of stagnated because of the family. The
other person's doing really well, has a disaster. The other
one goes on the up and up, and that's her.
That's Olivia's character as a chef, and she becomes this huge,
big deal, a bit like you, and I'm sure, yeah,
(05:41):
come on, and I like Richard mine has a nose dive.
And it's about then what it's really I don't want
to give it away, but just the joy of just
the kind of raw ingredients to you because of your
architect and he supports her as well. That's the other
beautiful thing about it. He helps her with prize money
that he's one to start her career. He pulls her
(06:03):
out of domesticity and said, you should be doing this
for people at large. You can't keep treating us to
iconic desserts every other day. You should be doing this
and being celebrated how brilliant you are. So it's a
really magnanimous, loving gesture. But it's about what happens when
two people don't hold each other in mind. I guess
they lose the conversation of the couple and these little
(06:24):
things start to build, these kind of antagonisms, this kind
of you know, the dreaded word resentment, and it poisons
their relationship. And food is such a central point of
talking about poison because obviously it's her artistry, it's how
she succeeds in the World's how she expresses herself, how
she evolves in the story, and it's also her downfall.
(06:45):
It's also what takes her away from family, what takes
her away from her husband, and it's in a way
also what he uses to sabotage her. Without telling you what.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Happens, but and when is it coming out.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
It's coming out late August Labor Day weekend in the
States and just just just afterwards its global. So yeah,
it was such fun and it's gone down very well.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
It's good to work and have fun. That's what really
really ultimately.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, or you know, but well, I think sometimes the
fun can be a bit perverse. It can be the
hard work can be the joy. You know, Carry for Canago,
well I did with him was great fun and that's
not for a while, but we could talk about that
because I know he's a friend of yours. It was great.
I mean it was a three day punch in punch out.
I was the sort of bad guy at the end
of this. Tom Harley couldn't do it, so I stepped
(07:33):
in to do it and have no shame about that.
And that's again that's public and I just thought I
want to work with Carry. It's fun material shooting in
London and Aaron's and the scenes with Means and Eva Green.
I mean, what great talents to work with. And it's
a cracking character. It's sort of very dark, omnipotently powerful
presence in the film, and it's a bit like you know,
God turning up at the end in terms of storytelling.
(07:56):
So I just had a lot of fun with it,
a lot of fun with it and a big character.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I mean, he wanted to be here today. He said
he would come as she going he left. I think
his flight was.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I'd work with him heart. But we got an incredibly well.
I love what he did, and he was just so
brilliant with his crew, but with his actors, and also
at the end of a long shoot to get this
thing in three days, and he was remarkably relaxed considering.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I was like, filling the fish hard and stinky and great.
It's a really hard thing to do. I mean, I see.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Them, I take three of the boys that helped me
out were like, it's not half bad that.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
They were impressed with your you know, because it isn't.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
I mean, it's not easy, and especially when you're acting
with your back to one of the greatest and also
most dangerous and iconic French film mattresses of a generation,
Eva Green, and I was like, I'm trying to hold
a scene with her, and I've got a camera up
my nose there and I'm fillitting this fish, and I
wanted to look really good, like I can just do
it blindfolded. I only had one afternoon try.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Big Fish, and then well, you have to come in
here and kill some fish us because you do a film.
I've seen it with my friends and you know, it's
a family's intense. It's really intense, and then it's over.
A friend of mine said that he kind of felt
sometimes at the end of movies like his parents telling
him that they were getting a divorce. I mean, maybe
(09:20):
that's extreme, but he said, you just felt the family exactly.
But I think West particularly does, doesn't he Wes is.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, well, West is very There's a lot of repeat
custom both within the cast and the crew of West's.
You know, he holds his team together and so that's
you feel like you're going back into a repertory with him.
It's wonderful and I absolutely adored both experiences. Henry was
Henry Sugar was very particular in the sense that it
was lockdown. There was a lot of COVID around. Actually
(09:51):
wasn't lockdown, but it was what was early twenty twenty one.
I think it was at the same time as the
Power of the Dog, Oscar and Pain and I was
touring and frying from La to do two weeks on
and then go back to La and then too, I
know if my family were in La because we decided
to make a few months out of it and they
went to school out there, and it was it was
(10:12):
just great. We had a proper, proper life for a
bit there, which is incredible, incredible. And yet then this
job came up and I was like, oh my god,
I'm now I'm going to have to go back to England.
So that was a bit weird, the Swiss Cheese experience
of me coming and going. But it was magic with
West because he really held this and there was an
option you could stay at the hotel down the road
or you could stay with West in his home. And
(10:33):
I went, now I'm going to go. I'm going to
go hard on this one. I'm going to go the
full Westel. It was magic. You know, Raife was there
and other actors were there every night and again, coming
in and out, and you know, to be to be
held by him and his family and the people who
work in his home and this extraordinary food culture that
he does with recipes from the New York Times all
(10:56):
the time, your food being carted from London on a weekend,
and it's just like Wow, that's amazing. I think I'll
stay here rather than.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
He really cares, and I think you right.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
It was like film school, you know, after we had
we'd sit down to watch a movie, and you know,
it was I was very honest, I was. I thought, okay,
this is the one time i had never seen Lawrence
of Arabia. I'm just going to say it in front
of this Siney Astin, extraordinary creator of cinema and iconic cinema.
At that Oh great, we'll we can watch it, and
let's got an intermission, so that's good. Watch the rest
(11:30):
of the next day, and then we get up at a
very leisurely sort of you know, we have a call
at about ten thirty or nine thirty was unheard of
itim filming. But then you go into the set these
amazing Anda stockhowers and creations, which was just like I
mean like pop up things with old fashioned flats that
would just fly up into the rigging and you go back.
So you'd start walking on the street and then you'd
be in a in a casino atrium. Then you go
(11:51):
through to the main body of the casino with like
you know, one hundred extras moving about and doing all
their things meticulously, then sit down at a roulette table
and talk because didn't talk, you know, whatever it was
he was playing flat jackle you know, and they look
up at a camera and thing that was that unbelievably technical,
and you were you were spitting out sort of sometimes
six seven eight pages in one take, continuous take and
(12:12):
doing it forty five times to get it right once
for use in the film, and incredibly focused, hard work
and really difficult, the amount of sort of can't use
that one, can't use that one because I forgot a
thing or a line went askew. I mean it was
there was so much to get right, and you were
dancing with the crew all the time, Sanjay, this operator
(12:32):
Bob who's is DFP making everything's work, but also all
the prop and set guys who were moving things, giving
you things, all the other actors. It was like, you know,
this this perfect balance of everything. But it was the
ultimate West experience. And then we'd be done by four
o'clock and I'd go home and go, oh in a bath,
and then you're up the stairs, Benedict, it's almost in
the grony time. Are you quite taking I was like yes, sure,
(12:56):
and then the cycle of good food and film and
he loves.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That, you know when we talk a lot about that,
that idea of that, whether it's you or Tilda, Ray
for the people, oh and that getting the people back.
I haven't seen the new movie.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Because you and I was working with Benicia, which was
and that was another thing as well. Babbel Spoke Studio.
