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A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
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I m your host, Gabby Collins.
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
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Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
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Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You re free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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I m John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Guess what, Will?
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What s up, Mango?
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I ve been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we ve done over 250 episodes, we don t really talk about murders or cults.
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I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.
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We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money?
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And then, of course, can you game a dog show?
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So what you re saying is everyone should be listening.
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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What is supposed to be for you will come to you.
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And if it wasn t meant to come to you, it won t.
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You are good enough.
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The best-selling author and host.
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The number one health and wellness podcast.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty.
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Hey, everyone.
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Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health and wellness podcast in the world.
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Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow.
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I m so grateful for our incredible community here.
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The incredible response we ve received to the episodes of late has just been unbelievable.
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Whether it s you sharing your greatest lesson on Instagram, or some of you making videos about episodes on TikTok, or sharing a tweet, it really means the world to me to see how many things you re changing about your mindset and your lifestyle in order to live healthier, more healed, happier lives.
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And today I m speaking to a guest who I ve interviewed very briefly before.
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I was doing a Facebook audio room called Safe Space.
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And this was during the pandemic.
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And I got to connect with this guest.
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And since that day, I have not stopped thinking about or quoting this conversation to people.
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So when people will say to me, like, oh, who s the most interesting person you ve interviewed recently?
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This person s name comes up a million times in conversation.
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And I ll talk about her creative process and how she gets into character.
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I ve rarely had that feeling where I think someone s words stay with me for that long.
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I m always blown away by my guests, but for things to stay with me repetitively.
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And then we ve kept in touch.
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We ve had a few messages back and forth, but today finally got to meet her.
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I m speaking about the one and only Cynthia Erivo, Grammy
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Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress, singer, and producer, as well as an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and SAG nominee, Cynthia burst onto the West End and Broadway stages in the color purple and has since taken the world by storm.
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Cynthia was recently nominated for a SAG and Emmy Award for her critically acclaimed portrayal of Aretha Franklin in National Geographic s Emmy-winning global anthology series, Genius Aretha.
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If you ve not seen it, I highly recommend it.
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Cynthia will hit the screen in early September with Disney s live-action retelling of Pinocchio, my favorite story growing up, I can t wait, and Cynthia will take on the iconic role of the Blue Fairy.
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How cool.
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Cynthia was the lead in the HBO series The Outsider, and Cynthia starred in Harriet, where she brought the legacy of Harriet Tubman to the big screen.
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I actually don t know anyone who s played this many iconic people in their lifetime.
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You usually just get one go, and Cynthia s just taking them all out.
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Cynthia lent her voice to the movie s title song, Stand Up, which he co-wrote Stand Up, won Best Original Song at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards.
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And both Cynthia and Stand Up were nominated for two Academy Awards, as well as two Golden Globe Awards in the categories of Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama, and Best Original Song.
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Stand Up also received a nomination for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Song Written for Visual Media.
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Please welcome to the show, Cynthia Erivo.
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Cynthia, it is awesome.
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Good to see you.
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It s good to see you.
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I know, and even the first few moments we ve had.
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Yeah.
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You know, there s something about hearing a British accent in LA.
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I know, it s like, it brings you home, doesn t it?
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SPEAKER_03
Oh, it s just, I feel so, like, embraced.
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Yeah.
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I just heard your voice come up the hill when you were coming up and I was like,
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I feel like I m growing up, like I ve just gone back to being a teenager.
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Do I make you feel that way?
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Yeah, it s like whenever I hear, because, you know, for all intents and purposes, this is home.
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But whenever I hear an accent that sounds like where I m from, it makes it even more home.
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It s like, oh, I really recognize that.
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I feel like it s a warm hug.
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Yes.
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Hello.
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SPEAKER_03
Do I still have it, though?
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That s my question.
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SPEAKER_03
Oh, no, you do.
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SPEAKER_03
OK, that s good.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah, definitely.
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I always get worried.
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I feel like you re probably bringing out more of me.
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I always feel like I m quite the chameleon sometimes.
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My wife always makes fun of me because she s like, every time we talk to one of our family in India, you just put on an Indian accent.
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And I do it really unknowingly.
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I do it as like, I think we, we each have, depending on where we re from, we have like traces of, of what that is.
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So I know that when I m talking to my Nigerian friends, we ve been listening to that accent since we were kids.
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So it s not that we aren t,
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we don t have the accent, it s sort of like embedded on our brains.
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So it just comes out when we re together.
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It s sort of like the comfortability of it comes out.
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So I think it s the same as when we re around other English people, the comfortability of speaking with an English accent comes to life.
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There are times when I have to sort of like shift certain words.
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Whenever I m speaking to other American people, there are words that get
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sort of misunderstood.
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So I might say one thing and they ll be like, what does that mean?
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So I ll find the American version of that word and repeat it.
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And there are times when I ve had to change the accent to make sure that we re both understanding, we get lost in translation.
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So I totally understand why it might be stronger when you re speaking to me because now you don t have to make it any milder because you know that I ll understand everything you say.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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There was this, I remember when he first moved here and my wife would be at the grocery store and she d be like, can I get a tin of beans please?
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And I m like, what s a tin?
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It s a can.
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A can.
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Yeah.
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And she was like, where s the tin of this and tin of that?
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And then there was the one that I always, I started changing my language from being pounds to dollars.
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And so when I d be in a video or an interview, I d be saying dollars.
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And then all my, all my Brit friends in the comment section would be like, oh, we see where you are now.
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Like, you know, you left us behind.
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So.
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Yeah, what was your, you were from Stockwell, right?
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Yes, I was, yeah.
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I m North London, so I grew up in like Woodgreen, Tottenham area, like that was where I grew up.
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What s something that, we kind of moved to the States around the same time we just found out.
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What s something that you miss about London, but you love about LA?
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I love the sunshine in LA.
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I love that it s so bright a lot of the time and that it s warm a lot of the time.
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But there is something really wonderful about the way the weather changes in London, in the UK, the way you get the seasons.
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Obviously, I miss family.
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I don t get to see them as often as I would do if I was there.
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And like,
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Silly things like biscuits, because biscuits here are very different to biscuits there.
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Which ones were your favorite biscuits?
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Digestives.
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Oh yeah, yeah.
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McVitie s.
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Yeah, McVitie s, Digestives, or like Hobnobs.
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Oh yeah, Hobnobs.
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I used to love Rich Tea.
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Yeah, so good.
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The round ones or the pencil ones?
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The kind of, yeah.
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The oblong ones.
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Yeah, or whatever that shape is.
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Those ones are so good.
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SPEAKER_05
Yeah.
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Like little things like that you just sort of like miss.
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SPEAKER_05
Lays also are not the same as walkers.
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SPEAKER_03
Yes.
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SPEAKER_05
Walkers are really good.
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SPEAKER_05
Lays are good too, but all of Walker s packets are good.
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SPEAKER_05
You have to find like the right, like, you know, silly things like that.
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Yeah, exactly.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
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No, I love talking about it because it s same for me.
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SPEAKER_03
It s interesting you said that.
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I think I often feel that sometimes when I m back in England and I was like, oh, you live in Hollywood now and you live in LA.
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And I m like, well, no, to me, I live in LA because the weather s incredible.
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And
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I love waking up to a blue sky every day.
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And I love the fact that I can go on a hike right here.
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I can be in nature.
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I hike for about two miles every day around my home.
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And it s just, I love that.
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I never could have done that in London.
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I never did.
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And at the same time, I miss going to watch a football match because I love football.
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And so for me being able to go to going to watch a game and like feeling the energy of the fans, it s special.
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There s like a special vibe around it.
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What i like to do on purpose is i like to dive into people s journeys people stories parts of them we re not we re not following a.
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linear or, you know, we re not trying to do a biographical piece, but I love diving into stuff.
1
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And I saw that you went to a Roman Catholic school growing up.
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How is that influence now when you look back, who you are today, positive things that were challenging, like how do you grapple with that today?
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What does it feel like?
