Robin Wright on ageing, confidence and the myth of being ‘too late’

‘I didn’t think I had that confidence, so I turned those roles down.’ Robin Wright is the legendary star of The Princess Bride, Forrest Gump, House of Cards, and Amazon’s gripping new thriller The Girlfriend. An Emmy-nominated actress, Golden Globe winner and now an acclaimed director, Wright joins How To Fail to talk about fear, self-worth, womanhood, motherhood - and what it means to start over later in life. She reflects on missed chances in her 20s, turning down roles due to self-doubt, and how playing Claire Underwood helped her channel her inner strength. We discuss ageing, perfectionism, directing while acting and the inequality still embedded in Hollywood. A masterclass in how to fail, get back up, and do it your own way. Plus: her honest thoughts on working with Tom Hanks and the *worst* experience she’s had with a director. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 11.20    Overcoming fear and self-doubt 11.30 Reuniting with former co-stars - Tom Hanks! 21.31 Why she turned down roles in her 20s due to fear of failing 25.30 Self-love and personal growth 26.15 The journey to directing 35.20 Embracing new challenges later in life 39.45 Difficult experiences in the industry with a bullying director 43.00 Dealing with power imbalances 43.30 Her biggest wish for the youth of today (and how not to be controlled by social media) 💬 QUOTES TO REMEMBER: "You take care of your babies and if something you see is perilous for your offspring, you will lie under an 18-wheeler truck before the baby's going to, you know what I mean?" "I wasn't ready. And so I feel that it just takes time, experience... I learned from that by finally failing. Having the confidence to fail." “You have to learn to fail in front of the camera. And then put your head up and try again.” “Too old to do what? If you’ve got the energy and the want, do it.” “I’d feel like a failure if I didn’t help the youth grow up in this chaotic world.” “I didn’t feel confident enough to take those roles. Now I know - that was the lesson.” “It was 116 degrees in the desert and I just ran. I had to get away.” 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Robin Wright stars in The Girlfriend, available exclusively on Prime Video Elizabeth’s upcoming one-off show at Cadogan Hall on 21 Sep for her new novel One of Us: ⁠https://www.fane.co.uk/elizabeth-day Elizabeth’s Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com/ Join the How To Fail community: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content 📚 WANT MORE? Kate Winslet on womanhood, body image and failing to direct (yet) https://link.chtbl.com/ue94wtL4 Vanessa Williams on playing ice queens https://link.chtbl.com/XuGATIoZ Sharon Horgan on creativity, motherhood and control https://link.chtbl.com/lMHAaa-w 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories Share with someone exploring neurodiversity or recovering their voice 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod Podcast Instagram: @howtofailpod Website: www.elizabethday.org Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com/ Elizabeth and Robin answer YOUR questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: howtofailpod.com Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Sound Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Suhaar Ali Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Carly Maile How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I didn't think I had that confidence, so I turned those roles down.

• 0:05Elizabeth Day?

  What is your worst experience of another director? And you don't have to name names or anything.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  Boy, have I got stories.

• 0:14Elizabeth Day?

  Hello and welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This is the podcast where I ask every guest about three times they failed and what they learnt along the way.

• 0:28Elizabeth Day?

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• 1:10Elizabeth Day?

  go to Shopify.co.uk/fail to start your free trial. That's Shopify.co.uk/fail. Go to Shopify.co.uk/fail today to hear your first.

• 1:25Speaker 02

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• 1:31Speaker 03

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• 1:39Speaker 02

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• 1:48Speaker 02

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• 1:54Elizabeth Day?

  My guest today was a dancer at 10, a model at 14, and a soap opera actor at 18. At 21, she took on her breakthrough role as Princess Buttercup in the Rob Reiner-directed classic, The Princess. Princess Bride. Further iconic performances have followed as Jenny in 1994's Forrest Gump and then for five years from 2013 as Claire Underwood, the Vino First Lady in Netflix's hit remake of House of Cards. She was the first actress to win a Golden Globe for a streamer-only series and also racked up five consecutive Emmy nominations for Outstanding

• 2:36Elizabeth Day?

  Lead Actress. She is, of course, Robin Wright. Born in Dallas, Texas, her parents divorced when she was a toddler and her mother relocated to San Diego, California. Wright herself prioritized family over film roles for many years when she gave birth to her two children, Dylan and Hopper. By her late 40s, Wright was busy staging "a comeback," her words, and her career both in front of and behind the camera has gone from strength to strength. She now returns to our screens in The Girlfriend, a psychologically gripping TV series for Amazon

• 3:14Elizabeth Day?

