Julia Stiles - ‘I ran in the other direction from fame’

For many of us who grew up in the the 90s, Julia Stiles was an integral part of our coming of age. Her portrayal of the clever, acerbic Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You was a radical reinvention of the blonde teenage female rom-com lead. Her roles in Save The Last Dance and Mona Lisa Smile spoke to our adolescent feminist awakenings and catapulted Stiles to stardom. And, just like the heroines she played, Stiles chose to do things a bit differently. At the height of her teenage fame, she went to study English at Columbia University, continuing to act throughout her degree, most notably in the first of four Jason Bourne films. Her latest project is her directorial debut - the feature film, Wish You Were Here, which Stiles also produced and co-wrote. As a mother of three, Stiles said that her parenting informed her ability to direct. Wish You Were Here is available now to rent or own on digital platforms. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Intro 02:08 Directorial Debut: Wish You Were Here 03:40 Balancing Comedy and Drama 08:48 Friendship and Fame 13:39 College Life and Career Choices 21:58 Dancing Through Life 26:03 Landing the Role in Save the Last Dance 26:35 Reflecting on the Audition Scene 27:07 Challenges and Triumphs of Filming 27:50 Looking Back as a Mother and Director 29:48 Directing and Casting Jennifer Gray 31:22 Dancing with the Stars and TikTok Memes 35:56 Body Image and Self-Acceptance 45:30 Meeting Taylor Swift and Final Thoughts Grief, how to stop caring what everyone thinks and discussing the most difficult times in their lives - Elizabeth and Julia answer YOUR questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Have something to share of your own? I'd love to hear from you! Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com 🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount on your first Saily data plans! Use code [howtofail] at checkout. Download Saily app or go to to https://saily.com/howtofail ⛵ Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Mix Engineer: Josh Gibbs Studio Engineer: Sam Bair 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 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.

• 0:00Elizabeth Day?

  Hello my wonderful listeners and viewers. This is a quick reminder to let you know that I've got a very special subscriber show, Failing with Friends, where my fantastic guests get to be agony aunts, uncles, or non-binary advice givers. You can join us there just by following the link in the show notes. One of the things we talk about a lot on How to Fail is how difficult it can be to take that first step, and starting a business is no exception. With Black Friday approaching, it's a great time to turn an idea into reality. Shopify makes launching an online store easier with ready-made themes and AI-powered tools, including Sidekick, its AI assistant, which helps you set up your shop and plan

• 0:43Elizabeth Day?

  promotions without needing coding skills. Whether you're exploring a new venture or finally acting on an idea you've had for years, Shopify gives you the tools and support to get started with confidence and make the most of the busy shopping season. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, 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...

• 1:25Elizabeth Day?

  Hello and welcome to How to Fail. This is the podcast where every week I ask a new guest about three times they think they've failed in their life and what, if anything, they learn along the way.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Food and all that stuff was so stressful. It was always, I just couldn't help but have a disordered relationship with it all. I dance all the time in my house, in my living room. You know, I'll even dance on the sidewalk. I don't care. Taylor Swift walked in the room and it was like all the air. It's like the whole, you could just feel it.

• 1:58Elizabeth Day?

  For many of us who grew up in the 90s, Julia Stiles would have been an integral part of our coming of age. Her portrayal of the clever, acerbic cat in Ten Things I Hate About You was a radical reinvention of the teenage female rom-com lead and gave us permission to be unapologetically ourselves. Her roles in Save the Last Dance and Mona Lisa Smiles spoke to our adolescent feminist awakenings and catapulted Stiles to stardom. And just like the heroine she played, Stiles did things a bit differently. At the height of her teenage fame, she chose to study English at Columbia University, continuing to act throughout her

• 2:38Elizabeth Day?

  degree, most notably in the first of four Jason Bourne films. After graduation, her career was varied and interesting, from big screen reinventions of Shakespeare classics to a vengeance-seeking sexual assault survivor in Dexter, which earned her an Emmy nomination. But it was while playing a journalist in the 2019 hit Hustlers that she felt able to take more control of her professional life. Her latest project is her directorial debut, the feature film Wish You Were Here, which Stiles also produced and co-wrote. As a mother of three, Stiles said that her parenting informed her ability to direct.

• 3:20Elizabeth Day?

  Because mums, or women in general, have to be very good at multitasking, she says. You have to be good at managing a budget, you have to be good at managing your time, you have to take care of other people but also nudge them in a certain direction, and you have to function well with very little sleep. Julia Stiles, welcome to How to Fail.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm going to soak that in for a second.

• 3:45Elizabeth Day?

  Please do.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  I'm going to take that intro in. That was very nice to hear.

• 3:48Elizabeth Day?

  Please do. Well, it came from the heart because I feel that I have grown up with you, and I want to say thank you so much for that, for giving us all permission to be ourselves. But I want to start with your directorial debut with Wish You Were Here. You went into directing this movie with a five-month-old.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  I did, I did.

• 4:07Elizabeth Day?

  How was that experience?

• 4:09Speaker 01

  I mean, it was, uh, it was wild, it was exhilarating. I, I was obviously exhausted, but I was also completely energized because I was finally making my first movie as a director, because there's a bit of a high that you have after you give birth to a baby. I definitely have to say that I did not do it alone, I had a lot of support. But I look back on it and I'm like, whoa, yeah, it was pretty nuts.

• 4:35Elizabeth Day?

  You did a fantastic job.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Thank you, thanks.

• 4:37Elizabeth Day?

