Speaker 1: Look out. It's only films to be buried with.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to films to be buried with. My
Speaker 2: name is Brett Goldstein. I'm a comedian, an actor, a writer,
Speaker 2: a director, an AX wielding maniac, and I love films.
Speaker 2: As George Elliott once said, what do we live for?
Speaker 2: If it's not to make life less difficult for each other?
Speaker 2: Why not show a loved one inside out and ask
Speaker 2: them who their bing bong was? Then hold them close? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: if they can remember. I think the point is that
Speaker 2: they can't remember. Anyway, It's a nice thought, George Elliott.
Speaker 1: Well done.
Speaker 2: Every week I'm by a special guest over. I tell
Speaker 2: them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their
Speaker 2: life through the films that meant the most of them.
Speaker 2: Previous guests include Barry Jenkins and The Ruffin, Mark Frost,
Speaker 2: Sharon Stone, and even Keed Blambles. But this week it
Speaker 2: is the amazing writer, producer, director and Actorhowit tell Edgie.
Speaker 2: For head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com
Speaker 2: forward slash Brett golds where you get extra fifteen to
Speaker 2: twenty minutes of chat with Chew Hotel. He tells me
Speaker 2: a secret. We talk about the making of one of
Speaker 2: his best films. We talk beginnings and endings. You also
Speaker 2: get the whole episode, uncut, adfree, and there's a video.
Speaker 2: Check it out over at patreon dot com. Forward slash
Speaker 2: Brett Goldstein, so tewtel Edgifour is one of my favorite actors.
Speaker 2: You know him from a series of classic films. He's
Speaker 2: in some of the greatest films ever made. He has
Speaker 2: also just written and directed his second film, rob Piece,
Speaker 2: which is out very soon in cinemas and I highly
Speaker 2: recommend you see it. We recorded this on Zoom last
Speaker 2: weekend and he was an absolute delight and I really
Speaker 2: think you're going to love this one.
Speaker 1: So that is it for now.
Speaker 2: I hope you're all well, and I very much hope
Speaker 2: you enjoy episode three hundred and ten of Films to
Speaker 2: be Buried With.
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Films to be Buried With.
Speaker 2: It is I Brett Goldstein, and I am joined to
Speaker 2: day by an actor, a kinky bootster, a twelve years
Speaker 2: a slaver, a children of men, and a fellower, a salter.
Speaker 2: He's scar he's inside man. He's a writer, he's a director,
Speaker 2: he's a producer, he is one of the genuine finest
Speaker 2: actors that we have currently working on Planet Earth. He's
Speaker 2: made a new film, he's done all of it himself,
Speaker 2: he's carried everything, he's done it a lot. He's here,
Speaker 2: he's real. Can you believe it? Please want to do
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 1: It's too teligible.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Hello, I need to have that always. Hello
Speaker 2: and welcome to films to be buried with. What a treat,
Speaker 2: great pleasure. I'm such a fan of yours. Thank you,
Speaker 2: Thank you and me and you thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: You're brilliant.
Speaker 2: You are now I've got many things to ask you
Speaker 2: before we get into it, if I may. Firstly, should
Speaker 2: we talk about your new film? Yeah, great, it's this
Speaker 2: coming out. So you have written and directed and acted
Speaker 2: in a brilliant film called Rob Peace, which, thank you,
Speaker 2: is the second film you've made, written and directed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is another true story. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious as to what drew you to these
Speaker 2: projects that you were like, I want to direct this,
Speaker 2: I want to write this. And also, if I may,
Speaker 2: the kind of responsibility of the true and how you
Speaker 2: navigate that and if you've shown it to the family
Speaker 2: and things like that, if you wouldn't mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3: You know, I came across the book really about so
Speaker 3: it's these two adaptations, both The Boy and Hanness the
Speaker 3: Wind in my first film, and Rob Peace and adaptations
Speaker 3: of these two books, and with Rob Peace. You know,
Speaker 3: I came across it not long after it was written.
Speaker 3: It was actually written by Rob's roommates at Yale, and
Speaker 3: I thought it was just a brilliant book. I just
Speaker 3: thought it was beautifully emotional. It touched on subjects that
Speaker 3: I had been thinking about but hadn't sort of seen
Speaker 3: as clear a light shed on them as Jeff hr
Speaker 3: did in the book. I thought it was a really
Speaker 3: wonderful investigation of generation really, of a kind of all
Speaker 3: of these systems that worked in a way against Rob,
Speaker 3: and this intersection of all of these elements in his
Speaker 3: life as very brilliant young man from a very impoverished,
Speaker 3: difficult upbringing who became sort of obsessed really with trying
Speaker 3: to get his father out of prison, who had been
Speaker 3: incarcerated for a double homicide in nineteen eighty seven. I mean,
Speaker 3: he was the crime was committed in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 3: He wasn't incarcerated all nineteen ninety but Rob spent a
Speaker 3: lot of his life trying to figure this out and
Speaker 3: trying to and it opened up all of these questions
Speaker 3: about the criminal justice system, about education, and then goes
Speaker 3: into sort of these questions about race and housing and
Speaker 3: this all these intersections that Rob is facing. And I
Speaker 3: just thought it was an absolute brilliant analysis as well
Speaker 3: as this very emotional story of this young man as
Speaker 3: he sort of unravels under this.
Speaker 1: This kind of pressure.
Speaker 2: I'm always cue is when actors direct and are in it.
Speaker 2: How is it when you're in the scene, Because you're
Speaker 2: in it and you're brilliant in it, but you're also
Speaker 2: directing and are you running to the monitor out to
Speaker 2: take so are you're trusting someone?
Speaker 1: How is it working?
Speaker 3: It's a complicated process, I think, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: I think you do have to rely on other people
Speaker 3: a little bit. And you know, I had a brilliant
Speaker 3: cinematographer because in your Soreda, and we would work together
Speaker 3: very closely just to make sure I was aware of
Speaker 3: just very clear about how everything was looking, so I
Speaker 3: could just run a few takes together that things could,
Speaker 3: you know, sort of flow. There's something very nice though,
Speaker 3: I think as an actor who doesn't. Necessarily, I'm very
Speaker 3: comfortable in the space of an actor. So sometimes it's
Speaker 3: very helpful to be able to affect the tone of
Speaker 3: a scene by being in the scene, as opposed to
Speaker 3: having to explain what you are trying to get out
Speaker 3: of the scene. You're just sort of play it the
Speaker 3: way that and everybody's able to sort of inture you
Speaker 3: know what you're doing and where you want this thing
Speaker 3: to go and how you want to feel, and so
Speaker 3: I think that's very helpful.
Speaker 1: I think that it's harder.
Speaker 3: I think the hardest thing is to understand how to perform,
Speaker 3: you know, I think that's always quite complicated because you're
Speaker 3: not really bouncing your own performance of anybody else, which
Speaker 3: is I think is that is the complicated area. And
Speaker 3: also because you're directing, your pressure is in a slightly
Speaker 3: different direction. So you're you're feeling like ordinarily you would
Speaker 3: want to give the actor all the space in the world.
Speaker 3: You know, you find it, you know, let's go again, let's.
Speaker 1: Do all of this. But when it's your take, you know,
Speaker 1: you feel like, I know, we've.
Speaker 3: Got to be out of this location forty five minutes ago,
Speaker 3: I know, you know, So I'm going to get through
Speaker 3: this close up, so you know what I mean, that's
Speaker 3: what you feel. That's the sort of sense of pressure
Speaker 3: that you put yourself under, which isn't at all the
Speaker 3: space that you would ever imagine a director putting you under.
Speaker 3: So trying to find a way of kind of using
Speaker 3: you know, sort of just balancing both sides of your
Speaker 3: head I think, and allowing yourself the room to be
Speaker 3: an actor in that context is interesting.
Speaker 1: God, that's tricky.
Speaker 2: And also to have the do you have I assume
Speaker 2: you do because you've done it, but the you know,
Speaker 2: I talk to a lot of actors and so many
Speaker 2: of them like I can't watch myself.
Speaker 1: I can't watch myself Like there is a reality.
Speaker 2: You have to be objective about what you're doing as
Speaker 2: an actor as well on the day, not even later.
Speaker 1: You have to go, yeah, that felt right, that's how
Speaker 1: do you? Was that new?
