Latest / Half the Picture / #46 - KIMBERLEY NIXON

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#46 - KIMBERLEY NIXON · Half the Picture

• 0:00
  But every now and again, I'll be with my little boy and somebody might come up and say, are you slaggy Lindsay? Covering his ears.
• 0:09
  Yes, I was, a million years ago. There'll be women kind of in their late 20s, early 30s, who were about 14 when it came out. Either Wildchild or Angus or both. It's their real comfort film. If they've had a crappy day or a breakup or they feel like crap, then they put that film on. And I've got films that do that for me. And that's really special for me as an actor who didn't really think I could be an actor, but really went into it wanting to do that for the people.
• 0:46
  Hello, Kimberly. Welcome to Half the Picture. How are you doing today? Hello. Thank you so much for having me. All the way from grey Wales. Well, here I am sitting all the way from grey bricklay in London. I mean, this is just what it's like in the UK at the moment, I guess. It's okay, though. After that heatwave, we're about 15 degrees cooler and it's good. It's good. Yeah, I mean, I can hardly keep up. Thanks so much for coming on Half the Picture today. I mean, we were saying a bit before we started rolling, but...
• 1:15
  It's just great to have you on. I mean, all the great work you've done over your career as an actress, all the stuff like Fresh Meat and Angus Fong's Perfect Snogging, of course, and Wild Child and Up Through to Undersault Marsh. I mean, you've been involved in so many great projects. And, of course, you've got a new book out and a new one-woman show out, Baby Brain. So it sounds like it's been quite a busy time for you of late. I mean, on paper, I sound really impressive. The actual reality of it is that it's all a complete shambles. It's just sort of...
• 1:44
  playing keepy-happy with my life from day to day. But, yeah, no, it's been a really busy time. And, you know, as a freelancer, as an actor, you can't ever really knock that because, you know, like I was saying, you can have a stretch of up to a year where you're not working, you're not earning. So, yeah, so this has been a really fun time because I get to do acting. I've been filming a couple of TV shows. But then, yeah, producer, writer...
• 2:12
  stand-up hat for the play and uh and then author hat for the book so um yeah it's been really exciting actually yeah i was saying that it sounds like you know so many different projects so many different mediums i mean do you like sort of the diversification of that and like that keeps you keeping you on your toes a bit
• 2:30
  It's definitely keeping me on my toes because in amongst all that then, I'm also a parent. That never clocks off, that one. So that's a 24-hour thing. But it's just, yeah, we just take it, we kind of take it a week at a time, you know, organizing the logistics of stuff. But I am, creatively, I'm really enjoying it because I'm trying out different things. And actually, I'm finding that each...
• 2:59
  one lens to the other, you know, as I'm, as I find my stride in one or gain a bit of confidence, I try to carry it through in, in, into other parts of my, of my career. So yeah, I mean, at the moment it's, it's been really, it's been really, really good. You know, I've just been such a, an act, like I was just an actor. I didn't, I, you know, I always used to say on the
• 3:23
  They were all so incredibly talented and had their fingers in all the pies. You know, they were all writing or obviously there was, you know, stand up. They were writers. They were musicians. They were singers, all these things. And I was just there. My only skill was pretending and I had nothing, no leather strings to my bow. So, yeah, I've caught up with them. It took me a while, but I caught up with them.
• 3:49
  Well, I mean, I think it's fair to say that you're very bloody good at pretending. I mean, the breadth of work that you've done. And something that I've been asking the actors had on the pod lately is their views individually on what makes a good actor. And everyone's kind of had a different answer. I mean, for you, as someone who has been in the game now for nearly 20 years, I mean, what to you makes a good actor? I think for me, I always look for qualities in a person that I don't have or I find it difficult to...
• 4:16
  to convey myself. So I always really enjoy actors who don't mind being really still.
• 4:26
  And just, because I'm terrible at that. I'm in real life. I'm terrible at it. I have to fill it. I have to fill a gap. And then a lot of the characters I play are the talky mile a minute ones. So I do love it every now and again when I get to play a character who's the observant one. And does it all with, does it, I love actors that do it all with their eyes. They don't even have to say anything. And that there's just, I don't know, you can kind of see the,
• 4:56
  the mechanics, the cogs turning, but they're not showing you, they're not handing it to you on a platter. And I love that. I love not being... I mean, I'm not even talking as an actor, I'm just talking as a... I love film and TV and theatre. I love being an audience member. And for me, it's not being spoon-fed a performance. I absolutely love that.
• 5:24
  I mean, who do you think are some of the great examples for that kind of acting? You're going to say that then. I love people. I enjoy like really, really beautiful, smooth faces and never very interesting to me on screen. I love I love detail. I love creases around the eyes. I love, you know,
• 5:50
  I just love seeing people's skin in their faces and close-ups and stuff like that. And I love those older actors, you know, Paul Newman. Even someone, so take it, take Peter Falk, right? I'm a huge Columbo fan. But what I really enjoy about that kind of TV making that we maybe don't do anymore is that a lot of it will be played out in the wide area.
• 6:15
  which allows the actor to get, to kind of just have so much freedom of movement and do whatever they want during a take. That's really rare now. You know, if you, I mean, I have to try and not obsessively do it, but if you watch a TV show now and just in one scene, just count the shots in it,
• 6:36
  You don't realise, you know, kind of for a relatively small scene, you'll be like, oh my God, that was 12 shots. That was 12 setups for something that could have been a bit simpler. I don't know. Maybe I'm just sort of rose tinting the past that long, luxurious takes and the actor got to be a bit idiosyncratic. And yeah, anything that's not kind of paint by numbers, really.
• 7:01
  So would you say that kind of sort of blocking and that kind of sort of direction of actors has changed like it's less because I thought it did start out like that, like you start up a wide and you just, you know, you get all that done and then you go in for sort of close ups. Is that not? I mean, if you so you will obviously when you're shooting, you start with the wide to get the geography of the place so that, you know, the audience knows where they are.
