Sam Taylor-Johnson

Part And I said, yeah, that's my publicist in London. Yeah, that was That's the weirdest thing ever. That was a Canadian in the middle of the woods some remote island. You know what. My boyfriend would say that that is because we are tribal fundamentally, and that we will always find each other, which I quite like the idea that there's some sort of beacon inside us that draws us towards the people that were meant to be with. Yes, even random ch hiker pick her up as Hello, I'm

mini driver and welcome to many questions. I've always loved prous questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century parlor game meant to reveal an individual's true nature. But with so many questions, there wasn't really an opportunity to expand on anything. So I took the format of Pruce's questionnaire and adapted What I think are seven of the most important questions you could ever ask someone. They are when and where were you happiest? What is the quality you like least

about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you most like answered, What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? What would be your last meal? And can you tell me something in your life that has grown out of a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more we begin to see what makes us miller and what makes us individual.

I've gathered a group of really remarkable people who I am honored and humbled to have had a chance to engage with. Sam Taylor Johnson is an artist, a director, an amazing mother and friend, and she has an o b E for services to the arts. She also makes the best sourdough bread I've ever eaten in my life. I think one of the things I love most about her is that she pours of herself into everything she does.

She goes all in into whatever projects she's focusing on, and I think you see and feel the surety of her commitment in everything she makes. She was part of a whole movement of young artists in the nineties that included Tracy Emmon, Chris Opheely, and Damien Hurst, starting out as a mixed media artist but expanding pretty quickly into

directing movies. We're both English transplants in California, and there is no one better to explore the wonder and opportunity of America with while also being nostalgic for the rain and a proper cup of tea. Someone once said, what do you put on your passport when it says occupation? And I said that I don't know. Actually I don't know. I think I put artists because artists can cover multidisciplines

and that that maybe covers everything. But then when I write down director, I feel a little bit more proud and and like I can sit up straighter. So I sort of oscillate between the two of those. Actually, that's a really good point the descriptors. I never put actress when it says what you do for a living, But when I put actor, I feel like I'm trying to shove myself into a cookie cutter that shaped like a dude. And I mean, there really isn't a good word for

artists who do more than one thing. Maybe it is just artists, but people think of paintbrushes when you say that, it's a good question. It's funny because I feel like we've known each other for a hundred years, and you love the beach like I do, especially right now. It's just a solace in times of madness. It's a way of just putting your feet in some cold water and staring out and just thinking, as long as this is here, I can sort of get back to the madness and

somehow navigate it. I couldn't agree with you more. I don't miss an enormous amount about Los Angeles, but I do miss the Pacific Ocean with a solid ache, all right, darling, So listen the first question, when and where were you happiest? You know, when you reflect on a question about happiness or contentment or a state of well being, it's it's hard to sort of reflect and think, well, I was happy, then does that mean I'm not happy now? So in order to answer that, I was thinking about my state

of mind and sense of contentment and everything now. And it's hard to say this is one of my happier

moments in a lockdown pandemic. You know, no work, no travel, no friends, no evenings out, but there is I have to admit a level of happiness and contentment in the fact that I have everyone close to me at home with me around me, and as much as we're all kind of clambering over each other trying to sort of get air and space from each other and be able to I know I'll reflect upon this with positive memory.

Within our pod of well being. I would say that my obvious ones are, you know, the birth of each of my children. The day Aaron and I got married was a pretty spectacularly happy day. But I'm quite sort of positive about where we are right now, even though the outside world is scary, even though each day is met with a lot of fear. I think if I can just sort of remain lighthearted and happy, then it keeps the dynamic of the family that way. So that's

a complicated way to answer that happy moment. It's funny this question. I'm sort of annoyed with Proust having asked it first, and also for myself being so attracted to it because we put such a pressure on ourselves to be happy. And I do think that this pandemic and this experience has really forced us to look at the qualitative idea of happiness and what that is. Our scope got so much smaller, and I don't know, I like

