And there's something in the energy of going. Let's just keep creating and see what happens. And yes, it's imperfect and it's messy, and every sentence is not going to be perfect, but it will resonate with the right people. I think when we're humbled and we don't know everything, there's often magic in that.
Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is a platform to hear and explore the stories of those who found lives They adore, the good, bad and ugly, The best and worst day
will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or Spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned fu entrepreneurs What the Suits and Heels to co found matcha Maiden and matcha Milk Bar CZA is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along the way. Lovely yighborhood,
we are back with another wonderful guest episode. But in the meantime, don't forget to submit your questions for our this Yea or that Yay segment that we spontaneously as always introduce to Yay's of our Lives. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you are in for a treat. Or we are covering life's great questions like do you face the showerhead when you're in the shower or do you face away so you can either validate your weird behavior or confirm that you are in fact the only
one in the world. Head back to our latest episode of Yeas of Our Lives to find out more about the questions we're asking and what the segment is about. With and as always, it's absolute chaos pot full of laughs and hopefully brought some of you from YEA to your last week. As to our guest for today, I am so thrilled to have someone who may be a familiar face to you on the show, but whose full story you may not know about in as much depth. That is, of course, as you know, my favorite kind
of episode. You might have seen Rachel Coops through her role in the Cult SBS series Life Support, The internationally renowned McLeod's Daughters or even All Saints or also as a regular presenter on play School, she has literally been all over our screens around Australia for many years. Talk
about a diverse path yer. She is also an award winning playwright, a professional yogi which we barely even had time to touch on, and a published author with her brand new book Paris for Beginners coming out just recently, documenting her time at Get This, Philip Gorlier's renowned Paris clown School, which counts the likes of Sasha Baron Cohen and Emma Thompson among its alumni. You guys know, I absolutely froth a niche community and clown school is something
I had many many questions about. Add to that single parenthood, taking time off after discovering a tumor, moving countries and every thing in between.
Buckle in.
This is a big, juicy one and I hope you enjoy as much as I did.
Rachel, Welcome to CZA.
Thank you for having me.
I am so so excited to have you. I've been reading over your story and the whole idea of this show is that no one has a conventional pathway or path ya. There's so many different dots that have to connect to lead you to where you are today, and you have so many chapters.
It's amazing.
Yeah, it's been a ride, and I think sometimes I feel like I wonder, you know, if you go down one particular path a little deeper, what would have happened. But yeah, it's been a very interesting kind of journey.
Yeah, I just kept reading and I was like, what, how is there an entire Like the chapters aren't logically necessarily linked to each other. I mean, you have such a breath of experience, so I've been so so excited to pick your brains. And I think one of the things that's quite common with people who we might meet as a star of play school and you know, you've had a twenty year career where you've written, directed, and performed film, TV and theater that you know you'd always
been a media person. But like I read that you were born on a military base, Like that's just not what you'd expect. So take us back to very early years Victorian girl who then moved to New South Wales.
Yeah, so I was born on an air Force base in where I be Victoria, and my parents separated when I was quite young, and so mum ultimately came back to Canberra where her parents were, and we spent those first few years in Canberra. Moved to Sydney when I was in kindy and I lived in a suburb called Dremoine in Sydney, which back in the day was and it is quite different now, but it was you know, working class Sydney families who happened to have this incredible
kind of harbor. For sure, blocks of a part it's like a row of different blocks of apartments and the kids we all knew each other and would just like hop from pool to pool, building to building. So that was kind of the early years. And we moved east when I was a year six and that's when we've kind of stayed in this area since then. I went to high school over on the East Side. But even yesterday I had a birthday party and a lot of the people there were from back in the Hunter's Hill
public days, you know, primary school day. So I'm still very connected to everyone from my past. I'm very close to friends that I've had for you know, twenty thirty forty years, which I think is such a bonus of ending up back in Sydney because I didn't necessarily think I would be here, you know, at this age and this time in my life.
I think that's such a beautiful part of listening to anyone's story is realizing that really no one kind of expected to be where they end up right now, which means that you also don't know where you'll be in the next chapter and more and more, that uncertainty is common in people's journeys, and I think encouraging you to lean into that, like it's very scary, but leaning into that means that you could end up in a place that you never dreamed of ending up, which is you know, I mean we'll.
Get to the parish chapter.
Yeah, going back to just in the younger years, I think it's fascinating to look back at what you wanted to be or what your idea of what your journey would look like was when you were younger and I
was reading that, you know, you represented yourself. I was in gymnastics, you did an economics degree, Like you're the perfect example of a broad range of interests and none of them necessarily building on each other, and then sort of having to translate that into a life, like how did you figure out you know, what that meant for you.
