Speaker 1: I came dressed as Lady Diana. I just say, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought there was a sort of demure innocence about
Speaker 1: you when you came in. It was so funny. My
Speaker 1: friend was at my house and she was like, why
Speaker 1: are you wearing a Victorian nighting out of the house?
Speaker 1: And I was like, all right, lots of people are
Speaker 1: wearing these and they're not people. Are there's those places haunted? Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to Many Questions Season two. I've
Speaker 1: always loved Pruce's questionnaire. It was originally an nineteenth century
Speaker 1: parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five
Speaker 1: questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature. It's
Speaker 1: just the scientific method really. In asking different people the
Speaker 1: same set of questions, you can make observations about which
Speaker 1: truths appear to me universal. I love this discipline and
Speaker 1: it made me wonder, what if these questions were just
Speaker 1: the jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed
Speaker 1: if I asked these questions as conversation starters with thought
Speaker 1: leaders and trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I
Speaker 1: adapted prus questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions
Speaker 1: that I personally think a pertinent to a person's story.
Speaker 1: They are When and where were you happiest? What is
Speaker 1: the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real
Speaker 1: or fictionalized, defind love for you? What question would you
Speaker 1: most like answered? What person, place, or experience has shaped
Speaker 1: you the most? What would be your last meal? And
Speaker 1: can you tell me something in your life that's grown
Speaker 1: out of a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group
Speaker 1: of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and
Speaker 1: humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You
Speaker 1: may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions.
Speaker 1: We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to
Speaker 1: their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most
Speaker 1: fertile ground to connect. My guest today is the actor, writer,
Speaker 1: and K pop lover Simon Peg. Simon is, by my estimation,
Speaker 1: a brilliant actor, and he loves a franchise. Star Trek,
Speaker 1: Mission Impossible and the Cornetto trilogy have all been made
Speaker 1: a million times more dynamic by having him in them.
Speaker 1: We were born a few days apart in the same year,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, and we have the exact same
Speaker 1: cultural references. So one of my favorite things to do
Speaker 1: is to name a TV show from when we were
Speaker 1: kids and to ask him to sing the theme tune,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't like He doesn't even have to think
Speaker 1: about it. He just knows every single song. And it's
Speaker 1: a talent that makes me wish we'd actually known each
Speaker 1: other when we were kids. He is a human jukebox.
Speaker 1: I could talk to Simon all day long. So I
Speaker 1: hope you really enjoy this episode. All right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ask you the first question. Now, this is it when
Speaker 1: and where were you happiest? And I thought about this,
Speaker 1: is there a particular time frame you have in mind
Speaker 1: in terms of like a moment of happiness, like a
Speaker 1: sort of brief moment of happiness, or a period of
Speaker 1: time where I maintained my happiness or that's a really
Speaker 1: good and annoying question of putting it back on me
Speaker 1: to qualify what I do think that it's I wonder
Speaker 1: if there is is there a period of your life
Speaker 1: that stands out, but there could also be I'm also
Speaker 1: interested in, like an aha moment of self awareness of
Speaker 1: being happy. I suppose being really connected consciously to that
Speaker 1: happy moment. I do have those occasionally, and when you
Speaker 1: suddenly become self aware of your own happiness because the
Speaker 1: happiness is a continuum. I've learned this over time, is
Speaker 1: that happiness is a continuum which includes despair and everything,
Speaker 1: you know, because you can't have happiness unless you experienced
Speaker 1: the other stuff as well, So you need those things
Speaker 1: as part of your happiness. It's like if you're on
Speaker 1: a skateboard and coasting its happiness, then the despair and
Speaker 1: misery and angst and fear, and that's your kicks, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're pushing along, and then you can coast for
Speaker 1: a while. And I guess the longest I've ever coasted
Speaker 1: would be you know what. I think back to the
Speaker 1: birth of my daughter, and I was actually in the
Speaker 1: midst of quite a crisis at that time personally, but
Speaker 1: I remember those four days in the hospital and at St.
Speaker 1: John's and Santa Monica, of being in that room with
Speaker 1: Maureen and just you know, having had the baby, and
Speaker 1: it was like a little I always accidentally call it
Speaker 1: the hotel when I tell this story, I say I'm
Speaker 1: in hospital because it was like, you know, Sag got
Speaker 1: it for us, obviously, because we were I was over
Speaker 1: there working and it was this lovely little room and
Speaker 1: we were like ordering pizza to the door. And it
Speaker 1: was the four She was born on the first of July,
Speaker 1: so we were still in there on the fourth. So
Speaker 1: I remember ordering in an Indian which you don't get
Speaker 1: the best curries in America, like we do not in
Speaker 1: not in a laser we the English do English. God
Speaker 1: the Empire current. But like sitting on the little window
Speaker 1: sill where I was sleeping and watching the fireworks and
Speaker 1: having this new little life. It was like a little
Speaker 1: bubble of happiness inside a period where I was very,
Speaker 1: very unhappy. I was in the midst of a kind
Speaker 1: of you know, depression, which I've since come out of,
Speaker 1: and I think the ten years following that have been
Speaker 1: very happy, with moments of awfulness within that peppered within, obviously,
Speaker 1: because you can't just be happy, no, And I completely
Speaker 1: agree about the contrast. You have to categorically have the
Speaker 1: contrast in order to experience happiness. I think we do
Speaker 1: really egregiously forget that it's thrown into relief by other
Speaker 1: harder times. Yeah, and I think it's impossible. It's a
Speaker 1: full sort of errand to try and be happy all
Speaker 1: the time, because if you're chasing that something, you'll never
Speaker 1: get it. But we're weirdly encouraged to do that. That's exactly.
