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There’s something about Rosamund Pike I’ve always found a little bit unsettling. I can’t put my finger on what it is. Maybe it’s because she’s good at playing characters who are mentally disturbed, like in Gone Girl. She has a new BBC audio drama coming out with Hugh Laurie called People Who Knew Me. It’s also a fictional story about a woman who vanishes–she works in the Twin Towers and when 9/11 happens, her family presumes she’s dead, so she disappears to California and assumes a new identity. It sounds interesting. I love podcasts, and they’ve more or less replaced television for me. But the way she talks about the audio recording has me second guessing if I can tolerate it. She also had some things to say about “wellness” culture and the nonsense of Goop, which was pretty satisfying to hear from an A list star. So many of them toe the party line on “alkaline water” and cutting out this and that food group “for gut health” that it’s nice to hear someone in Rosamund’s position saying “wellness is BS.”
What attracted you to People Who Knew Me?
It’s a remarkable story and one I felt emotionally drawn to. Anyone who’s ever told a lie quickly finds that in order to support it, you have to tell another, then another. Here is a woman in her early 20s who has been lying and having an affair. At the point of the cataclysmic horror of 9/11, she has a job in the World Trade Center. She realises that everyone will assume she was at work that morning and will have died, so sees an opportunity to escape. There’s a curiosity in all of us: “What happens if I go out to get a pint of milk and don’t ever come home?” Or maybe that’s not in all of us and I’ve just exposed myself!
How was it working with your co-star, Hugh Laurie?
I was delighted when Hugh wanted to do it. He’s always been a face I’ve known and obviously House is where he perfected his brilliant American accent. On screen, you could’ve been distracted by the fact that it’s Hugh Laurie, but as a voice, you just accept it. He becomes the character. Someone’s fame doesn’t get in the way with audio.It feels naturalistic and soundscaped. How did you record it?
With head mics attached to these fetching head-bands, so we could be very free and move around. Our voices sound different in various locations – in cars, across restaurant tables, even in the bath. Technically it’s quite a leap forward from the radio dramas one might have heard growing up. You’re very much in the moment with our characters. If somebody cries, we don’t try to hide sniffles. If somebody’s eating, we hear them slurp ice-cream or bite into an apple. It’s a lot more immediate and immersive.The script includes satirical mentions of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop. Do you have much truck with wellness?
I think we’re all being conned by the wellness industry. This idea that it’s no longer enough to be healthy and we have to be “well” is something that needs to be interrogated. Yet it’s so seductive because it’s in pursuit of things that people are ashamed to want, like youth, beauty and fitness. #MeToo gave women an opportunity to escape some of the demands put on them. Now, in a way, people are voluntarily flocking back to being controlled but in a different guise, by these wellness claims. It’s politicised our food, politicised our exercise and I think it’s really dangerous.
The way she describes the audio recording, with sounds of people eating, made me nauseated. I really hate hearing eating noises from myself or other people. I think it would be very distracting. Besides which I find Hugh Laurie too smarmy, I guess. As for what she says about the wellness industry, I think she’s right. It is weird how the advent of wellness has made us say “I’m doing X behavior because it’s easier on my digestion” instead of “I’m doing X behavior to lose/maintain weight.” It’s also changed how advertisers write ads for all these different diets, detoxes, workout programs, supplements, and so on. We’ve come up with ways to hide our true motivations because striving to lose weight or look younger is a form of vanity, and Western culture has always been hard on vain women. In the Victorian era, women did things like wetting red tissue paper and using it as rouge, because actual makeup wasn’t “respectable.” They had to find clever ways to skirt that line.
To me the ‘wellness’ stuff is similar. You’re supposed to be just vain enough to be attractive in a way that is perceived as “natural”. If you try too hard, you’ll get punished for your visible effort. If you are perceived as not trying hard enough, you don’t care about “wellness” or you’ve “let yourself go”. It’s exhausting. The wellness that Gwyneth Paltrow and her fellows promote is just diet culture wearing a more chilled-out, friendly mask. Once you peel back the mask, it’s usually the same old ethos of restriction, arbitrary food rules, and really problematic concepts of purity and things being “clean”, which icks me out big time.
