Episode 1284 - Benedict Cumberbatch
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck nicks what the fuck buddies what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast i'm going to talk to benedict cumberbatch today okay you know him from sherlock the marvel movies where he plays dr strange the
Marc:The Imitation Game and, you know, movies, more.
Marc:He's been in a lot of stuff.
Marc:He's got two movies you can see right now.
Marc:The Electrical Life of Louis Wayne is streaming on Prime Video.
Marc:And the other one is Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog, which is now in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
Marc:Both very good.
Marc:I watched both of them.
Marc:If you haven't watched The Power of the Dog yet, here's a heads up.
Marc:We had a good long talk about the movie, okay, and we didn't hold back.
Marc:So if you want to watch the movie first before listening to that part of our conversation, I'll jump in and I'll give you a warning when it's about to happen because that's the kind of guy I am, all right?
Marc:I didn't want to remove the conversation was too good, so I'm going to let you know that spoilers are about to happen and you can make your choice.
Marc:I'm giving you that choice.
Marc:So I think I'm landing in a sort of I don't know.
Marc:Is it loneliness?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know what this grief tunnel is like.
Marc:I don't know how to frame my life anymore.
Marc:I know that every day feels like a week.
Marc:And that, you know, by the time I go to bed, I feel like I've, you know, the morning was, I can't even remember when it started.
Marc:And it's not bad.
Marc:I don't mind that time is longer than it seems or it is because I know it's all going to crunch at the end and run out.
Marc:But I guess I'm kind of...
Marc:beginning the dark floundering of of what it means to be me at this point in time at 58 years old having been through what i've been through what do i need for myself what do i need from other people i don't like having to answer these questions but the life that i've chosen
Marc:has put me here.
Marc:I've foregone any sort of sense of security or status quo.
Marc:I've tried and failed at many relationships.
Marc:I've had someone I love pass away.
Marc:I've fought and lost with many people, places, things, institutions.
Marc:But I have my success and I have my voice and I'm doing good work, but it's like, what?
Marc:What does it mean?
Marc:When you wake up with the darkness, with the heaviness, as Rodney call it, I got the heaviness is on me.
Marc:But I don't have chemical heaviness.
Marc:It's just sort of like, you know, what am I going to do with this tired old heart?
Marc:Huh?
Marc:Answer me that.
Marc:What am I going to do with this tired old heart?
Marc:I've still got juice.
Marc:I still got energy.
Marc:I can carry this heart over the finish line.
Marc:It's just that maybe I can lighten the load or add something to it.
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:now am i sad i'm not i i'm not sad look don't don't get me wrong i've been you know i've got friends you know i there's people i lean on a couple not many everything's fine don't be concerned i think this was all triggered in some weird way by that beatles documentary i can't explain it i can't explain it but it's like
Marc:I feel look, I don't know.
Marc:Am I Beatles fanatic?
Marc:No.
Marc:When I was younger, did I listen?
Marc:Of course.
Marc:I had a friend, my friend Dean Hines in junior high had all the Beatles records.
Marc:My parents had that Let It Be record.
Marc:I was in that Let It Be record.
Marc:I was five, six, seven years old.
Marc:They're infused into you genetically.
Marc:If you get it, you get it.
Marc:Most people get it.
Marc:Of course, there are those people that are like, no, I never really saw it in the Beatles.
Marc:Like, OK, that's kind of sad more than anything else.
Marc:Whatever position you're taking against the Beatles, it's just sort of, all right, well, it's too bad.
Marc:You're missed out on some some uplifting shit there.
Marc:Some soul nourishment.
Marc:I just don't get it.
Marc:I love that position.
Marc:Now that this like 90 hour documentary comes out, there's all these Beatle detractors, you know, like, I don't know.
Marc:I didn't get it.
Marc:You know, who gives a fuck?
Marc:whether you got it or not.
Marc:Look, I'm no fanatic, but it's in my soul.
Marc:It's in my blood cells.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:It is.
Marc:I spent like days and days drawing a picture of John Lennon's face that won me an award in the art contest in high school.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:I wish I knew what happened to that thing.
Marc:Very proud of it.
Marc:I nailed it.
Marc:John spoke through me.
Marc:But something about watching them, you know, it's like I've known them all my life.
Marc:You know, I've known them all my life and I knew exactly what to expect.
Marc:But this is the first time I ever got to hang out with them.
Marc:And it feels like that.
Marc:They're just hanging out writing songs and they're really like old timey rock and roll guys.
Marc:But but I don't know.
Marc:It's almost like you're just in the room hanging out, too.
Marc:And I don't find that there are any real surprises for me.
Marc:I'm like, yep, this is the way it is.
Marc:This is who these guys are.
Marc:And it just ingrains in you.
Marc:It was like filling this tremendous gap in your soul and in your cells if your cells are filled with Beatles, which mine are, and a lot of people's are.
Marc:So there were parts of it that were boring, that were annoying, but whatever.
Marc:And I'm not even finished with the fucking thing.
Marc:But there was a familiarity to it.
Marc:Like, it's like, I always knew these guys.
Marc:I always knew them.
Marc:I always knew the Beatles.
Marc:And I didn't take into consideration any of the tension or anything else.
Marc:I'm just sort of like, oh, finally, we're fucking hanging out.
Marc:And yeah, it's cool to see songs evolve.
Marc:And it's interesting to see how they work.
Marc:But it was almost filling in a piece of myself that I've been waiting for.
Marc:The humanization of the heroes continues.
Marc:Is it good?
Yes.
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:We always knew they were mortals because one was gunned down.
Marc:One died of cancer.
Marc:And I, again, I'm not of that generation.
Marc:These were hand-me-down myths.
Marc:I'm not sure what was going on when I was supposed to be taking shit in.
Marc:I got the shit, handed down, hand-me-downs from the late 60s and 70s.
Marc:You know, what was going on with me with New Wave, disco, then punk, which I missed.
Marc:I'm infused with classic rock that I had to push back against at some point and integrate some Eno and some Bowie and some Fred Frith and some residents and then in college, you know, the other stuff.
Marc:But I was wired post-60s with hand-me-downs, one of which was the eternal Beatles.
Marc:How did they take over the world?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But all I know is watching it and feeling these guys as human was as elating as it was sad.
Marc:You know, not because two of them are dead or they're all old or was another time, but really because they're just humans.
Marc:And when these heroes or mythic people become human, your heart sort of like sighs a little bit.
Marc:I think it's sighs.
Marc:You're like, oh, that's nice.
Marc:But where's the bigger than life stuff, man?
Marc:What if you don't have a God in place?
Marc:What if you're just your heart's just a skipping stone on some sort of pool of art and stuff that makes you feel better, stuff that moves you?
Marc:What if that's it?
Marc:Maybe I got to pay attention to the pool, man.
Marc:Let's chase these metaphors.
Marc:Let's chase them down and fuck them.
Marc:These metaphors.
Marc:Huh?
Marc:Chase it down.
Marc:My heart is a skipping stone on the pool of art and stuff that moves me.
Marc:I got to let it drop in, man.
Marc:See that?
Marc:That's chasing it down.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:The Beatles made me sad as much as it made me excited.
Marc:And then, like, what am I grounded in?
Marc:What am I grounded in?
Marc:I'm grounded in insanely deep self-consciousness around slightly real fat.
Marc:The gift.
Marc:The gift from the holidays and from my mother.
Marc:Anyway, Benedict Cumberbatch is in The Electrical Life of Louis Wayne.
Marc:That's streaming on Prime Video.
Marc:Very good.
Marc:It's a very exciting movie.
Marc:The Power of the Dog is now playing in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
Marc:And again, there's some stuff in this talk that really gets into The Power of the Dog.
Marc:There was really no way to avoid talking about some of the big reveals of the movie.
Marc:If you want to avoid that part, I'll warn you when it's about to happen.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:All right.
Marc:This is me talking to Benedict Cumberbatch.
Marc:I did it in my old house.
Marc:You did?
Marc:That's where it started.
Marc:That's where it began.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So did Obama come to the house?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:All of them have been in the house.
Marc:In the old house, yeah.
Marc:So cool.
Marc:Same chair.
Marc:That's cool.
Marc:From one great ass to another.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Do you want to wear cans?
Guest:I do, actually, yes.
Guest:It feels more intimate.
Guest:It feels like I know what we're sounding like together.
Marc:And you can pull that mic up into your face.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:You know it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know how to do it.
Marc:I do some voice work.
Marc:You do a lot of voice work.
Marc:I do, yeah.
Marc:You're like the main guy.
Marc:I miss the voice.
Marc:You're the main guy of all the things.
Marc:How long have you been in L.A.
Marc:for?
Guest:I've been here for Monday, last Monday.
Marc:Oh, so all for the promotion of both things?
Guest:And work.
Guest:You're working too?
Guest:Strange.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I pick up that tomorrow, having talked about... Doctor Strange, the Marvel thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And is this the fourth movie?
Guest:I can't remember how many I've been in now.
Guest:That's a bit forgetful.
Guest:This is the second one of him on his own.
Guest:So this is your movie?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah, that's part of the problem.
Guest:There's a lot of stuff going on in it.
Guest:It's like, oh, do I have a character?
Guest:Is it working?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:No, there's great stuff for me to do.
Guest:It's very busy.
Guest:It's called The Multiverse of Madness and it's bonkers.
Marc:Okay, yeah, I don't I'm not a guy that watches us no fine.
Marc:I've read the comic books and I believe you can do it Okay, I've read some doctor strange for back in the day.
Marc:I'm not a big comic book nerd But I was I liked him.
Marc:Yeah, he seemed like one of the ones that I could relate to yeah He's quite kind of um, he's quite he's got he's out there.
Marc:What's his angle?
Marc:How did it happen?
Marc:Why does he have whatever he has?
Guest:He had a car crash.
Guest:He was a brain surgeon.
Guest:Oh, brain surgeon.
Guest:He used his hands and went looking for physical healing and found something much more profound.
Guest:Oh, beautiful.
Guest:So you're shooting that here, the studio thing?
Guest:We are this leg of it.
Guest:We did the body of it last year during lockdown in England, which was fun.
Guest:And yeah, no, we just come back here for the reshoot.
Guest:It's what Marvel do.
Marc:Reshoots.
Marc:So you do them in a soundstage kind of deal?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:They've got the Manhattan Beach Studios.
Guest:That's the kind of Marvel.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And what's the studio?
Marc:It's Marvel.
Guest:It's Disney.
Guest:But it's at Manhattan Beach.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:They've got the lot down there.
Marc:You're so fucking busy.
Marc:A little bit.
Marc:Those are classic kind of – they look old, those glasses.
Marc:They're nice, aren't they?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:They're new, but they're old.
Guest:I am only wearing them because they're prescription.
Guest:I don't have some deal with the light.
