Episode 271 - Stephen Merchant
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:How?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF.
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck, Nicks?
Marc:What the fuck, Ericans?
Marc:What the fuck, Rodians?
Marc:Did I just make that one up?
Marc:Anyways, look, I have no time.
Marc:I'm in an adverse situation.
Marc:Right now, as I'm recording this, I am in an adverse situation.
Marc:It has been an insane fucking day.
Marc:Oh, by the way, I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:But listen, folks, today I made a mistake that altered the course of my life in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Marc:Yes, I did.
Marc:You're wondering, did you shoot a man?
Marc:Did you steal a car?
Marc:Are you on the run?
Marc:Are you holed up somewhere in a shootout?
Marc:No, you would hear that.
Marc:I'll tell you what happened in a second.
Marc:On the show today, Stephen Merchant had a lovely conversation a while back.
Marc:A couple of little things you might need to know during that conversation, other than he's a lovely man.
Marc:We discussed, it might seem a little out of context, but we talked about the blackout
Marc:And that was because we actually did the interview on the day the Internet was protesting the online piracy act.
Marc:But we got into a lot of stuff.
Marc:Royalty, money, Britain, America, comedy.
Marc:It's a great conversation.
Marc:We'll get to it in just a second.
Marc:I do want to push a couple of dates out there into the world this weekend.
Marc:That is April 19th, 20th, and 21st.
Marc:I'll be at Helium Comedy Club in Portland, Oregon.
Marc:The following week, on the 26th, I'll be at the Moon Tower Comedy Fest in Austin, Texas, playing at the Mohawk.
Marc:Go grab some tickies for that.
Marc:April 3rd.
Marc:I'm going to be at Stand Up Live in Phoenix, Arizona.
Marc:Starting Tuesday, you can go to WTFPod.com and pre-order the special DVD of WTF, the first 100 episodes from AST Records.
Marc:It's a two-disc DVD with MP3 audio files of the first 100 episodes for you to download.
Marc:How do you like that?
Marc:You'll just have them now.
Marc:and hopefully you'll just keep them to yourself.
Marc:So for everyone asking how to download old episodes of WTF as opposed to streaming them on the app, this is for you.
Marc:The set has some of our classic episodes with Robin Williams, Maria Bamford, Dane Cook, Zach Galifianakis, and the two-parter with Carlos Mencia.
Marc:It's good stuff.
Marc:I mean, a lot of you know this stuff, but a lot of you just got on board and you want to have them, you can have them.
Marc:And as a special bonus, folks,
Marc:There's a nearly two-hour live video of WTF at the Bell House in Brooklyn featuring Artie Lang, Ira Glass, Morgan Spurlock, and more.
Marc:It's over 100 hours of WTF for you to enjoy whenever and wherever you want.
Marc:The two-disc set is available in limited numbers starting April 24th, but you can pre-order your copy from AST Records on Tuesday at WTFPod.com and AspecialThing.com.
Marc:Do it.
Marc:You've been waiting for it.
Marc:It's here.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:Everybody good with that?
Marc:Now let me tell you what the fuck happened.
Marc:I just got, I left New Jersey this morning, left Newark at like nine o'clock, had great shows in New Jersey.
Marc:Thanks for coming out to the Stress Factory.
Marc:It was a thrill to be in my home state.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I know you know that I grew up in Albuquerque.
Marc:That's where I grew up.
Marc:My parents are from Jersey.
Marc:I was born in Jersey.
Marc:I lived in Jersey for the first six years of my life.
Marc:I am deep wired for New Jersey.
Marc:Just the air made me think about my grandma driving down the highway, you know, her pointing stuff out to me, driving past an Nabisco plant.
Marc:Hey, it smells like cookies, grandma, right?
Marc:You told me that.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I'm channeling right now.
Marc:I'm channeling a five-year-old me.
Marc:Hey, grandma, look at the weird painting in front of Alexander's.
Marc:Who painted that?
Marc:I know you don't know.
Marc:You don't know everything, Grandma.
Marc:A lot of memories, very young memories.
Marc:Also had a talk with Tom Sharpling, so look forward to a hotel room version of the Mark and Tom show.
