Entertainment

Cheryl Strayed: Tiny Beautiful Things writer on grief, wisdom and her kids reading her books

Published

2 years ago

April 7, 2023

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When Cheryl Strayed was still at college, her mother’s sudden death transformed her life.

She went from being a successful student to a heroin addict.

The grief she experienced, and the story of how she turned such loss around to become a best-selling author, has inspired fans around the world.

But the 54-year-old writer tells Sky News: “I have no interest in being anyone’s guru.”

Best known for her 2012 memoir Wild – an international bestseller adapted into the 2014 film both produced by and starring Reese Witherspoon – Strayed wasn’t always so willing to share her personal experiences with the world.

She describes her first deeply personal piece of writing, titled Heroin/e, as “a raw, personal essay about my grief, about my foray into drug use, and about the sorrow, the agony, essentially, I was in as a young woman – who didn’t have her mother”.

Published in a magazine called Double Take, she admits her first feeling on seeing her work in print wasn’t pride, but an urge to “go buy every copy of this magazine so nobody reads it”.

However, soon afterwards the magazine contacted her to say they’d received hundreds of letters – a bigger response than ever before – from readers saying they had truly connected with her work.

Strayed says: “That has really made me strong. I’m always afraid to publish personal things about myself. I’m always terrified.

“And yet every single time I’ve been terrified, they’re the times that people say, ‘Thank you for saying that, we needed that to be said. You saved me, you changed me, you helped me’…”

She goes on: “People need to hear the truth because they need to understand they’re not alone.”

Such a transparent approach to her life has won her a legion of fans, but Strayed admits she sometimes needs to take a step back.

“I feel like it is a gift that people feel that, kind of… open and warm towards me… But also, I’ve had to really learn.

“I’ve had to actually take some of the advice I would give to other people, learn how to maintain those boundaries.”

She adds: “I’ve already given you my best thing… The thing that I can give the world is through my writing… I have no interest in being anyone’s guru.

“And so I just try to greet people with gratitude and compassion and love, which I genuinely feel for the people who read my work and love it.”

‘Feeling less alone’

Now, following the success of Wild, another of her works has been adapted for the screen.

Disney+ original Tiny Beautiful Things is based on Strayed’s best-selling collection of essays Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar.

It was compiled from an advice column which she wrote anonymously on The Rumpus, an online literary magazine.

As much a personal memoir as an advice and self-help tool, Strayed says she began sharing her own personal experiences as part of her Dear Sugar advice in a nod to the many stories that had helped her during her own times of pain.

“When I was in the deep suffering in the years right after my mum died in my twenties, it was books I turned to, collections of poetry and collections of essays, and novels and plays, to see the humanity, to see the universal stories of love and loss and suffering and triumph.

“And all of those things made me feel less alone.”

Wisdom where you’d least expect it

Strayed says she has also learned to gain insights from the most unexpected of places.

“I think the most important thing ever is to stay awake and aware, and alive to wisdom in all of its forms,” she says.

“Sometimes it comes out of the mouth of your six-year-old child. Sometimes it comes from a stranger in the grocery store line.

“Sometimes it comes from a book, sometimes it comes from a therapist. Sometimes it comes from an advice columnist.

“[So it’s important] to stay awake to the fact that wisdom doesn’t come from a single source.”

Starring Kathryn Hahn, Sarah Pidgeon, Quentin Plair, and Tanzyn Crawford, Tiny Beautiful Things follows Clare – who is a fictionalised version of Strayed – as a struggling writer finding success as an advice columnist, while her own life is falling apart.

No Hollywood version of grief

Touching on her mother’s death in the show, Strayed says one of the most important things for her was to portray the reality of grief – not a sanitised Hollywood version of it.

“It’s so important to me that we do not tell this false story about grief that gets told over and over again, which is like this idea that if you still experience grief years after somebody has died, that somehow, you’ve been held back and the way to heal is to let it go.

“To me, the way that grief functions is… of course, immediately after somebody has died – that is very often the fiercest, hardest grieving time.

“But you don’t leave that sorrow behind.”