  Prime in which Wright directs, exec producers and stars as Laura, a billionaire art gallerist who has a suspiciously possessive relationship with her son. By any accounts, then, it's a successful life, but "the greatest gift is failing," Wright has said in the past. Failing in a scene in front of the camera and then tightening up your bootlaces, putting your head up and going in and trying again. Robin Wright, welcome to How to Fail.

• 3:47Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me.

• 3:48Elizabeth Day?

  You are so welcome here with that kind of attitude to failing.

• 3:52Speaker 00

  Uh-oh.

• 3:54Elizabeth Day?

  And that quote was actually, it was an interview that you gave where you were asked about the Princess Bride, which I mentioned in the introduction, and you were talking about being a young actor surrounded by these legends of screen. And now, if it's not presumptuous of me, I would say you're the legend. How does that feel? How does it feel being the legend in The Girlfriend that the other actors probably look up to and have seen so much of your work?

• 4:21Speaker 00

  I mean, it's, it's an incredible feeling to be.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Trusted that you have a body of work under you for years and years. And we all learn through that experience of making mistakes, failing, looking bad, and then rectifying it on your own. How do you correct? You learn from your mistakes. And to be instilling that and imbuing that to other young actors, that's what makes me feel great as a director is I am older, I've had more experience. I was where they were when I was their age. We all were. And I don't feel like it's a legend thing. It's just time under the belt.

• 5:11Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. It's that famous thing that Malcolm Gladwell talks about, isn't it? The 10,000 hours, that even if you feel nervous still doing what you do, at least you know you've got that experience under your belt.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. And I feel like if it becomes too comfortable, too lax, you're not really driven by an energy, there's not an impetus in the same way to want to make something very clear, perfect, as you're performing or delivering a speech.

• 5:42Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. I completely agree.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  Right? Just be a little bit on edge, little bit walking up, because you do want everyone to feel and accept and absorb in the same way. You just want to be able to feel that you're not alone in a rowboat.

• 5:57Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  And no one's getting what you're saying and you're getting Scooby looks. What?

• 6:02Elizabeth Day?

  Right? Well, I think you do a terrific job of that in The Girlfriend, which I binged over the weekend.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  Ooh.

• 6:10Elizabeth Day?

  I'm obsessed with it. And part of the reason it's so good is obviously your skill as a director and an actor, but also because you have that ability to make something that might on paper seem a bit unbelievable. So this mother who's very protective of her now only son, and a girlfriend comes on the scene, and she's rightly suspicious of this girlfriend, played by Olivia Cook. And it's what unravels after that, and it gets very dramatic and very dark. But it is so brilliantly acted that I believed every single second of it.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  Oh, I love that. Will you be the only reviewer?

• 6:46Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, absolutely. Arrange for that to be the case.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  And that was the intention is to not fall prey to falling into melodrama.

• 6:57Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  Because every incident, the drive of cherry.

• 7:05Elizabeth Day?

  He's the girlfriend.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  The will of the mother to not lose the love. So it's tug of war between two women who love the same young man. Don't fall into melodrama, just make the chaos reality.

• 7:19Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 7:20Speaker 00

  Because it does become chaotic in each of these women internally.

• 7:23Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  And then they implode.

• 7:25Elizabeth Day?

  The other thing that struck me about your performance in particular was the physicality of it. You are very in your body and it's very rare that I see dancing scenes on TV shows that aren't cringe. And they really weren't. But how physical do you feel acting is specifically? And then we'll get on to directing a bit later.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  It's pretty much my foundation. And I think it comes from being a dancer at a very young age. And that to me is what makes me feel. Basically, it invokes something that brings something else to a scene, let's say. So being tactile. If you want to be in a sex scene, but you can't use hands, you can only use eyes of seduction. You know, there's all those games you can play, but all of that to me is a dance.

• 8:24Elizabeth Day?

  Wow. So will you think about how a character moves before you perform them?

• 8:30Speaker 00

  It's a big question.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  And it's interesting to work with actors, being an actor myself, because I know what they need to get to that emotion, to deliver that beat that the scene needs. And every actor is different. Every actor does a different dance with you. So you're gonna have to read the room and go, ah, okay. Some actors go, give me the line reading, just do it for me.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  And I'll mimic it. And others are like, no, I need you to create a story. That will help me bring this emotion to the surface and have it feel real to the viewer, authentic. So you're not acting at the audience. You're actually embodying the character and that's what makes the audience members sit on the edge of their seat, cry, laugh, get angry. And we're storytellers.

• 9:27Elizabeth Day?

  Now, obviously, we've touched on the fact that Some of the Girlfriend is about motherhood, parenthood. What do you think it taught you or made you think about mothering, playing this very specific role?

• 9:41Speaker 00

  I mean, I could relate to it. Because of where this ride takes you on this show is, you know, basically, it's the love of one man between two women that turns into jealousy. And then the jealousy turns into to the death. So I understand that as a mama cub. You take care of your babies. And if something you see is perilous for your offspring, you will lie under an 18-wheeler truck before the baby's gonna, you know what I mean?

