‘Bobbing about’ is the best medicine
AS RUGBY ACE AND PODCAST HOST JOE MARLER TELLS ABI JACKSON ALL ABOUT HIS LOVE OF COLD WATER SWIMMING AND THE ‘VASTNESS OF NATURE’ AS HE PREPARES TO
IT’S almost two years since Joe Marler was introduced to cold water swimming in Sky documentary Big Boys Don’t Cry, which saw the rugby star open up about his experiences with depression.
He’s kept it up - although it’s more of a “bob around” because he “can’t swim particularly well”.
It’s one of “my absolute favourite things to do every Sunday”, says the 32-year-old father-of-four. “It’s a combination of things - you’ve got a little network there and we can just talk about anything that’s going on in our lives that week, anything that’s been troubling us, or just have a catch-up in general. “But also on an individual basis, ever since [I was introduced to cold water swimming in the documentary], I’ve been chasing the physical reaction. You get this rush in your body. I also get to look out at the sea – it’s such a vastness of nature.
“Never in a million years, just a couple of years ago, did I think I’d be thinking or talking about the vastness of nature,” the England and Harlequins prop adds. “I just can’t get over the vastness of it all, and I feel really insignificant, but in a good way. Because if I’m insignificant, any thoughts or struggles I’ve had in that week or that month or whatever, are even more insignificant. It is like a reset button for me.”
It’s one of many things that have changed for Joe in the past few years. As he’s previously talked about, in early 2019, the mental health struggles he’d been bottling up in the background came to a head when he “snapped” and smashed up his kitchen.
It was a deeply upsetting moment for him and his wife, Daisy, but marked a turning point: Joe was referred to a psychiatrist, diagnosed with depression, prescribed medication and started looking for ways to take care of himself. Bobbing in the chilly sea is “probably my biggest thing I try and do each week”, he says.
A lot of people struggle to prioritise self-care, often because we’ve been led to believe it’s selfish putting ourselves first. But Joe –who is dad to Jasper, Maggie, Felix and Pixie – has realised it’s actually the opposite. “I’m looking after myself so I can be 100% present when I am there for them,” he says - something that wasn’t the case during the “fog” of depression. “I’m very lucky with what I do, I get the chance to spend time with my kids, because that’s ultimately what I want. So I’m grateful for that, and I’ve made the most of it.” Something else he’s extremely grateful for is The Joe Marler Show, the podcast he co-hosts with former BBC Sports journalist host Tom Fordyce. They’ve had five million downloads since launching in 2020, with a live UK tour now set for next spring.
The show is funny, engaging and deeply insightful – a lot like Joe himself. It sees the pair chat with all sorts of guests about their jobs – and with it their lives and histories too – which is what it’s all about, really.
“Because everyone’s got a story,” Joe enthuses. “Sometimes we put a list together of different guests we want to get on, and there’ll be some big topics –we’ve had a psychopath expert, we’ve had a doctor, we’ve had someone that used to work on death row, and you know you’re going to get something out of that. We’ve had reformed gangsters, and we’ll go, ‘Right, you know these guys have got stories’. Has he always had this curiosity about people? “I have,” Joe reflects. “But I haven’t always portrayed that. Earlier on in my career, people would joke or pass on how much I disliked people, I was an extroverted introvert, if that makes sense. I would put on this mask and try and have a jolly and a laugh in front of everyone, but actually, deep down, I didn’t like people and I’d like to keep on my own and not socialise too much. But I always had this curiosity.” He recalls in the early days of his rugby career after first moving to London, at weekends, while his housemates would go home, he’d sometimes go and sit at busy stations and watch the world go by.
“I’d fill my bag with a load of food. I’d sit there and I would absolutely love people-watching. Not in creepy serial killer-esque way,” he adds, laughing. “It was more fascination with people, what are their stories? Where are they going? The podcast has been a real-life opportunity to actually hear all these different stories, and not have to be the creepy guy sat at Clapham Junction.”
