Intro: Paul Hunter
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.

Paul Hunter
Hello and welcome to Regrets, I've Had A Few. Today I'm chatting with someone who is, very clearly for me, one of the finest actors of her generation. She's a massive influence on me as a performer and has been for a very long time. Anything from Shakespeare to the crazy physical world of Complicite, she can turn her hand to very, very, very quickly and easily. She's also a dear friend. Kathryn Hunter. Kathryn, welcome.

Kathryn Hunter
Hi Paul, Hi, brother.

Paul Hunter
Yes. Yes, we we've had a few things where people assume that we're related in some way, haven't we? We might come to that a bit later on. When I think of you, Kathryn, one of the first things I think before I speak to you is I wonder where Kathryn is, because you could be anywhere in the world. I've had conversations with you in America, in Greece and anywhere. Where are you today?

Kathryn Hunter
I am in London. Oh, and but talking about phone calls, if you allow me to spin off straightaway.

Paul Hunter
Yes, of course.

Kathryn Hunter
There was one pivotal phone call. I don't know if you remember it. You rang me. Forgive me. I'm terrible with dates.

Paul Hunter
No, no, doesn't matter, carry on.

Kathryn Hunter
I was in Athens in a hospital. And because my mum had had a stroke and she was basically passing away and I was there and holding her hand and then the phone rang. I thought it was my sister who'd gone to have a shower and was going to race back or whatever. And it was you and you said hello, is this a convenient moment? And I said, not really, but maybe you didn't hear. And then you said, well, there's something I want to ask you about, there's this project and basically it's Edward Petherbridge and I and it's something about King Lear. And Edward's had a stroke and it's basically devised and it's a comedy. Would you be interested? And I went, yes. Do you want to think about it? And I said no, I'll call you back soon. And it was one of those extraordinary moments where the connection with you and your work, the connection with my mother having a stroke and you saying Edward had a stroke and the long history I'd had with Lear and kind of the the idea of kind of rolling it all into one in devising something unique called My Perfect Mind just kind of was one of those extraordinary, wonderful moments.

Paul Hunter
I do remember, I do remember that phone call and I have to apologise for not quite maybe hearing what the situation exactly was. But we'll definitely talk about My Perfect Mind, because it's such a special time in my life that show, with you and Edward and everybody, we will definitely come to that. But if you don't mind, I'd like to take you further back. And I'm always interested when I chat to people you know, people I know, whatever, is, when was the first moment that acting kind of captured you. Was it something you saw on film or was it making plays with your siblings when you were little? What? It's not in your family I assume? There's no other actors in your family?

Kathryn Hunter
No, no it's not in my family. I think the first moment it didn't capture me when I was I was in a catholic primary school with with Mother Angela, rehearsing me into the part of the is it the witch or something who kind of goes, apples for sale, you know, trying to tempt Snow White or something. And and apparently I wasn't speaking loud enough. And she said no louder, apples for sale, and I said apples for sale. And she said, I can't hear you. And I said, but there's nobody in the room when there's somebody in the room then I'll speak louder. And I think the next time was at Queens College with Michelle Wade, who used to take me up to the top of the school and do this audition pieces that she prepared. You know, and I remember them being quite racy about prostitutes and that I first and I thought this is rather good. And then I think it was at university doing a Brecht In The Jungle Of The Cities. And I did drama because the English course was full or something. And then you get into productions and everything and it was at the tech. And I thought, I didn't know what a tech was, but it was all these people and lighting and costume and and and stage management and everything. I thought, Oh my God. All these people gathered together to to make a story. And I think that's when I got hooked as well as in the French department I did The Ring Around the Moon and I had this line to say, no, Madame de, do something. And not realising it was funny. And there was this roar of laughter. I thought, well, that's it. That's it.

Paul Hunter
And what was it that time at university when you were acting in plays that you started to think maybe this is what I could do? When did it start to become something more tangible?

Kathryn Hunter
I think, so but I think all of my life and and so-called career has been sort of bumpety-do. You know, not not the five year, 10 year plan. And I think, again, it was Michelle who said, why don't you apply for RADA? And I sort of did. And no other drama school, you know, imagine and I kind of got in and that. And then and then it was sort of tumbly, dumbly kind of.