the distillation. I like in a way, how how small everything had to become, because it makes you reconnect, like this gigantic reboot of the way in which we interact with the world. I mean, for me, looking at you in your life, I don't know that I've ever known you so relaxed and in the flow of what you're doing creatively and in family, without having the pressure to constantly be thinking about the next job and where it's going and where it's happening. Beyond the zoom meetings that

we have setting stuff up. It feels like there's a fluidity. It does, and that's sort of myopic distilled life that we're living right now. Also reflects on how much we took for granted and how spoiled we work before, and how everything that for me feels valuable, important and true to my happiness is actually outside the door. You know, it's it's everyone and the dogs and the chickens and

and everything just sort of being content. And if we can keep the fear and the anxiety and everything that all that pertains to outside of it, then I'd say this is a pretty clear, distilled happy space. Mm hmm,

I'm very glad. I think that's also in emmic of the pandemic is that one really has cut away the fat from all the stuff that is meaningful, and I find myself not even interrogating or interacting with stuff that I'm only vaguely interested in or don't want to relive, or there was nothing to take on into this journey of life. It's weird. It's been like throwing sandbags out of a hot a balin and gaining altitude. You're so right.

I mean, on the flip side, it's hard to say that this would be my happiest moment because the freedom to work, the freedom to travel, the freedom to be with friends also reflects upon happy, happy moments. But if I go too far down that as those are my happiest times, then I'm just going to get really depressed. So there's also a level of me saying I am the happiest right now. Saying it really loudly and planting a flag in that happiness. I am happy now exactly.

I am happy now, and I'm going to be here now, and I'm not going to reflect on, you know, happier supposed times. I think it's good and it's interesting to stop tethering our own sense of place with circumstance and our own happiness with circumstance, but rather look at what's right in front of you and connect with that, which

is your children, your husband, your health, your dogs. It's interesting when you take away the circumstances of what we believe creates our happiness, and it really comes back to the choices that we make and the people that we love. What person, place, or experience most altered your life, so you know, along the path, I would say there's been a few people, because obviously meeting Aron was a huge significant change in my life that created what we have

now in the family. But I feel like, let's put that aside, so I would say that are the people who have come into my life. I have come into my life in a very profoundly spiritual way. One was a friend of my mom's, and he was very much a healing person, and I met him when I was fourteen. Life at home was pretty turbulent, and he sort of came in, sort of sweeped in a bit, like a godfather, father, grandfather figure. And his name was Max. He's no longer here.

I met him probably in his seventies and knew him until he was nineties something maybe, but he was so significant in my life in a very spiritual way, and he was very much one ft in this world and one ft in another. Did he qualify you're wanting to be an artist? Oh my god, that's so strange that you should say that, because when I was fourteen, I I did this drawing of a swan. It took me a long time. It was, you know, achingly painfully done,

but I sort of dismissed it. And then I met him and he said, you know, I was and talked to a silent teenager and he said, you know, what do you enjoy doing? And I think I just said, I've just drawn a swan and he said, show it to me, and he looked at it and he said, you're going to be an artist. You're gonna be a very interesting artist when you grow up. But there were significant moments through very interesting times and dark days where he would just keep me held in a space of

light rather than allow me to descend into darkness. It is probably the best way of putting it. And I would say the other person would be Anthony Manguela, because he reached out of the blue and told me I was a filmmaker and that I should be making films. And yes, I'm an artist, but come on, let's give it a go and I'll produce your first short film and from there you will leap and bound into the

world of filmmaking. And that's just off the back of him seeing artwork and having a sort of sixth sense and not knowing me at all. He didn't know, we didn't know each other, and so he produced my first short film, Love You More, that set me on the road to becoming a filmmaker, and that was everything. But there was so much in the relationship that I had

