May 17, 2022 • 26 mins
This episode features the model and actor Caitriona Balfe, who plays (ma) in the Oscar Award Winning movie, Belfast and Claire in the hit TV show, Outlander. After Caitriona’s story we have a coffee and a conversation about things like ambition, low self-esteem and the value of taking risks and stepping into the unknown.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Growing up in Belfast at the tail end of the
troubles is something I've always found quite difficult to describe.
There were bomb scares, people getting shot, and murals painted
all over town saying things like prepared for peace, ready
for war, or a quote from Nelson Mandela saying in
my country, we go to prison first, then become president.
(00:27):
On the weekends, I'd either be in a fight or
watch him one. And for the last two years of
secondary school I carried Harry the hammer in my left
busser pocket and Sally the screw driver in my right pocket.
These were for protection because one night I got in
a scrap with the wrong gang and I was told
they were coming for me and that I should watch
my back. A couple of years later, an opportunity came
(00:50):
up to paint Hoigses with the body in America. I
didn't think twice. Painting Highs has quickly turned into hanging
with a religious cult in South Carolina and him music
all over the South almost every night of the week,
And with the luck of the Irish and a lot
of hard work, my band got signed to Columbia Records.
Life picked me up like a hurricane and years went
(01:12):
by in the blink of an eye, but I never
lost my pining for home. The movie Belfast did a
wonderful job of bringing me back to the city. I
grew up in the back alleys, the banter, the two up,
two down houses and the troubles. But the sentiment that
especially struck a chord with me and would bring a
(01:34):
tear to a glass eye. That was how the family
knew that if they wanted more opportunity, that have to
leave their home. This is the unimaginable. I'm your host
and musician James Brown. This episode features the model and
actor Trina balf who plays Ma in the Oscar Award
(01:54):
winning movie Belfast and Claire in the hip TV show
out Lander. After Katrina story, we have a coffee and
a conversation about things like ambition, low self esteem and
the value have taken risks. I grew up outside of
(02:25):
a small town called Monahan, right on the border of
Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, and I'm part of a
very big family. I'm number four out of five children,
but then I have a foster sister and a foster brother,
so really i'm four out of seven kids. I went
to a very small primary school. Um there was I
(02:46):
think nine in my year, and I think at the
time I was there, um there was about d and
five in the entire school. But it was one of
those places, you know, for some reason, especially in my year,
that was a really toxic culture of bullying. You know,
a lot of the time I would have been the
recipient of that. I think it was it was very
(03:08):
much in those years that it's sort of solidified a
desire in me to get out of there and leave
and travel and see the world. I think something like
that gives you through this fire within you, you definitely
want to sort of prove something, whether it's to yourself
or to other people, that you're going to make something
of yourself. So it's in secondary school when we started
(03:31):
or when I started doing a lot more school plays.
And the one that is most memorable is I did
a play about Anne Frank and I got to play
and I remember having to do like the accent and
um working a lot on that, and it actually was
(03:51):
the first time I think I felt like I was
doing a character or trying to change myself to drastically
to be a character. And that was the first time
I was like, oh, yeah, okay, this is this is
what I want to do. So at the end of
secondary school, I went to college in Dublin to study
(04:12):
drama and and I remember talking to my parents about
the fact that I was going to study drama instead
of something, you know, like journalism or something more serious,
which is what I think they wanted me to do,
and they weren't on board, or they weren't I don't
think they were very excited about the idea. But I
(04:33):
remember telling them, well, it's speech and drama, so at least,
you know, I'll come out of this with a qualification
that allows me to teach if things go wrong. And
then at the end of my first year of that course,
my attendance record wasn't the best, so um, I think
I had to repeat an exam because I was in
danger of flunking. And you know I was. I think
(04:55):
I was just loving being free and living life away
from my strict parents in Dublin. And at the end
of that year, a model scout found me. I suppose
as the word or I got scouted by model agent
and offered me to start modeling part time, which was
fun and it was a way for me to earn
some money. Um. During that summer, a scout came over
(05:17):
from Paris and offered to take me to Paris. You know,
whatever about the modeling side of it, but that offered
to go to this you know, foreign city, which was,
you know, in my head, just so romantic and had
all of these beautiful stories about it. Um, that was
just so exciting to me. And I remember having to
(05:40):
go home to my mother and father and say, um, yeah,
so I'm taking a year out of college and I'm
going to go to Paris, and um, you know, not
gonna be an actress anymore. I'm going to be a model.
So I think they were slightly disappointed. I lived there
on and offer two years years. But when I first
(06:01):
went to this was sort of the height of the
Brazilian phenomena. So it was all Gazelle and those girls
and these Brazilian bombshells, which I did not look like.
