PAUL: Hello and welcome to Regrets.

I've had a few.

I'm Paul Hunter, artistic director of Told

by an Idiot, and this is a podcast where I
talk to friends and colleagues delving

into what made them
the person they are today.

Hello and welcome.

My guest this month has acting in her

blood, but she has always ploughed
her own particular furrow.

Part of the extraordinary collective

that was Kneehigh Theatre - she worked
with them on and off for over 20 years.

She has also recently starred in two

astonishing feature films where her
work on screen has been rightly lauded.

Welcome, Mary Woodvine.

MARY: Thank you very much.

Makes me want to cry, actually.

PAUL: No, I don't wish to upset you.

MARY: Great start.

PAUL: All of those things I said
are true, which is good.

Now, I often when I talk on my podcast
to guests who are from a performing

background, or I often
ask how it all started.

But I'm assuming you literally were born
in a trunk at the side of the stage.

MARY: Not quite.
Although I took my son when he was five

months old and took him in a trunk
at the side of the stage.

I think that was the last
Kneehigh show I did.

I took my son then.

He was five months old.
No, I wasn't.

But it meant, I think,
because both my parents were actors,

they'd met at the Bristol Old Vic doing
A Midsummer Night's Dream.

PAUL: What were they playing?

MARY: Well, Dad was playing one of the lovers
and Mum was playing a fairy.

PAUL: Excellent.

MARY: But I think because of that,

I think it was just one of those things
that because somebody asked me how I got

into it the other day,
and I think it was just always an option.

Whereas I think for lots of people,
they don't necessarily think of it.

I mean, I think they do more now,
but certainly, yeah,

when I was growing up, it just kind
of wasn't an option for lots of people.

It wasn't something they thought, oh,

I know, I'll be an actor, because it
was just sort of my world, really.

PAUL: Normal.
MARY: It was just normal.

And we didn't really have extended family,

we just had hundreds of
actor friends and mum's divorced actor

girlfriends, and it was
just like, yeah, lovely.

PAUL: I'm always slightly fascinated, obviously

not just you, I have friends who who,
like you, are children of actors.

And I suppose, in a sense, you mentioned
about your own son being in a trunk.

And now my kids are very comfortable
and just used to being in a rehearsal room

or on a set because
they've grown up with it.

But
I suppose that sense of when both of your

parents do it, it's not just like,
because my partner is a psychotherapist,

so it's not like we're both actors,
whereas both of your parents did it.

And then that was just the norm.

Did you go and visit when if your dad was

filming somewhere,
did you go and visit on set or did you go

to rehearsals or was it
just a separate thing?

And that's what they did?

MARY: I think it was quite a separate thing.

Mum didn't work so much
when we were little.

She'd stopped working.

She'd been working at the establishment
when she got pregnant with my sister.

So with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore...
PAUL: Wow.

MARY: Bird and Fortune...

PAUL: And she was performing with that gang?

MARY: Yeah, she was performing with that gang
and then got pregnant with my sister.

So then she left and then Eleanor Bron
got the job that she had.

She's always gone, like she
was always a little bit.

PAUL: Proper showbiz kind
of cool, showbiz royalty that is.

MARY: Yeah, it is pretty cool.

But she didn't work quite so much
and then ended up getting working

in a school and being a school
secretary and doing things like that.

And then she trained to be a counsellor,
interestingly enough.

But dad - I often talk about dad just not
being around very much, because

we saw him on Sundays, because
there wasn't a show on Sundays.

I'd sometimes come home, I'd see him

after I came home from school,
before he went to the theatre.

He'd sometimes be on his hands
and knees cleaning the kitchen floor.

Good memory I've got of my dad
in his pants interestingly enough.

PAUL: Well, it can be hot work, I think manual,
manual labour.

MARY: Yeah.
But I think it was so he didn't get his

trousers dirty while he
was kneeling on the floor.

PAUL: I think to give him his due and also
an actor as prestigious as your dad,

that's a strange image for me,
because I think of him being

in Shakespeare and Eugene O'Neill
being brilliant, by the way.

But I suppose my other question around
that is, did you have any moments,

because it was so normal and it was,
as you say, an option?

Did you have moments when you were younger
where you kind of reacted against that?

I'm not going to go into the family
business, so to speak?

MARY: No, I didn't.
My sister did.

PAUL: Okay.
MARY: But I didn't.