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Well, growing up and going to a Roman Catholic school.
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It was a girl s school too.
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All girls school.
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Yeah.
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It s strange because I never really felt like I totally fit in there.
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I believe in God, but that sort of upbringing felt really restrictive.
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SPEAKER_01
It s so rules-based that you sort of miss the most important parts of what that faith is supposed to be about.
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And I ve kind of let a lot of the Roman Catholic
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side of me go, just so that I create, I could create space for me to form my own understanding of what my faith should encompass.
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Right now, I m really clear on the fact that the most important part of my faith is to be as loving and kind to people, to the world around me, not just people, but
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I have two dogs, so I take care of them in the most loving way because I want that to come back to me.
1
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So I believe things are really cyclical.
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So if you give out something good, that good will come back.
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You might not see it immediately, but somehow it finds its way back to you.
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It s like a boomerang, you know?
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And I think that that is really the most important part
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of my faith and I sort of encouraged myself to really take in what is around me so that I can appreciate the wonderful things that come.
1
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You know, the fact that I can get up in the morning and go for a run and it s really sunny and
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SPEAKER_01
I, as I passed by, there are two when I, today when I ran, there were two women who stopped and I saw them as they passed by, they smiled and I was like, that s lovely of them smiling.
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SPEAKER_01
And I ran back and somehow managed to meet them again.
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SPEAKER_01
How?
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I don t know.
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I ran three miles.
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I, you know, just did a quick 5k, but somehow on my way back, we met in exactly the same place.
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And they stopped and I stopped and they just were like, we were just really impressed.
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SPEAKER_01
We don t know what, what are you running for?
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SPEAKER_01
I was like, I m running for the marathon.
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SPEAKER_01
I was like, oh, okay, great.
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SPEAKER_01
And just those little interactions are really special because while we don t know how either one of us is going to influence our day and to be able to stop and have that conversation with the person and smile at someone and, you know, have something positive means that we ve put something positive into each other.
1
SPEAKER_01
and I think that that is really what it is about for me and I understand that everyone has their own understanding of faith but for me Roman Catholicism sort of doesn t give us the space to embrace all of that.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s always really interesting hearing someone s reflection in hindsight because I don t know how it felt at that time, whether it felt the same way, but I went to an all-boys school.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I went to Queen Elizabeth s Boys School in Barnet.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I used to take like a 45-minute bus or to an hour bus sometimes just to get there every day.
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My parents had worked really hard for me to prepare for exams to get into this school.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it wasn t private, but it was a great education.
1
SPEAKER_00
And at the time, it s like all of us didn t want to go there because it was so strict.
1
SPEAKER_00
it was so like disciplined.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I found a few teachers there that kind of had this openness.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I had my art teacher at the time, Mr. Buckridge, who s still there, I believe, and we keep in touch now and again, but he just helped me think so differently.
1
SPEAKER_00
So in this space where they were like rules and discipline, there was a teacher who just kind of
1
SPEAKER_00
I just knew how to navigate enough where you were in the rules, but not too much.
1
SPEAKER_00
And he helped me so much with my thought process and my mindset.
1
SPEAKER_00
And now when I look back, I m really grateful that I have this really beautiful experience where I feel like I have equal parts discipline and equal parts artistry.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I really embraced those two sides.
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SPEAKER_00
I was wondering with you, like you,
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SPEAKER_00
You re right.
1
SPEAKER_01
You re very right, actually.
1
SPEAKER_01
You re really right about that.
1
SPEAKER_01
There is that sort of like tandem of discipline and artistry.
1
SPEAKER_01
My favorite music teacher, actually my music teacher and my French teacher, for some reason sort of stuck to me, Miss Rycroft and Madame Chesley.
1
SPEAKER_01
They both just wanted me to blossom as a creative.
1
SPEAKER_01
Madame Chesley wouldn t let me get away without speaking some sort of French to her all the time.
1
SPEAKER_01
and now I love the language very much so.
1
SPEAKER_01
And Ms.
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Rycroft made me learn every kind of instruments I could possibly put my hands on and sing everything I could possibly sing.
1
SPEAKER_01
But it also gave me the discipline of wanting to learn, wanting to be as good as I want to be at these particular subjects.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you re right in that there is a,
1
SPEAKER_01
wonderful sort of melding of creativity and discipline that has definitely influenced how I live and how I ve lived so far.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I was thinking that with you because when you brought up running, you ve got to be really disciplined.
1
SPEAKER_00
And when I see your stories of posts with you running, I m like, I m in anxiety.
1
SPEAKER_00
I am so glad.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was like, I m becoming friends with Cynthia, I hope.
1
SPEAKER_00
But as long as she doesn t invite me on a run, we re good.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like if she wants to do a hike, I could do that.
1
SPEAKER_00
But it s like, it requires so much discipline, so much energy.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s, let s talk about running first and then we ll move into your artistry.
1
SPEAKER_00
But
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SPEAKER_00
When you look at how much you re running, you just said you run a half marathon.
1
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Run a half marathon over the weekend.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then this every day is about eight miles except for today, which is supposed to be a break day.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I did 5k and then on the weekend it s 16 to 18.
1
SPEAKER_00
And how do you find time for this in between roles and prep and like, oh, is this something that continues on?
1
SPEAKER_01
It just goes on.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s incredible.
1
SPEAKER_01
I ve been running since I was 20.
1
SPEAKER_01
My first marathon was 2016.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think I had one mini break in between.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was, I remember I was in Atlanta and just decided, let me get back to it and haven t stopped since then.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s an ongoing journey.
1
SPEAKER_01
that teaches you about discipline, your stamina, how your mind works, how you psych yourself out sometimes, how you can buoy yourself and lift yourself up.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I gained so much from it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Believe me, there are days when I do not want to get outside or on a treadmill and do any of it.
1
SPEAKER_01
But that also is a moment for me to sort of learn.
1
SPEAKER_01
There are days when, yes, it s good to stop, take a second and not do the run today.
1
SPEAKER_01
But other days, it s how can I overcome this moment where I m like,
1
SPEAKER_01
truly not wanting to do it.
1
SPEAKER_01
And those days when I m able to overcome those moments when I m like, I do not want to do this, often are the days when the runs are the best, which is very strange.
1
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But I love it.
1
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It has provided space to think.
1
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It s provided moments where I ve made friends along the way.
1
SPEAKER_01
People are now used to seeing me do certain routes.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I always bump into people and I say hello.
1
SPEAKER_01
It just, it gives me a lot.
1
SPEAKER_01
The physical aspect is, yes, your body loves it.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s great to work out, but it s more a mental thing than anything else.
1
SPEAKER_01
Distance running really is more mental than physical.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because once your physical is done, if you get to 18 past half marathon, it really is sort of like, okay, mind, how will you get past the rest of this?
1
SPEAKER_01
And that s always a really wonderful sort of adventure.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Have you felt that that approach to anxiety and psyching yourself out, have you feel that become applied to life through that process of running?
1
SPEAKER_01
Could you give us an example of how that s kind of... Because honestly, it s those days are the step-by-step days.
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SPEAKER_01
That s what I call them.
1
SPEAKER_01
You just take one step, then take the next step and take the next.
1
SPEAKER_01
and the next and the next and you ll realize at some point you re running.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s, and that s essentially what happens with me with other things.
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SPEAKER_01
This is a silly example.
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SPEAKER_01
I had to redo my closet.
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SPEAKER_01
Everything was taken out of it and I ve had to put it all back together again.
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SPEAKER_01
And when I first looked at this task, it just looked mammoth.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was like, there s no way I m going to
1
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get this back in order again.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I looked at it and would go away and go, I m not, it s not going to get done.
1
SPEAKER_01
I can t do it.
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SPEAKER_01
I can t do it.
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SPEAKER_01
And then one day I just said, just start, just start to start nothing else after that.
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SPEAKER_01
If you just start,
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something will get done.
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SPEAKER_01
Even if it s like one small section, you will have started.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the next day, just start again.