Marc:But all in all, it was very exciting to go back to the Stress Factory.
Marc:Mike Lawrence did a great job.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:When real nerds rock, he fucking killed it.
Marc:All the people, we had a great time.
Marc:And I was nervous.
Marc:I hadn't been back to the room in 10 years.
Marc:And it's weird.
Marc:It's weird when you do things that you were afraid of at another time and then the fear comes back and all of a sudden you're that guy again.
Marc:But it was great.
Marc:Vinny Brand over there at the Stress Factory hosted.
Marc:It was spectacular.
Marc:Thanks for coming out, New Jersey.
Marc:Now let's get to the reason why I'm sitting in a conference room in the Ambassador Lounge at the American Terminal in Dallas-Fort Worth recording this.
Marc:I cut it close, folks.
Marc:Thought I could get home.
Marc:Thought I could get home to do this show.
Marc:This is how committed I am to this show.
Marc:I got on the plane, 9 o'clock.
Marc:We were flying to Dallas-Fort Worth.
Marc:I fell asleep.
Marc:The next thing I knew, we were landing in Tulsa, Oklahoma to refuel.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck happened?
Marc:And I asked the flight attendant, she said, Dallas-Fort Worth is shut down.
Marc:We got to refuel in Tulsa and we got to wait it out.
Marc:Shit.
Marc:I got to get home to record the show.
Marc:Doesn't everyone, I got important shit to do.
Marc:So now I'm sitting there in Tulsa on the tarmac.
Marc:They're filling up the plane.
Marc:I got a connection only to make, I got an hour to make a connection in Dallas.
Marc:I don't know when we were going to get there.
Marc:So I call American Airlines and I say, what can I do?
Marc:I don't think I'm going to make my connection.
Marc:Can you get me on another flight?
Marc:And they're like, no, it's been shitty all day.
Marc:Hold on one sec.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes, sir.
Marc:Thanks a lot, man.
Marc:Did it work out?
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Yeah, I've never paid for a conference room in an airport.
Marc:No.
Marc:We good?
Marc:Thank you very much, sir.
Marc:Take care.
Marc:That was a guy that sold me my conference room.
Marc:So, okay, so where was I?
Marc:Oh, yeah, Tulsa.
Marc:So I'm in Tulsa, and I rebooked the flight.
Marc:I said, what do you got?
Marc:She goes, we got nothing until 950.
Marc:So now I'm going to be flying out of Dallas-Fort Worth at 950, and I'm never going to be able to do the opening of the show, which I'm doing right now.
Marc:So I booked that flight because I wanted to get home at some point, and I started thinking, like, I can MacGyver this, man.
Marc:I'll get to the airport.
Marc:I'll go into a bathroom.
Marc:You know, I'll use my Amex to get into the Ambassador Club.
Marc:But I had a plan, but so I booked that flight.
Marc:So I booked the 950.
Marc:So they took me off the 230, right?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:You following me?
Marc:And then two minutes later on my phone, sitting on the tarmac in Tulsa, I get an email.
Marc:The 230 had been pushed up to 330 or whatever an hour later.
Marc:So now I could have made my flight in my mind.
Marc:So I call back the front desk and I say, can I get back on my original flight?
Marc:No, that's booked out now.
Marc:Whatever.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So then I take off and it was a nasty flight, but I was so pissed off at myself for me, for erring on the side of caution in order to possibly get home.
Marc:And I felt like such an asshole that I couldn't even focus on being afraid to fly.
Marc:And it was that moment where I realized that was my entire life, that I used to beat the shit out of myself until I made myself feel like such an asshole that I could consider that consistency.
Marc:It's easy to keep consistency when you think you're a fucking asshole and you're beating the shit out of yourself.
Marc:So I learned a life lesson.
Marc:I didn't stop beating the shit out of myself on the flight.
Marc:The whole flight, I was like, what kind of moron are you?
Marc:And not only that, I added to the pile.
Marc:It's like, you fucking shouldn't have called.
Marc:You should have just played it out.
Marc:And you fucked up those shelves at home.