  And it's such an interesting film because whilst there is a romantic comedy element, it is in no way corny, it's very poignant and very deep. How easy or difficult a line was that for you to tread?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  I, I, I remember early on, because I adapted the screenplay from a book by Renee Carlino, and I remember getting notes on the script early on that were, and also my director's cut even, that were like, well, what is this movie? Is it a comedy or is it a drama? And, or it's like, the first part of the movie's funny, but then the last part of the movie's really sad. And that was very intentional for me because it was, A, what I responded to about the book, that there were some, that you, you could have moments where you're laughing and then all of a sudden you're crying, and then you're laughing and crying at the same time, and I think that's much like life. But I also was aware of kind of trying to draw the audience in with, with lightness and humor and almost the sort of romantic comedy that we're used to.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  And then what I loved about the book, and I tried to do in the movie, is that despite how young the main characters are and how new this romance is, it's actually really deep and, and touches on things that, that are just more timeless, more, I don't want to say heavy, but like, just something a lot more grounded than just, you know, a rom-com.

• 5:56Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. Well, it strikes me that it's about lives lived and unlived, without giving too much away. So there's this real resonance to it. It's, I think you do a beautiful job of, of that balance. But I understand that at one point, your script supervisor said to you that you had to stop qualifying your ideas.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:19Elizabeth Day?

  Please tell us that story, I'm so interested in it.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yes, and thank you for specifying, qualifying was, was the way, a good way to put it, because I, I sort of reduced it to stop apologizing, but, actually, she did say stop apologizing, but I think what she meant was stop qualifying. She didn't mean that I was saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. She meant that I was explaining. Every time I would say, uh, this is what I need for my vision, or this is what I need on set, I explained and I explained and I explained, almost as if I was asking permission. And I think ultimately she was telling me to stop being so accommodating. You know, at a certain point, you have to put your foot down and say, well, I need a white teacup and I'm going to wait for the white teacup until it gets here.

• 7:00Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, stepping into your power. And I wonder, because female directors are still comparatively rare, which seems a ludicrous thing to say in 2025.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:10Elizabeth Day?

  But how much of that do you think is to do with this social conditioning that a certain kind of cis woman has, which is to ask for permission and to people please?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it definitely comes from being an actress. As an actress, you are, it's so ingrained in me to want to make sure that I'm likable. Like, I don't want to rub people the wrong way. Part of being an actress is you have to get cast in any given part. And that means that the people making that decision have to like you. And so I think I wasn't even aware of, oh, now I have to be front footed about everything. I have to be thinking 10 steps ahead of everyone else, anticipating the things that I'm going to need. And if for whatever reason, somebody thinks that I'm being too aggressive or too assertive, it doesn't matter, who cares?

• 7:58Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm. That's so interesting that you say that, given that I started off this introduction talking about one of my favorite movies of all time, which is 10 Things I Hate About You. And the role of Kat, who is someone who is angsty and intelligent and unapologetically not part of the in-crowd at high school. And it's difficult to remember now, but that was so radical at the time. And I wonder how much that role. Gave you a sort of liberating ability to be someone more like Kat.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Right, I mean, it was really rare for the time. And I remember specifically being an auditioning actress at seventeen. And there was a trend in rom coms and just teen romances. And it was like, one movie after another, I was not getting the part. And I would go to commercial auditions and they would tell me to be more bubbly and more effervescent and not so serious and smile more and be sexier. And you're constantly being judged like any auditioning actor. But when I read the part of Kat, I was like, oh, my God, this is so refreshing because she is so assertive. Now, I will say, I think it was almost aspirational for me. I don't think, I stepped into that role gratefully and gleefully because I was like, oh, I get

• 9:19Speaker 01

  to, I get to be like assertive Kat 2.0. And I didn't necessarily do that in my own life.

• 9:25Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Even later in life.

• 9:27Elizabeth Day?

  And how old were you at the time that you got Kat?

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Seventeen.

• 9:30Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, so yes, it's very kind of potent time to have that experience.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  And I didn't even see examples of characters like that, women like that, young women like that, that much, particularly in high school movies.

• 9:44Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. Let's get on to your failures because I think the first one speaks to a lot of what we've been talking about, which is not keeping in touch with your closest friends.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:55Elizabeth Day?

  And the reason I think it pertains to what we've been talking about is because you started working very young. So take us back to, you grew up in New York and you wrote a letter to a theater director, is that right?

• 10:07Speaker 01

  I did. My parents, my mom's an artist and my parents were really good friends with a production designer and the founder of this very fringe theater company that would do shows in downtown Manhattan. And they would hang out and have dinners together. And I remember.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Being very outgoing and loving like, you know, school plays and performances. And I always played dress up. And growing up in New York City, we didn't have a backyard. So my backyard was my imagination and I would mimic what I saw on TV. And they said they had a part for a kid. And I guess I, yeah, I had the chutzpah to be like, I wrote a letter. I said all the characters that I had made up and I could, I could bring the costume. I don't know, something really ridiculously precocious. But they gave me a part in their first, in my first play with them that was not speaking. I think I was like napping on the floor the whole time. And then slowly the roles got bigger and bigger. And then I was part of the company and they helped me find an agent. And then I started auditioning and.

• 11:12Elizabeth Day?

  And is that partly why you struggle to keep in touch with close friends? Because you work so much of the time?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Now, I think it's, it's actually being a parent and probably. And all of my friends have moved out of New York City and most of them have their own families. And so we just all get busy. But I think it's also technology. Like you think that you're keeping in touch with your friends over, when you, when you think about them and you text message, but it's not really the same as like sitting down and having a coffee or having somebody over, you know, or going on vacation. I used to go on vacation with my girlfriends, but now, now we're lucky if we can plan, you know, a coffee. I'm trying to make more of an effort now. And, and I will say that the text messaging thing, oh, voice memos are really nice. I'm a big fan of sending a voice memo as though it's like a voicemail. But for some reason, we listen to the voice memo more.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  That feels closer and just letting them know that I'm thinking about them. But I guess I lament that, I feel like I'm a terrible friend because even though I love my friends and I care about them and I do want to keep in touch with them, time will pass. And then when I, we do reunite, I'm like something, something amazing or tragic, whatever might have happened in their life. And I, and I'm like, what? I didn't know about this. Why didn't you tell me?

