Speaker 1: Good day, Peter Helly here, welcome to you Ain't Seen
Speaker 1: Nothing Yet? The Movie Podcast, where our chat to a
Speaker 1: movie lover about a classic or beloved movie they haven't
Speaker 1: quite got around to watching until now. And today's guest
Speaker 1: comedian Tanya Hennessy.
Speaker 2: Fun wax on wax, I do wish we could chat
Speaker 2: light and girl, but I'm having an old friend for dinner.
Speaker 1: Happening right now.
Speaker 3: You don't see nothing new.
Speaker 1: Tanya Hennessy has worked at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as
Speaker 1: a stage manager. She also worked at the Melbourne International
Speaker 1: Comedy Festival as a stage manager. One day she thought,
Speaker 1: fuck it, I reckon, I could have a crack at
Speaker 1: this because she launched herself a radio career, beginning in
Speaker 1: Newcastle The Griff the Woman with the Camera. But it's
Speaker 1: been online where the Tanya Hennessy Express is really gathered momentum.
Speaker 1: Tanya's bandless energy and tireless work ethic on top of
Speaker 1: being bloody funny, has seen her build her own fan
Speaker 1: base a quarter of a million followers on Insta and
Speaker 1: counting an author. A comedian appearing on Hughes Do we
Speaker 1: have a problem? Drunk History? And of course I'm a celebrity,
Speaker 1: Get me out of here. You can also hear Tenure
Speaker 1: on her very own podcast, I can't stop with Tanya
Speaker 1: Hennessy and Steph Tisdall.
Speaker 4: Why I'm Toni Hersey awkwardly? And you know what my
Speaker 4: favorite three films are? Actually I could do more than three.
Speaker 5: Sister Act two, High School Musical two and not like
Speaker 5: this Choice and blow.
Speaker 2: I've left pieces of my heart here and there, and
Speaker 2: now there's almost not enough to stay alive.
Speaker 4: And up until Wednesday this week or Wednesday. Wait, that's
Speaker 4: for you, Pete. I had never seen Forrest Gump.
Speaker 1: Hello, my name's Forrest. Forrest Gump.
Speaker 3: Do you want a chocolate?
Speaker 4: I could eat about a million and a half of these.
Speaker 3: My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates.
Speaker 1: You never know what you're going to get, well, depending
Speaker 1: on your taste in chocolates. Forrest Gump may have been
Speaker 1: given a Carab Turkish delight at birth. Born with a
Speaker 1: bent spine, a lower Q, and an absent father, Forrest,
Speaker 1: played by Oscar Winning Tom Hanks, is guided through adolescence
Speaker 1: by his homegrown wisdom spinning mum, Missus Gump played by
Speaker 1: Sally Field. Forest Gump is as much an examination of
Speaker 1: America as it is about our protagonist as he floats
Speaker 1: through life, occasionally impacting world shaping events from Elvis's pelvic
Speaker 1: thrust through the Nixon's Watergate downfall. Another Robert Zamecha's classic
Speaker 1: from the pen of the legendary screenwriter Eric Roth, a
Speaker 1: winner of six Oscars. Tanya Hennessy, did you enjoy this
Speaker 1: box of chocolates?
Speaker 4: I don't believe. I've never seen it before. And you
Speaker 4: know what, even when I went to watch it, I
Speaker 4: was like, ah, you know, like I was actually quite
Speaker 4: labored about it because I put it off obviously so long,
Speaker 4: because I obviously wasn't interested, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I better watch this. Peter will kill me if I don't.
Speaker 1: You had pdmitted to it.
Speaker 4: Yes, I bloody loved it. It was fucking amazing. I
Speaker 4: was weeping, it was It's long. It's fucking long. And
Speaker 4: you know what's so funny, all those quotable things like
Speaker 4: laugh is like abuts chocolates and runs run. I've been
Speaker 4: saying my whole life, trying to you know, be cool
Speaker 4: and trying to know what I'm talking about, never seeing
Speaker 4: the film, and they actually dropped those quotes really close
Speaker 4: to the very you know topp show, and then the
Speaker 4: whole way through you're sort of waiting for more quotes.
Speaker 4: But you, like you said in your intro, it's so
Speaker 4: historically based. It's sort of like Forest Gump was there
Speaker 4: for every single historical moment in US history from the
Speaker 4: sixties to seventies. It was I was like, who wrote
Speaker 4: this fucking masterpiece?
Speaker 1: Well, it was Eric Roth, who is one of the
Speaker 1: legendary Hollywood screenwriters. He's written, amongst other things, The Horse
Speaker 1: Whisper and The Inside Ale Munich, The Curious Case of
Speaker 1: Beadamin Button, A Star is Born more recently, and if
Speaker 1: you love Citizen k And he wrote mank, which is
Speaker 1: currently on Netflix, about the writing of Citizen Kan. He
Speaker 1: also wrote sixty five epps of House of Cards. He
Speaker 1: is an absolute man in control of his craft. Yes,
Speaker 1: so he is awesome. I'm so relieved that you responded
Speaker 1: to Forrest Gump and I had the same feeling of rewatching.
Speaker 1: I haven't watched it for a long time, so I
Speaker 1: was like, am I go you enjoy this as much
Speaker 1: as I remembered that I saw this in London in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, I was traveling by myself. I was
Speaker 1: overseas for about nine months and I saw two films
Speaker 1: in that time. I saw Forest Gump and I saw
Speaker 1: three four Weddings and a Funeral, And I literally wrote
Speaker 1: home about this is when I was writing letters. This
Speaker 1: is how long ago it was. It wasn't email. I
Speaker 1: wrote home about Forest Gump. I wrote to my friend
Speaker 1: Sarah and said, Sarah, you got to see this movie.
Speaker 1: I think it comes out in Australia in six months time,
Speaker 1: but you gotta see Forest Gump. And I only saw
Speaker 1: it because I was kind of curious as to see
Speaker 1: what Tom Hanks did after Philadelphia. He won the Oscar
Speaker 1: year before he wins the Oscar again for Forrest Gump.
Speaker 1: So I was just curious and was just like, there's
Speaker 1: no other film I can think that's quite like for
Speaker 1: Us Gump.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, like Sally Field is, oh god,
Speaker 4: the second I was like, I didn't know Sally Field
Speaker 4: was in this. You know, she's just so nostalgic. I
Speaker 4: don't know she you know from I guess Missus Doubtfire.
Speaker 4: Growing up, I was like, you know, a bit like
Speaker 4: Robin Williams has that sort of fatherly and maternal energy.
Speaker 4: But like when it came out, I was in year three,
Speaker 4: So if I hadn't watched it when I was a kid,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't have understood just how deeply laid and complex
Speaker 4: and fabulous this film is and how amazing is I've
Speaker 4: never seen Tom Hanks be so young, because I've always
Speaker 4: just known him as like an older guy. I was like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, Tom Hanks is young in this it is.
Speaker 4: I just can't believe that I haven't seen it. I'm
Speaker 4: actually like kind of embarrassed that I hadn't seen it.
Speaker 1: Up until this point, this has been a feature of
Speaker 1: the podcast, basically people being hughsy last week was embarrassing.
Speaker 1: He had never seen Pretty in Pink. So you are okay,
Speaker 1: you are safe. This is a safe space and we'll
Speaker 1: come back.
Speaker 4: Classic, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's such a question.
Speaker 4: It's like, how embarrassed, And I'm such a I watched
Speaker 4: films three, four films a week.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well, I mean this is what this podcast
Speaker 1: is about. There, we all have. Even I am a
Speaker 1: movie lover, and I embrace it. I I getting toxicated
Speaker 1: by the thought of watching, you know, movies, and literally
Speaker 1: sometimes too but I was really happy with the way
Speaker 1: this film held up for me, at least watching it
Speaker 1: or these years later.
Speaker 4: I'm deeper meaning in it as well.
Speaker 1: John Lennon, well, absolutely that and just you know so
Speaker 1: many other things which we will get to because there
Speaker 1: are so many things to unpack about Forrest Gut. But
Speaker 1: you have certainly hit the ground running with your three
Speaker 1: your films. This may come as a shock. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if we've had listen, sister did you say Sister
Speaker 1: Act two? Right? Okay, let's start. Let's start there, sister act.
Speaker 1: We may have had a sister act somewhere, or may
Speaker 1: have got a special mention, but certainly Sister Act two.
Speaker 1: Back in the habit is.
Speaker 4: That the it is Lauren what's her last name? Lauren Hill?
Speaker 1: And I love I love surprising because I don't ask,
Speaker 1: I guess what the films are, so I'm just responding
Speaker 1: in the moment. And I love when I'm surprised, and
Speaker 1: usually I am surprised, but I'm deeply surprised in a way.
Speaker 1: Mark Humphrey's a couple of weeks ago had hook Adam's
Speaker 1: Family Values and both Inger I.
Speaker 4: Did, I've not listened to that one but I should
Speaker 4: because now I feel like I'm a Marc Camfrey stand
Speaker 4: because I fucking love hook. But I can't watch it
Speaker 4: ever since Robin died, I can't watch it. I almost
Speaker 4: can't watch any of the films he's been in.
Speaker 1: I'm a bit traumatized, right, Okay, Okay, well, thank me.
Speaker 1: Rob Williams isn't in Sister Act too, so that will
Speaker 1: always be safe viewing it. For you, what do you
Speaker 1: love about Sister Act two that that maybe elevates it
Speaker 1: over Sister Act?
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, So there's this quote in it that
Speaker 4: I actually have in my second book, I like, blew
Speaker 4: it up. It's so embarrassing. It says, if you wake
Speaker 4: up and this is what Sister Mary Clarence, who's uh
Speaker 4: will be Goldberg, says to Lauren Hill's character, who's like, oh,
Speaker 4: do I be a singer, Ror Doway, you know, be
Speaker 4: an academic or do I go, you know, do my
Speaker 4: schooling and blah blah blah, And she goes, if you
Speaker 4: wake up every day thinking about singing, the girl, you've
Speaker 4: got to be a singer. And for me, as a
Speaker 4: kid growing up very eccentric and different and you know, performative,
Speaker 4: I didn't have that person, and I felt like will
Speaker 4: Be Goldberg in that moment was speaking to me. She
Speaker 4: was but like, you know, if you're going to be
Speaker 4: an idiot, you can't think of anything else when you
Speaker 4: wake up. You should be a professional idiot. And I
Speaker 4: was like, I hear you will be Yes. The soundtrack's wild,
Speaker 4: it's like nineties like, and the singing is incredible. I
Speaker 4: think like the Journey of all the Kids is really incredible.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I just love I love that movie.
Speaker 4: I can watch it over and over again.
Speaker 1: So do you love Sister Act and then this blew
Speaker 1: your mind even further? Or did you see Sister Act
Speaker 1: two first and then go back and watch Sister Act?
Speaker 4: Or yeah, so Sister Act too? And then I remember
Speaker 4: I'd be a kid and pretend to be sick so
Speaker 4: I could get it on VHS like a weekly for
Speaker 4: two bucks from Video Easy, so I could watch Sister
Speaker 4: Act too, because I was like, oh my god, look
Speaker 4: at this nun teaching these people house. I don't know,
Speaker 4: I just I think it's very nostalgic as well.