• 10:20Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  So I think we, as mothers, can all relate to that. But this goes a little bit too far. And I remember saying to my son, he's like, oh, I can't wait to see it, Mom. The trailer looks so good. But it's a little incestuous. And I said, you think? And I said, just do me a favor. When you finally get to binge it, will you please let me know that I am not that overly protective of you? So we're gonna have to wait and see.

• 10:49Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, great. Yes, that'll be an interesting viewing experience for him in particular. The other thing that I thought The Girlfriend did very well was its approach and analysis of class in a very subtle way. And I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about class because I think you have a very interesting perspective. Raised in America, but you have a British stepfather.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:10Elizabeth Day?

  And you spend a lot of time here in the UK. And how much did you want to play with how we feel about class?

• 11:18Speaker 00

  It's very delineated here, I find.

• 11:21Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  And I've been here pretty much most of three years, working in this country. And I've been educated.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  And you speak to individuals that are older than me, born and raised here. And they're like, oh, no, it's a thing in England. It makes a huge difference. What university did you go to? Now, you could say the same about America. If you go to an Ivy League school, you're suddenly elevated because you went to Princeton versus, you know, SoCal College. But here, I feel like it's part of the national fabric. The class system compartmentalization. And you better know the classes and what that requires, how you have to be, behave, if you're not part of that class.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  And that's what Cherry's doing, is she's trying to fit in, but she's basically saying, this isn't who I am. I love you, Daniel, and I'll never be this. I never came from money. But when you're trying to fit into a class system that you will never be accepted into, really, that's a difficult relationship to have with a mother-in-law.

• 12:39Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  With a mother-in-law.

• 12:41Elizabeth Day?

  But your first failure is the fear of failing itself. So the fact that, as you put it to me, you didn't take chances in your earlier career. Which chances didn't you take?

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Turning down certain roles that I was offered in my twenties, let's say, because I just didn't think I was qualified to play that character fully, immerse myself, fail in front of the camera, do another take. I didn't think I had that confidence, so I turned those roles down. And the ladies that did those roles were amazing. I wasn't ready. And so I feel that it just takes time, experience, so that now that's history. I learned from that by finally failing, having the confidence to fail.

• 13:39Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 13:41Elizabeth Day?

  I'm so interested by this lack of confidence at that stage because you cut your teeth on Santa Barbara. R.I.P. I used to watch it.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Oh, my goodness.

• 13:50Elizabeth Day?

  Which is, it was a really fantastic, long-running soap opera. And you have to learn so many lines and be so quick. What do you think soap opera acting taught you about acting?

• 14:04Speaker 00

  You have to become stealth in the technicalities. Because you've got three cameras going at the same time. So you have to feel out of your periphery, the red lights come on, so that camera. And then your head turns this way to get the actor to move over here. So I was trained at a very young age of how to multitask while in a scene. And it was a great schooling, I have to say.

• 14:34Elizabeth Day?

  But you still didn't feel confident enough, even with that, on your C V to take some of these roles. Why do you think that was?

• 14:42Speaker 00

  Because I hadn't done enough.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  You know, when you're young, you're basically playing yourself. You're speaking as yourself. You're moving as you would move through the world. You're given lines, but you don't own those lines as a grown woman or a grown man, right? Yet. And I think that's just life. We were babies when we started. We didn't know who we were. We didn't know how to do the in-depth homework one has to do to immerse themselves into a completely different character that's nothing like you, if you're playing a murderer, a sociopath. Right?

• 15:30Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  When people ask, you know, which parts of you are like so-and-so that you played? And you're like, nothing, really.

• 15:39Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  And that takes time and experience and doing your homework and getting jobs that allow you to play and explore and discover.

• 15:50Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  That's how I get there. It's experience.

• 15:55Elizabeth Day?

  What is the most difficult emotion to convey on screen?

• 16:00Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, that's a tough one. I don't really know anymore, Elizabeth, because I feel like I've kind of, I've tapped them all, you know, I've clicked all the boxes. It's almost like a light switch now. Truthfully.

• 16:17Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  And it wasn't before. I couldn't get to an emotion without putting my iPod, you know, and playing melancholic music by, you know, London Grammar, um, to get the tears going.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  But I, I do have to say, what is still really difficult to do

• 16:39Speaker 00

  is to go from being like this, and then somebody walks in the door, camera's rolling, and they're like, "Your husband just died." And to be able to go from us laughing about failure, and then having to go to that with tears and shock and dismay.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  In a second. And in life, we do that naturally when something traumatic happens, you know? That's still tough to do, because you have to map it out.