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think you have to really make a conscious effort to ask the questions and check in on your friends.

• 12:33Elizabeth Day?

  Do you think they think you're a bad friend?

• 12:35Speaker 01

  No, no, I mean, I hope not. No, no, I think that everybody understands at this point in life that it's hard, you know, we're just off in different directions and everybody's busy. And the best thing about the thing that I've learned from having to think about this for your podcast is the really, really deep closest friends that have been around the longest. It's like riding a bicycle. The minute you do catch up with them, whether it's in person or over the phone, everything falls back into place and it's like you haven't missed a beat.

• 13:08Elizabeth Day?

  I totally agree. I actually wrote a book about friendship. And so this is something that completely fascinates me. And I think the most important metric of friendship is that generosity of spirit so that you don't feel guilty if life is too busy to constantly be in touch. The idea that when you do see each other, you can pick up where you left off is so.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Yes, that is brilliant. And that is so true because I think of my handful, I can count them, less than one hand, closest friends, they never put that pressure on me of like, or the holding a grudge or resentment about, oh, well, you didn't call me, you know, on my dog's birthday or you didn't, you know, whatever it is, or like, it's just, we're not holding on to that.

• 13:52Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. How has fame affected your approach to friendship?

• 13:58Speaker 01

  That is a relationship that I've been navigating for quite some time. So I would say that I don't stress about it and I don't think about it as much now in terms of being open to friendships and new friendships. I think in my twenties, I probably was a little bit more guarded. I'm not sure. I think I have a good sense, I just have an innate sense of like, I can smell if something's off, but other than that, I like tend to, I don't really think about it. Like, I'm, I'm open to being friends with you if we are interested in the same things and we have a good vibe going.

• 14:36Elizabeth Day?

  Because I was very interested by the thing that I mentioned in the introduction about that decision to study English at Columbia, when you could have very easily sort of been back to back in lead movies. What was important for you about that decision at that stage?

• 14:53Speaker 01

  There was so much. I, A, I just kind of always knew that I was gonna go to college or wanted to go to college. And I wanted to have that experience. I think now, in retrospect, I look back on college and I think, oh, I was, I was definitely like running in the other direction from fame. Or I, or I was, there was something about this change in my life that made me uncomfortable. And school was something that I could control. I could go to university and focus on other things. And it would, it would help me make sense of this transitional time in my life. And I wasn't thinking strategically necessarily about my career. Like, I'm sure I had agents and managers, whatever, telling me like, what, you want to go to college? And like, my freshman year of college, I think,

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Save the Last Dance, maybe, came out, or I was doing promotion for something. And that was, the interviews were always about, oh, she's a freshman in college. And so then I was like, well, I have to finish. I can't, this is cheap if I like brag that I've started college, but I don't actually graduate. I look back on that experience and I was in a bit of a fishbowl, but I was totally pretending that I wasn't. Which is, I guess, healthy.

• 16:02Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, definitely, given a state of functional denial.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, functional denial, exactly.

• 16:06Elizabeth Day?

  What was the discomfort that you mentioned there? The fact that you was, that you wanted to make a move away from fame?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Well, no, it's just a radical shift in anyone's life to be on, in people's television sets and in a movie, have a recognizable face. I mean, it comes in all different forms, but I'll say like a benign form is that you walk down the street and somebody does a double take and they think that, like, oh, do I know you from somewhere? So it's just this, it's, it's like a subtle, subtle but radical shift in someone's life. And as a performer, it's what you want. But it, because it means that people are wanting to

• 16:42Speaker 01

  watch what you do, or they're interested in the stories that you tell. But especially as a teenager, you know, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old, it's crazy. I mean, it's crazy. And so I think there was a part of me that knew. Oh, you know, you're doing all these interviews, talking about yourself. And, you know, I just knew that I was like, you can't become too obsessed with yourself. You have to go and do other things. And so college was another thing.

• 17:07Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, it must have been so difficult as a teenager. I mean, just imagining myself at that age.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:13Elizabeth Day?

  When I was basically watching your movies.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:16Elizabeth Day?

  That would have been a very difficult thing to cope with.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  I mean, and I think there was a lot that was exciting about it, too. But, but, yeah, the, I, and I'm, I'm sure I flailed. Like, I had, I probably seemed like I'm really put together, but I had a lot of. I had a lot of like, I wasn't struggling. I just was like along for this ride that was exhilarating and then also kind of scary. And so was figuring out how to deal with it all through my twenties, really.

• 17:45Elizabeth Day?

  Did you have good friends then to help you through? I mean, perhaps some of your friends were people that you acted with, because they understood.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  You know, I keep in touch with actors that I work with much more now than I did then. It always felt like we would go to set and have this really intense connection. And we'd be working together to finish the movie. And then the movie's finished and we all go home and that's pretty much it at that time.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  My friendships, I, I latched, I'm, some of my best friends I made in college. And I latched on to them as like, you're with me regardless.

• 18:23Elizabeth Day?

  Are they still your friends now?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:25Elizabeth Day?

