Sam Turlington: Foreign.
Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
Joanne Lockwood: for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,
Joanne Lockwood: your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging and societal transformation.
Joanne Lockwood: Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world everyone
Joanne Lockwood: not only belongs, but thrives? You're not alone.
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Joanne Lockwood: to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: to share your insights or to join me on the show.
Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 188 with the
Joanne Lockwood: title the Art of Authentic Living. And I have
Joanne Lockwood: the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Sam Turlington.
Joanne Lockwood: Sam is a non binary, award winning actor and multi
Joanne Lockwood: hyphenated creative whose work champions queer joy
Joanne Lockwood: and the complexity of authentic storytelling. And when I asked
Joanne Lockwood: Sam to describe their superpower, they said that it is seeing people soulfully
Joanne Lockwood: honouring the truth of. Of their experience. Sam,
Joanne Lockwood: welcome to the show. Hello. It's lovely to be here. So, judging
Joanne Lockwood: by the accent, you're not based in the uk, where I live. So where
Joanne Lockwood: in the world are you? So I. I'm American, I live in New York
Sam Turlington: City, but I have really strong ties to the uk. I
Sam Turlington: got my master's degree in Glasgow. I think you're saying before we went on air
Joanne Lockwood: that you spent a lot of time working up in Glasgow and you've just come
Joanne Lockwood: back to the us? Yes, I do. I. I'm actually working on a
Sam Turlington: film in Glasgow at the moment and a lot of my colleagues are in London
Sam Turlington: as well. So I pop over and we create things together
Sam Turlington: and yeah, I'm all over the place.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm fascinated by the term multi hyphenated. So what is, what
Joanne Lockwood: is. What is a multi hyphenate creative then? So
Sam Turlington: essentially, you know, when I first trained, I got my BFA
Sam Turlington: many, many years ago. You could just kind of be one thing like you, you
Sam Turlington: focus and that for me, at the time, that was just
Sam Turlington: an actor. And as my career has developed and shifted
Sam Turlington: and changed, and as I have developed and shifted and changed, I've taken
Sam Turlington: on other positions. You know, I've produced
Sam Turlington: films, I have directed plays. I don't know
Sam Turlington: that just one title suits me. So, but saying 12 of them would
Sam Turlington: be a mouthful. So just I'm a creative arts multi hyphenate.
Sam Turlington: Boom, there it is. But always an actor first.
Joanne Lockwood: So it's kind of the identity equivalent of being non binary, I guess. So you're
Joanne Lockwood: not nailing yourself to any particular identity there? Absolutely. I think my
Sam Turlington: entire life could be summed up as if I find myself on a binary,
Sam Turlington: I jump off of it immediately. So what makes you tick?
Joanne Lockwood: What was your kind of inspiration as a young person to plot
Joanne Lockwood: your course in this direction? So I have a fundamental
Sam Turlington: curiosity at the core of my person to just connect and
Sam Turlington: wonder. And I grew up in a.
Sam Turlington: Not a small town, but in a small southern space
Sam Turlington: where I didn't really have a lot of access to the wider world around me.
Sam Turlington: And I found myself just gravitating towards
Sam Turlington: anything that was different from what my upbringing had introduced
Sam Turlington: me to. And that's how I fell into acting. Because as an artist, as an
Sam Turlington: actor, you get to take on other people, other
Sam Turlington: personalities, you get to walk in another person's shoes, you get to research
Sam Turlington: their experiences and put yourself in scenarios that you yourself
Sam Turlington: would never find yourself in. So I
Sam Turlington: think in a strange way, my core
Sam Turlington: nature of curiosity and wanting connection with the
Sam Turlington: outside world led me to acting. And then I'm pretty sure it's that that
Sam Turlington: led me even deeper in myself to discover that I'm non
Sam Turlington: binary and that my experience of the world is much more varied than I
Sam Turlington: originally thought. When I was a kid, just being an actor playing,
Joanne Lockwood: playing a part through someone else's words. I guess most of the time when you're
Joanne Lockwood: acting, someone else has scripted you. You're someone else's
Joanne Lockwood: Persona. Did that give you an opportunity to maybe
Joanne Lockwood: step outside of yourself and try on new things? Is that kind of what
Joanne Lockwood: happened there? Absolutely. I would say, you
Sam Turlington: know, as a young actor, you get a script and your first instinct
Sam Turlington: is to say, well, how would I do this? And then you learn very quickly,
Sam Turlington: oh, that doesn't actually serve, you know, the play or the film or whatever it
Sam Turlington: is you're doing. So I felt a freedom to be like, oh, great.
Sam Turlington: I don't have to think about what Sam would do. I get to
Sam Turlington: use the tools I have to figure out what this person would do. And
Sam Turlington: then the freedom that comes from that to be like, great. I don't have
Sam Turlington: to worry about how I feel about a thing. I know how they feel about
Sam Turlington: a thing. And then the inevitable conclusion of that is, okay,
Sam Turlington: well, I, Sam, do not understand why this kind of person would make this
Sam Turlington: kind of decision because it's so vastly different from what
Sam Turlington: I would do. So then you have to, you know,
Sam Turlington: whatever kind of research you do, talking to people. I sought a psychology
Sam Turlington: minor when I went into my time in university. I was like, I have to
Sam Turlington: understand why people do the things that they do do. And really
Sam Turlington: all that was doing was fostering greater empathy for
Sam Turlington: people in the world around me. So it's amazing how all that kind of plays
Sam Turlington: in together. Yeah. When I used to run IT companies and when I
Joanne Lockwood: tend to transition about 10 years ago, give or take,
Joanne Lockwood: I bulked from this new part of my career, both career and
Joanne Lockwood: identity and I was looking for what I was going to do in the middle
Joanne Lockwood: of the night and I thought I would try and get into acting because I
Joanne Lockwood: had a few friends who were, who did bit parts, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, the sort of, you know, they were. The person walking behind somebody or
Joanne Lockwood: they were serving them at a table. There's sort of minor roles
Joanne Lockwood: and I wrote with a lot of agencies and I never, I never got anywhere
Joanne Lockwood: as it happened, but I did, I did have a couple of auditions doing a
Joanne Lockwood: few things and it kind of got me into that. It made me realise that
Joanne Lockwood: I didn't want to do it, to be honest. But it was, it was fascinating
Joanne Lockwood: because I actually changed my bio to being aspiring actor at
Joanne Lockwood: one point. You know, I love it, you have. To manifest it for it to
Joanne Lockwood: become real. So I tried to manifest it on my bio
Joanne Lockwood: and I just decided it was. It didn't pay very well. You know, it
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't, you know, when you're in that early stage, £100 for a day
Joanne Lockwood: or something. And I thought that's a lot of work to go all the way
Joanne Lockwood: to London and back and stand around and maybe get to.
Joanne Lockwood: I decided I wanted to focus on higher worth
Joanne Lockwood: opportunities. I absolutely understand the amount of
Sam Turlington: work that you have to put in as an actor
Sam Turlington: compared to the benefit and
Sam Turlington: compensation that you get, especially early career is near
Sam Turlington: impossible. Sometimes I'm inspired by. I don't know how younger me
Sam Turlington: did it, I really don't. And I applaud them. And
Sam Turlington: any young actor who's starting out right now, particularly,
Sam Turlington: goodness gracious, they're my heroes. I don't. The leap of faith you
Sam Turlington: have to take and the amount of work you have to put in and the
Sam Turlington: amount of rejection you have to deal with in an already
Sam Turlington: tumultuous world that's rejecting you and your identity potentially
Sam Turlington: is overwhelming.