• 7:22
  And I just find when you watch all the stuff, you know, I've been, weirdly, I've been doing a film podcast and someone has to send in their favorite film. And I have to then kind of, it's the best homework ever. I get to just watch them. But one actor, Owen Teal, his favorite film is the Gene Hackman film, The Conversation, which I had, which I'd never seen. And I just...
• 7:49
  It was really interesting to me how much now, I feel like sometimes now we do a wide as an establisher, as a geography, as a here, this is the room we're in, this is where we are, these are the people in that scene. And then it's all very close and in and on the eyes and, you know. Whereas in older stuff, they really let stuff play in wide. They really do. And we don't do that so much anymore.
• 8:18
  I think it's because we're not, we're just, we've been rewired. You know, we need to see the whites of people's eyes now. Yeah. And I feel like things have gotten faster as well with editing and with like, yeah, composition. Things just move a bit faster these days in film and TV. And the camera's always moving as well. That's another thing that I've noticed, even in like comedy, say, which was always, always obviously much more of a static thing.
• 8:44
  set up thing it's crazy whatever you watch now new stuff even if you don't even realise it even if they've done it in post but the camera is just ever so slightly moving ever so slightly we never land anywhere it's like we're scared to land
• 9:00
  that's very true actually and like you never feel totally sometimes you don't feel totally settled and that's from movies from the biggest blockbusters to the smallest that very that slightly moving camera you're absolutely right it does and like sometimes it's powerful just to have it just static just just let us feel that i'm curious as you mentioned the conversation like you hadn't seen it like out of interest what did you make of that film because that's such a that screeches the other way in terms of what we're talking about in a lot of ways
• 9:25
  Yeah, I mean, so Gene Hackman, you know, I absolutely love Gene Hackman. And my husband will shout at me because he'll be like, no, you don't. He's my favourite. You're just saying that. But he is phenomenal. And he's really someone who, you know, you think of him as this very...
• 9:45
  You know, very serious gravitas, you know. But then one of my favorite films he did was Heartbreakers. Did you ever see that with Sigourney Weaver? I've heard of it, yeah, yeah, I've heard of it. And it's a kind of con-woman heist movie.
• 10:03
  And Gene Hackman is playing this tobacco tycoon and every time he's in a scene, he's literally in a cloud, I don't know how they did it, but he's in a cloud of smoke. He follows him wherever he goes. And he's amazing in that because he plays it dead straight and he's really, really funny. And that's not maybe what springs to mind when you think of him. But I did love, I really loved that film. I thought it was absolutely, I mean, just from the sound design aspect of it, yeah.
• 10:33
  I'm much more visual than I am audio. So it was, it was a real, it was really interesting for me that that was where the, the emphasis was that I had to pay attention, I had to listen and pay attention in, in that way.
• 10:48
  um not just what i was not just a feast for the eyes um and the the kind of the paranoia of it i mean it was just great it was really really great and and it was it was a real i love it when films are a gift in that way because i wouldn't have seen it unless it had been recommended because like it's not a film you're going to come across like it's a saturday night watch we put should put a film on oh would you fancy watching the conversation
• 11:12
  you know i just really i really really loved it but it was great because in the next week the guest i think was sean gibson and her uh her favorite movie was bridesmaids so it was it was it was lovely it was really it was really wonderful
• 11:33
  I mean, that's an incredible double bill, The Conversation and Bridesmaids. I mean, wow. I don't know which one you'd do first. And then I think somebody picked Hello, Dolly, which, of course, obviously I'd heard of and had seen bits of, but I'd never sat down and watched it from beginning to end and watched Hello, Dolly. And then when I started diving in, because I love the trivia of movies and I'm just a real nerd in that way. And the trivia on that is phenomenal, like really phenomenal, because Walter Matto hated Barbra Streisand. It was a whole thing. It was great. It was really, really great. Yeah.
• 12:03
  um and then finally because i'd done under salt marsh with um jonathan price and he was our final guest and he chose a film which halfway through this film i was like he's winding me up but this has got to be a wind up um it was like the curse of the beekeeper no spirit of the beehive that's the one
• 12:26
  he was like yeah no he just left his foul and i went honestly i'm oh my god um and i was like he's he's got a bit of a twinkle in his eye and i was like is this a wind up um have you seen it i i never have i've heard so much about it though i mean it's one of the that's such a great title i mean like i've heard so much about the film it's one of those it's one of those it's like it's really important and it did things at the time it didn't you know but then you know watching it
• 12:55
  It's kind of one of those things like, is this good or is this just good because people say it's good? I'm not sure. I can't quite tell. I think the opening shot goes on for about 17 minutes. So with our kind of rewired social media, quick cut, swipe away sensibilities, that's too much for us.
• 13:18
  Have you ever heard of or seen Satan Tango, the seven hour long Hungarian film from the 90s? Don't. Honestly. Honestly. But for me, and it's the same with any form of people...
• 13:39
  I think this is where kind of my autism kind of really kicks in because I don't understand when people lie. So, you know, when you've just, you've seen a really bad play, like a really bad play. And I know it's different because in, in, with a play, the people are really there and, you know, there's a certain politeness, you know, it's not like coming out of a cinema screening going, God, that was crap.
• 14:03
  But sitting through like a seven hour film and then people go, wasn't that amazing? And it's like, don't lie. You're lying. You're lying. You were bored out of your skull. It's the kind of people who laugh at Shakespeare. It's like you're just laughing to show that you've read it. You're going to do something funny before you start laughing at the joke, you know? It's all that kind of, I don't know.
• 14:32
  wankiness of film is not... I don't think it really does anyone any favours. I think it makes people...