  Great. You see, you're a great friend.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  I, in fact, I called one of my dearest, best, bestest friends. And we lose touch all the time, but we catch up when we can. She, I met in college. We went to, on spring break, we went on vacation together. And now I tell, I had called her, I left her a voice memo the other night because I was like, do you know that I tell the story to my middle son every night before he goes to bed? The story of like so and so and the broken arm. And it was of something that happened on this vacation. And I obviously water it down for kids, but it was just to let her know that I was thinking about her.

• 19:01Elizabeth Day?

  That's beautiful. What, you tell the story every night?

• 19:03Speaker 01

  It's become, he asks for it, yes.

• 19:10Elizabeth 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

• 19:51Elizabeth Day?

  become manageable, 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. So you were talking about college there, and I refer to this in the introduction, that you got your role in the Jason Bourne movies when you were still at college?

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:17Elizabeth Day?

  Tell us the story of how you found out you got that role.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  It was so ridiculous. I look back on it now. I can visualise it. I was in my tiny little freshman year dorm room, was sent the sides, because they wouldn't release the script for privacy reasons.

• 20:33Elizabeth Day?

  What's the sides?

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Sides is like just the scene that you're in. Usually when you audition for something, they send you sides. So you're just reading the scene that you're in, or one of the scenes that they want you to read, but you can't read the whole script. So they sent me the sides. And the whole package was like, oh, Matt Damon's going to be in it, and Doug Lyman is directing it. It's based on this book series, Universal Studios. And I was like, yeah, that's cool, but I have final exams coming up. Like, how am I going to fly to the Czech Republic? And luckily, many people talked me out of that. And I got on a plane and went to Prague and filmed the scene. It was really like one or two scenes that I was in, and then my character was supposed to be thrown up against the wall,

• 21:17Speaker 01

  and that was it. That was going to be the end of her fate in the franchise. And then many months later, when they were finishing editing the film, they were like, we need you to come in and record. A D R, which is voice recording. And the voice recording was breathing, like heavy breathing, so that they could show that my, when they recut the film, they could show that my character was still alive. And then I, she survived and I got to go on and make three more movies.

• 21:44Elizabeth Day?

  What was that experience like? Because quite a change in pace for you in terms of the sort of acting that you were doing.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was, I was remarkable, I was like amazing. I, I feel so lucky to be a part of that franchise because it was on the forefront of changing the way action movies looked.

• 22:02Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  The female characters in those movies got to do a whole lot more. And amazing directors like Doug Liman, who I keep in touch with, got the rights to the book, started the franchise, designed the look of the first film, cast Matt Damon. And then Paul Greengrass in, you know, the next three movies that I got to do with them. And I learned so much from them. I mean, I learned so much. Paul Greengrass is one of the loveliest, kindest human beings and also carrying the stress of what became a giant action franchise. And, and every movie that they ended up making after that, it's like the budgets got bigger and the, the ways that they had to impress the audiences got bigger and bigger and the entourages got bigger.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  And he, he was like, caddled on to his visionariness as a director. And, and he could pivot and be spontaneous, even though they were spending all this money and time and prep on action sequences. And through all of that, he was, I took away from the experience that he was like managing all that, but still really, really kind and decent to every single person that worked on those films.

• 23:11Elizabeth Day?

  Beautiful. And I wish I could go back in time and watch The Bourne Identity again for the first time because you're so right. It completely revolutionized that kind of movie.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  It did, it did. The handheld camera work, the casting Franca Patente and the way that they filmed in Europe and making it look like a gritty, almost European or indie film. And, and yet, yeah, it was really groundbreaking at the time. And Matt Damon was a huge star, but he wasn't considered an action hero. He was, he was the, the writer, the cerebral, the, you know, yeah.

• 23:45Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. Well, your second failure is to do with a different film. Equally iconic, Save the Last Dance.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:52Elizabeth Day?

  And your second failure, which actually broke my heart to read it, is that you quit dance lessons after that movie.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, not consciously, but I look back on in the 20 years since, or whatever, 25 years since we made that movie, I haven't been to a single formal dance class. Now, I absolutely love to dance and that has not gone away and that will never go away. And I dance all the time in my house, in my living room, you know, I'll even dance on the sidewalk. I don't care. Like, I'll walk down a New York City street with my headphones on and I will catch myself like shimmying a little bit and then I have to go, oh my God, I'm in public, you can't do that. So my love of dance has not gone away, but I haven't been to a formal class at all. There was a period of time during the pandemic where I would do like virtual dance classes. There were, there were studios online that would post, like, there were great teachers

• 24:43Speaker 01

  that would post their own like dance class and I would do that in the privacy of my own home. And it's because, you know, am I lazy? Maybe, but I, it's also the self-consciousness of like dancing in front of, I've done aquazumba, which is like zumba inside a pool so nobody can see what your body is doing.

• 25:03Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  No, but like, I guess it's just being, yeah, being self-conscious, which is such a shame. I should get over that. And I will, I will. I've had friends who've wanted me to go to like the, you know, whatever dance classes are at their gym or something and eventually I'll drag myself to do it.

• 25:23Elizabeth Day?

  And is the self-consciousness to do with, say, The Last Dance and having seen yourself on screen or what the audition scene then became in terms of it becoming a meme and being reinvented by TikTok?

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:39Elizabeth Day?

  Was that all part of it?

• 25:40Speaker 01

  I mean, dancers are a judgmental group, they can be. They're also a very supportive group. Yeah, it sounds stupid when I say it out loud now because like, who cares?

• 25:49Elizabeth Day?

  It doesn't.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  But I, but I think that, I think that if I went to like a serious, whether it's ballet or hip hop kind of dance class, I would be, I would feel like I was being judged based on that movie. And like, I'm supposed to be a professional dancer.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  But yeah, fuck it, I'll just, I'm gonna put my leggings on and. Find a class. I just have to find the right class, the one that would be like really fun for me.