It's the legendary Babel Bog studio, which.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Tell me about them. I don't know what they.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Are, so they're huge. I mean, you know, there's sound
stages from before the Second World War. I think they
might have been been during the First you know, May
and a Dietrich stage is one of the longest stages
in the world where West built two trains that meet
in a huge underground railway scene and you know, it's
it's it's just epic. And the amount of great filmmakers,
(13:40):
all the kind of Germans from you know, Fastpendergen at Al,
and then you've got all the modern greats like West,
Tino and Scor they've all come through. That's a wonderful
rich You feel.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
That when you go to a film studio, because when
I've been to you that those early.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Pinege and and I don't mean to do because it's
my hometown. Doesn't home never carried quite as much from
as a foreign location. You know what about I have
but only for a fitting. I've I filmed in Rome
after that fitt is that I touched the thing and
I kind of loved it. It was very ramshackle when I
(14:24):
was like, I'm not sure what it's like now. This
a while ago and there was sort of grass growing
out of the paper and half abandoned. But this is it,
this is it. It's amazing. It's going to be interesting
what the future holds. And this kind of digital time
of you know, volumes, if you heard about volumes, spaces
like this that can just be anything. It's all to
(14:47):
do with how you create an environment that's utterly AI.
It's all virtual reality, and so you enter a volume
and you have minimal props of furnishing and then everything
else is sort of fake.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
It saves a huge amount of money.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
I've never done it. I mean i've done sort of.
I've done a mocap stage, which is where your body
then gets your movements get turned into an avatar that
gets turned into the character, in my case a dragon.
But you know, it could be anything, and that's extraordinary.
But it's like being a sort of tax return office.
It's really really bland. It's sort of carpeted and neon
lighting and none of the glamor of a set or location.
(15:25):
But you know, you're free, like a child in his bedroom,
just to imagine it all. And that's a kind of
gift in itself. But the volume, I think slightly different.
I've never experienced it. I met Jeff Bridges and of gosh,
here was the other actor who's coming out of one,
and they looked utterly shell shocked. Of a different generation,
kind of go, what do we do?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I think that's the thing. Generation. It's like you knew
it was before, but there'll be a generation.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Wholl just know that you will know.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I think, yes, there's a conversation we have a lot,
which is are you scared of AI? And how scared
of we have AI? And why should we be scared
in it? And I'm scared because I don't.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Think there's anyone in a room somewhere kind of you know,
overseeing the rules of this.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
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(16:27):
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tell me about growing up. Where were you born.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
I was born in London, in West London and mum
and dad had a flat in Kensington which mummud think
I had since the early seventies and it was like
three grand and they're still there. They are both actors. Okay, yeah,
they played my parents in Sherlock. It's quite sweet. That's
not their any credit of the most relevant one to me,
I guess in my career, but they are wonderful.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Were in a theatrical home? Were they there in the evenings?
Were they in places?
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yes, so by and large, but yes when one of
them was working. You know, there was a lot of
theater when I was growing up, and did a lot
of farces in the West End, lots of Raycooney Fastes.
Until I told her I couldn't bear her coming in
on her husband and his male assistant pulling his trousers anymore.
I like, I'm sixteen. That was getting really mortified. You've
(17:28):
got to you've got a class up of it. But
having said that, I mean, if you could do fast,
you can do anything. Donald Senden and Michael Williams used
to do it. You know in productions with hers, they
are they're.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Very noises on one that that my dad was in
the second castle, and that was I was.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
That was the most proud of the kind of farce
ere I was because I remember practicing. He had this
whole bit where they were throwing a plate and he
had to either throw it or catch it, so we
go into the park instead of him kicking a football
to me, I was kind of throwing and he got
it every time I saw and do it. But it
was it was magic that difficult. And I went to
(18:06):
boarding school I was eight, so you know.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I was as well school.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
For a long part of my kind of wonderful when
I was eight. I mean, you know, I remember those
first anxious moments and watching the parents cry as they
walked away. But I found about her brothers. I was
an only child. My sister from mum's first marriage was
eighteen years old or so. She left home when I
was literally when I was born practically and was always
(18:34):
a best friend and like a sort of elder arm
figure and someone I could always have on my side.
But she wasn't there, so I didn't have a community
at home at all, and I found it at school.
So it was a mixed thing, you know, the aitual
lurch of like, oh God, this is weird, where are
they going? You know? But then I had a blast.
I went there to last weekend. It was my old
(18:56):
head master and her mistress's memorial and it was in
a theater that Judy Danceho's a friend of mine and
Dad's had opened, and I did a little reading at
the end, and it was like walking through all these
Pristian Madeline Kate memory moments, just like wave after wave
of ghosts and just trees that look the same that
(19:16):
I did my first ever drawings of, you know, playing
fields where I first tried to play tennis and cricket
and rubby and all the rest than just and the
classrooms had changed a lot, and the standard of artwork
and stuff in the art part was off the scale.
It's a beautiful, beautiful school called bramble Tye in East
Grinstead and it was a dic and it was outside
of London. It was this. It was going on my
love of literature and food and food. And I'm saying
(19:39):
literature and amazing great memory, but everything sports, culture, music, drama.
Not really I said food because we're here I can
hear people background, but that would be really disingenious. It wasn't.
I didn't go away going God damn it. Food's great.
That came away going. Okay, it's just something keep you going. Yeah,
(20:02):
I mean we had treats, but it was you know,
the roast, you know, Yorkshire putting with something.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
To But you were in boarding school school.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
From eight till eighteen. Yeah, oh damn it.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
You have good memory. I have good memories of school
to you. And it's kind of rare that people. I mean,
maybe more, but I loved my and I was also
I went for the last few years. I was on
a ranch in Colorado, so I didn't learn anything, but
we had.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
It was a ranch in color Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, that's why I'm not very bright.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
I'll come on.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
But you do rarely meet somebody who says that they
loved their school, So that's, you know, good true, But
then you when would you eat well, then would you
eat your mother would cook.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
So would you come up there badly at home as well,
like McDonald's was a big tree. I'm afraid I mentioned
those words on this, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I'm empathetic to mothers who can't cook because they're working.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
And know it was just a treat. I mean, she
really could cook, but it was like.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
No, I don't mean can't cook, but they were working.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
She lives in the theater, but she still managed to
do it. Especially at the weekend. She would she would,
I mean, god, I remember her doing an amazing Christmas
meal and then pissing off of the Boxing day matinee.
You know at my grandmother's was not even her kitchen
with this old oil fueled argo, which was just very haphazard,
like you know, read for one hour three and a
(21:15):
half and even then you could suddenly shoot up and
burn at the last minute. I mean, it was a nightmare.
So she constantly had her face in the oven. Had
mean was you're quite lately, you're probably going through the
perimenopause as well, so just like sweating away in this
kitchen serving people who were pretty lazy and inept domestically.
