August 17, 2026 • 53 mins
You may know Abigail Thorn as Philosophy Tube on YouTube or as Sharako Lohar on House of the Dragon; she is a British playwright and actress. Today, Ashlyn is inviting her to get Wide Open about her acting process. They also discuss how her background in philosophy shapes what she brings to the screen, and they talk about what life in America is like and what it has taught her about extending compassion to friends and neighbors in new ways.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to Wide Open, everyone. I'm Ashlyn Harris and
today's guest is someone whose work sits at the incredible
intersection of art, philosophy, storytelling, and culture. Abigail Thorne is
an actor, writer, creator, and one of the most thoughtful
voices on the Internet right now. Millions of people know
her from philosophy to where she somehow makes ideas that
(00:22):
can feel intimidating become deeply human. She also starred in
House of the Dragon, written award winning theater and has
become one of the most important voices pushing conversations around identity, freedom,
and what it actually means to live authentically. But what
I love about Abigail is that she doesn't just ask
(00:45):
big questions, she invites people to sit in the discomfort
of them. So today we're talking about performance, philosophy, creativity, womanhood,
joy and what happens when you stop living the role
everyone else wrote for you and start living your truth. Abigail,
Welcome to Wide Open.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Love.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Love Love, Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode
of Wide Open. I'm your host, Ashlyn Harris, and today
I'm so excited to introduce Abigail and Abigail Welcome to
the show.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
It's so great to have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
And you just told me you're you're no longer in London,
You're you're here in the US, so so welcome, Welcome
to the Madness Annie, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
It's honestly, it's a delight.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
I'm going to be here for a little while and
then hopefully long term as well.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I want to I want to kick things off and
really talk about who you were before you you started
performing and before you started your YouTube channel. But I'm curious,
did you always feel that you wanted to be a
former as a child? Like walk me through who Abigail
(02:03):
was as you know, the early years before you know
all of the fame and you know YouTube and millions
of people consume your content. You don't have to be
humble about it. We we all deeply know and adore you.
And I'm just curious, like, what was life like before?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Oh, you're very sweet.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Well, I've been acting since I was a child. I
did school plays and amateur stuff, and I knew in
high school that I wanted to go to drama school
and be a professional actress in the UK, you pretty
much have to go and be classically trained at a
British drama school in order to enter the industry. Why
(02:45):
I wanted to do that, Yeah, that's a big time.
I didn't know that. Yeah, I've discovered that since I
came to the US. Is that in people want me
to mention and my reps want me to mention that
I've that I've in industry conversations that I've been classically trained,
because that's not some thing that everyone has to do.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
In the UK.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
You pretty much have to if you want to enter
the industry. So I knew I wanted to, but I
come from a very academic family and it was strongly
encouraged that I should go and get a degree at
university first. So I went and got a philosophy degree
and started my my YouTube channel, Philosophy Tube at the
same time, and I just did as much acting as
(03:24):
I could whilst I was there. I mean, as a teenager,
I started out doing Shakespeare and Tom Stoppard and you
know classic works like that. And then at university I
did as much acting as I could on the side,
and then auditioned for drama school and eventually got in
and then it was then it was, you know, acting professionally.
(03:45):
So when I was a child, I loved it as
an amateur and now I love it as a professional.
And the difference between those two things is is something
that was taught to me at drama school.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Amateur.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
The word amateur comes from the Latin amo, meaning I love,
and the way it was explained to me is that
an amateur is somebody who does the job because she
loves it, and when she doesn't love it anymore, she
won't do the job wow, whereas professional comes from I
think the verbs professore meaning I vow if you if
you make a vow to do something, you vow to
(04:20):
do it, even if you're not enjoying it. You do
it because you've made that promise. And so at drama
school I learned why I wanted to get to dedicate
my life to the to the art form of acting. Really,
so that's been the journey I've been on from from
amateur to professional.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Still I still love it, but.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I have never heard that, and it's deeply moving. I
actually love that. Gosh, that's a really great way to
put it. As someone who was an amateur soccer player
and then became a professional soccer player, two very very
different things.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But I love the way you framed that.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, what do you think acting gave you that real
life couldn't.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Oh what a great question. Well, so the reason I felt,
I guess called to dedicate my life to it is
that I that's one of the things they asked me
on our first day is how dare you be an actor?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
How dare you do it?
Speaker 4 (05:21):
And we had to justify it, really, and what I
eventually kind of came up with is that when we
look around, there's an awful lot of problems in the world,
and when you read philosophy as I have, you realize
that we've been grappling with many of the same problems
for thousands of years. Some of the people you've had
on your podcast highlighted problems of sexual violence in particular,
(05:43):
like I was very moved by your interview with the
founder of Me Too. But that's not the only problem
that we repeat again and again. And there are many
people in the world who feel that they or we
as a society are stuck and that we cannot change.
And so I ask myself, well, what is it that
actors do we change? Give ourselves a new character trait,
(06:05):
a new accent, a new way of moving or being
admitt at least some of us change more than others.
But you know, you know, we show that people can change,
and that's almost a sacred thing that actors are given
as a gift, is to show the world that people
can change, and what a beautiful, special thing that that
can be. And so that's why I decided, Well, there's
(06:27):
the kind of my answer to how dare you.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Be an actor?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yes, I don't really care about sort of fame or
money or attention, but I care about the principle that
human beings can change and the importance of making art
that illustrates that.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I'm so deeply I just first off, I'd love to
talk to you all day because I just want to
pick your brain. It's so clear how educated and smart
you are, which I admire, but the whole philosophy thing
behind it, you know, I you know, I as well
went to university, you know, definitely didn't dive into philosophy
(07:03):
as a major, but definitely took on a quite a
lot of classes because it really makes you critically think
deep and I think there's something so beautiful about that.
But I'm curious if philosophy made life feel bigger or
did it make it make more sense to you? Because
you really gravitate towards the way you act things out
(07:28):
in philosophy, Like philosophy too, it just shows your curiosity
and your creativity is very different than most people. And
I really believe, and I'm not going to speak for you,
that stems from the understanding of philosophy and how people
work and how for you know, our history of our
(07:49):
ancestors and all the things before us, how we connect
the dots. So yeah, back to my question was just
do you feel like, you know, does philosophy make life
feel bigger or does it make it make more sense?
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Wow, that's such an interesting way of phrasing it. I
suppose one thing that studying philosophy has taught me is compassion,
which might sound unusual for a very intellectual pursuit. But
my philosophy teacher as a high schooler, a man named
Howard Baker. He was a very compassionate man. I'll never forget.
(08:27):
We did two philosophy exams and one of the results
came back as we expected for a positive and the
other my result came back rather lower.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Than we expected. And he asked me.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Did it seem like anything was different in the exam,
and I said, no, sir, it seemed reasonable. I was
confident in my answers. This isn't the result we expected,
but I am surprised, and he said, all right, leave
it with me. And on the strength of my say
so as a seventeen year old child, he went away
and he fought to have the papers for the whole
(09:00):
class remarked. And it turned out there'd been a problem
with that marker applying the syllabus wrongly, and the entire
class got our grades moved up two levels. Because of
the strength of my say so as a child, mister
Baker believed me. He said, what do you think, and
I said, I think this is the right thing to
do so and it turned out we were right. And
(09:22):
so he taught me the value of listening to people,
and of compassion, and the wonderful thing about reading philosophy,
even very ancient philosophy. And I remember reading Plato at
university and realizing, here's a man writing two thousand years
ago in another language, living a life that I couldn't
possibly imagine, and yet I understand the things that he's saying,
(09:42):
and there's it was such a beautiful experience. It reminded
me of a quote from a play called The History
Boys by Alan Bennett, where the teacher Hector says that
one of the beautiful things about reading is that you
come across a way of thinking or feeling that you
thought was unique to you, and you find that someone
else has had it before. When it's like a hand
has reached out from the page and taken yours. And
(10:04):
so I learned the value of compassion really through philosophy
and trying to understand how other people think.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It's beautiful and it's it's deeply I imagine personal to you.
Because what I what I love so much about what
you've done is you've made philosophy so approachable. I think
that's a unique thing to do, because sometimes it is
like a heavy lift. There's a lot, there's a lot,
(10:31):
there's a lot that goes into it.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
Yeah, yeah, and it's equal and so like, well what
is it pale mail and stale?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
There's so much a philosophy that's like.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
I mean, you know that stuffs good, like you know
your your manual can't and you're David Hume and so on.
But the way that it's toured is often so as
if it's not not for you, not for the hoypolloy.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
You know, it's for the academic every tower.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
And so part of what I tried to do with
philosophy to be ask myself, why shouldn't a mum in
the Midwest, or or you know, a teenager in Zambia
or somebody have an opinion about Schopenhauer or Shakespeare in
Thebokov or or any of these these great figures that
are part of the common intellectual history of humanity.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
They're for everyone.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Really.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, So that's part of what I tried to do
with it.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
And it's beautiful that you created this theatrical philosophy, and
it's it's very different, and it's it's easy to digest
when you understand it and you see it in this
type of tone which most people haven't before, which I
do find is a gift. I think your ability to
stay creative and curious probably made such a major impact.
(11:41):
What was it that made you decide philosophy needs to
be approachable and it can be theatrical. And I could
use my craft and my gift to present to other
people to make it easily understood, and it's that beautiful,
like you become a teacher as a storyteller, that it's
(12:02):
uniquely digested by your viewers, which I think is pretty incredible.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
And I'm just.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Curious what made you decide to do Like, it's not
like a thing that you see what I find in
social media.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
It's repetitive. It's a repetitive.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Culture that people just take something from someone else and
then you repeat it. Like if I see another person
sit down in a chair like this and pretend to
do a Netflix documentary or something, I'm like, can someone
just be original?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Oh god, you're so right, You're so right.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, yeah, I see one more person doing a TikTok
dance that has been done one hundred and fifty million
fucking times. I'm just gonna be like, you, guys, the
whole point of this is creating new ideas and being
you know, this is like fun and and and informative,
(13:01):
and I think you checked all those boxes.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
But there had to.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Be a reason why, because no one did this and
no one was doing it.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
So what was that passion?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
What was the passion behind doing theatrical philosophy on YouTube
and really using your talent and very unique ways.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Well, I graduated drama school. I had up until that
point been doing pretty dry philosophy explain a videos where
I would sit down in front of a bookcase and say,
this is what this philosopher has. But I graduated drama
school and I wanted to put more of my craft
into the videos for my own entertainment. Really, I wasn't
actually the first person to do that sort of thing.