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SPEAKER_01
It s the same for if I m learning a piece or a song that just won t stay.
1
SPEAKER_01
I ll just start.
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SPEAKER_01
Learn the first line and just keep going over the first line.
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SPEAKER_01
And sooner or later, the first line will be in there and you ll want to go into the next line.
1
SPEAKER_01
You do a piece or you re playing a character, you just can t understand.
1
SPEAKER_01
Just read the lines.
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SPEAKER_00
lines, read the lines, find out what other people are saying, find out what the journey is.
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SPEAKER_00
And then sooner or later you ll want to get to know this character.
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SPEAKER_00
Now the way to get to know this character is probably to learn the character.
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SPEAKER_00
And when you learn the character, well, you ve learned the character.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now you know it.
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SPEAKER_00
All these little mountains or trials, they re just, they aren t always easy.
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SPEAKER_00
But if you just start, you might be able to get over them.
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Even when we were running hills, I never look at that.
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SPEAKER_00
And you know, sometimes you re told, look straight ahead.
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I always look at the bit in front of me.
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My eyes are never pointed upward when I m walking up a hill.
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I m always like, if I can just get my foot in front of this next foot, and if I could just keep going bit by bit by bit,
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Sooner or later, when I look up, I ll be at the top of the hill.
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And that s always what s happened.
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And it s the one thing that doesn t, that keeps me from stopping in the middle of a hill.
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I just keep going one foot in the front of the other.
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My eyes are pointed downwards because I know that there s only one foot that can, the only thing that can happen is I m going to put my foot in front of my foot again.
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And then eventually the hill sort of flattens out and you re like, Oh, I got there.
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I made it.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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I ll keep going.
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It s good.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s so powerful.
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I love that perspective because I think you are right there.
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We ve kind of been trained in society to look at the goal, look at the target, figure out the end point.
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And you re so right that if you ever try and run or whatever you do, whether it s hiking or anything, swimming or whatever, if you re looking at the end constantly, you ll keep measuring how far you are away from it.
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I know that I don t run anywhere close to as much as you do, but when I have ever run before, when I have looked at the end, I m just like, I m still so far away.
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I m still so far away.
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Okay, I ll get to that point and then I ll walk and then, you know, whatever.
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And then you start negotiating with yourself rather than if you are just looking at it.
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SPEAKER_01
It s the same when we were taught to meditate as monks.
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I lived as a monk for three years and when we were trained in that practice, we always meditated on beads.
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And you get this beautiful set of beads, I still have them today, and there s 108 of them, which is a sacred number.
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And you re told to just focus on one bead at a time.
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And the mind is like, oh, I ve got to get 108 beads, and I ve got to do this multiple times, and whatever it is.
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SPEAKER_01
And so we were told, no, just one bead at a time, one step at a time.
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And just start.
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I love that as,
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I love that as a view of like, just start today and then you ll thank yourself later.
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You ll figure it out.
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I can t tell you how many times people have asked, how do you, how do you even do that?
2
SPEAKER_00
How do you run so much?
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I like, I want to start and I m not sure what to do and how, like, I m never going to be able to run that, that distance.
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SPEAKER_00
No one is asking you to run that distance.
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just go outside and stop.
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That s it.
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Put on your sneakers.
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Even if you only make it to the door, that s more than you did yesterday.
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SPEAKER_00
And then maybe you ll make it in front of the door tomorrow.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then maybe you ll make it just down your street.
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That is a run.
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Five minutes of running is a run.
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It doesn t need to be half an hour, an hour, two hours, two minutes.
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is a run.
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Just start, just a little bit is enough.
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SPEAKER_00
And then you ll find more later.
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You ll find that you are asking, your mind is asking, your body is asking for a little bit more because the five minutes that you did is now, well, I can do that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ll do more then.
2
SPEAKER_01
This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep.
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Were you always athletic?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, was that always a part of your life growing up?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I ve always been athletic, whether it be dance or sport.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was a sprinter when I was younger.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s what I sort of wanted to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then my very first sort of distance run was a 5K and it was for cancer research.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I just wanted to do something.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I saw this run happening in a park nearby.
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SPEAKER_00
And I started doing it.
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SPEAKER_00
And I don t know, I sort of was telling myself that, oh, I can t run outside.
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I m not going to be able to.
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SPEAKER_00
And then I just figured it out.
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I ll just find a route.
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SPEAKER_00
And that s sort of what happened.
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SPEAKER_00
And I haven t really stopped since then.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
When, when you apply that to your career now, did little Cynthia ever think that, you know, and, and I don t want to simplify and I am very careful about this.
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SPEAKER_01
I never like to simplify someone s success to external accomplishments and awards, but did little Cynthia, like growing up in Stockwell, like, you know, and you look at the journey you ve been on and.
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SPEAKER_01
know Emmy, Grammy, Tony, like just you and and more importantly you ve played iconic people who transformed culture and your work is educating people on these incredible personalities that history can try to forget or doesn t know enough about or doesn t know the depth of the story like what would little Cynthia say to you now like looking at all of that like who believed in you back then like was there
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Did your parents, did your family, like who knew this was possible?
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Did anyone?
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My mum believed in me, um, sort of from the beginning.
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SPEAKER_00
She, she knew when I was a kid that that was sort of what I was going to do.
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SPEAKER_00
Apparently I would, I would hum when I ate.
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SPEAKER_00
So she, she was like, it s probably going to be a singer or an actor.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that sort of like, it was, it came at no surprise to her that this is what I sort of wanted to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
And my sister, you know, has always been around for everything that s happened to her.
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She s always believed in it and has come to some of the shows and seen some things.
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You know, I have really wonderful friends.
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One of my friends, Capri Hakim, who I ve known for almost 17 or 18 years at this point, has just always been there and like always has gotten it and believed in me.
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And I have some really incredible friends who I m getting to watch do amazing things now as well, but they also believe in me and I ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by some wonderful people.
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little Cynthia believed in herself, although I m not entirely sure that she knew how much was coming.
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SPEAKER_00
She sort of kept her head down and just was like, I ll do it.
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SPEAKER_00
It was always a game of like, I ll try this.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, I ll do that now.
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SPEAKER_00
I m game to like, I ll do some backing vocals for this person.
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I ll go and sing at this sort of club and do all those things and I ll try this young actor s course.
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SPEAKER_00
there s just like a, it s a combination of yes, hard work, but also loving the adventure and wanting to try new things and wanting to not miss out on something if I, if I don t enjoy, you know?
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I think that she would probably pat me on the back and give me the mischievous look that I give most people when I m like, that s good.
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SPEAKER_00
and be really, really happy.
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And then she d be like, what else are we going to do?
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Yeah.
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What else can we do?
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That s awesome.
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I love that.
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And it s so, I actually realized this more and more that a lot of people that I speak to did have people that believed in them.
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Like there was that.
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And I, and I love hearing that.
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I think it s important to normalize that too, where
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It s like, hey, if you believe in your kids, it s great.
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It s good.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you should.
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And then if there s people out there who grew up with parents who didn t believe in them, that s great.
2
SPEAKER_00
You became resilient that way.
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But it s beautiful to hear that there s two ways.
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There s not like this, oh, well, you should have had everyone telling you, you were never going to make it.
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And that s the only way.
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And you re like, I actually had really good friends around me.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You know, and I think I just sort of like,
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have been consistently sort of finding my tribe and finding people who are challenging me and wanting me to keep being better and keep doing things that are different.
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SPEAKER_00
And then there are those friends who are just, we re here when you want to have like a normal day and a cup of tea and like sit down and chat.
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SPEAKER_00
And we need both.
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SPEAKER_00
And I love that balance because it is kind of what life is made of.
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SPEAKER_00
there s never always just the one way to be.
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SPEAKER_00
And I think both influence the other.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
You ve, you ve been known for playing so many iconic people now.
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When was a role where a role that you ve played that you feel you loved, but it wasn t as well known, or it was something that maybe wasn t as successful, but that you really found that you just fell in love with it and that it became a part of you.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna say Holly Gibney in The Outsider.