Marc:How are you going to fix those shelves?
Marc:And I just started stacking one thing after another, reasons I should fucking hate myself.
Marc:I figured, why not pile on?
Marc:Truth of the matter is, very bumpy flight.
Marc:Did not experience any terror because I was too big of an asshole to feel afraid.
Marc:Holy shit, I think Billy Gibbons just walked by.
Marc:Is that possible?
Marc:I'm in Dallas.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:All right, let's get this over with.
Marc:The lesson to be learned here is that there's something to be had by beating the shit out of yourself and considering yourself an asshole.
Marc:You may walk through life with a little less fear because you're too busy beating the shit out of yourself.
Marc:But if you just acknowledge that and realize you have no control over most things, maybe things will work out.
Marc:And they did.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:It's not over this story, but I am recording this and I have no idea how fast the internet speed is.
Marc:I don't know if you're going to get this.
Marc:I don't know if I'm going to get this out.
Marc:I don't know if this is going to go up on time, but I do know one thing.
Marc:I'm no asshole.
Yeah.
Guest:Do you wear headphones or you don't?
Guest:Do I need to?
Marc:I mean, you're not going to be playing music or... No, but, you know, if you want to hear yourself.
Marc:Are you tired of hearing yourself?
Guest:Well, I'd feel more relaxed, I think, without hearing, unless you think I should.
Marc:No, I think you're okay.
Marc:You know how to talk on a microphone.
Guest:I know, I've done it.
Marc:Yeah, I've done it.
Marc:Some people can't do it.
Marc:It's a very weird thing.
Marc:Yeah, I used to do radio a lot, so I guess... Yeah, did you... That's a... You know, I don't know a lot about the roots.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I went to your show last night.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:It was great, man.
Marc:Thank you, man.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:I was sitting behind Emily Blunt.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Are you friends with her?
Marc:Yes, I am.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It felt very good to be that close to her.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I built a relationship in my mind with her as we sat there.
Marc:Nothing inappropriate.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Just hanging out, maybe at barbecues and things.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, just hanging out with her.
Marc:And I was like, who's that guy?
Marc:The American office guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Is that awkward that he's the American office guy?
Marc:Is that awkward?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's your show.
Marc:I mean, how do you feel about that in general?
Marc:I love it.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I was proud of it.
Guest:I'm sort of proud that I grew up loving American sitcoms.
Guest:Right.
Guest:MASH, Roseanne, I was always hooked on.
Guest:So to me, it was a great ambition to get an American sitcom.
Guest:And this is the closest I've got, I guess.
Marc:But do you think that they honored it?
Marc:I think so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, the one thing I remember when we were working on it with them in the pilot stage was I remember both Ricky and I felt very strongly that we shouldn't be directly involved because we just try and replicate our version.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Probably just that would just not work.
Guest:You know, we'd be so hung up on trying to replicate every aspect and it would just fail.
Guest:Whereas I think what they did was they just took it in their own direction.
Guest:I think that was the sensible way.
Guest:And we encouraged them to do that.
Marc:It was hard to, I would think it was interesting that they were able to find someone as self-involved and vulnerable at the same time as Ricky was in your show with Corral.
Guest:Well, I think once the four-year-old virgin hit, they softened him slightly and they took him in slightly different roads.
Guest:And I think that was the right move.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To me, I'm not precious.
Guest:It's like writing a song and then someone doing a cover version and you had strings on yours and they changed it to an acoustic number.
Guest:To me, that's... Not married to it?
Guest:No, not at all because I think they did a good job and I really enjoy watching it and I sort of watch it as a fan.
Marc:How did the whole relationship... I'm sure you got this question before, but I really don't know because I don't follow... Because you've done no research.
Marc:No, I don't.
Guest:That's not the way you operate.
Guest:You don't check on Wikipedia.
Marc:Well, the weird thing is today is the blackout.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:Of course.
Marc:So I'm like, all right, I'll just go prepare a little bit and just find out where he grew up.
Marc:What?
Marc:You mean I'm going to have to do it just like a curious person?
Guest:I didn't realize how, it's amazing how dependent we've become on it, isn't it?