(13:44):
Natalie When, another YouTube creator who I'm not sure whether
she's still making videos or not, but she was one
of the first to bring in elements of what you
might call production design to her video essays. And I've
spoken before about having been inspired by her work and
the work of people like Lindsay Ellis, who was one
(14:06):
of the early kind of pioneers of the video essay
as we now know it. And so I was inspired
by them, and I had these creative resources, and it
felt like it tied into that broader mission of making
things accessible to people. As I was like, well, I'm
explaining Immanuel Kant or David Hume, but why shouldn't there
also be Rilka or you know, Shakespeare. Why shouldn't I
(14:30):
bring in artists and give that to people as well,
because those things are also often held as for the academic,
especially Shakespeare, which you know, my play The Prince, which
I also wrote, is all about bringing Shakespeare to everybody.
So it sort of fit with that message of saying
because I grew up, I come from a particular background,
(14:51):
which is a British euphemism for saying, I'm quite posh.
I received a very good education. I went to a
good universe, in a good school and so on. But
I had friends who couldn't afford to do that kind
of thing, especially once the government triple tuition fees, And
so I want everyone should have the benefits of these
things education and not just education, but art and beauty
(15:14):
are for everyone. And so I suppose it fit with
that broader mission of bringing the things I've been very
fortunate to enjoy to as many people as possible.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, And I think it just stems from accessibility. I
think we're getting so far out of reach right now
for anyone to enjoy anything. I think access is fundamental.
It just shouldn't even be a question, right, especially when
you're talking about health care and education.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Of course, of course it's a.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Non negotiable but you know, I live in America and
those things it's a privilege.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Just like you said, stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
I'll be back in just a moment after this brief
message from our sponsors. But this life and what you've
created led you to some pretty incredible things. I know
you you got to be in House of the Dragon,
which makes me excited because I'm a huge threatened fan
(16:17):
and I'm like, oh, come on.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Like this is a big deal, right, Like I imagine
getting that phone call was like wow, like this is
a really really major moment and not yeah, and not
only that, you went through a huge physical transformation.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Yes, yes, I did so yeah talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
This and I really want to know.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Truthfully because I I want to know how that changed
your relationship with your body. That's the question, that's the
question deeply, Like I know you're so proud to be
on a show like that for a woman who's fought
so hard to feel comfortable in their body. I want
(17:05):
to ask the real questions and I want to check in.
And I was just curious of did that change?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
You know?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I know, and I'm excited for you to share that
you gained over twenty pounds of muscle for that role.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
Wow did Yeah, that's that's no small feet here.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Okay, Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
As an athlete, putting on twenty two pounds of muscle
takes a ton of dedication, a ton of work.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I mean, you look incredible.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Thank you. But I also these good people.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Don't realize, Yeah, the toll it takes on your body,
especially people you know, like us and the queer community
who fight so hard for that inner piece a little
bit and really listening to who we are and how
we want to show up in the world with how
every the noise of everyone else's expectations that we didn't now.
(18:01):
So yes, please tell me about the process of gaining
that type of weight for the role. But also did
it change your relationship with your body afterwards or during?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, it really did.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
So. I got the role in House of the Dragon
in part because I wrote a play a few years
ago called The Prince that had a lot of sword
fighting and action in it, and I was put up
four House of the Dragon off the back of that,
and the casting director saw that I could fight, and
so they wanted a woman who was over six feet
tall who could fight to play Shariko the Pirate, and
(18:37):
I went in there, and I did my best, and
in season two they gave me a little bit of action,
and then I said, I'd love to do some more
because I've wanted to do action for years, and because
I came up doing Shakespeare, like I can ride horses,
and I was also an army cadet for five years,
so I can shoot, I can sword fight, and I'm
pretty athletic generally. And then in season three said, Okay,
(19:00):
we're going to have the biggest naval battle ever filmed,
have the biggest episode of TV ever filmed, and you're
going to be right in the thick of this battle,
and we're going to train you up. So we did
boxing and sword fighting, and as I say, I put
on all this muscle, which was my decision. They never
they never told me to do that. I decided that
I wanted the character to be someone who is very,
very physically strong. And I'm so grateful that you asked
(19:23):
me how that made me feel, because you're the first person.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Who has Wow. It's it's really nice because.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
As a woman who is very tall and broad, and
also as a woman who happens to be trans my
relationship with my body has not always been well, I've
often worried.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
How other people would perceive it.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Yeah, in particular, something that people often say about trans women.
We're often painted as being a danger, and so there
is a temptation, strong temptation for many of us to
shrink ourselves, to starve ourselves often, and to be afraid
of taking up space. And I've dealt with that. Sometimes.
(20:08):
It's sometimes difficult being tall and broad. And it was
so nice to get that muscle and get that strength
and for that to be okay, and to play a
character who she's cisgender, but who relishes that about her body,
(20:31):
and it did help me love my body more. I remember,
after sort of three weeks of very intense fighting, I
checked in on how I was feeling, and I was like, well,
this has been super intense getting up at four am
six times a week of fighting.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Something all day. But I could keep going. I'm ready.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
And I realized the strength in my body, not just
physical strength of being able to lift things, but also
just it was there for me. It was there for
me when I needed it to be, and it I
had this moment of realizing, wow, I kind of have a.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Bit of a superher body. Yeah, it keeps going.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
It didn't. It didn't let me down, and I grew
to love it more because of that, and that's partly
why I decided to keep the muscle too amazing. It
puts me in a fun casting as well. There's not
a lot of like, not a lot of female action stars,
certainly not a lot of transfer ones, and so it's
been really it's been really nice. Actually, I love it.
(21:32):
I love when I get in a taxi with a
suitcase and then I left my suitcase in and the
driver tries to help Me's.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Like, oh god, you're well, you know, it's nice. It's
really really nice.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, and you've worked hard for it, and you deserve
freaking putting those arms out. Everyone wants a nice little
definition in the arms.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
So I can appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
It's good.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
And it's also really funny, especially like right now in
Hollywood when everyone's on ozempic, Like everyone I know and
a lot of the men I know we're on a
zempic and I'm on Creatin.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
It's just for me too.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
I'm on this.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I have to take raotine every surday and it's great. Everything.
Mental health, like my mental fog it's so good for
your brain, so good for your body. I think we're
sold so much bs and that's one of them. I'm like, no, everyone, listen,
take creatine. It's good for you.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeahah, and don't stop yourself by then.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, we're trying to get We're trying to go real
far backwards in the in the frail department here, I'm like, listen,
if someone's chasing me, I'm gonna run really fast, and
I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Fuck some shit up.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
I'm saying, I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Gonna have to keep that power and that muscle because
I'm not gonna you know, I've I've dropped since I've played.
I'm working out a ton too, and I'm on this
whole body transformation.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I just love to test my body.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I think it is such a powerful thing to do,
and building discipline and habits.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Is so good for my mental wellbeing, you know. And
every day even my kids.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Are like, show me your muscles, and I just like,
I find it so fun and enjoyable to push my
body to you know, things that were I didn't think
were possible. And I think that is the human experience
in general. It's just I imagine it's so good for
my brain, and I'm glad that you agree with that,
(23:31):
because it is it is so important for us and for.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Us as women, to put our bodies to use for
our own purposes. I look at and I certainly would
never knock anyone else's body choices. What I mean is,
I have friends who are models and who are actresses
who strive very hard for a particular aesthetic of thinness
and runway modelsness. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that,
(23:57):
and I understand that's also the precious of the job.
But it's memes that the dominant aesthetic that we are
so often expected to embody in the entertainment industry is girlishness.
Is this It's not just youthfulness, it's a passivity, It's
it's a thinness under girlishness that makes someone easily consumable,
(24:19):
easily controllable, and easily possessed. And I don't certainly don't
mean to knock anyone else's body choices or criticize anyone
in particular. That's not what I'm trying to do. But
I enjoy for myself not and deliberately not embodying that aesthetic.
I enjoy flexing my muscles on a red carpet and
(24:39):
projecting an image of.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Oh, I love the strength, strength, strength, correct power.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
That's why the House of the Dragon premiere, I chose
to go in a red carpet out but that was
inspired by absolute wonder woman and to have that bicep
flex moment, because I wanted to deliberately resist that yep,
that girlish esthetic. I did not want to be an
object that you could possessed by somebody else, but for
my body to be an instrument for my own purposes.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Which is what I love so much about how you
show up in the world in general, and I think
that's what people really gravitate towards, because so much of
your work isn't just entertainment. It's really asking people to
rethink the systems they live in. And that to me,
it's like the topics you decide to explore and critique
are the gender norms, capitalism, healthcare, you name it. But
(25:28):
I am curious what you think is most urgent right
now to challenge.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Ooh, that's a really really good question. Hm. I don't
think there's a universal answer to that. I have learned
over the last few years that the things that I
say in public can very easily become headlines, and that
(25:54):
the things I say can very easily shape how other
people think about important issues, and so I try now
to stick to my lane. The thing that I understand
and can speak authoritatively on when it comes to a
social issue is the NHS and healthcare, in particular healthcare
for trans people in England. Of course I have opinions
(26:15):
on other topics, and I will donate my time and
my money and my energy quietly behind the scenes to
many things as a private individual, but publicly the topic
that I can speak on most authoritatively is that, and
so that's where I tend to direct my energy because
I'm a survivor of the NHS is trans Healthcare pathway
(26:35):
and I can speak. I can speak on that, but
I have found that it's I'm very wary of taking
up space in other people's areas of specialty. So that's
the thing that I focus on. But that's not to
say that it is the most urgent.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And it is urgent, you know, I as a speaking
of I have my trans T shirt on right now.
