0:00:19 > 0:00:21Hello and welcome to 'My Life In Books',
0:00:21 > 0:00:24a chance for our guests to talk about their favourite reads
0:00:24 > 0:00:26and why they're important.
0:00:26 > 0:00:29My first guest tonight is British actress Natascha McElhone.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33She's come a long way since her first appearance in Shakespeare in the Park.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36She's now an international star,
0:00:36 > 0:00:39playing alongside the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt
0:00:39 > 0:00:40and Robert De Niro.
0:00:40 > 0:00:43With Natascha is broadcaster Chris Hollins,
0:00:43 > 0:00:47who hasn't appeared with George Clooney, Brad Pitt or Robert De Niro,
0:00:47 > 0:00:50but does appear with me on Watchdog, which is obviously just as good!
0:00:50 > 0:00:52Thank you both for being here.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55APPLAUSE
0:00:57 > 0:01:02I realise that you're both children of the '70s. You're both '71 babies.
0:01:02 > 0:01:08- Yes.- Brought up quite differently. You grew up in Brighton, didn't you?- Yes.- Why Brighton?
0:01:08 > 0:01:14I think because my stepfather went as a mature student to Sussex University.
0:01:14 > 0:01:19Quite odd, having a stepdad a student, was it?
0:01:19 > 0:01:24- They were really young anyway. - Was he a sort of protesting student?
0:01:24 > 0:01:27Very much so. Very political, very active.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30I spent lots of my childhood on shoulders
0:01:30 > 0:01:34waving banners of 'Thatcher Out!' or 'Troops Out!'
0:01:34 > 0:01:39- Meanwhile, you were in leafy Kent.- I was in leafy Kent. Suburbia, really.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42My parents, again, it amazes me now how young they were.
0:01:42 > 0:01:4522 and 20, when they got married.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50I popped along when they were 24 and 22 and a half.
0:01:50 > 0:01:55In Kent, was there a banner saying 'Thatcher In' or 'Good Luck To Thatcher'?
0:01:55 > 0:01:57We were very nouveau riche.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01My dad was very upset with the amount of tax he was paying in the early '70s,
0:02:01 > 0:02:03so he was very much Conservative.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06A complete contrast of upbringing, I suppose.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09Let's have a look at dad, who, of course, by the time you were born,
0:02:09 > 0:02:12was already a famous footballer, wasn't he?
0:02:12 > 0:02:18Yes. He made his debut in 1962. I think that's about '77 or '78.
0:02:18 > 0:02:23But as you can see... I mean, that's just my life, really. Really happy.
0:02:23 > 0:02:25I was quite a simple kid.
0:02:25 > 0:02:29I just wanted to go out, get muddy, play football, and come home and have dinner.
0:02:29 > 0:02:32We had a great time. It was a great time.
0:02:32 > 0:02:37Your mother, had the term been termed by then, she was a WAG, wasn't she?
0:02:37 > 0:02:42Yes. It's a good job she's not here, because no-one ever calls her a WAG.
0:02:42 > 0:02:45Mum is a very strong, independent woman.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48She just so happened to marry my dad.
0:02:48 > 0:02:52Still regretting it, obviously, some 40 or 50 years later!
0:02:52 > 0:02:56But Dad was not a footballer. He didn't come home in a Bentley.
0:02:56 > 0:02:57He came home in a Mini.
0:02:57 > 0:03:02He was on the Tube, he was on the train. He made a mess at home. He got a rollicking from Mum.
0:03:02 > 0:03:06So it was a very normal upbringing. Really, really normal.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10And your mother, a journalist, was also a strong woman.
0:03:10 > 0:03:15- And also is a strong woman.- Yeah. - Oh, look! There you are as a baby.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19This is my mum's attempt... When I said I was coming to do your show,
0:03:19 > 0:03:23and I said, I've got nothing to talk about, books as a child,
0:03:23 > 0:03:25because I didn't pick one up. I have no idea.
0:03:25 > 0:03:30She said, "I found a picture of you holding one. Maybe they'll believe it." So, yeah.
0:03:30 > 0:03:35If you didn't read, when did you get interested in books?
0:03:35 > 0:03:40- I really didn't read until I was about 13.- In protest?
0:03:40 > 0:03:42Shocking, isn't it?
0:03:42 > 0:03:46I think I was always banished to my room with the order of,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49"Go and read a book and be quiet for two minutes."
0:03:49 > 0:03:52I didn't shut up.