• 17:07Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  As an actor, ahead of time. Okay, when Elizabeth is saying that line, I know it's gonna be in two seconds, I'm gonna have to start sobbing, crying, or screaming at the top of my lungs. Like,

• 17:23Speaker 00

  so while you're still speaking, I'm allowing that London Grammar music to reach my heart. And you hold it. And you're like, "Yeah."

• 17:35Elizabeth Day?

  You're doing it now. Wow.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  And then you go, "What?" You know, it's, it's that flip of a switch that's so quick, but you have to give the preamble a little bit of time to rise. But that's my personal experience. I don't know how others work.

• 17:50Elizabeth Day?

  That was phenomenal. That was utterly amazing witnessing that. And again, we go back to the physicality.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:56Elizabeth Day?

  The feeling in your body first, that being where it springs from.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:01Elizabeth Day?

  So in this context, I wonder what it was like for you. So Forrest Gump, allow me to be the first person to say it's one of my favourite movies of all time. I remember going to see it in the cinema and I remember asking my parents to buy me the soundtrack for Christmas. That's how much I loved it.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:15Elizabeth Day?

  It was the first ever movie soundtrack.

• 18:17Speaker 00

  Such a good soundtrack.

• 18:18Elizabeth Day?

  The best. And you reunited with Tom Hanks and Bob Zemeckis for Here. And of course, in the interim, there's been decades of your experience as an actor. What was it like for you as a sort of sign maybe of how far you've come or how much your confidence has grown? What was that reunion like?

• 18:38Speaker 00

  A, it was like no time had passed for the three of us, four of us. You know, Eric Roth, who wrote Forrest Gump, adapted Forrest Gump, also wrote Here with Bob Zemeckis. So we were a band getting back together. And it was literally like no time had passed. Love each other just the same. It was just as easy as if we had had dinner every Sunday night for 10 straight years, you know? We just had a respect for one another going, right? I learned that too. When did you learn that? When you were 40, 45? It was great. It was a good therapy session for us.

• 19:15Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:17Elizabeth Day?

  Is Tom Hanks really as nice as he seems?

• 19:19Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:20Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, just checking. Thank goodness.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  The sweetest, the greatest, the funniest. Yeah.

• 19:28Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialised treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's Exposure and Response Prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable.

• 20:11Elizabeth Day?

  So you can live more of the life you want to live. If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail. I mentioned in the intro, and now I'm wondering whether it was quite right, but that you were raising children and you made that decision and you made the decision not to take on as many roles. But was that the case or was it more this, that you were fearful of taking on the roles?

• 20:43Speaker 00

  No, it was that I wanted to be a mom. And I found that as the kids were getting past the toddler years and starting to really make, you know, solid relationships, friends, best friends when they're six, seven, eight, nine. Taking them away from their routine and their community was really traumatic. And what a nightmare. You got to come to another city and sit in a trailer and wait for mom to have a 30 minute lunch where all she wants to do is take a nap because she's so tired. And then I see them for dinner and then give them a bath and put them to bed. Then I'm exhausted because I've worked a 15 hour day.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  So it's kind of pointless, but the flip side of that of being a mom was, or do I leave and leave them with a nanny and their dad? Which one's worse? They both have their benefits and hindrances, you know? So I just decided, take a cameo. If you can get a cameo during the school year and you're only gone for five days to Toronto, no problem. But going away and doing a movie for three months in Istanbul and FaceTime wasn't available yet?

• 22:00Speaker 00

  I didn't think that was fair to them, to not be there to raise them. So I just worked in the summers when they were off school. And they'd come for a little bit and then they'd go to camp. And they wouldn't even miss me. So it was great.

• 22:13Elizabeth Day?

  Times have changed a little since that period you're describing, but I wonder if you feel things have got any easier for working parents, particularly in your industry?

• 22:24Speaker 00

  I think so. I've heard from a few people in the last, you know, 10 years, new mothers, let's say. And it's amazing, the convenience they're given, the accommodation, the support. You know, the, "We're going to call you in later because you're breastfeeding a year six week old. We're going to let you come in later to hair and makeup," things like that. And that's working with the talent. And it's a talent to be a mom. It's, you know, it's a skill.

• 22:58Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  So to have that kind of support is amazing.

• 23:03Elizabeth Day?

  Are you angry in any way that times weren't like that then?

• 23:09Speaker 00

  They were like that then, so much that way, you know, 20 years before I got into this industry. But I was very much taken care of. Would they, you know, pay for the nanny? No. So you could take your child, but it was kind of, it was on you. And you could always bring your kid to set, trailer, have a break, go back, feed the baby. I've had it pretty great, I have to say.

• 23:42Elizabeth Day?

  Going back to this idea that there was a fear of failure for a period of time, where do you think that stemmed from originally? Can you remember experiencing that fear as a child before you started acting?

