October 6, 2025 • 33 mins
I first met Olivia over food one night in the river Cafe, she was with Maggie Gyllenhaal, and they had just wrapped filming for their movie the Lost Daughter in Greece. It is not an exaggeration to say they pretty much ordered everything on the menu. We immediately got into talking about feeding our kids, cooking, and inflicted distance from family when working. This was a conversation that could have lasted for hours, but I had to go back to the kitchen and she needed to finish her lemon pasta before it cooled down.
Today we are here in the River Café and she is the one cooking the lemon pasta - we are going to pick up where we left off a conversation with a woman, I admire respect and adore. Lucky me.
Originally recorded in 2023.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The films of Olivia Coleman have the power to move
us to tears, make us laugh, and inspire us to
try something new. They can also make us feel really,
really hungry. In the Favorite playing Queen Anne, Olivia Coleman
conveys her authority by insisting on a cup of over
rich hot chocolate. And there are tables laden with roasted venison,
(00:28):
lamb cakes, desserts, the symbols of wealth and privilege. None
to the queen, what what you cannot have? Got chocolate?
Your stomach? Sugar inflames it.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm AGirl having that cup?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Do not? I'm sorry, I do not know what to do.
Oh fine, give it here and you can get a
bucket in a mop for the aftermath. I met Olivia
over food one night in the River Cafe. She was
with my friend Maggie gillinol and they just wrap filming
for their movie The Lost Daughter in Greece. It is
not an exaggeration to say they pretty much ordered everything
(01:03):
on the menu. We immediately got into talking about feeding
our kids, cooking and inflicted distance from family when working
This was a conversation that could have lasted for hours,
but I had to go back to the kitchen and
she needed to finish your lemon pasta before it cooled down.
Today we're here in the River Cafe and she is
the one who's been cooking the lemon pasta. Now we're
(01:26):
going to pick up where we left off. Conversation with
a woman I admire, I respect, and I adore lucky me.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Oh, that was the best introduction.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Thanks, Man's true. It's true. So you're in the River
Cafe kitchen with Alex, who's on the section called Hots
two which does pasta. So what was it like? What
it just say?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Lovely?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
You chose for your recipe tag you Telly with lemon,
cream and parsley, And I wonder if you would like
to read it.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Four hundred grams tagli tenny and salt and coarsely ground
black pepper, three hundred miles double cream, one hundred and
twenty grams unsalted butter, softened zest and juice of four
juicy lemons. Six tablespoons roughly chopped flat leaf parsley. One
hundred and fifty grams of grated parmitan.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
This is one that you chose.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Sure, yeah, I mean it. It is absolutely lovely and classic,
and I think sort of as you start being this
time of years, is you know, it's sort of starve
a bit more light in summary, but still on its
slightly miserable.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Well have I picked something too easy for you?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
No? No, this is great, fantastic.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
What we want to do is we basically.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Just get everything in in the pan.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
That we need.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So we're going to have a bit of butter of
a bit of.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Cream in a large, thick bottomed saucepan. Gently heat the cream.
When warm, add the butter, lemon, juice, and zest, stir
briefly together.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Then remove from the heat.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Cook the tagultarian a generous amount of boiling salted water
until al dente, and then drain, stir into the warm
cream and season. Add half the parsley and tossed together.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I was going, do you want to like toss it?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Can? I?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, because I feel like, sorry, that's a
bit you know, we've still got a bit of you
Just give it a good old yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Serve immediately on warm plates with the remainder of the
parsley and the parmesan as it.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Cools, it will sort of thicken up a little bit,
and then a little bit of parmesan on top.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
From that's sort of what we're looking for. Its pretty Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
What did you observe?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah? Just amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
He said you cooked it? You actually did well.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
I think he's lying, definitely.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's not easy to go into it. Let me do that.
I did the tossing. Yeah, did you catch it? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Well I did make a bit of a mess of
your floor. Sorry, Oh dear, okay, we.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Just wanted no, we didn't want to know.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Did you see food and your ability to eat, Well,
it's a kind of measure of your success. People very
often see that that we've talked to would say as
their success increased, they measured it by being able to
go to a good restaurant, better bottle of wine, even
not have to look at the right hand side for
the prices before they looked at what they wanted to eat. Yeah,
(04:42):
the difference is so is that how is that measured
in your career?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I remember we've got a close group of active friends
that we all were drama school together and we all
stayed very close. But when we first left drama school,
sometimes we'd go to you know, a pub for someone's
birthday to eat, and it was very much sort of
how about should we share that all of us were
you know, really there wasn't much lots of money going
(05:07):
around and and renting terrible places and trying to share
something between us. Or if we club together and buy
one bottle and then we could always get something from
the offfee on the way home and have more to
drink because it's cheaper at home. And then cut to
you know, years later, I could say, let's walk out
for dinner, my shout or you know what.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Did you read after we had the ask? Was that
celebrated with food?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
No?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I think that was entirely booze.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
I could do another program called you know, I was
so out of it sort of I couldn't believe what
had happened.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
You did seem very sharp, yes, And why why were
you so surprised?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I didn't think i'd get it, you know, the first
time I'd been nominated, and we were so proud the
film and everything, but I just thought that that's never
gonna happen. That's oh, it makes your emotional. It was
such a ridiculous thing to have happened in a way. Yeah,
I can't believe it. Still can't quite believe that happened.
(06:12):
I did afterwards.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Do you are you an emotional eater? Do you eat
when you're happy or sad? You both? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, I do love you know, the comfort foods or
hot buttered toast butter place, but I love butter.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Toast is basically just a vehicle for butter. Agree.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
My mother in law used to say that butter is
the best cheese, you know. She treated it like cheese
and you just have a piece of slab butter until
she decided that it was would kill you, so that
I was never allowed to cook with butter after that.
But it is really Yeah, I like it. And when
you make a film like for instance, going to Greece,
when you made the last order.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
With Maggie too, Yeah, all of the we're in the
same hotel. Maggie had a little house separately because she
had to do grown up things think about the next day,
and we were all quite badly behaved. Who you were
so me Jesse, Dakota, Dakoacha Johnson, Jesse Buckley, to Coach Johnson,
Paul Meskill, Ollie Jackson, Cohen, Dagmara Demin, chic.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Who else?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I feel awful if I'm missing anyone else out. But
we were all together and quite badly behaved and eating.
We knew exactly the menu because we'd all been the
same hotel for I think six weeks, so we knew
the menu back to front. And they were very sweet
and would do very but there was I remember they
had a deconstructed fetter, you know, Greek salad, so it
(07:42):
was a really different fetter, not a solid one, but
quite a soft one, laid out sort of prettily rather
than you know what. But I remember from a childhood
holidays degrees which is great, big chunks of everything in
a bomb. I have even got pictures of the food.