Joanne Lockwood: But I soon figured out that my stage was different. It didn't need to
Joanne Lockwood: be an acting stage. So I'm now a keynote speaker, a professional speaker on stage.
Joanne Lockwood: So you still bring that larger than life Persona.
Joanne Lockwood: So you. Absolutely. It's authentic, but it's a bigger version of you.
Joanne Lockwood: It's not the quiet you, it's the stage you. So yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I enjoy performing because I think being a professional keynote speaker
Joanne Lockwood: is a performance as well. It has to have Act 1, Act 2,
Joanne Lockwood: Act 3 and thank you at the
Joanne Lockwood: end. So yeah, it is like being a solo performer.
Joanne Lockwood: Solo act for sure. The overlap between public speakers
Sam Turlington: and keynote speakers and actors is. I mean the Venn diagram
Sam Turlington: is a circle. Basically it's the same thing. Except for I think you
Sam Turlington: usually control what you're going to say and we sometimes are
Sam Turlington: saying other people's words. Sometimes I don't know what I'm going to say next. It
Joanne Lockwood: is like ad lib. Sometimes it is. Yeah, lots of. And
Joanne Lockwood: improv. And improv. Yeah. Yes. And
Sam Turlington: yeah. So yeah. But I mean obviously I know what the topic is when I
Joanne Lockwood: stand on stage. I know what I'm gonna talk about roughly. But in all seriousness.
Joanne Lockwood: And if you're looking to book and pay me to do anything, don't worry, I
Joanne Lockwood: always get it right. But I often don't know what I'm gonna say next until
Joanne Lockwood: it actually comes out my mouth. Cause it is conversational often. Yes.
Sam Turlington: I actually think that's a really wonderful skill
Sam Turlington: and it's something that all actors have to be in some
Sam Turlington: way shape or form good at improv. And if
Sam Turlington: not improv, when you're in a play, you have
Sam Turlington: to be so comfortable with the script that it's as if you are saying it
Sam Turlington: off the cuff. It's as if it's not pre planned. So
Sam Turlington: I think knowing the shape of a conversation,
Sam Turlington: knowing the shape of what you want to say, knowing, okay, we're going to go
Sam Turlington: here, we're going to move here, we're going to end here eventually.
Sam Turlington: That's the most important thing. You don't always need to know exactly what words and
Sam Turlington: exactly what order are coming out of your mouth. But knowing what the journey's going
Sam Turlington: to be is incredibly important and a
Sam Turlington: really good skill to have when you're working on a very wordy play
Sam Turlington: because your errors are going to happen, you're going to make mistakes
Sam Turlington: and recovering from that is really the mark of
Sam Turlington: a true professional. How you recover and for simply, it's not just you that makes
Joanne Lockwood: messes up, it's the person you're acting against or with and
Joanne Lockwood: they've gone off on one and you're thinking, well, that's not in my script, but
Joanne Lockwood: I'll just have to rock with this and see what happens, see when you come
Joanne Lockwood: back. And I'll pick it up from wherever you leave it. Yeah, you just gotta
Sam Turlington: roll with the punches sometimes. And if it goes off the rails, it goes off
Sam Turlington: the rails. And if you're in a play, it's going
Sam Turlington: off the rails live in front of a bunch of people. And either
Sam Turlington: they're gonna be on board or they're not gonna be on board. And it's your
Sam Turlington: job to get them on board with whatever madness is happening.
Joanne Lockwood: I guess you've got to have faith in the writer because everything you're saying should
Joanne Lockwood: be optimised to be part of the storey or a necessary plot.
Joanne Lockwood: You're often not just saying words for the sake of it. They're part of
Joanne Lockwood: evolving the character, aren't they? They should be. They certainly
Sam Turlington: should be. I think I didn't know this when I was a young artist,
Sam Turlington: but I have more experience now that
Sam Turlington: you can hear the difference between a good script and
Sam Turlington: just a script by how
Sam Turlington: important is every word that the characters are saying?
Sam Turlington: Is all the details coming out in an organic way? Is it a show me,
Sam Turlington: don't tell me kind of thing? You can really hear if there's filler,
Sam Turlington: if there's just fluff, language. Like, the writer was like, oh, this might sound a
Sam Turlington: bit clever if I say it like this, but it doesn't serve the purpose of
Sam Turlington: the storey. And they're out there. You're gonna. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've auditioned with
Sam Turlington: some doozy scripts, but, you know, that's my job, to make
Sam Turlington: it better and make it real and solve the problem as we say. You
Sam Turlington: always want to solve the problem. Do you find yourself having
Joanne Lockwood: your own version of predictive text in your head where you're listening along to
Joanne Lockwood: something and you know exactly what the next character's gonna say? I mean, I watch
Joanne Lockwood: TV and films all the time thinking, and I'm reading out the next time
Joanne Lockwood: Marie's looking at me going, how'd you know they were gonna say that? It just
Joanne Lockwood: gonna happen. It is. All the time. Yeah. The
Sam Turlington: same. Em and I will be on the couch and they'll be like, especially
Sam Turlington: in high dramas, there's always those long pauses waiting for the next character
Sam Turlington: to speak. And nine times out of 10, I'm like, I know exactly what they're
Sam Turlington: gonna say. And it's not even the gist of what they're gonna Say
Joanne Lockwood: it's actually the word. Cause there's obviously there's lots of superlatives they could have
Joanne Lockwood: picked. And I go, I just say, da, da, da, da. There it is.
Joanne Lockwood: Exactly what they just said. Almost in time with them as well. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: maybe I became invested in the character and I became with them. Honestly,
Sam Turlington: that might be you syncing up with the character and their narrative. That's a form
Sam Turlington: of acting as well, is being able to empathetically get
Sam Turlington: into the headspace of someone else so much that their words
Sam Turlington: are coming out of your mouth. Absolutely. So you obviously hang out
Joanne Lockwood: in creative space a lot as a
Joanne Lockwood: thespian. If you identify as a thespian, a producer or your
Joanne Lockwood: hyphenates out there, I would imagine as someone who isn't in that space,
Joanne Lockwood: that it's a very open, queer friendly type environment. Is that
Joanne Lockwood: a truism? Say yes with an asterisk.
Sam Turlington: It's. The majority of creative spaces are going to be open to
Sam Turlington: queer people and multiple identities and things like that.