Guest:That when they blacked out, we really realized what we were missing.
Marc:It's very clever.
Marc:It was kind of fucked up and I'm like, oh, now I'm going to have to really act like I don't know him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But also, though, I don't keep abreast of British comedy.
Marc:There's a lot of Americans that do.
Marc:I have nothing against it.
Marc:I've watched you.
Marc:I think you're funny, and I appreciate things you've done.
Marc:But you have a whole scene over there.
Marc:There's a whole world over there of comedy that I don't really know a lot about.
Marc:So what was your evolution in that?
Marc:Did you stand up?
Guest:So I started... I did radio at college and just after.
Guest:And then alongside that, I was doing stand-up in the evenings.
Marc:So you've been doing a stand-up a long time.
Guest:I did stand-up on and off for about four or five years.
Guest:And then I took a long break when the TV stuff started happening and the awards came in.
Guest:There was no reason to go out anymore.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:Why stay up late banging your head against the wall?
Guest:Exactly, yeah.
Guest:Looking for approval for the drunks.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And this is the weird thing, actually.
Guest:I never...
Guest:Got a kick.
Guest:You know, like you say, the approval thing.
Guest:Some people get up on stage, they feel they need the validation of the crowd.
Guest:I never had that.
Guest:To me, it was an interesting exercise.
Marc:You have it now, though, don't you?
Marc:It's not about validation.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:But you like that connect.
Marc:I mean, I watched you last night.
Marc:You do kind of reach out.
Guest:yeah but you know how to perform yeah i think i know how to perform i but i don't leave there thinking there's 200 people who who who worship me that i take no but have i enjoyed your act or like you yeah but i if i if i if i never did it again i don't think it would be a problem all right you know what i mean it's not that i'm dismissive of the audience i just feel i can operate without so you're self-contained you actually i'd like to think so you have some self-esteem maybe i think i think i have some self-esteem a little bit of self-worth um
Marc:well that yeah that makes you different than a lot of comedians i think so i think so it's perhaps why i'll never be one of the greats is i just not i don't have enough demons yeah yeah you just torment you actually like yourself yeah exactly yeah healthy upbringing i like living a life with friends and family oh my god what the fuck are you talking about oh geez so yeah i was doing stand-up and then uh who are the guys who were your contemporaries i mean who would you uh sort of look up to in britain
Guest:um well ahead of me um was obviously eddie izard he was there he'd been doing it um and you like him yeah and he was a big influence i'm sure early on i was i aped him very obviously uh stuart lee stuart lee yes was just returning to stand up i think when i started doing it um it's a guy called ross noble who is tremendous amazing improvising with the long hair yeah yeah incredible comic
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was a guy called Jimmy Carr, who's very big in the UK now.
Guest:Very quick.
Guest:Jimmy Carr's like a dark Bob Hope.
Guest:Right.
Guest:A lot of sort of smooth one-liners that are quite sort of sick and twisted.
Guest:He started around the same time.
Guest:So, yeah, there's people around.
Guest:And it's funny, just going back to it recently, going back to the comedy clubs and reminded of the sort of the anger, the hatred, the jealousy, the backbiting, the constant, he's got what?
Guest:He's doing warm-up for who?
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:It's almost like a viscous air that you walk into.
Marc:You just feel that bitterness.
Marc:The bitterness is there.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Right away.
Marc:All it takes is one person.
Marc:You just catch eyes with one dude and you're like, oh, there's the drain.
Guest:Yeah, right, right, right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this is the thing with comedians.
Guest:I find it exhausting spending company in the company of more than one comedian at a time because the level of competition to try and be the kind of wittiest or most acerbic in a group is exhausting to me.
Marc:but don't they you kind of arc out of that eventually i mean i i mean i'm 48 i hang around with comics if they're doing that it's yeah it's exhausting yeah i'm gonna head off now guys you carry on you guys win yeah yeah i'm out you're funny you're funny on stage you're funny in real life well done i gotta go talk to people that know how to listen yeah exactly exactly so how did you uh like how did you become so famous
Guest:thanks i well uh before the uh i mean i don't mean that in a snide way i mean like what was if it wasn't stand-up what happened in between stand-up and writing the television show you were on the radio uh yes we're on the radio but the tv show really is is where that was the first thing i did and ricky did uh in any real professional capacity how'd you meet him we worked at a radio station together and we hit it off i was his assistant so he was on air
Guest:Well, initially he wasn't.