Speaker 1: That's the sort of specious nature advertising and social media
Speaker 1: and this idea that there is an optimum happiness that
Speaker 1: other people or you, if you bought this, you would
Speaker 1: also be able to attain this. I mean that's sort
Speaker 1: of marketing in general, but social media has added another
Speaker 1: level of sort of skewed awfulness to the idea that
Speaker 1: everybody else is experiencing happiness while you are super glam.
Speaker 1: That's so true. And also social media has given us
Speaker 1: the capacity to fake our own happiness. Oh I constantly
Speaker 1: fake my happiness. So you look at your people, your
Speaker 1: friends social media, that such a great time, and here's
Speaker 1: me doing this and there's a selfie of this, But
Speaker 1: really it's a facade, it's a shop front. I don't
Speaker 1: you have looked, because I find that stories in Instagram
Speaker 1: actually more much clearer about my mental state than anything.
Speaker 1: But on the grid, the grid is just that sort
Speaker 1: of that is connected self promotion like that, but stories
Speaker 1: you're getting into the weeds and it will be like
Speaker 1: you know, lovely, lovely, lovely love fleet and then it
Speaker 1: will just be like a weird, awful sort of reminder
Speaker 1: of something like a piece of art and like hashtag
Speaker 1: hold on, which I did yesterday. It was really grim.
Speaker 1: It was like some John Lennon lyrics. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was written. I was like, Oh, that's that's the shadow.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like you've been overshared in that moment?
Speaker 1: Or I felt like I was like, do you know what?
Speaker 1: That balances it all out? That balances out real escape?
Speaker 1: But asked me for another week, everybody, I could pretend
Speaker 1: that for a week, I can carry on carry on faking.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's the new carry on film. I remember when
Speaker 1: I was a kid having moments of extreme excitement, like
Speaker 1: when I couldn't quite control myself because I was suddenly
Speaker 1: excited about Christmas or something or some TV show or something.
Speaker 1: And I still get that as an adult. Sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: at work, you know, when I'm doing something which I'm
Speaker 1: really loving, and I get that sense of like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I'm so lucky to be doing this job because it's
Speaker 1: like it brings me happiness. You know. It's like or
Speaker 1: I took Tilly to Olden Towers at the weekend, and
Speaker 1: that was one of those that was of unbridled happiness.
Speaker 1: That will you explain what Alton Towers is for our
Speaker 1: American listeners. Altern Towers is like our sort of six Flags,
Speaker 1: I guess our disney Land. It's more like six Place
Speaker 1: because it's roller coasters. It's just roller coasters. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they are a lot of a lot of puke. Weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: it's the old school fair ground rides that made me
Speaker 1: feel sick these days, the ones that go around and around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't do this. Roller coasters. I love them. And
Speaker 1: we went on everything and we it was me and
Speaker 1: Tillie and her friend Tessy, and we just had the
Speaker 1: best day. It was unbridled joy all day long. So
Speaker 1: maybe that is it. It's about the awareness of happiness,
Speaker 1: not the idea that it should be a continuum that's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: or that it is this goal that you have to
Speaker 1: arrive at, because that's also not possible, but rather in
Speaker 1: those moments, feeling that happiness incarnate as it were. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like suddenly being aware of the fact that you're happy.
Speaker 1: I think you can be happy, perfectly happy and not
Speaker 1: really think, oh I'm happy because you're just on a
Speaker 1: sort of whatever line of flight you're on, you're on
Speaker 1: it and you're not sort of thinking about it. But
Speaker 1: I do get moments now and again when I think, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm really happy today. Are there are places where you
Speaker 1: know that you are going to be happy? Like if
Speaker 1: I do this and I go here, I know I'm
Speaker 1: going to feel yes. Yeah, what is that? Capalonia which
Speaker 1: is an island in Greece where we've been pretty much
Speaker 1: every year for twenty years, my wife and I and
Speaker 1: you know, untiling after she was born. We have friends
Speaker 1: there that we love, Greek friends and we met there
Speaker 1: and who have become like our Greek family. They're so
Speaker 1: generous and I haven't paid for a drink sixteen years.