You know, initially, I wasn't working a huge amount. I
was very pasty, pale, Irish, and I had met this
Irish guy and we decided we'd go traveling. I took
some time off, so when I went back to modeling,
(06:25):
you know, I think always in the back of my head.
I was like, well, I'll just do this for another
few years, or I'll just do this for another little
while and I'll go back to being an actor. And
it's funny. It's one of those things that years just
sometimes fly by without you noticing, and it's a funny
world once you are sort of in it. It's a
very insular bubble in a way, and I think you
(06:47):
can get very lost in that. I think a lot
of people have this perception of models as these very
stuck up, overly confident young women who are just super privileged.
But you know, my experience is very very different to that.
You know, I think at least for me. You know,
(07:08):
it's a very lonely business. I think it can be
very tough on your confidence and your self esteem. When
I was sort of doing it for about seven eight years,
I was like, Okay, I've got to figure my way
out of this. And I was just really hungry to
get back to acting or to see if it was
still something that you know, I was passionate about it,
(07:30):
or that I would love as much as I used to.
And I was really scared that if I didn't try
and you know, at least give it a shot that
i'd be you know, that I would regret not following
a dream for the rest of my life. So yeah,
So I suppose after ten years, I left and I
moved to l A. So then I was given an
(07:53):
audition for a role of Claire from a book series
of Outlander. Generally, when you do an audition, um, at
least when you're starting out, which is what I was doing, UM,
you're only really given you know, two scenes or something
like that and maybe three or four sentence logline. That's
(08:15):
what's kind of hard when you are auditioning in the
beginning because you don't really have a good sense of
what the character is. But you know, for this role,
having been told about the book and getting to read it,
you know, all of a sudden, I was privy to
her internal monologue, to the whole sort of breath of
(08:37):
her journey, and you know, you've got the sense of
just what an amazing character she was. She had this
fire in her belly, she was gutsy, she was fearless,
and she just had this real lust for life and
this deep passion for living and also for justice, which
is the stuff that at least whether I have it
(08:57):
in my life or not. It's definitely the stuff that
I strive for. After season one, we had a long
hiatus before season two, so I was lucky enough to
film Money Monster in New York. It was really an
amazing experience. Even though Outlander was doing really well, in
some ways, you're kind of like, oh, you're now in
a successful show, You're still not really on the lists
(09:21):
of all the best projects. And I think a lot
of the time, your greatest gift or your greatest power
at that point in your career is saying no and
steady yes. Then between seasons four and five, Forward Versus
Ferrari came up, which, first of all, I love a
good sports movie. Uh. Second of all, I love car racing. Um,
(09:44):
there's really amazing people involved, you know, Christian Bale, Matt Damon,
john burnsall Tracy Letts, and it was James Mangold. You know,
it was just it was one of those kind of
dream roles and even though it wasn't a huge role,
she had enough in her and it was like enough
good things to sort of sink your teeth into. That
was really fun. So then after season five a film
(10:06):
came along, which I wouldn't have been able to do,
except that because of COVID, production had been pushed on Outlander,
and that was Belfast. I guess it's it's one of
those gifts that come along very rarely, and I hope
I've not been absolutely spoiled now and it's going to
be hard to to top a film like this. But
(10:30):
it's a story from home. Um, even though I'm not
from Belfast, it's very close to where I grew up.
That's coming of age story really, but it also has
the troubles in the background, and they were in the
background my entire childhood, so it's stuff that I could
really relate to. This beautiful film came when when I
(10:51):
wasn't really expecting to be able to do anything. I think,
you know, when I look back, I suppose in some
way my moss has been like, I'll bucket, let's just
do it. If you're open to opportunities, you know, if
somebody says, do you do you want to go to
Paris next week? I've always been like, yeah, why not, Like,
let's let's give it a shot. You want to go
(11:13):
to New York, Sure, I'll do that. And even though
a lot of the times that's been quite scary. I
think I've benefited so much from just that part of
me that's always been sort of willing to step into
the unknown. You know. I'm definitely somebody that believes in
the part that luck has to play in life. I
(11:35):
think I've definitely been a recipient of a lot of luck,
but I also think I've been open to it, and
I think I've also backed that up with hard work
and anytime I have been given an opportunity, I think
I I work really hard and I don't take it
for granted. You know. One of the differences I I've
(11:57):
seen about people who make it in this business, and
maybe this is true for other things as well, but
one of the things is that it's just the doing.
You know. I think a lot of people they self sabotage,
or they hinder themselves, or they hold themselves back because
(12:18):
of fear or insecurity. You know, they sort of feel
like they don't know enough or they don't have the
skills enough to do something. But you know, very often
you'll you'll meet people who don't have those skills or
they don't know but they just go ahead and they
do it, and you're going to learn on the job. Anyway,
(12:38):
you're going to learn by failing. So you just have
to go for it, because I think if you're waiting
to have everything in the perfect order, or you know,
having all the classes done or all of these things
in place before you go and do the thing, um,
the opportunities will have passed you by by that point.