I'm a huge sports saved my life, just as I
imagine theater gave you a safe space, and I find
it really important to speak on the importance of letting
(27:15):
everyone play. And I know in our country here and
as you're new to it, which you're not new to,
the hate is we want we don't want, not NEWI
because I am not a part of that we, but
this administration does not want trans people in sports, youth sports,
and I just I can't fathom, like it's a deeply
(27:41):
rooted issue for me because I know the impact it
had on me. I would have been a statistic I
was doing drugs in sixth grade. I needed an outlet,
I needed a safe space, and that is what sport
gave me. And how dare us take take that away
from a child who knows more about who they are
than most adults who are in their forties, fifties, and
(28:02):
sixties making these fucking policies. That's what I have a
problem with. And you're right, does it directly impact me, No,
but it does directly impact my community, and my community
is my family, so it deeply impacts me. So I
know here as a woman who came from the South,
you know, we're having a hard time getting gender affirming
(28:26):
care to a lot of these states who have absolutely yanked,
banned and won't allow it, and it is I just
I don't know, because I know you're clearly way more
educated on the topic than me. But where do we
need to see more meaningful progress? Because the problem in
my head is culture moves faster than policy.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Policy moves so fucking slow.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
And the problem is is when we have Whinkers in
the White House, now we have to wait four years,
but we got to wait a lot longer than that
because now we have to unwind all of the tragic
things that they've created for us for probably a decade.
So it's just like, where where can we make meaningful
progress or change so people can access, you know, gender
(29:16):
affirming care.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
That it doesn't make it impossible.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Yeah, coming from the UK context, there are answers to that,
but answers that maybe shouldn't be said on public.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
So there are there are ways and means.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Of survival, and uh, there are levels of survival they
are willing to accept exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
But you living your truth too is so important for
the community to see what is possible because it is
a matter of like why not me, Like, look what
life has given you and it hasn't been easy, and
it hasn't been handed, but it's there are better things
on the other side, and you're living proof of that.
And what I love so much because I don't want
(29:59):
to put you in place where you feel like someone's
gonna jump for a tagline, but I do love the
You've made an important, important distinction between trans representation and transliberation.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Hm.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Hm, And I thought that was really beautiful and I
never thought of it that way. You're like, no, no, no,
I'm looking for transliberation, not representation. So I'm just curious
what you mean by that and what does that actually
look like.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
I have noticed in the last few years that representation
not just of trans and queer people, but of everyone.
It's sometimes held up as the be all and end all,
And I mean you can have you can have a
black man in the White House. You can have black
people on TV and at the same time you can
(30:51):
have police violence against black people.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You can have.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
A trans person on Broadway. You can have a trans
in the biggest TV show in the world, as I was,
and you can have it just like an internal refugee
crisis in the United States of trans people moving to
having to move out of their homes. You can have
conversion therapy on the NHS, as we do in the UK.
These things are not contradictory. In fact, you know, sometimes
(31:18):
the representation is is jangling keys, and I am quite
apart from what it does to the to the people
who are held up as quote unquote representatives, you know
what a career killer that is. And so I didn't
want to be a part of that.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
I guess I just don't believe in a theory of change.
I don't believe that somebody who has a who supports
policies that don't.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
See us as human beings, he's.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Gonna watch an episode of House of the Dragon and
then go, oh, I guess I'll rethink my whole life.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
It's like, no, they're not. Then they're not going to
do that. That's not going to change.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
And to be quite honest, if I walk into a
doctor's office and then I walk out again and my
doctor turns to a nurse and says, God, that bloke
is mental, I don't give a damn as long as
he gives me my goddamn medicine. I don't care what
people say or think. I care who has power and
(32:14):
whether I have power over my life. If representation is
a tool to get me that, then fantastic. But if
it's not, then I don't really care either way. It's
not what led me into dedicating my life to being
an actress. You know. I didn't do that out of
a sense of duty to the community. I've always always
been acting as ever since I as a child, and
so it wasn't something that motivated me then. But I
(32:37):
suppose I want people to have power over their own lives.
The demographics of who appears in an entertainment product are
interesting and to a degree important, but there are means
to an end.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Wow, it's so powerful and it makes me think about
you know, especially when you say it that way about
you know, a doctor and walking into a doctor's office.
You know, Like, I get how visibility can open a door. However,
I also get how it doesn't always change the system
behind the door. It's very It's two very very different
(33:13):
people that two very different scenarios that most people don't
get besides our community. Yeah, and I'm just there's a
big difference.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
I'll be back in just a moment after this brief
message from our sponsors. I imagine like you've built an
audience that expects so much depth based on what you've
been able to create in the following you've been able
(33:44):
to create. Does that ever, does that feel like pressure
to you? Do you ever feel that sense of, Okay,
now I have to be the one that's representing this
whole community, Like that's a lot, that's a lot of
I feel it when I see, you know, a dear
(34:05):
sweet friend of mine, Dylan mulvany here, like it happens
so often to her and I she's the most incredible
human I've ever met in my life. And it's still
to this day. Our President makes a speech a few
days ago and can't take her name out of his
(34:26):
fucking mouth, and it's just.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Been am for her.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
But she's she's wonderful, As Dylan, we spent some time together.
She's one of these people who is so unbelievably talented
and who doesn't even have the decency to be an
asshole about it because.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
She's so lovely.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
Oh, you really do have it all though you know she's.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
It's do you ever feel that pressure of, like, you know,
the expectation now that everyone has because of the visibility
you've had, How do you carry that well.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Most of the time I carry it by not to public,
you know, I carry it with the help of a
very good publicity.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, that's the part.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
So it's that, and it's it's partly sticking to my
lane and and talking about you know, mainly focusing on
healthcare stuff and letting other trusting other people in the
community to do to hold up their end of it.
And partly it's uh yeah, I mean I just kind
of don't. I don't really think about it all that much.
I don't see myself as a representative ement of the community.
(35:31):
Sometimes it's a kind of I have to put on
the tiara and be the be the people's princess, but
that it's kind of my turn to do that today
and then you hand it to someone else, right, But no,
most of the time, I just I keep my head
down and I focus on my work, and I how
do you.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Protect how do you protect your peace? Like that, I'm
phoning a friend. This is me being like, I need
to phone a friend because I I am one of
those people that justice like the right to just exist
and live free of all of this. It like keeps
me up at night and I wish I could protect
(36:08):
my peace a little more and stay in my lane
a little more.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
It's like it is.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
It is a daunting thing to think about all the time,
and I do because we see it all the time
in mainstream media now that are like community is getting
attacked to every chance.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
You know, these these people can.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
So I respect your ability to feel so secure and
feel so confident and stay in your lane and protect
the boundaries that you've placed, because I imagine it's taken a
lot from you. You know, I've experienced it firsthand, and
it's like.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Whoa.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
You're scared to say something too much, You're scared to
not say enough. It's a tough lane to live in,
and I applaud your ability to do it so peacefully, truthfully,
because God, it makes me fucking crazy if you can't tell.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Yeah, yeah, I understand. I mean, I go to the
gym to music creating. Yeah, I have friends that I'll
vent to, but no, I mean the other part of
it is I'm an english woman from a particular background,
and being a kind of invincible statue living statue is
(37:28):
kind of what I was raised to do. I was
not raised to show vulnerability, and so you just kind
of get on with it really.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Yeah, but what's bringing new joy?
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Let us in, give us some give us some tea, honey,
what's bring your new joy?
Speaker 3 (37:44):
These days?
Speaker 4 (37:45):
What's bringing me joy is good art, spending time with friends,
good food, good coffee, and also just my creative pursuits.
I enjoy the work that I do. I enjoy the
auditions I've been taking in the things I've been working on.
I enjoy the I have a feature in development that
(38:06):
I've been writing and it's it's out for financing. I
enjoy that.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Yeah, it's really amazing.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
Amazing director attached. I'm gonna be doing some work with
Lily Wachowski soon, which is fabulous. My play that I
wrote a few years ago that I mentioned a while back,
is going to get a rehearsed reading at Dynasty Typewriter
on the thirty first of July. And that's that's got
such amazing casting.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Amazing news.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like it's like Vivian Wilson is going
to be in it. It's her acting debut. Wow, and
she she's fantastic. She's a fantastic actress. And you know
Nicole Mayns from Supergirl, isn't it And my friend morgana
Agnes is going to be. I enjoy the creative work
that I do. That's that's what gives me joy. And
just just the sunshine, Like it's so nice living in
(38:51):
a country whether.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Sunshine, Oh my gosh, it is.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, somebody said to me a while ago.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
When you live in LA even if you have a
bad day, you go outside in the day, it's not
so bad.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
It's not really.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
It's just like the most beautiful place to live in
the world. I tell you you're you're not wrong about that.
And the walks and the hikes and the food and
the coffee.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's plenty of good things and
beautiful things in life still.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
So what I was going to ask you before what's
your favorite place in London to disappear for an afternoon?
But now I'm going to say, what's your favorite place
in la to disappear for the afternoon? Oh?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Well, there is?
Speaker 6 (39:26):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
I don't want to say where I'm always at because
they're like, yeah, that there is. There is a witch
themed lesbian cafe that I've discovered that I love, and
I love because we don't have a lot of like
Mexican food in the UK. I love just like basic
ass Mexican, Like just the tequilas with my friends.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
That was. Yeah, I love that. I'm always finding excuses.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
I love that.
Speaker 6 (39:51):
Well, I'm I'm curious, though, what what has been like
the most freeing part of coming to LA, Like, what
has been the most enjoyable part?
Speaker 1 (40:07):
I like, because I know, I used to live in
Florida and I picked up my family and I now
live in New York and gosh, no one people used
to stare at me so often and like I'm a
basic ass white girl.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Like I couldn't believe it. Here in New York, it's
like anything goes.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Anyone can walk outside with anything on, No one blinks twice.
Everyone just feels so inclusive, at least the communities I
go to and surround myself with. So I'm curious, like
the contrast and cultures. What has been like the most
liberating for you being in LA coming from London.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
Well, that's something that is I'm not sure whether this
is an LA thing or an American thing. There's something
I like, which is that it's much more acceptable in
the US too. If you like some outfit, a stranger
to say I like your outfit, Yes, that's just something
that you don't you would not ever do that in London. No,
(41:09):
no way, no way, you never. People just don't will
not say that to you, Whereas I'll step outside in
la and people say I like your outfit. And the
first couple of times it happened to me, I was like,
what do you want from me?
