Benedict Cumberbatch on Wes Anderson, pancakes, and The Roses with Olivia Colman ｜ Ruthie’s Table 4

If life is about connections, I feel connected to Benedict Cumberbatch. Rick Rubin, Season 2, Table 4, seated us together at a dinner a few years ago, and I remember it as if it was yesterday, Benedict talking about the food he was cooking for his kids. This morning, at breakfast, Cary Fukunaga, Season 2, recalled asking me to find a fishmonger to teach Benedict how to fillet a sea bass for his role in the thriller Blood on Snow, and how he passed with flying colors. J.J. Abrams, Season 3, texted me late last night saying, Ruthie, Benedict must not be of this earth. Describing him as a limitless talent somehow feels like an understatement. And Wes Anderson, Season 3, when I told him I was seeing Benedict, described him as one of the great actors of our time. He's like an Olivier or a Gielgud mixed with a De Niro or a Hoffman. You're going out of here. There was somebody here, who can I put on this podcast? OK, Benedict and I are also connected by values. We're both politically and socially active. He thinks about the food he eats, the issues of sustainability, fairness and civil liberties. He's here with me now in the River Cafe to talk about food and film, family and friends. Benedict is someone I respect, I admire and I love. That's the real connection. Oh my goodness, Ruthie. So we start with reading the recipe and then we've got that over the edge. And you can read it any way you want. OK, so I'm not going to read it, OK. You can read it. OK. Oh, it's Ruthie. I heard that. I don't know if I can read it as Ruthie. I'll try, I'll try to read it as Ruthie. OK, do you want me to try it? I find impression, I can also do impression, but I feel really cruel. No, you can be cruel, it's OK. No, it's not, that's not my nature. I'll take that introduction back and say, actually. What a ----. He's a ----. OK, I'll try, I'll try. Split and roasted langoustines, 12 langoustines, two tablespoons of dried oregano, three to four dried chilies, three to four dried chilies. It's a bit lower my total was, I think. Two lemons. Yeah, that's better. Extra virgin olive oil. It's getting quite Kathleen Turner. Oh, now we're getting Kathleen Turner. OK. OK, I'll do it seriously, sorry. OK. Split and roasted langoustines, 12 langoustines, two tablespoons of dried oregano, three to four dried chilies, two lemons, extra virgin olive oil. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C, gas seven. Cut each langoustine in half lengthways. Sprinkle the flesh side with oregano and crumbled chili and season. Drizzle with olive oil and squeeze over the juice of one lemon. Heat a large tray and place the langoustines on it. Cut side up, side by side. Roast in the preheated oven for four to five minutes. Serve hot with lemon. That sounds within my capabilities. Do you think you could do that? No, but you're a cook, aren't you? You cook. I do cook, yeah. I love it. But I love this, the story of your place, Ruthie. I love that this grew up, the limitations of being, you know, somewhere for people to eat nearby. And then you got a Michelin star and blew it out of the water. It's just insane. We use the word organic because we're just looking, we've never done another restaurant, you know, and this one just has grown from being four seats. It's all organic, yeah. It's how you grow. Do you look at doing films that way, the kind of films you? I mean, yeah, that's the nicest way to do it. You just kind of, a conversation grows around an artist or a particular story or an actor. Actors are artists, but you know what I mean? So, for example, Olivia Colman and I are friends. We have been friends for years. Season three. What episode? Episode four. Wow, she's good. You made that up. She might have been season two. But, you know, we've been friends for a while. And we said drunkenly every time we met, we should do something together, you know, never have happened. And then some grownups had a good idea. And here we are. The Roses comes out in August, which is fantastic. I cannot wait to see that. I think you'll love it. I'm probably the only person in this room that really remembers The War of the Roses. Oh, I do. It's Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. And Kathleen. Your voice double. What? My voice double, Kathleen Turner. But tell me about it. I mean, so I'm playing an architect. Olivia Colman, you've already had on the show, plays a chef. And it's about their relationship based on the original book. And then, obviously, the iconic film with Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito, who directed it. You know, it's based on that paradigm of a couple who start with a furiously wonderful, beautiful archetypal romance. And they're impulsive and physical and they have a family. And