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Liv Tyler doesn’t get a lot of press, because she’s just a genuinely sweet person and she’s not out hustling. She does get steady gigs though, like her role on the 911 spinoff, 9-1-1 Lonestar, where she plays a head paramedic. It premiered this week. (Sidenote: If you like TV podcasts, check out the Pajiba podcast. I have heard their hilarious recaps of the regular 9-1-1 and am looking forward to their new Podjiba episode about this show!) Rob Lowe is on that show too, so it looks like they’re getting so much star power. Liv was on Jimmy Kimmel to promote that, and she told some cute stories about living in London with her partner, British sports agent Dave Gardner. Jimmy joked that Liv moved in time to avoid Trump, which sounds like a definite advantage. I think about doing this a lot. Liv said certain things are tricky for her though, like the 24 hour clock, Celsius, and driving on the other side of the road. (I almost wrote the “wrong” side of the road, but know our British readers would not appreciate that.) Here’s some of what she said and you can see the video below:
Her youngest kids, Sailor, 4, and Lulu, 3, have English accents
Milo [15] is a New Yorker. [Ed note: his dad is British rocker Royston Langdon]. The babies have complete English accents. It’s very sweet. They say the English words for everything. They call a stroller a buggy. They’ll say the English version, like chips and I’ll say ‘you want some french fries.’The hardest part of living in London
It’s really basic things. The 24 hour clock, I can’t get my head around it. I don’t know what 19 o’clock means, I have to have a chart in the kitchen. And Celsius and Fahrenheit really gets it. Driving, I’m too scared to drive on that side, which is weird because I’m a good driver here. The roundabouts and the rules. Pedestrians do not have the right of way in England.
[From Jimmy Kimmel Live via YouTube]
After that they showed some road warning signs from England, that’s at about 3 minutes into the video below. They use red circles around things to say they’re not allowed, but there’s no line through them! I would have a hard time getting used to that too. Also I didn’t realize that pedestrians don’t have the right of way there, but it’s been over 20 years since I visited. In Switzerland you have to stop immediately for pedestrians and they take it super seriously, so this is bizarre to me.
On our latest podcast I talked a little about what it was like to go through culture shock living in Germany (my ex husband is German) as that related to Duchess Meghan’s experience. (That’s at 7:10 into our talk and here’s a link to that section.) I didn’t even mention the little daily differences like this! I was able to drive in Germany, I was one of the only expats I knew who drove, because we moved to Switzerland first and they accepted my Connecticut state license. Then when I moved to Germany they took my Swiss license without making me take any tests. Otherwise I would not have bothered. They do drive on the same side of the road as us, I doubt I could have driven there otherwise, but it was hard to get used to yielding to vehicles coming in from the right on some roads. Of course driving on the Autobahn was crazy! The 24 hour clock was easy to me though, you just subtract 12. Liv is so cute for acknowledging that’s hard for her, and no shade on that. I always had to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit using my phone and never quite knew what temperature it was. There’s so many seemingly minor things that you don’t realize will be an adjustment until you live somewhere.
Here’s Liv’s interview!
Photos credit: Avalon.red and Getty
I LOVE her shoes in the last picture.
Someone mentioned that Liv, with Alicia Silverstone did Aerosmith’s Crazy video in 1994.
(after Alicia had already done 2 Aerosmith videos for songs off that same album- Amazing and Cryin, I believe).
That passage of time thing…..
Those videos were epic. The cringe factor of Liv doing a striptease in her father’s music video is still very much there, though. Very wtf.
Even back in the day, as a teenager, I was like, um…what?!
She looks fantastic and natural.
She really does! She has such a beautiful face!
She absolutely does not look natural in motion. I watched 5 min of her show and was SHOCKED by her face. Shocked.
She has had some serious work done on her face, it looks really great though. Very natural.
I watched her on Harlots and she hadn’t had the work done then so this is a big change.
But I wouldn’t have noticed unless I had watched her in that
She had a face lift and her chin/jowls tightened
@Crowhood – I agree with you. Her face looks awful. @Kkat – nothing natural about it – if it were “natural” we wouldn’t know she had work done. Why does everyone get work done and it looks terrible? These actresses and actors have access to money and the best surgeons. Living in the Philadelphia area I can tell you we have better plastic surgeons in our midst.