Speaker 2 (41:20):
What are you doing?
Speaker 4 (41:22):
Why are you speaking to me? And now I'm starting
to get into it, and now I'll say it to
a stranger, but like I love your jacket or something,
you know, it'll it'll be nice, or like your hair
looks fabulous today. You know, it's just more socially acceptable
to say that. I'm finding that the the the English
ice in my skin is slowly melting, melting, which which
is nice. I mean, there's there's something which has been
(41:47):
a fun challenge. It's been tough, but it's a good
kind of tough, which is that the way that I
was raised was to believe that if someone is suffering
or is having trouble, the most compassionate thing that you
can do. The most compassionate thing is to ignore it,
(42:11):
because if you acknowledge that someone else is suffering, then
you might embarrass them, and that is the worst thing
you can do. And I'm learning, having come to the US,
that that is not how you show compassion here, and
that in some ways it's I want to be a
better friend to my American friends, and so I'm learning
(42:32):
to notice that when they are in difficulty, and to
be okay if they notice that I am, because you know,
if I'm sad or if I'm having trouble and an
American friend of mine says to me, are you okay?
In the past, I would have been very buttoned up
and gone, of course I am. You know, I don't
need to acknowledge that. We don't need to talk about that.
And so this funny thing happened a few weeks ago.
(42:52):
I was at a friend's house and she came through
the living room and she was very clearly upset. She
had been crying and was wrapped in a blanket, and
that clearly hadn't eaten or really washed him was in
a bad way. And I did the compassionate English thing,
which was that I ignored it. I pretended she was
completely invisible, and it started to pay me to do that,
(43:14):
and so I messaged her later and I sent her
a voice note that was three minutes long, because in
America would just be like hey, okay, whereas the voice
that I sent was so English because it was so
verbally and syntactically complicated, because I built in all of
these off ramps to be like hello, I notice, or
seemed to notice earlier that you might be upset, and
(43:36):
I apologize if I am incorrect in that, and I
also apologize again if if I am overstepping the bounds
by noticing it if you were in fact, But if
you were in fact upset, then that is something I
would be keen to help you with, if that would
be acceptable to you. And there were just so it
was like such a I'm obsessed with you, yes, because
because it's you absolutely cannot embarrass someone else, and to
(43:59):
notice that someone else's in pain is to embarrass something.
I even had an argument years ago. I was dating
an American girl. We were walking along the streets in London,
and we passed somebody who was who was living on
the street, who was clearly, you know, in a bad way,
and we were on our way somewhere, and I said
to my girlfriend, I'm sorry, excuse me, and I walked
(44:21):
into the nearest supermarket grocery store and I, you know,
I bought some food and I put it in the
bag and I just went back and I put it
down next to that person and walked on. And my
girlfriend at the time, American, said that was very kind,
and she wanted to remark on it, and I, I'm
ashamed to say, I spoke to her quite sternly and said,
we're not going to talk about that, and I very
(44:43):
much proceeded as if that had not happened at all,
and we ended up having an argument about it. And
that was when I realized that I had been raised
in this mode of you do not acknowledge if someone
else is suffering, because you to even look them in
the eye is to would be too humanly and in
the same way that it would be embarrassing for someone
(45:03):
else to notice your pain. And that that was the
night I really learned about that habit in myself and
began the process of unlearning it and made that made
the intention to let that ice melt.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
And so having since moved.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
To the US and having American friends, it's it's nice
to face that chance, so sweet.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
But to embrace the American way.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
But I appreciate the vulnerability and the understanding that it
is different, and I just I think that that's beautiful
and it tells me a lot about who you are
and understanding, like I genuinely say this, and you know,
I have my partner who is a woman.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
You know, I'm always when I go to other.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Cultures, I really tried to research, like what's acceptable, what's
not acceptable, what you know, what would hurt other people's feelings,
what what most people aren't like that, And I do
find that compassion and understand that I'm putting myself into
someone else's culture and I need to come correct. So
(46:05):
I appreciate that vulnerability and that willingness to just be like, Okay,
I'm not really fucking good at this, and it's going
to be three minutes long and it's going to be
a voice now, but like I'm.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Going to get through it.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
And I just think that's why people find you so
loving and charming and caring and you're right, empathy, compassion,
all of these things.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Community. It's like we needed it, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
And it's even the English can change, I know, I know,
but giving people enough space and grace to do so
right and no one knows that more than living life
on the internet. Jesus, we are so cruel to each other.
Oh yeah, But I always like to close with this
this question. And you know, the show's called Wide Open
clearly sports context, but more so just really diving into
(46:53):
matters that go well beyond what we do. And I
know what wide Open means to me, But what does
living wide Open mean to you today? Because I'm sure
so many people would like to hear that.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Well, something that I'm working on and that the stories
I've just told are part of, is is trying to
be a little more human. I think, not only the
way that I was raised, but also the way that
we have to turn up as queer people in the
public eyes. That we're so often expected to be invincible
superheroes and to protect an image of strength and beauty
(47:27):
and elegance at all times. And I'm learning to embrace
my own humanity a little bit and to try to
work less hard, to try to acknowledge when I'm unhappy,
to allow my friends to notice it. And so I
suppose that's that's what being wide Open means to me.
(47:49):
You know, it's funny, somebody asked me a while ago,
do you get nervous on a red carpet? Were you
nervous at the red carpet?
Speaker 1 (47:57):
A house?
Speaker 4 (47:57):
To dren you're a big event and like photographers, and
I'm sure you've been in events like that. Word many
people might expect us to feel pressured to look or
be perfect, And I, without even thinking about it, I said, well, no,
it's the only time I can relax because I don't
have to be a human being.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
I can just you. Just you become the symbol.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
You know, you transform into Sheirah and then you know
it's for the honor of gray skull, and then then
you're just you don't have to be a human being,
you don't have You can be a lightning bolt or
a wave or a packet of photons, and there's a
whole team who are going to be their makeup artists
and publicist who will sand off all your humanity and
you become a kind of perfect collection of ones and
zerrans and you don't have to have any internality at all.
(48:34):
You're just a symbol and it's great. And I said
that without thinking about it and reflected on how unhealthy
that is and how you can't live a life like that,
or if you can, but it'll be a very lonely one.
And so I suppose to me, wide open means trying
to be more of a human being, which has been
(48:59):
bread and trained out of me for years and which
i'm in which I'm gradually learning with love and friends
and therapy, is no bad thing to be a person.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
I love that, and I'm going to share since you're
getting me so deeply. It's just everything is so vulnerable,
and thank you for sharing these things. And it's really
interesting you said that because I'm reflecting on a memory
as I'm dating an actor as well, who I feel
that constantly is in the spotlight.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
I say this often.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
I'm surprised she's not chewing her hair in the fucking
corner because it's just like she's has been famous for
a very long time and it's such a yuck word,
but it's the reality of which which she lives. And
we went to a World Cup game recently and I'm animated.
I am a full on athlete. I'm very passionate. I
(49:57):
get very like when I'm telling stories and I'm like, deep,
it's deeply personal to me. I'm very like, you know,
mentality of an athlete, and she gently looked over to
me and said, you have to be really careful with
your your like how you're expressing yourself, because there'll be
cameras on us and it'll be turned into a headline
(50:19):
that we're fighting to even think that way has this
is my space. Truthfully, I have never once had to
think about stripping myself down to be digestible for other
people in that kind of way that I would even
fucking remotely think like that, And the fact that she does,
(50:43):
the fact that you all in this industry have to
think about these things, it really does strip you of
like the most basic human experience, like at a soccer game,
and sure fucking enough on the internet the next day
there are cameras and photos of us in this box,
and she knows and I can't even we're not.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
First of all, we never fight. She's the sweetest human
in the world.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
But it's like, I can't even be animated and telling
a story without the consequences that potentially could come from it.
And you're right, it strips you of your human dignity.
Everything you're like, who you are. You have to show
up and you have to present and.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
You truly, yeah, the truly insidious thing is that it
makes you want to be stripped for humanity and it's like, yes, good,
now I'm not vulnerable. Now I'm just invincible. And it's like, no,
you can't live like that, No, no you can't. But
it makes you must live wide open. Yes.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
So I appreciate you saying that, and I get it,
and I'm I've seen it firsthand of what a lot
of you go through and it's really really interesting. But
I really appreciate your vulnerability and your honesty and coming
on here and I'm so excited.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
To see more of your work.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
So anything you want to say to the audience to
promote anything, do you know when anything's coming out, because
we all want to know.
Speaker 4 (52:11):
My play The Prince, which is about a bunch of
Shakespeare characters realizing they're stuck inside of play and trying
to break out and crashing through the Shakespeare multiverses they go.
It's going to have a rehearsed reading on the thirty
first of July, that's this Friday at Dynasty Typewriter Theater.
It is going to be recorded and the recording will
be available through the Dynasty Typwriter website. So you'll be
able to see me and some other fabulous actors doing
(52:34):
some very silly romping around through Shakespeare. So yeah, that'll
be the next thing. And there is more philosophy to
you on the way. I'm writing an entire season of
the show so that I can go back to the
UK later this year and film it in block.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Well, we can't wait, because we did look it up
and the last one was like four months ago. So
not that we're waiting, but it.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
Was, it was we're waiting.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Don't worry, don'torry. I'll I'll get on it. I'll get
on it.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
Well, it's so good to see you. Thank you so
much for being here.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
I hope you live out every sunshine in Los Angeles because.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
You deserve it.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
All right, everyone, and that's the episode this week. Thank
you for tuning in, too wide open. We'll see you
next week. What I love so much about this conversation
as it really reminded me that becoming yourself isn't a
single decision, it's a practice.