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Although that did pretty well.
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That did pretty well.
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I ve loved the roles that I ve played and I ve picked them really specifically because I want to get to know this person.
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I always say this, if I haven t met this person before either on screen or in life, I d like to meet them.
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So that s why I play them.
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I want to get to know who they are and what makes them tick.
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And Holly was just so different.
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She just, she was very hard to shake.
3
SPEAKER_00
She was a woman who found it hard to communicate, but really all she wanted was connection.
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And so had to learn to find ways to make herself understood.
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SPEAKER_00
And when she was misunderstood, would be deeply hurt by it.
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Extremely intelligent, a brilliant, brilliant mind, but also deeply loving in the most individual way.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I just had never played anyone like her before.
3
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And what s wonderful about that particular role is I get everyone from every different type of walk of life,
3
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In any place, sort of going, that show that you did on HBO with Holly Gibney, I loved it.
3
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She was one of my favorites.
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I remember a person said to me, he was connecting with his sister more because of this particular role and realized that, oh, my sister just communicates in a different way than I do.
3
SPEAKER_00
And this was the thing that joined us together.
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and I thought that s that s what it s about making pieces that allow people to connect with each other.
3
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Yeah you know.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah that s beautiful I love hearing that as well because it s and it s what I appreciate about our conversation last time as I was saying earlier it was like the way you think about characters and the way you get into them I m fascinated by that and I love geeking out and like
3
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I love seeing people obsessed with their art.
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That s what gets me excited in life.
3
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It s like when I meet someone who s obsessed about what they do, because I m obsessed with what I do, and I can never understand how you obsess over the things you do.
3
SPEAKER_01
Can you describe to me again, because you told me about this last time, but I want to hear it again for On Purpose, for this community, because you were talking about how when you re playing roles, you re looking at how people walk.
3
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Oh, yeah.
3
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And how they talk to figure out their pitch, and then the rhythm of their walk, and the pacing.
3
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And I was just like, I would never think of any of that, but it was so- Because it tells you so much about what a person s feeling.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so walk us through, when you meet a new character, walk us through how you understand them better.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so when I meet a new character, obviously I ll read a script, and the first thing I think of is what is the rhythm of this person?
3
SPEAKER_00
Usually there s a rhythm sort of written in, in the way they speak, in their syntax and the words they use.
3
SPEAKER_00
When you find that rhythm, you sort of find their internal like heartbeat, you find their heartbeat.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I m sort of like, well, how do they move?
3
SPEAKER_00
What is it that they re looking for?
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SPEAKER_00
Is there an urgency to how they move?
3
SPEAKER_00
If they walk fast, are they moving away from something?
3
SPEAKER_00
Are they trying to get to something quickly?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do they think fast?
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SPEAKER_00
Or if they move slowly, are they apprehensive about something?
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SPEAKER_00
Or are they really laid back about things?
3
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Do they have nothing to worry about?
3
SPEAKER_00
If they re anxious, maybe that s why they move fast.
3
SPEAKER_00
fast or maybe it s the opposite maybe they re so anxious that they are paralyzed that they can t move at all so they move really slowly because what if I get there and something happens and so I just sort of like find what fits on this person and then it s about how do they speak if they are confident well maybe they don t need to make themselves sound really sweet and so their voices aren t as high pitch or maybe
3
SPEAKER_00
they are sort of held and so they re a little bit quiet and things feel a little bit whispered and um there was a really um interesting documentary about princess Diana and I she s really fun to listen to because her voice changes as the years go by when you first meet her it s almost like she s whispering and swallowing the words and she doesn t really use her mouth very much and it s very quiet and very reserved and
3
SPEAKER_00
as you meet her, as the years go by, when she s sort of like, now I know who I am, she starts to use her mouth more.
3
SPEAKER_00
So she sounds really rounded.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s sort of what you re discovering about these people.
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And I love that.
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I love trying to find out what is this person
3
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How do they grow?
3
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And do they grow through meeting them?
3
SPEAKER_00
And through these episodes or through the film, does it change?
3
SPEAKER_00
Does it shift?
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SPEAKER_00
Do they move more confidently?
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SPEAKER_00
Do they move more smoothly?
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SPEAKER_00
Are they quick?
3
SPEAKER_00
Are they darted?
3
SPEAKER_00
So many questions I would ask myself.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then silly things like, what scent do they use?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because we all have sense memory.
3
SPEAKER_00
So if there s a particular scent they use, is it because it reminds them of something?
3
SPEAKER_00
And when I put that scent on, does it make me think of something or do they like makeup?
3
SPEAKER_00
And if they do like makeup, is there a particular way they do it?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do they want their eyebrows messy or do they want them very tidy?
3
SPEAKER_00
When they put the clothes on, are they looking for comfort or not?
3
SPEAKER_00
With Holly, I always wore a button up because it felt like protection.
3
SPEAKER_00
Her neck was covered and she wore comfortable shoes so she could move easily and she wouldn t think about her feet.
3
SPEAKER_00
But those things are, you know, they change.
3
SPEAKER_00
With Aretha, she needed heels and she needed a look and she did her eyebrows particularly, and they were a particular shape with an inky black line, you know?
3
SPEAKER_00
And with Celie, it changed.
3
SPEAKER_00
When she put trousers on, she could walk better and she had a heel, a thick,
3
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blocky heel that meant that she could like make sound when she moved.
3
SPEAKER_00
Before then, she was in a shorter heel with, that was like a soft shoe that made no sound at all.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it meant that she could move really quickly because if she didn t move quickly, she d be in danger.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s about that.
3
SPEAKER_00
How do you find all the things that make this person a round person so that when you, when you meet them on screen, you re like, Oh, I can see this person and they re three dimensional, four dimensional.
3
SPEAKER_00
and not just someone that I read a script on.
3
SPEAKER_01
Where did that ability and skill come from?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because obviously it can be seen as a technique, but when you talk about it, it s not a technique.
3
SPEAKER_01
No.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s something that, you know, it s not just like, oh, you ve read that in a book.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
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It s how you think and how you feel and how you empathize with this person.
3
SPEAKER_01
And even when you were talking about Diana, there s someone obviously you ve not played.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like, but you re watching that and you re able to observe that.
3
SPEAKER_01
where did that skill come from?
3
SPEAKER_01
How did it develop?
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you remember?
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, when did you start, did you start doing that when you watched TV when you were a kid or did you, you know, where, yeah, where did it come from?
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not even sure when it started.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think I ve always been a people watcher.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think I ve always observed how people move, how people are so that I can better communicate with them myself.
3
SPEAKER_00
I haven t always been perfect, but like that seems to be my sort of cheat code to knowing
3
SPEAKER_00
what a person needs from me in conversation.
3
SPEAKER_00
I sometimes watch people s lips to make sure that I m really listening.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_00
Or watch their eyes, because those are the places that give you what the emotional life of a person is.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think I ve always just applied that to my everyday life.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then when I went to drama school, I was learning about actioning and making sure that there s a reason for something.
3
SPEAKER_00
And what is the reason for the thing you re saying?
3
SPEAKER_00
What we say is 50% of what we mean.
3
SPEAKER_00
Often how we say it and
3
SPEAKER_00
what we re thinking, as we say it, the words aren t necessarily the thing that we re thinking.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re just a representation of how we re feeling.
3
SPEAKER_00
And until, you know, when we re not afraid, the words are the thing that we re thinking.
3
SPEAKER_00
But often with people, when we re saying the thing that we think the other person wishes to hear, as opposed to what we want to say.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I learned about that in drama school and then just applied it to the bigger, you know, space of my life.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I, you know, as you get older, you start to want to connect with people and that desire to connect properly with people.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think just feeds into my work.
4
SPEAKER_01
I want people to connect with the people I get to play.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I call them people because I don t see them as just characters.