• 14:45
  It makes people feel like film isn't for them. And I really think film is for everybody. But in the same way that people do it with theatre, like I said, you have to speak in a very specific way and you have to know this and that in thing. And it becomes really cliquey and I just don't think it does it any favours.
• 15:06
  Like another actor I had on there was Sam C. Wilson, who was also in Under Salt Wash with me. And he's just in the new He-Man. And his favorite film was Superbad. And I hadn't seen it for years, years and years and years. And I put it back on and it was brilliant. It's brilliant. But there's this idea of worthiness that I always can't quite get my head around.
• 15:28
  absolutely I mean speaking of Superbad have you ever seen which is obviously terrific have you seen Booksmart which is kind of which came out a few years ago Olivia Wilde Olivia Wilde yeah yeah no I haven't seen that but is that worth a watch
• 15:42
  Totally. I mean, the basic set up, it's Superbad, but with two girls instead of two or three guys. Yeah. And honestly, I mean, I love it as much as Superbad. I mean, I think it's even though it's quite similar. It's just it's a brilliant film. It's hilarious. It's highly recommended if you like Superbad. Well, that's my next. See? Brilliant. That's my next watch. There you go.
• 16:00
  I mean, linking this conversation of, like, favourite films back to you and your work, I mean, I did want to ask, like, how did this sort of journey to becoming an actor get started for you? Because I want to say, when I was sort of reading up on sort of how you did get started, am I right in thinking that Princess Bride and, like, Pride and Prejudice were, like, the two big sort of things that inspired you to become an actor? Yeah, how did you know that? Have I said that before? Well done, and good research. Thank you. It was on a podcast. It was on another podcast. It has. Yeah, no, I...
• 16:30
  I love those two. I mean, talk about the idea of an actor only being able to communicate with their eyes. That was exactly what Pride and Prejudice was. But because of the restraints at the time, you know, you couldn't. So I love that, watching the actors literally saying everything with their eyes and saying something very polite with their bodies. But Princess Bride, I love the...
• 16:54
  I love the straddle between incredibly straight and absolutely absurd. Like, that's always a draw for me. And, I mean, that is one of the most absurd things
• 17:09
  But they all play it so straight. And it's the same way why I love my absolute favorite Christmas film is A Muppet's Christmas Carol. Because he should have won an Oscar. Michael Caine is playing it absolutely dead straight the entire way through. And it's supposed to be the most like kind of historically correct adaptation of the book.
• 17:33
  And then he's just surrounded by Muppets. But it's perfect. It's absolutely perfect. So the absolute straightness with absurdity is kind of my niche. And one heightens the other, doesn't it? The absurdity heightens the straight factor and then vice versa.
• 17:49
  Exactly, exactly that. Yeah. Like he, he's almost made a kind of a darker, weightier character by, by the fact that, you know, his, his office is full of little mice, you know, it's, it's stupid, but it is, it's an absolute, like it's a, it's a joy. But yeah, his brides, Maffet's Christmas Carol. Yeah, these are my inspirations.
• 18:13
  Yeah, I completely agree. And that is a brilliant film, both brilliant films. I mean, like the scene where Michael Caine delivers the line of like, he says to the ghost of Christmas past, like, please don't show me that Christmas. And you absolutely buy it. Like, you know, it's heart-rending, you know what I mean? Like the emotion of it.
• 18:28
  kind of solitary tear and it's Michael Caine and and he's just you know it it's like it's almost like watching your grandfather well it's you know it's really heartbreaking um and that you know you don't see the oh it's just it's just all great it's all I could go on I could do a whole podcast just on that film me too seriously but but how do you think those films then inspired it was it just seeing those films as a young age and going oh this is what I want to do this is for me
• 18:58
  Yeah, I just, it was a real escape for me film. It was something that I could just take myself away to my bedroom and put on a film. I loved discovering new films. I really got into, like, all the Kevin Smith stuff and Chasing Amy and...
• 19:16
  And the idea that some filmmakers find their people, you know, and they work with the same people over and over again because you really find your tribe. And I know when I did Fresh Meat, I definitely started to feel that. Like, I was like, I think I found my people, I think. Because, you know, now, I mean, I'm 40 now and I got diagnosed just before my 40th birthday with autism. Yeah.
• 19:41
  And it's just made so much stuff make sense. But, you know, I found being a teenager, I found things very overwhelming and very...
• 19:52
  just a lot of emotions that I was trying to sift through all the time. I was always on the back foot, a step behind kind of socially of what was happening and what was going on. And going to my bedroom and putting a film on was some respite from that, I think. And I just loved...
• 20:14
  watching how the actors move their faces to convey different things, I found that really fascinating. And I would memorise dialogue really easily, really easily. I mean, since having a baby, that has gone. Whatever part of my brain... Learning lines now is a thousand times harder than it was pre-baby, so there's definitely some physiological thing going on, which I found with other actresses, actually. They just say it's...
• 20:41
  it's there's no stickiness there it just flies away but beforehand I could just watch a film once and then go back and mouth the words along with the actors and I just I found it very calming and I found it really escaping and the idea of being somebody else for for a few moments um was nice and maybe something I could try although I won't tell anybody
• 21:06
  because I'm from a little village in South Wales, nobody I knew was in that business. That's not how, you don't make money from that. You know, you're never gonna get anywhere. And so when I sort of secretly applied to drama school and I secretly auditioned,
• 21:22
  And then I got in and I had to tell everybody. It was so out of the blue for everyone. They had no, like, literally, like, I'd gone mad. Like, oh, I'm going to drama school, I'm going to be an actor. Like, that had come out of nowhere for people. I mean, you're not going to believe this now, but I was really uncool and... LAUGHTER
• 21:39
  It was pre-streetners, I had really frizzy hair, pale glasses. And I was a nerd in school, you know, and when I didn't quite understand social stuff, I would dive into the academic stuff. And so, you know, I did really well in school and the idea, well, just not even a spoken thing of you're just going to go to university, get a proper degree and get a proper job. But there was obviously some part of my brain that was like, you have to, you have to do this, you know, you have to try. Yeah.