with him that was so significantly life altering. When my short film gained a certain amount of success, he just said, don't lay back on your laurels, get up and get on with the next one. And that has been a sort of mini mantra in the back of my mind every time I do anything, really, don't leg it back on your laurels. Just get on with the next one, you know, Just keep going, keep pushing forward. Don't sort of revel in the glory and the success too much

because it diminishes. And then we went on to shoot nowhere boy and the next one, whose name we shall not mention, Yeah we shall fifty shades of great because oh my god, I lived through that, and shades of nightmares, fifty shades of misery. Yeah it was. That was two years of discomfort, and I would daily suffer through the mechanations, if that's the right word of madness. And then and sort of thing, why why does I decide to become a filmmaker? This is just pure hell? But within that

there is I don't know. I can't say anything positive about that these days. It's interesting, but I do think you could probably stand to revel slightly more in the extraordinary achievements and the hardship that you suffer through sort of physically and emaginally. And I know lots of people go through things like that, but you you don't give yourself enough credit, I don't think for the amazing achievements. I mean, however, turbulent fifty Shades was you navigated it.

It might not have been the film that you wanted to make, but they're incredibly beautiful moments in that and you were quite right not to make the second one. Yeah, and I did learn. I learned a huge amount, not necessarily things I wanted to learn. So sometimes those lessons are hard, and I think that you know they're they're valuable, but they're really difficult. And it was funny after the movie came out. I was walking across a car park and some guy shouted from the other side of the

parking lot. It's like, hey, hey, you congratulations, congratulations on that film you just and I was like, you don't know how hard that was. You have no idea why I went through making that film. And Aaron was like, just say thanks, just say thank you. You might just sit there and watch it. Blah blah blah blah blah. But that was two years of blah blah blah. You know that not the wind out of me, and took me a good year or so to recover and put my faith back in the filmmaking process. That was a

tough one. But anyway that that's taken away from talking about the positive of someone's influence in my life. And I think, you know, going back to Anthony, that was that was a life changing interaction with somebody very extra, very extremely special, and I I only regret that he's not here to continue a friendship and a relationship that was so strong. He was indelible on anyone who knew him.

He was he left an indelible mark for sure. Throughout the process of a difficult filmmaking experience, I would sort of, you know, quietly, sort of say in my head to Anthony, what do I do in this situation? You know, where are you to help me? Guide me, give me a sign, you know, pleading send something through that tells me how to manage this? How do I wrangle this? And I'd sort of sit quietly, and you think, I've got to do it with myself and no help from beyond. And

I would say this often. And I got through to the end of making the movie, and then there were some reshoots which were really painful a year later, and they were really challenging. And then when I finished the reshoot, I thought I've done it. I finished I've actually I've gotten through this incredibly intensely difficult, challenging filmmaking process. And I was in Vancouver and Aaron said to me, Carmel, let's you and me just go for a really quiet dinner.

I've booked this little tiny restaurant with like six tables in at this tiny little Italian restaurant in one of the little sort of side streets. He said, just you and me will go and sit and celebrate this huge

achievement you've finished. Now, when Anthony was around, he would he would have these big hands and he would lay them on your shoulder and squeeze them like and you'd always like but you know, it was a comforting sort of you know, hey, you and you know, all those around him will talk about this big hands and on your shoulder, reassuring squeezing and and you know, and I kind of missed that, and I think about it anyway. Then I went for this dinner and I was just,

you know, like so relieved. And I sat down and I kind of put my head in my hands, just to process the fact I finished. And this big hand came on my shoulder and squeezed it. My hairs on my neck and even now telling it went up on end and I thought Oh my god, that's Anthony squeezed. Oh my god, what's happening? And I felt it and it felt harder, and I turned around and this voice went hello, and I looked up and it was Maximum Gala no. And I looked at him and I burst