Speaker 1: So the sen I'm mu sure I ever have seen
Speaker 1: Sister Act too. I've seen Sister act and it was
Speaker 1: a huge movie when it came out, and that's basically
Speaker 1: correct me. If I'm wrong, would be Goldberg. Has she
Speaker 1: committed the crime? Is she hiding? Is she hiding the nuns?
Speaker 1: She's hiding in the nuns with the nuns? And then
Speaker 1: where does this di act to go?
Speaker 4: So she's still in hiding from some I think it's
Speaker 4: like a drug gang, which is of course I kind
Speaker 4: of live for. And the nuns are trying to resper
Speaker 4: resurrector school. So they go teach in a high school
Speaker 4: and she gets the music class Sister Mary Clarence, and
Speaker 4: all the kids are like, we don't want to be
Speaker 4: doing there as well hard aus you know, we were
Speaker 4: to fight people and you know it's just not They
Speaker 4: don't want to be at school, and she's like, well,
Speaker 4: we're going to start a choir because I reckon all
Speaker 4: of you guys have a voice, and wouldn't you know it,
Speaker 4: they all have a voice and could all sing an
Speaker 4: eight part harmony and dance unbelievably. And then they go
Speaker 4: to a competition with other high schools to compete and
Speaker 4: that's their school wins for being different and original, which
Speaker 4: again that theme speaks to me because I've always been
Speaker 4: a bit of a weirdo and to see a weirdo
Speaker 4: win that sort of theme, really, you know, is invigorating
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 1: And that is that a theme that runs through High
Speaker 1: School Musical too. I have not seen any of the
Speaker 1: high school musicals.
Speaker 4: That's because you're a normal person.
Speaker 1: Well, a lot of people have seen High School Musical.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure high School Musical too. What elevates High
Speaker 1: School Musical two over the original?
Speaker 4: So, Pete, you got to know, I'm not like as
Speaker 4: jen Z. I'm like a Milentium. I'm thirty five. Yeah.
Speaker 4: High School Musical came out when I was twenty five.
Speaker 4: I was like, I just it's so dumb and so naff,
Speaker 4: but it's just a really good story told with stupid
Speaker 4: song and dance. Kenny Ortagers the choreographer and the director,
Speaker 4: and he was like Michael Jackson's director, and he did
Speaker 4: he did High School Musical, He's done the Descendants movies,
Speaker 4: he's done he did Beaches. He's sort of like a
Speaker 4: bit of anything that man touches turns to gold kind
Speaker 4: of guy. And to be honest, it's in there because
Speaker 4: it's just a bit. It's easy to watch because I
Speaker 4: like to do three things at once. So it's a
Speaker 4: movie I can watch and be on my phone at
Speaker 4: the same time.
Speaker 1: There are cinema Roger Ebert is rolling in his grave
Speaker 1: if he's listening to this. You're not supposed to be
Speaker 1: on your phone, but I know you may once you've
Speaker 1: watched you watched movies a certain amount of times, of course,
Speaker 1: you know you can, you know, have them one in
Speaker 1: the background. And this podcast we've explored many times the
Speaker 1: idea of like flicking finding a movie and going, okay,
Speaker 1: well I need to sit down and watch the rest
Speaker 1: of this movie, and as you do, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: be on your phone.
Speaker 4: Do some comfort watch stuff like do you comfort watch TV?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Like you know, when I think, whenever I sit
Speaker 1: down and watch something, it's it's a choice I'm making.
Speaker 1: Am I comfort watching or am I finding something something new?
Speaker 1: You know? Is it a comfort watch? If I'm with
Speaker 1: my wife? Is whatever? One of our big go tos
Speaker 1: is the American President? Oh right, like fla, well, no,
Speaker 1: that's it's it's Michael Douglas and that bending like it's
Speaker 1: a romantic comedy, so it's it's Aaron Sorkin wrote that
Speaker 1: and it's it's a really smart, uh you know, kind
Speaker 1: of romantic comedy. You know, it's it's I should watch that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a really it's a really good one.
Speaker 1: It's funny because you see Michael Douglas is the American
Speaker 1: President and Martin Sheen is the vice president. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of if you're a West fan, Oh, it's right.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like saying Bartlet as the vice president.
Speaker 4: That's interesting. You know what I comfort watch mean Girls,
Speaker 4: but also I'll come foot watch Silence of the Lamb.
Speaker 1: Oh. Wow, have you misunderstood what comfort means?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: But I feel like it's like it's comfortable because I
Speaker 4: know the plot, I know the story, and I'm just
Speaker 4: really obsessed with Jodie Foster.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Great, and the character of Hannibal Lecter. You know, like
Speaker 4: I've watched the whole series and then I've watched Hannibal
Speaker 4: the TV series. I'm really obsessed with him being a cannibal.
Speaker 4: And like I always think, if the option came up
Speaker 4: to eat human flesh, would I eat it? I don't know. Maybe,
Speaker 4: you know there's tribes. I got my hair done once
Speaker 4: thuse shit normally when they wash and dry your hair
Speaker 4: or do your shampoo your hair, they talk about like, oh,
Speaker 4: the weather's different our COVID. This woman goes to me,
Speaker 4: I got to tell you something, thinking about getting my
Speaker 4: whole face tattooed. And I was like why and she's like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's speaking type in New Guinea. And I was like,
Speaker 4: oh cool, yeah for me. She's like yeah, but I
Speaker 4: either get my whole face or nothing. And I was like,
Speaker 4: oh okay. She's like yeah, my tribe's still like cannibal realistic.
Speaker 4: And I was like, okay, she's doing my hair and
Speaker 4: she's like, yeah, you know, Japanese people taste like pork.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, wow, she's currently dating Army Hammer.
Speaker 4: Yeah she is. Imagine. The whole time I was thinking,
Speaker 4: like in this tribe is the penis? Like the best part?
Speaker 1: Well, you did. I'm a celebrity. You probably have eaten penis?
Speaker 1: You know, I did you eat penis in arm a celebrity? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I ate almost anything that was not a trial that
Speaker 4: was just boredom. I did eate penis. It wasn't because
Speaker 4: the thing is when you're in there, when you get
Speaker 4: those trans it's actually really exciting because you're like, oh, sustenance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what was? What was? Do you remember the
Speaker 1: worst thing you ate?
Speaker 4: I ate this maggot larvae. Oh, and that was really tough.
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 4: They blindfold you and put you back in a van
Speaker 4: to go back to the cab and you just want
Speaker 4: to mint, but they won't give you a mint, so
Speaker 4: you like, do I have to wait five hours to
Speaker 4: get this taste out of my mouth? It's pretty tough.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I'm not sure how we got cannibalism and
Speaker 1: penises from high school musical too, But.
Speaker 4: About cannibalism, I know, have you?
Speaker 1: One of my favorite songs is the Great Australian Song
Speaker 1: from the band Weddings Parties. Anything called a Tale they
Speaker 1: Won't Believe, and it's about it's about escapees from a
Speaker 1: penal colony in Tasmania back in the day and they
Speaker 1: all basically eat each other and yeah, a tale they
Speaker 1: won't believe. Check it out. It's an epic Hey Blow,
Speaker 1: Johnny Depp, I love True Crime.
Speaker 4: I love this film. He is unbelievable. He goes from
Speaker 4: like a child right the way through to I guess
Speaker 4: the end of his life. If you've not seen Blow,
Speaker 4: you have. It's inconceivably good. I like Blood Diamond as well.
Speaker 4: I don't like that tex sense he does as a
Speaker 4: South African. It's just not great. It's as good as one.
Speaker 4: But Blow is I just I just love the historical
Speaker 4: elements to it. I love how many decades it moves through.
Speaker 4: I think all the performances are amazing. Penelope Cruise, Jesus crap.
Speaker 1: It was the first time I think I kind of
Speaker 1: saw Penelope Cruise. I might be Ryan, you may have
Speaker 1: made a couple of films in that, you know, broke
Speaker 1: out of South America before that, but yeah, I do
Speaker 1: remember being her, being struck by her in that film.
Speaker 4: And Rachel Griffiths is Johnny Dere's mom in it, and
Speaker 4: I I really so. Rachel Griffiths loves Steph who I
Speaker 4: do a podcast with, loves Christian Hull, who's one of
Speaker 4: my best friends. And I'm like, Rachel, you know why
Speaker 4: exists because I exist on both of their platforms. Can
Speaker 4: you please like just follow me so I can fangirl
Speaker 4: you for being honestly just so iconic in fucking Blow.
Speaker 4: She's great and Muriel's wedding and everything else she's done.
Speaker 4: But blow blew my mind. And if you don't know
Speaker 4: what it's about, it's about like cocaine smuggling and how
Speaker 4: cocaine came from Columbia to the States and just how
Speaker 4: impactful it was. What's what's the guy's name, the drug
Speaker 4: lord's name, bablo As. Yes, so it's about George Young
Speaker 4: who was basically one of the biggest drug lords or ever.
Speaker 4: I don't mind a story about a drug or any
Speaker 4: sort of crime because I'm just I would never do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they provide a lovely escapies and they usually
Speaker 1: they usually tense, they're exciting. You know, it's it's something
Speaker 1: you know you wouldn't wish upon, you know, your own
Speaker 1: family and friends, but you're happy to see how the
Speaker 1: people go through it. And I love a crime film.
Speaker 1: Good Fellas is one of my all time folks, I
Speaker 1: mean the Godfather's part. Yeah, I feel like they're they're
Speaker 1: above crime in a way. They've got something a whole
Speaker 1: lot of other things going on in their worlds. But
Speaker 1: they are three surprising selections, all good films, not taking
Speaker 1: not taking anything away from them. This is an open, free,
Speaker 1: judgment free space. But thank you for those And you cannot.
Speaker 4: Say, it's a judgment free zone with that ton of
Speaker 4: the podcast. Okay, Also, I can see you on zoom.
Speaker 1: So what's what's interesting is when Mark Coumphy's coming to
Speaker 1: those three films, somebody on Twitter kind of went him
Speaker 1: a little bit and said, I can't believe you had
Speaker 1: Adam's family values in This is travesty and he and
Speaker 1: he was like, well, hang on, these are the films
Speaker 1: that I like, you know, and and I jumped in
Speaker 1: a you know I start from because it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: these are just whatever the films you like, of the
Speaker 1: films you like, and this is one.
Speaker 4: Sweet we had reasons as well.
Speaker 1: Like exactly, and I love that you have Sister Act
Speaker 1: two in there based on something that you have taken
Speaker 1: from that film and taken with you for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love a sequel. Greece too, love it. I
Speaker 4: hate Greece one.
Speaker 1: No, you don't hate Greece one.
Speaker 4: I don't hate it. I don't hate it. I don't
Speaker 4: hate it. It's fine. But I've watched Grease Too and
Speaker 4: know the song so much more to Grease too, like
Speaker 4: FIFA in those pleasan pants.
Speaker 1: Yes, I can't bring myself to watch Greece two because
Speaker 1: a lot of people are like that, Yeah, because I've
Speaker 1: only seen one other film more than I've seen Greece,
Speaker 1: and that's Star Wars and.
Speaker 4: Oh pete, I've never seen Star Wars.
Speaker 1: Oh well, back on next week's beat, you did a
Speaker 1: punch on on Star Wars. But there are surprisingly more
Speaker 1: people when I ask around about what movie would you
Speaker 1: like to watch? Star Wars has come up more than
Speaker 1: you would think. I think it's because you know, it's
Speaker 1: arguably the biggest film of all time, and you know
Speaker 1: if you've seen it. If you haven't, you.