Speaker 3 (53:22):
It's asking hard.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Questions, challenging the stories we've inherited, and having the courage
to write new ones. Abigail, thank you, for your honesty,
your curiosity, and for making philosophy feel deeply human. And
thank you all for listening. As always, if this conversation
challenged you, inspired you, or simply made you think differently,
(53:44):
share it with someone who needs it. We'll see you
next time on Wide Open
Welcome back to Wide Open, everyone. I'm Ashlyn Harris and
today's guest is someone whose work sits at the incredible
intersection of art, philosophy, storytelling, and culture. Abigail Thorne is
an actor, writer, creator, and one of the most thoughtful
voices on the Internet right now. Millions of people know
her from philosophy to where she somehow makes ideas that
(00:22):
can feel intimidating become deeply human. She also starred in
House of the Dragon, written award winning theater and has
become one of the most important voices pushing conversations around identity, freedom,
and what it actually means to live authentically. But what
I love about Abigail is that she doesn't just ask
(00:45):
big questions, she invites people to sit in the discomfort
of them. So today we're talking about performance, philosophy, creativity, womanhood,
joy and what happens when you stop living the role
everyone else wrote for you and start living your truth. Abigail,
Welcome to Wide Open.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Love.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Love Love, Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode
of Wide Open. I'm your host, Ashlyn Harris, and today
I'm so excited to introduce Abigail and Abigail Welcome to
the show.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
It's so great to have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
And you just told me you're you're no longer in London,
You're you're here in the US, so so welcome, Welcome
to the Madness Annie, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
It's honestly, it's a delight.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
I'm going to be here for a little while and
then hopefully long term as well.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I want to I want to kick things off and
really talk about who you were before you you started
performing and before you started your YouTube channel. But I'm curious,
did you always feel that you wanted to be a
former as a child? Like walk me through who Abigail
(02:03):
was as you know, the early years before you know
all of the fame and you know YouTube and millions
of people consume your content. You don't have to be
humble about it. We we all deeply know and adore you.
And I'm just curious, like, what was life like before?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Oh, you're very sweet.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Well, I've been acting since I was a child. I
did school plays and amateur stuff, and I knew in
high school that I wanted to go to drama school
and be a professional actress in the UK, you pretty
much have to go and be classically trained at a
British drama school in order to enter the industry. Why
(02:45):
I wanted to do that, Yeah, that's a big time.
I didn't know that. Yeah, I've discovered that since I
came to the US. Is that in people want me
to mention and my reps want me to mention that
I've that I've in industry conversations that I've been classically trained,
because that's not some thing that everyone has to do.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
In the UK.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
You pretty much have to if you want to enter
the industry. So I knew I wanted to, but I
come from a very academic family and it was strongly
encouraged that I should go and get a degree at
university first. So I went and got a philosophy degree
and started my my YouTube channel, Philosophy Tube at the
same time, and I just did as much acting as
(03:24):
I could whilst I was there. I mean, as a teenager,
I started out doing Shakespeare and Tom Stoppard and you
know classic works like that. And then at university I
did as much acting as I could on the side,
and then auditioned for drama school and eventually got in
and then it was then it was, you know, acting professionally.
(03:45):
So when I was a child, I loved it as
an amateur and now I love it as a professional.
And the difference between those two things is is something
that was taught to me at drama school.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Amateur.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
The word amateur comes from the Latin amo, meaning I love,
and the way it was explained to me is that
an amateur is somebody who does the job because she
loves it, and when she doesn't love it anymore, she
won't do the job wow, whereas professional comes from I
think the verbs professore meaning I vow if you if
you make a vow to do something, you vow to
(04:20):
do it, even if you're not enjoying it. You do
it because you've made that promise. And so at drama
school I learned why I wanted to get to dedicate
my life to the to the art form of acting. Really,
so that's been the journey I've been on from from
amateur to professional.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Still I still love it, but.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I have never heard that, and it's deeply moving. I
actually love that. Gosh, that's a really great way to
put it. As someone who was an amateur soccer player
and then became a professional soccer player, two very very
different things.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But I love the way you framed that.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, what do you think acting gave you that real
life couldn't.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Oh what a great question. Well, so the reason I felt,
I guess called to dedicate my life to it is
that I that's one of the things they asked me
on our first day is how dare you be an actor?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
How dare you do it?
Speaker 4 (05:21):
And we had to justify it, really, and what I
eventually kind of came up with is that when we
look around, there's an awful lot of problems in the world,
and when you read philosophy as I have, you realize
that we've been grappling with many of the same problems
for thousands of years. Some of the people you've had
on your podcast highlighted problems of sexual violence in particular,
(05:43):
like I was very moved by your interview with the
founder of Me Too. But that's not the only problem
that we repeat again and again. And there are many
people in the world who feel that they or we
as a society are stuck and that we cannot change.
And so I ask myself, well, what is it that
actors do we change? Give ourselves a new character trait,
(06:05):
a new accent, a new way of moving or being
admitt at least some of us change more than others.
But you know, you know, we show that people can change,
and that's almost a sacred thing that actors are given
as a gift, is to show the world that people
can change, and what a beautiful, special thing that that
can be. And so that's why I decided, Well, there's
(06:27):
the kind of my answer to how dare you.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Be an actor?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yes, I don't really care about sort of fame or
money or attention, but I care about the principle that
human beings can change and the importance of making art
that illustrates that.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I'm so deeply I just first off, I'd love to
talk to you all day because I just want to
pick your brain. It's so clear how educated and smart
you are, which I admire, but the whole philosophy thing
behind it, you know, I you know, I as well
went to university, you know, definitely didn't dive into philosophy
(07:03):
as a major, but definitely took on a quite a
lot of classes because it really makes you critically think
deep and I think there's something so beautiful about that.
But I'm curious if philosophy made life feel bigger or
did it make it make more sense to you? Because
you really gravitate towards the way you act things out
(07:28):
in philosophy, Like philosophy too, it just shows your curiosity
and your creativity is very different than most people. And
I really believe, and I'm not going to speak for you,
that stems from the understanding of philosophy and how people
work and how for you know, our history of our
(07:49):
ancestors and all the things before us, how we connect
the dots. So yeah, back to my question was just
do you feel like, you know, does philosophy make life
feel bigger or does it make it make more sense?
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Wow, that's such an interesting way of phrasing it. I
suppose one thing that studying philosophy has taught me is compassion,
which might sound unusual for a very intellectual pursuit. But
my philosophy teacher as a high schooler, a man named
Howard Baker. He was a very compassionate man. I'll never forget.
(08:27):
We did two philosophy exams and one of the results
came back as we expected for a positive and the
other my result came back rather lower.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Than we expected. And he asked me.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Did it seem like anything was different in the exam,
and I said, no, sir, it seemed reasonable. I was
confident in my answers. This isn't the result we expected,
but I am surprised, and he said, all right, leave
it with me. And on the strength of my say
so as a seventeen year old child, he went away
and he fought to have the papers for the whole
(09:00):
class remarked. And it turned out there'd been a problem
with that marker applying the syllabus wrongly, and the entire
class got our grades moved up two levels. Because of
the strength of my say so as a child, mister
Baker believed me. He said, what do you think, and
I said, I think this is the right thing to
do so and it turned out we were right. And
(09:22):
so he taught me the value of listening to people,
and of compassion, and the wonderful thing about reading philosophy,
even very ancient philosophy. And I remember reading Plato at
university and realizing, here's a man writing two thousand years
ago in another language, living a life that I couldn't
possibly imagine, and yet I understand the things that he's saying,
(09:42):
and there's it was such a beautiful experience. It reminded
me of a quote from a play called The History
Boys by Alan Bennett, where the teacher Hector says that
one of the beautiful things about reading is that you
come across a way of thinking or feeling that you
thought was unique to you, and you find that someone
else has had it before. When it's like a hand
has reached out from the page and taken yours. And
(10:04):
so I learned the value of compassion really through philosophy
and trying to understand how other people think.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It's beautiful and it's it's deeply I imagine personal to you.
Because what I what I love so much about what
you've done is you've made philosophy so approachable. I think
that's a unique thing to do, because sometimes it is
like a heavy lift. There's a lot, there's a lot,
(10:31):
there's a lot that goes into it.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
Yeah, yeah, and it's equal and so like, well what
is it pale mail and stale?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
There's so much a philosophy that's like.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
I mean, you know that stuffs good, like you know
your your manual can't and you're David Hume and so on.
But the way that it's toured is often so as
if it's not not for you, not for the hoypolloy.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
You know, it's for the academic every tower.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
And so part of what I tried to do with
philosophy to be ask myself, why shouldn't a mum in
the Midwest, or or you know, a teenager in Zambia
or somebody have an opinion about Schopenhauer or Shakespeare in
Thebokov or or any of these these great figures that
are part of the common intellectual history of humanity.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
They're for everyone.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Really.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, So that's part of what I tried to do
with it.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
And it's beautiful that you created this theatrical philosophy, and
it's it's very different, and it's it's easy to digest
when you understand it and you see it in this
type of tone which most people haven't before, which I
do find is a gift. I think your ability to
stay creative and curious probably made such a major impact.
(11:41):
What was it that made you decide philosophy needs to
be approachable and it can be theatrical. And I could
use my craft and my gift to present to other
people to make it easily understood, and it's that beautiful,
like you become a teacher as a storyteller, that it's
(12:02):
uniquely digested by your viewers, which I think is pretty incredible.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
And I'm just.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Curious what made you decide to do Like, it's not
like a thing that you see what I find in
social media.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
It's repetitive. It's a repetitive.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Culture that people just take something from someone else and
then you repeat it. Like if I see another person
sit down in a chair like this and pretend to
do a Netflix documentary or something, I'm like, can someone
just be original?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Oh god, you're so right, You're so right.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, yeah, I see one more person doing a TikTok
dance that has been done one hundred and fifty million
fucking times. I'm just gonna be like, you, guys, the
whole point of this is creating new ideas and being
you know, this is like fun and and and informative,
(13:01):
and I think you checked all those boxes.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
But there had to.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Be a reason why, because no one did this and
no one was doing it.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
So what was that passion?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
What was the passion behind doing theatrical philosophy on YouTube
and really using your talent and very unique ways.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Well, I graduated drama school. I had up until that
point been doing pretty dry philosophy explain a videos where
I would sit down in front of a bookcase and say,
this is what this philosopher has. But I graduated drama
school and I wanted to put more of my craft
into the videos for my own entertainment. Really, I wasn't
actually the first person to do that sort of thing.