I just thought, oh, well,
this is what I'm going to do.

And I wasn't very academic and I
didn't do very well at school.

And it seemed to be the one thing

that people kind of went,
oh, you're not bad at that.

So I thought, oh, well,
this is going to be it,

and I don't have to write either, because,
as I said, not brilliantly academic.

PAUL: So you did school plays?

MARY: Yeah, did the school play,
did school plays and then joined youth

theatres, and then I
did the National Youth.

Then I did an OA in Drama.

PAUL: What's an OA?

MARY: An OA, I think,
is equivalent to an S level.

I think it's literally in between
GCSE now and an A level.

It was sort of an in between one.

I did that and then I tried to get

into drama school and did
it two years running.

Didn't get in the first year,

but did the National Youth Theatre,
which was just amazing.

Yes so -

PAUL: Was the National Youth Theatre
your kind of training?

In a sense, then?

MARY: No, but I think and I think then, like,
today, it just gives you a really good

grounding in terms of it's got
such a brilliant reputation.

And it did then, you know,
I was doing that with Daniel Craig

and a guy called Jonathan Cake,
and I got my first job because

the director who worked on my second year
piece was a guy called Bill Buffery,

who then took on the directorship
of a theatre company in Devon.

So I finished drama school,
did some temping work and saw that he'd

taken over this directorship
of this company called Orchard.

PAUL: Yes, I know Orchard.

Yes, of course I do long term company.

MARY: Yeah, absolutely.

So I wrote to him,

sent him a postcard just saying,
I understand you're taking this

on and please consider me if there's
anything suitable for casting.

And that's how I got my first job.

So that was all through having
done the National Youth Theatre.

PAUL: I have to rewind slightly here.

So your mother was hanging out

with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore
and you with the future James Bond.

It's very, very -

MARY: It sounds incredibly glamorous.

PAUL: What was he, what was he like?

MARY: Oh, it was lovely.

He was absolutely lovely.

But we were all like 19 was the,
probably 17, 18 or 19, you know?

Late, late teens.

PAUL: So great time to be in a
company and doing plays.

MARY: And that was the first time that I really
knew what it was like,

because it was that kind of immersive
two weeks, or maybe one or two weeks.

Really intense, getting to know a group

really well and working on something,
and suddenly and that was it.

Loads of people get,
I do lots of theatre now

where there's a community element and they
use people from the community to

add to the productions and you just
see them fall in love with it.

Absolutely get lost in it
and you go - I remember that.

PAUL: Yeah, I remember that feeling.

You mentioned drama school.

Did you go to Welsh College?
Is that right?

MARY: I did go to Welsh College.
Yeah.

PAUL: And how was that?

MARY: It was brilliant.

It was absolutely brilliant.

I didn't go home.

Everybody else it was sort of like
I made fantastic friends.

I'm ashamed to say that
I didn't know anybody spoke the Welsh

language, which I was
really appalled by myself.

And I considered myself, I'd been
to a good, comprehensive school.

I considered myself to be quite worldly

and had no idea that it was like
a proper people's first language.

So it was brilliant.

But halfway through the term,

people were going home and I just
didn't go back, I just stayed.

I loved it.
It was fantastic.

I lived with some lovely people.

PAUL: Oh, brilliant and we're
kind of contemporary.

So what would this be?
Kind of late 80s or early 90s?

MARY: Yeah, late 80s.

So I was there well, no, mid 80s.

Went in 86.
Yes.

PAUL: I went to Middlesex in 86.
Yes.

MARY: Right.
Yeah.

PAUL: It's weird, because

we'll come to this shortly,
obviously Kneehigh, with both you more so

than me, but we've both obviously been
part of that extraordinary thing.

But in my head, I thought, well,
I bet Mary went to Dartington.

I don't know why my brain had that kind

of vibe, but you were at a classical
drama school training Mary.

MARY: I was! And I was very, very lucky as well,

because it was a college
of music and drama.

I got a scholarship and I had singing
lessons for a year, for three years.

So I learned, I learned proper singing,

which was really confusing,
because I'd always sung, we'd always sung.

And this is like this sounds like

the absolute epitome of coming
from an acting family.

But Mum's friends would come round

with the guitar, we'd all
sit and sing and harmonise.

And so I'd sung all my life.

And then suddenly,
to learn the kind of technique to sing

in inverted commas "properly",
I literally couldn't sing for a while.