4
SPEAKER_01
When you see the people you re playing or what people would know as characters as whole and realized people, you get to know them better, which means you get to give another person, introduce a person
4
SPEAKER_01
to everybody watching.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so they get to connect and feel as though these are real people out in the world that I might not come in contact with, but they exist.
4
SPEAKER_01
And, and I want that for the people that I play.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s, that s, that s the desire for connection consistently with my character.
4
SPEAKER_02
Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we re the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
4
SPEAKER_02
Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
4
SPEAKER_03
We re back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up and become a more responsible and better adult, one life lesson at a time.
4
SPEAKER_02
And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you.
4
SPEAKER_02
So let s figure this stuff out together.
4
SPEAKER_02
This season, we re going to talk about whether or not we re financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership.
4
SPEAKER_03
We re going to figure out the benefits of a high-yield savings account.
4
SPEAKER_02
And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party?
4
SPEAKER_03
All that plus so much more.
4
SPEAKER_02
Let s learn about all of it and then some.
4
SPEAKER_02
Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
4
SPEAKER_05
Guess what, Mango?
4
SPEAKER_05
What s that, Will?
4
SPEAKER_05
So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
4
SPEAKER_04
I know, that s why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
4
SPEAKER_04
It s about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it s called Earthquake House.
4
SPEAKER_05
Mango, I m going to cut you off right there.
4
SPEAKER_05
Why don t we just tell people about our show instead?
4
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, that s a better idea.
4
SPEAKER_04
So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world s most important questions.
4
SPEAKER_04
Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
4
SPEAKER_04
is William Shatner s best acting work in Esperanto.
4
SPEAKER_04
Also, what happened to Esperanto?
4
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But if you love mind blowing facts, incredible history and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part Time Genius.
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Listen to Part Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
4
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you
4
SPEAKER_00
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
4
SPEAKER_00
And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
4
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I m your host, Gabrielle Collins.
4
SPEAKER_00
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
4
SPEAKER_00
Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
4
SPEAKER_00
Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
4
SPEAKER_00
Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown s pen.
4
SPEAKER_00
We re discussing it all.
4
SPEAKER_00
I sit down with Nicola Coughlin, Luke Newton, Shonda Rhimes, and more to offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of each episode of the new season.
4
SPEAKER_00
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
4
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Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
4
SPEAKER_06
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_06
Do you, do you feel that sometimes, and I ve, I coach a lot of people who act and stuff, not in acting, obviously in, in, in life and work, but how do you often feel as well that sometimes those people become a part of you and that do you, do you try and shed them?
4
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Do you try, hold onto them?
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Like, do you, do you like that?
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Like, because I don t think that s,
4
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talked about enough.
4
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I think we hear about in the extreme senses of method acting gone wrong, or when it leads to the tragic event of someone taking their own life.
4
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And we hear about it in those very extreme, but I don t think we talk about it enough with actors who are
4
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you know, going about their day, taking on new roles and like how long it takes to become someone and then lose someone.
4
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And, you know, like right now everyone s saying Austin Butler sounds like Elvis in every interview.
4
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And the thing is, I feel for him because I know that he s not putting that on.
4
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Yeah, of course not.
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It happens.
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And it s very different for every single person.
4
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But for me, it takes a while to lose a character because if you ve done your job correctly, they weren t just a character.
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they were a part of you.
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You had to infuse this person with some of you.
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So they, and they have to come from you.
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They re in your body.
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They use your voice.
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They use your face.
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They use your mannerisms.
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You create them together.
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They take up space within you.
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They take up a little bit of your heart because you have to mean it, the things you re saying.
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And when you finish the role, usually after what,
4
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a couple of months, three months, sometimes six.
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I m about to play a character for a year.
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They are a part of you.
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And what people don t realize is your body doesn t realize that it s not real.
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It thinks that this thing happening is you, it s real.
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So you have to, at the end of it, let your body know that it s okay to let this thing go, but it s going to take a while because you ve learned to teach your body to do it quickly, get to that person quickly.
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Remove the thing that you know is your everyday life and get to the person that you re playing every day quickly.
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That s what you want.
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The quicker access.
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So now the access is really quick and to the point where, well, now you don t really have to think about getting into the role because you re already there.
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You wake up in the morning, you know, oh, I m gonna put this on and this is, and there we go.
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You look at your mirror and I m here, there we go.
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Hi, nice to meet you.
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And at the end of a project, it takes some time.
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Some projects are easier, like getting out of the Blue Fairy, very easy.
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I didn t have to shoot for very long, so it was lovely.
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And I know it s fantasy, but, and it didn t cost me too much.
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getting out of Aretha, getting out of Harriet, getting out of Holly, very different things because I was there for months with these people.
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Holly was hilarious because she had a, her walk was very different.
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Someone sent me a video of me walking about on set and I was like, that is not me.
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That s not me.
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Posture was different, walk was different, weight, the way I moved my head was different, the way I spoke to people.
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And even my hair and makeup team was sort of like, you would come into the trailer and it was not you.
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That s not who we met.
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We met Holly most of the time and it would take a while to let them go.
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The person I just played, her name s Jacqueline,
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I spent three, four months with her.
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And I still remember everything she went through as though it was me.
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And it takes time.
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If you mean it, it will take time.
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So poor Austin Butler is walking around with this accent because I imagine he shot this film for six months to a year.
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So had to learn this sound.
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And when you learn a sound, it doesn t just leave you.
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you know, he may slip into it just by accident, not even thinking about it.
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Because that s the person he played.
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He played a person that existed for six to nine months or something.
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And prepared it before then, and then rehearsed it, and then- Sang the songs, like, same as you guys and same as what you do, yeah.
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So he put a voice on top of his own.
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that s not going to go because the film is over.
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Yeah.
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There s no way it can.
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Yeah.
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How does that affect your relationships during that time?
4
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Like, I wonder, how does that affect your personal life?
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Because, because like you re saying, it s not as easy as like on, off, on, off, you know, it s not like there s a switch.
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Yeah.
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How does that affect like,
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It s not always easy, but if you have people around you that are understanding of the job you re doing, they re just patient with you.
4
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I have been savvy enough to get myself a really good therapist so I can talk about it.
4
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Talking about it really helps to let go of it because you can find the separation between yourself and the person you are playing.
4
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The more you talk about it, the less it s you.
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And the more you let them go, the more you allow your body the permission to let go of something, which is a life lesson, not just an acting lesson, the easier it becomes to let it go.
4
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What was your reason for going to therapy?
4
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Was that the reason?
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Was that part of it or?
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Yeah, it s there and just like life things, things, you know, I, my mom raised me, my father wasn t around and those, we don t
5
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realize that that sticks to the bones of a person.
5
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You don t realize it because it comes out in different ways.
5
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And I just wanted to be freer of that.
5
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So I wanted to give myself more access to the fully emotional parts of myself.
5
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And in order to do that, I had to let go of any resentment or any upset.
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And it doesn t go overnight.
5
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but it helps to create space.
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I wanted to be just better at understanding relationships I have in general, where I am, you know, mistaking something for hurt as opposed to, if I m thinking someone is being mean, I need to know, well, what are they going through also?
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Because it might not be vindictive.
5
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It might not be a mean thing.
5
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It might just be that they are also hurting.
5
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But what in me is seeing their hurt as mean?
5
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Am I hurting in a place?
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So it s just finding better ways to communicate with people.
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Therapy s really helped me with that.
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Like, how do I want to communicate best with people?
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How can I show up as my best self?
5
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And that s not always to lay the groundwork for really great communication.
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Yeah, I think that s, that s a really beautiful way.
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I ve never heard it described like that.
5
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I actually think that s a really refreshing description because it s almost like, I think we literally run from conflict here, unease here, discomfort here.
5
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And it s like personally, professionally, family, whatever it may be.
5
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And you re just, you re running from discomfort to discomfort to discomfort and you never had time to think about it.
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You never had time to prepare.
5
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You never had time to debrief.
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Like, you know, you may do that at work, but when do you debrief personally after an altercation with someone?