And they did a savice with mango and m lovely things.
(08:04):
This is Greece, in Greece, in the hotel in the
Poseidonian and as well, Yes we did go to Greece
as it as yeah as kids, and I remember then
eating octopus. I couldn't eat octopus now because I've you know,
the my octopus teacher, and learning so much about how
clever they are. I can't do it any but to
(08:25):
eat it straight out of the sea, so fresh and
squid and.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So did your parents travel with you when you were
a kid, did you kill No, they.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Weren't really travelers. But my dad's best friend moved to
Naples when I was twelve. I don't think they'd ever
been to Italy, and we decided to go and we
stayed with them.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
In the summer.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Yes, in the summer, we went to Ischia in the
Bay of Naples and just had because they lived there
and he married an Italian woman. We had incredible food.
We went to amazing restaurants, and we didn't know what
we were doing, so he would trust me and you
would order something of everything and try these beautiful things.
We went to little restaurants in people's houses in the hills. Oh,
(09:08):
yeh is it when I was twelve? I was born
in seventy four and I can't do maths.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, so that's eighty two, well done, No twelve, no
maths either. Seventy four eight eighty six. How long did
it take us to add twelve to seventy four eighty
that's the year before we started here. And it's interesting
that you know your first introduction to Italian cucoo was southern,
(09:35):
you know, so regional, isn't it a different said, you
go on to Venice, you would have had completely different food.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
And I love the food of southern Italy. I did
that last year. I went sailing in that area and
it's lemons and basil.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, you know, fish fresh.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah, fresh, really good. So let's go back to the beginnings. Yes,
born in.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Norfolk, Yes, not really a family of food. Food was
always love. We'd always sit together and we had dinner. Yeah,
a lot of My mum was a nurse. Often she'd
come in. It would be quick. We might sit on
the sofa watch Telly with food on our laps and
you know, doctor who. But when people came around, it
(10:19):
was an excuse for my dad to open a bottle
of wine and entertain.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
And who did the cooking?
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Then?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Did he ever cook?
Speaker 4 (10:25):
He?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
My mom did the cooking. She never really loved cooking.
And her mum, I remember my granny sort of dreaded
people coming around. And we'd always have slightly overcooked salmon,
new potatoes and green beans. I think that was it
every time I went to my granny's house. And but
then my mum whenever anyone came for a dinner party,
(10:46):
I can just remember cold Morney. That's with cheese and
kind of crepes and spinach, I think, yeah yeah, and
new potatoes as simple as possible.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
She really didn't want to spend much time. After that
trip to Italy.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
My dad decided he wanted to get involved and started
to particularly pastors and things, and that's.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
What did you do?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
He was a surveyor, chilter surveyor, but he quite liked
the glass of wine feeding everybody.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
He wasn't great, but he was enthusiastic.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I think it is hard for a woman who was
a nurse, you know, how to think about did she
work nights?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
By the time I came along, she wasn't doing nights
because she wasn't working in the hospital. She was working
on the district, so I can't even remember. She must
have been on call if someone needed her at night time.
But she worked Christmas Day, you know. She always took
the shifts that she knew other people didn't really want
to do. I think, and your grandmother lived near you,
often i'd go and stay there. If Mum and Dad
(11:47):
were very busy, I'd go and stay with my granny.
And she always had orange Club biscuits in her.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
What are your memories of your grandmother, my grand orange.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Club biscuits, rabina hilariously by in my bed. So that's
sugar all night.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Probably they didn't think about that.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
No, no, not at all and pretty.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Okay, thanks, So the memories. What about your father's mother.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
She was an amazing baker girl.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
We found someone in the y. What did she make?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Just there was always she had a little larder and
she'd always go have a little look in the cupboard
there go on and there was always been a little
bit of cake and made you a little bit something
or shortbreads, fruitcake which I'd ever liked, so she'd always
make me a little chocolate cake. And yeah, just we
were always allowed to go in and help ourselves.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So growing up Norfrika's see only place incredible secret.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
We used to also our holidays were also camping in Norfolk,
just a few miles away from where we actually lived
on the coast, and we'd camp in a campsite and
picked Sanfa. We in Norfolk we call it Sanfa And
when I first saw it written down on our menu
in London said Samphire.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I have no idea what that was, so.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I thought it was pronounced.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I thought it was spelt as a kid s a
n f e r sanfa, but I think that's just
the Northern way of saying it. But the way we
ate it as well was so shake off the mud
in the seawater and it's sort of blanched, but it's
still so you keep the root thing and just dip
it in butter and put it like that. You get
(13:26):
the meat off the meat, you know. Yeah, yeah, And
we'd always just have it like that. You'd never have
it with something else.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
You eat it. That's how we ate it.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
We take that little twig off at the barroom and
then we've blanched, put it with a fishbert and yeah
and sea burst. It's great. It's a short season though,
isn't it.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I think you're not allowed to pick it anymore.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
We used to really go and pick it, just go
to the beach, pick it off the marshes and fish
and fish. Yes, we used to go cockling as well.
And mussels. I have always loved mussels. Oh that garlakey
dunk bread in it.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
I did my first school play when I was sixteen,
and suddenly I'd always been so rubbish at everything at school,
and then suddenly did a play and went a light
went on.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I love this.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I wonder if I could do this, but I didn't
know anyone who did it. I assumed you had to
come from that place in order to do it, so
sort of had a secret yearning that never said it.
And then I went to Homerton, which I think still
is a teacher training college in Cambridge, but I left
(14:45):
after a term or so, so I never They call
it matriculation when you become part of the university, but
I never did that, so I was never part of
the university.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And I left because I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
And then went off to the town of Cambridge and
ended up working as a cleaner there for years. And
I had a bicycle has the same major to everyone else.
Nobody questioned me, and I went cycled around, went to
lectures of people. So I went to an architecture lecture,
went to an EU law lecture with when I was
totally in desperate, in love with Ed and just trying.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
To you were being an actor. Nigella last and a
friend of mine, you know, she worked as a cleaner
in hotels and Florence, and she said it was the
most revealing you could have, particularly in the hotel the
way people left their rooms or so you did that
(15:39):
for her.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Long, Yeah, a couple of years, and then did a
secretarial course. That was my mum's suggestion that if you're
going to be an actor, you need something for it.
So you knew then that this is by then. Yeah,
I had done in Cambridge. There's about thirty drama societies
and I would just cycle aandaled it. I did my
shift cycle and auditioning things don't play his learning lines,
(16:02):
going back, cleaning all the loose and chasing head around.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, it was your husband to be was a student Cambridge.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yes he was.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
He's proper clever and he was there doing it properly.