Guest:Yeah, I have that too.
Guest:But what brand is that?
Guest:I'm sorry if they're a bit dark.
Guest:No, I don't care.
Guest:I can give you my truth by doing that.
Guest:It's okay.
Marc:If it's necessary.
Marc:If I require some truth.
Marc:Lower your glasses.
Marc:I'm not buying your bullshit.
Marc:I need truth eyes.
Marc:Give me the truth eyes.
Marc:So it's nice to see you as a human.
Marc:It's very hard for me to adjust when I see you on camera because no one looks like you and that's not a bad thing.
Marc:But in real life, you look different.
Marc:You look like, ah, that's just a guy on the street.
Marc:But in movies, you're like, holy shit, that's that guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know if that makes sense to you.
Marc:I mean, I guess I'll take the compliment.
Guest:I guess.
Marc:It's a compliment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, look, anything that changes it up and also makes me obscure on the street is a good thing.
Guest:Yeah, that's good.
Marc:Well, that's like some of the questions.
Marc:And I don't really prepare questions.
Marc:But wait, first of all, I was doing a little research.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:Not much.
Marc:You've never done comedy, though, have you?
Marc:Oh, for fuck's sake.
Yeah.
Guest:Yes, I have.
Guest:I have done comedy.
Guest:Like stand-up for reals?
Guest:No, I'm joking about how little, how the shallowness of, yeah, no, no, yeah, not stand-up, no.
Marc:No, I know you've done comedy, but I mean, there's like a little section on the wiki page that says impressionist, and I'm like, was he an impressionist?
Marc:When I say, have you done comedy, I mean like stand-up.
Guest:Like your rightful title of being a comedian or comedian?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Marc:No.
Guest:My friends who had the balls to do it just reminded me how little I wanted to do it.
Guest:Who are your friends?
Guest:They were really good at it.
Guest:Well, there were two at university who became a double act, Matt Horne and Bruce McKinnon.
Guest:And Matt went on to work a lot with James Corden.
Guest:They did a series together, and that's what he's known.
Guest:And Bruce is a great actor.
Guest:But, you know, I was just blown away, not only by... And that wasn't solo stuff.
Guest:And then I started seeing their friends doing solo stuff and getting to know them.
Guest:And it confounds me.
Guest:It wasn't for you?
Guest:Who knows?
Guest:I take lots of leaps of faith in my work.
Guest:I love putting myself under a sort of different pressure and having to interrogate something that I've never experienced before and taking a risk.
Guest:But that is one I haven't done yet.
Guest:I also haven't done a musical or a horror.
Guest:No musicals yet.
Guest:So I could do all three in one maybe.
Guest:What was the third one?
Guest:horror musical and stand no horror no horror not really i think i feel like you've gotten close oh hell yeah i mean the sort of psychological darkness of the film we're here to talk about the power of the dog and also obviously strange in the next film and stuff is there's there's horror elements and stuff yeah but what's this impressionist thing i don't know just sounding like people oh but like there's one on there yeah and who i've who i've talked about recently malkovich
Guest:John.
Guest:No, John Malkovich.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:It's interesting.
Guest:I haven't heard him for a long time.
Guest:I'd probably be better at doing you right now than I would be doing John Malkovich.
Guest:You've got to be right in it, right?
Guest:Yeah, kind of.
Guest:I've got to hear it.
Guest:We were in an animation together, and he was playing this evil octopus.
Guest:He was so good.
Guest:That must have been good.
Guest:It was, because his wonderful
Guest:Singularity and eccentricity.
Guest:It's like Christopher Walken's ignoring of grammar.
Guest:I think that's true.
Marc:They're similar.
Guest:I can't do this.
Guest:And I love it.
Guest:It sounds like new minted thought because the form is so odd at what you suppose it to be when you read it off the page.
Guest:And it grabs you by the balls.
Guest:You're in.
Guest:You're kind of listening to something.
Guest:It's a new music.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But you are more of a transformative person.
Marc:It seems, because that's where I was kind of going.
Guest:Yeah, rather than having a kind of trademark style like those guys, I suppose I am, although they've also, you know, I mean, you know, what is transformation?
Guest:I think if you're in a story and you're watching, whether it's Malkovich or me or whatever, and you're engaged, it is a transformation.
Guest:And I think people, by the way, who play variations of themselves, who are close to themselves in physicality or sound, I still believe the storytelling, do you know what I mean?
Marc:No, no, of course.
Marc:Like, I don't begrudge them that because I think, like, even Clooney's a guy that, like, can't, you know, he's not going to un-Clooney himself.
Guest:Yeah, but do you remember the leap into the, you know, I thought, yeah, the Coen Brothers movie.
Guest:I mean, he was just like, that was a complete release.
Marc:Oh, sure, where he's playing the guy with the hair goop.
Marc:I love watching him.
Marc:No, he's great.
Marc:He's great, but I always, but there's always that sort of fundamental Clooney charm that he's not going to get rid of.
Marc:Even when he's playing a menacing guy.
Marc:Even when it's Michael Clayton, you're sort of like, nah, it's George Clooney there.
Marc:But it's not bad.
Marc:He's a great actor.
Marc:But my question is, even watching the Louis Wayne movie, what is it, Fantastic Louis Wayne?
Marc:Is that what it's called?
Marc:No, The Electrical Life of Louis Wayne.
Marc:The Electrical Life of Louis Wayne.
Marc:I didn't know about that guy.
Marc:Me neither.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:And then I watched...
Marc:the Jane Campion movie, Power of the Dog.
Marc:Now, these are distinctly different, and it just seems that I don't know what you do.
Marc:I've done a little acting myself, but it seems that when you're doing someone like Louis Wayne, I mean, how do you construct it?
Guest:You know, I think we wanted to tell the story of a human being.
Guest:So you look a little bit at the history, but it wasn't supposed to be a dry biopic by any degree.
Guest:It was supposed to be a very singular experience of his world through his eye.
Guest:And so, thank you.
Guest:And I kind of just dove in with the script and with Will.
Guest:There was a little bit of anecdotal evidence as to what he was like, how he held himself, how he spoke, this sort of monotone of excitement where he could be saying, I really love your shoelaces.
Guest:And by the way, that mountain's about to slide on your head.
Guest:You know, that comes with its own sort of
Guest:interesting diversions from what we see is the norm I guess yeah but yeah it took a while and the physicality was something that evolves in the picture as well because obviously it is a life and he's aging but there's a sort of electricity in him and an energy in him which was there both in his youth and I wanted to have in his old age as well there's a scene where he's dancing as an old man yeah to reference the dance of falling in love with Emily at the beginning of the film played by the brilliant Claire Foy and I
Guest:I saw that he was improvisational.
Guest:He did things in a very eclectic, different way.
Guest:There was something charged about how he would do things.
Guest:He'd set the room alight.
Guest:And this is, again, anecdotal.
Guest:He was a great firebrand and charge of energy in a party.
Guest:And people would sort of gather around him like a breakdance and give him the energy to just kind of do this spasmodic, crazed dance.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Get the weirdo going.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just get fun.
Guest:Just lose yourself.
Guest:Don't be restricted.
Guest:In the Victorian era?
Guest:I mean, that guy, kind of a wonderful comic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So it came through kind of like a process of looking at the script, understanding the idiosyncrasies that were documented.
Guest:And then seeing what I needed to kind of get a grasp in it.
Guest:So asking help with dialect, asking help with speech pattern delivery, that kind of thing.
Guest:And also talking to and working with a... Dialect coach?
Guest:Yeah, no, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Was it a different dialect than you would have?
Guest:No, but it was just about delivery.
Guest:It was just about having a look at it, you know, just playing around with form.
Guest:And then the other thing I was going to mention was the choreographer, just to work with somebody who was about putting the physical body in the space and telling the story through his body language and what his emotional tales were when the walls started to come in, because they did with him.
Guest:He suffered mental health issues in certain moments in a very pressured situation, looking after six sisters, dealing with death, dealing with...
Guest:debt and a victorian era of replication of his work illegally you know all this stuff would make a would make a sane guy and he already was he had a you know a tentative grasp on reality as it was so it's horrible torturous lonely place to be but how that would compound in his body and the way he interacted with things outside of his way of seeing the world um and those slides into the
Marc:yeah into chaos and and and real terror that was uh that was something to put in the body as well as yeah doing the kind of deeper work as to what was going on in his mind and what it felt like to be him and also his emotions that you know the the there was that pivotal moment in there at the end when he's an old man and the doctor you know tells him how to interpret the electricity that it's love yeah it's always been love right and it is a love story it's riddled with tragedy and
Guest:and humor and dark comedy.
Marc:Yeah, it's really kind of an amazing balance for a film to have the kind of darkness that's in that thing, yet still sort of, you know, it's still beautiful.
Guest:That's Will Sharp.
Guest:I mean, he did an amazing job on a series called Flowers.
Guest:I don't know if you saw on Channel 4, Olivia Colman's in it, and Junior Barrows, one half of Mighty Bush, which you might know as a comedy duo.
Guest:Him and...
Guest:No Fielding, yeah, amazing, amazing pair.
Guest:In fact, Noel was one of the guys I saw do stand-up, and I thought, yeah, I can never do that.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Just amazing, extraordinary.
Guest:Anyway, but he deals in that with profound issues of depression and self-doubt and suicidal thoughts.
Marc:In the flowers?
Guest:Yeah, and yet it's incredibly funny, incredibly moving, and textured, and layered, and detailed.
Guest:He was our guy the minute he came in and pitched the film as he saw it and the changes he wanted to make to Simon Stevens' great script.
Guest:We were like, we're in because you're wanting to turn this into a singular experience for an audience through as much of Louis Wayne's work as possible.
Marc:Yeah, also the sort of foundation of a sort of psychedelic vision because of his misunderstanding of, or maybe not, of electricity.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But also that pivot, that weird moment at the end where it's love, and it seems to make sense to Louis, is kind of beautiful, but leading up to that, so you got to see that whole script before you started.
Marc:So all that, holding that thing in,
Marc:Because he doesn't understand it.
Guest:He doesn't understand it.
Guest:To be in that place is stressful, actually.
Marc:And to feel love without being able to sort of completely realize it.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And also when he has it, when it's held, when he has space with it with Emily, for that to be cut so tragically short.
Guest:I mean, there were very, very easy springboards for me to sort of get into a place where I felt a connection to the guy's suffering, for sure.
Guest:Like when he has that breakdown coming back on the transatlantic ship.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was concerned.
Marc:Because I don't know enough about the guy.
Marc:I'm like, did he die?
Marc:He didn't die like that.
Marc:He didn't die in a shipwreck.
Guest:I know, I know.
Guest:And it sort of tied him with this idea of a recurring nightmare.