Speaker 3: And you know, and later in the edit you've got
Speaker 3: to be completely ruthless about your own shortcomings.
Speaker 1: There's no you know, there's.
Speaker 3: No way to hide, you know, and if you have
Speaker 3: an editor who's also very honest with you, you know, and
Speaker 3: you're sitting there going, yeah, don't you think that this
Speaker 3: speech really is important in them.
Speaker 1: I'm not worrying at this am I not worry? God?
Speaker 2: And what about in terms of the real people, have
Speaker 2: you had any feedback from people from the story or
Speaker 2: any Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, yeah, yeah absolutely. Is that scary?
Speaker 3: Well yeah, I mean initially it's you know, obviously there's
Speaker 3: people who were very affected by the story and very
Speaker 3: effective by what happened. And so Rob's mum, Jackie, you know,
Speaker 3: was one of the first people that I went to see,
Speaker 3: you know, to discuss the film and discuss my intentions
Speaker 3: for the film, and so I sat with her in
Speaker 3: her house, you know, the house that Rob grew up in,
Speaker 3: and we talked for a very long time on several occasions,
Speaker 3: and she was incredibly supportive of the whole process.
Speaker 1: It was very difficult for her, but she was very supportive.
Speaker 3: Of everything that we were doing, and we really talked
Speaker 3: her through all of the sort of stages of it,
Speaker 3: which went over a long period of time because we
Speaker 3: were initially going to shoot just before the pandemic and
Speaker 3: then everything got shut down and we came back two
Speaker 3: years later, so it was a long sort of period
Speaker 3: of time of her being involved. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: in the context of these conversations really and then she
Speaker 3: came to sun Dance, you know, to the premiere of
Speaker 3: the film with other family members, and she was right
Speaker 3: there and the audience was incredibly gracious with her as
Speaker 3: well and as the film and gave her a standing ovation,
Speaker 3: and so it was it was very emotional, but it
Speaker 3: was wonderful. I was able to sit with her, you know,
Speaker 3: watching the film, so we were going to sit together,
Speaker 3: and which I was really glad of, you know, that
Speaker 3: I was able to be with her, and so yeah,
Speaker 3: all of those things, you know, I think it was
Speaker 3: really important to me to have that connection and blessing
Speaker 3: of the family.
Speaker 1: To talk about Rob brilliant, to tell his story, fascinating.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you a question and asks a question
Speaker 2: on a different film that a film that comes up
Speaker 2: a lot comes up a lot in greatest film of
Speaker 2: all time?
Speaker 1: Question is Children of Men? Children Men comes up a lot?
Speaker 2: And I think it's one of the all time greats.
Speaker 2: And there is a sequence in it that I am
Speaker 2: forever fascinated about in the car that appears to be
Speaker 2: one long take where they get attacked in the car.
Speaker 2: I don't know how it happened, I still don't believe it,
Speaker 2: and what was it like today?
Speaker 3: It was such a unique experience that with with Alfonso
Speaker 3: Quadron and emmanuel lewedski Achieva shooting and just the fact
Speaker 3: that it was there was so I'd never been in
Speaker 3: a circumstance where your choreographed where the camera is a performer.
Speaker 3: You know, in a choreography, the camera is part of
Speaker 3: the dance, so you've got to kind of accommodate this
Speaker 3: other performer, you know, and that you know, the car,
Speaker 3: you know, it's sort of all rigged up, so it
Speaker 3: was all on hinges.
Speaker 1: It's the roofs coming up and down and spinning and
Speaker 1: going up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the camera there was a sort of there was
Speaker 3: the roof was taken off the car, so there's another
Speaker 3: layer on the car, which is where Chivo and and
Speaker 3: Alfonso are sitting up above the car. So it was
Speaker 3: like a sort of double decker car, you know. And
Speaker 3: so I'm not driving. There's somebody in the where the
Speaker 3: sort of engine is and they're inside there driving the car.
Speaker 3: So I'm just sort of fake driving. But it's not
Speaker 3: on a low lan or anything. It's on the ground.
Speaker 3: But it's sort of been fake driven and so my
Speaker 3: seat is on a hinge so that I can do
Speaker 3: these lines and it's all intense and blah blah blah
Speaker 3: blah blah.
Speaker 1: And then the camera comes toward me. It goes past
Speaker 1: my face.
Speaker 3: I go back on the hinge, you know, and it
Speaker 3: goes round over me and it just gets everybody out
Speaker 3: and then it comes back onto me. So I'm swinging
Speaker 3: back up and I'm back and I'm crazy. So it
Speaker 3: was a real choreograph to dance with the camera in
Speaker 3: order to achieve this effect of you know, but it
Speaker 3: was really brilliantly thought through. And we've got a chance
Speaker 3: to really play that, you know, rehearsal to within an
Speaker 3: inch of its life and then do it.
Speaker 2: Can I ask this sort of time of it, like
Speaker 2: how long were you rehearsing that? And how many tastes
Speaker 2: did you do? I'm fascinated by that particular.
Speaker 3: See, I feel like we were there on that scene
Speaker 3: for we rehearsed I think for a couple of days,
Speaker 3: you know, or came up and did a few hours
Speaker 3: in the afternoon if we were shooting something else.
Speaker 1: I think we did. We were shooting other things in the.
Speaker 3: Woods, so we rehearsed the car sequence over a few hours,
Speaker 3: over a sequence of days, and then shooting it was
Speaker 3: also a sequence of days for the whole because some
Speaker 3: of those that one shot is sort of a one
Speaker 3: shot in burd of comments. Some of it slice spliced together.
Speaker 3: So we shot through that sequence over a few a
Speaker 3: few days maybe i'd say ten ten days, two weeks total,
Speaker 3: including the sunrise stuff when the car is getting taken
Speaker 3: from the farm, which was all a magic hour. So
Speaker 3: it was magic hour over a sequence a day, so
Speaker 3: you would literally just.
Speaker 1: Go up to work for an hour that would be wrapped.
Speaker 3: You know, come back the next day just for just
Speaker 3: that little bit of light in the sky. It's just
Speaker 3: magical experience filming that and a wonderful fire.
Speaker 1: I think worth its worth it. And so you've made
Speaker 1: these two films.
Speaker 2: As about director, is it sort of whatever comes up
Speaker 2: that takes your interest or do you are there specific
Speaker 2: things that you're looking for as a as an actor
Speaker 2: and as a writer and director.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's all always I think for all
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 3: It's a surprise, you know, to me, you know that
Speaker 3: it just it's as as when I engage with it,
Speaker 3: as I come you know, just sort of start to
Speaker 3: engage with that. I sort of know at some point,
Speaker 3: you know, whether it's kind of whether you've sort of
Speaker 3: crossed over and you're invested. You know, you're involved, You're
Speaker 3: part of whatever this is, you know, whatever the story
Speaker 3: of this continues to be, it sort of includes you now.
Speaker 3: And and I think that that's it's an interesting feeling,
Speaker 3: you know, I think as a writer and as a director,
Speaker 3: and you know, and as an actor, you know, just
Speaker 3: the moment even sort of isolating the moment where it
Speaker 3: changes where you think, oh, I see, I'm this is
Speaker 3: part of my own experience, you know, and you start
Speaker 3: having to sort of think of how to manage the
Speaker 3: rest of your life to accommodate doing this thing.
Speaker 1: You know, and that's.
Speaker 3: Wonderful, you know, when when as and when it happens,
Speaker 3: you know, but I think that's the only way for
Speaker 3: me to really gauge what I want to do next.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just instinctual. It's it's a feeling.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: I hadn't realization the other day there was a part
Speaker 2: in something. It was this part I was kind of
Speaker 2: in talks for it. It was like nearly nearly happening,
Speaker 2: and then it didn't happen. And afterwards I was so
Speaker 2: relieved it didn't happen, and I realized that I never
Speaker 2: know that feeling. But I'm like, it's in your gut, right.
Speaker 2: But what I realized was I could never envisage it
Speaker 2: this part. Like I realized that actually somewhere there is
Speaker 2: kind of a vision of playing it or doing it
Speaker 2: of whatever the thing is writing, like I kind of
Speaker 2: see something. And it was only by this guy in
Speaker 2: a way that I realized, Yeah, I never saw it.
Speaker 2: I was always slightly ambivalent. There was like lots about
Speaker 2: it that seemed good and sensible to do this thing.
