【英语听和读】朱莉·克里斯蒂

 Amber 1: Hello, I’m Amber and this is bbclearningenglish.com.

In Entertainment today, we listen to parts of an interview with a beautiful
British screen icon 2! She talks about fame and good fortune – or as she calls it,
‘getting lucky’.
Julie Christie is famous for her roles in films like Dr Zhivago, way back in the
1960s, and in the 1970s, came films like Don’t Look Now with those famous
love scenes with Donald Sutherland. Then she turned her back on Hollywood
for a couple of decades, but now she’s back, playing the lead role in a new film
called Away From Her.
The film is about how Alzheimer’s disease changes the lives of a couple who
have been married for over 40 years. Julie Christie plays the wife, who realises
that Alzheimer’s disease is destroying not only her memory but also her
identity, and she makes the painful decision to go and live in a home for people
with the disease.
Julie Christie believes the film makes you think about ‘mortality’, about the
knowledge that people do not live forever. She says this is a ‘concept’, an idea
that ‘the western thought pattern’ – the way of thinking in the western world –
doesn’t include. Try to catch the first three words of her answer – ‘life is …’?
Julie Christie
‘Life is short and I think mortality is not a concept that is built into the western thought
pattern - it’s not dealt with on any level, I don’t think.’
Amber: Did you catch it? Julie Christie says ‘Life is short’. Notice too, the expression
‘to deal with something’, meaning to include something. 
Entertainment © BBC Learning English 2007
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Julie Christie
‘Life is short and I think mortality is not a concept that is built into the western thought
pattern - it’s not dealt with on any level, I don’t think.’
Amber: Next, Julie Christie talks about how her glittering fame in the film world –
she won an Oscar by the time she was in her in her mid- 20s, for example –
isn’t part of her life now, nor is it important to her identity, her sense of self.
She says it was just good luck, good fortune, just ‘me getting lucky’.
Julie Christie
‘I sort of look back – none of that is relevant to me – my past. It’s absolutely irrelevant 3. It was
me getting lucky and having all these terribly interesting things happening to me and sort of
experiencing fame and, you know, which not everybody does, and success, and in that
particular world, which again, not everybody does, and that was interesting – I’ve sort of put
it away in a drawer – it’s got nothing to do with anything.’
Amber: Notice too, Julie Christie uses both the word ‘relevant’ and its opposite,
‘irrelevant’. She also describes how she ignores her famous past; by saying
she’s ‘put it away in a drawer’ – which is a lovely figure of speech, isn’t it?
Julie Christie
‘I sort of look back – none of that is relevant to me – my past. It’s absolutely irrelevant. It was
me getting lucky and having all these terribly interesting things happening to me and sort of
experiencing fame and, you know, which not everybody does, and success, and in that
particular world, which again, not everybody does, and that was interesting – I’ve sort of put
it away in a drawer – it’s got nothing to do with anything.’
Amber: Finally, we asked if she thinks life has changed very much for film stars since
she began landing leading roles. She says it was extremely stressful for her
when she was young – she ‘got exhausted 4 and anxious and awfully 5 worried and
stressed’! But she wasn’t aware of how hard it was on her at the time, and she’s
horrified 6 by the ‘concentration’, or attention, on celebrities 7 today. 
Entertainment © BBC Learning English 2007
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Julie Christie
‘I mean, I wasn’t aware of how hard it was on me, personally. I just did it and got exhausted
and anxious and awfully worried and stressed, but now it has changed – God, yes, I’m so glad
I’m not plunged 8 into that because the concentration on celebrity 9 is so hideous 10 – absolutely
hideous to have to deal with that, it must be.’
Amber: Now let’s revise the language we focussed on in the programme today.
‘mortality’ - the knowledge that people do not live forever
‘the western thought pattern’ - the way of thinking in the western world
‘to deal with something’ - to include something
 ‘to get lucky’ - to experience good fortune
‘relevant’ and its opposite, ‘irrelevant’
‘to put something away in a drawer’ - to forget about something