5
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and therapy or coaching or the ability to talk to someone in your life, you get to start going, oh, well, I ve actually thought about this and here s how I feel about it, rather than I m just feeling, I m just feeling, I m just feeling.
5
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And also those feelings end up being exacerbated because you re just talking to yourself.
5
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You can t really process something if you re just talking to yourself.
5
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You need ears.
5
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that can say, well, I know that you re feeling that, but here s what I m hearing as you say this to me.
5
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That has been a wonderful game changer.
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When the words that you re saying are not actually the thing that you are saying.
5
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That s not what you re feeling.
5
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The thing you re saying is not the thing.
5
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Yes, yes.
5
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And that s what we all struggle with is that we are, this misalignment between what we re thinking and saying and feeling is so much more widespread than we think.
5
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Yeah.
5
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Yeah.
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What s a belief that you think that you held once about yourself that led you down a scary path or a wrong path?
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Is there a belief or a value or a idea you held about yourself that you think didn t take you in a great direction?
5
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know that there is anything like that.
5
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I think just little things that come up.
5
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Sometimes you question whether you re good enough for something.
5
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We all suffer from that in a little way.
5
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And some, you know, more than others, varying degrees.
5
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And when you re younger, it feels huge.
5
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And then as I ve gotten older, it
5
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creeps it in occasionally.
5
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And then I sort of, I allow myself to know that what is supposed to be for you will come to you.
5
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And if it wasn t meant to come to you, it won t.
5
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You are good enough, full stop.
5
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If you re doing the work to be a good person,
5
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to prepare for the work that you want.
5
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If I spend the time, you know, running every day, no, it is a holistic thing that I give myself.
5
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My therapist said to me, when you do something or you eat something or you buy something or drink something, ask yourself, are you loving yourself when you do that?
5
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And if the answer is yes, well then you ve done a good job.
5
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And if the answer is maybe not,
5
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Choose something different.
5
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If your life is a series of things that you know are goodness and they are a series of things that are what is known as loving yourself, then you are good enough.
5
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And all you re doing is prepping yourself for whatever is supposed to come to you.
5
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Every time I ve gone, oh, I wanted to do that and it doesn t come my way.
5
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Every time something else comes up and I go,
5
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Oh, got it.
5
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I know I wasn t supposed to do that because that thing came and that thing is awesome.
5
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So I want to do that thing.
5
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Thank you universe.
5
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Thank you God for taking that out the way.
5
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I always say to people, every no is just room for a yes.
5
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Every no is just room for the thing that is supposed to happen.
5
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You re making room for the yes that s supposed to be there.
5
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I loved your,
5
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response to that imposter syndrome, as we call it today, that you felt that the idea that anything that comes to you is meant to come to you.
5
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So even if you feel that way, and I feel that way often, I experience imposter syndrome all the time.
5
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I get to do incredible things that I could never have even imagined or dreamt of doing, and then this opportunity comes your way.
5
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and you re scared before you prepare.
5
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You re scared before you even get there and you haven t experienced it yet.
5
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So you have no idea what you re stepping into yet.
5
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You just know it s a good thing in front of you and like, what if I m not good enough for it?
5
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Am I supposed to be here?
5
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Yes.
5
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You were supposed to be here, not just because you re the person that s supposed to do it, but you re the person that s supposed to experience it, because your experience is valuable.
5
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If you share your experience, maybe you re the person that changes someone else s mind about this particular experience, because someone else might be petrified of leaning into it.
5
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But because you re the person that is experiencing it, you re the right person to send the message to the next person.
5
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You see what I mean?
5
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Absolutely, yeah.
5
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That is so crystal clear, I love that.
5
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Yeah, no, that s exactly what I m saying.
5
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What s really clicking for me as you re speaking is that idea that it s come to me, it s for me to experience, it s for me to go through, and that what we do is we re scared before, you get through it and you probably did better than you thought you would, and then afterwards you critique yourself of how you didn t do a great job, and then when the next thing comes along, you do the same thing all over again.
5
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And what you re saying is just so fascinating that yeah it s for you to experience I think that s beautiful like that s even better than just this for you to do.
5
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Yeah.
5
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Or for you to have.
5
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Yeah.
5
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It s like no there s an experience here that s been perfectly crafted.
5
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Just for you.
5
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Just for you.
5
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Yeah.
5
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Yeah and we don t always live in that miracle or like.
5
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No.
5
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live in that space.
5
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What have you felt like about what you re doing right now that s come that way that you re like, oh, this was just for me.
5
SPEAKER_04
Like this is the experience I was meant to have.
5
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Was there something recently or something that s coming up?
5
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I doing Wicked.
5
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So there was another film that I really wanted to do and it didn t quite work out.
5
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And because it didn t work out, it meant that I was available to even be seen for Wicked.
5
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And now I m doing it.
5
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And it came in out of nowhere.
5
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I, one day my, my agent called and was like, so they re seeing people for wicked.
5
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And I was like, I had no idea this was even happening.
5
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And now, now it is what it is and I m doing it.
5
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And this is so far has been a really wonderful experience.
5
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I ve been talking to John, our director and Ariana, and we re really sort of like finding our sort of group.
5
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Like what is our, what is the group mind wanting?
5
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What do we want to tell with the story?
5
SPEAKER_02
How do we want it to look?
5
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What do we want?
5
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people to feel how we want to feel when we do it, all of those things.
5
SPEAKER_02
And it wouldn t have happened if there was a yes there.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
Because this yes was supposed to come, you know?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence.
5
SPEAKER_01
Radios were smashed, cassettes burned.
5
SPEAKER_01
You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.
5
SPEAKER_01
And yet,
5
SPEAKER_01
Afghans did it anyway.
5
SPEAKER_01
This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
5
SPEAKER_00
The danger they endured.
5
SPEAKER_02
They said my head should be cut off.
5
SPEAKER_00
The joy they brought to the nation.
5
SPEAKER_02
You re free completely.
5
SPEAKER_02
No one is there to destroy you.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m John Legend.
5
SPEAKER_01
Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
5
SPEAKER_04
How does it feel when you re working with other incredibly creative people, that one mind can be really challenging?
5
SPEAKER_04
There s one thing getting your mind right and being like, I know what I m doing.
5
SPEAKER_04
Now you ve got three sets of imposter syndrome, three sets of excitement, three
6
SPEAKER_01
sets of artists, have you figured out by now, is there a system, a process that you can follow to help to make everyone feel comfortable?
6
SPEAKER_01
How does that work?
6
SPEAKER_00
Often it s about thinking less about, and I know this sounds counterintuitive, but less about what you need and more about what they need.
6
SPEAKER_00
What does this person need in this moment to feel confident enough that they can go through this with you?
6
SPEAKER_00
What can I do to make you understand that I am here for you as well?
6
SPEAKER_00
And if I m here for you, you can be here for me.
6
SPEAKER_00
And therefore we can think together, we can figure it out together.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I think that once that sort of established.
6
SPEAKER_00
it s just about throwing ideas and like, what about this?
6
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There s no wrong idea.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like creating a space for when you want a one mind idea, it s about, that s actually about creating a safe space.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we hear the words safe space used a lot, but.
6
SPEAKER_00
That is really what it is, creating a safe surrounding so that we can throw anything at the wall.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like, what about this?
6
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It might sound completely ridiculous and outlandish, but it s okay to throw it in this circle because we re all gonna appreciate it.
6
SPEAKER_00
It might not be quite right, but we re gonna be like, actually, this thing about the thing that s outlandish actually might work.
6
SPEAKER_00
What if we applied it to this thing here and made it work that way?
6
SPEAKER_00
then we re all, then now we re of one mind.
6
SPEAKER_00
We re of one accord.
6
SPEAKER_00
We might have different thoughts and different ideas, but somehow they all come together because we re all there for the same purpose.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you find out what the purpose is, we re all going in the same direction.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, then you can t necessarily go wrong.
6
SPEAKER_00
You won t really have to manage everyone s sort of imposter syndrome because it s not about us.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s about the bigger picture at hand.
6
SPEAKER_00
How do we approach this challenge together
6
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and make it work.