into tears. And I don't know him that well. I didn't know him. I do now. I burst into tears and I literally everything of those two years, of all that time of filmmaking, hardship, everything just like poured down my face like tears and snot, and I couldn't speak, and Aaron was looking at me like somehow that's happening, and Max is looking at me like what the fun is happening? And I couldn't speak, and I was just like,

finally there's a sign. And it was that feeling where I was just like that was the squeeze of you've done it, well done, you didn't need me. And Aaron was looking at Max just like, I don't know what's going to I'm really sorry. I think it's something to do with your dad And I'm really sorry. That's really awkward and difficult, and I couldn't pull myself together and it was that weird thing where I don't know, read into it what you will, I'll take from it what

you will, or nothing at all. But it was extremely overwhelmingly powerful and God bless Max. Oh, God bless Max. He must have been quite shocked at the snart and the sobbing lady. I don't think it's the first time, because I think his father had that effect on people that, you know, something like that familiarity and sense of him just brought everything flooding back here. It's like a big

hug as a person. That's how I remember him. I love that you felt that when it was all said and done, and that's actually perfect, not to come in the moment when you go help, but to let you figure it out and at the end to squeeze you and say well done. That's what it felt like, exactly that, which is why I kind of fell to pieces and in such a kind of completely embarrassing way. I mean, it's very awkward for other people falling to pieces in public,

but I've always found it remarkably energizing. It's very unlikely. I'm quite I'm so stoic. You are really stoic. You're really good. When I feel like i've fallen apart in your kitchen on many occasions, and you're very good at carrying on needing the sour dough, and you think just the right amount of solace without wanting to add too much gasoline to the fire. Oh god, well wait, speaking of Saturday, that is this is the most brilliant segue.

What would be your last meal? Because you're a brilliant cook and sols arand and you make the most delicious food whenever you have parties. I don't know how you do it for so many people, but there are just platters of the most delicious food that just keep coming out of the kitchen. I think I would have to

go for something which has mashed potato. I would have to have an enormous amount of mashed potato and gravy and peas and working backwards, and it would be fish fingers, mashed pototo and peas, which was my favorite kind of childhood food with ketchup. Hate catcher, Oh Jesus, hate catcher. Can you eat fish fingers and peas and mash without ketchup? It just the glue that literally holds it on your fork.

You know, the awful thing. It's it's it's mayonnaise. Oh, oh my god, I'm really thinking a whole friendship my kids. My kids love ketch Up and I can't. I've got this sort of almost phobia against ketch Up. I can't put it on the table. I can't open the lid with the crusty bits of Ketchup around. I just cannot. So I won't buy ketch Up. And they're always like, we need some Ketchups, So Dad has to buy ketch Up. That's the Ketchup buyer. So you put mayonnaise on your

fish fingers and peas and mash. Yeah, fish fingers, pieas and mash, but it would have to be something, you know, big and comforting like that. Do you imagine yourself in a cell? Because when I asked that question, I often see myself like in a cell awaiting execution. Now I try not to put my head in that space because that is so frightening. But then no, I like to sort of think little old lady being spoon fed at

a hundred three? Do you you'd have a job getting these peas down they get stuck in your denches in a blender? Actually, you're right, the mash would go down a tree. Do you know, my dear friend Lindsay Daria, who's an incredible war photographer. Her grandmother just died a hundred and seven, and she was a hundred and seven and cooking Sunday roasts and big dinners right up until the end. Wow. And her big thing about longevity was lived without grievances or feelings of hate, and that is

the answer to a long life. Holy moly, I know it's quite good one. Yeah, it's really true because with it that said, I think it was Carrie Fisher no grudges, should say no grudges. Feeling grudges and resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Yeah, that's so true. It's corrosive. So in your life, can you tell me about something that has grown out of a personal disaster? I would say having having experienced cancer

age thirty three, colon cancer, breast cancer, mostectomy, chemotherapy. Those were life altering, obviously, experiences that were catastrophic that made my entire being shift away from the person I was pre that. I guess looking into the void and the darkness and not knowing, you know, there was no choice that it wasn't about leaping into the void. It was more falling in and how do I find my way out? And I'd say that that catastrophic is probably the right