Paul Hunter
I think it's really good to hear you say so-called career. I think I would never use, like you, I'd be very wary of using that term to describe what we do and continue to try to do. I think it's been such a, like you say, such a journey of chance and happenstance and who you meet along the way, especially when I talk to younger actors. I think the idea of planning a career or even trying to have a career seems strange, doesn't it.

Kathryn Hunter
I mean I do feel for the young people at the moment because it feels like brakes, for young people just coming out of drama school or something, it feels like the brakes are on. But a lot of them are kind of becoming very resourceful and determined. But, you know, the thing of kind of being together and that whole chemistry, I mean, that's what I totally adore, kind of being in a room and playing and and trying things out. And I think that must be quite hard. I mean. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Hunter
Yeah, I've got a niece who's currently in her first year at Central, and at the moment almost all the teaching is on Zoom and it must be very difficult. It's the antithesis of what performing is or certainly working in theatres, isn't it?

Kathryn Hunter
Yeah, maybe the advantage is that, you know, if you do things for the camera, there's this, you know, kind of being very focussed, you being very focussed and specific or something like that.

Paul Hunter
And yes, maybe maybe that gives you that kind of disciplined way of looking at something. It's true. If I can, sort of quiz you a little bit on RADA, because you you you got in, as you say, and then you turned up. Did you have an idea of what RADA was going to be like? Did you know?

Kathryn Hunter
No, I asked my friend Michelle and she didn't tell me. She said, you'll see, when you get there. Again, I just because because it's not in the family and I didn't do any research and it was all a new country, which is very exciting. We did fencing and tumbling and stage fighting and tap and jazz and ballet and voice and and all these different kind of skills sort of. But I do think that the principal at the time was Hugh Cruttwell. Well, and he we didn't do any method, you know, like we didn't and Laban and all saw that, you know, you could sort of read up about it or if you wanted. But his whole mantra was truth. And he said, we do productions very quickly, you know, in the first, you know, a month or two. And it's I think his idea was just do it and find out with different directors, have a go. But his mantra was truth and he would go round the room after a production and go, well, you haven't got it. You've not got it, you haven't got it, you might get it and so on. And it was this kind of cryptic thing, but you sort of knew what he meant and that's kind of stayed stayed with me.

Paul Hunter
I quite like the way this makes me jumping forward again, a little briefly to My Perfect Mind, I wish you'd shared that story with me. I like the idea of maybe what was the name of the character, who was Edward's old drama teacher in the show? Miss McPride. Mrs Miss McPride. I like the idea of her pointing around the room and saying, you've got it, you haven't got it, you've had it, but you've lost it. So I could imagine that. But it's interesting.

Kathryn Hunter
Shall we do a sequel?

Paul Hunter
Well, you know, it's interesting because I think whenever I talk to Edward, I think there's still that burning desire because like you, he is an actor to his very bones, I think. And this is what I was also curious about, Kathryn, is, when you're young and you're at drama school, obviously you're learning and you're open and you're a sponge and but people are also seeing you in a certain way. What kind of roles were you cast and what kind of parts were you getting at drama school?

Kathryn Hunter
Let me see, I think I did I did a play called Commitments, which was about the WRP. I remember Vanessa Redgrave and Alan Rickman came because they had done it for something. I did a South African play called, I don't remember. But then I had an accident and then I went back to RADA on crutches. And then I was given old people to play. And except for Josephine Van de Water in this musical for which I had to walk down a staircase and I remember the rest of the cast amongst whom was a anyway. So they looked up at me kind of going, Oh my God. But it was the it was sort of the birth of physical theatre for me because I thought my legs don't work very well, but I've got the whole of this torso to play with. So it was powerful. Hello Everybody, I'm Josephine Van de Water and the look on the cast that are looking up and going, she's going to fall down the staircase. But it was a seminal moment. Yeah.

Paul Hunter
That's an extraordinary notion of starting to become aware from from a restriction of what else you can do. That's a very potent way you describe that. I can really see that image.

Kathryn Hunter
But I mean, I've learnt as well that you that you know, and has this notion of physical being total. And you can suggest so much with very little or in the most bizarre and unexpected ways, like what was it you did in My Perfect Mind, you know, was it a roll, a strange rolling across that platform in the storm.

