Thomasin McKenzie | Anxiety and Jojo Rabbit

The Person Who Believed In Me with David Begnaud

In this heartfelt episode of 'The Person Who Believed in Me,' actress Thomasin McKenzie opens up about her journey from a childhood immersed in

Key takeaways

• Emotional presence matters more than advice; being there for someone is a profound form of belief.

Main topics

• Anxiety and mental health in the entertainment industry

Notable quotes

"He would say, go and enjoy it. You're always going to learn something from it, whether you do fantastically or not."

Conclusion

Thomasin McKenzie shares a powerful testament to the lasting impact of unconditional parental

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) One of the brightest young stars taking on Hollywood. Big screen features, plus a critic's favorite. Speaker 2 (0:04) An Speaker 1 (0:05) award-winning actress. Please welcome Thomasin McKenzie. Speaker 2 (0:08) He's always been there for me. Speaker 1 (0:10) He would say, go and enjoy it. You're always going to learn something from it, whether you do fantastically or not. Speaker 2 (0:18) The horrible thing about being human is that you only ever remember the negative things. I had a really hard time with anxiety. He stuck with me through it even when I was not the easiest to be around. Speaker 1 (0:29) Has there been a moment where he walked away from you? Speaker 2 (0:33) I think... David! Welcome and nice to meet you. Water for you. Thank you. Speaker 1 (0:42) Welcome to The Person Who Believed in Me. I'm David Begnaud. Thomasin McKenzie was born into a family where everybody acted, including both her parents and grandmother, one of the most famous actors in her home country of New Zealand. So, of course, she spent her entire childhood trying to do anything but acting. But then at 13 years old, while eavesdropping on her mother coaching other girls through an audition, She asked if she could try out herself. At 26 years old, she's already starred in Oscar-winning films, and the best is almost certainly yet to come. Please welcome to the show, Thomasin McKenzie. Speaker 2 (1:20) Thank you for having me. Absolutely. That was an exciting introduction. You Speaker 1 (1:25) chose your father as the person who believed in you. And so I'm going to show the audience the photo. As you tell us, why him? Speaker 2 (1:39) Oh, I love that photo. That makes me want to cry seeing it. My dad, he is an incredibly creative and intelligent person. I was like blessed and kind of cursed to come from a family full of... intellectuals. My brother's a journalist and my dad, he studied theology at Cambridge and my mom, they're all like unbelievably well-read. So the conversations around the dinner table are interesting. But my dad, he is the one who really sacrificed a lot of his life, I think, to support me, as did my whole family, really. My little sister in that photo, Davida, she... sacrificed months of her schooling to follow me around the world wherever I was working. And so that's why I chose my dad and also more broadly my family. Speaker 1 (2:45) How was his sacrifice in some ways, I don't want to say more significant, but rose to the level that of all the people in your family, all of whom you're close to, he stood out? What did he sacrifice? Speaker 2 (2:59) always been there for me so not only was it a sacrifice of like his time but I also think like his time physically but his time emotionally I suppose like he really Speaker 2 (3:16) dedicated a lot of his mind space, his emotional bank to be there for me throughout my entire career. I've been working since I was six years old and more often than not, as a young person, he was there on set with me making sure I was okay. And he's always the person, even now, who I go to for advice. I think my relationship with my father is an incredibly unique one. I've just spent more time with him than most daughters would have. And I just feel incredibly lucky and incredibly grateful for it. And I think it's like something that... will, yeah, connect us for forever. You Speaker 1 (4:08) share a love of acting. He teaches actors. There's a lot of acting teaching going on in your household, which is a blessing. But I read something that stood out to me that your father used to always say to you. He would say, go and enjoy it. Speaker 2 (4:21) You're Speaker 1 (4:21) always going to learn something from it, whether you do fantastically or not. Speaker 2 (4:29) Yeah. He did used to say that. And he used to say that and still says that about everything. It wasn't just acting. I remember being at school and doing exams and being terrified. And the only advice he would give, like the only thing that he made sure to highlight or prioritize was enjoy the process and read the questions. And that wasn't it. There was no like he never. There was no pressure to do a good job or to be the smartest or whatever. It was just enjoy the process, read the questions. And I feel like that really set me up really well for life. Speaker 1 (5:08) By your own account, you've done hundreds, if not thousands of auditions Speaker 2 (5:13) and Speaker 1 (5:15) you've not gotten probably 90 % of