Luke Evans, Sarah Solemani & Elizabeth Day: The Making of The Party

Luke Evans and Sarah Solemani join Elizabeth to talk about the journey of Elizabeth’s 2017 novel The Party to its new five-part ITV adaptation. Luke stars as the show’s protagonist, Martin Gilmour, and Sarah stars as his wife, Lucy… oh and she also brilliantly adapted the novel for screen. The trio discuss the making of this exciting new drama for TV, how Luke discovered the book and kick-started the process and what the show is about. They discuss themes including: sexuality, the class system in the UK, shame, women leading production, culture on sets in today’s world and friendship. This bonus episode is brought to you by @arlalactoFREE - all the taste, easier to digest. IN THIS EPISODE 00:00 Introduction 01:42 Luke Discovers the Novel 02:51 Finding the Screenwriter 04:45 Adapting Into Five Episodes 07:13 What The Party Is About 09:44 Casting Lucy and Onscreen Marriage 13:04 Collaboration and Set Rewrites 18:09 Women Leading the Production 19:35 Set Culture and Final Day Speech 21:15 Author Visits Set and Craft Details 22:26 Friendship, Desire and Identity 25:08 Class, Shame and Final Takeaways WANT MORE? Luke Evans - swap.fm/l/2AAJhVeDNGdKIJGdznR9 LINKS + MENTIONS: The Party starts Sunday 11th October 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX. The series airs for three consecutive nights: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, concluding with the fourth and final episode the following Sunday 18th and Monday 19th. Or you can binge all five episodes on ITVX. Join the How To Fail community: www.howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Elizabeth’s Substack: www.theelizabethday.substack.com Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories Instagram: @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod Podcast Instagram: @howtofailpod Website: www.elizabethday.org Join our community of subscribers here: https://lnk.to/7i0moR Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: askhowtofail.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Shania Manderson Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Alex Lawless How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] LOVE THIS EPISODE? Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Elizabeth Day?

  This episode of How to Fail is brought to you by Ala Lacto Free. Hello and welcome to this very special bonus episode of How to Fail. Today, I wanted to share with you what can only be described as my own decade-long failure to get my work adapted for TV. But we can rejoice because it's finally happening and it was totally worth the wait. A five-part drama based on my 2017 novel, The Party, is coming out this Sunday. And although I'm biased, I do think it's really rather excellent. And the reason it's really rather excellent is largely because of the two people I have sitting in front of me. They are my trusted creative collaborators who have also now become dear friends, Luke Evans and Sarah Solomani.

• 0:46Elizabeth Day?

  Luke is a How to Fail alumnus. You can hear his episode from 2024 in our back catalogue. He plays Martin Gilmour, the protagonist of The Party. Sarah Solemani is Luke's on-screen wife, Lucy. She also adapted the novel brilliantly for screen and is the show's showrunner. Before we dive in, here's a little teaser of what you will see on ITV.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Can you tell us what you were doing at Denby Hall, Martin? Where were you at the time of the shooting?

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Just forget all the nonsense of the past for one night. What happened at university between you and Ben? There's a story out there. We are in this together. We always have been.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  This is all coming out now.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  You have to tell them everything.

• 1:28Speaker 03

  I can't.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  Can he ever tell the truth?

• 1:38Elizabeth Day?

  Confession time. I have a tendency to postpone certain decisions for far longer than is sensible. Not the big life decisions, oddly enough, those I can usually handle. It's the smaller ones that somehow become disproportionately complicated. For me, rugs fall squarely into that category. I've known for a long time that a rug can completely change how a room feels, but I've always found sizing for a space tricky. That's why Ernesta appealed to me. Ernesta makes designer-quality rugs custom-cut to the exact dimensions of your space. So instead of making do with something that's close enough, you're choosing something made specifically for your home.

• 2:19Elizabeth Day?