0:03:52 > 0:03:57I was constantly popping out from behind the sofa with a play that I'd tried to write.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00I was trying to get people's attention all the time.
0:04:00 > 0:04:04My poor parents were trying to study and write and make careers.
0:04:04 > 0:04:06I was a nuisance.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09And your first choice is 'Rebecca' by Daphne Du Maurier.
0:04:09 > 0:04:12Was this something your mother thrust into your hands?
0:04:12 > 0:04:16Yeah, she did. It had a huge impact on me.
0:04:16 > 0:04:17I absolutely loved it,
0:04:17 > 0:04:20because I think what I'd missed about books was,
0:04:20 > 0:04:25I'd always thought it was this very sedentary, rather solitary activity.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28That everything stopped and you had to read a book.
0:04:28 > 0:04:33With 'Rebecca', it was akin to all the fantasies I'd been coming up with myself anyway.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37So for the first time, those two things met.
0:04:37 > 0:04:39My imagination and reading.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42Just remind us of the story.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45She's a companion, what's known as a companion, I think,
0:04:45 > 0:04:48in the South of France or Monaco or somewhere.
0:04:48 > 0:04:53She meets this man who's much older than her and looks slightly troubled and very debonair.
0:04:53 > 0:04:58She desperately wants to penetrate and understand him and, of course, he's unavailable and won't.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01But one day, he sort of says,
0:05:01 > 0:05:06"I want you to marry me and come back to Manderley and live."
0:05:06 > 0:05:09And, of course, she does.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13Then the whole story unfolds where his dark secret is he had another wife
0:05:13 > 0:05:17and did she commit suicide, or he was accused of the murder? And so forth.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21Did you subsequently see a film, one of the 'Rebecca' films?
0:05:21 > 0:05:24- Were you disappointed seeing it? - Not the Joan...
0:05:24 > 0:05:28- Is it Joan Fontaine?- Yeah. - And Laurence Olivier. I loved it.
0:05:28 > 0:05:31In fact, at drama school, we had to do these radio plays
0:05:31 > 0:05:33and I chose an extract from 'Rebecca'
0:05:33 > 0:05:38so that I could "talk like that and ask him if he loved me."
0:05:38 > 0:05:42Why did they speak like that? Was it just the era?
0:05:42 > 0:05:45- I still try to at home!- Do you?- Yeah.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49Meanwhile, back in intellectual Kent...
0:05:49 > 0:05:51I'm going to be so embarrassed.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54Wonderful imagery, and I'm just about to bring out my first book.
0:05:54 > 0:05:59- It's got a short title, hasn't it? - Yes.- It's called 'The Shoot! Annual'.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02It's called 'The Shoot! Annual'.
0:06:02 > 0:06:03Like most boys, I would probably
0:06:03 > 0:06:06have driven you mad if we'd lived in the same house.
0:06:06 > 0:06:10I was like, "Let's go out, get muddy and run around and get on a bike."
0:06:10 > 0:06:14You were much younger when you read this than when I read that.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16- This is 1975, so I'm about four. - You were little.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20If you play sport, your grandma, your grandad, your uncles
0:06:20 > 0:06:23and your aunts, your best friends, all buy you a sports book.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27'Shoot!' was the big football annual. This one is... It's amazing.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31If I pick this up and smell it and see the photographs,
0:06:31 > 0:06:34I'm straight back in my bedroom at home, you know,
0:06:34 > 0:06:37just waiting for dinner.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40Mum's making dinner. I flick through the pages.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43The amazing thing for me is when I flick through these books,
0:06:43 > 0:06:47there's Kevin Keegan, there's Franz Beckenbauer, oh, look, there's Dad!
0:06:47 > 0:06:50And here it is. Page whatever it is,
0:06:50 > 0:06:53there's a picture of Dad and his massive '70s haircut.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57I bet he wishes he had that now, that thickness. But that's Dad.
0:06:57 > 0:07:02- Mum, that's Dad! - And he played in the Premier League.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05Yes. It was obviously the First Division then. He played...
0:07:05 > 0:07:08Did you know that, Natascha? That it was then the First Division?
0:07:08 > 0:07:12- Of course! Yes!- I think he made his debut at 16 in 1962.
0:07:12 > 0:07:17Sorry if I've got that wrong. And he played until 1986, something like that.
0:07:17 > 0:07:19So 23 or 24 years in the top division.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23He obviously had a very expensive son and daughter that he had to look after!
