← Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud
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- [00:01]
Bella
Wow.
- [00:01]
Gwendolyn Christie
What's up? I just bought and financed a car through Carvana in minutes. You? The person who agonized four weeks over whether to paint your wall's eggshell or off white bought and financed a car in minutes. They made it easy. Transparent terms, customizable. Down and monthly. Didn't even have to do any paperwork.
- [00:17]
Unknown
Wow.
- [00:18]
Gwendolyn Christie
Mm. Hey, have you checked out that spreadsheet I sent you for our dinner? Options finance your car with Carvana and experience. Total control financing subject to credit approval. Yeah, sure thing. Hey, you sold that car yet? Yeah, sold it to Carvana. Oh, I thought you were selling to that guy. The guy who wanted to pay me in foreign currency, no interest over 36 months. Yeah, no. Carvana gave me an offer in minutes, picked it up, and paid me on the spot. It was so convenient. Just like that. Yep. No hassle? None. That is super convenient. Sell your car to Carvana and swap hassle for convenience.
- [00:59]
Unknown
Pick up.
- [00:59]
Gwendolyn Christie
These may apply.
- [01:09]
Bella
Hi, come in. Welcome to Fashion Neurosis. Gwendolyn Christie.
- [01:19]
Unknown
Hello, Bella.
- [01:21]
Bella
And can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes?
- [01:27]
Unknown
Today I am wearing Maison Margiela. Jacket, shirt, trousers, and a pair of Prada shoes. They were a gift to me from Prada, which is an extraordinary thing. And it's red. It's Valentine's Day. I like to have my friends with me where I go through life. I find increasingly, actually, I only really want to wear clothes by my friends, by people.
- [02:08]
Bella
I love when friends wear my clothes. I feel like I have your back. This is my way of taking care of you. And I love that you said you don't think about brands, but you think of people. Because I think when you find the fit of someone's clothes that kind of correspond to your sense of yourself. It's about a sort of protection thing. And you put that very well.
- [02:36]
Unknown
I think there's definitely a feeling of protection because when we go about our lives so much now of even stepping out of your front door can involve vulnerability. And so when you have your friends with you, you feel emboldened. But for me, it's even more than that. Is by putting on clothes, you truly can be transformed.
- [03:12]
Bella
I agree. I think the power of clothes is being transformed from being self conscious to liberated. And then your intelligence can come into play and your instinctive good response to things is freed up because you don't have to worry about what something's doing that you're wearing. You're more agile and more deft, and it's more Fun, really.
- [03:45]
Unknown
It's speaking as well. They're speaking for you. It's an unconscious tool of shaping not just our Persona, but exactly how we relate to each other.
- [04:03]
Bella
You're an actor and a model of international renown. And most famously, you entered into people's psyche as Brianne of Tarth. And you talk very fondly of that role and how you got to express so many contradictions and aspects of womanhood that are normal to women. Because we feel all these contradictions, but when they're elucidated, they seem quite radical. And I wondered how you felt about them.
- [04:36]
Unknown
Brienne of Tarth was one of the greatest gifts of my life. When I was at drama school, I remember being told, if you are very, very lucky, one day you might come across a part that speaks to you so loudly you don't need to do any work because it's speaking to you and it comes to you. It comes from within, it's total free flow. And I was at a stage in my life where I'd left drama school five years prior. I was doing theatre. I was trained in theatre. I did theatre at school from the age of 11. That's what I was going to do. But I always wanted to do screen work. That's where I wanted to be. I was in love with movies, I loved watching television. But, you know, I was growing up, I was quite firm in my thoughts and feelings about stories and portrayals of women and what I wanted to see. But also a growing concern that this intense desire I had to be an actor was maybe not possible because of the depictions of women I saw on screen. But there is truly something within me that I'm very grateful for, which is a kind of bloody mindedness where I believe there is more, there is always something else, and there is more to our reality than what is obvious and palatable and immediate and convenient. And there's a lot of really different shape truth out there that can be very difficult for people to digest. But actually there's an inordinate amount of beauty in that difficulty. I read the synopsis first of all of the character online, just to see who this person was. This character was. It was a lightning bolt moment because it was all the parts of me that I knew so well and was so painful and so frightening and I tried so hard to conceal for my entire life at that point. But also I knew that for my development as an actor and a hopeful artist and just as a person, I had to recognize those things and go further and connect to them. And it Felt like no greater moment to do that than inhabiting this character. I felt so protective of the character because so many experiences were so familiar and it was so niche. It's just amazing, incredibly niche, that I felt I had to honor her. And I had to do everything possible, no matter how extreme or difficult or disturbing, to bring that forth. And it was the greatest acting challenge that I had. And I assumed truly that no one would really like the character, that although they were discussing all this further story going on for further seasons, that that probably wouldn't happen because nobody would want to see that on television. Nobody would want to see all those sides of me. Nobody would want to watch that. But the story was so great, the character was so great, and the writing was so phenomenal that it allowed me to immerse fully in that character and radiate all of those similarities to Brienne. And for that to come out so amazing and to go further, to do things I never thought I could do. But I'd always been quite good at stage combat at drama school, so I felt really good about doing that, about learning a skill and. And changing my body, working out with a trainer and bodybuilder and doing kickboxing and trying to find sword fighting and really throwing myself into the training and changing my diet and changing my body shape. The most difficult thing was to. Was to cut my hair.