  I also love the fact that you can order five oversized 12 by 12 samples for just $10 before committing. And Ernesta's design team will help with sizing completely free of charge. Visit ernestacom and order five samples for only $10 and you'll get $50 towards any rug of your choice. That's ernestacom. What a joy to be sitting here with both of you. Thank you for making the time in your very busy schedules. Perhaps we could start, Luke, with you. For anyone who hasn't already heard this story, how did you come across The Party in the first instance?

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Well, it was Covid and a friend of mine had read your book and said, you should read this. It's really good and there's a really good character in it that you could play. And of course, that spiked my interest immediately. So I bought it, picked it up. Probably the fastest read I've ever had because it is a proper page-turner. And I immediately could see how this story could be segmented into a very fun, exciting, gripping thriller. The first step, of course, is how do you turn a novel into a script?

• 3:42Speaker 03

  And that requires a lot of work. Very clever people write scripts, I've realised, because I have tried and it is not, will never be part of my CV. That's when we came to this wonderful, talented person here, Sarah Solemani, who we met via Zoom. Via Zoom, you were in Los Angeles and God knows where I was. And immediately, I mean, now I know you as a person, you ask many questions. You're a curious person, which is obviously a wonderful thing as a writer. And you are very similar too, actually. You always ask lots of questions. It must be something that writers do because you gain so much knowledge and you talked about to me personally on such a level, I often forgot that we were actually, you know, thinking about the book.

• 4:27Speaker 03

  You were just asking me about me. But of course, it all informed so much when you finally said yes to doing it.

• 4:32Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, and I'm so grateful to you for multiple reasons. And one of them is that you kept the faith for that length of time. And when I got an email saying Luke Evans is interested and then Sarah Solemani is up for potentially adapting it, I was so thrilled. And I did not think it would happen. I was like, no, there's no way. These are two A-list talents. There's absolutely no way it's going to come off. And it has. And that is so largely thanks to you, Sarah. And I can't thank you enough for doing this. I've been a longtime admirer of yours as an actor and as a writer. And yes, we met over Zoom as well. And you looked terrifyingly chic because you had slicked-back peroxide blonde hair and you were dialing in from Palm Springs. I was like, oh my gosh.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  A writer's retreat.

• 5:19Elizabeth Day?

  Can you tell us a bit about the nuts and bolts of taking a novel and turning it into five one-hour episodes of television? Where do you start with that?

• 5:30Speaker 04

  When you read anything, you just trust your instincts. And when I first read your brilliant book, I was just taken by the story. I just could see the characters. I could see, I knew, I felt like I knew the world. I related to the idea of a young, working-class boy getting into this boarding school and it changing his life and even his class. It's funny because with TV shows I write, I can often know the first scene and I know the last scene and I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to get from one to the other.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  And then that, to me, is the joy of writing because I know where I'm going to get. And I just write. And then you know from when you've got the sort of five laid out, you know if you're doing one a disservice or you're making a move that doesn't feel quite right, but you don't know, you don't know why.

• 6:33Elizabeth Day?

  That makes such sense now as to why we get on so well, because that's how I write books.

• 6:39Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 6:39Elizabeth Day?

  I know the beginning and I know the end. And then my characters inform how we get there.

• 6:44Speaker 04

  Right, wow.

• 6:45Elizabeth Day?

  So there's often a point when 20,000 words from the end of a manuscript, I'm like, what do I do now? Because I've got to tie up all of these loose ends. But that's so interesting because I think, hopefully in the book, but definitely in the show, it is so character-led. And yes, it's a thriller and it's riveting and it's entertaining and fun and there are lots of twists in it, but the characters are so deep and layered and believable.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 7:10Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. Thank you both. What is the show about? Okay, give us your pitch for anyone who hasn't seen it trailed already. Luke, what for you is it about?