0:07:23 > 0:07:29- So that's him. He's just scored a goal there.- Who's he playing for?
0:07:29 > 0:07:32He's playing for Chelsea. I think that's in the early '60s.
0:07:32 > 0:07:37What's lovely now, whenever I walk down the street, I get,
0:07:37 > 0:07:41"You're off the telly. You did that dancing. Send my love to Annie."
0:07:41 > 0:07:44Or they say, "Your dad was a great footballer."
0:07:44 > 0:07:48It fills me with a lot of pride. It's good.
0:07:48 > 0:07:54- Natascha, you were at school in Brighton. Were you a scholar?- No!
0:07:55 > 0:08:01No, far from it. Hence the, you know, not reading a book until I was 13.
0:08:01 > 0:08:05- What did you want to do?- Act.- You did?- Yeah.- From a very early age?
0:08:05 > 0:08:10From when I was three, apparently. So my mum tells me.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14You did get to drama school. Was that with your parents' consent?
0:08:14 > 0:08:16Absolutely. They were very supportive.
0:08:16 > 0:08:20I mean, anything, I think. Just contain her.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24But you had begun to get serious, because your second choice of book, tell us about it.
0:08:24 > 0:08:27It is quite serious for a teenager, isn't it?
0:08:27 > 0:08:30Isn't that what teenage years are about?
0:08:30 > 0:08:33I was more serious then than I am now.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36Yes, 'De Profundis' by Oscar Wilde.
0:08:36 > 0:08:39I went through a massive Oscar Wilde phase. Obsessed.
0:08:39 > 0:08:44- I used to dress like him.- Really? - Yes, with the tailcoats, and I...
0:08:44 > 0:08:47Yeah, very pretentious.
0:08:47 > 0:08:53And this is 'De Profundis', which is a 50,000-word letter he wrote once he was in jail.
0:08:53 > 0:09:00Yes, that's right. After two years of waiting for a letter from Bosie...
0:09:00 > 0:09:02Which is the reason...
0:09:02 > 0:09:06..which was the reason he was in jail, he had received nothing.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10Then he received a letter asking him permission
0:09:10 > 0:09:14for Bosie to sort of print personal letters that he'd written to him.
0:09:14 > 0:09:18I suppose to raise some money, because he used a lot of his money
0:09:18 > 0:09:21and he was no longer providing for him.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23This is really a letter back,
0:09:23 > 0:09:28essentially saying, have you learnt nothing through all of this?
0:09:28 > 0:09:31Do you have any idea what it's been like in here?
0:09:31 > 0:09:35And also, I suppose, just talking about suffering,
0:09:35 > 0:09:39but also about how the suffering wasn't for nothing in end.
0:09:39 > 0:09:41At first, he thought it might be.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44And that he'd taken his genius for granted,
0:09:44 > 0:09:49that he'd squandered it on people like Bosie and he wished he hadn't.
0:09:49 > 0:09:51But having done that, he'd learnt so much
0:09:51 > 0:09:56and the thing he learnt most was, he discovered humility.
0:09:58 > 0:10:02It was a journey, a spiritual journey. It's very moving.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05- You're going to read a small passage.- Yes.
0:10:05 > 0:10:09Just after talking about how he'd been a spendthrift of his own genius,
0:10:09 > 0:10:12and had grown careless of other people's lives
0:10:12 > 0:10:16and had lived this life of indulgence, he then went on to say,
0:10:16 > 0:10:19"Now I find hidden away in my nature something that tells me
0:10:19 > 0:10:24"that nothing in the world is meaningless, and suffering least of all.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27"That something hidden away in my nature like a treasure
0:10:27 > 0:10:29"in a field is humility.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31"It's the last thing left in me and the best.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34"The ultimate discovery at which I have arrived.
0:10:34 > 0:10:36"The starting point for a fresh development.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39"It has come to me right out of my self,
0:10:39 > 0:10:42"so that I know that it has come at the proper time.
0:10:42 > 0:10:44"It could not have come before or later.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47"Had anyone told me of it, I would have rejected it.
0:10:47 > 0:10:49"Had it been brought to me, I would have refused it.
0:10:49 > 0:10:52"As I found it, I want to keep it. I must do so.
0:10:52 > 0:10:58"It is the one thing that has in it the elements of life. A new life.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00"A Vita Nuova for me."
0:11:00 > 0:11:06Just after that, he also says the two gracious things that happened.
