After I finished doing "LA Doctors" I took a soul searching journey
and got on a plane to Africa by myself for a month.
That was the beginning of the rest of my life, I think.
My God. Where did you go in Africa?
I went to Kenya and to TanZania.
- My God, how wonderful. - Yeah.
What inspired that? Why do you think that was so life-changing?
Well, I think for me, I had been working for so...
For such a long period in my life my work was so important.
I'm so grateful to make a living doing something that I love.
But I had put so much energy into it,
and at the end of doing another series,
I realised I had such a calling.
A deep calling in my heart and in my soul to go.
So I followed that.
And it was the first time in a long time that I was doing something for me,
that didn't have anything to do with what anybody else wanted me to do.
Most people thought I was craZy for doing it.
And it was the greatest gift I've ever given myself.
- Were you absolutely alone? - Yeah.
I was travelling from one safari camp to another.
There would be a guide sometimes at a camp,
but I was not with a group.
I was very cared for.
The Kenyans are some of the most warm, loving, kind,
welcoming people I've ever encountered.
So I was very, very looked after and cared for.
But, yeah, I was travelling by myself.
What a different, exotic vista. I can't even imagine.
It was amaZing.
- How long were you there? - A month... A month.
It must have seemed longer than that?
Time is stretched so differently there. I can't even tell you!
It is so completely different. Because...
I think that every day there is so about being present in the moment.
There is no schedule,
other than every third day
you have to get a plane to the next camp.
It is about just sitting and being present.
You can sit for 45 minutes
waiting for an elephant that's 2 miles away
to come 50 feet away.
So you're present,
being with that elephant in that space.
Or being with a sunrise or a sunset.
And so time just becomes this...
It's so different.
It feels like it's stretched and stretched.
In some ways,
it felt like I was there for six months.
But I have never had such culture shock
as I did coming back after that trip.
I had travelled for longer periods,
to work on a film somewhere for months.
And I'd experienced a bit of culture shock.
But to come back after that trip,
where there was no work, no schedule.
There was just me getting to know
new parts of myself.
I went there with the intention of learning as much as I could about...
what was happening there in terms of the animals and the wildlife
and environmentally.
So that was more of my focus.
And my trip was designed to go to camps
that were more environmentally conscious.
Or they were working with the animals or with the Masai
in a way that was for the highest good of everyone involved.
So it was incredibly educational.
And so what can we do at this point?
Did you find an organisation that you felt was good?
There definitely were, yeah.
Yeah, I have done some work with PETA.
There was an organisation over there
called Care For The Wild
that was doing really wonderful work.
There was a documentary filmmaker
named Simon Trevor,
who is doing amaZing work over there.
And, for me, it goes back to education.
We have to start in our schools.
We have to change
our education system about the animals.
The first thing to do
is to stop taking children to the Zoos.
Right there, in one day,
if we all stopped doing that
that would change so much.
If want children to learn about animals,
take them to see wildlife.
There are plenty of sanctuaries
where there are abused animals
who are in a state of rehabilitation.
Children can go there
and see, and learn about them.
But that's different
to putting your money in a Zoo.
You know?
And it would stop the caging.
That, for me, is...
To see the animals in their environment.
To see that elephants naturally walk
20 miles a day.
And to see lions face-to-face
that are in their full spirit,
because they have the vastness
to be able to fill that.
Versus cramped in a little, tiny cage.
It's a completely different animal.
That's the one thing
that kept breaking my heart.
What right have we to put them in cages?
That's not what they were born for.