- [09:58]
Bella
Was that a requirement or was it something that you thought was required?
- [10:02]
Unknown
I was. It was a requirement. I felt that there was something more interesting in the haircut, that the haircut could tell a story. And I'd seen these photographs of. I think it's Anne Marie Schwarzenbach and this photographer from the 40s that had this very gender neutral haircut where it was longer on top and. And shorter at the back. And it felt to me like it embodied two sides of the same coin. And it said more about the character than just a haircut that was one inch all over would do. I discussed it with the hairdresser, who was incredibly supportive. Wonderful hairdresser Kevin Alexander. I showed him a couple of other references, but they were too fashion. But that one, I felt it really, you know, embodied where I felt this was going. And I wanted the fringe originally to be longer. I wanted it to come down to my chin so that I had more coverage to cover my face. But I was told it had to go to the cheekbone and that if I wouldn't accept the cheekbone, it would be one inch all over. So I accepted the cheekbone.
- [11:32]
Bella
That's so good, because there's something very endearing about the hair, actually, that there's a tenderness. There's all these things, but the hair is kind of, you know, heroic. And it has a tiny whiff of the schoolboy photo from school. You know, those kind of bizarre portraits that you love later in life.
- [11:56]
Unknown
Sid Hayes cut my hair first because it was down to here, and I wanted someone I trusted to cut it, so he cut it to here. And we were hoping to get away with, like, Sean Bean's hairdo in the series. I was hoping to get away with that. But I knew in my heart, I knew it wasn't right. I knew I was having to take that step. But the hair was my power. It was my shield. I could hide a lot of shoulder width and height. I could change proportion with that long hair. I could hide my face. I could hide the inconsistencies in my face and body. I could draw attention away from other things. But taking away the hair, I was completely exposed. And I knew that I would have to also change the way in which I looked as a person. The way I dressed would all have to change from this highly feminized, very traditionally feminized, sometimes sexualized image I chose to portray into something else. But more than that, I knew I was exposed fully.
- [13:17]
Bella
Gosh.
- [13:19]
Unknown
And it was a great thing for me.
- [13:26]
Bella
And what was the first piece of clothing that you longed for as a child? Did you have a uniform of any kind?
- [13:34]
Unknown
Clothes? I had a pair of white patent leather tap shoes.
- [13:45]
Bella
Gosh.
- [13:46]
Unknown
With white satin bows. They were magical, and I outgrew them. The grief of losing those shoes. I felt invincible in those beautiful shoes. I realize I. I keep trying to buy those shoes. I do. I realize now, and I realized that my. One of my favorite pairs of shoes is this pair of Chanel shoes. They're probably about six or no more, maybe eight years old now, but it was a pair of Chanel shoes. Probably a shoe is what. They're shoe boots. Oh, God.
- [14:37]
Bella
Never heard that before.
- [14:38]
Unknown
I doubt Carl would ever have described them as a shoe. But they were based on a pair of couture shoes that Karl was obsessed with from about 1915. And they are white patent leather, and they are my. They're my favorite shoes. Now I know why.
- [15:03]
Bella
Well, you're wearing red patent leather today, so, yeah, there is a connection. And, I mean, I think patent is so. There's something so pure and so fetishistic about it, which is why it's so totally gorgeous. And I wondered where you start with an outfit and what do you have a favorite heel.
- [15:27]
Unknown
I'm such an emotional old thing, you know, I'm so emotional about clothes.
- [15:36]
Bella
So nice.
- [15:38]
Unknown
It really. Where do I start with an outfit? It's a feeling. Practicality can be fun.
- [15:50]
Bella
In measure.
- [15:52]
Unknown
It can in that. In that, you know, as we move through life, there's other things we need. There's other things we need in order to be our best selves. So I might need to feel. I can move more easily, or I might need to feel more powerful, or I might need to feel more elongated, or I might need to feel much bigger, or I might need to feel very warm. And there can be a great excitement in the elaborate, slow striptease of removing layers and adding on a layer, taking off another layer, adding on a different layer. I've got quite into that now as someone that was never quite simple in the way that I dressed. I quite like this different layering idea and multiple different bits and pieces. But I love shoes.