Sam Turlington: It shocked me to discover that some
Sam Turlington: creative places are not. I didn't. I never really considered that. I
Sam Turlington: kind of took for granted that everyone who works in this
Sam Turlington: industry has the level of empathy required to
Sam Turlington: just be cool with everybody and be
Sam Turlington: specifically inclusive of everybody. Because being cool with someone and being inclusive of them
Sam Turlington: are very different things. And a few years ago,
Sam Turlington: I went to a play
Sam Turlington: that I didn't know anything about, but someone was like, hey, I have a ticket,
Sam Turlington: let's go. It was a small off off Broadway play and
Sam Turlington: I was not in the audience very long before I realised this is a
Sam Turlington: conservative propaganda piece. And I am surrounded
Sam Turlington: in a theatre with actors, with
Sam Turlington: directors, all of the normal people, but they're putting on
Sam Turlington: this play that's saying some really not okay things. And
Sam Turlington: it was my first interaction with how could this happen
Sam Turlington: in our community? I didn't know these spaces existed. And so of course, I
Sam Turlington: go out into the lobby afterwards and there's some prominent conservative media
Sam Turlington: figures there. And I'm like, this is odd. And I talk to,
Sam Turlington: like the house manager and stuff and I'm like, how in the world
Sam Turlington: do spaces like this happen? And she goes, well, we all have to
Sam Turlington: eat and we have jobs to do and we get hired to do these jobs.
Sam Turlington: And sometimes the people that we're working for are not
Sam Turlington: great, but we don't control who rents the
Sam Turlington: theatre. Some people are dicks and you can't legislate. It was so
Sam Turlington: shocking because the house manager was like, well, you know, I don't know
Sam Turlington: when the theatre gets rented, we don't know what show's going in there, so
Sam Turlington: we're just as surprised as you. And I said, well, what about the actors? Do
Sam Turlington: you know what's going on with that? And she was like, you know,
Sam Turlington: it's an acting job and some actors can just be like, well, you know, I'm
Sam Turlington: not gonna worry about it. I'm just gonna do my job and then get on
Sam Turlington: with it and take the paycheck. I was shaken by that news.
Joanne Lockwood: Can't bring your friends to the opening night, can you? Oh,
Sam Turlington: I don't know, sort of have. This shame I'm in this play or you can't
Joanne Lockwood: come and see it. It's awful. Here's the thing. I've been in some bad plays,
Sam Turlington: but I've never been in bad plays because they were written by bad people
Sam Turlington: like, or had something bad to say. I will happily invite my friends
Sam Turlington: to a bad play that's not very good and the writing or the storytelling is
Sam Turlington: green. But my goodness, I don't know if I
Sam Turlington: could ever agree to be in a play that was actively trying to
Sam Turlington: cause harm to somebody or is going to say something that could cause harm to
Sam Turlington: somebody. So other than that very specific
Sam Turlington: group of people that does exist, maybe 5%
Sam Turlington: of the industry as I know it, most every creative space I'm in
Sam Turlington: is wonderfully queer friendly. Thank goodness. You said earlier
Joanne Lockwood: about it's not you playing the role, you're having to step into the character and
Joanne Lockwood: the character plays the role, if you like. Where do you stand on
Joanne Lockwood: your own identity? Do you play CIS male, CIS female
Joanne Lockwood: characters as a non binary person or do you have to bring your identity into
Joanne Lockwood: that role as well? My first and foremost approach is to always bring
Sam Turlington: my identity to a role. But I play CIS women all
Sam Turlington: the time. I've had the very A highlight for me has been
Sam Turlington: playing CIS men recently, which is really great. I usually
Sam Turlington: when I get cast as whatever gender identity, the
Sam Turlington: first conversation I have with the director is, okay, you have chosen someone
Sam Turlington: like me to play this role. Let's deal with
Sam Turlington: the narrative dramaturgical ramifications of that or
Sam Turlington: the gift that that is. I was in a play last year by a
Sam Turlington: wonderful playwright who's actually in the uk and the role I was cast as
Sam Turlington: was just called the son S o n and it was a family dynamic where,
Sam Turlington: you know, parents and then a son and a daughter and
Sam Turlington: they cast me as the son and the director said, actually,
Sam Turlington: how would you feel if we explore what this role's gender
Sam Turlington: identity actually is. Does it actually need to be a CIS
Sam Turlington: man? It doesn't have to be. Let's see what happens. And we ended
Sam Turlington: up coming to the conclusion that this character was non
Sam Turlington: binary and it actually served the storey better
Sam Turlington: for them to be so. So that was a moment of me
Sam Turlington: bringing who I am to the role and it actually made the play
Sam Turlington: better. And I think now the writer has actually rewritten
Sam Turlington: the script so that that character just is non binary. Now I
Joanne Lockwood: suppose at that point there, you're then having to give an authenticity
Joanne Lockwood: consultation top to bottom on that script so that
Joanne Lockwood: all the characters who interact with that character
Joanne Lockwood: know that person's identity, how they're going to refer to them, how those
Joanne Lockwood: relationships, work, family, whatever, and all those little
Joanne Lockwood: words that you forget agenda, suddenly you have to be
Joanne Lockwood: reorientated, don't they? Absolutely. One very specific example
Sam Turlington: of that. I was in a production of as yous like it, and I
Sam Turlington: was playing Touchstone, who's the clown in that play
Sam Turlington: and originally written for a CIS man.
Sam Turlington: But we decided that in the context of the play, this
Sam Turlington: character would start out in stealth mode, hiding
Sam Turlington: as if they were a CIS man, but then transitioning to non
Sam Turlington: binary as the play went on. And we got curious of like,
Sam Turlington: okay, how are we going to support that with Shakespeare's language in a very
Sam Turlington: well known play? And we ended up getting curious about
Sam Turlington: neopronouns and maybe Touchstone refers
Sam Turlington: to themselves with zee zem zir and how does that fit with
Sam Turlington: Shakespeare's language? And as we got curious, as we
Sam Turlington: dived dove into the text and explored,
Sam Turlington: we just decided, you know, what Shakespeare was doing all
Sam Turlington: kinds of weird gender stuff a long time ago. I don't think he would mind.
Sam Turlington: We changed all of Touchstone's pronouns in the script so that even when other
Sam Turlington: characters referred to them, they used these
Sam Turlington: neo pronouns. And then there was an evolution of like when they were
Sam Turlington: in the first act in the very strict horrible Court, they
Sam Turlington: referred to Touchstone as him. And then they slowly
Sam Turlington: started going to they them. And then by the end of the play, Z zem's
Sam Turlington: ear, which was so cool, to figure out how that
Sam Turlington: functions and to not put any limits on what it could be. And it's actually
Joanne Lockwood: quite like real life as well, because you don't go from here
Joanne Lockwood: to there overnight. You don't wake up one morning and go, well, maybe you do,
Joanne Lockwood: but you have to bring the world with you, don't you? Yes. I
Sam Turlington: say, there's a joke that everyone makes.
Sam Turlington: It's the he, him to he, they to they, she
Sam Turlington: to they, them to she her pipeline, it just
Sam Turlington: starts to go and. Cause it's an exploration.
Joanne Lockwood: It's a soft launch, isn't it? Coming out as non binary. It can be a
Joanne Lockwood: soft launch, but that validates your, that, that also invalidates non binary
Joanne Lockwood: identities as seeing it as a. Oh, you're just trying it out.
Joanne Lockwood: That's actually my destination. So you've got to be careful. You're not propagating that myth,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't you? Yes, of course. Because like, and some people
Sam Turlington: can use non binary, the non binary identity as like a
Sam Turlington: stopping ground to kind of sit and reorient before they move on to something
Sam Turlington: else. Because they might think that being non binary is my destination. But then they
Sam Turlington: get here where I am and they go, oh, I thought this was the
Sam Turlington: conclusion, but it's actually not. And they can keep going. And then some people like
Sam Turlington: myself get here and we go, sweet, we've made it home. This
Sam Turlington: is the correct thing. And I have explored the other
Sam Turlington: direction and been like, oh, nope, that wasn't right. So the
Sam Turlington: freedom to move from one to the other and to validate
Sam Turlington: everyone as they're passing through or making camp
Sam Turlington: as twere, I think is really important. Yeah, no, I get that
Joanne Lockwood: completely. Yeah, I skipped the middle bit. I just went straight to the other end.
