You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.
What you see A capable woman that most unsurprising of things. She's got it together. She gets shit done. She's a swirl of perpetual motion, a blur of texts and chat and pinging calendar alerts. Want something done, Ask a busy woman. That's what they say. That's what you see. What you don't see is what it takes. Because the toll is invisible, and sometimes so is the pain. Some of the busiest women you know are also the ones pushing through the most.
You look fine to me, people say as they observe her, moving, fixing, caring, sorting. But what's underneath the unending motion for some a tactical battle with a wily enemy. The careful scheduling, the relentless appointments, a search for the latest cure, the supplements, the meds, the strict sleep rules often broken, the carefully counted spoons, portions of energy carefully spent, the payoffs, the collapse, the rebuild. By mid Often our bodies have found new and dastardly
ways of getting our attention. If you won't slowed down, they mutter, as our hormones rage, I.
Will put you on your ass.
But our minds they're not slowing. They're pumping creativities up. Wisdom is surging. For many, energy is returning after being handed to others for so long.
We don't want to lie down. And yet women living.
With invisible, quiet, chronic conditions are in a constant conflict with how much.
Their bodies must cost them.
They're ambition perhaps that time with the kids, maybe, but most likely not the work, the caring. It gets done because busy driven women do, even when their bodies are shouting.
Don't hello.
I'm Holly Wainwright and I am mid midlife, mid family, mid strive. Today I'm talking about ambition with one of the most successful Australian women in Hollywood. But it's not a simple story because, as she might have gathered from today's introduction, Bruna pap Andrea's success and it's significant success
she runs through a production company. She is the woman behind movies like Wild and Gone Girl and The Dry and TV shows like Big Little Lies and The Undoing, and of course Strife, which was Mia Friedman's memoir brought to life. All this success comes despite of or she might suggest, because of the fact she.
Lives with lupus.
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease, and like other forms of insidious invisible illnesses and conditions, it makes everything harder for Brunna, who lives in Sydney with her family now but has lived and still works all over the world. It means that some days getting out of bed is almost impossible, and every morning she wakes with pain. It means for Bruna that she has to watch her diet
her stress levels. Not that easy when you employ whole crews of people and are juggling multimillion dollar budgets.
That having her longed.
For kids was difficult, That she's always trialing new treatments, always hoping for a cure, always dreading an escalation. But the thing is, Bruna is the least self pitying person you can imagine. She is intensely driven, an enormous fun. She thinks that the things that have challenged her from a childhood growing up in housing commission to her loopus are actually.
The superpowers that drive her.
And the reason I was so keen to get her on the mid is because I'm fascinated by two things that Bruna is in a unique place to tell me. Does ambition dissipate or intensify in midlife when you've already achieved so much? And how do you do all that she does when you live in chronic discomfort? The last bit I knew would resonate with so many of you listening, because although you might not be hanging out with movie stars in Hollywood, I don't know your life.
Maybe you are.
It's perfectly possible and likely considering a very large percentage of midlife women do live with a conditioned disability or illness that make sure every day a sometimes insurmountable challenge.
This one is for you.
Welcome to mid the irrepressible Bruna Papenrea Bruna Holly. To prepare for this chat today, I went back and listened to the chat you did with mea on No Filter a while ago. Now, and we'll put a link in the show notes to it so people can listen.
Yeah, it was.
Pre pandemic, you were living in La Still. Yeah, you had just I think finished filming Big Little Lies the first season.
Wow, Yes it was it was back then, and I think it was your first TV adaptation. Yes, right, Since that interview, I went and did my little, very in depth IMDb research. You have apparently brought around sixteen other projects all the way to the screen, which include movies like The Dry of Course, and lots more TV shows you were saying.
In that interview, I want to do more of those. Yeah, And of course you have the undoing I'm Perfect, Strangers Lost, Vas Balance, Hut, and.
Of course Strife. Yes, the adaptation of Me is memoir.
You've also moved your family back to Australia, and I'm tired just saying all of those things, which is why I wanted to talk to you about work, ambition and just leaning into it at this phase of our lives. Do you feel as ambitious now as you did at twenty five?
Yes, I would say I feel more ambitious now, actually much more. I'd say I'm more ambitious in this moment in time than I've ever been.
Why do you think that is?
I think because I feel I mean, I've heard it talked about a lot on your show. Actually, because I think what I did realize when I was younger is that you know, it kind of sneaks up on you, like not the knowledge that the you know, kind of institutional knowledge that you know we all learn and then carry. And I feel like I know more, I know my taste more, I know more, I have bit bigger relationships. So I feel really just emboldened and kind of on fire.
And like I think that's a sad thing about getting older.
That's the good thing about getting older.
But what's hard is like your body is getting older, particularly as you go into menopause, but you've never felt more clarity a vision and vision itself and creatives and so it's a strange type. I also have young children, so that's also strange at fifty three to have young children.
Still.
You and Iron similar boats with Matt. We were both late as it were. Do you think though, when you think about how your ambition and your drive has morphed, because there's no way that you would ever be who you are without having also been very ambitious. Yes, I was. I was ambitious from like a kid, any kid you've talked about. You said to me or in that interview
that you think part of that was your upbringing. I'm the fact that you grew up without money, in home, in public housing and a single mum, and you said that that background has made you fearless because you had nothing to lose.