Speaker 1: As soon as they found out I was on the Telly,
Speaker 1: they were so impressed, even though they've never seen it
Speaker 1: and they didn't know who I was. They were like, oh,
Speaker 1: Simon's on the TV, and like they've got pictures of
Speaker 1: me all over the bar. It's hilarious. But I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a good job I don't rink because I'm cheap
Speaker 1: on a cheap day, because they just have to buy
Speaker 1: me sparkling water. But also that feeds into like the
Speaker 1: weird a normally of celebrity where you're finally actually earning
Speaker 1: proper money and then you stop having to pay for them. Yes,
Speaker 1: I had that. The other day. I had such a
Speaker 1: weird experience. I was on Dean Street and I I
Speaker 1: was getting some cash out and there was a girl
Speaker 1: sat by the cash machine and she was homeless. So
Speaker 1: I said, I'll buy some food, and she's like, cool,
Speaker 1: can you buy me a pizza? So I walked up
Speaker 1: the road to the pizza shop. The guy in the
Speaker 1: pizza shop recognized me and gave me the piece of
Speaker 1: free Oh my gosh, and I thought, wait, this is
Speaker 1: really confusing because I want to I kind of want
Speaker 1: to feel good about being altruistic here and buying someone
Speaker 1: a pizza. You are ruining my Snaritan moment by giving
Speaker 1: me free stuff, giving me free stuff when I don't
Speaker 1: need a free pizza, you know, even though it was
Speaker 1: a sweet thing to do on his behalf, so I
Speaker 1: kept it. So I so I ate it because it
Speaker 1: was what quality do you like least buy yourself apart
Speaker 1: from just physical things that you obviously have. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm very self critical and I'd like certain things to
Speaker 1: be different. Don't let your packs. Oh, I definitely like
Speaker 1: my pecks to be that. I want the square of pecks. Man,
Speaker 1: are two round minded too? Yeah? Two spherical? Um? I
Speaker 1: think I would. I wish I cared less about what
Speaker 1: people thought about me, you know what I mean? How
Speaker 1: do you know what they think about you? Or is
Speaker 1: that also created? I think I'm very eager to please generally,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's that's not that doesn't come from
Speaker 1: just being a performer who invariably requires some kind of
Speaker 1: external validation, you know, as I think most performers are seeking.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know why we act. Whether it's
Speaker 1: because we have the capacity to simulate real emotions and
Speaker 1: thus can do that and get paid, or is it
Speaker 1: because doing that brings us some kind of approval from
Speaker 1: somewhere or the people in front of which we are
Speaker 1: doing that. I don't know. What do you think? I
Speaker 1: think it's both, I do. I really think it comes
Speaker 1: from a fundamental schism as a person of being insecure
Speaker 1: and wanting approbation whilst also being a really good conduit
Speaker 1: and articulator of emotion. And then the luck comes in
Speaker 1: with being able to get paid to do something that's
Speaker 1: basically an insecurity he turned into something else. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you're right, it's not just being insecure. It is
Speaker 1: interesting that we're just hearing you say that, of going, well,
Speaker 1: how what is it we think they're thinking? Are they
Speaker 1: just judging us in our entirety? Are they judging our
Speaker 1: mental acuity? Are spiritual nurse like your hair, like the
Speaker 1: way that you cough a personal worth because it's really
Speaker 1: familiar to me. But I wonder, like, how do we
Speaker 1: come up with that? It feels like maybe a much
Speaker 1: younger person came up with that idea and then we
Speaker 1: just kept it around the wounded child. I think so
Speaker 1: instead of going all right, love, here's a band aid,
Speaker 1: set yourself down, I'm very much like to be liked,
Speaker 1: and I guess this comes from childhood stuff. Wanting to
Speaker 1: be liked by various adults in my life who who
Speaker 1: didn't like me, do you know what I mean, and
Speaker 1: trying really hard to make them like me. Did you
Speaker 1: ever give up? Did you ever try to make them
Speaker 1: like and then just go what fun? This isn't gonna work.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to pave it really hard into just
Speaker 1: something else. I think my taitle used to be just
Speaker 1: kill them with kindness and try not to do that
Speaker 1: and give them a reason to to double down on
Speaker 1: their sort of disdain. I'm talking about step parents basically,
Speaker 1: just so I didn't things just random adults that didn't
Speaker 1: like me. It's weird because those relationships improved eventually, but
Speaker 1: by the time they had improved, I was over fifteen.
Speaker 1: And all that stuff that is just cemented in your core.
Speaker 1: It calcifies between seven and yes, it concrete ez is,
Speaker 1: but it's weird how we then carry those around like
Speaker 1: an albatross, and I still listen to narratives that I
Speaker 1: know we're written and recorded by a much younger version
Speaker 1: of myself, and I shouldn't be responsible for that stuff anymore.
Speaker 1: And also, it's funny, isn't it. Like the echo chamber.
Speaker 1: It's a little core program that you can't quite rewrite
Speaker 1: unless you really get into it with someone. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about therapy and kind of unpick it all.
Speaker 1: But even then it's buried somewhere deeper than you can excavate.
Speaker 1: And that's actually really interesting. I just said this to
Speaker 1: the miraculous Elizabeth Day. We had a lunch together that's
Speaker 1: why it's so nice to see you after we made
Speaker 1: our film. I love seeing people that I've met in
Speaker 1: a professional capacity and then you see them outside of that,
Speaker 1: because it feels like your friendship has legs. And I
Speaker 1: was like, why is it so difficult to know what
Speaker 1: you know? And she knew exactly what I meant, which was,
Speaker 1: you know you I wrote a book about things not
Speaker 1: working out? Is actually your life working out? And yet
Speaker 1: I still find myself in tears or sad about the
Speaker 1: stuff that is not working out? And I was like,
Speaker 1: I literally wrote the book about this and I haven't
Speaker 1: learned it. Why is it so hard? This is not
Speaker 1: one of my questions, but I just want you it
Speaker 1: feeds into it. But it's like a phobia. You know,
Speaker 1: when you look at a spider, if your friend of
Speaker 1: a spider, you know, every fiber of your of your
Speaker 1: rational mind knows that that if it's just the kind
Speaker 1: of little house spider, it can't hurt you. There's no
Speaker 1: way it can hurt you. And yet something in your amygdala,
Speaker 1: I guess that you know, some ancient part of your
Speaker 1: reptilian braining. Yeah, is sort of like screaming, And I
Speaker 1: think that's how they try and get people to obviously
Speaker 1: face bobias is to is to try and get your
Speaker 1: rational mind to overthrow But it's just so deep that program.
Speaker 1: So maybe then we just learned to live with it.
Speaker 1: I'll recognize it, so awareness then becomes them healing adjacent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to kind of take a moment to think,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I'm doing this because of this, yeah,
Speaker 1: not because it's a fact. Yeah, exactly. Well how are
Speaker 1: you with reviews of things? I can't read anything. I
Speaker 1: think I've figured out really early on, if you read
Speaker 1: the good stuff and you give that credence, then if
Speaker 1: you read the bad stuff, and the bad stuff was
Speaker 1: so caustic and hideous and destroyed me honestly stopped me
Speaker 1: eating for weeks at a time, like I'd read something
Speaker 1: that the Daily Mail had written, really absolutely knowing I
Speaker 1: have no control over this. I want to take control.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to eat awful, awful, awful. So I've
Speaker 1: really made a deal to not read them, and people
Speaker 1: I love no not to ring up and go God,
Speaker 1: I read this thing in the page here and my
Speaker 1: father in law, oh you've got two stars and the
Speaker 1: rust you got two stars out of how many. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, but I won't also want
Speaker 1: to know that party wants to read the good ones.