• 22:09
  yeah and and i've heard you talk before about how so because because you did try and of course you know you did get into you know you studied drama and i remember you saying about fresh meat because you mentioned fresh meat that like that experience of making that show with those guys you know joe thomas and jack whitel and all the rest um was almost like because obviously it's a university in this in this house share like that was almost kind of like your uni experience whereas you didn't you didn't go straight into a conventional uni you went into drama school which was much more
• 22:39
  Well, that was the funny sort of paradox of it all is that everybody kind of like, you're not going to university to do a proper degree. You're just going to go to drama school and throw it away and pretend to be a tree for three years. When actually, you know, drama school was, I mean, it was an incredible...
• 22:59
  training ground for uh for going into the industry you know when I transitioned from um three years of drama school where you're kind of in at 8 a.m you're there till 7 p.m 7 30 p.m and you you don't have weekends you can't go to wedding you can't plan things in the same way that you could your your free time isn't your own as much
• 23:20
  So when I got my first job and I was on a film set and it was a 12-hour shoot day, that wasn't a huge shock to the system. And then actually then I had friends who went to university to do proper things, you know, whether it was English, lit or law or whatever the thing was. And they kind of had like 10 hours a week and would have like a lecture at 11 and be finished by lunch and the rest of the day was theirs. And that was not remotely my...
• 23:46
  sort of university experience. So then when, yes, when we did Fresh Meat, the two kind of melded because I was still doing those really long. I mean, some days on Fresh Meat, you know, you're talking like 16-hour days sometimes. But we just loved spending time together so much, the six of us as a core cast. But then also with the crew who, you know, by series four, we come to know really, really well.
• 24:13
  You'd think we'd be sick of each other, but we'd just go out in Manchester. And so we were kind of, we weirdly were living these Manchester students' lives, albeit with a full-time job. But it was just, it was a really, really special time, and a time where, for the first time in my career, I got to use my accent. I got to talk like me. Because I really remember thinking that maybe we weren't going to get on.
• 24:42
  Because me and Zai, we laugh. We always say that we're like, we're the friends that shouldn't be. Like we're so opposite in every single way. You know, like she would be so actressy and going off to do Bikram yoga and a juice cleanse. And I just, I can't handle this.
• 25:00
  Like I really can't handle it. But still, you know, whatever it is, like 15, 16 years later, she's still one of my absolute favorite people in the world. And the same with Charlotte. I remember meeting Charlotte for the first time and she was still in university. She hadn't graduated yet. So she was much bit younger than the rest of us.
• 25:21
  And I just remember thinking, oh my God, she's so posh. She swears this didn't happen, but I swear to God, she said the word wizard as in a kind of like, oh, wizard. And I was like, what is that? Like, I was from a valley's comprehensive. I couldn't, I was like, is this Maori Towers? What is happening? And then Zawi on the other side trying to do Bikram, you're going to juice cleanse. I was like, this is not going to, we are all too different.
• 25:52
  But that's where they absolutely nailed it in the casting because the six of us, we all brought something different and we all loved each other's differences and bolstered each other's differences. And yeah, do that more, do that more. And I don't know, it was just a joy to watch. And I remember a lot of times in a scene, especially if we were all in it together, because that would take like seven hours to shoot.
• 26:17
  It would come to my line and I would just be, I was just watching them, like doing their scene. Someone would be like, Kim, sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. Because I'd just be completely engrossed with what they were doing. Because their take was different and I just learned so much from them. It was a really special time.
• 26:38
  Totally. It's like the casting of all of you is, I mean, casting is obviously is an art form in itself, but like the casting of all of you, I mean, they're really, it's hard to watch Fresh Meat and think of any of you being, any of those characters being played by someone else. Well, originally I was supposed to be R again.
• 26:52
  Oh yes, that's right. I remember hearing that. You went up for that role. Yeah. So I think I did seven auditions and six and a half of them were for Oregon. Of me doing an English accent. Chemistry Reads with Joe, which was really funny because it was really passive aggressive and very Josie and Kingsley, which was ideal really because at the same time I was auditioning for...
• 27:17
  fresh meat i'd also auditioned for joe's sitcom chickens that he'd co-written and i didn't get it and then he came and then suddenly then so i went into the room where he's on the other side of the table and he's the writer and he's you know and i'm very much there in my gcse exam um and then suddenly for fresh meat we were both the kind of we were you know peers and we were chemistry testing everything and i was like okay yeah welcome back down here with us
• 27:46
  Little people, but which worked perfectly for that really passive aggressive Josie Kingsley, you know, that kind of thing, which was, which was, yeah, which is really special. But it was, I think it was Sam Bain who in the, in the kind of final one said, listen, I know you don't know, I know you haven't looked at the lines or anything, but would you mind reading Josie really fast?
• 28:12
  And then I said, what accent should I do? And I said, shall I do my own? And somebody said, well, she's supposed to be quite middle class. And I was like, well, we have those in Wales. And you'd be like, oh God, of course, of course, of course. And also Sam's wife was Welsh. And he was like, hang on. Yeah, I like that. I like that idea. Yeah. Yeah.
• 28:35
  Now I think it'd be so weird if there wasn't a Welsh voice in the Fresh Meat House. And I'm so glad I didn't get Oregon because then I got to meet Charlotte, who's one of the best people in the world. So it all worked out. Casting knew what they were doing.