Yep, I still feel like that.
And it's funny because some people from a similar background say the opposite. They say they're so afraid of ever being back there that it makes them risk averse.
Why do you think so different for you?
Yeah, I mean I understand both sides of that. I think that you know ultimately, I think that I talk about this a lot. If I was ever going to do a Ted talk, my Ted talok would be called like invisible superpower, because I think that your upbringing can be your superpower. And I think because I know the value of just not not the value, but I think I'm such a believer because I came from you cannot imagine. Like if I look now and I go, how did
that girl get here? I think it's kind of even I look back and go, how did that happen?
When people will ask you that all the time, Yeah, no they do. Do you have a simple like do you have a pat answer for that?
Or not? Really?
No, I mean, look, the answer I always give to young people is expose yourself and put yourself in the way of any opportunity, even if you think it's not the one that will lead you to where you want to be, but expose yourselves to as many opportunities as possible, because you know, working in a restaurant, for instance, taught me how to communicate, you know, and how to interface
with people. You know, you wouldn't think that would be a natural progression to producing, but actually it is, you know, And I think that, you know, I do think in a creative field particularly, I've never let money be my driver. I think that's the key, you know, and some things have been very successful for me. But I still make things where I invest, reinvest in my entire fee because again, I'm not driven by money. I'm driven by you know,
wanting to put something great and creative into the world. So, you know, I think it is a superpower, I think. I mean, I worry a bit for my kids actually, because they're going to go very differently to how I grew up. You know, I remember my first you know, borrowing money to buy my first thousand dollar car. I remember buying my first five thousand dollar car. I really remember buying my first brand new car and the sense of achievement I had from that.
So I think that that's the kind of superpower I'm talking about.
I think it drives you in a way because we're survivors, right, you have to survive.
It's you know.
I think it's very different when you have to make a decision based on paying bills other than you know, or just like based on sometimes people with too much money have too many choices.
Yeah, that's interesting.
I wanted to ask you about money because, as we've said, do you talk about coming from nothing and your work is constant risk in a way, as she just said, you know, you might have a massive success and then re and then the payback in all ways is often long term. As having money now changed you and your relationship to ambition.
Still don't know as much as you think.
And I'm getting no because in all seriousness, I think I have poured so much back in because I feel like we're just you know, growing and growing the company. And I've also survived through six years of a pandemic and two massive work stoppages without letting one single person go, you know, without letting a staff member go, which was you know, probably the most I would say, business wise, most stressful few years in my life.
Does that say something about your priorities that you were like, we're keeping everybody together and we're keeping these projects moving rather than rationalization.
Shit, this is scary. Yeah, I think it's too batch. You're not just me.
I mean Steve is my partner, my husband, and my co founder, and he and I cut from exactly the same cloth. We I think would both give our friends our last dollar if they needed it. Like we are just both like cut from that cloth where you know, if there is a need, then we can help in any way we can.
So I think there is that.
But also I think I definitely have restructured things a bit in the last few years. I've definitely, as I've gotten older, kind of taken a one thousand foot view and I have gotten a little bit to the point
where I'm like anyone who runs a business. I mean, I just have so much respect for anyone who runs a business because I think until you do the stress of like you know, just maintaining and paying people, so and I definitely do feel like sometimes, you know, through some of the more difficult times, I have worked to pay other people when I'm not paying myself, and that you know, that can just put an enormous amount of stress on your own life, and we are the lucky ones,
like we have not stopped filming through any of these periods.
Constant adaptation, right yeah.
Rules, yes, And that's I think partly what I mean by the superpower. When COVID hit, I feel like I was okay because I.
Was like, okay, well what do we do? How do we? You know?
We you know, we started a fund to raise some money for cruise. We raised a million dollars for crew who couldn't work. We were able to come to austraighter and work. Steve and I are both very flexible and very adaptable, and that's the one thing I've realized in business you just have to be you have to be flexible. And in fact, that's just something parenthood, all of it, all of it health.
You just have to be flexible. Have you ever been burnt out? Oh? Yeah, well you know, yes, yes, yes you have.
I mean, I think the problem with me is that this is again I'm just I'm going to say I'm such a fan of your podcast because I've there's so many touch points for me, and I think one of the biggest ones is realizing that just at the point you kind of feel like you, you.
Know, are just getting started.
You are dealing with you know, not me so much in this moment, but like I have so many friends dealing with aging parents, parents who are dying. I'm also dealing with, you know, a pretty extreme health condition, and I'm dealing with two eleven year olds and also running a business. So yes, because I'm a very high functioning
person with lupis. And every time I meet another high functioning person or meet them, even when I hear about one, you know, Selena Gomez, you know, one of the Willen's sisters, Yeah, it gives me. It just kind of makes me feel good because I'm like, well, they can do it. So yeah, sometimes I will just crash, and just because if I'm not looking after myself, which is crucial and as women, I think we do often. I think there's some crazy stat that women go to the doctor and look after
themselves so much less after they have children. We just prioritize things in a different way. So I think all that combined with perimenopause and then menopause, Yeah, it's been that lupis is also, which I've really found in those fears, It's really triggered for me by hormonal changes. Right, So pregnancy, most people go into remission.
I didn't.
I was one of the unlucky ones that it got worse through my twin pregnancy at forty one, and then of course menopause brings on a whole lot of other so challenges.
I want to ask you about what that looks like, right, because you have said, you know, you have tried lots of different treatments. Let's explain a little bit for people what lupus is if they don't know. You were diagnosed with it in about twenty ten, Is that right?
Exactly?
There was diagnosed literally days before I got married. That's how I always remember.
And what led you to that? Like what was happened?
Yeah, So I was having a lot of pains in my hands and feet that I couldn't explain. So I was having my hands x rayed and I was having my feed x ray and you know those.
People who pushed through things usually like.
Yeah, because I do think I actually have a pretty high pain tolerance. But it was very consistent. I mean, that's when you realize what lupas is. You realize it's just very consistent. It like, you know, the closest thing that people will understand is the you know, the symptoms of mimic rheumatoidithritis. So I was X raying all these
things and nothing was showing up. And finally they just kept testing, you know, various blood tests and then you know, you get enough markers and I tested positive for both this thing good an SSA marker and the Loopers marker. Then it was clear. So that's when I was kind of referred to a rheumatologist. And it's so such a funny one. You know, if you watch a lot of medical TV shows, they're like, it's loopers. Like when they can't explain what it is, I'm like, oh my god,
it's so funny. What cause is it? They don't really know. I can tell you what causes for me flares, and that's to be exacerbated. It's obviously an inflammation in your whole body. And when I say your whole body, like sometimes my eyes will be sore. I have inflammation on my brain. Unfortunately, I have inflammation on my heart.
What does that mean? So so loopers? Right now?
I have non organ interfering Loopers. And what that means is like it's not interfered with organ so much that I need like a liver transplant or a kidney transplant. So you have to keep an eye on it. So when I first got diagnosed, I was getting blood work every eight weeks, eight to nine weeks, just testing for it everything. So one of the you know, I suppose one of the bigger things is the inflammation of my brain,
which just means white matter on your brain. So it's just inflammation like like it could be in the body, it can be on the brain. So basically for me, what that means is I get a brain MRI every year to make sure that it's stable, and so far it has been stable. And then the same with the heart. I'm on a low dose statin because it's very minor, but I just have to keep a check on it.
I mean, I always say to my friends, well, you know, at least if I'm ever going to get anything, they're going to find it because I get checked a lot, and I'm pretty I'm pretty good now about being religious about getting checked.
When that first happened to you and you were your careers in full flight, You're about to get married, was there ever a moment where you went, oh, my god, I'm going to have to stop like I'm going to have this is going to stop me from doing the things I want to do.
Yeah, I don't think so.
I mean it definitely, I still get freaked out about it. It's still kind of I'm really optimistic about it because I think there's a lot of great research. I think there will be a cure in my lifetime. Do you take you obviously, I know you've tried heaps.
No, I don't take anything right now.
No. For a very short amount of time, I took Predna zone and then for me personally, it helps the symptoms, but it doesn't cure you. So I felt like for me that the long term use of steroids was more of a negative. And what I found for me was that if I ate kind of an anti inflammatory diet and if I exercised, and if I kept my stress levels down, that I could keep it under control. Stress levels down exactly.
It's actually the worst.
I can't imagine that the stress levels that we were just discussing, the people you employ, the money, the high stakes. I don't think that, like working in Hollywood has ever been considered well, in a.
Weird way, I think that that stresses I would say for me and other people I know with loopers, and I know if you stress is the biggest you know, kind of a fender and biggest stress drives up your blood pressurelood pressure, you know, is it really puts me in danger for certain things, so high blood pressure.
So I actually I think I reached a.
Certain point I would say, not not when I got diagnosed, but I think within the last five years where I just don't stress this.
Small stuff anymore.
And I think that's exactly how I started off saying that. I think that in a way, as you get older, you learn that the smaller stuff doesn't matter and you can't change things. My husband's very good at reminding me, particularly in Hollywood, when you know, look, it's none of it's personal, number one. You know, an actor's availability, the stress on their lives, whether a filmmaker can do it, whether someone's going to give you the money to make something.
You know, it's not personal, it's business. And so I really, I think learned to put that in perspective. And so I've been pretty good about keeping my stress under control.
But more recently i've.
You know, I'm such a fan of it's like you know, years ago, when like everyone was eating kale and you're like, did K We'll get a publicist or like suddenly it was gogie berries and you're like, you know, So the most recent thing we're all talking about which has been a game changer for me, it's infrared saunas and confin I was going to ask.
You, yeah, what your sort of routine looks like. And also having lived in LA for a long time, I'm sure that you also, like you're exposed to a lot of really interesting therapy is and every famous person's podcast I listened to, they're doing a lot of things everything, So tell me about the routines that help you.
Yeah.
So I was lucky enough, and I do think and in fact, I would love to see Australia open a clinic like this. There is a clinic that I discovered really early into my loopers called a Tune and it's an auto It's a clinic only for autoimmune diseases. And they believe in not just the scientific based medications, but they had a full time nutritionist on staff. They will tell you to meditate, they will tell you maybe it's right for you to have a more pescatarian diet for
your condition. Like they really look at the whole picture, which for me, I'm very much a whole picture person.
Was a game.
So I don't think they told me about the efforts. I started, you know, hearing a lot about how good cold plunges were for inflammation, So this is new to me. I'm not afraid to talk about one of the things that was really starting to worry me. I really was finding it hard through menopause to lose weight, and unfortunately for me, having too much weight on and I'm talking about I had, I have twenty five kilos. Too much weight on was causing my inflammation levels to really go up,
was causing me to be pre diabetic. I could not afford that. So I did try Munjaro and I take one of the weight loss injections, and.
That's obviously safe for you to take, very safe.
My automate doctor was like a big proponent of it, and it was it had such a fast impact on my loopers markers, just my inflammatory levels. So I did lose I've lost probably the last time aunt. The twenty kilos. Game changing, Yeah yeah, game changing, game changing for like all my numbers were better, like just my cholesterol, I was, everything was better.
Can I ask you patty question about it. Do you still eat food? Yeah?
You do?
Yeah, do you enjoy it? Yeah? So it's not like for me, No, I didn't.
I will admit I tried a zembek first, and I just I just found that didn't make me feel good. And I was like, you know, I don't know about this. So and I do think it's every it's really specific to each individual. For me, the majaru was really good, and you know, there was almost no side effects. I just I think I ate less. I mean for me, I would just get fuller. But yes, I still one dat food. I enjoy it, and in fact, it gave me a ton of energy. I would say, that's good
and yeah. So and then the second thing I've been doing and discovered is infrared saunas and cold pungas, which this is I would say in the last I've discovered this in the last two months and now I'm almost I'm a little bit addicted. I've done three or four in the last week.
Wow. So how does it like?
I heard you say that you with your because you wake up in pain.
Yeah.
And there'll be a lot of people who are listening to this who have some kind of chronic illness a lot of women. Yeah, and I'm sure that you and they know things that I don't know about what it's like to push through that every day. So I'd love you to tell me, like a little bit about the routines, the things you have to think about in your day that I don't have to think about as someone who isn't doing.
Yeah, no, it is. It's the people that I know with it. We talk about this all the time. I mean, I think the hard thing for a lot of people without immune is like they're invisible illnesses in the sense that you can't even describe it.
Someone said, well, what's the pain?
Like I go, I just want someone to stretch my body from the inside out, like you just want someone.
To stretch you.
And I get a lot of massages and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.
But we literally plan your diary around the things you have to do for your health.
More recently, as but I've been, like many people, particularly women, I've been terrible at it, you know, I've really you know, I think the other thing that I have to navigate, particularly since deciding to be in Australia is travel. I mean, I think I've been to Europe seven times this year. I mean, you know, so so a lot of plane trips. So I haven't been as good at prioritizing it in a way that I need to. So, yeah, I need
to start getting up. I mean I get up very early, but I kind of I really understand why those people who are really successful get up at five a. I think five am is the key where you have enough time to do all the things, do all the things. And you know, and I'm a morning person.
I love it. I'm not a night person.
Yeah, So I think that's the easiest way to describe it. Is it is the fatigue element is not as much as it all happened to me. Occasionally while I feel really fatigued and I just need to lie in bed, but very occasionally for me, it is about like that pain. And when I gave birth, it was actually the worst time because I could not get up with my children in the night. I just wasn't capable. I needed sleep.
I couldn't survive. And so my husband did it. And he has really been that person who has, you know, kind of covered nights for they're eleven and he still does. Yeah, yeah, and he knows that that's yeah, and he knows what I'm having a bad day.
Was he a voice of when you're pushing yourself really hard and you're not prioritizing the saunas? Yeah, the diet whatever it is.
Is he Yeah, he's the he's the most annoying. He's like you know those people who you're like, he has He was doing juice cleanses like thirty years ago when people were doing them.
He was medites meditated for thirty years. Do you meditate? No? It was so funny. I just listened to that podcast. While you're talking of meditation, What a time I've got to meditate.
I'm Auntie. Sorry, I'm going to go the opposite. My husband meditates. I know so many for so many friends where it has changed their life. It is I have tried. It is not for me, and I'm not even going to try and convince myself it's for me. I think what we realized. And actually, when I listened to the Catherine May podcast, you did Yes, I Love Love my favorite of the podcast because everything she said, I was like, yes, Yeah.
She's the author of a Beauty Foble, Good Wintering, among other things, and she was the number one person I wanted to talk to.
I think she's so great. Yeah, what did she say that? I think what resonated with me? And I think you talk a lot about this too. Is like for her, it's cooking. For me, it's cooking a little bit too. For you, it might be gardening. For me, it's actually like reading travel magazines or interior magazine, something that like I would never just take the time to kind of switch off and do. So it's been with my girlfriends, you know, taking time to actually just do something that
has nothing to do with children or work. So I do think that we find different things, but I don't want to quite in my mind. I mean, I just don't and I feel like I do have real clarity about, you know, the things that are important to me and kind of where I'm at. So for me, I don't like I don't feel I had some like you know, definitely have been depressed in my life when I was younger. I remember very clearly in my twenties, like walking as
in London. I remember really clear like I needed medication. I was like depressed. It's never happened to me again. So it was situational, situational. It was a series of events that happened. But I will say even when I had a few rough days, you know, last week, just physically I went to that. I went to this place in BONDI nimbus and I jumped in that cold plunge. And I'm not a person I can't even put the cold water on in the shower, but I just I've just started doing it and it made me feel like
it completely reset my mood. It completely reset how I felt physically. So I'm like, oh, I found this thing that you know, I love. My husband's also, I said to you know, because like I said, everything is easy for him. He exercises religiously, he doesn't He's very disciplined. He has always prioritized. I remember when I met him and he didn't have much money. When I met him, he hadn't worked in a while, and he was still doing tons of therapy, and I was like, oh, you
can't afford therapy. But he made it a priority, Like he wouldn't borrow money to therapy because he knew that that is what he needed. And I've so much respect for that. Yeah, you know, because it's really like saying, Okay, what what do I need? What's important to me, So yes he has. He's always trying to get me to make space and time because it's a cliche.
But it's a cliche for a reason that women, whether they're running a big business like you are, or whether they're just trying to keep the head of the water with jobs and kids, they always put their needs last.
But it's the cliche that keeps.
Coming around to hit us over the head, which is like every time you neglect that, even if it's the half an hour you spend just doing something you want to do, it will come back and back on the ass every single time your whole job. It seems to me, I'm not going to ask you what producers do, because I've heard lots of people ask you, and I think, but it seems to me a.
Lot of decision make other people's dreams come true. You do.
But also, you know, when you were just talking about clarity, your job, it seems to me must be a series of decisions all the time. Because you're in the role that you're in, you're getting input constantly from lots of different places. The right, just want this, the just want this, the studio, I want this, you want this.
Yes, we're going to do that. I hear you, We're going to do that. It's being the prime minister, like a really good prime minister.
I did you know I wanted to be the first female premise when I was younger.
After this short break, more of my conversation with Bruno Papenrea. My image of Hollywood from the outside is that you would have to be one tough bitch, right and that and being tough as a woman can be hard. But you are very warm. Whenever I've met you, you're very warm. You're very capable and direct. I've heard you say that you've kind of learned how to get what you want without being one of those bullying dickheads.
Do you recognize your personality or anything.
No. I think it's very austral and I think it's I think it's the why Australians actually punched well above their way in Hollywood. I think we are very you know, we're very like kind of what you see is what you get, you know. I do think we find it hard to hide we're not you know, where we work hard. I've always been that person who just really liked to
have fun as well. And because I remember saying to Menela once, like you could have hired anyone and women who were so much more experienced than I was twenty nine when he hired me, and he just said, I knew, I knew it would make me laugh. I mean, I knew we'd have fun, and you know, I need you cared about the creative And that is still I think how I feel like I love my job. And I think one of the things I'm not afraid to spreak truth to power.
I think that's part of it. I think that is part of it.
And when I say power, like the dynamics obviously, the power dynamics between me and a movie star, me and a filmmaker.
You know, I've just found that like people.
Really certainly the partnerships I've had the brilliant novelists. Just hear the Amazingly Morialtes podcast on this show.
She was great. That was amazing.
She also is very direct, actually in a very different way.
Yeah, she's so good. Yeah, she's just so direct.
I remember saying to her once for would you want to I hope she doesn't mind me saying this, And I was like, you know, would you consider adapting it or would you know, do you want to write screenplays because I'm always saying to novelists, do you know, do you want to write screenplays?
She's like, I'm just you know, I'm busy writing books.
You know, she's such a novelist, you know, at a core, and I love her so much. But I do think that, you know, I have always believed that you can be successful and inspire people and get work done, and you know, do it while being a good human being. And we don't. Really I won't work with people who aren't anymore. I just won't. I refuse to do it. I'd rather not make things. And you know, we all say that, like, you know, well we don't know arshole policy, but I
would even go one step further. I kind of only want to work with people I want to have a meal with. Now that you know that, I feel like we're nourishing each other in some ways. And I think the thing that I'm most proud of is my repeat relationships.
And you know that's the thing.
It's like, our industry is very transient, and obviously it's very project based. So the more you can work with the same you know, networks, the same actors, the same directors, the same novelists, it's a joy.
It's really a joy for me.
Did you when you were a young woman wandering around in London, and as you've said, you worked for these amazing guys, legends of the business, who certainly don't fall into that category, did you ever feel like prey.
No. Never, No, I don't know why. I never felt that.
The only thing I felt, and I still feel a little bit, is that there is somewhat still of a boys club. I think in Hollywood in terms of, like, you know, I feel like no one's handing me anything, like I have to find it, and I have to
build it, and I have to sell it. Whereas there is an element of old Hollywood, a bit of a boys club where you know, you might get a call saying, come produce this, you one hundred million dollar movie, and that's that's essentially someone kind of gifting something to you, right, That's because we're all My job is to find something that and then you know, try and get someone to
convince someone to spend the money and make it. So I definitely feel like there is a vestige of somewhat of a boys club still there.
And do you think you're you're an outside like part of your success has been that you are an outside of both in being an ausio and being a woman and not necessarily having gone to school with the right people.
Kind of although I feel very liked by the business, you know, I know a lot of the heads of the networks and studios and have really great relationships, and it always never felt like I couldn't, you know, kind of pick up the phone and have a direct conversation. And so I feel and I think that's the thing
that to go back to where we started. That's kind of why I'm so ambitious now because I think you finally get to that place where people believe in you and they believe you can execute on a vision and be responsible doing it. And so you know, that's kind of why I think I feel like I'm just getting started, because you get you know, the more experience you have, just you just get better at yah, and.
The thing is possible right now in a way, Yeah, exactly exactly.
So yeah, do you think because I want to also ask about age and experience being an advantage in lots of ways.
You just say it always. I'm gonna say it always.
Which I love because I think that we're often given a bit of a trick that it's not that we're somehow getting weaker rather than stronger. Can you think of a mistake you made when you were full of bravado and young that you would not make now?
Well, yes, it's a few frogs. I might have kissed it.
I definitely might have, you know, anyone who knows me Mia, No, Yes, I think I made really good business decisions. I think that when I wasn't following my own kind of taste. When I wasn't, I'll give you an I am not really I like comedy, but I like fleabag catastrophe. I like, you know, what we perceive as dramedy. I'm not a person who likes to I don't watch broad comedic shows. It's not my personal taste. I watch a lot of drama. I watch a lot of you know, non English stuff.
So I think when I've gone against my own instinct or when I've followed someone else's, they have not been successful choices for me. They've been the kind of films you know that that didn't work out as well. And I think partly because I just didn't, but they weren't. I wasn't the best person to be making them so I've gotten really much better at only pursuing things that I want to watch in some ways, you know that
feel kind of exciting and distinctive to me. I've been really lucky because there's been a couple of women in America have been with me almost ten years. One of them said to me reasently, you're my healthiest relationship. I was like, well, we're going to We're going to change that. You're amazing. But I'm really proud of that. But I do think that sometimes, you know, it's also good to take a step back and also make changes if the
chemistry is not exactly right. And sometimes you know, I've made missteps in hiring and I think that's okay because I think everyone does that. But I think again, as you get older, you really learn to listen to that.
I don't have a ton of regrets, to be honest.
I'm like, if you said to me, oh, do you wish you'd met your husband had children younger?
I would say one hundred percent. No, really, I was going to ask.
You about that, right because you and I are both old parents and in verte Thomas, I've got it to leave for a variety of reasons and God, I had twins.
That's all awesome. But I was going to ask you because I know it wasn't a choice for you. Well, I mean it was.
You didn't meet Steve till till you were in your late.
Oh yeah, yeah, we married like I was just about two and forty. We had children a forty one.
But and then obviously you had but you'd also had fertility issues going on, so it wasn't a choice. But do you think there are some advantages to being an older parent like us?
Yeah, I think there's a lot of advantages. I shall tell you what they are. No, I No, I do because I have had the most amazing life in the sense that you know that the thing was going around Instagram recently where it was like, how many of these places have you been to? And I had been to everyone bar one. It was incredible. I was like, that's amazing. Like I have traveled the world. I have had amazing experiences.
There is never a moment where I would rather be anywhere else than like with my children, for instance, whereas you know, and I feel like now do I wish I was physically a little younger to keep up with, you know, my crazy eleven year olds. Maybe, but no, I think that the only negative is what comes at the other side of that. I talked to my friend Mery Costis a lot about this is you know, I like I tear up when I think about not being there for something. Will I be there when they have kids?
Will I be there when they get married? I hope so, and I think so, But none of us know. So I think for me that's the only disadvantage. But for the most part, I actually think, even emotionally, I wasn't ready until you know, I had them, And I think that's the same. Is the truth of my marriage that I don't think I was, you know, in a place
where I knew myself well enough. I think if i'd met Steve, and I did meet ten years before we were both with other people, I don't think it would have lasted then because I had not done the work on myself. I wasn't the person that I was when I met him. I think he would say the same thing.
Do you think at risk of being like, you know, amateur shrink here? That that very real? Because I feel that that's it's interesting that you said that the only thing that gives you pause about being an older parent is thinking are their kids going to have grandparents around?
Are we going to you know, am I going to miss a lot of things?
This age does bring you even though we're full of vitality, we've got so much to do. It brings us closer to realizing that. Do you think that's part of what's made you be buckling down on.
Your health now, like making it one hundred percent. I need to be around for them one hundred percent. I mean, it shouldn't have to be the thing that made me realize that, truthfully, but it is one hundred percent. I think at some point I just went, oh my god, I have to do everything I can to be around for as long as I can to you know, see their lives play out, you know, for as long as for as long as I can. So that is the
the truth. And also I think even when for me, I lost that kind of weight that I usually I just you know, I'm wearing jeans now you see me in jeans. I've worn jeans since before I had babies. I do love miss as they count nice.
My husband is.
I don't think I was doing many fans, but you know there'd be seven and I go, oh, God, I'm just you know, my levels are terrible. You know, I need to kind of start exercising. And you go, oh, you look great. You know you just had twins. I'd be like seven years ago.
I can jig is up?
Man Like, Siria, you're not helping. I love him, but you know exactly, it's just again like but I think for me, I feel really good right now.
The rest of my conversation with Bruna Papenrea, after this short break stay with us. I love hearing you talk about motherhood because of your dynamic with Steve, your husband, right that you're the one who gets on the planes and he's the one who stays home. And that's the same in my life on a smaller scale. And I haven't been to Europe seven times this year yet, Bruna, but hey, yeah, yeah, it's still so unusual in our culture, even in creative industries. It is still so unusual.