Guest:Initially he was just behind the scenes pressing.
Guest:He was supposed to be involved with, he had this rather grand title, the head of speech.
Guest:And he was supposed to be involved with all of the kind of, you know, the kind of what's on information and the competitions and these things.
Guest:And he had no experience in radio.
Guest:He just somehow persuaded them to give him a job.
Guest:And I was his assistant because I had a little radio experience.
Guest:And then quickly we realized, I remember we had an email in the first week of being on air.
Guest:A bit of working at the station.
Guest:And the guy who ran the place was a little kind of schizoid.
Guest:And he sent us an email.
Guest:I think it was like three days in.
Guest:And he said, what the fuck am I paying you cunts for?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that shook us up.
Guest:So we went on the air and we dicked around on the air.
Guest:And he sent us another email saying that was the funniest thing I've ever heard.
Guest:And it then swung back and forth between that was worse.
Guest:That was the worst thing ever.
Guest:You're cunts.
Guest:A lot of the cunts.
Marc:Was it a sample tape?
Guest:No, we were just on air.
Guest:No, initially we were just popping up on other people's shows.
Guest:We would come up and we would just- As a team act?
Guest:Yeah, just sort of we had this thing about what Londoners should know and it would be like kind of- A segment.
Guest:A little segment of nonsense information.
Guest:And then eventually they gave us our own show on Sunday afternoons and we would do that.
Guest:And eventually I realized we would probably get fired if I stuck there.
Guest:So I jumped ship and joined the BBC.
Marc:The BBC, the building itself is like historical.
Yeah.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And the BBC, you know, is very formative for me.
Guest:Like that was where all the comedy that I grew up loving.
Guest:Monty Python started there, obviously, all the John Cleese stuff.
Guest:Blackadder and, you know, and all those kind of great shows.
Guest:And so it was kind of a real thrill for me to be there.
Guest:But what's interesting is as soon as you join the BBC, you realise it's a kind of bureaucratic, a giant bureaucratic ocean liner.
Guest:yeah kind of chugging along yeah and uh and but while we were there i i got the opportunity to make this short film and i went to ricky and i said look we should do some of these uh he had a couple of ideas or little skits they used to do just in the office to amuse ourselves observations he'd made on office types right and i said let's put them together and film them yeah and we did and that was like the prototype of the office and off we went really
Marc:Now, with Ricky, I mean, you make light of it in your show a little bit that you're kind of attached to him for life now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Are you guys friends?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I think it's funny, though, because I suppose I never felt... To me, it was like a writing partnership.
Guest:But because he also performed, that seemed to muddy the water.
Guest:It was like I was kind of...
Guest:Who's this tall guy that hangs around with him?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then when I started performing, they never sort of perceived us as a double act as such.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was like I was sort of this... Still hanging around.
Guest:...spare part, you know?
Guest:It was very odd.
Guest:It's amazing how you... It's very hard to sort of get a sense of how you're perceived in the outer world, you know?
Guest:Like, it's not until I started doing stand-up, people were like, oh, you do stand-up.
Guest:Oh, you're your own man.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:you're not just another limb of ricky gervais it's like wow okay all right yeah well i think you're also in a good position is that like the bigger he gets and and the more people have time to really process him and develop deep he's not he's not the kind of guy that that people are like you know like i don't know how i feel right there's a strong opinion yeah they either hate him or they love him yeah but like you're like sort of like you know just behind me a lot of what i hear is like uh yeah steven's really funnier he's he's funnier
Guest:Yeah, but people always say that that's always the easy thing, isn't it?
Guest:In order to knock someone else, then you make someone else the brains of the operation.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So are you?
Guest:Are you the brains?
Guest:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Guest:No, of course not.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:But I think what's interesting is that there's something in him that's a bit more rock and roll than me.
