Jemima Goldsmith talks about love, arranged marriages, and soulmates

Gulf News

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00:00I've been ruined by romantic comedies.

00:02I mean, I feel like my whole life

00:06has been destroyed by romantic comedies.

00:09And that goes for all my friends too.

00:11And Shaker brought to the film a depth

00:16and a tenderness that I don't think we'd have got

00:21with a different director.

00:24I don't think you've got to eat.

00:25I sort of, like, I was surprised by that.

00:28When I watched the film and I saw what he'd done

00:33with the ending, without wanting to give anything away,

00:37it surprised me.

00:42What made you invest and, you know, back?

00:45What's love got to do with it?

00:48Well, I assume you mean invest in terms

00:51of my time and energy.

00:52Yes, time and energy, not money.

00:53No, producers these days do a lot more than that.

00:55It's not conventional.

00:57I didn't finance it, Didier Canal financed it,

01:00but it came out of an idea I had 10 years ago,

01:04which was having come back from living in Pakistan

01:07for 10 years, I came back and had reflected

01:11on my experience of seeing successful arranged marriages

01:15up close in my ex-husband's family,

01:17which was pretty conservative.

01:18And ours was the only non-arranged marriage in the family.

01:23And I came back and it was at the same moment

01:28when I was 30, when I came back to the UK,

01:29a lot of my friends were wanting to have kids

01:31and settle down and were finding that quite difficult.

01:35And so it started kind of as a joke

01:37because I would say, okay, you know,

01:40who would your parents have chosen for you?

01:42And would it work?

01:43And if not, let me arrange your marriage.

01:47I think I became a bit megalomaniacal

01:49because I did arrange marriages, like I got involved.

01:52I was on the committee and the family selection process.

01:56And so I started, yeah.

01:59So it kind of started with that in mind,

02:02with this idea that what happened,

02:03what would have happened if someone like me

02:06had not gone to Pakistan when I was 21?

02:08So it's not my story, but what would have happened

02:10if someone like me had had an arranged marriage?

02:15If my parents could ever have agreed,

02:17which would not have happened, who would they have chosen?

02:21And how might that have looked?

02:23And how might you get to the point

02:24where you would accept that?

02:27You know, how much heartache,

02:30how many frogs do you have to kiss

02:32to get to the point where you go,

02:34okay, I've messed it up, you have a go.

02:38Right, right, of course, I had an assisted marriage.

02:40Did you?

02:41Yeah, I did, yeah, I did.

02:43I bet, is it good?

02:45The marriage is good.

02:46Three kids later, I shouldn't complain, really.

02:49Have you seen the film?

02:51I haven't, no.

02:52It's releasing in the US, I suppose, tomorrow.

02:55But I felt very close to it because as a 20-something old,

02:58and when my parents were deciding who I should marry,

03:00I resisted the idea,

03:02and I thought it was the most archaic tradition at all.

03:05So I had a question, are you also glorifying, you know,

03:09an institution that is so, like, regressive?

03:14Well, I think there's a really big difference

03:16between forced marriage and assisted marriage.

03:19Forced marriage is the other end of the spectrum

03:21and really has no place in the modern world.

03:25And whereas assisted marriage,

03:27I mean, you can call anything assisted marriage.

03:30Assisted marriage is basically a setup

03:32by the person, the people who know you best,

03:35and hopefully love you most.

03:38I mean, it's not that far different

03:40from your friends setting you up,

03:42or even if you take it one step further, an algorithm.

03:45I mean, arguably, you're better off being set up

03:48by your parents than you are by a random algorithm.

03:51So it was really just looking at the different

03:54sort of styles of dating and meeting the right person.

03:59I don't, yeah.

04:01And it's what, you know, an assisted marriage to me

04:03is an introduction, essentially,

04:05by somebody who kind of fits the bill.

04:08And then from there, it's for the kids to decide.

04:11Right, right, of course.

04:12Yeah, that's how it worked out as well.

04:13I mean, you're given like a, you know,

04:16a platter of people to choose from.

04:18It's actually quite nice.

04:20They make it easy.

04:21In fact, some of my white friends do tell me,

04:23I wish I had parents who would get in

04:25with this arranged marriage thing.

04:26It's so exhausting to find your soulmate.

04:30I also love your expression, a platter.

04:32So funny, like they're being served up.

04:35Exactly, you're quite privileged that way.

04:37You don't do the, like, work they do.

04:39You know, they do the whole thing.

04:41Well, you're a perfect audience.

04:43I think you'll enjoy it.

04:44No, no, I'm really looking forward to it.

04:46I'm very curious to know how it's treated

04:48and whether there's a happy ending,

04:50because you always wonder.

04:51It's such a hit and miss with any marriage,

04:53assisted or otherwise.

04:54I think it's a hit and miss.

04:56No spoilers here, you'll have to watch it.

04:58Done, that's a promise, that's a promise.

05:01Are you a sucker for romantic comedies, Jemima, or no?

05:05I've been ruined by romantic comedies.

05:10I feel like my whole life has been destroyed

05:12by romantic comedies.

05:15And that goes for all my friends too.

05:17I think that we have got these ridiculous expectations

05:21of being completed by another human being

05:23and love at first sight,

05:25and this like magical, mythical love

05:27that's going to completely, you know,

05:29overwhelm and complete you, which, you know,

05:33and I love those films.