(13:44):
Natalie When, another YouTube creator who I'm not sure whether
she's still making videos or not, but she was one
of the first to bring in elements of what you
might call production design to her video essays. And I've
spoken before about having been inspired by her work and
the work of people like Lindsay Ellis, who was one
(14:06):
of the early kind of pioneers of the video essay
as we now know it. And so I was inspired
by them, and I had these creative resources, and it
felt like it tied into that broader mission of making
things accessible to people. As I was like, well, I'm
explaining Immanuel Kant or David Hume, but why shouldn't there
also be Rilka or you know, Shakespeare. Why shouldn't I
(14:30):
bring in artists and give that to people as well,
because those things are also often held as for the academic,
especially Shakespeare, which you know, my play The Prince, which
I also wrote, is all about bringing Shakespeare to everybody.
So it sort of fit with that message of saying
because I grew up, I come from a particular background,
(14:51):
which is a British euphemism for saying, I'm quite posh.
I received a very good education. I went to a
good universe, in a good school and so on. But
I had friends who couldn't afford to do that kind
of thing, especially once the government triple tuition fees, And
so I want everyone should have the benefits of these
things education and not just education, but art and beauty
(15:14):
are for everyone. And so I suppose it fit with
that broader mission of bringing the things I've been very
fortunate to enjoy to as many people as possible.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, And I think it just stems from accessibility. I
think we're getting so far out of reach right now
for anyone to enjoy anything. I think access is fundamental.
It just shouldn't even be a question, right, especially when
you're talking about health care and education.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Of course, of course it's a.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Non negotiable but you know, I live in America and
those things it's a privilege.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Just like you said, stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
I'll be back in just a moment after this brief
message from our sponsors. But this life and what you've
created led you to some pretty incredible things. I know
you you got to be in House of the Dragon,
which makes me excited because I'm a huge threatened fan
(16:17):
and I'm like, oh, come on.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Like this is a big deal, right, Like I imagine
getting that phone call was like wow, like this is
a really really major moment and not yeah, and not
only that, you went through a huge physical transformation.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Yes, yes, I did so yeah talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
This and I really want to know.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Truthfully because I I want to know how that changed
your relationship with your body. That's the question, that's the
question deeply, Like I know you're so proud to be
on a show like that for a woman who's fought
so hard to feel comfortable in their body. I want
(17:05):
to ask the real questions and I want to check in.
And I was just curious of did that change?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
You know?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I know, and I'm excited for you to share that
you gained over twenty pounds of muscle for that role.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
Wow did Yeah, that's that's no small feet here.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Okay, Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
As an athlete, putting on twenty two pounds of muscle
takes a ton of dedication, a ton of work.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I mean, you look incredible.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Thank you. But I also these good people.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Don't realize, Yeah, the toll it takes on your body,
especially people you know, like us and the queer community
who fight so hard for that inner piece a little
bit and really listening to who we are and how
we want to show up in the world with how
every the noise of everyone else's expectations that we didn't now.
(18:01):
So yes, please tell me about the process of gaining
that type of weight for the role. But also did
it change your relationship with your body afterwards or during?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, it really did.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
So. I got the role in House of the Dragon
in part because I wrote a play a few years
ago called The Prince that had a lot of sword
fighting and action in it, and I was put up
four House of the Dragon off the back of that,
and the casting director saw that I could fight, and
so they wanted a woman who was over six feet
tall who could fight to play Shariko the Pirate, and
(18:37):
I went in there, and I did my best, and
in season two they gave me a little bit of action,
and then I said, I'd love to do some more
because I've wanted to do action for years, and because
I came up doing Shakespeare, like I can ride horses,
and I was also an army cadet for five years,
so I can shoot, I can sword fight, and I'm
pretty athletic generally. And then in season three said, Okay,
(19:00):
we're going to have the biggest naval battle ever filmed,
have the biggest episode of TV ever filmed, and you're
going to be right in the thick of this battle,
and we're going to train you up. So we did
boxing and sword fighting, and as I say, I put
on all this muscle, which was my decision. They never
they never told me to do that. I decided that
I wanted the character to be someone who is very,
very physically strong. And I'm so grateful that you asked
(19:23):
me how that made me feel, because you're the first person.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Who has Wow. It's it's really nice because.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
As a woman who is very tall and broad, and
also as a woman who happens to be trans my
relationship with my body has not always been well, I've
often worried.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
How other people would perceive it.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Yeah, in particular, something that people often say about trans women.
We're often painted as being a danger, and so there
is a temptation, strong temptation for many of us to
shrink ourselves, to starve ourselves often, and to be afraid
of taking up space. And I've dealt with that. Sometimes.
(20:08):
It's sometimes difficult being tall and broad. And it was
so nice to get that muscle and get that strength
and for that to be okay, and to play a
character who she's cisgender, but who relishes that about her body,
(20:31):
and it did help me love my body more. I remember,
after sort of three weeks of very intense fighting, I
checked in on how I was feeling, and I was like, well,
this has been super intense getting up at four am
six times a week of fighting.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Something all day. But I could keep going. I'm ready.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
And I realized the strength in my body, not just
physical strength of being able to lift things, but also
just it was there for me. It was there for
me when I needed it to be, and it I
had this moment of realizing, wow, I kind of have a.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Bit of a superher body. Yeah, it keeps going.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
It didn't. It didn't let me down, and I grew
to love it more because of that, and that's partly
why I decided to keep the muscle too amazing. It
puts me in a fun casting as well. There's not
a lot of like, not a lot of female action stars,
certainly not a lot of transfer ones, and so it's
been really it's been really nice. Actually, I love it.
(21:32):
I love when I get in a taxi with a
suitcase and then I left my suitcase in and the
driver tries to help Me's.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Like, oh god, you're well, you know, it's nice. It's
really really nice.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, and you've worked hard for it, and you deserve
freaking putting those arms out. Everyone wants a nice little
definition in the arms.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
So I can appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
It's good.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
And it's also really funny, especially like right now in
Hollywood when everyone's on ozempic, Like everyone I know and
a lot of the men I know we're on a
zempic and I'm on Creatin.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
It's just for me too.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
I'm on this.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I have to take raotine every surday and it's great. Everything.
Mental health, like my mental fog it's so good for
your brain, so good for your body. I think we're
sold so much bs and that's one of them. I'm like, no, everyone, listen,
take creatine. It's good for you.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeahah, and don't stop yourself by then.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, we're trying to get We're trying to go real
far backwards in the in the frail department here, I'm like, listen,
if someone's chasing me, I'm gonna run really fast, and
I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Fuck some shit up.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
I'm saying, I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Gonna have to keep that power and that muscle because
I'm not gonna you know, I've I've dropped since I've played.
I'm working out a ton too, and I'm on this
whole body transformation.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I just love to test my body.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I think it is such a powerful thing to do,
and building discipline and habits.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Is so good for my mental wellbeing, you know. And
every day even my kids.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Are like, show me your muscles, and I just like,
I find it so fun and enjoyable to push my
body to you know, things that were I didn't think
were possible. And I think that is the human experience
in general. It's just I imagine it's so good for
my brain, and I'm glad that you agree with that,
(23:31):
because it is it is so important for us and for.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Us as women, to put our bodies to use for
our own purposes. I look at and I certainly would
never knock anyone else's body choices. What I mean is,
I have friends who are models and who are actresses
who strive very hard for a particular aesthetic of thinness
and runway modelsness. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that,
(23:57):
and I understand that's also the precious of the job.
But it's memes that the dominant aesthetic that we are
so often expected to embody in the entertainment industry is girlishness.
Is this It's not just youthfulness, it's a passivity, It's
it's a thinness under girlishness that makes someone easily consumable,
(24:19):
easily controllable, and easily possessed. And I don't certainly don't
mean to knock anyone else's body choices or criticize anyone
in particular. That's not what I'm trying to do. But
I enjoy for myself not and deliberately not embodying that aesthetic.
I enjoy flexing my muscles on a red carpet and
(24:39):
projecting an image of.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Oh, I love the strength, strength, strength, correct power.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
That's why the House of the Dragon premiere, I chose
to go in a red carpet out but that was
inspired by absolute wonder woman and to have that bicep
flex moment, because I wanted to deliberately resist that yep,
that girlish esthetic. I did not want to be an
object that you could possessed by somebody else, but for
my body to be an instrument for my own purposes.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Which is what I love so much about how you
show up in the world in general, and I think
that's what people really gravitate towards, because so much of
your work isn't just entertainment. It's really asking people to
rethink the systems they live in. And that to me,
it's like the topics you decide to explore and critique
are the gender norms, capitalism, healthcare, you name it. But
(25:28):
I am curious what you think is most urgent right
now to challenge.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Ooh, that's a really really good question. Hm. I don't
think there's a universal answer to that. I have learned
over the last few years that the things that I
say in public can very easily become headlines, and that
(25:54):
the things I say can very easily shape how other
people think about important issues, and so I try now
to stick to my lane. The thing that I understand
and can speak authoritatively on when it comes to a
social issue is the NHS and healthcare, in particular healthcare
for trans people in England. Of course I have opinions
(26:15):
on other topics, and I will donate my time and
my money and my energy quietly behind the scenes to
many things as a private individual, but publicly the topic
that I can speak on most authoritatively is that, and
so that's where I tend to direct my energy because
I'm a survivor of the NHS is trans Healthcare pathway
(26:35):
and I can speak. I can speak on that, but
I have found that it's I'm very wary of taking
up space in other people's areas of specialty. So that's
the thing that I focus on. But that's not to
say that it is the most urgent.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And it is urgent, you know, I as a speaking
of I have my trans T shirt on right now.
