[Zoe enters with Sanjeev's family.] |
Madhuri Kumar: [To Zoë] There are samosas; I made
them. And here's some chutney. Ashwin always likes a
bit on the side. |
Zoe Wanamaker: Good! |
Ashwin Kumar: Ain't that the truth! |
Sa K: Now, Zoe, welcome to number 42. |
ZW: Thank you very much. |
Sa K: Now, of course, everyone knows you from the
sitcom My Family, which has been hugely successful. What
was the most fun thing about doing that show? |
ZW: Being asked, I think. Just working with
everybody and getting to know all the other actors more, and
enjoying them more. |
Sushil Kumar: And having a regular income! |
ZW: Yes! |
Su K: That's quite nice, isn't it? |
ZW: It helps. |
Sa K: The cash. |
ZW: Yes. |
Sa K: Er, mum? |
MK: Zoe, in your show My Family, why do you give
your husband such a hard time? He's a dentist - that's
only one down from doctor. |
ZW: Because he's not very bright and he needs to be
educated in the right way. |
Sa K: Are you saying that's why he's a dentist and
not a doctor? |
ZW: That's right. |
Su K: It could be worse. He could be doing
endless retakes of business studies, which is what Sanjeev did. |
Sa K: It wasn't retakes, it was just an
eighteen-year course... |
Su K: Zoe, darling, you know, in India they tried
to do a version of My Family, but it didn't work. Two
hundred and fifty seven main characters: that's a lot of names
to remember, isn't it? |
Sa K: Talking of family, you're the daughter of a
very famous man, referring of course to your father. He
was a movie director called Sam, and he came... Well, I'm
telling the story. Why am I telling it? |
Su K: [To Sanjeev] You idiot. [To Zoe] The great
Sam Wanamaker was one of the first Method actors, wasn't he,
darling? |
ZW: Yes, he was. That's right. |
Sa K: So, could you explain Method acting?
From what I understand, Method acting is where you actually do
what the character is doing. So, for instance, if a
character needed to go to the toilet, you would actually do a
pooh. |
[Zoe laughs and looks embarrassed.] |
Sa K: Am I simplifying, because - |
ZW: Yeah, I think you're slightly
simplifying. I think Method acting is to... I don't
know what it is. |
Sa K: - Is to do a pooh, isn't it? |
ZW: No, no! |
Sa K: But that's what... Brando was a Method
actor, wasn't he? |
ZW: Yes. |
Sa K: You could see it [Sanjeev impersonates Marlon
Brando]: 'The horror, the horror!' But explain Method
acting, then. What is it? |
ZW: I can't really explain it, because I haven't
really studied it myself, properly. So I don't know [it]
very well. But I know there are certain ways in which to
discover a character. And one of the ways is to try and
relive experiences that may be useful in - within - the
character. So, you can - if you want to - you can starve
yourself if you want to - if you have to - be very, very thin,
or you can... But I think it goes too far if you want to
experience murder. I don't think one should take that
up... |
Sa K: So between, sort of, like, you know, losing
weight for a part and murder, where does doing a pooh come? |
ZW: Nowhere! |
Sa K: Nowehere? That's a fascinating area, it
really is, actually. Now, your dad came to Britain from
America where he was escaping the McCarthy 'witch-hunts'.
Did he have any special powers? Anything like that? |
ZW: [Laughs] No, he didn't. No. None of
those. |
Sa K: But it was an horrific time, was it not, that
whole McCarthy time? |
Su K: Yes, just like The Crucible, wasn't it? |
AK: Tell me about it! It's so unfair: Jimmy
White having to sit and watch Stephen Hendry making break after
break! |
Su K: [Flatly, to Ashwin] Wrong Crucible. |
AK: Sorry. Moving on, Sanjeev... |
Sa K: Sorry, Zoë. Now, let's get back to
your family - I mean your real family. You got married
quite late in the day, didn't you? I don't mean like nine
o'clock in the evening, but I mean relatively late [in
life]. |
ZW: Yes, I did. I didn't really believe in marriage
very much. And then it just became the right time, and
somebody really nice asked me. |
Su K: Aah, that's lovely. |
Sa K: So I assume - like me - you've played the
field quite a bit! |
ZW: [Sheepish] I'm not telling you! |
Su K: No, no, Sanjeev. You have only played in
a field. That's a different thing. [To Zoe] He's
never had a girlfriend. |
Sa K: No, no. What she means is I haven't met
Miss Right. That's all she means. A woman's gotta
have something pretty special to tie me down. |
Su K: Yes - muscular arms and industrial strength
rope! |
Sa K: Yeah, all right, all right! |
AK: [Looks at Madhuri] I met Miss Right forty-two
years ago, and she's all I've ever needed. |
ZW: Aah, that's nice. |
Sa K: Er, Dad? |
AK: Miss Wanamaker, you managed to get a designer
label coat for absolutely nothing. That story appeals to
every fibre in my body. Talk me through it, leaving out no
detail. |
ZW: Well, it was... I was doing a play called
Electra, on Broadway, and in order to promote the show, I did a
photo shoot. And they lent me this coat, which I really
loved; I loved it a lot. And I kept asking the producer -
