Rachel Griffiths Took A Sabbatical From Everything

So you're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast.

Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on the nineties. I was there, so were you. If you're mid and everyone's welcome at this chaotic table. So it's not law, but if you truly fit the gen X definition, the nineties was likely or misspent youth era. I was nineteen to twenty nine.

Hello.

I am Holly Wainwright, and I am mid, midlife, midfamily, mid panic about the world. Really, the thing that I love most about making this show Mid is conversations for Generation X women who are anything. But is that I've never had a boring conversation with a woman who comes to sit at this table. Mid women might be many things, but we are not boring. Rachel Griffiths wouldn't know boring if it pooed on a lap. I don't think I need to introduce her, but if I do, there was

I feel so different now that two of my three through school. So I think the answer i'd give you today might be a little different from two years ago, and something that the load, not that you stop parenting when they finished school in are eighteen, but the sense of getting them, you know, to the end is of that process and helping them navigate the roller coaster of

And it was twenty twenty.

There was no there was no fabulousness, and I remember I think we were nominated.

I was nominated for I don't know if.

It was the Logies or the actors for Total Control. And I came down to six o'clock dinner wearing my gold LOGI dress in fully heals, and my kids are just like the fuck.

They had not seen this side of you for some time.

It was just it was data.

It was like I never understood data and the whole movement of the crazy art that was made after World War One and the pandemic, which we kind of didn't add on. All I knew was art from that period was crazy and people had like naked painting parties and you know, you go to costume balls look at you know, in these crazy costumes and nothing was too wild.

And that's kind of like I was like, oh, I get it.

I get it because I think after this we're all going data. We are, so I'm going dada. My middle, My middle is defined by data.

Did you feel like coming out of that? And I know it's like some people don't like the term that we came out of COVID at all, but like it was.

It was in moment, was a whole We came you all some faster than others, some faster than they were legally allowed to do.

But you know, looking back, I can't blame them for just going. I can't beat this hole any longer.

And teenagers are meant to be out there in the world, causing trouble, experimenting, pushing boundaries, and they were all forced to do that in their bedrooms. But coming out of that, and at the same time as your kids moving into that new phase of independence, did you feel a big release and a big like, Okay, now I can settle into the next act, whatever that is.

Yeah. No, we made a decision, my husband and I to kind of take long service leave. I was the daughter of a teacher, so this magical long service leave was it was. It did exist on the horizon of you know, my mother's imagination. It's like, no, I can't retire, I've got four more only four more years to long service leave. And it was just it really was the gold at the end of the rainbow that they would dream of. So I think coming out of COVID, I

Yeah, well you've been working, You've been working very solidly for a lot.

I'd given it a hard I.

Listened to the interview you did for No Filter with Me of Friedman just when Ride Like a Girl was coming out, and that was like twenty seventeen eight.

It was twenty nineteen, yes, so just before.

And you sounded in that like it's a great interview, is fascinating, but you had obviously been pouring every bit of your heart and soul into making that movie happen, from conception to release to promotion and then total control again, is your your project? I mean, I know with Black Fellow Films.

Yeah, co created that was also I was making that in two thousand and I know it's coming out in twenty nineteen as well.

So that's pedal to the metal. And you were kind of sounded in the interview with Mia as if you know, you knew that you'd kind of been hadn't been around that much for family life, and you'd been feeling that and you were you know, do.

You I brought COVID on myself. I brought a global pandemic. How about you stay home? It didn't quite turn out like that because I was attached to projects, you know, where my attachment was kind of critical to finance and for me to pull out of them may mean that crew for that, you know, it was their only job in eighteen months. So I was border jumping legally. You know, I think we're the last people into South Australia and doing I think I did four or five full quarantines.

Pick up?

And it's you should have and yeah and well hopefully not should have, should have, could have? But could your would you? Did you have your not watier? So we had to move to a wader. What are your mindset? What do you feel like for dinner? And do you want to do you want to go for a walk? What do you think of?

And dig you like?

No?

I think it was many you know what do you think not? Did you like? Yes?

No?

But what do you think like?