(13:07):
What did your parents do for a living? My dad
is retired. He was a police sergeant or as we
call them back home, garden she a conna. What does
that mean? Guard? She a connor part? I know that
guard guards like obvious, isn't it something? An't I think
it's like guardians of the piece, something like that. I
think I could be wrong. I'm going to check that out.
(13:30):
And my mom was the stay at home mom for
most of our childhood, and then she was also a
marriage counselor a marriage counselor she had to talk to
you guys, I will not be how my mother um
and you mentioned that they had you had a couple
of foster siblings. How did your parents end up getting
(13:52):
involved in fostering children? So? I think when I was
about six or seven, I don't know exactly who I mean.
I think it was the local social workers just were
asking or canvassing the community trying to find families because
they really needed families to take people to take kids in.
(14:12):
And my parents were asked and I don't know, you know,
this is something I should probably sit down and ask them,
But I don't know how much discussion there was. I
don't know how much they thought about it. My parents
are really they're big hearted people. I don't think they
necessarily thought it through so much. Having siblings are in
(14:34):
a non traditional way that are like foster siblings. How
did that affect your perspective, like your world perspective, Like
looking back, do you think that it did have any
effect on you at all, because like, I just don't
know what it would be like to to kind of
grow up in that environment. Well, I think, you know,
being really young, the first couple of kids that we
(14:56):
were that were housed with us, you know, the first baby,
we pay her up from the hospital and we had
her for nine months and then she was adopted. That
was really hard because you have this baby and she's
with you for nine months and then she's gone and
you never see her, hear from her again. And we
did that again where we picked up a little boy
(15:18):
from hospital and we had him for two years, but
then his mom got custody back, so he sort of
came in and out of our lives. But I think
as a young person seeing all of that, I think
it teaches you a lot about other people's circumstances. I
like to think that that's what I took away from
(15:40):
all of that, that you sort of have a a
greater capacity for empathy and understanding other people because you know,
you're not just getting the sort of view of your
own traditional family. You know, you understand a bit more
about Okay, well, some families are broken and people aren't
always as fortunate as you are, and you know, And
(16:02):
I think that's also something when you grow up in
a place where there's conflict, or you're adjacent to conflict
like we were, you do have a different understanding of
the complexities of life, as opposed to if you grew
up somewhere that was very sheltered, where you know, everyone
has a white pike offense and nothing bad happens, you know,
(16:24):
Like I remember remember having conversations with my friend Sandra
where you're debating pretty heavy stuff as kids because you're
trying to understand the world around you and what's happening
and why people are you know, blowing each other up?
And why people are you know, separated, and what is
religion and why is religion separating us? And I don't know.
(16:45):
I mean, look, it's hard to understand what what your
life would have been without the circumstances of your life,
right because you only know that. Yeah, but I have
to imagine that those things shaped me. Yeah, shaped to
me very deeply. And I would have to say, did
any of your other siblings end up doing anything in
the hearts? In the arts? No? No, I am I
(17:10):
am the black sheep of the family. Your folks are
probably pretty proud of you, but I think there was
a time where they might not have been so happy
with your decision making, with like leaving college. What do
they think of you know, whenever they see you on
TV and films and getting awards? Do they do they
still think that you should have you know, gone down
the traditional path or or are they you know, are
(17:32):
they have they kind of backpedaled a little bit. I
think at this point they are proud. I think that's
probably quite recent. You know, it's hard to know. My
parents are not very effusive they're they're quite stoic, and
I think all of my siblings we've all done pretty
(17:54):
all right in our various different fields. So I like
that my parents aren't super enamored by the entertainment business
and they don't kind of like get sort of so
they don't go to the movies, but I like that
they don't get sort of swept away with the whole thing,
and like, yeah, it's kind of nice that they don't change.
(18:17):
But they also as recently they went on TV themselves,
so like, what do they talk about you? Yeah, they
talked about me. I still haven't watched it, but they
didn't tell me until after they've done it. It's hilarious. Yes,
So they the self esteem thing, like there was obviously
(18:39):
you had the kind of confidence of somebody that you
would think didn't have any self esteem problems because you
would just jump on a flight and go to Paris
and are jumping an opportunity to go to New York.
