Kristin Scott Thomas

This week we’re joined by the wonderful Dame Kristin Scott Thomas for lunch! Kristin came by to talk about her beautiful new film My Mother’s Wedding, and over lunch we covered everything from growing up in a family of five children and her mum’s cooking, to leaving drama school and being sent to France as an au pair. We also chatted about acting in French, auditioning for the incomparable Prince’s Under the Cherry Moon (and kissing Prince), and reuniting with the incredible Scarlett Johansson on the new film. Kristin was such a warm and fascinating guest, and we absolutely loved having her at the table! Kristin’s directorial debut, My Mother’s Wedding, will be in cinemas in the UK from 29th May! Listen & watch Table Manners here - https://tablemanners.komi.io/ Follow Table Manners on: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tablemannerspodcast/ TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tablemannerspodcast Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tablemannerspodcast YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TableMannersPodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed and the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 0:35Jessie Ware?

  Hello and welcome to Table manners. I'm Jessie Weir and I'm here with Mum in Clapham, who's done all the cooking today. Thank you, Mum.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  That's fine, darling.

• 0:42Jessie Ware?

  How are you?

• 0:44Speaker 02

  Well.

• 0:44Jessie Ware?

  You haven't seen you for ages.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  No, we haven't seen each other for ages and I'm just back from Sri Lanka and I've got to shout out Jane Howell.

• 0:51Jessie Ware?

  Who's Jane Howell?

• 0:52Speaker 02

  My new best friend, the American ambassador in Sri Lanka, darling. And Theresa Mahoney, who is the British High Commissioner.

• 1:02Jessie Ware?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Who are both Table manners devotees, darling.

• 1:05Jessie Ware?

  Oh, well, there you go.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 1:06Jessie Ware?

  Stopping for pics in Colombo.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Stopping for pics in Colombo. We're global, darling.

• 1:12Jessie Ware?

  Love it. What are we eating today?

• 1:14Speaker 02

  I've made a kind of Vietnamese chicken salad. So it's called crispy butter chicken salad. But it's kind of got a kind of Vietnamese edge to it.

• 1:25Jessie Ware?

  Great.

• 1:26Speaker 02

  And I've done some jasmine rice and then I've made just a little apple cake with some nice creme fraiche, the expensive sort.

• 1:33Jessie Ware?

  Lovely. Well, only the best for a dame.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  A dame.

• 1:37Jessie Ware?

  We have Dame Kristin Scott Thomas coming on today to talk about her new film that she directed and wrote and starred in.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Which we've been lucky enough to see.

• 1:46Jessie Ware?

  Yes, my mother's wedding. Starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, got so many other people. It's fantastic. So she's coming over for lunch. Kristin Scott Thomas, you will know from whether you've seen her on stage, winning Olivier's for The Seagull.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  I saw in The Seagull at the Royal Call, Four Weddings and a Funeral.

• 2:06Jessie Ware?

  Horse Whisperer, English Patient.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  But now her best role ever, Slow Horses.

• 2:12Jessie Ware?

  Dame Kristin Scott Thomas coming up on Table manners.

• 2:23Jessie Ware?

  Welcome.

• 2:24Speaker 03

  Thank you very much.

• 2:25Jessie Ware?

  You look fantastic.

• 2:26Speaker 03

  I do feel very welcome.

• 2:27Jessie Ware?

  Do you? Okay, good.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  It's very nice.

• 2:28Jessie Ware?

  Good. Oh, that's good. You walked in, you're very happy that you had smelt food.

• 2:32Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:33Jessie Ware?

  Are you hungry?

• 2:34Speaker 03

  I am, I'm all I'm, tragic fact of my life is that I'm mostly hungry all the time.

• 2:40Jessie Ware?

  Why is that tragic? It's fabulous.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:43Jessie Ware?

  What have you had for breakfast? Omelette?

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Boiled egg.

• 2:46Jessie Ware?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:47Speaker 03

  Boiled egg and toast.

• 2:48Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:49Jessie Ware?

  Any marmite on there?

• 2:50Speaker 03

  Nope, just plain, plain toast, not even any butter on it today.

• 2:53Jessie Ware?

  Oh, God, this is very, this isn't sounding very fun.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  No, no, no, it usually is much more fun than that, but I, I've got to refrain.

• 3:01Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. Acting. Acting. Acting. I think you're French, really, so you should always have a big lunch.

• 3:08Jessie Ware?

  You should be having a big slab of butter.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  I don't always have a big lunch, but I do think lunch is an important thing. And I like, um, it's a bit of a myth that people, French people go off and have huge lunches. They often have just a salad or something or. But they often have wine with it, don't they? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then, you know, when I first went to France, I think it was in the, only like in the seventies that they stopped giving wine to children in canteen, school canteens. You're kidding. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:36Jessie Ware?

  What do you think they were giving them?

• 3:38Speaker 03

  Well, they, they would have a.

• 3:39Jessie Ware?

  A little.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  A little, you know, there would be a carafe of wine on the table for lunch for over sixteens or whatever it was.

• 3:47Jessie Ware?

  Oh, God.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  And, and, but in those days, wine was a very different product. And for instance, now, I don't know what, what the alcohol content on that is. Don't know, Jess, have you got glasses on? Is it, is it?

• 3:59Jessie Ware?

  Oh, my God, all of us squinting.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, thirteen percent.

• 4:03Jessie Ware?

  Oh, correctly, that's quite high.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  It would be much lower alcohol content. So maybe an eleven or a twelve, twelve max probably. And they all behave very well in the afternoon. And they would cut it with water.

• 4:14Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  But I think, but I'm not saying it's a good idea and we should bring back wine at lunch for schoolchildren. Maybe you should, Jess. But, um, but, you know, it's, it's, it, the world's changed, you know?

• 4:25Jessie Ware?

  Did you bring your children up in France?

• 4:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 4:27Jessie Ware?

  So.

• 4:28Speaker 03

  My children are all very, very French. I'm half French.

• 4:32Jessie Ware?

  Right.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  Um, and, um, yeah, there we are. We're sort of caught mid-channel, really.

• 4:40Jessie Ware?

  I'm really jealous of that, because I think it's, I, I, I listened to you talking about how, um, you.

• 4:47Jessie Ware?

  Did you did you not make it in drama school? Did somebody tell you not to be a an actor?

• 4:52Speaker 03

  Oh, here we go.

• 4:53Jessie Ware?

  Okay, is this okay?

• 4:55Speaker 03

  This is fine.

• 4:56Jessie Ware?