More open questions and anyway that we will looking. It was a really amazing time. My husband didn't believe we were going to We're going, I said to my agents. Unless it's White Loadus season three, don't call me.

Is that the call that everybody's waiting for?

I think it is, because also we just would have done long service in Thailand.

It would have been fine'll call, but we were literally the other way there putting in it.

And my husband's like, is this we actually we actually I said, yeah, we're actually going.

We're actually.

It won't be you know, the fool three. I said, I know, that's that's what I need. I need long service leave. And then I think we were just shy that we dragged our fifteen year old and pretended she wasn't there. And she goes, when is this effing long service sabbatical? She because, when is this sabbatical over? Like, I am fifteen, I am not meant to be hanging out with my parents.

I were like enjoying some kind of exactly.

She was the third wheel on the kind of second honeymoon, and we're like, oh, yeah, that's a bit cruel.

I will ask you.

That's really funny. I like, after this shortbreak, Rachel Griff's and I pay homage to Onon Taylor Swift by discussing eras, the ones Rachel has already lived and the one she's in now stay with us. I assumed that it was relatively successful, this experiment because you are still together, so

Be I'm like oh, i've heard errors.

Well, you definitely have had eras. And I was thinking about how you've been inside the Hollywood machinery, everything from nominated to an Academy Award, to winning the Golden Globe, to being on the really high profile TV shows. You've been inside production directing, you've always been adjacent to politics. You've had all You've seen a lot of stuff, And

I think it is interesting how you, you know, reframe your experiences and feelings about yourself as you age through different lenses. You know, you spend a bit of your twenties seeing things through the lens of kind of recovering cultural catholic and when you kind of them, you know, we're seeing things through third fourth wave feminism, which is really helpful for me because feminism was a bit of

Hey, you loss to you.

I was one of those dumb girls that internalize that misogyny.

We're all just like the guys. Now, we're all invited to the party, and so we're here. Will I do what we're you know exactly?

And I think I having kids, you you've you know, the nature nurture and all of that kind of gets reframed. But look, I am adhd as F and I have always needed something. That's If I don't have something really strong that my imagination is dancing with persistently, you know, my brain tends to attack itself and.

Attack the self.

I think I became accidentally the actor journey like took off faster and higher and more wonderfully than I ever.

Expected, being in that after Memorial, yeah, after.

Muriel and getting on these opportunities, and it's you know, that's a very three months, you know, Thomas Arty, Thomas Arty.

How did that happen?

You know, and you never really got an answer, and then right now I feel like my brain is still going.

Oh, oh, this is this is how it happens.

Like, you know, the world I never thought I live in a world that's moving towards a cruelty or or a moral you know, is shewing any kind of true kind of moral reckoning, not moralizing, but leaving you know, to almost take deeply moral positions. Now he's woke, and you know, so I go, oh, this has happened. But I've been thinking about these things my whole life, So I guess as this content maker.

A lot of that is just my brain I get hooked on.

You know, will you diagnose ADHD late? Yes, so it's a relatively recent and did it fall? Did it put a lot of pieces into place for you? Has it been really helpful and understanding.

That they do say that, You know, it's when you're on a journey with your children, you look at yourself and go, oh, yes, it's yeah. It explained a lot about certainly my father. I think you know, my brother may have been diagnosed as a child. It is that kind of women women thing.

Yeah, And people were like, it's naughty boys, it's not.

I've always like different spicy girls are my favorite because I know they're not judging me by the same kind of manual that I've never got the translation for, you know, as not just the mean goals, because I think.

That's too tropy, but just those girls.

That you know, just walk confidently through society with a kind of clarity about these you know, appropriate interpersonal interactions. You know they're not whereas you know, I'm just a ping pong ball bouncing off societes. So I've always felt safe with neurospicy girls.

Yeah, I totally understand that. I've heard you say quite a bit though, that those years of the acting years, where you might have been on the big, shiny shows, you didn't actually have much control or input at all. And so do you feel like you've been getting older and more comfortable in lots of ways? Has also been about trying to regain control and the projects you work on now you get to do that.