- [16:58]
Bella
Yeah. I find that there's something about what you were just describing, and I was thinking about poise, like when you start the day with what to wear. It's sort of like a. Where is that internal rod? How's it going to position you? And do I need a heel? Can I pull this off with a flat or a trainer? And it's true, it is very much about a feeling and an atmosphere.
- [17:30]
Unknown
It's a feeling and an atmosphere. And also I have realized that when I started to. When I was a teenager, older teenager, and I was able to really start exploring clothes and the way I presented myself, the idea of fantasy escape through fashion, that some of those looks I put together. I just want to go back.
- [18:03]
Bella
Well, in fact, you have an aura of someone who's time traveled. And I wondered if you ever felt like that because, I mean, partly you have these exquisite manners which seem almost from another era. And I learned a lot of my manners in life from reading Colette. And I wondered if you'd adopted any particular style of manners from reading novels.
- [18:30]
Unknown
My parents were quite strict and I spent a lot of time with my parents. And my father was older when he had me. So my father was born in the 30s, so that was a very different time. And he had a very different way of life that changed radically, as a lot of people's did from the 30s through to the late 70s and 80s and 90s 2000. I mean, their lives exploded. I traveled a lot with my parents when I was little and I was included in everything. So go out for dinner with them and with Their friends at work events. And so, you know, you. You had to behave in a certain way. It was expected of you. But I also found a great delight in my father's chivalry. And I love that he would hold doors open for women when, you know, when I was little, that's what I would see. But I wanted to do that, so I would do that too, you know, and I saw no reason why I shouldn't. And I also saw you can create great delight in other people by treating them with grace. And when I'm really in love with people from our older generations, because there is such a delicacy and a lightness, often beautiful manners and. And there's real laughter and joy that can emanate from that. So that's the sort of main thing. But I read voraciously as a child. I was obsessed with films. Really obsessed with films, really obsessed with. I loved fashion. When I discovered fashion magazines, that felt like an immediate portal into another world. And I wanted to be something other than my circumstances might dictate. You know, I had a very difficult time at school. Many people do. I was very, very bullied and I found it difficult to survive. But by investing in the future fantasy version of myself, I found a way to live. And that was through escaping into films, watching plays, escaping into theatre. More doing theatre than watching theatre, although I loved watching. I loved watching theatre. But being in plays, the opportunity to be someone else. And there are time periods I'm fascinated by. You know, I can be a bit of an old Luddite. I can be, you know, a bit retrograde. I might not want to fit in with the times. I might not want to use language which is very up to date. I might want to stay stuck in my ways whilst also looking at everything that's going on and deciding I might want to participate, I might not want to participate. I might want to exist in a time that doesn't, cannot and in some ways shouldn't exist anymore.
- [22:25]
Bella
It's so interesting how to feel at home in the world and not be categorized and reduced. And literature, such a good way to find a way, you know, a sort of an escape, but into something that's more real than reality almost. And picking up on the things you were saying about Breanna Tarth, people talk about admiring a strong woman and I actually think it's a terrible phrase because you don't hear people going on about strong men I find so reductive.
- [23:08]
Unknown
It's hugely reductive. It's a phrase that I think has Been useful to lift us out of women only being seen as a function, only being seen as a mother or not a mother, as a reproductive sex object or as an unreproductive, unuseful thing. You know, we. Unfortunately, the world has been seen in patriarchal terms, and so I don't gravitate towards a phrase like seeing strong women, but it has its uses. And as Ruth Bader Ginsburg says, you have to take people with you.
- [24:05]
Bella
Yeah.
- [24:05]
Unknown
So it has its uses. But I think what in a sort of story context, what people are meaning, is to allow women a space to allow women to be people. I remember that. I say it all the time. But George R.R. martin, who wrote the Game of Thrones books, he was asked, how do you come up with these amazing female characters? How do you come up with these incredible feminist characters? And he said, well, I've always thought of women as people, and I think this. That's sort of the beginning to just allow women a space, to allow people a space outside of a patriarchal function. And there is so much richness and we have so much technology now and so many different ways of creating story and exploring story and finding out more about our own humanity through being more expansive, you know, this beautiful and hideous experience of what it is to be human. There's so much further we can go if we just look outside of our immediate. We make ourselves a little bit uncomfortable and go into the area that we don't expect or go into the place where we feel might not be relevant, might not be interesting. It's never one thing.
- [25:50]
Bella
Yeah.
- [25:50]
Unknown
You have to look and you have to look again and again and again.
- [25:58]
Bella
And do you find something in particular attractive about men's clothes? Is there a random piece that always gets your attention?
- [26:06]
Unknown
Ask me this. I love suits. I really do. It's their. They're extraordinary pieces of architecture, aren't they?
- [26:23]
Bella
Yeah.