  Fine.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  So basically, I was very young and and quite. Now, I re looking back, I realize quite sort of, um, I think one would say traumatized. But I went to drama school and couldn't really handle it and didn't really know what I was doing and I was very young and I was all over the place and um was far from home and I had absolutely no boundaries, you know, I was just sort of doing any old thing and um I wasn't going to lessons. And anyway, I didn't really want to be there. I wanted to, I oh, important point. I had gone to that drama school to be um set pretending that I wanted to be a teacher when I

• 5:38Speaker 03

  I really wanted to be an actor, but I was too scared to say I wanted to be an actor. Um, and so I kind of got in there under false pretenses and they spotted those false pretenses pretty quickly and and then I got sent sent off.

• 5:54Jessie Ware?

  Their mistake.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  Well, yeah.

• 5:57Jessie Ware?

  But you got sent off and wasn't it a family friend that told you to go to France?

• 6:02Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes. My godfather said, no, this isn't going to do. You can't be, because I was working, I did all these jobs, you know, sort of. One minute I was a waitress, then I worked in the in Harvey Nix, then I, you know, I was just sort of doing things and I really wasn't a happy person at all. And um he sort of scooped me up and said, right, you're going here. There's your ticket. You're going to there. You're going to get look after those children for a bit. So he sent me off as an au pair. Um, and, you know, that was that was the beginning of my life in France.

• 6:32Jessie Ware?

  How old were you?

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Eighteen.

• 6:34Jessie Ware?

  I can't imagine.

• 6:35Speaker 03

  No, I was a bit older than that. I must have been older than that. I must have been.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  Almost twenty, I think.

• 6:42Jessie Ware?

  But when you just talked about, and we're getting in it straight away, but into it straight away, but you were pretending that you wanted to be a drama teacher and you got found out and then you kind of got rejected and that must have been incredibly brutal for a young girl.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was really brutal. It was extremely brutal and I did not take it well and um yeah, I was yeah, chucked out, not chucked out, but I was told if I put one, I wanted to transfer to go to another department, to the acting department and I'd managed to organise an audition with that acting department. But then the non-acting department, the teaching department I was in, said if you put one foot in that, in what's his name's office, um then you'll be out. And so I just sort of gave up at that point. I, I remember going in and I'd made this model of the Globe Theatre, because that was part of what we were doing at the time, we're making little models of theatre. It was a really interesting course, to be fair.

• 7:39Jessie Ware?

  Where was it?

• 7:39Speaker 03

  The, uh, Central School. The, the teaching department was really, really interesting. Learning how to be a teacher was really interesting. You did all sorts of things. It was really, you learned how to be a stage manager, you learn how, child psychology, which really did not interest me at all. Um, you know, I was ba- basically a child myself and the teaching, actually teaching bit I was a disaster at. But I really liked this modelling and making this model and I went into that room and I was in floods of tears and I just smashed the whole model. I just didn't know, took a kind of thing to it and just smashed it to bits and then left. Very upset.

• 8:17Jessie Ware?

  So, so do you-

• 8:18Speaker 03

  I'm very childish, you know, as a kid.

• 8:20Jessie Ware?

  But like, wasn't there one kind of like the devil on your shoulder? You were doing the right thing by, well, you, they told you if you went into the um drama school, then, you know.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. But weren't you tempted because you had this opportunity? Did you want to do the the right thing or not? No, I was very, very confused and I know it just all over the place. And um and luckily there was my godfather who's noticed this and took me away from that and put me somewhere else. And the the place I ended up um au pairing was actually really, really, really helpful and wonderful. They were really supportive. Because they were really supportive and well, I didn't really know. I didn't really know what I wanted to do because I thought it was impossible to be an actress. I just thought it was impossible. I don't know why I thought it was impossible. But you'd Yeah, I don't know. Got into Central. Well, I got into Central as a Yeah, but

• 9:14Speaker 03

  trainee teacher, so I got everything under false pretenses. So this awful feeling of, and I mean, we all get it, don't we? We all get that feeling of when it's, when when am I going to get found out? When I, when it's, when are the people going to find out that I'm a fraud? I shouldn't be here. I'm, you know, I'm sure we all get that feeling. But that was sort of confirmed really when I went to drama school that I was a fraud because I wasn't any good at being a teacher. I wouldn't be able to be an actress because I wasn't allowed to. It it was kind of confirmation of my worst fears. Was it quite mixed then drama school? Or was it mostly middle class girls? I mean, you've been to Oh, no, I got, oh, my god, no, I got such grief for that. I can't even begin to tell you. Such grief for that. It was like, of course, you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, etc.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Which of course was not the case. The fact that I spoke like someone from the nineteen fifty's was what put them on to that. Yeah. But anyway, those days have gone. Well, and yeah. And when I found this wonderful family in France, um she had been a concert pianist and had a car accident and ruined her hand. So she'd converted into helping TV shows, you know, because there was a great, an awful lot of sort of cultural television in those days back in France. And um she was a sort of link between the camera and the orchestra. So she'd know when you'd have to zoom into the violin and when you'd

• 10:40Speaker 03

  So she she managed to recreate something musical with what she was able to do at the now. And she had lots of friends who were singers and musicians and actors and directors and and really encouraged me. And in fact, When I was about to chicken out of going to my audition for drama school in France. She she came to the kitchen, she said, what are you doing here? I said, well. I'm just washing up. And she goes, well, I thought you had your audition this afternoon. And I said, yeah, but I'm not gonna go because there's no point, you know, like this. And she said, absolute nonsense, grabbed me by the wrist. I still remember her little hand, her claw around my wrist.

• 11:20Speaker 03

  And dragged me downstairs, hailed a cab, gave the man fifty francs and said, take her to the the theatre. And I. Got in, so I have everything to thank her for.

• 11:29Jessie Ware?

  Was it more freeing acting in French, like not being in your, English is your mother tongue, right?

• 11:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, my English is my mother tongue. Uh, it was, and at the same time, it was terrifying. The first year I didn't. Really say very much. I did a lot of mime.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  But I discovered a passion for um. For this writer called Marguerite Duras. And one of, I'm ashamed to say that one of the reasons. I enjoyed reading her writing so much, and she wrote plays and she wrote novels and she was quite. Um, she was a very famous figure in the seventies and eighties. Um, and one of the reasons I really enjoyed it because her sentences are really short. And the pub, the publisher, the books they were published in were very large writing. So it's incredibly accessible, but the thoughts were quite profound and. Sometimes very complicated. So every, that's where I got this reputation for being incredibly brainy.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Because I was reading Marguerite Duras, but it was simply because the print was big and the sentences were short.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  But I've heard that when you act in France or in French, you've no accent. They can't detect.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  True, I do have a bit of an accent, but it doesn't really matter. I think the difference between um, in England, we have an obsession with regional accents. And who belongs where and where do they come from and what. And it sort of bleeds over into foreign. So, you know, where do they come from? It's all very mysterious. In Europe. It's much more fluid because people arrive from Spain, or they arrive from Portugal, or they arrive from Germany, or they arrive from northern, northern Europe. You know, there, there's much more of a mixture. So people aren't so hung up on the way people speak there. So I know that when I was making films a lot in France, um, we took the, we

• 13:25Speaker 03

  took the film on and to a regional place to do a, um, to do press conferences. And somebody said, you know, was I from the, the next door town?