Are you sure it’s not because she’s had a third child? Some people’s faces change from pregnancy and weeight change but she looks the same to me. Just not 20 anymore.
When I lived in NJ I never knew what the temperature was. I, too, had to use my phone to convert it to C lol
The am/pm vs 24 hour is easy enough as my country uses both.
Celsius makes more sense! Freezing is 0. It’s just a simple system haha.
Yes, so much simpler! Yesterday, it was 45°C where I live – that’s bloody hellish! It’s still 29°C, and it’s now almost 1:30 am.
Lived in Europe for a year for university before apps were a thing and had no problem with the metric it makes sense!
No kidding! There’s a reason most countries use it!
I struggle with C* when it comes to fevers for my kids. The nursery will call and say they have a temp of 39 or 40 and I’m all, is that high? (Narrator: Yes, it’s very high.)
Even if we move back to US, I’m hoping to teach them Metric System and C* temperature conversion. I really struggle with it even though makes so much more sense.
I’ll be the devil’s advocate and admit I prefer Farenheit for weather descriptions. That scale’s designed for how heat feels to us, rather than by measure of how it affects water, so it’s numbers make more sense to me. I prefer metric for everything else, though, especially after working in medicine for so long.
Oh, I take that back. Baking. You’re never getting me to give up Standard for that lol.
@Veronica, I’m sorry to inform you that that is not how it works 🙂 You prefer it because you’re used to it. It has nothing to do with “how heat feels to us” or “how it affects water”. Temperature is measurement of heat, or energy in a substance. It being a gas, liquid or solid. The only difference between Fahrenheit’s scale and the Celsius scale are what points were taken to set the scale. Fahrenheit used some very odd numbers to measure things, who on earth assignes 32 of 96 as starting points? He used a mix of water, ice and salt for 0, equal amounts of ice and water for 32 and 96 for body heat. Especially the latter is very hard to reproduce exactly, where volumes of ice/water and pressure etc were already easy to pinpoint at that point in time. But just as 96 equals body heat on the Fahrenheit scale, so does 37 on the Celsius scale. So really, it’s just what you’re used to. To me the Fahrenheit scale doesn’t “feel” right, because there is nothing to hold on to. 0 seems easy to remember for the freezing point of water (unlike a very random 32), 100 for boiling water does too. Now on that scale speaking of a body temperature of 37 gives me some clue where we stand between literally freezing or boiling 🙂 But if you’re starting with 32 and 212 (for phenomena you can imagine) and 96 as a value to represent something, there really is nothing to hold on to.
When we first went metric in Australia, there was a lot of panic from those of us who’d been taught and used the imperial system. This was understajdable, as as our money for example, was difficult for some to add, subtract, multiply and divide, sometimes needing to convert along the way: 12 pennies = 1 shilling, 20 shillings = 1 pound, 21 shillings =1 guinea… ugh. I found it so much easier to stop trying to convert everything, and just go with the Base 10, and then I got it in no time. After a while it makes perfect sense and is so much easier. As for the 24-hour clock, eh, she’ll get used to that, too.
That’s the key: stop trying to convert it to what you first knew. Just go with the new system.
I still can’t get used to inches. I used to say chips thinking of crisps and not french fries. And yeah, I do not dare to drive in London even though I used to back home.
She’s so lovely!
When I was vacationing in Scotland a few years ago I just could not even try to drive. I think it would have taken my type of brain a while to really make the switch.
My husband was equal to the task, but at the roundabouts he would have so much trouble and confusion! We would go along so slowly and he even went the wrong way a few times!
We are from the Philly area so we are used to honking and yelling and general ass-holery when anyone makes a mistake on the road (which we happily participate in because you know, city of brotherly love and all..). But in Scotland the truly lovely people were literally rolling their windows down to say “it’s ok it’s ok, there you go now, this way my friend. It’s ok!”
I don’t know if people are like that in England. But oh my word we were just amazed! The kindness, friendliness, understanding towards tourists!
