(upbeat music)
(applause)
- Ooh, Can I tell you, I just wrapped a movie with JLo.
What?
JLo? Excuse me. She is a beautiful. Are you kidding me?
She is. I couldn't stop staring at her.
And I was like, oh my line.
She's like a athlete that can dance
as a business woman in a tank top.
I say yes you go with your good knees and edges JLo.
The hardest part of working with Jlo
is pretending that I didn't know everything about her.
(laughter)
I know everything about JLo.
For example, I know that we have the same birthday.
Yes. July 24th.
But I didn't want to tell her the first day
because you can't.
I don't want to be the creepy girl on the set.
You know what I mean?
But there's always somebody at the office
that's into astrology. You know who you are.
Always worried about the sun and the moon.
Never your taxes.
So we have one of those (bleep) on set.
I said, okay.
I'm going to wait for my moment.
And sure enough, three weeks later,
He goes, "Ah, you and Jen have the same face,
because you're both Leos."
I said, Oh,
this is my moment.
So, I said, Jen, You're a Leo?
(laughter)
She said, "Yes."
I said, "Jen, I'm a Leo."
She said, "Stop."
I said, "I will not."
That's so crazy.
I said, "Jen, when's your birthday?"
Yo, I was so good at this Meryl Streep will be like,
give that (bleep) here an Oscar. Okay.
Let's give, the (bleep), the Oscar.
So, I said, "Jen, my birthday is July 24th too."
She said, "No."
I said, "Yes."
She said your birthday is July, 24th?
I said my, isn't that crazy?
She said, no one has my birthday.
I said, I know it's so special.
I said, Jen, we should have a joint birthday party.
(laughter)
And then she walked away.
(laughter)
Didn't talked to me for like three hours.
That's okay. She came back.
You know, I got big (bleep), freckles, big hair,
it's friendly. People are like, let's talk to it.
(laughter)
Truth.
(laughter)
So she came back and she wanted to like spill the tea.
You know? She was like, oh man, have you ever dated a Leo?
I said, where are we going with this Jen?
(laughter)
I said, where we going?
She's like, no, have you ever dated a Leo?
Because they're like, you know, so difficult.
I said, oh honey, I done (bleep) the whole Zodiac calendar.
(laughter)
No one plays the Lotto once. You know what I mean?
(laughter)
You don't learn how to ride a bike the first time.
(laughter)
I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, all that.
And she's like, ah,
I was engaged to a Leo.
And I was like, really?
(laughter)
That's so crazy.
(laughter)
Yeah. She's like, it wasn't the easiest with Ben.
I said Ben who?
(laughter)
Benjamin Button?
(laughter)
Benjamin Franklin? Who the man?
(laughter)
And she's like, I'm so happy now though.
Because I'm engaged to a Leo, but he's great.
He's an athlete. He's Dominican.
I said, oh, that sounds spicy.
(laughter)
- Violet loves Anna Kendrick. Do you like Anna Kendrick too?
Oh my gosh. She's such a wonderful role model for children.
She's really funny online. She's a great actress.
Great singer. Multi-talented, really spicy.
And when Violet told me that was her first celebrity crush,
I was very happy to like take her to all the movies
and all this stuff.
And then one day she says to me, Mommy, Mommy,
Anna Kendrick's going to be in London.
Please, can I meet Anna Kendrick?
And I was like, no.
(laughter)
She says, well, why not, Mommy? You're on television.
I was like, yeah, I can get you in the audience of bake-off.
That's about it.
(laughter)
And she goes, please, we will just ask someone.
And so I spoke to my manager, who as it turns out,
knows Anna Kendrick's manager.
And he said, okay, I cannot promise you a meeting,
but I'll tell you where they're doing the press day
for the movie.
And if you go to the London hotel,
you might catch a glimpse of her.
But if you do, the child has to remain calm.
(laughter)
They've been traveling a lot. They don't want a fuss.
I said, don't worry. This child's very fancy.
(laughter)
And so we went to the hotel
and I got us spy outfits,
little spy, hats, little magnifying glasses.
Oh yeah. To stalk the woman.
(laughter)
No, just because I knew
we probably weren't going to meet her
and I wanted to make it fun.
If I'm running out of time to do anything
it's to hang out with my child
while she still thinks I'm cool.
And we went down to the dinner in the hotel
and we thought, oh, is Anna Kendrick at dinner?
She wasn't at dinner,
but we took lots of spy notes.
Oh, that lady has an American accent,
maybe she knows Anna Kendrick.
That man's eating fish and chips.
We stayed up very late in the hotel bar.
Mommy had many, many late ones.
(laughter)
Anna Kendrick was not in the bar.
And Violet fell into bed about midnight.
Up straight again, 6:00 a.m. down for breakfast.
Anna Kendrick wasn't at breakfast.
We have our spy outfits it's on again.
And then we sat outside
where the press junket was happening,
hoping we might catch a glimpse of her on the way in.
But they must've snuck around back. We didn't see her.
And I thought, oh, well we had a really good time anyway.
This is character building.
You know what, Violet, you don't always get what you want.
And then I heard the clickety clack of her heels
coming down the hallway towards my child.
She looked her in the face
and said, hi, you must be Violent.
And I burst into tears.
(laughter)
And I was like, oh my God,
Oh my God, she loves you so much. She loves you so much.
Like, I'm really sorry about the spy outfits.
Like, It's just a joke.
I'm so sorry.