Joanne Lockwood: I just, I knew I was going at the book, had the map,
Joanne Lockwood: honestly. Yeah, respect. To know exactly where you're going,
Sam Turlington: exactly what you want. All of my trans siblings who know exactly
Sam Turlington: like, this is me, I have such respect for that and I have such
Sam Turlington: admiration for it because I've just never been able to make up my mind.
Joanne Lockwood: But to be fair, my evolution was back in the 1970s and
Joanne Lockwood: you know, think about how long ago that was. And
Joanne Lockwood: she her was bad enough in those days. You know, there's no, there's no kind
Joanne Lockwood: of. There's no, There was no queer option or gender queer or
Joanne Lockwood: gender expansive options at the time. You had to be here or I had to
Joanne Lockwood: be here. And that bit in the middle was a destination rather than,
Joanne Lockwood: as you say, a stopping ground. Absolutely. What's going on here then? Let's
Joanne Lockwood: have a look around. So true. I mean, as
Sam Turlington: tumultuous as things are right now for our community,
Sam Turlington: I can't fathom the experience that it was in
Sam Turlington: the 80s, in the 70s, in the 60s and beyond.
Sam Turlington: Unbelievable. Well, there was just, there was no language.
Joanne Lockwood: There was nothing to envy or be worried about. It was when you've got
Joanne Lockwood: no options, you don't worry about having no options because you don't know no options.
Joanne Lockwood: So you don't know what you don't know. Absolutely. That was
Sam Turlington: a big thing in conversations around my coming out, because I, as
Sam Turlington: far as the current generation believes I came out
Sam Turlington: later in life because so many of our community members get to come out when
Sam Turlington: they're like children because they know exactly who they are and they have
Sam Turlington: the access to the language. But non binary did not exist
Sam Turlington: when I was in high school. When I was in middle school, I didn't. I
Sam Turlington: don't think I met an out trans person until I was in
Sam Turlington: college. So I had no access to that identity
Sam Turlington: or that life or how it might apply to me. Which,
Sam Turlington: hilariously, I figured that out through
Sam Turlington: theatre. I got cast not long out of school,
Sam Turlington: I got cast in a play playing
Sam Turlington: a trans woman. And in that time,
Sam Turlington: the conversation around casting CIS actors as trans people was
Sam Turlington: not existent really, or was not loud like it is
Sam Turlington: now. But I ended up playing a trans character.
Sam Turlington: And it was the first time my brain went, is this me?
Sam Turlington: This is the way I feel. And it was a
Sam Turlington: doorway. I tell that I haven't ever told that director who cast me
Sam Turlington: in that play, but I need to write her a letter and say thank you,
Sam Turlington: because if it wasn't for that play, I don't know that I would have gotten
Sam Turlington: the unlock as early as I did in my adulthood.
Sam Turlington: It would have been many, many more years later before figuring out who I was.
Sam Turlington: Maybe she knew something that I didn't. I don't know.
Joanne Lockwood: Now you say that I can relate to that experience where
Joanne Lockwood: there's a life trigger that allows you to unlock that
Joanne Lockwood: door, whatever that may be. So when I say I knew
Joanne Lockwood: from a very early age in my life there were certain
Joanne Lockwood: triggers that if that hadn't have happened at that time,
Joanne Lockwood: it may have happened later. But I can say that, well, that was a key
Joanne Lockwood: to that door that went, now let's explore that. And then
Joanne Lockwood: once you've got the key, you want to keep trying the doors, don't you? You
Joanne Lockwood: want. Yeah, I've got the key now. I want to keep opening stuff. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I see what you mean. You were in a situation where your brain
Joanne Lockwood: went, okay, let's play with this and see what happens. You go, actually, it fits.
Joanne Lockwood: It works. Yeah, yeah, I remember. So.
Sam Turlington: So clearly I was cast in this role and the director said, okay,
Sam Turlington: so we've cast you as a trans person and the writer of
Sam Turlington: this play was a trans woman, and she
Sam Turlington: has asked that you go to lunch with her
Sam Turlington: so that she can help you understand the mindset, so that you
Sam Turlington: can. Doing my actor job, I am researching and
Sam Turlington: getting information. So Carla and I went to lunch
Sam Turlington: and as she is orienting me to what it feels like,
Sam Turlington: I just kept sitting there going, I know this, I know
Sam Turlington: this feeling. This is also me too. Yes, well, of course.
Sam Turlington: And then I start realising and I started asking her, wait a minute, do CIS
Sam Turlington: people not feel this way? Apparently not. Apparently not.
Sam Turlington: Apparently not. I just remember at one point
Sam Turlington: she kind of got quiet and she was looking at me and she goes, have
Sam Turlington: you ever explored within yourself what you
Sam Turlington: actually are, what you are? Like, what kind of exploration have you done in your
Sam Turlington: life? And I said, well, I know, I'm. I'm. I said, at the time, I
Sam Turlington: think I called myself bisexual, but pansexual was more accurate. And I was
Sam Turlington: like, I've never really felt at home
Sam Turlington: in the space that I was
Sam Turlington: raised. I never felt at home in the gender
Sam Turlington: assigned to this body by the space that I was raised
Sam Turlington: in. But I've also never felt like the other
Sam Turlington: called to me in a way. And she goes, all right, well, through this project,
Sam Turlington: I just encourage you to keep asking questions. You're so curious
Sam Turlington: about the world around you. I'd like you to be curious about yourself because
Sam Turlington: that's going to bring you home to this role. And she had no idea that
Sam Turlington: what it was actually going to do is bring me home to me and
Sam Turlington: myself and my authentic being. So, honestly, if
Sam Turlington: it wasn't for what I do for a living, I have no idea when I
Sam Turlington: would have discovered my transness, when I would have discovered my non
Sam Turlington: binary nature. I don't know when that would have happened. As you were talking, I
Joanne Lockwood: was thinking about, this is how my brain works, blood types and the
Joanne Lockwood: fact that O negative is the universal donor and AB positive is the
Joanne Lockwood: universal receiver. So do you feel that as a non binary
Joanne Lockwood: person, you're able to donate yourself into other
Joanne Lockwood: blood types more readily than someone who is
Joanne Lockwood: maybe rigid? And now I just.