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  Because they didn't, you know, couldn't tell.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  They couldn't tell. Can, where, where did you audition for Cherry Moon in France?

• 13:42Speaker 03

  In France, yeah.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. Was Prince over there?

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was there. Yeah. Because they were making the film in the Victorian studios down in Nice.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 13:50Jessie Ware?

  So for people that don't know, you were in Prince's film, Under the Cherry Moon.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  It's called Under the Cherry Moon, yeah.

• 13:57Jessie Ware?

  And you were, thought you were going just as like for one of the girl parts.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:01Jessie Ware?

  But you got the lead.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:03Jessie Ware?

  And you had to snog Prince.

• 14:05Speaker 03

  I had to snog Prince.

• 14:06Jessie Ware?

  A lot.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Quite a lot, yeah.

• 14:07Jessie Ware?

  And be in sexy cars with him.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. I had to do all of that.

• 14:11Jessie Ware?

  And that was kind of like your first acting job, right?

• 14:14Speaker 03

  That was my first acting job. Talk about baptism of fire. I mean, it was amazing.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  But what's he singing then? What was his album out there?

• 14:20Speaker 03

  The album that went, that accompanied the film was called Parade. So it was just after Around the World in a Day. Is that the one? Around the World in a Day? I think the one with Raspberry Beret on it.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Oh, right.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  And that's what I had been listening to over and over again on my little Walkman that somebody brought me back from Japan because you can't buy them in France yet. And, um, that's what I'd been listening to all summer when I was camping in a school because we were, we were performing a Marguerite Duras play.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  In a field in Burgundy and suddenly I get this call to go to Paris to go and audition for this man I'd been listening to all summer. I mean, it was all spooky and I go along.

• 15:07Jessie Ware?

  Was he in the audition?

• 15:08Speaker 03

  No, but there were lots of people around the camera a bit like that. And then suddenly there's a huddle.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Somebody pokes his head up and says, would you be interested in auditioning for the lead?

• 15:20Jessie Ware?

  And when did you?

• 15:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:22Jessie Ware?

  Did you you ba- you battered that imposter syndrome away at that point? You were like, let's go.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  I just thought, no, no, no, no, the imposter syndrome was very much lurking at all times. But I thought it it it, well, I suppose I did. I I pushed it to one side and I stepped forward and I said, yes, I would. And um, there we go. That was a wild moment.

• 15:47Jessie Ware?

  Amazing.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  Totally wild.

• 15:49Jessie Ware?

  Was there was there real chemistry there?

• 15:53Speaker 03

  It was, I mean, we were both really young. I mean, he was, I think he was twenty four. I was twenty three, you know, all I could think about was this play that I was doing at the time, which was super intense and great and was a big success. Um, and then suddenly to be in this complete other world of luxury hotels. I'd never even been to a hotel before that.

• 16:18Jessie Ware?

  Oh, wow.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  And luxury hotels and everything was sort of gold and sparkly. And there was Prince, who was actually a real person, not somebody that I'd just been listening to, and somebody in this incredible outfit with these three manager people around him. And it was all a bit sort of, it was very, very peculiar.

• 16:39Jessie Ware?

  Was he quite small?

• 16:40Speaker 03

  He's tiny.

• 16:40Jessie Ware?

  Tiny.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Tiny, tiny, tiny.

• 16:42Jessie Ware?

  Was he kind?

• 16:44Speaker 03

  Super kind. Yeah, no, really a generous spirited person.

• 16:48Jessie Ware?

  Did you keep in touch?

• 16:49Speaker 03

  Yes, we did. Yes, we did. Um, but the the problem with people like that who are so talented and so ex- extraordinary is there are a lot of people who are protecting that. And so to try to get through this wall of people who, for various reasons, some of them good reasons, some of them less good reasons, want to kind of. Keep you away. That was quite, that was a learning curve. I mean, the whole thing was just a mad, mad, mad moment. And um but we did keep in touch because many years later, I was doing publicity for a film. I think it was Richard the Third.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  And I went on a TV show, morning TV, breakfast TV, and you have to get up at the crack of dawn and go along and they're all being very chirpy and everything's sort of.

• 17:42Jessie Ware?

  Fabulous.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  Hey, yeah, like this. And it was in New York and um had a very big press schedule.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  And

• 17:53Speaker 03

  I go on the thing and they get asked the question, what was your first film? It was with Prince and da da da da. I hadn't heard anything from him since then. And then a bit later on in the day, I got a call in the studio where I was having my photograph taken saying, and there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the studio, Prince wants to talk to you. Oh, I'll just take that.

• 18:11Jessie Ware?

  I love that.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  And then we stayed in touch since then. But I love the idea that he was watching Regis and Kathie Lee at seven o'clock in the morning.

• 18:20Jessie Ware?

  It's like he was like omnipresent, like he was kind of watching over everyone that he admired, like he was, it seems from what I know, he always had like a a knowledge of the people that he admired, like.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  He kept tabs on on the people that he'd he'd kind of nurtured, I think.

• 18:37Jessie Ware?

  Do you, did you ever go to Paisley Park?

• 18:39Speaker 03

  No, I never went there. No, sorry.

• 18:42Jessie Ware?

  No, it's okay.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Disappointing, isn't it?

• 18:43Jessie Ware?

  Was he a good kisser?

• 18:44Speaker 03

  Very.

• 18:46Jessie Ware?

  You've had some good leading men.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  I have, haven't I?

• 18:49Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  I've been very lucky on that.

• 18:50Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. Um, we need to take it back to the beginning, though, and very much what, you know, your film, your new film that you've directed and written, yeah. Um, is inspired by and um, but can you paint a picture of a scene around the dinner table when you were younger? Who was there and what were you eating?