one person's career is kind of stagnated because of the family. The other person is doing really well, has a disaster. The other one is goes on the up and up. And that's her. That's Olivia's character as a chef. And she becomes this huge big deal. And I'm sure anybody could be bigger than me. That's fine. There's a lot of space. Yeah, come on. And I like Richard. Mine has a nosedive. And it's about then what it's really, I don't want to give it away, but just the joy of bringing this, just the kind of raw ingredients to you. Yeah, because of your life, the architect. And he supports her as well. That's the other beautiful thing about it. He helps her with prize money that he's won to start her career. He pulls her out of domesticity and says, you should be doing this for people at large. You can't keep treating us to iconic desserts every other day. You should be doing this and being celebrated about how brilliant you are. So it's a really magnanimous, loving gesture. But it's about what happens when two people don't hold each other in mind, I guess. They lose the conversation of the couple. And these little things start to build these kind of antagonisms, this kind of, you know, the dreaded word resentment. And it poisons their relationship. And food is such a central point talking about poison, because obviously it's her artistry. It's how she succeeds in the world. How she expresses herself. How she evolves in the story. And it's also her downfall. It's also what takes her away from family, what takes her away from her husband. And it's in a way also what he uses to sabotage her without telling you what happens. That's good. And when is it coming out? It's coming out late August. Oh, OK. Well, this is good. Labor Day weekend in the States and then just, just, just afterwards. It's global. So, yeah. Exciting. It was such fun. It's gone down very well. It's good to work and have fun. That's what we, that's what we really ultimately, or, you know, what it takes. Well, I think sometimes the fun can be a bit perverse. It can be, the hard work can be the joy. You know, Cary Fukunaga, what I did with him was great fun. And that's not for a while, but we could talk about that. Because I know he's a friend of yours. That was great. I mean, it was a three day punch in, punch out. I was the sort of bad guy at the end of this. Tom Hardy couldn't do it. So I stepped in to do it and have no shame about that. That's again, that's public. And I just thought I want to work with Cary. It's fun material, shooting in London. And Aaron's in the scenes with me and Eva Green. I mean, what a great talent to work with. And it's a cracking character. Yeah. Sort of very dark, powerful presence in the film. And it's a bit like, you know, God turning up at the end in terms of storytelling. So I just had a lot of fun with it. A lot of fun with it. And a big character in three days. I mean, he really, he wanted to be here today. He said he would come and say hello. He's actually going. He left. I think his flight was at 1030 to Delhi or something. I've worked with him again in a heartbeat. We got incredibly well. I love what he did. And he was just so brilliant with his crew, but with his actors. And also at the end of a long shoot to get this thing in three days. And he was remarkably relaxed considering how tight it was. What was it like fileting the fish? Hard and stinky and great. It's a really hard thing to do. I mean, I see them. By take three, the boys that helped me out were like, it's not half bad. They were impressed with your, you know, because it isn't easy to do. It's not easy. And especially when you're acting with your back to one of the greatest and also most dangerous and iconic French film actors of a generation, Eva Green. And I was like, I'm trying to hold a scene with her. I've got a camera up my nose there and I'm fileting this fish. And I want it to look really good. Like I can just do it blindfolded. You know, I'd only had one afternoon. No, no, no. And they're big. Salmon are so big. It's a big fish. Well, you have to come in here and kill some fish for us because you do a film. I've seen it with my friends and, you know, it's a family, isn't it? It's an intense, crazy family. Really intense. And then it's over. A friend of mine said that he kind of felt sometimes at the end of movies, like his parents telling him that they were getting a divorce. I mean, maybe that's extreme. But he said, you just felt the family. That's quite extreme because if that's your job, that's quite a lot to go through. Exactly, you have to go through every time. But Wes particularly does, doesn't he? Wes is, yeah, Wes is very, there's a lot of repeat custom, both within the cast and the crew of Wes's. You know, he holds his team together. And so that's, you feel like you're going back into a repertory