Guest:He really kind of didn't know himself as a feverish child who had these sort of really awful dreams that then broke, he thought, in Scarlet Fever, he said himself.
Guest:And then I felt normal again.
Guest:And then...
Guest:He really carried that for a lot of his life and said for that to come back in Will's narrative at the point where he doesn't find success in America.
Guest:Everything is alien to him and he can't find his place in the world and just the noise is so dialed up that he just collapses.
Guest:It didn't have to go far to understand it and it's horrible.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also it also like, you know, knowing now what we know about that particular type of of mental illness completely and how he could have been saved or hopefully seen or at least understood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Completely.
Marc:But like like I didn't know anything about that guy.
Marc:I did a movie with Andrea Riceboro.
Marc:What did you do with her?
Marc:It's not out yet.
Marc:Oh, great.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I play her.
Marc:It's called To Leslie.
Marc:It's a movie that we shot in the middle of COVID.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:We shot it in 19 days.
Marc:She was probably on it longer.
Marc:It was shot on film by a guy named Mike Morris, who's, I think, British.
Marc:And he does a lot of Better Call Saul's in his first movie.
Marc:And she plays a Texan.
Marc:I play a Texan.
Marc:She's so fierce, isn't she?
Marc:She's just so good.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know what to do with her.
Marc:You watch, you're like, holy shit.
Marc:But this part for her is such a beautiful kind of like, you know, kind of a classic, you know, Victorian aggravated spinster.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:She's trying to be the adult in the room where everything is just so fucking chaotic because Louis can't do it.
Guest:And he marries the governess who in real life, not that, you know, Claire Foy looks nothing but 10 years younger than me.
Guest:But she was 10 years older.
Guest:So those are both sort of,
Guest:exilable condition so yeah they lived in exile they were literally exiled from the family and from victorian society as the odd couple who lived near hamstead heath back in the day when that was an exile from london and they that's when they adopted the cat it was because andrea's character is the matriarch really yeah with a mother who's a little bit ill and out of it just couldn't bear the shame she couldn't bear being right the one the proprietors kind of authority figure in that family and she was i think it was it's a
Guest:It's a comic role, really.
Guest:It's very comic.
Guest:I mean, that scene with her and Claire at the door.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:It's a master class.
Marc:Sort of the fine line between terrifying and funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I didn't realize that cats were so like, you know, people just didn't like them.
Marc:They were just like for mousing and like the lower class people.
Guest:They were one up from the vermin.
Guest:They were trained and bred to catch.
Guest:And a bag of cats drowning was not a phrase.
Guest:It was a reality.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All the fucking time.
Guest:There.
Marc:Coffee call.
Guest:Yeah, it might be.
Guest:Hold on.
Marc:So wait, you haven't had coffee lately?
Guest:Not much.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I had COVID and I just kind of cut out anything.
Guest:When did you have COVID?
Guest:I had it about a month ago.
Guest:Really?
Guest:That's three weeks ago is when my sort of isolation ended.
Marc:Oh, so you got it late?
Marc:I mean, yeah, compared to everyone else that has it or had it.
Marc:But you hadn't gotten vaccine yet?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Double vaccine.
Guest:And you still got it?
Guest:A breakthrough case.
Guest:Although I have to say about the breakthrough thing.
Guest:I think, you know, vaccines do probably work for six months.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you should really look at it.
Marc:You only got it once though?
Guest:We didn't.
Guest:No, we had both, but I'd had my second dose six months before I went into a very crowded room.
Marc:But you only had COVID once?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I do know a couple of people who've had it like three times.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, and all of which not badly.
Guest:And I'm like, you motherfuckers.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:The other ones are living free lives and taking all the risks, and you'd be very lucky.
Guest:I tested myself today.
Guest:Yeah, I did too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yesterday and the day before.
Guest:Well, because you got to shoot.
Guest:I don't have to shoot.
Guest:I just have a box of tests.
Guest:But you know, and also we're doing this and a closed room and like, you know.
Marc:But yeah, and I got to travel tomorrow, but I just got the booster.
Guest:I'm boosted.
Guest:Oh, you're fine.
Guest:A week ago.
Guest:Who the fuck knows?
Guest:I had to get my own by getting sick, which I don't recommend.
Guest:How sick did you get?
Guest:you know five days of pretty nasty really fever and headache yeah i wasn't well but not taste of taste and smell things so weird and it's only just now come properly really i would get the taste of something yeah beginning of it and then it would just go like a ghost it was like oh what was that and then you know then when it came back it was the same thing it was like hang on hang on i think that's an apple i know it is because i'm eating one but it didn't last it's the worst it's really it's the worst yeah yeah
Marc:Okay, so let's talk about this cat thing because I'm a cat guy.
Marc:My friend Kit's a cat person.
Marc:I just did a benefit last night for pit bulls and it was difficult for me because they have these big pictures.
Guest:You're so much a cat guy that you're not a dog guy.
Marc:No, I grew up with dogs, but I really cannot handle the neediness of dogs.
Marc:I resent them.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:You're much more sophisticated than me.
Guest:I'm so needy.
Guest:I fucking love it when someone else needs me.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, of course I do.
Marc:I mean, I'm needy, but you've got to go through quite an obstacle course with me.
Guest:It's pretty easy to satisfy a dog's need.
Guest:But I find them... I don't know.
Guest:Claire made a really good comparison.
Guest:Claire Foy, who plays... She's great.
Guest:She's just always amazing.
Guest:She's a dear friend.
Guest:We worked together before and we met each other well.
Guest:And she said in one interview, she went...
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:I like cats.
Guest:I can admire them, but I don't know if I'd want to deliver them.
Guest:It's a bit like a supermodel.
Guest:You're like, you know, you're great, but it's kind of freaking me out.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:Well, you know, you got to work awfully hard, and you're not even sure you're getting much.
Marc:I know.
Marc:You've built a whole... I built a catio for them.
Marc:Catio.
Marc:Well, yeah, there's only a couple of frequencies that cats have, but, you know, they are... When you do get something, it's a lot more exciting.
Marc:I guess, because they're pretty wild.
Marc:They're in a magical sense.
Marc:Yeah, but, like, dogs are like...
Marc:You know, they're all out all the time.
Marc:Cats will do something like, holy shit.
Guest:But I love whippets who have quite a sort of eccentric.
Guest:Yeah, they have bursts of affection.
Guest:And then they're like, they're very happy to just curl up by a bar.
Guest:But they're so skinny and weird.
Guest:But they're very affectionate and lovely.
Guest:Do you have one?
Guest:I don't need a dog to be fleshy and airy to love.
Guest:You know, I can love a skinny dog.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:I grew up with old England sheepdogs.
Marc:We have four of them.
Marc:That's too hairy for me.
Marc:Yeah, a lot of hairs, a lot of hair.
Marc:But I didn't realize that Louis Wayne sort of helped popularize the cat as a pet.
Marc:Very much.
Marc:Now, are those paintings worth money now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Maybe this will bring him back into a focus again.
Guest:I mean, if you...
Marc:Because they are sort of illustration.
Guest:Yeah, you should get one now, Mark.
Guest:That's what I'm saying.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:If our film does anything, it might raise the value of this work.
Marc:He was what you would call, I think, an outsider artist.
Marc:I guess so, yeah, definitely.
Marc:As he got later in his life.
Marc:Because that's a great moment in the hospital.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where the, you know, where the, the nurse says, you know, he's insane and, you know, look at what he's doing.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:Remember what the amazing, and it was actually really kind of provocative.
Guest:And that was the stuff that was, it completely, it was the psychedelic era that then picked him up again in the sixties and seventies.
Guest:Oh, they did?
Guest:Yeah, massively.
Guest:And you know, who's in the film is a massive collector and fan of him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's got that brief.
Marc:Is he HG Wells?
Marc:Is that who he's supposed to be?
Guest:He's Nick Cave as H.G.
Guest:Rice.
Guest:It's one of those sort of things, again, with the biopic of like, you know, it's a very... Nick loves that guy?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He just wanted to do it.
Guest:And he said, oh, am I doing okay?
Guest:I just feel like I'm me.
Guest:And I said, that's kind of what it needs to be.
Marc:It's brilliant.
Marc:You're in it for 30 seconds.
Marc:Knock yourself out.
Marc:don't sweat it too much no just be cool um yeah i love those idiosyncrasies and without you know throughout the kind of casting and just will's just a great storyteller he creates a world and yeah it was really it was great it was great you know i found it moving you know because i had you know experienced some grief in the last year in a very profound way in a similar way that he had and um and you know it was i've been noticing it's a hard it's a hard watch for that yeah no it's a good watch for that you've experienced that recently it's it
Marc:Well, okay, that's good to hear.
Marc:You know, because, like, you don't know what the hell to do with that.
Marc:You know, no one knows what to do with that.
Marc:And it's not really... And there's no real public discourse around it.
Marc:And, like, that guy, you know, even the way it's handled, I think that, oddly, you know, in those... I would imagine in those cultures, in the Victorian culture, because so many fucking people were dying of so many different things, that there was a different type of acceptance and process around Greece.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Of course there was.
Guest:I mean, you know, and also there was this formality, I guess, whereby...
Guest:You know, I don't know.
Guest:I mean, there was a lot of grieving.
Guest:Victoria was in black for a lot of her life.
Guest:I mean, I went to a fricking school where we still wore a black tie out of grief for, and that started in the Victorian era.
Guest:I thought, why are we still wearing a black tie?
Guest:Oh, because of Prince Albert.
Guest:Really?
Guest:What Prince Albert?
Guest:Oh, you know, Queen Victoria's husband.
Guest:What?
Marc:That's where it started?
Guest:Yeah, that's that.
Guest:I mean, yeah, there was a lot about that school.
Guest:I guess it's just darkness.
Guest:Crazy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And there is that.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:There's this huge sort of burst of productivity and life and mechanization and energy with the Victorian.
Guest:But there's this huge slabbing kind of restriction of sort of sober conformity, like stay in your fucking lane.
Guest:And if you don't, you...
Marc:Repression and weird moral judgment, you know, restrictive.
Guest:I didn't look into the death thing so much.
Guest:I saw it through Louis' eyes.
Guest:I saw it through Will's scripting of it, which I just thought was so extraordinary the way.
Guest:You know, he just said, look, I just want you to come into the room, see it, and just walk away from it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And try and deal with it somewhere else.
Marc:Well, I think for that guy to process it properly and not in a... I don't think there was any way that guy could integrate it properly.
Marc:And I guess where I'm going with this in my own curiosity, and you explained how you constructed that character.
Marc:So when you approach a story like The Power of the Dog, which I didn't know what the fuck that movie was.
Marc:When I got into it, it seems like this has happened to me a lot.
Marc:I go see the movies, and I don't read much about it, which is the only way to do it.
Marc:I didn't know anything about...