0:11:06 > 0:11:08Here, he says,
0:11:08 > 0:11:12"I want to get to the point when I shall be able to say quite simply
0:11:12 > 0:11:16"and without affectation that the two great turning points of my life
0:11:16 > 0:11:20"were when my father sent me to Oxford and when society sent me to prison."
0:11:23 > 0:11:25- Back in Kent...- Back in Kent!
0:11:25 > 0:11:30I notice you didn't ask me to read an extract from Shoot!
0:11:30 > 0:11:34You could have done, Chris, if you'd wished to.
0:11:34 > 0:11:38- "The ball went into the net!" - But I love your next choice.
0:11:38 > 0:11:45The next choice is 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 and Three Quarters' by Sue Townsend.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48- We're just celebrating 30 years. - That's right.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51I read in a newspaper that it touched lots of people's lives,
0:11:51 > 0:11:52which is really good.
0:11:52 > 0:11:54I think David Walliams was talking about,
0:11:54 > 0:11:55he read it again,
0:11:55 > 0:11:59and he picked up so many things that he'd missed in the first place.
0:11:59 > 0:12:01The reason why it meant so much to me,
0:12:01 > 0:12:04this book, I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory,
0:12:04 > 0:12:05it's Adrian Mole
0:12:05 > 0:12:06aged 13 and three quarters,
0:12:06 > 0:12:08trying to find his way through life
0:12:08 > 0:12:10and he, rather embarrassingly,
0:12:10 > 0:12:11writes everything down.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14I remember picking up this book
0:12:14 > 0:12:18and it coincided with the first time I'd ever gone to a school disco,
0:12:18 > 0:12:21and I was always a bit cocky and quite loud.
0:12:23 > 0:12:25We were at this school disco and boys were one side,
0:12:25 > 0:12:28girls on the other side, and one of the parents said,
0:12:28 > 0:12:31"Chris, you've got confidence, go and ask one of the girls to dance,
0:12:31 > 0:12:34"otherwise this is not going to be a dance."
0:12:34 > 0:12:37I walked across the dancefloor and asked this girl to dance
0:12:37 > 0:12:38and she said no!
0:12:38 > 0:12:41And I had to walk past all the way back,
0:12:41 > 0:12:43and that was the first time you get rejection,
0:12:43 > 0:12:46and suddenly you start questioning yourself,
0:12:46 > 0:12:51and then you think those pretty things with long hair, I want to know a bit more about them.
0:12:51 > 0:12:54This is exactly what was happening to Adrian Mole.
0:12:54 > 0:12:56Fantastic observations.
0:12:56 > 0:13:00Did he, were you encouraged by reading it
0:13:00 > 0:13:01to measure the size of your penis?
0:13:01 > 0:13:03LAUGHTER
0:13:03 > 0:13:08Do you know, I never thought I'd have that asked of you, Anne, on television!
0:13:08 > 0:13:12- But it's wonderful!- I didn't actually get a ruler out, as he did.
0:13:12 > 0:13:17But what does come over, it did make you feel, as a boy,
0:13:17 > 0:13:21because a boy never talks to anybody about what he's going through,
0:13:21 > 0:13:23girls tend to talk to their girl friends,
0:13:23 > 0:13:25you actually felt a bit better.
0:13:25 > 0:13:29Nothing was quite as bad as Adrian's poor life
0:13:29 > 0:13:33and that you weren't, probably, as insecure as Adrian about everything.
0:13:33 > 0:13:35Poor Adrian even had spots.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38We all had spots as teenagers, but not quite as bad as Adrian.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42- Are you going to read an extract? - Yes, he wrote a poem off to the BBC.
0:13:42 > 0:13:44I don't know whether you remember,
0:13:44 > 0:13:47but Pandora is basically the love of his life.
0:13:47 > 0:13:52- He's just split up with her. - He's just split up...again!- Pandora.
0:13:52 > 0:13:54Poor old Adrian writes on the 14th March -
0:13:54 > 0:13:56"It's a Saturday. I went out for a sad walk
0:13:56 > 0:14:00"and took Pandora's horse two pounds of cooking apples.
0:14:00 > 0:14:04"Thought of a poem about Blossom..." which is the horse.
0:14:04 > 0:14:06"..Wrote it down and when I got back to the house...
0:14:06 > 0:14:10"I wrote it down and got back to the house where I live.