Speaker 4: Know, But I've watched all the Family Guy parodies, so
Speaker 4: I feel like I know it well.
Speaker 1: I feel like with Star Wars there's no other film
Speaker 1: that you would without seeing it, you would be loaded
Speaker 1: with references, like you said, with Forrest Gump, you know,
Speaker 1: Box of Chocolates, you know, Run for Us, Run and
Speaker 1: there's a couple there. But with Star Wars, you would know,
Speaker 1: you would know, like you would know what Darth Vader
Speaker 1: looks like. You know, Luke Skywalker, is that the hero?
Speaker 1: You know Princess Laya and her you know her hair?
Speaker 2: Three?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, all right, let's get on with it.
Speaker 1: There is a film from nineteen ninety four, We Are
Speaker 1: Heated Discuss It won six Oscars, Who's directed by Robert Zonmechis,
Speaker 1: and it is an absolute classic. And I the only
Speaker 1: thing I heard from you this week was that you
Speaker 1: bowled your eyes out. Yeah. Yeah, so it does get
Speaker 1: you and I I remember seeing this when I was younger.
Speaker 1: I think I was twenty one, and it really it
Speaker 1: really hit me in all of the right places. So
Speaker 1: you knew Box of chocolates and you run, Forest Run.
Speaker 1: I imagine you knew you knew the voice that Forrest had.
Speaker 1: How did you find the voice?
Speaker 4: Loved it, I actually thought, And I'm really funny with accents,
Speaker 4: Like I love Nicole Kidman, but she does come in
Speaker 4: out of an accent, but I'm obsessed with her.
Speaker 3: I'm obsessed with.
Speaker 4: Nicole Kidman, like like I actually interviewed her once, and
Speaker 4: I'm sure you've interviewed her multiple times, but I just
Speaker 4: stared at her in like adoration. But his accent is
Speaker 4: like floorless, and I love I love how it starts
Speaker 4: with him just telling his story and you don't sort
Speaker 4: of know why he's telling this stranger, but you get
Speaker 4: the type of person he is straight away, and I
Speaker 4: think watching it now, I understand that he probably you know,
Speaker 4: is on an autism spectrum or I'm not one hundred
Speaker 4: percent sure, but he's so consistent in his delivery of
Speaker 4: this persona that commitment to the character driven through the
Speaker 4: script is what makes it. His performance really drives that,
Speaker 4: like you know what I mean, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I think over the years and I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it for a long time, but you know, I
Speaker 1: saw this. I watched it this week, but I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, if I was, you know, reminisce on past
Speaker 1: oscar winners and Tom Hanks winning it for Forrest Gump,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I would have gone, Yeah, he
Speaker 1: absolutely deserved that. But watching it again and being reminded
Speaker 1: how good he is, Like he said, the accent alone
Speaker 1: is flawless, but just his like he could have been
Speaker 1: in the wrong hands, and I guess I can tell you.
Speaker 1: John Travola was offered this, he knocked it back. Bill
Speaker 1: Murray knocked it back, Chevy Chase was. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: any of them, but Tom Hanks knocks it out of
Speaker 1: the part. There are so many little moments and big
Speaker 1: moments where when he's not talking as well, which is
Speaker 1: I think he's Yeah, the beauty for moments.
Speaker 4: It's really nuanced in his performance. It's the way he stands,
Speaker 4: Tom Hanks, It's Forrest Gump, the way he stands, the
Speaker 4: way he hears things, the way he listens and engages
Speaker 4: and reacts. All of that makes this such a complexly
Speaker 4: holistic character and all these wonderful things that happened to
Speaker 4: him along the way you can actually go because I
Speaker 4: think on paper, you go, this is ridiculous, but when
Speaker 4: you see his performance it actually makes sense.
Speaker 1: Well that's that's a really good it's a really good
Speaker 1: point because when you I think, make a movie or
Speaker 1: any kind of performance, it could be on stage or
Speaker 1: you can go anywhere. And that's a great thing about art.
Speaker 1: We can take you any bit where, but you have
Speaker 1: to build your world and the culture around it, and
Speaker 1: then if you get those things right, then you can
Speaker 1: go anywhere. I'm sure we've all seen things on stage
Speaker 1: or the movies where you can't wait, WHOA that didn't
Speaker 1: make sense. Everything has to make sense, and Robertson, Mekis
Speaker 1: and Eric Ruth have done a great job in making
Speaker 1: this world make We don't question that Forrest has, you know,
Speaker 1: has has inspired Elvis, has had all these white house
Speaker 1: meetings and become a ping pong champion. We just go yes, yes,
Speaker 1: why it is absurd.
Speaker 4: It's absurd as a script, but the performance justifies it.
Speaker 4: It really doesn't. And there's this beautiful line in there,
Speaker 4: you know, when he's talking to the sergeant Dan and
Speaker 4: he goes, do you know what it's like to lose
Speaker 4: your legs or to not know how to use your legs?
Speaker 4: And he just bluntly goes yes. And that's a wonderful
Speaker 4: line and such a great indication of the persona and
Speaker 4: person that he is. He's so logical and matter of fact,
Speaker 4: but kind and warm.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You mentioned autism earlier, and there has been debate
Speaker 1: whether he is autistic or not. They didn't raise it
Speaker 1: in the script because autism wasn't really on the you know,
Speaker 1: on everybody's radar in the nineteen sixties and seventies. I
Speaker 1: haven't heard the filmmaker's comment or confirm whether he is
Speaker 1: autistic or not. The other way of looking at it is,
Speaker 1: you know, he may be, and he made me both.
Speaker 1: It's a great advert for you know, being a Buddhist
Speaker 1: because he is just completely in the moment that you know,
Speaker 1: it's a great advertisement for being in the moment, and
Speaker 1: you know and that you know, that's what makes him
Speaker 1: so good in the army, because you know, the lieutenant
Speaker 1: kind of responds to him, calls him a genius because
Speaker 1: he just says, I'll do whatever you want me to
Speaker 1: do this sir.
Speaker 4: You know, it's very pragmatic approach. He's like, they told
Speaker 4: me to do this, so I'll just do it. He
Speaker 4: doesn't get me his own way, he sort of thing.
Speaker 4: It's very logical. I tell you, Jenny annoyed me the
Speaker 4: entirest show. I was like, Jenny, get your shit together, mate,
Speaker 4: But you can see her trauma, and I think knowing
Speaker 4: her damage and her trauma that you saw early on,
Speaker 4: you did it was all justified. Her action and behavior
Speaker 4: was all justified. But I was just like, love Forest,
Speaker 4: like he loves you.
Speaker 1: I know, Oh yeah, I feel And we might come
Speaker 1: back to Jenny because I think there's a fair bit
Speaker 1: of discuss with Jenny. Yeah, we mon't go through the characters,
Speaker 1: because there's some great characters in this week, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to go back to the very same fact,
Speaker 1: the very first thing we see with the feather. What
Speaker 1: did you think of the feather? What did you make
Speaker 1: of it? Did you have any thoughts on what it meant?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I don't know if we should go
Speaker 4: to the end as well, because obviously that theme is repeated.
Speaker 4: I was like, this made gave the imagery of that
Speaker 4: it's anyone's story and wherever the feather falls is the
Speaker 4: story we're going to hear. And I love that this
Speaker 4: story could have happened to anyone. Anyone could be extraordinary.
Speaker 4: Everyone has brilliant stories to tell, and everyone has a
Speaker 4: worthy story to hear, which I love the I love
Speaker 4: people like the thing I missed about being on radio
Speaker 4: is getting on air and hearing people's stories. Yeah, people
Speaker 4: are fucking amazing. So hearing I felt like the feather, Yeah,
Speaker 4: what did you take?
Speaker 1: My take was exactly the same thing where I mean,
Speaker 1: destiny and chance gets spoken about a lot in this film.
Speaker 1: So yes, I think I think the feather is that,
Speaker 1: and it's that random nature of and also the lands
Speaker 1: at forest's feet. This is the man that is you know,
Speaker 1: could be over would be overlooked by most people who
Speaker 1: walk past him on the street. In fact, when he's
Speaker 1: trying to make conversation to people at the bus stop.
Speaker 1: They don't want to engage with him. Like, so the
Speaker 1: fact that this feather has given, you know, Forrest's a
Speaker 1: chance to kind of share his story. I think, such
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing. So you know, was it a chance
Speaker 1: or was it you know, was a destiny?
Speaker 4: So good? I feel like I'm in Uni. But like
Speaker 4: there's that that element where the lady's not talking, the
Speaker 4: nurse isn't speaking to him at the beginning, and I go, oh,
Speaker 4: sometimes I've been that person when I've perceived someone is
Speaker 4: crazy and not. But you know, like I've been like, oh, i'
Speaker 4: mean doing my own thing. I'm fucking on my phone
Speaker 4: and someone talks to you and you're a bit like yeah, sure,
Speaker 4: And I thought, I can't do that anymore because what
Speaker 4: if I miss out on this brilliant moment and this story.
Speaker 4: You know, like that's actually it brought some awareness to myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the bar is going to be really high
Speaker 1: that you're going to go five minutes and you're like,
Speaker 1: you're not Forest Gump. You're just a dude telling me
Speaker 1: about how he masturbates at home.
Speaker 4: So horror movies great, story though, thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Put that on the podcast that in the next book.
Speaker 4: But besides that, No, but like, don't you reckon any
Speaker 4: time you engage with somebody that you normally wouldn't you
Speaker 4: always get a story at Oh?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? And I and I sometimes do it more of
Speaker 1: a summer because I have more time, you know, and
Speaker 1: I kind of put my defenses down a little bit.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I do walk around kind of you know, feeling
Speaker 1: like I hope I can just get in and mapp here.
Speaker 1: And when you do, it's and sometimes it's like I'll
Speaker 1: I'm up with people that I know, like the people
Speaker 1: that I know might have new friends over am I.
Speaker 1: I have a little bit of a setting where I'm like,
Speaker 1: I think I've met all the good people that I
Speaker 1: need to meet. I have enough nice people in my life.
Speaker 1: I think I've met all the nice people. I think
Speaker 1: I think I met them all. Yeah, and then people
Speaker 1: constantly you know, surprised.
Speaker 4: They're the best. Like that excites me, Like, I don't know,
Speaker 4: That's why I do half the dumb stuff I do.
Speaker 4: I went to like a hugging circle once, okay, please,
Speaker 4: there's just like a bunch of women hugging with their
Speaker 4: periods and crystals in a circle, and I just because
Speaker 4: I was like, I need to know what this is
Speaker 4: like and hugging a stranger for a long time, you know,
Speaker 4: what does it feel like? And who are these people?
Speaker 4: And why are they here?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: What's missing? Or what are they getting that we're missing?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: You know, like because I done radio in every small
Speaker 4: town ever like I you know, I was Miss Warwick
Speaker 4: show girl, you know, and all those people you wouldn't
Speaker 4: I wouldn't ordinarily meet, So any chance I can meet
Speaker 4: someone extraordinary and extraordinary is such an interesting word because
Speaker 4: some people think extraordinaries, you know Johnny Depp, but some
Speaker 4: people think extraordinary is the guy who works at were
Speaker 4: Worth doing night packing and.
Speaker 1: Has absolutely absolutely I just want to go back to
Speaker 1: the voice ago. I forgot to mention it earlier. That
Speaker 1: was behind the scenes thing. Tom Hanks was a bit
Speaker 1: reluctant to go full kind of Southern accent, and Roberts
Speaker 1: Mechus was keen for him to do it, and then
Speaker 1: he was only convinced because he heard because he thought
Speaker 1: the way it was picture him that he might that
Speaker 1: doing it. That Thick may have been taking the piss,
Speaker 1: but then he met the young actor Michael kind of Humphriyes,
Speaker 1: who played Young Forrest, and that's exactly how he spoke.
Speaker 1: So he just went ah, which I think is a
Speaker 1: really nice stories. Is like here, you know, like in
Speaker 1: Tom's mind, he probably hadn't met someone who has spoken
Speaker 1: that with that thicken accent. But then you meet somebody
Speaker 1: from the area where you, you know, you were supposed
Speaker 1: to be from, You're like, okay, well it makes sense now,
Speaker 1: you know, it makes sense much. I felt like it
Speaker 1: was a parody, but now that okay, this is that
Speaker 1: if it will speak as wrong, if he loves I'm nothing,
Speaker 1: I'll thank you Alledge for just fun d andy.
Speaker 4: So that little kid wasn't putting.
Speaker 1: On an accent, no that that apparently that's how he speaks.
Speaker 4: He was a great kid, and it would have been
Speaker 4: very difficult in those leg braces to perform and have
Speaker 4: that sort of physical limitation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he was. He was really good. He was
Speaker 1: really I mean the movie just like you said that,
Speaker 1: it kind of starts obviously with young Forest, and then
Speaker 1: there's moves pretty you know quickly. You know, I think
Speaker 1: it's a right amount of time to set up you know,
Speaker 1: the Jenny and the and the young Forest, and also
Speaker 1: that's that, you know, like we see Forrest as his
Speaker 1: really sweet kind of character, and if it was just
Speaker 1: about Forest, it would be quite you know, I think
Speaker 1: Sakker and you know, to sit through all of it,
Speaker 1: but he's just surrounded by these really interesting characters. And
Speaker 1: he's praying in the corn field with his one and
Speaker 1: only friend, one and only friend Jenny, whose father is abusing.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm beknownst to Forrest, but she's praying to be
Speaker 1: a bird so you can fly away. And like that's
Speaker 1: really kind of heavy stuff. You know, it's really full on.
Speaker 4: And then when you talk about think about that feather,
Speaker 4: you wonder is there and probably is a correlation there.
Speaker 4: And the way that Forest describes these people are so innocent,
Speaker 4: but you know as an adult what he's saying, you know,
Speaker 4: his la as child Forrest, he says, oh, you know,
Speaker 4: Jenny's father hugs and kisses.
Speaker 1: Her a lot, and you yeah.
Speaker 4: He touches her a lot or whatever, and you just
Speaker 4: know that it's it's a really abusive, awful relationship.
Speaker 1: And the lot comes back to that famous line, which
Speaker 1: I think we ordered kind of sometimes we make fun
Speaker 1: of which is actually fine once it's out, you know,
Speaker 1: it becomes a thing sometimes. But life is like a
Speaker 1: box of chocolates, you know, and they've all been given.
Speaker 1: Jenny's the chocolates Jenny was given it was really, you know,
Speaker 1: a shitty box of chocolates, you know. And and as
Speaker 1: was Forrest. But Forrest has been able to make something,
Speaker 1: you know, through the resilience and and yeah, which was
Speaker 1: taught to him by his mum, and having to go
Speaker 1: through those you know, those early hardships and to have
Speaker 1: the support of a you know, a great friend. I
Speaker 1: always say, you only need one great friend, you know,
Speaker 1: and he has that and the power of listening and
Speaker 1: being in the moment kind of you know, he never
Speaker 1: gets never gets mad, like like he gets sad. You know,
Speaker 1: there are times when he's sad, but I don't quite
Speaker 1: remember being mad.
Speaker 4: He never gets really super down. On the fact that
Speaker 4: he was bullied and you know, they were like run,
Speaker 4: but he wasn't sad about it. He was just like, oh,
Speaker 4: I've just got to run. Was very sort of very
Speaker 4: manufact very sort of this is what I have to do.
Speaker 4: I liked that character trait because I'm I mean, you
Speaker 4: write TV as well more successfully the night. But I'm
Speaker 4: writing at the moment, and trying to write a three
Speaker 4: D character, especially somebody who's not yourself, you know, or
Speaker 4: adjacent to yourself, is really hard to get in their
Speaker 4: brain as to why they would do something, why they
Speaker 4: wouldn't do something. And that character element of Forest not
Speaker 4: being sad, just going about things matter of fact, that
Speaker 4: is such augh, It's so good. Yeah, a genius writer
Speaker 4: is there, the mom sleeping with the teacher, by the way.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, And you mentioned you mentioned your
Speaker 1: love of Rachel Griffiths in Blow with Johnny Depp, who
Speaker 1: played Johnny Depp's mother. I imagine the age difference between
Speaker 1: Rachel Griffiths and Johnny Depp's not particularly much. And in
Speaker 1: this Sally Field he's only ten years older than Tom
Speaker 1: Hanks and in fact played his lover in a movie
Speaker 1: called Punchline in the Yes, yes, but it works. You
Speaker 1: know they've aged her up obviously that it doesn't work,
Speaker 1: aging her up and she has to kind of they
Speaker 1: need someone who could go Forrest doesn't really age, you know,
Speaker 1: outside of the big jump from being young Forest to
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks. But missus Gump only we never find had
Speaker 1: a name. This is missus Gump. She needs to age
Speaker 1: in a different way because she's in a different part
Speaker 1: of her life.
Speaker 4: It's interesting how she never finds a lover or that's
Speaker 4: never discussed. I guess that's not the a storyline. But
Speaker 4: I didn't find that interesting in that era as well.
Speaker 4: But what about when Forrest goes to the army. I
Speaker 4: always found like his decision to go to the army
Speaker 4: kind of strange.
Speaker 1: Yes, so why did he go? In the end, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to remember too.
Speaker 4: I just felt like going, huh oh, was it in
Speaker 4: the Army now?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I think it's his mom.
Speaker 4: I think his mom gave him the directive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm blanking on the moment where he decided to go.
Speaker 1: Did he just ended up there? I mean, I like
Speaker 1: the scenes in the Army certainly, I liked I really
Speaker 1: loved that moment where he's in Vietnam and then it's
Speaker 1: raining and it stops and the sun comes out and
Speaker 1: you think, ah, and then the gunfire starts, and it's
Speaker 1: like that kind of almost sums up what happens in
Speaker 1: this movie over and over again. And I know I
Speaker 1: was reading a lot of veterans have actually kind of
Speaker 1: like loved this scene as far as like this one
Speaker 1: scene is quite accurate in the way felt to them.
Speaker 4: And you know what's interesting, Like, you know, my pop
Speaker 4: fought in not Vietnam, maybe it was Cambodia. I'm not
Speaker 4: one hundred sent sure, but he actually had extreme PTSD
Speaker 4: and Forrest doesn't have PTSD. He doesn't seem particularly traumatized.
Speaker 4: After like the presence of this character and the respect
Speaker 4: that Tom Hanks has given. Oh fuck is it?
Speaker 2: God?
Speaker 4: Damn it? I just I guess I'm so jealous because
Speaker 4: I'm like, God, I want to write something that's good
Speaker 4: and I don't know why overwell, you know, but when
Speaker 4: he's has this relationship with Bubba and it's so beautiful
Speaker 4: and pure and Bubba's addiction to shrimp, I was just
Speaker 4: like kind of related to him because I was like,
Speaker 4: I love ham and any ham adjacent meal. So I
Speaker 4: was like, yes, Baba, with your weird shrimp ideas and
Speaker 4: how many different ways you could eat shrimp? That went
Speaker 4: over eight scenes.
Speaker 1: It's very funny. The film's very funny as well. There
Speaker 1: are some really funny moments. I completely forgot about the
Speaker 1: premature ejaculation scene.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm going about that too, shit and in the door.
Speaker 1: That like one of the funniest things if you can
Speaker 1: get it right on screen. One of the funniest jokes
Speaker 1: you can pull is the revere of the person you
Speaker 1: didn't know was in the room. Yes, this is done
Speaker 1: at a very high level in that scene where one,
Speaker 1: it's not just that Forrest's primaturely ejaculated after Jenny puts
Speaker 1: his hand on her breast, but it's also this long,
Speaker 1: reasonally long, deep and meaningful conversation they've had before, and
Speaker 1: then you just you pan down and their roommate, Jenny's roommate,
Speaker 1: is wide eyed and awake and kind of slightly terrified.
Speaker 4: I had many moments like that at Union because I
Speaker 4: lived in a dorm.
Speaker 1: Were you Jenny Forrest or the one in bed.
Speaker 4: Always the one in bed, always just being like, oh
Speaker 4: my god, Wow. I slept in a queen bed once.
Speaker 4: Well it was me and two boys going for it,
Speaker 4: and I was like, I had to pretend to be asleep,
Speaker 4: and I was like, Jesus, when will this end? And
Speaker 4: I was like thirty one, nineteen, I was ninety, I
Speaker 4: was pretty but I still remember the bed moving. So anyway, anyway.
Speaker 1: Anyway, so let's talk. Let's talk about those those three characters,
Speaker 1: the three you know, pivotal characters who join forres at
Speaker 1: various parts of his journey. Well, it's really interesting because
Speaker 1: I think this movie, as I mentioned in the introduction,
Speaker 1: is a lot of it's about America, and we see,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a lovely way to you know, to
Speaker 1: reminisce or learn about what was going on in America
Speaker 1: during these couple of decades. And I think these before
Speaker 1: I go to the characters, did you have a moment
Speaker 1: like one of the it's almost the original deep faking
Speaker 1: of these scenes, and they've done it such a high
Speaker 1: I thought they actually stood up really well.
Speaker 4: And like, because obviously I didn't watch it back in
Speaker 4: the day, I'm watching it with a twenty twenty one lens,
Speaker 4: going how the fuck did they do that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: But also at the beginning, like obviously I got Elvis
Speaker 4: reference at the top, but then there was a few
Speaker 4: sort of like political moments where he was meeting the
Speaker 4: president and I don't know who all those different presidents are,
Speaker 4: ye uh, And what else the references were in there?
Speaker 1: John there was John Lennon on the on the Tonight
Speaker 1: show where he basically inspired him the right imagine.
Speaker 4: That's so funny at the end with the ship happens
Speaker 4: and it's fucking genius and just uh, there's there were
Speaker 4: so many presidential moments where you know, he shows the
Speaker 4: bum with the bullet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there was I think there was with Nixon,
Speaker 1: and then there was I think the Reagan's assassination. I
Speaker 1: think was shown the uh he met he met JFK.
Speaker 1: That's why I think he.
Speaker 4: Yes, And I love how he does these asides at
Speaker 4: the end, which is probably laid over with just sort
Speaker 4: of like b roll and he's like, I never did
Speaker 4: hear whatever happened to that guy? But I think he
Speaker 4: got shot?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well with the with the JFK one, he said,
Speaker 1: it's a nice line. He said. He says, one day
Speaker 1: that man was shot and I heard later on that
Speaker 1: man was shot while he was driving in his car.
Speaker 1: And then a year later his brother was shot. And
Speaker 1: he said, it must be really hard to be brothers.
Speaker 4: That's what he said. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I
Speaker 4: love those sort of like seemingly offhanded things that you
Speaker 4: go ah yeah, and again his nonchalant yeah way of
Speaker 4: sort of saying it like I think this is what happened,
Speaker 4: and then moves on because it's just a bit of
Speaker 4: a it is a throwaway, but it's so like historically
Speaker 4: important and when you know how he sort of ends
Speaker 4: up in that line and ends up making that speech
Speaker 4: and they unplugged and Jenny is there. Like the way
Speaker 4: they did that is amazing. I don't know how they
Speaker 4: filmed and created that well.
Speaker 1: I think they kind of obviously there's a bit of
Speaker 1: CGI used. I think they kind of there was a
Speaker 1: crowd of a certain amount of people and then they
Speaker 1: just moved them around the square and basically eventually they get,
Speaker 1: you know, enough plates to fill in posts. They did right.
Speaker 1: It was interesting because Forrest is making his speech and
Speaker 1: he gets the senior member of the military or pulls
Speaker 1: out the plugs and we can't hear what he's saying. Originally,
Speaker 1: so Robischus wanted a speech in there, and Eric Roth
Speaker 1: was trying to write one and he just could not
Speaker 1: find the right well, at least I think he was happy,
Speaker 1: happy enough, but Robert Zamechis wasn't happy. And then he
Speaker 1: tried to get Billy Crystial to help out with it,
Speaker 1: and then he tried to get Robin Williams to help
Speaker 1: out and this nothing kind of was working. But I
Speaker 1: can tell you, according to Tom Hanks, what actually Forrest
Speaker 1: does actually say yes, And he says, sometimes when people
Speaker 1: go to Vietnam, they go home to their mummers without
Speaker 1: any legs. Sometimes they don't go home at all. That's
Speaker 1: a bad thing. That's what he says.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, that and then he goes and that's all
Speaker 4: I have to say about that.
Speaker 1: Which is a lovely tag for a lot of those
Speaker 1: thoughts that he has. Doesn't want to expand on. But
Speaker 1: these three characters, Lieutenant Dan, Jenny and Baba. I think
Speaker 1: we said this is a much about America than there's
Speaker 1: just about Forest. And I think if you what's interesting
Speaker 1: is what those three characters want. And we speaking about
Speaker 1: in these podcasts about you know, if you're writing your
Speaker 1: protagonists will they will want something, but that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: what they need, you know what we'll find out at
Speaker 1: the end what they need and that's what they should get,
Speaker 1: but they have to learn that that's actually what they need.
Speaker 1: What they want is what they need. And so Lieutenant
Speaker 1: and I think what these the wants of Lieutenant Dan,
Speaker 1: Jenny and Baba kind of represent a lot of the
Speaker 1: desires of the American public. Lieutenant Dan wants wants to
Speaker 1: be a hero, you know, and it's kind of an
Speaker 1: America's attitude towards heroism and how they look at their
Speaker 1: heroes and his idea of being a hero. He is
Speaker 1: dying in the field.
Speaker 4: And she really wanted that, didn't he.
Speaker 1: He really wanted it and got pissed off with you know,
Speaker 1: Forrest was saving his life. Jenny wants fame, you know,
Speaker 1: she wants fame. America is famously obsessed with fame.
Speaker 4: And I thought they might have done a Charles Manson
Speaker 4: thing in there. I was waiting for it because of
Speaker 4: all the hippy stuff. And she was in la or
Speaker 4: in Calibion. Oh, is she going to go to Charles
Speaker 4: Man's going to.
Speaker 1: Hang out with Sharon Stone and Baba. Baba is the enterprising,
Speaker 1: you know that you're searching for that big idea, that business.
Speaker 4: You know, American dream the money.
Speaker 1: Yes, And it's funny. Forrest ends up with everything. Fist
Speaker 1: ends up getting the Congressional Medal for bravery because sh
Speaker 1: forgot about Because what he does, he's true bravery. He
Speaker 1: keeps on going back in and back in and back in. Uh,
Speaker 1: he ends up being a table tennis champion and being
Speaker 1: famous and meeting all these presents and going to the
Speaker 1: White House. I love it when he says I got
Speaker 1: to go to the White House again. And then and
Speaker 1: he ends up with the Bubba Shrimp and making all
Speaker 1: this money and and and you know, and then investing
Speaker 1: in Apple.
Speaker 4: That that bit is a really good little nugget there.
Speaker 4: But I tell you because I've been to the States
Speaker 4: a lot, and I've always seen Bubba Shrimp or Bubbah
Speaker 4: Bubba Gump and been like, oh cool, like and then
Speaker 4: I was watching with my boyfriend and he'd seen it
Speaker 4: and I was like, he goes, oh, my name is Bubba.
Speaker 4: And the minute he said Bubba, I was like, fuck,
Speaker 4: is he a shrimp guy? I was like, is this
Speaker 4: a documentary? Tom was like no, it's a like a
Speaker 4: have you you noticed like all of the like no,
Speaker 4: But like my immediate thought was, oh my god. So
Speaker 4: that was a really bizarre thing because I literally did think, oh,
Speaker 4: is this a document.
Speaker 1: Well what's interesting is Bubba Shrimp, Like the movie has
Speaker 1: no rights over Bubba stream. They managed to get away
Speaker 1: with that with that kind of paying any royalties or anything,
Speaker 1: and which.
Speaker 4: I probably did a favor, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely absolutely, So okay, let's talk about let's talk
Speaker 1: about Jenny. You had a colder reaction to Jenny.
Speaker 4: I couldn't figure out her intention because you know that
Speaker 4: that ejaculation story with the girl in the room. I
Speaker 4: was like, what, why is just is she trying like
Speaker 4: what is what does she want? Is she trying to
Speaker 4: be like, let me give you this as a token experience?
Speaker 4: Is it let me give you this because I love you?
Speaker 4: Was it romantic? What was it clinical? I couldn't figure out.
Speaker 1: My read on that moment was almost both of your
Speaker 1: first I guess is there where it was a little
Speaker 1: bit of like, I'm giving you this experience, like Jenny,
Speaker 1: Jenny is experience. She would know that Forrest hasn't experienced that,
Speaker 1: and she and she loves she loves him. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a romantic love at that stage, and I'm
Speaker 1: not completely sure if it ever was completely romantic, but
Speaker 1: she there's a part of her that that I loved
Speaker 1: him so was happy to give him that experience.
Speaker 4: That's my Yeah, I guess then you know, because she
Speaker 4: keeps coming in and out, and it's so lovely when
Speaker 4: they see each other again. And then she goes and
Speaker 4: then she comes back. But the whole time I was like,
Speaker 4: just stay with him, you know, like he's a multimillionaire
Speaker 4: and she's got that house, and she's obviously not. She's here,
Speaker 4: there and everywhere, probably because she's had a very difficult childhood,
Speaker 4: very traumatized. She's looking for something that she can't find.
Speaker 4: I was like, you found it with this man. But obviously,
Speaker 4: just because of how she is, inherently she couldn't stay.
Speaker 4: Like I get it. But as an audience you're like,
Speaker 4: come on, well you want to end with a doose
Speaker 4: sort of thing. But it couldn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because she you know, she has had an abusive father.
Speaker 1: So the psychology I imagine of people who have gone
Speaker 1: through that is to somehow and for some reasons I
Speaker 1: don't understand, maybe be attracted to people who also inflict
Speaker 1: pain on them. So she continues continually finds bad men
Speaker 1: to hang out with. And that's the tragedy of it,
Speaker 1: that that she has this salt of the earth man
Speaker 1: who would do anything for her and sometimes goes above
Speaker 1: and beyond doing things for her. But I think that's
Speaker 1: the tragedy of the relationship in a way that you know,
Speaker 1: even when she was young, like she can never have
Speaker 1: this conversation with Forrest. She can never say, my father's
Speaker 1: abusing me, even as an don't because Forrest may not
Speaker 1: understand that, and she doesn't want to burden him with that.
Speaker 4: And also there's beautiful dialogue there that can only come
Speaker 4: from kids, and it's through Forrest's lens and he goes
Speaker 4: Jenny doesn't like to go home much. She likes to
Speaker 4: stay here, and you just know, you know, it's so
Speaker 4: tragically beautifully articulated through a child's you know, lens. But
Speaker 4: I think for me, you know that last bit where
Speaker 4: she finally comes home and they're sort of you know, dancing,
Speaker 4: and he says it's the best part of his life.
Speaker 4: And I have moved towards the end of the film, sorry,
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, they do have sex, and you're like,
Speaker 4: stay daddy, you mother?
Speaker 1: I know. So so I was going to ask you,
Speaker 1: I had written down to ask what did you think
Speaker 1: when like Jenny came home like suitcase in hand, and
Speaker 1: did you think, Okay, she's here, just stay?
Speaker 4: I was like it felt like the Notebook, you know,
Speaker 4: when Ali comes back and she's like, I'm committing to
Speaker 4: this life with you that hot guy, and I felt
Speaker 4: like sign Seal delivered. I'm ready for my Disney endy.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah. And then so then Forrest confesses his
Speaker 1: love and I think asks her to marry him, and
Speaker 1: he has that beautiful line I know what. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: maybe I may be stupid, but I know what love is.
Speaker 1: And and then Jenny thinks on that and then they
Speaker 1: get it on.
Speaker 4: Yes, I thought it might have been more awkward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Forrest, he knows his way around him. I see
Speaker 1: this his first time. It was way less awkward than mine.
Speaker 4: Same.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was older, so maybe maybe we didn't
Speaker 1: see those scenes where he was looking at pornaggs or
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, but he worked it out,
Speaker 1: he adapted. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I thought it was like kind of comfortable. And then
Speaker 4: in that comfort, you could understand why she left the
Speaker 4: next day.
Speaker 1: I know, you say it's sneaking out and jumping into
Speaker 1: the cab and she says, you know the guy and
Speaker 1: the taxi driver says, were you running to and she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not running, but you are.
Speaker 4: She was, but it's that like like I don't want
Speaker 4: to live this normal life for her as well, She's
Speaker 4: like like I think there's a lot going on for
Speaker 4: that character, Like I don't I don't want this, like
Speaker 4: I want more, but this scares me. This perfect life
Speaker 4: is scary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and all the things are happening to
Speaker 1: all these other characters, like it's all good good fortune
Speaker 1: really outside of his unrequited love for Jenny, it's all
Speaker 1: good fortune for Forest. He reminds me. I spoke that
Speaker 1: Adam Christie about Ferris Buelle and how Ferris Buele is
Speaker 1: such a like weird film because the protagonist there's no
Speaker 1: there's nothing happening. He just floats through the film and
Speaker 1: nothing bad happens to him. It happens the Cameron, you know,
Speaker 1: that was the Rooney you know in Forrest Gump. Really
Speaker 1: not much happens to Forest, like outside of being amazing
Speaker 1: and great things happening to him and with no real
Speaker 1: agency like y.
Speaker 4: And then like Barba dies, Oh that was harrowing. I
Speaker 4: was so sad about that. You know, he's like all
Speaker 4: of these and go through these journeys and he's sort
Speaker 4: of like hmm, I'm just going about my life. It's
Speaker 4: sort of like fuck and I wish I could have
Speaker 4: that level of disinterest or it's sort of like I
Speaker 4: guess presentness that where he's But he's not even agent
Speaker 4: for change either.