• 28:50
  absolutely and the i did want to ask about like your relationship with sam bain and jesse armstrong of course the head writer showrunners on the show because they're obviously a duo who have done so much great work i mean peep show probably be the other classic sort of sitcom example but obviously you know jesse's gone to do uh succession i mean what was it like working with them on the series and i guess in the casting process do you remember i mean as amazing as you as you've heard i'm a bit of a nerd i'm especially a nerd about kind of british tv comedy you know
• 29:20
  I think we just do something uniquely British that just, I don't know what it is, but it's kind of that straight absurd thing. It's, I mean, if you take Toast of London, that's like the most extreme version of it. But I loved Peep Show. And when the audition came in, I was, I'm not going to get this. I am never in a million years going to get this. I'm not seen as funny. I'm not seen as comedic. All my roles to date had been dramatic or period dramas or English Rose type things.
• 29:50
  And there's just no way. But I knew that Sam and Jesse were going to be at the audition. So I just went to meet them because I loved Peep Show so much. And then working with them was just a joy. And they're just so... They're just so great. And they're just smart and funny and nice. And it was a real...
• 30:12
  And lessening, you can be super good at what you do, but also a nice person, which I think sometimes gets lost in this business a little bit. And then obviously Jesse went on to do Succession. And, you know, he had, he went off to America to do Succession for a few years and he had a sort of coming home party when Succession ended.
• 30:32
  And he screened the final ever episode of Succession early. He had a big party and invited everybody. And it was like an episode of Fresh Meat because it was like we'd snuck in. We were stealing from the buffet. We kept seeing him, you know, like,
• 30:55
  in the show um and uh just having drinks with people like i was having i was having drinks for johnson from peep show i was just like oh my god it's happening you know um paterson joseph himself the the legend
• 31:13
  Who does have a name and is an actual person, but... Just for me, like... Yeah, I just loved, like, I just... It was really great, but we just fall back into... Because, you know, now we're all essentially grown-up, and loads of us are married, we've got kids, we've got... You know, we're proper grown-ups, we should be. But as soon as we're back together, we just fall back into this mischievous...
• 31:44
  sort of egging each other on, you know, you do it, no, you do it. Um, there's no, you know, there's no, um, filter on what we say to each other. And, um, and it's just a real joke, but I, I, honestly, it was like we, Jesse was trying to host this lovely party that he'd invited us to. And it was kind of like the fresh meat rascals running around.
• 32:08
  It's great to hear that it sounds like you guys have all stayed, like you and Joe and Greg and all the rest of the cast and Jesse and Sam and the writers have stayed quite tight and close. It's nice to hear that you guys have stayed so close. Yeah, we do. And we always do try to meet up all the time because we literally live all over the place. So I live in Wales. At one point, Greg was still living in Scotland. And I think now he lives down south.
• 32:34
  um jack is everywhere all over the world all the time um you know so every everything was always just trying to get a i mean one one day we literally there's an episode where in fresh meat where they um they're supposed to be revising but they fuck it off and hire a barge and we did that we literally went to london and hired a barge and had like a weird m&s picnic and um and just sort of did day drink they're the only people i do day drinking with it's like a
• 33:04
  As soon as we see them, we fall into this sort of hedonistic, oh, the next 24 hours don't exist. But we just really like spending time with each other. Yeah, we did fuck it off and hire a bod.
• 33:23
  We'll see you then as you grow up and your responsibilities change. It gets harder and harder to see each other, even though we're all still in touch. But they are all coming to see my show. So just for that alone, the show is worth it to put on. Oh, that's lovely to hear. Because, yeah, as we were saying before, you are doing a tour. It's going around a lot of places in the country, isn't it? Yes. So we're just heading into our summer tour. I opened it in my hometown because it was really important for me to
• 33:52
  bring theatre to people who wouldn't necessarily think that
• 33:57
  theatre is for them and for ticket prices to be cheap. And, you know, I think tickets are like 15 quid or something. And, you know, it's a one hour, one woman, very black comedy about postpartum psychosis and stand up. And it's all very, very weird. But I'm really excited because, you know, you said I'm nearly 20 years in the business. I've never really done the fringe festivals ever. I've always wanted to go to Edinburgh. I've never been.
• 34:26
  And so we are, we're doing Manchester Fringe, which will be great to go back up there because we haven't really been since Fresh Meat. Camden Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe. So it's really, it's really exciting, really exciting.
• 34:41
  Brilliant. Well, I'm really curious to chat to you about the show. I mean, but I guess I... Touching back on Fresh Meat just for a moment, just because a question occurred to me, which is that when I hear you guys talk about that show and hear Jesse and Sam talk about the show, one of the sort of things that comes clear to me about the show is that it's about six people pretending to be something that they're not and actually they're something else.
• 35:07
  And each of the characters is kind of wrapped around this idea to some degree. And I did want to ask, what do you think Josie was pretending to be? And who do you think she actually was?
• 35:18
  Josie was a really huge learning curve for me personally in my life because I learned quite a lot from her. I mean, I learned a lot of what not to do in situations. She was kind of like the wayward little sister that you're just kind of trying to keep on the rails. But as a performer, incredibly...
• 35:39
  freeing because you got to do some crazy stuff. It was really fun with no real world consequences you know. But you're right we were all in that way that you do as a teenager and then when you go to university and even into your 20s
• 35:56
  you're trying to figure out who you are, who people want you to be. And I loved the idea that Josie was this wholesome, sweet looking, Welsh girl, you know, girl next door, who had like the mouth of a sailor. And, um,
• 36:18
  just made terrible decisions. But she taught me really quickly through her that don't waste time trying to be somebody else or pretending to be something or not. It's genuinely such a waste of time. But then in my real life, I just kind of cut through and was a bit more...
• 36:39
  No, I'm just going to be me. I'm going to be me in this industry. And sometimes that works in your favor. Most of the time it doesn't, to be honest. You know, I'm probably a bit too honest about things. But I think, yeah, she kind of, she really taught me that. Because I got to see through her the consequences of constantly trying to keep a friend up. And it's exhausting, you know. So I try not to do that.