0:14:10 > 0:14:12"It's Blossom by Adrian Mole aged nearly 14.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15"Little brown horse eating apples in a field,
0:14:15 > 0:14:18"Perhaps one day, my heart will be healed.
0:14:18 > 0:14:21"I stroke the places Pandora has sat.
0:14:21 > 0:14:23"Wearing her jodhpurs and riding hat.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27"Goodbye brown horse, I turn and retreat.
0:14:27 > 0:14:30"The rain and the mud are wetting my feet.
0:14:30 > 0:14:33"I've sent it to the BBC and I've marked the envelope - Urgent."
0:14:33 > 0:14:36Wonderful.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38You get lost and then suddenly you realise
0:14:38 > 0:14:40that this is through the eyes of a teenager,
0:14:40 > 0:14:43"I've sent it marked - Urgent," and it's brilliant.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45I really loved it.
0:14:45 > 0:14:49Meanwhile, Natascha, your third choice is Leo Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina'.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52What prompted this?
0:14:54 > 0:14:58There was an audition for War and Peace at the National
0:14:58 > 0:15:00and I'd gone along to try.
0:15:00 > 0:15:05I read half of it and then didn't get the part, so I abandoned it.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08I then went on to Anna Karenina.
0:15:08 > 0:15:13And I have to say, I think it's my favourite book ever.
0:15:13 > 0:15:17It's often described as the greatest novel ever written, isn't it?
0:15:17 > 0:15:20- It's just amazing. - Just remind us of the story.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23Well, it's about so many different things.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27It's about social change, a lot of my stepfather's politics
0:15:27 > 0:15:29are embedded in this book as well,
0:15:29 > 0:15:32which is why it's slightly nostalgic for me.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34It's also a terrific love story.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37There's three main characters, I suppose,
0:15:37 > 0:15:41and Levin is the male character that I really related to at that time.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44I notice in my diary, because I looked back at my diary,
0:15:44 > 0:15:49all my entries are passages about him and him trying to lead
0:15:49 > 0:15:53the most productive life he possibly could and not rest on his laurels,
0:15:53 > 0:15:56change, and the belief that you can change,
0:15:56 > 0:15:59that it's a state of mind, you're not...change is possible.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02I was obsessed with that at about that age.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06It's not so much Anna Karenina, there was something, obviously,
0:16:06 > 0:16:09you know, her fate is, right from the beginning...
0:16:09 > 0:16:12They meet at a train station and it's flagged up then,
0:16:12 > 0:16:17there's a terrible omen because someone's just thrown themselves under the train.
0:16:17 > 0:16:19So I was more fond of the male character in it.
0:16:19 > 0:16:22Do you mind a book with a deeply unhappy ending?
0:16:22 > 0:16:25- Love it!- Really?
0:16:25 > 0:16:28Your next big break, there weren't any gaps.
0:16:28 > 0:16:36- After The Park, you got this offer from James Ivory to star in... - That's right.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40..Surviving Picasso, starring yourself and Anthony Hopkins.
0:16:40 > 0:16:42What was that like?
0:16:42 > 0:16:47It was blinding, I have to say, it was the most incredible experience.
0:16:47 > 0:16:48Set in the South of France.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50You see where that picture is?
0:16:50 > 0:16:52It's a little church on top of a little hill
0:16:52 > 0:16:55in a place called Menerbes in the South of France.
0:16:55 > 0:16:57When we walked in there to film,
0:16:57 > 0:17:01I remember thinking, I'd love to get married in this church one day.
0:17:01 > 0:17:03Cut to a few years later
0:17:03 > 0:17:06and that's where I got married, at that very altar.
0:17:06 > 0:17:10- But not to Anthony Hopkins! - No, even better, you married...
0:17:10 > 0:17:12Much better!
0:17:12 > 0:17:15Well, this is wonderful, obviously!
0:17:15 > 0:17:17You married Martin...
0:17:17 > 0:17:20- Yes.- ..who was somebody you'd known
0:17:20 > 0:17:21in childhood.
0:17:21 > 0:17:24I first met him when I was about 15 or 16,
0:17:24 > 0:17:27and then we'd gone our separate ways.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31I had jobs like waitressing, or working in restaurants
0:17:31 > 0:17:34at the weekends. I wanted to have my own money.
0:17:34 > 0:17:39- By the time you re-met him, he was a doctor.- He would have been an SHO.
0:17:39 > 0:17:43He wasn't quite a surgeon, but he was still...