I loved my grandmother and my dad, but dad, Dad
would help obviously, but yeah, it was. It was quite
(21:37):
an ordeal. And then she'd be the one working, you know,
literally the next day. Father respect for that. Dad could
do a mean grilled pork chop and to meet, you know,
they meet two veggs, you know, peas and potatoes, that
kind of thing. And we had this little grill at
home which was also a retisserie for chickens. I can't
remember what it was called. Tis probably like it's a
(21:59):
specific thing. It was like a turn rap, but it
could also be a grill. But I had a little
retistery thing on the side and little small thing that
would fold up. Mum and Dad gave me their old
ones on my heartbreaks and moving into my new flat,
and I left it outside whilst I was moving other stuff,
and it it just went in a communal allways. Someone
took it. So which of these fifty odd flats have
taken my care? Trying to sniff out you lovely.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Girl, it's a memory and.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
So Dad Dad coped. There were quite a few sort
of frozen stir fries out of packets. You know, they're
the baby boomer generation that kind of went, hey, we
don't have to prepare or think about the ingredients. So
it took me a while to go and kind of go, oh,
Farmer's market, where does this what's the provenance of what
I'm eating? Even though you know that I was with
(22:45):
people who could cook, I mean especially home cooking was
not done with a lavish budget. We didn't eat out
a lot restaurant, no, I mean garf, Uncles, McDonald's. You know,
I think that you know that one of my slightly
well more well to do friends and his family the
first time out our Chinese food Golden Bowl, that's like russaurant.
(23:05):
I know it's still there near South Kensington, and there
was a lazy is it lazy? Susan the thing that
turns in the middle. I didn't know what to do
with myself. I was like, it's not just meat and
too veg. It was amazing and I just had I
fell in love with the idea of tastes of things,
little pieces of things. It blew my mind.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Did they entertain.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yes, very rarely, they were very they are They're still
with us well, Dad's with them. They're much more interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
So can we call them up?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, definitely, definitely. They so great, Yeah they are. They're larger, well, Mum,
especially larger than knife and Dad is. Dad's a creature
of habit when it comes to food and that thing. Yeah,
tea at a certain time with a biscuit and you know,
then you'd start with either whiskey or a gen t
and then a couple of glasses of wine at dinner.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Kind of structures today if you or you're weak or
your month.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I think that was his curse from boarding school as well.
And then mom. For me, the kind of routine was
the weekend cook and I learned first of all actually
with my godmother, and it was all sort of desserts.
It was meringues that were gooey in the middle, and
brownies and then I and I remember having a tiny
little Star Wars square Star Wars pants, this tiny little
(24:20):
notebook which I very diligently wrote down the recipes.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Somewhere, Yeah, somewhere, we have a thing about notebooks here
because Tom Hollander, you know, his grandmother, here's his gand
I think his grandmother's his mother is grandmother's cookbook and
a lot of people and so did was it Christian
Scott Thomas and people come in with and it's a
very beautiful thing to be handed down, the memories and
(24:45):
what you ate as a way of saying, you know,
this is who we are.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
My mom's mom did a mean stew I don't think
I've ever got any recipes from her though, I don't
think I really I really did learn my godmother, and
mainly with mom actually just helping her out in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Interesting the way people see, you know, performance and food,
isn't it whether you're people who want to eat when
they're in theory? I wonder what your mom did she
was in a mess before.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, I can't bear it because you just you eating.
You often, you know, have friends in and then they
want to go out to dinner, eating at eleven thirty
at night or something stupid.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Did you always know you wanted to act with your parents?
I did, but you didn't go They wanted you to
go to university first, or did you want.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
To pay for a very expensive education. I think they
wanted me to at least have some kind of a backup,
and for a while it was the law. I mean
for a very short while, you know, after I got
some very good GCSEs, Everyone's like, oh oh Oxbridge maybe,
And then I sort of met lawyers further down the
line or people who were at the bar who just went,
if it's not your first choice, don't do it. You
(25:49):
know it turn back now, it's oversubscribed, it's peripatetic, it's
you know, that sounds a lot like acting. I'll stick
with that one.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
I'm also my idea of the law was the very
kind of a antiic notion of advocating criminal law. Rumple
of the Bailey stuff. No, No, I didn't. I didn't.
I took humanities for my levels.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
And did you act in Manchester?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
I acted a lot at school and then a lot
at Manchester and maybe just had three productions.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Is that encouraged by the university or did you know?
Speaker 3 (26:18):
It was very self generated? Actually we had a bit
through the drama department, cause I did a drama degree there,
but it was mainly what we got up to in
the drama societies.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
You know, what did you do?
Speaker 3 (26:28):
The first thing I did was tesman in had a
Garblin and I did God, they do all sorts of
things I did terribly. Yeah, I did really bad it. It
was awful. I wasn't really, I wasn't. I didn't really
have possession of the text. It was a bit hairy.
But Ricky Roman and Gungaria and Ross Sally played George
(26:50):
and Covech and they head I can't remember his name,
but the husband and during mats the visit, and I
didn't ever direct. No, no, I didn't. I'd love to.
I'd love to, but far better people doing that at
the university. I'd like to wonder. Yeah, but do you
remember the food a university?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, did you guys cook yourselves or did you Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
We did. That was our sort of but you know,
the bursoning moment of attempting to cook something nice and fresh.
But you know a lot of that was just sort
of tins of something or grabbing something from you know,
the Union Cafe, endless sandwiches on the hot I mean,
the best, the most utrious thing we'd have is a
scotch egg. I think the first really grown up good
(27:39):
meal I had would have been after my first pay
packet or two, and like going to the Anglesey Arms.
That was a place that was the first kind of local.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
That I had in my life after your first play,
did you say that was?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yes? I was Demetrius in the midsum of Night's Stream
at the Regent's Park opening the theater, and then the
King of the Varn lovesap was lost, and that's yeah.
I mean that was such bliss. There's such bliss when
you go, oh my god, I'm being paid to do
what I love. I can start to pay the debt
back to my parents, I can start to afford my rent,
and you know, and then after a little bit a
(28:13):
mortgage and having an odd meal or two. And my
local restaurant was the Uncle see Arms out of Flat
and Shepperd's Bush and yeah, yeah, Ringing is called Park
and wonderful, wonderful food, wonderful kitchen there.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
But your cook I knew you cook.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
I do cook, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
And you do cook your kids we were I am
right about that.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
No, you're completely They are six, eight and ten, and
so what do you feed them? Well, we have a
kind of we have Daddy Morning pancakes on a Saturday pancakes.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Yeah, it's nice. I mean it's kind of kind of traditional.
It's more on the crep side of pancakes rather than
the fluffy so I use just plain organic flower and
I use I put a little bit of another essence,
a little bit of cinnamon, and sometimes two or three eggs,
milk amounts amounts I already mentioned. Yeah, the aund I
(29:08):
pulled the milk in.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
They come down.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
I'm trying to marshle them into sort of taking parts.
So they usually fight over the funny easy jobs like
squeezing the elevens or cracking the eggs. But they can
be really helpful. They can be really helpful. I've completely
destroyed any sense of a line for me on a Saturday,
I think foreverything.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
That's it. When they're up like a weekday Friday night tradition.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Like it's called Daddy Saturday.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yes, there's a daddy.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Remember. I interviewed people, you know sometimes things that remember
remember that, you know, they say, oh, when I was
you know, every every Tuesday night, my father did something
or my mother did something, we went to a restaurant.
Those rituals and those memories.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Yeah, I desay I was partly inspired by I mean,
I've already started doing it, but I thought, okay, I
have to make this a Continuum by Rory Kanear, who
remembers his dad doing pancakes for them, you know, putting
on a city French accent. I've got three of them,
and it's I'm silly for a bit, and then I
get quite seriously, it's just like mush very dangerous, small
(30:12):
people with blunt instruments. It's it's it's good. It's there's
too long an island in the middle. For some reason,
we went for this crazy long island, which I quite
like because I do a lot of prep. Everyone else
who doesn't use the kitchen for cooking it's like, what's
this thing in the way, But I kind of like
it when it doesn't have bits of delivery on it.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Here, well, we really like the chefs having that time
to look across at each other, to talk, to be around.