Yeah, it's funny that idea of control. I definitely fell out of control. I wasn't motivated to get control, except I knew that the only way to not feel out of control is to no longer be under contract. And I did two five year stints that could have gone to seven, and it was an amazing opportunity that fantastic creatives working with the best people.

I wouldn't change it for the world.

But I did fill out of control because you know, each week a script would arrive that I hadn't you know, I hadn't signed on for in the way that you know in a play or a film, the consent is

New pages are arriving all the time, and new characters doing all kinds.

Of things, all kinds of things, and you know your character might be doing things, but in the end, it's your body and your emotions that are actually having to live with them.

You know, in the projects that you've been bringing to life in the last I mean more than ten years, I suppose, but you've had much more input and been able to frame that much more clearly. But before we move on from Hollywood, I wanted to ask you what you think about at the minute. There's a lot of talk about how the gen x icons of your time, your Kidman's, your Demi Moor's, your Angelina Joli's, are all having moments again and that it's kind of being seen.

Look I think it's that, And.

I definitely think we now understand that, you know, women women watch television. Women are probably still in charge of which streamers are on the platforms and are being paid for by the monthly subscriptions. And because of that, this audience is being served. Women my age aren't scrolling TikTok to the same degree, so they're still committed to long form, perhaps more so.

There is an audience there.

And then I think the other thing is, you know, to speak of those kind of icons like to me, and I don't think Nicole really ever stopped having She's had heras. I don't think she's I mean, she's her moments only paused by kind of you know, a refresh and a regrounding, and she has another one. But we are entering an age where it's really really hard to become a movie star.

So so you think the established ones.

Yeah, that's that, you know, they have brand. You know, I want to see back to the future for you know, because you know, there is a nostalgia in there is a comfort.

There's there. There truly are very few.

True movie stars, you know under forty and that is that's a good thing in that you know, the the actors, there is more diverse actors, it's less concentrated, there's more opportunities to a point, but very few. You know, there's very few Charlemae and there's you know, you can have a moment, will you have a decade or will you have four decades? Like Nicole, I think it's I think it's really really going to become increasingly rare.

That's interesting because that makes total sense. But also I guess the male movie stars have kind of been allowed for a long time to hold onto that. We were used to seeing men, the iconic male movie stars in their fifties.

And beyond, but that may be actually very true.

Maybe now women are being afforded that longevity.

Yes, I think I hope.

It's not just because they look younger.

No, but no, I think that's true.

I think it's harder to make a new female movie star now.

And I think, you.

Know, in a risk a verse content universe, I can see why people that go, well, let's you know, let's go with the name. But I also think, you know, I am really interested in the generation of girls that I perhaps would have been intellectually you know, snobby about and brought into you know, not that I would have said it, but did I internalize that idea that there's popcorn actresses and then there's serious actresses.

And it's what Demi Moore Sadden exactly.

And I was very lucky, you know, very lucky to find myself in the kind of take her seriously box. And I think that, you know, it was just by the fault of default of me not being as ngenw fucker ball.

The whole young thing.

And I probably kind of looked, you know, with some envy at the opportunities, repeated opportunities, you know, those female actors were given, and felt that was unfair, you know, especially when they turn up in a big movie that you know, I didn't think they were up for. And I kind of, you know, I'm a bit ashamed of myself for kind of buying into that, and I think

You know.

It was the eighties movies that sucks. Yeh like really sucked. You know, the absolute tweep gets the hot girl and just impossible plots where you know, it was basically, you know, felt like nerdy in Cells ended up with the keys to the cool Kids camp through the you know, through their clever camera and just created a bullshit version.

Of the universe with a triumph and.

It was just rubbish's and they don't age well like those films do not age well back to the future side.

Perhaps, I mean, I feel it's I mean very very briefly touched on this. We might go back to it later, but it's hard to feel optimistic about that many things at the moment culturally. But maybe that's one of them, Like maybe the fact that we are hearing more female stories that have a lot more and I know that, I know it's still female stories of a certain type in a way, but we are hearing more stories of women who are over the allegedly fuckable age. We are

Yeah, I think I think it's also that, you know, I watched Love Actually Again recently firm how weird that film is.