She’s right – I’ve been working with a registered dietician to unlearn so much of the harmful rhetoric I have absorbed around food, weight and health. My RD is anti-diet culture and is a breath of fresh air for me. It’s all about nutrients and making sure I am feeding my body the nutrients it needs for my specific health conditions (PCOS). It’s so hard to “de-program” after decades of harmful BS!
Omg me too! It’s actually infuriating how much MORE unlearning I have to do. This stuff runs deep.
Thank you, Carina, for including that you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If it looks like you’re “trying” to hard with cosmetic surgery/makeup/outfits, that’s just as bad as if you don’t to anything. Only the very few can win this war – and those are the people who are making money off of it.
Dammed if you do, especially in the eyes of some people. I was pretty shocked recently when I was make-up shamed by the guy I was dating at the time (no longer!) I’m 43 and wear tinted moisturizer, mascara, and smudge a very little VB eyeliner on my lid line.
Dude wears jeans from 20 years ago that don’t fit him properly- to which I shrugged and thought was kind of charming.
No one can win the game, wellness or beauty. It’s rigged. I do me, and have adopted a “to he’ll with it” attitude for other people’s opinions of my body and the time I spend to feel good about it…
A lovely friend of mine was totally makeup shamed by a guy she was dating when he spotted a bottle of tinted, moisturizing sunblock in her bag. He went off on a rant about how beautiful she is, so she didn’t need to use that crap, etc etc. It was a perfect example of damned if you do, when it’s nobody else’s business whether you do or don’t. The dude was 15 years younger than she was and always looked like he’d just rolled out of bed (not in a good way), but he didn’t let her life experience and fabulous style stop him from spouting unsolicited criticism.
This behaviour really makes me mad. I heard a younger man at work saying this to his new girlfriend and I mentioned to her that there is a reason that every movie I’ve ever seen about an abusive man has started with the man criticizing a woman for wearing make-up. Run if a man does this!
We actually can win. It’s about taking back control. As Pike mentioned, we are allowing ourselves to be controlled again, just in a different way, and there will always be a new way to separate women from their money, power and self-esteem. We can choose not to engage, but we do, repeatedly.
I read a really interesting book on the ‘improvery’ business, with the author by the end of it writing about how she has just opted out & is living her best life. Doggone if I can remember the title or the author’s name, though! I just remember her use of the term ‘improvery’, because it’s all part of a package aimed primarily at women & making us feel bad about ourselves in order to sell us the ‘fixes’.
It’s hard to opt out when you are younger….but then one day you wake up – generally after you turn 50 – and lo, you have zero f*cks to give about what anyone thinks. Gone are the days when I would not step outside the house without make-up. I think I have worn make up fewer than 10 times in the last year. I’m happy, I eat well and badly, my exercise is DIY, gardening, and house work, and I don’t even think about anyone who might think badly of me. Am I letting myself go – damn right I am – letting myself go free from the constraints I wish my younger self had been strong enough to throw off.
@BeanieBean & Oceangirl: I found the same impovery book, here’s a link about it, def sounds interesting https://www.karenkarbo.com/yeah-no-not-happening-how-i-found-happiness-swearing-off-self-improvement-and-saying-fck-it-all-and-how-you-can-too
I don’t agree that “If you try too hard, you’ll get punished for your visible effort” — rather, I see backlash against people who LIE about what they’re doing. The punishment is not for trying too hard, it’s for lying and pretending that it’s all-natural (“I eat cheeseburgers all day, but I lost weight because I also did yoga”; “I’ve never used Ozempic, I lost weight because I switched to non-GMO foods”; “I’ve never used botox or had a face lift, my face is thinner and tighter because I have a new moisturizer”; etc.). It’s the pretense that OTHER women need to diet and use botox, but not THEM because they are soooo genetically superior, that gets the backlash.
@BeanieBean –I googled ‘improvery’ and got a book by Karen Karbo called
“”Yeah, No. Not Happening.” Is that it? I hope you see this! If there’s a way to tag people here, I don’t know how.
