Rebel Wilson: I Experimented With Ozempic! Childhood Trauma Was The Reason I Couldn't Lose Weight & ALL The Truth About Sacha Baron Cohen!

She’s stolen every scene she’s ever been in, but her hardest role might be being herself Rebel Wilson is an Australian actress and producer best known for her roles in films such as, ‘Bridesmaids’, ‘Pitch Perfect’ and ‘Jojo Rabbit’. In this conversation Rebel and Steven discuss topics such as, her battles with self-esteem and her weight, her malaria vision to be an actress, being a virgin at 35, and the truth about Sacha Baron Cohen. You can purchase Rebel’s memoir, ‘Rebel Rising’, here: https://amzn.to/4b2hMeh Follow Rebel: Instagram - https://bit.ly/3JIZ1R6 TikTok - https://bit.ly/4dzvl6O Watch the episodes on Youtube - https://g2ul0.app.link/3kxINCANKsb My new book! 'The 33 Laws Of Business & Life' is out now - https://smarturl.it/DOACbook Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  It was the worst professional experience of my career. And this was before the Me Too movement. I felt humiliated and degraded.

• 0:07Steven Bartlett?

  What can you say about that experience?

• 0:11Speaker 00

  Rebel Wilson!

• 0:13Speaker 02

  An award-winning Hollywood superstar.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  Okay, here we go. My dad would say horrible things to my mum. Fat lazy cow, no one will ever love you. And I had issues with food because I had low self-worth. And that's why I would trash my body. I felt my life wasn't going to be anything. But then I found motivational tapes that said...

• 0:33Speaker 03

  The brave put down their fears and go forward.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  And so I decided to go out into the world and make a name for myself. And then I noticed on stage that people like laughing at bigger people. I thought, I could use this to my advantage. I gained all this weight. My body was like at 102 kilos. And then I came to America and now I'm making millions of dollars from playing the fat funny girl. I'm living this amazing life. But you achieve it and then it's not enough. And I was still a virgin, never dated probably. And this biological clock, you could hear it going...

• 1:05Speaker 00

  I went to the fertility doctor. And the doctor looks me up and down and goes, you're not healthy. And it like really sunk in. I've got to fix this. But as soon as I started telling people in my team, they're like, oh, no, no, no, no. Why would you want to lose weight? Because then you lose your multimillion dollar career. You're just going to throw it away?

• 1:22Steven Bartlett?

  Was that your hardest moment?

• 1:24Speaker 00

  No, the darkest point in my life was when I was 13. And...

• 1:34Steven Bartlett?

  Rebel. I think to understand somebody, you have to understand their earliest context. And as I read through your book Rebel Rising, which is out now, I was surprised in many ways. But also, the person that I'd seen on a screen made sense in a bunch of different ways. So let me throw that question to you as the first question, which is, if I was to endeavor to understand you, what do I need to know about your earliest context?

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess some people see you on screen and they have this image of what you are like. And often, I guess, people would think some overly confident,

• 2:13Speaker 00

  very confident in her sexuality and, you know, just a kind of brash, ballsy person. But from my upbringing...

• 2:26Speaker 00

  I mean, I think I couldn't be more the opposite. I mean, I grew up in a pretty regular suburban Australian upbringing, but was extremely shy to the point where like you'd never think that I would choose entertainment for a career. Like, that would just be unimaginable for this, like, bordering on some kind of social disorder, shyness. And, and then coming from quite a humble beginning of being in a family where we made money selling pet products out of a yellow caravan at dog shows. And so driving around the country to these dog shows and selling like pooper scoopers to pick up the poop for the dogs and brushes and leads for the dogs and, and all these things.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  And so it wasn't, also, I was allergic to dogs. So that's why my, my childhood always felt a little bit uncomfortable, which I never realised why until later when I got tested as an adult, that I was allergic. And, and so I think by, by writing the book, people can see this whole other dimension of me and kind of maybe why I have the personality that, that I have now.

• 3:40Steven Bartlett?

  What about your parents?

• 3:41Speaker 00

  So my mum was a schoolteacher in, in state schools. So had a lot of like refugee students and students that came in not knowing English. And, and she mainly taught kindergarten for like all these kids. So she's just like a light, you know, light of a woman, like just a brilliant teacher. I helped so many young people. And for some parts of my childhood, she was just a stay at home mum, which I shouldn't say just because now I'm realising being a mum is like the hardest thing ever. And then my dad was someone who, his, his father died suddenly when he was 18 in his final year of high school.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  So I think that through his life, what was supposed to be his life off course. And he kind of had emotional issues from, from losing his dad suddenly that young. And in a tragic way, so he, he had, I believe, you know, wanted to be a businessman and wanted to be successful. But I guess because of his own emotional issues and stuff, didn't quite fully achieve his, his potential.

• 4:53Steven Bartlett?

  How do you? Know that your father didn't quite achieve his potential. What were like the symptoms of that? Cause you seem to be quite sure that that that was causal in something.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  I think cause he was so angry all the time and money was a source of

• 5:10Speaker 00

  uh fighting in the in the household. So uh and I just like, so for example, we'd go to the racetrack with the horses. And my dad sometimes would own like a one tenth or a twentieth of a racehorse in a syndicate.

• 5:27Speaker 00

  And he'd look at the other high flyers, rich people who'd had had a lot of money and were successful. And people knew their names and stuff. And I definitely saw that he wanted to be that, but he wasn't that. Nobody was coming up to him and shaking his hand or admiring him. And then in one of the chapters of the book, I write about, I found this gym bag in the back of his car. And it was full of all these cassettes. And I just took them. Nobody ever said anything uh why they were there or what the and I noticed they were all motivational tapes. Um and the one that I clearly remember was a one called How to Win Friends and Influence People.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  And I think this was my father's way of trying to improve himself and trying to be better. And a lot of the tapes were about business, about selling and um how to be better in in business. And and so I feel like, even though we never openly discussed it, I feel like why would he have those kind of things? Cause he wanted to better himself. I just don't think he had the the ability to. And then his life just didn't go in the way that he wanted to. And I think uh because of the death of his father, he just never seemed to be able to process emotions. Properly, um, that was the best way.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  Probably nowadays, you would go to someone and get diagnosed with what kind of issues you had or seek therapy or something like that to get over the trauma. But I guess back in Australia in those days, that wasn't a thing. Um, and so he was a man who just, you know, wanted to be better, but then just couldn't like, uh, just didn't have the skills, the emotional skills.

• 7:15Steven Bartlett?

  That trauma eventually finds an outlet either way. If you don't address it through like therapy, it finds other ways to manifest itself. And what were those ways?

• 7:22Speaker 00

  And I think with him, it was being, uh, angry. And he would just turn from all of a sudden talking normally to, he would go really red in the face, like just like, uh, just it was almost like a red balloon suddenly, like his face would almost expand and he'd go really red. And he'd just have these absolutely like angry outbursts where he'd do and say horrible things. And, and I think that, that was probably stemming from when he lost his father in an unfair way. Um, and, and he just didn't know how to deal with it. So probably like, you know, if he is now and if, you know, I would be like, oh, you know,

• 8:04Speaker 00

  you should talk to someone, a professional and process your emotions properly. And, but, but then back then, I guess we didn't, we didn't really know what to do. I'll say that was just his personality.

• 8:15Steven Bartlett?

  To bring this into, into light, I guess, the, the example you give in the book is when you're, I think you were 12 or something years old and you decide, you were young. It was the summer, it was hot.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:25Steven Bartlett?

  And you decided to wet the bed to cool yourself down.

• 8:27Speaker 00

  Uh huh. Yeah, we got back from a dog show and it was really hot. Sometimes in Australia, we have like these really hot, like 36 degree days. And so we thought, well, we'll pour water all over the mattress to like wet it down. So we'd kind of be lying in coolness. Um, and then my father came in and just, he thought, I think we'd literally wet the bed, you know, like gone to the toilet on the bed, which we never would have done. We were like, looking back, we were like the most well behaved children you could imagine. Um, and he just like, he just, it was like a flick, a switch would flick, you know, and he'd just go really angry and would just start whacking us. And it was just, um.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  It was, I don't know, it just seemed to, it just, something would tick him off or something and he'd just lose it. Um, and that was one of the incidents, but I was really young, I think I was about eight.

• 9:27Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  And my sister was six, Liberty. And when I spoke to her about writing the book and she was like, she doesn't totally remember that exact instance, but she remembers several others that are very similar.

• 9:38Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:39Speaker 00

  Um, of things, but that one I just remembered really clearly. And then I felt like a terrible person because I thought, oh, well, why did I wet the sheets and the mattress and I was trying to cool down, but that was wrong and I should never have been naughty like that. Um, and it just kinda, um, yeah, really stuck to me that, that particular time, but that was something that would happen, you know, quite a bit.

• 10:04Steven Bartlett?

  And this sort of physical aggression.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 10:09Steven Bartlett?

  And emotional abuse would continue to your mother as well. It would extend to your mother as well.

• 10:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, more with my mum, it was more emotional abuse, like, um, come home and say, oh, you fat lazy cow, what have you done all day? Um, stuff like, oh, no one will ever love you. Um, just like these comments that would just come constantly and also more financial abuse, like he'd take control of the finances, but then go and gamble with the money and then we'd have no money and, um, so, so more with that. Um, but with the kids, it was more the, you know, the physical hitting, which was not, uh, was not that uncommon in the area I grew up in. I mean, I know now, like, I could never think of hitting my child now, I just would

• 10:59Speaker 00

  never, but back then it wa- it was quite common and we did have family friends that their dad would hit them with a belt, which was kind of a bit even worse. So we kind of felt like, like we didn't know anything that different. It was quite common.

• 11:14Steven Bartlett?

