Hello. How are you doing today?
Good, thanks.
How are you? Yeah, good. Thank you.
I'm still nice and warm from watching your very lovely, incredible film.
Oh, it's nice to hear.
Congratulations.
It's such an incredible story.
And I didn't know anything about Clarice Cliff.
So I was wondering what drew you to the project, I guess.
So I knew of Clarice Cliff because my parents sort of
were obsessed with her work, but I didn't know much about her life, really.
I just knew her work, so I was fascinated by, you know, what
she was able to achieve and and she was such a pioneer and she was so,
you know, she really did things that no one else had done before.
And I think the mixture of that and coming from,
you know, a northern background and where her roots were, I just
I just thought the story was was one that sort of needed to be told.
Yeah. Likewise, I knew her work.
I knew her pottery and sort of cups and saucers and stuff,
but I didn't know anything about her.
And then I googled her once the project came along
and I was amazed by what she had achieved, really.
And the place she'd come from, you know, the fact that she was a working
class girl and revolutionized an industry.
And also the attraction for me was that industry in Britain,
you know, we hear a lot about coal mining and milling
and stuff like that, but the Potteries sort of fascinated me as well.
They were not a forgotten industry, but they were an industry
I thought we hadn't focused on creatively in the past.
Absolutely.
I was amazed with the pottery in the factories,
and I like the production line.
How much did you guys get to research the ceramics and play
and kind of get into like the groove of pottery and ceramics?
We had a day where we got to go to the Potteries and sort of
we had a tour of the...
It was the Wedgwood factory.
Yeah, of course, the Wedgwood factory.
We got to sort of experiment and have a look and see... You threw some pottery
Yes. There's a great video of which I promised not to show.
There was a bit like the generation game, but it was great to do it, wasn't it?
Yeah, it was. I mean, even just to see how they work.
I mean, obviously a lot's changed since the 1920s or whatever in terms
of in terms of making pottery, but there is still a lot of feeling of,
I guess, that, you know, coming together to to make these pots, you know,
with all the processes of it from and the skill, I mean, the real artistic skill,
you know , it is an industry, so people would be on a conveyor belt,
sort of, you know, that's a production line.
But certainly the painting of it was such a skillful art
and needing to
sort of recreate it over and over and over again.
That was something that I really got a sense of.
at the Wedgwood factory.
But the research was very hands on.
I witnessed Phoebe being very hands on, and that was fun.
Absolutely.
And just Phoebe talking about.
I love her as a figurehead because she's so happy go lucky and optimistic.
Yes. OK, so how did you find her character
and bringing that kind of life because she brings
life to the film immediately and to let people around her?
Yeah, I mean, I loved playing Clarice because this there's such an
I mean, she's very unaware of herself, which is really lovely
to play as an actor.
Like, there's no awareness of her.
But but outside, you know her eye for things.
And also, just like there was such an optimism about her in such a. A
vision that I always find it
remarkable when people haven't had someone to look up to, right?
There was no role model
that was doing what she was doing and yet and yet she was doing it anyway.
And while from the film, I don't know whether this was true or not,
but it sort of seemed like she always knew
what she was going to do and what she wanted to do. And
going back to being at Wedgwood, seeing the
the skill, you know, a lot of the people, whether it's
whether they're painting or.
Of molding or whatever that they've learned
that specific skill for so long, and they're so good at it
and they can sort of do it with their eyes closed.
I mean, an incredible skill and the fact that Clarice
was sort of able to do everything, she learned a bit of everything.
So she really, you know, no one else was doing that.
Every every other,
every woman, particularly, they had one skill
and they did that for their whole lives. And that was it.
So, you know, it was I found that really remarkable about her,
that she sort of learned everything.
She had such a vision
also that she came from a background where they had to earn money.
You know, she she took great risks because she could have
had to stay on the breadline.. on the production line in order to bring money
into the household.
But she really took risks to sort of push that and say I was so amazed by her.
Absolutely, and I do love the
relationship that you guys have in the film with Fred
because there's some sort of a mentorship, but he's still stuck
in his kind of traditional ways.
But then she takes some kind of hidden passion out of that wonderful scene
where he shows at the scrapbook.
So how did you develop that relationship?
Well, that was all in the script, really.
But also when we both did our research, you saw that there was
she had great respect for him, had great respect in the industry himself,
but he really was a Victorian man and I think he was frightened.
She brings a revolution to the factory.
She brings a revolution to the industry
and the world, and he's both excited and frightened of.
But I have a really lovely Clarice quote that I really wanted to end on,
and because she's so incredible and happy, happy go lucky.
Like I said before, and she has a really good mantra of having a little fun at work
does not make me any less of an artist, and people who appreciate truly beautiful
and original creations of poetry are not frightened by individual foolery.
So I was wondering if she had any anecdotes
to any fun that you bring to your work or tomfoolery that you bring to your work?
Oh, well, I firstly really love that first quote,
and I wrote that on the first page of my script
because I think it was such a telling vision of how Clarice works.
She also eventually put radios.
I I mean, I think it wasn't called a radio back then.
It was called something else.
But she played music
for all the women when they were working, and I just I love that about her.
She really was like a happy go lucky woman.
But we had a lot of fun.
We did have a lot of fun and you can see that in her work, though, her work is
so vibrant and fun and Fred, for all.
His genius is very stuffy.
You know he he wants it as it keep the painting in the lines.
He didn't like seeing the brushstrokes, you know, but
she really just knocks down those walls with her energy.
Her other genius, of course, is how she sells the product.
Like you were saying before, how she takes it to women.
She gets rid of the middleman.
She just blows the cobwebs out of all of that place,
and that's her fun and serious energy that she brings.
Mm-Hmm.
Absolutely.
And I'm hoping that I get away from this film bringing that energy
into their lives because it's such a good heart warming lesson to learn.
And it's been such a pleasure to talk to you guys today about it.
And good luck with the movie in the release,
and I hope you have a lovely day.
Thank you very much. Bye.