Marc:Louis Wayne Zero.
Guest:It's the best, isn't it?
Guest:Yeah, it's great.
Marc:You have a discovery that's based on what the storytellers give you, right?
Marc:So I'm watching this sparse Western.
Marc:It seems like it's going to be a Western.
Marc:I have no idea where it's going.
Marc:And then by, you know, the third act, I'm like, what is happening?
Marc:So...
Marc:So with that guy, with Phil Burbank and these brothers, I like Plemons and Dunstan.
Marc:The kid was really good.
Marc:Everyone was good.
Marc:But here you are in an American environment, like a classic American setting.
Marc:So you've got to do that accent business.
Marc:But what do you do with that guy?
Marc:When you read that script, what is the thing you see in it that makes you go like, well, this is the engine of this guy?
Marc:Outside of whatever repression we're dealing with.
Marc:But I mean, what was it?
Guest:Well, that's kind of it.
Guest:I mean, you know, I think, yeah, the real fuel for him is how vulnerable he is, what his scar is and his secret.
Guest:And it's a pretty big one.
Guest:It's rare that you get to carry that sort of thing out of, you know, anything other than the backstory, which is just that bit of the iceberg that's not actually on the screen, but you kind of need to give you that.
Guest:you know surety in your choices well this whole thing is the unfolding of that exactly and we don't want to spoil it you get both which is which is part of the gift i mean look jane camping comes calling right again tick yeah you you see a part like that in a in a book like that which i only had until until after the conversation with jane and yeah i mean i think the book is just a masterful piece of it's really one of the greatest american novels really oh it's it's very special how is it new
Guest:No, it was written in the 60s.
Marc:No kidding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Thomas Savage is based on a family interaction.
Guest:You know, his uncle, great uncle, I suppose.
Marc:Because it's almost like as a film, it almost it plays like a fable within a fable.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like after a certain point, you're like, is Bronco Henry real?
Marc:Oh, you thought that?
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Because, like, you know, the shrining of the saddle and all that stuff.
Marc:I get that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But it plays in that story on screen.
Guest:I guess you could question whether the story is a real or a bit tall.
Guest:But, yeah, he's almost a mythical figure completely.
Guest:But I think it's – and, yeah, I see what you're saying about a story within a story.
Guest:There is this offscreen character who has a massive presence but isn't there.
Marc:Yeah, and a massive presence that is multilayered.
Guest:Yeah, completely.
Marc:Because your character is telling stories about this guy.
Marc:And obviously the relationship between your character and Bronco Billy is something we don't understand.
Marc:And all the other guys are jumping around, hooting and hollering and thinking it's funny.
Guest:And what a guy.
Guest:I wish we'd known him.
Guest:And Jesse's character, my brother, George, who, you know, we've run this ranch for 25 years.
Guest:He taught us all everything, both of us, everything we needed to know to make a chance.
Guest:But Jesse never talks about it.
Guest:He's not interested.
Guest:Well, this is the thing that happens at the beginning of the film.
Guest:You meet these two characters who are brothers who live this very kind of codependent life.
Guest:But one of them, guess what, is drifting towards the future and love.
Guest:And the other one is trying to hold back and celebrate the past.
Guest:And it tears him apart.
Guest:He sees his brother.
Guest:And he can't move forward from it.
Guest:He can't move forward from it.
Guest:Because the only the only way he can live with his secret is to sort of is to keep it alive in some way in the public vein.
Guest:And then, you know, see privately how he does that as well.
Marc:But also, but because of that, you know, that character, that kind of, you know, the repression that becomes antithetic, the the opposite character logically of what he is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In order to to maintain face among the men.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a huge problem.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Marc:It's like it's a huge problem with fascism.
Guest:in some ways.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:They look under the hood of most monstrous people in history and you've had a couple of them pass through in this neck of the woods and we've got them in Europe and they're everywhere in the world for Christ's sake.
Guest:I'm speaking to Brazilians today and thinking about him and you know...
Guest:Where is the repression?
Guest:Where's the mom that didn't give the love or the secret of the sexuality or lack of authentic self lived?
Guest:And how does that twist people into a pretzel of hate and bitterness and anger and rage?
Guest:And, you know, that's where this film is important.
Guest:We need to set out to make a piece that was thematically based.
Guest:But, you know, Jane's obviously somebody who's tackled aspects of this before, but more through a female lens of a female lead.
Guest:But that was definitely one of the lures, I think, for her as an artist wanted to tell the story.
Guest:But it's just come about.
Guest:I mean, the book is the most amazing blueprint for my character's characterization you can imagine.
Guest:I mean, you're talking about how to build a character and where those ideas come from.
Guest:You had it all there.
Guest:Massively.
Guest:And then Jane's script, our discussion, the kind of investment we gave the runway.
Guest:I'm usually building a plane as it takes off because of scheduling.
Guest:This time I had months to talk admittedly with some other projects that fit it around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, we kind of both held this thing very, very delicately.
Guest:We really wanted to get this man right because of his complexity and what Savage was carrying in it and where it should take the audience, this abhorrent character that then you lean into through understanding and empathy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We did everything.
Guest:I mean, she said to me one day, have you ever tried dream therapy?
Guest:And I went, no, Jen, I haven't.
Guest:I'm doing it.
Guest:It's really good.
Guest:He said, try it.
Guest:Do you want to try it?
Guest:And I said, absolutely.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I said, yes, of course I do.
Guest:You're offering me another tool to get there.
Guest:Let's dig deep.
Guest:Dream therapy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I worked with an amazing woman called Kim Gillingham, who's a Jungian dream analyst.
Guest:How'd that go?
Guest:What'd you learn?
Guest:Never, ever say that word first time.
Guest:No, I know it's fine.
Guest:I always say analyst.
Guest:I don't know what an analyst is.
Guest:I like it.
Guest:An analyst.
Guest:An analyst.
Guest:And she's just an expert in that realm of seeing the subconscious.
Marc:So would you wake up and you've got to write it down real quick?
Guest:Exactly, yeah.
Guest:You have a journal and you kind of just write out what you can remember.
Marc:Were you surprised by what she said?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How did it help the character?
Guest:Because I found what I was dreaming to be very mundane.
Guest:And guess what?
Guest:Every night and again, I'd get Jane comparing her dreams.
Guest:And it was like, you know, I'm paraphrasing it, but Lily's exploding with blood in someone's face.
Guest:And I was like, okay, cool.
Guest:You're Jane Campion.
Guest:I'm meanwhile dreaming about leaving the oven on.
Guest:Or have I fucking left the house without the keys?
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Different anxiety is about as high as my imaginative state.
Marc:Different character.
Marc:Different character.
Marc:Those are the ones that inform the Louis character and the other guy.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:But eventually stuff did come up.
Guest:And even if it wasn't the mundane, it was kind of extraordinary.
Guest:And yeah, what a great resource to be able to use working when you're asleep.
Guest:I mean, you shouldn't use it all the time because you do, I think, sleep a lot lighter.
Guest:A little bit like lucid dreaming.
Guest:Have you ever tried that?
Marc:I've done things where, like, you know, what I've noticed, and I don't necessarily write it down, but there were moments where, especially when I was in, like, deep sadness, where if I would drift off for a second, it was like I had this whole other life that I had a lot of things.
Marc:It wasn't a dream thing, though.
Marc:It was sort of like I had a schedule, I had to be places.
Guest:Right, okay.
Marc:No, it was literally like an alternate world where I was living a different life.
Marc:And it seemed very real in those moments.
Marc:And I'd wake up and I'd be like, holy shit.
Marc:I hope that guy's okay.
Marc:He seemed to have a lot to do.
Marc:Someone living a parallel existence in your dreams.
Marc:It was me.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:With a whole other set of things to do.
Marc:And it seemed very... What if that is happening somewhere?
Marc:Well, that's the thing.
Marc:It's almost like on your computer if you have an Apple where it says guest user.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You kind of sign into that one and you're like, no, that's the other me.
Guest:You do that?
Guest:That's amazing.
Marc:No, I don't do it, but that's what it felt like.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like there's a whole other hard drive.
Guest:There's a whole other iCal there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With similar shit, but slightly different.
Marc:Slightly different, yeah.
Guest:That guy's doing better than I am, I think.
Guest:He's got a hoverboard or whatever that is.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Marc:Hey, hi, excuse me.
Marc:This is me in the present, okay?
Marc:I'm not talking to Benedict Cumberbatch right now.
Marc:I'm talking to you.
Marc:This is the part of the talk where it really became impossible for us to continue talking about the movie without getting into some of the details of what happens to the character.
Marc:So...
Marc:Are you listening?
Marc:Listen.
Marc:If you skip ahead exactly 10 minutes and 15 seconds from when I tell you to, you'll jump over that whole part of the talk.
Marc:I can tell you this.
Marc:This part wound up being a really great part of the conversation, and we were actually kind of arguing about the movie in a good way, the way you're supposed to argue about something provocative.
Marc:So do what you want.
Marc:Just don't say I didn't warn you if you haven't yet watched the film.
Marc:All right?
Marc:So you can skip ahead 10 minutes and 15 seconds right now.
Marc:Now, but like I thought that the resolution of that thing, like it's weird as empathetic as that guy became when he was able to, you know, at least have moments of of sensitivity and connection with that kid.
Marc:You know, I didn't feel bad.
Guest:Well, I don't want to spoil too much.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Okay, you're one of those guys.
Guest:Okay, fine.
Guest:That's okay.
Guest:You like beginning, middles, and that's fine.
Marc:No, but I mean like when whatever happened, happened.
Guest:No, I get you.
Guest:I know exactly what you're saying.
Guest:I know what we can't say, but it's sort of there in a book.
Guest:But yeah, it's weird.
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:I want people to have the experience.
Guest:So do I.
Guest:No, listen, I'm a Marvel guy, and I infuriate fans by saying, I'm not going to give anything away before the film comes out.
Marc:Yeah, well, this isn't one of those huge reveals, but it's kind of a clever thing, and it's the turn.
Marc:It kind of is.
Marc:The third act.
Guest:In terms of this story, it is.
Marc:It's a huge one, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We kind of don't stick around.
Guest:It starts in an obvious way.
Guest:I think people could pick it together.
Marc:Maybe, but not in a specific way.
Marc:But like that moment where you don't wait.
Guest:Netflix will not be ringing us saying, what the fuck?
Guest:It's all right.
Guest:Don't be all right.
Guest:Netflix is going to be fine.
Guest:But that moment where, you know, you didn't have any empathy for a man who's not able to live his life.
Guest:I had empathy.
Marc:I'm saying I had empathy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it's the way it should end.
Marc:No, I think it's obviously the way it should end.
Marc:But when the moment that it goes down, you know, I was like, my heart was with the kid.