  I, I ask those particular questions because it, I often think that we learn our first model of what love is and what a relationship is by what we observe with our parents. And for me, I know for sure that watching my parents, how they interacted, left me with a message that I absolutely do not want to be in a romantic relationship. And I avoided that for my whole life.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's probably why I never dated anybody ever.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  Because I saw my parents, my mum kind of became a shell of a woman and had to have every ounce of strength in order to get out of that relationship eventually when I was like sixteen, seventeen. And that left me thinking, I will never get married.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  I, I don't want to be in a partnership with somebody like this is terrible. Because often when my dad would have his outbursts or whatever, it was always at home. It was not in public, it was not around other people. It was like, just, just when we were at home. And I went, who would want that? Like, there was nothing loving about it. And, and I think even though I had one boyfriend when I was sixteen, and, and then he cheated on me with a friend and, and then I was like, that's it. And, and then from then, throughout the whole of my teenage and twenties, like, did not date one person. Because I guess I, I didn't want to be like my mother and, and have this like awful thing

• 12:41Speaker 00

  happen that, you know, obviously now the story is great for my mum. She's now engaged to a great man and who's awesome and so kind and loving. But my only representation, I guess, was their marriage and it was awful. Like it was just, even when they separated, it took seven years to. Uh, where and basically left them, my mum with nothing because all the money went to the lawyers um from the separation costs. And I was just like, oh, like, why would I want that?

• 13:14Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  I go, no, I would like to be successful and go out into the world and make a name for myself. And a romantic relationship would only cause me pain, only drag me down, uh, not allow me to be my true self. Um, so I thought, yeah, I just thought I would never, I'd never wanted one until you get real lonely when you become successful. And then you're like, oh, maybe, maybe things can change.

• 13:42Steven Bartlett?

  What am I gonna do with all this stuff?

• 13:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:45Steven Bartlett?

  I think some of my darkness comes, this is a quote from your book, I think some of my darkness comes from my dad. There is definitely convict history on that side of my family. A lot of dodginess. When you say a lot of my darkness, it's, it's interesting because I remember sitting with Tim Grover, who I reference a lot, and Tim Grover was the guy who coached Michael Jordan and um Kobe Bryant for pretty much, you know, the most significant parts of their career.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, I think I've listened to that episode.

• 14:09Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, really?

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:10Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, good.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:10Steven Bartlett?

  Amazing.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  I'm a big basketball fan.

• 14:12Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, he's, it was incredible. And one of the things you said to me early was that everyone has their dark side and then, which is often from their early experiences and all those kinds of things. And then it's often, our light side is often created by our dark side in many respects.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:27Steven Bartlett?

  So it, it, I see shades of what I would guess was your dark side in, in those early years of, of your um story. But when you say that, your dark side probably came from your father, what are you referring to?

• 14:38Speaker 00

  So I kind of feel like um that I have friends in the industry, right, who have had like quite awesome childhoods and, you know, and, and to me, sometimes in their work, they come across as very vanilla. And then I was thinking about, I go, why aren't they as interesting or something? And they're great and they're talented, but they're just not as interesting. And then I normally, when I do chat to them, you find out, oh, they have two loving parents and they had a great childhood.

• 15:12Speaker 00

  And so for me, I think why I have certain parts of my personality and like to do comedy and stuff, because I have this, I have a lightness, which definitely comes from my mum and my mum's side of the family that are all like that. And then on my dad's side, it's just like dodginess everywhere. And like, you know, alcoholism and like addictions and,

• 15:37Speaker 00

  and, and just also a mentality of just, I don't know how to explain it best, apart from saying it's a bit dodgy. But in a way, and then sometimes when, I mean, I don't suffer from like actual depression or whatever, but then sometimes if you're feeling like you're, oh, you know, sometimes it feels like a mafia sensation when you're like, oh, I want to get revenge on those people or something, you know. I'm like shocked of where these feelings come from and they're normally from the dark side. But if I didn't have that, I don't think I'd be as interesting as a, as a person or as a performer.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  And I definitely like have, sometimes have an edginess to jokes and stuff, which I guess I wouldn't have had if I, if I didn't have, you know, one side of the family be, be a bit dodgy. And the other side be light. So I knew, I knew the difference and I knew I kind of had both.

• 16:42Steven Bartlett?

  You can embody both and that's quite interesting.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:45Steven Bartlett?

  When someone can present as both at the same time, a little bit sadistic as well, but. In the, in the, in the cover of your book, it says that you're always questioning, am I good enough? I can relate for many reasons of my own to do with like coming here when I was.

• 16:58Speaker 00

  Do you think, Stephen, that's why you're successful? Because you're asking yourself that question?

• 17:05Steven Bartlett?

  I think it's intrinsically linked to why I was apparently so driven.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:10Steven Bartlett?

  Which I've come to, I've come to ask myself in recent years, I'm actually driven or am I being dragged by something? They both look the same.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:17Steven Bartlett?

  But when you're dragged, it's more, it's, there's, it's, there's less control.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:21Steven Bartlett?

  Less ability to stop and slow down. And you're a workaholic, I read that.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, definitely.

• 17:26Steven Bartlett?

  So I think maybe you're also in the dragged category to some degree. And my dragging came from being not enough in the context. I was, you know, only black kid, poorest family in the area. So you're, there's a deep sort of sense of shame and insecurity that you're trying to fill, prove to others and yourself that you're, you're not. My question was about when that started in you. What made you, can you look back and find out what made you feel like you weren't enough?

• 17:50Speaker 00

  I think I definitely get self-esteem and self-worth from achievements. And so when I was in school, it would be getting a hundred percent in every exam. And that would be good. And if I didn't, I'd feel bad about myself. And then, I don't know, just generally being successful in things gives me, like, makes me feel good about myself. But then I was thinking about, one of the reasons why I had issues with food and because I had low self-worth. And then I felt like I was not good enough. I was like trash. And that's why I would trash my body. Cause I just felt like, well, I don't deserve anything different. And then that's a really complicated question to work out. Well, why don't I feel good enough?

• 18:36Speaker 00

  And, and I've thought about it a lot. And, and some things I know, but then some things I think, I don't know why. Some things are as simple as like, for example, being born a girl in the area where I was from, and boys were more praised. Like even at the dog shows, everyone did something called junior handling. And then if a boy ever entered, he'd normally win. Cause it was like, oh, boys doing it. Whereas girls just weren't seen as being as good. The boys' school, I went to an all-girls high school, but the boys' school next door was seen as more prestigious and better. And, and they had the multimillion dollar theater at their school. And, you know, it was just.

• 19:21Speaker 00

  And so I think some of it is just as simple as like being born a girl in, in the area. And I was like, God, that's so dumb though. Why didn't I transcend that?

• 19:33Speaker 00

  And then some of it must have been from not feeling love. Although obviously I know my parents loved me very, very much. But because of, I came from a very conservative family. We didn't really talk about emotions and feelings. And so it wasn't expressed in the way that I probably needed it to. So I, I didn't feel good enough unless I was getting first in my grade in a subject or something. And then, and then I was congratulated. And so then I felt good, um, or winning a prize or a trophy and.

• 20:10Steven Bartlett?

  And that's when you would get the praise from the people you cared about.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so I just kind of went with that.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  But it's just, but then it's like, I like, there was nothing wrong with me. I go, why did I not feel good enough? But I guess I've always felt that.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  And it's kind of sad when you think about it. Cause you're like, why would somebody, it's not like I did anything bad. Or, you know, I should have felt ashamed about something. I just always felt like that.

• 20:42Steven Bartlett?

  I guess it proves that kids, they don't, they're not born with perfect self-esteem. They do need that to be fostered and poured into and nourished. Or else that can be an upset. One thing is it doesn't have to be something that happened that proved you weren't good enough. But that could just be maybe something that didn't happen that proved you were.

• 21:00Speaker 00

  Um, and I think there's all these little micro things that can happen.

• 21:06Speaker 00

  You know, you're not chosen for something or you're not, uh, you're always at the back at the side. Or, you know, you're not over the star or just all these little things. Or no one ever thought you'd make it or be anything. And just like little things, little comments people would say or something. And then, um, yeah, and then that all just adds up.

• 21:27Steven Bartlett?

  And you you're thirteen, fourteen, you're in school, you're shy.

• 21:30Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 21:31Steven Bartlett?

  At this point, I'm guessing you you have that struggle with feeling like you're good enough. I think that's maybe a symptom of the shyness.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And also, like, I was just very average looking. I had like a snaggle tooth.

• 21:42Steven Bartlett?

  What's a snaggle tooth?

• 21:44Speaker 00

  It's like a, basically a deformity, like a deformed tooth, like on one side, which I've had fixed now. But it's kind of like a fang, I guess. But only on one side, so it wasn't like some cool vampire thing.

• 21:55Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  Um, and then I had that and I was so painfully shy where I'd go red in the face if a teacher asked me to answer a question in class, even though I knew the answer. It was just, it was so embarrassing and I didn't have any friends. Um, and I guess because I thought, well, why would people want to be friends with me? I'm not good looking or popular or cool in any way. And and so I just, yeah, it was, it was really, that was like one of the darkest times, like when I'm like thirteen, fourteen and and like, you know, people are kind of becoming themselves at that point. And then I read this article in the library that said that what your personality is at fifteen will be your personality for life.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  Uh, because I used to eat my lunches in the library just by myself, so I was reading stuff all the time. And then I read this and I went, huh, like I'm so close to fifteen. If I don't change, this is going to be me forever. And can I imagine my life like not expressing anything to anybody, just like being just shy and introverted and isolated? And I just knew I didn't want that, that that wouldn't have been the happy life for me. And not that there's anything wrong with being shy, like shy sometimes can be like a superpower. You observe people and you, um, you know, you learn a lot by by observing. But then I just was like, no, I wanna have friends and I wanna have fun and be popular. And, and so I was like, oh, well, I better get a move on.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  And luckily I found those motivational tapes. And then, yeah, and then they helped me.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  Because I thought, I wanna be somebody that expresses myself. Like, literally, you'd look at me, and I sometimes see it in my niece now. I think she has a similar thing, like, and it's almost like you wouldn't be able to register anything that's going on. You wouldn't know if I'd had a good day or a bad day. I just, it'd just be like, no, no expression or anything. Um, and then I, I was like, okay, I'm gonna force myself to like, come out of my little cocoon or my shell or, um, whatever the metaphor is and just break out. And with the help of those tapes and like, and having a strategy and how to do it.