• 37:06
  Yeah. And I guess that leads through to the end of the show, which I mean, I guess spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't seen it, but like it's such a, I mean, if you're listening to this far and you haven't seen Fresh Meat, okay. But the ending of the show, which is so poignant, like it really, for me, kind of comes a bit out of nowhere. When I first saw it, it came a bit out of nowhere where Josie is essentially like left.
• 37:26
  like alone in the house and then sort of wanders off down the street. And there's a real poignancy and a real sort of bittersweet quality to that. Do you ever think like what happened next? Do you ever think like where could she go next? Yeah. There was a, you know, we often get asked, you know, if we're doing a reunion or if we're going to kind of do a, you know, this life plus 10, that idea. Everyone always asks me. And when people were asking me, I think it was kind of,
• 37:53
  pandemic time because it was the 10 year anniversary and I just had this such a strong sense that JP would be Prime Minister and Josie would be his sort of Carrie Johnson to his Boris. LAUGHTER
• 38:08
  Just had this really, that they'd, I mean, I would have, there was talk around it kind of at the time, but maybe it was just wishful thinking. But the idea of them all moving to London, sort of set, you know, moving into different places, but then them starting their adult lives, you know, Josie living in some sort of...
• 38:32
  Mayfair apartment with with JP just complete fish out of water just in a sushi bar just what is this you know um yeah we kind of we had lots of fun kind of imagining all that stuff um but people still ask now you know will we will there ever be a reunion episode and do they ever I mean like I guess do Jesse and Sam ever talk about it because I know they get asked all the time about Peep Show as well like oh you know Mark and Jez coming back I assume they get asked about it as well
• 39:00
  I think they do. I think they just, they play their cards pretty close to their chest, but I'm pretty certain that we'd love to. Purely...
• 39:12
  Because imagine getting paid to hang out with the best people and the funniest people and you just get to do a really weird job. You know, on Fresh Meat, I used to call them my hump days because Josie had many partners. And I knew in the morning I would get into my little kind of rabbit hutch trailer at like 6am and they'd just be addressing and hanging up and I'd be like, OK, what's happening?
• 39:38
  You know, we just got to do bonkers stuff. I mean, I hadn't known Jack very long before we did that first scene where they kind of have their one night stand in season one. And I remember looking back and there was a huge camera rig above us with, you know, grips over the top of the wall of the set and mics underneath the bed kind of trying to get the sound and everything. Looking, and there's like 40 people around us and Jack Whitehall's above me. We're kind of...
• 40:06
  sweaty and half naked and I just thought we need to get office jobs like we need proper jobs this is not sustainable as work but it was just every day was fun and ridiculous and um and you know and out of that I uh I got some absolutely incredible friends I mean the hardest part of
• 40:31
  you know, went in between jobs. That's the hardest part. So when you actually get a job and you're on set and you're getting paid and you're like, okay, I can cover my bills and my mortgage, but I also get to play, mess around and try stuff out and pull weird facial expressions and meet new people. It's a real gift.
• 40:55
  absolutely and uh you know what it just occurs to me now that looking at think about fresh meat and but also the other work you've done i mean like it seems to be like you you've you've made at least like three projects that have really kind of taken on a life of their own over the years in terms of having like a real sort of resonance of people of a certain generation or a couple at least like i mean i think of fresh meat but i also think of angus fongs and perfect snogging and wild child like those three i mean just to say like my girlfriend owns i think like
• 41:25
  You know what I mean? I love that. There's a kind of... Because I may... My first year out of drama school was insane. I hadn't quite graduated. And my first ever job was Cramford, which was this huge period drama with Judi Dent. And I got onto set and I had no idea what was going on. And that cast and crew were really special. And I had a really great second AD on that who...
• 41:50
  literally said, could see me not understanding the call sheet or the jargon or stand on my mark but look up. Okay, you know, it was all that stuff. I really, I learned everything on that job. And I got fresh, not fresh, I got Wild Child and Anger's songs straight after those, so I did them kind of together. And, you know, at the time, they were kind of relatively low-budget, British people.
• 42:20
  you know, not indies, but, you know, films that we kind of don't make anymore. And now there's just this, like, awesome cult following to it. And what I love the most, because I know that I love it when I have this, I have films that do this for me. So say, like, your girlfriend, there'll be women kind of in their late 20s, early 30s, who were about 14 when it came out.
• 42:44
  And either Wildchild or Angus or both, it's their real comfort film, you know, that even as they grow up and, like I said, they're into their 30s and they've got, you know, they're accountants and they've got kids and whatever. If they've had a crappy day or a breakup or they feel like crap, then they put that film on. And I've got films that do that for me. And I'm really... That's really special for me as an actor who...
• 43:13
  didn't really think I could be an actor but really went into it wanting to do that for the people. As you were saying earlier kind of growing up on those comfort movies like Muppets vs Carol and Princess Bride and then creating those yourself down the line like films like yeah Angus and Fresh Meat as well and Wild Child and then those taking on a life of their own like Angus plays at the Prince Charles cinema pretty regularly you know I want to say like that it's got a huge couple.
• 43:38
  I might just go and just sit there. I mean, it's getting a little bit awkward now because I've got a little boy, and so every now and again, I mean, I don't get recognised. I really, really don't ever, to be honest. But every now and again, I'll be with my little boy and somebody might come up and say, are you slaggy Lindsay? Covering his ears.
• 43:59
  Yes, I was a million years ago. No, it is. They are really smart. And I'm still in touch with the guys from Georgia and Eleanor Tomlinson's doing so well. And yeah, it's great. We've all kind of grown up together.
• 44:17
  Yeah, I guess zeroing in for a second on Slaky Lindsay. I mean, which is just, I mean, it's so funny. I mean, like, watching back the film and, like, your performance in it, I mean, like, it seems to me like you were having so much relish performing that character, it seems to me, anyway, watching it back, like, those scenes, like, the olive scene and, like, the hockey scene, all that stuff, and obviously the ending on stage. I mean, like, there seems to be a lot of fun as well as the kind of, obviously she's being very spiteful and unpleasant. Did you enjoy playing that character?