Paul Hunter
Oh, yes. I used to find a way of sliding down it, running and sliding. Yes. That I think if for no other reason than a kind of strange commitment to trying to support Edward in the in the storm, but. But that sense of a physical thing is is interesting. I was obviously very lucky in that when I went to drama school, I met Hayley and I met John Wright and and that was a formative experience, particularly suddenly John opening a window into the notion of what performing could be and improvising and taking me to see very early Complicite shows which were unlike anything I'd seen before. I'm curious, of course, you worked after RAD. And then how did you meet Simon and Marcelo and the gang? How did it happen, that first meeting?

Kathryn Hunter
Well, just very briefly after RADA, I did you know kind of pandemonium, chilled, edgy theatre in education. And then I did I went to Leatherhead and played a monkey in Aladdin and Alan Ayckbourns, which I hold up there. He's a master.

Paul Hunter
Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah.

Kathryn Hunter
One of the most pleasurable experiences kind of trying to contain one's, you know, laughter just kind of exploding then whatever at the traverse. It's something with oh, did some Shakespeare with Shared Experience and Helena and a sort of rep things then at the Traverse doing three plays a day and then I think Annabel said to Simon, Oh, there's this., I don't know if she called me a woman, this creature. And I met I met Simon and Marcelo in a Spanish bar. And and then and then we started on Anything For A Quiet Life. And and that was like a kind of total re-education starting because in those days, you know, Simon and Marcelo, they would retrain you in all and in the Lecoq. I don't want to let's not say that horrible word methodology, in the Lecoq sense of space and physicality and and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours, of chorus, and moving chairs and cupboards, you know, that was your main credentials, you know. And then, in chorus, and and lift and move chairs. And I loved it, actually. And I didn't, I think, understand it at the time. But later went and and of course, the cornerstone of storytelling and collective storytelling that that was it was was it was what is what is a story. And we all told the story, you know, in a million different ways in twos and fives and, um, but the sense that the space there is a science of the space and and and matter, chairs, tables, cupboards. If you displace them in the space, they'd tell their own story, which was kind of mind bogglingly new and exciting and have held onto that as well as the joy of kind of being allowed to fail ridiculously.

Paul Hunter
Yes. Yeah, that's very important, isn't it? That's that sense of being allowed to have a go at it doesn't. It matters. But it doesn't matter that that kind of that kind of idea I think is really important. I remember seeing, you know, shows at the Almeida with Complicite. And I particularly remember thinking before we started Help, I'm Alive and I have such vivid memories of that show you as a company and your extraordinary transformation into this sort of Don Corleone type figure and the wonderful commedia that was created with yourself and Lilo and Toby and Marcelo. And it was the, I hadn't really seen, I mean, it's interesting for me, because obviously I've worked so long with Hayley, so I've been around a very extraordinary woman performer who's very transformative, but I haven't really seen it anywhere. That sense of transformation that you, you could do. I hadn't really seen that, I thought, wow, you could play a small child, you could play this, or was that, does that go back to what you were saying about exploring what you could do physically, the sense of your transforming yourself?

Kathryn Hunter
I think so, Paul. I think it was also because I was lucky enough to meet Complicite quite early where there was no well, you're this and you play that. And it was it literally was anything goes. And so I thought that was normal.

Paul Hunter
Yeah. Yeah.

Kathryn Hunter
I sort of, ok I'd done a bit of rep and some Shakespeare and things, but I kind of thought, oh, it's normal. You know, you do anything really. And I mean, there were little kind of bumps like I remember in the Help I'm Alive, we all played everything. And then there came a point where we sort of had to choose who we were playing. And and I said to, I think it was Jos directing and, can I make a confession? I, I don't really want to play the the whatever the the you know, the the woman who's quite sexy and commanding. Can I play a lonely figure, you know, sexually obsessed with it. And they went, hmm, well, OK, have a go or something. And and and off we went, you know, but it was it's an amazing playground, you know, just a great gift.

Paul Hunter
And I and I think we're very lucky when we meet people that that think and feel like that and create an atmosphere where you can play like that. I think that's because, as we both know, it doesn't happen everywhere, doesn't happen in lots of places in theatre. And I think I think it's a very precious thing to to kind of experience. And you have to kind of relish that. Yeah, no, I can't talk about acting with you without thinking of The Visit, of course, which was such a seminal role for you. And it's interesting when you talk about your moment at RADA when you came down the stairs, I can still, and again, I, it's, I'm sure the memory has been embellished over the years, but I can still remember your first entrance into The Visit. A play I didn't know at the time, I had no idea what the story was. I just went because it was Complicite and so extraordinary were you physically when you came in, that all I got a sense of was impending doom. I thought this woman has arrived and nothing good can come from this. And it was a really, really almost visceral feeling. And I don't think you'd even spoken, just something about the way you were and how people reacted to you made me go, oh, this is not good. This is not good. This is not going to end well. And it was such a it was such an extraordinary I mean, do you remember how you kind of approached that with Simon as a role, your way into it?