them. He did not teach you how to win. He taught you how to survive the 90%. What would he say in that moment where you didn't get what you wanted? Speaker 2 (5:32) I mean, it's hard to think back because there have been so many times when I've done an audition and it hasn't gone the way that I wanted. And I don't know if he ever had like one piece of advice. Speaker 1 (5:48) Do you remember feeling particularly dejected by a rejection? Speaker 2 (5:54) Yes. Yeah, there is one. I won't say what it was, but there was one thing I auditioned for that I just really saw myself as the character. And I think I probably latched onto it far too strongly, far too early. And I didn't end up getting the role. And I was devastated. And it was while I was filming Jojo Rabbit. which is a film I did directed by Taika Waititi back in 2017 or 2018. I was 17 when we filmed it. So I was devastated and I'd just come off the back of a lot of success. So I think I started to get used to it. And then I got this rejection and my dad was there. He was living in Prague with me at the time while the rest of our family were in New Zealand. And it wasn't that he... imparted any certain piece of advice, but it was the fact that he was there with me and there for me and that we've gone through a lot of like hard times together. I'm better now, but especially in my late teens, early twenties, I had a really hard time with anxiety and I put him through the ringer. He was kind of the one that would get the brunt of. what I was going through. And what I think sticks with me is that he stuck with me. He stuck with me through it, even when I was like, I'm sure not the easiest to be around. Yeah, he's... Speaker 1 (7:34) Now I'm starting to understand why he would be. Because when you go through something like profound anxiety, Speaker 2 (7:41) the Speaker 1 (7:42) person who is your person through those moments and in those moments is definitely someone who believes in you. Speaker 2 (7:48) Yeah. Speaker 1 (7:49) What was the brunt of one of those worst moments like? What did it look like? Speaker 2 (7:57) This is actually something that maybe I'll reveal today that I, when I was, I would have been 21 and it was like right in the midst of COVID and my film Last Night in Soho, directed by Edgar Wright, was being premiered in Venice and I was supposed to go, but my anxiety was so bad that I couldn't, I just couldn't make it. I was like. for whatever reason, it was COVID. It was a really stressful time. I was, I couldn't leave the house and he, he allowed that. He didn't, he didn't, my dad didn't make me feel like bad about it. He held space, I suppose, for my fear and for my anxiety. Speaker 2 (8:49) And I knew through him that that was okay, that it was okay that maybe I was letting people down, but that I needed to prioritize my own mental well-being. Speaker 2 (9:03) Yeah, the big thing that just sticks with me is that he's just always been there. And even now, whatever tax issue or whatever it is, tax is stressful. And I go to him for every single point along the way. I've gone to him and he's always been there at the expense of whatever else he's got going on. Speaker 1 (9:25) How do you deal with the anxiety today? Speaker 2 (9:29) It's a mix of things. I think it's like an ongoing, I don't want to use, struggle. It's an ongoing struggle, I suppose. I do take medication for it and that's definitely helped a lot. And I've tried different kinds of medication and tried to figure out what was right for me. Speaker 2 (9:51) tell people when I'm not feeling okay. I tell my dad because that helps to just unburden me, I suppose. It's easy to, I think sitting alone with such intense emotions can be very isolating. So just telling people, I think is something that's been helpful. Speaker 2 (10:18) You know, I've learned a bunch of exercises over the years to help deal with it, different breathing exercises and that kind of thing. I Speaker 1 (10:28) feel like a lot of times when the word anxiety is used as it relates to a struggle, Speaker 2 (10:34) people Speaker 1 (10:35) struggle to understand, okay, what does that mean? And it's not that they want to be dismissive about it. There's really kind of a lack of understanding about how real it is. Speaker 1 (10:48) How would you define anxiety as it presents for you? Speaker 2 (10:54) For me, I mean, it's different for everybody. So I can't speak for everyone. But for me, what happens is I just kind of shut down and my throat completely closes up. I feel like I can't speak. And it's funny because like, we never... Speaker 2 (11:20) When I was like dealing with my anxiety at its height, I was regularly having panic attacks and in between each panic attack, I'd forget how bad the panic attack was. I'd forget how bad it could get. And then I'd kind of convince myself that I was overreacting and that. really everything was okay and it wasn't that big of a deal. And then I'd have a panic attack again and I'd remember, oh, this is why it's so hard. I think you even kind of gaslight yourself into thinking you're overreacting until you're in the height of it again and you feel like you're going to die. But it's a