I think there's been a few threads that have always, you know, sat under everything, and one is I wanted to be a nun when I was little, and you know, I had a bit of an obsession with spirituality from very young and that has remained my whole life. I definitely have a desire to connect to something greater than you know, just this individual life experience that Rachel gets to have, but that great unknown, and call it faith or a belief in the unknown, you know, trust in
the unknown. So that's remained, which I guess makes sense in terms of my pathways into yoga, study of the texts and also the physical practice. And I always told stories. I always wanted to tell stories. I wrote a song when I was eight. I still remember every word. Such a terrible song, and I wrote it and asked my mum to send it to Whitney Houston, Oh, because I wanted her to record it. Yes, Big Dreams, and the song is all about world peace.
Right, that's so switch, little eight year old just wanting big changes for the world.
That's so cute.
Yeah. So I definitely I think that I've always had those key things, like a hunger a curiosity for storytelling and for just knowing the world and also knowing what is beyond you know, this life, and those things are probably driven a lot of the choices that I've made.
And I also have a you know, just a thirst and a hunger for discovery, self discovery, but also discovery of other people and their stories and art and nature and science, and I you know, I think if you look at my podcast listening or books that I read or shows that I watch, it's so diverse in range. There's not one kind of common you know, Fien. And so I guess curiosity has been the other thread throughout life that I'm inherently curious.
That doesn't surprise me at all that your go to listening when you're not, you know, being forced to listen to anything in particular, is just a total patchwork of all different things that kind of reflects in your interest
in life. How did you find yourself? So I'm really interested about economics at Sydney UNI, as the choice for someone who is endlessly curious ended up overseas in the media and in yoga and meditation, none of which kind of seems like the logical step from an economics degree. At that time, what was that choice based on? And you know, how did you then end up taking the step out of economics at Sydney UNI into what ended up being the first chapter.
Yeah, And again it's so interesting because I think the economics degree meant that it's really served me well right up until now. That economics degree has given me the capacity, interestingly, to live a very diverse life and to do lots of things that I wanted to do because it gave me a foundation in an area that I'm inherently interested in the world of business and world economics, and I think that was probably what drew me into it back then,
or two things. The first was I felt like you couldn't have a career in performing and writing and it was a hobby. I perceived it as a hobby that I might always have and that I really loved, but I didn't think it was a career. And my parents were pretty much in agreement.
Well, that's what I was going to ask, is was that because you thought you had to do something sensible, which a lot of people in the arts did as their first step because they've ruled out the possibility that it could become a career.
Definitely, but I was not forced to do it. There is a part of me that is so practical. I'm a try and I'm a classictorian in the sense right like I like comfort, and I like nice things, and I like, you know, to have I experienced the world in a sensory way, and so the practicality is also
very much part of me. And it's part of my nature to make sure that I have stable things around me, solid grounds, so I can constantly be growing and changing and just living there or doing all the unstable for lack of a better word, things that I like to do, it's not really the right word. But the other thing about economics that I really loved was that I didn't understand that I'd have to do econometrics and statistics and.
All the other stuff.
Yeah, I didn't think that was going to be such a big part of it. And I initially I was doing commercial law, and then I realized that law was not what I thought it was going to be, which was saying long speeches and standing up and debating that it was very methodical and boring. But the economics was the part I loved, and that drew me to it, and I did three in economics at school was the
essay writing. I loved these big picture ideas about how really simple moments in history change the course of the world, because economics drives so much of what happens. So, for example, one of the things that we studied was how coarsets because of the industrial Revolution, it meant that coursets could not just be from whalebone and for the wealthy anymore.
They were actually accessible for all women, which meant at the time when the industry evolution happened, there was this drop in birth rates, like how many people were giving birth and they credit it to while you know, men are going into the cities and so they're not at home as much and by making Yeah, but there is this case that it was a moment in time because yes, it was because of the industry evolution, but it was because of the creation of wire and metal and materials
that meant and the court so when it was made from metal and it didn't have any give, you would literally be like, you know, locked into it, pulled into it, and you can imagine what it did to female organs.
Oh my gosh, that's so interesting.
Isn't that cool?
I was like where is this going.
Is it because like men couldn't get into like unlacing it was too hot.
I was like, where's the barrier here?