• 24:12Steven Bartlett?

  What was the strategy?

• 24:12Speaker 00

  Uh, there were all sorts of things, but I remember from that How to Win Friends and Influence people, there was something about talking to five new people every day. And so that was one of the first things I did. And like, talking to girls on the bus or just, you know, walking up through the school gates and talk, just talking to the person next to me and saying hi. And what you realize is that there's other people as lonely and as isolated as what you are. And that might have been the highlight of their day to speak to somebody new. And, you know, instead of just sitting in the library all day waiting for friends to find me, which they never would, why don't I actively go out and join the likes, other sport teams or other clubs at the school?

• 24:56Speaker 00

  And like actively try to make friends, like, it's not just gonna happen if you're just doing nothing. Um, so there were these little tips and strategies. Um, but one of which was to get attention, which was to be, essentially to be naughty, to get attention. It's kinda like that, uh, you know, Eminem, the rapper. If he hadn't have put out all these songs that were like really controversial and had, you know, outrageous things in them, would he have been a successful rapper? Probably not. And so it was kind of like, I then had to do some dodgy things at school to get known, to get like a reputation, which was against my natural personality, because I was such a good little girl.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  Um, but I had to. Do things outrageous things to get attention. And then that led to popularity. Then, once you have the popularity, you don't need to do that stuff. But, yeah.

• 25:55Steven Bartlett?

  Is there some kind of a link there between you, the career you would then pursue? As an actress, as a performer, a comedian, all of those things? And this sort of early desire to have attention and validation from, you know, your peers?

• 26:12Speaker 00

  I think it started from just like a more normal thing about wanting to have friends and wanting to be invited to some parties. And so it started, it started from that. And, and like, and then you wanted to be respected. But then to be respected, people first have to know who you are. And so sometimes you have to do that attention seeking behavior to get that.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  But, but the, how I got into like acting was really, well, my mum dragged me into it. Because, I mean, the studies on the creative arts can really help your self esteem and self confidence. It's like insane, like it's really good for young people who are struggling. And my mum could see me like struggling and having no friends. And so mum takes me to these drama classes at this community centre and literally has to drag me out of the car. I'm holding on to the car door with my fingernails, like going, no, no, no, I don't want to go. It's so traumatic. But she was doing it not because she wanted me to become an actor. Like, we don't have any professional entertainers in the family.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Like, you know, nobody I know was in the business or whatever. At that point, it was more to help my self confidence and self esteem through the creative arts. And weirdly, it really did because when you're shy, like I was, to play different characters, it's like an escape because it's not really me, it's a different character. And, and then you can perform as that person. And then eventually some of that confidence starts coming to you, the real you, from, from doing that. But obviously, at the time, nobody thought I would become a professional actress. Or they would have laughed about that scenario.

• 28:03Steven Bartlett?

  It's interesting because you can see these different drives forming within you. You've got this drive for, I don't know, you might say for validation externally. But then because you come from a family that didn't have money, there's also where you were rewarded for academic success or being successful at something. There's also this drive to be successful, which shows up in early in your story when you start selling things and buying things and then you do exceptionally well in school. You go off to boarding school at sort of sixteen years old. I think in part it sounds like to escape from the childhood, the household dynamics of your father and your mother.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:39Steven Bartlett?

  You do exceptionally well there as well, exceptionally well. And then you end up in Africa, South Africa.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  I know.

• 28:48Steven Bartlett?

  Which is random.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  So, you know, a lot of people do the gap year thing. And, I mean, it's random, but basically I was a witness in a major crime squad investigation when I was in my final year of school. I witnessed something and had to testify. And then through that, some people were very impressed with my ability to go and do that in a case. And so I was like, and they told me about this program that was, it's a Rotary program and it was called a Youth Ambassador program. And basically they wanted young people who were very good at public speaking. And by this point, I'd done, I'd forced myself to do debating and public speaking and to get over my shyness.

• 29:34Speaker 00

  And so I was quite a good speaker. And, and I got recommended into this program and got selected. And you don't get to choose what country you go to. They, they just select for you. So, and they sent one boy and one girl from our district over to different countries and I got given South Africa. And I was like, cool, cool, because I thought it was going to be like The Lion King at first, which was one of my favorite movies. And then I go rock up to South Africa a few years post apartheid and. It was so different to Australia. Like Australia is very safe. Johannesburg had the highest rape and murder rate in the world at that time.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  And there were guns everywhere and barbed wire fences and, you know, attack dogs. And it was like, it was so eye opening. But then to also be constantly aware of the violence and like I had to carry a little, like a wooden baton, like what you see, like an old, you know, policeman in a cartoon would, would carry because I literally, if somebody attacked me, I'd have to hit them on the head with it. And it was like, I was like, this is crazy. Like, there was, there was so much going on that year. Um, and, but that's how I got the malaria, uh, which forced me to have this vision that I was to become an actress.

• 30:58Speaker 00

  And I think if I'd never ever gone to Africa, I never would have had that life changing vision. And I probably just would have gone back into law school and, and been, been a lawyer in, in Australia.

• 31:12Steven Bartlett?

  Me and you both share that in common. We both were in Africa and got bitten by mosquitoes.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  Did you have a vision?

• 31:17Steven Bartlett?

  I had a vision.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  What was your vision?

• 31:19Steven Bartlett?

  So I, my dad was holding, so we were in our house and they didn't know that I had malaria. This is what my dad and my mom tell me, I was very young. They were holding me here and I was, I'd woken up in the night because I said there was a man by my bed. So they'd picked me up, thinking like, oh my God, there's this man in his bedroom. And when my dad was holding me like this, so I can see over his shoulder, the man would be behind him. And I was freaking out that there's a man behind him.

• 31:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:42Steven Bartlett?

  Um, which I was later would call the shadow man and wrote a little novel about when I was about 14. And this, this shadow man, um, because I was losing my mind, they took me to hospital. And at hospital, they found out that I had malaria. But in hindsight, they tell the story that that's, that man saved my life. You know what I mean? So I grew up very, I grew up with this idea that I had a guardian angel.

• 32:01Speaker 00

  Ah, the shadow man.

• 32:03Steven Bartlett?

  But it was just malaria and hallucinations.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, like, I guess.

• 32:07Steven Bartlett?

  Tell me about your hallucinations.

• 32:07Speaker 00

  I had a nasty strain of malaria and it was put in hospital. And you know malaria is so different. I don't know whether you remember because of how old you are, but it's, it felt like, it felt like I was not in my body. And they'd take me into hospital and give me these drugs and then I, then I just started hallucinating. And I hallucinated that I was an actress and I was so good that I win an Academy Award. And I must have, I mean, I'd seen the Oscars on TV. I'd obviously never been. And, um, and then I just walked down the, and it was so real. Like I could see all the people with the dresses and I get up on stage. And then I give an acceptance rap rather than an acceptance speech because I thought, oh yeah, that's hardcore.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  And at one point I had wanted, I had wanted to be a rapper because of their coolness and swagger. Um, it didn't work out for me luckily. But my little rap group with my sister, yeah, it didn't work out. But, and it was so vivid and real, like I could, like I can still remember it. And then I came out of hospital, I was in hospital for two weeks. I came out and I was like, I think I've got to become an actress now. I had this vision and people go, ah, no, like the malaria has affected your brain. They're, they're just like, they thought I was nuts, like they thought I was crazy. And I go, no, I've seen it. And they're like, no, no, no, like you've, you've got into the best law school in Australia.

• 33:33Speaker 00

  Like maybe go to law school and have a great career. And I'm like, nah, I've seen it and I, and I think I need to be an actress now. And then I left South Africa a month earlier. I was supposed to be there a full 12 months. I left a one month earlier. Uh, to audition for a drama school in Australia, which I did, got rejected because obviously I was terrible. Um, and, and nobody looked at me and go actress, nobody. So, um, yeah, and, and it still took, I think from that vision, five years until I really got it. You could make money from acting. Uh, but I, it was like the vision came to me and I watched a lot of Oprah and Oprah was like,

• 34:16Speaker 00

  well, the universe will tell you, like, first it'll come in little whispers and then it'll be like bricks falling on you. And I was like, but see, I've, I've had the vision. I have to, I have to do acting now. Um.

• 34:28Steven Bartlett?

  In hindsight.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:30Steven Bartlett?

  Was that a malaria hallucination or was it divine intervention?

• 34:37Speaker 00

  I don't know. I think is, was that some subconscious desire that I was never brave enough to say to anybody? Um, because I was in the high school musicals and plays, um, you know, in the musical, I was like never cast as the lead or whatever, but I really enjoyed it. Like I, I really did enjoy it. And so, but I just never thought someone like me could have a career in that area. So I was like, was that just a subconscious desire that just decided to come out when I was deathly ill? Or was it some kind of, I don't know, some higher power or something showing me that this was more my purpose?

• 35:16Speaker 00

  Um, cause I remember a lot thinking that time, like, what is my purpose? Like, what am I supposed to be doing in the world? And I'd write in my little diary. You know, the like, but again, I watched a lot of Oprah. So I was like, you know, what's my purpose? How can I give back to people?

• 35:31Steven Bartlett?

  Those motivational tapes as well.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, probably.

• 35:34Steven Bartlett?

  So you go back to Australia, you pursue law, I guess for the money. You just thought that was a good.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  Well, um, because my father had dropped out.

• 35:41Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  I definitely wanted to have a college degree. And he always said that was his biggest regret, that he never got his business degree. And because I'd got, it was so hard to get into this law school, it almost had to be near perfect in all your exams. So I just thought, oh, I may as well just do it as well.

• 36:00Steven Bartlett?

  Were you ever trying to impress either one of them more than the other?