As someone with an autoimmune disorder (IBD) the amount of wellness bullshit I have to endure from anyone from colleagues and acquaintances to strangers is maddening. My bowel didn’t perforate due to my microbiome, assholes! I don’t need special honey or green juice, I need extremely serious drugs. (The best thing about having a colostomy bag is that I can shot down the “gut health” woo woo to hilarious effect lol!)
That being said, I’ve never listened to a fictionalised podcast but this story sounds great!
The only fiction podcast I listen to is ‘Welcome to Night Vale’, a sort of ‘News from Lake Woebegone’ if written by Stephen King. Listen all the way to the end, through the credits, so that you can hear the week’s proverb. Oh, and I listened to a brief series called, ’14 Days with Felicity Huffman’ that came out in the wake of the Varsity Blues scandal. Hilarious!
Wellness is just code for thinness. If you restrict whole food groups because you think they are “bad” you are doing it for weight, not for health. If they would all just acknowledge that fact then things would be so much less frustrating.
I don’t know if I’m missing your tone, Kellybelle, if you mean that sarcastically, but I recommend the podcast, Maintenance Phase. It’s a really good examination of the politics of wellness, but they never shame folks for whatever eating lifestyle they’ve adopted. They just offer an examination of how certain claims developed, how science is often implicated, where the science doesn’t support certain claims, and why the pursuit of wellness is often about thinness.
“Toxin” is such a dubious term. It’s constantly shifting to mean whatever people want it to mean.
So many excellent points made here but since I havent Had my coffee yet I’ll just say that the cream jacket and pant combo is to die for and I need It immediately.
Yes! That outfit is looks.
Genuine question from someone who’s never listened to a podcast ever…..is a fictionalised podcast any different to listening to a story on the radio? And yes, I’m showing my age 😂
Not sure. It sounds like a radio play to me, just cutting out the radio part?
This is based on a book.
I’m going to guess yes, but I’ve never listened to a fictionalized series on a radio–that’s more from my mother’s time! ‘Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!’
@BeanieBean….Yes, I’m of your mother’s time 😂 and @Gigi radio plays were often based on books too!
This series is BRILLIANT. Think of it more as a serialised audiobook. Am hooked and can’t wait for the next episode. Strong recommendation.
Get a free account at BBC Sounds and hear the entire series.
The BBC did a bunch of these (radio plays). My most favourite is the version of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. It has James McAvoy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sophie Okonedo, and Natalie Dormer. It’s so good!!! I also really like Cabin Pressure (also with B. Cumberbatch written and starring John Finnemore – it’s hilarious!).
I’m an old and I live alone, so I enjoy having something to listen to while I do chores or exercise and now radio plays and podcasts fill that gap for me perfectly – my brain is engaged and I can move wherever I need to 🙂
100% with her (and the commentary and comments here) on how awful the ‘wellness’ culture and industry is.
It was the comment about disappearing from your life that I found fascinating. I have very much speculated about this at various points in my life and for various reasons so the story does sound interesting. I’m not sure if the ‘real life/chewing and all’ will be a bit much though. Worth a try.
I occasionally think about if I could carry off disappearing without getting caught. I just wouldn’t have any idea how to get a new ID so get a job, etc. It’s probably much easier than I realize, but once you look up that stuff on your computer you’ll get caught!
It’s weird, I have no problem at all carrying on a conversation at a dinner table, but listening to someone eat while talking with me on the phone just annoys the heck out of me. Not sure how I’d feel about hearing it on a podcast.
Fran Lebowitz put it well when she said she thinks wellness is “greedy”, like you should be more than normal well, you should be superhuman ultra well and in constant fitness bliss. I cannot stand the Jillian Michaels types who calculate calories (that’s not how human body works).
My understanding of wellness is that it is a more wholistic approach, that it’s not just about your physical health but your mental health & wellbeing as well.
Yes absolutely, the happy happy happy happy all the time goes with it, constantly monitoring your feelings and thoughts until it makes you go crazy.