• 7:20Speaker 03

  Well, I would say the story revolves around two principal characters called Martin Gilmore and Ben Fitzmaurice. The story itself revolves around three timelines. One is the present, which is The Party itself. One is past the present, which is the police investigation because of what happens. And then there is these several different timeline flashbacks of Martin and Ben and where they originate from and how they become part of each other's lives. Through those three timelines, we're introduced to the other people that are part of these characters' lives.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Sarah is Lucy, Martin's pregnant wife. Lydia Leonard plays Serena, which is Ben's wife. But also you see these characters in their younger selves as well. It's a story of loyalty, of almost obsessive loyalty, of an outsider who really wants to belong and comes from not belonging anywhere. It's a very interesting, very topical observation of the British hierarchical class system, which I would say is as prevalent now as it's ever been, even if we think it isn't.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  It takes you on a journey of questioning what one would do for a friend when you sacrifice so much by making decisions, not for yourself but for someone else. And the destruction and the toxicity and the pain and the damage that causes not just you, but everyone around you. And I feel like that, to me, is what is the crux of my character's journey, but also of Ben's character. And but it's all wrapped up in this celebration of this wonderful, beautiful, coloured, very wealthy, opulent party where, you know, behind the scenes, it's a quivering house of cards.

• 9:32Elizabeth Day?

  That is so well explained.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  Can you write every single word?

• 9:37Elizabeth Day?

  You need to lie down now.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  I need a glass of gin.

• 9:40Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, you need to know. That was astonishing. Thank you. Nailed it. And as you mentioned there, Luke, Sarah, you play a married couple on screen. You'd never met each other before filming this show, had you?

• 9:52Speaker 03

  No, no. Once Sarah had said, I would love to play Lucy. In my mind, that was it. It was a done deal. It was concrete. And at one point you were questioning it because you're so busy and you live in LA and you've got young children. And I was freaking out because at that point I was already, you know, I quickly start to solidify things. It's a very bad thing that actors shouldn't do because in television and film you do change a lot of stuff, even on the day, as we did. But I often need, it sort of gives me a backbone to stop worrying. And I knew, even though I'd never worked with you, that I was, I was like, she's Lucy. And I just knew that I had to go on the journey with you.

• 10:37Elizabeth Day?

  Wow.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  So the moment where you were questioning whether you could make it work, you wanted to do it, but whether you could make it work. I was like, no, no, no, please tell her that she has to make this happen because I, I saw the journey with you, you know? And so it was, yeah.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  Thank you for that.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  That was how I feel.

• 10:52Elizabeth Day?

  And you were brilliant, Lucy, and it's a complicated role to play for various reasons that will become clear when people watch the show. What was that experience like for you, sort of getting to know Luke on set? I mean, I think most people would be like, I'm happy to get to know Luke Evans.

• 11:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:10Elizabeth Day?

  But is he an actual nightmare behind closed doors?

• 11:13Speaker 04

  Well, I didn't know, you never know what someone's really like until you start, you know, you do a production. You have lots of challenges. You are getting to know a person really in conflict more than when things are a smooth sailing. And I didn't know, I didn't know him before we agreed to do the show together. But the first sort of sign that he was this very special person and creative was when he received the scripts and I'd really fleshed out the female characters and gone into these other storylines and, and the wives and the mother.

• 11:57Speaker 04

  And, and I, I didn't know how he'd respond to, to not centering on him and Tom's character. And he really embraced the scripts and I said, I didn't, do you mind that it's less of you here or there? And he went, no, that's what makes it better. That's what makes a good story. And that relaxed me a bit because I, I, I felt that he understood to make a really good show would be about a collaborative experience. And then I got lucky because he, he, I hate people who gush, you know, actors who gush over each other. But the truth is Luke is the my dream kind of actor because he takes the work really seriously, but he doesn't take himself seriously.

• 12:43Speaker 04

  And I was actually working with Nicole Kidman. I'd written a show with David E. Kelly for Nicole Kidman and me and Nicole were on a Zoom and I said, I'm thinking of doing this show with Luke Evans, who just worked with him on Nine Perfect Strangers, which I, and she went, he's just, he's the best. And she was right. Thank you, Nicole Kidman. Thank you, Nicole Kidman.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  That's lovely.