He now sees how the extrovert ‘mask’ he used to wear was a “defence mechanism – because I wanted to ward people off,” he says. “Because if I let anyone in, I was too afraid to get hurt or something. I’d be let down.”
Trying to “just be myself” has been an important part of Joe’s healing.
“And I’d encourage others to do the same. Be whoever you want to be, you know? As long as it’s coming from a place of love and kindness.
“I now feel like I’m comfortable in my own skin. I’m happy with who I am,” he shares.
I’m very lucky with what I do, I get the chance to spend time with my kids
Joe Marler
THIS week our film reviewer Damon Smith looks back over an eventful 12 months on the big screen and selects his top five movies of 2022.
1. LIVING 12A, 102 mins
No film affected me more profoundly than Oliver Hermanus’s quietly heart-wrenching English-language remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 drama Ikiru. Relocated from post-war Japan to London by screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro, Living casts Bill Nighy as a widowed bureaucrat, who diligently shuffles papers at County Hall until he receives a diagnosis of terminal stomach cancer and acknowledges the emptiness of his existence just as it is about to be cruelly snatched from him. Nighy delivers a masterclass in painfully quiet servitude tinged with regret that should demand consideration at next year’s Oscars. Touching interludes with Aimee Lou Wood as a young work colleague glisten like polished gems. Following its protagonist’s lead, Hermanus’s meditation on mortality savours every second of its time.
2. AFTERSUN 12A, 102 mins
Writer-director Charlotte Wells’ mesmerising debut feature comes close to deposing Living.
Aftersun elegantly explores the bond between parent and child from the perspective of an 11-year-old girl (Frankie Corio) during a 1990s package holiday in Turkey with her idealistic divorced father Calum (Paul Mescal).
They laze by the pool, contend with noisy construction work at the resort and nervously prepare for a karaoke duet that provides Wells’ picture with one of its most beautiful and uncomfortable set pieces. On-screen chemistry between Mescal and Corio feels authentic as excerpts of raw handheld footage captured on Calum’s video camera reveal chinks in his emotional armour.
Nothing is forced, conversations unfold organically including adorable scenes between Corio and a smitten boy at the same hotel. Some filmmakers spend entire careers striving for something this delicate and wondrous. Wells succeeds at the first attempt.
3. THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN 15, 109 mins
A disagreement between drinking buddies (Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson) whirls out of control on an island off the coast of 1920s Ireland as the last clashes of civil war reverberate across the mainland. Laced with humour as black as a pint of Guinness, The Banshees of Inisherin is a close-quarters study of fraying fraternal bonds and bruised male pride that uses bursts of violence to devastating effect. Farrell delivers a career-best performance as an uncomplicated man of the earth, jolted out of a rut by the parting of ways. He spars magnificently with Gleeson as the script lines up pints of melodic melancholy, and exasperation!
4. THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD 15, 128 mins
When you don’t have to tend the grass on the other side of the fence, it’s bound to look greener. The impetuous and restless millennial at the centre of Joachim Trier’s exuberantly crafted comedy drama learns that lesson the hard way when she jettisons her boyfriend to embark on a passionate relationship with a new man. The Worst Person In The World is a luminous character study that stylishly concludes the writerdirector’s Oslo Trilogy with a series of heartfelt, bittersweet and moving vignettes galvanised by Renate Reinsve’s fine performance.
5. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE 15, 140 mins
Forget all those Marvel superheroes ricocheting through the multi-verse.
Their daredevil antics pale next to Michelle Yeoh’s breathless tumble through writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s delightfully bonkers mind-trip. The film assaults the senses introducing a hard-working Californian laundromat owner (Yeoh) as the unlikely saviour of our reality.
The Malaysian actress showcases impressive gymnastic abilities in elaborate fight sequences, alongside impeccable comic timing.
She is the glue holding together the Daniels’ unhinged plot and wildly imaginative excesses.