I'm a huge sports saved my life, just as I
imagine theater gave you a safe space, and I find
it really important to speak on the importance of letting
(27:15):
everyone play. And I know in our country here and
as you're new to it, which you're not new to,
the hate is we want we don't want, not NEWI
because I am not a part of that we, but
this administration does not want trans people in sports, youth sports,
and I just I can't fathom, like it's a deeply
(27:41):
rooted issue for me because I know the impact it
had on me. I would have been a statistic I
was doing drugs in sixth grade. I needed an outlet,
I needed a safe space, and that is what sport
gave me. And how dare us take take that away
from a child who knows more about who they are
than most adults who are in their forties, fifties, and
(28:02):
sixties making these fucking policies. That's what I have a
problem with. And you're right, does it directly impact me, No,
but it does directly impact my community, and my community
is my family, so it deeply impacts me. So I
know here as a woman who came from the South,
you know, we're having a hard time getting gender affirming
(28:26):
care to a lot of these states who have absolutely yanked,
banned and won't allow it, and it is I just
I don't know, because I know you're clearly way more
educated on the topic than me. But where do we
need to see more meaningful progress? Because the problem in
my head is culture moves faster than policy.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Policy moves so fucking slow.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
And the problem is is when we have Whinkers in
the White House, now we have to wait four years,
but we got to wait a lot longer than that
because now we have to unwind all of the tragic
things that they've created for us for probably a decade.
So it's just like, where where can we make meaningful
progress or change so people can access, you know, gender
(29:16):
affirming care.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
That it doesn't make it impossible.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Yeah, coming from the UK context, there are answers to that,
but answers that maybe shouldn't be said on public.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
So there are there are ways and means.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Of survival, and uh, there are levels of survival they
are willing to accept exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
But you living your truth too is so important for
the community to see what is possible because it is
a matter of like why not me, Like, look what
life has given you and it hasn't been easy, and
it hasn't been handed, but it's there are better things
on the other side, and you're living proof of that.
And what I love so much because I don't want
(29:59):
to put you in place where you feel like someone's
gonna jump for a tagline, but I do love the
You've made an important, important distinction between trans representation and transliberation.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Hm.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Hm, And I thought that was really beautiful and I
never thought of it that way. You're like, no, no, no,
I'm looking for transliberation, not representation. So I'm just curious
what you mean by that and what does that actually
look like.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
I have noticed in the last few years that representation
not just of trans and queer people, but of everyone.
It's sometimes held up as the be all and end all,
And I mean you can have you can have a
black man in the White House. You can have black
people on TV and at the same time you can
(30:51):
have police violence against black people.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You can have.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
A trans person on Broadway. You can have a trans
in the biggest TV show in the world, as I was,
and you can have it just like an internal refugee
crisis in the United States of trans people moving to
having to move out of their homes. You can have
conversion therapy on the NHS, as we do in the UK.
These things are not contradictory. In fact, you know, sometimes
(31:18):
the representation is is jangling keys, and I am quite
apart from what it does to the to the people
who are held up as quote unquote representatives, you know
what a career killer that is. And so I didn't
want to be a part of that.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
I guess I just don't believe in a theory of change.
I don't believe that somebody who has a who supports
policies that don't.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
See us as human beings, he's.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Gonna watch an episode of House of the Dragon and
then go, oh, I guess I'll rethink my whole life.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
It's like, no, they're not. Then they're not going to
do that. That's not going to change.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
And to be quite honest, if I walk into a
doctor's office and then I walk out again and my
doctor turns to a nurse and says, God, that bloke
is mental, I don't give a damn as long as
he gives me my goddamn medicine. I don't care what
people say or think. I care who has power and
(32:14):
whether I have power over my life. If representation is
a tool to get me that, then fantastic. But if
it's not, then I don't really care either way. It's
not what led me into dedicating my life to being
an actress. You know. I didn't do that out of
a sense of duty to the community. I've always always
been acting as ever since I as a child, and
so it wasn't something that motivated me then. But I
(32:37):
suppose I want people to have power over their own lives.
The demographics of who appears in an entertainment product are
interesting and to a degree important, but there are means
to an end.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Wow, it's so powerful and it makes me think about
you know, especially when you say it that way about
you know, a doctor and walking into a doctor's office.
You know, Like, I get how visibility can open a door. However,
I also get how it doesn't always change the system
behind the door. It's very It's two very very different
(33:13):
people that two very different scenarios that most people don't
get besides our community. Yeah, and I'm just there's a
big difference.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
I'll be back in just a moment after this brief
message from our sponsors. I imagine like you've built an
audience that expects so much depth based on what you've
been able to create in the following you've been able
(33:44):
to create. Does that ever, does that feel like pressure
to you? Do you ever feel that sense of, Okay,
now I have to be the one that's representing this
whole community, Like that's a lot, that's a lot of
I feel it when I see, you know, a dear
(34:05):
sweet friend of mine, Dylan mulvany here, like it happens
so often to her and I she's the most incredible
human I've ever met in my life. And it's still
to this day. Our President makes a speech a few
days ago and can't take her name out of his
(34:26):
fucking mouth, and it's just.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Been am for her.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
But she's she's wonderful, As Dylan, we spent some time together.
She's one of these people who is so unbelievably talented
and who doesn't even have the decency to be an
asshole about it because.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
She's so lovely.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
Oh, you really do have it all though you know she's.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
It's do you ever feel that pressure of, like, you know,
the expectation now that everyone has because of the visibility
you've had, How do you carry that well.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Most of the time I carry it by not to public,
you know, I carry it with the help of a
very good publicity.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, that's the part.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
So it's that, and it's it's partly sticking to my
lane and and talking about you know, mainly focusing on
healthcare stuff and letting other trusting other people in the
community to do to hold up their end of it.
And partly it's uh yeah, I mean I just kind
of don't. I don't really think about it all that much.
I don't see myself as a representative ement of the community.
(35:31):
Sometimes it's a kind of I have to put on
the tiara and be the be the people's princess, but
that it's kind of my turn to do that today
and then you hand it to someone else, right, But no,
most of the time, I just I keep my head
down and I focus on my work, and I how
do you.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Protect how do you protect your peace? Like that, I'm
phoning a friend. This is me being like, I need
to phone a friend because I I am one of
those people that justice like the right to just exist
and live free of all of this. It like keeps
me up at night and I wish I could protect
(36:08):
my peace a little more and stay in my lane
a little more.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
It's like it is.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
It is a daunting thing to think about all the time,
and I do because we see it all the time
in mainstream media now that are like community is getting
attacked to every chance.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
You know, these these people can.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
So I respect your ability to feel so secure and
feel so confident and stay in your lane and protect
the boundaries that you've placed, because I imagine it's taken a
lot from you. You know, I've experienced it firsthand, and
it's like.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Whoa.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
You're scared to say something too much, You're scared to
not say enough. It's a tough lane to live in,
and I applaud your ability to do it so peacefully, truthfully,
because God, it makes me fucking crazy if you can't tell.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Yeah, yeah, I understand. I mean, I go to the
gym to music creating. Yeah, I have friends that I'll
vent to, but no, I mean the other part of
it is I'm an english woman from a particular background,
and being a kind of invincible statue living statue is
(37:28):
kind of what I was raised to do. I was
not raised to show vulnerability, and so you just kind
of get on with it really.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Yeah, but what's bringing new joy?
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Let us in, give us some give us some tea, honey,
what's bring your new joy?
Speaker 3 (37:44):
These days?
Speaker 4 (37:45):
What's bringing me joy is good art, spending time with friends,
good food, good coffee, and also just my creative pursuits.
I enjoy the work that I do. I enjoy the
auditions I've been taking in the things I've been working on.
I enjoy the I have a feature in development that
(38:06):
I've been writing and it's it's out for financing. I
enjoy that.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Yeah, it's really amazing.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
Amazing director attached. I'm gonna be doing some work with
Lily Wachowski soon, which is fabulous. My play that I
wrote a few years ago that I mentioned a while back,
is going to get a rehearsed reading at Dynasty Typewriter
on the thirty first of July. And that's that's got
such amazing casting.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Amazing news.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like it's like Vivian Wilson is going
to be in it. It's her acting debut. Wow, and
she she's fantastic. She's a fantastic actress. And you know
Nicole Mayns from Supergirl, isn't it And my friend morgana
Agnes is going to be. I enjoy the creative work
that I do. That's that's what gives me joy. And
just just the sunshine, Like it's so nice living in
(38:51):
a country whether.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Sunshine, Oh my gosh, it is.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, somebody said to me a while ago.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
When you live in LA even if you have a
bad day, you go outside in the day, it's not
so bad.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
It's not really.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
It's just like the most beautiful place to live in
the world. I tell you you're you're not wrong about that.
And the walks and the hikes and the food and
the coffee.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's plenty of good things and
beautiful things in life still.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
So what I was going to ask you before what's
your favorite place in London to disappear for an afternoon?
But now I'm going to say, what's your favorite place
in la to disappear for the afternoon? Oh?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Well, there is?
Speaker 6 (39:26):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
I don't want to say where I'm always at because
they're like, yeah, that there is. There is a witch
themed lesbian cafe that I've discovered that I love, and
I love because we don't have a lot of like
Mexican food in the UK. I love just like basic
ass Mexican, Like just the tequilas with my friends.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
That was. Yeah, I love that. I'm always finding excuses.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
I love that.
Speaker 6 (39:51):
Well, I'm I'm curious, though, what what has been like
the most freeing part of coming to LA, Like, what
has been the most enjoyable part?
Speaker 1 (40:07):
I like, because I know, I used to live in
Florida and I picked up my family and I now
live in New York and gosh, no one people used
to stare at me so often and like I'm a
basic ass white girl.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Like I couldn't believe it. Here in New York, it's
like anything goes.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Anyone can walk outside with anything on, No one blinks twice.
Everyone just feels so inclusive, at least the communities I
go to and surround myself with. So I'm curious, like
the contrast and cultures. What has been like the most
liberating for you being in LA coming from London.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
Well, that's something that is I'm not sure whether this
is an LA thing or an American thing. There's something
I like, which is that it's much more acceptable in
the US too. If you like some outfit, a stranger
to say I like your outfit, Yes, that's just something
that you don't you would not ever do that in London. No,
(41:09):
no way, no way, you never. People just don't will
not say that to you, Whereas I'll step outside in
la and people say I like your outfit. And the
first couple of times it happened to me, I was like,
what do you want from me?