full body thing and for me it's always just a spiral downwards. Speaker 1 (12:11) What seems to be able to stop it in the moment? Or can you? Speaker 2 (12:16) I have, yeah. It's really hard because when you're in the height of a panic attack, you almost feel like, I feel numb and I feel like I can't do anything except for experience the panic. It's hard to reach for the tools that you know help. Speaker 2 (12:43) because you're so wrapped up in what's going on in here. Speaker 1 (12:48) So Speaker 2 (12:48) the times when I have begun to have a panic attack but managed not to is when... For example, my mum has been there and she's given me ice to suck and she's given me my dog to hold and she's wrapped a blanket around me. That's one example of when I managed to not peak and I managed to come back to earth. So for me, what has helped is having like physical things that ground you, like sticking your face in a bowl of ice water or eating sour candy. or like that kind of thing that just, I don't know, like the physical sensation, I think brings you back to earth a little bit, but it's such like a confusing thing. Anxiety is for like you, of course, but also for the people around you, because it's really hard to explain. Speaker 2 (13:53) What intense anxiety feels like if you just, if someone hasn't experienced it. It's like trying to describe temperature. Like you asked me before, what is the summer or the winter in New Zealand like? I can't remember. Like it's impossible to imagine what temperature feels like. If you try right now to imagine being really freezing cold because we're in the middle of summer right now, it's hard. You can't quite remember. And I feel like it's like that with anxiety. You just can't quite put your finger on it. It's an elusive thing. Speaker 1 (14:28) What triggers it? Speaker 2 (14:31) For me, it was really bad during COVID because I have always struggled with health anxiety. So the fear of getting COVID, of course, was scary to me and what that might do to my body. But what really consumed me was the idea of getting it and then giving it to somebody. Speaker 2 (14:54) getting it and then not being able to show up to work. Like the consequences of getting it on other people is what really, really terrified me. And that was tough because I've grown up with my grandma during COVID. She was in her early 90s. And so, yeah, I would just get very caught up in the idea of giving it to her or just like. negatively impacting anyone really. Do Speaker 1 (15:25) you feel any anxiety right now? Speaker 2 (15:26) Oh yeah, I do. I really do. Speaker 2 (15:31) I'm sweating. It's not the kind of like, oh my God, I'm shutting down anxiety. It's normal nerves. Because as I said to you before, I was intimidated to come on this show because you've interviewed people like Oprah and Olympians and Oscar winners, and I don't feel quite there. So I did feel a lot of anxiety, yeah. Speaker 1 (15:58) Let me say that. The beauty of this show and what I love about having you here is that I cannot relate to your success as an actor, Speaker 2 (16:08) but Speaker 1 (16:10) I can relate to your struggles as a human. Speaker 2 (16:14) And Speaker 1 (16:15) I think what you do so magnificently is exhibit. Speaker 1 (16:22) those inner struggles of your characters and you do it so well but it takes me to the question it goes through my head which is the last job i would want to give someone with such profound anxiety is an acting job Speaker 2 (16:35) yeah have Speaker 1 (16:37) you ever wanted to quit oh Speaker 2 (16:40) yeah i have um i want to say i've obviously watched and listened to a few of your interviews and what you just said, like being able to relate with your interviewees as human beings, like. Speaker 2 (16:55) I watched your interview with Tom Daley and just the questions that you were asking him human to human as someone who's had people who have been through similar experiences perhaps really, really struck me. That's definitely the magic of what it is that you do. I Speaker 1 (17:13) thank you. Speaker 2 (17:14) There's definitely been times that I've wanted to quit acting, not because I don't love it, because... There were times that I didn't feel capable of doing it Speaker 1 (17:24) because Speaker 2 (17:25) it is such a high-pressured job in lots of ways. In lots of ways, it's like I am so lucky and so privileged to do what I do. But then in other ways, as someone who started in this industry very young, I think it has really... Speaker 2 (17:49) contributed a lot to my anxiety. The high pressure situations that I've been in have really like added to the anxiety and have added to my catastrophizing of situations. So Speaker 2 (18:08) Yes, there have been times when I've been like, I actually don't know if I'm capable as a human being of like being in these scenarios because there's so many people involved and it's, there's so many anxiety inducing things, but. I think the older I've gotten, the more and more I've realized that no matter how powerful people appear to be or whatever it is, like we're all humans and we're all figuring it out. And it doesn't, nothing really matters that much. I