• 13:04Elizabeth Day?

  You mentioned there that sometimes things would change on set as you're filming. I'm really interested to hear more about that. Like, how much of your role ended up being ad libbing according to circumstance, Luke? And how much Sarah did you have to sort of rewrite on the fly? Were there things that kind of went wrong and had to be worked around? And, and the final question of sort of multiple questions in one. It is so current, this show, and I wrote The Party originally in 2015, 2016. It was published in 2017. In the 10 years since, so much has changed politically. And there is a line in there, for instance, about reform, which is one of the zingers, one of the many zingers of the show.

• 13:47Elizabeth Day?

  But how much were you writing to current affairs as well? Shall I start with you, Luke?

• 13:53Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, I mean, I can come from an actor's POV of this, which is you very rarely have a writer on set, you know, or a showrunner that's there. Because usually they're holed up in a hotel with a computer, going through the notes in the studio. And you see them every couple of weeks and they look more and more like Gollum because they haven't seen sunlight, you know? And having Sarah on set with us every day with our scenes, we talk them through. And, and then when we, and sometimes change them, not that we changed a lot, to be honest with you. But what was lovely was Sarah was often there when she wasn't in the scene.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  And, I mean, I love being directed by people who were actors most of the time because they understand how we think. And we do think differently to directors. And sometimes you're with directors who are a bit dictatorial, slightly inhumane. They don't get that you have a process as well, you know, and, and just do it, you know? And sometimes if you, if you're in the actor's position, sometimes you go, I can do it, but I know there's a better way to do this or a better way to say this. My delivery is not coming out and you would always pick up on it. And every time that happened, you'd go, you'd just come in and you'd just whisper something in my ear. And of course, we have to say how wonderful Vivian, the director is because she allowed this and she was very collaborative.

• 15:12Speaker 03

  And she understood that having you there was such value. Then, so when you were there and when you'd come up and you'd go, try this one, and she'd whisper something in my ear. And then she'd wander off sneakily through the crowd, back to the playback screens and, and we'd try it. And, and that, you know, I come from theatres. I love that sort of trying new things every night and seeing if they work. And, and often they do because it's, it was instantaneous. And I think that's my POV, but I'm sure as a writer, when you're watching something and you see something is very, very different.

• 15:43Speaker 04

  To your question about the ad libbing, really the secret, there's a musicality to screenwriting. There's a rhythm, especially with our show, which it is a drama, but there's a lot of funny beats. There's a lot of comic moments. There's a lot of satire. And really the secret to that is the casting because if it's cast right, the actor sings the music you've written. And, and it's just, it's the closest I'll ever come to being a musician, you know, I can't play the instruments. But when I watch the tapes and I see the actors saying the lines and it's exactly how I had it in my head. You, you, you don't need ad libbing because they've connected to it, sort of, they've, they've connected to the musicality of it.

• 16:28Speaker 04

  The joy of being an actor on your own show that you've written is that people don't tend to ad lib because you're there.

• 16:37Elizabeth Day?

  Keeping an eye.

• 16:38Speaker 04

  With the lines that you've written and, and you've laboured over the lines and they're there for a reason and you've tweaked them. And, and Luke was so specific, even in the opening scene, I'd put in a stage direction, he clears his throat. And, and he did that. So it was very precise writing. So it was a joy for, for, for me just to see it be, all the actors be so loyal to the writing.

• 17:10Elizabeth Day?

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

• 17:55Elizabeth Day?

  If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 50 minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail. When I was writing the original versions of Martin and Ben, I had a mood board of very handsome men on this mood board, but Martin in my eyes was kind of sort of slightly fae and Freddie Fox-like. And I had.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  And he wasn't available, so.

• 18:24Elizabeth Day?