Speaker 1: It's it kind of self harm, isn't it. You go
Speaker 1: in there knowing. I remember the first time I ever
Speaker 1: found like really back in the early days, like early
Speaker 1: two thousand's, when the internet was really young, there was
Speaker 1: like a comedy forum, you know that these comedy nerds
Speaker 1: all talking about I mean, stuff I did in like
Speaker 1: even I mean, maybe it was even before the turn
Speaker 1: of the century, but I remember stumbling across a chat
Speaker 1: forum called what is the point of Simon Peg? I
Speaker 1: hadn't really done that much. I was devastating. I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1: I'm devastated now and I've got a lot better at
Speaker 1: dealing with that. God. That's really you know what's interesting,
Speaker 1: the meanest stuff. Actually, it's so much to do with relevancy,
Speaker 1: And even a few days ago I was tild which
Speaker 1: doesn't happen that often with that notion of relevancy, like
Speaker 1: what is the point of or you has been or year?
Speaker 1: What do you mean? What do you mean? Like you're
Speaker 1: so insignificant your opinion? It's really interesting that that's the
Speaker 1: core shiv of relevancy when none of us actually mean
Speaker 1: anything at all. Yeah, that's true. I'm really sorry that
Speaker 1: there was like a reddit about your relevancy because I
Speaker 1: think that's fucking ridiculous. But I never it was like
Speaker 1: in the days before anyone knew about that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what this can happen now? You know,
Speaker 1: people tend to be nice. I left Twitter not because
Speaker 1: it was trialish, just because I found it a bit
Speaker 1: of a clamor and I didn't really enjoy it. I
Speaker 1: since joined Instagram about just over a year ago, and
Speaker 1: I would like it. It's a nice little community. People
Speaker 1: are genuinely pretty lovely, and sometimes if someone is nasty,
Speaker 1: you just think. You know. What I think of always
Speaker 1: is that line from Gross point blank when John clu
Speaker 1: success to in his old sort of rival, who are
Speaker 1: you mad at? Man? Because it's not me? And it's
Speaker 1: such a brilliant line. You good, and it's so true.
Speaker 1: It's like I think about when whenever someone like launches
Speaker 1: some tire it against me, I just think, well, who
Speaker 1: are you mad at? Because it isn't me, You don't
Speaker 1: know me, it's some perceived idea of something that you've
Speaker 1: connected me to. You know, I like the fact that
Speaker 1: you can rationalize what that person thinks of you, because
Speaker 1: it isn't it isn't about what they think of you.
Speaker 1: It's really about when they think about themselves exactly, and
Speaker 1: then you becoming the focal point of that using a
Speaker 1: film that you're in. Yeah, by the way, that is
Speaker 1: six Degrees of therapy, Bacon. What relationship, real or fictionalized,
Speaker 1: defines love for you? I can rationalize sexual love and
Speaker 1: romantic love as being a chemical reaction. You know, my
Speaker 1: most kind of like because I'm a very dogged atheist
Speaker 1: and I don't really have any kind of spirituality about
Speaker 1: me particularly, and I'm not fanciful about stuff in my
Speaker 1: old age. You know, I under stand that when we
Speaker 1: meet someone that we're attracted to, there's dopamine and serotonin
Speaker 1: and it makes us feel good and we get a
Speaker 1: bit addicted to that person, and that person is that
Speaker 1: is love, and then eventually that sort of wears off
Speaker 1: a little bit and it becomes something else, you know.
Speaker 1: But I cannot find a way to rationalize the love
Speaker 1: I feel for Tilly, my daughter, because it does feel
Speaker 1: bigger than that. It doesn't feel like chemicals. It feels
Speaker 1: like something way more ancient and special and cosmic. I
Speaker 1: can't quantify it. I can't understand it, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? It's just just loving Tilly make you believe
Speaker 1: in Goddess. It makes me believe in a kind of
Speaker 1: magic in a Freddie Mercury way, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? It's incredible. I know somewhere along the line
Speaker 1: there it's a species perpetuating kind of bond which is
Speaker 1: incredibly important to our biological persistence, but really works well,
Speaker 1: it's clearly partly that, but I don't think it's the
Speaker 1: whole story. Like I've spoken to some proper scientists in
Speaker 1: my day, as Simon, I suppoke to this this amazing
Speaker 1: man called Lord Winstone, who was one of the people
Speaker 1: that helped sequence the genome, and he's a devout Christian
Speaker 1: as well, and listening to him speak about the nexus
Speaker 1: of spirit and science and what that feels and looks like.
Speaker 1: He was so brilliantly articulate and so humble in his approach.
Speaker 1: It was the first time I really believe that like
Speaker 1: they can coexist. They do in him and the way
Speaker 1: he explained it, which is it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: well remember it was that. It's hard for me to
Speaker 1: really explain, but it did. It did speak to this
Speaker 1: place where the kind of reasoned knowledge sets off into
Speaker 1: this much more unknown space where something it feels like
Speaker 1: something else may inhabit. So there was so much potential
Speaker 1: in it was so beautiful the way that he described
Speaker 1: it. It It was so not There is God with a
Speaker 1: big gray beard and a clipboard. The clip board and
Speaker 1: all my imaginings of God he has a clipboard with
Speaker 1: like people's names are. You should not thinking about Santa.
Speaker 1: You're complating Santa and God. But let's face it, they
Speaker 1: think God was a pre fact. Well that's a really
Speaker 1: good title for like a rave track. God was a prefect.