Kathryn Hunter
Again, it was lots of focus on the story. The first thing, we didn't look at the text for three weeks. The first, the first text Complicite had ever done and they used to call it the text, not the play. And then I remember after three weeks, there was a sort of panic in the the Complicite offices, oh, we better ask for the rights and Annabel had to fly over to America or something and persuade people that it wasn't just a silly mine company. They could do other things and get the rights. And I would, because we just improvised the whole time the situations and generally, you know, like eventually going to, you know, like learn the lines and you know. Well, yeah, you know, you see these actors are now, you know, eventually we will and, you know, eventually we did. But it was just improvising the situation. So you had twenty versions of the death of Alfred Schill, all at the end of the play or the blind men. And it was and then, you know, it was a glorious thing, Simon or Annabel or collectively we go, yeah, that was the best, let's steal from that and a bit from that. And it really was collective. But in terms of Clara, she's supposed to have a a huge retinue. But there were only seven of us in the first production playing thirty one characters so I couldn't be carried. So so we got these crutches and Rae Smith kind of painted them gold and everything. And then, and then of course the cast did carry me. I have to say it. It feels like the creation of Clara was totally a collective thing, I totally, because, you know how it is, she has these kind of great swathes of of intent, call it status or intent. But that is given by how people react, so on the first entrance, you know, they lifted me and then when I came down they put like a little metal placemats or beer mats under the crutches, you know, because you can't, of course, place her crutches on the filthy ground and then the retreat's and all that language. Together we make this formidable woman. I really think of it as a kind of collective creation, including Rae Smith, who sat in rehearsal and drew and drew and drew and you go, Oh, God, that's not my image of her. And then you think, oh, that's quite interesting.

Paul Hunter
Yeah, that provocation. It's interesting as well, because in some ways we're very used to that kind of approach. But at that time, you know, as you say, the first time Complicite had really tackled a text and and that that still felt quite revolutionary, you know, British theatre was still very bound by a literary form and a literary approach. And I think for younger listeners, it's worth saying that was quite a radical production in many ways. And the fact that it had, you know, had a big life in it was at the National Theatre. But it wasn't the norm. It was something quite different and a quite groundbreaking, obviously, you and I and Marcelo and Jos and Hayley, and we've kind of known of each other for a long time in lots of different ways. And then we'd never worked together directly, although I worked with Marcelo of course wonderfully on Pinocchio at the Lyric. And you came in and, and then I remember when we finally started to get My Perfect Mind together and I convinced Edward that I wasn't mad that you could make a play about someone having a stroke, him having a stroke and not doing King Lear. And I remember a moment when I met him in the cafe at the National Portrait Gallery and I thought, I'm going to be very direct. And I said, Edward, if you want to do this play, I can make it happen. I can, we can produce it. We can get a theatre and we can do it. The decision is yours. We can't do without you. And he kind of looked to me in that way that Edward does well. And then he said, who's going to direct it? And I said, I don't, that I don't know. And then I remember talking, of course, it was brilliantly Hayley who often has these very good ideas. And she said why don't you talk to, Kathryn? And I suddenly thought, that's a brilliant idea. That's a really, really, because I was conscious, obviously, Edward is a very experienced actor who's done many, many things. And I was aware that the director had to be exactly the right kind of person to be able to work with me and with Edward and allow the combination of the two of us. But it was such a perfect decision and the fact that you were able to say yes. And so immediately in that room with your mother in Athens, I am eternally grateful for because I think obviously you've had a long history with Shakespeare. And I think the fact that you played Lear, I think for me was strangely reassuring. I felt reassured and I think Edward did that this was not someone who directed it in a or it had a kind of academic understanding. You played it. How, because I don't think I've ever asked you, it kind of happened in the best way that things do. Obviously, you directed lots of things, but what did it feel like when you kind of first started with me and Edward? What was that first kind of week like for you?

Kathryn Hunter
It was, kind of unforgettably wonderful, because I did feel, you know, knowing your work and and and then having read Ed's autobiography, which was totally stunning, the there was this hunch that, oh, there's all this. And I remember you said one day there are two big books in this. There's Lear and Ed's autobiography, which was called

Paul Hunter
Oh, what was it called?