• 26:11Elizabeth Day?

  You could get a private dance class.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  I could?

• 26:14Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Wow. I can't believe I never thought of that. I could.

• 26:18Elizabeth Day?

  You could get someone to come to your.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Well, I had, I had, I did a TV show, a British TV show, actually, where there was one scene where we had to dance. It was a tango and I got to do tango lessons and I fucking loved it so much that I definitely need to recreate that kind of joy in, in, in my life.

• 26:39Elizabeth Day?

  Talk to me about your love of dance and how early that started and what it represents for you.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I started taking modern dance classes in elementary school and there was a teacher, Ellen Robbins, who taught children's dance classes at Dance Theatre Workshop in New York. And Claire Danes, actually, I think also took those classes. We would have our like formal, it wasn't Lucy Goosey modern dance. It was like Martha Graham, kind of very structured and rooted in ballet. But the last half hour of the class, somebody got to pick a record and she played records.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  And we were allowed to improvise. And I'm sure it looked ridiculous and silly, but it always gave me that love of like the, like the, the, rather than just the repetition and the structure and getting the steps right, this was like moving your body from the inside out.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Pretty cute.

• 27:31Elizabeth Day?

  Do you think you're a perfectionist?

• 27:33Speaker 01

  I can be. Yeah, totally. I can be.

• 27:36Elizabeth Day?

  Because that kind of improvisation is very good for people who struggle with perfectionism.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, and also and getting rid of self-consciousness, although I was a child and a teenager then. So I think I was, you know, not as self-conscious as I would be now as an adult.

• 27:54Elizabeth Day?

  You also dance in 10 Things I Hate About You.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Yes, that's what got me the job in Save Last Dance. I'm not joking. I was told by the director of Save Last Dance, Thomas Carter, that he saw that scene in 10 Things I Hate About You. And that's why he thought, he thought we can cast any white girl, white girl to do the ballet. But, you know, we need somebody who also has rhythm in a different way.

• 28:13Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  And because he saw that, he was, he thought, he had confidence in me and the other part of.

• 28:19Elizabeth Day?

  Tell us about Safe at Last Dance and what making that movie was like. Aside from the reception of it, which, you know, it's a hugely popular movie. And we'll come on to the meme bit later because I actually rewatched the audition scene in advance of this recording and you were bloody brilliant.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 28:37Elizabeth Day?

  You really were and it really upsets me.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  But people make fun of it too, don't they? That's what, that's okay.

• 28:43Elizabeth Day?

  But people make fun of it and they clip it out of context. Actually, if you watch the whole thing. And the way that it's filmed is obviously of its time.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:52Elizabeth Day?

  So the way that it's cut and everything, it, it looks slightly jarring to the modern eye, but you do a terrific job.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 29:00Elizabeth Day?

  You do.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  That experience, I was, I was a perfectionist. So I was very hard, I was very hard on myself in terms of, I, I was determined to do as much of the dancing as I could. And I also, it was a wonderful opportunity. One of the reasons I wanted to do the movie was to do the formal dance training. But, you know, it's a tough, dance dancers are really, and choreographers are really tough. I mean, if you look at any dance movie throughout history, Fosse, for instance, comes to mind. You'll never be good enough.

• 29:26Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. And did you feel like that during the course of the movie?

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:30Elizabeth Day?

  Okay. So it wasn't a happy experience filming that?

• 29:35Speaker 01

  It was hard. It was hard. But then the movie came out and everybody loved it. And that was really delightful too. And that people are still talking about it. It was great.

• 29:44Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. How do you feel now, looking back as a mother of three, a director in your own right, looking back at those movies that you made as a teenager?

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I don't, I don't really spend that much time, to be honest. I, I celebrated a lot more now. I think I cringed many years ago. Now I'm just like, this is pretty awesome. People are talking about and thinking about a movie, that movie or movies that you've done decades later. And that's, you know, that's, I focus on the good in it. That means that people. You know, as a performer, you want people to care about the stories that you tell. And, you know, even if sometimes they're a little bit dated, like some part of what you did resonates with people many, many years later, and that's a gift. And I'm not oblivious to the fact that like somebody in my, somebody in my family sent

• 30:35Speaker 01

  a text chain that referenced the break dancer who, the Olympic break dancer who I think did the Save the Last.

• 30:42Elizabeth Day?

  Reagan.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Or they, somebody said on Twitter, like she's, it's like me on steroids in Save the Last Dance. And I was like, I think I'm being made fun of, but I'm not going to spend too much time dwelling on that. I'm not going to let that rob me of the joy of the career that I've had.

• 30:56Elizabeth Day?

  What would you say to your teenage self, the one that was filming Save the Last Dance and having a challenging time? What would you say to her now?

• 31:06Speaker 01

  I mean, I would say, enjoy it, you know? And, well, it's hard to say that because, you know, it's not a bad thing that I was somewhat of a perfectionist and that, and that there was certainly, obviously, there's like a ton of pressure in a big studio movie like that. They had high hopes for the movie and that's going to get focused in on what the actors and the dancers are doing. So it, I would, it would be idiotic to think that I wouldn't feel some of that pressure. But I guess I would just be kinder to myself about it, you know? Like, do the best you can and enjoy it.

• 31:36Elizabeth Day?

  Do you ever get sick when people keep talking about those movies you made 20-plus years ago?

• 31:42Speaker 01

  I, you know, before I made Wish You Were Here, I, I didn't get sick of it, but I, I felt like I was not living up to those expectations. And then I got to direct, directing a movie has been like a career-long goal of mine, or at least in the last 10 or 15 years. So when I finally got to direct my own movie, I was like, okay, now I, now I fucking did that.