• 19:13Speaker 03

  Well, first of all, there were quite a lot of us. So there were five children and most of the time my mum, because there weren't very many um. But because my father died when I was five and then my stepfather, my mother married again and my stepfather was killed when I was ele- uh twelve. Eleven. And they were both in. They were both pilots in the navy. So they were both either on a ship. The other side of the world, or they were in an aeroplane. Flying on and off. Fleet air arm. Fleet air arm, yeah, exactly. And so it was mostly my mum and then the five of us. And I was thinking about this this morning. I was thinking, I know exactly where I used to sit. We had an octagonal table on a pub.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Table base. And I would sit here, my littlest brother would sit to my right. My sister to my left, my mum on the corner there. And I I can just still feel that thing. And though she was. She did a lot of macrobiotic stuff at one point, which is dreadful.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  But she was a good cook. She was a really good cook. Your sister did her recipes. Yes, she did. And um which was the most wonderful present. Tis a great present. Such a great present. Tell, tell. So basically, my mother died four years ago, but we, and when we were clearing out the house, my sister was adamant that we kept the recipes. And so she collated these recipes and made it into a book, you know, it's very easy to do nowadays. Um that she gave us all for Christmas. So we've got all our favourite things. So tell us. Granny's, the granny Findon secret cake and things like this, you know. Tell us. I know, can't. Oh, it's secret. Secret. Okay, can you tell us about one, other one that isn't a secret?

• 20:52Speaker 03

  Um, well, she she used to make this thing called Egyptian chicken, which was all very good. Yeah, yeah, with lemon rind and um and. And olive oil. Um, what else did she do? Carrots, a lot delicious way of doing carrots. And because she travelled a lot. Yeah. Because she'd lived in the Far East and she'd lived in Africa, she'd lived in um, and she spent a lot of time in Greece on holidays and things. Um, she was really interested in different flavours and tastes and everything. She was, yeah. She was a really good cook. And her mother before that had been a very good cook. So, and my mother had been her, I think my granny was a. Domestic science teacher or something like that back in the day. Um, so, yeah, we've always been, we've always been quite greedy.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  We've al- always liked sort of things that were really sort of more. Can you cook? I used to be able to cook quite well, and I'm afraid I've gone slightly off the boil, because I just don't do it enough now. Do you eat out a lot? Uh, tends to eat out. At the moment, we seem to be doing that quite a lot, yeah. That's all right. In France or London? No, uh, in London, I, in London, we eat out quite a lot. And in France, I tend to cook a lot because that's where I like to cook. Okay. Because I really love, I really love going just to the market or the supermarket. And being able to buy one pair, if I want one pair, and that one doesn't look very nice, I think I'll have that one.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  And um, to be able to, to, it's just, we do, we have, I'm gonna be brutal about it, but the produce is better. In France than it is here, for stock. So if we were coming around to yours in France. What would I do? What would you be making us? Well, I'd have to ask you whether we eat red meat or not. Yes, we do. Okay, I would go to my butcher and I would buy a really simple piece of um, piece of beef. Mm-hmm. And I'd cook it, I'm really good at, I'm really good at just the right amount of juice inside. What's the secret? I think the secret is now is not getting the pan too hot. I've changed to these metal pans now. I don't, I don't use any of those um, non-stick ones. I used to, um, but not getting it too hot.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  I mean, getting it hot, but not too quickly. And then you get a really, then you seize it, and it has to be the same. You have to press through your thumb here. The, on the meat? Yeah, on, no, you. Well, no, but it's the same consistency. As you're the, the, the meaty bit of your thumb. Good trick. It's brilliant, that, that works really, really well. Okay, and that would be a medium rare? That would be a medium, um, yeah, rare to medium rare. Okay, and how long would you let it rest? A good twenty minutes. Oh. Yeah, wrap it up. Okay. So good. And then I would do you green beans, but really nice green beans. Yeah. With a tiny little, tiny little bit of garlic and a bit of lemon. Shallot are you putting in there or not?

• 23:47Speaker 03

  I love a bit of shallot, mm. And then I would, we always have a green salad. Mm. But not one of those, I don't like roquette in a bag, drives me mad. Fine. Um, I like a nice lettuce or a coz lettuce or a batavia or something like that. Uh, which has been freshly washed and that tastes really fresh. Okay. Cause things that sit around in supermarkets just, just, just don't taste the same. And can you tell me what your vinaigrette is? Ah, so I put a spoonful of Dijon. Yeah. In a jar. Yeah. And then I put about that much, um. Oil, vinegar? Vinegar. Okay, which one? Well, it depends on what I feel like. Cider vinegar is really good.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  A really good red wine vinegar, sherry vinegar is great. Mm. Um, and then I use my oil and either I'm gonna use a sort of simple vegetable oil with a bit of, um, walnut or noisette or something like that. That's really good. Or some really good olive oil. Okay. And sometimes I put a tiny little bit of honey in, tiny little bit of honey in. No lemon? Sometimes, no, I don't put lemon in. And sometimes I crush a bit of garlic and leave that in the bottom. But I wouldn't chop it up, but I'd just squeeze it and leave it in the bottom. And salt and pepper, yeah. Yeah, yeah, quite a lot of salt? Well, it depends on the, on the mustard. Cause the mustard is quite salty sometimes. Do you ever change your mustard to whole grain? I quite like that, yeah.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  There's nothing better than a French vinaigrette, is there? I think the thing is, some people like it really thick and kind of creamy. I don't, I quite like it thin. And I don't want it all over my leaves. Mm. I want it just, I want it to enhance the leaves, not just sort of. Completely smother them in dressing. I don't like that. What's your kids' favourite dish that you make for them? Um, gosh, I don't know. You'd have to ask them, I suppose. Um. I think they like it when I make a, like a, like a bourguignon or something like that, which I love to do. Um, and I like, I cook chicken and also I really love roast veal.

• 25:57Speaker 03

  Um, I know some people feel very sensitive towards that, but in France we don't. Um, and I think the secret to all that is not to eat all those things too often. Hmm. And keep them for special occasions. And then, you know, I, this weekend, I've been, um, this week rather, I, I, I made a big lentil salad. Oh, yeah. I love. Puy lentils or green or brown? Puy, puy, um, which are green. Okay. Um, so we, you cook those and you, but I like using a little bit of bacon. But you can't, it's quite difficult to find bacon in a slab here. You have to buy pancetta. Yeah, or lardens, you go, yeah, okay. I don't want to, I don't like the ones that are already cut. Chopped up. No, you're quite purist, yeah, oh. There's always too much water. Ah.