with him. It's wonderful. And I absolutely adored both experiences. Henry was, Henry Sugar was very particular in the sense that it was lockdown. Well, there was a lot of COVID around, actually, it wasn't lockdown. But it was, what was it, early 2021, I think. Yeah. And it was at the same time as the Power of the Dog Oscar campaign. And I was toing and froing from L.A. to do two weeks on, and then go back to L.A. And then, I don't know if my family were in L.A. because we decided to make a few months out of it. And they went to school out there. And it was, it was just great. We had a proper, proper life for a bit there, which is incredible, incredible. And, and yet, then this job came up. I was like, oh my God, I'm now going to have to go back to England. So it was a bit weird, the Swiss cheese experience of me coming and going. But it was magic with Wes, because he really held us. And there was an option, you could stay at the hotel down the road, or you could stay with Wes in his home. And I kind of, I went, no, I'm going to go, I'm going to go hard on this one. I'm going to go the full, the full Wes. To Snowfield. But it was magic. You know, Rafe was there, and other actors were there every night again, coming in and out. And, you know, to be, to be held by him and his family, and the people who work in his home, and this extraordinary food culture that he adores, recipes from the New York Times, all the time, your food being carted from London on a weekend, which is just like, wow, that's amazing. I think I'll stay here rather than go. Yeah, no, he really cares. And I think he. And it was like film school, you know, after we, we'd sit down and watch a movie. And, you know, I, it was, I was very honest. I was, I thought, okay, this is the one time, I have never seen Lawrence of Arabia. I'm just going to say it in front of this cineast and extraordinary creator of cinema and iconic cinema like that. And he was like, oh, great, well, we can watch it. And it's got an intermission. So that's good. Watch the rest of the next day. And then we'd get up at a very leisurely sort of, you know, we'd have a call at about 10.30 or 9.30. It was unheard of in filming. But then you go into the set, these amazing Anastoc house and creations, which was just like, I mean, like pop-up things with, with old fashioned flats that would just fly up into the rigging. And you go back. So you'd start walking on the street. And then you'd be in a, in a, in a casino atrium. Then you go through to the main body of the casino with like, you know, a hundred extras moving about and doing all their things meticulously. Then sit down at a roulette table and talk and talk, you know, whatever it was he was playing, flapjackle, you know, and then look at the camera thing that was there. Unbelievably technical. And you were, you were spitting out sort of sometimes six, seven, eight pages in one take, continuous take and doing it 45 times to get it right once for use in the film. And incredibly focused, hard work and really difficult. And the amount of sort of, Oh, can't use that one. Can't use that one. Cause I forgot a thing or a line went askew. I mean, it was, there was so much to get right. And you were dancing with the crew all the time. Sanjay, this operator, Bob, who's this DOP making sure everything's work, but also all the prop and set guys who were moving things, giving you things, all the other actors. It was like, you know, this, this perfect balance of everything, but it was the ultimate West experience. And then we'd be done by four o'clock and I'd go home and go, oh, in a bath. And then, you know, up the stairs, Oh, Benedict, it's almost Negroni time. Are you partaking? I was like, yeah, sure. And then the cycle of good food and film would start. He loves that. You know, we talk a lot about that, that, that idea of that, whether it's you or Tilda or Rafe or the people, Owen, that getting the people back. I haven't seen the new movie because you're in the Benicia. It's fun. Yeah. And I was working with Benicia, which was just. Were you in Berlin? That was in Berlin, wasn't it? And that was another thing as well. Babelsberg Studios, the legendary Babelsberg Studios, which I've never been to. Tell me about them. I don't know what they are. So they're huge. I mean, you know, they're sound stages from before the Second World War. I think they might have even been during the first, you know, Marlene Dietrich stage is one of the longest stages in the world where Wes built two trains that meet in a huge underground railway scene. And, you know, it's, it's, it's just epic. The amount of great filmmakers, all the kind of Germans from, you know, et al. And then you've got all the modern greats like Wes, like Tantino and Scorsese, they've all come through that. There's a wonderful rich history. Do you