• 36:03Speaker 00

  Well, my mum just wanted, her dream for me was to be normal, I guess. Like, you know, to have friends, to kind of have a, you know, relationship and be kind of normal. So it's not like she definitely didn't want me to be some kind of. A known public person.

• 36:19Steven Bartlett?

  Sometimes the oldest sibling, you're the oldest of four, right?

• 36:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:21Steven Bartlett?

  Is a bit of a reflection of, of more so of a reflection, I think, of what the parents wanted for themselves. I tend to think that's a bit of a, so I'm wondering if your like desire for success and validation, or if it was something that you felt from your father, like, you know, him, he couldn't be that himself. So maybe he reflected more praise on you when you were objectively successful in the things that you did. Um, why would you want to be a lawyer is?

• 36:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, I just, because if you were smart, you'd go into law or medicine.

• 36:50Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  Um, and, and so, you know, and they would have loved to have gone around and said, you know, oh, my daughter's a lawyer at this firm. And that would have been a great, you know, great career that they would have thought that my parents had to work really hard to send me to the school that I did, like at one point, apart from selling all the dog products, my dad was also working at the gas station overnight. And, you know, just to afford my school uniforms and stuff like that. So, so for them, a successful outcome would have been, okay, she got into the top law school and now she's gonna be a lawyer. And therefore, all that money spent on education was worth it.

• 37:27Steven Bartlett?

  And you go back, you do end up qualifying as a lawyer.

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:30Steven Bartlett?

  Um, you become a lawyer.

• 37:32Speaker 00

  It did take me 10 years though. It's normally a five year double degree and I did arts as well. Um.

• 37:37Steven Bartlett?

  Why did it take so long? Cause you're acting.

• 37:39Speaker 00

  So basically, yeah. So I would, I'd be in theatre shows at first and then it would be TV shows. And my law school had an 80% attendance rule. So basically, if I started in a semester, and then for some reason, my filming schedule or whatever, I'd have to repeat the subject. Because if I didn't attend in person 80% of the time. So it was exhausting. Um, often I was, would fly, have to fly interstate. I'd be filming in another state. I have to get up at 4am in the morning and fly to Sydney to law school and then fly all the way back that night.

• 38:13Steven Bartlett?

  From the, from the first time you did whatever you classed as like an acting gig.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 38:18Steven Bartlett?

  Or tried to be an actress, to the moment when you feel like you had. Made it. How many years is that?

• 38:25Speaker 00

  So I started quite late, I guess. I started like eighteen, turning nineteen, which is quite late, I think. A lot of people start.

• 38:33Steven Bartlett?

  Kids.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, twelve, thirteen, I guess. Um, and then that was like proper acting classes, like proper, like with people wanting to do it as a career. And then I had, I wrote my first play at twenty one. I just wrote it in two nights and then it won this playwriting competition and got put on. Um, and I was like, holy crap. Um, and then a television station gave me ninety thousand dollars to put it on professionally, which was like kind of insane. Great luck for the first thing I'd ever written. Um, and I realized from that point, nobody saw me as an actor. I wasn't like Nicole Kidman or that, you know, in that vein.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  So I realized pretty quick I had to write myself, my own material, if I was gonna make it. But I didn't start earning a professional, like a full time wage, um, until I was a regular on a TV show at twenty three.

• 39:28Steven Bartlett?

  At what point in this journey towards being an actress, do you realize that your weight is influencing how people see you and the way that they're casting you?

• 39:41Speaker 00

  So when I was like, uh, about twenty one into like twenty two, uh, I had something called PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome. And one of the key signifiers of that was like rapid weight gain. So all of a sudden, I mean, when I first started acting, I was just a regular size, a bit athletic looking, but you know, pretty regular. Um, and, and then all of a sudden I gained thirty kilos and was like, and I had some other symptoms as well. I had like some dark hair on my arms and there's, there's a couple of key signifiers to it. And then I went to the doctors and I said, oh yeah, you've got PCOS. And in that first play that I'd written when I was twenty one,

• 40:25Speaker 00

  I'd cast a girl who was bigger than, you know, quite a large girl. And then I noticed on stage, like, she'd get way more laughs than me. And I kind of wrote all the roles quite evenly and I was like, why is that girl getting, getting more laughs? And I honestly thought, I mean, well, one, she's hilarious, but it's because she's bigger. And people like laughing at bigger people. And then there, I did this subject at university called comedy and power. And basically, you know, there is a science to, if you normally, if you wanna sleep with somebody, you're not normally wanting to laugh at them. So, you know, if you wanna sleep with someone, you're into them, attracted to them.

• 41:09Speaker 00

  But normally, the people that you wanna laugh at are people that have some kind of immediate physical irregularity, like, you know, bigger women do do well in comedy. Um, you might be really tall, really short, you might have a really big nose, something, something about you that's quite distinctive, um, that people can instantly go, ah ha, you know. And they, in more in comedy, the science of it is more people wanna be your friend, rather than, they don't wanna be your lover, they, they wanna be your friend. And they think, you know, you'd be good to hang out with and have a laugh with. And so it was really interesting, when I gained all this weight, I was like, ah, I think I'm gonna lean into comedy.

• 41:50Speaker 00

  Because, um, even though I'd tried to be a serious actress at first, I was like, hang on, this, which could be seen as a huge negative, a lot of people would be going, oh no, you know, I put on all this weight. Instead, I went the opposite way and was like, you know what, I could use this to my advantage. I like comedy, I, I, I think I should go into comedy and use being bigger as just one, you know, a good tool in my comedy toolbox.

• 42:18Steven Bartlett?

  And then that was kind of reinforced, I guess, because then you, people laugh harder and then they pay you more.

• 42:22Speaker 00

  And it is true, it is, is, is true, people like laughed, laughed more and I leant into comedy and then I got a scholarship from Nicole Kidman, uh, to go to New York and I went to a second city comedy school in New York at the time. Um, and yeah, and then I just realized I had a, quite a good knack for it. And that was taking off more than the dramatic acting.

• 42:46Steven Bartlett?

  How did you feel about yourself at that time?

• 42:49Speaker 00

  Well, I guess, uh, I was quite shocked in my diaries when I looked back at them for research for the book. Even when I was sixteen and I wasn't big at all, I was very athletic, played lots of different sports and, and my first goal was like to lose two kilos. I guess because my mum had made a comment at some point, not, not for any bad reasons. She just, you know, thought she had weight issues herself and just thought, you know, if I lost those two kilos, I might feel better in myself or something like that. And so I just, when I gained all that weight, there, there's kind of a dichotomy because

• 43:30Speaker 00

  at one point I'm like, this could help me professionally in comedy and, you know, big girls do, do better in comedy. I can see a pigeonhole for myself i- in that area and you can be successful. And I'd just gotten on a television show when I was twenty-three, playing kind of the, I guess, the whale characters or what they sometimes referred to me as and.

• 43:53Steven Bartlett?

  They referred to you as the whale character.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  Well, like, I was the obese girlfriend of one of the guys who, he was embarrassed to go out with me. So the whole joke was like, he was trying to hide me because he didn't want people to know I was in a relationship because I was obese and that was the whole, it was a very popular show in Australia, it's called Fat Pizza. And, and so on the one hand, there's that, but then on the other hand, I felt like, oh, I knew I was eating very badly. I mean, my diet at that point was just carbs, pretty much. I remember coming to New York and going to comedy school and, you know, and just eating a pint of ice cream for dinner or a whole big bag of chips or something.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  And, and then, and I, so on the one hand, I could be confident and know that this could be good for me career-wise, but on the other hand, I knew I'm not treating myself right. This is not good, you know, I'm not being healthy. And, and so I had both going on in my mind at the same time.

• 45:00Steven Bartlett?

  How do you, um, play a role in a movie, that Fat Pizza movie, where you're basically a?

• 45:09Steven Bartlett?

  Someone, something, somebody that somebody else is embarrassed about. And how does that not impact your self-esteem at some level? Because I'm thinking if I was playing in a movie, someone, an individual that someone was trying to hide.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  The thing is like, because when it's acting, it's not quite you. And only on a rare occasion would people confuse, like, because obviously the guys on the show were pretty great and respectful off, off camera and everything. It was, that was just the character I was playing. And I was lucky to be on a comedy show and to be earning money that way. But then I remember going to a post office and just like mailing a letter. And the guy was obviously a fan of the show. And so I was saying, oh, Tula, that was my character name. Oh, he's so fat, you know? And like, here in real life was saying stuff like the guys on the show, but this is now real life.

• 46:03Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:04Speaker 00

  And it was very hurtful in, in real life, whereas for acting, it's, you know, you kind of can separate it a little bit.

• 46:10Steven Bartlett?

  What did you say to him that day, that post, post office person?

• 46:12Speaker 00

  I didn't say anything. I just kind of walked out and thought, oh, that guy's an idiot. He doesn't understand the distinction between a comedy show and, you know, a real person. And, and so that was just a bit hurtful. But it, but I guess it must, but then on the other hand, it's, it's hard to feel sorry for myself because then, obviously not in Australia. But then when I came to America and played like Fat Amy, which was probably my most famous character. I mean, now I'm making millions of dollars from playing the, the fat funny girl and really leaning into that. And so.

• 46:53Steven Bartlett?

  And what do you care about more than millions of dollars or the, you know what I mean?

• 46:57Speaker 00

  Well, now I care about my health and wellbeing. But, but back then, I guess, I thought, oh, well, I'm becoming successful and this is helping me become successful.

• 47:08Steven Bartlett?

  I think this is really at the heart of what your book takes on is the idea that, you know, we can become quote unquote, successful.

• 47:20Steven Bartlett?

  In the eyes of the world, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're successful holistically.

• 47:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:25Steven Bartlett?

  In all the things that we need to to be successful. And I I relate to that so much because because of the things we've described about being driven and dragged and all that stuff. I think I became successful in one of maybe the 10 things that I needed to be to be like rounded as a person.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:40Steven Bartlett?