It was the re-learning process.

I just couldn't sing,
couldn't remember how to do it.

It was really odd.

And then you just let the technique
take you back to where you were.

PAUL: And of course, you then go to that and you
talk about working with Orchard.

Was that what first took you to that part
of the world, sort of Devon and Cornwall?

Because you're not from Cornwall, are you?

MARY: No, I'm not from Cornwall,
but I was very lucky.

And I, from the age of six,

came to Cornwall for every single holiday,
six weeks every summer.

So I knew it really well anyway.
Then I got my first job in Devon,

and then there used to be something called
the Southwest Theatre Consortium,

and it just meant, like,
now that everybody in the local companies,

everybody supports one another, everybody
goes to see what everybody else is doing.

And so, because I was doing

working with Orchard, Mike Shepherd,
who was a founding member of Kneehigh,

came to watch this Orchard show,
and then that was it, really.

Just got to know everybody.

And then I worked with Tristan.

So the first production I did with them

was Carol Churchill's Fen, which was
quite heavy, going, if anybody knows.

It's amazing, obviously,

but every village hall, sort of
it was bigger than village halls.

It was small scale touring.

Everywhere we'd go, people would go, oh,

we liked it when you did Lorna Doone
or The Woman in Black.

We sort of turned up with Fen
which is pretty dark.

PAUL: it's an extraordinary play,
but I can imagine people going, oh, yes,

I'd rather Lorna Doone than this slightly
abstract, challenging, sort of -

MARY: Somebody being stuck in a wardrobe.

And oh, God, it was just like, horrific.

It's an amazing play, but it was
very funny people's reactions to it.

And so then I worked
with Tristan Sturrock.

The next thing we did, I think,
was,

oh, I might have done a Christmas show,
did Beauty and the Beast,

and then the third show was
A Midsummer Night's Dream

and Tristan Sturrock was in that and Tris
was obviously a massive Kneehigh member.

And Tris and I knew each other from when

we were teenagers because
he was doing something in London,

I can't remember what it was,
and needed somewhere to stay.

And his mum was a friend of a friend

of my mum's, so we met when we were
teenagers because he stayed at my house

PAUL: and then
reconnected as actors via Kneehigh.

MARY: As and then reconnected, yeah.

And then when I'd done the Christmas show,

I'd met Giles King,
who is then, you know, Tris's best mate.

And then Giles and I got
together as a result of that.

And in fact, Tristan was our
best man when we got married.

PAUL: Was he? Aw brilliant.

Yeah, well, more Kneehigh shortly.

But it's interesting that you talk about

your first encounter with them,
because I remember my first encounter,

which was obviously later, but was,
I think, something like 97 or 98.

They were doing a Nick Dart play called

The Riot at the National
Theatre, you were in it?

MARY: Yeah, I was.
Yes.

PAUL: Sorry, I should have remembered that.

I should say you were
absolutely marvellous, Mary.

If you want to storm out
of the podcast, feel free.

Anyway, I auditioned for Mike for that and
I got a recall and then I didn't get it.

And I always enjoy ribbing Mike over

the years that he didn't want me
initially, I had to keep begging to get

into Kneehigh, but I remember then,
it must have been a couple of years later,

and they were doing The Red Shoes,
Emma (Rice) was directing The Red Shoes.

They'd done it once, briefly,
and a Portuguese performer didn't do it.

And they said, would I, they rang me up,
would I be interested?

And I thought, I do like
the sound of this Kneehigh.

And of course, when someone says no to
you, you like them even more, don't you?

MARY: Absolutely.

PAUL: Mike said, Why don't you come down

and meet me and Emma and I'd never
been south of Bristol before.

I had no idea.

And I got on my train - I was

from Birmingham and then I lived in London
and I thought, "Where am I going?

This is like the Wild West." The
train went on forever.

And then Mike picked me up at St Austell,
and I didn't know them.

And we drove to the barn,
the amazing barns.

I should explain to the listeners all
these extraordinary in Gorran Haven,

the barns where Kneehigh
used to make all their work.

And we met there and we spoke and then

Emma and Mike said, oh,
come on, we'll go to the pub.

And we walked around the back of the barns

and for them it was everyday thing
and there was the ocean,

and I must have stood like some
kid who'd never seen the sea.

You're right.

I said, yeah, I've just been rehearsing
by a car park in Westbourne Grove.