0:17:43 > 0:17:48The huge, massive change in your life was in 2008, wasn't it,
0:17:48 > 0:17:52when you were filming over in LA and Martin was back here
0:17:52 > 0:17:54and you got a phonecall?
0:17:54 > 0:17:57- Definitely.- That he'd died.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00- Yes, and, erm... - You were pregnant at the time.
0:18:00 > 0:18:05I was pregnant with my third son, so there's that massive change.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09I think I'd always told Martin that two's great.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13You've got a left hand and a right hand, and there's two of us, and that's a perfect square.
0:18:13 > 0:18:16He'd always bargained for a third.
0:18:16 > 0:18:18So that was one huge irony.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22He got the third, but he wasn't here to meet him, which was, of course,
0:18:22 > 0:18:26still, every day, makes me incredibly sad.
0:18:26 > 0:18:30And then, so it's a one-man band, a one-woman band.
0:18:30 > 0:18:34How do you cope with filming and the children, and being here?
0:18:34 > 0:18:37The gig that I have right now, Californication,
0:18:37 > 0:18:39has just been this gift.
0:18:39 > 0:18:45I'm eternally, eternally grateful and indebted to that company
0:18:45 > 0:18:49for giving me that job, and the audiences for watching it and keeping it going.
0:18:49 > 0:18:54I love you in it, because you're so real in it and so American.
0:18:54 > 0:18:58- Well, good.- Do you find yourself slipping back, while you're there,
0:18:58 > 0:19:01does it seem easy?
0:19:01 > 0:19:04No. No, on set, I'm mostly American, I suppose.
0:19:04 > 0:19:10Because my kids will come for lunch and I'm in the trailer.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13One time, I think, I wasn't focussing,
0:19:13 > 0:19:15the make-up artist was working on something,
0:19:15 > 0:19:18and Theo was playing chess with someone on the back of the trailer
0:19:18 > 0:19:24- and I was doing my lines with someone else and I went into my Karen voice. - Do your Karen voice, I love it.
0:19:24 > 0:19:29He leant back and said, "Why are you doing that terrible accent?
0:19:29 > 0:19:31"What is it meant to be?"
0:19:31 > 0:19:33And I felt about that big.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35He said, "Is it Australian?"
0:19:35 > 0:19:38Theo is my oldest son, by the way.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41So, yeah, out of the mouth of babes."
0:19:41 > 0:19:43- You wanted to be a footballer. - That's right.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46Throughout my youth, I always thought,
0:19:46 > 0:19:48I'm going to be a sportsman.
0:19:48 > 0:19:51Dad was a sportsman, I was really good at most things I did.
0:19:51 > 0:19:54I played professional cricket, played a bit of football.
0:19:54 > 0:19:56- You played cricket for Oxford. - I played for Oxford,
0:19:56 > 0:20:00played some England Schools' rugby. I was quite good at everything.
0:20:00 > 0:20:04Then when I reached Oxford, Durham and then Oxford,
0:20:04 > 0:20:08I suddenly started failing at cricket and I couldn't understand it.
0:20:08 > 0:20:10It was easy until...
0:20:10 > 0:20:14It took me a long time to work out that you actually
0:20:14 > 0:20:18have to work hard, and I didn't know about the work hard bit.
0:20:18 > 0:20:20I thought it was just going to happen.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23It got me into journalism, this book.
0:20:23 > 0:20:28It's 'Rich: The Life Of Richard Burton' by Melvyn Bragg.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31He wasn't happy working in films.
0:20:31 > 0:20:33He actually enjoyed working on the stage
0:20:33 > 0:20:36and he enjoyed working on radio. Radio, he really loved.
0:20:36 > 0:20:41I'm not sure he was entirely content whatever he was doing.
0:20:41 > 0:20:47No, that is the other thing you don't know as an outsider, as a film-goer.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51You don't quite work out how tortured he really was with himself,
0:20:51 > 0:20:53and how much he drank,
0:20:53 > 0:20:56and how volatile his relationship was with Elizabeth Taylor.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58My goodness.
0:20:58 > 0:21:02- That's obviously a good time! - He married her twice.
0:21:02 > 0:21:07Married her twice, but obviously, infatuated is probably the word
0:21:07 > 0:21:11with Elizabeth Taylor, but never could quite work it out.
