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What Lights My Fire?
Tracey Ullman, Actor and Comedienne
Tracey Ullman
I love documentaries, I like observing real people. The thing that got me going when I was a child was there's a film director called Ken Loach and he does sort of documentaries, improvised type films. And there was a film called Cathy Come Home starring the actress Carol White. It was very, very fly-on-the-wall and realistic looking. And I watched as a child and really believed it was true. I saw this scene where she was a woman on welfare whose husband was in prison who was having her children taken away from her because she couldn't support them. I really believed it was happening. And when I heard that it was acting, I just couldn't believe it.

I would sit in front of my mirror for hours just pretending I was being interviewed for a documentary and I was living on welfare and my husband's in jail and—and I'd smoke a cigarette and—well, you know, it's really hard with the kids and I'm tired some days, you know. I just want to have a nice time and go to the pub and have a drink and—I would just do it for hours and hours. And my mother would knock on the door and go, "Shut up and go to bed. Stop thinking you're a welfare woman who's getting beaten by her husband."

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