You know, you can see them there, they're they're prepping,
they're talking.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
I'm going to despise it because I'm always fascinated to
see the economics of the kitchen work. It's very difficult.
If there's two I'm quite pancakes is a different deal.
But if I'm doing a recipe from a recipe, I'm
quite I can't do that. Multitasking thing really good cooks
can do of talking, you know, getting people's drinks right,
as well as chopping, preparing, frying.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I get that it's hard. I think you need to focus.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, and then if it's a dish I've done a lot,
or a one pot wonder, then I'm fine. Or a
roast where you can just leave it for a bit
and then get busy with the Do.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
You eat in the kitchen as well?
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Yeah? We do.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, that's a distraction as well, isn't it when you
live sometimes when people are there? And then do you
like it when people hang around you when you're cooking?
Because I don't.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
I don't know. I don't, and I get why they
want to, and it's frustrating because it's so I'm drawn
to it as well. Everyone's drawn to the heart that
I think when I know what I'm doing and I'm
really secure about it all, Like I say, something you
can just put in to heat and cook and just
you leave alone that I'm fine with it.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
What are some of the other things you cook other
than people?
Speaker 3 (31:42):
I do the roast chicken or the roast whatever on
a Sunday, but usually.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Chicken, So you do the family roast.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Yeah, and I do the barbecues. I do the kind
of dad things in the garden.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Don't you eat what you're filming? When you're working on
a film? Do do you stop for breaks? Do you
a special diet that you go on?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
It depends what job. Yeah, I mean if I'm doing
a sort of high volume of exercise, I'm pumped for
something like the Marvel films and stock a strange which
you know you've got all that garb on. You need
that strength anyway to hold your posture, to have cause
strength to be strong in the harnesses or the fight
scenes and the flying.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Tell me more about that.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
It's great fun. I love it. I love body transformation
in my job. I think it's it's part of the
kind of a what a thing to do if you
have the right guidance, which nowadays it is pretty brilliant.
You know the teams they put on that sort of thing.
If you don't have the budget, you have to do
it very very carefully. But you know, on Marvel it's
it's a big it's a big sandpit. So well, you
(32:37):
have someone who can prescribe you what you're eating and
they can cook you. We had a fantastic chef on
the last stock to strange film. So and then suddenly
you go, where's my food? I or the director and
the first ad and the dop you have got in
first you're like, okay, it's fine, I'm not paying for it,
so okay, But it's this amazing facility to go right.
He needs to be on this many calories a day
and he needs to have five meals. He used to
(32:58):
have a couple of balld eggs between those five meals,
or some kind of high protein snack cheese and crackers
or almond butter and crackers, crackers, lots of crackers. And
you know, for me, the exercise is great and the
end result is that you feel strong and you feel confident,
you hold yourself better, You have a stamina through the
X size and the food that makes you last through
(33:19):
the gig. But it is horrific. I don't like it personally.
I think it's horrific. Eating beyond your appetite. It's really
and again going back to responsibility and resourcefulness and you know, sustainability,
it's just like what am I doing? I could feed
a family with the amount of eating it just slowly
study you have to meet people where they are and
these issues in filmmaking. But it's it's a grossly wasteful industry.
(33:43):
So if we think about set bills that aren't recycled,
think about transport, think about food, think about housing, but
also light and energy. The amount of what is you
need to sort of create daylight and consistent light in
a studio environment. It's a lot of energy. So you know,
the first people to stick the head above the parapet
talk about anything to do with climate and excessive use
of things, or hypocrisy or systems that don't work, get
(34:05):
slammed off. They're actors because of very devout Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and actually it is a system, a systemic thing. But
does it produce I'm really hot on that. And we
try to push the green and I try to push
the Green initiative, the Green an shake into every agreement
I can, whether it's just a gentleman you discussion about
can we can we not have any single use plastic? Really,
(34:26):
I think we're beyond that. If people have water bottles
now they can bring and you can have an eurn,
you can have a tap. That's a good source of wards.
You don't have to give the crew plastic bottles if
you're in the middle of a desert and you can't
get glass bottles there fair enough, but we're in twenty
first century.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
My last question of this really beautiful interview, and thank
you for coming here. We could talk to talk for
ages and we will, is to ask you, if you
had to have a comfort food, is there one that
you would reach for when you need.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
That kale sort of shocked in a pan with a
bit of olive oil and then lemon juice and some
chili flakes and then a tiny bit of water just
to steam it sort of, so the flavor is locked
in by the quick heat and then cooked through a
little bit more thoroughly but not soggily. I crave that vegetable,
I really do. If it's flavored, well, it's a great
(35:21):
cavalinarian favor.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
That's okay. Well, when we we've all give you both,
when you're coming next, Thank
Speaker 1 (35:30):
You, thank you, so welcome, thank you, thank you for
listening to Ruthy's Table four in partnership with Montclair
You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
We have good news. Ruthie's Table four is launching on YouTube.
Starting with today's episode with Benedict Cumberbatch. You'll be able
to watch the conversation in full, and then throughout the summer,
we'll be posting some of our favorite interviews across the series.
To watch, go to YouTube dot com slash hat symbol
(00:27):
Ruthie's Table four pod. I can't wait to see you there.
If life is about connections, I feel connected to Benedict Cumberbatch.
Rick Rubin season two Table four seated us together at
a dinner a few years ago, and I remember it
as if it was yesterday, Benedict talking about the food
(00:49):
he was cooking for his kids this morning at breakfast.
Carrie Fukenega season two recalled asking me to find a
phishmonger to teach Benedict how to fill out a sea
bass for his role in the thriller Blood on Snow
and how he passed with flying colors. Jj Abrams season
three texted me late last night saying, Ruthie, Benedict must
(01:11):
not be of this earth, describing him as a limitless
talent somehow feels like an understatement. And Wes Anderson season three,
when I told him I was seeing Benedict described him
as one of the great actors of our time. He's
like an Olivier or a Gielgud mixed with a de
Niro or a Hoffman to fit. Keep going out of here. Bye,
(01:33):
there was somebody here. We're going to put on this podcast, Okay.
Benedict and I are also connected by values. We're both
politically and socially active. He thinks about the food, he
eats the issues of sustainability, fairness, and civil liberties. He's
here with me now in the River Cafe to talk
about food and film, family and friends. Benedict is someone
(01:55):
I respect, I admire, and I love. That's the real connection.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So we start with reading the recipe and then we've
got that over the edge and you can read it
anyway you want. Okay, you can read it. Okay, that's ruthy.
I heard that. I don't know. I try.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I try to read it. Okay, do you want to try?