Do the two things have anything in common? I think
in some ways my way of getting away from myself
(18:59):
is also being really busy and doing other things and
not having to like think about what I'm doing. And
I would also say my excitement for adventure is probably
stronger than my worry about what I'm actually going to
do once I get there. It's one thing like I
(19:21):
would find myself in situations where I would just have
been like, yeah, like I'll go to Paris, and then
that first time I remember then you've just given instructions
about get a boss, get off of this street, go
to this house or this doore number, and the entire
time you're just filled with absolute self clothing and fear
because you're like, what the funk am I doing? Why
(19:42):
did I put myself in this situation? I don't know
where I am, I don't know what I'm doing. You
know what was I thinking? So I think I always
jump first and then think about it later. Have you
ever looked back at your low self esteem? And I
(20:02):
thought about where that came from. Yeah, as a child
being bullied like that sort of that kind of experiencing
that kind of loneliness, Like that's one thing I really
remember strongly, like it used to be the thing that
filled me with the biggest dread as well, was this
(20:23):
idea of loneliness in my future too. But that's something
I think when you feel that as a kid, it
can have a really lasting impact on you. And I
think that's also why I'm such a social person and
I like to have people around. And but I definitely
think with age, I've learned to appreciate my own company
a lot more. I value my own time now. I'm
(20:46):
still a fun slot. But I don't know. I think, yeah,
I spent quite a bit of time in therapy when
I was in my early thirties, when I first came
to l A, because I think that was also a
time of huge reckoning for myself, trying to figure out
how i'd sort of gotten to where I was at,
(21:08):
starting a whole new thing and knowing that I didn't
have all of the tools. And I think if I
hadn't gone into therapy at that point, I don't know
that I would have been able to kind of get
through those lean years and look after myself. I think
you said a couple of times that you've always had
(21:29):
this propensity to make something of yourself or do something
that's really worthwhile. Where did that come from? Where was that?
Where was that drive coming from? I don't know. I
mean maybe the same place I think very often, you know,
when we're hurt and we feel small, Our biggest desire
(21:49):
is to sort of feel big, and a lot of
the time, Yeah, you're your ego is what masks your insecurity.
So whether or not that was the genesis of it,
I'd like to think now, I hope I don't sort
of have that drive from a place of ego. I
think hopefully now it's more about a a desire to
(22:12):
like do good work and all of those things. But
I'm sure there's some of that still tied in there. Yeah.
I think our egos are there to help us throughout
different stages of our lives. Like for for that, it
could be helping you succeed, you know, and then as
you succeed, um, it can more for change into something else,
you know. Yeah, I think there's definitely healthy ego and
(22:33):
very unhealthy ego. I have a friend, she's an artist,
and she talks about quite often that when she's doing
a piece and if she gets doubtful, if she starts
to sort of second guess herself, she almost imagines that
there's this like male artist in her head who just
doesn't give a ship, and that's the that's what helps
her drive through and push through an idea. And I think, Yeah,
(22:55):
there's definitely a part of that where you know, and
it goes back to talking about people who just do
I'm someone who procrastinates hugely. It's my thing that I've
hate about myself the most, and I'm trying to learn
to just do things more, you know, not to worry
about whether I feel like I don't have everything sort
(23:16):
of in order and you know, or whether I'm not
I don't have the experience or I haven't done it
before and it's just like no, you just have to
do it. Dose of healthy ego helps with that's I
don't know. Yeah, it's been something I've thought about a lot.
Like a therapist that I've been to see which has
been really helpful for me. One of the things he
talks about with the ego is like, you know, it's
(23:38):
like you have the ability as a human to take
control over what's going on inside your body and your head,
your soul, your spirit um you know, And a lot
of times I think people misunderstand their ego because it's
it's usually coming from a place of well, it's something's
happened in your life and lie, you've got this thing
(23:59):
that you're scared it over that you really don't want
that to happen against and I you know, you develop
an attitude or you develop a way of coping with that,
which one thing that I've been really interested in is
is trying to take control of those things that happened
to us and face them and move through them. And
in your case it really is because you know, you've
really gone out there and done things and taking those
(24:21):
risks and not being held back by your previous experiences
in life, whatever they may be. You know, one thing
about when I was a kid, there was no real
example of people locally that had become actors, had done
(24:44):
the thing that I wanted to do, And that was
sort of what was really hard. It was sort of
like how do I get out of this place? How
do I become what I want to become? But I
think sometimes when you're pushed like that or you you
feel sort of okay, like the world is against you
in a way, that was what, in some ways like
(25:08):
solidified this desire within me to kind of I don't know,
prove it to myself or prove it to other people,
but you know that I was going to I was
gonna sort of get out there and make something of myself.
There's two obvious sliding doors moments in katrina story. One
(25:34):
was the choice to quit university and become a model,
and the other was moved into l a to pursue
her dream of becoming an actor. It's hard to imagine
what her life would look like actually not followed her dreams.
I think what's unimaginable about people who aren't held back
by fear or insecurity is the world of possibility in
their future. When an opportunity comes your way and you
(25:58):
know when you're guts some thing you'd love to do,
remember not to procrastinate for too long, because that's when
fear creeps in, and by that time it may be
too late. You've just listened to the unimaginable. I'm your host,
James Brown. Until next time.
