Speaker 1: Okay, hell, 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, a water bottler, and I love films. As
Speaker 1: William W. Perky once said, you've got to dance like
Speaker 1: there's nobody watching, and also dance whilst watching in the heights.
Speaker 1: You won't be able to help yourself. It's really toe
Speaker 1: tappingly great. It's not wrong. Every week I invite a
Speaker 1: special guest over, I tell them they've died. Then I
Speaker 1: get them to discuss their life through the films that
Speaker 1: meant the most of them. Previous guests include Sharon Stone,
Speaker 1: Kevin Smith, James a Caster, and even Fred Gramble's. But
Speaker 1: this week it's the amazing writer, presenter and filmmaker Danny Wallace.
Speaker 1: Head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com forward
Speaker 1: slash Brett Goldstein, where you get an extra twenty minutes
Speaker 1: with Danny. We're talking in depth about beginnings and then
Speaker 1: of films. He also get a secret and the whole
Speaker 1: episode uncut and as a video. Check it out over
Speaker 1: at Patreon dot com Forward slash Brett Goldstein this week.
Speaker 1: I believe Friday the twenty third, Is that right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the twenty third. It's happening is here. Ted Lasso Season
Speaker 1: two is on Apple TV Plus. Do not miss it.
Speaker 1: I very much hope you like it. So Danny Wallace.
Speaker 1: Danny Wallace is a very funny and brilliant writer. He's
Speaker 1: a lovely man. Amongst many other things. He wrote the
Speaker 1: book Yes Man, which was turned into a film with
Speaker 1: Jim Carey. He's fucking brilliant. I met him years ago,
Speaker 1: a thing we will discuss on here. He's always been
Speaker 1: so lovely and supportive of Super Bob in its very
Speaker 1: early days. He was one of the first champions of it,
Speaker 1: and it always helped us to keep going with it.
Speaker 1: I was very grateful that I got this opportunity to
Speaker 1: talk with him now. We recorded this on Zoom a
Speaker 1: few weeks back. He was a joy, and we've come
Speaker 1: up with a new show that we have now entirely copyrighted,
Speaker 1: so I don't even think about it is ours and
Speaker 1: his League or so that is it for now. I
Speaker 1: very much hope if you enjoy episode one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty six of Films to be Buried with Hello, and
Speaker 1: welcome to films to be buried with. It is I
Speaker 1: Brett Goldstein, and I'm joined today by a humorist, a writer,
Speaker 1: a children's writer, a journalist, a presenter, a DJ, a host,
Speaker 1: a podcaster, a script writer, a filmmaker, and a human
Speaker 1: actual man. Please welcome to the show the Brilliant. It's
Speaker 1: visit Danny Wallace. Well, hello, hello, and all those people
Speaker 1: are me. Because I got confused for a second, I
Speaker 1: did think, oh, I'm the only one here. The only
Speaker 1: thing you missed out was I'm also the patron of
Speaker 1: the Baked Bean Museum of Excellence, which I opened about
Speaker 1: ten years ago. It's a two bedroom flat in Port Talbot,
Speaker 1: run by a guy called Captain Beane, and I am
Speaker 1: I'm the guy who opened it. And the press were
Speaker 1: there and it was great. And the only problem with
Speaker 1: doing something like that. On the way home and bearing
Speaker 1: in mind I've turned up to open the Baked Bean
Speaker 1: Museum of Excellence, Yeah, I've put some time into it.
Speaker 1: Well you're a big deal, you get it. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. But it was when I was halfway home
Speaker 1: we looked at the local press and they had reported
Speaker 1: a quote from Captain Beaney which said, I really wanted
Speaker 1: Michael Sheen to open the museum, but you take what
Speaker 1: you can get. That is fucking out raises and now
Speaker 1: I'm going to boycott the Beanie Museum of Beans. My
Speaker 1: question is when you opened the Museum of Beans, Yeah,
Speaker 1: is it instead of a cutting a ribbon, is it
Speaker 1: a ring pool? There was? There was. It was one
Speaker 1: of those little curtains I think you know, the time curtains,
Speaker 1: and you pull it down and then it reveals a plaque.
Speaker 1: So it felt pretty regale, pretty regal. But I haven't
Speaker 1: been back as yet. Danny Wallace, I haven't seen you
Speaker 1: for a long time. You've always been a lovely man,
Speaker 1: and I first met you many many many years ago
Speaker 1: when we made this short film. Me and John Drever
Speaker 1: made the short film of super Bob and it was
Speaker 1: for the Virgin Media Shorts and you presented it you
Speaker 1: like did the hosts hosting for it? And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you this because I stand backed. Me and John have
Speaker 1: talked about it the Virgin Media Shorts for you don't know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen anymore, but it was like it was
Speaker 1: a three minute competition anyone could enter. But the way
Speaker 1: they did the ceremony was like the Oscars. It was
Speaker 1: at the BFI and there was like proper. What I
Speaker 1: was really great about it is you did jokes for
Speaker 1: all the films. You did jokes like we were big
Speaker 1: famous films. Like everyone in the room would get and
Speaker 1: everyone dressed up, and it was like, I thought, this
Speaker 1: is the best awards everybody I've ever been to. It
Speaker 1: was like so glamorous, but it was just like me
Speaker 1: and my major proper place. Yeah, but it was like
Speaker 1: in the year. It was in the BFI and there
Speaker 1: were people there, like you know, Michael Michael Hurt was
Speaker 1: there I think at one point, and Olivia Coleman came
Speaker 1: to one. It's a shame they don't do them yeah anymore,
Speaker 1: because yeah, I remember that, I remember talking to you
Speaker 1: afterwards and all the all the filmmakers. But it was
Speaker 1: great because, like you say, it was this Oscar's level
Speaker 1: sort of party with like big name DJ's and I
Speaker 1: think people dressed as robots at one point. But it
Speaker 1: was a load of people who just made three minutes
Speaker 1: and some were with a with a sizeable, decent sort
Speaker 1: of budget, and some felt like they were just done.
Speaker 1: On the phone with someone from school, but everyone treated
Speaker 1: the same. It was beautiful or beautiful thing. Now, I
Speaker 1: guess obviously this is a podcast about film. You've done
Speaker 1: a lot in film, and you've had film made, films made, filmmade. Yeah, one,
Speaker 1: yes man, Yes, the Jim Carey film, which is such
Speaker 1: a big thing. If you're not bored of talking about it,
Speaker 1: can you just tell me a bit about the going
Speaker 1: from the book to the film and it being fucking
Speaker 1: Jim carrying. Yeah, So I wrote the I'd written a
Speaker 1: book before where we'd sold the film rights, and it
Speaker 1: was a day of huge celebration. There were you know,
Speaker 1: going to the pub buying champagne, you know, feeling like
Speaker 1: a big shot, but realizing how ridiculous it was as well,
Speaker 1: and understanding that it may never happen. And of course
Speaker 1: that one never happened, but people would always keep buying
Speaker 1: sort of the film rights, but no one could ever
Speaker 1: really find the angle. And then the next book was
Speaker 1: Yes Men, which happened at a thousand miles an hour.
Speaker 1: In comparison, I think most films take between five and
Speaker 1: six hundred years to get made. So so this it
Speaker 1: just motored and various people had wanted it. It had
Speaker 1: been kind of biked around town at the same time
Speaker 1: in that very exciting way. People knew it was coming.
Speaker 1: Some people had managed to secure stolen copies. It was
Speaker 1: all this kind of there was like this this proper buzz.
Speaker 1: The first offer that was made was just trying to
Speaker 1: get it quickly and was almost criminally low. And then
Speaker 1: other people started to kind of do that quite exciting
Speaker 1: sort of thing why where they were making their case
Speaker 1: for it, and I went with the nicest people. I
Speaker 1: went with the people I thought would do the nicest job,
Speaker 1: who have understood the heart of it. It's basically if
Speaker 1: people don't know, it's a book about what happens if
Speaker 1: you just decided to say yes to everything, if you know,
Speaker 1: if you decide no, I'm not going to be too
Speaker 1: tired today, I'm not going to be bored. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be cynical about it. I'm just going to
Speaker 1: say yes and go to that terrible party or that
Speaker 1: awful gig that's going to involve four bus changes and
Speaker 1: it's basically just a man playing the castanets. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go. And if you apply that kind of thing
Speaker 1: to life, then things start to happen, and so it's
Speaker 1: a story about that. And so David Hayman and Warner Brothers,
Speaker 1: I decided to go with them. And it was supposed
Speaker 1: initially to be what it was going to be, a
Speaker 1: Jack Black film, and that that was really exciting and
Speaker 1: and great, and I think something happened there with him
Speaker 1: and Mike White, and then it wasn't. And then suddenly
Speaker 1: I got the phone calls saying Jim Carey wants to
Speaker 1: be in it. And even though that that wasn't sort
Speaker 1: of my decision to say yes or no, that would
Speaker 1: have been the easiest yes in the world, because it's
Speaker 1: Jim Carey. And you know, those moments when it really
Speaker 1: struck me was when I was about to fly out
Speaker 1: for the first time, because they were very nice to me,
Speaker 1: and they would fly me out and give me a
Speaker 1: little trailer and it had had a car parking space,
Speaker 1: and I'd seen all the car parking spaces in Hollywood
Speaker 1: and they're all like stencil and I thought, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna But when I got there, it was just
Speaker 1: a piece of a four paper with my name very
Speaker 1: slightly misspelled. But I got the trailer. There was a
Speaker 1: bottle of tequila in there. I remember the toilet didn't
Speaker 1: work properly, but otherwise it was everything I could have
Speaker 1: hoped for and more. And you know, when you see
Speaker 1: the end of Jim Carey films and you see him
Speaker 1: mucking about and all the outtakes and the goofing about
Speaker 1: and just brilliant. Suddenly it hit me, just before leaving,
Speaker 1: I'm going to see that happen for real. I'm going
Speaker 1: to see those moments between the moments, you know, the
Speaker 1: ones that normally slip between the cracks, and I'll see
Speaker 1: the good goose and I'll see the goose that won't
Speaker 1: even make it onto the gag reel, you know. So
Speaker 1: that was the moment where I suddenly got, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm excited here and yeah, and I managed to spend
Speaker 1: quite a bit of time hanging around on set and
Speaker 1: talking to everyone, and yeah, it was just a really
Speaker 1: weirdly magical time. Yeah. Well, it's fair. It's fairther proof
Speaker 1: of the evidence of your book, of the theory of
Speaker 1: your book, isn't it. Yeah? It is. Yeah, that things
Speaker 1: only happen if you do them. How much have you
Speaker 1: stayed because that was what ten years ago now it
Speaker 1: was maybe even longer. I'm not even sure. Maybe a
Speaker 1: fifteen How much of that yes mentality have you stuck
Speaker 1: with since then? I still carry it with me, although
Speaker 1: I would say that saying yes to everything is not
Speaker 1: to be recommended, but saying yes more absolutely is. I
Speaker 1: think no is a wonderful word that I've also Yes.
Speaker 1: Man sort of taught me again the power of the
Speaker 1: world no as well, and how useful that can be,
Speaker 1: and so so yeah, a bit of both, but leaning
Speaker 1: a bit towards saying yes a bit more I think
Speaker 1: will help will help almost anyone well. And you must
Speaker 1: know this. But the thing with improv of the rule
Speaker 1: of improv of yes, and I really apply that in life,
Speaker 1: or try to, and that is always you're always going
Speaker 1: to make things better if you yes end it rather
Speaker 1: than exactly yeah. If you you know, if you cut
Speaker 1: off an idea, then you're killing you're killing a flower.
Speaker 1: That's a little phrase I just made up, but I
Speaker 1: think that could be on posters or I could set
Speaker 1: up I could set up some kind of charity for
Speaker 1: young artists based on that phrase alone. Danny Wills, I've
Speaker 1: fuck shit, I am Oh, why have I gone translucent? Bret?
Speaker 1: I'm scared don't be scared. Don't be scared, Just try something.
Speaker 1: Not right depends, though, doesn't It depends on your definition
Speaker 1: of right. I don't like it. It seems like you've
Speaker 1: maybe ahead of this, you've died. I knew it. I
Speaker 1: always knew it would happen one day. Yeah, how did
Speaker 1: you die? It was Charlie's Tharon. Oh again, go on.
Speaker 1: I know that's all I know. I don't know how,
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I know she had something to
Speaker 1: do with it. She was very keen to hang out,
Speaker 1: weirdly so, and I remember her. The last thing I remember,
Speaker 1: I just remember her handing me a drink, and it
Speaker 1: was a clear drink. It looked like a sort of
Speaker 1: G and T, very f a vessel, the kind of
Speaker 1: the little the bubbles almost sparkling off the ice and
Speaker 1: the lime so vibrant. And I remember it being awkward
Speaker 1: because she wasn't having anything, but she she's smiling, and
Speaker 1: she was going, take a sip. Don't worry, it's nothing bad,
Speaker 1: it's nothing bad, it's nothing bad. And then I saw
Speaker 1: you and I'm on a podcast. Shai's then drugged you
Speaker 1: and killed you. No, I don't know, but I know
Speaker 1: she was there. That's the last thing you remember. And
Speaker 1: she handed me a drink and she was oddly, oddly
Speaker 1: keen for me to drink it. This is very disturbing
Speaker 1: and a real revelation. Okay, well, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: look into that. Do you do you worry? Do do
Speaker 1: you worry about death? I'm certainly much more aware of it,
Speaker 1: first of all, since having kids, obviously, and then I
Speaker 1: lost my dad recently, and I am now very aware
Speaker 1: that this is a really stupid system. And it's a
Speaker 1: system we don't really understand or think about until it
Speaker 1: affects you and you go, well, hang on, so what
Speaker 1: so that's that? That doesn't make it, that's that's ludicrous,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm working to change the system from
Speaker 1: the inside. And I think that's what I will dedicate
Speaker 1: after I've done the podcast in the other world, I'll
Speaker 1: start a union or something or something to try and
Speaker 1: get a bit more information out there. I think that's why.
Speaker 1: So what do you what do you currently think happens
Speaker 1: when you die? You know, you try and comfort yourself
Speaker 1: with the idea of something bigger and and I think
Speaker 1: it would be very arrogant to assume that in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. We know all there is to know. I
Speaker 1: think that there's there's always you know, the way we
Speaker 1: look back at people two hundred years ago and laugh
Speaker 1: at their rudimentary farming systems. It's the casual disdain they
Speaker 1: had for hygiene, the the you know there there there
Speaker 1: may be other things going on. I don't know what
Speaker 1: they are, and my brain is not big enough to
Speaker 1: handle it yet. But you're not a hard no on
Speaker 1: that stuff, No way, never have been. I've been on ghostwatches.
Speaker 1: I've been on ghostwatches. I was always sent as the
Speaker 1: men on the street, you know, the kind of the
Speaker 1: right something right about how silly these people are. And
Speaker 1: I'd be like, okay, I'll do that. And every single time,
Speaker 1: mad stuff happened that I could not explain, And so
Speaker 1: I couldn't cast a ry eye or a sideways glance
Speaker 1: at the world of the paranormal because it might come
Speaker 1: and get me. Can you tell me? Can you tell me?
Speaker 1: One of the guys experiences at their simplest, it can
Speaker 1: be like someone is shouting OI at you at three
Speaker 1: in the morning, when you're with someone and you both
Speaker 1: turn and stare at the opening of some cloisters, and
Speaker 1: you've stopped talking and you're like, what the hell was that?
Speaker 1: And then you replay it in your mind and nothing happened.
Speaker 1: No one shouted OI, and yet you both fell absolutely
Speaker 1: like someone was shouting for you and needed you urgently,
Speaker 1: and you stop and you both and you've just been
Speaker 1: talking about you know, countdown or something from that to
Speaker 1: apparitions that I didn't see, but I saw appearing on
Speaker 1: a webcam, at which point all the electrics went mad
Speaker 1: and the walkie talkie stopped working. And by the time
Speaker 1: I got back down there, this thing had gone and
Speaker 1: everything was working again. But we had it on very
Speaker 1: early webcam, you know, where nothing was smooth. It was
Speaker 1: just refreshing every three seconds, and it went from a
Speaker 1: small bit of light to a large sort of six
Speaker 1: foot looking tower of light, to then a weird semi circle,
Speaker 1: a black semicircle, and it looked like a monk. And
Speaker 1: we were in an abbey, so you know, there was
Speaker 1: the odd stuff, but that could be, you know, quite
Speaker 1: logical as well. So I look for everything that it
Speaker 1: could have been, and it could have been lens flare,
Speaker 1: it could have been someone caught there earlier. It could
Speaker 1: have been anything, but it felt like a monk. I
Speaker 1: love it. I love that. And also I saw a
Speaker 1: thing the other day about dark matter. Did you see
Speaker 1: this imaging of dark Yeah, and basically you look at
Speaker 1: the fucking side of the universe and you go, come, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not all here, is it? It's not all here?
Speaker 1: They're sure, sure, there's plenty, there's enough to go around.
Speaker 1: Have some guys give them a planet? Yeah, and they said,
Speaker 1: they say, yeah, so there might be other forms of
Speaker 1: energy that we can't see that. Here's here's my thing
Speaker 1: about ghosts. Our justice system is very reliant on If
Speaker 1: you and me saw someone shoot someone, we would go
Speaker 1: to court and we would say that man shot that
Speaker 1: man and they'd go, oh, are you sure, and we'd
Speaker 1: go absolutely, we saw that that happened. And they go,
Speaker 1: but are you though, who are you? And you'd go, well,
Speaker 1: I'm Brett and you know I've done all this stuff
Speaker 1: and I go, I'm Danny and I've done that and
Speaker 1: they go, okay, well let's send that guy to jail.
Speaker 1: And so they believe us, and yeah, with ghosts, we've
Speaker 1: had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of thousands of witnesses for thousands of years, many of
Speaker 1: whom we're in good standing, and many of whom you know,
Speaker 1: you would never think we'd lie about something like that.
Speaker 1: And they've all gone, I saw that thing, and we
Speaker 1: all go, you're nuts, and you know, we'll send someone
Speaker 1: to jail, but we'll you know, so. So I think
Speaker 1: we were too keen to deny the existence of anything else.
Speaker 1: We need to take more guys to court ghost ghost court. Mom,
Speaker 1: pitch it down. I'm pitching. We're a bit hit ghost
Speaker 1: of course, a fucking great ghost court should be handed.
Speaker 1: I might even delete this with a podcast so we
Speaker 1: can keep it. Yeah, ghost court, I mean write it down.
Speaker 1: I'm putting it down. Yeah, good, great idea. And there
Speaker 1: with ghosts, yes please yeah, Okay. You know when they're
Speaker 1: doing all these could case sides, what about the fucking
Speaker 1: could case legal show for the other side, Like, what
Speaker 1: is it? Is it ghosts committed crimes in the afterlife
Speaker 1: or is it people that got away with crimes in
Speaker 1: our lifetime who then have to go to ghost court. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like purgatory court. They get one more chance to
Speaker 1: you know, do do they get to go to the
Speaker 1: other side or not to the good side or the
Speaker 1: best side. Oh, come on, all right, okay, we'll do that.
Speaker 1: We'll do that next, we'll do a podcast. First, let's
Speaker 1: wrap this up as we've got to get writing. Okay,
Speaker 1: So well, I have news for you. There there is
Speaker 1: a heaven. Yeah, and it's filled with all your favorite things.
Speaker 1: It's got your favorite thing, and it was your favorite thing.
Speaker 1: I've got loads of different favorite things, depends what mood
Speaker 1: of It could be anything from a lollipop with mostly
Speaker 1: made out of lollipops. But there's everything you want there.
Speaker 1: And they're also everyone there's obsessed with film and they
Speaker 1: want to know about your life through film. The first
Speaker 1: thing they ask you is what is the first film
Speaker 1: you remember seeing? Danny Wallace. The first film I really
Speaker 1: remember seeing was I watched Et on a hookey VHS
Speaker 1: tape that had somehow been procured by the staff of
Speaker 1: a hotel in Romania. And every single night of our
Speaker 1: holiday in Romania. Again, I don't ask me why we're
Speaker 1: on holiday in Romania, but we were. That's that's just
Speaker 1: the fact. And it became a very very special time
Speaker 1: in my young life because not only was I on
Speaker 1: holiday and That was very exciting because you got at
Speaker 1: the buffet and there was like a game's room, and
Speaker 1: there's a kindly old man who gave me some money.
Speaker 1: But I was the kind of kid who could sit
Speaker 1: and watch the same film over and over and over
Speaker 1: and over and over again. You know, it didn't matter
Speaker 1: to me. I would I would watch Police Academy one, two, three,
Speaker 1: and four just on a loop, the offshoots as well,
Speaker 1: like Ski Academy and Combat Academy, lesser known academies, but
Speaker 1: Ski Academy. You know, it didn't matter to me. There
Speaker 1: was almost no quality filter. It just felt like this
Speaker 1: is part of the same this is part of the
Speaker 1: same world, and I have to so every every film
Speaker 1: that we grew up with that you were able to
Speaker 1: possibly record, I would watch over and over again. And
Speaker 1: this was the first time I'd repeat viewed something and
Speaker 1: it was just et et et. I would have been
Speaker 1: maybe six, if six, maybe six one like that, so
Speaker 1: it would have been about three what was there, no
Speaker 1: no an only child and so on. Holiday. That was
Speaker 1: particularly you know because once if another kid went off
Speaker 1: with his family, they were gone, you know, and I
Speaker 1: was just like left there. So I would in Romania
Speaker 1: find my dreams coming true. I was able to swim
Speaker 1: all day until my legs ached, and then I would
Speaker 1: go down for dinner with Mum and Dad. I'd get
Speaker 1: chocolate ice cream and a chocolate milk okay, the double
Speaker 1: because you were allowed both. And then I'd go and
Speaker 1: sit on a sofa with some random children and watch
Speaker 1: ET at seven pm every day all holiday. And it
Speaker 1: was perfect. That is a nice story except for except
Speaker 1: for the sadness and the inherent sadness. Well except for
Speaker 1: were you crying every single night? No. I got very
Speaker 1: used to it, but I would always it would always
Speaker 1: hit me in my emotional core. And when I started
Speaker 1: to have kids, when my youngest was about that sorry,
Speaker 1: my eldest was about that age, I sat down to
Speaker 1: watch ET with him and I was like, this is
Speaker 1: going to be this is going to be special, man,
Speaker 1: This is you know, you were going to absolutely go
Speaker 1: nuts for this. It's very slow, isn't it. That's why
Speaker 1: I first were very slow, so well, very sort of
Speaker 1: almost empty a lot of the time, really not much
Speaker 1: going on at all, scenes that you think that could
Speaker 1: probably have been done a little quicker, or maybe lose
Speaker 1: that entirely and I'm just watching as I'm willing him
Speaker 1: to fall in love. I can just sense the fidgeting
Speaker 1: start to begin, the thoughts drifting through his head of
Speaker 1: other things, because he's obviously been raised on things that
Speaker 1: happened quickly, and I had forgotten just how slow eat
Speaker 1: he was. But I imagine if I sat down and
Speaker 1: watched it again with some chocolate ice cream and a
Speaker 1: chocolate milk, I think I'd be right back there in
Speaker 1: Romania's lovely, That's lovely? What is the film that scared
Speaker 1: you the most? And do you like being scared? When
Speaker 1: you did this guy start you get? Did you enjoy
Speaker 1: being scared or were you just let fuck this? I
Speaker 1: quite enjoy it. I quite enjoy it in the same
Speaker 1: way that I enjoyed tabasco sauce or chili sauce. Because
Speaker 1: it makes you feel alive. It's sort of my kids
Speaker 1: always asking me why do you like spicy stuff? And
Speaker 1: I say, because it makes me feel alive, which is
Speaker 1: quite a weird thing to say to children, but they
Speaker 1: it reminds me of the days before you stole my
Speaker 1: every waking moment, but so so but that that sense,
Speaker 1: I remember we did a goh Stuch at the Tower
Speaker 1: of London, and it was about it's about one two
Speaker 1: in the morning and people aren't allowed to be there,
Speaker 1: but we were to do this. And I was walking
Speaker 1: past these sort of turrety bits and it was messing
Speaker 1: with my eyes because there were spotlights there and so
Speaker 1: it was kind of flash on, flash flash on, flash
Speaker 1: off as I'm walking and I thought I'll just take
Speaker 1: a moment, and I just looked out over London and
Speaker 1: over the Thames and I just thought, I'm so lucky
Speaker 1: to be standing here right now. And then bang, like
Speaker 1: a flat palm it sounded like on the thin window
Speaker 1: behind me, and I was like you know in cartoons
Speaker 1: where you jump and then the legs starts spinning in
Speaker 1: the air but they can't get any but I was
Speaker 1: like that, I just couldn't, couldn't move, and then I ran,
Speaker 1: like anything to where everyone was staying, which was this
Speaker 1: weird toilet um. You know, they had the HQ there,
Speaker 1: and I said, is there what was that room there
Speaker 1: that I just heard? Is it the house settle? Is
Speaker 1: it like a normal house And they were like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not like this is like a castle, and they
Speaker 1: said no, there's no one there's no one in there,
Speaker 1: and that room has been locked for many years, and
Speaker 1: it was that perfect then, but it was the sound
Speaker 1: of a you know, like get out of my view anyway.
Speaker 1: So I do enjoy being scared, because I did enjoy
Speaker 1: that despite myself. But I didn't enjoy being scared when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I was scared of being scared.
Speaker 1: And my friend Michael, Michael Emodio, his dad. He had
Speaker 1: a very lax attitude to video nasties for example, or
Speaker 1: inappropriate things to show children, not physically, but certainly in
Speaker 1: terms of video games or you know. It was just
Speaker 1: kind of like he'd get home and go I went
Speaker 1: to the video shop here and he threw down a
Speaker 1: video for me and Michael. We'd been about eight, and
Speaker 1: it was the Sylvester Stallone film Cobra. Yes, do you
Speaker 1: know Cobra? You'd know the cover? Yeah, And he is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's quite it's quite violent. It's very violent,
Speaker 1: little dark in places. And Sylvester Stallone, I think, was
Speaker 1: supposed to be the Eddie Murphy roll in Beverly Hills
Speaker 1: cop and he had loads of ideas when he was
Speaker 1: sort of pitching in and saying what he thought Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills cop should be and they were like, we see
Speaker 1: it very much as kind of kind of a comedy,
Speaker 1: and he's like, no, no, no, this should be horrible.
Speaker 1: And so he put all those ideas, those leftover ideas
Speaker 1: into Cobra. And I've only seen maybe three minutes of
Speaker 1: Cobra because the opening scene shook me up so much,
Speaker 1: and all it was it was a simple carjacking and
Speaker 1: there was a nice lady going to work. This is me, remember,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it since then. Nice lady going to
Speaker 1: work in a normal car and then oh, what's that?
Speaker 1: Oh I've been rear ended. Oh and she goes to
Speaker 1: exchange insurance details, which is very exciting in a film,
Speaker 1: and then they kidnap her. And I was like, that's
Speaker 1: enough for me. I'm out by and I got my
Speaker 1: BMX and I was home and I went to bed
Speaker 1: that night. I remember now with just that scene in
Speaker 1: my head thinking can that happen? Could people do that?
Speaker 1: Because you as a kid, all you hear is about
Speaker 1: warnings about being kidnapped, and you never meet anyone who's
Speaker 1: being kidnapped. But suddenly there it was clear as day
Speaker 1: and it was daytime I think because well, a daytime,
Speaker 1: your carjacking, slow kidnapping, and so that really really really
Speaker 1: hit me hard, and it was the you know, it's
Speaker 1: a testament to the power of film. Yeah, that I
Speaker 1: could be so disturbed by almost nothing happening. That's a
Speaker 1: really really good answer, and I respect that a lot.
Speaker 1: Well done. That's good. I like it when a charted
Speaker 1: thing that is in a horror film. Yeah. Yeah, horror
Speaker 1: films don't really scare me that much. But it's interesting
Speaker 1: what you say, because I always have I always have
Speaker 1: this argument with people who say they don't like horror films.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, you know, life scary enough, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the horror films i'd like are about ghosts, like
Speaker 1: I don't like. I don't like watching violent things of
Speaker 1: people being murdered and chopped up. I like watching ghosts
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, ghosts. Ghosts are great. Guess a great
Speaker 1: This is using the pitch meeting. Guys are great, guys?
Speaker 1: Why this great? Danny say, what happened at the Tower
Speaker 1: of London's great? What is the film that made you
Speaker 1: cry the most? I reckon, You're a big crier? Am
Speaker 1: I wrong? You're not wrong? I can be punched quite
Speaker 1: hard by films, but it's usually for the better reasons.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily for the sad reasons. It tends to
Speaker 1: be for reasons of maybe friendship or loyalty or love
Speaker 1: or family unit or something where I go, that's how
Speaker 1: the world should be. People like that. And the last
Speaker 1: time it happened, and I was very surprised, it was Onward.
Speaker 1: Do you know that? Don't get me stired. It is brilliant.
Speaker 1: That took me a weekend to stop crying, I know.
Speaker 1: And it came from nowhere. I didn't know what it's about.
Speaker 1: It seemed to be about it from the cover or something.
Speaker 1: It just looked like some Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts going
Speaker 1: on a road trip or something. But I fell in
Speaker 1: love with that film because of the love in that
Speaker 1: film and the choices that the filmmakers made. I found
Speaker 1: myself afterwards thinking about it and going, wow, I love
Speaker 1: that they withheld lots of information so that they could
Speaker 1: just club you over the head with it or stab
Speaker 1: you through the heart with it at the end. And
Speaker 1: then I'm fully aware that I'd been manipulated by some
Speaker 1: clever writing. But I was impressed and am grateful for it.
Speaker 1: I was like, that was you know, just the ideas
Speaker 1: that they had in there, of being a parent, of
Speaker 1: being a kid, the love between brothers, or sacrifice or
Speaker 1: hero worship, you know, the choices that some of the
Speaker 1: characters made. Right at the end. Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: had to. I mean I was. I was sitting next
Speaker 1: to my kids and I was like, you know, juddering.
Speaker 1: And then I had to go outside afterwards and stand
Speaker 1: under a tree. And I did. I stood under a tree,
Speaker 1: and I thought about it. And it's not often that
Speaker 1: a film will make me stand under a tree, but
Speaker 1: Onward was one of those tree that when you're with
Speaker 1: your children you're crying, do you feel fine, as in
Speaker 1: you're happy for them to see you crying, or do
Speaker 1: you feel embarrassed, like as you'll be crying. I would say,
Speaker 1: I minimize it because I don't want them to see
Speaker 1: me like lose control. I don't want one of their
Speaker 1: memories of their dad when they're a kid was him
Speaker 1: like slapping his thighs and way like. And also that's
Speaker 1: great ammunition for them on me, you know, in the future.
Speaker 1: But I don't want them to think that I wouldn't
Speaker 1: you know, be affected by something you know beautiful? And
Speaker 1: so they'll see, you know, they've seen me wipe away
Speaker 1: tears and that kind of stuff. But then I smile
Speaker 1: and go, isn't that amazing? As opposed to Jesus, don't
Speaker 1: look at me? Yeah, don't look at me. I wish
Speaker 1: you guys loved me the way that guy loved him.
Speaker 1: What's the film that people don't like? They don't love it.
Speaker 1: It's not critically acclaimed, but you think it's fucking brilliant.
Speaker 1: You don't care what nobody says. Another way of phrasing
Speaker 1: that is which Jason Statham film should I choose? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And there's a lot to choose, from fine cannon to
Speaker 1: choose a great cannon, and I suppose would have to
Speaker 1: go for something like crank the idea professional assassin, the gimmick.
Speaker 1: He's been injected with a poison that will kill him
Speaker 1: if his heart rate drops. So it's it's speed basically,
Speaker 1: but Statham is the busy and he has to maintain
Speaker 1: the engine in order to maintain the speed of the bus.
Speaker 1: That's the easy way of understanding it. First of all,
Speaker 1: what an incredibly specific poison and and it speaks again
Speaker 1: of all those things where you just go, could you
Speaker 1: not just use a poison that like, why, I can't
Speaker 1: remember why you've done that or chosen that poison? You
Speaker 1: want to tire him out, but why, you know, what
Speaker 1: do you get out of that? Use a poison that
Speaker 1: kills him or a gun the old bond thing. Really,
Speaker 1: But I'm glad they didn't because what they ended up
Speaker 1: doing was providing me with, you know, more than an
Speaker 1: hour of exciting entertainment and car chases and leaping and
Speaker 1: if you were I mean, it's interesting because it makes
Speaker 1: you think about Jason Statham a lot. And I do
Speaker 1: enjoy the films unashamedly. But if you asked me what
Speaker 1: it is about Jason Statham that makes him a film star?
Speaker 1: What is it he's got, I couldn't tell you. Like
Speaker 1: he can he could be quite gruff, but then lots
Speaker 1: of people can. He can move quite quickly, but then
Speaker 1: you know they can speed that up. If he weren't
Speaker 1: a film star, I think he'd be working in quick fit.
Speaker 1: But he's done it. It's a good question. I think
Speaker 1: it's that he's got a very very handsome head. He's
Speaker 1: got a very good head head and he's bull bolding,
Speaker 1: which I think appeals to lots of men because they go, oh,
Speaker 1: I could be a movie stad too, And that's he's
Speaker 1: still sexy and he's fear but he's but but but
Speaker 1: but the Mitchell Brothers, you know, it's it's you know
Speaker 1: where we don't think, why isn't he just a Mitchell brother?
Speaker 1: Because he's got charisma. He's fucking charismatic. He's also funny.
Speaker 1: I do think he's if you've seen a spy, he's
Speaker 1: fucking funny. Ah. Now, he is very funne and that
Speaker 1: whole film actually is much funnier than it has a
Speaker 1: right to. Yeah, I think he's a bit of magic
Speaker 1: in it. I mean he's a movie stuff. I guess
Speaker 1: he is. And I guess that's why I would struggle
Speaker 1: to pinpoint his X factor, because it is the X factor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this. He's got it, you know, the staith and factor.
Speaker 1: He's got a one hundred percent and he's in you know,
Speaker 1: lots of other films he's been in that I've enjoyed.
Speaker 1: There's one about his well he's an assassin again. Oh,
Speaker 1: there's a there's one I don't like where he has
Speaker 1: to have a text and accent and accents are not
Speaker 1: in his wheelhouse. And you know, he's got everything else.
Speaker 1: He's got the charisma, he's got the physicality, he's got
Speaker 1: the humor. He does not have accent work. That's but
Speaker 1: you know, no complaints. And I wouldn't say that to
Speaker 1: his face. What's the what's the film that you used
Speaker 1: to love? You loved it when you were younger, but
Speaker 1: you've watched it recently and you've gone, no, I don't
Speaker 1: like this anymore. Well, it's not for any reasons of
Speaker 1: changing tastes or changing norms or what's acceptable or what isn't.
Speaker 1: It's just it's the karate kid once more. I sat
Speaker 1: my kid down. This is after the et debarc I've
Speaker 1: gone yeah, but I was like, you know, it takes
Speaker 1: ages for the kids to for their BMX is to
Speaker 1: fly to the by the moon, right, But I was like,
Speaker 1: the karate kids, that's boom boom boom, that's like tray.
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of car washing in it,
Speaker 1: but when you get past the car washing, loads and
Speaker 1: loads of fighting, it's not true. There's not true. There's
Speaker 1: there's almost no karate in it whatsoever. He gets his
Speaker 1: bike stolen and then a neighbor cleans it up, and
Speaker 1: my kid at that point just went, that was nice
Speaker 1: of him. And I was like, well, that's mister Miyagie,
Speaker 1: and you'll be seeing a lot more of him. We do,
Speaker 1: but only in very very slow scenes. And then it
Speaker 1: builds to the crane kick very much. The BMX is
Speaker 1: floating into space of et and you've been waiting for
Speaker 1: it for ages, and you nudge your kid and you're like,
Speaker 1: here we go. And then it's over and it's lasted
Speaker 1: about five seconds. They don't like do it slow motion,
Speaker 1: that it repeat it. It's not particularly satisfying. He just
Speaker 1: does it, and he hurts his chin while he does it,
Speaker 1: and he hobbles about a bit, and then it's over,
Speaker 1: and the whole film that and then it's literally it's over.
Speaker 1: Then the film is over. And that's not how I
Speaker 1: remember it. I remembered it a lot more of you know,
Speaker 1: bullies getting what's coming to them, and the majesty of karate,
Speaker 1: which I then started to do with Michael Amodio, whose
Speaker 1: dad gave us cobra. We started to go to karate,
Speaker 1: and I stopped only when Michael didn't turn up one night,
Speaker 1: so I didn't have a partner. So I had to
Speaker 1: be the partner of George, who was the giant karate
Speaker 1: instructor who hadn't taught me how to block properly and
Speaker 1: then just punched me a child square in the eye.
Speaker 1: George he didn't he didn't mean to, but he thought
Speaker 1: I'd be better at blocking, but he forgot. He was
Speaker 1: like forty seven and drove a Jaguar and I was
Speaker 1: a schoolboy. So I just I just got a black eye.
Speaker 1: I thought, it's not for me, this whole thing. It's
Speaker 1: not familiar. It's karate kid's fault, right, George's on the
Speaker 1: fucking list. Yeah, what's the I'm sorry about? I'm sorry
Speaker 1: for that. What's the film that means the nice to you?
Speaker 1: Not necessarily the film itself is good, but because the
Speaker 1: experience you had around seeing it will always make it
Speaker 1: special to you. I thought about heartwarming moments. I thought
Speaker 1: about family moments, and then I remembered what happened at
Speaker 1: the Cursin in Loughborough in the mid nineteen eighties, which
Speaker 1: was that we'd been to the Whimpy already it was done,
Speaker 1: and then me and my little pals celebrating. I suppose
Speaker 1: what would have been maybe my tenth birthday, maybe eleventh,
Speaker 1: went into the cursin where mum went off to get
Speaker 1: the tickets for whatever film was on, whenever it was,
Speaker 1: and she came back with the tickets and we went
Speaker 1: to see the film, and no one stopped us, no
Speaker 1: one checked, and we sat down, not really knowing what
Speaker 1: we're in for. And it was the Dutch American sword
Speaker 1: and sorcery film Red Sonja, starring Arnod Swartznoga and Bridget Nielsen.
Speaker 1: And for ten impressionable young boys, this was not appropriate entertainment.
Speaker 1: Heads were spinning in the air, not ours, but on screen,
Speaker 1: spouting blood and landing awkwardly and bouncing around as women
Speaker 1: dressed not inappropriate attire either for the time or for combat,
Speaker 1: sort of swayed about and very mature content. And my
Speaker 1: poor innocent mum, who's so polite and who wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to ever have stopped off on or made it awkward
Speaker 1: or got us out of there. My mum talks a
Speaker 1: lot through films when there were kids around, because she's
Speaker 1: making sure they understand it and she's engaging with them.
Speaker 1: So she was having to do that in public throughout
Speaker 1: Red Sonya to a series of young boys to try
Speaker 1: and distract us from the horrors of what My mates
Speaker 1: could not believe it. They thought they thought this was
Speaker 1: magnificent because they weren't allowed to watch this stuff. You know.
Speaker 1: It was like Michael Amodio's dad had chosen the unstable,
Speaker 1: and so she's trying to explain they or just distract
Speaker 1: and engage, and she had to do that for ninety
Speaker 1: minutes as we watched Red Sonya. But for me it
Speaker 1: was always quite a special thing because it was so
Speaker 1: awkward and I couldn't construt on the film because I
Speaker 1: felt so bad for my mum. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, there were scantily clad ladies and loads of
Speaker 1: gore and it was sort of brilliant, and also my
Speaker 1: mates thought I was so cool afterwards. Have you talked
Speaker 1: about that with your mum in recent time? Yes, I have,
Speaker 1: and she sort of blocked it out a little bit.
Speaker 1: But then I then I talked to her about the
Speaker 1: head spinning through the air aspect and she's like, oh god, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: never mind, it's nice. Objectively, Objectively, what's the greatest film
Speaker 1: ever made? Objectively. It took me a little while to
Speaker 1: nail this down and I didn't want to be too obvious.
Speaker 1: I had a few had Midnight run perfect marrying of
Speaker 1: soundtrack and comedy and Robert de Niro. I know he
Speaker 1: gets a hard time for doing his comedy, but he's
Speaker 1: very good. Well, he was a Charles Growden revelation Shure
Speaker 1: Shank Redemption ticked a lot of boxes for me. But
Speaker 1: of course it's Ghostbusters. I know that's probably one that
Speaker 1: comes up a lot, but it is. It's Ghostbusters. We've
Speaker 1: touched upon the world. Ghost are great. Ghost are great.
Speaker 1: We could mention Ghostbusters when pitching Ghost Court as proof
Speaker 1: of the public's love for ghosts. But it's absolutely perfect
Speaker 1: for me because it's first off, I went to the
Speaker 1: Curson again again with Mum and yeah, and I just
Speaker 1: moved to Love from Dundee and I didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of friends or anyone. I moved there, no brothers
Speaker 1: or sisters. And I remember sitting down in our rented
Speaker 1: house and Barry Norman came on and he was talking
Speaker 1: about the upcoming films and then he mentioned at the
Speaker 1: end of like a list of three or four, he
Speaker 1: mentioned one called Ghostbusters, and he said, this will be
Speaker 1: coming out this year and it's like a action comedy
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, scary. And then you saw like Slimer,
Speaker 1: and then you had like a joke from you know,
Speaker 1: Bill Murray. I didn't know hear any of these people were,
Speaker 1: but I immediately wanted to be them. I wanted to
Speaker 1: wear that costume and I wanted to know what the
Speaker 1: hell was going on with Slimer. And thank goodness, the
Speaker 1: rating meant that, not that it would mattered to my mum.
Speaker 1: It seems based on Red Sonja, but the racing meant
Speaker 1: I could go and see it. And when it starts
Speaker 1: and you have the Columbia lady, I think Columbia, and
Speaker 1: you have the even before that, you know the logo
Speaker 1: saying Sony Columbia Pictures or whatever it's who, and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what have I done? This is going
Speaker 1: to be terrifying. And then Alice, the ghost in the
Speaker 1: library suddenly turns to camera. But as she gives the
Speaker 1: big scream and everyone is terrified, du du and you're like,
Speaker 1: it's going to be all right. And the way it
Speaker 1: controls you and it sort of scares you but draws
Speaker 1: you back in and makes you terrified, but you know
Speaker 1: it's going to be exciting and funny, and then you
Speaker 1: have Peter Vankman being inappropriate but funny. For me, it
Speaker 1: was great, and it's it's a film about three guys
Speaker 1: starting a small business. And I'm always interested in stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And it's three guys starting a small business.
Speaker 1: Everything is against them. They're down and their luck, they've
Speaker 1: been fired. They're gonna just risk you know, raise inheritance
Speaker 1: or his parents mortgage or whatever on starting the small
Speaker 1: business and then things go crazy and it's about friendship
Speaker 1: and fun and excitement. And one of the best emails
Speaker 1: I ever got. I'd gone on Mastermind and I'd done
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters as my specialist chosen subject, and I'd got everyone right,
Speaker 1: and I was actually, I actually left frustrated by the
Speaker 1: simplicity of their questions because I had done so much
Speaker 1: research into to the point where I knew the box
Speaker 1: office take in Germany. And when I was over in
Speaker 1: LA doing some work. In fact, I showed word got
Speaker 1: round and I showed Jim Carey Mastermind because he's like,
Speaker 1: what is this thing you do with something? There were
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters and I said yeah, look, and first of all,
Speaker 1: he was like, what the hell is this show? Because
Speaker 1: it appeared to just be a leather chair and a
Speaker 1: camera that just gets closer and closer with a furious
Speaker 1: host barking. He was like, what the hell is this?
Speaker 1: Why is this guy's that Jenn asshole? And it is
Speaker 1: the audience scared? And I was like, everyone, everyone's very scared. Anyway,
Speaker 1: some people saw that. And then cut to twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: and I was about to move to LA for a
Speaker 1: year to have some fun and show the kids a
Speaker 1: bigger world, you know, And just before we left, I
Speaker 1: got an email and it just Danny Wallace Ghostbusters and
Speaker 1: I was like, hang on, has my time come? Am
Speaker 1: I going to be a Ghostbuster? And it was yes
Speaker 1: or no? Going to be a small business owner? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And basically they wanted to know if I'm interested in
Speaker 1: pitching a Ghostbusters idea and I was like, of course
Speaker 1: I would, and they were like, we're doing a few
Speaker 1: different things and it would be this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And so they gave me a call that night and
Speaker 1: I told them what I would do and they said, okay,
Speaker 1: keep going. And so for three or four weeks, my
Speaker 1: actual job and I could not believe it was going
Speaker 1: to my little office in London every day and inventing
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters technology like new Ghostbusters proton packs, or what the
Speaker 1: new vehicle should be, or who the team should be,
Speaker 1: where the HQ should be, And it was just like
Speaker 1: being a child. It was. I was taken straight back
Speaker 1: to watching Ghostbusters at the Lovebrook Curzon. Anyway, I ended
Speaker 1: up getting this gig and I had to go to
Speaker 1: this office ghost Corps where Ivan Reitman, my child favorite director,
Speaker 1: was sitting just over there, and outside my window was
Speaker 1: Ecto one. And then it all fell apart and never happened.
Speaker 1: But it was really good fun while it lasted, and
Speaker 1: it taught me a lot of things that we can
Speaker 1: use through my research for Ghost Court. Oh this is
Speaker 1: wonderful stuff. Fucking and one ghost Court is the biggest
Speaker 1: hit ever. We'll be like, well you had you, you
Speaker 1: know when we say this with love and respect, because yeah,
Speaker 1: you were. You guys were a huge inspiration for our
Speaker 1: small business ghost Court. Yeah. Yeah, it would just be
Speaker 1: nice to give back to the little people like Ghostbusters
Speaker 1: recognize the lesser known things. But fantastic, that's fantastic. I
Speaker 1: love that Danny Wallace, what's the sexiest film ever made?
Speaker 1: Other than Read Sonya? The sexiest film ever made was,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, and look it's only my opinion, Brett.
Speaker 1: It's called The Last Seduction? Have you have you heard
Speaker 1: of it? I fucking loved The Last Attacks in Linda
Speaker 1: Ferentine know John, Yes, I Forgotten Gem A Forgotten Gem,
Speaker 1: a neo noir erotic thriller. Now. I hadn't seen many
Speaker 1: erotic films when I saw this, and I didn't know
Speaker 1: how any of these people were. And I was maybe
Speaker 1: I was a teenager hanging out with lads in their
Speaker 1: twenties and we would go around to one of their
Speaker 1: flats and drink rum and watch a film. And sometimes
Speaker 1: I'd understand these films. Sometimes I would absolutely hate them.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it would be a film like The Last Adaption,
Speaker 1: which was so kind of I mean, for me at
Speaker 1: the time, it was just like, what who is she?
Speaker 1: And she's wearing a black dress and she has no
Speaker 1: moral compass. She'd kill me soon as kiss me. She's
Speaker 1: you know, this was a world where in films women
Speaker 1: were traditionally supposed to be likable. You don't realize that
Speaker 1: till years later. But then when you look back, you go,
Speaker 1: So when you come across a character who is so
Speaker 1: devoid of morals or it doesn't care about other people,
Speaker 1: and it looks out for herself and it is such
Speaker 1: a bitch, it's so exciting. And I expected i'd see
Speaker 1: loads moral Linda Fiorentina. But she had a reputation I think,
Speaker 1: as in quotes, a difficult woman, which is what would happen.
Speaker 1: I assume when directors wouldn't be able to bust someone around,
Speaker 1: or a woman had opinions on her character or something
Speaker 1: like that, it was just easier to get another one in,
Speaker 1: so they'd go, oh, you know what, sometimes she's got opinions,
Speaker 1: she's a difficult woman, Just get a different one. And
Speaker 1: so she kind of she kind of disappeared from me.
Speaker 1: She was in the Jade. Didn't see Jade and men
Speaker 1: in Black, Men in Black. Yeah. But then but then
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, she was robbed slightly. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know, she might be awful. I never met her,
Speaker 1: but I assume that what happened was she she fell
Speaker 1: foul of some sensitive men. I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: That film is really good, and like it's one of
Speaker 1: them John Dell made those fancy made that in Red
Speaker 1: Rock West and one other one where that scriptwise, every
Speaker 1: five minutes is a twist. Every five minutes, you go,
Speaker 1: oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fun, really clear, that's it.
Speaker 1: That's that's that moment where you're going, she's done that
Speaker 1: now and now she's doing this. And I remember one
Speaker 1: of my mates just like just kind of going, she's evil,
Speaker 1: and I just thought, yeah, she's magnificent, she's lovely. That said,
Speaker 1: you would assume, therefore that I would have been drawn
Speaker 1: in later life to evil women. But I have to
Speaker 1: say I've resisted evil women. I find them abhorrent. Have
Speaker 1: you married and married a nice one, married a good one? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: married a very good one. Yeah, I know what could
Speaker 1: have been? Yeah? What As a subcategory to this question,
Speaker 1: Danny is traveling bone is why filmy found a rousing. Yes,
Speaker 1: you thought maybe I wasn't supposed to. Oh well, there's
Speaker 1: no doubt that I wasn't supposed to. There's there's there's
Speaker 1: no doubt whatsoever. But it's a specific moment in a
Speaker 1: specific film when oh, now which one is it? There's
Speaker 1: two of them, they're sisters. Anyway, Let's say Elsa starts
Speaker 1: to sing let it Go in Frozen, it's all very
Speaker 1: it's all very sad. Oh yeah, it's a shame. I
Speaker 1: suppose you have been sort of constrained by Yeah. But
Speaker 1: then what happens is there's the moment where the key
Speaker 1: change happens, and she stumps her foot and her hair
Speaker 1: loosens and her eyes brighten and she is in control
Speaker 1: of her own destiny and she becomes a woman. That's
Speaker 1: what tell myself. But there's there's no doubt that I,
Speaker 1: you know, at no point in the pitching process for Frozen,
Speaker 1: at no point in the script that they write, this
Speaker 1: is a moment of high eroticism. It's it's me as
Speaker 1: a as an you know, middle aged man guiltily letching.
Speaker 1: Although in my defense, it's a moment of empowerment. So
Speaker 1: surely the fact that I find that somehow rousing makes
Speaker 1: me an okay, guy. I just googled the screenplay and
Speaker 1: actually it says when she burst into let it Go,
Speaker 1: it says que bonus. So I don't think you did.
Speaker 1: I think you've fine. Oh good, that's a real weight
Speaker 1: off my mind. Yeah I worry, well, yeah, well thank you, No,
Speaker 1: you're fine. You're fat, because I was worried about that. Nah,
Speaker 1: it's fine. What's the film that you could or have?
Speaker 1: What's the most Over and over again, I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, so it's late at night, you should get
Speaker 1: a bed, You've got half a bottle of wine. Though,
Speaker 1: it's just to sit there, you know, and you could
Speaker 1: stay up, but there's nothing on. I'm not And then yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you find it's maybe one third or two
Speaker 1: thirds of way through, for example, four weddings in a funeral,
Speaker 1: something like that. Something familiar, cozy, comforting. I would love
Speaker 1: to say, you know, The Godfather, something like that, but
Speaker 1: that's like, you know, come on, that's about three hours long.
Speaker 1: It's you know, you've got to get the better eventually,
Speaker 1: but something like that. But I also that the film
Speaker 1: I've watched most and don't seem to get bored off recently,
Speaker 1: And you know, I doubt people will say it's a
Speaker 1: classic with to me, it sort of is. I found
Speaker 1: myself fascinated by dun Kirk. You know, the Christopher Nolan film.
Speaker 1: It's great. Yeah, it's great, and I think I could
Speaker 1: I've watched it so many times now because I watched
Speaker 1: it and there's a penny drop moment where you start
Speaker 1: to see, oh, that's interesting what they're sort of doing
Speaker 1: with timing and the structure of the film, that's all.
Speaker 1: And you want to sort of nudge people and go,
Speaker 1: have you understood yet what they're doing with the timing,
Speaker 1: because I have, And if you watch it with other people,
Speaker 1: you want that moment as well a going yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know yeah. And I really liked it, and I
Speaker 1: let the story, I let the characters. I like things
Speaker 1: made in that era, and I became fascinated by how
Speaker 1: Christopher and Olan had done it, and so I watched it,
Speaker 1: and then I watched it again, and then I watched
Speaker 1: a whole big long interview with him, and then I
Speaker 1: read the script, and then I watched it again having
Speaker 1: read the script. And for me, it's it's tight, and
Speaker 1: it's powerful, and it's just exciting, and there's just that constantly.
Speaker 1: You know, we were talking about all the twists. You
Speaker 1: know that that thrillers can sometimes brings every five minutes. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of like that, and this is
Speaker 1: an unrelenting sort of thrilling film where the tension is
Speaker 1: just ratcheted up and up and up, and it's like,
Speaker 1: oh God, what now? It could have been called oh God,
Speaker 1: what now? Because it just keeps up and he's always
Speaker 1: so good at that, to the point where like the Batmobile.
Speaker 1: You know, when when he was designing the sound of
Speaker 1: the Batmobile, it's every time it shifts up a gear
Speaker 1: and gets faster and faster, there is no it's some
Speaker 1: kind of weird thing he's done where it can never
Speaker 1: run out of increases. It's some musical thing where it
Speaker 1: will always just continue to rise, which gives the impression
Speaker 1: that the Batmobile will always just go faster and faster,
Speaker 1: it can never be stopped. And it's the same with
Speaker 1: attention for me and dun Kirk's you just you want
Speaker 1: it to be over, and then he punches you and
Speaker 1: you get the feeling of pride that some people took
Speaker 1: some boats to France, and you know there was probably
Speaker 1: a general who said something patriotic, and you feel you
Speaker 1: feel quite good about all those things. But you've been manipulated,
Speaker 1: but of course yours are. But you know, I could
Speaker 1: watch that again and again. Yeah, it's a very good film.
Speaker 1: It's really good. I really really like the very end
Speaker 1: of it as well. I think it's actually quite sort
Speaker 1: of subtle and interesting, like the last minute of it
Speaker 1: with them, yeah, and just looking at the papers that
Speaker 1: it's really interesting, it's really good. It's very not It's
Speaker 1: a bit like did you see First Man with Brian
Speaker 1: Goslin with Damien Chiselle. I didn't see that. It's really
Speaker 1: really good, and I think massively underrated, underrated and surprising
Speaker 1: that it wasn't successful or massive. And then I realized
Speaker 1: why I think that was is because for a film
Speaker 1: about America landing on the moon, it's incredibly understated and
Speaker 1: quite sort of melancholy, and you know, he achieves the thing,
Speaker 1: but the thing is more kind of emotional, and there's
Speaker 1: a kind of hollow not hollow, but like there's a
Speaker 1: sadness to him, and it's there isn't this sort of
Speaker 1: yeah feeling. It's yeah, it's not Bruce Willis in the
Speaker 1: same way of Dunkirk. It's not like yeah, when they
Speaker 1: get home. There's an element of sort of feeling of shame.
Speaker 1: And it's really interesting that love all that it is Yeah, understated.
Speaker 1: I think that actually the ending wasn't supposed to be
Speaker 1: the ending. He got the guy to read the thing
Speaker 1: from the newspaper, and there were supposed to be scenes
Speaker 1: after that, but he just thought, what happens if I
Speaker 1: just stop it there? Yeah, and it works great. We
Speaker 1: don't know it to be negative. What's the worst film
Speaker 1: you've ever seen? It will be almost anything my wife
Speaker 1: chooses for us to watch. If she has control. She
Speaker 1: has some kind of talent, is it. I don't know.
Speaker 1: She can pick something and you know, we'll commit to
Speaker 1: it and we'll sit there. But it will be like
Speaker 1: The Family Stone with Sarah Jessica Parker, you know, anything
Speaker 1: where the lead character is going to have to try
Speaker 1: and get on with her other half's family and it
Speaker 1: doesn't you know, it's you know, it's harder than she
Speaker 1: thinks it will be, but she's so nice, but they get,
Speaker 1: they get on the end. It's those But of course
Speaker 1: there's the classic The Room, which is the Tommy Wizzo film,
Speaker 1: which is often said it's so bad it's good. It's not.
Speaker 1: It's just so bad, but it's fun to watch. And
Speaker 1: years ago, I remember I'd be in like La and
Speaker 1: I'd look up and there would be a billboard for
Speaker 1: the Room, and I thought, Oh, that's just a film
Speaker 1: that's out, And then I'll be back six months later,
Speaker 1: and they're still with that billboard, and I'm like, how
Speaker 1: long is this campaign? What is this thing? And I
Speaker 1: slowly start to see no, this isn't normal anyway. Then
Speaker 1: the Room comes out. Everyone gets to know The Room
Speaker 1: as this self funded film by Tommy Wizzo, a man
Speaker 1: who seems to be independently wealthy. No one knows how
Speaker 1: he got his money, no one knows where he's from.
Speaker 1: He's got a very strange sort of Eastern European accent
Speaker 1: that says he's from New Orleans. And anyway, about three
Speaker 1: or four years ago, I was living in LA and
Speaker 1: I decided what I would do is I would try
Speaker 1: and meet Tommy Wizo. So I emailed Tommy Wizzo's generic
Speaker 1: email address and GQ said I could write something if
Speaker 1: I got him, and I knew that Tommy would probably
Speaker 1: be into the idea of like a fancy dinner. So
Speaker 1: I wrote and I said, listen, GQ, we're going to
Speaker 1: pay for it. We can go anywhere you like, and
Speaker 1: I don't know where you're in the country, but I'll
Speaker 1: come to you and we'll go to whichever place you want.
Speaker 1: And I started getting emails back from a man named Raoul,
Speaker 1: and Raoul had a very interesting way with grammar and
Speaker 1: would only email me at sort of two to thirty
Speaker 1: in the morning. And then it turned out we were
Speaker 1: in the same time zone, so that made me think, well,
Speaker 1: that is just two thirty in the morning. And also
Speaker 1: he seems to have the exact same way of speaking
Speaker 1: as Tommy was Zoe, but I had to pretend I
Speaker 1: didn't think it was Tommy was Zo right, So I
Speaker 1: had to keep writing back to Raoul, which I had
Speaker 1: to check out a spell every single time, and going oh, well, no,
Speaker 1: if mister Wizzo would you know like that, I'm sure
Speaker 1: we can, and then again I accentuated anywhere he wants
Speaker 1: to eat. So anyway, finally Raoul got back and said, okay,
Speaker 1: Tommy Wasizo will meet you in Los Angeles at a
Speaker 1: place called the Grove, and he will meet you in
Speaker 1: the cheesecake Factory. So of all the places in the
Speaker 1: world Tommy was Zoe could have chosen, we end up
Speaker 1: going to a place that mainly sells well actually it
Speaker 1: sells everything as a very extensive menu, almost suspiciously broad.
Speaker 1: They don't seem to specialize in anything, and they chose
Speaker 1: to they don't. They accentuate the cheesecakes, but they don't
Speaker 1: specialize in them. You don't go there for teesecakes, No,
Speaker 1: you don't want to go there, and a thousand dishes
Speaker 1: you can choose from anyway. Tommy turns up and he's
Speaker 1: you know, if people don't know what he looks like,
Speaker 1: he looks like he may have been in a band,
Speaker 1: jet black hair, porcelain white skin, sunglasses, constantly sort of
Speaker 1: very shiny blue tie, and no less than three, no
Speaker 1: fewer than three belts, two belts across the midriff or
Speaker 1: the waist, and another one to hold his bottom up.
Speaker 1: So we have an instructive and fun chat about film,
Speaker 1: and he tells me that he's ready to direct the
Speaker 1: next big Marvel film. And he said, if I made
Speaker 1: the Room on the budget, I did imagine what I
Speaker 1: could do with several hundred million dollars. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. Wow. Do you feel having met him
Speaker 1: and spent time him, do you feel what level of
Speaker 1: self awareness do you think he has. I think that
Speaker 1: he is slightly reinventing history and that he's saying that
Speaker 1: the room was always supposed to be funny and was
Speaker 1: always supposed to be you know, taken in the way
Speaker 1: that people ended up taking it. So he's having to
Speaker 1: reinvent a bit of history in order to, you know,
Speaker 1: to regain a bit of control. Maybe I admire him
Speaker 1: for making things happen. I seemed to get closer to
Speaker 1: the truth about where he got his money from, which
Speaker 1: was that he was selling reasonably good quality leather jackets
Speaker 1: in San Francisco at a time where Michael Jackson was
Speaker 1: hitting big, so everyone wanted a Michael Jackson jacket, and
Speaker 1: Tommy was the guy. And then he managed to buy
Speaker 1: his whole building, and then San Francisco kind of got gentrified.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of money there, and he didn't
Speaker 1: know what he was doing. He shot this film. He
Speaker 1: didn't know whether to shoot it on digital or on film,
Speaker 1: and so he just did both. But he didn't rent
Speaker 1: the equipment. He bought the equipment. So he bought a
Speaker 1: full you know scale studio set up to shoot a
Speaker 1: digital film and at the same time a film one,
Speaker 1: which also meant he had to have two crews working
Speaker 1: side by side putting the cameras together so that they
Speaker 1: could just do one take and it looked pretty similar,
Speaker 1: and it's I mean, it's insane. And when you look
Speaker 1: at the DVD extras and you get the you know,
Speaker 1: the interview with Tommy Rozzoh what I love about it?
Speaker 1: He wasn't even particularly happy with his own answers to
Speaker 1: the questions that he had written, and so when you
Speaker 1: watch them, very often he dubs a better answer over
Speaker 1: the original footage. So yeah, I admire him, but I
Speaker 1: think he should probably spend a bit more time planning
Speaker 1: and a little less time just doing it too much. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's listen? You're in You're in humor. You're often described
Speaker 1: as a humorist. What's the I'll put it on my Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: but I don't know what it means. Yeah, that's where
Speaker 1: I got it from, to be honest, I think it's
Speaker 1: me and Bill Bryson and then as humorists, and then
Speaker 1: when I go with you, it said humorist, which I
Speaker 1: always sort of think, what does that? Does that mean?
Speaker 1: You're like a comedian who doesn't do you stand up?
Speaker 1: I don't know what it means you write humor. Maybe
Speaker 1: it means written, or maybe it means not quite funny enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's like witty he's very witty. Yeah, maybe they go
Speaker 1: comedian kick No, no, no, no, Let's go with humorist
Speaker 1: and see how it goes. Nearly he's no. Humorist is
Speaker 1: like high Brad. He's like, you're too good for a comedy.
Speaker 1: It's comedy with glass humor. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So you're a humorist. What's the film that made you
Speaker 1: last the most? I went to I was doing some
Speaker 1: work with a gentleman. I knew he had connections to
Speaker 1: another gentleman, a very funny gentleman, and this guy was
Speaker 1: very funny too. And he said, I've been writing this
Speaker 1: surf film with this gentleman. And he told me what
Speaker 1: it was, and I'd heard some bits and bobs about it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, yeah, I think. Yes, this
Speaker 1: guy's on a mission. He's got this girl he really
Speaker 1: likes and he's got to meet her. And okay, so
Speaker 1: they're doing it as a narrative. I get it. And
Speaker 1: he said, you want to come to an early screening
Speaker 1: and I said yes, And I hadn't seen any trailers.
Speaker 1: That's all I knew about it, is what I've told you.
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen any footage, obviously, and I went down
Speaker 1: and I took Julian Barrett and my wife and it
Speaker 1: was Borat and it just I didn't know what it
Speaker 1: was going to be. And when I saw what it was,
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it. You know, imagine just seeing bor
Speaker 1: At fresh and just going what you did that and
Speaker 1: this and this is the thing and it's all big
Speaker 1: and slick and funny and America and Americans and it
Speaker 1: hit me so much. And the room was just exploding
Speaker 1: with you know, like you know, when you get like
Speaker 1: the wolfs of laughter of communal laughter, but then you
Speaker 1: also get loads of individual, very interesting, weird laughs. That
Speaker 1: it was just that and that's the best thing ever
Speaker 1: when you get the big whoofs of joy together and
Speaker 1: then you just get the weirdos and the strange little
Speaker 1: laughs peppering it. And it felt exciting, and it felt
Speaker 1: like this is gonna imagine when other people see this.
Speaker 1: You know, it felt like a secret to share. Listen,
Speaker 1: you've got to see this film. And so I think
Speaker 1: that that made me laugh the most because it surprised
Speaker 1: me the most as well. Yeah, great answer, Danny Wallace,
Speaker 1: you have been brilliant, A real thank you, pleasure however,
Speaker 1: oh when you were out and about. You were out
Speaker 1: and about on your travels too. Instead everybody like writing
Speaker 1: an article exploring things. You said, yes, and your own
Speaker 1: party and there was Charlie's theron and you were like,
Speaker 1: oh hello, You said sorry, could I You said you've
Speaker 1: worked with Jason Statham and she said, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's great. And you was like, what's his secret? And
Speaker 1: she said, oh, have you ever seen The Vanishing? And
Speaker 1: he said yeah, he said what happens you remember in
Speaker 1: the Vanishing? He tells him to drink something and if
Speaker 1: you drink this, I'll show you what the secret is.
Speaker 1: And so you said, oh, that sounds fine, and she
Speaker 1: handed you this drink. Oh, and drink it. Drink it,
Speaker 1: and you drank it, and what you didn't see was
Speaker 1: you passed out. She took you into a room, opened
Speaker 1: a cupboard and there was Jason Statham in the cupboard.
Speaker 1: And his thing, it turns out, is hammering people to
Speaker 1: death with their hammer, and so he hammered you to death.
Speaker 1: Is that thus satiating his beating heart that has to
Speaker 1: stay above a certain thing? Hands shut leaves through on
Speaker 1: Andrew Quid and says, I don't know what you need
Speaker 1: this for us, she says, honestly, I've just got some
Speaker 1: repairs and need doing. Cheers. She left anyway, everyone leaves
Speaker 1: the party. You're an absolute mess. I've turned down walking
Speaker 1: around with a coffee. You know what I'm like. I
Speaker 1: see you in bits, as the Irish say, you're in bits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I it's on the carpet, bit's on the cupboard.
Speaker 1: I'm having to chop. I didn't know any of this. No,
Speaker 1: you didn't have to know it, but I guess it's
Speaker 1: better to know. The truth will set you free in
Speaker 1: a way. Yeah, so I get all the bits of you.
Speaker 1: I'm getting bits of carpet, bits of cupboard, bits of
Speaker 1: sheets and stuff in them, all in this coffin. And
Speaker 1: the coffin was the size of you. But there's so
Speaker 1: much more than I was expecting. The coffin is now
Speaker 1: absolutely rammed. It's rammed. There is only enough room in
Speaker 1: this coffin for me to slip one DVD into the
Speaker 1: side for you to take across to the other side.
Speaker 1: And on the other side. Every night it's a movie night.
Speaker 1: One night it's your movie night. What film are you
Speaker 1: taking to show everyone in heaven? When it's your movie night,
Speaker 1: Danny bris First of all, I gather everyone in the
Speaker 1: game's room. An old man shuffles over and hands as
Speaker 1: a coin. He allows us to play a game that
Speaker 1: our parents probably wouldn't have let us play, perhaps, so
Speaker 1: beat him up. Come, I say, come with me. We
Speaker 1: passed the buffet, each of us picking up a small
Speaker 1: bowl of chocolate ice cream and one glass of ice
Speaker 1: cold chocolate milk, and we take our seats on the
Speaker 1: sofas and leather chairs of this Romanian hotel. I walk
Speaker 1: forward a press play and we watch et and that,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, is guys Court. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: You buy our pitch. That's a beautiful bit. This is
Speaker 1: why Guys Court is gonna be amazing. It's a beautiful
Speaker 1: bit of writing. You started where you finish, finish where
Speaker 1: you start. Brought it back. He brought it back. That's
Speaker 1: a storyteller right there. That is a storyteller, Danny Wallace.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for your time and for doing this. And
Speaker 1: it was very lovely to spend some time with you.
Speaker 1: It was lovely to spend time with you and to
Speaker 1: hear you describe my death. Now let's wrap this up
Speaker 1: and start the pitch. Yeah, we've got it. We've got
Speaker 1: a lot to do, a lot to do. First of all,
Speaker 1: we've got a title and a vague concept. We just
Speaker 1: need everything else. Johnny Poppam's in it. That's all I know.
Speaker 1: Is there anything you need to tell people to look
Speaker 1: out forward to listen to of yours? No? Well, I
Speaker 1: have a new podcast starting in a couple of months,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to sully this great podcast with
Speaker 1: plugs it. Should you be adjusted, Please do your own research.
Speaker 1: Just type my name in for goodness sake, don't make
Speaker 1: me do all the work is type in humorous you'll
Speaker 1: find it. Yeah, exactly, all right, Danny Wallace, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. You've been wonderful. Have a lovely death. Good
Speaker 1: day to you. So yeah, chess. So that was episode
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty six. Head over to patreon dot
Speaker 1: com forwards Las Bret Olstein for the extra twenty minutes
Speaker 1: of chat sequis and video with Danny. Head to Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Give us a five star rating. But Dan right about
Speaker 1: the show. No one's interested in your thoughts on the show.
Speaker 1: What we want to read is about the film that
Speaker 1: means the most to you and why. It's a lovely
Speaker 1: thing to read. It helps numbers and Maureen loves it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Danny for doing the show.
Speaker 1: This scrupis Pip and Distraction Pieces Network. Thanks to Buddy
Speaker 1: Peace for producing it. Thanks to ACAS for hosting it.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Adam Richardson for the graphics, Leaves a Looning
Speaker 1: for the photography. Come and join me next week for
Speaker 1: another smashing guest who you will love. I hope you're
Speaker 1: all well. I really appreciate you listening. So that is
Speaker 1: it for now. In the meantime, have a lovely week,
Speaker 1: and please, now more than ever, be excellent to each other.