I find impression. I can also do impressively, and I
feel really cruel.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, you could be cruel.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Okay, I'll take that introduction back and actually, what.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
A ship ship? Okay, I'll try. I'll try spilen and
roasty Langstein's to have Langastein's tables dried three to for.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Three chill lower my ten extra version of it's getting quite.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Kathleen, were getting Kathleen? Okay, Split and roasted langostinees twelve Langstein's,
two tablespoons of dried oregano, three to four dried chilis,
two lemons, extra virgin olive oil. Preheat the ovens to
two hundred and twenty degrees see gas seven. Cut each
langostine in half lengthways, Sprinkle the flesh side with oregano
(03:10):
and crumpled chili in season drizzled with olive oil, and
squeeze over the juice of one lemon. He's a large tray,
and place the langostine's on it, cut side up, side
by side. Roast in the preheated oven for four to
five minutes. Serve hot with lemon. That sounds within my capability.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Is now, but your cook, I do cook?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, I love it. But I love this the story
of a place, Ruth. I love that this grew up
with the limitations of being somewhere for people to eat nearby,
and then you've got a Michelin star and blew it
out of the water. It's just insane like orget.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And we use the word organic because we're just looking.
We've never done another restaurant, and this one just has
grown from being four seats.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
It's all organic.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, it's how you grow, you know, how you do.
You look at your doing films that way, the.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Kind of films I mean, yeah, that's the nicest way
to do it. You just kind of a conversation grows
around an artist or a particular story or an actor
actor as an artist. But you know what I mean,
there's so for example, Olivia Coleman and I have friends
who have been friends for years.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Episode what episode episode four?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
She's good. She might have been season two, but you know,
we've been friends for a while, and we said drunkenly
every time we we should do something to you know,
never have happened. And then some grown ups had a
good idea, and here we are and The Roses comes
out in August, which is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I cannot wait to see that. I think I'm probably
the only person in this one that really remembers the
War of the Road, right, you know, and Kathy and
they voice double yeah, but tell me about it.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I mean, so, I'm playing an architect Olivia Comman you've
already had on the show, who plays a chef, and
it's about it's about their relationship based on the original
book and then obviously the iconic film m Kathleen Turner,
Michael Douglas and Danny Devita who directed it. You know,
it's based on that paradigm of a couple who start
with a furiously wonderful, beautiful archetypal romance and they're impulsive
(05:18):
and physical and they have a family, and one person's
career is kind of stagnated because of the family. The
other person's doing really well, has a disaster. The other
one goes on the up and up, and that's her.
That's Olivia's character as a chef, and she becomes this huge,
big deal, a bit like you, and I'm sure, yeah,
(05:41):
come on, and I like Richard mine has a nose dive.
And it's about then what it's really I don't want
to give it away, but just the joy of just
the kind of raw ingredients to you because of your
architect and he supports her as well. That's the other
beautiful thing about it. He helps her with prize money
that he's one to start her career. He pulls her
(06:03):
out of domesticity and said, you should be doing this
for people at large. You can't keep treating us to
iconic desserts every other day. You should be doing this
and being celebrated how brilliant you are. So it's a
really magnanimous, loving gesture. But it's about what happens when
two people don't hold each other in mind. I guess
they lose the conversation of the couple and these little
(06:24):
things start to build, these kind of antagonisms, this kind
of you know, the dreaded word resentment, and it poisons
their relationship. And food is such a central point of
talking about poison because obviously it's her artistry, it's how
she succeeds in the World's how she expresses herself, how
she evolves in the story, and it's also her downfall.
(06:45):
It's also what takes her away from family, what takes
her away from her husband, and it's in a way
also what he uses to sabotage her. Without telling you what.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Happens, but and when is it coming out.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
It's coming out late August Labor Day weekend in the
States and just just just afterwards its global. So yeah,
it was such fun and it's gone down very well.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
It's good to work and have fun. That's what really
really ultimately.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, or you know, but well, I think sometimes the
fun can be a bit perverse. It can be the
hard work can be the joy. You know, Carry for Canago,
well I did with him was great fun and that's
not for a while, but we could talk about that
because I know he's a friend of yours. It was great.
I mean it was a three day punch in punch out.
I was the sort of bad guy at the end
of this. Tom Harley couldn't do it, so I stepped
(07:33):
in to do it and have no shame about that.
And that's again that's public and I just thought I
want to work with Carry. It's fun material shooting in
London and Aaron's and the scenes with Means and Eva Green.
I mean, what great talents to work with. And it's
a cracking character. It's sort of very dark, omnipotently powerful
presence in the film, and it's a bit like you know,
God turning up at the end in terms of storytelling.
(07:56):
So I just had a lot of fun with it,
a lot of fun with it and a big character.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I mean, he wanted to be here today. He said
he would come as she going he left. I think
his flight was.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I'd work with him heart. But we got an incredibly well.
I love what he did, and he was just so
brilliant with his crew, but with his actors, and also
at the end of a long shoot to get this
thing in three days, and he was remarkably relaxed considering.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I was like, filling the fish hard and stinky and great.
It's a really hard thing to do. I mean, I see.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Them, I take three of the boys that helped me
out were like, it's not half bad that.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
They were impressed with your you know, because it isn't.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
I mean, it's not easy, and especially when you're acting
with your back to one of the greatest and also
most dangerous and iconic French film mattresses of a generation,
Eva Green, and I was like, I'm trying to hold
a scene with her, and I've got a camera up
my nose there and I'm fillitting this fish, and I
wanted to look really good, like I can just do
it blindfolded. I only had one afternoon try.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Big Fish, and then well, you have to come in
here and kill some fish us because you do a film.
I've seen it with my friends and you know, it's
a family's intense. It's really intense, and then it's over.
A friend of mine said that he kind of felt
sometimes at the end of movies like his parents telling
him that they were getting a divorce. I mean, maybe
(09:20):
that's extreme, but he said, you just felt the family exactly.
But I think West particularly does, doesn't he Wes is.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, well, West is very There's a lot of repeat
custom both within the cast and the crew of West's.
You know, he holds his team together and so that's
you feel like you're going back into a repertory with him.
It's wonderful and I absolutely adored both experiences. Henry was
Henry Sugar was very particular in the sense that it
was lockdown. There was a lot of COVID around. Actually
(09:51):
wasn't lockdown, but it was what was early twenty twenty one.
I think it was at the same time as the
Power of the Dog, Oscar and Pain and I was
touring and frying from La to do two weeks on
and then go back to La and then too, I
know if my family were in La because we decided
to make a few months out of it and they
went to school out there, and it was it was
(10:12):
just great. We had a proper, proper life for a
bit there, which is incredible, incredible. And yet then this
job came up and I was like, oh my god,
I'm now I'm going to have to go back to England.
So that was a bit weird, the Swiss Cheese experience
of me coming and going. But it was magic with
West because he really held this and there was an
option you could stay at the hotel down the road
or you could stay with West in his home. And
(10:33):
I went, now I'm going to go. I'm going to
go hard on this one. I'm going to go the
full Westel. It was magic. You know, Raife was there
and other actors were there every night and again, coming
in and out, and you know, to be to be
held by him and his family and the people who
work in his home and this extraordinary food culture that
he does with recipes from the New York Times all
(10:56):
the time, your food being carted from London on a weekend,
and it's just like Wow, that's amazing. I think I'll
stay here rather than.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
He really cares, and I think you right.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
It was like film school, you know, after we had
we'd sit down to watch a movie, and you know,
it was I was very honest, I was. I thought, okay,
this is the one time i had never seen Lawrence
of Arabia. I'm just going to say it in front
of this Siney Astin, extraordinary creator of cinema and iconic cinema.