6
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Yeah.
6
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Yeah.
6
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I love that idea of, I think that space of there s no bad ideas and don t judge someone for their bad ideas, judge them for their great ones.
6
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And judge them for the bravery to even say the idea in the first place.
6
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Even though everyone knows it s silly.
6
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And you re so right that so often a bad idea
6
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is actually the seed of a great one.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s just that you have to kind of take it apart and get rid of all the dust.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then there s actually something really interesting there.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like there s an interesting perspective or a way of looking at it.
6
SPEAKER_01
What do you think, Cynthia, for you, what s the biggest change you ve made in your life that you think s had the biggest change in your life?
6
SPEAKER_01
Like, is there a habit, a practice?
6
SPEAKER_01
Obviously running is a huge one that I think we discussed.
6
SPEAKER_01
Is there anything else, a change that you ve made internally in your belief system or externally or in your values that you think has been the catalyst for all of these mindset shifts and this greatness that has come your way?
6
SPEAKER_01
Like, does that come from having had a religious upbringing that you ve spiritualized?
6
SPEAKER_01
Does it come, you know, because I m always fascinated by like, when you speak and when you put these ideas together, I m like, there s so much beauty, there s so much eloquence and then there s elegance to it too.
6
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And then I m like, well, where,
6
SPEAKER_01
How do you know like i love i guess when you were saying like when you re looking at a role or a person actually you said a person a real person not a character you were saying like you love how they to figure out how they walk and how they talk and why they do this i think for me when i m i m fascinated by human behavior from the point of view of.
6
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how can humans change?
6
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I think that s what I get obsessed about.
6
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I m always like, well, when that person made that shift, what did they do that helped them to make that shift?
6
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And how can other people benefit from that?
6
SPEAKER_01
Or how does that person make decisions that makes them a better decision maker?
6
SPEAKER_01
Or why does that person lie or steal or cheat or whatever it may be that ruins their life?
6
SPEAKER_01
So I think, yeah, I m just trying to get to,
6
SPEAKER_01
What change, did you have to make a change in mindset or do you think it was a snowball effect of just these positive experiences that you kept collecting?
6
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I think it s like a slow and steady accumulation of trying, just trying things.
6
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When I was younger, I d be, I was a little scared.
6
SPEAKER_00
When I, when I first went to drama school, what actually happened was I met someone at a young actors company, I told you the story before, Ray McCann, and she,
6
SPEAKER_00
she told me I should go to drama school.
6
SPEAKER_00
But before that I had, I had just gone out on a whim and decided I don t want to be at, I can t go to university and study this subject.
6
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It s not, it doesn t feel right.
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It s sort of like listening to myself and being okay with that.
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This might be a terrible mistake, but I m not going to do this thing that I think everybody expected me to do.
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So I m going to leave university.
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I m going to just try this young actors company, this course, that s a theater.
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It s not a massive course that is around, like nobody really knows about it, but it just feels right.
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So I m going to go there.
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I bump into Ray, who I hadn t seen for five years.
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She tells me to go to drama school.
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I tell her, no.
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I say, I m not doing it.
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There s no way I m going to get in.
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She says, well, you can t come to this course if you don t apply to this school.
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And I say, all right, I will apply to this school, but only this school.
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Just this one.
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Only because you asked, and I m only applying to this.
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Fine.
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I apply and I do the work.
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I don t phone it in.
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I really do work to get to these auditions.
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And somehow I find myself in this drama school, Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
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It s one of the best schools in the world for acting.
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And I feel like a fish out of water.
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But a lot of my experience at this school is about what feels right for me, because that s really how I can gauge it.
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At one point, like, and I was physical, I was working out a lot, and one of the teachers says, oh, you should stop working out because you need to get softer.
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And I was like,
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I don t know that that s right.
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I m going to keep working out, because it s good for my brain and my mind.
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So I m going to keep doing that.
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And I find a person in my class who happens to just play the piano.
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He plays the piano beautifully.
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So we just pick up books from the library that are scores of music, and we go through these music scores.
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One of them happens to be Wicked.
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And we learn that score back to front.
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I have no idea that 10 odd years later, that thing is going to be the thing I m doing now.
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No idea.
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I have no idea.
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I just love the music.
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I know that going away to a music room with a piano with this person to sing all this music feels really good.
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feels good.
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We re doing these shows and we all are like trying to get our agents and whatnot.
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And I think, I don t think the traditional way of getting an agent is really going to work for me.
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So we put on a cabaret in the bar because it feels
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Good.
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I get my agent and I finish early.
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So when I go to do this thing, we call it the tree, which is like a presentation of different scenes.
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I just do the things that feel good and people love it.
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And I feel good when I m done and there s no pressure.
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There s no anxiety.
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And I leave with a show to go to.
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And it s been a series of what s my gut and my heart telling me the color purple came because I knew it was coming.
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And I was like, I,
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I know I m supposed to play Celie.
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I just know it.
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I can t tell you why, but my gut is telling me, my heart is telling me that s what I m supposed to do.
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No idea about what s happening next.
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We do this show in a little theater with 200 people.
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It s a 200-seater, that s it.
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Towards the end, they ask, do you think you would want to do this on Broadway?
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I don t think they re being serious.
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cut to a year or two later, we re on Broadway and we re doing this show.
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I have no idea of any of this.
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I think it s just accumulation of genuinely listening to myself and not being afraid that the decision might be wrong.
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Totally.
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You know?
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Yes.
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Because yes, some of it might be wrong, but then it somehow is right.
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Yes, yeah, yeah.
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Right?
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Yep.
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You ve just sparked something in me that I think has some truth in it, is the idea that if you listen to everyone else, chances are they might be wrong.
6
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Right.
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And if you listen to yourself, chances are you might be right.
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Right.
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And there might be some ways that it goes wrong, but when you re listening to yourself, you can take responsibility for when it doesn t work.
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You can pivot quicker.
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Or is that fine when you listen to someone else and it goes wrong, then you just keep blaming them and you go, oh yeah, I shouldn t have listened to that person.
6
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And it s like, but no, like you don t need to listen to what they thought anyway.
6
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And so I love that.
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And I love all the dots and the- It all joins.
6
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Yeah.
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And that s the beauty of it.
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Like looking back on it, there s that beautiful quote from Steve Jobs where he said, you can t connect the dots moving forward.
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You only can when you re looking backwards.
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And I feel like when that s exactly what this is, you re like, I just did this because it felt good and I did this.
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And now when I look back and I, I encourage everyone to not look for the connection moving forward.
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Like you will find no connection moving forward.
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You ll find it later.
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Just keep, keep taking the steps forward.
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It s again, one step in front of the other.
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Just keep moving forward.
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That s beautiful.
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Cynthia, on that note, I mean, I could talk to you for hours and I hope we will.
7
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but we end every episode of On Purpose with what we call, there s two segments.
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One of them s called The Many Sides of Us, where we ask you to use one word or one phrase to describe yourself through different mirrors and different lenses.
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And the other s The Fast Five.
7
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So here are your questions.
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What is one word or phrase that someone would say about you meeting you for the first time?
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I ve been hearing she s very warm.
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That s beautiful.
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I would have to agree.
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I think you re very warm.
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Today I m meeting you for the first time, even though we ve spoken before.
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And so I m like, you re very warm.
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You actually, last time I interviewed you, it was only audio.
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So it s always different when you finally, and I was like, you have a way of speaking that people want to listen.
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That s what I noticed about you.
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I was like, I actually care about what she has to say because of your cadence, your tone.
7
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Yeah, the texture of your voice.
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I m so intrigued.
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So that was something as well that s special.
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What is one word or phrase to describe what someone would say that knows you very well?
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I m stubborn.
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Stubborn about what?
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I like to get things done on my own.
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It s a trait that I am having to shift a little bit because there is that wonderful positive thing about I can get it done and I m pragmatic and get things done.
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But there s also the other part of like, it s okay, someone else can help you.
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Help is good too.
