YouSaid · the spoken record

Gok Wan

lines on the record: 51
first: 2010-02-07
most recent: 2010-02-07
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I'm constantly applying because, of course, when I'm on the island, I want to film and look my best and chaplicks would never, ever do.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My book will be Beautiful Thing by Jonathan Harvey because I absolutely love that film. It's my coming out film, it's my coming out play and I saw it when I was at college and I became a man watching that play.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it will be. I can't ever imagine my world without my family, my friends. I don't think I could have to sneak them into the island somewhere.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not that well known either, and I know how much it means to me because I get very, very excited when I introduce it to people, and I'm a bit of a nerd because I might sometimes lock somebody in my car and say, you're not getting out. You've heard this entire song. So fortunately, we were in a studio today and not in my car. So this is Tracy Chapman again.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So this song, okay, I'm going to throw myself out on a limb here, I think is possibly the best song ever written of all time. That's quite stupid. It's quite a statement, absolutely.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm 35 now. I love what I do so much I know that I would have to give part of that up to be a successful. I don't know whether I could give that up because it goes down to the fact that, you know, I've suddenly found something that I'm good at and I don't want that to stop.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, if you had to ask me who was the most successful person in my family, and I would say it was my mum, because she set out to have children and to have a family and to love her children, and she's accomplished all of that.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. I work 100 now. I love my job, but I'm still trying to be successful. I'm still, I suppose I'm still trying to put to bed the little fat boy that wants to be light.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so yeah, so now this song reminds me of the happy years at school, and I think actually the lead singer on this particular track has probably got one of the strongest voices of the nineteen nineties. It's Karen Wheel”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I was seeing a guy at the time, and it's terrible what I did, but I completely used him as an accessory to come out to my parents properly. And I said, we're going back to my parents. So I load him up in the car, got in the car, drove up to Leicester because my parents work and catering, they finish work at midnight, one o'clock in the morning, then they have their meal, their evening meal. So I knew that we were getting home just in time to have that evening meal. Sat there and the dinner table was deathly silent and it was caused by the atmosphere that I'd created, but I thought, I've got to do this, I've got to do this, and it was the winter now by this time. And my dad left at dinner table early, and my dad never leaves the dinner table early. And I just remember thinking if I was to die right now, I would deserve it. What have I done? And then left the dinner table at the end of the meal and went into the living room. My dad had made up a bed in the living room with a mattress and pillows and lit an open fire for me and this guy to stay in. And it was his way.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Come out My sister told my parents, my sister and my brother knew that I was gay, and my parents didn't, and I My sister went home and my mum called me up, and she said Hello, Babe, because she calls me Babe, that's my nickname. Hello, Babe, like that. Suddenly it felt like I was being deuffled. All of my inners were being ripped out of my nose. I just remember thinking, oh my God, I can't believe this. They know. Don't tell dad because the fear was there was a point one percent chance that my parents were going to disown me because they meant to be they still do mean so much to me that in itself was too much of a risk. There cannot be any risk that can lose my family. And my mum said, like, you know, we kind of always knew. And then we skipped forward a few months.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Aye, I don't know what it is about that song. I think I know. Absolutely. If I get into my car and I start driving that song on, I genuinely think I am the modern age James Bond. It makes me feel like a bloke is what it does.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So this song is the only song ever that I actually do genuinely believe I'm sexy to. I can't wait to hear it. Absolutely. And Joe, I'm going to let the song speak for itself.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My family helped me. My sister was an amazing support, my mum was an amazing support, and now it makes sense for the show that I make because when I turn around to a woman and say You do not need to lose weight You do not need to look in that magazine and feel that you are not as good as these people because I've been airbrushed or retouched or because they're underweigh and on a catwalk and I know all of that because I've lived on both sides of that fence.