  No, that wasn't the case. When obviously Luke came on board, I was like, God, that's incredible. And I know what an amazing actor he is. And whilst he wasn't initially the physical representation of Martin I'd had in my mind, as soon as I saw you that day on set, you walked out dressed as Martin, having just done a take. And honestly, I did a double take thinking, that's Martin, that's Martin. Because you were wearing a suit that was like brown and slightly cheaper material than the other suits. But you were dressed so like Martin and the way that you inhabit this character, I can now see Martin no other way than through your performance.

• 19:06Elizabeth Day?

  And one of the things I'm excited about is you touched on Sarah foregrounding the, the women a lot more. And I'd love you to speak a bit to that and why that was important to you. And also, we should say, Vivian Anderegan, who you mentioned there, the director, a relative rarity still to have a female director and a female showrunner at the helm.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, she's, she was an incredible filmmaker. We were so lucky to have her. And, you know, we were there for months together. We had young children. And we became like a collaborative duo, making the show together. And that was an incredible experience.

• 19:40Elizabeth Day?

  Can you tell us, if you don't mind, about the, your final shoot day and you gave a speech? You said something about how The Party had been a really meaningful experience for so many people on the cast and crew.

• 19:57Speaker 04

  Yes, that was, that was one of the beautiful things. It felt like, well, I think Luke, both Luke and I, we want to not just make good work, but we want people to have a good experience. And we don't want to, we're not the type of actors that think that you have to really suffer and everyone has to be uncomfortable for it to be good. No, that the experience on the set should be good. It should be something that you have a good memory about and no one has to be really uncomfortable and suffering in order to make something. And, and people come up to us and, and people were invested in the story. It, it, it wasn't just entertainment. Everyone understood that.

• 20:37Speaker 04

  And the only people that didn't understand that were the supporting artists on the set because they hadn't read the scripts. And they were there, you know, in the cold Welsh winter, in not very many clothes. And I realised, God, we haven't told them the story. So. During lunch, we gathered them all and I said, this is so important, what you're lending, you know, your time and your bodies and your call to, this is the story. And I told them from beginning to end and they were, oh wow, okay. And it changed the energy of the set and it was a good lesson to me to always include the essays in what you're making.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Not to expect that they know.

• 21:17Speaker 04

  They're not to expect, they know, they don't get sent the scripts.

• 21:21Elizabeth Day?

  And I was very struck because it was my first time on a drama set and I got to be a supporting artist. It's my first demand as executive producer. I did, I was like, don't care about anything else, have at it, but I do need to be on set. And I remember being so humbled by the scale of the enterprise and by the sheer talent on view. And it wasn't just the amazing actor, and every single actor knocks it out of the park in this show, in my opinion. It was the man who ensured that my plastic glass filled with what looked like champagne, but was actually sparkling elderflower cordial, was taken at the end of every scene.

• 22:03Elizabeth Day?

  And there was a line marked on that glass to ensure for continuity that it would be exactly the same level the next time the camera started rolling. It's right down to wardrobe, to the people who dressed Luke as Martin in that perfect brown suit, the hair and makeup people.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  The blood spatters every day. We'd go back to those scenes for like a week and they would have photographs and have to put the blood marks in exactly the same place and wet the blood and, you know, that stuff, nobody sees and it is artistry.

• 22:32Elizabeth Day?

  One of the ways in which the show differs slightly from the book is that Ben and Martin's friendship has many layers to it and becomes more nuanced. How important was that for you, Luke, to explore?