That's fascinating. So some of it is that, of course there's a barrier, there's a physical barrier where like you might be caught up in the moment and then you have to actually take this quite complex thing off. But yeah, they talked about how it literally would pressed all the internal organs down. Yeah, So whether it's you know, whether that is the whole truth of why birth rates declined
back then. I just think things like that were what drew me into an economics degree, just understanding how this tiny little fashion item can, at the same time as a massive economic history shift, can change the course of
what's happening in history. Its so things like that, I think is why I loved it, and I really love and this is the other thing that you can do in economics, And it's actually the same in everything I do, or what everything I love to do is taking like big complex things ideas, stories, concepts and filtering them down to understand them and then try to communicate them in a way that is engaging and gets people to think and feel and that's also what I was drawn to it.
I knew that they were would be a lot of essay writing and understanding of those big concepts. But while I was at UNI, I got acting jobs, like professional acting gigs, and did my first film while I was at UNI. But even then, I still and I kind of paid my way.
Was that still a hobby?
It was still a hobby. Yeah, yeah, And it was not until I spent I got a full time job at Fairfax Publications in marketing and sales, and I spent six months full time working and my body was covered in psoriasis and I was so unhappy and I was like, maybe I do need to look at this whole acting creative thing. And that's the first time I went back to study with Philippe in London.
Oh my gosh.
Okay, So this is where I get so excited that in hindsight you can see the common thread of storytelling, distilling big stories and communicating them and now having written for every different media, like it's that that's your great gift to the world. And the strength that now is like you're ya, and that's the whole like cz the A, it doesn't it takes us all a little while to kind of figure that out, but at the time, I'm
sure the dots didn't necessarily connect. And it's I think very reassuring for people to hear that there are big chapters of your life where you weren't even close to a media career like you were still like sales and marketing at Fairfax is like the opposite of what you
do now, but still very transferable skills. And now, I mean we've got to the chapter where you went to Clown School, Like, let's distill how you get from sales and marketing at Fairfax to clown School in Paris, one of my favorite cities.
I've also lived there as well.
It made me so excited because I cannot wait to get my hands on your book. But I mean, your fellow alumni, Sasha Baron Cohen, Emma Thompson, like the biggest of the big wigs in film and media and acting. And that's very much high speed from hobby to my life which has then propelled you into that's been your career since then.
Tell us how that materialized.
Was it fate? Was it going with the flow? Was it seizing those opportunities? Like was it conscious? Did you fall into it like how did this all happen?
So it's always a combination of those things, I think, isn't it Like we a whole lot of things lined up at that moment in time. But I had after Uni, I was acting professionally like it became a career through my twenties. And it was towards the end of my twenties that I felt like that really deep imposter syndrome because I had done an economics degree and I hadn't been to Nier and I hadn't been to Whopper, and I felt like I might get caught out very soon for not actually being an actor.
Someone will realize I'll be added.
I realized, yes, And I just I was always insecure about it that I hadn't done a you know, gone to acting school and done a drama school. And I had a nanny when I I was living in Rights Road. We had a group nanny. So she looked after a whole bunch of kids. And when I say, looked up like she would walk us all to school, bring us back. We were still running around like free as birds. But she, yeah, she would come and pick us up from school, sometimes
dressed as a clown. I know, so cool. So she had gone to Golia's school, and she was such a pivotal person. From my youth, I was so obsessed with her. She was so fun, she was so full of joy. And when I was older, I had gone back to watch her do a one woman show at the Edinburgh Festival and I just remember sitting there watching her going. And this is before I'd decided I wanted to give the acting career a crack and not work full time anymore.
And I just sat there watching her, going, Oh my god, that is amazing that she can do a one woman show, write this show, get it up, produce it. And because she was someone close to me in my life, it felt possible. It felt like, oh, I could do that too, potentially, So I studied. I did a workshop with Filipe when I was in London when I was you know that age where we go over and we're kind of doing
the europe adventure. And I knew I wanted to go back and study with him one day, but I didn't know how or when, and his school was in London at that point. Then he moved back to Paris, and so at the end of my twenties, feeling a little insecure, and I'd always wanted to live in Paris. I didn't
even know why. Since I was little, I had this thing about Paris, and like a series of things happened though, like I lost a very close friend and I had this moment of going, God, you know, you just don't know. Life is so uncertain. You just don't know what's around the corner, what's going to happen. I had no big commitments or responsibilities, and so I applied for a scholarship and I got it, which me I did not expect to get it.
You still look surprised now, You're like, I I got it, Like what.