Guest:I'd like to be punk rock.
Guest:I'd like to be that sort of dude who smashes up his guitar at the end of the concert.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that's Ricky.
Guest:I'm the guy who packs up the equipment with the roadies and makes sure the van has got tax and insurance.
Guest:You're important.
Guest:I'm too anal.
Guest:I'm too pathetic.
Guest:I'd like to be doing drugs and screwing hookers, and I just don't have the nerve.
Guest:I don't want to upset my parents.
Marc:Well, I mean, you can work towards this.
Marc:There's no, you know.
Guest:Listen, that's the aim.
Guest:Don't think that's not the goal.
Marc:These are things that can happen late in life.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I could turn to 50 and then, you know, like, was it that guy, was it the drummer of the Rolling Stones supposedly got a heroin addiction, like age 60?
Guest:Did he?
Guest:He was the only one who hadn't done heroin.
Guest:And he thought, I'll take it up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:At 60, Charlie Watson.
Guest:Charlie Watson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Supposedly.
Marc:I don't know if it's true.
Marc:That's very funny.
Marc:It's like, what was all the to do about?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I must try this heroin I've heard so much about.
Marc:I've been afraid for a long time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you get along well with your parents then?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:I have an urge to get along well with people.
Guest:I like to please.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, tell me a little bit about, because I'm fascinated with England, and I've been there once or twice, but I always feel like I don't belong there.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And it's ridiculous, because I don't, but I should be comfortable there.
Marc:Of course, yeah.
Marc:Now, where did you study?
Marc:How did that work for you?
Marc:Where did you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in a place called Bristol.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was very funny to me that Bristol is a name here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like when Bristol Palin was being referred to a lot by... There's also Bristol Farms, but I think that's probably more relevant to... Is it a country-ish area?
Guest:It's country-ish, but Bristol is...
Guest:It's also funny because, you know, Cockney rhyming slang?
Guest:Are you familiar with Cockney rhyming slang?
Marc:No, lace them on me.
Guest:Cockney rhyming slang is this weird thing that developed amongst the Cockneys of East London that's supposedly a method of, I guess it developed so that the police wouldn't know what you're talking about, but it's not a difficult code to decipher.
Guest:So it's things like, oh, my plates of meat are killing me.
Guest:Plates of meat, feet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had to go up the apples and pears, stairs, you know, it's stuff like that.
Guest:But Bristol is rhyming slang for Bristol city, titty.
Guest:so whenever i think of bristol as a name it's like i always think of tits palin yeah well i'm sure she i think she was thinking of herself for a while yeah that's what they were calling her and her family yeah boobs palin yeah so what kind of what kind of neighborhood was it though i mean how does it i was very suburban and kind of it was it was uh uh upper working class uh that aspired to lower middle class and um
Guest:my father was uh you know like a plumber and a builder and um it was very straightforward existence worked with his hands didn't beat you with a pipe never beat me the pipe you know wasn't a drunkard um it's just fairly gentle cozy which annoys me always because i've always felt like i've never i don't have the sort of demons that would make me a great artist you know i wish i was richard prior who was grew up in a brothel and stuff but i just don't have that
Marc:You can manufacture one.
Marc:It's hard to.
Marc:You should be surprised.
Marc:Well, no, you could always, and the more famous you get, you could come out and go, all right, it's time for the truth.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And then just make up a bunch of shit.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've always wished I was brave enough to just make up stuff in interviews.
Guest:You know, my father raped me as a kid and stuff.
Guest:But I just, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But then I think the angle would be to say that, but say, but we were okay as a family.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I enjoyed it.
Guest:What can I say?
Guest:You know, he was a great lover.
Guest:He was a very sensitive lover.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:We still talk.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I learned so much from it.
Marc:And your mom, what did she do?
Guest:She was at home for a lot, and then she went back to work when I was in my teens, I think.
Guest:Yeah, just kind of nice people.
Guest:Siblings?
Guest:One sister, again.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Always a good relationship with her.
Guest:No kidding.