Sam Turlington: Absolutely, I feel. So now that I am
Sam Turlington: fully my authentic self, I feel so connected to
Sam Turlington: every experience. I don't feel like,
Sam Turlington: like obviously I have my lived experience and other people have their lived experiences and
Sam Turlington: that will colour what I'm able to relate to. But on a fundamental level,
Sam Turlington: being able to identify with every person that I come into contact with
Sam Turlington: and every storey that I hear and being able to relate to it, especially when
Sam Turlington: it comes to gender and sexuality and the internal struggles
Sam Turlington: that we all experience, it's not like CIS people don't experience
Sam Turlington: struggle or don't experience, you know, the cognitive dissonance on the inside
Sam Turlington: or these are all universal feelings, just some of us express them outwardly in
Sam Turlington: a very different way. So I would say yes, I do.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you come across many cishet
Joanne Lockwood: actors who attempt to play a queer
Joanne Lockwood: character and either they, they don't get it or they're
Joanne Lockwood: conflicted? I'm just thinking of Eddie Redmayne playing in
Joanne Lockwood: the Danish Girl. Yeah, Danish girl. Yeah. Now here in
Sam Turlington: New York City, I can't think of any. I can think of CIS
Sam Turlington: het actors who have played CIS gay
Sam Turlington: or lesbian roles and sometimes you see them in plays and you go,
Sam Turlington: that's not how we talk or that's not how we hold ourselves.
Sam Turlington: So you can kind of see the scenes. Stereotype kicks in.
Sam Turlington: Yeah, because I mean as an actor stereotype is
Sam Turlington: a little important because it gives you a quick flash look at
Sam Turlington: something but then you have to get curious and go past the stereotype and
Sam Turlington: able to actually be. Because you know, every stereotype is
Sam Turlington: grounded in some kind of reality because that's how we categorise humans. So
Sam Turlington: but we need to unpack that and find out, you know, okay, is this a
Sam Turlington: harmful stereotype? Is this a joyful stereotype? You know, what
Sam Turlington: kind of stereotype is this and how can we actually get to the reality? And
Sam Turlington: a lot of, in my observation, a lot of
Sam Turlington: cishet actors, particularly CIS men who take
Sam Turlington: on gay male roles, they go to a
Sam Turlington: stereotype that is common for their viewpoint but not
Sam Turlington: ours. Our community knows how CIS gay men are. The straight community
Sam Turlington: doesn't always know that. So, but I think
Sam Turlington: it's a little more. People are a little more mindful of that now. And there's
Sam Turlington: so many actors who are out and proud just cast people for the roles that
Sam Turlington: they need to be playing. You know, it's the same thing with, I'm a fat
Sam Turlington: bodied actor. Don't cast thin people to play fat people. Just don't do it.
Sam Turlington: We know us, let us play us. Yeah. Unless you've had boob sweat or
Joanne Lockwood: got out of breath walking up down the stairs, if you're too fit, you're never
Joanne Lockwood: going to appreciate the nuances and the give
Joanne Lockwood: me five at the top of. The stairs or something as something as simple
Sam Turlington: as sitting in a chair. Because I'm larger bodied, I have the
Sam Turlington: knowledge that most chairs are not structured
Sam Turlington: for my weight. And so I'm gonna tell you what, every time I sit I'm
Sam Turlington: just like, I'm just Gonna go down really slow to make sure this is gonna
Sam Turlington: be okay. And I am in the fat community,
Sam Turlington: I'm considered a small fat. Okay. So if I'm worried about this,
Sam Turlington: my other bodied friends, my fatter bodied friends are.
Sam Turlington: It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare that the world is literally not
Sam Turlington: built with them in mind. So you know what, we understand this,
Sam Turlington: we understand what it is to struggle to find clothes in your size and have
Sam Turlington: to shop online because they never have your size in store. Right. Or have to
Sam Turlington: be perfectly put together all the time because of the stereotypes
Sam Turlington: people associate with being fat. So, you know, it's just let people play
Sam Turlington: their identities is what I. Yeah. I
Joanne Lockwood: mean I can identify as a, as a past large
Joanne Lockwood: body person. I was probably 300 pound plus at my max,
Joanne Lockwood: 20, 22, 23 stone and I've lost 140 pound,
Joanne Lockwood: 120 recently. So yeah, I've been to that thing where
Joanne Lockwood: we go to a pub garden in the UK and they've got that white plastic
Joanne Lockwood: furniture and it used to be a party trick. People would look at me and
Joanne Lockwood: go, you really can sit on there. Go, oh yeah. And I go, I'll be
Joanne Lockwood: careful. And all of a sudden hear this cracking noise and suddenly you're on the
Joanne Lockwood: floor and this thing has just gone like a baby giraffe. I'm from underneath, right.
Sam Turlington: It's just ridiculous. Literally those, those plastic, those plastic
Sam Turlington: chairs, if I see those, I'm like, mm, mm, no, no, no, I'll be standing,
Sam Turlington: thank you very much. And how uncomfortable is it? Everyone
Joanne Lockwood: sits on the grass. You think I don't, how do I get down there then?
Joanne Lockwood: How do I get back up? And it's bloody uncomfortable as a large body person
Joanne Lockwood: just laying on the grass or sitting on the ground. Yeah, it's, it can be
Sam Turlington: so ridiculous. And you know, I'm, I'm really grateful that I, I'm a really
Sam Turlington: active person and like my body because you know, of what I do and
Sam Turlington: I, I love, I've always been bigger bodied and I love
Sam Turlington: the way my body moves and I love what my body can handle and the
Sam Turlington: amount of stuff that it can do. But the fact that I
Sam Turlington: have to make accommodation in my just like
Sam Turlington: day to day life to fit into the world around me. Like here in New
Sam Turlington: York City, in every restaurant, tables are like yay far apart, like a
Sam Turlington: couple inches apart and they expect you to walk past those tables
Sam Turlington: to be sat. And I'm like, first of all, all
Sam Turlington: of this lusciousness is not making it through that narrow little alleyway that you've
Sam Turlington: made. But I don't think anybody should be forced into those narrow of
Sam Turlington: spaces. It's just wrong. It's not. Okay, well, the
Joanne Lockwood: diners on one side are gonna get your butt in their face or wiping
Joanne Lockwood: across their food. And the other side, it's probably your boobs, isn't it? And
Sam Turlington: then to my ultimate fear is that one day I'm gonna try to
Sam Turlington: squeeze through a space of tables like that and they're gonna have like a bottle
Sam Turlington: of wine sitting on the table and I'm just gonna knock it, I'm gonna knock
Sam Turlington: that with my booty and then be like, I'm so sorry, now I have to
Sam Turlington: buy your dinner and I'm just gonna like throw myself in the Hudson. It's shameful.
Sam Turlington: I can't so, so bad. But if people would
Sam Turlington: just be mindful and like move the tables a little farther apart,
Sam Turlington: it's all you gotta do. And then it would be fine. See,
Joanne Lockwood: as a reformed large body person, I've got these storeys. I live with
Joanne Lockwood: being larger than life. For 30, 40 years of my life,
Joanne Lockwood: I've had the problem with the tray table. You know, you're on the plane, you
Joanne Lockwood: end up having to force it in and you end up with a bit above
Joanne Lockwood: and a bit below the tray table. And they put the dinner down there and
Joanne Lockwood: sort of like wedge door, you want the extra long seat belt, you know, the
Joanne Lockwood: booster on a train.
Sam Turlington: Well, air travel these days is just offensive to everybody.
Sam Turlington: Aeroplanes are getting so uncomfortable because they're not thinking of
Sam Turlington: anybody's comfort at all. And so I feel like a lot of the things
Sam Turlington: that large bodied folk have been saying, hey, maybe consider X,
Sam Turlington: Y and Z about how to fix this. Now more straight
Sam Turlington: sized people are going, you know, yeah, it
Sam Turlington: is uncomfortable. We really should have better things. And
Sam Turlington: to that I say, you're welcome, you're welcome, straight sized people.