Kathryn Hunter
Oh, we will remember. We remember in a minute. And and so just and then, you know, the the the the classic image of, you know, playing Lear is climbing the mountain. So that kind of stuck in my brain that climbing the mountain. And then was this idea of of of an imbalance of an imbalance that happens after a stroke. So the idea of this platform that that is not level that is at an angle and having to struggle against gravity and then I don't know where it came from, but I think we started, I handed you little notes, um, which say, well, you're in Lord Olivier's dressing room and or you're in Miss McPrides's movement class or and something very little. And then you and Edward would just take off in the most extraordinary way. And then I do remember the times where you look at your piece of paper and throw it away. And you'd go, oh, no, not that one. But mostly you'd give everything a go. And the most extraordinary. So it was just a little a little prop prompt, a little prompt out of which the most extraordinary things happened, you know, unforgettable things like you playing Olivier.

Paul Hunter
If I look back on it and your, like you say, your prompts and provocation were was so kind of, they were never heavy they were never too prescriptive, there was always just enough of a suggestion, even when we were on Michael's wonderful set in the rehearsal room, the elision out of having coffee and chatting and then stepping onto that thing and you saying let's go up the mountain. And there was something about the show came from that for me, in a way, the kind of chatting, very natural kind of. And then we were kind of improvising before we knew it or improvising almost by chance. And I thought you were very sensitive to that as a director, because on the outside, when you as a director, I know that feeling when it can feel very chaotic and very loose. And but you never suggested any sense of panic around that, which I really I really appreciate you doing.

Kathryn Hunter
The extraordinary thing which maybe I sometimes thought to myself, am I taking this on board enough? You know that Ed is, you know he's had this miraculous recovery, but are we asking too much. And coffee was mandatory, of course, course absolutely mandatory. And then there was this little beat of how can I say it. I mean, but he was, how can I say, I mean extraordinary. The one time I did feel very bad when I kept saying, I think what about a little dance, dance, dance. And and Edward's going, no my foot, is it my left or my right foot doesn't quite work. And I go, it does it does and you'd kind of go, yea sort of. But yeah. Amazing moments. I mean I remember there was one where he sort of read from the text from Lear and it was, and you playing Cordelia. And it was a weird, weird kind of truth about it, by not trying to do it, whatever it is, and I remember Peter Brook coming to see the production and said this is how it should be done. You know, who famously did you know Scofield?

Paul Hunter
Yeah, of course

Kathryn Hunter
But you know the scene with you as Cordelia in the beginning, the I fear that I'm not in my perfect mind, the so-called reconciliation scene with you reading, I think.

Paul Hunter
Yes. I just I always read the script.

Kathryn Hunter
But you did this magic thing Paul, you didn't do a character. But we believed that you were a young woman.

Paul Hunter
Strange isn't it, what theatre, I always think this as well, that theatre is the one form where you can remain constantly aware of the actor, at the same time, be completely absorbed by the situation and no other form gives us that because it's live, I think. And and that show, I'm really proud of that show because it felt very, very theatrical in that sense. Before I move on, I'm just I'm remembering one improvisation that you brilliantly set up, because Edward's face in this improvisation was so extraordinary. You you you got he played Miss McPride. You got him to play Miss McPride himself. And I played the German doctor. And we went for a walk and I had to do something provocative. And I turned to Miss McPride and said, you know, I have to tell you, once I killed a man. And and Edward's face, the subtlety and the mix of surprise and slight fascination by the fact because he such a such a brilliantly subtle comic actor. And it was it was such a pleasure to continue and make the journey of that show with him and someone, something to finish on My Perfect Mind, someone said to me after in the bar at the Young Vic said that show could only be directed by an actor.

Kathryn Hunter
Really.

Paul Hunter
And I think sometimes, I'm not saying one has to act in order to direct, of course you don't. There are brilliant directors who have never acted. But I think sometimes an actor brings something very, very special to the role of directing and your joy, obviously, of acting and performing and actors and all of that which was wrapped up in the show anyway. So I thank you for that for sure. I wanted to touch a little bit as we come towards the end of a lovely chat on Shakespeare, because you've done so much Shakespeare. Is there a part that you regret that you haven't yet played, or that you think might not come now that maybe has gone? Is there or maybe there isn't?