@beaniebean, 💯, and, I absolutely disagree with Pike’s discounting the importance of one’s well-being. As someone with food issues, CD and food allergies (medically diagnosed), I have little tolerance for people that think I am just being picky or have some weird goopy-type diet (and yes I encounter them – it amazes me how some people can be so bothered by someone else’s, necessary, diet). Often when someone feels unwell it can be linked to their diet. Also, what I can eat is not what someone else may be able to eat and fare well. There is a lot of dietary information out there and it is up to the individual to investigate and pursue positive changes themselves (unless they don’t care!).
Yes, totally buying into anything completely without doing your own research is ill-advised but I don’t see why Goop gets all the hate that it does. My understanding is that it offers a smorgasbord of information/products that people can take or leave alone. I would think that some of it actually helps people; otherwise, Goop would not be doing as well as it is. There are a lot of people out there that don’t realize how crappy they feel, so I am not going to fault anyone that is actively trying to pursue the betterment of their condition, mental, emotional and physical (even if it means they frequent Goop!)
She is so beautiful but also a little scary because of the characters she’s played so well.
Agree with women have to look young and beautiful without admitting wanting to or trying to while maintaining all of it in the name of wellness. It’s perverse.
I think she’s 100% about wellness culture. It’s such a toxic way of commodifying not only thinness but happiness in general. It also fetishizes the idea that individuals can control broader socio-structural problems. Toxic.
I actually appreciate the appearance of alkaline water in that it’s great stuff when you have just a little bit of acid indigestion. It’s magic for that, anyway! Sometimes you don’t want/totally need/don’t have Tums around and baking soda water is just too salty. Anyway, in case there are any fellow heartburn people around here.
Just this morning I realized I was low on baking soda. I will pick up some alkaline water to try out. I never knew about it
I hate the term “clean eating”. There Is no such thing as dirty or clean eating.
You can eat unhealthy, but it still isn’t dirty.
That’s just another way to guilt and form distorted views about eating.
When I hear the term “dirty eating” I think of my childhood lol, especially heading into summer.
The five second rule when you drop something on the floor (as an adult I realize that is not scientifically sound or logical but as an 8 year old it was my rule to live and die from)
Drinking out of a hose that has been sitting in the dirt.
Going to a pick your own berry farm and eating more than you put in the basket (before washing them)
You know, eating when dirt is involved is dirty eating.
I still remember the taste of the water after drinking out of the garden hose. That’s one reason why I don’t really care for the hydro flask, I can taste that metal.
I often wonder if all the clean eating from my childhood is part of why I’m so sick. I have all these endocrine issues and I have to take iodine and iron supplements and vitamin D for my immune system along with my medication… I wonder if my mom making sure to protect me from anything processed, which includes fortified milk, iodized salt, and fluoride, is part of why I ended up this way.
I agree with her.
Some of the wellness ideas are over the top but, if you find something that you enjoy why not?
Goop goes way over the top IMO.
It is a huge money maker no doubt.
The wellness, beauty and the weight loss industries are all despicable. But because there is tons of money to be made, they will continue. People are allowed to self improve; it just seems like the government should regulate more. I’m kind of terrified to take supplements that may be useful because you never know what you are ingesting. The FDA needs to step up
@FHMom (and everyone, really), the podcast The Dream covers how the MLM industry convinced the FDA (under either Reagan or Bush Sr., can’t remember) to not regulate supplements. It’s rage-inducing but interesting. Season 1 is about the MLM industry and season 2 is about the wellness industry. I loved both seasons, highly recommend.
Thanks for this info. I will check it out
I’m a pharmacist and I can only recommend this: don’t buy anything labeled as a supplement. Things that are actually effective and safe have appropriate documentation and are registered as medicinal products. Magnesium, iron, vitamins B, D, folic acid etc. The rest is scam and manufacturers can do whatever they want and only declare what is in their product. There is no distribution control, so in case someone realized a batch was eg contaminated there is no process to withdraw this batch from the market. If you really want to buy a supplement, go for the one manufactured by well know Pharma company, as they often use similar processes for eg safety monitoring, but still it can be less restrictive.