• 32:04Elizabeth Day?

  I love to hear that. You cast Jennifer Grey as the mother in Wish You Were Here.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:10Elizabeth Day?

  And I wonder if you've spoken to her about being in an iconic dance movie, ever?

• 32:14Speaker 01

  She talks about it, yeah, yeah. I mean, she talks about Dirty Dancing and, and she also won the Mirrorball Trophy on Dancing with the Stars, by the way, which-

• 32:22Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, because we don't get that in the UK.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Is, oh, you have Strictly Come Dancing. That's right. Well, Dancing with the Stars is my Monday Night Football and I am obsessed with it. And so her winning the Mirrorball Trophy on it with one of my favorite choreographers, Derek Hough. Is if not as if not more remarkable to me or more like jaw dropping than Dirty Dancing or equally, fine. Did we talk about that? You know, she talks very openly about her career and all the craziness and ups and downs that come with it. I think when we were filming, though, I was actually so much more focused on getting my own movie made that I didn't have time to sit. And I picked her brain about Dancing with the Stars.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  And she said, it'll consume your life. But somehow, when you go on that ballroom floor, like, everything just clicks into place. And her kind of perfectionist dancer brain, like, thrived in that environment.

• 33:16Elizabeth Day?

  So the obvious question is, would you ever do Dancing with the Stars?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  We have totally talked about it. And I, if I could convince them to film on the East Coast, like Miami, do a season in Miami, or New York, do it in a heartbeat. But I cannot uproot my family or be away from my family for like, six months in Los Angeles. And if I'm gonna do it, I'm in it to win it. So I'm gonna be there for six months.

• 33:39Elizabeth Day?

  There's that perfectionist alpha right there.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. No, uh, no, I just, I love it. I love it. It's also maybe like the star that you don't want to get too, you don't get too close to your icons, like.

• 33:47Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:49Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, I totally get that. But it would be such good therapy for you.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Oh, I know.

• 33:54Elizabeth Day?

  Proper immersion therapy.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, it would be so much fun. It would be really great. I mean, it's a huge operation. I have no expectations that they're ever gonna do anything outside of L.A. But, um, yeah, I can, I can always dream.

• 34:07Elizabeth Day?

  Well, I for one would love to see you dance again.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. But then I think about these memes on TikTok or whatever. And I'm like, oh, my God, they're all gonna laugh at you.

• 34:15Elizabeth Day?

  No, they're not laughing at you. This is what I want, because I don't imagine you have TikTok. I don't know if I'm overstepping.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  I don't. No, no, I don't. I don't. I had to do a little, I dabbled a little bit for promoting Wish You Were Here, because the youngins convinced me to do that. But other than that, I don't.

• 34:29Elizabeth Day?

  Because I don't know whether you've ever seen one of these TikTok videos with the audition scene from Save the Last Dance.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  I haven't.

• 34:35Elizabeth Day?

  But they are not making fun of you. They, it's actually far more affectionate than I imagine your worst self would imagine.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 34:43Elizabeth Day?

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• 35:46Elizabeth Day?

  Before we move on to your final, actually, I say your final failure, but you actually was generous enough to give me four.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  I think I sent like a whole, I sent more than that too, because I could not stop overthinking it. But yeah.

• 35:57Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, thank you.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:59Elizabeth Day?

  I wanted to ask whether you felt particularly protective of your young stars in Wish You Were Here because of what you have been through.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  I did, yeah. I mean, they didn't really need my protection. I think Isabel Furman, who's the lead in Wish You Were Here, I am a star. I sometimes would look at her and I'd be like, I cannot believe you are 27 years old or 28 years old. She is so wise beyond her years and has been through it. Like, she started out as a child actor, and I think there's something about that experience that can either break you, or if you have a great, you know, mom like she does, or great support system, and that helps you like keep your head on your shoulders, you come out of it wise beyond your years. And she definitely is that. You know, wise and a good person and humble too. Did I give them any advice? No, but I was, but I was protective of them. Like, for instance,

• 36:51Speaker 01

  it's a love story and I don't have a sex scene in it. Because I'm not, I hate watching those scenes. I hate filming them. And I wasn't going to put my actors through that. And they actually almost were like, can I take my shirt off? And I'm like, no, you can't.

• 37:05Elizabeth Day?

  You say you hate filming them. Has filming them got any easier during the span of your career?

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Sort of. I mean, you know, now we have intimacy coordinators. Depending on the person, that can be helpful. But also, sometimes it can just shine a flashlight on how uncomfortable these scenes are. But I'm also, yeah, no, and I think that I think there's definitely a sensitivity now. Where the things that I was asked to do in my twenties, not asked to do anymore, although maybe that has to do with my age. I don't know. I don't think so.

• 37:37Elizabeth Day?

  Can I ask what kind of things you were asked to do in your twenties that you felt uncomfortable with?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Yes, I won't name names, but I was, because also, I don't know what it was about me that I was, maybe, I think it had something to do with growing up in New York City. I was so easy, I was so good at dodging and deflecting those uncomfortable situations. Somebody would say something super rude and uncomfortable or inappropriate to me, and I'd be like, haha, that's cool, bye. I was, there was an indie movie that I did, I'm not going to name, but it was, you know, there was a scene where I was supposed to be waking up and getting out of bed. And the director in my trailer was like, would you show your ass? I think I was 20 or 19 years old. And I was like, no, I'm not really into that. Cool, see you later. And was able to get out of the situation, you know?

• 38:26Elizabeth Day?