  And anomalies like you that achieve such great success, often there's a trade off.

• 47:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I felt like I needed like Olympic athlete dedication to make it in the entertainment business. I mean, the odds of making it are so small. One, to make it in my home country and then to come to Hollywood and to make it. The odds are, you know, millions to one, really, of having the career that I've had.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  So you know, like an Olympic gymnast, if you meet people and they're like incredible at gymnastics. But then you talk to them about their personal life or their their skills and and then basically

• 48:24Speaker 00

  you can tell they're like stunted.

• 48:26Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 48:26Speaker 00

  I guess is the is the right word. So they've had this drive and this focus and they've achieved and they've, if they're an athlete, you know, they get to the Olympics or or to me like I've been in an Oscar nominated movie, I haven't won, obviously, the vision hasn't come true. But but was I stunted? I was like, if you really knew me, you'd know that, yeah, I hadn't been on out on a date until my early 30s. I hadn't had that intimate experiences and

• 48:59Speaker 00

  and relationships. And so all that area of my life like wasn't great. But I was like the most successful person to ever come out of my high school. Or, you know, so like, there were great things. I could go courtside at the L A Lakers games or, you know, like, there were awesome stuff. But then there was like. Yeah, on a personal side, I wasn't the best person. And then I knew that, I knew, oh god. Okay, so I've excelled in one area, but now there's others that I'm like quite lacking in. And the other area was, apart from love life and kind of social life, was also health.

• 49:41Steven Bartlett?

  You moved to America. You get, you work very hard for the next couple of years. You get this, you know, this opportunity in Bridesmaid, which then takes some time for it to come out. I read in your book that you got paid three thousand five hundred dollars for your role in Bridesmaid, which is quite shocking.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was my first job in America. And I mean, I was very lucky to get it. I mean, what an awesome cracker of a movie to get that, but to be paid that little. And basically that thirty five hundred dollars, I then had to pay to the union, to join the union. So I basically, I made no money. I lost money because I had to pay to go to the premiere, like to buy my dress and everything. So I lost money doing Bridesmaids. But, and then you have to wait. It normally takes a whole year when you film a movie for the movie to be released. So that was a really skint year where I was living on sixty dollars a week in L A. Once I'd paid my rent and my car hire. And that's not a lot of money. So like, I wasn't partying or living this life.

• 50:43Speaker 00

  It was basically just having that focus, trying to write for myself, like going to auditions. And I had to wait a whole year till Bridesmaids came out. And then suddenly it comes out as this big hit. And I booked six movies off the back of it, one of which was Pitch Perfect, which was kind of my real golden ticket, that movie. And

• 51:04Steven Bartlett?

  Became the highest grossing musical comedy franchise of all time.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 51:08Steven Bartlett?

  And there was

• 51:08Speaker 00

  Very, very, very successful and very, very awesome fun movies to be a part of. So they're like such a gift, those movies.

• 51:16Steven Bartlett?

  Your life changes at that point. Because you're sort of globally, internationally famous now. And surely

• 51:25Steven Bartlett?

  That means job done. We can, we can chill, we can go look at other things. And I say this because there's so many people, me being probably one of them, that maybe told ourselves in the past that once we hit the pitch perfect, the global smash hit success, then we'll chill.

• 51:38Speaker 00

  Then you'll be happy and then it'll be fine. And then, uh, but then of course, then you come up with some different goals. That I'm like, it's even harder.

• 51:47Steven Bartlett?

  A real pivotal moment and turning point in your life is clearly when you went to that doctor that day after deciding that you wanted to have a child.

• 51:56Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 51:57Steven Bartlett?

  Why did you decide you wanted to have a child? Was there an influence, something you'd seen or something?

• 52:03Speaker 00

  I guess I never thought, cause I was so career driven. I thought, uh, you know, I'd never thought I would wanna have a family. Um, and also being in my business, it was so, it's so egocentric, the business. Um, and so I just didn't think that was in the cards for me. And I also thought, oh, well, I'm probably never gonna find a partner or whatever. And then I was just like this biological clock inside me when in my late thirties, just started like ticking really loudly. And I kinda say it's like in Peter Pan, that crocodile that has the clock inside it. It was just like, like you could hear it going tick, tick, tick, tick. I was like, do it now, like it'll, otherwise it'll be too late. And I would see babies on the street with their moms and be like, oh. And I was just like, cause you keep staring at all the babies.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  And just like, like I just really felt this urge in, inside me to be a mother. And even though I didn't have a partner at that point, and I just was like, uh, I think I should, uh, try. And, and but I was getting, I was like thirty nine years old and I didn't even know that I had eggs or what could be done. And, um, and then I went to the fertility doctor. And, and by this point, like I'm living this really large life, you know? I am medically obese, but I'm living this kind of amazing life. I traveled the world, I learned how to have fun and, and not be so much of a workaholic. And I was like, you know, like that Lizzo song, like it's bad bitch o'clock.

• 53:34Speaker 00

  Like that was like my life, like I'm walking around just loving it. I've been successful now. And, and then the doctor looks me up and down and goes. Yeah, but you're not healthy. And he said you have a much better chance of having a baby if you were healthy. And the way he said it with like, kind of quite a lot of disdain in his voice. I was like, huh, cause that's, that was a stranger. Most people, you know, in Hollywood, they're not gonna come up to you and go, oh, you're engaging in bad, you know, eating habits, obviously, like, um, they're just like, oh, congratulations on your new movie and yeah, it's great. You um, play fat Amy and that's awesome and how successful it's been.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  Uh, I don't think so. He wasn't in my demographic.

• 54:22Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 54:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, okay. He looked a bit like the doctor from Doc from um, Back to the Future.

• 54:29Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, yeah.

• 54:30Speaker 00

  Older guy with white wiry hair.

• 54:32Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  So, yeah, I don't think he was in the Pitch Perfect fanbase. And he just, he just said it straight to my face and then I go, oh, I'm not healthy, cause and I knew deep down, I just suppressed those feelings, but I knew deep down I wasn't healthy, but I didn't have any serious diseases. I was doing incredible things all around the world. So I just didn't, and then he said that and like it really sunk in. There was like this criticism that was, I couldn't ignore and I was like, oh, God. Okay, yeah, he is right and I'm not healthy. Um, because on the one hand, I'm like a beacon of body positivity in that,

• 55:14Speaker 00

  cause I really do think beauty isn't any size and um, and, and had, and had grown, you know, so much self-confidence um, by that point. But then on the other hand, I knew I was engaging in unhealthy eating behaviours and that was something I wanted to improve in myself. And then I thought, well, the next year, twenty twenty, I'll make the whole year about getting healthy. Like I said, I'm not gonna work. Weirdly, I couldn't have predicted that a pandemic was gonna happen. Uh, I'd already planned not to work that year and to take a whole year to do health stuff.

• 55:49Steven Bartlett?

  You you get back in the car after that doctor visit and you describe kind of your, what's going on in your brain.

• 55:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:55Steven Bartlett?

  You've, as you said, you know, at that point, you you knew you weren't healthy deep down, deep down.

• 56:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. Everyone kind of knows, you know.

• 56:04Steven Bartlett?

  You know, we all know.

• 56:05Speaker 00

  If you if you are medically obese, you kind of know that, yeah.

• 56:09Steven Bartlett?

  But it's hard to get from there to taking any action. It's really hard to to change behavior in such a way.

• 56:15Speaker 00

  Especially because I, yes, had I tried to go on diets before, had I gone on diets, had I gone to like a little health farm and, you know, lost five, seven pounds in a week and and then you never sustain it and then it goes back up. So I'd like, it's not like I'd never tried. I just never thought because always the weight would come back on and that was just my homeostasis or whatever for my body was like at a hundred and two kilos. And that's kind of just how it was. And I was like, oh, well, I could never permanently change that. I just thought, no, I can get two degrees from university and become an international movie star, but I just can't like with the weight.

• 56:59Speaker 00

  I was like, I can't like, just, you know, I don't know, I'm just not right in that area. I would never, I would never be healthy in that way.

• 57:08Steven Bartlett?

  And that one comment from that stranger.

• 57:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was something in the way he said it. I was like, sugar, I'm not, like, I'm not healthy, like. And that must be what a lot of people thought. They just never said it to my face.

• 57:28Speaker 00

  And then it was kind of the motivation, almost not really for myself and my health, but for a future child. That I thought, well, now I've got to fix this and work really hard to do it. Because if I, I tried, I tried so many times, I don't know, 20 times or whatever in the past. But it always only lasted a short term. And then I was like, whoa, okay, but this is different because now the motivation is to have a child. So that's like a different motivating factor.

• 58:00Steven Bartlett?

  You want to have a child, this doctor says you'll have a better chance if you're healthy. You leave there that day. You must also have it in the back of your mind that people are paying you millions and millions and millions of dollars. I think around that time, that year, you'd made like 20 million dollars in movies or whatever. They're paying you because you fit this persona. That they want.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. So. So as soon as I started telling people in my team about this, they're like, oh, no, no, no. Why would you want to lose weight like that? No, I wouldn't. If I was you, I wouldn't do that because then you lose your multimillion dollar pigeon hole that you've so successfully created. And look at all the work you've done to get that. And now you're just gonna throw it away. So I was then literally like, okay, what do I do with my life? Am I get healthy, but I lose my career? Or do I just stay the way I am and maybe never have a child?

• 58:54Speaker 00

  And like, that was literally kind of how it was positioned to me. And so even though literally everyone around me pretty much said, stay as you are. I just felt like, nah, I gotta, I think I know deep down that I'm engaging in unhealthy behaviours and I'm gonna, I'm gonna work on my health and try to have a child. Thinking at that point, I know it sounds implicit, but thinking that my career could be over then.

• 59:23Speaker 00

  But I was like, nah, it's too, that's too important.

• 59:28Steven Bartlett?

  Going on that journey, losing the weight and all those kinds of things is never a straight line.