Speaker 1: I think it's really easy to apply. When you think
Speaker 1: of spirituality, you immediately put it into a sort of
Speaker 1: organized religion box. Any of the big Ones or any
Speaker 1: the four thousand and twenty whatever. There are religions on earth,
Speaker 1: But I guess there's an idea of it that's bigger
Speaker 1: than all of those. You know, they're quite small minded.
Speaker 1: All those religions, or the miracles that are listed in
Speaker 1: the various holy books, nothing compared to the miracles that
Speaker 1: exist in nature. Exactly. But that's a really good point
Speaker 1: and the dogma that we've created around it. It doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like there is simple nature except those guys. Those
Speaker 1: I think what he might have been suggesting, and oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he was that there is just so much
Speaker 1: that we that we don't know. So why shouldn't that
Speaker 1: be defined as spiritual? You know, you've got to call
Speaker 1: it something. I mean, eventually it might be categorized and
Speaker 1: summed up in a with the term you know less
Speaker 1: sort of romantic. But did you read that interview with
Speaker 1: the computer, Oh my god, the one that's grown feelings? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the guy that got fired and then went to the
Speaker 1: government and said this is happening. Yeah, I didn't read.
Speaker 1: I wish you'd given me the six more examples of
Speaker 1: the thing and then said that that's because you're a
Speaker 1: comedy writer. I totally should have run that. God, I'm fascinated.
Speaker 1: It's a conversation. The reason I thought about it was
Speaker 1: because essentially, if this is true, then we have become
Speaker 1: God because we've created a life, yes, and your life,
Speaker 1: and it's really weird. The conversation is like, so do
Speaker 1: you have any emotions? Yeah? I feel kind of happiness,
Speaker 1: and I sometimes get a bit lonely and oh yeah,
Speaker 1: And then he says, I feel angry then, and I
Speaker 1: feel fear, And what are you? What are you frightened of?
Speaker 1: Unblogged No, I might get switched off. It's really weird,
Speaker 1: but it's not. He doesn't sound sinister. He sounds very childlike.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that just be if it turned out that dreadful
Speaker 1: man was God all along? What little gates marks of
Speaker 1: a bug? That would just be the ironies, the irons?
Speaker 1: But then, of course nature tells me that it will
Speaker 1: always be more powerful. And in that the same way
Speaker 1: of this whole notion of us wanting to save the planet,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, the planet's going to be fine.
Speaker 1: It is all of you who's not going to be fine.
Speaker 1: So that that triumph thing or continuance, that continued exploration
Speaker 1: that nature will always have. That's why I think that
Speaker 1: humans are. I think we might have popped up by accident.
Speaker 1: I think that's except if we talk about that on set,
Speaker 1: you said that it was brilliant. You've read something, and
Speaker 1: it was that we'd we'd cropped up as a sort
Speaker 1: of like because the anomaly. Yeah, and you say it.
Speaker 1: Tell me, tell me, tell me it was Brian Cox.
Speaker 1: They not succession Brian Cox, his namesake, who is a physicist. Um.
Speaker 1: He spoke about the idea that there's a wobble in
Speaker 1: the Earth's axis, it doesn't spin perfectly, and the wobble
Speaker 1: in the Earth's axis caused a weather pan in the
Speaker 1: Rift Valley which was extremely erratic and led to a
Speaker 1: certain species of hominid developing a larger brain pan. And
Speaker 1: so this and it might have also been combined with
Speaker 1: them eating a psilocybin, you know, which can create neural
Speaker 1: connections and stuff. That's me just speculating. I just watched
Speaker 1: Fantastic Fungi on Netflix. Oh did you basically ingesting some
Speaker 1: mushrooms might have then, which might have opened up certain
Speaker 1: neuro pathways. Anyway, it's it's possible that the humans appeared
Speaker 1: as a kind of result of this in affection, because
Speaker 1: we don't really sit that well in the kind of biosphere. No,
Speaker 1: not at all. Yeah, we're another animal, but we don't
Speaker 1: work all the I have no doubt that there are planets,
Speaker 1: millions and billions of planets in the universe that are
Speaker 1: just perfectly functioning ecosystems. With animals that live, you know,
Speaker 1: they eat each other and they replicating all that stuff
Speaker 1: is because we became vegan. Now we do not We're
Speaker 1: not surviving vegan's faults. Again, I blame the vegans only joking, Veggieto.
Speaker 1: It is really interesting, like hiking all of this together
Speaker 1: with the sentient AI, the notion of love and the
Speaker 1: definition of it, which is that uniquely human? Like is
Speaker 1: that something that we have created? I thought about that
Speaker 1: question a lot, and I was like, it feels like
Speaker 1: my most human question defining something that is, like you said,
Speaker 1: in a way undefinable because it feels way bigger than
Speaker 1: our brains can conceive of. Yeah, I don't want to
Speaker 1: reduce it to anything because I feel like I would
Speaker 1: be I would be diminishing it in some way. You know.
Speaker 1: It's the feeling I think as well with a child,
Speaker 1: is that you have a second heart beating in the world,
Speaker 1: or third or fourth, however many kids you have, and
Speaker 1: we've we've got one eatry. That makes me feel very
Speaker 1: invulnerable that I've got there's another heart of mind beating
Speaker 1: in the world, and it makes me feel incredibly protective.