Speaker 1: I never could picture.
Speaker 2: It, you know what I mean, I totally do Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I realized that's what's missing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you can't in a way.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, there's a bit sort of debate
Speaker 3: about it, but there was I remember there was a
Speaker 3: line in TUTSI, you know, the film That's Nothing film.
Speaker 3: He says, you can't play a part that's not in you.
Speaker 3: And it's something I actually do kind of believe, you
Speaker 3: know that. I feel like you sort of know. It
Speaker 3: can be obfuscated, it can be subtlely in you. It
Speaker 3: can be buried in you, but I feel like it's
Speaker 3: it's in you, and you know that it's in you
Speaker 3: when you read a part and you think this actually
Speaker 3: speaks to me in a way that I don't know
Speaker 3: if it speaks to everybody. And that's what kind of
Speaker 3: drives you, that kind of compels you, like there's something
Speaker 3: I'm involved, I'm invested in it.
Speaker 1: I mean something to this and it means something to me. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's exactly it.
Speaker 2: And you know what, the person that played that part,
Speaker 2: because the whole time I was bringing this part is like,
Speaker 2: I know this part is good, but I don't see it.
Speaker 2: I don't see it. And when I spoke to the
Speaker 2: act that did the part and I said, I said,
Speaker 2: out of curiosity, what drew you to this part? And
Speaker 2: they said, it reminds me of my brother. It's exactly
Speaker 2: like my brother. And I was like, oh, then you
Speaker 2: have a connection to it that you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: That's brilliant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. That is it? True tale.
Speaker 2: I've forgotten say something and I should have said it
Speaker 2: up top. Stupid that I didn't say this first, but
Speaker 2: I'll I'll just say it.
Speaker 1: You've died you're dead.
Speaker 2: Oh oh no, you're taking it quite well, but yeah,
Speaker 2: sort of not very fast. But yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: How did you die? Nasty business?
Speaker 3: Falling ice, Yeah, falling falling ice got me New York,
Speaker 3: New York City, only there for a little bit of
Speaker 3: a quick break, you know, and I was downtown Salt Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they just don't you know, there's just no protection on
Speaker 3: the top of those buildings. And it's not the sort
Speaker 3: of thing you expect to happen, obviously, so but yeah, apparently, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it kills a few people every year, you know, under ten,
Speaker 3: but it happens.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and my top ten, top.
Speaker 3: Ten, exactly exactly, you know, my number was up and
Speaker 3: there we had it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, boom, ice through the head, Yeah straight, yeah, wow,
Speaker 2: Yeah it was quick, you know, it's the good news.
Speaker 1: How old were you? How did you want to be
Speaker 1: when this happened? Oh? No, I was, you know, I
Speaker 1: was getting I was up there, I was up.
Speaker 2: There, I was you know, yeah, deep in the nineties,
Speaker 2: deep in the night, and still sort of moving around,
Speaker 2: still still had it. Yeah, fucking icy conditions as well.
Speaker 2: You were placing around exactly exactly do you worry about death?
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think I think about it. I don't
Speaker 3: know if I worry about it. I think about it,
Speaker 3: think about death, dying, what that means. I think I
Speaker 3: read somewhere about the number of people who had died.
Speaker 3: I think it was like a hundred billion people have
Speaker 3: died or something, which is, you know, it's a lot
Speaker 3: of people, and you know.
Speaker 1: Every you know, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, and so it's something that so many people have experienced.
Speaker 3: You know, there are you know how many people on
Speaker 3: the planet, seven eight billion, you know, who are the
Speaker 3: only people who haven't who haven't who haven't experienced it,
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of precedent for it.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a it's a it's a.
Speaker 3: Big thing, and it's coming our way, and we don't
Speaker 3: really have a good I don't know if we have
Speaker 3: a healthy relationship with it sort of culturally for the
Speaker 3: most part. And you know, I think there's still so
Speaker 3: much that's sort of weirdly stigmatized about about death and
Speaker 3: dying and that process, even though it's it's, as we say,
Speaker 3: it's popular.
Speaker 1: So I feel like it's important to.
Speaker 3: Think about it's important to think about that we're all
Speaker 3: heading in the one direction. And that, and that every
Speaker 3: day and every moment that you have is of such
Speaker 3: profound significance, you know, if you want it to be,
Speaker 3: you know, and and allowing it to be that, and
Speaker 3: allowing it not to be that, if that's your choice,
Speaker 3: but to have it in mind, you know, to not
Speaker 3: feel that it's something to befied of, I suppose to
Speaker 3: be aware of and engaged with. But it's such an
Speaker 3: important part of allowing us to see the value of
Speaker 3: life is to know that it's not forever.
Speaker 1: What do you think happens when you die? Do you
Speaker 1: think there's enough to life? I mean, that's a great question.
Speaker 1: I think that there is.
Speaker 3: My feeling is I suppose that it would be bizarre
Speaker 3: if there wasn't something that was going on, you know,
Speaker 3: you know that it would be so sort of ridiculous
Speaker 3: to with all the things that we don't know, all
Speaker 3: the things we can't explain, it would seem to me
Speaker 3: kind of very peculiar that that massive thing.
Speaker 1: Exactly. A really central question is also.
Speaker 3: Just like you know, a sort of nothing burger, you know,
Speaker 3: but you know that all of the you know, we're
Speaker 3: on this sort of rock expanding universe, This kind of
Speaker 3: you know, this infinity of space and time, and this
Speaker 3: idea that there isn't any other thing that's going on here,
Speaker 3: you know, it just seems it sort of seems absurd.
Speaker 3: So I think there is some other experience, you know,
Speaker 3: I feel like we are passing through you know, some
Speaker 3: this experience in this way. I think it's unimaginable, unimaginable
Speaker 3: for us in our humanity to understand what the bigger
Speaker 3: picture is, you know, and that's sort of necessarily. So
Speaker 3: there are so many things that, like I say, so
Speaker 3: many things that we don't understand. You know, we don't
Speaker 3: understand half a fraction of how our brains work. We
Speaker 3: don't know how our consciousness works, let alone understand what
Speaker 3: the universe is or what it means to us as we.
Speaker 1: Go through it.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't know eighty percent of what's in
Speaker 2: the sea or something like that exactly.
Speaker 3: That seems you know, that seems a lot eighty percent
Speaker 3: you would fail that test, you know, of what's in this.
Speaker 1: Is definitely So that's my feeling.
Speaker 3: I feel like, as humans, I think we are going
Speaker 3: to have a lot of extraordinary experiences coming to us,
Speaker 3: you know, as we passed through whatever this consciousness is.
Speaker 2: Well, you're absolutely right correct, there is a heaven as well,
Speaker 2: and heaven is filled with your favorite thing. What's your
Speaker 2: favorite thing? Films? Great, then you're in the right place.
Speaker 2: They're very excited to see you. They're huge fans of you,
Speaker 2: but they want to know about your life through film.
Speaker 2: And the first thing they ask you is, what is
Speaker 2: the first film you remember seeing?
Speaker 1: True itality foot.
Speaker 3: I remember seeing Holiday with Carrie Grant and Katherine Hepburn
Speaker 3: on the TV on little TV. This is back in
Speaker 3: the days of I think four channels. He might even
Speaker 3: have been three quote me on it, but there were
Speaker 3: just a few channels on the television and one of
Speaker 3: them was playing Holiday, and I think we recorded it.
Speaker 3: I think we recorded and I just remember, you know,
Speaker 3: I've actually always and ever since been a fan of
Speaker 3: Carry Grant. You know, maybe because of that film and
Speaker 3: because it's so seid in my memory is my first
Speaker 3: real conscious idea of like, this is a film and
Speaker 3: this person is playing this character and just being very
Speaker 3: young watching TV, and but then also I then also
Speaker 3: just sort of yeah, I always love Carry Grant because
Speaker 3: he could eat comedy, he could you know, he could
Speaker 3: do drama. He could he was he could have that
Speaker 3: sort of intensity, but he was deeply kind of charismatic
Speaker 3: and sort of could do the whole kind of thing
Speaker 3: and was accepted in every role.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like anybody. There was no sort of pushback.
Speaker 3: He was never sort of pigeonholed in that way. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I remember that film being you know, just fun and
Speaker 3: alive and the sort of repartee and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: Just flashes of the memories of it. Yeah, and with
Speaker 1: this with you, who are you watching this? With? With
Speaker 1: it everywhere?