What does he do He was doing law then, but
he's a writer.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
And then we went off to Bristol of Vic Drama
School together and then we sort of you know, the
food is love thing. We went to Thai restaurants and
discovered new food together and there's Aai restaurant in Cambridge
and it was so delicious we took it back with us.
We asked its the first of a time I've asked
for a doggie bag. And I didn't want to leave
(16:40):
any of it, and we left it on his window,
still outside, putting arms out the.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Window and going, oh my god, it's amazing. The lemon
grass and the coconut.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Milcolm so Cambridge and then you started acting more and
more and he went to Bristol. Yeah, and when you
actually then started working in the theater, that must have
absolutely your way of eating. Did it give you a
routine or did it give you restrictions some what you
could have?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
And well, once we left Bristol and we were working,
you know, trying to earn our keep as actors. I
did my first few plays and things. I think I
ate quite late after the show because it was sort
of on a high. Certainly wanted to have a drink afterwards.
When I worked at the Noel Coward Theater right next
to Shiky's with Amy Morgan and Phoebe Wallerbridge, the three
(17:29):
of us would sort of go to Cheeky's afterwards and
sit outside and I think we all smoked then, and
we would order the little croquettes and the Scarlett Burgers.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Oh, and that was a true and just drink. This
would have been.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
After Iron Lady, except when I first met Phoebe, which
is Meryl Street playing Margaret Thatcher.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
So a couple of years after that, three years after that.
I don't know, I'm so bad.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
With but you can remember what you ate, you can
always Yes, Yeah, loves food, she does.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
And it's really annoying that she's so tall and lean
and she loves eating.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It's annoying. It's annoying. I will, I will. But sure
you were eating out, so when you because it's you know, picnics.
Would you eat before if you were in a martine
would you.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
We'd sometimes have a picnic on the floor of one
of our dressing rooms, so go to you know, get
sort of little little cheeses and meats and pretend you're
having a normal life and not going back on stage.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
There are men involved as well.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Was it most of the female It was mostly just
the three of our girls, and we'd have a kip.
We'd sort of put we had some roll out mattresses
that we could put on the floor and we'd have
a snooze and eat nice food and then do the matinee.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Do you think that it binds you together food? When
you when you go on a set and you know
that you're meeting you know, I don't know if the
all the other actors were friends of yours before, but
does it something that holds you all?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Before COVID happened, everyone would eat together on the dining
bus and I loved that you were eating with the
crew and what did you go for? What you go for,
and having a lovely time together, so social, and then
time to sort of all be equal and to let
your head down. And then now the dining bus hasn't
really come back, and so people sort of eat separately,
(19:26):
and that's such a shame, and you sort of sit
on your own in your little van. And I missed
that very much, and hopefully we'll come back. But also
sometimes you know, some actors are having to have a
particularly strict diet because they've got to look a certain way,
and that's sort of awful, and you try and hide
the pudding option that you went for.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
How does weight and physical appearance with food, How does
it affect your work? I was just talking to someone
who's coming to London to be in a movie, and
his assistant said to me that he has a nutritionist
and a trainer because he's on a very special diet
for the film. And I thought, well, that'd be interesting.
I'd like to know about that because maybe I could
(20:10):
go on that without the nutritionist. And it turned out
that he was actually eating eight thousand calories a day
because I had to gain so much weight. It was
completely and I just was wondering how that, you know,
when you were a princess, when you.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
When you okay queen and I had to put on weight.
You had to put on about two stone, did you?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
And how did you do that?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I mean, that's easy.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, you didn't need a nutritionist in my seat.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
But you know, and Rachel and and Emily Emma are
very healthy, clean eaters anyway. They love food, but it's
sort of clean food, so well, they had their healthy options.
I would say, I have one of everything and all
of the puddings, and if you don't want that, I'll
have that. It started actually to be little bit quite
(21:01):
quite gloomy. I thought, God, what fun being told to
put on weight? But I can put all my quite quickly,
and so it starts to feel, oh, yeah, I don't know,
you want another pizza or another I'm going to have
to take it all off at the end, you know,
And how did you take it off? Just see it
old fashioned eating a lot less and trying to move more.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
But it was boring and hard, and she loved to eat.
Was yeah she was. I mean she did.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Was it fifteen pregnancies she'd had seventeen or maybe when
I watched the film against and she lost, she'd lost
seventeen babies.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Her eldest one had lasted to had got to ten
years old, so they had varying degrees of ages. But
I think food for her was she was apparently clinically
obese and and.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, you eat comfort food.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
And what I playing the queen and the was she
very different?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
And she was tiny, so I did have to She
had a tiny waist and I don't have a tiny waiste,
so I did.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
They were very sweet.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
They got me a trainer before I started, and then
thankfully by my second season she was a bit older
and didn't have such tiny waste, so I was about.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
A bit. Did you feel playing her and the research
into the live post war so completely restrictive and different
from what the voluptuous nurse and the time?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yes, so what was that like?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
What was your sense of food in the palace and
food in the monarchy and food for being Queen.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Well, I think when they had I mean, this is
you know, only stuff, but I remember from what we did.
But whenever there was there were people coming to visit,
sort of big must entertain the heads of state things,
it was all beautiful, lovely food. But because she'd remembered
rations and everything, Yeah, she was never irresponsible about too
much food. She ate quite sort of circumspect frugally, and
(23:05):
she did maintain and she was very healthy and outdoorsy,
and she maintained a sort of neat little figure which
doesn't come from copies amounts of food. So I think
she was quite conservative about pleasure.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I mean, yeah, it's interesting that you know what you
wonder what pleasure there was in Yeah, you know you
can see the kings of France and the childs and
wonder whether the British aristocracy had probably probably did you
know those country houses then yeah, you just wonder about
the palace, whether eating and food was fun. I hope so, yeah,
(23:41):
I hope they enjoy it how they enjoy it now.
I think with King Charles, I think that that family
probably is more interested in food because.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
The lovely organic vegetables and yeah, and for Miller's son
Tom Barker Bowls writes about food to cook book.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Hopefully they have to.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
I wonder if they go to restaurants.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
So I don't know. I think that's probably hard thing
to do, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Maybe do you cook at home? Is this passion for
food telling that you love to eat? But yeah, that's
fair enough. I'm a very good guest.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
When I first left home, my mom gave me a
Delia Smith sort of complete, which was amazing.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
And you know, I think she's good, really, I do.
She was in the restaurant that long ago, really, and
I thought she really taught a generation to cook.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
All those lovely sort of staples. I learned that from
from her recipe book. So your mom gave you this book?