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Oh, God, yeah. Oh, yeah. Big time. School.

• 24:02Speaker 00

  And it started with academia. Because I just struggled with English and math. And that feeling of just sweating and you could feel it brewing going, "Oh, my God, I'm going to fail. I'm not going to be able to write this essay. I don't know how to do it properly."

• 24:23Speaker 00

  And that's when you start looking over the shoulder of your colleague in the class, right? You're like, can I see how you did the thing and the thing and the conclusion? And then I would start asking questions to my friends who were smarter than me, who were natural writers, great at arithmetic. And I would say, can you teach me how your methodology works for you? And you start doing that throughout your life as an actor, observing directors, what not to do, what you could think, okay, I know I'll never do that, because that doesn't work for an actor. And I think you could generalize

• 25:03Speaker 00

  certain things in that context, right? And then what you do is you just stockpile all this education that you acquire over the years, whether it's in the workplace, relationships, family, being a mother to your kids as they grow up and start talking back. And you start seeing these human beings that are their own people. And you're like, where did you come from? Then you have to navigate through different waters. And I love having that big old bag, because then it's almost like the bag turned into a Givenchy sack.

• 25:42Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Of just good quality wisdom. Let's call them clickbaits. Let's call them cliches. Whatever. It worked. Gaining them and using them to your advantage.

• 25:57Elizabeth Day?

  And I think what strikes me about that is that you asked the questions. You were curious, rather than what so many people experience, which is this kind of defensive, judgmental fear that they're not enough, so they don't want to reveal that they're not enough by asking the question. They don't want to reveal that they don't know. And I just think that's such an important thing to remember, that actually it's often more powerful to say, I don't know, and ask the question.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  You couldn't have said it better. That is the power. And once you own the freedom and the want to say, I don't know what that means. Tell me what that means. Will you write that down? I want to study it. Tell me where I can get online and read more about that.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  What a liberating thing.

• 26:50Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  Because it's truth.

• 26:53Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 26:54Speaker 00

  The other thing's a lie.

• 26:56Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  When you're holding it in or being like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. Yeah. It's a lie.

• 27:03Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 27:05Speaker 00

  And I just think truth is, you know, you can love everyone. I was listening to, you know, Ram Dass.

• 27:13Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  He has this piece on this beautiful piece of music that I was listening to. And he's telling a story about when he first met Maharaji. And Maharaji says, "Just love everyone, Ram Dass." And he says, "I can't." He said, "Why?" He said, "Because I have too much judgment in me for other people. It's impossible." And he said, "Yes, you can. Love everyone and tell the truth."

• 27:46Speaker 00

  And it changed his life. And then he became a guru for other people. And those two things are genius. They're so simple.

• 27:53Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  You can love. They might get angry when you tell the truth, but you're still loving them.

• 27:59Elizabeth Day?

  I couldn't agree more. And sometimes the hardest person to love is yourself. And so sometimes you're being judgmental. I'm talking about myself here, actually.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  But we all do that, right?

• 28:08Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. Sometimes you're being most judgmental of you, and that's why you're projecting judgment of other people. And that's why it's like living in the question, living in the love.

• 28:18Speaker 00

  That's, and I think that's the biggest poison that we do to ourselves. We get stuck

• 28:25Speaker 00

  when we're self-loathing.

• 28:27Elizabeth Day?

  I, I don't want to be a cod psychologist about this at all, but I do speak to a lot of people who were raised with divorced parents. And they felt that they had to be perfect in order to be lovable, to sort of fix a problem that wasn't theirs, they're making. Do you relate to that in any way?

• 28:44Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And I became, you know, the caretaker. From a very young age, I was the person in the room where I wanted to keep everything calm. Didn't like confrontation. Hated confrontation. Hated people that blew up.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  And I remember thinking, I really need to get into a therapy to release myself from this conduit that's holding me into the panic that I feel when somebody snaps, loses it, because you get crew members, directors, actors that you've experienced over the years that just lose it on set at a crew member. And it just horrifies me. And I don't mind that because I think we can all be kind and stern.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  But it really used to rock my world.

• 29:37Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 29:39Speaker 00

  And at a certain point, I just decided to go with diplomacy and calm in those instances, because then it brings everybody off that ledge. And people go, well, then you're all chaotic inside because you're suppressing it. I said, no, what I'm doing is I'm helping with a tactic. It's almost like a fun game we're going to play. Let's see if my energy, which is quantum physics, right? If you put that energy out in the room, people are going to get off the rage horse.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  So I like spreading that

• 30:19Speaker 00

  energy, which is easy for me to do. I'm not a good confrontation person where I'm going to be like, no, you listen, you sit down. You can't talk to people. And I've never been that way.

• 30:31Elizabeth Day?

  So did you learn to do that through experience?