I know, I didn't expect to. You know, it was highly competitive, and so then I was like, oh, I guess I actually have to go now. And so I found myself in late twenties in Paris when a lot of my friends were starting to get a bit more
responsible in their lives. And you know, when you're acting when you're younger and you're sort of eighteen nineteen, it's the stakes are pretty low, but as you get older, it constantly gets more and more apparent that you're not choosing a career like you're actually choosing a lifestyle, you're choosing a way of living because you're choosing never being able to commit to plans because you never know what's
going to come up. And like the number of weddings I missed or events that I couldn't go to because you're shooting schedules, a shooting schedule, and I think going there at that time in my life where they call it satin return, which is the.
First time twenty seven.
Yeah, so from twenty seven to thirty yeah.
Wild white Mine was wild times from Yeah, look it up, guys.
If you don't know what a Saturn return is, it's like, it'll blow your mind. And if you look back at your if you're past your Saturn return, you look back, you'll it'll all make sense. If you're about to embark upon your Saturn return, things will also all make Just go read it.
It's amazing.
It's very interesting, isn't it. So it's a time of life where they say you step over into the threshold of adulthood, and so you start to get clear about you know, what you really want. And I did that on the other side of the world beginning again as well, right, like going to school when I was a professional and being a beginner again. And Philip's school is infamously brutal, Like it's no I like to say, clown school is no joke.
No climbing around, it's not.
There is no planning around. You're required to find a depth of vulnerability that you know most of us have not until we go through the process. So yeah, it was pretty amazing.
It's really interesting that you've brought up how like the clean slate and the risk of doing that and missing the weddings back home and the pivotal time of life where you know a lot of your friends are on this joint parallel track with you, and then you kind of diverge off to go and do this you know,
amazing thing overseas. But it's interesting to remember that, like one choice will often cost you other choices, and it can seem like, oh my god, you went to do this big, crazy, amazing thing, But those decisions are really scary. They take a lot of balls. There's a lot of in Boster syndrome involved, and so much discomfort, and I think it's amazing that you were willing to start again
like that. I think the magic of so many people's stories is the minute, they don't mind being a beginner again, don't mind relinquishing everything they've built in one life to swap for a different one.
And that's like it's.
So hard and it's so scary at the time, but that's where all of the magic happens for so many people. It's when they go, you know what, this one track has been amazing till this point, but now, like it's not serving me anymore. I've got soriasis everywhere. My body and my brain are telling me this is not necessarily the path for me anymore. And there's this huge, uncomfortable shift. But then look what it's done. But I just think it's important to remember it's not always comfortable.
It's not comfortable at all. And I think the other thing to remember is the world is changing at such a rapid rate now that I think this is the nature of you know, life now is that we all have to be flexible and adaptable. And the thing that got me through the pandemic financially was that I do so many things. So a lot of them fell away, like a lot of them disappeared, and it was incredibly
stressful and heartbreaking. But at the same time I had a couple of things I could still do, like that's when I wrote the first book, was that the second lockdown Because I often have people go, when are you going to choose? Or they'll say polymath and all these kind of I guess everyone wants to label how we live. Our life has to be a particular way. But I think we all have to become polymaths. I think we
all have to become embrace all of our skills. And if we are that way in clinent because some people do know what they want to do, they get really clear, really young, and there is very well laid out path. But I think we're seeing in recent years that even when that happens, imagine I think about all these poor students who got through law school just before the age where we're now going into AI and what AI is doing, and how much of it is they can put through
computers now. And that's just one industry, but so many industries are changing and we have to I think we have to be on our toes. And I'm in my forties, but I plan on working for the rest of my days. I want to be stimulated, I want to be engaged in the world. I want to learn, keep learning and growing and contributing to whatever conversations people are willing to have, you know, so there's a part of me that just goes.
I think it's the way forward. I think we all have to become a little more open to that, and as you say, be okay with becoming a beginner again and again and again and going instead of seeing it as like, oh, I have to start again. And I'm saying this as someone who has felt that deeply so many times, like, I can't believe I'm at this point in my life when I've worked so hard and I've been such a good person, and I've.
Done all the right things.
I've done all the right things. Why is it my turn? Or when is it going to be my turn? And the reality is it's just not way life works.
And you make it your turn, right. I think we
often wait for things. In the episode before this, we talked a lot about how when you work really hard and you do the right thing and you make good decisions, you kind of wait for someone out there to go, oh, I recognize that here is the thing you deserve, and unfortunately you can get it, but you have to reach out first and grab it, and you can you know, get the silver plate with all the beautiful things on it, but no one's going to just give it to you one day.
You have to really go out and look for them.
And I think humility is such a great place to create from. I think when we're humbled and we don't know everything, there's often magic in that and even in everything I do. And I was reflecting on it the other day about the book, like people go, oh my god, you write your book so fast. Part of it is having a deadline, for sure.