  Wow, well done. I sometimes think that the older I get, the more I know myself, but in some ways, I'm less confident than I was when I was younger.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Sometimes, yeah, yeah.

• 38:39Elizabeth Day?

  I suppose because maybe you're less aware of consequence when you're younger.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:45Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, but I, well, well done, 20-year-old Julia Stiles.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 38:49Elizabeth Day?

  20-year-old Julia Stiles gets us on to your third failure, which is hating on your body in your twenties.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 38:59Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you for picking this one. Why did you pick it?

• 39:02Speaker 01

  I'm actually, as I, as I wrote that to you, I was like, I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this. And I also tried to reframe it as a positive thing of like, taking better care of my body. Where do I start? You know, it's partially just, okay, so I remember on the set of Mona Lisa's Smile, Julia Roberts was an amazing example for us. And she was so maternal with all the young women on that set. And coming from a lot of experience of being not just a woman, but also a woman where your, what your appearance is focused on so heavily. And she said to us at one point, you're going to look back on these photos of you in your twenties and be like, I was beautiful. What was wrong with, why, why was I, why didn't I see that? And she was totally right.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  But I think also my, my relationship with my body and food and diet and exercise and my appearance radically changed. A, when I had kids, being pregnant, nourishing a baby, growing a baby, all that stuff. And then also directing a movie, which is similar to having a baby in some ways. I mean, creatively, spiritually, whatever. I went from, just like in my twenties and early thirties, being an actress, there's so much focus on your appearance and are you going to fit into certain clothes? And I'm not the first person to say this, you know, my whole, even as, as sort of grounded

• 40:29Speaker 01

  as I was and coming from a, a mother who never emphasized those things. Food and all that stuff was so stressful. It was always, I just like, couldn't help but have a disordered relationship with it all. And then I, and also just about like, I'm not talking about an eating disorder, I'm just saying like a restrictive, like regimented, stressful, everything is stressful. And always worried that it's going to be out of my control, like, what if I gain weight? What about this? And then I- When I decided I wanted to have kids, I started looking at things differently of like, oh, well, I need this machine to work. So I need to fuel my body and I need to nourish

• 41:10Speaker 01

  it and I need to fuel this baby and nourish it. And everything just fell into place where it was just like I relaxed. I naturally wanted to eat the things that were gonna make me feel better, you know, and help me grow. And it all just, it all just became easier. And then, having a baby, and then having three babies now, I'm like, whoa, my body can do magical, wonderful, amazing things. And when I relaxed and I started to trust it more, everything fell into place. And it's, it's doing totally what it's supposed to do. And then with directing, it was like, I'm not focused inward so much. I'm not focused

• 41:50Speaker 01

  on every little detail of my appearance. I'm focused outward on the task at hand. So I don't have time to think about all the imperfections. I actually like need to fuel my body so that I can get through the 15 hour workday, so that my brain can be focused. And that also was like, ah, that was the first time that I was on a film set. You know, this like tactile experience of being in the environment of seeing cameras everywhere and seeing grips and electrics and hair and makeup and the costume department. I was on a film set and, and I wasn't stressed about the snack table.

• 42:29Elizabeth Day?

  I find that so moving, how you just put it. Thank you. Because although you say, I'm not the first person to speak about this, actually, it's very rare that someone comes on this podcast and is brave enough to say those things, which, and I'm not a Hollywood superstar, but I relate to every single word. And I think for people, women who didn't live through the 90s, it's difficult to understand how much pressure was put on any woman. But I can't imagine how magnified that was, being in the public eye, especially at a time when you were famous and your body was going through changes.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. I mean, yes. And thank you for saying that, too. Because it, I like, as I'm sitting here saying it, I was, because I was listening to your Celeste Barber interview and I was talking back to the speaker, like, this is what I'm gonna say when I, and I, and I am, there's a part of me that in talking about this is like, a little bit scared because somebody's gonna pull it off, pull it out of context and put it on Twitter and that'll be clickbait that like, You know, Julia Stiles struggles with body issues. Well, no, every woman struggles with them, you know, and it's such a waste of fucking time.

• 43:34Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. When you were struggling with them, there's so much I want to ask you about this because I recently have been thinking about weight loss jabs as lifestyle choice, rather than when people actually need to be on Ozempic or Mantjaro for health reasons because they're obese or prediabetic. And ultimately, whilst I also am fully behind people choosing what they want to do with their own bodies, it's made me look internally at how I have this constant narrative still on the spooling in my head, which I'm aware of now, which I wasn't aware of in the 90s, I just thought it was me, which is you should be thinner, still.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:15Elizabeth Day?

  And I, like you, I've never had an eating disorder. And I salute people who live with them because it's such a difficult thing to, I imagine, to live with. But I definitely have disordered thoughts about eating. And it all comes from this legacy of a woman having to be a certain size.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that was the aesthetic back then. Hasn't really changed that much, but yeah, again, I want to specify it's like not an eating disorder. It's just, there's stress around it, around what your body looks like and trying to mold your body into a certain size. For me as an actress, it was, it was, do we fit in? Because we go and promote on a red carpet and we have to wear sample sizes from fashion designers. And so if you don't, so it was always like, are we going to fit into the sample size? And now I don't even have to really think about it because I'm not thinking about it.

• 45:07Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. Were you made to feel like a failure for not fitting into a sample size at some point?