And yeah, and so I loved cooking for my two flatmates,
Debbie and Olivia, and that was the only cookbook we had,
and we would I loved it. Also, I started to
enjoy going to the shop and going to buy because
(25:02):
we want such a tight budget. We'd picture meals and
buy for the meals, not just you know, anything off
the shelf.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Fancy that. And I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
And I enjoyed and sometimes it was just a jacket
of potato with loads of butter and cheese. But I
really enjoyed the us all eating together and you know,
feeding each other. So you have three children and you
work and sometimes you don't. Yeah, it can be home
or you have do have to shop.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
So what is like? You told us what food was
like in your parents and your grandparents. If I were
to knock on the door, what is food like if
you were to knock on the.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Door that, Yeah, you should, because now we have I
still struggle with saying because I feel a bit it's
still of embarrassed. But we have a really lovely nanny
now I know, because we certainly both started working much more.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
She's an incredible cook.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Are they coming there? Yeah, you should, and you'll sit
down to dinner.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
We always sit together and eat.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Yeah when we sometimes the kids are doing late things
at school and we have we do a Sunday roast
every Sunday.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
We're so boring.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
And do you take them on holidays and food holidays?
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, we took the kids to sort of holiday of
a lifetime to Sri Lanka just before lockdown and just
ate the most incredible food three times a day, curry
three times a day.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, what was that?
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Because we traveled around with the kids, and our two
eldest are really adventurous.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
They've always we've we've always.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Included them with all the food we have, and when
we have curry, we always make one that's slightly less spicy,
and they sort of they love it now and the
boys love spice. And so when we were traveling around,
our little one really wasn't wasn't thrilled, but she was
only four at the time. So she ate plain pasta
wherever we were plain rise and we would have egg
(27:01):
hoppers and the string hoppers for breakfast, and the dolls
and the coconuts, sambal and all these beautiful things we
would eat and they loved it as well.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
It does tell you about a country, doesn't it. Yell,
that's growing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Our middle boy, he's he became obsessed with Japan when
he was very little, and he did a sushi course
and he makes beautiful sushi and ramen.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
He does three day ramen. It does take yeah days,
it makes days.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And actually Ed is taking the two boys for a
cookery course when they before our eldest goes to university.
So they're doing a little week together little boys week
learning to cook.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Do you feel when you're away and you're working, do
you feel that your work takes you away from some
people you love? And well, you know, how does that work?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Ed and I have been together thirty years, and up
until COVID, i'd only ever been away. The longest I've
been away was two weeks, because I just don't take
jobs away from home.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Okay, let's stuck there. So then you you think about
accepting a movie or yeah, a player or something that
will keep you away from home.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, I just I get terribly homesick. I never used
to be able to sleep very well if ED wasn't there,
And now I think we're probably you know, I'm at
an age where sleep is harder anyway, So actually it's quite.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
You go a night away, Yeah, I'll, I'll get a
great night sleep.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
But I also I missed the kids, you know, I
wanted to be there, and so I was very lucky
that I had the option of great work in the
UK and I didn't have to go away and then well.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Lost or cha. I was going to say it was
that six weeks.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Six weeks.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
So Sunny went from the six sixth way, which is
I think why we all behave so badly because we
all adored each other, got on so well, got hey,
we're here, we're in a beautiful place.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Did the kids come out?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
No, because weren't allud you because if they came, they'd
have to quarantine before point, so we'd all meet up.
We were each other's family, and I know dag Mara
was really missing her family, and I really understood that feeling.
So I said, you'll be back on the school run
before you know it. And they don't know that you're
miserable or happy, so just go for happy.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
And men aren't nil who are in the same actors
feel that way as well. Do you think they know
that their wife is home with the kids, and it's all.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I've always struggled with this male female thing. I think ideally,
if you're all brought up the same, you are the same.
It's only conditioning that makes sisting male female. So all
the men I know and love struggle with being away
from home and they miss, you know, the ones I'm
not that impressed by have a ball. But I think
(29:47):
that's the same with some women as well. You know,
love being away. It's I don't think it's a gender thing.
I think it's a conditioning thing. But people get shut
down by different No.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
No, people ask me if women chefs could differently from
male shops, and I always try and avoid that. They
really want you to say that women cook with more
care or more sensitivity and men are a bit more
and it's not true.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
And it's not fair to the men that we all
know love and I know plenty of really uncaring women
and plenty of incredibly emotional, you know, kind men.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
And now you're doing a movie about chocolate. Is that right?
Oh god, yeah, I had to talk about that will
they won't get and the chocolate. So what was that
like in terms of chocolate?
Speaker 3 (30:30):
And oh they had a chocolate here, But when I
went to have for fittings and things, they said, come
and look at what this chocolate has made for us.
And these chocolates were exquisite, and he said you can
eat them all. I mean often, if it's going to
be a prop why bother maker, But that he was
so such a master. He insisted that it had to
(30:50):
taste beautiful, what sort of caramel?
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Incredible?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
And they were brightly colored and amazing shapes, and every
one of them you could have eaten, and it would
have been incredible.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I wish the audience could see your smile, because every
time you talk about food, your face lights up, and
you know, you sort of remember the things that you ate,
places that you've eaten.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
And the first time I had truffle.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Yeah, a white ruffle. Oh, just any truffle. Any, And
now we have we have a little job with truffle,
and every now and then, yeah, overscrumbled eagle, yeah on
a Russian pasta.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
You know, food is love, and food is alleviating hunger,
and food is curiosity or traveling or discovering. Food is
also comfort, and I was wondering if there's a food
that you would turn to, something you'd either make or buy.
Olivia Coleman, wonderful person that you are, and I hope
you don't need comfort very often because you give such joy.
(31:48):
I mean when you came in the restaurant today, We've
had all sorts of people come in and they're great.
They're politicians or you know, actors or writers or doctors
or whatever, and you just I could just see everybody
look up and be so happy you were there, really
happy that you were there. It was really great to see,
and of course I joined them and saying thank you
(32:11):
so much, so would you come back again? Yeah, okay,
we'll do it more. And meanwhile, will you tell me
and tell I was ever listening, what would be the
comfort food you turn to?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
My comfort food is sort of a one spoon thing
and it's tarcodile.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I could eat that all day, every day. Okay, tacodile.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Tell me?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Can you just tell people who might not know what
it is?
Speaker 3 (32:37):
So it's a lentils which are soft, and there's garlic,
and I think the tadca is the tempered thing on
the top. I've never made it, but I am a
connoisseur of eating it. Yeah, and it is my favorite
thing I always order. If we have a takeaway or delivery,
(32:57):
I order much more tarcodile than we need, so I
can have it cold for breakfast. I'll have it read
it again for lunch next day. I just love it.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I could eat it. I'm going to try that love it.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I was surprised because I'm sure you're going to say
toast and butter.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
I'm sorry, Yeah, don't be sorry, but.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
I will come and have that talcodile knock on your
door and thank you so God, thank you having me.