Anyway her experiences made me remember that. Little things can seem small but can be such huge adjustments really
My husband and I rented a car out of Heathrow during our honeymoon in the U.K.. We’re from the U.S. Trying to get out of Heathrow and it’s multiple roundabouts and the gps simply telling us “Bear left” (WHICH left??) and my husband hitting a curb while getting used to the spatial difference….I spent about ten minutes of my honeymoon truly thinking I was going to die in that car. Once we got on the highway it was completely fine – really no different than the U.S. Re: Roundabouts: At the time, we were living in D.C. and were used to the roundabouts there. U.K. roundabouts are a whole ‘nother level.
Yes, the roundabouts in UK are way tougher than the US. Aside from the fact they go in the other direction, they seem about 3 lanes wide and are jammed with cars. If you manage to get in, it’s not so easy to get out. A roundabout (or rotary) in the US only has a handful of cars in them most of the time.
If CB had a facility for posting pics I’d post one of a traffic light junction near my house. It literally looks like a demented Christmas tree since it’s about 20 different sets of traffic lights one ONE pole. I don’t drive, and I have no idea how anyone could possible understand which set of lights they’re supposed to be obeying!
As a Dutch person I’ve taken my Dutch car to England a few times (that means my steering wheel is on the “wrong” side driving there) and roundabouts are just awful in England. I’m used to very neat and well designed roundabouts at home. But there really is nothing to hang on to, just enter and try to exit where you planned… After a few days I started looking closely at signs and signals and they are all over the place. Traffic lights can be right in front of you, above you, or next to you, but a lot of the times it’s not clear what lane they are serving. And it’s not just foreigners not getting a hang of them. The Brits themselves have a very hard time navigating these death traps! No clue how this country queues up for the bus so politely, because on the road it’s a different game.
I’m from the Philly area too, you are so right!
I wouldn’t drive in the UK either, I wouldn’t trust myself to not accidentally go to the other lane, and wouldn’t want to risk hurting anyone.
I found the people in Scotland really lovely too. It’s one of the best places I’ve ever visited, and I would so happily go back again and again.
I once decided it would be fun to drive from Townsville to Sydney (I’m from California). It was incredibly nerve-wracking. The worst was when I left the main roads for smaller ones or pulled into a gas station or business area. I Couldn’t listen to music or converse. My constant mantra was, “If it feels wrong, it’s right” over and over and over again. I gave up in Brisbane and ended up flying.
Driving in Scotland is the best thing! I absolutely love it. Generally I love driving in the UK. I am German, but have been driving regularly in the UK for over 30 years. With my own German cars and British rentals, so I can handle the wheel on either side. It is so much more relaxing than driving in Germany and usually drivers are much more polite and less selfish. And I love love love roundabouts! I used to especially love some of the big ones in London when most of them still had little to no traffic lights. There is nothing quite like driving in a big roundabout with red buses and black cabs all around you! Admittedly these days I rarely use a car when I am in London; using public transport makes more sense on various levels.
But yeah, don’t tell me they drive on the wrong side: I am not British, but I totally think driving on the left is driving on the right side! And I absolutely second those thoughts about the Scottish… lovely lovely people in a stunningly beautiful country. Countrywise it is my favourite place in the world.
I always subtract 12 from the number to get the 12 hour time.
So if it is 1900, I subtract 12 and you know that it is 7pm.
Until you get to 20:00 you can even just subtract 2 from the second digit to get the time for a shortcut. Like 18:00 you just take 8-2 and you get 6:00. One of our remote controls uses the 24 hour clock and once it gets to 9pm I have to take an extra second to think about it.
Yes you can. Never thought about that.
I’m sorry but she sounds like an idiot.
Yeah I’ll be judgy too. While I get the Celsius to Fahrenheit thing, I’m always shocked with Americans who struggle with 24 hour time. There’s 24 hours in the day so it’s not hard. If all else fails, just subtract 12.
I lived in Belgium as an exchange student, and while I didn’t have trouble converting the 24-hour clock, I didn’t realize they said the actual time normally. I broke out “It’s seventeen-o-clock” In the beginning and my family looked at me like I was a moron. I mean, I probably was, but at 15, I just didn’t know better.
Seriously nothing to be sorry about with that opinion, lol.
hahahaha, came her to say the same. She sounds totally ignorant.
You know, as an immigrant I sometimes feel like being an American is like being royalty today – you expect the rest of the world to conform to YOU, not the other way around, because they do. English is the international language. American food restaurants are available in every country. American culture permeates the world so even in the most exotic places, you never feel completely out of water, like a French or a Vietnamese person might. It’s a real privilege that not a lot of Americans ever even think about.