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How people treat you differently, I was equipped and I was clever enough to beat them away or floor them with what I was going to say. People got too close. I was ready to fight them. and then suddenly nine months later I didn't have any of that I was stripped of all my armour, all my ammunition, all the tools that I'd learnt over the last twenty one years, and I was left with basically nothing. So who did he do?”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, this is the last piece of the jigsaw in the... my hide horrible puzzle when I was younger. The weight started to drop off me and it was ridiculous the most ridiculous way. Some days I'd have two spoons of honey because I kind of figured that that's all the energy I would need to survive that day and of course it didn't happen. You know, halfway through a conversation I had to take a nap, I was exhausted. In my head I told myself nine months earlier that I was going to discover success and discover who I was because if everyone's told me for so many years fat, ugly, stupid, you know, half breed, queer, whatever it was. And in fact, the one thing that I'd understood the whole of my life was my body. I understand what it was like to live in a fat frame.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean I will always struggle with that fight because it's in theory it's a contradiction what I do on television because of where I've come from but it also makes a lot of sense you have got to embrace who you are as a person if you don't understand that person there's no point you going off to a diet club there's no point of you becoming addicted to the gym and working out 20 hours a week because if you don't understand that mind and that person you will never be at one with how you look you will”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“because it wasn't about that. It was a cry for help. It wasn't about my weight. It wasn't about high luck at all. But it was the one way that I could control it. Does that make any sense?”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So then I decided, right, okay, that's it. If I'm going to be an actor, if I'm going to be successful, I had to change. And at that point, I remember thinking to myself, do you know what you've got to do it? You've got to lose the weight. It's the only way you are. feel successful or happy. I couldn't have been more wrong, and I did it and I reduced the amount of feed.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the earliest memories I can remember of deciding to lose the weight was being completely naked, sat on my bed. At the end of my bed was a big old, beautiful wardrobe with this great ornate mirror on it. And I remember, and it makes me feel quite sad when I say this, but I remember looking in the mirror and thinking that wardrobe is so beautiful apart from the reflection. Was really tricky.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And, you know, maybe it's a bit cruel of me to say that, but it definitely wasn't because I was talented. But as the hours went on at Central, the more depressed I got. And it was real, it was a very dark time for me. And it seems like all the three years of suddenly being confident finding out who I was was completely stripped away from me when I walked through the door at Central.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I be allowed on the course Aye, I am unsure why they let me on that course. I wasn't right for the school and the institution, it was completely out of my depth, and I don't know why they let me on the course. I have no clue even to this day. Part of me thinks to myself, did I just make up the numbers? Was it great to get a working class northern, Asian, Chinese gay boy?”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I won the place and I remember I was suddenly surrounded by really, really creative, talented individuals, and I was a scared little fat boy from Leicester, you know, so the course started and it just went from bad to worse and I'd never written an essay in my life. I come from a creative course of three years doing performing arts where I was laying on the floor being a fried egg for two years. That I could do. But writing an essay about Stanislaskilbrecht, I had no idea. Who are these people? But I suddenly realized that I was going to be a terrible actor, and I suddenly realized that I was going to be really, really bad at the only thing that I'd ever thought I was good at.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Perfect timing when I was at Central in my first year we had to make a music video and we chose this song and it's one of my happy memories of Central and believe me there are not many of those.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, it was weird because I'd done three years where being fat didn't matter, it was great it became part of my physical presence. You know, being gay, it didn't matter because in the theatre, darling, you know, being gay is absolutely accepted. You know, being mixed race was brilliant because I was doing contemporary arts. And so I could play any character and give it an edge. I went down to London. went and did my audition, and walked in the door and looked around, and suddenly there were forty kids that were all beautiful middle class, better at everything that I've ever done, had academic, intelligent, creative, and I remember just standing there thinking what have I done?”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I've always known. I think I came out of the womb knowing. I always knew that I was different. You know, I got on better with women. I preferred female company. My relationship with boys was a bit awkward. And it was probably because I fancied them. I basically decided after bumming around for a few years. I suddenly decided I was going to go back to college because I was going to fulfil my dream of always wanting to be an actor. And I'd always, and when I was at school, the safest place for me was when I was in school productions. And I felt like I belonged and I was allowed to be outrageous. I was allowed to be effeminate. And so from somebody that had left school 14, 15, no GCSCs, not really done any academic work at all, had been bullied most of their life. I suddenly went and became a straight A student in one of performing arts courses and had this three years of absolute, it was brilliant. I was good at something.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you know what? I was angry about being gay. I was angry about being fat. I felt very lonely. The bullying had got to me, you know.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah, 16. I was deeply unhappy at school. I'd had a terrible time. I left school when I was 14. Without any qualification, no GCSEs, without anything. I mean, I started hanging out with the wrong kids. I was getting myself into trouble. I was becoming quite aggressive.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The track number four, I think, possibly, is one of the greatest songs written by one of the greatest artists of all time, probably the most talented and moral lyricists of the last hundred years. And every time I hear this song, and it's probably the most played song in my world, I always discover something new about it. It's brilliant.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was tough. It was really tough. I was bullied as in, it wasn't like a group of people that would beat me up or do anything like that at all. It was a constant social bullying that I went through. So it was constant name calling. It was always being the butt of everyone's jokes. It was always being told the ugly fat weird Chinese gay queer kind of, you know, all. And it was a constant thing. It was constant, constant badgering. And a lot of the hang-ups that I had throughout being bullied I still carry with me now like I still think that I'm really thick because I got told for so many years that I was thick because I was fat and stupid. And then going up to being twenty and deciding to lose the weight was my way of bowing down to the bullies, I suppose. And same right, well, I need to change myself, because maybe you are right.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I was taking all the boxes for public funding. Basically, I mean, you know, I was there. It was hard. I was always quite effeminate, and because I was overweight, my character got bigger because that was my way of defending myself. Yeah, so you were getting quite camp and quite cabaret as well.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did? Yes, because you're actually, when you're a stylist, you're putting your clothes on. I absolutely dressed him. And let me tell you right now, it wasn't a bad day for that reason.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have, yeah It was quite simply one of the most horrendous moments of my life and normally if you're doing six or seven shots you might need to do maybe four outfits so you'll have a rail of clothes. I think I arrived with 25 rails of clothes. I was so nervous. I didn't know what I was going to do with him. He was obviously in the 70s voted as the most stylish man of all time and still is these two and still is.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again my sister introduced me to this song, and it stayed with me the whole of my adult life, and whenever I'm happy this song seems to make sense and whenever I'm sad it makes even more sense. It says one of those songs that can be played for any of my moods and I absolutely love it and it's jealous guy.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“exactly you're providing in its sign of love and it's a sign of affection and it's a sign of success and it's family bonding it's about getting everybody together so the bigger we got the more love we felt”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Secretly, publicly anyway, I would eat as much as I possibly could. I mean, I still love food now. And I still have quite a complex relationship with food. And it was hard to admit that my relationship with food was so bad because the memories I've got of food are amazing. The parties, the family gatherings and things. I remember all that stuff, but it was my worst enemy at the same time.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mum never cooked at home and dad is the chef. I mean, dad is the best cook in the entire world. He is brilliant. In fact, we can all cook, me, my brother and sister, we're all very good cooks because of dad teaching us”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of my earliest memories is putting a tuxedo on as a child. I mean, looking like the crankies, basically, being four or five years old, and I would parade myself around the restaurant with my dad. And so I was cocooned in this world of Chinese restaurant living on a councillor stay, just having the best time, great memories playing in the back garden of the restaurant, eating the most amazing food. Tell me about”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Originally I was born in a caravan. We lived in a static van with the original trailer part trash. My parents had no money. My dad's father brought my dad over from Hong Kong and he met my mum. They fell in love which was wonderful. Your mum's English. My mum's English, yeah. And they fell in love and my dad's dad had a Chinese restaurant. The first Chinese restaurant in Leicester actually, which he's very proud of. But the first one, and it was very, very busy, but we still had no real money. And so I was born in a static van in a caravan park. So that's my earliest years. And then we got a council house, and it was in the Posh's new council estate in Leicester. And I have great happy memories of being in Miss Council House. I remember doing the front garden with my mum, and it's just happy. It's beautiful. For some reason, it's always summer in that garden at the front.