And now you're going to go and have food. I'm
go have lunch and you can eat and eat and eat. Oh,
thank you, thank you so much. Hi, it's Ruthie Rogers
(33:40):
and I'm so excited to announce that we have a
new book. Squeeze Me has forty seven delicious lemon recipes
from the River Cafe, Beautiful art by Ed Bouchet and
words by Heather Eyes. Pre Order now.
Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The films of Olivia Coleman have the power to move
us to tears, make us laugh, and inspire us to
try something new. They can also make us feel really,
really hungry. In the Favorite playing Queen Anne, Olivia Coleman
conveys her authority by insisting on a cup of over
rich hot chocolate. And there are tables laden with roasted venison,
(00:28):
lamb cakes, desserts, the symbols of wealth and privilege. None
to the queen, what what you cannot have? Got chocolate?
Your stomach? Sugar inflames it.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm AGirl having that cup?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Do not? I'm sorry, I do not know what to do.
Oh fine, give it here and you can get a
bucket in a mop for the aftermath. I met Olivia
over food one night in the River Cafe. She was
with my friend Maggie gillinol and they just wrap filming
for their movie The Lost Daughter in Greece. It is
not an exaggeration to say they pretty much ordered everything
(01:03):
on the menu. We immediately got into talking about feeding
our kids, cooking and inflicted distance from family when working
This was a conversation that could have lasted for hours,
but I had to go back to the kitchen and
she needed to finish your lemon pasta before it cooled down.
Today we're here in the River Cafe and she is
the one who's been cooking the lemon pasta. Now we're
(01:26):
going to pick up where we left off. Conversation with
a woman I admire, I respect, and I adore lucky me.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Oh, that was the best introduction.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Thanks, Man's true. It's true. So you're in the River
Cafe kitchen with Alex, who's on the section called Hots
two which does pasta. So what was it like? What
it just say?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Lovely?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
You chose for your recipe tag you Telly with lemon,
cream and parsley, And I wonder if you would like
to read it.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Four hundred grams tagli tenny and salt and coarsely ground
black pepper, three hundred miles double cream, one hundred and
twenty grams unsalted butter, softened zest and juice of four
juicy lemons. Six tablespoons roughly chopped flat leaf parsley. One
hundred and fifty grams of grated parmitan.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
This is one that you chose.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Sure, yeah, I mean it. It is absolutely lovely and classic,
and I think sort of as you start being this
time of years, is you know, it's sort of starve
a bit more light in summary, but still on its
slightly miserable.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Well have I picked something too easy for you?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
No? No, this is great, fantastic.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
What we want to do is we basically.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Just get everything in in the pan.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
That we need.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So we're going to have a bit of butter of
a bit of.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Cream in a large, thick bottomed saucepan. Gently heat the cream.
When warm, add the butter, lemon, juice, and zest, stir
briefly together.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Then remove from the heat.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Cook the tagultarian a generous amount of boiling salted water
until al dente, and then drain, stir into the warm
cream and season. Add half the parsley and tossed together.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I was going, do you want to like toss it?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Can? I?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, because I feel like, sorry, that's a
bit you know, we've still got a bit of you
Just give it a good old yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Serve immediately on warm plates with the remainder of the
parsley and the parmesan as it.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Cools, it will sort of thicken up a little bit,
and then a little bit of parmesan on top.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
From that's sort of what we're looking for. Its pretty Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
What did you observe?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah? Just amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
He said you cooked it? You actually did well.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
I think he's lying, definitely.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's not easy to go into it. Let me do that.
I did the tossing. Yeah, did you catch it? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Well I did make a bit of a mess of
your floor. Sorry, Oh dear, okay, we.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Just wanted no, we didn't want to know.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Did you see food and your ability to eat, Well,
it's a kind of measure of your success. People very
often see that that we've talked to would say as
their success increased, they measured it by being able to
go to a good restaurant, better bottle of wine, even
not have to look at the right hand side for
the prices before they looked at what they wanted to eat. Yeah,
(04:42):
the difference is so is that how is that measured
in your career?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I remember we've got a close group of active friends
that we all were drama school together and we all
stayed very close. But when we first left drama school,
sometimes we'd go to you know, a pub for someone's
birthday to eat, and it was very much sort of
how about should we share that all of us were
you know, really there wasn't much lots of money going
(05:07):
around and and renting terrible places and trying to share
something between us. Or if we club together and buy
one bottle and then we could always get something from
the offfee on the way home and have more to
drink because it's cheaper at home. And then cut to
you know, years later, I could say, let's walk out
for dinner, my shout or you know what.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Did you read after we had the ask? Was that
celebrated with food?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
No?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I think that was entirely booze.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
I could do another program called you know, I was
so out of it sort of I couldn't believe what
had happened.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
You did seem very sharp, yes, And why why were
you so surprised?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I didn't think i'd get it, you know, the first
time I'd been nominated, and we were so proud the
film and everything, but I just thought that that's never
gonna happen. That's oh, it makes your emotional. It was
such a ridiculous thing to have happened in a way. Yeah,
I can't believe it. Still can't quite believe that happened.
(06:12):
I did afterwards.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Do you are you an emotional eater? Do you eat
when you're happy or sad? You both? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, I do love you know, the comfort foods or
hot buttered toast butter place, but I love butter.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Toast is basically just a vehicle for butter. Agree.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
My mother in law used to say that butter is
the best cheese, you know. She treated it like cheese
and you just have a piece of slab butter until
she decided that it was would kill you, so that
I was never allowed to cook with butter after that.
But it is really Yeah, I like it. And when
you make a film like for instance, going to Greece,
when you made the last order.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
With Maggie too, Yeah, all of the we're in the
same hotel. Maggie had a little house separately because she
had to do grown up things think about the next day,
and we were all quite badly behaved. Who you were
so me Jesse, Dakota, Dakoacha Johnson, Jesse Buckley, to Coach Johnson,
Paul Meskill, Ollie Jackson, Cohen, Dagmara Demin, chic.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Who else?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I feel awful if I'm missing anyone else out. But
we were all together and quite badly behaved and eating.
We knew exactly the menu because we'd all been the
same hotel for I think six weeks, so we knew
the menu back to front. And they were very sweet
and would do very but there was I remember they
had a deconstructed fetter, you know, Greek salad, so it
(07:42):
was a really different fetter, not a solid one, but
quite a soft one, laid out sort of prettily rather
than you know what. But I remember from a childhood
holidays degrees which is great, big chunks of everything in
a bomb. I have even got pictures of the food.
And they did a savice with mango and m lovely things.