Speaker 3: I feel like I was in the family home, but
Speaker 3: I feel like my memory of it is that I
Speaker 3: was on my own watching watching the television, but the
Speaker 3: like I in the kitchen, the little kitchen dining room area.
Speaker 3: But you know, I've learned over the years that my
Speaker 3: memory is a very strange thing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a very faulty sort of mechanism.
Speaker 3: So it could have been packed with fifty people, but
Speaker 3: my memory is that.
Speaker 1: I was alone in this the in the room and
Speaker 1: watching it.
Speaker 2: And do you remember thinking you wanted to act from
Speaker 2: that or is it you just liked going forward?
Speaker 1: I feel like.
Speaker 3: It wasn't as direct as that that I felt like
Speaker 3: I want to do what they're doing. But I did
Speaker 3: like as a child, there are certain things that hit
Speaker 3: you and you know that they'll stay with you. You
Speaker 3: know that you just have a sort of a knowledge
Speaker 3: of things. It's funny I had sort of randomly, I
Speaker 3: was having a lunch with an old teacher of mine,
Speaker 3: you know, he was my English teacher when I was
Speaker 3: in high school, and we were talking about how you know,
Speaker 3: some people remember, and he was sort about for him,
Speaker 3: he remembers the moment when he was able to understand
Speaker 3: how were worked, you know, the how words on a
Speaker 3: page worked into speech, like you remember being four years
Speaker 3: old or something.
Speaker 1: Now I don't remember.
Speaker 3: That, but obviously as an English teacher or whatever, the
Speaker 3: way that his profession, like his life went, this was
Speaker 3: something very significant that he brought into his own experience.
Speaker 3: So I think that as children, as very young people,
Speaker 3: we do have these moments where we remember and hold
Speaker 3: on to certain things very clearly. And I think for me,
Speaker 3: that was one of those moments that I that although
Speaker 3: I hadn't made any decisions about what I was going
Speaker 3: to do, it was significant for me in some meaningful way.
Speaker 2: It's the thing it's what we were talking about. It's
Speaker 2: the thing within you. It was always within you. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's like we're talking about a part your journey was
Speaker 2: always in you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that there was something that just kind of
Speaker 3: stood out for me and you know, just was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this person is doing this, let me just park that
Speaker 3: for a second, run outside and do this exactly, but
Speaker 3: I have registered this is happening.
Speaker 2: You know, what is the film that made you cry
Speaker 2: the most? And are you a crier? Are you the
Speaker 2: town crier? So exactly here, I don't. I'm not a
Speaker 2: I don't cry huge.
Speaker 3: Amounts of movies, Like, it's not like a thing that
Speaker 3: I do. But the film that made me cry the
Speaker 3: most was in the circumstance where I do cry, which
Speaker 3: is on aeroplanes. A lot of people cry on and
Speaker 3: I'm I'm and I'm one of them. I mean bizarre films.
Speaker 3: I cry, you know, on aeroplanes. I remember that there's
Speaker 3: a Matthew McConaughey film where he's searches for gold.
Speaker 1: Do you I don't know if you know the film
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. Isn't it called gold?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: It's but it's not.
Speaker 3: There's I think there's another Matthew McConaughey film called He's
Speaker 3: called God, but he's like a diver and he's in
Speaker 3: this film and he's looking for gold.
Speaker 1: Not with Kate Hudson. With Kate Hudson exactly.
Speaker 3: Is that the film that we're talking about the same
Speaker 3: film is that I think we're talking It might be
Speaker 3: called Fool's Gold or something. And then there's another film
Speaker 3: called Gold where he's kind of a businessman, kind of.
Speaker 1: Y.
Speaker 3: So anyway, I just said that by example of films
Speaker 3: that have made me cry on the plane that I
Speaker 3: don't think would be making me cry on dry land.
Speaker 3: But the but the film that made me cry that
Speaker 3: I saw on a plane, and I don't know for
Speaker 3: the record, it's Gold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one is called God.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, you're exactly.
Speaker 3: But the one that I mean, they you know, they
Speaker 3: might have had to land the plane. I was crying
Speaker 3: that much, you know what I mean. It was like
Speaker 3: it was a problem. Was a diving bell and the
Speaker 3: butterfly and that's it. That's that's a film anyway, if
Speaker 3: you put it into somebody who has a susceptibility to
Speaker 3: crying on planes. But when they asked me if I
Speaker 3: was okay. They literally the students came to ask me
Speaker 3: if I was okay. And I was trying to explain
Speaker 3: the plot of the movie. I was crying so much
Speaker 3: I could I couldn't get it out. It's like, you know,
Speaker 3: gasping and saying, you know, this guy is locked in syndrome.
Speaker 2: It's just just desires, just the blinking, blinking.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. I told my friend, actually my very
Speaker 1: close friend.
Speaker 3: I said to him, listen, man, if anything like this
Speaker 3: ever happens, you just know I will come round to
Speaker 3: your hospital bed and I will read to you every day.
Speaker 3: It's like, let's just be clear, Please do not do that.
Speaker 3: Let me say this now on the record, while I
Speaker 3: am able.
Speaker 2: To do not do If you don't cry in films,
Speaker 2: can I ask you something? Both of your films make
Speaker 2: people cry. Was there any moment in the edit or
Speaker 2: did you ever cry in the putting together of your film?
Speaker 1: Watching it back?
Speaker 2: Like, did you cry at the premiere or were you
Speaker 2: always separate from it?
Speaker 1: You know, it's so interesting.
Speaker 3: That's such an interesting question because people that people people, yeah,
Speaker 3: people and people who are around being close to the work,
Speaker 3: you know, as we're doing the work you know that happened.
Speaker 1: You know, people cry when we're in the air.
Speaker 3: People are crying when we're doing some of the you know,
Speaker 3: putting music onto certain parts. People are emotional just all
Speaker 3: the way through the process. There are different people in
Speaker 3: the editorial and the different departments who see the film,
Speaker 3: but I'm I don't.
Speaker 1: Know why I'm never one of them, you know, I never.
Speaker 3: It's not it's it's very sort of there's something I
Speaker 3: think quite analytical, like I notice how people are responding
Speaker 3: and and I'm engaged with that response, you know, the
Speaker 3: response to the to the film, but it's not something
Speaker 3: that I let myself do in a way. It's sort
Speaker 3: of there's something there's a sort of strange distance to
Speaker 3: that emotionally. I think it's because you know, there's a
Speaker 3: kind of personal math that I feel like once you
Speaker 3: open it becomes very difficult to operate a certain a
Speaker 3: certain way, and once you sort of start to let
Speaker 3: in a lot of personal emotions into something. I feel
Speaker 3: like I'm the sort of person that once I start
Speaker 3: to do that, that will be very I just will
Speaker 3: struggle to kind of function in the way that I
Speaker 3: want to.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, that makes sense to me if I
Speaker 2: may ask maybe too personal, as in I asked this
Speaker 2: because I'm the opposite. Like I don't cry in life,
Speaker 2: but I do cry films, and I sometimes think that's
Speaker 2: sort of where I go to get it out, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean? Like, yeah, but if you don't
Speaker 2: cry in films, do you cry in life? Where you
Speaker 2: just not cry anyway? No, No, I do cry in life.
Speaker 3: There are definitely moments where where you know that I
Speaker 3: feel that, you know, in those kind of interpersonal spaces
Speaker 3: and those sorts of dynamics that healthy most definitely moved
Speaker 3: me exactly, the definitely moved me to tears. But it's
Speaker 3: it's it's on the whole, not something that I find
Speaker 3: in the work.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Interesting, what's about being scared? What's the film that scared
Speaker 2: you the most? And do you being scared?
Speaker 3: Nightmare and Elm Street Nightmare arm Straight was was the film?
Speaker 3: And I was young as well, I mean I was
Speaker 3: too young, too young to be Yeah, when it came out,
Speaker 3: I don't know what year was it. Yeah, it was
Speaker 3: under ten, under ten, oh shit, yeah, And I think
Speaker 3: and I don't know how we even got hold. I
Speaker 3: mean it must have been in the house and you know,
Speaker 3: I mean just like put it in these you.
Speaker 1: Know, an older brother, you know, my older brother probably
Speaker 1: put it in.