0:21:11 > 0:21:14I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall
0:21:14 > 0:21:17for one of the rows, just to have seen it,
0:21:17 > 0:21:22and to see how they tried to resolve it, normally with diamonds, I think.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26Your final choice of book, Natascha, is not, it's very far from fact,
0:21:26 > 0:21:30it's fiction and it's fantasy.
0:21:30 > 0:21:32It's Angela Carter, the late Angela Carter,
0:21:32 > 0:21:34'Nights at the Circus'.
0:21:34 > 0:21:35Why this one?
0:21:35 > 0:21:40It's the first book that I read where I saw the film of it on my eyelids,
0:21:40 > 0:21:41if you like, as I was reading it.
0:21:41 > 0:21:47I just thought, this is so intensely visual, it's so visceral to read.
0:21:47 > 0:21:52As you read, you can almost sort of smell the room she's describing.
0:21:52 > 0:21:54Give us a rough idea about the book.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58It's about, the main character is called Feathers,
0:21:58 > 0:22:01and she was hatched out of an egg, so she says.
0:22:01 > 0:22:03She has wings.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05You never actually see the wings.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08You do see them once she's up, she's an aerialist in a circus,
0:22:08 > 0:22:10and it's about the circus.
0:22:10 > 0:22:15And a journalist comes, sort of a tabloid journalist,
0:22:15 > 0:22:20it's very contemporary as well, set in 1899, and necessarily so.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24It's about that huge change, breaking into a new century.
0:22:24 > 0:22:29But it's such a fabulous book and it's magical realism,
0:22:29 > 0:22:33I know that term's over-used, but it is absolutely that.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35You don't know what's true and what's fantasy,
0:22:35 > 0:22:38and what's in her mind and what's real, and neither does he.
0:22:38 > 0:22:42He gets sucked into this vortex and ends up falling in love with her.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44He's younger than her and quite naive.
0:22:44 > 0:22:48He thinks he's getting a scoop, he thinks he's going to sell her out
0:22:48 > 0:22:51and find the truth that she doesn't really have wings.
0:22:51 > 0:22:56Of course, instead, he becomes imbedded and can't extricate himself.
0:22:56 > 0:22:59It ends with the question, "You believed me all along, didn't you?"
0:22:59 > 0:23:03By the way, I left out, she's meant to be a virgin as well.
0:23:03 > 0:23:08- You have to have a huge imagination to appreciate this book.- Yeah.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10Yeah, that's true.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13It does, and it goes once you're in part three in Siberia,
0:23:13 > 0:23:16it's quite out there.
0:23:16 > 0:23:19You're still in Californication.
0:23:19 > 0:23:20You started it in 2006.
0:23:20 > 0:23:25Do you have a lot of time, when you're sitting in your Winnebago, reading?
0:23:25 > 0:23:29Do you know, when I'm filming something, I'm very bad at reading,
0:23:29 > 0:23:32because I feel I can't keep two stories going at once.
0:23:32 > 0:23:37- OK.- In the evenings, once I've put my kids to bed, is when I read.
0:23:37 > 0:23:42Chris, you've become a major television journalist, having failed...
0:23:42 > 0:23:44Still waiting for my Winnebago!
0:23:44 > 0:23:48Strictly Come Dancing - your mother must have been so proud.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51Mother was very embarrassed, the whole family were embarrassed.
0:23:51 > 0:23:56I'm always intrigued how often sports people do so well.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00I think the most important thing is, is that one, they're willing to train hard.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04Two, they're willing to push themselves a little bit extra,
0:24:04 > 0:24:06be it uncomfortable.
0:24:06 > 0:24:11The third thing is, when you play sport and you play it very badly,
0:24:11 > 0:24:15your team mates and the crowd let you know you're rubbish.
0:24:15 > 0:24:16There are not many people who say,
0:24:16 > 0:24:20"Bad luck, old bean, for missing that open goal."
0:24:20 > 0:24:22It's more like, "You're rubbish!"
0:24:22 > 0:24:27So when you go and see the judges and they say you were rubbish, you say, "I know. I was there."
0:24:27 > 0:24:31- But you're competitive.- You're competitive and you go back and say,
0:24:31 > 0:24:35"I know I was rubbish and I'll give it another go."
0:24:35 > 0:24:39I think that's the thing why sportsmen and women do really well.
0:24:39 > 0:24:42It brings me to your final choice, which is a really interesting book.
0:24:42 > 0:24:47It's called 'Bounce: The Myth Of Talent And The Power Of Practice'
0:24:47 > 0:24:49by Matthew Syed.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51Tell us what it's about.