My husband has a huge grudge against the US for this reason haha. He’s a journeyman plumber. Pretty much everything he deals with is manufactured or sold by US companies.
He DESPISES phillips head screw drivers. He can’t understand why they wouldn’t switch to robertson and is convinced it’s just because it’s a Canadian thing.
The metric system is so much more exact as well. But I’m garbage at it. I was taught inches and feet by my parents who were used to imperial. I remember struggling with CMs and MMs in elementary school. I can give you an estimate of how many pixels wide something is, but once it’s more than about 30cm I’m useless in guessing haha.
I’m American, and that was something that was very blatant to me the first time I traveled in Europe. I cannot, cannot, cannot stand when American tourists immediately start speaking English to a random person in another country. And yes, most of the time, the person they’re speaking to does know English, but damn, at least try to speak the language. Any travel book has translations for the questions you’ll need to ask: directions, ordering food in a restaurant, asking for something in a shop. Show some respect. Ughhh.
Sara, I had to learn English when I moved to the US from scratch. Now when I travel I assume that since it IS the international language, I can use it. Not because I’m too lazy to learn a few phrases in French or Japanese, but because one language was chosen to be used by everyone in the world and it just makes sense if people do that. I doubt that’s how Americans justify speaking English to the French (ha!), but there it is.
yes, at least learn how to greet someone in their language first and learn to ask if they speak English or even just their word for “English” with a question inflection.
It’s not hard!
A couple of years ago, I was waiting in line in a store in Barcelona. In front of me were two young women from the US, they immediately started talking English to the sales person who replied nicely that his English isn’t good enough to follow and one of the women told him “then why don’t you learn it?”. My jaw dropped to the floor. Without even blinking he told them “or you could learn Spanish since you are here.”
Both women were offended over this.
@greenmonster, this guy is my hero and those two women complete idiots!
Unfortunately a lot of Americans tourists behave like this which is why people outside of the US don’t really like Americans honestly.
After traveling to other countries, I often look at NY and other big cities here in the US and wonder how difficult it is to travel to when you don’t speak much English. There so little information in other languages.
The time thing is pretty easy, but I admit I never really got the Celsius thing for some reason. But if I were living in a place where that’s what was used, I’d figure it out and get used to it.
What puzzles me is the way Americans write the date with the month before the day 6/12/2020. As a South African where it is day, month then year I am always confused when I see for instance :7/13/2020, I am like since when are there months? It always gets me.
I just figured they do so, because they often say month first, day second? I know South Africans speak English too, but that’s my best guess.
Haha yeah I understand what you’re saying. I am American but grew up speaking Spanish and in Spanish it’s spoken ‘the day of month, year’ – so ‘el 2 de deciembre, 2019’. Was very confusing for me when I learned English, as I get older sometimes I default to the grammatical structure of Spanish which is much closer to British English (I guess also Commonwealth English? Is that even a thing?) than American English in many ways.
But us Americans do say “December 2nd, 2019”. Not sure why!
I am sorry, but how thick you have to be that you cant tell what time it is on 24 hour clock? I understand metric system or C vs F, but 24 hour clock really???
You can figure it out, but it is not second nature. When I hear 14:25, I always have to stop and think for a second “oh yeah 2:25” it’s like I have to translate in my head to make it real. It’s not horrible, just a thing you have to do. Same as with F and C. Celsius temps always sound weird to me. Like 100 degrees sounds HOT- 37.7 doesn’t. It’s just what you are used to. I like inches and feet – and so do the Brits for some things(at least the ones I meet). They always give their height in those terms. And then they always give their weight in “ stones”! 🙂
It’s the number format. Our brains aren’t wired to immediately link “2200 hours” to “10 p.m.,” so it takes a second for the association to click. Sort of like translating a word from another language you learned later in life. I use military time constantly for a my job, and even I occasionally catch myself miswriting it two hours off because I’m so used to associating 12:00pm as the time the clock “restarts from zero.”
My Canadian aunt gave me a quick trick for going from Celsius to Fahrenheit- just take the Celsius temp, multiply by 2 and add 30. It’s not perfect but it’s in the ballpark… definitely helps me when I travel.