• 45:12Speaker 01

  I am sure that I was, but I, I'm not going to get specific about it because I've moved on. Like, again, I just found that it was like such a, being on the set of Wish You Were Here, I, again, the stress around the snack table. I was like, cool, I have, I have the afternoon to get through and I'm, and I'm losing energy. I'm going to have, you know, some M and M's and I don't care. And my body didn't care. Like, it was all, it's all fine. Or I need this egg sandwich in the morning because I need my brain to focus and I need energy.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  And I point that out specifically because it was being on a film set, which I thought like maybe kinetically or energetically, my body would would go like, oh, here we are again. There's those cameras, but it didn't because I was focused outward and I had a and I had a task to do. That was bringing me a lot of joy and a lot of satisfaction. That's what was more important. Yeah.

• 46:09Elizabeth Day?

  If anyone right now is listening to this and they are struggling with some of the things that you struggled with and to a certain extent I struggled with, I wonder what advice you would give them.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Oh, that's hard because it comes in all different forms. Right? I mean, and I don't think that I'm any sort of expert. But I guess the reason that I brought it up as a, you know, one of my failures is what I've learned is to be kinder in terms of the way I think and think about my body and look at my body, to be kinder to myself, but also trust your body. Like, that was the thing that clicked with me is that when I got pregnant, had children, even going into labor, trusting my body that it would know what to do, like, just changed everything on a cellular level.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  And and same thing with Wish You Were Here directing a movie. I would be running on fumes, like no sleep, having just had a five month old baby. And, you know, I didn't have time to think about, am I going to get back in shape for to fit into those sample sizes?

• 47:20Elizabeth Day?

  Do you think you care less what other people think of you?

• 47:23Speaker 01

  Yes and no. I think that I, I guess I do.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  I have my moments, though.

• 47:32Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  I think so. I think it's like socially, maybe with, I worry, I'm very, I'm very much like a, let's take care of everybody and make sure that everybody's happy in the room. So if I ever like say something that maybe was misconstrued to somebody and I maybe I hurt their feelings or maybe they thought I was in a bad mood or maybe, I don't know, I'm hypersensitive to those kinds of things. And I have to keep that in check and go like, it's OK, you're not responsible for all of it. And but on the other hand, I, in terms of like being an actress and fame.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  I'm so used to the like, people saying shit about you kind of thing that I just don't, I don't think about it. Because that's going to rob me of the everyday joy in life.

• 48:18Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 48:23Elizabeth Day?

  Your fourth failure and your final failure pertains to this idea of fame and people telling you what they think. And it's not telling so and so, I am a fan. So you have, is that because you haven't gone up to people and said, I'm a fan?

• 48:39Speaker 01

  No, I used to, I used to in situations where I might run into somebody that I, whose work I really liked, or who I fangirled over, I wouldn't say anything because it's like, like those, I laugh at this and I'm a little self-conscious because it's like not the most relatable experience. But you know, I've, when you go and you're at a party or red carpet promoting something, and you see somebody that you've seen on TV, there used to be a part of me that was like, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool. And then I let go of all that. And recently I've discovered like, everybody who's a performer wants to know that people are listening to their music, or watching their movies, or care at all, reading their book, like caring at all about what they have to say.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  So I'm totally unselfconsciously ready to say, oh, I read your book. Oh, I saw this show that you were on. Oh, my God, that was really good. Or like, I listen to your music all the time. This is amazing.

• 49:32Elizabeth Day?

  Who was the last person you did that to?

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Um, okay, this is, God, I hate myself right now. The biggest name droppingness I could do. But it happened. And I'm, and it's awesome. I went to a party. Amir Questlove hosts these amazing game night parties, you know, and it's sparkly. But

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Taylor Swift walked in the room and it was like all the air. It's like the whole, you could just feel it. She has that presence, I mean, obviously. And I was like, look away, look away, look away, look away, look away. And wasn't going to say anything, obviously. And then as I was leaving, because there was a little part of me that was like, you have to go home now, go hide in the bathroom, go home, you're not, you don't deserve to be here. A comedian stopped me and he was like, wait, Taylor wants to say hi. And I was like, what? And pulled me over and he, and he kind of orchestrated the whole thing, but he was like,

• 50:33Speaker 01

  she's, she really likes your work and we shook hands and I don't, I blacked out. I don't remember actually what happened after that, but she said something very nice to me. And we were like, then just going to go off and have, you know, keep the conversation going and make small talk. And I, I dissociated for a second, but um, of course, oh, I told her that I was a huge fan of her. I finally worked up the courage to be like, you're amazing, this is crazy. And she looked like she genuinely appreciated it, so you know. Yeah, I know, it's so stupid, I can't even say, I'm saying it out loud and I'm like, what is your life? But um, yeah. Even somebody like Taylor Swift, who is the biggest star on the planet, is, is, seems humble enough or just positive enough to be like,

• 51:18Speaker 01

  yeah, I'm glad that bazillions of people like to listen to my music. They don't take it for granted.

• 51:23Elizabeth Day?

  And you're thoughtful enough to say so.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Maybe I shouldn't have said anything, she probably knows it already.

• 51:28Elizabeth Day?

  No, you definitely should have said something. 100%, as I am about to say, that I am a huge fan of yours, Julia Stiles.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 51:35Elizabeth Day?

  And I, I wanted to play it cool. I don't think I did, but I, I want to thank you for every single one of your performances that I've watched on screen.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  There are some stinkers in there.

• 51:47Elizabeth Day?

  Well, I haven't seen them if there are, okay?

• 51:51Speaker 01

  But I appreciate it.

• 51:52Elizabeth Day?

  I appreciate it too, thank you so, so much for coming on How To Fail.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  It was a pleasure, really, really, such a, such a wonderful podcast and it really got me thinking. Like when I had to sit down and think about what failures I've learned from. That's a very good life exercise.

• 52:08Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you. Okay, you're going to stay on to Do Failing With Friends, thank you so much.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:13Elizabeth 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.