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Yeah.
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It took me a, I know what that one feels like.
7
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I know.
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Yeah.
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I can relate to that.
7
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All right.
7
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So it s not, it s not stubborn in the same way my wife has got it.
7
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I just clarify.
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Okay.
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Uh, question number three, what is one word or phrase that you would use to describe yourself?
7
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Open.
7
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Beautiful.
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What is a word or phrase that someone who maybe doesn t like you would say about you?
7
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Difficult.
7
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I don t settle.
7
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Right.
7
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I m so glad you brought that up.
7
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So I get that feedback a lot.
7
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Yeah.
7
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And it comes from my inner responsibility that I have this unique opportunity to serve the world in the way I want to.
7
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And I never thought it would be possible.
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I m very grateful for it.
7
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Right.
7
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But now I can t settle.
7
SPEAKER_01
Right.
7
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And I don t want to treat this as just a job or a career or it s so much more to me than any of those things.
7
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Tell me about how you deal with that when you re seen as difficult in your way, in your specific experience of that word.
7
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the way I ve dealt with it has sort of shifted over time.
7
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Before, I would probably get defensive about it.
7
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It s in our nature to sort of like defend ourselves when we don t like the thing that we re hearing about ourselves.
7
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Now, I think I have more patience to sort of sit and be like, the reason why you may think I m difficult or see that is because I m maybe asking for things that feel like they re way
7
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it s just too much, but actually I m asking for the things that will allow me to be my optimum self for you.
7
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So that when we come away from this, you know, I ve given you everything I can possibly give you in the best possible way.
7
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It just takes patience and understanding for us to be able to meet in the middle.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s beautiful.
7
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I love that.
7
SPEAKER_01
Great description.
7
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Okay.
7
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Question number,
7
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Oh, five.
7
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Yeah.
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What is a word or phrase that you re trying to embody today?
7
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Something that you re working on, something that you re aspiring for?
7
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I have this already, but I think it s an everyday voyage.
7
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Joy, just seeking joy in every day, like in little things, being able to finish organizing something or
7
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I did my vanity around my bathroom and I was like, it looks really tidy.
7
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That s a little piece of joy.
7
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Meeting people in the street as I run, little piece of joy.
7
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I found, I don t know, a chocolate bar that I haven t had for ages, joy.
7
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You know, I ve managed to get everything ready and I got the right outfit, my water s prepared, I m prepared today, joy.
7
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Like finding pieces of joy in the little moments.
7
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so that we aren t just waiting for big, massive things to happen, that it actually is an everyday buildup of goodness.
7
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Yeah.
7
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So that when the big things come, they re just like a cherry on top.
7
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Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
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I love that.
7
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That s beautiful.
7
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And I wanted to end with our final conversation around
7
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what we talked about briefly before we started was that you were saying that you re at this point in life where you re trying to figure out the difference between speaking from a place of love and then speaking from a place of fear.
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So often we re trying to speak from a place of love, but really we end up speaking from a place of protecting ourselves.
7
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And I wanted to hear how you felt today when you were sharing, like, how has that evolved for you?
7
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Because I think you re so right.
7
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I think especially people in the public eye are always speaking from a place of fear because everything you say is like,
7
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can be taken apart and can be highlighted and can be blown up out of proportion.
7
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And so walk me through that for you.
7
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I think that we, we ve misconstrued what, what it means to speak from a place of love, because we believe that speaking from a place of love is protecting someone s feelings, but by protecting someone s feelings, protecting your own, because you don t want that person s feeling to come back at you and make you feel hurt.
7
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But actually, if you speak from a place of love, you are actually communicating with another person about what can help both of you meet somewhere in the middle and understand one another.
7
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So if I say, let s say something as simple as, someone has said something that s hurt your feelings, instead of saying, that thing you said hurt my feelings,
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And I know that that wasn t what you meant to do, but that s how I felt. 
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That person can go, I m so sorry.
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I didn t mean to, that s not what I meant at all.
7
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Now we ve not exacerbated anything.
7
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I ve just told you how I felt from a place of not afraid that you re going to get defensive about what you said.
7
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It s not, you said that thing and I don t think it was right.
7
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And it was really mean.
7
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different turn of phrase, isn t it?
7
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You re not speaking from a place of, this is how it felt when it came to me.
7
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Is that what you meant?
7
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Now there s a space to have a conversation about, well, actually, maybe this is what I meant.
7
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And now I understand, okay, well, now we can have a discussion about something.
7
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When we speak from a place of love, what we re actually doing is giving the other person an opportunity to be understood, and therefore you get the chance to be understood as well.
7
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When we speak from a place of fear, we re trying to stop the other person from getting upset, to stop ourselves from feeling even more rejection or more upset.
7
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And we can t walk around like that.
7
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are essentially walking around like broken shells.
7
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That doesn t work.
7
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We want to allow people to make themselves whole every time we have a conversation with them.
7
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To leave a conversation thinking, oh, I learned something.
7
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I understand something.
7
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I know something.
7
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If you leave a conversation going,
7
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did I actually get what I needed from that?
7
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And that s often how people leave conversations, especially arguments.
7
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You leave an argument, you think, I don t think I got what I wanted from that.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I got the conversation I needed out of that.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m still missing things.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m still not understanding certain things because we weren t speaking from a place of how do we solve this?
7
SPEAKER_00
How do we, how do we make this better?
7
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we re just sort of, I want to be heard, you want to be heard, as opposed to, I want to understand you so that you can understand me.
7
SPEAKER_00
Now we walk away thinking, oh, we got something.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so usually by the end of those conversations, when you re like, I want to understand, you want to understand, you re like, you good?
7
SPEAKER_00
I m good.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
All right.
7
SPEAKER_00
Should we start again?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Let s start again.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s, that tends to be how those conversations end up.
7
SPEAKER_00
Makes so much sense.
7
SPEAKER_00
I want those, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I want those too.
7
SPEAKER_01
It makes so much sense.
7
SPEAKER_01
And today s been a conversation filled with love, filled with joy, filled with a lot of understanding.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I know anyone who listens to this, speaking to you is like, there s a therapeutic nature to it.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s very like, I feel like anyone who listens to this or watches this is going to walk away just feeling a sense of joy, genuinely, because I think
7
SPEAKER_01
The way you talk about your life, the way you talk about these miracles, the way you talk about the connection, the way you talk about the work, but also the wisdom that comes from it is really special and beautiful.
7
SPEAKER_01
So thank you so much for being here today.
7
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Thank you for doing this.
7
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I hope you had fun.
7
SPEAKER_00
I did.
7
SPEAKER_00
This is lovely.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I hope you feel heard and seen and understood.
7
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And I want to welcome everyone at home to make sure that you share what you learned from this episode across social media so that we can pick up what were those little moments that Cynthia mentioned that connected with you, that resonated with you, that you re going to try out that.
7
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What are you going to start?
7
SPEAKER_01
I m fascinated by that.
7
SPEAKER_01
What are you going to start doing?
7
SPEAKER_01
I like that question.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
And Cynthia, I hope you re going to come back year after year.
7
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I can t wait for Pinocchio, very excited.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, please enjoy.
7
SPEAKER_01
I love Wicked too, so very excited.
7
SPEAKER_01
I cannot wait.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m really pumped, but excited for this.
7
SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thank you very much for having me.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
7
SPEAKER_01
If you loved this episode, you will also love my interview with Charles Duhigg on how to hack your brain, change any habit effortlessly, and the secret to making better decisions.
7
SPEAKER_00
When people talk about procrastination, when they talk about overthinking, what they re really talking about is they re talking about the first step.
8
SPEAKER_01
Once you take the first step, it s you.
8
SPEAKER_00
Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt, and we re the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
8
SPEAKER_00
Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
8
SPEAKER_01
Let s learn about all of it, and then some.
8
SPEAKER_01
Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on America s number one podcast network, iHeart.
8
SPEAKER_01
Open your free iHeart app and search Grown Up Stuff.
8
SPEAKER_01
Stop.