So that environment,
which you were obviously used to your

summer holidays, for me, was astonishing,
that people could make work in that place.

And then once you kind of hooked
into that and obviously was that soon

where you thought, I'm just part of this
now, this world of Kneehigh,

was that where you kind of I noticed
that it's hard to say because there's so

many loose ensemble
type members of people.

But I remember meeting you with Giles
in that time as well, and you were around,

but did you just kind
of slip into that world?

MARY: Yeah,
I look back and I just think how lucky

and amazing that time was,
because I was also really lucky.

I actually already had an agent in London,

so I'd literally
live in a van, me and Giles,

up at the barns, because it's like three
or four barns all joined together,

which at the time, some bits had
horse tack and a horse in it.

So we only had a couple of them.

But as the company grew,
we sort of took over more,

and it was all rented from the National
Trust, and we just sort of lived there.

There's a car park,
so we kind of lived in a van.

Tris lived in a van.

We all ate together,

but then every now and then,
I just get a call from my agent and jump

on the train and go off and do
a telly or something like that.

We're talking about the mid 90s,

so it was quite a lot of good television,
lots of and I was in my early 20s -

PAUL: You were with James Bond again weren't
you?

MARY: Oh, yes.

Our Friends in the North.

Yeah.

That was great doing that.

It's a long way to Newcastle
from Cornwall, but yeah, just so lucky.

In fact, my current partner well,

my partner, it makes it
sound a bit temporary.

PAUL: For the moment, we will talk about him in a minute just in case he disappears before I get
to talk about him.

MARY: But he says things like he said to me not
long ago, we were talking about something.

He said, what about the Stone Roses?
And I said, I don't know.

I just don't know who the Stone Roses are.

I kind of think I do,
but I never really knew their music.

And he was like he said, Were you
living in a caravan made of theatre?

PAUL: Were you a theatre troupe at the time?
MARY: I was.

I was living in a caravan made of theatre.
That was it.

And we that was it.

We just and we listened to folk
music as the 90s wore on.

We did get a bit housey and clubby,

but the early part, certainly when I first
met Giles in 90, Christmas 90,

the early part, we just sort of listened
to folk music and world music,

and we didn't know anything about I didn't
know anything about the Stone Roses or

Blur or Pulp or anything like
that, didn't have a clue.

Give me Planxty any day.

PAUL: Yes, exactly.

Well, it's actually you mentioned

Mark Jenkin, your partner, and it does
bring me to these two astonishing films.

And I'm sure you've been inundated with
people wanting to talk to you about them.

They are extraordinary.

I just have two quotes I really liked,

which I wanted to kick off and maybe
talk a little bit about Bait first.

If anyone obviously hasn't seen this film,
I'm sure lots of people have,

but it is an extraordinary film, written,
written and directed by Mark Jenkin.

MARY: And developed, and edited.
PAUL: Yeah.

That's what I think is extraordinary.
Sorry.

Almost like Charlie Chaplin.

Everything - music.

It's astonishing.

But two quotes I really liked one,
obviously, you've heard this, probably,

but there's a big supporter of Mark,
and the film was the critic, Mark Kermode,

who brilliantly supported it,
I assume, right from the get go.

That's the feeling I get
when I read about it.

And he talked about it with a genuine

modern masterpiece,
which establishes Jenkin as one

of the most arresting, intriguing
British filmmakers generation.

And then Peter Bradshaw,

the critic in The Guardian,
this is the way I like, Bait

is like an episode of EastEnders
directed by FW Murnau.

Which I thought was absolutely brilliant.

And in some ways it's a very
good description of the film.

MARY: Yeah.

PAUL: Obviously you know him very well and his

process very well, but reading about it,
this was years in the planning

and preparation and the making through
the short films and all of that.

I just was curious when I - that sentence,
that sense of being around somebody like

you talked about your parents,
but being around someone that has

that level of endurance
to keep something going.

There must have been times when you
thought, am I going to get this film made?

Or what was it like being around someone

that was pursuing something
so single mindedly like that?

MARY: That's his character.

I mean, that's what he does.

He just pursues things single mindedly
until it happens.

Yeah.
And it is amazing to sort of to watch.

And when I first met him,

I was aware that I was sort
of in the company of somebody

who absolutely kind of committed
100% and kept working.

We were just having a chat yesterday
about I was saying, Are you content?

And he was saying, yeah, we both talk
about just what we want out of life.