You know, she did not my fifteen year old daughter did not get that film.

Well, not only do they not get it, they can actively unpick every misogyny. And somebody described it the profound lack of interiority that women were afforded in British and American cinema for a long time. And look, you know, and he was so charming, you know, that filmmaker. It was easy not to see it. But if you watch any of his films. So the women are just props for the men to learn how to be human on and even then probably discard or fail to understand there

I think our generation was so ashamed of.

So I think that generation coming into menopause will not be as enraged as we are.

That's really interesting. I really don't not have as much to be enraged.

I don't think so.

I think we sucked up a lot, and from me personally, it wasn't even about sucking it up. It was not having names for things. And suddenly the universe started naming these ikey nasty states that I felt like I did have a right to ask for usha and suddenly, you know, I had this fourth wave feminist language and a lot of it.

It's so true. It's funny. In one of the earlier episodes, I often say, like, is there the idea of perimenopausal rage? Isn't it just a sane response to having lived as a woman in the world for so long when you are a gen X woman and having to put up with all this is like you're suddenly kind of like, hold on, I don't have to play by those yes anyway.

I completely agree with that that and I think it's the last burst of testosterone to remake your life. If you don't like what it looks like, if you don't like the job you're in, you know, you're up the corporate ladder, you don't like the husband, the country, anything, you go. This is the last energy you will have in a fierce way to rebuild your life if you take that choice.

That is so true. And why when you look around you see mid women verticoras are doing that. They are going and doing that PhD they wanted to do. They are training as a yoga teacher there. Whatever they're doing, they're leaving their marriages whatever. After the break, Rachel and I talk about her new project, Madam, which is all about sex and desire and freedom and you know, the good stuff. Stay with us, Rachel, I want to talk

On good You can actually tell me I've forgotten some aspects so that it's true and what is not.

Yes, I don't want to get sued for Deafa.

Ma, don't worry about that. A fair bit of the setup about the husband isn't strict.

Yeah, true.

But the thing that is certainly true, and that from the parts of Madam I've seen seem absolutely spot on, is that she is what she wanted to create with that ethical brothel and this kind of revolutionary idea. Really because she, as I know, you know, she found herself in New Zealand as an American woman with a profoundly disabled son, questioning her next stage. And in New Zealand sex works legal and brothels legal and did criminalize, yes, And so she said that's very unusual, but that didn't

Tell your listeners.

And she's saying and the main thing, the main thing for the women who work there, and she was living in a small town, which I also find fascinating she's living in a small town, is that everything consent was at the center of everything they do. So the women were in control of their schedules and in control of who they saw and who they didn't see and all

Well, every role I get offered, I run through the lens of how far, how long, how much?

And then how good is you know, a lot chirry on the cake.

So you're always developing projects too, right, so obviously total control. As we discussed, yes, your baby, well part of your baby.

I know this was more just you know, to earn money, so I have to leave my family, see a balancing So how far away is it? How long will I be away for? And am I making enough money to fly myself back every weekend? Sometimes just sometimes I went back for a day and got a night flight back. So those things have to add up, and then it's like is it good? Because I don't really want to know. If I don't want to know, it's amazing, if I've

Yes, it's set in Victorian England.

I'm like, it's still kind of grimy, gritty and kind of exploitative, and I'd have no content in the process historically. So when my agent kind of said, you know, it starts a brother and I'm like, I don't think I'm interested, and said, oh, it's you know, I said, so they always say ikey, and I just feel like they're so male gaze. Actually that's the thing. There's so male gays. And he said, oh no, no, this is sorry. It's a comedy and it's based on a real woman who's you know,

I mean, we grew up.

With pretty baby like Brooke Shields is twelve taxi driver like you know, like talk about the pervy excuse of exploring a sex worker with the herd of gold whilst you.

Know being twelve, like that is messed up stuff.

So yes, comedy female and a queer show runner, made with consultation with women who work in the industry.

And it's key we did, I say, it's they are funny.

It's very funny.

So yeah, that GOLLI heart but not heart in that like hooker with horror, madam with a heart.