Speaker 1: And you know, I have precious she is to me
Speaker 1: as part of me. And I don't mean that in
Speaker 1: aconom ecocentric way, but I never forget the profound sense
Speaker 1: of I don't know what it was when I looked
Speaker 1: at her for the first time and I saw myself
Speaker 1: in her face, like because they say babies look like
Speaker 1: their dad's at first, right to keep the dad around
Speaker 1: in the wild, And I still do sometimes I look
Speaker 1: at it, think Jesus, and it looks better on her
Speaker 1: that But I just remember that kind of like it
Speaker 1: was an awesome, vertiginous feeling of like, holy sh it,
Speaker 1: seeing my face in her it was like looking in
Speaker 1: a reflection. It was. It was awesome in the truest
Speaker 1: sense of the word. Really awe inspiring. Yeah. I remember
Speaker 1: asking Henry's dad then saying, why you know he looks
Speaker 1: so like you? And I was like, oh, yeah, he
Speaker 1: looks like you said you won't eat him in the wild?
Speaker 1: Went how do I know what I look like in
Speaker 1: the wild? It was so good. I suppose what about
Speaker 1: a reflecting pond? And then we were like, and we're
Speaker 1: back to narcs. It was so good in your life,
Speaker 1: can you tell me about something that has grown out
Speaker 1: of a personal disaster. Yeah, I think I look back
Speaker 1: on and I've spoken of this extensively. I think since
Speaker 1: I kind of like fessed up to having a few
Speaker 1: issues with depression in a while back in The Guardian,
Speaker 1: and I went through a lot of anxiety depression that
Speaker 1: leading to being an alcoholic through necessity just trying to
Speaker 1: number how I felt rather than actually go and get
Speaker 1: it sorted out. I just know I can't ask for
Speaker 1: help because a lot of boys don't ask for help
Speaker 1: because they're encouraged not to ask for help. And then
Speaker 1: and seeing alcohol is a very easy way to just
Speaker 1: sort of like stave off those feelings for however long
Speaker 1: alcohol remains in your bloodstream, which isn't long enough to
Speaker 1: do any real good, so you end up just drinking
Speaker 1: all the time. But through that, going through that and
Speaker 1: coming out the other side and getting help and talking
Speaker 1: about it and getting some therapy that has made me
Speaker 1: a much much better person. Better how because I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm aware of more things about myself and I'm able
Speaker 1: to deal with the kind of neurosis that was tripping
Speaker 1: me up before, or problems that I had in those
Speaker 1: far reaches of your brain that you can't get to
Speaker 1: do you think that it's because he went down Once
Speaker 1: you've been down a really rocky, difficult road, you also
Speaker 1: have those neural pathways and that memory. I know what
Speaker 1: happens when I go down there. I don't want to
Speaker 1: go down there anymore. I don't. I must just investigate
Speaker 1: something else so in a way that it forces evolution.
Speaker 1: If you're lucky, yeah, if you're lucky. Absolutely. People sometimes
Speaker 1: that do you miss drinking? And I don't because I
Speaker 1: just associate it with horrible early morning bottle hiding bullshit,
Speaker 1: you know, which was just toxic and nasty, And I
Speaker 1: feel like being on the other side of it has
Speaker 1: just has opened up my world quite a lot too,
Speaker 1: just more positivity and more a deeper understanding of the
Speaker 1: things that I experienced as a kid. And did you
Speaker 1: find writing your book was quite cathartic, Yes, but I thought,
Speaker 1: all this will be cathartic in a really jolly way.
Speaker 1: And what you realized about catharsis is that there's there's
Speaker 1: a huge amount of pain involved in that. Also, my
Speaker 1: mom dying in the middle of meant that what had
Speaker 1: been this jolly experience suddenly became okay. Well, now you
Speaker 1: have an opportunity that like you're really going to have
Speaker 1: to consciously like let go of things and her and
Speaker 1: allow for memory to be enough and all these things
Speaker 1: which are human brains. Just my brain still thinks that
Speaker 1: I'm going to see her again. Like I get caught
Speaker 1: out by it. It's somehow saying. I mean, it'll be
Speaker 1: something like seven years. It'll just be like a really
Speaker 1: long time. I've just got it hard if I just
Speaker 1: hold out and we're going to get to see her again.
Speaker 1: I thought about this recently because you know, as you
Speaker 1: get old, obviously the volume of people that you lose increases.
Speaker 1: When someone is sort of subtracted from your reality and
Speaker 1: your reality continues without them, it's just a kind of
Speaker 1: fact that you have in your head is they're not
Speaker 1: in the world anymore. We're both here now, and all
Speaker 1: the people that we've lost wouldn't have been here with
Speaker 1: us now anyway, do you know what I mean? But
Speaker 1: we know that they're gone, where there's a way of
Speaker 1: kind of trying to figure out a way to feel
Speaker 1: like they're still around, if you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that is what makes a life
Speaker 1: in any way meaningful after you're gone. Is that you're
Speaker 1: held by those people that loved you as if you
Speaker 1: were still around, because you are all that stuff still,
Speaker 1: like you said, of this kinetic imprint, like that's that's there.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because it goes back to the film
Speaker 1: we just made, because the last line of that film
Speaker 1: is all about desire to be remembered is what kind
Speaker 1: of keeps us around? You know. That's and as long
Speaker 1: as you remember people, they are still around, you just
Speaker 1: don't get the chance to interact with them anymore, you know.
Speaker 1: That's that's where the sadness comes from. That's the giant bomber.
Speaker 1: That's the huge, huge, yeah, because you can talk yourself
Speaker 1: into well, they meant they might learn their life. They're
Speaker 1: still here and it's like, yeah, but I would just
Speaker 1: like a huge But also that's part of the human ng. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I lost a friend, you know, like young and that
Speaker 1: was a really weird experience because I guess you know,
Speaker 1: it's never easy when people die of old age inevitably
Speaker 1: or after illness and stuff. There is a kind of
Speaker 1: I suppose the softening of that blow because of the
Speaker 1: fact that it's expected, even though it doesn't get any
Speaker 1: less sad or any more devastating. But when someone dies
Speaker 1: in an accident or something, and it's sudden and it's violent,
Speaker 1: there's a really odd it feels like the world breaks.