Marc:As dark as that kid is.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And as seemingly emotional.
Guest:It's a shame.
Guest:I think it should be more confusing than that.
Guest:But yeah, people will do that.
Marc:It's obviously confusing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but like how many people did that guy break?
Marc:At what point is karma?
Marc:I mean, I understand empathy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:At what point does karma become operative in reaping what you sow on some level?
Guest:For sure, for sure, for sure.
Guest:But the tragedy of it is it's just to the point that he's transforming, that he's becoming... Is he, though?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:I think he's melting into something that's utterly different.
Guest:He's no longer in the position where it's just a power trip to try and...
Guest:Rip the umbilical cord away from the mother, you know, by recruiting him.
Guest:Yeah, he's not just a tool in destroying the mother.
Guest:He's just saying he's falling in love with the kid.
Guest:Or destroying the kid himself.
Guest:He's falling in love with him.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:I mean, again, we're really in spoiler territory now.
Guest:For fuck's sake.
Guest:It's like the entire fifth act.
Guest:But, you know, there is a shift at the end of this film, ladies and gentlemen.
Marc:I'll tell you, though, that turn, you know, where, you know, your character sort of misunderstands the depth of that character's
Marc:emotional uh callousness and he just kind of snaps the neck of that rabbit you're like what okay i know i know i know that's not who i thought i was having a picnic with yeah exactly it's all very reminiscent like there are moments where it's reminiscent of like dahmer there's there's moments where it's reminiscent of a potential serial killer in terms of his disposition wow you know his detached
Marc:And also, you know, you start to question the repercussions of his necessary repression.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I wish we could talk about the whole film.
Guest:It's so frustrating because, of course, that, you know, it leaves you in a place where you're going, hmm, I wonder what's going to happen next.
Guest:You know, and what's his scar from this?
Marc:Where's the horror movie sequel?
Guest:Does he just shut the door on that?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Or does he turn into Anthony Parkinson?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I also think that, you know, Plemons' character, like the other, like the one thing that you start to realize with his, you know, you call him a fatso all the time or whatever it is.
Marc:And then, you know, his lack of ability to communicate properly.
Marc:But he's also the one that didn't have the relationship that you had with Bronco Henry.
Marc:True.
Marc:So, you know, like, and he knows what happened.
Guest:Oh, you think he does.
Marc:Of course he has to.
Marc:So he's got to shut that shit down.
Guest:Of course he has to.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Why?
Marc:Because everyone knows.
Marc:You don't think your brother fucking knows?
Marc:Do they, though?
Guest:I think you could see the obsession and wonder, but does he actually know that something happened beyond that?
Marc:Hey, look, if that kid could find the secret fort, you don't think the fucking brother could who you grew up with?
Guest:No, I don't think so.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, that's, I mean... It's a question for Jesse, but... Oh, but I don't know.
Marc:I didn't read the book.
Marc:So you know something I don't know.
Marc:I just think...
Guest:There's such a disconnect with this brother.
Guest:He needs him because that is who he runs his life with.
Guest:The disconnect with Jesse.
Guest:Yeah, he can't get it.
Guest:It's very in that moment, but in the book and in their relationship throughout their life before this moment, we meet them where they're drifting apart completely.
Yeah.
Guest:He's tried to engage him.
Guest:He's tried to make him someone who's invested in the world, who's curious, who's just wanting to be more than just existing.
Guest:And he can't.
Guest:And I don't know that that's really rich enough makeup for someone to kind of completely understand.
Marc:Well, not understand.
Guest:Something that would have had to be... I just think it's very easy from the 21st century perspective to go, right, okay, yeah, the kid, got it, yeah, he's ticking off the booty, that's great.
Guest:Oh, right, that guy, he understands his brother, but he's just sucking it up like he does every... I don't think he understands it.
Guest:...every kind of body-shaming insult.
Guest:I think if you look at 1925 culture... Yeah.
Guest:...where this man could not, my character, Phil, could not be who he really was... Yeah.
Guest:...because of it being illegal, let alone culturally unacceptable, societally... And personally unacceptable.
Guest:...unlawful, and just...
Guest:And personally, yeah, for himself, he probably doesn't even fully understand it before it's cut short.
Guest:In the book, he sees Bronco being trampled to death in a corral when he's 19.
Guest:Wow, I've got to read this book.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Well, I guess if we get deeper, we're going to... I don't want to get into an arm wrestle about your perspective because I think a lot of people share it.
Guest:And the thing is, I do get defensive of Phil in a sense, not because I played him, but because...
Guest:you know i think there should be ambiguity about what is it's not black and white it's not just a course vengeance drama yeah no no no no no i don't i don't think it is and i didn't and that was not the feeling i got okay it was just it was the kid has to do what the kid has to do i think that and that's the propulsion of the tragedy in a way because just when there is a possibility i think really a door opening of
Guest:Oh, this guy's behavior is going to mellow.
Guest:This is going to be a tutor-mental relationship with something else potentially involved.
Guest:Okay, fine.
Guest:The mother is going to recover from her alcoholism.
Guest:It's been discovered.
Guest:George is on it.
Guest:No, by the way, you know, okay, fine.
Guest:You know, alcoholism doesn't just get cured overnight.
Guest:But if the source of her terror is something that's being pacified by a new relationship with the son...
Guest:I think there's a moment of hope.
Guest:Maybe I'm being naive about it, but yeah, okay, how many people is he broken?
Guest:Sure, but it still goes back to... Yeah, but still the assumption is the moment of hope is like, that means that somehow or another... I guess what I'm saying in a very kind of liberal way is I do not believe in vindictive justice.
Guest:I believe in restorative justice.
Guest:I believe the idea that people should be examined and understood and not just locked up and thrown away the key.
Guest:Otherwise, the problem keeps existing.
Marc:Of course, I believe that too, but I'm talking about the movie.
Marc:We're making movies here.
Marc:And it's like, I believe all those things too, but I think in the movie that I saw... It's the only satisfying outcome, I agree.
Marc:It's a satisfying outcome, but also if you understand people and you believe in restorative justice and all that stuff, there's no reason to believe that that guy overnight because of that kid is going to change his ways for the duration of it.
Marc:It doesn't make what he wants and what he does any more legal or comfortable or anything else.
Marc:So however that's going to go...
Guest:If he's meeting someone who's comfortable with who he is and if he falls in love with someone who becomes openly gay, but not openly gay, of course he can't do that, but there's a secretive love affair.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:He's sure enough not going to go on hating on Rose.
Marc:Okay, he may not hate on Rose, but what's he going to do about all those fucking roughnecks?
Marc:What's he going to do about his brother?
Guest:He will be the same alpha male, but he doesn't need to control things in the same way as I think he does if he's living with a secret by a river where he gets naked every three months.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Okay, I get it.
Marc:I get it.
Guest:I just think we can really underestimate what that damage was that he lived with all his life as a 21st century audience.
Marc:No, I get it.
Marc:But you put this in order to make this guy, these were thoughts that you had to have.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:So I can't undo them, you know.
Guest:It's getting hot in here.
Guest:It's getting so fucking heated.
Guest:And I can see things objectively, but I think what I have a problem with sometimes in the Q&A afterwards, and it's like, cheers for Peter and...
Guest:god damn it men are fucking assholes and poor rose sympathy for her as a victim i think if you just go hero victim nice guy george and baddie i just feel then it's like oh we're doomed to be telling this story again yeah i get that but like what i'm telling you is you know i didn't feel good like i didn't have any high hopes for the kid either
Guest:Oh, really interesting.
Guest:Because there's a bill to pay there, you mean?
Marc:Of course.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's interesting.
Marc:From the beginning, there's a bill to pay.
Guest:Cody's got it down.
Guest:What he says in... We've talked about it in public to people who have seen the film.
Guest:But he says, you know...
Guest:he and i think all of us had this reaction when we first encountered the material freshers already yeah you know do when they see this film right it is our misjudgment of this character that is the character arc of that character he is who he is at the beginning of the kid yeah cody yeah oh yeah yeah and that's what you're alluding to now and that and i i completely agree with that yeah i mean it's just a slow reveal because guess what yeah it's a slow reveal but i'm not we're misstepped through the storytelling purposely you know
Marc:But on some level, that kid's transgression is much deeper than yours and much more horrible.
Marc:So it's not like- I know.
Guest:Yeah, it's not black and white.
Guest:I know, I know.
Marc:I don't see him as the hero.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm just saying the provocative nature of that dynamic and how they both paid for whatever the fuck they are is horrible.
Marc:But that guy doesn't go on to live a dandy life in the city.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Maybe he does.
Marc:Maybe he writes a novel about it.
Guest:Maybe that's- I don't know.
Guest:Thomas Savage's secret.
Guest:No, I shouldn't say that.
Guest:His family is still alive, and they're very supportive of the film, but it's based on a true story.
Guest:It's based on a true story?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:All right, so when do you... You grew up with actors?
Guest:I did.
Guest:Mark, can I ask you something again?
Guest:You go to the bathroom?
Guest:No, no, no, I'm fine.
Guest:I am slightly worried about how much we've talked about stuff that we can't reveal.
Guest:Is that cool?
Marc:What part do you not want to reveal?
Guest:It depends when this is coming out as well.
Guest:Once this is on Netflix, hopefully people have seen it, but if this podcast is next week, I'm like...
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:We'll figure it out.
Marc:We'll figure it out.
Marc:I hope we don't lose all of it.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:What were the instructions you got?
Guest:What, from Jane?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, from what to talk about?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's difficult.
Guest:I've just done an interview with a guy who's, you know, it's going to come out on the LA Times or something like in January.
Guest:So I was like, yeah, baby, let's just get it all over.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So, but like where, because I don't like, I don't live in the UK and like you seem to have been at it for a long time.
Guest:A little bit, yeah.
Guest:I'm sort of a 17-year overnight success kind of thing.
Guest:Sherlock was the sort of big leap into the limelight, I guess, which translated internationally for me.
Marc:But before that, you were a big stage actor as well?
Guest:Yeah, and theater and some film as well, yeah.
Marc:But where does it start?
Marc:Like you grew up with a family?
Marc:Mom and dad, both actors.
Guest:Both actors?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But working actors?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And big...
Marc:Do you like the name you have?
Marc:It seems like a big, complicated name.
Marc:Benedict.
Guest:Yeah, my dad was advised to change it, and everyone said people won't be able to say it or remember it.
Marc:But is it one of those families that goes back?
Marc:I mean, is there something similar in class to the Louis Wayne character?
Marc:Are you bordering on royalty of any kind?
Marc:Oh, God, I don't know.
Guest:But there was one thing when I spoke at the internment of Richard III's body, and...