I had no choice, guys.
Yeah, well but I did have a choice, because there's always a choice, and I could have said no, and I could have pushed back. But part of it is I think it's just the way that I work. And I know that neither of the books are perfect. None of the plays that I've written are perfect, none of the articles I've written are perfect, but I get them done, and there's something in the energy of going, let's just
keep creating and see what happens. And yes, it's imperfect and it's messy, and every sentence is not going to be perfect, but it will resonate with the right people, and it will start a conversation with whoever needs to hear that conversation, and it's okay for us to not be the best at everything. Because I also think there's this obsession now with I want to make impact, especially for young people. I want to make impact, and I'm like, what does that mean?
Or I want.
To live from my purpose? Awesome, that's great to get really clear about what your purpose is in life, But we've lost that thing of going, what about being a really great person in my community? What about you know, instead of creating big impact in the world, how can I be a better parent, daughter, friend? Like, that's where I can make impact. So I think too just I never dreamed of writing books. I knew I wanted to
tell stories. I would have loved to be an actor, you know, long term, sure, But at the same time, once I had my son and that wasn't a possibility like single parenting and being on a long running TV show or theater at night, it just the economics don't work, and either did the energetic economics, and I had to step back from that and go, okay, so that framework doesn't work, what does and staying open to possibilities that did present themselves, and still, of course, as you say,
driving it. There is an element to I always knew, especially with the first book, as I knew I wanted to write that book for a long long time. I didn't know how or when, but it was permeating and I worked really hard to try and get it to happen, and it didn't, and then it sort of fell on my lap. All that work paid off way after I thought it was going to pay off.
That's so interesting.
There's a quote that I love. The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit. And I think with that instant gratuity thing, it's like, well, I'm working hard now, so I want the results within six months or a year or like a really traceable amount of time. But often you're really laying foundations like decades sometimes before the benefits are reaped, which means patience will get you a really long way in this day
and age. And also I think that really shows through your story as well, that you were willing to put in yards in like in Paris, for example, you went back to the start at school. You did clown school, which I want to ask you a little bit more about. But you lived in Paris, you did a stint to like read qualifying something, then you came back. You've done an enormous amount of time in play school, Like you've done big chapters. There's not been any kind of two
to three year itch bortom. You'll like commit fully to a chapter and know that you know it won't be the right chapter forever. But I think one of the things that's really hard for people is knowing when a chapter is coming to an end and being okay with like the evolution, and it seems like you've been very good at putting all of yourself into one chapter, but then being like, okay, evolution, time is it?
Because you feel the creep.
Of something new, Like how did you know that it was time to leave Paris? How did you know that it was time to step back from play school?
Like?
How do you work that out?
You know? I don't learn things gracefully, Definitely not someone who's like gets a little tap on the shoulder from the universe like hey, it's time to change No, it's I get a tap, I ignore it. Then I get like a smack smack, and I ignore it, and then I get hit by you know, the bus going change course, and I'm like, oh, okay, there's been really, I guess, monumental things that happened where I was thoughced to change.
Like I said, you can't be a single parent and continue to live the way that you did when I was single, traveling the world doing what I wanted, and you can't. I think you can knock on doors, but at some point there's this marriage of you know, call it destiny or fate or the randomness of life, whichever it is, and all the work and effort that we put into things, and they collide in ways that for me have definitely not been graceful. And I I haven't
even decided in many of those moments. It's been things that catalysts that what was an idea becomes very apparent that yeah, you actually have to do that thing. And you know, even leaving Paris was torturous because I left and then I went back, and then of course when I went back it wasn't the same, and then I
probably stayed longer than I should. But I didn't leave until I went to La and then I was going to like do the stint in LA, and I got a job back in Australia within like three months, which brought me back to Australia, so I kind of ended up. I was trying to stay in Paris, but I was like, oh, I should still be an actor. Maybe I can live between La and Paris and then But it's so funny how I just kept getting pulled back to Australia and a job brought me back here. I didn't choose that.
I never would have chosen to come back at that moment in my life, but I McLeod's daughters offered me role and I was like, oh, well, I guess I meant to be acting. So that's what I was. That's what all this is for, isn't.
It Like and it's a huge show, Like, well, that's a huge opportunity.
But it was not. It was not on my plan, is what I'm saying. So it's not like I I don't know. I think for some people they're very good at hearing those cues and in the within themselves. But for me, it's always been like I am forced a kick in the butt.
Yeah. So I think one of the things that's so interesting is when.