• 22:48Speaker 03

  This is a friendship slash relationship slash slash sexual dynamic I've rarely seen

• 22:57Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  in a good TV drama, you know, and, and yes, we do definitely take their relationship to a further level, deeper level than it goes in the book. But I think it's his representation of what some people go through. I would hope it's not a common thing, but it certainly does exist within society. And I don't know whether that answers your question, but it definitely, it's painful, like it sort of makes me emotional. When I got to these certain scenes with Martin, where, you know, he finally releases this cloud, this darkness, this shadow that's been following him.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  I just felt this overwhelming emotional like release, possibly because I am a gay man and I remember leaving home and I had to leave home to find my identity, to find my, my family, my, my, my, my non-blood relation family and my people. I did it much earlier than Martin did it, but I remember that feeling. And of course, he's in his late 30s, early 40s, I was a late teenager. But it's something that only gay people ever experience, you know? That suppression when everyone else is celebrating their first girlfriend and their first boyfriend. And a lot of gay kids grow up not being able to do that.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  And when you do finally find that, whether you're, you know, a late, you know, coming out, I often struggle with that phrase, but finding yourself, seeing your real, seeing yourself, you know? It's an, it's a euphoric thing. And I think I felt that in certain scenes with Martin, where I just felt that, that strange positive PTSD moment of that, you know?

• 24:50Elizabeth Day?

  And thank you for using your own experiences to give this character such depth. Because it can be very difficult for people to live an authentic life. And sometimes that's a privilege to live an authentic life from an early age. Some, some of us, it takes, it takes an endless amount of time to get there. And, and that brings us on to class, which is another major theme of this show. And Sarah, you said something so interesting to me about how, yes, the British have a complicated relationship with class, but we also have a complicated relationship with putting it on screen. Can you delve into that a little bit more?

• 25:31Speaker 04

  Well, that's why I was so thrilled to read your book, because I've been trying to get a story on the screen of a character that crosses class boundaries. Because I feel that's when you get class consciousness, when you realise the material circumstances of your own life are different to other people. And they say a British man is born branded on the tongue. The way he speaks will determine his material life. And I couldn't get it on, I couldn't get various films, TV shows on screen and they, it felt like the British class system itself was deciding the genre of something. So people go, Downton Abbey, Ken Loach, what are you trying to make? I'm like, well, I wanna, I wanna mix it up.

• 26:16Speaker 04

  Talking about class sometimes sounds quite like sixth form social studies. It's like, oh, we're, we're beyond that now. But when you look at something like Covid and you look at the group of people who have presented themselves as the people that are supposed to govern us and make good decisions for us, you realise that the class system does disadvantage people if it doesn't represent the people of the country. So there is a bit of that in there, there is, there is the politics of that and also the education system. Luke's character's life is changed because he gets into a certain school. And we know that a certain school breeds our prime ministers, which I felt like we should address.

• 27:02Elizabeth Day?

  There are so many things I wish I'd known when I started this podcast and my production company, Daylight. Like, why am I spending hours trying to make a website look good? Why am I designing everything from scratch? And why am I spending all my time just doing admin? What I really needed was one place that could do all of this for me. Enter Shopify. Shopify has beautiful, ready-made templates that make your website look polished without needing to become a graphic designer overnight. Its AI tools can help you get your site up and running quickly. And Shopify Checkout makes it really easy for customers to actually go from, ooh, I like that, to, yes, I'll have one. If Shopify had existed when I started out, I could have saved myself a lot of time, stress

• 27:48Elizabeth Day?

  and some rogue design choices. If you're ready to hear the

• 27:53Elizabeth Day?

  of your first sale today, head over to Shopify.co.uk/fail to start your free trial today. That's right, start your free trial at Shopify.co.uk/fail. Was there anything that worried you about working with me? In terms of, like, I know it must be quite awkward sometimes if someone else has written the book that you're adapting.

• 28:19Speaker 04

  Well, I love meeting you and you were, you were very trusting and you said, you know, I always ask novelists, do you want to write the script? Do you want to write a script?

• 28:28Elizabeth Day?

  Absolutely not.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  And yeah, you were emphatic that you did want to write it. But you never know when, you know, you deliver something, if, if a novelist is going to feel differently when they see their characters. You seeing us try and find a right home and getting rejected and keep going and pushing the boulder up the hill, that your championing of it was, meant a lot to us.

• 28:50Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, well, vice versa.

• 28:52Speaker 04

  What was your, what was the most surprising thing for you, seeing the TV in production?