Joanne Lockwood: But the airline industry is solving that problem by charging you
Joanne Lockwood: to pick your seat or to get the aisle to get the extra legroom, aren't
Joanne Lockwood: they? So they're cashing in on people's size
Joanne Lockwood: as a sales process, aren't they? That's what it is. Yeah. I
Sam Turlington: get offered upsells to first class all the time because
Sam Turlington: they're roomier seats, they have more distance to the tray tables and
Sam Turlington: stuff. They're like, oh, well, if you want to be more comfortable, go first class.
Sam Turlington: I'm like, who in the world can afford this all the time?
Sam Turlington: Like, it's ridiculous. No, absolutely not. I don't want to have to pay more just
Sam Turlington: because my body exists the way it does. Yeah, I
Joanne Lockwood: remember I used to do a lot of short haul in Europe back in the
Joanne Lockwood: 90s and I was quite a big person. I remember, more
Joanne Lockwood: than not. I'd have a window and you're praying for no one to sit in
Joanne Lockwood: the middle. And then you take off and the person on the other end and
Joanne Lockwood: you look at each other go, dodged a bullet there. But sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: I end up packed plane. I'd end up in the middle seat myself sometimes. And
Joanne Lockwood: I remember walking up to the. Walking up to my aisle, seeing the person by
Joanne Lockwood: the window, seeing the person by the. And I look at them and go,
Joanne Lockwood: big person, that's it. Yep, my seat. And they look at me and
Joanne Lockwood: go, oh, you could just see. Oh, my God. And then you
Joanne Lockwood: end up. You end up sitting there eating a meal with your arms crossed and
Joanne Lockwood: trying to sort of keep your elbows in it. And it's such an uncomfortable thing.
Sam Turlington: It's, you know, where I have had that experience recently here
Sam Turlington: in New York. Some of the Broadway houses are so
Sam Turlington: small, their seats. I don't know how anybody is comfortable in
Sam Turlington: them. Like, I'm about. I'm about a size 18,
Sam Turlington: 20American. I think that's what, like a 22 in the UK.
Sam Turlington: I sat. I was at the Nederlander
Sam Turlington: Theatre recently and I sat in the seat and I was with my mate
Sam Turlington: Bryce, and I was like, hey, buddy, I'm just gonna have to snuggle up next
Sam Turlington: to you because this poor woman next to me, I was like crossing my arms
Sam Turlington: over, like pulling in as tight as possible. And Bryce, who's
Sam Turlington: like a real fit guy, was like. He's like, yeah, my biceps are just. It's
Sam Turlington: got. We're all sitting here tight together and I really loved this perspective
Sam Turlington: of like, you know, really swole dudes are like, like talking to fat
Sam Turlington: people, being like, oh, yeah, us too. We're all having a hard time squeezing in
Sam Turlington: here. It was hilarious. But too small. Like,
Sam Turlington: I don't know why in the world they would want people to watch a play
Sam Turlington: squeezed into seats like that. I barely remember anything about the first 10 minutes
Sam Turlington: because I was so uncomfortable. I also realised that you don't realise
Joanne Lockwood: when you're a large body person that there's quite a lot of you
Joanne Lockwood: on your butt and your back. So it actually pushes you further forward in the
Joanne Lockwood: seat as well. You actually talk. You know, the length of your, your
Joanne Lockwood: knees is quite long. So when you lose weight, you realise that actually Your
Joanne Lockwood: bum goes further back in the seat and you've got a gap at the front
Joanne Lockwood: of the seat now. But for years I was thinking, how can anyone. I can't
Joanne Lockwood: even get my knees in here. And I remember sitting in the aisle, put my
Joanne Lockwood: feet out and. Yeah, it's so uncomfortable that it's not designed.
Sam Turlington: Yeah, no, it's so wild. And they
Sam Turlington: cram. And tall people as well. I have a couple friends who are very tall
Sam Turlington: and when we go to see shows, it's like they're constantly tucking their knees in
Sam Turlington: and stuff. They're not made. Most places are not made for dimensions
Sam Turlington: outside of, I don't know, the standard body for the
Sam Turlington: thieves, you know, like from the 90s or something. It's ridiculous.
Joanne Lockwood: We're eating too much steak and red meat now. We're growing too big, aren't we?
Sam Turlington: It must be. I'll tell you, I haven't had red meat in a very
Sam Turlington: long time. I'm a flexitarian. I mostly eat fish and chicken and
Sam Turlington: I didn't realise just how much red meat is in all of.
Sam Turlington: Like, especially as an American and how much red meat
Sam Turlington: is like the centrepiece of all of our diet in
Sam Turlington: America. Like it's all we eat. And sometimes finding meals,
Sam Turlington: especially when I go to benefits and stuff, finding meals that are
Sam Turlington: not beef or pork is really, really difficult.
Joanne Lockwood: My perception is that the meat, beef and pork, is
Joanne Lockwood: cheap, cheap in the States compared with other parts. It is. And I don't want
Joanne Lockwood: to get into debate about your food hygiene and GM and all that
Joanne Lockwood: kind of. But you've got a lot more cattle and it's a lot more.
Joanne Lockwood: There's a bigger market. So beef steaks in the US are
Joanne Lockwood: large and cheap, aren't they? Generally, yeah. And
Sam Turlington: varying in quality. Of course, a big reason why I stopped eating
Sam Turlington: particularly beef but red meat was because I just can't
Sam Turlington: with how we treat our food here in the States.
Sam Turlington: Growing up in a southern home, I
Sam Turlington: think we ate beef steak three, four nights a week.
Sam Turlington: It's just a normal thing to do. Like a meatloaf with ground beef in it
Sam Turlington: or, you know, spaghetti and meatballs like chicken fried steak, you
Sam Turlington: know, just constant meat. So when I was
Sam Turlington: vegetarian it was a big deal. I remember when I went to
Joanne Lockwood: Florida with the family back in 2004, 21 years ago,
Joanne Lockwood: it was either steak or it was lobster and spider crab
Joanne Lockwood: everywhere. We just chowder. We love our spider,
Sam Turlington: we love our spider crabs, we love our crab legs buffet.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it was, it was an all we can eat red lobster or something, Wherever
Joanne Lockwood: the brand is. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you, I don't. Red
Sam Turlington: Lobster's not an establishment that I visit anymore. But they're cheddar biscuits.
Sam Turlington: Come on now. They're pretty good. That's the class. Maybe next time I go,
Joanne Lockwood: next time I feel safe to come to the States, I will. And that. That
Joanne Lockwood: kind of segues us onto a part of the conversation really is, how are you
Joanne Lockwood: and your buddies, for want of a better way of describing it,
Joanne Lockwood: how is it? What's the world like from your perspective? I
Sam Turlington: mean, it's difficult to know the temperature of the
Sam Turlington: water when you're sitting in it. That's. That can be a
Sam Turlington: struggle. I am incredibly grateful that I have spent years
Sam Turlington: outside of the States because my time in Scotland
Sam Turlington: allowed me to take a minute and
Sam Turlington: reorient myself and look at my country from afar
Sam Turlington: and really take stock of how things are. So, you know, of course, being a
Sam Turlington: performer, you know, anytime someone's like, how are things? My gut reaction is to always
Sam Turlington: be like, oh, yeah, it's great, we're getting on, everything's fine. But
Sam Turlington: in all honesty, trans and non binary folk, all queer folk
Sam Turlington: in America are in crisis right now.