People like you have had such a breath of experience, like the vast majority of us are not going to go to like a Parisian clown School. So while I've got you, I would love to just pick your brain about what you actually do there. Like I think one of the beautiful things now that you have given us with your amazing new memoir Paris for beginners is that we can get lost in the City of Lights with you and like get into the.
Nitty gritty of what your day to day life was. But for anyone.
Who's you know, want to give them a taste of kind of what your life was like there, Like what are you doing cloud?
Do you juggle?
Like you actually doing clowny things? I know I read that you had to learn to act like you were at gunpoint and like about to be murdered.
Like is it just being.
Broadly in it's call clown school or are you fully wearing clown outfits and being a clown?
So the school works in modules. Fundamentally, it is a theater school, and Philip Guilliere came from a school called Jacques Lecoq, which is a very famous physical theater school which still exists, and in fact, the Lecoq students and the Golier students we spend a lot of time together.
But Philip left because he has. He had more of an interest in working with texts, so like within lines, and he felt that there were things that he couldn't do it Lacock that he tried to bring to his school, and it is centered around the whole premise of his school is centered around the first module, which is leisure, which is the game or to play. So he is it sounds funny, right, because he's brutal and he's tough on you learning to play and have fun and find pleasure.
You will have fun, right.
So I do that to myself to be fair. I'm like, I need to have a day off. You will enjoy yourself, you will rest.
It's like just fucking chill man.
Yeah, And when you think about it and you see someone who has not been chilling, when you see someone who has not had pleasure, we see it, right, We see in our friends and family when someone's under the pump and they just have not had any joy for a long time. So his perspective is you have to be alive with play every time you get up on stage.
So that's at the heart of the school, right. But to find that that there's a whole bunch of games that he gets us to do, and the one that you were describing was, in fact, we were trying to find that moment where which, from his perspective, you should always have on stage, which is the audience watches and goes,
oh my god, that moment. And I think we've all had that experience of listening to a song or going to the theater or watching a show where you're like, oh, the moment and that actor lifted their hand up, or the moment when you hear that note and it takes your breath away. And so that exercise was an exercise in getting us to because you know, the tendency was fresh to get up and be like find our way
into the scene. And he's like, no, you have to get up and you have to be there and you have to So yes, we had to stand in a line. He would say ready, aim, and we'd have to start speaking text so you might be saying some Shakespeare or Chekhov or and if he banged his drumma meant that you were shot.
You just had to die on the spot.
Yeah. Yeah, but to die is in like stop talking.
Oh, not actually die, not actually die.
He's just like every time you get on stage, it's like you're trying to save your life, so in order to do that, you have to find an impulse. Every time we got up, so a lot of the time was a group of us getting up. He would give us an exercise. Sometimes he would give us lots of instruction. Sometimes they'd be very little. Intentionally, we would do the exercise and if he banged his drama meant you all had to stop. You were boring and you had to stop.
I see, Okay, So you're trying to captivate him, yes, until Yeah, you're trying to avoid the drum.
You're trying to avoid the drum. So there's a level of adrenaline and imagination that you're constantly try to bring
to yeah, to get one little smile from him. And the beauty of the school is that every single person that I was at school with they had their moments, like so many moments where because the stakes were always so high, they would find something magic, you know, something so that moment that we would all be there watching, going, oh my god, and you'd feel such relief and joy that your friend had done well right.
They didn't get killed in the lineup.
Yes, And what's so funny about it is a producing part Natasha and I and we've been working on developing the series, developing the book as a series. Part of the problems, She's like, surely there was drama between the students in like we need to find some drama between the students of school. And I'm like, we genuinely just wanted each other to do well. There was not one
iota of competition in that room. There was just this level of if someone did well, it was like, oh, so I'm so happy for them.
Yeah, I have this like Juilliard image where everyone's like fighting to the death and like there's one Sasha Baron Cohen then every cohort and like you'll tear another down.
But that's so beautiful.
Yeah, it was pretty magic. And he's you know, like the first time I got up, he and I'm like doing my thing and then he bangs his drama and he was like, well, why did you get up? Did you think what they do is saw amazing? There's the audience going to love me legsies blah blah, or did you think I am boying like a boying seven for seven? Almost? Aliah, never in my life I want to see this woman.
So that's so friend.
He would do it always with he would like tear you down, but with so much humor. And he was so joyful when someone did well, you know, to see as student find something incredible. He was just as you could just see the joy on his face. But yeah, it was brutal. And yes we do dress up for some of the modules, so for Buffon, which is very similar to clown, but it's more it's what Sasha Barankhan does. So it's satire. It's the people who are the rejects
of society coming back to make fun of. You play someone of an elevated status in order that they will see them and have a heart attack because they they laugh at the person and then they go, oh my god, they're walking me.