feel that when you go to a film studio? Because when I've been to visit. It's kind of exciting. It's like Shinichita. You go to Pinewood. You feel that those early films. Yes and no Pinewood. And I don't mean to do my hometown. Well, because it's my hometown. I think hometowns never carry quite as much romance as a foreign location, you know. What about Shinichita? Did you do one in Italy? Have you been in Italy? I have, but only for a fitting. But I filmed in Rome after that, because I touched the thing. And I kind of loved it. It was very ramshackle. And I was, I'm not sure what it's like now. It's a while ago. And there was sort of grass growing out of the pavement and stuff. And I thought it's half abandoned, but still a hive of activity. This is it. It's amazing. It's going to be interesting what the future holds in this kind of digital time of, you know, volumes. Have you heard about volumes? No, tell me about volumes. Spaces like this that can just be anything. Alright, so you just do it in a space and it becomes Rome? It's all to do with how you create an environment that's utterly AI. It's all virtual reality. And so you enter a volume and you have minimal props and furnishing. And then everything else is sort of vector energy. Saves a huge amount of money. I've never done it. I mean, I've done sort of, I've done a mocap stage, which is where your body then gets, your movements get turned into an avatar that gets turned into the character. In my case, a dragon. But, you know, it could be anything. And that's extraordinary. But it's like being a sort of tax return office. It's really bland. It's sort of carpeted and neon lighting and none of the glamour of a set or location. But, you know, you're free like a child in his bedroom just to imagine it all. And that's a kind of gift in itself. But a volume, I think, is slightly different. I've never experienced it. I met Jeff Bridges and, oh gosh, who was the other actor who was coming out of one? And they looked utterly shell-shocked. I'm a different generation kind of going, what are we doing? I think that's the thing, generational. It's like you knew it was before. But there'll be a generation who'll just know that. You will know. And I think it's a conversation we have a lot, which is, are you scared of AI? And how scared are we of AI? And why should we be scared? I'm scared because I don't think there's anyone in a room somewhere kind of, you know, overseeing the rules of this. Imagine a state bottled olive oil chosen and bottled for the River Cafe, arriving at your door every month. Our subscription is available for six or 12 months, with each oil chosen personally by our head chefs and varying with each delivery. It's a perfect way to bring some River Cafe flavor into your home or to show someone you really care for them with a gift. Visit our website, shoptherivercafe.co.uk to place your order now. Tell me about growing up. So where were you born? I was born in London, West London. And mum and dad had a flat in Kensington, which mum had had since the early 70s. It was like three grand. What did they do? They are both actors. Are they? Yeah, they played my parents in Sherlock, which is quite sweet. That's not their only credit. The most relevant one to me, I guess, in my career. But they are wonderful. So you grew up in a theatrical home. Were they there in the evenings? Were they in plays? Yes, by and large. But yes, when one of them was working, you know, there was a lot of theater when I was growing up. Mum did a lot of farces in the West End. Lots of Ray Cooney farces. Until I told her that I couldn't bear coming in on her husband and his male assistant pulling his trousers anymore. One more time. I'm 16 now. It's getting really mortifying. You've got to class up a bit. But having said that, I mean, if you could do farce, you can do anything. Farce is great. John Sindon and Michael Williams used to do it, you know, in productions with us. They are, they're very comedy artists. Noises Off, that's one that I've never seen. My dad was in the second cast of that. Was he? And that was the most proud of the kind of farce era I was. Because I remember practicing, he had this whole bit where they were throwing a plate and he had to either throw it or catch it. So we'd go into the park. Instead of him kicking a football to me, I was kind of throwing crisps at him. And he got it every time I saw him do it. But it was, it was magic. But how did that work for life at home? Difficult. And yeah, I went to boarding school when I was eight. So, you know, I was away. Oh, you were in boarding school? Yeah, for a long part of my childhood. At eight, what was that like? Kind of wonderful when I was eight. I mean, you know, I remember those first anxious moments and watching the parents cry as they walked away. But I found a band