• 44:45
  I think it was the first time that I'd gotten to play a bitch, someone that was kind of actually unkind. I mean, my friends absolutely, my school friends howled when I got that because you're playing the cool, got it together, you know, cool girl in school. That was absolutely not me in school, so that was always...
• 45:10
  That was always really funny. But, you know, when I look back now and actually I think when I did that, I was incredibly nervous. I was so nervous and really self-conscious in almost every scene. And, you know, it was my, I think I'd just done well, child. And then where I kind of play a nicer character who's a little bit, a little bit.
• 45:33
  similar to me um a bit kind of nerdy Welsh girl um and then I yeah I went on to Angus Thongs and I um and I was also a lot older than the other girls so I was like 22 playing 16 whereas they actually were uh 16 but I just it was a lot of imposter syndrome and just like someone's going to realize they made a mistake in a minute and tell me that
• 45:58
  I need to leave or, you know, worrying about how you look and just all that stuff that comes with being younger and thinking that all that stuff's really important, you know. So I kind of love that it's a positive thing now because I think at the time I was just, yeah, I was just chocked full of anxiety and self-doubt. Well, hey, I mean, of course, like, none of that comes off on screen. It's just pure sort of, you know...
• 46:27
  You know, you pull it off, it's pure just, you know, relish and like, yeah, that spitefulness. But yeah, I totally hear that. I feel like that's quite common, you know, especially when you're starting out in something, when it's new and like you have to, you're discovering it for yourself and your confidence. I'd say even now, I mean, if you speak to most actors, you know, I'd say even now when I get a job, my first thought is they've made a mistake or are you, I often used to say to my agent, are you sure they meant me?
• 46:54
  And just never quite... I'm actively trying to lose it as I get older and I kind of embrace my neurodiversity in that I don't want to mask anymore. I don't want to pretend. If I don't understand something, I will just ask now in a way that maybe 10 years ago it absolutely wouldn't have on set if I don't understand an instruction or something like that. I just kind of want to...
• 47:19
  let it go. But I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's a Welsh thing or being a person whose family is not in the industry, whose whole life... My whole life here in Wales has nothing to do with the industry, you know? And so it often feels...
• 47:37
  should I be here? Should I be on this set? Should I be with these people? Is this, you know, is this real? It can be a little bit like that. And when I start to have those thoughts now, I'm trying to know, yes, you should be here. And yes, you can absolutely enjoy it. And yes, you know, you've paid your dues.
• 48:00
  changing car parks in Slough and, you know. But then I still do, like, I love short film. I love short film and I still do them now. And people ask me to do short films and go, oh, I didn't think you'd see. But yeah, absolutely. I love it. I absolutely love it. I still love having to get changed in the back of someone's courter.
• 48:19
  um as much as you know doing like i did my lady jane um and the amazon prime and just walking on set and like the production of it was incredible like the cameras and the lights they had on that were just amazing but then it's good to go back to okay we've got 14 hours to shoot a like 17 scenes let's do it and let's just go go for it hell for leather
• 48:46
  Yeah, just gorilla. Yeah. Can you get on the floor? Yeah. Yeah, I can do it. No worries. Very much do what I'm told when I'm on set. Aye. Well, this has been such a fantastic conversation, Gimlet. And I guess before we wrap up, I did want to ask about some of the things you've had out more recently, like your book.
• 49:03
  and of course Baby Brain the show because you've written you know over the course of the last few years especially you've you've you've spoken and written so sort of openly and profoundly about you know your experience living with you know conditions like OCD and like and how important your family and friends have been to you in terms of like navigating that and like you know it's very like I say profound stuff and I did want to ask like the decision to like write the book and then do the one-woman show
• 49:28
  What was it that galvanised you to put these into words, to want to put these experiences into words? I think when I had my little boy in after kind of IVF and in the middle of the pandemic and what happened was that it felt like my brain broke, essentially. And it took me two to three years to really get back and to get back to college.
• 49:54
  a semblance of who I was and to learn about all this stuff. And I was in a very, very dark place for a long time. And I didn't really think I was going to make it through. And I certainly didn't think I'd have any sort of career left after. And it got to the point, I think, where I got sick of being scared emotionally.
• 50:17
  In a bad way. So now I try and... If I'm going to be scared, I try and be scared in a good way. So, you know, doing a one-woman show that's really...
• 50:29
  a bit bonkers and very dark comedy and you don't know if the audience is going to get it and all that kind of stuff. Like, it's scary, but it's really exhilarating. You know, will I remember all my lines? I don't know, let's find out. And then going out and doing it anyway. And writing the book, one, it's, you know...
• 50:47
  perinatal mental health conditions are so common and women don't talk about it. And it was that, basically. Women don't talk about it, which means that women die. And it was that simple to me. So let's change the way we talk about it. And, you know, I'm an actor and a writer now, apparently. And so maybe that's how it's going to come out for me. I know that for other women it comes out in whatever their passions are. But it was, let's do a play that talks about...
• 51:17
  I mean, if my friend said to me, do you want to go and see a play about motherhood? No, absolutely not. That sounds awful. No. But it was like, let's do it in a way that's funny and says some of the bad stuff out loud. And I don't know, just get people talking about it in a completely different way and not a very like worthy way, you know. So I think the, yeah, the stimulus was, I'm sick of being scared. So I'm going to be scared in a good way.
• 51:47
  Yeah, I hear that about the fear, but also the excitement. I mean, that's what I've heard people say that that's when, you know, you should you should try something when even though it's scary, there's that exhilaration to it, too. And therefore it might be worth it.