Kathryn Hunter
Well, I've I've since doing Lear about twenty five years ago, I always wanted to do it again and we were about to do it this year at The Globe.

Paul Hunter
Wow.

Kathryn Hunter
And and then it's been postponed, hopefully till next year because they, they are doing some shows. But ours fell into a slot that would have been pre opening, you know before... So Michelle said do it next year. And yeah, I think the last time we did it was about twenty six years ago in Osaka in Japan. And I remember then thinking, I think, right, something clicked now, now. And then having to wait thirty six years, but it was because when we first did it, it was kind of outrageous and wonderful. Helen Kaut-Howson.

Paul Hunter
Yes, I saw it at Leicester Haymarket.

Kathryn Hunter
Yes. With the prologue which we cut. But I think there was a lot of stuff about, you know, because now the kind of gender a playing with gender is happens all the time. But then you get completely new, especially if you ventured into Shakespeare. And it's, you know, you're supposed to at least have played, you know, Macbeth and dada and dada and have kind of accrued, you know, your your Shakespearean blah-di-blah, before you attempt, you know. So I think there was a kind of outrage. And I've never been so nervous, you know, beginners to the stage because it was like I mean being. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Pull the other one. Sort of. That's what I had. On the other hand, once we got going. I just kind of forgot, I think most of this , and there I was so lucky to have this extraordinary English teacher at school, Miss McDonald. Great big bosomed Miss McDonald who said, we're going to read it out loud and then proceeded to read it all herself. And then going in a fever to the point where she had to write to my parents to say, I think Kathryn should stop writing essays on King Lear, I just was kind of obsessed with just this story, it caught me. So that I am very much looking forward to hopefully.

Paul Hunter
I, I, I am obviously looking forward to seeing you do it, especially at the Globe. The Globe would be a perfect place for it. I have one last thing actually. I was just reading something before I spoke to you, which was reading online about the film that you've done. That you've been in of Macbeth, which sounds extraordinary. And the bit that interested me was they were talking, well Joel Coen was talking, saying he wanted the film to have a look that was untethered from reality. And I really liked that expression. And am I right? He talked about the whole thing was filmed on stages. You weren't on location. It was, you know.

Kathryn Hunter
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how much I'm allowed to say

Paul Hunter
No, no, no, of course not. This was in the public domain, you don't need to give anything away. But I love, I love the sound of it anyway.

Kathryn Hunter
And his conception without giving too much away, is is is totally non realistic and I think absolutely captures Shakespeare in that sense, you know, rather than the real castle and the real this.

Paul Hunter
Yeah. That will. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well I look forward to that. Kathryn, before we finish, I just want to, I'm going to say a few things and I want you to respond instinctively to what I say, it'll be very clear. So I'm going to say Moliere or Shakespeare?

Kathryn Hunter
Both

Paul Hunter
Espresso or cappuccino?

Kathryn Hunter
Cappuccino

Paul Hunter
Paris or New York?

Kathryn Hunter
Both

Paul Hunter
Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth.

Kathryn Hunter
Neither

Paul Hunter
Ahh very good. Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton?

Kathryn Hunter
Charlie Chaplin

Paul Hunter
Mountains or the sea?

Kathryn Hunter
The sea

Paul Hunter
Directing or acting?

Kathryn Hunter
It depends what day it is

Paul Hunter
Noise or silence?

Kathryn Hunter
Depends what day it is

Paul Hunter
I think that is a very brilliant way to end, with you saying depends what day it is. That really, that feels very appropriate. Kathryn, thank you so much. So lovely to chat to you and catch up. And I really hope that before long, because I know that you and I are cooking something up, which I can't talk about, but we will meet for a cappuccino somewhere and we'll start to cook something up for the future and we can get into a room together because I would love that. I feel that some of the best stuff I've done as an actor in recent years has been when you have provoked me. So I would love the chance to do some more.

Kathryn Hunter
Well, I love that too Paul because I've learnt so much from you. And in another podcast we might talk about writing. Well, yeah, I've I've learnt so much about what is writing.

Paul Hunter
What what writing can be. And you touched on that when you talked about Simon in the early Complicite stuff as well. Kathryn, lovely to see you. Take care. Have a good day.

Kathryn Hunter
Yeah, you too, you too.

Paul Hunter
Lots of love.

Kathryn Hunter
Thank you, thank you.