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She says she has learned a valuable lesson about loss: “Grief is part of who I am. And it is both a very painful, hard thing that I wish didn’t happen to me and one of the greatest gifts of my life. And I will carry it always.

“I can carry it in a burdensome way that holds me back, that causes me pain, that forces me to be destructive, or do things that heavy weights can sometimes do.

“Or I can carry it like the basket of riches that it is…”

She goes on: “If you really want to honour that person you love so much, make something beautiful of that ugliness of that loss.”

And what do her children think?

A mother herself, she admits her children, son Carver, 18, and daughter Bobbi, 17, have yet to read any of her work.

So, does she ever worry about them learning so much about their mother’s life from her books?

On the contrary, Strayed says it’s the cherry on the cake: “It makes me feel happy that when they’re ready to know their mum on a deeper level, there’s a bunch of crazy stuff I wrote.”

Tiny Beautiful Things is streaming now on Disney+ in the UK, and on Hulu in the US.

Entertainment

BAFTA TV Awards 2025: Post Office drama and Mr Loverman among big winners

Published

5 hours ago

May 11, 2025

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BAFTA TV Awards 2025: Post Office drama and Mr Loverman among big winners

Mr Bates Vs The Post Office and Mr Loverman were among the big winners at this year’s BAFTA TV awards – with Danny Dyer and Ruth Jones picking up comedy prizes.

After Mr Bates was named the winner of the TV BAFTA for best limited drama, ITV was also given a special award for commissioning a show that “brought dynamic change”.

The four-part series, which aired in January 2024, depicted how former subpostmasters and subpostmistresses were held liable by the Post Office for financial discrepancies thrown up by its computerised accounting system, Horizon – shining a light on one of the widest miscarriages of justice in UK legal history.

Producer Patrick Spence said the show could never have been made without ITV, as well as the journalists who covered the wrongful convictions, and those who campaigned about the scandal.

“Our show didn’t change the law, the people of this nation did that,” he said.

Mr Bates stars Toby Jones and Monica Dolan missed out on prizes in the acting categories, with Marisa Abela named best actress for her performance in Industry and Lennie James named best actor for Mr Loverman, a series based on the novel of the same name by Booker Prize winner Bernadine Evaristo.

Both winners seemed shocked to receive the gongs, with first-time nominee Abela saying: “Oh my god, I really wasn’t expecting that at all… This is insane.”

James described the win as a “fantastic honour”.

Earlier in the night, his co-star Ariyon Bakare took home the prize for best supporting actor, while Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning picked up the gong for best supporting actress.

Elsewhere, Dyer got one of the night’s biggest cheers as his first ever BAFTA was announced – the award for male performance in a comedy, for his role in Sky’s Mr Bigstuff – while Jones’s final performance as Nessa in the long-awaited Gavin & Stacey: The Finale earned her the female comedy performance gong.

Accepting his prize, Dyer said “the acting was so bad it was funny”, before he swore several times despite being warned about the rules. He also thanked his family, and writer and actor Ryan Sampson, who he called the “best thing to come out of Rotherham”.

“I’m not going to lie this is immense,” said Jones as she collected her award. “The person I would like to thank most his my dear, dear talented friend James Corden.”

She said without British actor Corden, her co-creator and co-star, “Vanessa Shanessa Nessa’ Jenkins would not exist”.

Wins for other shows included best drama for Blue Lights, best soap for EastEnders, best scripted comedy for Alma’s Not Normal, best entertainment performance for Joe Lycett’s Late Night Lycett, and best entertainment programme for Would I Lie To You?

This year’s BAFTA Fellowship, the highest accolade given by the organisation, in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film, games or television, was presented to broadcaster Kirsty Wark for her “unwavering dedication and unmatched legacy in the world of news and current affairs broadcasting”.

Two new categories celebrating children’s television were also introduced this yearm with CBeebies As You Like It at Shakespeare’s Globe taking home the inaugural prize for best children’s scripted, and Sky’s Disability and Me (FYI Investigates) winning the non-scripted prize.