At that Oh great, we'll we can watch it, and
let's got an intermission, so that's good. Watch the rest
(11:30):
of the next day, and then we get up at a
very leisurely sort of you know, we have a call
at about ten thirty or nine thirty was unheard of
itim filming. But then you go into the set these
amazing Anda stockhowers and creations, which was just like I
mean like pop up things with old fashioned flats that
would just fly up into the rigging and you go back.
So you'd start walking on the street and then you'd
be in a in a casino atrium. Then you go
(11:51):
through to the main body of the casino with like
you know, one hundred extras moving about and doing all
their things meticulously, then sit down at a roulette table
and talk because didn't talk, you know, whatever it was
he was playing flat jackle you know, and they look
up at a camera and thing that was that unbelievably technical,
and you were you were spitting out sort of sometimes
six seven eight pages in one take, continuous take and
(12:12):
doing it forty five times to get it right once
for use in the film, and incredibly focused, hard work
and really difficult, the amount of sort of can't use
that one, can't use that one because I forgot a
thing or a line went askew. I mean it was
there was so much to get right, and you were
dancing with the crew all the time, Sanjay, this operator
(12:32):
Bob who's is DFP making everything's work, but also all
the prop and set guys who were moving things, giving
you things, all the other actors. It was like, you know,
this this perfect balance of everything. But it was the
ultimate West experience. And then we'd be done by four
o'clock and I'd go home and go, oh in a bath,
and then you're up the stairs, Benedict, it's almost in
the grony time. Are you quite taking I was like yes, sure,
(12:56):
and then the cycle of good food and film and
he loves.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That, you know when we talk a lot about that,
that idea of that, whether it's you or Tilda, Ray
for the people, oh and that getting the people back.
I haven't seen the new movie.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Because you and I was working with Benicia, which was
and that was another thing as well. Babbel Spoke Studio.
It's the legendary Babel Bog studio, which.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Tell me about them. I don't know what they.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Are, so they're huge. I mean, you know, there's sound
stages from before the Second World War. I think they
might have been been during the First you know, May
and a Dietrich stage is one of the longest stages
in the world where West built two trains that meet
in a huge underground railway scene and you know, it's
it's it's just epic. And the amount of great filmmakers,
(13:40):
all the kind of Germans from you know, Fastpendergen at Al,
and then you've got all the modern greats like West,
Tino and Scor they've all come through. That's a wonderful
rich You feel.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
That when you go to a film studio, because when
I've been to you that those early.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Pinege and and I don't mean to do because it's
my hometown. Doesn't home never carried quite as much from
as a foreign location. You know what about I have
but only for a fitting. I've I filmed in Rome
after that fitt is that I touched the thing and
I kind of loved it. It was very ramshackle when I
(14:24):
was like, I'm not sure what it's like now. This
a while ago and there was sort of grass growing
out of the paper and half abandoned. But this is it,
this is it. It's amazing. It's going to be interesting
what the future holds. And this kind of digital time
of you know, volumes, if you heard about volumes, spaces
like this that can just be anything. It's all to
(14:47):
do with how you create an environment that's utterly AI.
It's all virtual reality, and so you enter a volume
and you have minimal props of furnishing and then everything
else is sort of fake.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
It saves a huge amount of money.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
I've never done it. I mean i've done sort of.
I've done a mocap stage, which is where your body
then gets your movements get turned into an avatar that
gets turned into the character, in my case a dragon.
But you know, it could be anything, and that's extraordinary.
But it's like being a sort of tax return office.
It's really really bland. It's sort of carpeted and neon
lighting and none of the glamor of a set or location.
(15:25):
But you know, you're free, like a child in his bedroom,
just to imagine it all. And that's a kind of
gift in itself. But the volume, I think slightly different.
I've never experienced it. I met Jeff Bridges and of gosh,
here was the other actor who's coming out of one,
and they looked utterly shell shocked. Of a different generation,
kind of go, what do we do?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I think that's the thing. Generation. It's like you knew
it was before, but there'll be a generation.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Wholl just know that you will know.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I think, yes, there's a conversation we have a lot,
which is are you scared of AI? And how scared
of we have AI? And why should we be scared
in it? And I'm scared because I don't.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Think there's anyone in a room somewhere kind of you know,
overseeing the rules of this.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
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tell me about growing up. Where were you born.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
I was born in London, in West London and mum
and dad had a flat in Kensington which mummud think
I had since the early seventies and it was like
three grand and they're still there. They are both actors. Okay, yeah,
they played my parents in Sherlock. It's quite sweet. That's
not their any credit of the most relevant one to me,
I guess in my career, but they are wonderful.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Were in a theatrical home? Were they there in the evenings?
Were they in places?
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yes, so by and large, but yes when one of
them was working. You know, there was a lot of
theater when I was growing up, and did a lot
of farces in the West End, lots of Raycooney Fastes.
Until I told her I couldn't bear her coming in
on her husband and his male assistant pulling his trousers anymore.
I like, I'm sixteen. That was getting really mortified. You've
(17:28):
got to you've got a class up of it. But
having said that, I mean, if you could do fast,
you can do anything. Donald Senden and Michael Williams used
to do it. You know in productions with hers, they
are they're.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Very noises on one that that my dad was in
the second castle, and that was I was.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
That was the most proud of the kind of farce
ere I was because I remember practicing. He had this
whole bit where they were throwing a plate and he
had to either throw it or catch it, so we
go into the park instead of him kicking a football
to me, I was kind of throwing and he got
it every time I saw and do it. But it
was it was magic that difficult. And I went to
(18:06):
boarding school I was eight, so you know.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I was as well school.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
For a long part of my kind of wonderful when
I was eight. I mean, you know, I remember those
first anxious moments and watching the parents cry as they
walked away. But I found about her brothers. I was
an only child. My sister from mum's first marriage was
eighteen years old or so. She left home when I
was literally when I was born practically and was always
(18:34):
a best friend and like a sort of elder arm
figure and someone I could always have on my side.
But she wasn't there, so I didn't have a community
at home at all, and I found it at school.
So it was a mixed thing, you know, the aitual
lurch of like, oh God, this is weird, where are
they going? You know? But then I had a blast.
I went there to last weekend. It was my old
(18:56):
head master and her mistress's memorial and it was in
a theater that Judy Danceho's a friend of mine and
Dad's had opened, and I did a little reading at
the end, and it was like walking through all these
Pristian Madeline Kate memory moments, just like wave after wave
of ghosts and just trees that look the same that
(19:16):
I did my first ever drawings of, you know, playing
fields where I first tried to play tennis and cricket
and rubby and all the rest than just and the
classrooms had changed a lot, and the standard of artwork
and stuff in the art part was off the scale.
It's a beautiful, beautiful school called bramble Tye in East
Grinstead and it was a dic and it was outside
of London. It was this. It was going on my
love of literature and food and food. And I'm saying
(19:39):
literature and amazing great memory, but everything sports, culture, music, drama.
Not really I said food because we're here I can
hear people background, but that would be really disingenious. It wasn't.
I didn't go away going God damn it. Food's great.