• 26:41Speaker 03

  And it comes out and it's sort of foamy. Don't like that. Ah, okay. I am quite, I'm, I can be, I can be remarkably unpurist, by the way, but if I can. No, I like this. So puy lentils with like, yeah, pancetta or bacon? A carrot, a little bit of celery, tiny little bit of celery, that much celery chopped up. Yeah. And an echelon with the cloves stuck in it. Yep. And then some herbs. I love that. My mum makes one like that. And then when it's warm, still warm, I put a really good, this time a thick vinaigrette over the top. Mmm. So good. Oh my god, that's delicious. It's very good. Um, so back to your film. Yes.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  It was really, yes, starving. Congratulations. Thank you very much.

• 27:32Jessie Ware?

  All star cast.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  All star cast.

• 27:34Jessie Ware?

  You must, you know, make a good impression on set, cause.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  Well, you know what, I had these three, well, I'm talking about the, the women who play the daughters in the film. I play the mother.

• 27:47Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  They play the daughters. And um, the film in the beginning was going to be called Who Art in Heaven? A sort of reference to the missing father.

• 27:56Jessie Ware?

  Right.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  And then, for various reasons, it was changed to my mother's wedding.

• 28:00Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  So, the three women who, who agreed to play my daughters are Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, and Emily Beecham. They are completely different types of actresses.

• 28:12Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  And utterly brilliant, all three of them.

• 28:14Jessie Ware?

  They have real chemistry together.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  Incredible chemistry.

• 28:18Jessie Ware?

  It was really beautiful.

• 28:19Speaker 03

  It's like, the, it's like an instant sort of sisterhood. It was extraordinary. Scarlett is one of the most generous and reliable and fabulous actresses, who I've known actually since she was eleven.

• 28:36Jessie Ware?

  Yes, horse whisperer.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yes. I love the calls from that.

• 28:40Jessie Ware?

  I remember reading that when we were on holiday in Wales, mum. It was like, it must have been in the nineties. When was it written?

• 28:47Speaker 03

  It was in, I think it was written in, yeah, ninety-two, ninety-three.

• 28:50Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, and I think I was reading it by like, when I was maybe eleven or twelve, probably ten, eleven. And when did the film come out?

• 28:57Speaker 03

  I think, oh god, I don't know, ninety.

• 28:59Jessie Ware?

  It was such a hit, wasn't it?

• 29:01Speaker 03

  Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, something like that.

• 29:03Jessie Ware?

  They were with Robert Redford as well.

• 29:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. Lovely man.

• 29:07Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, I bet.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  Hmm. So beautiful.

• 29:11Jessie Ware?

  So beautiful.

• 29:12Speaker 03

  That whenever he kind of walked into the room, everyone would just go.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  And when he went in front of the camera, you know, by accident, he'd walk, wander across to go and move a prop or something. Suddenly you'd like, be at the movies.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  He was incredible, he was such a good actor as well, I mean, he was great, and a really great, a really great director, I, I loved working with him, that was amazing.

• 29:39Jessie Ware?

  But back to Scarlett, she was, she was back, you've worked together three times, haven't you?

• 29:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was the third time, um, so yes, Scarlett was, the moment Scarlett agreed, and she agreed so quickly, she read it and said, yep, I want to do this. And from then on, it was just, we, everything kind of fell into place, so I will be eternally grateful for her fast reaction, and but the problem was, we had a very short window, because she was going off to do something else, she was going off to do Jurassic Park. And I was going off to do more slow horses, so we had this very short window in which we had, were, would be able to make the film, and so, and I'd really written that role for Sienna, because I'd always thought of Sienna for that role.

• 30:20Jessie Ware?

  For, for the movie star?

• 30:21Speaker 03

  Victoria, yeah.

• 30:22Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, and she is fantastic in it.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  She's so funny, isn't she?

• 30:25Jessie Ware?

  She's really fun, she's sexy, she's brilliant as it, like, it was really fun.

• 30:31Speaker 03

  And then Emily is an actress that I'd admired for a few years, because she has such a, an amazingly sort of, um, she's got this sort of face that you can see through, in that you can see all the emotions, just like clouds over her face, and I just love that, and, um, and was very happy when she accepted to play the youngest of the sisters, who's called Georgina.

• 30:58Jessie Ware?

  But I, you know, this is based on your childhood of losing two fathers, kind, I mean.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  The nub of it is, it is autobiographical in that sense, is that what Catherine and Georgina and Victoria went through is something, what, is exactly what I went through.

• 31:20Jessie Ware?

  Sorry, I think. Wow, wow, that looks amazing, no, that looks amazing, ma.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  That looks delicious, it smells so good, those herbs are lovely.

• 31:28Jessie Ware?

  Oh, ma, it looks beautiful. We should try this thing that Alex, so Alice has just been in Vietnam, and this is kind of a Vietnamese, pardon? Yeah, and it's kind of, this is a kind of crunchy Vietnamese salad.

• 31:41Speaker 03

  Delicious.

• 31:41Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, coriander.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  Coriander, this is exactly what I love.

• 31:45Jessie Ware?

  And then Alice has brought this thing back for us. Crispy rice cake.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  Oh, how delicious.

• 31:51Jessie Ware?

  But like, I feel like we should try it with it because it's straight from Vietnam and I can't do anything with these stupid nails.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  I'll do it, I'll do it.

• 31:58Jessie Ware?

  Honestly.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  I think this is gonna be particularly good for a podcast.

• 32:02Jessie Ware?

  What, the crunch?

• 32:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 32:03Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, really good.

• 32:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. But what does it, what do you do with this?

• 32:08Jessie Ware?

  You just eat it.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  You just eat it?

• 32:10Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. It's quite yummy.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  Mmm. Oh, this is really good with that little peppery thing at the end.

• 32:24Speaker 04

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• 32:59Speaker 03

  I've made crispy buttered chicken salad, but it's kind of basically Vietnamese, I think.

• 33:05Jessie Ware?

  Oh, how lovely.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  There is a lot of Vietnamese cooking in Paris. Yeah, I'm probably not as good as them. But all the ingredients seem quite nice.

• 33:15Jessie Ware?

  This is so good.

• 33:16Speaker 03

  Oh, please help yourself to a lot.

• 33:18Jessie Ware?

  Can I give you some rice?

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Um, yeah.

• 33:20Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  There's masses of chicken there.

• 33:22Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, lovely.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  Is there enough dressing on it?

• 33:25Jessie Ware?

  Oh, it's so good.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Is it?

• 33:27Jessie Ware?

  Thanks, Mum.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  God, this is the best podcast.

• 33:32Jessie Ware?

  Thank you. But back to the film.

• 33:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:36Jessie Ware?

  You know, these three sisters I've heard you talk about, they kind of represent you in different. You've got the movie star, you have the

• 33:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:45Jessie Ware?

  the daughter Katie Frost, who is, you know, honoring her father's overachiever, honoring her father's legacy.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  Keeping everybody together.