Our digital oven randomly converted over to Celsius the other day and my husband taught me this trick. I was using Siri to convert at first, which was a pain because the food had to be a very specific temperature. I felt like I was playing “Over/Under” on The Price is Right while I kept estimating what temperature I needed in Celsius.
A lot of American visitors get caught speeding here, too; they see a “50 kms” speed limit sign and automatically go 50 *miles per hour*. Not cool in the residential areas!
Driving in Britain is no big deal. Well, not so long as I rent a vehicle with the steering wheel on their side. It’s always the same: first day, I’m gripping the wheel with both hands at ten and two, back ramrod straight, eyes incessantly darting back and forth, going an easy 10-15km under the limit like a grandmother in a snowstorm, muttering “to the left, to the left” every time I approach a roundabout or intersection; by a week in, I’m slouched back, hands down, driving with my knee, speeding when I can, passing slower traffic, cursing everyone for their tortoiseyness. It just takes a bit of an adjustment period. (Same with the continent, though to hell with 50km on twisty mountainside “roads” barely wide enough for two. I will never go above 25km on them, at very best, so all the impatient locals who think they’re at Le Mans can pass me or suck it!) However, I do have a piece of paper I always tape to the rear window upon first receipt of the vehicle in Britain that reads “please forgive my driving; I am a tourist.”
She’s so beautiful
One of my guilty pleasures is watching those Vogue videos, Beauty Secrets. I saw one with Liv and she was so sweet, zen and genuine. AND, she looked totally natural – wrinkles and all.
I get it, I lived in South America for over two years, and still couldn’t automatically convert to Celsius or the metric system. When you are conditioned to think in a certain way it’s really hard to change.
My ex was from England and when I’d go over, I’d get so tripped up by the 24 hour clock that I set my cell to 24 hrs. It was helpful, especially when traveling throughout the UK and Europe as that’s how flight/train times are posted. That was more than 7 years ago and it’s still like that! I’m so used to it but when people grab my phone to look at the time they go “wtf %$&*@” lol. A quick trick to understanding the 24 clock is always know that 13:00 = 1pm, and then from 14:00 onward subtract 2 (so 15:00 – 2 = 3pm).
Celsius was trickier but I was able to very loosely ballpark it and have lost that ability at some point. From NYC so don’t drive. Did drive once in a car park in England but my ex was terrified I’d ruin the car so it was for all of 2 minutes lol
An eternal NY resolution of mine is to learn the metric system. Any tips for me?
As someone who had to learn the other way for my year abroad, what worked for me is: Memorize points of reference, so you always have something to compare with.
Like temperatur of freezing, boiling, average body temp
Your own height, your own weight
speed limits, stuff like that.
Most weather apps will let you switch to Celsius, that would be like setting your phone’s time to 24 hrs.
My great problem to this day is something like apartment sizes. Square feet? I couldn’t tell if they are talking about a tiny place or a palace.
With respect to what Liv Tyler said about the 24 hour clock— I took it as a joke/talk show banter not something literal.
I spent a year studying in the UK but didn’t have issues with driving, time or temperature. I DO remember the first week of the term talking to a rather meek, seemingly sheltered student who had been invited to a dinner with members of the administration and faculty. She was unsure of the dress code. My statement of “Probably anything is okay so long as you don’t wear pants.” shocked her to the 9th degree. It was then that I learned that in UK parlance pants=underwear.
I’m in the US and I LOVE the metric system. Since I’m in a medical field, I have to use metric all the time at work. Also, using a 24 hr clock is so much better because there is never any confusion about PM or AM. The only exception is km to miles — I have such a hard time thinking about distance in km when I am driving.
Yeah, same here, medical background, so metric conversion is fairly instinctive in most cases for me – except for kilometers precisely because you aren’t doing routine distance conversion when handling IV fluids LOL. I think it’s also because for fluid conversion, the “big” measurement (liter) is smaller than the big measurement for standard (gallon), but it’s the reverse for distance (km > mi) and weight (kg > lb).
The driving this is a big deal at the moment. A Diplomatic (prob CIA) wife hit and killed a teenager whilst driving on the wrong side of the road- she’s run away and claimed diplomatic privilege. It caused a huge scandal.