Guest:yeah somebody had worked out on the day or a few days before that there was some lineage and some relation to him oh really yeah i mean but i mean you know that's it's a small island what can i say i don't know but deeply british but no it was it was a bit of research and it made me i guess it made me feel a little bit more the internment i'd also i just well i just played him in a bbc adaptation um of the hollow crown the series that sam manny's did and uh
Guest:for Dominic Cook, who directed all three of our plays.
Guest:I played him from when he first appears in the Henrys to Richard III itself.
Guest:And I guess that was the first correlation that meant, oh, okay, we could ask him to read this beautiful poem by Caroline Duffy, the ex-poet laureate.
Guest:And boy, can she write something absolutely extraordinary for the occasion.
Guest:It was in the internment.
Guest:So there was the whole thing of the king in the car park, right?
Guest:They found his body underneath NCP and, you know, a car park firm's tarmac.
Guest:Have they known it was him?
Guest:you know carbon dating stuff that was around i can't actually remember all the details but it was so we were all there because it was verified it was real so they and then they properly buried property buried when was this oh i want to say about four at least six years ago wow that's i don't know that story yeah huh um so i guess that's my closest link to royalty
Guest:So, I mean, not a long history of actors either.
Guest:I mean, mom and dad were the first generation to do that in their families.
Guest:And it was very much frowned upon when they said.
Marc:What were the family?
Marc:What was the family mostly like?
Guest:Mom came from a pretty sort of middle to working class background.
Guest:Dad was a wine trader and a desert rat in the Second World War.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:My dad's side, my mom, my grandmother on that side came from a sort of English family that owned, I think, a tea estate in India or something.
Guest:And his dad was a submarine commander and his uncle was in the diplomatic.
Guest:It's a bit of a line in that.
Guest:And it goes back.
Guest:I think it goes back.
Guest:There's lots of history.
Guest:Lots, as I've been discovering.
Guest:Exciting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exciting British history.
Guest:You've got the full spectrum.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All of it.
Guest:The good and the very bad.
Guest:And your wife's British?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:uh she is yes 100% Sophie kind of yeah well I didn't all the way back I didn't that wasn't a prerequisite no but I'm just curious because like you said it's a small island so like you know you kind of wonder because like this is a country built on immigrants you're not going to find any quite right yeah no of course not and so that whole idea of nationhood and yeah nationalism is what's so fucking ridiculous about it and this state we're in now we're like
Guest:Shut them out.
Guest:Don't let any more of them in the others.
Guest:It's become viral.
Guest:It's horrible.
Marc:No, it's terrible.
Guest:It's really horrible.
Guest:And you just think, come on, what would be composed of here?
Guest:We're all the same.
Marc:So when you're growing up, though, I imagine there's something about having parents who are actors and seeing them on stage and then not on stage.
Marc:A couple of things happen, I guess.
Marc:You realize the job of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:and you also realize the transformative power of it and you realize that there is a a craft to it yeah all those things yeah yeah and a community and um a very exciting enjoyment of it and community absolutely and a diverse community you know just yeah seeing a crew and a cast hang out after a wrap party seeing
Marc:At the house, I imagine.
Guest:At someone's house.
Guest:No, it wasn't our house.
Guest:No, we, we, mum and dad have a flat in Kensington, which they've had since the 70s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Something like three grand.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's always one of those things, you know, posh boy brought up in Kensington.
Guest:Well, yeah, I'm certainly very privileged background and upbringing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was a flat that mum bought for 3,000 pounds.
Guest:And that's where they stayed.
Guest:And there's still the same paisley wallpaper in the bathroom.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So the parties were at the house of the producers?
Guest:Oh, it was another actor.
Guest:I think it was Murray Watson of that particular production.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lovely, great late actor of our country and a dear friend whose granddaughter.
Guest:I'm actually godfather to him and me and her daughter were really good friends.
Guest:And I sort of had my first boyhood crush on Emma Watson and not the Emma Watson, but another one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, yeah, I remember being at her wedding and everyone turned around, if anyone here knows any due impediment, like, these dudes are not me.
Guest:And everyone turned around and I was just kind of smiling cheekily.
Guest:Bit of an age gap.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was very sweet.
Guest:Very sweet.
Guest:And I adore that family.
Guest:And so, yeah, I remember that party.
Guest:But I also, you saw about the transformative thing.
Guest:I remember standing on the back of, I can't remember what production it was, but it was a comedy and it was in the West End.
Guest:I think it was a Ray Cooney farce, potentially, because mum did a lot of those in the 80s and 90s.
Marc:I don't even know what that is.
Marc:Farce or Ray Cooney?
Guest:No, Ray Cooney.
Guest:Yeah, he's a farcer.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:He's a writer of farce.
Guest:Yeah, and it's a British thing?
Guest:It's a very British thing.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Full of lots of sort of double entendre and people can't compromise in positions.
Guest:But based on the kind of Fado model of like opening and shutting doors and the pace builds up and the stakes get higher and higher, it gets more and more ridiculous.
Guest:It's an entertaining thing.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:And I saw mum just in the wings kind of chatting to somebody about to cue her.
Guest:And then... Actually, not cue her.
Guest:What am I talking about?
Guest:I don't think there was that.
Guest:It was not a live show.
Guest:So it must have been just probably the stage manager doing her cues.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She was about to go on.
Guest:And, you know, there's this flat.
Guest:It's just like there's nothing there that speaks of the world she's about to enter.
Guest:And I just saw this sort of drop of her and this...
Guest:and this opening of the door, this blast of heat and light, and my mom just becoming someone else and walking out into this world where there were people watching her.
Guest:I was like, what is that?
Guest:What is that?
Guest:That's crazy.
Marc:That's the best part.
Marc:It's the best part.
Guest:She was my mom, and I just suddenly saw this shift.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:I can't remember.
Guest:Young, you know.
Guest:But there's that world.
Marc:The world of the wings is the best part of showbiz.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:It's amazing because you just step through the door.
Guest:It's immediate transformation.
Guest:It's the whole thing of method.
Guest:It's like you turn it on and off.
Guest:You have to.
Guest:You can't be the person you're on stage all the time.
Guest:I take my hat off to anyone who does or even more the people that suffer that work.
Marc:But that's like the weird thing about dues paying and about the experience.
Marc:No matter what your training is, when you walk out there, there's some part of you that is naturally going to
Marc:Open up to that.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And that's all you're hoping for.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Is that like you no longer fear that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you don't have to worry about that.
Guest:All that the fear propels you to be brave and to go into that.
Guest:Well, then there's an unknown.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:But like at some point, you can't be afraid to be out there.
Guest:No, no, you've got to do it because an audience is going to come in and watch it.
Marc:Yeah, and if you're afraid to be out there, they're going to feel it and you're not going to be accessible.
Guest:No, no, because you'll want to control stuff and you'll want to be safe.
Guest:Do you have brothers and sisters?
Guest:I had a sister, yeah, from my mom's first marriage of Trax, who sadly passed away before Christmas.
Guest:She died of cancer.
Guest:She'd been battling it for seven years.
Marc:Ugh.
Marc:God, sorry.
Marc:Terrible.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Life is terrible.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As the great, greatly awful Donald Rumsfeld said, shit happens, or stuff happens, I think.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But yeah, it's horrible.
Marc:It's horrible.
Guest:So, I guess the benefit... She was nothing to do with this world.
Guest:That was the other thing.
Guest:She was markedly different.
Guest:She was an artist.
Guest:She went to the same university as I ended up going to my sister tracks.
Guest:Yeah, she was...
Guest:Brilliant artist, a brilliant fine artist, but ended up doing a lot of restorative work on, well, canvas, but also on the frames and... Oh, really?
Guest:For old stuff?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:But still kept her hand in and did her own work and made the most beautiful Christmas and celebratory cards of any kind of festival.
Guest:yeah she was she was very gifted and um mum is as well she started as an artist but then you know visual artist salacious director no she was a scenic artist actually she was the set deck and she this director who sort of took a shine to her and usually be in front of the septal you know all that fruitiness um and she went oh okay and got into central at the same time as judy dench and vanessa redgrave and that great swathe of young british talent and oh yeah yeah she's that those are her peers oh really yeah
Marc:I just saw Kenneth Branagh's new movie.
Marc:Oh, I'd love to see that.
Guest:Belfast.
Marc:Yeah, is it good?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's personal.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's black and white.
Guest:It's heavy.
Marc:But I didn't know any of that stuff because I live here.
Marc:And I didn't know the beginning of the troubles and what that must have felt like as a kid.
Marc:I mean, can you imagine?
Marc:I know.
Marc:I can't imagine.
Marc:But again, not unlike whatever the subtext of the power of the dog is, you're dealing with a fracturing of the people.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:around political lines and you know these are neighbors yeah yeah yeah that's the fucked up thing that people don't realize is like neighbors will kill neighbors and it's happened over and over again every single page of history is full of it it's the worst just one day just turns on and there you go and it's not just uh the other against the other it's it's people who live on the same street you're right and you've known for your whole life yeah yeah fucked up it is fucked up yeah
Marc:So I guess the benefit of having actor parents is that... You get a reality check.
Guest:But they were supportive too, right?
Guest:Completely.
Guest:Of course they were, but not all the way because... Not at the beginning because they wanted me to do anything but.
Guest:This peripatetic life, this uncertain income, this not being able to plan your life, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And as parents, they grieve some of that.
Guest:School holidays cut into by dad having to fly off back from Greece where we often went as a family to do an advert call that he then didn't get.
Guest:But...
Guest:That was the end of him in Greece with us as a family.
Guest:It's shit.
Guest:And but, you know, so it was a reality check.
Guest:I had no romantic notions.
Guest:I just wanted to do what they did.
Guest:I wanted to earn a living and I wanted to have the respect of my peers and have a great time.
Guest:That's what I saw them doing.
Marc:Were they disappointed?
Marc:Are they disappointed?
Guest:Did their careers like no bitterness and no like goodness.
Guest:No, which again is a huge thing to do with how egoless both of them are.
Guest:Well, that's rare.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My dad is rare in particular, I think.
Guest:Mom had a lot of really, you know, she was in the limelight a lot.
Guest:My mom's Wanda Ventham and she was in a series called The Lotus Eaters in the BBC as well as sort of award-winning drama like Breakdown and all sorts of stuff.
Guest:And she was very well known.
Guest:She was picked up with Gerry Anderson to be this sort of the live action version of the show.
Guest:Thunderbirds thing he did called UFO.
Guest:She was in a lot of cult stuff.
Guest:She was in Hammer Horror Films.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And, you know, she's guested in a lot of great, great stuff from Only From The Horses.
Guest:Oh, so she really had the thing.
Guest:Yeah, she's known.
Guest:She was the one in the frozen pea section of the kind of supermarket who would be stopped by someone saying, oh, wait, wait, I know you.
Guest:You're...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're that Sheila Gish, aren't you?