- [26:23]
Unknown
When you ask, I didn't quite answer you earlier when you asked me when I woke up in the morning, what, you know, what I thought one thing I do think sometimes, and I don't think of it as literally as this, but sometimes I like to think literally. I think, do I want to be the man today or do I want to be the woman?
- [26:38]
Bella
Yes, I really know that feeling.
- [26:41]
Unknown
And sometimes I think I want to be the man today. And sometimes I think I want to be the woman. And sometimes I don't think anything at all. It's just a cacophony of feeling or it's one emotion.
- [26:55]
Bella
Or you are incredibly feminine and you also Talk about androgyny. And I wondered what part of you comes to life when you're in the androgynous guise? Like when you're wearing that gray suit that I saw you in the other day, and you just had this kind of vibe about you, but always with so much charm, like everything you do, and. But I. I'm kind of hyper aware of that.
- [27:28]
Unknown
What. What's the vibe? What was. What was the vibe?
- [27:33]
Bella
The vibe was a kind of schoolboy kind of, sort of skittish, spivy charmingness.
- [27:48]
Unknown
Well, it's because I was wearing Kim. I was wearing Kim Jones for Dior, and that's. And I've known Kim since I was 19. And I really love Kim an awful lot.
- [28:01]
Bella
Yeah.
- [28:02]
Unknown
And he's very naughty, and we're very, very naughty and sill together, and he's very fun. And so when I put his clothes on, I feel all those things I feel in our relationship, in our friendship. And, you know, he's. I've. I've worn those. I've been so lucky. I've worn those Dior suits, those men's Dior suits that he's designed. I've worn those for. For the whole time he's been at Dior. I've been unbelievably lucky. It's allowed me strength. It's given me great strength. I have my friend with me, my friend with me who believes in me, that sees all these other things in me that other people can't necessarily see, you know, he asked me to perform the Wasteland with Robert Patterson, who's an actor I really admire and really love. He's a great person. He's fascinating person, and he could see me, that I could do that. And he wanted to project us 7 meters high, that screen, and something like 37 meters long on either side of the building in Paris, where the show was held with Max Richter playing with an orchestra. And he said, I could just see you doing that. And that's an opportunity that many other people couldn't see. Maybe I couldn't see it in myself, but I grabbed it with both hands, and it's the relationship coming through. It's my history with suits. It's all of my father's suits. My father was immaculately dressed. And the power. There's a lot of power in a suit.
- [29:58]
Bella
Yeah.
- [29:59]
Unknown
How it changes the shape of your body, how it makes you walk. Sometimes I like to play with society's expectations of my physicality. So, you know, sometimes people do think I'm male. Really? Yeah. You know, in airports, out and about, not so much now, because I've been very lucky to be in a part of things that people recognize, projects that people recognize and love. So that's what they see pejoratively first. But, yeah, that's happened throughout my. My whole life, but it's that I don't have a reaction to that. I. I don't mind it. I. I can enjoy it because men have a lot of power, historically. In that moment, maybe I get a tiny sense of what that power might be. Such a good attitude.
- [31:03]
Bella
It's great. It's true that men have this power that they're born into, this kind of thing that's bestowed on them, but it is quite fun. I remember as a teenager trying to look as much as possible like a boy, and once going into Oasis swimming baths, and she said, that'll be sixpence, sir, or whatever. And I thought, great. You know, I've done it. I mean, it was a long time.
- [31:37]
Unknown
Ago, of course, but the opportunity to be something other than what's been designated for you by society. Possibility. Yeah, possibility. I love possibility. That's what clothes give me, though. I can. I can move into different forms and it's. And it makes me truly very happy. It's why I love being an actor, as I love being given the opportunity to shift my shape, to enter into the glorious realm of becoming someone else is truly thrilling.
- [32:23]
Bella
You wore a red dress for an event that your partner, the brilliant designer Giles Deakin, made for you. And you said you wanted to look sexual. I really loved that because in fashion, people never talk about sex, but everyone's thinking about it all the time. And I wondered what looking sexual means for you.
- [32:47]
Unknown
It was so fabulous. Which dress was it? Was it the one I wore? The sackless SAG Awards?
- [32:54]
Bella
Yeah, it was fantastic.
- [32:55]
Unknown
Yeah, it was fantastic, that dress.
- [32:58]
Bella
Yeah.