The driving thing goes both ways too. I have a 75 yr old neighbor whom I’ve known for 20 years. She is from Ireland. Every time we have a dinner party I have to follow her home. She totally forgets and drives on the left side of the road. That’s scary as hell on a dark Mississippi road in the middle of the night. Even if you make her follow you she will still ease over the more comfortable she gets. We had to start having all the parties at her house to avoid her giving all the neighbors on the road a heart attack!
Haha, I felt that way about driving in the US. I mean, whoever heard of an intersection with Stop signs for all four ways? I will never get the hang of feet and inches, it takes me forever to convert that to meters and centimeters. I took my drivers’ test in the US and the instructor had to show me how much 4 inches (parking distance from the curb) was, I just couldn’t figure it out.
But I get what she means about left-side traffic. You get the general hang of it pretty fast I think, but when I have to react fast I will automatically swerve to the right side, where the curb is where I come from.
I’ve never gotten the hang of feet and inches or cooking imperial measurements, either (quarts, cups, gallons, ounces, etc. are confounding, very illogical). For inches, though, it’s so easy to translate: I just double whatever the inches are and there are my approximate centimeters. 4inches from the curb? 8ish cm from the curb. Easy!
She is gorgeous and seems genuinely nice but I can’t with the whispering/baby voice ugh
Born and raised in California. But I spent all my summers (all three months) abroad hanging with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. So the metric system and the 24 hour clock isn’t difficult for me. And I actually learned to drive on the other side of the road. It’s not hard. You just have to remember to keep you (the driver) in the middle of the road.
I truly didn’t recognize her. I think it’s a combination of bangs, fillers and face lift. It’s the fillers, in my opinion that make her look so different. She seems like a lovely person.
Okay so do we (Brits) really have a rep for using the 24 hour clock? I mean, my laptop clock is in 24 hour time – though I think there’s an option to change it. But I don’t feel like people actually ever use the 24 hour clock in day to day life, outside of the military maybe? If you ask someone the time, or book tickets for something in the evening, it’ll always be 7pm or half past 9. Not 19 hundred hours or 21:30.
The temperature thing though, that’s actually more complicated than it first appears. Because the UK hasn’t been mectric for THAT long, even though we’re officially metric, in practise we use a weird mish-mash of both. For example we buy milk in litres, but beer in pints. I’ve never met a Brit who doesn’t measure their height in feet and inches, but some people measure their weight in stone/pounds and some in kgs. I bake in kgs and grams, but weigh myself in pounds. Road signs are still marked in miles, not kilometres, and cars measured in how many miles per gallon they get.
In terms of temperature, many older people still use Fahrenheit and younger Celsius. The tabloid press sometimes even hop between the two. So for example if there is a heatwave, you’ll see tabloid headlines reading, “BRITAIN SIZZLES AS TEMPS HIT 90!!!” But in winter, there will be headlines reading, “BRITAIN LASHED BY FREEZING -2 GALE!!” If you didn’t know better you’d think Britain experiences such extremes of temperature as to go from -2 to 90 on the same scale!
I personally still think of hot temps in terms of F and cold temps in terms of C (and actually switch which one the weather app on my phone uses, twice a year), which I can understand non-Brits finding a trifle eccentric.
I’ve always dreamed of moving to Europe after retirement ….now thinking about all of this is giving me anxiety!
My parents used to spend 6 weeks in the lake district twice a year in their retirement and my dad did most of the driving, even when 80. He said he just had to pay attention while being a passenger from the airport and then he was fine. I suppose having to shift with the other hand was helpful? I know for me coming back to the States (and I never drove in the UK) I was okay on highways, but confused when I turned into a 2 lane road with no incoming traffic.
I’m a writer, and I had to use 24 hr clock (“military time” here in the US) for a project over a decade ago. I’ve kept that system on my computers and phone since then, but I’ll admit that I still have to mentally math to convert all the time. What you grow up with stays ingrained with you, although I’m sure it would be easier if everyone around you is using that system too.
lol as an italian i always find funny when i see some americans iphone stating like 5.00 o clock in the middle of the afternoon. for me 5.00 is night and that’s it.
i can see it can be confusing. i never do the math. i just know that 19 it’s 7,18 it’s 6, etc etc
i always marvel on how you write dates. it’s so confusing.
first the month, than the day…