• 30:36Speaker 00

  Probably experience through, you know, yeah, child of divorce. And I mean, what's the percentage of children of divorce? It's, it's, it's a lot. So I think we've all been, most of us have been through that. And as a child,

• 30:53Speaker 00

  you do just fall into, it almost feels like an obligation. Like you were saying, it's like you have to

• 31:03Speaker 00

  be perfect and make sure everything in the room is perfect. And everyone's happy, make sure everyone's happy. And that's my responsibility because if things start to blow.

• 31:17Speaker 00

  It's my responsibility because I didn't keep it calm.

• 31:21Elizabeth Day?

  I totally relate.

• 31:24Speaker 00

  And you want to free kids up from saying, it's not your responsibility. And if that freaks you out, understandably so, if somebody's yelling in a room and it makes you really uncomfortable, leave the room. Walk away from the drama. Don't engage and take it on. Right? So that's through life experience, too.

• 31:45Elizabeth Day?

  And also romantic relationships. You have to be careful not to take that into romantic relationships.

• 31:51Speaker 00

  She said.

• 31:54Elizabeth Day?

  I know. Yeah. And that's a learning process.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  It is. And you know, that's cognitive therapy, which you learn later in life after you do other therapies and well, you do this. And there's two rules that I think are really important in a relationship that come from that style of therapy, which is you're not allowed to use the words never or always.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  And always come from a place of I. I felt this when you said that. Not you said you did it in this. And it really does work.

• 32:30Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 32:31Speaker 00

  And trying to teach your children to operate that way, you hope that they just take that baton and run with it and they'll have a healthy relationship.

• 32:38Elizabeth Day?

  My final question on this particular failure is, as someone who was historically the peacekeeper, conflict avoidant, dislikes confrontation, was it then extremely liberating playing Claire Underwood?

• 32:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, in a sense.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  It allowed me to feel what it would be like to have that kind of strength and power, where you're not concerned with what anybody else thinks, because that's your truth.

• 33:13Speaker 00

  You know, and that's a funny character to compare it to, but when playing a part, you need to invest in being that person.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  Otherwise, it won't be felt by the audience. You have to be, you have to like that character, as venal as they are. You've got to love that character you're playing.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  Otherwise, it doesn't really translate.

• 33:38Elizabeth Day?

  And that's so interesting, because then you realize that you have the capacity within you.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:43Elizabeth Day?

  When you're embodying it. So it's like, actually, I can tap into that in my real life.

• 33:49Speaker 00

  I choose not to.

• 33:50Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, yes. Your second failure is your fear of not being good as a director.

• 33:57Speaker 00

  Good enough.

• 33:58Elizabeth Day?

  Good enough, okay. You started on House of Cards, but it was someone else who suggested it, wasn't it?

• 34:04Speaker 00

  Yes, it was the camera operator who had been with us for the three seasons.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  And he was very experienced, like he'd shot Michael Mann, Oliver Stone movie. You know, he'd been around the block. And he was getting older and he said, he's from Texas. He was like, Rob, I just want to be inside. I don't want to be out in the elements in the winter. I'm 74, like, I just want to, I want a nine to five job. Because we shot everything of House of Cards in a hangar. They built all the stages to replicate the White House. And so he, I was by his side every day, asking him questions. Why'd you move the camera there? Why did you start moving the lens this way when the line was delivered? What lens are you using? Why?

• 34:54Speaker 00

  Finally, he said to me, season three, he said, why don't you get out there and do it? And I've got your back. And you've got our whole team of guys here that you've worked with for three years. And you've been asking them questions like an irritating kid.

• 35:10Speaker 00

  Do it while you do it. Learn while you do it. So he kind of inspired me to ask Netflix if they would let me direct one.

• 35:21Speaker 00

  And I did, and I loved it. And I learned so much from the guys. So I owe it to them. I mean, they really gave me cinema school.

• 35:33Speaker 04

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• 35:52Speaker 05

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• 35:56Speaker 04

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• 36:32Elizabeth Day?

  And with The Girlfriend, where you directed three episodes, I just want to know, as someone who is a complete ignoramus, how does it practically work when you're directing, yourself starring?

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:43Elizabeth Day?

  How do you do it?

• 36:47Speaker 00

  It's literally like turning on a light switch because it's so second nature at this point. I've been doing it 40 years, you know?

• 36:54Speaker 00

  And, but mind you, I'm still directing when I'm acting in the scene and it's a two-shot. I'm still looking at you going, I'm doing my lines and I'm being Laura, but I'm watching, seeing if I got what I wanted.

• 37:10Speaker 00

  And then I'll call cut and then I'll say, can we just do it again? And can you do this?

• 37:14Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 37:14Speaker 00

  This way?

