SALLY PHILLIPS: WE’RE ALLOWED TO MAKE MISTAKES
Sally Phillips is currently in Australia, filming comedydrama How To Please A Woman. It’s sunny, the beach is nearby, and lockdown restrictions easing off. There was a price to pay though. Two weeks quarantine cooped up in a hotel room with two of her three sons, Olly and Tom. “We’ll see who comes out alive!” Phillips jokes when we chat over Zoom.
What things really helped you get through lockdown?
“My partner and nature. But I’m so over nature! I remember doing an article last summer, where I talk about walks by the river and my bird identification app and plant-ID app and how obsessed I was. And that was true, it wasn’t a lie, but now I’m just over it. Not another tree! “We went for a walk the other day, and we no longer wanted to see the park or the river, we went somewhere entirely concrete, a deserted shopping centre. Fantastic.”
What does self-care mean to you these days?
“Before [the pandemic], self-care was another thing on my to-do list that was related to work, trying to look not s*** for work. It wasn’t something I particularly enjoyed. Now, if left to my own devices, I’ll get up, make tea, meditate for as long I can get away with... go on the running machine, have breakfast, and then sit down and write. And then go for a long walk, make a healthy dinner, then watch a film and go to bed. “But that was when there was nothing going on, and really to keep me sane, and obviously most days weren’t like that because most days had homeschooling and peeling meals off walls. But self-care to me probably means making space to be quiet, say a prayer or meditate, and being outdoors. And feeding your mind. I can even talk like that now – what a change! I clearly have been meditating for a year!”
Do you think there’s a lot of pressure on us to be doing so much?
“There’s so much pressure on us, particularly young women, to be the best we can – we’re never good enough, we need to be learning Mandarin and doing jiu jitsu and volunteering and doing all these things all the time, it’s exhausting. I think we need to kick back against it a bit.”
Is there a piece of advice that’s always stuck with you?
“My dad always said to me, ‘You’re never as good or as bad as they say you are’. You might say one wrong thing on Twitter, or you might be right but everyone gets angry, people decide you should be burnt at the stake. But we’re allowed to make mistakes. If people in a group make mistakes, we learn, we bond, we forgive each other, and we’re more open. Making mistakes is part of it.”