word rather than disaster. Was utterly life changing. And one doctor said to me, you'll come out of this grateful for the experience. I wanted to fucking punch that man so hard in the face. That feeling of you have no idea what it feels to be a parent to a baby, and to be told I'm going to be grateful for losing a breast and having half my insights cut up. But having said that, there are certainly things that I radically shifted away from that were toxic in

my life. I would say that my entire outlook and sense of what life was to me shifted and altered and changed in a more positive realm. I would say that my feet being more firmly planted, more grateful, and more you know, towards the light than the dark, all of those things that creates a stronger life with the benefit of having come through it, you know, and people say, well, you were so brave, you must have been so brave.

Denies people that haven't come through it that they were also warriors and brave people too, So I always find that quite difficult that people say that that's something of courage. I think that people facing mortality and life threatening illness, it's not necessarily about being brave. It's about navigating extreme fear.

And extreme fear is so overwhelming and so powerful, and how can you get through each day and take that fear and you know, lock it away so it doesn't inhibit your your power to get through the next five minutes or the next hour or the next day. And so I think, you know, coming through that time has probably been you know, of course the most life altering time. And it's pulls for a reflection for me every single day.

And and when people say what is your greatest fear, it's not spider as it actually as rats, but now we'll put that aside. It is going to a doctor or or going through a hospital door. I physically shake and whenever I go for you know, even I'll go to the dentist and I'll be lying there like what if? And that is the that for me is you know, one of the things I have to conquer daily. I don't think you lose that fear. You have to manage it.

And I think the managing of that fear is something that then also gives you an enormous amount of ability to be in the moment and be able to reflect on what you have right now. Let me just ask you one thing about what you just said. The doctor who you wanted to punch. Do you think on some level he was right ultimately that you came out of that being grateful for everything that it gave you. I do. I mean, it's the fact that you had can to twice.

There's always just it's like lightning striking twice, and that you came through it twice, and I'm always like clinging to the woods touch would never again. There were so many other things that define you. I think there was a time in my life that I allowed it to define me. I was the person and it was what I would talk about the most. And now it's significantly sort of diminished into the background of the list of

things that I define myself by. That one is sort of lower on the list, whereas it was sort of, you know, the first on the list, and conversational and and actually one really good friend who I let get away with it. It's just fucking hell, would you shut up talking about cancer? And it was just like a fox say, honestly, that's enough. It's enough, now, shut up talking about your cancer. Yeah it was, and I remember

just being you heartless. And then but the next day I thought about it so much, and I was like, he's so right. You know, I was so in it for so long that was my only thing I could talk about. And that day forward, I've stopped talking about it in the sense that, you know, it literally determined

my everyday discussion. I mean, just to take it one step further, reflecting on what that doctor said, what my happiest moments are I would never have been in the relationship I am in now had I not been through that, Because going through something like that makes you feel less in life. So therefore love presents itself. Don't question it, go for it, go through it. Don't just go what if this doesn't work? Oh my god, he's no, it's not right. This this the age difference, and and what

if and and fuck it? Live life, being love, be happy. That's exactly it. Live life, to be in love, be happy, speaking, shining up, talking about it. Thanks thing on the podcast, shut up talking about I was talking about your conc love you Minnie that was so good to do. I love talking to you. I thank you. I cannot thank you enough, Darling one. I love hearing about your life. In two thousand and eight, Sam made a short film called Love You More, which is actually available on Amazon Prime.

If you love record shops and the buzz cocks and remember the mad persuasion of teenage love, and this film is for you. Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry Baby by a Mini Driver, Additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by

Me and man Gesh Hetty Cador. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison O Day, Lisa Castella and Nick Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescadore, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited Tex support, Henry Driver