The main ceremony, which was hosted by actor and presenter Alan Cumming at London’s Royal Festival Hall, came two weeks after the BAFTA craft ceremony for technical awards – where Baby Reindeer, Rivals and Slow Horses each picked up two prizes.

Entertainment

BAFTA TV Awards red carpet: Celebs arrive in style ahead of ceremony

Published

10 hours ago

May 11, 2025

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BAFTA TV Awards red carpet: Celebs arrive in style ahead of ceremony

Stars of the small screen have hit the red carpet in the sunshine ahead of today’s BAFTA TV Awards.

Baby Reindeer, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, Rivals, and Slow Horses are among the shows in the running for big prizes.

This year’s ceremony is hosted by Alan Cumming.

But before the BAFTA prizes are dished out, the stars are making their way down the red carpet at London’s Festival Hall.

Here’s a look at all the outfits.

BAFTA TV Awards – live updates
The full list of nominated stars and shows

Entertainment

Stanley Tucci on Italian politics – through the prism of food

Published

18 hours ago

May 11, 2025

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Stanley Tucci on Italian politics - through the prism of food

Stanley Tucci says he doesn’t understand why there has been a sudden rise in the “very far right”.

The 64-year-old actor, author and food connoisseur leads a new show aptly named Tucci In Italy, where he looks at the world-renowned cuisine and how its ingredients tell much more than just what is served on the plate.

Speaking to Sky News, he says painting the full picture of the Italian landscape was the driving force behind the show and that he made a conscious decision to include stories from all backgrounds.

“I asked that we include a story about a gay couple and their children, whether it was adopted or surrogate or however, because I thought it was a really interesting story.

“I am confused as to the direction that so much of the world is heading now to the very far right and sort of vilifying the other, meaning people who aren’t like us, but I don’t quite know what that means because we are all so different.

“There is no us, right? We’re all different, so I don’t know what the problem is there.”

Tucci adds that he wants to “look at what’s happening in Italy politically and how it’s affecting people but, of course, all through the prism of food”.

“Those people are sitting there having a traditional Sunday lunch with the grandparents, with the grandkid, and they’re a family and yet the government says they’re not a family.

“I think that’s really interesting because Italy puts so much emphasis on family and for all practical purposes, Italy has a negative birth rate so why wouldn’t you want to welcome more children into your society who are Italian?”

In 2016, Italy passed a law that now recognises civil unions for same-sex couples in the country.

It grants couples many of the same rights and financial protections as married heterosexual couples, however, it doesn’t give LGBT+ couples the right to joint adoption or in vitro fertilisation.

In 2023, the Italian government extended its initial ban on surrogacy to include arrangements made by its citizens abroad.

Its legislation subjects any intended parent who breaks the law to jail terms of up to two years and fines of up to €1m (£846,000).

The law doesn’t include those children who were already registered before it came into effect.

The buzzword on social media over the last few weeks has been “conclave” following the death of Pope Francis and of course, the Oscar-winning film of the same name.

Our interview took place just before the real conclave took place, which resulted in Pope Leo XIV becoming the first American-born leader of the Catholic Church.

Starring in the film alongside Ralph Fiennes, Tucci became inadvertently connected to the news agenda when life began to imitate art.

“It’s fascinating. I mean, look, I don’t know anything about it, really, other than I made a movie about it. That’s all I know. But it is, the timing of it is unfortunate, but it’s also oddly coincidental.”

Tucci In Italy looks at traditional Italian cuisine but also explores the impact history, changing political landscapes, migration and culture can have on a dinner plate.

He visits the northern area of Trentino-Alto Adige, which borders Austria, to look at how Mussolini’s intense policies regarding German identity shaped the area and people today.

“It’s an incredibly beautiful region, but also it’s the way those two cultures have figured out a way to get along without violence, without blame, without hating each other, without divisiveness.

“I think it’s really wonderful. It’s a testament to… How easy it can be for us to get along.”

Tucci In Italy premieres 21 May at 8pm on National Geographic and all episodes stream from 19 May on Disney+.