• 37:15Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. Given what we were talking about in the previous failure, you becoming the diplomat, you listening, observing, seeing the things that weren't said that needed to be said or needed not to be said, and sort of ushering people to their own conclusions about what would be the most peaceful way forward. That, plus the Santa Barbara experience where you're constantly aware, even though you're not looking at the camera, the red light, all of these things have come into play.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:41Elizabeth Day?

  To make you the director that you are.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  I think so.

• 37:46Elizabeth Day?

  But you're fearful of not being good enough.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  Of course, because I haven't done it enough.

• 37:53Speaker 00

  And I hope to do more of it, to learn more and become better. And this is not about comparing yourselves, you know, whether it's me and six other kind of inexperienced directors, comparing yourself to the uber experience or just naturally talented directors. They just have it, like a David Fincher or an Edward Berger, who I met in the post-production process of The Girlfriend. And I love his movies because they're all different. And I'm like, I want to do that. And that takes a particular skill that I'm still learning.

• 38:36Elizabeth Day?

  And what do you think the Robin Wright directorial style is? Or are you still shaping it?

• 38:43Speaker 00

  Definitely still shaping it, without question. But I think the essence of where I come from is I have to believe it. I haven't done enough.

• 39:01Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  And this was the first opportunity I had, you know, at late 50s. Just started directing in my mid 40s, you know? Like, this is late start. And I'm so thrilled to have had this opportunity to build something from the ground up, where I could bring my vision from the inception and bring the others in going, you get me? You follow me? Are we on the same page? Great.

• 39:33Elizabeth Day?

  And I love how you've expressed that about starting, quote unquote, later. I mean, starting in your prime, let's be honest. But that, because I think particularly as women, we are so often sold the myth that age diminishes and withers us, that no one will have any, I can't even imagine what it's like as a female actor. But if there is anyone listening to this podcast right now who feels that they've missed their chance and that they're getting too old, what would you say to them?

• 40:07Speaker 00

  Too old to do what?

• 40:08Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 40:09Speaker 00

  I'm sorry. But you know? Do you have the stamina, the energy? I don't know what field we're talking about, but if we're just talking about moving into directing or,

• 40:22Speaker 00

  you know, acting and later in your life.

• 40:26Speaker 00

  It's, do you have the desire? Is it strong enough? The want?

• 40:34Speaker 00

  Do you have the energy

• 40:37Speaker 00

  to put new work? And you got to open your mind to things that maybe you thought you knew and you didn't know.

• 40:44Elizabeth Day?

  How are you feeling about turning 60? I imagine pretty great.

• 40:48Speaker 00

  It's a number.

• 40:49Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 40:50Speaker 00

  I have more wrinkles. That happens. You know?

• 40:55Speaker 00

  I don't know. I don't feel.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  I still feel like I'm in my, you know, early 30s, mid 30s. And I feel like I'm in a new chapter and not my last chapter. I'm in a new one. And I'm going to learn so much. And I can't wait.

• 41:13Elizabeth Day?

  I can't wait either. I think everyone has a psychic age other than their actual age. And mine has always been 32. Whatever age I have been or am, I still feel 32.

• 41:23Speaker 00

  Good. Gets two good numbers.

• 41:26Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. Exactly. My last question on this failure. There are far fewer female directors because of social inequalities, systemic sexism, decades of it. Is part of your fear around being good enough or worry about failing in some way, is it to do with that also? That you want to not let down the sisterhood?

• 41:54Speaker 00

  I don't want to.

• 41:59Speaker 00

  Feel that I'm in a

• 42:02Speaker 00

  position where I'm competing with

• 42:06Speaker 00

  male directors who I feel are better and everybody else that knows that they're better than I am. I just don't want to feel that pressure. And I think that's just in the atmosphere and it's been in the atmosphere and it's been going on for years. It's men have always been the elevated gender. They just have. And it's been accepted in society and we've grown up that way. So this is nothing new. But I just don't want to feel that inequality because of pressure. Like you'll never be as good as these guys because I mean, you look at incredible female Jane Campion's incredible female, you know?

• 42:46Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  But why do we have to compete and say, well, is she better than? I don't believe in that. I just want it to become an ebb and flow. Let me grow.

• 42:58Elizabeth Day?

  What is your worst experience of another director? And you don't have to name names or anything. But something because you said earlier that you learn what not to do as well as what to do from your experience as an actor.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Boy, have I got stories.

• 43:16Elizabeth Day?

  Also feel free to name names if you'd like to. Who am I?

• 43:20Speaker 00

  Kind of do.

• 43:22Speaker 00

  I'm going to preface it with a man who really doesn't like women. Very successful director

• 43:31Speaker 00

  in his day. And I was very young and shy. And I was

• 43:40Speaker 00

  traveling in a helicopter

• 43:43Speaker 00

  with this director out to the middle of a desert in California. And I mean, in the middle of this desert, like nothing around where the set was.