But when I interviewed ANNGONEA Wrod and I read her book, obviously is she was. She said that a lot of her most successful workers in that brothel were midlife women. She said that they a red flag for the women were always the guys who requested young was always one of their flags. And in the in her phone, they'd have all these little you know, nicknames for people. So it was you know, yes, really golden showers or whatever. Whatever.

Don't wash Walter exactly, but she said that.

The midlife women were often the most popular because they were nurturing, warm, experienced, efficient. You know, I'm very good at reading people, and I found that really interesting. It's like it's it's a really interesting concept and show.

Yeah, and I think, you know, one of one of the great things she says in the book, she said, you know, we don't sell sex. We treat loneliness, which is, you know, as we know, an epidemic. And you know, one of the sex workers I talked to a lot of her clients were mid to late seventies, were still married,

We talk about sex a fabit on the show, and it's all always very it's always very emotional because as I've heard you say about the show, and it's true, is that when women talk about sex, it's often with lots of humor. And it definitely is. But when when I have we talked to midlife when about sex, sometimes there is a lot of sadness about who you used to be compared to who you are and how you feel about it now, and it's it's such an interesting

You know. I think Nicole's ending that one no video to Time.

With the Milk, I think so true.

I literally ordered a chlorin milk, which is one of my favorite, like last drinks, you know, I ordered a glor and milk and the barm and poured it while looking at me.

I'm like, why what what is that was here? It was weird. Anyway, A couple of nights later I saw that movie.

I was like, oh my god, I had no idea it really was kind of giving me the hmmm.

It's one of the iconic scenes in Baby Girl Friends if you haven't seen, it involves a glass of milk.

Don't order milk without thinking about the consequence.

But speaking about high profile women, because I also want to talk to you a little bit about total control, which I know it has ended, right, it has ended, But what an unbelievable show.

Thank you.

I was listening to you talk about it recently too, and you said that when you were creating co creating that you spoke to a lot of powerful women in politics in Australia off record, and you talked a lot about the price of service for those women. And I know that's part of what's exploring that is that women who step into almost any public arena, it seems, but certainly politics and leadership, they have to almost agree now to this level of abuse and scrutiny that would destroy most of.

Us, right, yeah, yeah, i'd agree. I agree with that.

And I still think they're the kind of first victims of factional wars because they are still more often than not played by ambitious men who are wanting to elbow out the week on the way to the ministerial shut the ministerial paypacket on the you know, on the way

If you really really knew that your.

Own party, your own people were not backgrounding, you cannot you know, just I mean, every woman in the Australia knows if some weird articles start appearing in the paper and she's in a ministerial position, there's probably some background happening because she's going to be shuffled out and to do that in the Australian media and you start saying people are bullies or they're this just weird things pop up and you go, okay, who's background?

I mean, what's very gender?

So I think that's the really Really, if you really could trust and believe that your own party and people had your back, because that's what parties were meant to be, I think you could deal. But I think it's just getting excruciatingly painful for women now.

And it also seems that as that becomes almost the game, the trolling, the attention war, was all of that stuff, that the kind of people that politics are going to attract are the kind of people who can withstand it, which is possibly not the best kind of humans. Most of us are sensitive.

I think there's a degree of that, And then I think there's the kind of scarring of trauma. Like I think, you know two responses to trauma is one you completely fall apart and don't recover, and the other is you scar up and you harden up and you get very you get much less flexible, much less able to listen. And I think that is the hardened up to and up scar up. You know, he's from the slings and

This to say. One of the things I think is kind of tricky about this stage of life too, is maintaining a level of optimism about what can change and what can happen. And you've always been a very engaged person in terms of public life and social justice. I mean social justice maybe sounds like the wrong term, but you know, social justice and politics, you understand it. Is there any bit of you that's optimistic.

Well, I really do believe in that, you know, except you know, accept the things you can't change, and you know much you know, I'm quite quite different to the you know, twenty sixteen kind of shock that such a capable woman was you know, not elected and somebody so you know, bombastic and.

Of his nature was preferred.

