Sex Education

Phil's been on the show before.

A while back, he was on with his cutting room colleagues from the series Sex Education.

That was a fun one.

Do check it out if you have time.

That's my biggest fear, Matt, people get to know me.

[laughs]

The last time you were on the show, we were talking about the TV series Sex Education.

Since then, you've done even more TV series work.

Like, I was also thinking while you were talking about, like, Gillian Anset.

Well, first of all, I was thinking about the fact she's also in Sex Education, which I'd forgotten about until right now.

Which I think is a pretty bad TV show, in my opinion.

But, like, she's, she does, like, literally...

I would hate to ruin the memory of the first season.

I'm exactly like this about programmes.

How do you feel about that? I also have never seen the sequels to The Matrix because the original is one of my all-time favourite films.

Are you a completionist or are you willing to forgo a favourite film or series if the extended media is not up to par? I also want to let you know how great I think the new 12 Doctor releases are.

I know it is, but there's so much of it.

Yes.

And the problem I have with all these sort of programmes is like...

Everything is like, he's a detective, and here's the angle.

A close second is Margaret Thatcher in The Crown.

But a role playing Dr. Jean Milburn in Sex Education convinced Anderson that in her real life she wanted to encourage women to lean into the most passionate and vulnerable versions of themselves.

Her first book about women's desire, Want, was a bestseller.

Her follow-up collection is called More.

Mm

... which is what happened.

Um, but this is, this is an idea that started to percolate for you when you were doing this role of, um, Dr. Jane Milburn in Sex Education, right? Can you explain that evolution?

Hmm.

Yes.

Yeah, and in Sex Education, she was the weird alien-obsessed tentacle girl.

And I was like, fuck yeah.

She's got a bit of work ahead of her, but she's a great character too.

Ita has made it her career to change how sex is represented on screen and by extension, how we practice intimacy at home.

She's behind some of the most progressive recent representations of sex on screen from Normal People to Sex Education.

She also developed the Intimacy on Set guidelines that have come to be used across the film industry.

What the intimacy guidelines have brought to the industry is supporting and inviting everybody to be open, creative, to consider this intimate part of the storytelling, to understand that it is an extension of our physical storytelling, just as, um, you know, a really good fight is about, you know, sort of someone would got angry.