Speaker 2 (41:20):
What are you doing?
Speaker 4 (41:22):
Why are you speaking to me? And now I'm starting
to get into it, and now I'll say it to
a stranger, but like I love your jacket or something,
you know, it'll it'll be nice, or like your hair
looks fabulous today. You know, it's just more socially acceptable
to say that. I'm finding that the the the English
ice in my skin is slowly melting, melting, which which
is nice. I mean, there's there's something which has been
(41:47):
a fun challenge. It's been tough, but it's a good
kind of tough, which is that the way that I
was raised was to believe that if someone is suffering
or is having trouble, the most compassionate thing that you
can do. The most compassionate thing is to ignore it,
(42:11):
because if you acknowledge that someone else is suffering, then
you might embarrass them, and that is the worst thing
you can do. And I'm learning, having come to the US,
that that is not how you show compassion here, and
that in some ways it's I want to be a
better friend to my American friends, and so I'm learning
(42:32):
to notice that when they are in difficulty, and to
be okay if they notice that I am, because you know,
if I'm sad or if I'm having trouble and an
American friend of mine says to me, are you okay?
In the past, I would have been very buttoned up
and gone, of course I am. You know, I don't
need to acknowledge that. We don't need to talk about that.
And so this funny thing happened a few weeks ago.
(42:52):
I was at a friend's house and she came through
the living room and she was very clearly upset. She
had been crying and was wrapped in a blanket, and
that clearly hadn't eaten or really washed him was in
a bad way. And I did the compassionate English thing,
which was that I ignored it. I pretended she was
completely invisible, and it started to pay me to do that,
(43:14):
and so I messaged her later and I sent her
a voice note that was three minutes long, because in
America would just be like hey, okay, whereas the voice
that I sent was so English because it was so
verbally and syntactically complicated, because I built in all of
these off ramps to be like hello, I notice, or
seemed to notice earlier that you might be upset, and
(43:36):
I apologize if I am incorrect in that, and I
also apologize again if if I am overstepping the bounds
by noticing it if you were in fact, But if
you were in fact upset, then that is something I
would be keen to help you with, if that would
be acceptable to you. And there were just so it
was like such a I'm obsessed with you, yes, because
because it's you absolutely cannot embarrass someone else, and to
(43:59):
notice that someone else's in pain is to embarrass something.
I even had an argument years ago. I was dating
an American girl. We were walking along the streets in London,
and we passed somebody who was who was living on
the street, who was clearly, you know, in a bad way,
and we were on our way somewhere, and I said
to my girlfriend, I'm sorry, excuse me, and I walked
(44:21):
into the nearest supermarket grocery store and I, you know,
I bought some food and I put it in the
bag and I just went back and I put it
down next to that person and walked on. And my
girlfriend at the time, American, said that was very kind,
and she wanted to remark on it, and I, I'm
ashamed to say, I spoke to her quite sternly and said,
we're not going to talk about that, and I very
(44:43):
much proceeded as if that had not happened at all,
and we ended up having an argument about it. And
that was when I realized that I had been raised
in this mode of you do not acknowledge if someone
else is suffering, because you to even look them in
the eye is to would be too humanly and in
the same way that it would be embarrassing for someone
(45:03):
else to notice your pain. And that that was the
night I really learned about that habit in myself and
began the process of unlearning it and made that made
the intention to let that ice melt.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
And so having since moved.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
To the US and having American friends, it's it's nice
to face that chance, so sweet.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
But to embrace the American way.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
But I appreciate the vulnerability and the understanding that it
is different, and I just I think that that's beautiful
and it tells me a lot about who you are
and understanding, like I genuinely say this, and you know,
I have my partner who is a woman.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
You know, I'm always when I go to other.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Cultures, I really tried to research, like what's acceptable, what's
not acceptable, what you know, what would hurt other people's feelings,
what what most people aren't like that, And I do
find that compassion and understand that I'm putting myself into
someone else's culture and I need to come correct. So
(46:05):
I appreciate that vulnerability and that willingness to just be like, Okay,
I'm not really fucking good at this, and it's going
to be three minutes long and it's going to be
a voice now, but like I'm.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Going to get through it.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
And I just think that's why people find you so
loving and charming and caring and you're right, empathy, compassion,
all of these things.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Community. It's like we needed it, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
And it's even the English can change, I know, I know,
but giving people enough space and grace to do so
right and no one knows that more than living life
on the internet. Jesus, we are so cruel to each other.
Oh yeah, But I always like to close with this
this question. And you know, the show's called Wide Open
clearly sports context, but more so just really diving into
(46:53):
matters that go well beyond what we do. And I
know what wide Open means to me, But what does
living wide Open mean to you today? Because I'm sure
so many people would like to hear that.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Well, something that I'm working on and that the stories
I've just told are part of, is is trying to
be a little more human. I think, not only the
way that I was raised, but also the way that
we have to turn up as queer people in the
public eyes. That we're so often expected to be invincible
superheroes and to protect an image of strength and beauty
(47:27):
and elegance at all times. And I'm learning to embrace
my own humanity a little bit and to try to
work less hard, to try to acknowledge when I'm unhappy,
to allow my friends to notice it. And so I
suppose that's that's what being wide Open means to me.
(47:49):
You know, it's funny, somebody asked me a while ago,
do you get nervous on a red carpet? Were you
nervous at the red carpet?
Speaker 1 (47:57):
A house?
Speaker 4 (47:57):
To dren you're a big event and like photographers, and
I'm sure you've been in events like that. Word many
people might expect us to feel pressured to look or
be perfect, And I, without even thinking about it, I said, well, no,
it's the only time I can relax because I don't
have to be a human being.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
I can just you. Just you become the symbol.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
You know, you transform into Sheirah and then you know
it's for the honor of gray skull, and then then
you're just you don't have to be a human being,
you don't have You can be a lightning bolt or
a wave or a packet of photons, and there's a
whole team who are going to be their makeup artists
and publicist who will sand off all your humanity and
you become a kind of perfect collection of ones and
zerrans and you don't have to have any internality at all.
(48:34):
You're just a symbol and it's great. And I said
that without thinking about it and reflected on how unhealthy
that is and how you can't live a life like that,
or if you can, but it'll be a very lonely one.
And so I suppose to me, wide open means trying
to be more of a human being, which has been
(48:59):
bread and trained out of me for years and which
i'm in which I'm gradually learning with love and friends
and therapy, is no bad thing to be a person.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
I love that, and I'm going to share since you're
getting me so deeply. It's just everything is so vulnerable,
and thank you for sharing these things. And it's really
interesting you said that because I'm reflecting on a memory
as I'm dating an actor as well, who I feel
that constantly is in the spotlight.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
I say this often.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
I'm surprised she's not chewing her hair in the fucking
corner because it's just like she's has been famous for
a very long time and it's such a yuck word,
but it's the reality of which which she lives. And
we went to a World Cup game recently and I'm animated.
I am a full on athlete. I'm very passionate. I
(49:57):
get very like when I'm telling stories and I'm like, deep,
it's deeply personal to me. I'm very like, you know,
mentality of an athlete, and she gently looked over to
me and said, you have to be really careful with
your your like how you're expressing yourself, because there'll be
cameras on us and it'll be turned into a headline
(50:19):
that we're fighting to even think that way has this
is my space. Truthfully, I have never once had to
think about stripping myself down to be digestible for other
people in that kind of way that I would even
fucking remotely think like that, And the fact that she does,
(50:43):
the fact that you all in this industry have to
think about these things, it really does strip you of
like the most basic human experience, like at a soccer game,
and sure fucking enough on the internet the next day
there are cameras and photos of us in this box,
and she knows and I can't even we're not.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
First of all, we never fight. She's the sweetest human
in the world.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
But it's like, I can't even be animated and telling
a story without the consequences that potentially could come from it.
And you're right, it strips you of your human dignity.
Everything you're like, who you are. You have to show
up and you have to present and.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
You truly, yeah, the truly insidious thing is that it
makes you want to be stripped for humanity and it's like, yes, good,
now I'm not vulnerable. Now I'm just invincible. And it's like, no,
you can't live like that, No, no you can't. But
it makes you must live wide open. Yes.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
So I appreciate you saying that, and I get it,
and I'm I've seen it firsthand of what a lot
of you go through and it's really really interesting. But
I really appreciate your vulnerability and your honesty and coming
on here and I'm so excited.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
To see more of your work.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
So anything you want to say to the audience to
promote anything, do you know when anything's coming out, because
we all want to know.
Speaker 4 (52:11):
My play The Prince, which is about a bunch of
Shakespeare characters realizing they're stuck inside of play and trying
to break out and crashing through the Shakespeare multiverses they go.
It's going to have a rehearsed reading on the thirty
first of July, that's this Friday at Dynasty Typewriter Theater.
It is going to be recorded and the recording will
be available through the Dynasty Typwriter website. So you'll be
able to see me and some other fabulous actors doing
(52:34):
some very silly romping around through Shakespeare. So yeah, that'll
be the next thing. And there is more philosophy to
you on the way. I'm writing an entire season of
the show so that I can go back to the
UK later this year and film it in block.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Well, we can't wait, because we did look it up
and the last one was like four months ago. So
not that we're waiting, but it.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
Was, it was we're waiting.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Don't worry, don'torry. I'll I'll get on it. I'll get
on it.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
Well, it's so good to see you. Thank you so
much for being here.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
I hope you live out every sunshine in Los Angeles because.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
You deserve it.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
All right, everyone, and that's the episode this week. Thank
you for tuning in, too wide open. We'll see you
next week. What I love so much about this conversation
as it really reminded me that becoming yourself isn't a
single decision, it's a practice.
Speaker 3 (53:22):
It's asking hard.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Questions, challenging the stories we've inherited, and having the courage
to write new ones. Abigail, thank you, for your honesty,
your curiosity, and for making philosophy feel deeply human. And
thank you all for listening. As always, if this conversation
challenged you, inspired you, or simply made you think differently,
(53:44):
share it with someone who needs it. We'll see you
next time on Wide Open
Host
Ashlyn Harris
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