0:24:51 > 0:24:52You know these people who say,
0:24:52 > 0:24:54I can't do maths, I haven't got a head for it,
0:24:54 > 0:24:58or I haven't got an eye for a ball, I'd never makes a sportsman?
0:24:58 > 0:25:02Matthew Syed, who is a former international table tennis player,
0:25:02 > 0:25:05says that's all rubbish.
0:25:05 > 0:25:08He takes a lot of theories from all over the world
0:25:08 > 0:25:13and says it's all about the amount of practice you do.
0:25:13 > 0:25:15He uses two examples which will illustrate it.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18Number one - he lived in a certain part of England
0:25:18 > 0:25:20and he went to this school.
0:25:20 > 0:25:24In a radius of 10-15 miles around his house,
0:25:24 > 0:25:27there were six or seven international table tennis players.
0:25:27 > 0:25:32Are they drinking special water? Are they having special food? No.
0:25:32 > 0:25:36The sports teacher at the school set up a table tennis club,
0:25:36 > 0:25:39so they all practised and played and played.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43The other example which really fascinates me - forgive me if I get some of the facts wrong -
0:25:43 > 0:25:48but an East German scientist said children are like sponges.
0:25:48 > 0:25:55If you just chuck them in at the deep end in a sporting activity,
0:25:55 > 0:25:58they will soak it all up and get better and better.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01He married a woman who was willing to do this experiment.
0:26:01 > 0:26:03They had three daughters.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07The parents had never played chess, knew nothing about chess,
0:26:07 > 0:26:10and even when thy were babies, they'd throw them chess pieces,
0:26:10 > 0:26:13so they'd feel knights and rooks and pawns in their hands.
0:26:13 > 0:26:15They let them play chess
0:26:15 > 0:26:18and all they did was play chess, chess, chess.
0:26:18 > 0:26:20The first daughter, the eldest,
0:26:20 > 0:26:24was the first woman to beat a Grand Master.
0:26:24 > 0:26:27The second one was the first woman to become World Champion,
0:26:27 > 0:26:31and the third daughter's the greatest female chess player that's ever lived.
0:26:31 > 0:26:35- Are they still talking to their parents?- That's the other question!
0:26:35 > 0:26:38It's not necessarily a great social experiment, but it got me thinking
0:26:38 > 0:26:43about how I approach sport and whether I would do that to any of my children.
0:26:43 > 0:26:45Would you consider doing that with your three children?
0:26:45 > 0:26:48I think they gravitate towards things they're interested in.
0:26:48 > 0:26:52If you expose them to as many things as you can, they'll gravitate towards it.
0:26:52 > 0:26:56That's the time you seize it, once they're interested. That's the hook.
0:26:56 > 0:26:58It's easier because there's no forcing.
0:26:58 > 0:27:00It does open up a big argument.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03My mum always says to my dad, "You should have pushed him.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06"He could have been a whatever, footballer, cricketer."
0:27:06 > 0:27:09But also, I always think about Maria Sharapova.
0:27:09 > 0:27:11She became World Number One in tennis,
0:27:11 > 0:27:15but she left home at 13, lived away from her mum.
0:27:15 > 0:27:17- There's a tab to be picked up. - Is that success?
0:27:17 > 0:27:21I would argue, no, not necessarily. It's too big a price to pay.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24Would you have become a great footballer
0:27:24 > 0:27:26if you'd read this book 20 years ago?
0:27:26 > 0:27:29No, it's not a proven science.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32What I would say is, I think I'd have been better equipped
0:27:32 > 0:27:36in the years you have to deal with rejection.
0:27:36 > 0:27:39I wish I'd had a bad time when I was 13
0:27:39 > 0:27:43because by the time I was 18, I'd have gone through it.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46I wouldn't have had the joy of working alongside you on Watchdog.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49- Exactly, and now life is perfect. - Of course it is.
0:27:49 > 0:27:53I can't thank you both enough. You've been terrific guests.
0:27:53 > 0:27:57Thank you very much, Natascha McElhone and Chris Hollins.
0:27:57 > 0:27:59APPLAUSE
0:28:02 > 0:28:10Just to remind you, details of this series are on the BBC website...
0:28:11 > 0:28:14You can also hear our guests read a passage
0:28:14 > 0:28:17from their favourite children's book.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20Please join me again tomorrow. Goodnight.
0:28:28 > 0:28:30Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd