Speaker 1: Look out. It's only films to be buried with. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Films to be buried with. My name
Speaker 1: is Brett Goldstein. I'm a comedian, an actor, a writer,
Speaker 1: a director at knuckle Cracker, and I love films. As
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Gilbert once said, you have treasures hidden within you,
Speaker 1: much like Adam Sandler in the beginning of Uncut Germs,
Speaker 1: ooh interesting. Every week I'm by a special guest over.
Speaker 1: I tell them they've died, and I get them to
Speaker 1: discuss their life through the films that meant the most
Speaker 1: of them. Previous guests include Barry Jenkins, Kevin Smith, Sharon Stone,
Speaker 1: and even Ked Campbell's. But this week we have the
Speaker 1: incredible playwright, TV writer, screenwriter and producer. It's the brilliant
Speaker 1: Jack Thorne. Tickets are on sale for the second Best
Speaker 1: Night of Your Life special taping in Englewood, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Episode eleven of Shrinking Season two is now available on
Speaker 1: Apple TV. Get caught up on all of them ahead
Speaker 1: of the season finale on Chris You will fucking love It.
Speaker 1: Head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com. Forward
Speaker 1: slashpreat Gold Team. We're get an extra twenty minutes of
Speaker 1: chat with Jack. We talk secrets, we talk about beginnings,
Speaker 1: we talk about all kinds of stuff. You also get
Speaker 1: the whole episode Uncle and Adfrey and does a video.
Speaker 1: Check it out at patreon dot com. Forward to Lash
Speaker 1: Brett Goldsteam. So Jack Thorn, I am such a huge
Speaker 1: fan of Jack Dawn. You may know him from writing
Speaker 1: the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. You
Speaker 1: might know him from the Film's Wonder and in Nola Holmes.
Speaker 1: You might know him from his series of his Dark materials.
Speaker 1: You might know him from the old Vic Christmas Carol
Speaker 1: that happens yearly. Now, you might know him from so
Speaker 1: many things, all of them incredible. I'm such a huge
Speaker 1: fan of Jack. We recorded this on Zoom and I
Speaker 1: was very grateful for his time, and I really think
Speaker 1: you're gonna love this one. So that is it for now.
Speaker 1: I very much hope you enjoy episode three hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty of Films to be Buried With. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to Films to be Buried With. It is I Brett Goldstein,
Speaker 1: and I am joined today by a legend, a writer,
Speaker 1: a dark material, a national treasure, a helper at this
Speaker 1: Sister Englander and Eddia an Era not a fader, a
Speaker 1: secret gardener. The list goes on, I don't have all
Speaker 1: the time on this podcast. List of all his achievements,
Speaker 1: he's done, the top two best versions of a Christmas Carol.
Speaker 1: He's a genius. I've been wanting to talk to him
Speaker 1: for years. I can't believe he's here. If you've watched
Speaker 1: the Telly or been to the to see a stage
Speaker 1: play or seen a film, you've seen all this stuff.
Speaker 1: The man's amazing. I can't believe he's here. He is here.
Speaker 1: Please run the show. It's the brilliant it's.
Speaker 2: Jack not.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, You're very kind.
Speaker 1: I am aware, yeah, no, I'm aware how.
Speaker 3: Much Muppet Christmas Girl means to you.
Speaker 2: And so you know, I'm aware that my version of
Speaker 2: Christmas Carol sits in the shadow of greatness, and you know,
Speaker 2: I think, but it's number two.
Speaker 1: The fact that it's that close, it's pretty incredible. If
Speaker 1: we met, I mean, god, there's Look, you're one of
Speaker 1: the people I've had on this podcast that I'm almost
Speaker 1: annoyed to talk to you because I have so many
Speaker 1: things I want to ask you. I'm such a fan
Speaker 1: and I know we have only enough time before at
Speaker 1: some point you're probably going to be murdered or who knows.
Speaker 1: I see if I remember. But I've been a big
Speaker 1: fan of yours for years. And then you look up
Speaker 1: your CV and you go, I haven't seen half of
Speaker 1: your stuff, and I've seen loads and loads and loads
Speaker 1: of your stuff, and there's your so much stuff I
Speaker 1: haven't seen.
Speaker 2: Freed from the burden of scene, I always say. And
Speaker 2: when people say, what have you written, I always say,
Speaker 2: if you've seen something depressing on Channel four, there's a
Speaker 2: fifty percent chance I wrote it's that's my sort of like, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1: Where I live in terms of like I was thinking.
Speaker 1: The only person I think it's close to you is
Speaker 1: like Russell T. Davis in terms of output and quality
Speaker 1: and what's the word, difference of genres and spanning things,
Speaker 1: and that is very kind.
Speaker 2: Russell is the master a word a word that he
Speaker 2: probably wouldn't like me to use, because doctor who, But
Speaker 2: he is the master. He is, you know, like you know,
Speaker 2: we all sit in his shadow. I think that's the
Speaker 2: second time I've mentioned the word shadow.
Speaker 1: But there we are. God, I sort of want to
Speaker 1: do a bass class with you. I'm curious. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to try and not ask you about everything, but
Speaker 1: the first thing I want to ask is you are
Speaker 1: so prolific and in a way, the output, the speed
Speaker 1: of your output is amazing and it's always brilliant. Do
Speaker 1: you write fast? Firstly, what is the thing that makes
Speaker 1: you choose the thing? What turns you on to like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to do this next, because it's so different
Speaker 1: all your stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean's just neurance that I hate the word prolific,
Speaker 2: and I sort of hate I know, because I always think.
Speaker 3: It implies you don't give a shit.
Speaker 2: I absolutely that you're like the guy that's like, you
Speaker 2: want six bananas, I can give you twelve bananas.
Speaker 1: I can give you eighteen bananas. Mean you know you're
Speaker 1: like I do, but I don't mean that. But I
Speaker 1: can understand your fear.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't ever feel like I mean, it's been
Speaker 2: quite a while since I've had something on TV, for instance,
Speaker 2: or anything new on stage that mean, you know, I've
Speaker 2: actually not had something on for a while. But I
Speaker 2: recognize that that's my reputation amongst some people who aware
Speaker 2: of me, And yes, I get very frightened of it
Speaker 2: because I think that I live in fear, and so
Speaker 2: I write quickly because I'm frightened it's going to stop.
Speaker 3: And I love my job.
Speaker 2: I work in a little hut at the back of
Speaker 2: my house and I'm in there from ten till seven
Speaker 2: o'clock every day, and I like writing, so I just
Speaker 2: keep writing and just keep typing. It's got no internet connection,
Speaker 2: so it's literally just me and my thoughts going wild
Speaker 2: and mad at the same time.
Speaker 1: That's the the no internet connection is probably the key
Speaker 1: that we were all looking for.
Speaker 2: Anuinely, it's changed. It's only been the last few years,
Speaker 2: and it's literally changed everything for me. I've felt a
Speaker 2: sort of sharpness return to me that I sort of lost.
Speaker 2: I felt like I was getting a bit sloppy and
Speaker 2: I needed to do something. And it certainly helped the
Speaker 2: signapses a little bit. How do you choose projects?
Speaker 1: I know immediately, I think, because it's always instant. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh fuck, I love that idea. I get excited. I
Speaker 1: just get as soon as I get I hear something
Speaker 1: or have a Sometimes people will tell me something, I'll
Speaker 1: be like, oh, yeah, I see that, I see how
Speaker 1: you do that? Like I just get that's really cool.
Speaker 2: I'm excited, and can you see your place in it immediately?
Speaker 2: I don't mean as a performer, I mean as a writer.
Speaker 2: Can you see why it has to be told by you?
Speaker 1: This isn't about me, Jack, But I don't know. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: I've realized as an actor. Okay, i'll tell you a
Speaker 1: little thing. I don't do it lot of acting, but
Speaker 1: when I'm really drawn to something, I really want to
Speaker 1: do it. And recently I was offered a part in
Speaker 1: a thing with a great team, great, great. Everything about
Speaker 1: it was great. The package was great, and the team,
Speaker 1: my agents and everyone like, you have to do this
Speaker 1: is huge, you know, blah blah blah. And the script
Speaker 1: was good. It was all good. But I kept reading
Speaker 1: it and I was like, I don't see myself in
Speaker 1: this part. I just can't sort of connect with this character,
Speaker 1: even though I can see the business wise is a
Speaker 1: very good thing for me to do this, but I
Speaker 1: don't see it. I realized after ages. I just kept
Speaker 1: reading it and being like, I have a sort of
Speaker 1: visual of me doing this, and there was a much
Speaker 1: smaller part in it that I did see myself doing.
Speaker 1: And I said to my people, I was like, I
Speaker 1: want to play that part and they were like, you're mad,
Speaker 1: that's not the leads, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 1: I was like, no, but I feel that. And anyway,
Speaker 1: I ended up doing that little part, and when I
Speaker 1: met the person who had the big part, I said
Speaker 1: to them, they didn't know that I had ever been
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't want to be like I nearly
Speaker 1: had that part. Really lucky I turned it down. I
Speaker 1: asked them why what drew you to this part? You
Speaker 1: did you just want to do this because of the
Speaker 1: job or and he said, oh, because this character is
Speaker 1: my brother and I totally felt it. Oh wow, And
Speaker 1: I was like, yes, you were the right person for that,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like it all it all
Speaker 1: made sense, and I think I feel I have a
Speaker 1: maybe more capacity as I don't know with writing. I
Speaker 1: always someone will say something with an idea. Was Park
Speaker 1: going to be like fuck? Yeah, fucking you want to
Speaker 1: see it through? There's often stuff I hear and I go,
Speaker 1: that's great. I don't want to write that, but I'd
Speaker 1: love to see it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's ultimate.
Speaker 1: How did you turn this on me? You've no no?
Speaker 1: Is that? Okay? Never again? That's the end of this episode. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So the other thing I wanted to ask you is
Speaker 1: you've all said done, and honestly, I'm such a fans
Speaker 1: to please. All of this is with thinking that the
Speaker 1: end result is fucking brilliant. You've taken on big, big
Speaker 1: classics and you're doing one now things that could be intimidating.
Speaker 1: You've done. You've done a Harry Potter play, You've done
Speaker 1: a Christmas Carol, which we will discuss. You're doing Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings, like these are a lot of the flights.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing a lot of the rings.
Speaker 3: A lot of the rings would send me.
Speaker 1: Man a load of the flies. And these are like
Speaker 1: intimidating works to step into. Is that just exciting to you?
Speaker 1: Is there some trepidation like? Or is it that like
Speaker 1: a fuck? I'm like, how do you feel at the
Speaker 1: beginning of those things?
Speaker 2: I don't often give it enough thought. So with Harry Potter,
Speaker 2: for instance, I was offered by my friend John Tiffany,
Speaker 2: who was directing it, and all I sort of thought
Speaker 2: was he's going to do a great job. I'll be
Speaker 2: all right sort of thing, And I didn't really consider
Speaker 2: how much scrutiny I'd be put under, how much scrutiny.
Speaker 2: I'm still put under this day doing it, and so
Speaker 2: I just sort of served along without real sort of
Speaker 2: consideration to it. With Christmas Carol, I didn't really hesitate
Speaker 2: because it's been done.
Speaker 3: It's been done a thousand times.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, there was no sort of like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's the guy that's going to take on the Christmas Carol,
Speaker 2: Like he's the latest guy to have we go at
Speaker 2: Christmas Carol and so. And also I felt no loyalty
Speaker 2: to Charles Dickens whatsoever. Whereas I did his start materials
Speaker 2: for the TV. With that, I felt ment loyalty to
Speaker 2: Philip Porman, because I felt like, this is the medium,
Speaker 2: this is the perfect TV is the perfect medium to
Speaker 2: tell his star materials in, and so we need to
Speaker 2: nail it and we need to tell his book as
Speaker 2: faithfully as possible. With Dickens, it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: if he doesn't like my one, he can walk five
Speaker 2: minutes down the road and he'll find another one or
Speaker 2: another one, and then he'll turn the corner and there'll
Speaker 2: be another one. And so it was just kind of like,
Speaker 2: why are you doing it? Was the question that I
Speaker 2: kept asking myself, and what can you do. And actually
Speaker 2: I wrote this massive sort of framing device that was
Speaker 2: about Charles Dickens talking to his sister and having a
Speaker 2: bit of a breakdown and his relationship with her child
Speaker 2: who was disabled, and all this other kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: and Matthew Watchus, who directed it, read it and went,
Speaker 2: the middle bit is good. The framing device is bullshit.
Speaker 2: So lose all that stuff and we might have a
Speaker 2: decent play. So yeah, but I think the framing device
Speaker 2: sort of helped me get somewhere with the inner bit,
Speaker 2: and that made the show better.
Speaker 1: Your Christmas Carol, which runs every year currently and I
Speaker 1: hope forever at the old VIC, is fucking amazing, and
Speaker 1: I've talked about it on this podcast before. But there
Speaker 1: are two things that you did in it, two choices
Speaker 1: you made that were not in the original, that I
Speaker 1: think has genuinely two of the most profound scenes I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. I think about a lot, and I think
Speaker 1: it's that you, that you look at that you made
Speaker 1: me understand that Christmas Carol is the story of therapy
Speaker 1: is basically, you look at your past, you look at
Speaker 1: your present, you look at your future. You bring these
Speaker 1: you make peace with each section to move forward, and
Speaker 1: that's what that story is. You added this for those
Speaker 1: who haven't seen it. There are two scenes you added.
Speaker 1: One is him going back to see himself young. It's
Speaker 1: so heartbreaking and I can't even talk about it, but
Speaker 1: he says something to having been on this journey. He
Speaker 1: says something to his looking at his younger self that
Speaker 1: is so heartbreaking. And then you also added a scene
Speaker 1: that I'd always wondered about, which is him going to
Speaker 1: see bell after In the end, on Christmas Day, he
Speaker 1: goes to see his ex and god, God, I don't
Speaker 1: know you guys see it if they haven't yet.
Speaker 2: That's very kind. Thank you. Yeah, I mean I didn't.
Speaker 2: I would never have raised it being about therapy. But
Speaker 2: I love the fact that you that's much better than
Speaker 2: I would have articulated it in terms of talking about
Speaker 2: it the challenge.
Speaker 1: And I think this is where the.
Speaker 2: Framing device was quite useful, because I think when we write,
Speaker 2: we're trying to write a wrong in our own hearts,
Speaker 2: and we're trying to set something right about ourselves. And
Speaker 2: I often look back at older stuff I've written and go, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: you were so alone and weird, and I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: and I can see now what you're trying to correct.
Speaker 2: There's a right called Dennis Kelly. Do you know Dennis
Speaker 2: Kelly an amazing writer, and Matilda and Utopia and lots
Speaker 2: of other stuff besides. But I could literally write a
Speaker 2: PhD On why Dennis wrote different plays at different points
Speaker 2: in his life, because I love him so much as
Speaker 2: a writer and I love him so much as a person,
Speaker 2: and I could just sort of chart his journey. And
Speaker 2: I thought a lot about why Dickens wrote Christmas Carol then,
Speaker 2: And I get that it was about his anger the
Speaker 2: treatment of the poor, and I get that, but it
Speaker 2: was also about him working something out about himself, and
Speaker 2: working out something about his relationship with money and success
Speaker 2: and how you know, it was written quite early in
Speaker 2: his career, and how you deal with all those things,
Speaker 2: how you deal with the plenty when you're used to little,
Speaker 2: you know, and what kind of persons you want to be?
Speaker 2: And I think he, I think he was really wrestling
Speaker 2: with that himself. And so those were the things I
Speaker 2: was trying to capture in the play, trying to pull
Speaker 2: out the play. And the relationship with Belle, I think
Speaker 2: is fascinating all through it, and so going back to
Speaker 2: it for a tree that well. The first time we
Speaker 2: did it was Recivan's playing Scrooge and it was Aaron
Speaker 2: Doherty playing Bell.
Speaker 1: That's who I saw it with.
Speaker 2: And I remember going up to Reese after seeing it
Speaker 2: for five or six times and just going, what is
Speaker 2: going on in that scene between you two?
Speaker 1: And he said, she's just astonishing.
Speaker 2: And Erin really is like one of the actors of
Speaker 2: our time, I think, And he said playing opposite her
Speaker 2: in that scene is like playing jazz. He said, it's
Speaker 2: just the two of us were totally in control of
Speaker 2: the theater and we can just riff off each other.
Speaker 2: We can go wherever we want to go, and we
Speaker 2: go in so many different directions depending on what she
Speaker 2: gives me in that moment, what I give her back,
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 1: Just I love that. God, it's good. You don't have
Speaker 1: to answer. What do you, in hindsight think your writing
Speaker 1: of Christmas Carol was about in your life?
Speaker 2: I had to write it quite quickly. Matthew just said,
Speaker 2: I think something had fallen through. And so he said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do Christmas Carol as the old Christmas Show.
Speaker 2: And he told me about July and we were rehearsing
Speaker 2: in October, so I didn't have long to get it done.
Speaker 2: I had time within that to make a huge mistake
Speaker 2: and require them to cut half the play.
Speaker 3: But you know, I didn't have long.
Speaker 2: And it was the year that Harry Potter has opened
Speaker 2: that year, and it was the year that my wife
Speaker 2: gave birth to our only child. So I think I
Speaker 2: was in a mad state of not quite knowing what
Speaker 2: end was up, and quite similar to Dickens, going from
Speaker 2: a situation where I didn't know quite where the next
Speaker 2: job was coming and whether whether I had a career
Speaker 2: to suddenly having this show that I knew.
Speaker 1: Was going to stick around for a while.
Speaker 2: In Potter, I knew that, you know that when the
Speaker 2: reviews came out, we were in a place where we'd
Speaker 2: gone from sort of what is this going to be
Speaker 2: to a place of this is going to be all right,
Speaker 2: and this is going to do something and stick around
Speaker 2: and mean, you know, and and.
Speaker 3: I struggled with that. We all struggled with imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2: I mean, hits all in lots of different ways and
Speaker 2: lots of different you know, it does lots of different
Speaker 2: things to our heads. And I think that was that
Speaker 2: was the height of imposter syndrome for me, that moment
Speaker 2: when I suddenly was a dad and I didn't feel
Speaker 2: a quick to be a dad and I was a
Speaker 2: I'm saying this with quotation marks, but I mean, like,
Speaker 2: you know, there was success hanging around me for the
Speaker 2: first time in a way that I didn't know quite
Speaker 2: how to cope with.
Speaker 1: You know, I do. It's very extreme, even though it's
Speaker 1: a positive. Yeah, your world is changing in such a
Speaker 1: shocking way that it's still your brain, guys, what that
Speaker 1: fuck like? It doesn't know, you know, it's still a.
Speaker 2: Shock again, not wanting to turn it on you, but
Speaker 2: I would have really struggled with Ted Lasso writing the
Speaker 2: next series and writing a character that I was playing,
Speaker 2: because I'm right that when you were first writing Roight,
Speaker 2: you weren't playing right, right, That's correct, Yes, And then
Speaker 2: suddenly this show explodes, You're winning awards for it, and
Speaker 2: then you've got to sit down and work out a
Speaker 2: up for a character that you're playing and everyone is loving,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? You know in the world,
Speaker 2: I don't know how I'd be able to do that.
Speaker 2: I think that must be impossible.
Speaker 1: I think we were very lucky in season two and
Speaker 1: that when we write season two, season one wasn't out yet,
Speaker 1: so we'd acted it. We'd made season one, so we
Speaker 1: knew how it felt, but we didn't know if people
Speaker 1: would like it or anything when we were writing season two.
Speaker 2: So I was writing season three.
Speaker 1: Season three was probably more a game of turning the
Speaker 1: internet off, like you and the ship ignore everything and
Speaker 1: stick to the plan. But yeah, I think it's unrealistic
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, it didn't cross anyone's much, like you
Speaker 1: know you are. Do you keep a diary or anything
Speaker 1: like that? No? Do you have memoir? No? No, I
Speaker 1: don't either, And people have asked me about that, and
Speaker 1: I'm sort of like, I think, if you agree it's
Speaker 1: all in your stuff, that's your diary exactly. Still there.
Speaker 2: Narcissism is dangerous enough in this world of ours, you
Speaker 2: know that right down. The one thing I do do
Speaker 2: is I keep a diary for my son. So I've
Speaker 2: been writing a diary for him since.
Speaker 1: He was born. What do you mean of his day?
Speaker 2: Yeah, not not every day, but just like key events
Speaker 2: like you had a playdate with Fisher and it went
Speaker 2: really well, and we were really nervous beforehand and these
Speaker 2: are the reasons why we were really nervous, and this
Speaker 2: is when you wanted to go to sleep, and this
Speaker 2: is when, you know, I managed to persuade you to
Speaker 2: get to sleep. It's that sort of thing that then
Speaker 2: hopefully he'll read back when he's older and go, oh,
Speaker 2: that's interesting that I was like this, or.
Speaker 3: You know, this is what my dad thought I was
Speaker 3: like at this moment.
Speaker 2: But it's also got things like, you know, what his
Speaker 2: first word was, what films he watched when, and which
Speaker 2: books and when he started reading the books, and what
Speaker 2: things encouraged him? Was the first film he watched? The
Speaker 2: first film he watched. Now now I'm struggling to I
Speaker 2: think it was beds and broomsticks. I think it was
Speaker 2: I had a whole thing. There was a thing in
Speaker 2: the paper years ago about Pixar and how perfectly structured
Speaker 2: Pixar films are, and how it made it really difficult
Speaker 2: for this journalist's kids to watch any other kind of
Speaker 2: films because they weren't structured like that. So I tried
Speaker 2: quite deliberately to start him on films where they didn't
Speaker 2: quite have the narrative structure perfected, you know, like you know,
Speaker 2: Brendams and Broomsticks is bonkers the way that it's structured.
Speaker 2: So just like keeping that sort of sense of the
Speaker 2: possibility of narrative that doesn't quite make sense within him
Speaker 2: felt really quite important from day one.
Speaker 1: And so you know he's watched mad, So that's to
Speaker 1: keep everything open, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that he can decide that he can decide what,
Speaker 2: so that he doesn't get, you know, taken into the
Speaker 2: Pixar religion, which is a wonderful religion. And I have
Speaker 2: no problem with Pixar, but just kind of like keeping
Speaker 2: his head exploding rather than narrowing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fascinating, Okay, can I briefly you haven't isn't how? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what stage are apt? Lord of the
Speaker 1: Flies not Load of the Rigs. What made you want
Speaker 1: to do that? And how is it going?
Speaker 3: It was my favorite book when I was a kid.
Speaker 2: It was the answer I gave whenever anyone asked me,
Speaker 2: what's the one thing you really want to do?
Speaker 1: Oh? Great?
Speaker 2: And I feel so thrilled we've got the possibility of
Speaker 2: telling it, and I hope we've done.
Speaker 3: A decent job with it.
Speaker 2: Mark Lundon, who is an amazing director, is directing it
Speaker 2: and the rush is he doesn't do assemblies, and it's
Speaker 2: really hard to watch rushes and get a sense of
Speaker 2: what's happening.
Speaker 3: But the Russiers feel so him.
Speaker 2: I've worked with a huge amount of times Mark and
Speaker 2: it feels like he's capturing something of himself in it.
Speaker 2: And the actors are all extraordinary there, you know, between
Speaker 2: the ages of eleven and thirteen, and they're giving it everything.
Speaker 3: And they've been living in Malaysia for six.
Speaker 2: Months and their parents have sacrificed a huge amount for
Speaker 2: them to be there, and what they're doing is amazing.
Speaker 3: So I hope, I hope what we've got is brilliant.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but we're at the point now where
Speaker 2: I'm going to start seeing things put together, and that is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Since I found out you were dinner, I have
Speaker 1: thought a lot about Lord of the Flies and how
Speaker 1: it feels like it is the story of all things,
Speaker 1: like as in this cycle of people descending into horribleness
Speaker 1: horrible behavior, until a point happens where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: like the end of the book is sort of Jesus,
Speaker 1: what if we don't That seems to me the last
Speaker 1: image of the book is a sort of awakening of
Speaker 1: Oh God and a return of humanity of love. And
Speaker 1: I was thinking even about like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is I hope this is a sort of okay
Speaker 1: thing to say. I was thinking about, like even Amy Winehouse,
Speaker 1: for example, this sort of cycle of someone famous is
Speaker 1: kind of bullied, abused by the media by people like
Speaker 1: taken to a place of their jokes about their their
Speaker 1: their followed, their harried, and then they die and then
Speaker 1: everyone those same people go, oh God, what have we done?
Speaker 1: Like that cycle? And in politics, in everything, in war,
Speaker 1: it seems like that's the story. People go, they get
Speaker 1: carried away, carried away, darker, darker, darker, darker, and then
Speaker 1: someone arrives on the beach and they go, what have
Speaker 1: we done? I mean Princess Diana.
Speaker 2: Famously, they had the editions of the paper that went
Speaker 2: out that day that had abusive articles written about her
Speaker 2: that they then had to pull back for later traditions
Speaker 2: because she because hating her was such a productive industry
Speaker 2: was making newspapers money. And then suddenly what made newspapers
Speaker 2: money was celebrating her wonderful life.
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's a book written with surprising tenderness too. That My
Speaker 2: memory from reading it as a kid was there were
Speaker 2: good guys and they were bad guys. And then you
Speaker 2: read it as an adult and you realize that his
Speaker 2: compassion towards Jack, you know that the supposed leader of
Speaker 2: the bad guys is that it's so there in the text,
Speaker 2: it's so there, and you just have to sort of
Speaker 2: pull that thread out. But yeah, it's extraordinary and he's
Speaker 2: an extraordinary writer, I think, and he captured something about
Speaker 2: us that made sense to me. And some people dismissed
Speaker 2: that book as saying, it's about public school kids, or
Speaker 2: it's about this, or it's about that I didn't get
Speaker 2: to a public school.
Speaker 3: I felt like when I read it, I felt like
Speaker 3: my skin was being pulled off, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think everyone has the person that they're like,
Speaker 2: and everyone has the person that they're frightened their like
Speaker 2: in the book, and you know that that's sort of
Speaker 2: just getting inside the guts of that.
Speaker 1: It's just being delicious. God, you're good at this. I
Speaker 1: don't ask who you like, who do you worry you like?
Speaker 1: I worry I'm like Jack.
Speaker 2: There's certain times when I was a kid that was
Speaker 2: on the outside that you know, not especially bullied, but
Speaker 2: bullied a little bit and bullied by my friends, if
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, that kind of kid, rather
Speaker 2: than being bullied by loads of kids that don't care
Speaker 2: about you. I was bullied by kids that cared about
Speaker 2: me or profess to care about me. But I was
Speaker 2: had a nasty side at a nasty side that I
Speaker 2: didn't quite know how to deal with. I think I'm
Speaker 2: more like Simon, but I don't know, you know, like
Speaker 2: you know, I think that probably the kid I was
Speaker 2: like was Simon, and that's the kid I see in
Speaker 2: my boy, But I don't know do you Do you.
Speaker 3: Remember it well enough to know who you think you
Speaker 3: were like?
Speaker 1: Or not? Really? No, I remember the big the big events.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the end and think about the end
Speaker 1: a lot, but no, I couldn't name them, or I'm
Speaker 1: afraid I'm going to I'm going to watch your show
Speaker 1: and then be.
Speaker 3: Like, not knowing you well.
Speaker 2: But I wonder how much you'd find of yourself in Ralph,
Speaker 2: the central character, that the person that the book revolves around,
Speaker 2: and who is morally complex, who's not pure as as
Speaker 2: he's made out in tents of it, but he's a
Speaker 2: natural leader, is someone that naturally takes people with him
Speaker 2: and then has to struggle with taking people with him.
Speaker 1: He's not the one that kills Piggy. No no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: Piggy's best friend. Okay, good Jack. I could talk to
Speaker 1: you about all this stuff forever. But weirdly, I've forgotten
Speaker 1: to tell you something. I know because I did make
Speaker 1: a list of things talked about. It was on the list.
Speaker 1: It was actually at the top of the list, as
Speaker 1: it should have been, and it's weird that I skipped it.
Speaker 1: I think I got excited about process, Christmas, Carol and stuff. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I just say, you've died. You're dead. Oh no, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, fucking hell. I feel like you add at
Speaker 1: least another hundred things in you, but you're dead. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, it's weird.
Speaker 2: I obviously knew that was coming, but it is weird
Speaker 2: having someone say that to you.
Speaker 1: You didn't just kind of go, you know, you feel
Speaker 1: kind of like, oh, oh yeah, I'm so sorry. This
Speaker 1: is tragic. How did he die?
Speaker 3: Well, my granddad, Derek died in front of Countdown.
Speaker 2: He was a post office master, loved numbers, loved letters,
Speaker 2: and he died watching that. And that's how I hope
Speaker 2: I'll go. I hope I'm watching the television whatever whatever
Speaker 2: of television still exists by that point, and I just
Speaker 2: kind of slip off doing what I love.
Speaker 1: I hate to dig into this, but something has to
Speaker 1: have happened while you're watching countdown.
Speaker 2: Oh he just had a heart attack, I think, but
Speaker 2: just not a really hard one.
Speaker 1: But this is for your your choice. I want to
Speaker 1: go the way Derek died. You weren't exact.
Speaker 2: I just want to have something happen that's just kind
Speaker 2: of sudden and quick and I'm just trying to work
Speaker 2: out whether I can get a six letter word out
Speaker 2: or not, and then I'm just dead.
Speaker 1: Okay, So it's that's what I wanted to know. It
Speaker 1: was mere answer. I think so. I think so. I think.
Speaker 2: I think the clock was still ticking as he was
Speaker 2: as he was working through.
Speaker 1: It, and you know, did it boo on the floor exactly?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I don't think you even fall on the floor.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't want a dramatic Death's my point. I want.
Speaker 2: I know lots of people to playing crashes and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. I don't really want to do any of that.
Speaker 2: I just want to be on my sofa and just
Speaker 2: go slip off into the abyss.
Speaker 1: Love it? Okay. Do you worry about death?
Speaker 2: No, not at all. I don't consider it. It's the
Speaker 2: same as that my Harry Potter answer. I don't really
Speaker 2: consider the consequence of anything I'm until I'm at that point,
Speaker 2: and then I have so much fear it's unbelievable. But
Speaker 2: hopefully I don't have time to contemplate it.
Speaker 1: I just I just go great, do you what do
Speaker 1: you think happens when you die? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think I'm probably just worm me, but I like
Speaker 2: the possibility of something else. And I have a strange
Speaker 2: relationship with faith where I really admire faith, and so
Speaker 2: I would sort of be sad for people that I
Speaker 2: know who are faithful that there's nothing that I want
Speaker 2: their beliefs to be true. So I sort of I
Speaker 2: don't know, and I don't want to decide because I
Speaker 2: don't want them to be wrong.
Speaker 1: That seems to me the true representation of a loving religion,
Speaker 1: that you want faith to be true so that the
Speaker 1: people that believe are looked after, and for that reason
Speaker 1: you're going to heaven. Oh, thank you very much, and
Speaker 1: congratulations there is a heaven. You're in it, and your
Speaker 1: favorite thing? What's your favorite what's my favorite thing? TV? Yeah,
Speaker 1: just a big telly yeah, great TV again, what you're
Speaker 1: excited to hear? You're going to heavin.
Speaker 2: Honestly, yeah, it's just like you know, you're just saying it,
Speaker 2: and I'm just like, oh right, yeah, no, great, I
Speaker 2: trust you.
Speaker 1: I trust you, Yeah, I got you. Heaven is filled
Speaker 1: with TVs everywhere, everywhere you look, sort of intimidating's like
Speaker 1: installation TV's everywhere, but they become one big scream when
Speaker 1: you want to watch anything you want to watch. Everyone's
Speaker 1: very excited to see you, huge fans. They won't talk
Speaker 1: to you about your life, but they want to talk
Speaker 1: about it through film. And the first thing they ask
Speaker 1: you is, what is the first film you remember seeing,
Speaker 1: missus Jack Thorpe.
Speaker 3: It's four fifths of the Jungle Book.
Speaker 2: Oh what a banger, because there's a point at the
Speaker 2: four fifths mark when Blue seems to be dead, and
Speaker 2: at that moment, I was so emotional. I hid under
Speaker 2: my seat and I didn't watch the rest of the film.
Speaker 2: I got so upset that Blue. I was a very
Speaker 2: very emotional child, and I would cry quite a lot.
Speaker 3: I mean, I didn't make it through.
Speaker 2: We went to see Toad of Toad Hall at the
Speaker 2: Bristol Hippodrome and I didn't make it through that either,
Speaker 2: because when Toad crashed the car, I was so upset
Speaker 2: for Toad that I.
Speaker 3: Had to be taken out of the Bristol Hippodrome.
Speaker 2: I think I stayed in the cinema for the remainder
Speaker 2: of the Jungle Book, but I didn't watch it.
Speaker 1: So this is why you're a writer, because you're an
Speaker 1: mpath or a free think it's possible. So the tragedy
Speaker 1: of you, so you don't know that Ballue didn't die.
Speaker 2: I didn't at that moment. At that moment, I believe
Speaker 2: the Blue was dead. The film was presenting Blue as
Speaker 2: dead and drifting down the river, and I just thought,
Speaker 2: that's the worst thing I can possibly imagine happening to
Speaker 2: the person who had come through the film, my best friend.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is why, this is another reason why,
Speaker 1: this is why Mobick Christmas Carol Takes has to take
Speaker 1: the top spot, because, aside from everything that it does,
Speaker 1: it has at the end of the line and tiny
Speaker 1: Tim who did not die.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Blue is fine. The point is blue is fine.
Speaker 1: Blue is fine. What's the film that scared you the most?
Speaker 1: And do you like being scared?
Speaker 3: I do like being scared, and I do watch horror films.
Speaker 2: The film that scared me the most, there's two films
Speaker 2: I have on this list. The first is Stay Shoot Horses,
Speaker 2: Don't They? Which I still think about that scene when
Speaker 2: they're dancing and eating at the same time.
Speaker 1: And I haven't seen this film. You haven't seen They Shootorters,
Speaker 1: Don't They? Oh?
Speaker 2: You have to, you'll love it. But it's brutal, and
Speaker 2: it's about the depression. That it's about couples basically in
Speaker 2: a stamina race to see who can stay dancing the longest,
Speaker 2: and they're set challenges drawing it. And you're watching these
Speaker 2: couples as they try and survive and as they get
Speaker 2: to know each other, and that as you understand their desperation,
Speaker 2: and it's horrific and it's you know, it's one of
Speaker 2: my favorite films of all time, but it's terrifying.
Speaker 1: I always thought that film was a spin off of
Speaker 1: all creases, great and small. That's why I've never seen.
Speaker 2: It, right, Okay, well, yeah, there is the point when
Speaker 2: Seafree turns up and shoots a horse in the middle
Speaker 2: of it and then it just lies on the floor.
Speaker 3: No, they watch it, you'll love it.
Speaker 2: And then the other film that scares me, but for
Speaker 2: very different reasons is Sideways, because I massively over empathize
Speaker 2: with that and there's a scene in it where he
Speaker 2: goes on a date with her. You know, it's the
Speaker 2: it's the four of them go on a date together
Speaker 2: and he can't look at her. And at that point
Speaker 2: when I watched that film, I was living on my
Speaker 2: own in Luton. I wasn't really seeing anyone socially, and
Speaker 2: I didn't have any relationships to speak of, and I
Speaker 2: just went, oh, that's me, that's my future, that's who
Speaker 2: I'm going to be, and he's so unhappy. I just
Speaker 2: that film is terrifying to me for that reason, whilst
Speaker 2: also being very very beautiful.
Speaker 1: Hmmm, great beautiful love Sideways. What is the film that
Speaker 1: made you cry the most? Do you like crying?
Speaker 2: I do like crying, And I've got two answers for
Speaker 2: this too. I know that it's eating to constantly have
Speaker 2: two answers for everything.
Speaker 1: Very special guests, you can have two.
Speaker 3: One is The Sun's Room Nanni Moretti's film The Sun's Room.
Speaker 2: Fuck Yeah, which is just the best portrait of grief
Speaker 2: ever written, I think, and just acutely gets inside a
Speaker 2: family when they're trying to deal with what they've lost
Speaker 2: and they can't deal with it. And the other one
Speaker 2: is an episode of TV, which I know is cheating slightly,
Speaker 2: but I think it feels like a film when you
Speaker 2: watch it, which is Series one, episode thirteen of the
Speaker 2: hour of an episode called loves Labour's Last.
Speaker 1: You've fucking You've snuck under the radar by and you
Speaker 1: can have it? Fuck yes? Do you remember that episode?
Speaker 2: Do you remember that episode Bradley with the guest starring,
Speaker 2: And it's just all about Dr Green trying to save.
Speaker 1: A woman that's.
Speaker 2: Giving birth, and you just see him do extraordinary things
Speaker 2: and he's extraordinarily heroic, and it just ends with him
Speaker 2: on the train and his head against the glass. And
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever cried more than watching that
Speaker 2: moment and just understanding what he's been through that day
Speaker 2: and how heroic he's been, and how he sort of
Speaker 2: knows he did everything he possibly could when he failed
Speaker 2: and he cost lives and maybe the lives wouldn't have
Speaker 2: been lost if it had been another doctor, and just
Speaker 2: seeing him within that is just awful. So yes, both
Speaker 2: those and both they're both quite desolate. They're not you know,
Speaker 2: you know, there's there's nothing charming in either of them
Speaker 2: in lots of ways.
Speaker 1: I mean, The Sun's Room is a very very.
Speaker 2: Charming film, but but there's a sort of in a
Speaker 2: chasm that that won't be filled, and you know it
Speaker 2: won't be filled. And I just love both those things.
Speaker 2: And if I wanted to cry, I could put them
Speaker 2: on and I would cry.
Speaker 1: What's interesting is your stuff? And like I said, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen all of your stuff, but I've seen an
Speaker 1: awful lot of your stuff. I think even the stuff
Speaker 1: I've seen of yours, that it's very heavy, still has
Speaker 1: great love, and I would say hope in them. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say your stuff has the chasm of despair in them, which.
Speaker 2: I sort of see see that as a failure now
Speaker 2: that I've got to correct. And actually I like, actually
Speaker 2: there's something on TV next year where I think there
Speaker 2: is a real cats of despair in the middle of there.
Speaker 2: It's a show called show called Adolescence, and Stephen Graham
Speaker 2: is playing the person with that hole in the middle
Speaker 2: of him, and Stephen is just I mean, he just
Speaker 2: does something ridiculously special in it.
Speaker 1: He's very good at chasms of despair.
Speaker 3: He is very good at chasms of despair.
Speaker 2: He walks down a very thin bridge of hope, Steve,
Speaker 2: and and he's incredibly hopeful, and he's full of love
Speaker 2: and joy and I you know, I get upbeat text
Speaker 2: messages from him most days. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: he can access something that's really that's that's really.
Speaker 1: Damaged Yah, which is one of the TV shows that's
Speaker 1: every single episode of I think when you talk about TV,
Speaker 1: I know I always go on about film, But what
Speaker 1: TV does have the film doesn't is time and having
Speaker 1: been someone that grew up watching her and watched all
Speaker 1: of him. The death of Mark Green, that's probably the
Speaker 1: most I've anyone in my own life because it was
Speaker 1: eight years of my life with this man. It was
Speaker 1: the most devastating, like we'd spent I'd spent six months
Speaker 1: of a year for eight years with this person.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the line you set the tone? Of
Speaker 3: course I do so past to Mark Green in I
Speaker 3: think the opening episode of the show or certainly in
Speaker 3: the first season of the show. Then he passes it
Speaker 3: to Carter just before he then goes off and you know,
Speaker 3: and he's playing and it's basketball, and he just hits
Speaker 3: the ball over to Carter and says, you set the tone, Carter,
Speaker 3: and it's just.
Speaker 1: Like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: You know, like you know, I don't know that that's
Speaker 2: up there with one of the best lines in TV history,
Speaker 2: I think, with the way that they reused it and
Speaker 2: they and they made it work for.
Speaker 1: Both fucking brilliant that show. Yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: there's an episode of the Ore that I think is
Speaker 1: fucking made one off John Wells, which is the one
Speaker 1: where Carter and his lady have have a stillboy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that episode? Yeah? I do. Yeah, my god. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we love over here. Okay, And you know they're making
Speaker 1: another show, aren't they.
Speaker 2: They're making another show that's sort of yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: really excited.
Speaker 1: For that me too. What is the film that you love?
Speaker 1: People don't like it, at least the critics don't, but
Speaker 1: you love it unconditionally always.
Speaker 2: So we were we were on a holiday last year
Speaker 2: where we were going around. It was one of these
Speaker 2: things where you're you bring your kids. It's called country Kids,
Speaker 2: and you bring your kids and the kids all play together,
Speaker 2: and then the adults are about to get to know
Speaker 2: each other a bit as you're all nightmaris. Well, in
Speaker 2: lots of ways it sounds night raish, but actually kind
Speaker 2: of kind of exciting and interesting, lovely.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, the people that we were read last year were
Speaker 3: pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: And we're doing that thing of just sitting around in
Speaker 2: a circle and making conversation. And someone asked the question
Speaker 2: when we're you happiest, and I was sat by my
Speaker 2: wife and it was a holiday with my kid, And
Speaker 2: the honest answer was the fourth of July nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 2: which is when me and my little sister I was eighteen, no,
Speaker 2: I was twenty, and me and my little sister went
Speaker 2: to the Coca Cola Museum in Las Vegas is it,
Speaker 2: I don't know whether it's a museum or factory or
Speaker 2: whatever they call it, and we drank about nine liters
Speaker 2: of Coca cola because it had different at the end
Speaker 2: of it, you just could drink as much as you like,
Speaker 2: and they had about forty different flavors that you could
Speaker 2: just sample all of them, so We drank about nine
Speaker 2: liters of it, and then we went to watch armagedin
Speaker 2: a in a cinema on the fourth of July, and
Speaker 2: at the end of it, the audience gave it a
Speaker 2: standing ovation. They were so happy that this film. And
Speaker 2: to this day I can watch that film and just
Speaker 2: feel the joy of that moment of just being so
Speaker 2: high on coca cola and.
Speaker 1: Just going, yeah, yeah, well it's to save the world.
Speaker 2: And so yes, that's the film I love unreservedly, and
Speaker 2: I think doubts about it. So I think it answers
Speaker 2: your question.
Speaker 1: That is a perfect answer, really lovely answer. Great movie,
Speaker 1: No complaints from me. On the other hand, a film
Speaker 1: that you used to love but you've noticed it recently
Speaker 1: and you've thought, I don't like this anymore. But it
Speaker 1: might be the film is still good. It's just you've
Speaker 1: changed so with a political hat on. Okay, And it's
Speaker 1: not a bad film. But rain Man. I loved Rayman
Speaker 1: as a kid.
Speaker 2: I once interviewed Barry Norman for a student newspaper.
Speaker 1: How was he?
Speaker 2: He was lovely, Spikier than you'd have expected, but lovely,
Speaker 2: And I asked him about something I remembered on film
Speaker 2: whatever it was film eighty eight, I guess it was,
Speaker 2: which is when he was talking about Rayman to Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2: He was interviewing Tom Cruise, and he said to Tom Cruise,
Speaker 2: you should have won the Oscar for that film. And
Speaker 2: I do think Tom Cruise's performance in that film is perfect,
Speaker 2: absolutely perfect. But as someone who is autistic and who
Speaker 2: worked a lot in the disabled world and who campaigns
Speaker 2: for changes to the way that television treats disabled people,
Speaker 2: we're part of this. We run this campaign called the
Speaker 2: TV Access Project, which is trying to change the way
Speaker 2: that sets work. Basically, I think that Rayman has caused
Speaker 2: so many problems in terms of what autism.
Speaker 1: Is, what people think it is.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and I don't think it's helpful. And I think,
Speaker 2: you know, at the moment, everyone's going, ah, everyone's autistic,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, you know, like, you know,
Speaker 2: everyone's everyone's done that test, everyone's got different conditions, and
Speaker 2: everyone's ner a diverse and all this other kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: and you kind of go, it's possible that there's more
Speaker 2: people that you're a diverse than the world expected, and
Speaker 2: that every neurodiversity doesn't have to know how to count matches.
Speaker 1: I mean, like you know, like.
Speaker 2: You know, and maybe the welcomere kind of place that
Speaker 2: accepts all these different things. And maybe if you extended
Speaker 2: your prism of as to what label something actually is,
Speaker 2: that we can get places. Because I don't think anyone's
Speaker 2: asking for a certain type of treatment by saying they
Speaker 2: have autism. They're just trying to understand themselves a bit
Speaker 2: better and understand their brain chemistry a bit better. And
Speaker 2: so so Raymon.
Speaker 1: Can I that's a really good answer, It makes sense.
Speaker 1: Can I ask the thing that you're working forward to
Speaker 1: trying to change how sets work? Can I ask what
Speaker 1: you would like to change? How would it? It's two things.
Speaker 1: It started so during COVID. If you remember, deaths were
Speaker 1: divided into right, there was death that people cared about,
Speaker 1: and then there were deaths with underlying health conditions, and
Speaker 1: people went the death with unlying health conditions. Those statistics
Speaker 1: and you know, even the guardian was doing this. You know,
Speaker 1: these statistics don't really matter. The ones that matter are
Speaker 1: the healthy people. Disabled people don't count. And there were.
Speaker 2: Friends of mine that were told that not only would
Speaker 2: they not get access to machines if they went in
Speaker 2: togitle they should not get access to machines. There was
Speaker 2: a whole thing of just kind of like disabled people
Speaker 2: deserve to die, and it really felt like disabled people
Speaker 2: deserve to die, and drawing time, my group of friends
Speaker 2: just said, Okay, what do we do? How do we
Speaker 2: challenge this a little bit? And Katie Player, who's a
Speaker 2: production manager on a few of my shows and is
Speaker 2: a good friend, said that disability doesn't work the same
Speaker 2: way that ethnicity works. You can't just solve it with
Speaker 2: quotas or with good meaning. You've actually got to change
Speaker 2: the way that sets work. And that means toilets. That
Speaker 2: means so the example a lot of my friends gave
Speaker 2: was of on sets the honeywagons being completely inaccessible, which
Speaker 2: meant that they'd have a choice either decide that they
Speaker 2: I'm going to eat and a drink during the day
Speaker 2: because the nearest accessible toilet is Tescos and it's fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes drive away, or crawl across the floor of a honeywagon.
Speaker 2: And you've been on sets, you know how dirty those
Speaker 2: honey wagons get. And so I've got friends that had
Speaker 2: to crawl through that stuff in order to be able
Speaker 2: to use the toilet because there were no accessible honeywagons,
Speaker 2: they just didn't exist. So it's things like that. It's
Speaker 2: also about looking at practices, it's about when you ask questions.
Speaker 2: It's about having an accessibility coordinator on set, which works
Speaker 2: quite similar to an intimacy coordinator, but would allow people
Speaker 2: to talk about disability that maybe they haven't declared before.
Speaker 2: So cool sheets, making cool sheets more readable by putting
Speaker 2: them in a different sized font makes a huge difference
Speaker 2: to boom operators, people that hadn't ever declared that they
Speaker 2: have problems with their side before, but who always had
Speaker 2: to rely on asking their friends. But these different things
Speaker 2: all add up to inaccessible working conditions, you know. And
Speaker 2: there's other things like curbs and all sorts of things
Speaker 2: that we're trying to change. But it's a long term campaign.
Speaker 2: It's been going on for three and a half years now.
Speaker 2: Thankfully we've got buy in from TV people at the top,
Speaker 2: so Charlotte Moore in Cats people like that have really
Speaker 2: leaned in and are really helping us.
Speaker 3: We are making huge progress.
Speaker 2: There are a number of disabled honeywagons, for instance, now
Speaker 2: that didn't used to exist before. So it's happening. It's slow,
Speaker 2: but it's happening, and there's about three hundred people now
Speaker 2: working as part of it in different focus groups, working
Speaker 2: on different things that can change the way that we work.
Speaker 1: Brilliant. Thank you. No, yeah, no, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: really special thing to be part of. Yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: for sharing it. What is the film that means the
Speaker 1: most to you? Not necessarily the film itself is good,
Speaker 1: but the experience you had seeing that film makes it
Speaker 1: important to you alive.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a I can tell you the exact time
Speaker 2: that I first watched it, which is we take to
Speaker 2: off film for I think, and then me and my
Speaker 2: little sister. Is it just the two of you in
Speaker 2: your head? No, there's an older brother and sister, but
Speaker 2: they moved out. They're born three forty years older than me,
Speaker 2: so they moved out quite a while before the two
Speaker 2: of us, and so we grew up a lot of
Speaker 2: my teenage yeers was just being Liz, you've got a sister, right, yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's a special relationship.
Speaker 1: I think love a sister. Yeah. Yeah, And we.
Speaker 2: Watched it all the way through and then we said
Speaker 2: we really loved that. We just watched it again, so
Speaker 2: we rewound the tape and we watched it again all
Speaker 2: the way through, and Liz says, it's the first time
Speaker 2: she thought we liked each other, like you know, that
Speaker 2: difficult period we got that difficult period of and by
Speaker 2: the way, this is from Liz, this isn't from me,
Speaker 2: but but you know, like you know, and and we've
Speaker 2: gone through all that difficult teenage years together and then
Speaker 2: suddenly we just found ourselves sympatico. And when I got
Speaker 2: married rach and I, the present we asked for was
Speaker 2: everyone to give us their favorite book, but write something
Speaker 2: in the beginning of it. So we've got all these books,
Speaker 2: you know, they've just written nice little notes into us,
Speaker 2: and it's really nice. And Liz was my best man
Speaker 2: and Liz got me alive, and it just says at
Speaker 2: the front of it, of course, you know, other than that,
Speaker 2: so that that's my And it's also a lovely film.
Speaker 1: It's a great film.
Speaker 2: I asked Kathleen Kennedy about it, and she just the
Speaker 2: relationship they had with the survivors was extraordinary. They had
Speaker 2: a really special thing, the three of them, but you know,
Speaker 2: the two of them working together on it, and I
Speaker 2: think and I think it means a huge amount to her.
Speaker 2: But you know a guy that left his mark on films,
Speaker 2: that's still leaving his mark on films, and he hasn't
Speaker 2: directed much certainly, And it's interesting that Alive was the
Speaker 2: one where he went. I'm going to get Hollywood money
Speaker 2: to tell this story. I'm going to get Ethan Hawk
Speaker 2: to be in it. But otherwise I'm going to cast
Speaker 2: people that you don't know necessarily.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the new one. I have I have
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 2: It's darker, it's not quite got that uplifting feel at
Speaker 2: the end. The end is still they survived and they
Speaker 2: got out of there and they did a remarkable thing.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't quite have that same sort of Hollywood energy,
Speaker 2: which might make it a better film.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I can't divorce my experience.
Speaker 2: Of watching a live from watching that film, you know,
Speaker 2: like you know, I can't quite let go of a live,
Speaker 2: So I don't it was very interesting.
Speaker 1: You and Liz probably wouldn't immediately rewatch that way.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, what's the film that you most relate to.
Speaker 2: I've got two again, but they're connected, which is Minari
Speaker 2: and Whiplash.
Speaker 1: Oh fuck, Oh, I go it. Tell me I get it,
Speaker 1: and I know and I want you to explain it.
Speaker 2: So it's people that have troubling relationships with their wack
Speaker 2: and who can't quite divorce their self worth from their
Speaker 2: work life, and who don't know where the line of
Speaker 2: the line of self preservation is, and who will do
Speaker 2: damage to themselves and to others in pursuit of their goals.
Speaker 3: And I relate to that hugely.
Speaker 2: And it's the side of me that I worry about
Speaker 2: the most, and I think about a lot.
Speaker 3: I remember watching Whiplash for the first time so vividly.
Speaker 2: It was on a screener because I was having a
Speaker 2: meeting with Damien to talk about a project.
Speaker 3: And this was before Damien was Dall. It was the Eddy,
Speaker 3: the project you.
Speaker 2: Mentioned at the beginning, yes, that we did together, and
Speaker 2: they just said, you should watch this film is really
Speaker 2: interesting filmmaker. But it was before Whiplash was Whiplash, And
Speaker 2: so I watched it in my hotel room, just me,
Speaker 2: and just sat on the edge of my bed and
Speaker 2: just felt awful and so profoundly moved and so scared
Speaker 2: and so worried. And I can watch that film over
Speaker 2: and over and over again as I can. Min Ari
Speaker 2: and They're two almost perfect films, if not perfect, and
Speaker 2: they just express a feeling so perfectly.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe the thing in Whiplash is the fear
Speaker 1: you have that you're like Jack in Lord of the
Speaker 1: Flies in that the thing I think is really sing
Speaker 1: Whiplash because all the work stuff and all the all
Speaker 1: the kind of ambition and drive and work and ethic,
Speaker 1: all of that makes sense. But he's actually not a
Speaker 1: nice character. I think in Minari it's a much more
Speaker 1: sympathetic character. You know, he is driven and all the things,
Speaker 1: but in Whiplash he isn't a very nice guy. He's
Speaker 1: horrible to his girlfriend, like it isn't really like he's
Speaker 1: pushing aside his nice side to do this thing. Like
Speaker 1: he's kind of singularly driven and sort of not very
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of love in him outside of that,
Speaker 1: which I think is brave and unusual in a story
Speaker 1: like that. You know what I mean. Have you met Damien.
Speaker 1: I'm never and I'm a big fan and I'm team Babylon.
Speaker 1: I think Babylon is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he is not an alpha person. You know,
Speaker 2: like most directors you meet, they impose themselves on you
Speaker 2: that there's a way in which you can feel their
Speaker 2: personality just kind of reaching out, pulling you to them,
Speaker 2: and just there's just the silent power that they've got
Speaker 2: and Damien doesn't have that.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: He's incredible and you can feel how incredible he is,
Speaker 2: and you can feel his intelligence straight away, but he
Speaker 2: doesn't quite have that sort of Miles Teller aspect to
Speaker 2: him that you don't feel that coming off you. So
Speaker 2: it's so interesting that clearly he can see that in
Speaker 2: himself and that he expresses that in that film in
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like he's expressed his his his fear that
Speaker 1: you have. He's expressed his dark version of this in
Speaker 1: a way that is different in La La Land and
Speaker 1: all his other films I see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Wow, he's a beautiful He's a beautiful man.
Speaker 1: By the way. Do you like him? I really like
Speaker 1: his Neil Armstrong film. It's amazing, beautiful, wildly underrated as well.
Speaker 1: I think that's brilliant.
Speaker 3: But he's got he's having one of those careers that
Speaker 3: people will look back on in year's time and go,
Speaker 3: oh my god, look what he knitted together.
Speaker 1: You know, what is the sexiest film we've ever seen?
Speaker 1: Jack Thaw and it's why here. Well, I'm going to
Speaker 1: give you remains of the day. Come on, grow up.
Speaker 1: What's the sexy film that you remember that moment?
Speaker 2: It remains the day when when she comes in on
Speaker 2: him in the study and he's reading a book and
Speaker 2: then this close and they're almost about to you know,
Speaker 2: there's a possible you know, like you know, and she's saying,
Speaker 2: you know, are you reading a racy book?
Speaker 1: Am I gonna? Am?
Speaker 2: I going to get upset by what you're reading? And
Speaker 2: he's like, would the lordship have a racy book in
Speaker 2: his house? You know, like you know, he's sort of
Speaker 2: protecting his lordship behind him. And she's like, why no, God,
Speaker 2: and tell me. And she really pushes that me and
Speaker 2: she really pushed it. And she's touching him in a
Speaker 2: way that they've never really touched before. She's trying to
Speaker 2: get it and then and then she gets it off
Speaker 2: and she goes on it's just a sentimental old love
Speaker 2: story and just like that, there is a sexual power
Speaker 2: in that scene. That's what I think. That's as good
Speaker 2: as good as you're going to get.
Speaker 1: Well, let's see what you have for the next question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the next question. They traveling bone is worrying. Why donce
Speaker 1: a filmy found arousing that you weren't sure you should.
Speaker 1: If your answer to the first question was remains of
Speaker 1: the day, I imagine it'll be fucking the mask or something.
Speaker 2: It's the Goonies, the moment when Andy kisses Mikey. Do
Speaker 2: you remember that that they're in the dark and she
Speaker 2: m and then she kisses him and there's this sort
Speaker 2: of prison between the two of them that neither can
Speaker 2: quite understand. You know, I've got a thing for older women,
Speaker 2: and that was born I think in the Goonies.
Speaker 3: Is that Is that a good enough answer to that question?
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, you're very very clear, you've you've played
Speaker 1: a blinder. But this is nearly as bad as when
Speaker 1: Mark Harmer said celluloid, celluloid. Come on, what objectively, objectively
Speaker 1: is the greatest film of all time? Might not be
Speaker 1: your favorite, but it is the pinnacle of cinema.
Speaker 2: So I have begod tutted on my wrist. My son
Speaker 2: is called Elliott. I think et is the greatest film
Speaker 2: of all time. And I'm sure that's a very boring answer.
Speaker 2: I'm sure, but it's perfect. You know, It's just there's
Speaker 2: not It's the best film about loneliness ever made. It's
Speaker 2: the best film about divorce ever made. It's the best
Speaker 2: film about aliens ever made. And when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: knowing that there was a possibility, when I was so lonely,
Speaker 2: knowing that there was a possibility that there was an
Speaker 2: alien out there that might belong in my heart and
Speaker 2: I might belong in that alien's heart, really did save me.
Speaker 2: And I think I've my whole love for storytelling comes
Speaker 2: from that film.
Speaker 1: When you were telling the story, you were in Luton,
Speaker 1: you were alone, you had no relationships, you were close
Speaker 1: to a chasm of despair. Do you feel like now
Speaker 1: you're you're married, you have a child, you're you go
Speaker 1: on country country camps? Like do you feel are you happy?
Speaker 1: You do you have like gratitude of like wow, look how.
Speaker 2: Huge huge grastitude and huge grastitude for everyone around me,
Speaker 2: and huge gratitude that I get to do what I
Speaker 2: love and I still cauon't believe it.
Speaker 1: But do you feel like, oh, I did it? Do
Speaker 1: do you see how far you've come and be like
Speaker 1: this is great?
Speaker 2: Or are you like no, I think is going to
Speaker 2: be taken away and I need to be ready for
Speaker 2: that moment when it's taken away. And I think, I
Speaker 2: wake up every morning in a cold panic, and that's
Speaker 2: what keeps me in my office, and that's what makes
Speaker 2: me right for nine hours a day, you know, Like
Speaker 2: you know, I just need to propel forward.
Speaker 3: And I don't know about you.
Speaker 2: I think my central I heard James Graham, who I love,
Speaker 2: talk about how excited it gets before a first previous
Speaker 2: and going for a drink and feeling really excited that
Speaker 2: this is going to be the moment when audiences come
Speaker 2: in and see the play for the first time, and
Speaker 2: how beautiful that is. And I feel humiliated when people
Speaker 2: come in. I feel like, not that humiliation is going
Speaker 2: to come. I literally feel humiliated that they've come in
Speaker 2: the first place. And then the humiliation only grows through
Speaker 2: the evening, you know, and then you get reviews, and
Speaker 2: then you find the review that tells you that you
Speaker 2: should be humiliated, and that's the thing you hold on to.
Speaker 2: And I haven't got out of that mind space at all.
Speaker 2: I love my wife very much, I love my child
Speaker 2: very much. I love my career very much, but that
Speaker 2: feeling of humiliation doesn't leave me. Preach and That's why
Speaker 2: whiplashes a damaging film, because that's how he feels. That's
Speaker 2: how he feels. He has a relationship with humiliation that's
Speaker 2: really troubling, that allows him to behave in the way
Speaker 2: that he behaves.
Speaker 1: I'd love to pretend I don't relate. So what is
Speaker 1: is the film? How many times to be watched?
Speaker 2: It's Christmas Carol, just going, Oh, I'm saved by I'm
Speaker 2: saved by films.
Speaker 1: I'm saved by films.
Speaker 2: Oh no, the cold, the cold silence that comes at
Speaker 2: the end is still there.
Speaker 1: What is the film you could or have watched the
Speaker 1: most over and over again.
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, it's et in lots of ways. But
Speaker 2: I also think I've got to be in the right
Speaker 2: mindset for e t If there is a film when
Speaker 2: I'm flicking, if there's a film that I will stay
Speaker 2: watching till the end, and have stayed watching till the
Speaker 2: end huge amount of times.
Speaker 3: It's the sting. I love the sting.
Speaker 2: I think it's it's so well, it's so well constructed.
Speaker 2: It's such a beautiful character portrait, and it's so it's
Speaker 2: such a swimming ride when you're sort of it's like
Speaker 2: It's my favorite film to show other people too, because
Speaker 2: the twists and turns, genuinely twists and turns.
Speaker 3: You do not see it coming unless you're very very clever,
Speaker 3: and I'm not.
Speaker 2: You know, you just kind of get taken on this
Speaker 2: huge rush and then you're like, what are they doing?
Speaker 1: How are they doing this?
Speaker 3: And what does this mean? And it's just brilliant.
Speaker 1: Right right, answer, What is the worst film I've ever seen?
Speaker 1: You don't have to be we don't have to be
Speaker 1: negative for long.
Speaker 2: I watched a film called Bogus, which is Gerard Deputy
Speaker 2: and Willby Goldberg and it's Norman Jewison directed it, so
Speaker 2: three real huge talents and it's a film about Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a film. Well, you know how people talk about
Speaker 2: how Marvel has destroyed cinema and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: That my recollection from the nineties is that there were
Speaker 2: lots of good films, but there are also lots of
Speaker 2: films that trotted out the same formula over and over again.
Speaker 2: And the formula of the woman that needs a child
Speaker 2: in order to be fulfilled is a really really troubling
Speaker 2: genre and this film is the worst example of that.
Speaker 2: You know, just the workaholic that gets given a kid,
Speaker 2: and the kid has an imaginary friend called Jared Deputy
Speaker 2: and then not called Jared.
Speaker 1: I don't know what his name is.
Speaker 2: And then they and then they sort of bonds through it,
Speaker 2: and then they and she then has a relationship with
Speaker 2: the imaginary friend too, and it's just awful and how
Speaker 2: we treated Woopy Goldberg and Whoopy Goldbo's career should be
Speaker 2: an object of shame for the entire industry. You know,
Speaker 2: one of the most talmented, natural, charismatic people that ever
Speaker 2: was on film. And if you look at the film
Speaker 2: she made, and I think it was because of the
Speaker 2: lack of choice. People couldn't see what she could be
Speaker 2: other than Zany, and so they just kept giving her
Speaker 2: Zany film after Zaney film after Zaney film. And it's
Speaker 2: just a disgrace. And that film is the worst of it.
Speaker 2: And Norman Jewison is a great director who made great films,
Speaker 2: but she is extraordinary, and she wasn't given the career
Speaker 2: that she should have. And now she's on the talk show,
Speaker 2: which I know is great, but she's brilliant.
Speaker 1: She's brilliant.
Speaker 2: She's brilliant, and she should still be making lots and
Speaker 2: lots of films, and she can do drama, she can
Speaker 2: do comedy, she can do anything.
Speaker 1: Tell me this what Yeah, you've you've written comedy. You're
Speaker 1: very funny. What's the film that made you laugh the most?
Speaker 2: I'm going to give a body a boring answer. I
Speaker 2: love Richard Curtis. Four Weddings and the Funeral. I think
Speaker 2: fucking great. Four Weddings in the Funeral. It's a great film,
Speaker 2: and he is. I watched Four Weddings in the Funeral
Speaker 2: when I was in my dark base. I watched every
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day. Oh my gosh, there's an act of self flatulation.
Speaker 2: But also because I love it. It's so well written.
Speaker 2: Every line is a delight, you know that. You know
Speaker 2: the thing they say about the Cohens that the Cohens
Speaker 2: never let any character be too small, that they just
Speaker 2: will make every character sort of zing. And I think
Speaker 2: with Richard Curtis, he doesn't let a line go. He
Speaker 2: just sits there staring at the script again and again
Speaker 2: and again until he crafts the hell out of each line.
Speaker 2: And there's a craftsman. I don't think there's anyone who
Speaker 2: writes to star a little better than him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that film is perfect. It's so funny and great
Speaker 1: and structurally brilliant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's quite similar to It's quite similar to
Speaker 2: Christmas Carol, you know in the it's you know, four
Speaker 2: Wedding to the Funeral is very similar to Three Ghosts
Speaker 2: and the Awakening, you know what I mean, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: it seems quite as similar, sort of like you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to take a structure and I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: I'm just going to exploit it and use those stating
Speaker 2: posts to create my story around it.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see a bit of a do a
Speaker 1: bit of a do? I know the title was. I
Speaker 1: remember it from when I was a kid, and I
Speaker 1: think it And this isn't to say he stole it
Speaker 1: from it. I don't really mean that. But it was
Speaker 1: a TV show by David Knobs, I think, and it
Speaker 1: had had like David Jason in it, and every episode
Speaker 1: was an event. It was the same character as one
Speaker 1: time past. It was like a wedding, it was a
Speaker 1: Christmas party, it was whatever. It was fucking brilliant. But
Speaker 1: I was like sick. I must have been very very younger.
Speaker 1: I still anyway. Great structurally a great idea, Yeah, great,
Speaker 1: Jack thought you have been beyond wonderful. Thank you for
Speaker 1: answering all my questions, Thank you for being so thoughtful
Speaker 1: and sensitive. And why is it I think I've learned
Speaker 1: things here? However, when you're watching countdown, have a lovely time.
Speaker 1: You're watching countdown and it was five five continents, three vals,
Speaker 1: and and you were like, I think I could get
Speaker 1: all of it. I think I could get eight. Here
Speaker 1: you're thinking about it. I think I could. I think
Speaker 1: do do do do? Do? Do? Do? Do do? Anyway?
Speaker 1: What's that? What's that? Anyway? What's that? And your chest
Speaker 1: felt do do do? Do do? And then you grabbed
Speaker 1: your chest and you be like, I think it's I've
Speaker 1: got seven? Six? Dog got eight? And then your heart
Speaker 1: explained and you fell to the floor. I'm walking past
Speaker 1: with a coffin. You know what I'm like, And I
Speaker 1: see your see your lady and your son. I goes
Speaker 1: jack in. I had to cut the questions for him.
Speaker 1: They go, yeah, he's just watching candown. He doesn't like
Speaker 1: to be interrupted. When he watched his cat down, I said, really,
Speaker 1: he doesn't watch it with you and he says, they said, no,
Speaker 1: he locks the door when he's watching. We're absolutely forbidden
Speaker 1: from being in there. It's quite weird.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: I thought that's more of a family and he hates it.
Speaker 1: If we're in a cand I go okay, I go, well,
Speaker 1: do you mind if I just knock because it's sort
Speaker 1: of a thing I'm not going to do. I see
Speaker 1: you on the floor dead, absolutely dead on the film, like, oh, guys,
Speaker 1: he died watching countdown, and go, well, that's why you
Speaker 1: would have wanted. I go help me and we get you.
Speaker 1: But you've you were eating snacks and you're absolutely covered
Speaker 1: in stacks and they're stuck to you, and like ah,
Speaker 1: and because your heart exploded, your actual ribcage exploded like
Speaker 1: a like an onion burst out, and I was like,
Speaker 1: fucking hell. Sorry everyone, I didn't want you to see
Speaker 1: all this. Anyway, we have to chop you up, put
Speaker 1: you in in the coffin. We all do it together.
Speaker 1: It's quite a nice all together. And it turns out
Speaker 1: there's more of you than I was expecting. And this
Speaker 1: coffin is absolutely jammed. There's only enough room in this
Speaker 1: coffin for me to slip one DVD into the side
Speaker 1: for you to take across to the other side. And
Speaker 1: on the other side it's movie night every night. What
Speaker 1: film are you taking to show the people in TV
Speaker 1: heaven when it is your movie night, mister Jack.
Speaker 3: Thorne, I'm taking Er Series one.
Speaker 2: So because Eat already be there, right, I mean like
Speaker 2: there's no chance to eat. This is all those films
Speaker 2: will be there, and they need television. Television is as
Speaker 2: important as film, and I need to challenge their sort
Speaker 2: of products of just kind of like you know, film
Speaker 2: is all important and just go. You need to watch
Speaker 2: this and understand where TV can go.
Speaker 1: Now, Jack Torn, I've got very strict rules on this show,
Speaker 1: but this is how much I respect you as a
Speaker 1: writer I'm going to and how much I love it
Speaker 1: you are, I'm going to allow you. Loves Labour's last
Speaker 1: also because when it was on DVD, that episode was
Speaker 1: certified eighteen by the British Broadcasting Film Classification, so it
Speaker 1: kind of has film. It's film adjacent because I had
Speaker 1: to give it a special directing it the deep impact
Speaker 1: and I have absolutely you can have it, Jack. What
Speaker 1: is next for us to look out for that you
Speaker 1: have written or you're doing anything.
Speaker 3: There's two TV shows con be on Netflix.
Speaker 2: One's called Toxic Down, one's called Adolescents and they're just
Speaker 2: coming out together, which is annoying because I wanted them
Speaker 2: to come up separately, but they're coming out quite quite
Speaker 2: close to each other. And I think both have really
Speaker 2: really got really good work from other people.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm excited for them, and I'm very excited for
Speaker 1: Lord of the Flies. Jackdawn, Thank you. I know you
Speaker 1: don't do a lot of these. It really means a
Speaker 1: lot that you did this. Oh I love your podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I have absolutely loved it. Thank
Speaker 1: you for talking with me. Have a lovely day. Good day.
Speaker 1: So that was episode three hundred and thirty. Head over
Speaker 1: to the Patreon at Patreon dot com. Forward Saspect GOLs
Speaker 1: team for the extra twenty minutes of chat, secrets and
Speaker 1: video with Jack. Go to Apple Podcasts. Give us a
Speaker 1: five star writing and right about the film. It's the
Speaker 1: most to you and Wis. I love the thing to read.
Speaker 1: It helps numbers and it's very much appreciated. I do
Speaker 1: hope you're all well. Thank you all for listening. Thank
Speaker 1: you to Jack for giving me his time. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Scruby's pivot there's traction pieces of network. Thanks the Buddy
Speaker 1: Peace for producing it. Thanks to I Heart Media. And
Speaker 1: Wilfare with Big Money Players Network for hosting it. Thanks
Speaker 1: to Adam some photographics, at least to light them for
Speaker 1: the photography. Come join me next week for Christmas. We
Speaker 1: will have a very special treat in the form of
Speaker 1: a unique yearly very special body Peace Mix. Thank you
Speaker 1: all for listening. I hope you have wonderful holidays and
Speaker 1: a lovely time with whoever you are with. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: have a lovely Christmas and please be excellent to each other.