of brothers. I was an only child. My sister from mum's first marriage was 18 years older. So she left home when I was, literally when I was born, practically. And was always a best friend and like a sort of elder aunt figure and someone I could always have on my side. But she wasn't there. So I didn't have a community at home at all. And I found it at school. So it was a mixed thing. You know, the initial lurch of like, oh God, this is weird. Where are they going? But then I had a blast. I went there to, last weekend, it was my old headmaster and her mistress's memorial. And it was in a theatre that Judy Dent, she was a friend of mum and dad's, had opened. And I did a little reading at the end. And it was like walking through all these Proustian Madeleine Kate memory moments, just like wave after wave of ghosts and just trees that look the same that I did my first ever drawings of, you know, playing fields where I'd first tried to play tennis and cricket and rugby and all the rest. And just, and the classrooms had changed a lot. And the standard of artwork and stuff in the art department was off the scale. It's a beautiful, beautiful school. What's it called? Brabaltai in East Grinstead. And it was idyllic. And it was outside of London. It was this, it was giving me my love of literature and food and, not food. No, I'm saying that because I'm here. So nice to have a good memory. Literature and, oh, amazing memories. So nice that you have good memories of sports. But everything, sports, culture, music, drama. Food? Food? What did you? Not really, Ruthie, no, I said food because we're here and I can hear people probably in the background, but that'd be really disingenuous. It wasn't, I didn't go away going, God damn it, food's great. I came away going, okay, it's just something to eat to keep you going. Yeah, I mean, we had treats, but it was, you know, the roast, you know, Yorkshire pudding was something to look forward to, I guess. But you were in boarding school? I was in boarding school from eight till 18. Yeah, yeah. The whole gamut. It's nice that you have good memories. I have good memories of school. Do you? And it's kind of rare that people, I mean, maybe more, but I loved my school. And I was also, I went for the last few years, I was on a ranch in Colorado, so I didn't learn anything, but we had, it was very- You were at a ranch in Colorado? Oh my God. Yeah, that's why I'm not very bright. Oh, come on, Ruthie. But you do rarely meet somebody who says that they loved their school. So that's, you know, good. It's true. But then when would you eat well then? Would you eat, your mother would cook? So would you come home- And then badly at home as well, like McDonald's was a big treat, I'm afraid, hate to mention those words on this. Yeah, no, I'm empathetic to mothers who can't cook because they're working and have to eat out. No, it was just a treat. I mean, she really could cook, but it was like, should we have McDonald's now? No, I don't mean can't cook, but they were working. Oh, I see. She was in the theater and, but- She still managed to do it, especially at the weekends, she would, I mean, God, I remember her doing an amazing Christmas meal and then pissing off for the Boxing Day matinee at my grandmother's. It was not even her kitchen with this old oil-fueled Argo, which was just very haphazard, like, you know, read for one hour, three and a half, and even then it could suddenly shoot up and burn at the last minute. I mean, it was a nightmare. So she constantly had her face in the oven. She had me when she was quite late, she was probably going through the perimenopause as well. So just like sweating away in this kitchen, serving people who were pretty lazy and inept domestically. I loved my grandmother and my dad, but no, dad would help obviously, but yeah, it was quite an ordeal. And then she'd be the one working, you know, literally the next day. What about your father? Respect for that. Dad could do a mean grilled pork chop and to meet, you know, they meet two veg, you know, peas and potatoes, that kind of thing. And we had this little grill at home, which was also a rotisserie for chickens. I can't remember what it was called. A rotisserie probably. Like, did it turn around? No, it was a specific thing. Yeah, it was like a turn around, but it could also be a grill that had a little rotisserie thing on the side and a little small thing that would fold up. Yeah. Mum and dad gave me their old one. It was one of my heartbreaks and moving into my new flat and I left it outside whilst I was moving other stuff in. In the communal hallway, someone took it. I was like, which of these 50-odd flats have taken my grill? Yeah, maybe you can't find it. Trying to sniff out, you know, lovely grilled food. But that's important, isn't it? It's a memory. It is a memory. And so dad coped. There were quite a few sort of frozen stir fries out of packets. You know, they're the baby boomer generation that kind of went, hey, we don't have to prepare or think about the ingredients. So it took me a while to go and kind of go, oh, farmer's market, where does this come? What's the provenance of what I'm eating? Even though, you know, I was with people who could cook. I mean, especially mom. Home cooking was not done with a lavish budget. We didn't eat out a lot. You didn't. I was going to ask you about restaurants. No, I mean Garfunkel's, McDonald's. I think that, you know, one of my slightly more well-to-do friends and his family, first time I met him, had Chinese food. When was that? Golden Bowl. It's that restaurant. I don't know if it's still there near South Kensington. And there was a lazy, is it Lazy Susan? I think it turns in the middle. I didn't know what to do with myself. I was like, that's not just meat and two veg. It was amazing. And I just had, I fell in love with that idea of tastes of things, little pieces of things. It blew my mind. Did they entertain? Yes, very rarely. They were very, they are, they're still with us. What do they like? What do they disagree? Oh, well, dad's very funny. We should do a podcast with them. You should. They're much more interesting. Yeah, I think so. Can we call them up? Yeah, definitely. They sound great though. Yeah, they are. Well, mom especially is larger than life. And dad is, dad's a creature of habit when it comes to food and drink and all that sort of thing. Yeah, tea at a certain time with a biscuit. And, you know, then he'd start with either whiskey or a gin tea and then a couple of glasses of wine at dinner. It kind of structures your day. Yes. Or your week or your month. I think that was his curse from boarding school as well. Yeah. And then mom, for me, the kind of routine was the weekend cook. And I learned first of all, actually with my godmother. And it was all sort of desserts. It was meringues that were gooey in the middle and brownies. And then I remember having a tiny little Star Wars, square Star Wars pencil, this tiny little notebook, which I very diligently wrote down the recipe. Oh, do you still have it? Somewhere, yeah. Somewhere, find it. I must, I must, I must. We have a thing about notebooks here because Tom Hollander, you know, his grandmother, he has his, I think his grandmother's, is his mother's grandmother's cookbook. And a lot of people, and so did, was it Kirsten Scott Thomas? And people come in with, and it's a very beautiful thing to be handed down the memories and what you ate as a way of saying, you know, this is who we are as a family. My mom's mom did a mean stew. I don't think I've ever got any recipes from her though. I don't think I really, I really did learn from my godmother and mainly with mom actually, just helping her out in the kitchen. Interesting the way people see, you know, performance and food, isn't it? People who want to eat when they're in theater. I wonder what your mom did. She was in a matinee. It was a nightmare for food. I can't bear it because you just, you're eating, you often have friends in and then they want to go out to dinner. So you're eating at 11.30 at night or something stupid. Did you always know you wanted to act with your parents? I did. But you didn't go, they wanted you to go to university first? Or did you want to as well? They paid for a very expensive education. I think they wanted me to at least have some kind of a backup. And for a while it was the law. I mean, for a very short while, after I got some very good GCSEs, everyone was like, oh, oh, Oxbridge maybe. And then I sort of met lawyers further down the line or people who were at the bar who just went, if it's not your first choice, don't do it. You know, I turn back now, it's oversubscribed, it's peripatetic, it's precarious, you know. That sounds a lot like acting. I think I'll stick with that one. Yeah. Also my idea of the law was this very kind of romantic notion of advocating criminal law. You didn't do law, you did law. Rumpel or the Bailey stuff. No, no, I didn't. I didn't. I took humanities for my A-levels. Did you act at Manchester? I acted a lot at school and then a lot at Manchester. What did you do? I mean, we did like three productions. A ton. Was that encouraged by the university or did you all get together? No, it was very self-generated, actually. We had a bit through the drama department because I did a drama degree there. But it was mainly what we got up to in the drama societies, you know. What did you do? First thing I did was Tesman in Head of Gabler and then I did, God, what did I do? All sorts of things. I did Arturo Uri terribly. Arturo Uri? Yeah, I did it really badly. It was awful. I wasn't really, I wasn't, I didn't really have possession of