And and he said, well, yeah,
but I wouldn't mind an Oscar.

I said are you joking?

And he said no.

And it's like, you know,
he that he's really and I think and he

decided at a very, very young age that he
was he was going to achieve things.

And I have to say, I didn't,
I'm not even that ambitious either.

And it's so brilliant to be with somebody
who is that driven, that single minded,

because it does completely -
sometimes it's a pain in the arse,

obviously,
but most of the time it's incredible.

PAUL: Sure it is.

And in your role in Bait,
I was interested.

Was that always something that you knew

you were going to play, or did Mark look
at other actors and then arrive at you?

Or how did that work?
MARY: Not for Bait.

For Bait, I think
that was always going to be me.

Although he'd been writing it for

years and years and years,
it came in very many forms.

And I think I can't remember if

the draft that we actually shot
might have been like draft 30.

PAUL: Wow.
MARY: Written it so many times,

or maybe even 40 written it,
and it had loads of different names

and it was like 10-15 years in the making,
or even I can't remember.

He'll hate me for misquoting.

No, but then with Enys Men,
he said I couldn't play

the main volunteer and he needed a woman
that was in her late 40s, early 50s.

I kept sort of waving at him,
across the breakfast table.

Hello.
And he said, no, it can't be you.

It can't be you.

And I was just like, Fuck sake.

So then I ended up helping him cast
and go, well, how about so and so?

PAUL: You're kidding me, really?
MARY: No.

And suggesting people that I thought
would be a really brilliant for the job.

And then he had a meeting
with the producer one day,

not long before,
probably six months before we started

filming, and said, oh, yeah,
and Denzil and I have had a chat.

So, yeah.

And I think, yeah, I think
you can play the volunteer.

There was like, no fanfare.

Yeah, I think it's okay if you do it.

And then I spoke to Denzil and he was just

like, no, it was only
ever going to be you.

Of course it was only going to be you.

But I think Mark was really concerned

about nepotism, so he was a bit worried
about casting me because of nepotism.

But then touch wood so far.

Oh, I think there was one comment a couple

of weeks ago about something about it,
but I don't think

many people have kind of, I mean it doesn't
really matter.

PAUL: It's interesting because of course I was
aware and was reading about,

amongst many influences, the influence
of Nick Roeg on Mark's work.

And I was reading him interestingly,
talking about being a kid and studying

the book Walkabout and then
being shown the film.

And I took my kids, my family,
to see Walkabout last Sunday.

It was showing at the Riverside Studios.

And I'm a big Nick Roeg fan, and I hadn't
seen that film at the cinema ever.

And I said, as a half term treat, I said,
Right, come on, we're going to go.

And my kids are fairly cine-literate.

I have to sometimes badger my son Dexter
to watch something that, you know he

thinks something is old
when it was made last year.

So I sometimes had to really insist.

I said, no, you'll like this,
you'll like this.

And then we sat down and it
is an extraordinary film.

I haven't seen it for years.

And I think they were
really blown away by it.

I think they hadn't really
seen anything like it.

They did really, really engage with it.

It wasn't like they were going,
but they were like, Whoa

what is this thing that they're
- and I suppose, obviously,

because I didn't want to read too
much about Enys Men, but I read bits.

But you can see that influence.

Of course you can.

Whilst at the same time
being wholly original.

But my question, I suppose,
was when I read about Walkabout,

Edward Bond's script apparently
was like 17 pages long.

How long was the script you were given?

Obviously, dialogue wise,
it's very minimal.

MARY: It's very little dialogue.

64 pages?
PAUL: Okay.

It's a very detailed,
very detailed script.

MARY: I think so, yeah.

But obviously,
a huge amount of repetition.

She walks across a cliff,
she picks up a stone, she drops a stone.

I mean, that like every page,
it's got that on it.

She writes in the diary.

So huge amount of repetition
and very sparse.

But it kind of made the scenes when
I've actually got somebody there.

The lovely Edward Rowe plays the fisher,
the boatman.

That's so brilliant to actually have
somebody to share a scene with,

because it's a really odd thing,
kind of feeling like you're doing nothing

and people sort of say, oh,
God, I thought that was great.

And I go, but I literally
don't do anything.

I literally walk across
a cliff and drop a stone.

It's quite a strange thing.

I suppose you have to be conscious, but
you don't want to be too self conscious.