• 59:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, it was, I mean, the pandemic helped a lot because literally everything stopped. Um, and, and I could just focus, focus on being healthy. It was, that became a big blessing um, to me. And when I really focused and did the emotional work, because there's things like that I write about in the book that I just never thought about until I started emotionally processing things.

• 1:00:01Steven Bartlett?

  Did one of your contracts say, I think it was Pitch Perfect, say that you couldn't lose 10 pounds of weight contractually?

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that's like quite common. You can't drastically change your appearance. So that's pretty much in all acting contracts. Um, it's not just about weight, it's about your hair, you know, what, what you look like. Um, and you can't go, you know, too much either side. Um, that's basically because sometimes in films you have to do reshoots. Uh, or sometimes, you know, they might want to do a sequel or something. And so you kind of have to stay the same. So literally like, I have to ask somebody if I'd want to cut my hair right now uh, to a different colour or style or whatever. It's just. It's just a thing in the business because you could be asked to do a reshoot on a film a year later. You have to kind of look the same.

• 1:00:50Steven Bartlett?

  So this journey of losing weight.

• 1:00:53Steven Bartlett?

  Tell me about this process. What helped you?

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  So I was like, as you can probably tell, I'm quite goal orientated and uh and so I was like, okay, twenty twenty is going to be my year of health. I'm themed it. I'm going to put it on Instagram, so I'm like held responsible.

• 1:01:08Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:08Speaker 00

  Uh, you know, the other times it would be a bit more private, like, okay, I'm going to go to this health farm or whatever. And I'm like, okay, it's going to be my year of health and I'm just going to focus on being healthy. And um the the thing Anne Hathaway introduced me to this doctor who was um great because I guess she saw me on a film we did together called The Hustle and she kind of saw me struggling. And his specialty was kind of dwelling into emotional emotions and how they can affect your physical health. And I never even thought about that. Like, I just thought, you know, going on a diet, it's about eating less and exercising more and um I just never thought, but to me, because I was an emotional eater, really

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  the kicker was to process emotions and to learn how to process emotions. And obviously, from my family environment, I had definitely not learnt um any skills in that area and was kind of holding on to everything like a, so like a bag of groceries of this little trauma and this and they are holding on to it. Um, and so I had to start processing that um with a doctor, like we did a phone call every two weeks. And and at first it's awful, you're like, oh, my God, what do I talk, you know, and talk about my personal things and it felt awful to do it at first. Um, and then I did it and then.

• 1:02:34Speaker 00

  Gradually, it kind of, I started processing things and then I could release them, the emotions and, and then, and then the weight loss kind of came. But because I wasn't working, I, I did do crazy workouts. Like I was working out like two hours, two and a half hours a day. Um, to help, you know, to help accelerate it. I was cooking my own meals. I was, you know, concentrating on eating high protein meals. And like, I was just doing all the right things because I didn't have any stress of work. And, um, and I was just like, okay, this is gonna be it. But the real thing was the emotional.

• 1:03:13Steven Bartlett?

  What, what are those bags that you let go of emotionally?

• 1:03:16Speaker 00

  I think a lot of it, like, I don't think I would have been able to write this book if I hadn't have done that emotional work with the doctor. Because, um, there were just stuff that I suppressed. You know, a lot of stuff about my father and my complicated relationship with him and, and the sadness of him dying. Um, uh, he suddenly had a heart attack and, and died, right? You know, close after Pitch Perfect One came out. Um, and I think just all these little things in my childhood, um, that, you know, you, I just, I guess I never thought that that was associated with my weight, but it obviously was.

• 1:04:00Speaker 00

  And because I hadn't processed the things, it was, was like I was holding on to barriers. It was like the weight was a barrier, one for like intimacy, for example. You know, I never wanted a relationship or wanted to be attractive or whatever. And the weight was kind of a barrier because that kept all the people away.

• 1:04:19Steven Bartlett?

  Do you, do you believe that? I've heard that from psychologists a few times, even on this podcast before. I've heard one particular guy called Johann Hari, who wrote a book called Lost Connections, tell me that in a study where they looked at, um, Women who were clinically obese and then they put them through a weight loss program. They found that some of the women would then regain weight and the catalyst for that was them being hit on. They discovered in those women that there was early sort of abuse or there was issues. So they made this link that sometimes we use weight as a defence from sort of sexual advances or.

• 1:04:52Speaker 00

  And I definitely was because I wanted to be in the fat funny friend role, which I played quite well in real life and on screen. Because I didn't, you know, I didn't want somebody to be coming home with me and then seeing how I really lived or felt, you know.

• 1:05:08Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 1:05:09Speaker 00

  I don't know. I guess I just was embarrassed or.

• 1:05:13Steven Bartlett?

  Do you remember men or women hitting on you at any point in your twenties and then actively rejecting them or?

• 1:05:20Speaker 00

  So I literally was like, for some people like, um, but didn't anybody come up to you or whatever? I was like, no, like, I honestly don't remember one person. Um, apart from the little boyfriend I had when I was sixteen, which was the most innocent thing ever where we just held hands and maybe kissed once. But anyways, uh, when I got famous from Pitch Perfect, there was like a waiter at Chateau Marmont that like gave me his number. And like, you know, basically said, you know, uh, take me home with you tonight kind of thing. And I was shocked and I was there with my buddy Matt Lucas and I was like, what do I do with this? Like, it was kind of like the first attention.

• 1:06:00Speaker 00

  So only when I started like noticing any attention was when I became very successful. So that did, I almost felt like I was invisible attractiveness wise until that point.

• 1:06:16Steven Bartlett?

  Did you text the waiter?

• 1:06:17Speaker 00

  No, I didn't. But Matt goes, you should have. What are you doing? Go for it. And I go, Matt, no. Like, I was so shy in that area. I was like, I'm not just gonna bring a waiter home from the Chateau Marmont. Um, we've had get a lot of people from prison as well. When I became famous, they'd like DM you. And like go, I'll be my wife and all this stuff. And I'm like, oh my god. Like, but no, like, I just, unless I was just so blocked off to that, I didn't notice anything.

• 1:06:46Steven Bartlett?

  You know.

• 1:06:47Speaker 00

  But.

• 1:06:47Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, when a woman in particular gets over thirty, what I've heard.

• 1:06:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:51Steven Bartlett?

  And especially considering some of my friends who are women over thirty.

• 1:06:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Steven Bartlett?

  Is people around them sometimes start getting a bit pushy.

• 1:06:58Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:06:58Steven Bartlett?

  Like their friends start, you know, come on, Rebel, come on, I'll go for him, I'll give him a chance.

• 1:07:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:04Steven Bartlett?

  Did you feel that sort of external pressure at all from people around you?

• 1:07:06Speaker 00

  We believe my father would always say, oh, on the limited times we'd talk, oh, are you seeing anybody? I'd always get so angry at that question. I'd like, why is he asking me that? As if I'd wanna get married like him and my mum were and how terrible that was. And I'd always just get angry at it and just be like, no, and just like, I don't know, just shut down about that issue.

• 1:07:32Steven Bartlett?

  Is it because it came from him, who was?

• 1:07:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, in particular. And I was like, oh, God, like, out of all the people to say something. Most people didn't, didn't say anything, but I know there is that pressure, like, for single women over thirty. You just get like a little bit and, but I felt it more in my later thirties. Um, and I, I went on a dating app at one point to like, try to meet people.

• 1:08:02Steven Bartlett?

  How did that go?

• 1:08:02Speaker 00

  Cause I was like, well, I actually met some good people.

• 1:08:05Steven Bartlett?

  In your life?

• 1:08:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was that dating app, um, Raya, that has some celebrities on it.

• 1:08:10Steven Bartlett?

  They weren't letting me on it. I tried when I was eighteen.

• 1:08:12Speaker 00

  What?

• 1:08:12Steven Bartlett?

  I tried when I was eighteen. Oh, I didn't have anything going on in my life, but I tried. And the problem is.

• 1:08:15Speaker 00

  You would have been great.

• 1:08:17Steven Bartlett?

  I think now, I think they give me a shot now, but back then, I submitted my application when I was like nineteen. So they're still looking at the same application and I'm still in the waiting list.

• 1:08:24Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:08:25Steven Bartlett?

  But now I'm in a relationship and I don't need that, so.

• 1:08:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, you don't need it now. So it's their loss. Um, but I was, yeah, I would know, I went on and I, you know, dated a few great guys and actually had, had fun and it was good. But I had to, because I was so behind the eight ball on dating and love and relationships. Like I had to, almost like in my year of health, I had to do like a year of love experiment before. I did that before year of health, um, to like, kind of. Put myself out there, which was hard and challenging. Like it's awful going on dates and you've got to get all dressed up and you know, and then go and have it lunch or dinner with someone that you might not know whether there's any chemistry and.

• 1:09:07Steven Bartlett?

  And you were a virgin until thirty five.

• 1:09:09Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah, that's right, yeah.

• 1:09:10Steven Bartlett?

  So going on those dates, is there, is there anxiety in your brain? Because you know, if this date goes well, there might be an expectation that I go to the bedroom with this individual.

• 1:09:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, that was all later. I mean, weirdly, the, the guy I lost my virginity to at thirty five, I was, I was set up with and, and I think part of why I think I might have been attractive was because I was in like a number one movie at the time and whatever. And that guy was like, uh, an awesome guy and I'd met him and I'd waited so long at that point. I really wanted to lose my virginity to someone who I was really, really into and I, and I just, I really liked this guy. I thought he was so funny and cute and, um, and potentially like marriage material at the time I met him. And so, and so when I did my year of love experiment, that was like a few years later.

• 1:10:01Speaker 00

  So obviously, I, I mean, I don't think I could have done it if I was still a virgin and going on all these dates because, um, at least I had some experience by that point. But I dated like fifty people in the one year in, in twenty nineteen, um, to just get some, I don't know, like to find it like, cause I just was behind the eight ball. I'd never dated probably, um, so I needed to get some experience in that area and, and legitimately trying to find the one. But, um, yeah, it didn't, didn't quite work out.