• 33:53Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. And then you have Georgie, who is, you know, the caring kind of

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Perfect mum.

• 33:58Jessie Ware?

  Perfect mum, having a bit of a shitty time.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:02Jessie Ware?

  But like, which bits of the sisters are you? I mean, obviously the film star I can see.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  Well, it's difficult to say, to talk about that because obviously every single thing that you ever do as a creative person, you know, your own sort of soul filters through, that's the point.

• 34:22Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  So it's very difficult for me to say which bits, but I mean, basically what I've just said is that I, for a very long time, was the, because I was the eldest daughter and because we were, you know, facing quite a lot of emotional difficulty, I felt that I had, my job was to sort of keep everyone happy, keep the thing moving along. Terribly bossy, apparently. I didn't, I didn't know that, but you ask any of my siblings and they will tell you that. There are lots of us, you know, we as a family, we were five. So I felt that sort of over, slightly overachieving, I've got to get it right and I've got to do this. And I think that that's, that Catherine sort of represents that part, if you like.

• 35:06Jessie Ware?

  That Scarlett Johansson.

• 35:07Speaker 03

  Scarlett Johansson. And then the role played by Sienna Miller, who's the flighty actress.

• 35:13Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 35:14Speaker 03

  Is also part of me and, and part of the sort of wanting to please, wanting to be, want to be loved by everybody, you know. So the Catherine Clifton part doesn't give a damn what anyone else thinks about her, she's just forging ahead, making sure everything's and the Sienna, the Sienna Miller role, the Victoria, she is the opposite, she wants everybody to love her and the rest of it. And, and Victoria, and Georgina just is trying to have a normal life with these very extravagant sisters.

• 35:46Jessie Ware?

  I, I think my favorite scene.

• 35:49Jessie Ware?

  In your movie.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:50Jessie Ware?

  Was when your husband that you're marrying.

• 35:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:54Jessie Ware?

  Sings a song to you. It felt so much like European cinema. That part, it felt like, kind of like an Almoda film. Or, it felt more European, do you know what I mean? I really loved the, it was incredibly tender and beautiful.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  Sweet, isn't it?

• 36:11Jessie Ware?

  It was a beautiful moment.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Based on your husband now?

• 36:14Speaker 03

  No, no, James Fleet played my brother in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

• 36:20Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, and a bumbling.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  And then he played my husband in the, in The Three Sisters.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  Then he played my husband again. So anyway, no, it wasn't, it was nothing, they're not based, it's all fantasy. People say, is this really your mother? No, I wish I'd had her. I wish my mother had been like that, you know.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Was she glamorous, your mum?

• 36:39Speaker 03

  My mother was incredibly beautiful. I wouldn't say she was glamorous, she was incredibly beautiful. I mean, sort of extraordinarily beautiful. But she didn't really have any money, she didn't have, she had a certain style, I suppose. But she didn't have any money to be glamorous, do you know?

• 36:55Jessie Ware?

  Can we talk about boarding school?

• 36:57Speaker 03

  Oh, if you want.

• 36:58Jessie Ware?

  Well, it's, um.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  I better have a drink.

• 37:00Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. Well, you've talked about, you know, you get this horrendous news that your father has passed away.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:08Jessie Ware?

  And you're kind of sent back to boarding school.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:10Jessie Ware?

  Because that's just how it was and.

• 37:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:12Jessie Ware?

  You know, your mum was keen for you to remain in boarding school because it was a great school.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 37:18Jessie Ware?

  But there was maybe a fear about being allowed because your father was no, I mean, he, he was no longer with you and. I don't know whether it was subsidised or the fees and stuff like that.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 37:28Jessie Ware?

  So she went to desperate lengths for you to get a great education. But how was boarding school for you?

• 37:34Speaker 03

  It was really tough. It was tough because, uh, it was just bad timing, basically. So when, um, when I first went, it was just after my mother's second wedding. We'd been bridesmaids at this wedding and then we had to, he was, my stepfather was sent away to see, so he was going to see. So, and my mother moved with him down to wherever he was posted. And it was deemed that it was a good idea to put us into boarding school, so.

• 38:04Speaker 03

  So daddy dies, mummy gets married to someone else, and then you're plonked in a boarding school, which was perhaps not the best idea. How old were you? I was eight, my sister was seven. Okay, right, okay. So.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  And you know, thinking about, and the nuns were completely adorable, and I think about these nuns and my sort of heart swells because they were so, so sweet. They weren't wicked nasty nuns at all. So you had the naughtiest house type, the good ones? They were really, really lovely. Sister Marceline was my favourite. I mean, Sister Marceline, I have a memory of Sister Marceline. I got measles or something and I had a terrible fever and I was put into sickbay and my mother was miles and miles and miles away, couldn't come. And she was sent for, but it took, you know, a few days for her to get there. And this was a long time ago. Yeah, yeah. We're talking like sixty nine, seventy.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  And um I woke up in the middle of the night and there, lying on the floor, was the nun who'd taken off her veil. But she was fully dressed, but she'd taken off her little bonnet underneath. But she was lying on the floor, making sure I was all right. That's very kind. You know, I can never forget that. So, and then on Thursdays, we'd have our hair washed. You know, it was sort of, it was kind of, anyway, it was what it was. And um and then when I went to my secondary school, I was very proud to be able to go there because my mother had been there. And I was very excited about it all. But then at the end of my first term, my stepfather was killed. And so that was

• 39:37Speaker 03

  tough. There was no pastoral care, so to speak, of in those days. I mean, they've come, I mean, boarding schools are not the same thing as they were in the seventies. They go home as weekends, don't they? We didn't. It was every six weeks. Yeah. Yeah. You're, yeah, and you're little. So it was, I mean, I was little and it was tough. But she thought she was doing the best for you? Well, actually, I think the second time around, she didn't have any thoughts. It was just like she could not, I don't think she could really compute what was going on. Because there she was with five children, two dead husbands. How did this happen? She's thirty three, you know. How does this happen? And it just see, it just seems so unfair, you know, life isn't fair, you keep hearing that, no, life isn't fair, get on with it, you know. But that was a really bad.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Was he your dad's best friend?

• 40:24Speaker 03

  He was a great friend of my father's.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  He was going to be my sister's godfather, but they changed their minds at the last minute, gave it some, gave the job to someone else.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  Okay, so he was very close, your mum has always known him.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  Has known him for a long time, yeah. He was a lovely person. He was a really lovely person. Could you imagine taking on four kids that aren't yours? So that is the true bit in the film.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  When is it coming out? Here is it?