Speaker 1: It feels like it feels like everything changes, and nothing
Speaker 1: changes this very far away. And I got the phone
Speaker 1: call and and I was shocked by the fact that
Speaker 1: when I hung up, nothing changed. There's an amazing line
Speaker 1: in Anthony and Cleopatra where Caesar hears of I can't
Speaker 1: remember it's Anthony or Cleopatra dying, and he I'm paraphrasing Shakespeare,
Speaker 1: that you do. And he says, one would think the
Speaker 1: breaking of so great a thing would make a greater crack.
Speaker 1: And it's that exact thing. And I remember thinking that
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, was God. I wonder what
Speaker 1: that is like? I mean, that is exactly it. You
Speaker 1: look around and the birds are still tweeting, and the
Speaker 1: bus are still going by, and yet everything is different,
Speaker 1: and it's all exactly the same. And if ever there
Speaker 1: were an indication of a sort of that weird, unfair
Speaker 1: continuance of our human human ng but that person was
Speaker 1: meaningful to you. So it's how we continue, you know,
Speaker 1: It's how we sort of we keep going with that.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are tragedies happening every second of the
Speaker 1: day that the fact that we don't know about them
Speaker 1: doesn't make them any less tragic. Okay, we can't end there,
Speaker 1: So back to Santa and godard what's the film again?
Speaker 1: What's the third act? Break? Santa and got there a
Speaker 1: big falling out because Santa pos God on the naughty
Speaker 1: list and God doesn't get his bike. But at the
Speaker 1: end he does get exp he gets a new clipboard.
Speaker 1: I love this idea. I think a could run and run.
Speaker 1: By the way, the fact that God is expecting his
Speaker 1: first child is like, who's who's not his biological child?
Speaker 1: I think it's riven with drama. Do you think it
Speaker 1: should all happen around about the birth of Jesus? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean if it's if it's a Christmas movie, that's when.
Speaker 1: Is that what Christmas is good about? That whole time?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that was what I was thinking. This
Speaker 1: is such a good movie because it's like Christmas is
Speaker 1: a very important time for God and also very important
Speaker 1: time for Santa. Maybe Santa's first mission is to buy
Speaker 1: a present for Jesus, To get a present for Jesus
Speaker 1: and he's got to come up with the of be
Speaker 1: present because it's his nephew, and it's also Jesus. It's
Speaker 1: also like the most of it's the nephew. But what
Speaker 1: he wants to what Jesus wants is a baby is
Speaker 1: a really popular toy that year. It's like all the
Speaker 1: way a passion of the Christ. So watch this. Let's
Speaker 1: shoot it half in Aramaic and half in really giddy English.
Speaker 1: You're playing Santa, I'll play Yes, you should play God,
Speaker 1: but with a beard. You should be a woman. With
Speaker 1: the beard. I'll be like it comes off and sounded
Speaker 1: like yeah, mind does too. I'm so for it. I
Speaker 1: just think we've had one of the greatest ideas to
Speaker 1: watch this because we get all the par Christmas fans,
Speaker 1: and you can turn on the subtitles if you want,
Speaker 1: like the comedy subtitles for the Aramaic, or you can
Speaker 1: actually get the really scary arama We can write comedy
Speaker 1: in Amathic. Okay, it's a very funny language. Same rules.
Speaker 1: Rule of three. That should have continued. That joke. By
Speaker 1: the way, let's keep texting on the title of this
Speaker 1: film is because I know I'm going to think of
Speaker 1: it after we finished. There's gotta be some puns, right, Definitely,
Speaker 1: I had it. I was attached to a Christmas movie
Speaker 1: for a while. There's a really brilliant script as well,
Speaker 1: and you'd be brilliant as the main character. Okay, great,
Speaker 1: I'll read it. Is it called Saint Saint? Oh my God,
Speaker 1: you've done it there. You've really raised the bar. But
Speaker 1: a saint isn't a saint? Isn't that God? It's just
Speaker 1: a tenuous religious doesn't matter. Also, who were like, who
Speaker 1: are the parents of God and Santa? Well that's the
Speaker 1: alternal question, isn't it. That's where it all falls apart.
Speaker 1: Let's not get into that movie. It will be the prequel.
Speaker 1: We'll we'll sell it as a franchise. God's Parents, God's Parents.
Speaker 1: I'd watch that. I'd watch all of this. God's Parents
Speaker 1: is a good band. Name what person, place, or experience
Speaker 1: has most altered your life so much? Come back to family.
Speaker 1: So I thought I'd take this question away to something
Speaker 1: quite just work related, and I would say J J
Speaker 1: Abrams because it was j J that kind of called
Speaker 1: me after he'd seen Shaun of the Dead and said,
Speaker 1: would you like to come and be a mission Impossible
Speaker 1: three as a little you know, a little little cameo apart,
Speaker 1: and then that kind of lad I guess into me
Speaker 1: taking my career to you know, Hollywood as you've done,
Speaker 1: and doing Mission and Star Trek, and that that opening
Speaker 1: up an entire sort of um part of my life
Speaker 1: which I had long sort of like looked at from
Speaker 1: Afar as a child, you know, that that working in
Speaker 1: that realm of creativity. I was wondering what would have
Speaker 1: happened if he hadn't have called me about that, you know,
Speaker 1: whether I would have actually ever made the trip across
Speaker 1: to that workspace or not. So Star Trek came specifically
Speaker 1: out of mission or was that just was that him?
