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Dawn O’Porter on the paperback release of her book, Life In Pieces
Virgin Radio
26 Aug 2021, 11:24
Chris Evans and Dawn O'Porter. Credit: Virgin Radio
The acclaimed writer joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to talk about her 2020 diary, parenting through lockdown, what she was like at school, and wanting to hug her auntie.
Originally released in hardback last year, Dawn’s daily 2020 diary, Life In Pieces, is out now in paperback, including new and updated chapters. The diary tracks the first six months of a pandemic, and is a collection of 12 pieces which developed from blog posts. She told Chris: “I was keeping a diary at the time, so the book kind of ended up being that with extra stuff put in, and I think people have liked reading it, because everyone was going through the same thing, but a lot of people had forgotten that kind of daily, ‘It’s only going to be two weeks and then we’ll be fine’. And then, ‘Oh god, it’s a month. Oh god, it’s never going to end’. That kind of feeling.
“It reminds them what they went through. The good and the bad, because I think a lot of people had good days and bad days, and that trajectory of emotions was more extreme than ever before, and I wrote all of that down. It’s about the indulgence of it, the boredom of it, the trying to deal with children, trying to get some time for yourself and not being able to, and just begging the universe to make it better everyday!”
Dawn has been married to actor Chris O’Dowd for nine years. They have two sons and live in LA. When telling Chris about her own lockdown experience, she said: “I was going through so, so much. I’d lost a friend just before lockdown started, so I was grieving in a huge way and at the same time I had to save face for my kids, and not make the atmosphere in my house horrendous all the time. My highs and lows were so extreme. I would literally be on the floor with my children trying to do Lego, which I’m terrible at… it really hurts my fingers… and I’d say, ‘Right, I’m going to build a castle out of Lego,’ and I’d get to about six inches high and I’d be like, ‘This is relentless, and so boring. If I actually build a castle, it’s going to take me all day.’ So I’m like, ‘You build a castle, and I’ll go and hide in the cupboard and cry.’
“So I’d find myself being a kids' entertainer one minute, and then just standing in the kitchen, huddled round the radio, like wartime, listening, waiting for the announcement that we were going to be allowed out, and then I’d get a text from home, because we were in America, from someone who I missed, and suddenly you just find yourself in fits of tears.”
Explaining her decision to start documenting her lockdown, she said: “I haven’t kept a diary since I was a teenager, but it was very therapeutic, and I was writing it on this blog that I was keeping, so I was kind of getting feedback. It was very encouraging, to keep writing it down, do the kids all day, pour a huge glass of wine and write this blog, this diary."
When talking about writing the new additions to her book for the paperback version, Dawn said that, whilst it was weird that the pandemic was still going on, she was a lot calmer in retrospect compared to "that really difficult first six months, where we were just all shocked by what was happening and we were frightened. You know, we were all bleaching our red peppers that came to the house, because we thought everything was going to kill us!"
Dawn continued: “I did a whole chapter in the book... this is really going to sell it... on how much I love my cat. And my cat had died within the time between the hardback and the paperback, and so you’re kind of looking back on all this life that has happened, and all of these things that have gone on, and actually the feeling was, we got through it and it’s still going, but we’re kind of in it now. I’m so unphased by the prospect of quarantine now. I’ve done it so many times, alone with my kids, with Chris, and if we have to now shut down for two weeks, it like, ‘Alright, it’s going to be hard but we’re going to do it. You say that to us in March 2020 and it was like, ‘How are we going to get through a day?’
“I’ve definitely become more resilient. I was looking back on the panic of having to spend day in, day out with my children! I’m definitely a better parent for it. Which is good. But they start school next week and I cannot wait!”
Whilst Life In Pieces deals with life during a global pandemic, and is moving and touching, it is also very funny. When Chris asked Dawn whether it is in her nature to find humour wherever she can, she said: “It’s definitely in my nature. I would be the one trying to crack jokes at a funeral and making everyone feel really uncomfortable. I remember at drama school actually, being told off for it. My teacher called me out in front of everyone and said something along the lines of, ‘You just can’t deal with your emotions and you deal with everything by trying to make everything funny’. It was awful. And I went red and was so hurt by it, and I remember that night going, ‘Yes I do. I do do that. I do try to make funny out of terrible things, and how dare you call me out in a room, and say that was a negative thing’. I’m kind of glad he said it.”
Dawn added: “I imagine being at school with me was annoying, because while everyone else was trying to work, I’m trying to make everyone laugh!
“Every year when the GCSE and A-Level results are coming out, I’m like, ‘I hope kids don’t pin their whole futures on those results, because you can fail everything and still marry a movie star!”
Dawn usually lives in LA, but in April this year, she temporarily lived in Toronto , when Chris got an acting job there. She explained: “An opportunity came up to do a job in Canada. We thought we were escaping. We were like, ‘We feel like we’re in The Handmaid’s Tale. We’re gonna make it to Canada! It’s gonna be amazing!’ because where we were was just locked down all year. We didn’t get a break. And we got there, and we did two weeks’ quarantine, where you’re not allowed outside the front door, and then we came out of quarantine, but the whole of Toronto went on a ‘stay at home’ order, and didn’t come off it until we left!”
Currently in the UK, while her husband performs in Constellations (at the Vaudeville Theatre until Sunday 12th September), Dawn said: “We got back five weeks ago. For me, it’s been lovely to be able to experience some freedom, but I’m not allowed to go to Guernsey where I’m from, because my 84-year-old aunt and uncle are there, who brought me up, and they are still not letting me in because I have a US vaccination.”
She continued: “Here’s the thing about the pandemic. Obviously my experience of the pandemic was very privileged compared to a lot of people, but no matter who you are and how you live, not being able to see the people you love is just emotional agony. We just spent a few days in Ireland and saw Chris’s family which was wonderful. That just ticked a box and got us closer to feeling that this is going to end one day, but that’s my final hurdle, I haven’t seen my dad or my auntie and uncle who raised me for two years, so it’s very emotional.
“You hope that it’s all on the trajectory of now getting better and that it’s not going to get worse again, but I think what this whole pandemic has done to me… I know it’s such a cliche to say, ‘Live in the moment,’ but we really don’t know. If you’d said in January 2020 that the whole world would shut down because of a global pandemic, no-one would have thought that could ever happen, so you’re really at the mercy of nature and you’ve just got to be present in your own life and do your very best for yourself, and that’s going to feel a lot easier once I’ve hugged my auntie.”
Dawn was one of the founding members of the charity Choose Love (formerly known as Help Refugees) and, at the end of her chat with Chris, she spoke about an urgent appeal to raise money for Afghan refugees. She said: “We’ve been using the app Cameo all week where lots of well-known people like Billie Piper, Olivia Colman, Dan from Bastille, and me... people have been buying personalised videos from them. And we’ve raised about $95,000 dollars in the last week.
“Go onto the app Cameo, see who is raising money for Choose Love, and get a personalised message. You can have a celebrity to propose for you, they could wish you a happy birthday, I’ve had to do a few pep talks!
There’s all sorts of things, but you can have a personalised message by someone. So we’re raising a tonne of money and it’s all for a really amazing cause.”
The paperback edition of Life in Pieces is out now.
For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky, weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.
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