• 40:49Speaker 03

  At the end of May.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  Are you writing anything else?

• 40:52Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Oh, good.

• 40:53Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Trying to.

• 40:56Jessie Ware?

  I'm absolutely loving, this is my heaven.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  Is it?

• 40:59Jessie Ware?

  It's not very good for the old herb and tea.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  Quite spicy.

• 41:03Jessie Ware?

  Sitch, so we'll have to all check with each other. But we don't have a bit of mint.

• 41:08Speaker 03

  Is that fennel in there as well?

• 41:09Speaker 02

  No.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  No, what's this?

• 41:10Speaker 02

  It's white cabbage.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  There's white cabbage, red onion. Julian, um, carrots and cucumber. And then there's coriander and mint. And then you make a ginger and chive oil.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  Ginger and chive?

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:26Jessie Ware?

  How do you do ginger and chive oil?

• 41:28Speaker 02

  You heat the oil quite high and then you put in chopped ginger and chives. And that's the chive oil.

• 41:36Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  And then you let it go cold.

• 41:38Jessie Ware?

  You cool it?

• 41:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:40Jessie Ware?

  So it's infused?

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  So good.

• 41:43Jessie Ware?

  Really nice.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  Good.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, you see, if I'd fed you, you'd all be asleep under the table because it would be so.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Heavy.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  Heavy.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  Well, I thought, yeah, I just thought you won't eat heavy food.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  Do you know what I really love as well?

• 41:56Jessie Ware?

  What?

• 41:57Speaker 03

  Is ondive, do you know what I mean by ondive?

• 41:59Speaker 02

  I love ondive.

• 42:00Speaker 03

  White vegetable thing. Gr- um, baked, you know, re- um. I don't know what those.

• 42:05Jessie Ware?

  Braised.

• 42:05Speaker 03

  Braised, braised, yeah.

• 42:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like.

• 42:08Speaker 03

  Braised ondive.

• 42:09Jessie Ware?

  That's a good idea. I've never done braised ondive.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  Who would like some apple cake?

• 42:13Speaker 03

  Me.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Good.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  Yes, please.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  And I bought this fancy pants stuff because I thought you'd like it.

• 42:17Jessie Ware?

  Oh, lovely. Um, let's talk about France and you as an au pair.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 42:23Jessie Ware?

  Were you having to cook for your kids?

• 42:25Speaker 03

  Yes, I had to cook for the kids.

• 42:26Jessie Ware?

  And were you good?

• 42:27Speaker 03

  And they were very worried because I was English.

• 42:30Speaker 03

  How rude. I know. Um, yeah, no, I learnt a lot about um that and I was quite, I was quite big on um. I was quite big on kind of giving them. We had, they had, these children had to have soup in the evenings, so I had to make all these different soups. So you're good at soup. Why did they have to have soup? I don't know, it was a French rule, I don't know, that French rule in that family. And did you have? They weren't entirely French, actually, they were half German. Oh, okay. They might have had a bit. Maybe the soup came from the German side? It might, might have done. Potage? Potage. Did you have goutte as well? A goutte, yes, definitely have a goutte. Was it always Nutella?

• 43:09Speaker 03

  No, it's always, in that family, it was a, this is what they, because you can buy a pain au raisin like you can in the bakers here. A what? But a pain, a pain au raisin, a pain au chocolat. Oh, pain au raisin, okay. A pain au raisin or a pain au chocolat. Yeah. So the other day I went into one of those places and I said, can I have a pain au raisin, please? And she goes, a what?

• 43:31Speaker 03

  A pain au raisins. Yes, she got that.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Anyway, so what they do in France is they get a baguette, because the ba- the bakeries in France cook very early in the morning. And then for the e- and then they shut after lunch until four o'clock. And then they do a new batch for the evening. Because baguettes, as you will have found out, don't last more than about a blink. Yeah. And what you do when you're a mummy in France is you go to a baker, you buy a baguette, you chop it into pieces about that long and you shove a bit of chocolate in the middle. And that's what French kids have. Fab. So it's, it's sort of de- it's deconstructed pain au chocolat. So do you think living in? This is really good. Yeah, it does look good.

• 44:15Speaker 03

  Um, do you think being in France from such a kind of young age informed your taste buds hugely, yeah? Definitely, yeah. Did you pine for anything from the UK? Yeah, I did. Um, I used to pine for um marmite and I, but then, then, you know, I'm mostly in France in the good old days of the EU, so I could get most things and they used to have. A certain department store.

• 44:40Jessie Ware?

  Which passport do you have?

• 44:42Speaker 03

  I have both. I'm not quite sure. This does look good, yeah.

• 44:45Jessie Ware?

  It's got a saltiness to it, it's really good.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  Oh, yum, yum.

• 44:48Jessie Ware?

  Whose recipe is this? Melissa Clark.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  Oh, I like Melissa Clark, New York Times. It's a good app.

• 44:54Jessie Ware?

  It's a good app.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:56Jessie Ware?

  My best.

• 44:56Speaker 03

  Very good. And there's an old fashioned, um, American food critic called Patricia Wells, who wrote about bistro cooking in the eighties or nineties. And that book is my bible. It's fantastic.

• 45:10Jessie Ware?

  Oh, really?

• 45:11Speaker 03

  It's great.

• 45:12Jessie Ware?

  Um, I feel like it's time for the last supper. You're going to a desert island. Uh, what would be your last supper before you go to that desert island for a very long time? Starter, main, purd, drink of choice.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  Um, my starter would be, it's a very difficult toss up actually, because it would have to be, um, either those delicious Spanish anchovies on brown bread.

• 45:40Jessie Ware?

  The Otis. Oh, yum.

• 45:42Speaker 03

  No, no, no. I can't really tell you the name of them. They come in a blue tin.

• 45:45Jessie Ware?

  A secret. Oh, no, it's not a secret. It's just you don't know.

• 45:48Speaker 03

  They come in a blue tin and they're very difficult to find. And they're salted.

• 45:53Jessie Ware?

  I thought that was Otis, but.

• 45:54Speaker 03

  No, no, it's something else. Otis is very good, but it's not.

• 45:57Jessie Ware?

  I know exactly the one she knew.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  Dark blue jar. Yeah. They either come in a sort of Kilner type jar or a tin. Anyway, those are brilliant. Just on a piece of brown bread.

• 46:06Jessie Ware?

  With butter?

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Rye bread.

• 46:08Jessie Ware?

  Oh, lovely.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  Oh, it's so good.

• 46:11Jessie Ware?

  So that's your starter. Drink of choice?