There is solid research (real research) from doctors that suggest that very, very few supplements provide any health benefits at all. If I remember correctly, B12, D, folic acid and iron if you are deficient are on that short list. If you are fortunate to have a good doctor I would start there. I also find the Mayo Clinic site to be pretty useful. If the provider of the supplement is the one touting the research or benefits, steer clear.
As someone who is Coeliac, um yeah, paying attention to my “gut health” is kind of the point. I welcome the increased understanding of the gut, HOWEVER, wellness culture has taken specific medical issues and treatments and said they apply to everyone, and in the exact same way. You wouldn’t take diabetes medication, if you weren’t diabetic. Oh wait…
One doesn’t need to look at Gwyneth Paltrow and her emaciated frame, her bad skin and her brittle hair to see that this woman is the absolute opposite of “wellness.”
It’s hard for me to look at her and imagine that she finds any enjoyment or pleasure in life-even the glass of wine that she’ll flagellate herself for later-with all of her rules, restrictions and deprivations.
I’ve had a crush on Rosamund since Die Another Day. She is at her best, and to me her sexiest, when she plays dark amoral characters. She just has the look and aoura for them.
I’ve watched videos about sound engineers and it is fascinating how it all works.
And totally with her on the wellness craze. But then again, with her face, she can say that.
I love your post/writing Carina! I love what Rosemund says here she is right that we’re all being fed a bunch of BS and it’s just another way to guilt and control women, restrict our calories/food intake so we’re all bitchy and at each other’s throats while the patriarchy smashes us. And at the heart of it is vanity and the pursuit of the fountain of youth/thinness. We’re all going to age! We should just embrace that.
For me I am making sure I eat a certain amount of fruit and veggies every day and drinking plenty of water. Common sense stuff. The only thing I can’t give up is coffee (I put probably too much sugar in my coffee). Alcohol I do in moderation and when I drink it it’s usually red wine. Dark chocolate. I cook most of my own food – I am really in my groove with cooking and you discover so much through making a meal from start to finish. It also gives you an appreciation of other cultures, smelling and tasting their spices and it’s helped me get over my fear of trying new things.
I make Puerto Rican beef, Moroccan chicken, Japanese fried chicken, lasagna, African vegetarian stew, and I’m trying Peruvian chicken this week. It’s been so fun. My son loves trying all the new food. Ladies, when we don’t eat we deprive ourselves of so much joy. Reminds me of an old film I once saw called Like Water for Chocolate. All about the seduction of food and the emotions that great food elicits. Great film. Anyway, besides this site Houzz (for decorating ideas) and Allrecipes are my go to places.
I really enjoy her as an actress, she is so deliciously evil in I Care a Lot. She sends chills down my spine. I can’t wait to see this next one. The plot sounds awesome.
I love Rosamund. And her comments are spot on. What a deal for Goop et al., making money off others by acting superior and shilling overpriced “wellness” crap
I appreciate the fact that she doesn’t have massive plump lips, or shockingly long eyelash extensions. Thank you Rosamund for looking like yourself!
The wellness Industry also has a way of villainizing non-western foods, if it’s not from the Western world then it’s seen as unhealthy. Until some non-western food/drink is popularized and health benefits are known then it gets whitewashed. Then all of the traditional and cultural aspects of it, what made it healthy, to begin with, are erased and get a white face and become a product of thinness, wealth, and exclusion.
The eating noises. No way in the world that I’m listening to this. There was someone loudly biting into an apple at a meeting several years ago and I still can hear it. I wanted to throttle her.
hopefully they will be mixed a a much lower level than the dialog. That’s usually how this kind of sound (which is known as Foley) works.
“This idea that it’s no longer enough to be healthy and we have to be “well” is something that needs to be interrogated.”
I never really thought about the inherit ableism in that attitude, probably because I’m privileged enough to be fairly healthy. The wellness industry’s end goal is to make people who struggle with physical limitations or mental illness feel defective or *less than* all for the sake of massive profit. But yeah, she makes some great points here…
My brother lived and worked in LA as a sitcom/dramedy writer and exec producer for 30 years. He once told me it was exhausting to live in an environment in which everyone had to be “on” 24/7 and subscribe to the wellness culture surrounding the industry. (We were raised in the Deep South and Midwest, so “wellness” was a magical thing we aspired to, but didn’t see much on a regular basis).