That was a real shock, and that was probably really coming in with that perimenopause moment. I've definitely yeah, pulled in and I think we're this idea that yelling, yelling at each other and making a statement and making a stand is the answer.

Like, I've got to figure out other ways.

It isn't another voice yelling into the void of just an increasingly loud cacophony of angry yells. So I'm kind of shifting into what I can control. I have given up trying to turn my high Rangers blue. No matter what I put in them, what I'm in the soil, those high Rangers want to be pink.

I don't know if that's I thought I could.

I read every book how to believe, but in the end, I've my Hydrangers are pinky blue and they will never be blue. Maybe it is a thing, And I think just leaning into believing in the power of the personal. So I'm just so much more likely to kind of reach out and connect and have conversations in more kind of one on one which doesn't feel as effective, you know. But I think I was deluding myself that the big you know, the big protests or the big statements, I don't know what they add.

They look good, they look like you care.

I wasn't doing it to tell people, you know, so I could tell myself. I cared. I was very motivated. But there's definitely a recalibration.

Yeah, no, it does, absolutely. And I think people who followed your career and maybe and I'm going to use words that I hate, but I bet they get attached to you all the time, and maybe you don't hate them. Fisty characters, feisty, bullshy, opinionated, all those kind of words. They might have thought that you've always been very certain

Look, I look, I probably am a bit you know, I am a bit bolshy, and I don't like management very much, so that I probably got that reputation because I just don't like really being told what to do.

No is not usually my first answer to.

Just take a second, but a lot of that i'd see through kind of the neuro you know, I think.

I also want to say I don't mean any of that in a negative way.

Of course you don't.

But also because I think that also women in particular, maybe as we get older, we all that's what we all want, is to be able to say what we want to say, not when we want, not you know, like to And if people think that maybe you've always been at that, is that how you see it?

No, I I think it would have been quite amazing to kind of have a better language to say when I was scared, and I've never really been certain of stuff that's like truth Intellectually, I don't go for the easy answers, and I even if I do for a minute, I'm you know, a better a better answer comes along, and I'll jump to that. So I think sometimes, you know, my husband says, you know, why are using that tone?

And I'm like, what tone?

It goes that tone when you I'm like, I'm sorry, that's just my I've got fifty five thousand things to do, and it sounds like I've got resting bitch tone. That's what I just came up with really recently. I said, I'm sorry, Annie, I've got resting bitch tone. But I wished I had been able to, you know, suck up to power better, you know, work the it work, the you know alpha girls a bit better. You know, I was just shit at all that. I just didn't get the MA That's all I say.

So.

I don't think I was necessarily any of these things. I think I was just a girl trying to figure it out without the manual.

I'm like, why didn't I get a manual?

Well, I think you managed to make incredible work with all that in mind. Thank you so much. It's been the best to talk to you.

They're bears, and we didn't. I didn't get to your your I really want next time?

And what is your favorite era? Those like what is your PA?

I actually like this one?

Yeah, I don't.

I know, I don't know if you're supposed to say that, but I feel like I do have a much better handle on what I want to do with my time and what I don't. What makes me happy, I mean happy is you know, a broad term, but what makes me happy? And what doesn't. I'm like, I like this one. I just wish it came with without the like having lost my business and with that sort of midlife tilted head that everybody does to you, like, oh we're getting a bit old, aren't you. I'm like, you don't understand.

This is great? Yeah, this is good.

Yeah, this is good. So I like this one.

I like going blind because I look in the mirror and I'm just like.

I reckon, I'm really.

Hot, and I very question I'll have my like three three glasses on and you know, I go in to get going to get pull a hair out that shouldn't be.

Then I'm like, what.

Most of the time I passed myself, you know, in a very fuzzy vision.

I go look and good Bay, I totally hear you. Thank you so much, Rachel. Okay, I'm not going to forget Rachel's words easily. I have literally written down you would you did you have to as the verboten words

Massive.

They're as always to our Mid team Executive producer Nama Brown, Senior producer Grace Rure, Producer Charlie Blackman, and we've had audio production from Jacob Brown. Thank you all so much. And before I leave, I've got to tell you something about an exciting holiday that you could win.

Now.

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