Meisterkhan Pod | January 28, 2025
As she celebrates the release of her extraordinary autobiographical film Somebody’s Daughter, Zara Phillips offers up some tough love truths that fly in the face of the often cheery, sanitized way adopted children (and other beings) are depicted in Disney films and other media. From her years of advocacy,studying contemporary sociological research and personal experiences as an adopted person herself, the passionate lifelong advocate for adoptees knows that even well into adulthood, their existential struggles of feeling like outsiders with little known stories of their history and birth parents makes them at least four times more likely to attempt suicide. They are also much more inclined to turn to addiction as a coping mechanism, as Zara did in her teens and early 20s.
Somebody’s Daughter - and the 2018 book and 2022 one-woman show the film is based on – focusses on Zara’s personal journey of overcoming early addiction, navigating her life and meeting her birth father after many years and struggles after connecting with her birth mother. The project’s true driving force is tofacilitate honest, vulnerable conversations about adoption.
In addition to acting and writing, Zara is also a talented singer and songwriter who launched her career in the 80s, appearing in music videos and providing backing vocals on tour with Bob Geldof, Matt Bianco, David Essex and Nick Kamen.
In 2014, Zara’s one woman show Beneath My Father’s Sky, directed by Eliza and Eric Roberts won Best Direction at NYC’s United Solo Festival and was performed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Connecticut and London in 2016. During this era, she was presented with an Angel in Adoption Award by the Congressional Coalition of Adoption Institute.
Her most recent album, released in 2020, is Meditation and Kitkats, and she currently tours and performs with her husband, British folk-rock legend Richard Thompson, who scored Somebody’s Daughter.
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