Sam Turlington: You know, we are dealing with, much
Sam Turlington: like our siblings in the uk, our
Sam Turlington: government constantly putting laws on our
Sam Turlington: bodies and trying to limit our movement. And even if the
Sam Turlington: legalities and the logistics are not permanent fixtures,
Sam Turlington: the conversations around them, the constant checking in, the
Sam Turlington: constant hearing, our identities weaponized, is
Sam Turlington: exhausting and, you know, draining. And it
Sam Turlington: makes our joy and it makes our celebrations even
Sam Turlington: more vital and rebellious. And I have never so
Sam Turlington: fervently embraced joy as an act of resistance as I have
Sam Turlington: right now. I didn't really know what that term meant until standing in
Sam Turlington: this current cultural moment. Now I get what joy
Sam Turlington: as resistance means because I have to live it every day.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I often say to people that I'm a protest just
Joanne Lockwood: by existing. It's kind of. I make people uncomfortable just
Joanne Lockwood: by the fact I'm here.
Joanne Lockwood: If you've never been in that position, you don't know
Joanne Lockwood: what that means. Just by standing somewhere and being present,
Joanne Lockwood: you are polarising people, aren't you? Me being
Sam Turlington: visible is me saying something. Walking around
Sam Turlington: as myself during the day, I am making a statement. I am a
Sam Turlington: walking protest all on my own, without meaning to be. I
Sam Turlington: saw a TikTok recently that has just been echoing in my mind.
Sam Turlington: You know how sometimes people go, oh, I don't get into politics, I don't like
Sam Turlington: to get into politics. I don't follow politics. A woman on TikTok goes, well,
Sam Turlington: politics followed you all the way to your house. Politics is very
Sam Turlington: interested in you and is with you all the time.
Sam Turlington: And that is the core of how I feel at the moment.
Joanne Lockwood: Quite stressful, isn't it? Yep. Thank goodness I have a good therapist. You
Sam Turlington: know, it's exhausting. I will say
Sam Turlington: there is something magical that happens when your entire community
Sam Turlington: is stressed out and exhausted and you all come together and you go,
Sam Turlington: okay, we're gonna be stressed out and exhausted together. And that
Sam Turlington: creates tighter bonds. And I've never felt
Sam Turlington: closer to my community than I feel now.
Sam Turlington: But it is such a heavy weight and I'm ready
Sam Turlington: for it to lift. Something's gotta give.
Sam Turlington: I don't know what that is. And without sounding overdramatic,
Joanne Lockwood: you're right, it does bond the community. I mean, you think about what's going on
Joanne Lockwood: in Ukraine and how that's bonded the Ukrainian people together. What's going on in other
Joanne Lockwood: war torn territories, what's going on in Gaza. Probably, yes.
Joanne Lockwood: People are finding that solace in human contact in themselves.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think the key thing from a human perspective is it's not having
Joanne Lockwood: hope and not being alone, isn't it? And lonely. It's trying
Joanne Lockwood: to find that kindred spirit. We need. We need a tribe, don't we? We need
Joanne Lockwood: a tribe. And bonding together in times of need is what
Joanne Lockwood: we do as humans. I think that's what's happening. Yeah. A
Sam Turlington: core tenement of our humanity is
Sam Turlington: being together and getting through things together.
Sam Turlington: No great achievement was ever actually achieved
Sam Turlington: solo alone. There is no
Sam Turlington: world changing thing that has happened with one
Sam Turlington: person. There's always if and if one person is
Sam Turlington: put to the forefront of all this stuff happened because of this one person, there
Sam Turlington: were hundreds probably of people around them, supporting them
Sam Turlington: in some way, encouraging them in some way.
Sam Turlington: So I think the power of community and the power of people is what's going
Sam Turlington: to get us through all of this. I think it is the particularly the
Sam Turlington: queer community. The magic thing about all of us is that
Sam Turlington: our resilience does something to the people around us. Seeing queer people
Sam Turlington: be resilient inspires community and relation
Sam Turlington: and empathy in other people. I have seen families
Sam Turlington: who, you know, did not agree politically
Sam Turlington: but who had queer members in them. I have seen the more conservative of these
Sam Turlington: family members pivot and go, you know what? I'm watching you rally with your people.
Sam Turlington: I'm watching you rally with your community and standing on what you know
Sam Turlington: to be true and your identities. And while we might not agree with you. You're
Sam Turlington: right to do it and you're right to fight the good fight. And it's inspiring.
Sam Turlington: And they have joined up and still not understood fully, but.
Sam Turlington: But known it was right to do anyway. And I think that's an amazing thing
Sam Turlington: about our community. Is New York a relatively safe place? I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: east coast, west coast, is it. It's a bit in the middle. That's the worst.
Sam Turlington: I find it to be a really safe place. I've lived here for over 10
Sam Turlington: years, and currently right now, we're in a time where a bunch of influencers online
Sam Turlington: are like, oh, my God, New York is so scary. New York is what it's
Sam Turlington: always been. I feel very protected here. That's not to say that harm
Sam Turlington: doesn't happen here and that there aren't people who. It's a very
Sam Turlington: touristy place. People come from all over the world, so, you
Sam Turlington: know, things happen here. But all in all, I feel safer here than I
Sam Turlington: do pretty much anywhere else in the United States. I feel. I can tell
Sam Turlington: when I leave New York City, there's a different feeling.
Sam Turlington: But here, yeah, we're fine.
Joanne Lockwood: New York has zones anyway, doesn't it? It has the Bronx and place like that
Joanne Lockwood: where you. You have to know where your. Where your
Joanne Lockwood: community is and where your community isn't. I know better than to go to Staten
Sam Turlington: Island. I know better. I don't go there. Yeah,
Sam Turlington: yeah, yeah, there's. There. Most of the communities keep to their own. Like, you know,
Sam Turlington: no shade to Staten Island. I'm sure there's some really lovely people who live there,
Sam Turlington: but, you know, that's. Not a. I went there.
Joanne Lockwood: I went to Staten island once when I was in New York. We heard that
Joanne Lockwood: the Staten island ferry was free, so we thought, oh, if it's
Joanne Lockwood: free, we'll go for a boat ride and go to Staten Island. So we went
Joanne Lockwood: over there, boat ride, loads of people got off the other end,
Joanne Lockwood: got on the next boat, came back again. It was like we had a little
Joanne Lockwood: free tour across the bay. It's great. That's a wonderful way to
Sam Turlington: see Staten island and then immediately go back to Manhattan and we do it. See
Joanne Lockwood: it from the boat and wave at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know,
Sam Turlington: I feel very privileged to live. I'm in Brooklyn
Sam Turlington: specifically, and I feel very privileged to live where I do and to feel as
Sam Turlington: safe as I do. I know there are people who come to New York or
Sam Turlington: people who are here who don't have that same experience, and I definitely hold
Sam Turlington: space for that. But compared to like where I grew up and what my experience
Sam Turlington: would be if I was living where I grew up or, you know, some other
Sam Turlington: place like my. All of our siblings in Texas or Tennessee.