And then they're exposed.
Yes, so Befon and clown are the last two modules you do because they're the hardest. And clown you find a clown and then you dress up as that clown. So my clown thought she was Bridget Badou, she thought she was very sexy. That was not at all.
Oh my gosh.
Okay, So in this scheme of like people's when they hear clown school, in this scheme of their expectation of like literally twenty clowns in a room with like a red nose and white face paint. How much of your course was that versus like theater generally.
Most of the year is look at such a mishmosh, because he would just pull, like even when we did Shakespeare modules, he'd pull some elements of other modules in obviously, because we're constantly overlapping with ideas and characters. And however we would improvise to a character. So say we were doing Shakespeare Chekhovs and we'd do different exercises, and maybe
someone is pretending to be a spider. I was a terrible spider, okay, right, someone's pretending to be a spider, and he's like, okay, like this, you're going to play leading with.
Beth as a spider, yes, in that kind of way with their body, right, So then the next day they would come dressed as Lady m with and have learned text.
So we would find the character first with that, with play and with improvisations. Then we'd add the layer absolutely of dressing up in that character. But with clown you really only had one chance. I had two, and I failed at both of them. He gave me a second one and they were both a disaster. I just lost my ability to fail by the end of the year, and you have to fail in clown and then you
get to dress up as whatever. So we'd improvise and say I did something where I pretended to be a giraffe, and so when I try to be sexy, people laugh. So he's like, all right, your clown is Bridget Buddo. She thinks she's sexy. So I wore a towel and a big blonde wig and the nose. That's when you put the nose on. But it's only after you've sort of found all the elements of your clown that then we would get dressed up and play.
Oh my gosh, I know that's so cool.
I feel like people in their mind think that you're just literally qualifying to just be a clown at like a circus.
But there's like Shakespeare involved. It's like so.
Much art that goes into this. And it's so interesting that we've touched on play because a big part of this show is the idea that everyone needs play in their life, and particularly play outside of what's productive for you or what's your career, because if you're always just working, even if you love it, and even if it's playfull, you burn out. Like it's impossible to do only one thing in your life without enjoy it. Like we're not here to work and die, We're here to also have
some fulfillment and enjoy our relationships. And you know, you're living in the most one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and then you've come home to one of the most beautiful countries in the world. And I think we can get very bogged down in the hustle and forget to play. But you've gone from a clown school to coming back to a role in play school. Like the word is play. It's child's play. You're encouraged to be in the child's mind. But that's your job.
And I think sometimes when you make joyful things your job, it can make it very hard to get joy elsewhere because like the lines are so blurry. So how have you managed to keep the joy and the art of what you do alive but also find a you that's not part of that identity, that productive working identity, and that can find play outside of you know, the media.
Yeah, it's a really really good question, and I think It's something I struggle with, you know, that finding a balance, and I recognize I'm in such a position of privilege. There's so many people who are in you know, have way more challenges than me, who have experienced levels of prejudice and trauma that I have not, and so I'm
always really conscious of that. But actually, at the end of the day, I have a roof over my head and I'm relatively healthy, and so I'm grateful that I have the ability to play and the ability to be joyful out of what I do, out of the work I do, but also in the work I do, because for me, I was really like, it's not an easy road doing different things. It's not an easy road being an actor. It's not an easy road writing all the creative things I've done, and actually also you know, teaching yoga,
which is a whole other part of my life. None of those paths provide any kind of stability or great economic reward, Like you really have to be in it for the love of it, and the way that say, for example, teaching yoga trainings or classes, I always was like, I don't ever want to be counting numbers in my class.
I don't ever want to be relying on students for me to make a living, which has meant that I have to always have other ways of earning money outside of acting, writing and my world of mindfulness and yoga. I've had to make sure that I can, especially being a single parent, that I can afford so we have a home and we don't want for a lot, and that those things can be fun because I'm doing them
because I still love them. There's no point in me showing up to play school or showing up to a yoga space and go accounting how much money I'm going to earn that day. There's just much better ways of making money, right, So you have to be there for the love. You have to be there for the For me, I'm like every time I go into play School, I remind myself of how excited I was the very first time I found out that they were giving me a chance to do a couple of apps. I was just
beside myself. It felt like such an honor and such a privilege to be part of this institution and I don't ever want to lose that, and as soon as I do, I will stop doing it. It can't be and it's hard work. Like learning the lines for play school. I've never found learning lines easy, and you have to learn a lot for play school, and you have to be on your game and give a lot of energy.