• 51:59
  And it's really important to fail. It's really important to get stuff wrong. And, you know, I could be a kind of a bit of a perfectionist and worry about getting things wrong. And letting go of that, I think, has made me a better actor, definitely. Because there's nothing I won't try.
• 52:18
  Like, really? You know, we'll do something, try it this way. It sounds bonkers, we'll try it. Okay, that's ludicrous, we can't do that. But there was something there, let's take a little bit of that, let's put it in. And that's how it's been working on the play with Tim and Danny, my co-writers and directors. It's like nothing...
• 52:38
  There were no bad ideas because they're really, really bad. And I had some bad ideas, like, you know, to the point where like, you cannot do that. I don't think that's legal. But take it, tweak it, change it. It's a bit malleable, maybe. And then turn it into something else, you know. And that's really liberating, really liberating.
• 53:00
  So you think doing the show has taught you something more about not just acting, performing, but the writing and the storytelling that you might take on to the next thing?
• 53:10
  Definitely. And I, you know, in a way that if you just want to look at this whole thing as a business, you know, since COVID, you know, I had my little boy and I became a mother in the middle of COVID, you know, having kids for an actress can be a career killer. Because how can you make that work? How can you possibly make it work? You know, if you're working, you have to be away. If you're not working, you're not earning. COVID shut the industry down for like 18 months and we kind of had to claw our way back.
• 53:39
  And, you know, the whole model of the industry has changed. I don't go to London into the room for auditions anymore in the way that I always did. It's all self-tapes now. I self-tape here in my kitchen and I send it off and, you know, wait to hear about a job. And just being an actor doesn't cut it anymore, you know? There's just no way. You have to learn to...
• 54:05
  make your own work and to keep your passion. And the reason we did the play, you know, we were thinking of turning it into a film or a TV show, but that takes a lot of money and it takes a really long time. And three years can go by where you're just emailing each other and emailing channels and all this.
• 54:22
  And we got into a point where we were sick of it, the three of us. And we're like, what can we do? What can we do this now? And it was, right, we'll do a play. Because literally if I stand up in a room and start speaking, no one can stop me. So I just can't.
• 54:37
  Well, hey, I'm here for it. And I think it's fantastic. I mean, as I say, like, when I was doing my research for this, like, how sort of openly and sort of just honestly you were about how, in the book and, like, you know, in this sort of run-up to the book coming out, you know, you were talking about it online and on podcasts and on your social media and Substack. And it was really genuinely profound for me. Like, you know, I was quite, it was quite, not humbling's not the word, but, like, you know, how honest you were was really, so I just, I take my hat off to that, you know, just like,
• 55:06
  Thank you. That's really kind. Yeah, because it's, you know, we're kind of, you know, I'm a few years into it now. So it's a bit more kind of water off a duck's back. But when you start being honest like that, you know, everybody says be honest about your mental health until you are. And it's all a little bit uncomfortable. And even in this business, you know, I mean, things are changing. When I go into a new production now, I usually get an email.
• 55:29
  saying that there's a mental health person, you know, if you need them for anything. But there's still a stigma of people looking at you differently and judging you and thinking maybe you can't do your job. You know, I'm autistic, I have OCD. But what's really important to remember is that I was all of those things through my entire career. And the only difference now is that I don't hide it. When people say, oh, if you're honest, are you worried that people won't employ you?
• 56:00
  kind of doesn't make sense to me because why I was that before but with the added pressure and shame of trying to hide who I was and now I don't have any of that so I can completely focus on the job more like surely I'm a better employee now totally so there's an empowerment aspect to it as well like knowledge is power self-knowledge is power like I I have these but I can deal with them and navigate them and then and and just yeah self-knowledge makes me better
• 56:26
  And also not, you know, for a very long time, seeing everything as a downside or as a disadvantage, you know. I mean, yes, you know, some of these conditions, you know, when I had postnatal OCD, it was a very dark time and it was incredibly debilitating and I honestly wouldn't wish it on anybody, on my worst enemy. But at the same time,
• 56:52
  these are the parts that make up who I am and how I communicate and how I speak and how I move my face and how all these kinds of things. And it's leaning into now, trying to actively lean into...
• 57:07
  No one's as good at being you as you are. All that time you've wasted trying to be what people want you to be, what you think you should be, is, in this business, it's just a huge waste of time because there's someone better at it than you. Whereas now I'm just kind of unapologetically myself. And so now when I get a job, that imposter syndrome has gone a little bit because I think, well, I know they know about me and I still got the job anyway. So now I get to just be me and do the job. And it's great.
• 57:37
  yeah I'll say I mean I don't think we should we'd have it any other way frankly Kim I mean if I may say no uh that's I mean it's wonderful to hear that you're at that place where you know and it's and it sounds great and I and thanks so much for coming on the podcast and talking to me a bit about it hats off you know I really admire the way that you've been able to talk about it and write about it and and obviously now perform it I mean like just so I can just so we know the listeners know like where where can they catch baby brain then so it's going to the fringe festivals yeah
• 58:05
  Yes, so where you can probably catch Baby Brain is in August. From the 10th to the 12th of August, we're at the Camden Fringe Festival. And then from the 21st to the 30th, we're at Edinburgh Fringe. So if you're in London, if you're around Edinburgh in August, please come and see us. And I will see you in the bar after for a beer. Wow.
• 58:28
  Brilliant. Well, hey, thanks so much, Kim. This was such a blast to chat to you. And I really appreciate you, you know, giving up your time to talk to me. And thanks so much for coming on Half the Picture. No worries. Thank you so much.
• 58:47
  Hey everyone, thanks so much for listening to my chat with Kimberley Nixon. Remember to like and subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And check out our YouTube memberships, where you can watch the full uncut version of my conversation with Kimberley with 15 more minutes of extra chat. Stay tuned for more exciting interviews and guests, coming soon on Half the Picture.