• 46:14Speaker 03

  Um, I think I would have, um, what would I have? I think as my main course, I'd probably have a veal chop with some lovely mushrooms and, um, and then I would have a nice glass of burgundy, but I don't really mind, as long as it's nice.

• 46:38Jessie Ware?

  Okay. Any greens on the side?

• 46:41Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, lots of greens. Love broccoli, obsessed with broccoli. Love um Cavallonero.

• 46:48Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 46:49Speaker 03

  I also really like plain old Savoy cabbage.

• 46:52Jessie Ware?

  Me too.

• 46:53Speaker 03

  Just sweated with a with a with a stock cube and a bit of butter.

• 46:57Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. Caraway seeds.

• 46:58Speaker 03

  Lovely.

• 46:59Jessie Ware?

  Mmm.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  I like sweetheart cabbage better because it's sweeter.

• 47:02Speaker 03

  Sweeter, isn't it?

• 47:03Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Uh, which, what is hispy cabbage? Is that?

• 47:06Speaker 03

  It's quite the same thing, isn't it?

• 47:08Speaker 02

  I thought it was.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 47:10Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 47:10Speaker 03

  And then I want cheese.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  Which, which is your best cheese?

• 47:14Speaker 03

  Stilton.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  Really good, dry piece of cheddar, you know, the really crumbly kind.

• 47:21Jessie Ware?

  A bit crunchy, because it's vintage or not?

• 47:24Speaker 03

  Is it crunchy?

• 47:25Jessie Ware?

  I don't know.

• 47:26Speaker 03

  They've got the crystals. Yeah, that's really good. Really like that. And I would have a, um, what are they called? The French, it's called a French. We had at our wedding, um.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  Gosh, I can't remember. It's, it comes in a box and it's only a mandor. And they, a mandor, there's only a very short season for them. It starts on the fifteenth of September. That I know.

• 47:49Jessie Ware?

  Are you gonna have a sweet thing after your cheese board?

• 47:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:53Jessie Ware?

  What are you gonna have?

• 47:55Speaker 03

  Chocolate. I have just discovered, no, I've, I've gone off chocolate.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  Have you?

• 47:59Speaker 03

  Hmm, don't know why. No, I have just, oh, actually, I don't know. Either a lemon, sort of, a really good lemon. Thick, eggy, yoky, yellow, strong yellow tart.

• 48:14Jessie Ware?

  Uh huh.

• 48:15Speaker 03

  With a nice flaky base.

• 48:16Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 48:17Speaker 03

  Or I have just discovered the most amazing Basque cheesecake shop.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh.

• 48:22Jessie Ware?

  Where? Is anyone allowed to know?

• 48:24Speaker 03

  It's called, it's got one of those funny, Marek Sue or something.

• 48:28Jessie Ware?

  Where is it?

• 48:29Speaker 03

  There's one in Soho, there's one in sort of Paddington, and there's one somewhere else.

• 48:35Jessie Ware?

  And you'd have a big slab of, oh, so good.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Do you know, Nigella makes it with licorice sauce.

• 48:40Speaker 03

  Oh, I know, that's good.

• 48:42Jessie Ware?

  Oh, no, thank you. Oh, I love Nigella, but no, thank you.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I, yeah.

• 48:46Jessie Ware?

  Okay, that's a, that's a strong.

• 48:49Speaker 03

  It's very greedy, basically.

• 48:50Jessie Ware?

  Why is it greedy? It's not greedy, it's kind of, it's quite heavy.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:55Jessie Ware?

  I like that.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  And then we go and have a sleep.

• 48:57Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  Then you go and have a walk.

• 48:59Jessie Ware?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:59Speaker 03

  Because it's always good to walk after you've eaten.

• 49:01Jessie Ware?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:02Speaker 03

  And then you go and have a little snooze in front of the football.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  You can walk home.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:07Jessie Ware?

  Before we let you go.

• 49:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:09Jessie Ware?

  Can you give us a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere?

• 49:12Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  My, when we cleared out my mum's house, we bought, we found jam that was positively museum worthy. It was so. Vintage. Vintage, like two thousand and four or something. Anyway, we, and she had made the most amazing marmalade with, using apples. Cause you know, I always put marmalade, I always put apples in jams and things like that because it's great for setting them. But she is more apple than technically necessary. And it was so good. The mixture of apple and marmalade, you know, orange, bitter oranges. It was absolutely delicious. And that, if she could be here to make me some more of that, I would be so happy.

• 50:00Jessie Ware?

  Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

• 50:02Speaker 03

  It's been such fun. Oh.

• 50:05Jessie Ware?

  You are a great guest.

• 50:06Speaker 03

  Come back just to be able to.

• 50:07Jessie Ware?

  You can always come back. And thank you so much for being so open and telling us such fantastic stories.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  I'm so glad you enjoyed your film.

• 50:14Jessie Ware?

  I really, we really did. And congratulations on that.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

• 50:18Jessie Ware?

  Thank you.

• 50:33Jessie Ware?

  Kristin Scott Thomas, very classy lady.

• 50:36Speaker 03

  I say, don't meet your idols, but I have now and she was gorgeous.

• 50:40Jessie Ware?

  Off the mic, she was talking about being the proudest grandmother.

• 50:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:45Jessie Ware?

  And showed us pictures of her grandchild.

• 50:47Speaker 03

  I know, gorgeous.

• 50:48Jessie Ware?

  Very proud.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:49Jessie Ware?

  Um, thank you so much for coming on and being really open and she loved the food. The food was banging today, Mum.

• 50:58Speaker 03

  Was it darling?

• 50:58Jessie Ware?

  Oh my God, that is my, that could be on my Last Supper, that kind of meal.

• 51:02Speaker 03

  Really?

• 51:02Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  I over catered though.

• 51:06Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, but we love that. Thank you Kristin Scott Thomas for coming on. Thank you for quite a like heavy fab Last Supper. Veal chop, I don't think we've ever had.

• 51:15Speaker 03

  No.

• 51:16Speaker 02

  But she's French, you see.

• 51:18Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 51:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:19Jessie Ware?

  And well done mum, because I know your hip's still not great, is it?

• 51:22Speaker 02

  Not great.

• 51:23Jessie Ware?

  But you just do it, don't you?

• 51:24Speaker 02

  Because I'm a trooper, darling.

• 51:25Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, you are. We'll see you next week for more Table Manners.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  Jessie, I need to say something. I'm never going back to an ordinary creme fraiche. It's changed my life.

• 51:34Jessie Ware?

  Okay, public service announcement. Okay, sure, that was really good. Um, we'll see you next week for more Table Manners.

• 51:56Speaker 04

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