- [32:59]
Unknown
I'm trying to remember exactly when that was, but it was the sort of thing I'd always dreamt of. And it involved a dress with panniers from one of his collections with a combination of. I mean, obviously, you know, I said to him how I wanted to feel, how I sort of wanted it to look, and he. In a second, in the way that he does, he's such a brilliant illustrator and he's so good at communicating a story in an image with such ease and immediacy. And it was. And there was a halter neck, red top. And I sort of. I think it was fairly early in our relationship, so I. You know, when you don't want to say to any great designer, can we do this? Why would you? But I said, what about this? And he said, yeah, sure, let's do whatever you like. And it was created with such love and attention, such incredible communication between him and the team and work on my body and the fittings to make it just right for me. Always important to him that I'm comfortable. Do you need pockets with that or would you rather not have pockets? How are you feeling? Move around in it. How do you feel? It was a great expression of love.
- [34:43]
Bella
That dress, and seemed totally imbued with it when you said that. It was.
- [34:49]
Unknown
Yeah. Sexual can be so many different things, can't it? It can. It can be so many different things. But I think in that moment it was about a red hot sexuality, burning passion and desire and a very deep contentment.
- [35:20]
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- [36:22]
Bella
H-E-L-P.com neurosis and if you fancy someone and you don't like something they're wearing, does it kill your attraction to them?
- [36:33]
Unknown
Yes. Well, you know, obviously no. Obviously no, because we are deeper than that. But it depends what it is. If it's something that's, that's placed very deliberately to draw attention, if it's a talking point, if it's something that's presented as a talking point, as a feature and is ill considered, not thought through. Like what though, without substance, then how are we supposed to feel about that message? One thing I, I will say because I am only human, is that I can't tolerate those white trainer socks.
- [37:42]
Bella
The low cut ones.
- [37:44]
Unknown
Yeah, there's something very sleazy about those. Sleazy, with no redeeming features. But I might not have seen them on the right person yet. What I've seen may have not been their Full potential. Those trainer socks and anything can transform into anything. I'm sure because I've said this, I'll develop some sort of perverse obsession with them.
- [38:17]
Bella
Funnily enough, Stefano Pilati said they were his pet hates as well. Accompanied with a skinny jean.
- [38:25]
Unknown
There's something quite medieval about that look as well. Skin tight jeans with a, you know, maybe a sort of very kind of pointed shoe. It's quite, it's quite medieval. But I don't mind medieval.
- [38:43]
Bella
You should be in love with it. It's been a sort of background in your. In some of your life anyway and. And you've modeled in a lot of top designers shows, including Miu Miu and Vivienne Westwood and Tom Brown and most mind blowingly recently in John Galliano's last Margiela show. And everything about this was just so exhilarating and so emotional and I wondered what you were thinking about when you were walking.
- [39:21]
Unknown
Can I ask you why you are asking me that? Why you're asking what I was thinking while I was walking?
- [39:29]
Bella
Because I was watching. There was so much intensity in your performance as a embodiment of this extraordinary look. And I had a real feeling of you somehow speaking from within. And it was more than just beauty in multiple forms, but it was like there was something going on as well that only you were privy to.
- [40:10]
Unknown
Well, Bella, there was. John. John Galliano's work has been incredibly important to me through my life. I mean, talk about possibility. I remember when I first saw it, I think it was the. That show where everything was black and there were the mini monos. And it was a moment his work changed the way I felt. I could see the world. It was how I wanted to live. It was an inhale of history, literature, fantasy, cinema. Deep emotion, obsessive dedication to craft, desire for exclusively masterful execution and a deep moment of connectivity to the soul. And I would stare at those images as a teenager and stare and stare at them and study them. And it evokes such stories in me and possibilities stories in my mind for these women with such strength, powerful sexuality, radiating desire, power. No need, no needs, just deep confidence and a vibration of intelligence and ideas moves the movement of the women in the shows and the clothes, speaking so loudly of worlds I really only wanted to live in. You know, work like that, when you're a teenager, when I was a teenager, can get you through some extremely dark times in your life and can show you that there is another way and that there can be a reality. It might only be clothes, but it is not only clothes, because they transform you and transform you into something else. And so I studied John's work from when I first came across it, and I was excited for every collection would come out. I'd buy those collectione magazines with the tiny images. You know, it was so hard to find. And there'd be these tiny, tiny images, and I'd study each of those and think about what it meant and what the references were. You know, it was magazines before the Internet. What could it mean? What were these stories read, every interview I could. Every bit of kind of review or criticism. I don't know where to find these things. Whatever I could glean to find out what it was about. And it was the work of John Galliano that made me fascinated with St Martin's and the other designers there and caused me to assist a student there so I could see more and find out more. And, you know, I would dream of. I dream of many things, but a favorite fantasy would be to walk in one of John Galliano's shows.
- [44:21]
Bella
God, really.