Growing up in Belfast at the tail end of the
troubles is something I've always found quite difficult to describe.
There were bomb scares, people getting shot, and murals painted
all over town saying things like prepared for peace, ready
for war, or a quote from Nelson Mandela saying in
my country, we go to prison first, then become president.
(00:27):
On the weekends, I'd either be in a fight or
watch him one. And for the last two years of
secondary school I carried Harry the hammer in my left
busser pocket and Sally the screw driver in my right pocket.
These were for protection because one night I got in
a scrap with the wrong gang and I was told
they were coming for me and that I should watch
my back. A couple of years later, an opportunity came
(00:50):
up to paint Hoigses with the body in America. I
didn't think twice. Painting Highs has quickly turned into hanging
with a religious cult in South Carolina and him music
all over the South almost every night of the week,
And with the luck of the Irish and a lot
of hard work, my band got signed to Columbia Records.
Life picked me up like a hurricane and years went
(01:12):
by in the blink of an eye, but I never
lost my pining for home. The movie Belfast did a
wonderful job of bringing me back to the city. I
grew up in the back alleys, the banter, the two up,
two down houses and the troubles. But the sentiment that
especially struck a chord with me and would bring a
(01:34):
tear to a glass eye. That was how the family
knew that if they wanted more opportunity, that have to
leave their home. This is the unimaginable. I'm your host
and musician James Brown. This episode features the model and
actor Trina balf who plays Ma in the Oscar Award
(01:54):
winning movie Belfast and Claire in the hip TV show
out Lander. After Katrina story, we have a coffee and
a conversation about things like ambition, low self esteem and
the value have taken risks. I grew up outside of
(02:25):
a small town called Monahan, right on the border of
Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, and I'm part of a
very big family. I'm number four out of five children,
but then I have a foster sister and a foster brother,
so really i'm four out of seven kids. I went
to a very small primary school. Um there was I
(02:46):
think nine in my year, and I think at the
time I was there, um there was about d and
five in the entire school. But it was one of
those places, you know, for some reason, especially in my year,
that was a really toxic culture of bullying. You know,
a lot of the time I would have been the
recipient of that. I think it was it was very
(03:08):
much in those years that it's sort of solidified a
desire in me to get out of there and leave
and travel and see the world. I think something like
that gives you through this fire within you, you definitely
want to sort of prove something, whether it's to yourself
or to other people, that you're going to make something
of yourself. So it's in secondary school when we started
(03:31):
or when I started doing a lot more school plays.
And the one that is most memorable is I did
a play about Anne Frank and I got to play
and I remember having to do like the accent and
um working a lot on that, and it actually was
(03:51):
the first time I think I felt like I was
doing a character or trying to change myself to drastically
to be a character. And that was the first time
I was like, oh, yeah, okay, this is this is
what I want to do. So at the end of
secondary school, I went to college in Dublin to study
(04:12):
drama and and I remember talking to my parents about
the fact that I was going to study drama instead
of something, you know, like journalism or something more serious,
which is what I think they wanted me to do,
and they weren't on board, or they weren't I don't
think they were very excited about the idea. But I
(04:33):
remember telling them, well, it's speech and drama, so at least,
you know, I'll come out of this with a qualification
that allows me to teach if things go wrong. And
then at the end of my first year of that course,
my attendance record wasn't the best, so um, I think
I had to repeat an exam because I was in
danger of flunking. And you know I was. I think
(04:55):
I was just loving being free and living life away
from my strict parents in Dublin. And at the end
of that year, a model scout found me. I suppose
as the word or I got scouted by model agent
and offered me to start modeling part time, which was
fun and it was a way for me to earn
some money. Um. During that summer, a scout came over
(05:17):
from Paris and offered to take me to Paris. You know,
whatever about the modeling side of it, but that offered
to go to this you know, foreign city, which was,
you know, in my head, just so romantic and had
all of these beautiful stories about it. Um, that was
just so exciting to me. And I remember having to
(05:40):
go home to my mother and father and say, um, yeah,
so I'm taking a year out of college and I'm
going to go to Paris, and um, you know, not
gonna be an actress anymore. I'm going to be a model.
So I think they were slightly disappointed. I lived there
on and offer two years years. But when I first
(06:01):
went to this was sort of the height of the
Brazilian phenomena. So it was all Gazelle and those girls
and these Brazilian bombshells, which I did not look like.
You know, initially, I wasn't working a huge amount. I
was very pasty, pale, Irish, and I had met this
Irish guy and we decided we'd go traveling. I took
some time off, so when I went back to modeling,
(06:25):
you know, I think always in the back of my head.