Speaker 3: And but I just remember being I mean still you know,
Speaker 3: Robert England as Freddy Krueger. You know, it's it's still
Speaker 3: such a fascinating I do think about. I don't watch
Speaker 3: scary films that much, you know, just generally.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I don't.
Speaker 3: It's not a feeling that I respond to that well.
Speaker 3: You know, I know people, some people like get a
Speaker 3: real kick out of it and really engaged with it,
Speaker 3: which is why it's a big thing. I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: not saying anything that people don't know. You know, some
Speaker 3: people enjoy horror movies. But yeah, for me, just that
Speaker 3: feeling I don't engage with that much. But I think
Speaker 3: it's from that time because I was really terrified by
Speaker 3: that film.
Speaker 1: Really wow, it's such a brilliant horror film.
Speaker 2: You've never done one, have you? Forgive me if I've
Speaker 2: got that wrong.
Speaker 3: Not really, I don't think I've done anything that I
Speaker 3: would describe as a straight horror film in that genre. No,
Speaker 3: like in the sort of genre of horror. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's something that would be interesting to do you know
Speaker 3: from that other side, you know, just to kind of
Speaker 3: understand the mechanics of it. But but yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, what is the film that you love? It
Speaker 2: is critically not acclaimed, but you love it unconditionally.
Speaker 1: You don't care what anyone says.
Speaker 3: A film that I think, you know, was just didn't
Speaker 3: get a lot of love, but I think people want
Speaker 3: to see it.
Speaker 1: Was the last action hero, which is the Nie Arnie
Speaker 1: grat Yeah, that did not get And I just think.
Speaker 3: It's just everything about that film I just thought was brilliant,
Speaker 3: even the kind of way that it was marketed.
Speaker 1: I remember the press.
Speaker 3: I don't know where this was, you know, but there
Speaker 3: was the kind of when Arnie's talking about playing Hamlet
Speaker 3: when he sort of says, I'm actually thinking is it
Speaker 3: in the film.
Speaker 2: Or is it part of the press package? Anyway, I
Speaker 2: think it's it's in the film. You see like a
Speaker 2: clip as.
Speaker 3: A clip of him doing this thing where he talks
Speaker 3: about being all my career people told me I wouldn't
Speaker 3: play Shakespeare, and here I have.
Speaker 1: Like Shakespeare is that to be or not to be?
Speaker 1: Not to be? And everything blows up around me.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like I mean, I love the.
Speaker 3: I just think the film is kind of brilliant, sort
Speaker 3: of just the kind of genius film and Charles Dance fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just like.
Speaker 2: It's also way ahead of its time. I think it
Speaker 2: was very meta and all that and now things like that.
Speaker 1: I think it was. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I think it was. Yeah, great, brilliant, brilliant,
Speaker 1: brilliant film.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen it from you haven't seen it for
Speaker 3: a while, so it's it's rewatch.
Speaker 2: But I've probably riddled with problems. But for now that's perfect.
Speaker 2: Let me have the memory. Yeah, Well, what about on
Speaker 2: that subject, a film that you used to love but
Speaker 2: you've watched recently and you've gone, oh, I don't like
Speaker 2: this anymore. And it might because the film it maybe
Speaker 2: you've changed anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know, and this is absolutely not
Speaker 3: and I know probably everybody who answers this question probably
Speaker 3: there's a full disclaimer that this is not about the filmmaker,
Speaker 3: This is not about the Yeah, and all of that's true,
Speaker 3: you know, because I am a big, big fan of
Speaker 3: Dave Fincher, and but.
Speaker 1: As I really you know, coming back.
Speaker 3: To Fight Club, it's very interesting and it's and I
Speaker 3: probably wouldn't be the first person that says it. It's
Speaker 3: a very interesting thing to come back to a film
Speaker 3: that at the time felt like it was really sitting
Speaker 3: in a certain mindset that was very exciting and very
Speaker 3: kind of had a real sort of a sort of
Speaker 3: a masculine diy animism to it, but not problematic in
Speaker 3: certain ways, even though they're literally blowing up the world.
Speaker 3: But it's kind of there's sort of something fun about that,
Speaker 3: and there's something kind of cool, you know, and there's
Speaker 3: a and the Durden character, Tyler Durden, and this kind
Speaker 3: of coolness and this sort of wanting to be him
Speaker 3: and this that the character was reflecting on. And of course, intellectually,
Speaker 3: you know, you can come back and say, oh, I
Speaker 3: see Fight Club for what it is, which is a
Speaker 3: critique of this sort of you know, right wing in
Speaker 3: cell masculinity that's very sort of problematic masculinity. But it
Speaker 3: didn't feel like that necessarily at the time, and it
Speaker 3: wasn't marketed like that, and you know, it didn't sit
Speaker 3: in the zeitgeist quite like that.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, coming back to that film.
Speaker 3: I do feel it like it's sort of the sort
Speaker 3: of problematic nature of it weighs on me much more.
Speaker 3: You know, what it's messaging is kind of is complicated
Speaker 3: for me in a way that that means I struggle
Speaker 3: to watch it without amount of discomfort. Actually, yeah, as
Speaker 3: a film, and it's strange because when I came out,
Speaker 3: I just I thought it was brilliant, you know, I
Speaker 3: loved it.
Speaker 2: I'm always curious and you, as an artist, I wonder
Speaker 2: if you Often people will go like, you know, I
Speaker 2: make the thing and I put it in the world,
Speaker 2: and how people interpret it is up to them, and like,
Speaker 2: that's great and that's what art is. But if your film,
Speaker 2: if in your heart you're like, I've made this cool satire,
Speaker 2: but then it is embraced by it in a theoretical thing,
Speaker 2: not fight club anything else, embraced by Nazis, and they
Speaker 2: use it as an emblem or something. Would you come
Speaker 2: out and go, hey, guys, I didn't mean that. This
Speaker 2: is definitely not what this film was going to be,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It's yeah, but the problem
Speaker 2: is it's too late, you know it is. The film
Speaker 2: will tell you what the film is, you know, the
Speaker 2: film will tell you and the audiences will tell you
Speaker 2: what your film is. And if you meant something completely
Speaker 2: different than that, is you know something that you that
Speaker 2: is a course correction that you probably need to make
Speaker 2: for your next film, You know what I mean, Like
Speaker 2: because your.
Speaker 1: Film this swastick is out, take the really forget rid
Speaker 1: of it not working the last you know that?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's down to you. The film
Speaker 3: is going to it's going to do what it's going
Speaker 3: to do. It's like a piece of music or anything else.
Speaker 3: It's going to be what it's going to be, and
Speaker 3: people are going to see it for what it is
Speaker 3: in its own way. So I think that I don't
Speaker 3: know if you can quite sit behind that in a sense.
Speaker 2: What is the film that means the most to you?
Speaker 2: Not necessarily the film itself is any good, but the
Speaker 2: experience you had around seeing that film will always make
Speaker 2: it meaningful to you.
Speaker 3: I remember seeing The Golden Child in Ilford in the
Speaker 3: Ilford Cinema in East London in like the eighties, and
Speaker 3: I think came out like eighty six eighty seven, and
Speaker 3: and it was a family outing, my family altogether, and
Speaker 3: we went to see it. We lived in East London then,
Speaker 3: and I remember the que was around the block, like
Speaker 3: way way down the street to get in to see
Speaker 3: the film. And I mean, I think what struck me
Speaker 3: about that was it was one of the last memories
Speaker 3: that I had of us, you know, just my father
Speaker 3: passed away when when I was young and he was young,
Speaker 3: and so it was one of the last memories that
Speaker 3: I had of us as a family. And also just
Speaker 3: being struck again by the sense of the importance I suppose,
Speaker 3: or the kind of impact of cinema, of just what
Speaker 3: all of these people were doing and why all these
Speaker 3: people were crowding to get into this place and why
Speaker 3: everybody was super excited. And actually that film in its
Speaker 3: own way could go on the other list as well,
Speaker 3: the films that are kind of not you know, not
Speaker 3: that well but I totally get a kick out of
Speaker 3: and really, really, you know, I won't deny, you know,
Speaker 3: Eddie mus just being brilliant. And yeah, so I think
Speaker 3: for those reasons, it's when you know, thinking about my
Speaker 3: all of my experiences in cinemas, with all of my
Speaker 3: experience going to cinema, it's sort of centers on that
Speaker 3: one that one evening and again just a memory seared
Speaker 3: into mind and you.