• 28:58Elizabeth Day?

  So there were a couple of moments where it felt like you and I, Sarah, were sort of symbiotically connected. Because there were a couple of scenes that I felt I had imagined exactly as they appeared on screen. One is in the first episode and it's the rugby interaction on the playing fields of this school where Martin and Ben meet for the first time. And that's an incredibly surreal experience and feeds into all sorts of magical things about art and the collective unconscious. And that, that was incredible. It surprised me how many people had so much faith in it and were so bloody good at their jobs. And that was a pleasant surprise.

• 29:41Elizabeth Day?

  And, and it also surprised me how included I was in the whole process. A book, you can write someone's internal monologue, and I was doing that a lot with Martin. On TV, you don't really get that privilege or that liberty. The dialogue has to do so much of that work for you and it's such an extraordinary skill. So to see it done so well was a real education. Was there a prankster on set? Were there any practical jokes? Was Tom, I feel like Tom Carlin, who plays Ben, probably had people laughing.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  Tom's just like, just a big teddy bear of a human being, the warmest, kindest, happiest person.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  I mean, we giggled a lot.

• 30:28Speaker 04

  We did giggle a lot.

• 30:29Speaker 03

  Remember, so we were in South Wales.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 30:32Speaker 03

  Through October, November, December and January. The sun rarely came out.

• 30:36Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 30:37Speaker 03

  And, you know, on, on, on any set, whether it's television or film, there's a lot of downtime. And these big party scenes would take a lot of setting up. We had a hundred extras, you know, and supporting artists. And, you know, there was a lot going on. So we would often be in a room, all of us together. We didn't separate, we all sat together and the conversation never stopped.

• 31:00Speaker 04

  Never stops.

• 31:01Speaker 03

  It never stopped for four months. And that says a lot about, you know, the, the, the warmth that we had for each other. And also the very sad days when one of the cast members would leave because it was their final scene. And we were still saying, and it's a very strange feeling because you're with them every day, you know, fourteen hours a day.

• 31:19Speaker 04

  Everyone wanted to be there and stayed there. Sometimes they'd stay even if they'd finished shooting, they wanted to be around it. And I think that's, that's part of when you make, when you make it a good working experience. People give more because they don't just want to give the bare minimum leave. They want to be part of something, that they're telling a story bigger than themselves. So that was, and also it made for great banter because we were, we enjoyed each other's company.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you can sort of see, what's very interesting is if you get on with somebody and, and, and you're with that person so, so much. When you then do scenes with that person, there's a level of trust you have. You may not know them from Adam, but you've just, you know, you, you, we, we've had such deep and meaningful conversations during the, the hours that we spent together. And, and then we'd go into a scene where we were, you know, husband and wife. And I don't know if anybody else does this, but in my mind, I'm like, I know this person better than I knew her three hours ago. And it means nothing to this scene, but because I've, I'm building a real connection with Sarah as a human being.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  I'm feeling I can go further in the scene with her and trust her. And I, I mean, that's just human nature, I guess, you know, you, you feel like you can fall back and be caught. But that really helped me.

• 32:37Elizabeth Day?

  Talking about that interplay between cast and crew and how it's a collective endeavour. Are there any stories that you can share from your time on set with maybe the crew's reactions?

• 32:49Speaker 03

  So there was a crew member who was literally with us every day. Often as close as we are, you know, behind the camera. And very early on had mentioned, like, everybody knew that he didn't, he wasn't somebody who cared very much about what he was shooting. He was there to make it, you know, and then move on to the next project. Because, you know, they make TV shows and whatever. So I already knew that he, he wasn't somebody that knew what we were shooting. But of course he's there every day, so he's watching it completely out of sequence, by the way. So it must be very weird, but you can see why you'd switch off if you, if, you know, it's not in sequence, this must make no sense. Then we got to a scene, maybe episode four or maybe even five.