I was like, well, I'll just do this for another
few years, or I'll just do this for another little
while and I'll go back to being an actor. And
it's funny. It's one of those things that years just
sometimes fly by without you noticing, and it's a funny
world once you are sort of in it. It's a
very insular bubble in a way, and I think you
(06:47):
can get very lost in that. I think a lot
of people have this perception of models as these very
stuck up, overly confident young women who are just super privileged.
But you know, my experience is very very different to that.
You know, I think at least for me. You know,
(07:08):
it's a very lonely business. I think it can be
very tough on your confidence and your self esteem. When
I was sort of doing it for about seven eight years,
I was like, Okay, I've got to figure my way
out of this. And I was just really hungry to
get back to acting or to see if it was
still something that you know, I was passionate about it,
(07:30):
or that I would love as much as I used to.
And I was really scared that if I didn't try
and you know, at least give it a shot that
i'd be you know, that I would regret not following
a dream for the rest of my life. So yeah,
So I suppose after ten years, I left and I
moved to l A. So then I was given an
(07:53):
audition for a role of Claire from a book series
of Outlander. Generally, when you do an audition, um, at
least when you're starting out, which is what I was doing, UM,
you're only really given you know, two scenes or something
like that and maybe three or four sentence logline. That's
(08:15):
what's kind of hard when you are auditioning in the
beginning because you don't really have a good sense of
what the character is. But you know, for this role,
having been told about the book and getting to read it,
you know, all of a sudden, I was privy to
her internal monologue, to the whole sort of breath of
(08:37):
her journey, and you know, you've got the sense of
just what an amazing character she was. She had this
fire in her belly, she was gutsy, she was fearless,
and she just had this real lust for life and
this deep passion for living and also for justice, which
is the stuff that at least whether I have it
(08:57):
in my life or not. It's definitely the stuff that
I strive for. After season one, we had a long
hiatus before season two, so I was lucky enough to
film Money Monster in New York. It was really an
amazing experience. Even though Outlander was doing really well, in
some ways, you're kind of like, oh, you're now in
a successful show, You're still not really on the lists
(09:21):
of all the best projects. And I think a lot
of the time, your greatest gift or your greatest power
at that point in your career is saying no and
steady yes. Then between seasons four and five, Forward Versus
Ferrari came up, which, first of all, I love a
good sports movie. Uh. Second of all, I love car racing. Um,
(09:44):
there's really amazing people involved, you know, Christian Bale, Matt Damon,
john burnsall Tracy Letts, and it was James Mangold. You know,
it was just it was one of those kind of
dream roles and even though it wasn't a huge role,
she had enough in her and it was like enough
good things to sort of sink your teeth into. That
was really fun. So then after season five a film
(10:06):
came along, which I wouldn't have been able to do,
except that because of COVID, production had been pushed on Outlander,
and that was Belfast. I guess it's it's one of
those gifts that come along very rarely, and I hope
I've not been absolutely spoiled now and it's going to
be hard to to top a film like this. But
(10:30):
it's a story from home. Um, even though I'm not
from Belfast, it's very close to where I grew up.
That's coming of age story really, but it also has
the troubles in the background, and they were in the
background my entire childhood, so it's stuff that I could
really relate to. This beautiful film came when when I
(10:51):
wasn't really expecting to be able to do anything. I think,
you know, when I look back, I suppose in some
way my moss has been like, I'll bucket, let's just
do it. If you're open to opportunities, you know, if
somebody says, do you do you want to go to
Paris next week? I've always been like, yeah, why not, Like,
let's let's give it a shot. You want to go
(11:13):
to New York, Sure, I'll do that. And even though
a lot of the times that's been quite scary. I
think I've benefited so much from just that part of
me that's always been sort of willing to step into
the unknown. You know. I'm definitely somebody that believes in
the part that luck has to play in life. I
(11:35):
think I've definitely been a recipient of a lot of luck,
but I also think I've been open to it, and
I think I've also backed that up with hard work
and anytime I have been given an opportunity, I think
I I work really hard and I don't take it
for granted. You know. One of the differences I I've
(11:57):
seen about people who make it in this business, and
maybe this is true for other things as well, but
one of the things is that it's just the doing.
You know. I think a lot of people they self sabotage,
or they hinder themselves, or they hold themselves back because
(12:18):
of fear or insecurity. You know, they sort of feel
like they don't know enough or they don't have the
skills enough to do something. But you know, very often
you'll you'll meet people who don't have those skills or
they don't know but they just go ahead and they
do it, and you're going to learn on the job. Anyway,
(12:38):
you're going to learn by failing. So you just have
to go for it, because I think if you're waiting
to have everything in the perfect order, or you know,
having all the classes done or all of these things
in place before you go and do the thing, um,
the opportunities will have passed you by by that point.