Guest:No, no, I'm not.
Guest:No, yeah, you are.
Guest:You're in that musical.
Guest:You're in... Yeah, that's on.
Guest:I'm thinking, no, that's Sheila Gish.
Guest:I'm Wanda Vantham.
Guest:Who?
Guest:Oh, yeah, I know you.
Guest:So I had all of that kind of... Yeah, yeah.
Guest:The pre-selfie kind of thing.
Guest:The almost star.
Guest:Just like not getting... Well, just people just occupying a moment with me and my mum by...
Guest:interviewing her yeah trying to figure out who she is yeah yeah it's just like weird yeah and then the worst is I kind of get into elevator I mean she was she is beautiful really beautiful and she was a bit of a pin-up and you know it's very odd when you get into an elevator with a man who's twice your age and goes oh yeah your mum yeah yeah I like your mum and you think Christ get me out get me out
Guest:But it's nice, I guess.
Guest:It's a compliment to her beauty, but I don't really need to hear it from the person who is creepy.
Marc:But once your interest was undeniable, they were like, okay.
Guest:There was a turning point.
Guest:There was a moment where at university, it took a while, I had to prove to them that I was willing to do further education to have something to fall back on.
Guest:Although I did a drama degree, I didn't do like, you know, maths and economics or French diplomas or something.
Guest:No, I was an undergrad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was just a master's.
Guest:But I then did it.
Guest:There was nothing about acting to do with it at all.
Guest:It was all it was about writing.
Guest:It was about theater and prisons.
Guest:And then it was also a huge two third chunk of it that was academic.
Guest:So everything from studying kind of like, you know.
Guest:verner herzog and fassbender and tragedy and yeah yeah stage design in the restoration era or post-war american theater everything this was what would make them comfortable if you had a broad education of everything that went into theater so like no no no that wasn't done to please them even then it was a turning point because i was like uh you know like i said if i wanted to be a lawyer or a diplomat or anything else that would be more grown up in their eyes and more uh
Guest:assured as a living or way to live a life then you know I would have chosen a different degree and a different university and a different so already they knew it was going that way but there was just a decisive point after a production of Amadeus that I did at university where I played Salieri and dad just got a hold of my shoulders in the car park and said you're better at this than I ever was or ever will be and I can't wait to see what you do and we're so excited to see it and support you all the way
Guest:yeah just it just completely yeah it's beautiful it's an amazing did you cry uh i guess i did i mean i feel like choking up every time i feel like choking up it's a beautiful thing yeah yeah yeah to say to his son um what a gift of a blessing yeah and that was that was that is their love that's that's what it's been like
Marc:Well, that is selfless, especially for an actor who generally requires an inordinate amount of ego.
Marc:And that is easily threatened that he was able to be that selfless in showing you his belief in you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a gift.
Marc:It was amazing.
Guest:So then where'd you go?
Guest:Where'd you study?
Guest:I went to Lambda for a year, which they were a bit against.
Guest:They're like, you're ready, just get on with it.
Guest:And I wanted to be with my peers and just figure out the stuff that wasn't working, the stuff that was.
Marc:That's the Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Guest:Yeah, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.
Guest:That's the big one.
Guest:uh it's one of the two rada and lambda the big london based ones actually it's not so that's really unfair guildhall i mean i am president of that drama school so i would say it's the big one yeah or one of the two but there's there's some great drama schools and there's guildhall there's um right sylvia young and all sorts of other different places east east 17 so did you did you go there and get hammered with shakespeare
Guest:No, yeah, a little bit of classical English theater training.
Guest:That's what the year was about.
Guest:But really the kind of key lessons and things that I locked into and still serve me well were just tiny vignettes and different classes.
Guest:Could be an Alexander technique class, could be a movement class, could be just working with one director who was like, do nothing.
Guest:Just say it, just do fucking nothing.
Guest:I was very much in my sort of adolescent and pre-adolescent stage, just hat boxing.
Guest:I was just going, I want to, and I've been given the chance to go from playing
Guest:Rosalind in As You Like It to play Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman at school in a year, you know, after my balls dropped.
Guest:Sorry for the visual image, but, you know, it was an all-boys school, so I played girls in the Shakespeare productions, and then, hello, I'm an aging salesman.
Guest:Was this when you were a kid?
Guest:Yeah, I was 17 when I played Willie Loman.
Guest:but that was not that lamb that was not no that was at school but my point is i was hat boxing i was just trying on these very rich different very characters right yeah just going all out to sort of uh transform i guess and then lambda was more about no no you walk into the room it's you yeah what's that like right and what was it like uh pretty limiting casting wise
Guest:It's just like you immediately fit a box.
Guest:It's just that beginning stage where they go, OK, he can do the officer class posh kid or, you know, whatever.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then you go, yeah, I can.
Guest:But I'm actually going to say no to that and try to get the other part and whatever it might be.
Marc:So really, they're casting minded.
Guest:I think they just want to give you a security in the marketplace when you immediately emerge.
Marc:But they see a marketplace, which is good.
Guest:A little, yeah, a little.
Guest:Is it beyond theater?
Guest:There is also a very cloistered, and in a good way, closeted experience of exploring what acting is, what bringing truth to a moment, an imagined moment is, how to investigate a script, how to...
Guest:deal with different methodologies and also not that it was on our one year course but the two and three year course have a lot of work with cameras and recording as well of all sorts of medium and um the written word but you know it it it was um yeah it just when you get to that i already had an agent so that was okay um i got one by doing a um uh by playing jerry in the zoo story and edinburgh fringe uh edward alby so i first met my wife actually but um really
Guest:Yeah, we've known each other for a long time.
Guest:It was another production I was doing when I met her.
Guest:What's her name?
Guest:Sophie.
Guest:Sophie Hunter.
Guest:And she was getting into a hooker's nightie, and I was stripping out of a wet, sort of, sweat-soaked fat suit, having been playing George in Kvetsch's Stephen Berkhoff play of brilliance.
Guest:And, yeah, I was just head over heels, but I just, I was a goofballer.
Guest:I didn't know how to speak to women.
Guest:I was all over the place, and just was kind of a company her going, oh, you're amazing, and just, yeah.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:uh it would have been 20 1920 so and she's uh uh an actress she is a director director yeah yeah yeah of uh opera and um events and classical music and um and also of of straight drama and um yeah sort of classic stuff or interesting or like you know like uh
Guest:Well, she's working on an amazing production of the Carmelites with a fantastic architect.
Guest:Am I going to forget the name of?
Guest:Fuck, what's his name?
Guest:He's very, very famous Spanish architect.
Marc:It doesn't sound... Non-traditional stuff that she does.
Guest:Kind of, yeah.
Guest:And I think a lot of... I shouldn't be doing an interview for her, but she's better at talking about her work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:um she you know she wants to democratize the sort of elevated experience of seeing classical music she wants to broaden its appeal and give it an accessibility that's not cheapening the the the brilliance of it but that is somehow to do with scale that's good that people have been trying to do that with classical theater for years but yeah it's time for music yeah i think so i think so and you know she's getting into producing as well um there's an amazing book that we've got in our production company called the end we start from her
Guest:sister-in-law megan hunter i mean her yeah my sister-in-law as well megan who married tim her brother has wow the end we start from it's just an amazing story about um the early stages of motherhood with this catastrophic environmental disaster um in the background this flooding of london this sort of event oh my god um
Marc:Yeah, I guess that's where we're going in terms of reflecting the world we're living in.
Marc:A little.
Marc:Catastrophic, apocalyptic, and can the human spirit persevere?
Guest:Yeah, and I think we need more of that, actually.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I think we also need some sort of solutions and prompts to know how better to live our life.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:It needs to be more present.
Marc:I don't know how you get someone from knowing something to taking action.
Guest:Neither do I. And I think the biggest fault that we have as a species is short-termism.
Guest:We can't see far enough to understand that our actions today have such a profound impact in generations to come.
Marc:Yeah, and also we're completely overwhelmed with information, tasks, the pace of the way we live now.
Guest:But truthfully, I think also we give ourselves more credit than we deserve for the individual changes that we are capable of making.
Guest:Yeah, I try not to give myself any credit.
Guest:It's a hiding to nothing in my position, that's for sure.
Marc:But you've been... You don't want to direct?
Marc:I'd love to, yeah.
Marc:When's that going to happen?
Guest:Probably when the kids are older.
Guest:It's so all-consuming, you know.
Guest:I just want to be... I love what I've got at the moment.
Marc:Have you been approached to do it?
Guest:like has your agent sat down and going no a couple of times people have said I'd love you to direct an episode or do something like Sherlock and that kind of stuff no no they're very protective of that shit a Marvel movie oh yeah likewise protective no I'm joking I want to start small anyway I wouldn't want that kind of Taika was in the Louis movie he was yeah he's a good friend oh he's a good friend of yours he's great yeah yeah and Will and you know and Cole who does the voice over Olivia Colman
Guest:Collie but you know he rather was just yeah he was around and he was just in that sort of manic phase of just saying yes to everything if we got him for a couple of days or just an afternoon I can't remember it was really brief but he just like set the whole crew alight it was wonderful
Marc:But he's a guy that has a beautiful personal artistic vision that's able to apply it to a Marvel movie with some success.
Marc:And I love that about them letting him in.
Guest:And I know they were jittery about it.
Guest:But that's an example of where that works, where the house style is still there.
Guest:But you have someone who has a really individual voice who's going to do something that shakes it up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what is it like to...
Marc:To play like, you know, when you deal with these guys that you play, because you play people that are real a few times.
Marc:Most of them are dead, I think.
Guest:Yeah, some very alive and then coming more alive.
Guest:Like Dominic Cummings, no one really knew who he was until he kind of broke lockdown and did everything he did as the prime minister's personal aid during...
Guest:Right.
Guest:COVID.
Guest:But yeah, I was outside of the corridors of Westminster.
Guest:No one really knew who he was.
Guest:And then James Graham is amazing political satirist, but also just this writer's ability to put you in the room where it happens in a really profound way.
Guest:Like, okay, do you have a bug in that room?
Guest:And that's how people are very freaked out because, you know.
Guest:And Julian Assange.
Guest:Julian Assange again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he was far better known and still alive, I hope.
Marc:How did he feel about your depiction?
Guest:About his depiction?
Guest:My depiction of him?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know?
Guest:It's been a while.
Guest:Was he freaked out?
Guest:How does he feel about it?
Guest:How does he feel about it?
Guest:Oh, there was a very spicy email conversation that happened on the morning of the first day of shooting where he was going to desist.
Guest:Like, go fuck yourself, please.
Guest:Well, no, very polite, but very much like you have a moral obligation not to tell this story.
Guest:We're trying to do good work here, and you're going to torpedo it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't think this film will torpedo at heart what is essential about creating a platform whereby you can publish whistleblowers anonymously.