• 43:53Speaker 00

  To meet a very, very famous actor or two that he was directing in this movie. And I was ushered into the trailer to meet this very successful, famous actor. And I was nervous as hell, you know, my heart's palpitating and I'm just like sweating. I didn't know what to say.

• 44:15Speaker 00

  And I thought protocol would be what I was accustomed to, which is when you're invited in, you are introduced to this new person. They set up the meeting, like you're here for this and we're gonna talk about the characters and the story and blah, blah, blah. No intro, nothing, dead silence.

• 44:40Speaker 00

  And I started to feel like it was my responsibility to start the meeting. And I was a baby.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  And he yelled at me and said, speak.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  And I got up out of the trailer and I ran out into the desert, started crying. Found some shade. And I was like, how am I gonna get out of here? I'm in the middle of the desert. And I just wanted to get away. So those kinds of things, I'm just like, I would never. And that's why it's, it's so cool to to be older and

• 45:18Speaker 00

  you feel for the young ones, you know, because you're like, I know exactly you're torturing yourself because you're not getting that beat in the scene. And you torture yourself. But you can help them a little bit by just going, you know what? We were all in that boat.

• 45:34Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you for sharing that. And I'm so sorry that happened to you. Did you get out of the desert? How did you get out? Did you get the helicopter back?

• 45:41Speaker 00

  The other very established, older actor who just was incredibly kind and he came out and saw me squatting in what little shade I got from one side of the car. And I was squatted down on the and I was crying and he was like, you're gonna get heat stroke. It was 116 degrees Fahrenheit. It was like, it was crazy.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  And he walked me into the production trailer that was air conditioned. And I said, can somebody just get me a driver to the airport? And I got

• 46:14Speaker 00

  out of there.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  But, you know, it doesn't sound very bad, but it really

• 46:21Elizabeth Day?

  The power imbalance.

• 46:21Speaker 00

  The power of it was intense.

• 46:24Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 46:25Speaker 00

  And what that does when you're young and you're very impressionable is it makes you trigger shy.

• 46:34Speaker 00

  You know, and those are the things that you end up spending tens of thousands of dollars with.

• 46:38Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 46:39Speaker 00

  To try to get over it.

• 46:40Elizabeth Day?

  But they end up making you a brilliant director, so.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  Okay, great, great.

• 46:44Elizabeth Day?

  Your final failure, and I'm actually going to let you say it in your words, but it's about the youth of today and what you wish for them.

• 46:52Speaker 00

  I feel I would be a failure if, when I die, before I die, if I don't have some kind of influence,

• 47:07Speaker 00

  advice, guidance, that I can give to the youth of today

• 47:14Speaker 00

  of how to grow up in this very destructive state of the world that we're living in.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  The corruption, the deception,

• 47:27Speaker 00

  the lies, what media has done. You can't trust any of it, you know?

• 47:37Speaker 00

  Social media has taken over the youth. It's, there's so much digital influence

• 47:46Speaker 00

  that is designed by whomever wants to design it. And they'll feed you whatever cookie they want to give you. And I just would love

• 47:57Speaker 00

  to help in some way, in whatever way I can, to help the youth, say. I call bullshit on that.

• 48:04Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 48:05Speaker 00

  And I'm going to stand up.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  You're not going to control my life in that way.

• 48:12Speaker 00

  Because they're, they're moving into a world that, that seems to be getting worse.

• 48:18Elizabeth Day?

  Is that, you've always been an activist, from my understanding of you, and you've done a lot for the Congo, and you've been very kind of engaged with the world. In the industry in which you operate, is it difficult to speak out?

• 48:33Speaker 00

  Maybe my representative would say, maybe don't go there. I'm at a place in my life where I'm like.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  I'm not yelling and screaming

• 48:50Speaker 00

  at anyone.

• 48:53Speaker 00

  I'm just saying, let's talk the truth. Because that feels like we started this conversation. That feels realistic and authentic. And that is loving. Like, let's talk the truth. Let's get, let's get through and around this in some way, if we can. And, you know, that's the perfect world. We wouldn't have war if we could do that.

• 49:15Elizabeth Day?

  You're leaving us with something to aspire to. And you are a truth teller and a storyteller. And I'm so grateful to you for your work, but also for coming on How to Fail. It's been a really wonderful conversation. Thank you.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  I've loved it. Thank you, Elizabeth. It's great talking to you.

• 49:32Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, did.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  Let's do it again.

• 49:34Elizabeth Day?

  Let's do it again.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  We have a whole other thing to talk about.

• 49:36Elizabeth Day?

  We do, I know.

• 49:39Elizabeth Day?

  Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.