That came away going. Okay, it's just something keep you going. Yeah,
(20:02):
I mean we had treats, but it was you know,
the roast, you know, Yorkshire putting with something.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
To But you were in boarding school school.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
From eight till eighteen. Yeah, oh damn it.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
You have good memory. I have good memories of school
to you. And it's kind of rare that people. I mean,
maybe more, but I loved my and I was also
I went for the last few years. I was on
a ranch in Colorado, so I didn't learn anything, but
we had.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
It was a ranch in color Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, that's why I'm not very bright.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
I'll come on.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
But you do rarely meet somebody who says that they
loved their school, So that's, you know, good true, But
then you when would you eat well, then would you
eat your mother would cook.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
So would you come up there badly at home as well,
like McDonald's was a big tree. I'm afraid I mentioned
those words on this, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I'm empathetic to mothers who can't cook because they're working.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
And know it was just a treat. I mean, she
really could cook, but it was like.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
No, I don't mean can't cook, but they were working.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
She lives in the theater, but she still managed to
do it. Especially at the weekend. She would she would,
I mean, god, I remember her doing an amazing Christmas
meal and then pissing off of the Boxing day matinee.
You know at my grandmother's was not even her kitchen
with this old oil fueled argo, which was just very haphazard,
like you know, read for one hour three and a
(21:15):
half and even then you could suddenly shoot up and
burn at the last minute. I mean, it was a nightmare.
So she constantly had her face in the oven. Had
mean was you're quite lately, you're probably going through the
perimenopause as well, so just like sweating away in this
kitchen serving people who were pretty lazy and inept domestically.
I loved my grandmother and my dad, but dad, Dad
would help obviously, but yeah, it was. It was quite
(21:37):
an ordeal. And then she'd be the one working, you know,
literally the next day. Father respect for that. Dad could
do a mean grilled pork chop and to meet, you know,
they meet two veggs, you know, peas and potatoes, that
kind of thing. And we had this little grill at
home which was also a retisserie for chickens. I can't
remember what it was called. Tis probably like it's a
(21:59):
specific thing. It was like a turn rap, but it
could also be a grill. But I had a little
retistery thing on the side and little small thing that
would fold up. Mum and Dad gave me their old
ones on my heartbreaks and moving into my new flat,
and I left it outside whilst I was moving other stuff,
and it it just went in a communal allways. Someone
took it. So which of these fifty odd flats have
taken my care? Trying to sniff out you lovely.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Girl, it's a memory and.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
So Dad Dad coped. There were quite a few sort
of frozen stir fries out of packets. You know, they're
the baby boomer generation that kind of went, hey, we
don't have to prepare or think about the ingredients. So
it took me a while to go and kind of go, oh,
Farmer's market, where does this what's the provenance of what
I'm eating? Even though you know that I was with
(22:45):
people who could cook, I mean especially home cooking was
not done with a lavish budget. We didn't eat out
a lot restaurant, no, I mean garf, Uncles, McDonald's. You know,
I think that you know that one of my slightly
well more well to do friends and his family the
first time out our Chinese food Golden Bowl, that's like russaurant.
(23:05):
I know it's still there near South Kensington, and there
was a lazy is it lazy? Susan the thing that
turns in the middle. I didn't know what to do
with myself. I was like, it's not just meat and
too veg. It was amazing and I just had I
fell in love with the idea of tastes of things,
little pieces of things. It blew my mind.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Did they entertain.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yes, very rarely, they were very they are They're still
with us well, Dad's with them. They're much more interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
So can we call them up?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, definitely, definitely. They so great, Yeah they are. They're larger, well, Mum,
especially larger than knife and Dad is. Dad's a creature
of habit when it comes to food and that thing. Yeah,
tea at a certain time with a biscuit and you know,
then you'd start with either whiskey or a gen t
and then a couple of glasses of wine at dinner.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Kind of structures today if you or you're weak or
your month.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I think that was his curse from boarding school as well.
And then mom. For me, the kind of routine was
the weekend cook and I learned first of all actually
with my godmother, and it was all sort of desserts.
It was meringues that were gooey in the middle, and
brownies and then I and I remember having a tiny
little Star Wars square Star Wars pants, this tiny little
(24:20):
notebook which I very diligently wrote down the recipes.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Somewhere, Yeah, somewhere, we have a thing about notebooks here
because Tom Hollander, you know, his grandmother, here's his gand
I think his grandmother's his mother is grandmother's cookbook and
a lot of people and so did was it Christian
Scott Thomas and people come in with and it's a
very beautiful thing to be handed down, the memories and
(24:45):
what you ate as a way of saying, you know,
this is who we are.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
My mom's mom did a mean stew I don't think
I've ever got any recipes from her though, I don't
think I really I really did learn my godmother, and
mainly with mom actually just helping her out in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Interesting the way people see, you know, performance and food,
isn't it whether you're people who want to eat when
they're in theory? I wonder what your mom did she
was in a mess before.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, I can't bear it because you just you eating.
You often, you know, have friends in and then they
want to go out to dinner, eating at eleven thirty
at night or something stupid.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Did you always know you wanted to act with your parents?
I did, but you didn't go They wanted you to
go to university first, or did you want.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
To pay for a very expensive education. I think they
wanted me to at least have some kind of a backup,
and for a while it was the law. I mean
for a very short while, you know, after I got
some very good GCSEs, Everyone's like, oh oh Oxbridge maybe,
And then I sort of met lawyers further down the
line or people who were at the bar who just went,
if it's not your first choice, don't do it. You
(25:49):
know it turn back now, it's oversubscribed, it's peripatetic, it's
you know, that sounds a lot like acting. I'll stick
with that one.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
I'm also my idea of the law was the very
kind of a antiic notion of advocating criminal law. Rumple
of the Bailey stuff. No, No, I didn't. I didn't.
I took humanities for my levels.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
And did you act in Manchester?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
I acted a lot at school and then a lot
at Manchester and maybe just had three productions.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Is that encouraged by the university or did you know?
Speaker 3 (26:18):
It was very self generated? Actually we had a bit
through the drama department, cause I did a drama degree there,
but it was mainly what we got up to in
the drama societies.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
You know, what did you do?
Speaker 3 (26:28):
The first thing I did was tesman in had a
Garblin and I did God, they do all sorts of
things I did terribly. Yeah, I did really bad it. It
was awful. I wasn't really, I wasn't. I didn't really
have possession of the text. It was a bit hairy.
But Ricky Roman and Gungaria and Ross Sally played George
(26:50):
and Covech and they head I can't remember his name,
but the husband and during mats the visit, and I
didn't ever direct. No, no, I didn't. I'd love to.
I'd love to, but far better people doing that at
the university. I'd like to wonder. Yeah, but do you
remember the food a university?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, did you guys cook yourselves or did you Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
We did. That was our sort of but you know,
the bursoning moment of attempting to cook something nice and fresh.
But you know a lot of that was just sort
of tins of something or grabbing something from you know,
the Union Cafe, endless sandwiches on the hot I mean,
the best, the most utrious thing we'd have is a
scotch egg. I think the first really grown up good
(27:39):
meal I had would have been after my first pay
packet or two, and like going to the Anglesey Arms.
That was a place that was the first kind of local.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
That I had in my life after your first play,
did you say that was?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yes? I was Demetrius in the midsum of Night's Stream
at the Regent's Park opening the theater, and then the
King of the Varn lovesap was lost, and that's yeah.