Yeah. Have you ever struggled with that.
Or have you always been really clear that, no, this is what my family looks like and I'm doing.
The right Yeah, great question, A great question. I hadn't struggled with it. I think he was so funny. He gave a speech at my fiftieth and he said, you know, it's great in a marriage. You know what happens is, you know, sometimes Bruna gets to travel and I stay home with the kids, and sometimes I stay home with the kids and Bruna gets to go to premiers and travel. Like it was so funny the way I can't he said it an even even funnier way, and everyone laugh
because then it was true. I think I did okay with it. I think when they were younger, and I wished i'd know.
Now.
Every time I see someone they're young, baby, I go, don't worry they don't remember anything before they're seven, because I'll be like, hey, kids, remember when I took you to Disneyland four times? They're like, no, I think it's getting harder.
Now, don't. I haven't struggled with it at all.
I remember going to even baby group in America, and because we had twins, it was almost okay that he was there. But he was the only man there at that time. He was the only father there, and he would have gone had we had twins or not. You know, he's just an unbelievable father. I have not struggled with it at all. I think it's getting harder because with my daughter, particularly who's eleven, I think it's a really tricky age and she's always wanted him and now she
wants me. Hope you're listening Steve to Thiss and Kenny. He's very upset about it. No, but it is I think the dynamics change.
And it was fourteen and she said to me because on Sunday I was like, I'm going Monday morning. I'm not going to be back to Thursday this week and she was just like, please don't go. Why do you have to go?
And I get that the first in a way.
She started saying that maur as she's older, whis strange because you'd think it would be.
No, that's exactly what's happening to me. And they've been saying it a lot. I mean, it's like and if we do anything on a weekend that doesn't include them, you know, it's like, well, this is our time. And yeah, I find it really hard. I've actually started saying I think the other day I was like, Mummy, just is not for loopers? Is bad today? I just need to go and do the cold plunge. I just so I try.
And you know, they know I have loopers. They're really attuned to it, you know, without scaring them obviously either. But you know, I do find that I'm starting to kind of have more honest conversations with them, you know, to make them part of like I'm trying to you know, the better I feel, the better will be all together. So, yeah,
it definitely gets harder. We are very good as a family, Like when we go away as soon as they, you know, break from school, we all go to America because I have to work there and Steve has to work there. So we try and always do that as a family. We you know, and god, that's pretty good for them. They get to, you know, travel around the world and have these great experiences.
But as moving back to Australia made it more complicated.
It's made it easier in some ways because I will be honest and say my anxiety levels dropped five hundred percent because I'm not worried about the guns and the politics. That's a real day to day It's a real day to day day for you driving on the freeway, driving them to school.
You know.
It's it's something that I think about often. Yeah, I mean, we don't discount you know, I think we may have to go back for a bit and then come back again. I think it's that's going to you know, we we have a bit, most of our business is still there. My dream would just be to shoot everything, you know, American here and then I'd have the best of everything.
Are you always in meetings just going you know?
Yeah? And by the way, I'm not lying, It's completely true. You know. You know I envy the kind of the George Miller's and the Baslomans, and you know, the kind of James James Cameron's and you know, like just you know, build something and stay somewhere in one place and build it for years. And I have so much kind of admiration for that because you know, it's really you know, your lifestyle is so important.
I want to ask you about ageism in Hollywood. It's a much discussed topic, but I want to actually ask you not about the on screen faces that were always very busy dissecting Yeah, because that's become such a almost tedious conversation now about life because the are on screen women over fifty. They're damned if they do. They're dumb if they don't. But I heard Kate Winslet who I love,
I love. She's obviously promoting things at the moment, and she was on a podcast I heard her talk about how it surprised her to hear people in Hollywood behind the scenes too. She didn't name the director, but she said that she had lunch or something with a female director who had recently had died ahead and a few things, and Kate Winslet was like, why wouldn't you just you know, relax into it, and she said, Oh God, no one wants to hire an old lady director and that Winslet was a bit shocked.
She was like, Oh, that's so, the ageism is real. Do you find that? Do you think it's true?
Do you feel pressure like behind, like in the industry side of Hollywood for everybody to also stay young, stay.
Yeah kind of, I mean where I've ex where I've seen it.
I mean.
So, I was part of a big organization called Reframe, which was all about finding out why women weren't directors, specifically, weren't getting the opportunities that they should be being given, why more men were getting those opportunities. And one of the things that, you know, one of the learnings that came out of that research was that it was a lot of mid career women falling out of the system.
Wasn't the young ones who were just coming up. It was the mid career women, women who were had made a film years ago and then just not gotten that second break in a way that maybe a man would have gotten that second bigger break, or they'd made like one film that didn't perform and then they were in director jail, which I think women go into a lot more than men do.
Direct to jail, like go to jail like.