05:35I also think that it's quite an unrealistic idea

05:39of what love is, which is why it's interesting

05:42to compare this, the passionate, you know,

05:46sort of rom-com love with the more pragmatic,

05:52you know, simmer then boil approach.

05:54You know, I liked it in the film,

05:56we have one of our characters, the mother,

05:58who says, you don't have to start with love,

06:01you end with love.

06:02Simmer then boil.

06:04You want to boil first, and then you chuck out the chai

06:06when it gets too cold.

06:08And so, yeah, it's, yeah.

06:12It's interesting you say that, you know,

06:14like sometimes I feel in arranged marriages,

06:17you grow to love the person,

06:18because people often ask me, do you love your husband?

06:20And I'm often, I said, no, not initially,

06:24then you grow to, I mean, you know, so-

06:25There is that line in the film,

06:27you grow to love the person you're with,

06:29and the girl says, what, like Stockholm syndrome.

06:34Yes, it is, it's also, yeah, it's such a gray area.

06:38Love is such a gray area anyways.

06:40So it's interesting that you're tackling.

06:42So are you an incurable romantic like Shekhar Kapoor?

06:46I am both an incurable romantic and an incurable cynic,

06:51rolled into one, hence why I've written this film.

06:58So does writing come easy to you?

06:59Like, did you just sit down and get the kind of discipline?

07:02How did it happen?

07:03Hard as nails.

07:05I found it, that's why,

07:07it took 10 years to get to this point.

07:10It was a real labor of love.

07:12Oh, it is, it is.

07:13But you have Shekhar Kapoor who's directing it.

07:15You couldn't have asked for a more sensitive director,

07:18if I may say so?

07:19Like, he's not, I don't know,

07:21I've seen his movies, there is something to it.

07:23There's always a subtext of romance anyway.

07:25Even Mr. India, I think, like you were saying,

07:27it's a romantic film.

07:29It's not a sci-fi.

07:30We could have, you know,

07:31when we were looking for a director for this film,

07:34which, you know, being pitched as a straight up rom-com,

07:38a multicultural rom-com,

07:43we could have gone for a broad comedy director,

07:46but it would have been a different film

07:47and not a film I would have wanted to watch necessarily,

07:50because I like rom-coms

07:51that are a little bit more grounded in reality.

07:54And Shekhar brought to the film a depth

07:58and a tenderness that I don't think we'd have got

08:04with a different director.

08:06I don't think you've got to,

08:07I sort of, like, I was surprised by that.

08:10When I watched the film and I saw what he'd done

08:15with the ending, without wanting to give anything away,

08:19it surprised me,

08:21because I'm not sure it was even there in the script.

08:24And I think that he's not like so focused on the comedy

08:30and people do laugh in the film,

08:32because I think there are some funny lines in it,

08:35but he also makes them cry.

08:37Really?

08:38So it's, you know, you should,

08:41a good audience will come away laughing and crying.

08:44So tell me something, like,

08:46why are you not in the movie, may I ask?

08:48Because I always pegged you as an actress as well.

08:51Are you joking?

08:52I'm literally the world's worst actress.

08:55I don't think there's anyone who acts worse than me.

08:57Hopeless.

08:59No one said that.

09:00I mean, I've known it since I was a child.

09:02I am not a good actor.

09:04I'm self-conscious.

09:05I think because I was very, very shy when I was little,

09:08and I managed to put a bold front on

09:11and fake it to make it.

09:13But underneath, I'm probably still quite shy,

09:16and so I'm too self-conscious to act.

09:20But I like being behind the camera, behind the scenes.

09:24I like to, I like the writing and the producing,

09:29because I'm a producer as well.

09:30Yes, that's true.

09:31So do you enjoy the puppeteering of sorts?

09:34In a weird way, you have a lot of power.

09:36You can edit people out.

09:37You can edit the scenes out.

09:38You are the boss, ultimate boss.

09:40It must be the person with the purse strings, right?

09:43I mean, there are definitely many people above me.

09:48Okay.

09:49There's a, yeah, there's Working Title,

09:52who produced the film

09:53and who basically invented the rom-com genre.

09:57And there's the financier, Studio Canal.

10:00So I'm not as powerful as I'd like,

10:03but I'm working on it.

10:06Excellent.

10:08So, Jemma, my favorite movie, romantic movie, is Gone Girl.

10:11I know it's very dysfunctional,

10:13very disturbing a movie to classify as a love story,

10:16but I think there was an element of love,

10:18some kind of thought of love.

10:19Would we see you make a thriller on those lines

10:21where everything is not hunky-dory,

10:23where the actress is not so sweet and angelical?

10:28Yeah, I love Gone Girl,

10:30and I'd love to write something like that.

10:31It's actually, yeah, it's a sort of tone

10:35of the thing that I'm next writing.

10:37Was it?

10:37Oh, I can't wait to watch it.

10:39Thank you so much.

10:40I'm gonna watch this movie.

10:41Anything, this is the last question.

10:42Let us know what you think of it.

10:43Please email Sameer or get in touch and let us know,

10:46or send me a message on Twitter.

10:47I wanna know what you think of it.

10:49Really?

10:50I'm quite, sometimes people hate me because I'm frank.

10:53You could say I hated it, it's fine.

10:55I'll hate you but it doesn't matter.

10:56Thank you for being so honest.

10:59I love an honest person.

11:02Thank you so much.

11:03And well done on the writing.

11:04And I can't wait to watch and fall in love with this one.

11:07Thank you so much.

11:08You

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