Crissy Rock: 'What you see is what you get'

Award-winning actress, bestselling author and stand-up comedian, Crissy Rock, chatted with Annabelle Leith at memmo. Bursting with personality and positive vibes, Crissy fills the conversation with hilarious stories, her love for filming memmos, and how she has never seen herself as a celebrity.

Straight off the bat, Crissy lights up the conversation with laughter as she dives into explaining her time spent on a ghost hunt the day before. Her friends were doing a ouija board, and since she didn’t want to fully partake herself, Crissy took on the role of writing down any messages that came through. “They were asking if I felt anything, so I said ‘I’ve had a bit of movement, but it’s only my bowels!’” she giggles.

As luck would have it, she received two memmo requests whilst on her spooky adventure, and so deemed it necessary to provide a rapid response and record her personalised videos amid the chaos.

"What you see is what you get” - Crissy Rock

“I filmed them straight away and said ‘Hiya, it’s Crissy Rock here, I’m in the middle of a ghost hunt but just want to say happy birthday.’ They must’ve thought I was pissed!” Crissy laughs.

“Sometimes when I record my memmos I look like I’ve just been attacked with a hammer,” she continues, “I’ve got no makeup on and my hair’s like a bag of s*** and I’ll just go ‘Hi, this is the lived in look. What you see is what you get’.”

Divulging further into her time with memmo, Crissy says she’s ‘had a laugh’ recording them and has ‘had some lovely replies back’. She gets ‘quite touched’ when people send messages thanking her and saying how much the person loved it, ‘it makes it worth it’.

We asked Crissy which one person and item of food she would want if she were to be stuck on a boat, to which she surprisingly responded with: “Well that actually happened to me recently. We paid to go on a cruise to the Far East in January and ended up being marooned at sea!”

She explains how the ship went ‘round and round and round’ and ended up in Australia 22 days later. “We couldn’t get off the ship. It was terrible. It was like a floating nursing home,” she recalls.

“I just thought I’d end up working in a factory" - Crissy Rock

However, she decided that should she be stuck on a boat again, she would have to be accompanied by a film she wants to watch in the cinema and ‘loads of cans of coke and hot dogs’.

As the conversation diverges into a bit of Crissy’s life history, she says she ‘never in a million years’ could have ever imagined being where she is today, and that making people laugh is something that ‘just comes naturally to her. “I don’t even know I’m being funny, it just happens,” she says.

She never aspired to have a career in her line of work. She says: “I didn’t want anything. I just used to go play out and cut things out of my mum’s catalogue and stick them on a piece of paper.

“What made it worse is that I couldn’t read or write until I was nearly 27. We used to go to the cinema and watch a film, but never did I think that I’d end up being the one on the screen.

“I just thought I’d end up working in a factory.”

“You’re a normal person just with a different job. It’s nothing special” - Crissy Rock

Crissy humbly states that she does not see herself as a celebrity, just a person who ‘has an unusual job’. “All my friends aren’t celebs and we go to the bingo and everything,” she says.

“It doesn’t matter what I look like or where I am, if anyone ever stops me I always stop and talk to them,” she continues, “Also because of where I was brought up everyone was friendly and I don’t look at myself as a celeb, I’m just one of them.”

It took Crissy’s husband ‘quite a while’ to get used to people stopping them in the streets, even whilst they were away on holiday. But Crissy continues to live her life ‘normally’, including still nipping to the shop in her slippers to get some milk.

She says people who think they have to look a certain way just to pop out ‘need to get a grip’. “You’re a normal person just with a different job. It’s nothing special,” she says.

“You admire people who are pilots and doctors and surgeons. They’re proper jobs, we just get paid for doing things we love doing,” she states.

memmo

What has been your favourite memmo request so far?

I couldn't particularly pick one out. There was one that said ‘Say something funny and be as rude as you want’, and she was turning 50. So I said ‘Welcome to the four Fs in life; fat, fed up and f***ing fifty! It's all downhill now love.’

Who would your ‘guilty pleasure’ memmo be from? And what would it say?

That’s hard - but I think it’d be from Whoopi Goldberg because she's my favourite actress. “Keep going, keep at it and enjoy the ride”.

I’ve never done this for fortune or fame. I’ve done it because I've been so privileged to have been given the chance to do a job that I never thought I'd do. I used to feel guilty as well, because a lot of the actors have been to RADA or trained somewhere, and I'd be going: ‘Oh my God, I’m working with Billie Whitelaw! Oh my God I’m in a lift with Samuel L. Jackson!’ But I have to keep myself back to not go ’Oh my God!’ Because I’m in awe of them!

"I'm looking forward to Christmas and all those memmos!" - Crissy Rock

I remember asking someone dead famous for an autograph and they went ‘I don’t do autographs.’ So I said ‘It’s alright, I don’t have a pen anyway.’ And I won an award in Berlin which was the Silver Bear, and the person who was presenting me with the award was that fella I’d asked for an autograph. He went ‘Oh my God, I didn’t know who you were.’ So I said ‘That's alright, what did you say your name was again?’ He laughed and said ‘Do you still want an autograph?’ So I replied ‘No, I still haven’t got a pen’.

When do you find the time to film all your memmo requests?

I just see that I've got 2 requests so quickly wet my hair back and film them. I like to do them! I got a review saying ‘Oh I didn’t realise the response was gonna be so quick.’ But i really enjoy them. I'm not a vain person, I'm just the same as the average Joe Bloggs, I'm nobody special.

How does it feel to be able to interact with fans in such a personal way?

I think it's lovely. I really, really think it's lovely. And I feel quite privileged that there are people out there wanting a message off me. And I'm looking forward to Christmas and all those memmos!

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As the conversation draws to a close, Crissy has one more thing to add: “I’d just like to say thank you to everybody who’s considered asking me to send them a message, and have a safe and happy Christmas. And to all of those people who are stuck in lockdown - stay safe and there’s always somebody there for you at the end of the line.”

Crissy Rock is available on memmo for personalised video messages - perfect for any occasion.