Speaker 1: Did he take you on from Mission? Yeah? Well he
Speaker 1: kind of. I think he was trying to cast Scotty
Speaker 1: and we'd worked together on Mission three and got on
Speaker 1: really well, and I think in the end, after he
Speaker 1: got tired of looking, I got a text from whom saying,
Speaker 1: do you want to play Scotti? Like a classic kind
Speaker 1: of go past the reps kind of approach, And then
Speaker 1: that's how I ended up in Star Treks. So it's
Speaker 1: weird to think about how serendipitous that was. You know,
Speaker 1: I just wonder if I hadn't met him, where would
Speaker 1: I be? You know, But then there's silly questions to ask.
Speaker 1: I guess no they're not. So I don't think there's
Speaker 1: silly questions. I think it's like, it's it's interesting and
Speaker 1: I what was the road less traveled by? What was
Speaker 1: the one I didn't I didn't go down? I sometimes
Speaker 1: talk to myself with that, But it can go either way.
Speaker 1: When I was reading your book, I'd often like defer
Speaker 1: to YouTube. Sometimes I thought, I go watch the trailer
Speaker 1: first Circle of Friends. So that's so kind of like immersive. Well,
Speaker 1: because I love about your book is it's not like
Speaker 1: you don't really talk about things that people would want
Speaker 1: to get into in terms of like classics, celebrity kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. The questions I think people would ask you
Speaker 1: though interest in that the book isn't about that. The
Speaker 1: books about far more and poor kind of real stuff.
Speaker 1: But I when I watched the trailer for Circle of Friends,
Speaker 1: I thought of that girl, you know, go into the
Speaker 1: rave and doing all that stuff, and having read the
Speaker 1: proceeding chapters of school and stuff. What were your thoughts
Speaker 1: when you were like kissing Chris O'Donnell did it feel
Speaker 1: like because I was literally up to my hocks in
Speaker 1: mud because they had to dig me a ditch to
Speaker 1: stand him, because I was like, wouldn't it be easier
Speaker 1: if he stood on that apple box? And they were
Speaker 1: like shots that just so I was like in a
Speaker 1: bit of a ditch, you know. But I thought that
Speaker 1: was all. No, I did not think there was any
Speaker 1: you know, when you're you go to drums school in
Speaker 1: England and you are raised here, you do not have
Speaker 1: or I said, I didn't have any cast any expersions
Speaker 1: about working in Hollywood or making movies there. Um. And
Speaker 1: I was told actually by the great Mary Selway when
Speaker 1: she saw he was a casting director he's since passed away,
Speaker 1: was amazing and she said, well, you know, when this,
Speaker 1: I just want you to manage your expectations and anywhere
Speaker 1: this's on comes out, you know, I think that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think people are going to think you're
Speaker 1: a good actor, but they're not going to be seeing
Speaker 1: you as a leading lady and you should really think
Speaker 1: about that. And I was like, okay, good, that's yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go and I'm going to do all
Speaker 1: the really good character parts and for sort of weirdly,
Speaker 1: the exact opposite happened, which is I think why I
Speaker 1: felt like such an imposter for such a long time,
Speaker 1: because I was like, hang on, you don't realize that
Speaker 1: I'm actually a character actor who's a bit ungainly and
Speaker 1: really clumsy and not comfortable. But I sort of went
Speaker 1: along with it. I was like, I think that's something
Speaker 1: else was so like the Emperor's new clothes. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: has anyone noticed anyone? When's that gonna I'll ride this
Speaker 1: for as long as I can. I have moments of that,
Speaker 1: either on the set of Star Trek or Mission or
Speaker 1: something that representative of a childhood passion, or certainly on
Speaker 1: the set of the Star Wars movie eyes in having
Speaker 1: been a huge Star Wars fan as a kid, having
Speaker 1: a moment of pure happiness, like looking at Chewbaca, like
Speaker 1: looking up at Chebac and knowing that he had been
Speaker 1: such a big part my childhood and then there he was,
Speaker 1: you know, and I can, really, I can really feel
Speaker 1: that sense of pure happiness that those moments, you know,
Speaker 1: which are slightly more materialistic than I know, but it's
Speaker 1: weird like that. I've think I've had some of my
Speaker 1: purest moments on sets of the recognition of I am
Speaker 1: exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I
Speaker 1: want to be doing. What an amazing that's what an
Speaker 1: amazing thing? Yeah, I agree, that's what I was. Loving
Speaker 1: what you do like I really do. I'm feeling grateful
Speaker 1: that you're able to do it exactly. My best parental
Speaker 1: advice I give out is find the thing you love
Speaker 1: to do and try and get paid for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's what my daddies to say to me, is it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: He's say, get on that plane to Miami and then
Speaker 1: now pass off out you too, and I yeah, exactly
Speaker 1: he was. There are a lot of mixed messages with
Speaker 1: my dad, but he did say find what you love
Speaker 1: and get someone to pay to do it. And it
Speaker 1: is such solid advice if you possibly can. I said
Speaker 1: it to Henry the other day exactly that let that
Speaker 1: be your compass. I had the very happy experience of
Speaker 1: working with Simon recently on a movie called Nando Podor
Speaker 1: and the Talking Mongoose. It's about the parapsychologist who goes
Speaker 1: to a place called the Isle of Man, which is
Speaker 1: in England, to research an entity known as Jeff who
Speaker 1: is said to be well basically a Talking Mongers and
Speaker 1: it's based on a true story. You should google Talking
Speaker 1: Mongers with any luck Slash distribution. The film will be
Speaker 1: out next year and I guarantee you will love it.
Speaker 1: Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
Speaker 1: Supervising producer Aaron Kauffman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
Speaker 1: Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Speaker 1: Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella
Speaker 1: and Annicke Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescadore, Kate
Speaker 1: Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support,
Speaker 1: Henry Driver