(laughter)
Violet's like, ignore my Mommy, she's Canadian.
(laughter)
Oh.
I totally lost it.
I was just so pleased for her.
And Anna Kendrick handled it well.
She was so polite. Chatted to Violet.
They took a photo which now hangs in the glitter room.
(laughter)
And afterwards I got a stern telling off from my manager.
He was like, hey Katherine, what the (bleep) was that?
(laughter)
I did not know that I had those emotions.
But I'd been traveling a lot.
And we were in L.A. only four days later.
And Violet was with me and we went to a coffee shop
and into the coffee shop walks Anna (bleep) Kendrick.
(laughter)
And I thought, no,
I can't be done for international stalking.
(laughter)
So as soon as I saw her, I made my daughter face the wall.
(laughter) She says, what's going on, Mommy?
I said, Anna Kendrick just walked in.
She said, please, Mommy, please. Can I say hello?
I feel we had to rapport.
I had to Google rapport. I'm like, no.
(laughter)
Nope.
You're going to face the wall until she leaves.
And so we're in the corner of the coffee shop
and the Barista comes over
with one of those little frappuccinos
you're not supposed to let them get.
And he was like, Violet, Violet, Violet.
We're still facing the wall.
(laughter)
Until I could feel the entire coffee shop
looking at us, including Anna Kendrick.
And I thought, well, I have a second chance now
to redeem myself, just play it cool, play it cool.
And I spun around and I said, Anna Kendrick,
we're not here for you. And took the drink.
And we left.
(laughter)
Not Anna Kendrick. As it turns out, it was not.
(laughter)
- It's not even the worst audition Chad got me.
The worst audition Chad got me,
came when I was in America last.
Now, before I tell you what this audition was for,
I need to give some of you a little bit of backstory
about my acting career.
When I was at school, I was a big fan of drama.
I know shock-horror.
(laughter)
Not the only fan of drama at my school there.
The other guy that was really into drama at my school
was a chap called Robert Pattinson.
There he is, young, R. Pats,
star of the Twilight films.
And every time there was a school play at my school,
Robert Pattinson would get cast in the lead role.
And villager 17,
would go to this guy.
(laughter)
Yeah, laugh it up.
For some reason, my drama teacher,
wanted the star of his play to be the young James Dean
and not the young KD Lang.
(laughter) And it's fair to say that over the years,
I built up a little bit of resentment towards R. Pats.
He became my rival.
Rival's a strong word. Nemesis.
(laughter)
He is my nemesis.
And I made a lot of jokes about him before.
I called him a wooden actor.
I've written an entire show about him.
I have milked that (bleep) dry for every droplet,
of it's bitter, bitter milk.
And eventually I woke up one day and I was like,
you need to put that anger away in a box.
You need to hide it away.
And you need to get on with your life.
And I vowed that I would never speak about Robert Pattinson
on stage ever again.
(laughter)
And it was going really well
(laughter)
until Chad called me up out of the blue.
He was like kid, oh my God,
I got you an audition for a movie.
This part is amazing.
And get this,
in this movie,
you would be starring
opposite
Robert Pattinson.
(laughter)
OMG,
FML,
WTF.
(laughter)
And you know what the word was that chimed?
Opposite, right?
Not below, not beneath, not behind Robert Pattinson.
Opposite Robert Pattinson.
After all these years of feeling inadequate at his hands,
finding me and my nemesis. We're on a level playing field.
And it felt amazing.
I was like, well, Chad, tell me about the part.
You know, what are we?
Couple of swashbuckling heroes?
You know, a good cop, bad cop,
two dashing gents competing for the hand of a fair maiden?
He went, no, not quite.
In this movie, you would be playing Matt
and Matt, get ready for it, right?
Matt is Robert Pattinson's character's,
mentally handicapped brother.
(laughter)
Yes. I thought it was a tasteless joke as well.
(laughter)
10 minutes later, that dropped into my inbox.
It was a genuine audition to play the younger
brother of Robert Pattinson with,
to use the politically correct term, Chad,
learning difficulties.
(laughter) So, I had to go away
and have a little think about this offer, okay?
I told my friends, they all thought it was hilarious.
I told my father.
My father, slightly more pragmatic about the whole situation
He went, well, you've got to go for it, son.
Those kind of parts are Oscar bait.
(laughter)
Look at history. What's eating Gilbert Grape,
Rainman, Forest Gump.
You know what they say, son,
play a Mong, get a gong.
(laughter, applause)
No, they do not say that.
You who just said that.
But here's where the ego of the actor kicks-in.
Within about five minutes, I'm thinking,
well, he has got a point.
(laughter)
This is my chance to prove to the world
that I'm a serious actor.
I'm taking the audition.
It was the weirdest audition I have ever done.
The first thing that was unusual about this audition
is that there was no script.
I was told that I would just have to walk into the room
with the Casting Director and improvise in character.
Well, I had to ask some questions.
I went in. The Casting Director was sat there.
I was like,
hello.
I just
needed to know
how,
mentally,
you know,
do you want me to be?
He was like, what you're doing now is fantastic.
(laughter)
I haven't started.
(laughter)
The note that came back was amazing.
They referred me to the original email.
They said, what we want from your character,
everything about him should be dulled and emotionless,
from facial expressions to the tone of his voice.
I said, is it not going to look weird
if I am doing the exact same thing as Robert Pattinson?
(laughter, applause)
Burn.
Yeah.
Yeah, I didn't get the part.