- [44:22]
Unknown
And it was a comfort. It would be a great comfort to think about that sometimes through less enjoyable circumstances, about how that could be, what that could be like. And I really wanted. I really wanted films. I wanted there to be films that were like a John Galliano fashion show. That level of detail and. And event, occasion, power, power coming through of story. I. I was obsessed by it. And I would copy the makeup, copy Pat McGrath's makeup. I'd try to copy the hair, try to approximate some of the looks, clothing, you know, whatever I could find in secondhand shops, vintage stores, anywhere. You know, copies on the high street, whatever I could find. Things I might try and make and put together to enter that world. And also, it was a sort of fun thing that people would say to me, so, Gwendolyn, what do you most want to do? And I'd say, I want to walk in a John Galliano fashion show. So great. Of course, there are a million other answers I could give that are more connected to my work as an actor and the study of storytelling and my craft. But that is a fun and very, very true fact of something I wanted and a fantasy that I believed would never come true.
- [46:09]
Bella
But you've done rather well with your fantasies because you wanted to be in Star Wars. You were. You wanted to be in a John Galliano show, and you have been. I mean, you have a high bar that you seem to raise and raise with enormous results and success.
- [46:31]
Unknown
Well, there's a lot of luck in that, but there's also something just to. Just to really rest on that moment with John because it is so significant in my life. But I don't ever want to speak for John Galliano because he is a great artist and it's not my place. But when I met John, there was such an incredible moment of connection that maybe I had been receiving quite the depth of what I had received. Because we can connect. I felt that in some unspoken way we understood each other.
- [47:30]
Bella
Because in that show, you talk about John intensifying and exaggerating your shape, and you've talked about subverting proportion, and that proportion is a huge thing in fashion. And. And you've mentioned also your love of Leigh Bowery, and he did that very much, too. And I wondered if he was a friend of yours, had been a friend.
- [47:52]
Unknown
What, Leigh Bowery? No, I never knew Leigh. But when I first came to London, Leigh Bowery had passed away two years before. And so the group of people that I knew were all friends with Lee. And that's how I learned about Lee and Leigh Bowery and learned about his work and learned that amazing, amazing thing of what makes you different can be your power. Society can often say it's what will move you outside. Being moved outside for being considered to be very tall, androgynous and unconventional looking, you know, eccentric range of interests that I found. There were a lot of other really fabulous people outside too. Really fabulous people outside, too. And these people gave me great confidence to be who I am or to start feeling comfortable with who I am and to celebrate that and to build on it. And they may be interested in underground culture and subversion and, you know, that was a form of me starting to come into myself. And it was so vital and so significant in that early part of my life to give me confidence to become the strange freak that people considered and to celebrate that. And that moment. Walking in John's Margiela show felt like rebirth, because all the extraordinary experiences I've had, the huge luck and goodwill I've been shown in being allowed to have a career as an actor and being so fortunate to work and work with these brilliant creative minds. And being allowed to have a voice and being listened to and being allowed to create is a life more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. And beauty is something that many of us struggle with. And when I saw the look that John was creating on me, that he was sculpting, that he was truly generating another being, another way of being, and really subverting my form in a way in which no one else ever had, and recognizing in me the broken doll. And I felt that he told the world that he thought that was beautiful.
- [51:21]
Bella
He did.
- [51:24]
Unknown
And, you know, it's so hard to be a young person for us all, but for your dreams to come true like that, and for it to have such experience and work, intelligence, craftsmanship, such undreamt of talent, and I was shown such incredible love and put out on a world stage. Life, which was hard for me to do, but so ecstatic, has changed me, and I am so grateful for that.
- [52:20]
Bella
Gorthan is just the most wonderful, wonderful thing. And thank you so much for saying those things because it is so peculiar that of all the things to empower people in a way that just doesn't make sense on paper. Fashion has that power to give you courage to be the person you kind of have an inkling you're capable of being.
- [53:01]
Unknown
It's immediate transformation.
- [53:06]
Bella
Gwendolyn, you had the most wonderful laugh. When did that start?
- [53:15]
Unknown
Bella, I can't believe you're asking me about a laugh.
- [53:18]
Bella
It's just like hearing a fountain cascading. It's just so uplifting and so much fun.
- [53:27]
Unknown
Thank goodness. I don't really know what to do with my laugh, to be honest. It's been commented on a lot over the years, actually, and when I'm nervous, it'll, it'll rage. But also, I tend to find a lot of life very quite absurd. So I laugh a lot. And I, I, I really love to laugh. I really do. I really love funny people. Funny people are also very sexy. But yes, the laugh, I, I'm in denial about the laugh, actually. I remember when I was at drama school, I was with my great friend Benedict, and we were upstairs stitching costumes in this old Methodist building, and there was an extension, a black box onto the back of the building, and they were performing the third year shows in there. And so we were in this stone Methodist church up in this little room, stitching, laughing together, really laughing. And then someone came from backstage while they would. It was like a matinee show all the way to the front of the building, up the stone stairs, down the corridor into the classroom, and said, gwendolyn, we can hear your laugh on stage.