And in fact, in most things I do, you have to like, you have to give a lot, right, you have to be generous, and that can only come from a place of joy with what you're doing.
One hundred.
I love that you mentioned the idea that one day when you don't appreciate it and you don't feel that same sparkle, that that is usually the sign that a chapter is kind of coming to a close for you. But I love also reminding yourself of how you felt the first day that you got the job. I think it's very easy to forget the gratitude, the immense gratitude you have for something. If you get to do it for a long time, it can feel like, oh, it's
rinse and repeat. But like if you just go back to that sparkle you had when you first found out, like, that's.
A really beautiful exercise to do.
And also I love that you've explained I think you assume a children show would be easier, but like, I can't imagine how difficult it is to maintain that level of energy on TV and re remembering your lines and doing it to you're doing it to a camera, you're not doing it to an audience like that is skill.
Yeah, it's ultimately the thing about being a play school presenter is it's about the relationship with you and one child. And I think that when that's what the gift that Gauliere gave me was. He was so passionate about it is all ways about your relationship with the audience, whether they're physically they're in the theater or not like on the screen, that you have to always have a game
in your head and joy. And he also said your only job as an actor is to show your soul, right, And I'm like, yeah, to find a way to keep going. How do I stay light and joyful enough so I can just keep peeling back the layers and show up and show my soul and be vulnerable again and again and again and again. But I also think you, like
you said, play also involves a bit of work. I think there's a lot to be said for discipline, because discipline and having a foundation in your life where whether it's you have rituals or for me, it was making sure that I have that financial security outside of the things I love doing and not relying on them to make money, and also knowing that I am I'm not someone like I don't love the social media thing. I'm not someone who's going to build a business on that
kind of platform. It's not so recognizing that's not joyful for me. And I tried it, Like I tried for a minute, you know, doing some stuff, and I'm like,
it's not joyful for me. So just going, yes, following the joy, but also having the discipline in place so that you can And I think we often feel when things are a bit chaotic, we can often feel like we can't play because when you're in survival, you can't play when you're in And Elizabeth Gilbert talks about that, you know, the woman who eat prayer.
I love her so much.
Yes, And she's like, I do not suggest you give up your day job to write a book.
Oh money, there are fills like the yeah, but like also you got to eat, so like it's okay if you have to do a job that you don't love all the time, Like there's a reality yeah one d oh my gosh, Rachel, I literally I can't leave.
It's been fifty minutes. I am.
We haven't even touched on your yoga cred Like, I can't even There is so much I cannot wait to get into your book.
Where can we find it?
I know you're not doing the social media as much, but like, can we follow you?
Is that where we can get more information? Where can we find you?
Yes, you can find me on mainly on Instagram. I don't really do the Facebook thing so much. It's just my name on Instagram is my handle. The book is available in all good bookstores, so.
Clari's the beginners.
I miss Paris so much and I can't wait. I feel like it's just going to take me through the streets, as if I'm shadowing you in your life there.
I can't wait.
Yeah, you have to send me a message when you start reading, because I can't wait to hear like your response to the places and the peaking.
Oh my gosh.
Well, I always finish with a favorite quote, so can you leave us with some words of wisdom to finish up?
One of my favorite sayings comes from my yoga teach them a norma and she says pad pa day, which is paday is like step by step, or how you walk along your path. So because I always used to be like, oh, but Ma, what about this? And I'd ask these big questions and she'd be like, pa, day, pa day, Like you just put one foot in front of the other.
Oh my gosh, I love that.
The one that I like shove down people's throats is you don't have to see the whole staircase.
You just have to take this first step, like.
One at a time.
Like relax, guys, you don't have to get to the end. We've got time. Oh, Rachel, this was so wonderful. Congratulations on the book. I will of course put links in the show notes for you all so you can grab a copy.
Highly recommend it. Let's get lost in Paris together.
Yay, thank you so much for having me. It was such a joyous conversation. Thank you.
This was another one of those episodes where I feel like there are still so many dot points of Rachel's life that I didn't even get to. The question list was pages long. She just has so many facets of life to explore, so I'm sure she'll be back, and having lived in Paris myself for many years, I can't wait to pore over the pages of her book and get lost in that beautiful city again. I've popped the link to Parispot Beginners in the show notes so you
guys can grab it your own copy too. As always, please shower Rachel with love if you enjoyed listening along, tagging her at Rachel Coops on Insta. That's Rachel al and Coops with an es at the end, I hope you are all having an amazing week and are seizing your ya.