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, he really is for the most part floating,
Speaker 1: floating through like a father that perhaps we should point out.
Speaker 1: Robin Wright is fantastic as as Jenny. Other people considered
Speaker 1: for the role you'd be You can imagine this in
Speaker 1: your own time. Jodie Foster, Jy Foster, Nicole Kidman as well,
Speaker 1: I should have shut now and Demi Moore were three
Speaker 1: oh wow for that role. How so Jenny goes goes away,
Speaker 1: Forrest goes on his run.
Speaker 4: That was like the most difficult part for me to
Speaker 4: watch was like I hate running, I hate sweating, and
Speaker 4: watching the fact that this man run all this he
Speaker 4: did three years of running. I was like, this is
Speaker 4: a personal hell. Even just watching it, I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: but but then it like parkening back to his old
Speaker 4: self and what do you think the purpose of the
Speaker 4: run was for him to clear his head? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think I think so. Yeah, I think it was
Speaker 1: as too. He running was what gave him comfort, Like running,
Speaker 1: he was he was Jenny was always running away, but
Speaker 1: he was kind of always running too, So it's it's
Speaker 1: the first time he's like running almost aimlessly. You know,
Speaker 1: often he's running away from Jenny. I've been running away
Speaker 1: from like situations. Forrest runs away from people when they're
Speaker 1: throwing rocks at him, and he runs away from from
Speaker 1: bombs and and and so I guess they both do
Speaker 1: run away from things. But but I think in this
Speaker 1: situation he was just it's it's it's what gave him purpose,
Speaker 1: I think in life. And I think he's imagine it's
Speaker 1: a connection with that.
Speaker 4: And the money, because obviously at this point, this man's
Speaker 4: potentially a billionaire, got shares in Apple owns, Bubba Gump,
Speaker 4: doesn't need to work. He's finished on the shrimp thing
Speaker 4: with old mate, which I love those scenes of Sergeant
Speaker 4: Dan and seeing the both sides of him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was.
Speaker 4: He was a really great performer, and I really believed him.
Speaker 1: I think it's the first time i'd seen Gary sonice
Speaker 1: and he's fantastic.
Speaker 4: Actually, what else has he he done? I've actually never
Speaker 4: seen him or Jenny again, or maybe I have.
Speaker 1: You've seen Jenny. Jenny's Robin Wright. Well, she was a
Speaker 1: more recently House of Cards, the wife of Kevin Spacey
Speaker 1: rest in Peace, but she formerly married to Sean Pan.
Speaker 1: She actually did a film recently with Here in Australia
Speaker 1: with Naomi Watts, which is about two ladies of their
Speaker 1: age who sleep with each other's sons, which was which
Speaker 1: is quite.
Speaker 4: It sounds like an American pie like sixteen.
Speaker 1: Well, it was like an artie. It was like a yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was like an artie.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 1: It wasn't stifless mamas such as it was a more artie.
Speaker 4: Oh god, I'm so my generation, how embarrassing.
Speaker 1: For us, But she was. She was in one of
Speaker 1: her first breakout roles was The Princess Bride. Why okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they mentioned many times on this she was in Moneyball.
Speaker 1: She was Moneyball the girl on the Dragon Tatoo, the
Speaker 1: American version.
Speaker 4: Oh man, I know who she is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely do. She is awesome and just one
Speaker 1: of the most beautiful women on the planet's.
Speaker 4: Oh the body Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: And so and then we get to U. He gets
Speaker 1: a message and this is where the movie kind of starts.
Speaker 1: It's what he's waiting for. He's got a message to
Speaker 1: see Jenny and he will always be at Jenny's beck
Speaker 1: and call, and he fun he.
Speaker 4: Finds out it is interesting again, isn't it, Because he goes,
Speaker 4: he doesn't go, no, fuck, you've hurt me too much.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Most characters would push back on that and go, no, fuck,
Speaker 4: you've hurt me. Just run for three years. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I can't do this anymore. And he realizes he doesn't
Speaker 4: have that, which is where Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And when he's told that, you know, you know
Speaker 1: the bus you're going it only goes like one or
Speaker 1: two stops. This is three blocks away. He gets up
Speaker 1: and he runs to her, always running to Jenny, and
Speaker 1: we find out that Forest Gump has given birth to
Speaker 1: the boy who will eventually see dead people Hailey Joel Osmond.
Speaker 4: What a gorgeous child grew into a.
Speaker 1: Gorgeous and his delivery of like I think three or
Speaker 1: four words where he's hell little mister Gump is just
Speaker 1: is so perfect and you can see why they tapped
Speaker 1: him on the shoulder for the sixth sense like that,
Speaker 1: just that little performance we're casting, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: find a child at the moment for how to say married,
Speaker 1: and it's it's really tough you know, and we got
Speaker 1: really lucky with our our Chloe played by Vivian Turner,
Speaker 1: extraordinarily lucky with her. But they're hard to find and.
Speaker 4: Showiz, you know, American kids, So like, how do you
Speaker 4: going you want? What accent? Do you want? Do you want?
Speaker 4: You want jazzy? You want Latin? Like those? It's sort
Speaker 4: of that, it's hard. I'd imagine you're sort of what
Speaker 4: that type of child? Do you die?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to kind of have a reasoning natural
Speaker 1: performance and and Haley Joel osmond as it's very funny
Speaker 1: too when he started let's have a listen. Actually, when
Speaker 1: when Jenny gives Forrest Gump the news that he is,
Speaker 1: in fact the father.
Speaker 4: His name's Forrest, like me, I named him after his daddy.
Speaker 3: He got a daddy named Forrest too. M hm, you're his.
Speaker 6: Daddy, Forest, Kay, Forrest, look at me, Look at me, Forrest.
Speaker 6: There's nothing you need to do. Okay, you didn't do
Speaker 6: anything wrong.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 6: Isn't he beautiful?
Speaker 3: It's the most beautiful thing I've ever said.
Speaker 2: Mh.
Speaker 4: But is he's smart?
Speaker 1: He's very smart.
Speaker 4: He's one of the smartest in his class.
Speaker 6: H Yeah, it's okay, go talk to him.
Speaker 1: That's the moment, isn't it? For me? That was the
Speaker 1: moment when he said is he mhm? Is he smart?
Speaker 1: And that the whole move. That was the moment that
Speaker 1: got me and.
Speaker 4: Almos got me. Just listened to the bloody audio.
Speaker 1: And it's like, that's and that's where you win your
Speaker 1: Oscar in scenes. I mean, you have to be good
Speaker 1: for the entire movie, but I think we all realize
Speaker 1: that there are scenes that can win you an Oscar
Speaker 1: and you need, you know, sometimes one scene, but often
Speaker 1: a handful of scenes. And Tom Hanks has it in
Speaker 1: this but that's one of them, and we'll listen to
Speaker 1: another one in a moment. But that moment when he
Speaker 1: realizes his he puts it together. I mean, it's very
Speaker 1: funny when he you know, he says, you know, somebody
Speaker 1: else could Forest Gump.
Speaker 4: And then to go from that to like this to
Speaker 4: this war in this like forty seconds is beautiful writing
Speaker 4: and a beautiful performance in that. You know, Oh god, Ah,
Speaker 4: I don't know why. I don't know why HiT's being
Speaker 4: triggers me so much, And I think it's because you're like, Jenny,
Speaker 4: why did you not tell him earlier? Why this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, well I think, you know, I think everybody
Speaker 1: has that feeling. And I spoke to Hughes he you know,
Speaker 1: quite genuinely about it, when he's pretty in pink about
Speaker 1: the ducky character and pretty in pink about being being overlooked,
Speaker 1: you know, and usually really responded to that. And he
Speaker 1: spoke about the idea of being put in the friend zone,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, he really connected to that movie,
Speaker 1: into that and to that character for that reason. And
Speaker 1: I think it's a universal experience, you know, unless you
Speaker 1: probably Robin Wright or Ryan Gosling, and I'm sure even
Speaker 1: they have been put into the friend zone weirdly. So
Speaker 1: you understand that this like this loyalty that you hope
Speaker 1: if you, if you show that and if you have
Speaker 1: that will one day be reciprocated.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, I guess you know in some way
Speaker 1: it is because you know, they have this child together,
Speaker 1: but it's still not I don't think as much as
Speaker 1: Forrest loves having his son, you know, I'm sure he
Speaker 1: would have loved to have more time with Jenny obviously. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think that the reason she did tell him then,
Speaker 4: as and You're right, like as much as us watching
Speaker 4: it go, oh, they should be together. That Jenny wasn't
Speaker 4: in love with him. Yes, she loved it, but she
Speaker 4: wasn't in love with him. And she's such an enigmatic,
Speaker 4: passionate sexual being that it just wasn't it. But she
Speaker 4: knew she was going to die, and she knew that
Speaker 4: she needed to introduce the baby to Forrest sooner rather
Speaker 4: than later. Yeah, And I think that's probably the driving force,
Speaker 4: and that's the why.
Speaker 1: So why do you think that? Why do you think
Speaker 1: Jenny did not you know, this is a very big thing.
Speaker 1: She's had a child, his child, and not told him
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 4: And also I'm trying to conceive of the moment, right,
Speaker 4: do you know how hard it is to have a
Speaker 4: baby after one tribe and trying for two years. I
Speaker 4: fucking ovulate this stick in here, this temperature gauge in here,
Speaker 4: and this hormone, and this woman has sex one time.
Speaker 4: She just happened to be ovulating that day and happened
Speaker 4: to conceive a child. Like fuck, I was like, Jenny, bloody,
Speaker 4: blissful human being.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I've never thought this and I
Speaker 1: don't believe this, but I mean, you could make an argument,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe Jenny wanted a baby, and maybe you know,
Speaker 1: I've never actually thought about this until now. Maybe she
Speaker 1: this was she took an opportunity because it wasn't love,
Speaker 1: you know, true, but maybe you know this was you know,
Speaker 1: a plan I think, not not a long held plan,
Speaker 1: but maybe one conceived in a moment. And but she's
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 4: You see her every she's got a different job, every time,
Speaker 4: in a different clothing. She's a different person. Every time
Speaker 4: you go to Jenny, she's a different person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely different. And she leaves her very next morning.
Speaker 1: Like I'm starting to think perhaps there might be I
Speaker 1: don't know he has any podcasts at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Let us know if you think Jenny may have slept
Speaker 1: with Forrest for the sole purpose of having a baby
Speaker 1: and maybe of fun and also maybe to give him
Speaker 1: some love, you know, But why give him that love
Speaker 1: and then sneak out the next day and not not
Speaker 1: contact him for three years.
Speaker 4: Well here's the other point. Maybe it's not Forrest's baby,
Speaker 4: but she knows that he will look after the baby
Speaker 4: when because she's obviously got this diagnosis which I is
Speaker 4: it is it HIV?
Speaker 1: So yes, no, it's actually hepsy and that's that's mad
Speaker 1: because I always you know, I think we all assume
Speaker 1: it's HIV, and because that was, you know, the big
Speaker 1: then going around that was not really treatable for a
Speaker 1: long time, and you know, so it killed so many
Speaker 1: people as as he but HIV was is the big
Speaker 1: story and this movie is dealing.