And it is really that thing.

I suppose it was good for me,

as a theatre actor,
doing something that was so intensely kind

of sort of filmic and cinematic,
to really, really learn that craft of not

telegraphing anything,
literally just thinking the thought.

Because with Kneehigh and work, you know
doing a show at the Minack,

which is the brilliant theatre
on the cliffs in Cornwall,

or any outdoor theatre,
where you have to telegraph everything

in huge physicality
so that is my kind of default.

PAUL: Well, it makes it even more astonishing,

Mary, because it is an amazing performance
and the kind of, as you say,

the containment of it,
but the simplicity of it.

And it's very hypnotic.

It's very strange when you watch it

because you're kind of and of course,
it doesn't reveal itself very easily.

And it's dealing with big things,
grief and loneliness.

But you can't take your eyes off you

and the kind of environment and you
in that environment because it's not just,

in some ways we share a background
in theatre and similar -

Told by an Idiot, our work
is very theatrical as well.

But I often think, for me,

what I love about performing
is playing with other people.

People say - I made a show last year
and the assumption because it was quite

personal to me, it was about my football
team and it was about me,

the assumption from the producers went,
well, this will be cheap.

It's just Paul on his own.

And I and I went, no, no,
there's three other people in it.

And they were like, oh, God,
this is supposed to be just you.

And I said, I've got no
desire to be on my own.

Whereas in this you were fundamentally

for large chunks of your time
as a performer on your own.

And I think you well, I don't know.

You've explained it,
but I thought it was astonishing.

You seemed so
in that place where it was so credible.

MARY: I think it's interesting because that's
something that I've managed to talk

to people about during Q and As,
I suppose, in the way that when you're

with other performers,
you're reacting to what they're saying

and what they're doing and what they're
kind of showing you, you're reacting to.

I had the natural world
to just sort of react to and be in.

And also, this sounds a bit, you know,

I was just being present.

And also, I think it helped
that I am a physical person.

So walking on cliffs is really simple
for me, or pleasurable and easy.

I don't worry about losing my footing.

So I think that maybe that kind of came

across as well, that there was an ease
physically as opposed to I don't know,

and I was just sort of reacting to the
environment as. opposed to a person

PAUL: I think that's true in a sense, because
that's partly what I mean by credible.

You looked so comfortable

in the environment,
I bought you as this volunteer.

I went, okay, I buy this person here.

I know that maybe sounds like quite
a simple thing, but it's quite important,

in a sense, to be able to go,
okay, I'm not going.

She will slip over there.

But I read a thing that Mark said,
which struck a chord to me when he said,

I love films that foreground
the fact that you are watching film.

And I know what he means.

And actually, for us, as Told by an Idiot,

that's kind of what we
do with our theatre.

We are always acknowledging the artifice
of theatre and it's what Kneehigh did.

And I think that's kind of what
the film does about cinema, in a sense.

When he said that,
I haven't thought about it.

Yes, I kind of see what you mean
and it makes me enjoy it more weirdly.

MARY: Yeah, absolutely -
PAUL: Sorry, go ahead.

MARY: No, what he talked about, about sort of
the dream stage and cinema was invented.

Mark talks about this on Q and A's as

well, that telling people your dreams is
about the most boring thing you can do.

You can wake up in the morning, go, Oh.

God, I had this amazing dream.

And then it just does - for the person

listening, it never
quite does it, does it?

Because dreams are about atmospheres,

because you kind of have
an atmosphere of a dream, don't you?

And with film, you can create that.

You can make those atmospheres to tell

those stories so that people understand
that and kind of feel it.

Whereas if you just tell
it as a story, you don't.

So film has the capability of creating

dream state, dreamlike states
for people to experience.

PAUL: I totally agree.

And actually, partly because Chaplin is
very much on our mind,

because our current show is about
Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel.

But I remember Chaplin was asked why
does the little tramp never speak?

And he said, Because the Little Tramp
exists as if in a dream.

And in dreams people don't talk.

And I thought that was a really good way
of looking again at the notion of this

figure, that even when all the talkies and
sound was coming in, he was going, no.

And there's a purity, I suppose,

about almost like the purest sense
of film being without words, in a way.

Now, my next, now please tell me the phone

is ringing off the hook with offers
for you to do more film work.

Mary.

MARY: Course it isn't! This is
the world we live in.

I've done one low budget feature, but

PAUL: The film was seen at Cannes.