(08:04):
This is Greece, in Greece, in the hotel in the
Poseidonian and as well, Yes we did go to Greece
as it as yeah as kids, and I remember then
eating octopus. I couldn't eat octopus now because I've you know,
the my octopus teacher, and learning so much about how
clever they are. I can't do it any but to
(08:25):
eat it straight out of the sea, so fresh and
squid and.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So did your parents travel with you when you were
a kid, did you kill No, they.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Weren't really travelers. But my dad's best friend moved to
Naples when I was twelve. I don't think they'd ever
been to Italy, and we decided to go and we
stayed with them.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
In the summer.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Yes, in the summer, we went to Ischia in the
Bay of Naples and just had because they lived there
and he married an Italian woman. We had incredible food.
We went to amazing restaurants, and we didn't know what
we were doing, so he would trust me and you
would order something of everything and try these beautiful things.
We went to little restaurants in people's houses in the hills. Oh,
(09:08):
yeh is it when I was twelve? I was born
in seventy four and I can't do maths.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, so that's eighty two, well done, No twelve, no
maths either. Seventy four eight eighty six. How long did
it take us to add twelve to seventy four eighty
that's the year before we started here. And it's interesting
that you know your first introduction to Italian cucoo was southern,
(09:35):
you know, so regional, isn't it a different said, you
go on to Venice, you would have had completely different food.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
And I love the food of southern Italy. I did
that last year. I went sailing in that area and
it's lemons and basil.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, you know, fish fresh.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah, fresh, really good. So let's go back to the beginnings. Yes,
born in.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Norfolk, Yes, not really a family of food. Food was
always love. We'd always sit together and we had dinner. Yeah,
a lot of My mum was a nurse. Often she'd
come in. It would be quick. We might sit on
the sofa watch Telly with food on our laps and
you know, doctor who. But when people came around, it
(10:19):
was an excuse for my dad to open a bottle
of wine and entertain.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
And who did the cooking?
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Then?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Did he ever cook?
Speaker 4 (10:25):
He?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
My mom did the cooking. She never really loved cooking.
And her mum, I remember my granny sort of dreaded
people coming around. And we'd always have slightly overcooked salmon,
new potatoes and green beans. I think that was it
every time I went to my granny's house. And but
then my mum whenever anyone came for a dinner party,
(10:46):
I can just remember cold Morney. That's with cheese and
kind of crepes and spinach, I think, yeah yeah, and
new potatoes as simple as possible.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
She really didn't want to spend much time. After that
trip to Italy.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
My dad decided he wanted to get involved and started
to particularly pastors and things, and that's.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
What did you do?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
He was a surveyor, chilter surveyor, but he quite liked
the glass of wine feeding everybody.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
He wasn't great, but he was enthusiastic.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I think it is hard for a woman who was
a nurse, you know, how to think about did she
work nights?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
By the time I came along, she wasn't doing nights
because she wasn't working in the hospital. She was working
on the district, so I can't even remember. She must
have been on call if someone needed her at night time.
But she worked Christmas Day, you know. She always took
the shifts that she knew other people didn't really want
to do. I think, and your grandmother lived near you,
often i'd go and stay there. If Mum and Dad
(11:47):
were very busy, I'd go and stay with my granny.
And she always had orange Club biscuits in her.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
What are your memories of your grandmother, my grand orange.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Club biscuits, rabina hilariously by in my bed. So that's
sugar all night.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Probably they didn't think about that.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
No, no, not at all and pretty.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Okay, thanks, So the memories. What about your father's mother.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
She was an amazing baker girl.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
We found someone in the y. What did she make?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Just there was always she had a little larder and
she'd always go have a little look in the cupboard
there go on and there was always been a little
bit of cake and made you a little bit something
or shortbreads, fruitcake which I'd ever liked, so she'd always
make me a little chocolate cake. And yeah, just we
were always allowed to go in and help ourselves.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So growing up Norfrika's see only place incredible secret.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
We used to also our holidays were also camping in Norfolk,
just a few miles away from where we actually lived
on the coast, and we'd camp in a campsite and
picked Sanfa. We in Norfolk we call it Sanfa And
when I first saw it written down on our menu
in London said Samphire.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I have no idea what that was, so.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I thought it was pronounced.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I thought it was spelt as a kid s a
n f e r sanfa, but I think that's just
the Northern way of saying it. But the way we
ate it as well was so shake off the mud
in the seawater and it's sort of blanched, but it's
still so you keep the root thing and just dip
it in butter and put it like that. You get
(13:26):
the meat off the meat, you know. Yeah, yeah, And
we'd always just have it like that. You'd never have
it with something else.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
You eat it. That's how we ate it.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
We take that little twig off at the barroom and
then we've blanched, put it with a fishbert and yeah
and sea burst. It's great. It's a short season though,
isn't it.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I think you're not allowed to pick it anymore.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
We used to really go and pick it, just go
to the beach, pick it off the marshes and fish
and fish. Yes, we used to go cockling as well.
And mussels. I have always loved mussels. Oh that garlakey
dunk bread in it.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
I did my first school play when I was sixteen,
and suddenly I'd always been so rubbish at everything at school,
and then suddenly did a play and went a light
went on.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I love this.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I wonder if I could do this, but I didn't
know anyone who did it. I assumed you had to
come from that place in order to do it, so
sort of had a secret yearning that never said it.
And then I went to Homerton, which I think still
is a teacher training college in Cambridge, but I left
(14:45):
after a term or so, so I never They call
it matriculation when you become part of the university, but
I never did that, so I was never part of
the university.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And I left because I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
And then went off to the town of Cambridge and
ended up working as a cleaner there for years. And
I had a bicycle has the same major to everyone else.
Nobody questioned me, and I went cycled around, went to
lectures of people. So I went to an architecture lecture,
went to an EU law lecture with when I was
totally in desperate, in love with Ed and just trying.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
To you were being an actor. Nigella last and a
friend of mine, you know, she worked as a cleaner
in hotels and Florence, and she said it was the
most revealing you could have, particularly in the hotel the
way people left their rooms or so you did that
(15:39):
for her.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Long, Yeah, a couple of years, and then did a
secretarial course. That was my mum's suggestion that if you're
going to be an actor, you need something for it.
So you knew then that this is by then. Yeah,
I had done in Cambridge. There's about thirty drama societies
and I would just cycle aandaled it. I did my
shift cycle and auditioning things don't play his learning lines,
(16:02):
going back, cleaning all the loose and chasing head around.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, it was your husband to be was a student Cambridge.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yes he was.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
He's proper clever and he was there doing it properly.
What does he do He was doing law then, but
he's a writer.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
And then we went off to Bristol of Vic Drama
School together and then we sort of you know, the
food is love thing. We went to Thai restaurants and
discovered new food together and there's Aai restaurant in Cambridge
and it was so delicious we took it back with us.