• 1:10:35Steven Bartlett?

  You mentioned that you experimented with a Zenpak.

• 1:10:38Speaker 00

  Oh, I did, but I wish I'd known about it in twenty twenty.

• 1:10:41Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm, it wasn't big then.

• 1:10:42Speaker 00

  No, I didn't even, if I had known about it, I would have tried it a hundred percent. Um, but more for, uh, once I'd lost like.

• 1:10:52Speaker 00

  Thirty five kilos. I was like, I can't continue working out and having this level of focus. Like, I can't. And I was very worried that the weight would come back on. And then now, like, I mean, now I have gained back um ten kilos or so because of um, I guess, having a baby. I I just can't work out in the level that I used to. And then I directed a movie, which was a lot of sitting on a chair all day long and being stressed, still stress eating. And which I'll get under control when I'm, you know, not working seven days a week. Um, uh, and so I've tried it for a few months for like, weight management, I guess you'd call it.

• 1:11:35Speaker 00

  Um, I definitely noticed that it it did. I have like an unlimited ability to eat sweets and chocolate and ice cream and stuff. And that drug helped um for me not to feel full.

• 1:11:48Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:48Speaker 00

  Whereas I wouldn't feel like that before I would just could eat a ton of it, like, you know. Um, so so I actually actually liked it, but um, yeah, I know, I think, I actually think for people like me, those drugs can be really effective. But obviously, I'm not on it right now, but maybe if I, you know, prescribed it by a doctor, I'd go back on it.

• 1:12:12Steven Bartlett?

  When you lose weight, your resonance with your audience changes as well.

• 1:12:17Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:18Steven Bartlett?

  Because to, I mean, I think Adele spoke to it as well. And when she lost a lot of weight, she, there was a backlash.

• 1:12:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I think there was some people going, oh, she won't be funny anymore. But then I had this movie come out, Senior Era, play a cheerleader who went into a coma and then wakes up twenty years later. And uh, that was my first big comedy. And it got something like eighty nine million unique Netflix accounts. Watched it in the first ten days around the world, which was huge, huge, huge numbers. So I was like, oh, well, I think they're probably, people are wrong about that I won't be funny anymore or.

• 1:12:53Steven Bartlett?

  But did they feel let down?

• 1:12:54Speaker 00

  I think some people did. It's like, say, if you're in a family and your sibling makes a change for the better, and then you feel like, oh, well, it makes me feel bad because I didn't make the change.

• 1:13:07Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:07Speaker 00

  And it makes me feel not as good about myself, so therefore I'm gonna hate them for for changing. How dare they change? How dare they try to rise above?

• 1:13:16Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:17Speaker 00

  Um, and I think there is. Some attitude, but then you think to those people, what would make them happy? You go like the John Candy way and you die of a heart attack. Or, you know, if something happens to you, like you get some serious. Uh, I mean, my father died of a heart attack with complications with diabetes. So I was like, I was heading towards the diabetes route if I kept going. I was like, well, does that make those people happy? Or you just stay as you are and be unhealthy and then you die prematurely? That's not a great outcome. Like, what do those people want? But I think as a comedian, you have so many different things in your toolkit.

• 1:14:00Speaker 00

  Uh, and mainly they're your personality. And uh, so even though it's easy to go, oh, you have that physical irregularity and that's why people laugh. There are so many other elements. It's not as simplistic as that. And so I just utilize slightly different things.

• 1:14:17Steven Bartlett?

  Have you noticed any change in the way that people book you professionally? Or or respond to your profession or the roles you're given based on your?

• 1:14:23Speaker 00

  Well, now I do a lot more dramatic stuff. I mean, I'm still obviously doing the comedy stuff. I mean, I've just directed a movie, which is a big, huge new career step. But yeah, I've got a movie coming out, The Armond and the Seahorse here in the UK, which is totally serious. And I just played Lady Capulet in a film, which is totally not what you'd think I would, I would do. Uh, and it's awesome, but it's kind of how I started my career doing Shakespeare and stuff. Um, before I was bigger. And so it's kind of coming back now to, to doing that kind of thing. But more I noticed, um, I mean, now I'm kind of in the middle because I'm like, I've gained back some weight.

• 1:15:03Speaker 00

  It was so weird to be, to be someone who walks around the world kind of feeling a bit invisible. Um, attractiveness wise. And then suddenly I lost all this weight and got so much positive validation. Like, it was insane. Like, people would open doors for you or carry your groceries to the car for you or offer to do something for you or whatever. And I just. It was so weird to experience that. And I've experienced both sides of the coin, like to be kind of being invisible in that area and then to be visible. And it was bizarre. It was like the attention and I was like, oh, is this what hot people feel or get all the time? And they get this kind of positive bias in society all the time.

• 1:15:48Speaker 00

  And I got such positive reinforcement for losing weight from the press and from people, like every single person would make some comment about it. And, and it's hard not to fall into liking that. And, you know, now I've just been too stressed being a director that I've kind of gone off the band, health bandwagon, but.

• 1:16:10Steven Bartlett?

  You've got.

• 1:16:10Speaker 00

  I will get back on it.

• 1:16:11Steven Bartlett?

  Forty two years old, you underwent IVF and you had your daughter, Grace.

• 1:16:17Steven Bartlett?

  But it appears you're still a workaholic. You just said earlier about working seven days a week.

• 1:16:21Speaker 00

  I know, I know. I've, I've come off a nine month marathon of seven days a week. I did an action film called Bride Hard, directed my movie, The Deb, written the book. And yeah, so I'm about to have a holiday.

• 1:16:35Steven Bartlett?

  What are you doing it for? Cause you could, you know, you've got multiple houses all over the world. You've got huge success. You've, you've, you've done it rebel.

• 1:16:45Speaker 00

  I know. And I, and my love life, it is a happy story to everyone listening. I, I have an amazing partner, Ramona, who's absolutely incredible partner. And so that story had, had a happy ending as well. I just keep saying to people, oh, I'm going to retire now, you know? And then they're like, yeah, you'll have like two days off and then you'll have some idea for a movie and then you'll want to do it. So I think I'm always that little girl who at the dog shows was like reaching into bins to collect the aluminium cans to earn money because I felt like I didn't have anything because I didn't have any money. And so, so part of me is always that. I have just have this drive to earn money.

• 1:17:28Speaker 00

  And, and that, that motivates me. And then it's weird, like I achieve a goal. And like I remember coming to America, it was just to be in one Hollywood movie. But then you achieve it and then it's not enough. Then you want, you know, and now like, you know, I'd like to win an Oscar. Or, you know, um, have that level of success.

• 1:17:48Steven Bartlett?

  You know, winning the Oscar is gonna change zilch.

• 1:17:50Speaker 00

  I know, probably not. It's really like, there's a curse on some women that win the Oscars. Uh, then they're, sometimes their love life crumbles and they're, they get no jobs for two years when, after they win the Oscar. Sometimes it's like a curse.

• 1:18:03Steven Bartlett?

  You didn't see that in the hallucination, what happened after?

• 1:18:05Speaker 00

  No, I didn't see that. I just saw winning and feeling great about it. I, I mean, I definitely know I need a break over the summer and I will have, have fun times. And I've learnt how to have fun now, cause before, like in my twenties, I didn't even do that. Like, I wouldn't even go on a holiday. I'd be like, no, I have to keep working hard.

• 1:18:21Steven Bartlett?

  Are you, are you concerned, and I'm asking this really for myself here, cause I think I am. Are you concerned that you're gonna look back later in life and go, do you know what? I didn't have my priorities in order.

• 1:18:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe. And so I think having my gorgeous daughter and looking at, at her. She makes me wanna like not work as much. And I think, I didn't know how she was gonna affect my life. Um, and then now, just knowing how much joy it is just to be around her. And it makes me think less about myself and more about her and my family. Um, and so from that level, I wanna, um, not, not work as much and I have to be a bit more selective.

• 1:19:04Steven Bartlett?

  You, one of the things that I found, I have to say awesome, I'm just gonna be honest with you. In your book was, um, well, there's so many things. I love the pictures and the, the whole design of the book and how you weave humour into what I consider to be pretty important lessons of life, but.

• 1:19:22Speaker 00

  Oh, you're holding up the redacted pages.

• 1:19:25Steven Bartlett?

  There's pages that, that just have black lines through them, which means that you've basically removed those sections. Now you.

• 1:19:30Speaker 00

  Well, I didn't remove them.

• 1:19:31Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, the publisher did. The UK publisher did. Because in the, in the UK, the laws are different here around what you can say about instances in your life.

• 1:19:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, and being a qualified lawyer, I know, you know, all about defamation laws.

• 1:19:43Steven Bartlett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:43Speaker 00

  Um, and it's a bit, um.

• 1:19:47Speaker 00

  The the US is a bit more free speech in in terms of defamation laws. And the UK and Australia have higher standards.

• 1:19:56Steven Bartlett?

  This chapter is called Sasha Barracan and Other Other Assholes.

• 1:20:00Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:00Steven Bartlett?

  Now, obviously, I'm just gonna take your lead on this.

• 1:20:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:03Steven Bartlett?

  But um this has been a huge story. And I saw on your Instagram.

• 1:20:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:07Steven Bartlett?

  Some Instagram posts.

• 1:20:08Speaker 00

  It's weird because the book is about my whole why, you know. And yet, this particular chapter has gotten the most attention, I guess, because I'm saying something negative about a male comedian, Sasha Baron Cohen. Um and in it describing like the worst professional experience of my career, which was ten years ago now, on a movie called Grimsby and working with him. And it was an experience that left me feeling humiliated and degraded as a person. And and so that chapter, I guess, because he's come out and uh denied it, it became a a big story.

• 1:20:51Steven Bartlett?

  What can you say about that experience?

• 1:20:55Speaker 00

  I can say why I wrote it. Um and purely why it's redacted is um because it's the publisher that gets sued. And obviously, they they wouldn't want to get um get sued by somebody who's quite litigious. So so that's why they did that. But the story is pretty much out there.