(13:07):
What did your parents do for a living? My dad
is retired. He was a police sergeant or as we
call them back home, garden she a conna. What does
that mean? Guard? She a connor part? I know that
guard guards like obvious, isn't it something? An't I think
it's like guardians of the piece, something like that. I
think I could be wrong. I'm going to check that out.
(13:30):
And my mom was the stay at home mom for
most of our childhood, and then she was also a
marriage counselor a marriage counselor she had to talk to
you guys, I will not be how my mother um
and you mentioned that they had you had a couple
of foster siblings. How did your parents end up getting
(13:52):
involved in fostering children? So? I think when I was
about six or seven, I don't know exactly who I mean.
I think it was the local social workers just were
asking or canvassing the community trying to find families because
they really needed families to take people to take kids in.
(14:12):
And my parents were asked and I don't know, you know,
this is something I should probably sit down and ask them,
But I don't know how much discussion there was. I
don't know how much they thought about it. My parents
are really they're big hearted people. I don't think they
necessarily thought it through so much. Having siblings are in
(14:34):
a non traditional way that are like foster siblings. How
did that affect your perspective, like your world perspective, Like
looking back, do you think that it did have any
effect on you at all, because like, I just don't
know what it would be like to to kind of
grow up in that environment. Well, I think, you know,
being really young, the first couple of kids that we
(14:56):
were that were housed with us, you know, the first baby,
we pay her up from the hospital and we had
her for nine months and then she was adopted. That
was really hard because you have this baby and she's
with you for nine months and then she's gone and
you never see her, hear from her again. And we
did that again where we picked up a little boy
(15:18):
from hospital and we had him for two years, but
then his mom got custody back, so he sort of
came in and out of our lives. But I think
as a young person seeing all of that, I think
it teaches you a lot about other people's circumstances. I
like to think that that's what I took away from
(15:40):
all of that, that you sort of have a a
greater capacity for empathy and understanding other people because you know,
you're not just getting the sort of view of your
own traditional family. You know, you understand a bit more
about Okay, well, some families are broken and people aren't
always as fortunate as you are, and you know, And
(16:02):
I think that's also something when you grow up in
a place where there's conflict, or you're adjacent to conflict
like we were, you do have a different understanding of
the complexities of life, as opposed to if you grew
up somewhere that was very sheltered, where you know, everyone
has a white pike offense and nothing bad happens, you know,
(16:24):
Like I remember remember having conversations with my friend Sandra
where you're debating pretty heavy stuff as kids because you're
trying to understand the world around you and what's happening
and why people are you know, blowing each other up?
And why people are you know, separated, and what is
religion and why is religion separating us? And I don't know.
(16:45):
I mean, look, it's hard to understand what what your
life would have been without the circumstances of your life,
right because you only know that. Yeah, but I have
to imagine that those things shaped me. Yeah, shaped to
me very deeply. And I would have to say, did
any of your other siblings end up doing anything in
the hearts? In the arts? No? No, I am I
(17:10):
am the black sheep of the family. Your folks are
probably pretty proud of you, but I think there was
a time where they might not have been so happy
with your decision making, with like leaving college. What do
they think of you know, whenever they see you on
TV and films and getting awards? Do they do they
still think that you should have you know, gone down
the traditional path or or are they you know, are
(17:32):
they have they kind of backpedaled a little bit. I
think at this point they are proud. I think that's
probably quite recent. You know, it's hard to know. My
parents are not very effusive they're they're quite stoic, and
I think all of my siblings we've all done pretty
(17:54):
all right in our various different fields. So I like
that my parents aren't super enamored by the entertainment business
and they don't kind of like get sort of so
they don't go to the movies, but I like that
they don't get sort of swept away with the whole thing,
and like, yeah, it's kind of nice that they don't change.
(18:17):
But they also as recently they went on TV themselves,
so like, what do they talk about you? Yeah, they
talked about me. I still haven't watched it, but they
didn't tell me until after they've done it. It's hilarious. Yes,
So they the self esteem thing, like there was obviously
(18:39):
you had the kind of confidence of somebody that you
would think didn't have any self esteem problems because you
would just jump on a flight and go to Paris
and are jumping an opportunity to go to New York.