He did all the right things, including “woo-woo” health treatments even he thought were a little out there, and still died of sudden cardiac failure at 52 in 2018 (before Covid, lest anyone try to pin this on Covid or the vax). No rhyme or reason. His autopsy showed he was otherwise healthier than most people his age (including his heart health), but something that day caused his potassium to plummet, which caused the fatal v-fib.
His random death, despite all his attempts to follow the unrealistic wellness industry adherents, was a real wake-up call for many of his closest friends in the biz, as well as his wife (who is also in the tv industry and felt the same pressures he did).
So sorry for your loss @JustChelle. I had a friend who got caught up in some crazy diet. I think she was actually dealing with an ED like ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) as she lost a lot of weight even though she was not at all overweight. One day she was out on a long bike ride with her husband and passed out cold. She got rushed to the hospital and had sun stroke but her blood test results showed she was suffering from malnutrition. A year or so later she fell down the stairs, broke pretty much every bone in her body due to osteoporosis and died. Another victim of the *wellness* fad.
Potassium is super important for all muscle movement. I have a weird health condition that sometimes causes me not to be able to eat enough in a day so I take supplements on those days, but much prefer to get it from avocados and bananas.
I’m glad she took a shot at Goop, promoter of every silly *wellness* fad she can. Keto diets are inherently unhealthy — yes you’ll lose weight but it can cause low blood pressure, kidney stones, constipation, nutrient deficiencies and an increased risk of heart disease. The paleo diet can increase cholesterol, especially the less healthy LDL cholesterol, which could increase the risk of heart disease. Our bodies NEED complex carbohydrates, they raise blood glucose levels for longer periods of time and produce a more lasting elevation in energy. Many so-called cures for a variety of diseases using supplements can actually be dangerously toxic. I look at Goop and I see an unnaturally thin, dried up woman with bad hair who is clearly using vitamin infusions, weird food restrictions and supplements to make up for not eating a robust diet. And don’t get me started on her wacko exercise/calorie intake guru Tracy Anderson.
No, keto is not unhealthy. You can even be a vegetarian.
I prefer to believe in medical science that is fact-based. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/should-you-try-the-keto-diet
https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/health-and-wellness-articles/ketogenic-diet-what-are-the-risks#:~:text=The%20keto%20diet%20could%20cause,%2C%20liver%2C%20thyroid%20or%20gallbladder.
Every health marker my husband had was improved hugely by well formed keto. He had a lot of health issues, completely reversed including T2 diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity and a few other issues including arthritis. Our gp does keto now as well. Our medical friends now do keto.
I’m glad to hear your husband had such a good outcome, Old Chick. I’m sure it’s indicated in some medical circumstances but most people I see doing it have gained weight and were not fighting diabetes. I do not trust it. Especially not solely for weight loss.
She’s so right.
She’s absolutely right. These wellness gurus offer nothing but overpriced useless & medically unsupported remedies for gullible fragile customers. I mean who wouldn’t want to live forever?!! It’s a scam in most cases that perpetuates the same self loathing cycle that old era magazines/beauty makers, film producers..et used to
She’s also in an industry that’s predicated on getting you to need something outside of yourself to feel complete, whole, or improved.
That’s our economic system for you; that’s consumerism.
As an actor, she has to sell a message for every film or media product she’s part of. She knows the deal; she’s right in it herself.
The health industry comes with other concerns though. It’s often (e.g., false claims about health impacts) more highly regulated than something like streaming services, which is also potentially damaging to one’s health.
As for health, we all know what we need to do: live less stressful lives, move more, eat less, eat more whole foods, etc.
Someone said about wellness -ask yourself- if it makes you healthier – mentally, emotionally – but meant you gained weight, would you keep doing it?
And that’s how you know if it’s wellness or a diet.
My friend and I both lose weight when stressed, but recover it in our face, belly, eyes brightening after, but the first state is the only one that gets praised.