NR: We’ve heard that ‘Hamnet’ wasn’t the first set on which you’ve cooked. Where did the idea of bringing a cast iron pot to set and cooking for the cast and crew come from?
TS: The idea came to me when I was in Ireland a few years ago, during the pandemic. We were filming Wolf, with cinematography by Michał Dymek, directed by Nathalie Biancheri, with George MacKay and Lily-Rose Depp.
As it was during the pandemic, we were confined to a ‘Covid bubble’ in our hotel, with designated areas just for us. There were a few people from Poland there, Michał Dymek, the cameraman, and Radek Kokot, the focus puller. In the Irish system, you work five days a week, weekends are free, and somehow we had to fill that time. We played charades for the first few weekends, but then the confinement started to get to us a bit, and since we could go to the beach, I came up with the idea of cooking something on the beach. I brought a pot from Germany because I couldn't find one in Ireland, and so the cooking began.
First I made a goulash, then some rosół (Polish broth) and then other people joined in and started making their dishes. So we feasted and spent time together on the beach.
NR: Do you have any favourite dishes that you like to cook? Was this ‘famous’ soup your signature dish or do you have a wider repertoire?
TS: I love soups, so I usually make soups from whatever I have on hand. But on the set of Hamnet, I made different broths, goulash soup, goulash, and golonka (pork knuckle). We even managed to make bigos.
It actually started with the golonka, which Chloé [Zhao, the director] really enjoyed, and she encouraged us to continue our culinary experiments. She had us make a shopping list, and the driver would go and buy the ingredients, and that's how cooking on set began.
NR: So, can we confidently say that a well-fed crew is a guarantee of Oscars and Golden Globes? It seems like it.
TS: I don't know, I don't know... But with my soup, there's a chance [laughs].