Guest:That is a great thing you did for democracy.
Guest:But this examines the personal relationship you had with that enterprise and the people involved.
Guest:And you are very public.
Guest:And there are certain things you did brilliantly and certain things that should be held up for examination.
Guest:The idea was beautiful.
Guest:How do you respond to that?
Guest:With another load of emails.
Guest:And he kept writing.
Guest:And he was very flattering.
Guest:He was very sweet about it.
Guest:He said, oh, we should publish these and give them to Vanity Fair.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, Christ, when I am writing to a publisher.
Guest:So I spent some hours trying to think of, you know, really where I was with the argument.
Guest:And...
Guest:I'm not against him.
Guest:I'm not against what he did at all.
Guest:I think it's extraordinary what he did.
Guest:It's just, it was, there were some provocative moves that were about personal politics and a human being, not about the ideal.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Can we hold up for speculation?
Marc:It sounds like it'd be a good play, these correspondences.
Guest:oh stop well i don't know it's a while since i've seen him but you know i i he's in a he's in a terrible hold at the moment i just yeah yeah it's pretty dark i don't know i don't know what i don't know what's going on he's in belmarsh um and he's being held there for quite some time he's not been in the embassy for a long time now he has a family yeah he has two kids with uh one of his lawyers that he sees but yeah you know from from the prison
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a... But there's a huge conversation.
Guest:Yeah, we don't have to have it.
Marc:I don't feel equipped to have it.
Guest:I don't think I do anymore.
Guest:It's too dusty.
Guest:He's gotten away from it a bit.
Guest:Well, I wouldn't be doing it any service by saying I'm on it and I really have a clear line.
Marc:How do you manage your family when you are doing so many movies?
Guest:um oh well they really are the priority you know it's like most people do they go with you yeah if it's someone like new zealand and if it's if it's cool with sophie's work and yeah and what their scheduling is you got stuck there too didn't you which was a blessing in disguise it was amazing it was amazing good family time
Guest:I mean, yeah, not that anyone knew that.
Guest:At the time, we were kind of sanitizing groceries and not going outside our house for fear that it might just drift through the letterbox.
Guest:But once we kind of understood where we were, which we'd never been before, and what the predicament was, I always had my parents.
Guest:They came over for like a three-week visit, a week to acclimatize and meet Jane and see what we were doing on the South Island and watch me kind of cattle steer like a...
Guest:100 head of cattle through a village or whatever.
Guest:And then go on a two-week road trip that we'd planned together.
Guest:And by the end of that, it was like, I think it's too risky for you to travel.
Guest:By then, it was a really circuitous route home.
Guest:It's like three days almost.
Marc:So they stayed too?
Guest:Yeah, for five months.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:It was crazy.
Guest:It was crazy.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:That is crazy.
Marc:So you got to know each other even more than you thought.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:What is this story about you getting kidnapped?
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Okay, we're going there.
Guest:Yeah, I got kidnapped.
Guest:Were you on a set?
Guest:I got carjacked.
Guest:No, I was on a weekend off with two other actors.
Marc:Where was this?
Guest:This is in South Africa.
Marc:What were you doing there?
Guest:I was doing a TV three-parter of a William Golding trilogy called To the Ends of the Earth.
Guest:And I was playing the sort of landlubberly gent, Edmund Talbot.
Guest:And he's on this boat, and it becomes this sort of metaphor, as everything does, whether it's an island or whatever, for Golding's kind of...
Guest:right right you know pressurizing environment to study the human condition and how it falls apart and what societal strains and weaknesses there are in certain eras that expose the true nature of our animal being and all the rest is he the lord of the flies guy yeah right right yeah yeah yeah yeah spire yeah yeah yeah he's an amazing writer but he this is a great role great part and i was two-thirds of the way through yeah we'd all wanted to the three of us had wanted to go off and learn to dive to do you know like get a paddy certificate go scuba diving right
Guest:and we had this you know course and it was very kind of method based and there was just a little bit of practice of breathing underwater but it was in a pool it wasn't out at sea they do it safely and it was cold it was getting to be a South African winter and I kind of felt a little sick and I go guys I think we should go back tonight rather than early tomorrow morning before we start filming Monday and South African with us you know he was like it's kind of sketchy out there at night I think we should just wait until the day I went oh okay it's just I don't feel great he went okay well we'll find a route yeah
Guest:And we went, and I feel really guilty about that.
Guest:I wish we was gone in the morning, given what happened.
Guest:And we drove the section that we thought would be a little sketchy, the kind of more unstructured road, the kind of dirt track to get to the N2, which is this big trunk road that runs all the way down the east coast of Africa.
Guest:And yeah, we didn't get far down it when one of the tires blew.
Guest:We got out to try and fix it, because what we didn't know is you could run for quite a while on three tires.
Guest:So anyone listening, keep driving.
Guest:you know and We stopped and then out of the bush these guys came and threw us back into the car drove us off road plundered the car and Yeah, it was a pretty hard deal about two hours long.
Guest:Yep Yeah, there was well there was intimation of a gun where I didn't turn around to see it because
Guest:At the time we were out of the car, I was then put in the boot of the car, a surety at one point with my shoelaces as a bind for my hand.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So you're in the trunk?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I kind of argued my way.
Guest:I said, look, I'm going to be a problem for you because I might dine here.
Guest:It's the small space.
Guest:It's not the fact I can't breathe.
Guest:I have a problem with being a small, which is not true, really.
Guest:i was definitely i thought i've got to give them a reason why this isn't a good idea you know yeah i can't plead for my life it's it's very much the way that if that happens in a family the child is taking a surety and the parents left but i mean it's really it's so yeah we learned a lot that night um and i was dragged out having argued my way out of it and we were all sort of tied together up the side of this environment three of us yeah and what how'd they find you who found you
Guest:Well, they eventually left us alone once we gave cards and drew out money.
Guest:We'd used our cash to pay, so the whole deal might have been over far quicker if we'd had cash, and they'd just taken the stuff out of the car, and the car, obviously.
Guest:They might have left us alone, but because of needing to take a card to a bank machine, it lasted for like two and a half hours.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Guest:So we then walked down the road away from where it had happened, and...
Marc:You got unbound?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we kind of got to this roadside.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:These two women were selling these fantastic goods that the local tribe had been making.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Beautiful, yeah, like beaded bowls and wooden carvings outside Shislui game reserves, one of those drive-thru safaris.
Guest:And we just waited with them and a security guard and called the production company.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah the cavalry came and picked us up in our shaken form it was it was it was heavy yeah yeah we were so lucky literally the next day in the paper there was a there was a uh yeah a guy got killed at a road stop and all that was in his car was a two round coin and a lighter and uh you know the guy got blown away at the lights just the opportunism to just take whatever might have been and then i think it's just
Marc:Got lucky.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were very lucky in a very big country.
Marc:What does that inform you?
Marc:Well, I went back there.
Guest:I mean, I stayed out for a period of time afterwards.
Guest:I also went traveling on my own in Namibia.
Guest:I think I kind of got this weird thing, which I'm still processing as well, a little of...
Guest:needing to live a life less ordinary at a kind of pace or, I don't know, a level of looking over the ledge and being in control of my mortality that's not necessarily very productive.
Guest:But in that moment, I just, I became an adrenaline junkie.
Guest:I hung out with South African special forces and did, you know, helicopter flights and jumped out of airplanes, did parachute jumps.
Marc:Interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Chris Hedges wrote a book called War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.
Marc:He was a war journalist.
Marc:And, you know, he talked about that addiction.
Yeah.
Marc:of that.
Marc:How's that going for you?
Marc:Have you tempered it a little?
Guest:A little, yeah.
Guest:I have three little people at home that I want to stay safe for, you know.
Marc:You don't want to go too close to the edge of the cliff.
Guest:Yeah, I have a wife and a family.
Guest:Just for fun?
Guest:I just think, yeah, exactly.
Guest:I'm a little bit more temperate.
Guest:There is a skateboard in the back of the car that's about as risk-taking I get these days.
Guest:Or a surfboard.
Marc:You're getting a little old for that shit, too.
Marc:I know, man.
Guest:I'm a sidewalk surfer.
Guest:Oh, yeah, breakable, too.
Guest:But, you know, I'm not going up any ramps or jumping in the bowl.
Marc:Okay, as long as you're not doing the pools.
Marc:No.
Marc:And with the Marvel movies, you have peace with that?
Marc:You love it?
Marc:In what sense?
Marc:There seems to be, on some level, some Faustian agreement one makes with themselves as an actor, or else you embrace it.
Guest:You've got to embrace it.
Guest:You've got to just enjoy it.
Guest:It's a celebration.
Marc:You do enjoy it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I know Brolin enjoys it.
Guest:Completely, man.
Guest:You just have to...
Guest:You're in, man.
Guest:You're hired to do the job.
Guest:How fucking lucky are we to do this job, period, and let alone to do it with those resources, with those rewards, and often with material that's really engaging and fun and complex.
Guest:And, you know, yeah, the hours are long.
Guest:It's never right until the movie's kind of just about to come out, so you're constantly being called back to perfect things.
Guest:They often go to production without a third act.
Guest:There are loads of things that are frustrating.
Guest:But, you know, it's...
Guest:It's a mighty thing to play Doctor Strange in the MCU.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I absolutely love it.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:And you feel... Well, you said, like, going into this character over and over again, that, you know, you've had to sort of build him in your own way.
Guest:A little, yeah, completely.
Guest:And I wasn't a comic nerd.
Guest:I didn't know much about him.
Guest:I lent very heavily on Scott, who directed the first one, Scott Derrickson.
Guest:And we built him from a great origin script based on the origin of the comics to a large degree.
Guest:And...
Guest:Then he's had these sort of stepping stones in the Avengers film, but we haven't really kind of, you know, stressed him out until this one.
Guest:So, yeah, we'll see how he goes.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:That's a responsible plug for a movie that's not even out yet.
Marc:It might not be until next year or something.
Marc:i can't i can't escape any kind of conversation about it when it comes to uh interviews at the moment because it's just that well spider-man is obviously on our doorstep that's about to happen at christmas and strange is a big part of that yeah and they uh you know if they if you speak publicly or if you spoil marvel movies as an actor they little little red dots appear on you yeah yeah they'll kill you yeah seriously yeah that's it good talking nice to talk to you too
Marc:There you go, Benedict Cumberbatch.
Marc:Great films he's in right now.
Marc:I don't know about the Marvel one, but I do know about The Electrical Life of Louis Wayne and The Power of the Dog.
Marc:Both terrific.
Marc:And now guitar again.
Marc:It sounds good.
Marc:I got my Stratocaster set up.
Stratocaster
Yeah.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey and La Fonda.
Marc:Cat names everywhere.
Marc:Yeah.