Sam Turlington: Those places which are like actively dangerous
Sam Turlington: for queer people. So in comparison, it's hard to ever say
Sam Turlington: that I have a hard time here. I was in Oakland last year in
Joanne Lockwood: California and hanging around the Bay Area, San Francisco as well,
Joanne Lockwood: on my own, largely apart from being at a conference. And I felt very
Joanne Lockwood: safe. In fact, in Oakland I felt less safe as a white
Joanne Lockwood: person than it had nothing to do with my gender or what.
Sam Turlington: Interesting. Yeah. In fact, I was trans. I just felt nervous being
Joanne Lockwood: around. They call them panhandlers, people begging on the street and on the.
Joanne Lockwood: On the tube and subways. I felt more wary about
Joanne Lockwood: the potential drug culture on the street and that kind
Joanne Lockwood: of thing. That I felt more under threat by the random stranger
Joanne Lockwood: somewhere than I ever felt around who I was, if
Joanne Lockwood: you like. It's. Isn't that interesting that depending
Sam Turlington: on where you go changes what
Sam Turlington: otherness you have that is being called attention to.
Sam Turlington: I'm in some spaces where, you know, my
Sam Turlington: otherness of size calls attention to me. I'm in spaces where my
Sam Turlington: otherness of gender calls attention to me. And you know, sometimes I'm in
Sam Turlington: spaces where, you know, my race is an otherness because I'm
Sam Turlington: in a minority there. And it's just. Oh, it always fast is
Sam Turlington: fascinating what you expect to be the thing that goes, I'm the only
Sam Turlington: insert thing here in this space. And what makes you wary how that
Sam Turlington: shifts and changes as you move through the world. Picking up on that, what you
Joanne Lockwood: just said there. You're the only one in that space.
Joanne Lockwood: It's quite a lonely place sometimes, isn't it? Because you have all this
Joanne Lockwood: responsibility to be the best one you can be, to not let your
Joanne Lockwood: kind down. For a better way of putting it. But also hyper aware of
Joanne Lockwood: that difference that other people perceive you and they clock you and suddenly you're on
Joanne Lockwood: show, aren't you? Yeah, I. Circling it, connecting
Sam Turlington: it back to as an artist. I can't tell you how many times I walk
Sam Turlington: into an audition room and I am the largest body in that space. I am
Sam Turlington: also the queerest looking person in that space. Visibly, visibly,
Sam Turlington: clockably queer. And every time, you know, especially in film and
Sam Turlington: television, all eyes will just turn
Sam Turlington: and look at me. And I am very hyper aware of. Of all the
Sam Turlington: attention that is on me. And I'm like, all right, everything I do has to
Sam Turlington: be perfect. Otherwise people might make Assumptions
Sam Turlington: about other people who look like me. And it's a large
Sam Turlington: responsibility to bear. So you've got the. Your queer
Joanne Lockwood: responsibility, you've got your large body responsibility, you've got your
Joanne Lockwood: non binary everything, everything's going on and your pansexuality's gotta
Joanne Lockwood: kick in there as well. And just by the way, multi hyphenate.
Joanne Lockwood: Hyphenated. Yeah, my multi hyphenate identity
Sam Turlington: constantly on display and constantly. I'm trying so hard to be a good
Sam Turlington: advocate for my communities because, you know, as an extrovert, I
Sam Turlington: feel like we have extra, you know, because we're the ones who
Sam Turlington: will talk and engage with and have the capacity for it. I feel like I
Sam Turlington: definitely have to take on that role as much as possible.
Joanne Lockwood: I just need a rest. I can't have a rest. I'm an extrovert. I've got
Joanne Lockwood: to entertain everybody else. I'm on all the time, constantly
Sam Turlington: on. Although the older I get, the more important I'm realising.
Sam Turlington: Taking the time to turn off and just rest and be away
Sam Turlington: from things. Really important bit
Joanne Lockwood: neurodiversity kicks in. You get distracted on something and then you get gross
Joanne Lockwood: on something else. All the time. All the time. Sounds normal to
Joanne Lockwood: me. Yeah, that's just. It's just my life, you know, that's just.
Sam Turlington: I'm, you know, neurodiverse. And so the way my brain works, I've learned to
Sam Turlington: just roll with the punches and let my personality like
Sam Turlington: embody that and follow that and sit and wonder, wow, how do people who
Sam Turlington: don't have this experience just do.
Sam Turlington: That's amazing. And be in awe of other people's experiences.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. For the people who've never opened that door, whatever that door is. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah. You have the opportunity before you die to open the door
Joanne Lockwood: and figure out. Yes, it's never too late to open the door, it's
Sam Turlington: never too late to crack the egg, as they say. And I
Sam Turlington: encourage all people to shut it again. If it's scary, just shut the door. Doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: matter. Lock it, throw the key away. Yeah, yeah. But only do it after
Joanne Lockwood: you've tried it. Yeah. Life is too short not to open the door and
Sam Turlington: at least see what's going on back there, you know? Hmm. It's a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: fun, actually. Most doors are crazy. Truly.
Sam Turlington: I had no idea that my life. Yeah, I had no idea that my life
Sam Turlington: would be this joyful and this wonderful on the other side of the door. I
Sam Turlington: thought it was gonna be scary and constant turmoil.
Sam Turlington: But as bad as things are for our community.
Sam Turlington: I've never felt so at home in myself and so joyful in the way
Sam Turlington: that I live. I had no idea. So I will take
Sam Turlington: the bad with the good easily. What a conversation we've had. So we've
Joanne Lockwood: been gnashering away now for an hour and a half.
Joanne Lockwood: Half an hour in, I said to be better press record, otherwise I'm going to
Joanne Lockwood: waste all this. For anyone listening right now,
Joanne Lockwood: we've been doing this half an hour before you started. We carried on and
Joanne Lockwood: we could carry on for another half an hour, I'm sure, but it's been absolutely
Joanne Lockwood: fascinating to meet you, Sam. We both opened the door
Joanne Lockwood: and we both bumped into each other and gone. Wow, what a place. How can
Joanne Lockwood: people get hold of you? How can you help people? So anyone who wants to
Sam Turlington: get a hold of me, I'm on Instagram @seturli and you can
Sam Turlington: check out my website seturlington.com and
Sam Turlington: shoot me a message. My contact information is all on my website, so I'd
Sam Turlington: be happy to connect with anybody. So anybody who wants to
Joanne Lockwood: talk about what open doors I guess is absolutely. You want to know
Sam Turlington: about opening doors, holler at me. I'll talk to you about, you know, picking the
Sam Turlington: locks, how to relock the door. If you need to, I'll. I'll help you over
Sam Turlington: across the threshold. Absolutely. I'll just blatantly open
Joanne Lockwood: it without any shame at all and in joyfully walk. In
Sam Turlington: to kick the door down. I'm here, I'm queer. My back pain is
Sam Turlington: moderate to severe. It's been a blast. Thank you so
Joanne Lockwood: much. Thank you so much. As we
Joanne Lockwood: bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my
Joanne Lockwood: deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your
Joanne Lockwood: ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
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Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with
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Joanne Lockwood: episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.