Speaker 1: All loved it like it was a night you all
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. Yeah, yeah, we all had a blast.
Speaker 3: I mean there was no way that we weren't going
Speaker 3: to have fun, you know, and to have fun together
Speaker 3: and have fun as a family.
Speaker 1: So it was a magical evening. Sorry. The Golden Child
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Perfect answer, you get ten points. What is the film
Speaker 2: you most relate to?
Speaker 3: So, yeah, it's such an interesting question about how my
Speaker 3: relationship to film in that way, about what I relate
Speaker 3: to or how I where I see myself in film.
Speaker 3: But you know, Lynch, David Lynch made the film The
Speaker 3: Elephant Man, obviously about about the Elephant Man, about John
Speaker 3: or Joseph Merrick, and the film is brilliant and everybody
Speaker 3: loves the film, obviously. And I don't say this to
Speaker 3: feel like, oh, and I see myself in this kind
Speaker 3: of way, you know, in this sort of Joseph Merrick way.
Speaker 3: He had a very specific journey and a very specific relationship.
Speaker 1: To the world.
Speaker 3: But the reason why The Elephant Man comes to mind
Speaker 3: for me is because I see myself in both those
Speaker 3: roles at different times. You know, I see myself as
Speaker 3: Frederick Treves, you know, the doctor, the kind of you know,
Speaker 3: a sort of empathetic, sensible person who engages with the
Speaker 3: world in a certain way, maybe a little aloof at times,
Speaker 3: a little bit distance at times, you know, needing to
Speaker 3: get a kind of kick into a kind of emotional
Speaker 3: gear perhaps, But I also see myself in with the
Speaker 3: hurt sometimes and the vulnerability, and this desire to be
Speaker 3: engaged with him, to be loved in a certain way
Speaker 3: of Joseph Merrick, you know, I've n and so it's
Speaker 3: fascinating to me when I watched that film and I
Speaker 3: and I actually I watched it fairly recently, you know,
Speaker 3: any couple of maybe too to a couple of Christmases. Again,
Speaker 3: I was so struck by how rare it is to
Speaker 3: be sitting in a you know, watching a film and
Speaker 3: in the scene both the characters that are engaged in
Speaker 3: the scene are both people that you feel that somehow
Speaker 3: represent your own experiences in the world, you know, just
Speaker 3: sort of very clearly, and sometimes the sort of struggles
Speaker 3: that you have, and you know, and in a way
Speaker 3: it's Frederick Treves's struggles that are the adopted trees and
Speaker 3: struggles that are the most like the sort of internal
Speaker 3: struggle of personality, you know, whereas Joseph America is in
Speaker 3: a way trying to change.
Speaker 1: The world around him, you know.
Speaker 3: And yet maybe we all have that balance to strike,
Speaker 3: you know, that we all feel that the ways of
Speaker 3: ways in which we affect the world positively and negatively,
Speaker 3: and the way we want change in the world to
Speaker 3: allow us to are the better versions of ourselves, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's it's also like America is the actor
Speaker 2: trace as the director.
Speaker 1: It's you.
Speaker 2: It's your two professional sides as well, and that and
Speaker 2: the director is being empathetic to the actors, but he's
Speaker 2: also moving them, manipulating them, making the thing happen. And
Speaker 2: then the actor is this wounded love child for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think that's really interesting because that
Speaker 3: relationship of the doctor, the position of somebody who knows
Speaker 3: is very reflective of the kind of position sometimes as
Speaker 3: a director or as a writer, but somebody who understands
Speaker 3: the fuller picture, you know, and the doctor, you know,
Speaker 3: doctors kind of embrace that energy a lot, you know.
Speaker 3: And then and the and the actor sort of wanting
Speaker 3: to understand like what does this all mean? You know,
Speaker 3: and that sort of vulnerability, and you know, besides those things,
Speaker 3: you know that that film has these two unbelievable performances.
Speaker 3: I mean beautifully directed, but absolutely you know, just so
Speaker 3: so clean, Like the performances are so clean, they're so clear.
Speaker 3: It's of crystal clear and unencumbered brilliant actors. Very difficult
Speaker 3: to do to achieve that film.
Speaker 2: I think, have you read David Lynch's book A Room
Speaker 2: to Dream? Is like it's like semi memoirs where it's
Speaker 2: like half a half a biography someone's written. So someone
Speaker 2: writes a chapter about him and then he writes his
Speaker 2: memories of it. And when he talks about Elephant Man,
Speaker 2: he went to London and everyone was very wary of
Speaker 2: him because he was a young he was only he's
Speaker 2: very young, and he was American and he'd never been
Speaker 2: to England. They're like, what the fuck is he doing?
Speaker 2: And he says, he went for a walk and he
Speaker 2: went down it was like in Soho or something, and
Speaker 2: he went down a cobbled street and he closed his
Speaker 2: eyes and he felt a wind go through him and
Speaker 2: suddenly he felt imbued with the Victorian London. And then
Speaker 2: he made that film. And you look at that film
Speaker 2: and he goes, yeah, I believe you. I totally believe, but.
Speaker 3: It feels rich and it feels honest in a way
Speaker 3: that very few films of that time are, you know,
Speaker 3: and also it has you know that Victorian era had
Speaker 3: a certain kind of the epic quality of daily life,
Speaker 3: you know, was really reflected. You know, that there was
Speaker 3: a sense of kind of just elevation and engagement with
Speaker 3: the world that was that was pretty special, I think,
Speaker 3: you know, because I guess the country at that point
Speaker 3: was in this very unique place in terms of how
Speaker 3: the amount that it was able to dominate so much
Speaker 3: of the globe and so much of the commerce of
Speaker 3: the world, and I think it was kind of reflected
Speaker 3: in a lot of the people and a lot of
Speaker 3: the kind of ideas, but also in a lot of
Speaker 3: the kind of cruelty and a lot of the kind
Speaker 3: of dismissal, a lot of a way in which other
Speaker 3: people or the sort of non perfect you know in
Speaker 3: verty comments were treated and sort of so a very
Speaker 3: interesting space I think, you know, coming out of you know,
Speaker 3: the other part of English is you know, sort of
Speaker 3: regency period, you know, which was very very different, you know,
Speaker 3: very kind of alive, not this sort of tight moralistic framework,
Speaker 3: but this very sort of looche idea, you know, of
Speaker 3: what life should be.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, interesting, what is the sexiest film you've ever seen?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: It's it's very interesting because obviously, in terms of the
Speaker 3: sexiest film, it becomes about what you're like.
Speaker 1: It's a very revealing it's a very revealing.
Speaker 3: Question in its own way, you know, and so you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: this is but I think if I'm honest about what
Speaker 3: is sexy, it's I think it's like that element of
Speaker 3: what is danger like in cinema.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's that element of what is.
Speaker 3: Dangerous, you know, that that makes a film sexy, you know,
Speaker 3: and obviously that can go to the very extreme of
Speaker 3: kind of basic instinct and that sort of farm which,
Speaker 3: although is a kind of classic, doesn't necessarily feel sexy
Speaker 3: in a way. But I feel like the film that
Speaker 3: captured that the most for me, the dangers sexy in
Speaker 3: that sense of danger is to Die for. Oh that's great?
Speaker 3: Was the was Nicole Kidman and great? Yeah, it's never
Speaker 3: come up on it. Yeah, that's a great shot. That
Speaker 3: was like whacking Phoenix's Yeah, yeah exactly, and Nicole Kim
Speaker 3: and just that, you know, obviously, this incredible performance by
Speaker 3: Nicole Kimmen.
Speaker 1: But also this very dangerously.
Speaker 3: Sexy you feel whacking Phoenix getting drawn into this net
Speaker 3: with this, you know, in that kind of way that
Speaker 3: body heat sort of captures a bit of that element.
Speaker 1: But in a way this is even sexy to me, buddy.
Speaker 3: He pushes the idea of sexists and this is just
Speaker 3: being being unable to just break any of that sort
Speaker 3: of magnetic pull, you know that. I feel like we've
Speaker 3: all we've all felt in some way, you know, to somebody,
Speaker 3: and and it's not been kind of as the sort
Speaker 3: of extreme sort of version you know, in the Dripping
Speaker 3: Button and I think it's New Orleans the body set
Speaker 3: or somewhere like that, you know, that sort of sexiness,
Speaker 3: you know, but it's this is much more commonplace feeling
Speaker 3: of just desire, you know, I mean, just like and
Speaker 3: and really really good, believable and it's yeah, so I
Speaker 3: think that's a really good film.