We asked its the first of a time I've asked
for a doggie bag. And I didn't want to leave
(16:40):
any of it, and we left it on his window,
still outside, putting arms out the.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Window and going, oh my god, it's amazing. The lemon
grass and the coconut.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Milcolm so Cambridge and then you started acting more and
more and he went to Bristol. Yeah, and when you
actually then started working in the theater, that must have
absolutely your way of eating. Did it give you a
routine or did it give you restrictions some what you
could have?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
And well, once we left Bristol and we were working,
you know, trying to earn our keep as actors. I
did my first few plays and things. I think I
ate quite late after the show because it was sort
of on a high. Certainly wanted to have a drink afterwards.
When I worked at the Noel Coward Theater right next
to Shiky's with Amy Morgan and Phoebe Wallerbridge, the three
(17:29):
of us would sort of go to Cheeky's afterwards and
sit outside and I think we all smoked then, and
we would order the little croquettes and the Scarlett Burgers.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Oh, and that was a true and just drink. This
would have been.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
After Iron Lady, except when I first met Phoebe, which
is Meryl Street playing Margaret Thatcher.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
So a couple of years after that, three years after that.
I don't know, I'm so bad.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
With but you can remember what you ate, you can
always Yes, Yeah, loves food, she does.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
And it's really annoying that she's so tall and lean
and she loves eating.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It's annoying. It's annoying. I will, I will. But sure
you were eating out, so when you because it's you know, picnics.
Would you eat before if you were in a martine
would you.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
We'd sometimes have a picnic on the floor of one
of our dressing rooms, so go to you know, get
sort of little little cheeses and meats and pretend you're
having a normal life and not going back on stage.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
There are men involved as well.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Was it most of the female It was mostly just
the three of our girls, and we'd have a kip.
We'd sort of put we had some roll out mattresses
that we could put on the floor and we'd have
a snooze and eat nice food and then do the matinee.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Do you think that it binds you together food? When
you when you go on a set and you know
that you're meeting you know, I don't know if the
all the other actors were friends of yours before, but
does it something that holds you all?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Before COVID happened, everyone would eat together on the dining
bus and I loved that you were eating with the
crew and what did you go for? What you go for,
and having a lovely time together, so social, and then
time to sort of all be equal and to let
your head down. And then now the dining bus hasn't
really come back, and so people sort of eat separately,
(19:26):
and that's such a shame, and you sort of sit
on your own in your little van. And I missed
that very much, and hopefully we'll come back. But also
sometimes you know, some actors are having to have a
particularly strict diet because they've got to look a certain way,
and that's sort of awful, and you try and hide
the pudding option that you went for.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
How does weight and physical appearance with food, How does
it affect your work? I was just talking to someone
who's coming to London to be in a movie, and
his assistant said to me that he has a nutritionist
and a trainer because he's on a very special diet
for the film. And I thought, well, that'd be interesting.
I'd like to know about that because maybe I could
(20:10):
go on that without the nutritionist. And it turned out
that he was actually eating eight thousand calories a day
because I had to gain so much weight. It was
completely and I just was wondering how that, you know,
when you were a princess, when you.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
When you okay queen and I had to put on weight.
You had to put on about two stone, did you?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
And how did you do that?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I mean, that's easy.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, you didn't need a nutritionist in my seat.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
But you know, and Rachel and and Emily Emma are
very healthy, clean eaters anyway. They love food, but it's
sort of clean food, so well, they had their healthy options.
I would say, I have one of everything and all
of the puddings, and if you don't want that, I'll
have that. It started actually to be little bit quite
(21:01):
quite gloomy. I thought, God, what fun being told to
put on weight? But I can put all my quite quickly,
and so it starts to feel, oh, yeah, I don't know,
you want another pizza or another I'm going to have
to take it all off at the end, you know,
And how did you take it off? Just see it
old fashioned eating a lot less and trying to move more.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
But it was boring and hard, and she loved to eat.
Was yeah she was. I mean she did.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Was it fifteen pregnancies she'd had seventeen or maybe when
I watched the film against and she lost, she'd lost
seventeen babies.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Her eldest one had lasted to had got to ten
years old, so they had varying degrees of ages. But
I think food for her was she was apparently clinically
obese and and.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, you eat comfort food.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
And what I playing the queen and the was she
very different?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
And she was tiny, so I did have to She
had a tiny waist and I don't have a tiny waiste,
so I did.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
They were very sweet.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
They got me a trainer before I started, and then
thankfully by my second season she was a bit older
and didn't have such tiny waste, so I was about.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
A bit. Did you feel playing her and the research
into the live post war so completely restrictive and different
from what the voluptuous nurse and the time?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yes, so what was that like?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
What was your sense of food in the palace and
food in the monarchy and food for being Queen.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Well, I think when they had I mean, this is
you know, only stuff, but I remember from what we did.
But whenever there was there were people coming to visit,
sort of big must entertain the heads of state things,
it was all beautiful, lovely food. But because she'd remembered
rations and everything, Yeah, she was never irresponsible about too
much food. She ate quite sort of circumspect frugally, and
(23:05):
she did maintain and she was very healthy and outdoorsy,
and she maintained a sort of neat little figure which
doesn't come from copies amounts of food. So I think
she was quite conservative about pleasure.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I mean, yeah, it's interesting that you know what you
wonder what pleasure there was in Yeah, you know you
can see the kings of France and the childs and
wonder whether the British aristocracy had probably probably did you
know those country houses then yeah, you just wonder about
the palace, whether eating and food was fun. I hope so, yeah,
(23:41):
I hope they enjoy it how they enjoy it now.
I think with King Charles, I think that that family
probably is more interested in food because.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
The lovely organic vegetables and yeah, and for Miller's son
Tom Barker Bowls writes about food to cook book.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Hopefully they have to.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
I wonder if they go to restaurants.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
So I don't know. I think that's probably hard thing
to do, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Maybe do you cook at home? Is this passion for
food telling that you love to eat? But yeah, that's
fair enough. I'm a very good guest.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
When I first left home, my mom gave me a
Delia Smith sort of complete, which was amazing.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
And you know, I think she's good, really, I do.
She was in the restaurant that long ago, really, and
I thought she really taught a generation to cook.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
All those lovely sort of staples. I learned that from
from her recipe book. So your mom gave you this book?
And yeah, and so I loved cooking for my two flatmates,
Debbie and Olivia, and that was the only cookbook we had,
and we would I loved it. Also, I started to
enjoy going to the shop and going to buy because
(25:02):
we want such a tight budget. We'd picture meals and
buy for the meals, not just you know, anything off
the shelf.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Fancy that. And I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
And I enjoyed and sometimes it was just a jacket
of potato with loads of butter and cheese. But I
really enjoyed the us all eating together and you know,
feeding each other. So you have three children and you
work and sometimes you don't. Yeah, it can be home
or you have do have to shop.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
So what is like? You told us what food was
like in your parents and your grandparents. If I were
to knock on the door, what is food like if
you were to knock on the.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Door that, Yeah, you should, because now we have I
still struggle with saying because I feel a bit it's
still of embarrassed. But we have a really lovely nanny
now I know, because we certainly both started working much more.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
She's an incredible cook.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Are they coming there? Yeah, you should, and you'll sit
down to dinner.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
We always sit together and eat.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Yeah when we sometimes the kids are doing late things
at school and we have we do a Sunday roast
every Sunday.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
We're so boring.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
And do you take them on holidays and food holidays?