the text. It was a bit hairy. But I, oh, Ricky Roman, Gary Gunn-Ross, Salieri and Mozart. I played George in Kvetch and the head, I can't remember his name, but the husband in Duriamat's The Visit and I didn't ever direct. No, no, I didn't. I'd love to. I'd love to, but there were far better people doing that at the university. I'd like to one day, yeah. Do you remember the food? At university? Yeah. Did you guys cook for yourselves or did you eat out? Yeah, we did. That was our sort of bird, you know, the burgeoning moment of attempting to cook something nice and fresh. But, you know, a lot of that was just sort of tins of something or grabbing something from, you know, the Union Cafe, endless sandwiches on the hop. I mean, the best, the most nutritious thing we'd have is a scotch egg. I think the first really grown up good meal I had would have been after my first pay packet or two and like going to the Anglesey Arms. That was a place, that was the first kind of local that I had in my life. After your first play, did you sing? That was, yes. What was that? I was Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre and then The King of Navarre in Love, Slape is Lost. And that's, yeah, I mean, that was such bliss. There's such bliss when you go, oh my God, I'm being paid to do what I love. I can start to pay the debt back to my parents. I can start to afford my rent and, you know, and then after a little bit, a mortgage and having an odd meal or two. And my local restaurant was the Anglesey Arms. I had a flat in Shepherd's Bush. Is this right here? Yeah. Yeah, Regent's Court Park and wonderful, wonderful food, wonderful kitchen there. But you're a cook, aren't you? You cook. I do cook, yeah, I love it. And you do cook for your kids. Like we were, I am right about that conversation. How old are they? They are six, eight and ten. Wow. And so what do you feed them? Well, we have a kind of, we have daddy morning pancakes on a Saturday. Oh dear, do you have a good recipe for pancakes? Yeah, yeah, it's nice. I mean, it's kind of, it's kind of traditional. It's more on the crepe side for pancakes rather than the fluffy. So I use just plain organic flour and I use, I put a little bit of vanilla essence, a little bit of cinnamon in and sometimes two or three eggs. Yeah. Milk. Amounts, do you have to do amounts? No, no, it's just a theory. No, we're not giving, they can make their own pancakes. I whip them around, I pour the milk in. And where are the kids during all this? They come down. I'm trying to marshal them into sort of taking part. So they usually fight over the fun, easy jobs like squeezing the lemons or cracking the eggs. But they can be really helpful. They can be really helpful. I've completely destroyed any sense of a line for me on a Saturday, I think forever now. Yeah, that's it. That's it, I'm up when they're up, like a weekday, no matter what Friday night. It's a nice tradition, like it's called Daddy Saturday, you know, in a way that I remember. I interview people, you know, sometimes and things that remember, remember that, you know, the way they say, oh, when I was, you know, every, every Tuesday night, my father did something or my mother did something or we went to a restaurant. Those rituals are important. Those rituals and those memories. Yeah, I have to say, I was partly inspired by, I mean, I'd already started doing it, but I thought, OK, I have to make this a continuum by Rory Kinnear, who remembers his dad doing pancakes for him. Nice. Putting on a silly French accent. I, I've got three of them and I, I, it's, I'm silly for a bit and then I get quite serious. It's just like, what's your kitchen like? Very dangerous, small people with blunt instruments. It's, it's, it's good. It's, there's too long an island in the middle. For some reason, we went for this crazy long island, which I quite like because I do a lot of prep. Everyone else who doesn't use the kitchen for cooking is like, what's this thing in the way? But I kind of like it when it doesn't have bits of, you know, debris on it. Here, you know, well, we, we really like the chefs having that time to look across at each other, to talk, to be around, you know, you can see them, they're there, they're prepping, they're talking. I'm not going to have to spy later because I'm always fascinated to see how the ergonomics of a kitchen work. It's very difficult if there's two, I'm, I'm quite, pancakes is a different deal, but if I'm doing a recipe from a recipe, I'm quite, I can't do that multitasking thing that really good cooks can do of talking, you know, getting people's drinks ready as well as chopping, preparing, frying. I get that, it's hard. I think you need to focus. And then if it's a dish I've done a lot or a one pot wonder, then I'm fine. Or a roast where you can just leave it for a bit and