- [54:50]
Bella
Oh, God.
- [54:52]
Unknown
And I think that's when I sort of realized it was an issue. It was at that point, it was penetrating stone and traveling, you know, 100 meters.
- [55:06]
Bella
Well, it's very charming and totally enchanting and seems to sort of rebalance the goodwill in the general aura. So severance, my new obsession. I didn't know about severance until I discovered that you were in. You're in the second series and there is so much to be obsessed with. And you play the character of Lorne in season two. Oh, my God. Can we start with your outfit? I love the shirt and tie, of course. And it's fascinating the way everyone wears the same outfit throughout.
- [55:49]
Unknown
Well, the costuming on that show is really excellent. Sarah Edwards is doing an exceptional job because it's incredibly subtle what she's doing. And having worked with her now, she is. She has a great lightness and such a warm, light energy. And she's very embracing and wants to listen to ideas and wants to collaborate. And she's really fun to have a back and forth with and to exchange ideas and build something together. She also has the most incredible, fastidious I and emotional understanding of. Of line and of fabric and how the tiny details change things. And in everything I do, I want it to be different. I want it to be different from the last thing because I want to inhabit a different character and a different space. And I want it to be very precise and very specific and very defined. And I found that made great music with Sarah and we talked about this character. I put together only about 4000 references, but when my eye went immediately for the idea of this, this. This new character was Martin Margiela when he was at Hermes, because that felt like it fitted the world perfectly. Where there is so much theory, there's so much idea and concept. It's so present, but it's incredibly simple and executed very definitely.
- [57:44]
Bella
That's such a brilliant idea about thinking of Martin Margiela at Hermes. It's.
- [57:50]
Unknown
It just opened to me and it felt like the place to start in terms of the costume. Also, I relished spending a lot of time in fields with goats and sheep. Majoritatively, sheep, they are the most available livestock. Goats are more elusive than sheep. But I did spend some time observing goats, which I really, really adored. But I spent months and months, actually years, because it's been so many years since we've been shooting the show in fields with sheep, with cows. But to really get used to being around those animals, the rhythm of animals, and to start to hopefully in some way tune into the land in the way that someone that deals with animals does automatically. It's like they have a. A different set of mental factors. The way anybody does for any job. There's a different set of immediate factors, and it's more visceral and physical. And so I wanted to change my silhouette A little bit. I also wanted to look very different to how I'd looked before, and more earthy. So the brilliant John Carter took a little sample of my hair at its darkest, at the nape of my neck, and matched it for my wig. So that is the darkest of my natural hair colour there. And he put a couple of other little bits in there too. So there's a great vulnerability in that as well. And authenticity that comes from seeing the shock of. Of that. And this idea of. I can't talk about it too much because the show isn't over, but I think severance, as you, of course, very correctly identify, is about uniforms and different departments and lumen Industries as an organization and the idea of formality. There's a great pleasure in the idea of juxtaposition like that. I mean, it's shirt and tie in rural environments. Yeah, I suppose. Like posh vets.
- [60:21]
Bella
Yes.
- [60:21]
Unknown
I mean, it's.
- [60:22]
Bella
I suppose it's very immediately sort of recognisable on some level to most English people who had that experience of tramping around in a park or a field, regardless of what they're wearing.
- [60:37]
Unknown
And.
- [60:37]
Bella
Because you've got those white boots, haven't you?
- [60:40]
Unknown
Yes. Loved those. And loved looking all the agricultural wear and surgical wear and industrial wear and those. I love the thick rubber of those gloves, the sort of. That strange, almost gelatinous feeling of them encasing your hands, coming up your arms.
- [61:11]
Bella
It's so kind of specific, but unexpected. And the goats is a masterstroke. I mean, I'm obsessed with goats. I had a pet goat once called Angela, and I find them very calming and intelligent and ruthless, too.
- [61:33]
Unknown
You had a pet goat called Angela?
- [61:35]
Bella
Yeah. I don't know why I called her Angela, but I did.
- [61:40]
Unknown
Wow.
- [61:41]
Bella
So I felt very. I always have a kind of. I just love goats. I sort of spent a little time with them as well, and. And also when I was a child and living in Morocco, there was a small amount of time I was in the country and I would just go out and play with the kids who were shepherds. And so I had an ambition at one point to be a shepherd. Of baby donkeys, they were the cutest. But also there's something in the show, in Severance, about the goats almost being like in his dark materials, the. What they call the demon. The kind of. Have you read that or ever seen that? The sort of spiritual, the sort of soul that manifests as a little animal.