Do the two things have anything in common? I think
in some ways my way of getting away from myself
(18:59):
is also being really busy and doing other things and
not having to like think about what I'm doing. And
I would also say my excitement for adventure is probably
stronger than my worry about what I'm actually going to
do once I get there. It's one thing like I
(19:21):
would find myself in situations where I would just have
been like, yeah, like I'll go to Paris, and then
that first time I remember then you've just given instructions
about get a boss, get off of this street, go
to this house or this doore number, and the entire
time you're just filled with absolute self clothing and fear
because you're like, what the funk am I doing? Why
(19:42):
did I put myself in this situation? I don't know
where I am, I don't know what I'm doing. You
know what was I thinking? So I think I always
jump first and then think about it later. Have you
ever looked back at your low self esteem? And I
(20:02):
thought about where that came from. Yeah, as a child
being bullied like that sort of that kind of experiencing
that kind of loneliness, Like that's one thing I really
remember strongly, like it used to be the thing that
filled me with the biggest dread as well, was this
(20:23):
idea of loneliness in my future too. But that's something
I think when you feel that as a kid, it
can have a really lasting impact on you. And I
think that's also why I'm such a social person and
I like to have people around. And but I definitely
think with age, I've learned to appreciate my own company
a lot more. I value my own time now. I'm
(20:46):
still a fun slot. But I don't know. I think, yeah,
I spent quite a bit of time in therapy when
I was in my early thirties, when I first came
to l A, because I think that was also a
time of huge reckoning for myself, trying to figure out
how i'd sort of gotten to where I was at,
(21:08):
starting a whole new thing and knowing that I didn't
have all of the tools. And I think if I
hadn't gone into therapy at that point, I don't know
that I would have been able to kind of get
through those lean years and look after myself. I think
you said a couple of times that you've always had
(21:29):
this propensity to make something of yourself or do something
that's really worthwhile. Where did that come from? Where was that?
Where was that drive coming from? I don't know. I
mean maybe the same place I think very often, you know,
when we're hurt and we feel small, Our biggest desire
(21:49):
is to sort of feel big, and a lot of
the time, Yeah, you're your ego is what masks your insecurity.
So whether or not that was the genesis of it,
I'd like to think now, I hope I don't sort
of have that drive from a place of ego. I
think hopefully now it's more about a a desire to
(22:12):
like do good work and all of those things. But
I'm sure there's some of that still tied in there. Yeah.
I think our egos are there to help us throughout
different stages of our lives. Like for for that, it
could be helping you succeed, you know, and then as
you succeed, um, it can more for change into something else,
you know. Yeah, I think there's definitely healthy ego and
(22:33):
very unhealthy ego. I have a friend, she's an artist,
and she talks about quite often that when she's doing
a piece and if she gets doubtful, if she starts
to sort of second guess herself, she almost imagines that
there's this like male artist in her head who just
doesn't give a ship, and that's the that's what helps
her drive through and push through an idea. And I think, Yeah,
(22:55):
there's definitely a part of that where you know, and
it goes back to talking about people who just do
I'm someone who procrastinates hugely. It's my thing that I've
hate about myself the most, and I'm trying to learn
to just do things more, you know, not to worry
about whether I feel like I don't have everything sort
(23:16):
of in order and you know, or whether I'm not
I don't have the experience or I haven't done it
before and it's just like no, you just have to
do it. Dose of healthy ego helps with that's I
don't know. Yeah, it's been something I've thought about a lot.
Like a therapist that I've been to see which has
been really helpful for me. One of the things he
talks about with the ego is like, you know, it's
(23:38):
like you have the ability as a human to take
control over what's going on inside your body and your head,
your soul, your spirit um you know, And a lot
of times I think people misunderstand their ego because it's
it's usually coming from a place of well, it's something's
happened in your life and lie, you've got this thing
(23:59):
that you're scared it over that you really don't want
that to happen against and I you know, you develop
an attitude or you develop a way of coping with that,
which one thing that I've been really interested in is
is trying to take control of those things that happened
to us and face them and move through them. And
in your case it really is because you know, you've
really gone out there and done things and taking those
(24:21):
risks and not being held back by your previous experiences
in life, whatever they may be. You know, one thing
about when I was a kid, there was no real
example of people locally that had become actors, had done
(24:44):
the thing that I wanted to do, And that was
sort of what was really hard. It was sort of
like how do I get out of this place? How
do I become what I want to become? But I
think sometimes when you're pushed like that or you you
feel sort of okay, like the world is against you
in a way, that was what, in some ways like
(25:08):
solidified this desire within me to kind of I don't know,
prove it to myself or prove it to other people,
but you know that I was going to I was
gonna sort of get out there and make something of myself.
There's two obvious sliding doors moments in katrina story. One
(25:34):
was the choice to quit university and become a model,
and the other was moved into l a to pursue
her dream of becoming an actor. It's hard to imagine
what her life would look like actually not followed her dreams.
I think what's unimaginable about people who aren't held back
by fear or insecurity is the world of possibility in
their future. When an opportunity comes your way and you
(25:58):
know when you're guts some thing you'd love to do,
remember not to procrastinate for too long, because that's when
fear creeps in, and by that time it may be
too late. You've just listened to the unimaginable. I'm your host,
James Brown. Until next time.
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