then get busy with the... Do you eat in the kitchen as well? Yeah, we do, we do, we do. That's the distraction as well, isn't it? When, you know, sometimes when people are there and then, do you like it when people hang around you when you're cooking? Because I don't terribly. I don't, no, I don't. And I get why they want to and it's frustrating because it's so, I'm drawn to it as well. Everyone's drawn to the heart though. I think when I know what I'm doing, when I'm really secure about it or like I say, something you can just put in to heat and cook and just you leave alone, then I'm fine with it. What are some of the other things you cook other than pancakes? I do the roast chicken or the roast whatever on a Sunday, but usually chicken. So you do the family roast? Yeah, I do the barbecues. I do the kind of dad things in the garden. Did you eat what you're filming when you're working on a film? Do you stop for breaks? Do you have a special diet that you go on? It depends what job. Yeah, I mean, if I'm doing a sort of high volume of exercise, I'm pumped for something like the Marvel films. It's Dr. Strange. You know, you got all that garb on. You need that strength anyway to hold your posture, to have core strength, to be strong in the harnesses or the fight scenes and the flying. Tell me more about that. It's great fun. I love it. I love body transformation in my job. I think it's part of the kind of what a thing to do if you have the right guidance, which nowadays is pretty brilliant. The teams they put on that sort of thing. You don't have the budget. You have to do it very, very carefully. But, you know, Marvel, it's a big sandpit. So what do they do? Well, you have someone who can prescribe you what you're eating and they can cook you. We had a fantastic chef on the last Dr. Strange film. So and then suddenly you go, where's my food? Oh, well, the director and the first AD and the DOP have got in first. OK, it's fine. I'm not paying for it. So OK. But it's this amazing facility to go right. He needs to be on this many calories a day and he's to have five meals. He's to have a couple of boiled eggs between those five meals or some kind of high protein snack, cheese and crackers or almond butter and crackers, crackers, lots of crackers. And, you know, for me, the exercise is great. And the end result is is that you feel strong and you feel confident. You hold yourself better. You have a stamina through the exercise and the food that makes you last through the gig. But it is horrific. I don't like it personally. I think it's horrific eating beyond your appetite. It's really. And again, going back to responsibility and resourcefulness and sustainability, it's just like, what are we? What am I doing? I could feed a family with the amount I'm eating. It's a grossly wasteful industry. So you may think about set bills that aren't recycled, think about transport, think about food, think about housing, but also light and energy, the amount of wattage you need to sort of create daylight and consistent light in a studio environment. It's a lot of energy. So, you know, first people to stick their head above the parapet to talk about anything to do with climate and excessive use of things or hypocrisy or systems that don't work get slammed if they're actors because they're ferried about. Yeah, I see, it's not right for you. Yeah, and actually it is a systemic thing. But as a producer, I'm really hot on that. And we try to push the green and I try to push the green initiative, the green handshake into every agreement I can. Yeah. Whether it's just a gentlemanly discussion about can we can we not have any single use plastic? Really, I think we're beyond that. People have water bottles now they can bring in. You can have an urn. You can have a tap. That's a good source of water. You don't have to give the crew plastic bottles. If you're in the middle of a desert and you can't get glass bottles there. Fair enough. But we're in the 21st century. My last question of this really beautiful interview and thank you for coming here. We could talk for ages and we will is to ask you if you had to have a comfort food. Is there one that you would reach for when you need that? Kale. Sort of shocked in a pan. Yeah. With a bit of olive oil. Yeah. And then lemon juice and some chili flakes and then a tiny bit of water just to steam it to sort of so the flavors locked in by the quick heat and then cook through a little bit more thoroughly but not soggy. I crave that vegetable. I really do. If it's flavored well. It's a great, yeah, cavolo nero and kale. Cavolo nero is my favorite. Do you love cavolo nero? I prefer that to kale. Yeah. Okay. We will give you both when you come in next. Thank you, Ben. Thank you. So welcome. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in partnership with Montclair.