Speaker 4: With particularly in the States as well. Yeah, and the
Speaker 4: big things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I always assumed it was HIV, but reading up,
Speaker 1: apparently it's been confirmed it was hepsie, that she died
Speaker 1: from intravenous drug use.
Speaker 4: Of course, actually doesn't that that makes you so sad
Speaker 4: when she's doing the heroine you're like.
Speaker 1: No, Jack, no, come on Jenny. But okay, So then
Speaker 1: Jenny dies and it's another.
Speaker 4: You know, it's like double whammy. And now he's fucking
Speaker 4: a alone, I know.
Speaker 1: And that is the tragic because Bubba's you know, Bubba's dead, Missus,
Speaker 1: Gumpy's mom's dead, Jenny's now dead. Lieutenant Dan is still
Speaker 1: on the scene thankfully and gets.
Speaker 4: The no, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 1: But still have one friend who's not really around, like
Speaker 1: he's living where he's living. He's still pretty heartbreaking. And
Speaker 1: then this gives another moment for Tom Hanks to put
Speaker 1: all his wears out there and show us exactly how
Speaker 1: good he is. And it's a heartbreaking moment. And also
Speaker 1: I think ties the feather, the notion of the feather,
Speaker 1: into this beautiful speech at Jenny's grave.
Speaker 3: I don't know if Mama with the rad or if
Speaker 3: it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have
Speaker 3: a destiny or if we're all just floating around accidental,
Speaker 3: like on a breeze. But I think maybe it's both,
Speaker 3: maybe both that happened, and at the same time, I
Speaker 3: miss you Jen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a heartbreaker, There's no doubt about it. There's
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. We're going to finish with some
Speaker 1: fun facts about the.
Speaker 4: Film Weeping and this podcast. Tante are going to cry
Speaker 4: for forty.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to that hug circle that you
Speaker 1: spoke about later on tonight. Those ladies, Hey Baba, some
Speaker 1: other people who were asked to play Bubba but turned
Speaker 1: it down. Ice Cube turned it down because, in his words,
Speaker 1: didn't want to play an idiot. Maybe misreading yeuch that
Speaker 1: don't held up.
Speaker 4: No, probably wouldn't have held up. Then that's pretty rude.
Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle said no, he didn't think it was gone.
Speaker 1: The film was going to work, said no, since has
Speaker 1: regretted it. Funny enough, Warner Brothers let go of the
Speaker 1: rights for this film in the late eighties. I think
Speaker 1: it was it's based on a film by Winston Groom.
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers let go of the rights because they had
Speaker 1: to choose between this and another movie. They end up
Speaker 1: making good executive decision, which is an action movie which
Speaker 1: was shithouse and nobody really remembers, so, oh.
Speaker 4: My god, who made that decision?
Speaker 1: Bad move? The Winston Groom only had one person he
Speaker 1: wanted to play Forrest Gump, and it wasn't Tom Hanks.
Speaker 1: It was John Goodman from Roseanne and many many great films.
Speaker 1: Because in the book, Forrest Gump's much bigger. He's much
Speaker 1: more like a big, friendly giant type. And in the
Speaker 1: fields like, there's a lot more things. I think they
Speaker 1: changed some of the things that Forrest does in history.
Speaker 1: In the book, he actually goes into space, he smokes weed,
Speaker 1: he works with Raquel Welch, he confronts Cannibal's funnily enough, No,
Speaker 1: so it seems a bit maybe darker, perhaps, but I
Speaker 1: think they made some pretty good decisions.
Speaker 4: Knowing that he was meant to be stock here makes
Speaker 4: sense with the Vietnam bit where he went and got
Speaker 4: like all those soldiers. Yeah, oh that is a bit weird.
Speaker 4: You're like, how he's randomly strong also with.
Speaker 1: This strength, yeah, come from There has been a sequel written,
Speaker 1: and it was almost close to getting done called I
Speaker 1: think Gump and Co. I think it was called. And
Speaker 1: some of the things that were gonna be involved in
Speaker 1: that film was the Diana was going to be involved, O. J. Simpson,
Speaker 1: the Berlin Wall, suddenly do Facebook. Forrest Gump was going
Speaker 1: to lead the Navy seal somehow inter fining some of
Speaker 1: bin laden.
Speaker 4: Brilliant.
Speaker 1: And then nine eleven happened, and and so some of
Speaker 1: these things may have even been happened, like I think
Speaker 1: probably a mixture of before and after nine eleven, but
Speaker 1: nine to eleven kind of it was shelved and it's
Speaker 1: never it's never quite got back on track. I'm not listening.
Speaker 1: I don't think and fame last words. Sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: you think, you know, what's a good idea. I remember
Speaker 1: when Dancing with the Star started and I said, oh,
Speaker 1: that dancing show that'll be over in three weeks and
Speaker 1: it's become one of the biggest worldwide.
Speaker 4: It's I think they're on like season thirty or something.
Speaker 1: In like eighty countries, so, you know, and I love
Speaker 1: it when I love it when a movie that sounds
Speaker 1: like they not needed or ridiculous comes out and they
Speaker 1: actually hit it out of the park.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like Greece Too, Like Grease Too is.
Speaker 1: A perfect example.
Speaker 4: Tania Hennessy, No, you know, Frozen too. I feel like,
Speaker 4: you know, like Frozen are so good. The sequels like
Speaker 4: you don't need it?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and this is coming from someone who loves
Speaker 1: their sequels live.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I have terrible tastes. I look forward to
Speaker 4: the abusive tweets. To be fair, I got terrible taste,
Speaker 4: but you know, I go betweet a low brow at a
Speaker 4: high brow.
Speaker 1: That's great. There was also another scene they shot for
Speaker 1: the original film where involved Martin Luther King, and they
Speaker 1: did take it out. They kind of felt like it
Speaker 1: was maybe in bad taste. I don't think they'll do
Speaker 1: anything obviously disrespectful, but they kind of thought it could
Speaker 1: have easily been misconstrued and they took that out. So
Speaker 1: so that's that's it. I think they're all the fun
Speaker 1: facts I have in regards to into this film. But
Speaker 1: the other fun fact, the voice of Elvis was played
Speaker 1: by Kurt Russell. That was Kurt Russell. He was great, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was. And because he's played Elvis in one of
Speaker 1: two films I think A Thousand Miles from Graceland and
Speaker 1: I think another film as well. So wow. Oh, one
Speaker 1: more fun fact. Eric Roth, who the genius screenwriter, like
Speaker 1: he over wrote the first script so much because he
Speaker 1: knew there was going to be some fantastical elements to
Speaker 1: the film and he wrote it. And I'm glad they
Speaker 1: didn't go with this. I'm glad Robert Amkas, you know,
Speaker 1: put us up to this. He wrote it. So whenever
Speaker 1: Jenny was on, like you saw Jenny, she had actual
Speaker 1: angel wings.
Speaker 4: Oh no, no, no, yeah.
Speaker 1: Like you know, oh wait, you know, like, do not
Speaker 1: edit yourself in the first few drafts, you know, just
Speaker 1: go for it. But I'm glad there was a script
Speaker 1: editor or Roberts and Mechas who put us up to that.
Speaker 1: And also Lieutenant Dan always had like a rain cloud
Speaker 1: over his head.
Speaker 4: Oh no, no, that's like a completely different film.
Speaker 1: It's a very different vibe. And you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: if if you're writing, don't don't edit yourself in the
Speaker 1: early drafts. But there are reasons why these things get
Speaker 1: get shelved eventually. It's like when we talk about other
Speaker 1: actors who may have played yeah, a role, Like we say,
Speaker 1: we can't imagine Chevy Chevy Chase as Forrest Gump. Now
Speaker 1: it is really hard to imagine that because I think
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks is a fast, superior actor than Chevy Chase,
Speaker 1: as great as he as he is in Fletch and
Speaker 1: you know, as Clark w Griswold. But we don't know,
Speaker 1: We don't know, you know, we only can tell what
Speaker 1: we you know, what we what's creating, what's on the screen.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what we're given. And that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when you're putting a show together and you're in
Speaker 1: the edit suite and you might you know, the old
Speaker 1: Killer your darlink. You might go, I love this scene,
Speaker 1: and somebody will point out to you, yeah, but the
Speaker 1: audience that at this stage doesn't know that scene exists,
Speaker 1: so they won't miss it, which sometimes can grab my
Speaker 1: goat a little bit because it's like, yeah, they just
Speaker 1: because they don't know, it doesn't mean, they don't need
Speaker 1: to know, you know, but so true, But there is
Speaker 1: you know, I always feel good when I when I
Speaker 1: do an edit and I make tough decisions, and obviously
Speaker 1: there's some great decisions made on Forest Gump in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four. So before I let you go there, you
Speaker 1: did mention something I mentioned at the start of in
Speaker 1: your introduction that you were stage managing the Edinburgh Bridge
Speaker 1: Festival and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Did you did you?
Speaker 1: Were you stage managing anyone we know?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 4: I stage managed four acts. One was Sam, Sam Simmons
Speaker 4: and Dave Quirk. I was looking love davek alexab two.
Speaker 4: Who else did I do? Damian Damian.
Speaker 1: Callan ann Oh Callanan yeh, yep, yep. Damien's great made
Speaker 1: a great film a couple of years ago.
Speaker 4: He was so lovely to work with. And I also
Speaker 4: worked with a Chinese comedian who did his set completely
Speaker 4: in Mandarin, which was very difficult for me to do
Speaker 4: the lighting and sound. Also, one night he took me
Speaker 4: out for dinner and people kept giving him flowers, and
Speaker 4: then he asked me if he could dress me up
Speaker 4: and take me to the casino, and if I could
Speaker 4: clean his house. Wow, it was so weird. But yeah,
Speaker 4: it was really weird.
Speaker 1: Like I was staged in Melbourne or Edinburgh.
Speaker 4: Melbourne, Melbourne. I was actually a stage manager, so that
Speaker 4: Sam Simmons and Dave Quirk did together and Ronnie Chang
Speaker 4: was actually in it, but he just he was doing
Speaker 4: raw that year. He was actually on stage in a box.
Speaker 4: The set was all cardboard boxes and Ronni Chang was
Speaker 4: in a box. He was on stage for forty minutes,
Speaker 4: ran through the audience and that was the end. And
Speaker 4: so I know Ronnie Chang and have known Ronnie Chang
Speaker 4: since like well before he was like rot oh trag.
Speaker 4: I knew him being nude in a box in Dave
Speaker 4: Quirk and Sam Simmons comedy show. But you know what
Speaker 4: was so weird. So I was twenty seven, I'm thirty
Speaker 4: five now. Last year I did chuse If You Have
Speaker 4: a Problem, and I was sat next to Sam Simmons
Speaker 4: and I don't think he liked it. No, no, no,
Speaker 4: he's very funny, Like I was crying laughing. He's wit
Speaker 4: is oh lightning quick. But he was like have I
Speaker 4: gone up or have you gone down? How's this worked out?
Speaker 4: I'm like, no, I'm just desperate for work and we'll
Speaker 4: take it wherever it's available. But the reason I was
Speaker 4: working on it was to watch stand ups over and
Speaker 4: over again. Oh and Asher Asher t eleven.