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, we took the kids to sort of holiday of
a lifetime to Sri Lanka just before lockdown and just
ate the most incredible food three times a day, curry
three times a day.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, what was that?
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Because we traveled around with the kids, and our two
eldest are really adventurous.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
They've always we've we've always.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Included them with all the food we have, and when
we have curry, we always make one that's slightly less spicy,
and they sort of they love it now and the
boys love spice. And so when we were traveling around,
our little one really wasn't wasn't thrilled, but she was
only four at the time. So she ate plain pasta
wherever we were plain rise and we would have egg
(27:01):
hoppers and the string hoppers for breakfast, and the dolls
and the coconuts, sambal and all these beautiful things we
would eat and they loved it as well.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
It does tell you about a country, doesn't it. Yell,
that's growing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Our middle boy, he's he became obsessed with Japan when
he was very little, and he did a sushi course
and he makes beautiful sushi and ramen.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
He does three day ramen. It does take yeah days,
it makes days.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And actually Ed is taking the two boys for a
cookery course when they before our eldest goes to university.
So they're doing a little week together little boys week
learning to cook.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Do you feel when you're away and you're working, do
you feel that your work takes you away from some
people you love? And well, you know, how does that work?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Ed and I have been together thirty years, and up
until COVID, i'd only ever been away. The longest I've
been away was two weeks, because I just don't take
jobs away from home.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Okay, let's stuck there. So then you you think about
accepting a movie or yeah, a player or something that
will keep you away from home.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, I just I get terribly homesick. I never used
to be able to sleep very well if ED wasn't there,
And now I think we're probably you know, I'm at
an age where sleep is harder anyway, So actually it's quite.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
You go a night away, Yeah, I'll, I'll get a
great night sleep.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
But I also I missed the kids, you know, I
wanted to be there, and so I was very lucky
that I had the option of great work in the
UK and I didn't have to go away and then well.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Lost or cha. I was going to say it was
that six weeks.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Six weeks.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
So Sunny went from the six sixth way, which is
I think why we all behave so badly because we
all adored each other, got on so well, got hey,
we're here, we're in a beautiful place.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Did the kids come out?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
No, because weren't allud you because if they came, they'd
have to quarantine before point, so we'd all meet up.
We were each other's family, and I know dag Mara
was really missing her family, and I really understood that feeling.
So I said, you'll be back on the school run
before you know it. And they don't know that you're
miserable or happy, so just go for happy.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
And men aren't nil who are in the same actors
feel that way as well. Do you think they know
that their wife is home with the kids, and it's all.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I've always struggled with this male female thing. I think ideally,
if you're all brought up the same, you are the same.
It's only conditioning that makes sisting male female. So all
the men I know and love struggle with being away
from home and they miss, you know, the ones I'm
not that impressed by have a ball. But I think
(29:47):
that's the same with some women as well. You know,
love being away. It's I don't think it's a gender thing.
I think it's a conditioning thing. But people get shut
down by different No.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
No, people ask me if women chefs could differently from
male shops, and I always try and avoid that. They
really want you to say that women cook with more
care or more sensitivity and men are a bit more
and it's not true.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
And it's not fair to the men that we all
know love and I know plenty of really uncaring women
and plenty of incredibly emotional, you know, kind men.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
And now you're doing a movie about chocolate. Is that right?
Oh god, yeah, I had to talk about that will
they won't get and the chocolate. So what was that
like in terms of chocolate?
Speaker 3 (30:30):
And oh they had a chocolate here, But when I
went to have for fittings and things, they said, come
and look at what this chocolate has made for us.
And these chocolates were exquisite, and he said you can
eat them all. I mean often, if it's going to
be a prop why bother maker, But that he was
so such a master. He insisted that it had to
(30:50):
taste beautiful, what sort of caramel?
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Incredible?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
And they were brightly colored and amazing shapes, and every
one of them you could have eaten, and it would
have been incredible.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I wish the audience could see your smile, because every
time you talk about food, your face lights up, and
you know, you sort of remember the things that you ate,
places that you've eaten.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
And the first time I had truffle.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Yeah, a white ruffle. Oh, just any truffle. Any, And
now we have we have a little job with truffle,
and every now and then, yeah, overscrumbled eagle, yeah on
a Russian pasta.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
You know, food is love, and food is alleviating hunger,
and food is curiosity or traveling or discovering. Food is
also comfort, and I was wondering if there's a food
that you would turn to, something you'd either make or buy.
Olivia Coleman, wonderful person that you are, and I hope
you don't need comfort very often because you give such joy.
(31:48):
I mean when you came in the restaurant today, We've
had all sorts of people come in and they're great.
They're politicians or you know, actors or writers or doctors
or whatever, and you just I could just see everybody
look up and be so happy you were there, really
happy that you were there. It was really great to see,
and of course I joined them and saying thank you
(32:11):
so much, so would you come back again? Yeah, okay,
we'll do it more. And meanwhile, will you tell me
and tell I was ever listening, what would be the
comfort food you turn to?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
My comfort food is sort of a one spoon thing
and it's tarcodile.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I could eat that all day, every day. Okay, tacodile.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Tell me?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Can you just tell people who might not know what
it is?
Speaker 3 (32:37):
So it's a lentils which are soft, and there's garlic,
and I think the tadca is the tempered thing on
the top. I've never made it, but I am a
connoisseur of eating it. Yeah, and it is my favorite
thing I always order. If we have a takeaway or delivery,
(32:57):
I order much more tarcodile than we need, so I
can have it cold for breakfast. I'll have it read
it again for lunch next day. I just love it.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I could eat it. I'm going to try that love it.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I was surprised because I'm sure you're going to say
toast and butter.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
I'm sorry, Yeah, don't be sorry, but.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
I will come and have that talcodile knock on your
door and thank you so God, thank you having me.
And now you're going to go and have food. I'm
go have lunch and you can eat and eat and eat. Oh,
thank you, thank you so much. Hi, it's Ruthie Rogers
(33:40):
and I'm so excited to announce that we have a
new book. Squeeze Me has forty seven delicious lemon recipes
from the River Cafe, Beautiful art by Ed Bouchet and
words by Heather Eyes. Pre Order now.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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