You can't get that next opportunity because you made something that didn't you know, set the world on fire. Look, I've definitely I've talked about this a lot. I've definitely found that women who are tough, like, oh, they're difficult to work with. I might no more difficult than every man I've worked with, but they're definitely I think if women aren't kind of as woman fuzzy as people want
them to be, that's definitely the case. We recently, you know, made a film with a dear friend of mine here Tony Jordan's book Condition with my friend Massel Lunum, who I hope she doesn't mind me saying this is sixty
and there was her first narrative feature at sixty. And you know, one of the reasons we talk about that is because, for lots of different reasons, whether it's raising her child, trying to make a living, she's She's had many She's an artist, she's a graphic designer, she'd made documentaries, done lots of things. Knew more about directing than almost anyone I'd work with. But if we hadn't given them
that opportunity, would someone else have? Maybe not exactly for that reason, because they might go, well, why hasn't she made a film and she's sixty, you know, Whereas I don't think they're asking men those questions as much. But actually I do feel like even that is shifting because my friend Leslie Linka Glada, who is the head of
the Director's Girl in America, she is in her sixties. Also, I don't think she'd mind me saying that, and she's directed, she's for years been directing The Homeland and I mean every big action she's amazing, And in a way, I
feel like she's working more than ever now. I feel like there is just such a kind of awareness of people who are really good at their jobs and who can you be responsible for these big budgets and who have that experience, And so I feel like in some ways that perception is shifting and that makes me really happy absolutely.
Because I mean we've seen men in Hollywood often they're still making their passion products way way way into that. I love clean easwood, don't get me wrong. But yeah, you're like, yeah, yeah, we shouldn't all be this. I mean, it's a culture of newness. Often, isn't it hot young thing?
It is, it really is, and it continues to be a qulture of newness. I think. So.
Yeah, I wanted to ask you before we finish, which we could have talked.
I believed like we're just getting sucked.
I know.
I'm like, I'm a question this.
Well, we started off talking about ambition. You told me you are more ambitious. Actually, I want to know. There's two things I want asking. You're more ambitious than ever you've said. There is a lot of doom and glue, like people say, you know, movies are dead, TV is dead, everything's dead. It's all just going to be three second TikTok ai blah. Are you optimistic? Yeah, that your ambition and what you want to lean into can happen And what are you desperate to do that you have not done yet?
Oh a great question.
I'm really optimistic actually, And you know, it was interesting.
Actually I just watched I.
Didn't watch all of the Emmys, but I was so when Richard Gad spoke when they won but Baby Reindeer won the Best Limited Series, he said what I believe, which is like, it's not a time to be safe. It's a time to be bold. It's a time to be brave. You know, it's a time to take risks. And I totally believe that. And I think actually last what the Emmys was actually quite inspiring this year when you really look at what won, and it is so
affirming constantly because the audience will always surprise you. And I've always believed no one really knows what they want until you give it to them and excite them and you know, inspire them. I think, you know, and everything in Cleaning the Bear, all those amazing shows that picked up Emmies.
So I am optimistic.
I definitely think what happened is a you know, there was always I said it five years ago, I said, this is the boom. It's going to last five years and then people are going to make less because it was there was an explosion of content. I don't think that's true of our business. I think all business is
contracting slightly. So I think we all have to be you know, we're all kind of tightening our purse strings and trying to be responsible and you know, just trying to I certainly want to run a business that you know, can survive through time.
And so I'm optimistic.
I am optimistic because I think that what we discovered through COVID is people really when there was nothing else to do, they just really we really need stories, you know, we need them for so many different reasons. So yeah, I'm optimistic.
What are you dying to do next?
I think the thing, you know I have this bugaboo is it's more. I just saw another one announced two days ago. You know, men can make any World War two movie they want. I for years have had recent I optioned years ago this book called Ashley's Warrants, about one of the first female soldiers killed in kind of active combat. And that's what I'm dying to do, is
it next? It's just this thing that I've carried a long time, but it is so much easier to make for instance, you know, I'm out to me how many fricking things we can green light with, you know, more stories with movie stars, you know, during World War Two with men at the center, but we do not see them through the female lens, and so that and then
I want to make something really big world building. I've you know, I'm developing a kind of big space odyssey and they're big costume drama because I'm obsessed with costume dramas and I've never made one. So they are the two things that I think in terms of building a big world. You know, our TV budgets are as big as like you know, some of these big movies, and so we can do it. There's no you know, I know we can do that. But that's the thing that
I'm most excited. I think that, you know, is something that I haven't done that I really want to do next.
Bruna, thank you, Thanks Holly.
Bruna was here at Mother Maya a couple of months ago, and she came right over to me and told me how much she loved mid which obviously delighted me and surprised me because wow, she loves the show that we make for you, and she's been playing it to all her famous friends, and that makes me happy because they're
a tough crowd as you are. If you want to listen to Bruna's favorite episode of mid the one that she talked about in our interview, it's called The Cure for Burnout is Cooked, and it's with the British author Catherine May, and it's also one of my favorites. It's a reassuring call to slow down and find your own way to rest, something that, as you know by now
having listened to that, Bruna finds hard but essential. And I hope that if you're pushing through your own hard, hard days at the moment, you find a.
Way to rest that works for you.
Thank you to our amazing team, ep Namer Brown, whose favorite Bruner project is Gone Girl, Yes love that, producer, Charlie Blackman, who loves big Little lies, who doesn't, and Tom Lyon who can't get past the dry and me who can't believe I got to sit down with the woman behind Nicole Kidman's incredible hair in the undoing with Hugh Grant, Stop It.
Bruna papentraa