Actress Natalie Anderson celebrates international women’s day with the return of her female centred podcast, with Hollywood guests and wellness experts.
The first episode of season six of The Capsule #inconversation with Harrogate Spring Water is launching to coincide with international women’s day, which is on 8 March.
The series, produced by audio content agency Distorted, boasts a line-up of celebrity guests and health & wellbeing experts to discuss the topics and issues that matter the most to women.
Guests include Hollywood actress Sophia Myles, Denise Welch, sobriety advocate and activist Mil-lie Gooch, Steph Mcgovern, Dr Zoe Williams, Rhiannon Lambert and more.
Natalie is best known for her work in TV and stage currently on Hollyoaks and set to appear alongside Liam Neeson and Guy Pearce in Casino Royale director Martin Campbell’s ‘Memory’ due for release in early Summer.
She started the female-led podcast with the intention of helping women by sharing inspiring stories and expert-led advice. It has built a strong Capsule community through honest chats, expert advice and insight, around all aspects of women’s wellbeing & mental health with the weekly special guests.
It was born off the back of a Capsule live event in 2019, “We had an amazing guest panel of speakers, but we noticed that the audience were shy asking questions in a public environment,” explains Natalie. “We realised a podcast would give us the opportunity to provide people with really important information and support from the comfort of their own homes.”
Natalie has always been interested in lifestyle, but during her 20’s and early 30’s she suffered terribly from anxiety and didn’t speak about it. “Before the pandemic particularly, we were in such a culture of hustle and fast paced living, I just couldn’t keep up,” she admits.
“When I did start to slow down and begin to understand the importance of wellbeing, it was a real game changer and one of the reasons I wanted to take The Capsule from a fashion blog to more of a wellness site.”
Launching series six around International Women’s Day is important to Natalie because she believes it’s vital to recognise and celebrate women’s achievements but to also think about how much still needs to be done and how it’s going to be achieved.
Although she hasn’t really experienced barriers in her career, there was a time when Natalie was faced with the gender pay gap quite early on. “A male actor that I was working with at the time was getting paid more than me, having less experience than me and doing probably less work. Times have changed but there is still so much work to do,” she says.
Making the podcast is a bit like having her own personal therapy, having learned a lot and met the most incredible women, who are her heroes. She loves listening to the listener’s response as well, when people say it’s helped them in some way and it’s providing some kind of value or support, then it’s a real boost for her.
“I’ve learnt so much from so many different people,” she says. “I learn so much from our experts; when we had a The Medicinal Chef on last year, and Dr. Larisa when we discussed fertility. Then talking to people like Kate Hardcastle about being resilient in business and Griselda Togobo, she gave me the tools to be more confident. Meeting these incredible women along the way has taught me to be proud.”
Natalie thinks she knows why response from both guests and listeners has been so positive, she says: “I would like to think we’ve had this level of response because of the commitment we put towards making this podcast, we do a lot of research and the team work really hard to produce it to a really high standard. Also, our commitment throughout the pandemic, we made sure we were with our listeners throughout that whole time. I think that helped build up a real Capsule community.”
When it comes to personal highlights, Natalie is clear: “The whole thing has been a huge highlight, I’ve been able to chat with incredible people from Olympians like Denise Lewis to people who I have followed the careers of like Shirley Ballas.
“I’ve also really had my eyes opened with advice and wellbeing tips, when Nicola Elliott from NEOM came on she explained why we should always operate at 70%, for someone who’s always at about 110% that was eye-opening and probably one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever been given!”
Joanna Lumley Dame Judi Dench and Joan Collins have been an inspiration to Natalie in her career, she’s inspired by older women that have lived and breathed it, who have paved the way and been trail blazers.
When asked about advice she’d give to young women thinking about their careers, she says: “Don’t be frightened about the opinions of others because other people will always have their own agenda.
“I want young women to keep pushing and not to be afraid to not let their social circumstances or surroundings eat away at their confidence. Believe in You and whatever career path you want to choose.”
As season six of The Capsule launches, Natalie says of it: “I think this season is going to be one of the most interesting and expert-led seasons which is something I’m really excited about.
“We’ll cross over into a lot of different areas with lots of different experts and be able to look at moving forward post-pandemic; how do we heal, how do we get back to normal? That’s what I’m hoping for from this series.”
Natalie launched the online lifestyle and wellness platform thecapsule.co.uk in 2016 as a source of inspiration for women, focussed on women’s health, wellbeing and lifestyle.
Season six of The Capsule #inconversation launches at 8pm on Sunday 6 March on all podcast platforms including Spotify, Apple and Google.