- [62:38]
Unknown
Goats are very interesting, aren't they? They open up a lot to us because as you Say, you know, big news, they're not sheep, but they have this innate intelligence, and there's always a feeling they're an interesting juxtaposition, goats, particularly the baby goats, because they're so cute and so endearing. But as they get older, they have all of those sorts of. There are all those connotations of more sinister aspects, but I think we're waiting to find out what sort of more about them within the show. But I love mystery. And there is so much mystery in those goats from the first season. When I watched it, when I watched the goat scene, I. I think I said out loud, you haven't done this. You have. Because they took the concept and pushed it even further. And the animal cries. It chilled me. And then the impossible mystery of it, the impossibility of what could it mean. I love mystery. I love questioning. It's so creative to think, what could the possible meaning be? What could its story be to form those hundreds of stories about what something could be? And also, there's a gracelessness about goats I loved. There were 50 of them in the room with us, just wandering around, and I had treats in my pockets, and I was very excited. One sort of almost kind of jumped up into my arms at one point, and they were climbing up me when I was having a makeup touch up. I was coming in and nibbling at the brush and trying to sort of nibble my wig and costume and something really just thrilling about the sublime chaos of it all, I couldn't have hoped for anything better. And my people there and this endless, bizarre, questioning, ecstatic chaos. And.
- [65:24]
Bella
Was that Ben Stiller's imagination that placed the goats. I have a slight obsession with Ben Stiller. I think he's a bit of a.
- [65:35]
Unknown
Do you.
- [65:36]
Bella
He's such a slight, strange genius. And then when I sort of thought, I'll have a look at what he wears, and it's so specific, in spite of being quite neutral. And what I find interesting about Ben Stiller is that he is able to sort of be detached in a way and create these performances in other people and his own sort of brilliant works of kind of parody, but without being cliched and reductive, which I think is a real amazing feat. And then he also looks like, you know, a cool guy who's got quite nice clothes and quite nice colored eyes and probably looks in the mirror and thinks, I'm looking all right today. Or. I mean, obviously I'm inventing all of this because I've never met him and. But I. I wondered how he you know, because you described that he approached you through his producer, saying that he thought about. That you would be. He wanted you to be part of severance.
- [67:01]
Unknown
Well, he's extraordinary, isn't he?
- [67:03]
Bella
He really is.
- [67:04]
Unknown
I mean, he's really singular in the body of work that he's produced. And it's increasing depth and capacity. The imagination there is quite undreamt of, and it's traveling into richer and richer extremes of exploration of the human experience and the absurdity of life. And there's a ferocious imagination there and very complex creative work. It's the level of auteur, isn't it?
- [67:56]
Bella
Yeah.
- [67:57]
Unknown
It's so rare. It's so rare. To also. To create that work and to also be an exceptional performer is. It is an unbelievably rare occurrence. And then this real power of humor, deep understanding of humor and of. Of how that works, but of the really sublime, nuanced absurdities of life and to. To be able to so effortlessly make people laugh. But I. It feels like the. The. The. The comedy was the sort of first part, and now we're going somewhere else entirely, which. It's really moving into the stratosphere. It's really going beyond our comprehension. Bella. I was in bliss when Ben asked me to be a part of the show. I was very lucky to meet Ben just before the pandemic, and he told me about the show. I'd watched Escape at Dunnamora, which is a really thrilling, sensual, exciting piece of work, and there's real sophisticated storytelling there, and it's incredibly gripping. The performances are entirely absorbing, and everyone's playing such defined characters. It's a brilliant piece of work, and I've loved all of Ben's work. Here's the big confession, particularly Zoolander.
- [69:41]
Bella
Yes.
- [69:42]
Unknown
So, oh, my God.
- [69:44]
Bella
It's just the most superb.
- [69:47]
Unknown
It's. You know, who is this person, who is this extraordinary creator? And meeting him was such a joy. It was. He's such a. Such a truly brilliant person. But I assumed I'd just never work with him. I just assumed that. But he asked if I'd like to be involved in the show, and I was secretly hoping that it might have something to do with the goats and have been in. In a state of ecstasy ever since to seemingly be in charge of them.
- [70:33]
Bella
Well, you're their shepherdess now.
- [70:36]
Unknown
You know, when I was very young, when I was a very young child, I used to look after imaginary sheep. Really? Yeah. Gosh, yeah. And I'd gather up my hay to go and feed them. God.
- [70:50]
Bella
Well, goats sheeps, I have to say, are superior beings to sheep because they have this kind of wit. I mean, they have something. They have intelligence. And I feel like they'll challenge you in a way a sheep wouldn't.
- [71:11]
Unknown
Yeah. And also, I've seen them use a mini trampoline, and I've never seen a sheep do that. God.
- [71:19]
Bella
Oh, that's just the best. Gwendolyn, thank you so much for being on Fashion Neurosis, and it's just been a heartfelt journey to be here with you. And thank you so much, Bella.
- [71:34]
Unknown
I love and adore you. And thank you for being gentle with me. Sa.