I mean that was such bliss. There's such bliss when
you go, oh my god, I'm being paid to do
what I love. I can start to pay the debt
back to my parents, I can start to afford my rent,
and you know, and then after a little bit a
(28:13):
mortgage and having an odd meal or two. And my
local restaurant was the Uncle see Arms out of Flat
and Shepperd's Bush and yeah, yeah, Ringing is called Park
and wonderful, wonderful food, wonderful kitchen there.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
But your cook I knew you cook.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
I do cook, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
And you do cook your kids we were I am
right about that.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
No, you're completely They are six, eight and ten, and
so what do you feed them? Well, we have a
kind of we have Daddy Morning pancakes on a Saturday pancakes.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Yeah, it's nice. I mean it's kind of kind of traditional.
It's more on the crep side of pancakes rather than
the fluffy so I use just plain organic flower and
I use I put a little bit of another essence,
a little bit of cinnamon, and sometimes two or three eggs,
milk amounts amounts I already mentioned. Yeah, the aund I
(29:08):
pulled the milk in.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
They come down.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
I'm trying to marshle them into sort of taking parts.
So they usually fight over the funny easy jobs like
squeezing the elevens or cracking the eggs. But they can
be really helpful. They can be really helpful. I've completely
destroyed any sense of a line for me on a Saturday,
I think foreverything.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
That's it. When they're up like a weekday Friday night tradition.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Like it's called Daddy Saturday.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yes, there's a daddy.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Remember. I interviewed people, you know sometimes things that remember
remember that, you know, they say, oh, when I was
you know, every every Tuesday night, my father did something
or my mother did something, we went to a restaurant.
Those rituals and those memories.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Yeah, I desay I was partly inspired by I mean,
I've already started doing it, but I thought, okay, I
have to make this a Continuum by Rory Kanear, who
remembers his dad doing pancakes for them, you know, putting
on a city French accent. I've got three of them,
and it's I'm silly for a bit, and then I
get quite seriously, it's just like mush very dangerous, small
(30:12):
people with blunt instruments. It's it's it's good. It's there's
too long an island in the middle. For some reason,
we went for this crazy long island, which I quite
like because I do a lot of prep. Everyone else
who doesn't use the kitchen for cooking it's like, what's
this thing in the way, But I kind of like
it when it doesn't have bits of delivery on it.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Here, well, we really like the chefs having that time
to look across at each other, to talk, to be around.
You know, you can see them there, they're they're prepping,
they're talking.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
I'm going to despise it because I'm always fascinated to
see the economics of the kitchen work. It's very difficult.
If there's two I'm quite pancakes is a different deal.
But if I'm doing a recipe from a recipe, I'm
quite I can't do that. Multitasking thing really good cooks
can do of talking, you know, getting people's drinks right,
as well as chopping, preparing, frying.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I get that it's hard. I think you need to focus.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, and then if it's a dish I've done a lot,
or a one pot wonder, then I'm fine. Or a
roast where you can just leave it for a bit
and then get busy with the Do.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
You eat in the kitchen as well?
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Yeah? We do.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, that's a distraction as well, isn't it when you
live sometimes when people are there? And then do you
like it when people hang around you when you're cooking?
Because I don't.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
I don't know. I don't, and I get why they
want to, and it's frustrating because it's so I'm drawn
to it as well. Everyone's drawn to the heart that
I think when I know what I'm doing and I'm
really secure about it all, Like I say, something you
can just put in to heat and cook and just
you leave alone that I'm fine with it.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
What are some of the other things you cook other
than people?
Speaker 3 (31:42):
I do the roast chicken or the roast whatever on
a Sunday, but usually.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Chicken, So you do the family roast.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Yeah, and I do the barbecues. I do the kind
of dad things in the garden.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Don't you eat what you're filming? When you're working on
a film? Do do you stop for breaks? Do you
a special diet that you go on?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
It depends what job. Yeah, I mean if I'm doing
a sort of high volume of exercise, I'm pumped for
something like the Marvel films and stock a strange which
you know you've got all that garb on. You need
that strength anyway to hold your posture, to have cause
strength to be strong in the harnesses or the fight
scenes and the flying.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Tell me more about that.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
It's great fun. I love it. I love body transformation
in my job. I think it's it's part of the
kind of a what a thing to do if you
have the right guidance, which nowadays it is pretty brilliant.
You know the teams they put on that sort of thing.
If you don't have the budget, you have to do
it very very carefully. But you know, on Marvel it's
it's a big it's a big sandpit. So well, you
(32:37):
have someone who can prescribe you what you're eating and
they can cook you. We had a fantastic chef on
the last stock to strange film. So and then suddenly
you go, where's my food? I or the director and
the first ad and the dop you have got in
first you're like, okay, it's fine, I'm not paying for it,
so okay, But it's this amazing facility to go right.
He needs to be on this many calories a day
and he needs to have five meals. He used to
(32:58):
have a couple of balld eggs between those five meals,
or some kind of high protein snack cheese and crackers
or almond butter and crackers, crackers, lots of crackers. And
you know, for me, the exercise is great and the
end result is that you feel strong and you feel confident,
you hold yourself better, You have a stamina through the
X size and the food that makes you last through
(33:19):
the gig. But it is horrific. I don't like it personally.
I think it's horrific. Eating beyond your appetite. It's really
and again going back to responsibility and resourcefulness and you know, sustainability,
it's just like what am I doing? I could feed
a family with the amount of eating it just slowly
study you have to meet people where they are and
these issues in filmmaking. But it's it's a grossly wasteful industry.
(33:43):
So if we think about set bills that aren't recycled,
think about transport, think about food, think about housing, but
also light and energy. The amount of what is you
need to sort of create daylight and consistent light in
a studio environment. It's a lot of energy. So you know,
the first people to stick the head above the parapet
talk about anything to do with climate and excessive use
of things, or hypocrisy or systems that don't work, get
(34:05):
slammed off. They're actors because of very devout Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and actually it is a system, a systemic thing. But
does it produce I'm really hot on that. And we
try to push the green and I try to push
the Green initiative, the Green an shake into every agreement
I can, whether it's just a gentleman you discussion about
can we can we not have any single use plastic? Really,
(34:26):
I think we're beyond that. If people have water bottles
now they can bring and you can have an eurn,
you can have a tap. That's a good source of wards.
You don't have to give the crew plastic bottles if
you're in the middle of a desert and you can't
get glass bottles there fair enough, but we're in twenty
first century.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
My last question of this really beautiful interview, and thank
you for coming here. We could talk to talk for
ages and we will, is to ask you, if you
had to have a comfort food, is there one that
you would reach for when you need.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
That kale sort of shocked in a pan with a
bit of olive oil and then lemon juice and some
chili flakes and then a tiny bit of water just
to steam it sort of, so the flavor is locked
in by the quick heat and then cooked through a
little bit more thoroughly but not soggily. I crave that vegetable,
I really do. If it's flavored, well, it's a great
(35:21):
cavalinarian favor.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
That's okay. Well, when we we've all give you both,
when you're coming next, Thank
Speaker 1 (35:30):
You, thank you, so welcome, thank you, thank you for
listening to Ruthy's Table four in partnership with Montclair
Host
Ruth Rogers
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