• 33:32Speaker 03

  Where I'm in the police station and we're in a very small interrogation room. It's quite a powerful emotional scene. And after the take, somebody who doesn't watch anything he makes. Uh, Vivian, the director shouted, cut. And he went, oh, I'm gonna watch this one.

• 33:50Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, job done.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  You, I, he was like, I'm gonna watch this one.

• 33:56Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  And it was like.

• 33:57Speaker 04

  That's the best review you'll ever get.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  It was gold.

• 33:59Speaker 04

  That's good. I had a similar experience. So we have, there's a sequence, I won't give too much away, but. Uh, my character goes through a very challenging physical journey. And we were in a hospital for, for about three days, doing very intense work. And I thought, you know, I haven't got the energy in my legs to walk to the lunch truck. I'm just gonna like, just, I'm just gonna pull the curtain across this bed and I'm just gonna. Lie down and just try and gather myself. But I could hear all the crew packing up and they started talking and I thought, I was lying there fetal, thinking this is probably like the least relaxing. Place to be. And as one of the crew members who was packing up, he just went, that were good, that were.

• 34:44Speaker 04

  And it honestly was the best acting review.

• 34:47Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  I've ever had.

• 34:48Elizabeth Day?

  Because they see so much.

• 34:50Speaker 03

  They see so much, so many takes.

• 34:52Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  They must switch off after a while, or you think they do, but clearly some don't. And it is, it's a lovely feeling.

• 34:58Elizabeth Day?

  Acting is this good. And that, and that, um, those scenes that you're referring to obliquely, that are Sarah, are incredibly powerful. I, I can't even imagine what that took out of you.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  Well, I wonder, talking about like shared collective consciousness, I wonder if. Hearing you give language to so many women who have suffered grief and gone through fertility issues. I think that subliminally told, came through me into the storytelling. And I think it's thanks to your sort of bravery and giving language to that, that it's probably in on screen.

• 35:36Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you for saying that. What do you most want people to get from this show? Why should they rush away as soon as they finish listening to this exceptional podcast episode? Um, or watching it on YouTube? Why should they now go and binge all five episodes of The Party on ITV and ITVX? So.

• 35:57Speaker 04

  I think if most people are honest. They will realise that they are carrying some darkness or some shame or some shadow that they haven't confronted. And we talk about it as a monster. Every person has one, every family has one, some countries have one. It's a secret, it's an addiction, it's abuse, it's grief, it's something someone said, it's a melancholy, maybe you can't put your finger on. But you carry it in your life and you get flickers that maybe you need to deal with it. But often we ignore our monster and, and it risks becoming us. Or we run away from our monster and it will get us.

• 36:39Speaker 04

  But when you follow this show and you see Luke's performance. You're witnessing a man who refuses to be dominated by his monster. And he stares his monster right in the eyes and goes, you're not controlling me anymore. And I don't care if my life is dismantled, I'm gonna be free. And that, it, it really is one of the best performances of a generation. And I'm so excited for all your listeners to watch this masterclass in acting from Mr Luke Evans.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  Oh, please, that's.

• 37:08Elizabeth Day?

  Stop it. Why am I welling up?

• 37:10Speaker 03

  It's beautiful. That makes me so, so sweet. Thank you.

• 37:14Elizabeth Day?

  What about me as a supporting artist, Sarah? We can come on to that. Carry on, Lee.

• 37:19Speaker 03

  It's, it's fucking brilliant. It's, it's fucking brilliant. I am so proud of it. And I just think there's nothing like it on, on TV. You know, that is a story that hasn't been told.

• 37:31Elizabeth Day?

  I'm so, so grateful and I've been reining myself in because I tend to gush. But I really, really mean it when I say I love you both so much and thank you for one of the highlights of my, let alone my professional career. My life has been working with you, so thank you so much.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Proud to be a part of it.

• 37:47Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 37:50Elizabeth Day?

  I hope you got as much out of this episode of How to Fail as I did. Brought to you by ala lacto free, all the taste easier to digest. Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.