Speaker 2: There's a sub category if you think that was revealing.
Speaker 2: The subcategory is traveling boner is worrying. Why does film
Speaker 2: founder housing You weren't sure you should?
Speaker 1: I'm quite sure.
Speaker 3: Well, so again this is kind of an interesting so,
Speaker 3: I you know, I think for me, like, I think
Speaker 3: of that of that kind of in the sort of,
Speaker 3: you know, what's the dynamic of the relationship and the
Speaker 3: sort of leaving Las Vegas kind of way, you know
Speaker 3: that I feel like is that I kind of, you know,
Speaker 3: just am I allowed to participate in what this character
Speaker 3: is participating in in terms of the sex scene of
Speaker 3: what's happening. But I think what it really evokes for
Speaker 3: me is a kind of slightly more complex, slightly stranger
Speaker 3: conversation that I was having around sexuality and sexiness in
Speaker 3: film and politics, you know just what. I was discussing
Speaker 3: this with a friend of mine, you know, not recently,
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, a while ago, but we were
Speaker 3: talking about Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. And again,
Speaker 3: I don't know if this is something that people have
Speaker 3: spoken about.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's been kind of talked about.
Speaker 3: But the film centers on this love triangle, you know,
Speaker 3: and and it's you know, Sean Connory, Harrison Ford and
Speaker 3: this girl who is a Nazi you know, and is sexy,
Speaker 3: you know, and the and the and the plot hinges
Speaker 3: on the plot and the dynamics hinge on their sexual
Speaker 3: attraction to her, and by extension are the audience's sexual attraction,
Speaker 3: you know, and because we're invested or who's going to
Speaker 3: get the girl? You know, who's going to get? Yeah, like,
Speaker 3: how's this going to work out?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And that's our and we're not sort of horrified by this,
Speaker 3: you know, in the film, that's advice us to be horrified.
Speaker 1: We're invested, you know, and then.
Speaker 3: You sort of again it's that thing where you sit
Speaker 3: back on those questions later on and you're like, look,
Speaker 3: these are undeniably brilliant films. These a great performances. He's amazing,
Speaker 3: But when you're dealing with something is sort of volatile
Speaker 3: as sexiness, and maybe they're slightly you know, maybe we
Speaker 3: do need to look at like the eighties and nineties
Speaker 3: and at unreconstructed times, you know, because maybe certain things
Speaker 3: we didn't we didn't necessarily culturally.
Speaker 1: We weren't as aware of just how tricky this stuff is.
Speaker 3: You know that that if films I films push certain
Speaker 3: things and obviously these aren't the intentions of the filmmakers,
Speaker 3: you know, in any way, but it's something is pushed
Speaker 3: in a certain way. How is that entirely received, you
Speaker 3: know by the audience? How is that entirely received by
Speaker 3: young people? They're young guys, you know how what is there?
Speaker 3: So that's something that I think is something that I
Speaker 3: feel like retrospectively, at the time, you enjoy the sexiness,
Speaker 3: you enjoy the sexiness of that triangle. It's only later
Speaker 3: on that I don't know if I should have been
Speaker 3: feeling all of these things.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a.
Speaker 3: Really good sure and should have walked away.
Speaker 2: What is objectively the greatest film of all time might
Speaker 2: not be your favorite, but it is the pinnacle of cinema.
Speaker 1: Well for me it is.
Speaker 3: You know, I think that there's so much in the
Speaker 3: kind of humanistic approach to cinema which I think is
Speaker 3: really important and I try to make in my films.
Speaker 3: You know that that is the sort of that I'm
Speaker 3: that I'm most engaged with. The film that I think
Speaker 3: rises to the sort of height of that is Bicycle
Speaker 3: Thieves or the Bicycle Fees, the Bicycle Thief The Seekers
Speaker 3: from nineteen forty eight's, I think, in that kind of
Speaker 3: postwar Italian era, it is the best film that I
Speaker 3: can think of that depicts this idea of poverty and
Speaker 3: the personal moral ethical choices that people are faced with
Speaker 3: in these very complex and systemically difficult circumstances, and it's
Speaker 3: so humane, you know, and its heart is so firmly
Speaker 3: with this family that by the end of the film
Speaker 3: that it'll spoiler love for those I haven't seen it,
Speaker 3: but it was made in nineteen forty eight, so but
Speaker 3: you know, for him, as he when he steals the
Speaker 3: bicycle at the end, this idea that just this collapsing.
Speaker 3: And it's not really his action that yours sort of
Speaker 3: decimated by. It's the face of his son, Bruno, seeing
Speaker 3: his father's father the hero stealing and then getting jumped
Speaker 3: and sort of beaten up by everybody, you know, who
Speaker 3: to kind of just call him a regular thief, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's heartbreaking and it's beautiful. And I saw it.
Speaker 3: I happened to see it at the Lemley on Wiltshire
Speaker 3: Boulevard for the first time, and this was only fifteen
Speaker 3: years ago or something, and I hadn't seen it before.
Speaker 3: And I remember coming out of the cinema and you know,
Speaker 3: I've only done this with one other film where I've
Speaker 3: gone out of the cinema and bought the ticket for
Speaker 3: the next literally just come out to the desk and
Speaker 3: gone in and it was and it was one of them.
Speaker 1: Was the other way.
Speaker 3: The other one was actually it was Werner Hertzel's remake
Speaker 3: with Nicholas Cage, which I just, you know, completely different
Speaker 3: movie as a Chinese man in Hollywood, and it just
Speaker 3: sort of captured me in this. Yeah, I was really
Speaker 3: stunned by it, and I think in a way I
Speaker 3: was trying to also just completely continue to sort of
Speaker 3: understand the film. I was still so in the film
Speaker 3: that I just needed to go back into that world
Speaker 3: immediately again. And you know, I've seen films over periods
Speaker 3: of time, even short periods of time, more than once,
Speaker 3: but those are the two films that I've actually come
Speaker 3: out of the cinema to buy another ticket to go
Speaker 3: back in.
Speaker 1: That's cool.
Speaker 2: What is the film you could or have watched the
Speaker 2: most over and over again?
Speaker 3: Well, I would say that the film that I suppose
Speaker 3: it's split, really the films that I would watch whenever
Speaker 3: wherever are Predator and Aliens.
Speaker 1: You know, like I think that those are just separate,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly separately. You like them separate, Okay, but.
Speaker 3: I hadn't even thought about that, but that's exactly right. Yeah,
Speaker 3: two as individuals. I think Aliens the Camera and Aliens,
Speaker 3: Citquel and and Predator the first one.
Speaker 1: I just think they're just perfect, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know you can throw and die hard
Speaker 3: into that part as well, but it's you know, I
Speaker 3: just think that there's a certain that they kind of got.
Speaker 1: That energy totally right for just repeat viewing. You know.
Speaker 3: I think when I was growing up, we knew every
Speaker 3: me and some friends Mike, and we knew every line
Speaker 3: of Aliens, like every single line. And the game would
Speaker 3: be you say the line, and some of the other
Speaker 3: persons say the line before and the line after, and
Speaker 3: and it became so so of esoteric that it would
Speaker 3: be like people like, okay.
Speaker 1: That's when.
Speaker 3: Great or you know, it was like really down to
Speaker 3: you know, we knew the film back.
Speaker 1: Is it still in there? Defeat? I mean not, not.
Speaker 3: Not quite to that, you know, but the but I
Speaker 3: definitely it wouldn't take much for me to be you know,
Speaker 3: it would be my university challenge or mastermind, you know,
Speaker 3: would be Aliens.
Speaker 1: You but those are films that I could watch.
Speaker 2: Whilst still being a lovely man. What is the worst
Speaker 2: film you've ever seen?
Speaker 3: So again, all the disclaimers, you know, because this is
Speaker 3: a filmmaker who I absolutely think is completely brilliant, and
Speaker 3: you know, down by Law, Broken Flowers, Ghost Dog.
Speaker 1: Obviously is extraordinary.
Speaker 3: I love Patterson. Recently, I loved Only Lovers Left Alive.
Speaker 3: So this is in no way a comment.