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is the first seven inch record, you call them record? No, that's a record. Absolutely, a seven-inch record that I bought. And I remember saving up all my pocket money and my...”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do wear a lot of black. I found myself now on network insights tweeting my outfit what I'm going to be wearing and asking what do you think of this? Do you think I should go rock chick or do you think I should go 60s mod”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My super luxe casualties. Absolutely. Everything I do, I mean, down to driving my car, I work out the outfit that looks best with the car. I mean, really, it's bad. It's terrible. So I know that if I'm going shopping, what would I look like when I'm getting outside my car at Dover Street Market? I see. And so I know that I'm going to wear the black trench with the sunglasses, with the heeled boots and the skinny jeans. Or anything, I'm going to salvages, so it's going to be in the car park. It's a quick rush. So then I know that I'm going to wear probably oversized jeans and a big pair of chunky boots and a fleece or something, you know, just something slightly more football is why.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I suffer from really bad clothing OCD, and so I organise on a Sunday I work out all of my outfits for the whole week, so that includes filming the show and then also the personal stuff when I'm going out with friends going to a do in the evening. And so it works out about 20 outfits a week. And I log everything so I know where I've worn it to the last time I wore it.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're a stylist. Okay, I'm wearing black boots with a buckle on, which are an ankle boot. I'm wearing a pair of slightly oversized combat black again, which have a harem cut, which means I've got a lower gusset, which gives you all that kind of bagginess. I'm then wearing a shrug around my neck, and I'm also wearing a black, very, very sheer knit roll-net jumper. And my black glasses and my hair's down and I'm wearing a waffle coat. This for me is very casual, let me tell you. Okay. It's very casual.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Take you through what I'm wearing. Oh no, John, I actually thought to myself today I'm off camera for the first day. I'm going country casual. Is that casual? This is really casual for me. Interesting. I'm wearing boots and I'm wearing...”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, kind of listening with my sister actually. So I remember stealing her album. And I have to say, for anyone that wants a trip down the 80s memory lane, it's a brilliant, brilliant album, and it does have such significant memories of happy times with my sister.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so this particular song Thorny My Side by the Rhythmics is one of my favourite songs because it reminds me of my sister. She's a huge part of my life still and I remember playing this song and I remember thinking to myself and I must have been four or five years old thinking to myself one day I'm going to be as cool as my sister and just by her playing this song made me feel as if I could be as cool as her.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The applications are enormous. We get tens of thousands per series. They are suffering and it's a fetch in their relationships, it's affecting their work, all that kind of stuff. And they genuinely feel that there isn't anywhere else to go to.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would I ever do it myself? Do you know what? I think I faced my body demons. Not entirely. I'll always have hang ups about my body. I'm thirty-five now. I was fatter for longer than I've been thin now, if you see what I mean. I do. and I had to go through how to look good naked personally with myself on my own for a long time, and I don't need to face the demons that I've already dealt with, even though I'm sure over the years I will have to face some more. And I'm not saying that these women. Come on the show for any other reason than the fact that they feel that they've got nowhere else to go because”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think I was really surprised. I was shocked that These women had never had a voice before. Because when I was overweight when I was younger I always managed to articulate it in some way. How did you? It was either through creating a very big personality and becoming larger than life, you know, the barriers. Actually, you can stand just there and you're fine there for now. And then later on, if I get to know you better, you can come a bit closer. It was my way of doing it. But with these women, they hadn't done any of that at all. They'd lived in their shells and hadn't discussed it with their partners, hadn't discussed it with their friends, and didn't even know what their bodies looked like.”
2010-02-07 · Desert Island Discs · Gok Wan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source