Speaker 1: Ah, yes, it's great.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And I just watched these shows over and over again,
Speaker 4: and every single person in my venue that you won
Speaker 4: won an award, and I was like, I'm going to
Speaker 4: watch these people and then I'm going to figure out
Speaker 4: what they do and what they don't do, and then
Speaker 4: I'm going to put it into what I do. And
Speaker 4: it turns out that doesn't work. You've just got to
Speaker 4: do you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and you don't know until you get on
Speaker 1: stage and you kind of get those hours up and absolutely.
Speaker 4: Remember I still don't have hours up. Pete. I mean
Speaker 4: I think I'm more of a Hamish Blake than a
Speaker 4: Peter Hellier, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I wish I was more of a
Speaker 1: Hamish Blake than the Peter Heller sometimes. I it's funny.
Speaker 1: I did a gig recently in Darwin as my first
Speaker 1: gig since he had a French festival last year because
Speaker 1: of the pandemic, and it was in front of two
Speaker 1: and a half thousand people. And it wasn't just me
Speaker 1: on the bill. There was huge Eater's Tripod, Denise the one,
Speaker 1: Denise Scott.
Speaker 4: I love Denise Scott.
Speaker 1: Yeah, always a joy. It's so so funny. And I
Speaker 1: was second last time, so you had to wait around
Speaker 1: a bit, and I was doting to get a little
Speaker 1: in the US. And I remember saying to Akmel, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I'm a bit towy, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: do some new stuff and and and I sudden I
Speaker 1: have doubts whether I should do new stuff. And he
Speaker 1: just said, just remember it's not just about the jokes.
Speaker 1: It's about your connection with the audience, you know. And
Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, that's right, Actually it is.
Speaker 1: And I just went out and I kind of and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I reminded myself that I've been doing this
Speaker 1: for you know, twenty five years. I have Plan B,
Speaker 1: I have a plan ce il. So you just went out,
Speaker 1: have fun, connected with the audience, had a great time.
Speaker 1: And it was a thousand people.
Speaker 4: Though that's like that's yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great. But it's it's easy to play the
Speaker 1: two and a half thousand, and it is to play
Speaker 1: too you know twelve. Yeah in a room.
Speaker 4: Hey, I tell you stage manager of the Edinbur Fringe.
Speaker 4: First of all, we performed once to an audience of one, right,
Speaker 4: and it was me. I was the stage manager, right.
Speaker 4: I had to laugh and it was awful for that comedian.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember Lowly days. I had a rule I
Speaker 1: think no no less than six I think that was,
Speaker 1: and I was about to cancel. I've never canceled a show.
Speaker 1: I was at the councelor and like another six walked in,
Speaker 1: so I was like, okay, I can perform the twelve,
Speaker 1: that's all right.
Speaker 4: You know what, Well, that year that I did at
Speaker 4: a refringe festival, I saw Hannah Gadsby flying her own show,
Speaker 4: firing her own show, and she's huge in Australia, but
Speaker 4: you know, sort of just getting up. This was like
Speaker 4: two thousand and nine. So to see Hannah Gatsby on
Speaker 4: the street flying her own show. I went in and
Speaker 4: it was probably like twelve people in there. This bitch
Speaker 4: performed like it was a fucking stadium. And I learned
Speaker 4: so many lessons from Hannah Gadsby that night in two
Speaker 4: thousand and nine in this venue, and I thought to myself,
Speaker 4: you've taught me every fucking lesson I need to learn.
Speaker 4: You need to perform like it's the last time you're
Speaker 4: ever going to perform, and give this audience everything because
Speaker 4: they deserve it. That taught me a lot about being
Speaker 4: a performer, and I'll never forget that. And I hope
Speaker 4: one day get to tell her that story.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I'm sure. I'm sure you will, and it's a
Speaker 1: good lesson. I always had to remind myself sometimes I
Speaker 1: might be driving into a gig and think, you know,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, I'm tired or there's something else on
Speaker 1: my mind, and I have to remind myself that there
Speaker 1: are people in the audience to have organized babysitters. Yes
Speaker 1: I have, that they've chosen my show above other shows.
Speaker 1: And it just it's that those thoughts that it kind
Speaker 1: of focuses you pretty quickly, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'm so super pumped to be there and to get out,
Speaker 1: and I've been super pumped to talk to you. Tanya Hennessy,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for watching this film.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I'm so glad I did it. Honestly,
Speaker 4: it's maybe it's going above high school musical two.
Speaker 1: Oh, there we go. It's no great compliment. I hope
Speaker 1: this Robinson Mecas and Tom Hanks and Eric Roth, I
Speaker 1: really do. But thank you so much. Keep doing what
Speaker 1: you're doing. You're an absolute delight. And yeah, we love
Speaker 1: you and thank.
Speaker 4: You, oh my god, pleasure. Thank you so much for
Speaker 4: having me on the pot.
Speaker 1: That was a whole lot of farm with Tanya Hannessey.
Speaker 1: Find her on Instagram. She is a content machine and
Speaker 1: she's full of joy and positivity. That's what I love
Speaker 1: about Tanya. And that was just like I was relieved
Speaker 1: that she liked Forest Gump, because you know, it could
Speaker 1: be a movie that if the wrong person watched it,
Speaker 1: they possibly could have hated. I don't know how you could,
Speaker 1: but you know some people. Forest doesn't speak to everyone,
Speaker 1: so I'm glad it spoke to Tanya. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you all for listening. Please rate us and give
Speaker 1: us a rating on iTunes. I recommend five stars and
Speaker 1: leave a review. It all helps get the show out there.
Speaker 1: And rate and review and like and tell your friends.
Speaker 1: The old fashioned word of mouth still counts. Yasny podcast
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com is where you can find me.
Speaker 1: I want to thank I had a lot of people
Speaker 1: both on Twitter, on my Instagram page, and on the
Speaker 1: email let me know I met a great reaction from
Speaker 1: the Mark Humphrey's episode. A couple of weeks back when
Speaker 1: we did Grease, and I was speaking about the Anette character.
Speaker 1: There's a character called a Nette that's referred to twice,
Speaker 1: once by Kanicki and once by Rizzo. Kanicki says, nobody
Speaker 1: has jugs like Annett's. And we discussed that there may
Speaker 1: be a character within the Grease world at Rydale High
Speaker 1: that was named Annette, but we never see. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you've all guys, you've all come to the party. Gary
Speaker 1: Stevens got in touch, Paula, Michelle got in touch, Donna
Speaker 1: got in touch, and Donna. I like Donna. Donna's very
Speaker 1: simp simple. She said, biggest breast in the Mouseketeers, Annette,
Speaker 1: and she put a link in Wikipedia link Annette fun
Speaker 1: of Cello. Fun of Cello. Maybe appropriate for somebody with
Speaker 1: a large breast. Fun at Cello. And she was a
Speaker 1: legend who was a big part of the Disney family
Speaker 1: and the Mickey Mouse Club. She was a huge star
Speaker 1: of the time, and that's why and Net is referred
Speaker 1: to and her memories, So thank you everyone who got
Speaker 1: in touch about that. He's another one, just a random
Speaker 1: one from Rebecca. Rebecca got in touch. Hi, Pete. Sorry
Speaker 1: to fangirl you, but I'm a long standing admira of
Speaker 1: your work and I've just found this podcast. Welcome to
Speaker 1: our little family, Rebecca. I've been listened to Mark Humphries
Speaker 1: with Greece and Tony Martin's Top Gun and loved it
Speaker 1: so much. I laughed so hard, bloody hilarious, a similar
Speaker 1: age to you, Pete. I really appreciate your size and
Speaker 1: comments on how we used to access films and media
Speaker 1: with VHS tapes and how much more exclusive viewing films
Speaker 1: used to be before our current world of twenty four
Speaker 1: hour access to content and films online. We used to
Speaker 1: value a movie at the cinemas, so I'm sure they
Speaker 1: had much greater impact on us and our psyche, particularly
Speaker 1: in our formative years. I adored your reflections on Greece,
Speaker 1: for instance, and how the eleven year old you interpreted
Speaker 1: or more like misinterpreted some of the plot and dialogue.
Speaker 1: And hey, you find it funny as you now realize
Speaker 1: what it was all about. Yes, I learned what a
Speaker 1: condom was by watching Greece, and I misunderstood it completely,
Speaker 1: and she's recommended some people. Julia Morris. I've spent a
Speaker 1: Julia about coming on. She'll come on at some point.
Speaker 1: Annabel Crab, Lawrence Mooney, Hammi Splake, mc malloy, Rob Sich.
Speaker 1: I have spoken to Rob about hopefully he comes on.
Speaker 1: Tim mentioned Josh Zepp's great idea, James Valentine, Jonathan Green,
Speaker 1: Mischelle Laurie, Adam Richard, Charles Frethurs, Carlson, Tim Ferguson, Jane Carrow,
Speaker 1: Adam Zoar, and Gretel Colleen. Thank you so much. Beck
Speaker 1: can also give me this great mental exercise when I
Speaker 1: try and come up with my top three favorite movies
Speaker 1: so hard and changes day to day. Thanksgiving me such
Speaker 1: joy in humor in these podcasts and everything else you do. Beck,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I am
Speaker 1: endeavoring never reply to all the emails or if not
Speaker 1: read them on this there's one more email actually I
Speaker 1: want to read that that's actually quite important and quite touching.
Speaker 1: You may Rema. We did an extra episode between series
Speaker 1: one and series two inspired by one of our listeners,
Speaker 1: Anile Warren, who was going through some chemotherapy and she
Speaker 1: had really was an early adopter of the podcast, and
Speaker 1: she got in touch with me and I have a
Speaker 1: heartwarming message from ANALYI and I'm gonna read it now.
Speaker 1: She got in touch with me on my son's birthday
Speaker 1: to twenty eighth of December last year, and she said, Hi, Pete,
Speaker 1: just thought I would share some good news. I have
Speaker 1: had surgery to remove my cancer and it was successful.
Speaker 1: Recovery is tough, but there is so much good to
Speaker 1: focus on. Only two more rounds of chemo and then
Speaker 1: I can feel normal again. I hope you had a
Speaker 1: much deserved, RESTful Christmas break surrounded by loved ones, kind
Speaker 1: regards andly thank you so much for getting in touch.
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard anything for a little while. I had
Speaker 1: thought of you, and I was a little concerned, but
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to get that message. So please keep
Speaker 1: in touch and to all of you again. Yesny podcast
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com, Cassaway Studios, Jake Myies is the
Speaker 1: man who helps put all this together, and he's done
Speaker 1: a great job. If you're getting a podcast up, Castawaystudios
Speaker 1: dot com dot au is where you need to go
Speaker 1: to fulfill all your podcast Needs and Desires and Dreams.
Speaker 1: Next week on the show we have our very first
Speaker 1: returning guests. This is a man who appeared on series one.
Speaker 1: If you ain't seen Nothing yet, you know him from
Speaker 1: rose Haven, which just announced a series five is coming
Speaker 1: exciting news. Luke McGregor joined us I think maybe episode
Speaker 1: two of the podcast, and he watched The Godfather and
Speaker 1: he vowed to watch The Godfather Part two. Next week
Speaker 1: we do it with Luke mad Dog McGregor in the studio.
Speaker 1: If you ain't seen Nothing yet, check out Godfather Part
Speaker 1: two if you haven't seen it during the week and
Speaker 1: join us on this very podcast until next time. Bye bye,
Speaker 1: And so we leave old Pete safe and soult and
Speaker 1: to our friends of the radio audience, we've been a
Speaker 1: pleasant good night.