Speaker 1: On Jim Jummies.
Speaker 3: But when I and it may also just be that
Speaker 3: where I was just the space that I was, because
Speaker 3: even the actors in this film, Isaac banc Is in
Speaker 3: the film that I'm about to talking about, and I
Speaker 3: love Isaac the bancal, you know that as an actor.
Speaker 1: But Limits of Control.
Speaker 3: I saw it at in the Angelica Theater in New York,
Speaker 3: and for some reason, you know, it just the chemistry
Speaker 3: of it just did not sit with me in this
Speaker 3: moment at all. And you know that, and I guess
Speaker 3: that that happens, and it's not a but it's not
Speaker 3: a feeling that I've had in the cinema that much.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously we've all had films that we don't engage.
Speaker 1: With or we don't you know, we don't like or whatever.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't really that necessarily, it was something sort
Speaker 3: of slightly more visceral, is the kind of reaction to
Speaker 3: the film and I and I've heard other people talk
Speaker 3: about other movies, in fact, some movies that I've liked.
Speaker 3: People some people talk about Tree of Life in this way,
Speaker 3: you know. And I really engaged with Three of Life
Speaker 3: and I saw it in this and I thought it
Speaker 3: was a beautiful film. But I know people who had
Speaker 3: this kind of similar reaction to Tree of Life that
Speaker 3: I had experienced only once with limits of control. And
Speaker 3: I was on my own, so it wasn't like I
Speaker 3: was sort of influenced by other people.
Speaker 1: But I came out of that experience and I was
Speaker 1: just like, I don't know what's happened, but I feel
Speaker 1: like that was not like that.
Speaker 3: There's something that I've kind of that I need to
Speaker 3: reflect on about what is what has gone on in
Speaker 3: this last this last two hours, and maybe and I
Speaker 3: also can see that that might be the sign of
Speaker 3: a filmmaker doing something absolutely brilliant, you know, that allows
Speaker 3: an audience, allows an audience member, me in this case,
Speaker 3: to have this completely visceral reaction to this, to this,
Speaker 3: to this film that I just have not had with
Speaker 3: anything else.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's a very good What's the film that made
Speaker 1: you laugh? The most. I fucking love.
Speaker 2: That is a great film I.
Speaker 1: Mean to have.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's just so rare to have
Speaker 3: two geniuses in a movie, you know, like given full weight,
Speaker 3: but felt both geniuses given full weight and full kind
Speaker 3: of you know, they're both the lead in a way.
Speaker 3: You know, obviously technically Steve Martin, but you know, but
Speaker 3: Eddie's Eddie Murphy's got both those characters, and it's just
Speaker 3: so it's it's.
Speaker 1: So balanced, like how they are completely and they are.
Speaker 3: Both hilarious in the film, and the script is and
Speaker 3: the premise.
Speaker 1: You know, just everything about the film. It's just like
Speaker 1: so great, Chubby Rain, You're just like.
Speaker 3: Everything, every sort of detail of the film suckers.
Speaker 1: I say that every day.
Speaker 3: And Terrence Stamp probably brilliant keep it together.
Speaker 2: Just my god, you have been absolutely brilliant. What's a tree? However,
Speaker 2: when you were deep into your nineties, you were ninety seven,
Speaker 2: and you've gone to New York, You've been working. You
Speaker 2: didn't stop. You never stopped. You're always making stuff whatever
Speaker 2: whenever the instinct took you and making stuff. Continue to
Speaker 2: make amazing stuff. But you think, you know what, I
Speaker 2: should have a weekend off you take yourself to New York.
Speaker 2: You've got You've got people around me, like, I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna go for a walk, and they go, it's cold out,
Speaker 2: you know, it's cold. It's really cold. And you go, hey,
Speaker 2: i'm cool, I'm fit. And you go for a walk
Speaker 2: and you walk here there, and I'm it pace it
Speaker 2: quite fast, really in good shape, and a stalk tight
Speaker 2: from really hot from one of the skyscrapers just cracks
Speaker 2: off and it's moving as you almost step into it,
Speaker 2: and it steps in there, goes right through your scale,
Speaker 2: splits your head open, like the like the T one
Speaker 2: thousand and terminator two, and you collapse on the floor.
Speaker 2: And I'm walking past with a coffin, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm like, And I'm like, is that tutor split in two?
Speaker 2: And people go, yeah, yeah, he's ninety seven. He's just
Speaker 2: wondering about this in this weather. And they go, he's mad.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 2: We come over and go, I don't know how we're
Speaker 2: going to get this in the corn because you're split
Speaker 2: in two. Anyone got any axes we get makes me
Speaker 2: chop you up, chop you up, chop you up, put
Speaker 2: you in the coffin, We stuff you in the coffin.
Speaker 2: But there's more of you now I was expecting, what
Speaker 2: with all the ice and ship. There's no room in
Speaker 2: this coffin. There's only enough room in this coffin to
Speaker 2: slip one DVD into the side for you to take
Speaker 2: across to the other side. And on the other side,
Speaker 2: it's movie night every night. What film are you taking
Speaker 2: to the people of heaven when it is your movie
Speaker 2: night to as you for.
Speaker 1: Go, it's very difficult. I would take Decalogue.
Speaker 3: I would take that might be a cheek because it's
Speaker 3: it's a little bit of a box set, but.
Speaker 1: It's been one DBD booklet.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, we've technology and get it all onto one
Speaker 2: disc Okay.
Speaker 3: If I wasn't allowed that, I would probably take Sandsle
Speaker 3: by Chris Marker. But the decologue I think is well,
Speaker 3: you know because in Heaven, of course they probably want
Speaker 3: to reflect on the ten Commandments.
Speaker 1: And it's gonna be a long night.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's a long movie, a ten hour
Speaker 3: movie night. But I think it's just a brilliant, just
Speaker 3: a brilliant achievement like Keslawski and.
Speaker 1: You know, it gets it gets love, you know, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong.
Speaker 3: It gets love, but it doesn't necessarily get the kind
Speaker 3: of love that I think it deserves, you know, on
Speaker 3: a just a you know, on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: I just think that to.
Speaker 3: Create what he did and with those parameters, just in
Speaker 3: one block of housing, you know, to try and tell
Speaker 3: ten stories, and that's what you come up with as
Speaker 3: the ten stories reflecting the ten Commandments. Absolutely brilliant, talking
Speaker 3: about you know, humanism, talking about all of the kind
Speaker 3: of aspects of our social interaction and emotional interaction.
Speaker 1: You know, it just doesn't get better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Is that anything you would like to tell people
Speaker 2: to watch or to look out for in the coming
Speaker 2: months that you have made well?
Speaker 3: Of course, you know, I would love people to check
Speaker 3: out my film.
Speaker 2: Is it coming out in England this week? When does
Speaker 2: it out? It's this week, right, it's out soon. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure.
Speaker 3: It's out in the States on August sixteenth, and then
Speaker 3: it's here a tiny bit later, but I think so
Speaker 3: it's just to be looked out for over.
Speaker 1: The fall a Sason, but it's don't go watch out soon.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I've loved this. Thank you, this
Speaker 2: has been brilliant. I hope you have a lovely death,
Speaker 2: good day.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So that was episode three hundred and ten.
Speaker 2: Head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com forwards
Speaker 2: last Bret old Soon for the extra secret chats and
Speaker 2: video with Chewtail with you for go to Apple Podcast.
Speaker 2: Give us a five star rating. But right about the
Speaker 2: film that means the most of you and why it's
Speaker 2: a lovely thing to read. My naby more and loves
Speaker 2: it helps with numbers of amazing grammar week and we
Speaker 2: really appreciate it. Thank you so much the Churytale for
Speaker 2: giving me his time, Thanks to Scruby's pip and the
Speaker 2: distraction pieces of Network. Thanks to Buddy Peace for producing it.
Speaker 2: Thanks to iHeartMedia and Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network
Speaker 2: posting it. Thanks Adam Richardson for the graphics at least
Speaker 2: the lighting for the photography. Come and join me in
Speaker 2: a week for another incredible episode with an amazing guest.
Speaker 2: I hope you're all well. I really appreciate you listening.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, and I hope all is good.
Speaker 2: That is it for now. In the meantime, have a
Speaker 2: lovely week, and please now more than ever, be excellent
Speaker 2: to each other.