• 1:21:15Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:16Speaker 00

  So you could easily kind of work out uh what I'm talking about in the book. But I wanted to write it because uh my story is not one of um you hear stories, terrible stories of assault and, you know, um thing things in Hollywood. Mine is not that. Uh it's more just. It's kind of a shit situation at work that the forty four year old version of me would have left and would have said, oh, screw you, I'm out of here. I'm, you know, got enough self esteem to leave and know this isn't a good situation for me.

• 1:21:56Steven Bartlett?

  Uh huh.

• 1:21:56Speaker 00

  And then back then, I stayed in it and I did reshoots on the film because I didn't want to be seen as unprofessional. And this was before the Me Too movement. And even though I wasn't being treated great, I just, I thought, oh, well, I have to be professional. Um, and, and I have to stay and, and finish it. Uh, and it was a complicated situation. We were both represented by the same agent at the time. And, um, there are a few things going on. And, and I guess I wrote it so that people, the more people talk about stuff like this, hopefully the less it happens.

• 1:22:35Speaker 00

  And then also, um, just, I think I held shame because I went along with it. And it's such a fine line between comedy, what's comedy and what's playing a character? And then really crossing the line into personal humiliation. Um, and I think on that project, it did, it did cross the line. And I felt shame that I actively went along with it. And so I guess writing it is kind of releasing the emotions I was holding on to for that. And I have no motivation. I mean, I write in the chapter, it's not about cancelling somebody.

• 1:23:17Speaker 00

  It's just about, um, it kind of goes to show why my self worth wasn't, um, wasn't where, where it should have been. And I should have stood up for myself and that's, that's hard. And now the forty four year old version of me would, uh, handle things much, much differently. And it's just, it was ten years ago and it was hard to know what to do, even though I'm a lawyer and I'd made the complaints and did what I could do at the time. I now would act very differently.

• 1:23:52Steven Bartlett?

  This is your life story. This is your memoir. Of all the experiences you've had, Rebel, when you look back through all of these pages and all of these days and all of these sort of seasons of your life, was there a hardest moment?

• 1:24:04Speaker 00

  Oh God, there's been so many hard, hard moments. I think, well, probably the darkest point in my life was when I was about thirteen. And, you know, you hit puberty and you feel all these emotions. And I felt, you know, unlovable, unworthy. My life wasn't gonna be anything. Um, and I was just isolated. We were living out in the bush at that, that point where we had like snakes come crawling on the back porch and bush rats and like, I was just living like, it just was such a dark time. Um, and that was probably the hardest, one of the hardest things.

• 1:24:43Steven Bartlett?

  What's, what's next for Rebel?

• 1:24:45Speaker 00

  What's that? Well, I'm still directing the movie because I've got all the technical elements to do now. So that's a big new challenge and I've directed this very empowering musical. It's very, very joyful and I'm very, it's hilarious. So I'm very proud of that. Um, and then I think, I don't know, I still have, because that vision was I won an Oscar and I haven't won one. So I'd like to do that. But then, you know, I would just like to be more of a mum who has, spends that quality time with their family and is, yeah, is that kind of a person and not so striving.

• 1:25:27Speaker 00

  But I don't know, I always have this thing in me that I'm very driven and working hard and just always had that. But I would like to maybe let go of that.

• 1:25:36Steven Bartlett?

  If you were to go back now to that thirteen year old Rebel, that was going through all of those sort of challenges in her mind. And you could tell something, say something to her, that would better equipped her to, um, for the next sort of twenty years to come. Cause there's gonna be lots of, you know, young women that are struggling with all the things you described and young men.

• 1:25:55Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, and I know what it's like to feel invisible, to be so lonely, isolated, to just not feel like you have anything going. For you, like I was just a pretty average, I mean, I was smart, I always had been smart, but like, it's average. No one really looked twice or thought twice about me and, and, and I know what it's like, but it's, if you wanna be determined and you wanna change your life, like you can. And you don't have to stay in that situation, like you can. Actively do things to make your life better and to make it more how you want. And I mean, at the time, I just had to tell myself that. There was nobody around to to tell me that.

• 1:26:39Speaker 00

  But to those young people out there, I just think um you you can, like, you can actively take steps to do it. And a great thing is the creative arts because, which can be so many different things, like writing or painting or uh not not just acting and being on a stage. All those things, because you might not know what your voice is or how to express yourself. And those kind of areas are so important because it can help you find your voice.

• 1:27:11Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:27:11Speaker 00

  Um, and so I would say to like, to try to encourage you to go into that, those kind of pursuits, even if it's just something you do in your bedroom with a notebook and you're writing song lyrics or you're yeah, writing a diary or something. Um, that form of creative expression can be really, really useful.

• 1:27:33Steven Bartlett?

  And you're the prime example of that in many respects. You went from being that extremely shy individual to the point, as you say, that people thought it was some kind of social disorder um to being a Hollywood mega star. You also went, in the personal context, you went from being someone who lost their virginity at thirty five years old and wasn't in a relationship and was very sort of clearly avoidant.

• 1:27:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:27:53Steven Bartlett?

  To being.

• 1:27:54Speaker 00

  Which I do slightly regret now. Like, I was like, oh, maybe. But then, yeah, again, I do believe that I wouldn't have the career that I had if I'd focused more on relationships and and health before that.

• 1:28:07Steven Bartlett?

  There's a lot of people out there that are arriving, maybe in their late thirties.

• 1:28:11Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:28:12Steven Bartlett?

  And that maybe have hear that clock ticking.

• 1:28:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:15Steven Bartlett?

  And then they reflect on the decisions they've made over the last twenty years and they say, you know what, actually, I hear the clock ticking and I do want a family. A lot of people also say, I hear the clock ticking. I don't. Some people just don't hear the clock ticking at all.

• 1:28:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:27Steven Bartlett?

  Um, but there's a lot of people that are arriving at that age and going, okay, the priorities I had in hindsight now, maybe I'll.

• 1:28:38Steven Bartlett?

  Maybe I got something wrong here earlier and it's difficult. And I think that's really what your, your book does so well is it's so honest about that sort of internal conversation you had with yourself about, okay, there are changes I need to be made, made if I want to achieve something else and I've decided I want something else. And throughout your whole story, it's so clear that you can change.

• 1:28:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:58Steven Bartlett?

  And it's never too late to change and it's.

• 1:29:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I really, if anybody listening is like a late bloomer like, like me, I mean, I don't think there's any shame in that. And that's one of the reasons why I put that virginity story in the book, because like, on the one hand, it's very embarrassing for me to say that, but then if that helps other people out there feel like, oh, you know, okay, well Rebel was like that and look at the life she has now. And so I would want them to not feel embarrassed about that because it doesn't really matter when you bloom, like what age or, you know, things have come to me later in life, but I think all that matters is that it has come to me. Now, why am I saying the word come so much? Talking about

• 1:29:45Speaker 00

  virginity, I don't know. But I, yeah, I just, I'm glad that my life turned out, you know, I didn't get all these awesome things in my twenties. It, it happened later and, and that's okay.

• 1:30:00Steven Bartlett?

  We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for. And the question that's been left for you is, those people that you love the most, what is preventing you from spending enough time hugging them? Are you able to change this?

• 1:30:21Speaker 00

  Okay, so what's, so the people I love the most, obviously apart from my family is like my, you know, my, my immediate family is my daughter and my partner. And what's preventing me from hugging them the most is literally physically not being with them because I'm like out, out promoting the book and, or if I'm shooting something and it's not appropriate for the baby to come. So, so not physically being in the same country or, or city as them because I'm working too much.

• 1:30:56Steven Bartlett?

  And it says, are you able to change this?

• 1:30:58Speaker 00

  And I, and I am able to change it by not just accepting too much work and.

• 1:31:07Speaker 00

  Um, you know, prioritising the family more.

• 1:31:12Steven Bartlett?

  Rebel, your book is incredible. It's incredible for so many reasons because it seeks to answer those really critical questions that I think a lot of people are struggling with, which is about romance, it's about fertility, it's about, am I good enough? It's about finding love, it's about, it's an honest reflection of what I think a lot of workaholics go through in the modern era, while also weaving in a story which I don't think many people know about your early childhood and where you've really come from, and all the odds you've had to fight against coming from where you've come from to get to where you ended up, really remarkable in every sense of the word, but you confront the trade-offs, which a lot of people don't always talk about, those trade-offs we all have to make, because as you said in this conversation, you can't have it all in life. And so, you know, you can't have it all at the same time.

• 1:31:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:31:53Steven Bartlett?

  For sure.

• 1:31:54Speaker 00

  You can probably have it all, just not at the same time.

• 1:31:56Steven Bartlett?

  Yes. And even, yeah, and life just presents these trade-offs, especially for people that are anomalies, they have to make even bigger trade-offs than others. It's a remarkably funny book, um, in such a subtle, untry-hard way, which is.

• 1:32:09Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, that's good.

• 1:32:10Steven Bartlett?

  But even you in conversation are the same, you're funny without even trying, which is remarkable. And The Almond and the Seahorse, I, I was told it was coming out on the 10th of May.

• 1:32:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, in cinemas here in the UK.

• 1:32:21Steven Bartlett?

  So it's out now and everyone can go and watch it.

• 1:32:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that's about traumatic brain injury, it's very serious, uh, movie. And that was where I kissed my first woman in that movie, the French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg.

• 1:32:33Steven Bartlett?

  And the rest is history.

• 1:32:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, yeah, part of my, big part of my life on screen.

• 1:32:38Steven Bartlett?

  Rebel, thank you.

• 1:32:39Speaker 00

  Thank you, Stephen, and I really appreciate it. And it is my most vulnerable intimate thoughts put out there. Um, but yeah, even if like 10 people relate to it and get something positive out of it, that's like, that means the world to me. And, um, so even while it's nerve-wracking having the book out there, it's, it's awesome at the same time.