Did you get to go to Cannes?

Come on, tell me about Cannes.

MARY: Oh, my God. So exciting.

PAUL: Did you got the carpet?

MARY: We did have a carpet, but of course,

we were in one of the smaller cinemas
and nobody really knew what was going on.

PAUL: It's still Cannes Mary, it's still Cannes.
MARY: Having said that,

we did arrive when everybody was already
in theatre, so possibly they were awaiting

for us to arrive
late, but we'd had a bit of a drama

getting there because
we'd gone on the train.

We didn't want to fly,

so we'd gone on the train and as the train
was coming out of the tunnel on the French

side, there was this amazing electric
storm and further up the track,

this lightning hit the track,
so everything just sort of stopped.

So then we didn't know.

Anyway, basically, very long story short,

we couldn't get to Cannes
on the night that we meant to.

We had to spend a night in Paris,

which obviously was very lovely,
but a little bit stressful.

I don't think Mark said very much.

PAUL: And how did the festival deal with it
then, when you just couldn't get there?

MARY: They were fine, because
we were going to arrive the day before the

so what we just did, we had to get up at
it was about quarter to five.

Get a train, change at Marseille
get another train that got us to Cannes.

And then we were met by all our lovely

the entourage,
and they took us to our hotel and stood

in the lobby and said, right,
we'll see you back here in an hour.

So we literally had an hour.

Change your clothes, unpack,

jump in the shower, get ready and then
put our frocks on and head out.

It was brilliant.
PAUL: What was the reaction like at the end?

MARY: It was great.

I mean, Cannes very strange because,
you know, people just get up and leave

and they've got flip seats
so you can hear them.

It's not like people
flip out silently now.

You just hear flip out.
But thankfully it wasn't quite like that.

So we got introduced and we had to walk

down through this full auditorium,
several hundred people,

go to the front of the stage,
Mark introduced the film,

introduced me and then sat back down
and we just sat there kind of gripping

each other's hand for the whole
of the length of film.

It was absolutely excruciating.

We heard a few chairs flip,
but not too many.

And then we got up on the stage afterwards

and did a Q and A and everybody
seemed to really like it.

It's very strange, though.

It is really.
It's really weird.

PAUL: People say,

Where would you, you mention Mark
and the Oscar or whatever,

I've always wanted to be in a film that
went to Cannes more than anything else.

I don't know why whenever I read about it,

when it's on in May and my old colleague
and co founder Hayley was in a film

by an Italian director called Mateo
Garrone, a film called Tale of Tales.

And she went to Cannes with that.

And she bought me a little fridge magnet

from the Cannes Film Festival,
which is as close as I've got so far.

But now, chatting to you,
I'm even more determined that maybe I need

to have the determination
that Mark has to get me to Cannes.

MARY: Yeah, just believe.
PAUL: Exactly.

Just believe.
That's very good.

That's a very good point.

And just before we finish, Mary,
it's been so lovely and I can't believe

we've not really chatted
that much, really.

We've crossed paths

MARY: over the years

PAUL: We've never been in the same show,

but this is the beginning of us
chatting as well, which is nice.

And I'm sure I'll be down in Cornwall
at some point,

but I always finish by asking some rapid
questions and you give your first answer

number one to be surprised
or know in advance.

MARY: This is meant to be a rapid answer.

That was a surprising question, wasn't it?

I'd be surprised.

PAUL: Surfing or sailing?

Either?
MARY: Yeah.

No, I like surfing.

I just don't do it.

PAUL: Glenda Jackson or Vanessa Redgrave.

MARY: Glenda.

PAUL: Party on the beach or Rave in a field?
MARY: Party on the beach.

PAUL: The Northern Lights or
the Australian outback?

MARY: Northern lights.

PAUL: The Wicker Man or The Exorcist

MARY: Ooh Wickerman.

PAUL: Film or theatre.

Let's leave that in the air if you want?

MARY: I don't know.
PAUL: That's good.

I don't know is a -
MARY: Theatre I think...

PAUL: A very good place to end I think.

It's a ludicrous question anyway,
but thank you so much for joining us.

You've been brilliant.
MARY: Oh, total pleasure.

PAUL: As I said, I hope to see
you somewhere soon.

MARY: Thank you.
Thank you very much.

PAUL: Dear listeners, if you've enjoyed this
Idiot podcast, please spread the word.