I said, 'Just as a bonus, wouldn't it be nice if you gave the
coat to me?' He laughed and he wouldn't actually confront
it. And one day - one evening after the show - he came to
the dressing room and he said, 'I've got somebody here to see
you.' And he said, 'It's Al Pacino.' |
Su K: [Amazed] Al Pacino! |
ZW: And I said, 'Well, tell him to go away; I'm
busy and I don't want to see him at all'! Anyway, he came
in. I was talking to him about our producer, and I was
saying to him, 'He's a really mean man!' And I said, 'For
instance, he won't give me that coat' - and it was sitting on
the back of the door - and he said, 'I think you should give it
to her, don't you?' So that's how I got the coat. |
Su K: Good, good, good. |
AK: I wonder if this Mr Pacino would accompany me
to B&Q [a DIY shop in the UK]. Tell him it's late
openings on Wednesdays. |
Sa K: OK. |
Su K: You know, I once got a free designer cardi
from Cardi Corner in Brick Lane. It's a complete one-off,
150% nylon. It produces so much static it's actually
illegal to wear it on a commercial airliner! |
Sa K: Actually, the [inaudible] Singh
fashion emporium in Southall once gave me a tank top with leg
holes. It's a one-piece thing. |
ZW: Really? |
Sa K: I only wore it once. Yeah, because it
coincided with Gay Pride week... |
MK: Zoe, you were in Harry Potter, weren't you? |
ZW: Yes. |
MK: That must have been lovely. |
ZW: Yes, it was. It was great fun. |
Sa K: But how did they do all the flying bits in
it? |
ZW: Basically, you have to sit on a bicycle seat
and then get strapped in to a safety harness. And then
this machine - it had a broomstick on it... And so the
computer knows exactly what moves it's going to do. So
your broomstick can go down, or it can go up, or it can go
sideways, but it's programmed in. The day I went on it, it
broke down, and it went down like this [leans forward
sharply]! Then I had to go to the canteen and have
something to eat while they fixed it. And then I had to go
back in again. |
Sa K: Wow. What did you have to eat? |
ZW: I've forgotten. |
Sa K: You see, I like those little bits of
detail. I mean, obviously, Harry Potter's been very
popular the whole world over; and I feel a great affinity with
Harry Potter. |
ZW: Do you? |
Sa K: Yeah, because we were both born
special. You know, I mean, he was born with wizard powers
and I was born with an extra large appendix. I can digest
grass! |
AK: It's true, Miss Wanamaker. |
ZW: Really? |
AK: Most kids, you have to twist their arm to [get
them to] mow the lawn. But not Sanjeev. |
ZW: Amazing. |
Sa K: It's true. It's delicious. It is
lovely. |
Su K: Zoe, darling, I want to talk to you about
your extraordinary performance in Mother
Courage, for which you won many awards. Now, even more
extraordinary that you didn't actually have any lines, did you,
in that part? How did you do that? |
ZW: It was great. It's best not to have any
lines, and then also you die at the end and everybody feels very
sorry for you, and I enjoyed that the best. That was good. |
Sa K: [Mock-serious] Zoe Wanamaker, let me ask you
this: what is the difference between Mother Courage and Mother
Goose? |
ZW: I think one is a play by Brecht and the other
one is a fairy story. |
Sa K: In Mother Courage do you throw sweets into
the audience? |
ZW: No. No, we didn't in that one. |
Sa K: OK, OK. You see, it's important for the
kids watching at home. So, basically, less sweets get
thrown into the audience during Brecht. That's the way to
remember it, is it not? Which, I think, is the beauty -
personally - of Brecht's work. |
ZW: [Joking] I think you're right! |
Sa K: Mum? |
MK: You were in Doctor Who, weren't you? |
ZW: Yes. Yes, I was. |
MK: Sanjeev has to watch Doctor Who from behind the
sofa. |
Su K: He watches everything from behind the sofa -
that's where he hides his food. |
Sa K: [To Zoe] I've got a den back there. |
ZW: Have you? |
Sa K: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [Hides his mouth,
pretending to peek out from behind the sofa.] Now, am I
eating now or not? |
ZW: No, you're not, you're not. |
Sa K: I was! |
ZW: Were you? |
Sa K: You see, that's the beauty of it. |
ZW: [Amused] What an actor you are! |
Sa K: Thank you! |
ZW: It's amazing. I don't know why you don't
work more! [Big laugh from audience.] |
Sa K: [Embarrassed, to Sushil] Ask a
question. |
Su K: I want to know, darling - because you're so
beautiful and lithe - do you have an exercise regime? |
ZW: I don't know about a regime, but I do do
something called Pilates, which I've been doing for a very long
time - about twenty-five years or so. And I do that a lot. |
Su K: I used to do pilots in the sixties... |
Sa K: [To Zoë] Sorry. I do apologise.
[To Sushil] You mean Pilates. |
Su K: I know what I mean. |
Sa K: We're just coming to the end of this part of
the interview, and I'd like to end the interview in the way that
the great Bard, Shakespeare, would end many of his plays, by
saying that's all we hath time for! Ladies and
gentlemen, Zoë Wanamaker! |
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