Marc:small family you know and i just yeah i wasn't beaten as i say um how does it how does like england really break up i mean like because the i mean i've never asked anybody about this but how do the neighborhoods break up like what's the bad part and how how is it all sort of like i know nothing
Marc:Like these areas.
Marc:Like, you know, you talk about certain areas have slang, certain areas... Like, where are the tensions?
Guest:Well, so I suppose they would say loosely that the south is more affluent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then north of London, north of Birmingham, which is maybe two hours north of London...
Guest:You start to get into the north, which is more famously known as a more working class area of the country, was hit hard in the 80s by the closure of a lot of industry and so on, and it's never quite recovered.
Guest:They sometimes talk about the north-south divide.
Guest:Some people would say there's a very distinct northern sense of humor that's a lot about family and is a bit more parochial maybe.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Just a lot about family dinners.
Guest:Right, and sort of that kind of family affair, you know, family events.
Guest:So like Billy Connolly would be a bit.
Guest:So Billy Connolly is Scottish, so he's more uniquely Scottish, but he comes from that working class route.
Guest:Northern comedians, I don't know if you'd be familiar with them, people like Peter Kay.
Guest:I don't know if you're familiar with Peter.
Guest:He's a big name in England.
Guest:And again, talks a lot about growing up and his childhood and so on.
Guest:And then I suppose the southern humour you would associate with the Oxbridge set, the Monty Python people, intellectual Peter Cook, university educated people.
Guest:And I think it's interesting, not until I went to university was I as aware of the class system.
Guest:I think the class system is more distinct than I perhaps realized growing up, you know, that there's the working class, there's the middle class, and then there is the upper class, and the upper upper class, the royals.
Guest:And it's amazing how demarcated that still is, you know, that there's people with money and education and privilege.
Guest:who are very protective of that aspect.
Guest:And it's quite hard to straddle that gap.
Guest:You know, for someone like me, I can kind of buy entry to it through being a celebrity, but I would never really be accepted there.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Which I guess is not true in America.
Guest:I guess if you earn money or fame, you can sort of buy your way into anything.
Marc:Maybe in politics, there's a...
Marc:That's our country's motto.
Guest:Right.
Marc:If you work hard enough, you can buy your way into anything.
Guest:You can buy your way into anything.
Guest:Maybe I'm being dismissive there.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Maybe the class thing is not as distinct.
Guest:Like, I wouldn't know what class you were.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would presume you were working class scum, but I have no idea.
Marc:Well, I try to dress like that.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But I think I might be, you know, they talk about this 99%.
Marc:You know, there's the 1% that have all the country's wealth.
Marc:All the money, yeah.
Marc:And I think within the 99%, I might be at 66%.
Marc:OK, so it's not horrible.
Marc:It's OK.
Marc:I'd say right now I'm operating a middle class, but I don't think about that.
Guest:Can you explain this to me?
Guest:I was reading about it today.
Guest:This idea that if you are right leaning in this country, the idea of taxing the rich offends you.
Guest:That seems so bizarre.
Guest:And people have said it's because everyone thinks maybe one day they'll be rich.
Guest:I think that's and so they should protect their interests.
Guest:But do they not realize that that's not going to happen to 99% of the country?
Marc:No, that's the other motto is, America, we're delusional.
Marc:Yeah, we hang our hope on bullshit.
Guest:Right, right, right, right, right.
Marc:No, I don't think that they see it that way.
Guest:I think that a lot of people... And you say they, you don't say we, which is interesting.
Guest:You mark yourself out from the...
Marc:Well, I don't believe that.
Marc:I have not struggled with that.
Marc:I didn't grow up.
Marc:I grew up middle class, and I do know there are definitely poor people that are struggling.
Marc:You've driven past them in your air-conditioned car.
Marc:Sure, yeah.
Marc:Well, not that much.
Marc:You're right down the street here.
Marc:I did colonize their neighborhood by buying this house.
Marc:But I think that a lot of them, they have God and they have hope that someday they'll hit the lottery or make some money.
Marc:And I think that's part of the American dream.
Marc:That's part of the weird sense of entitlement of even people that don't have anything.
Guest:So they would happily see people of immense wealth paying 4% tax.
Marc:I don't think they really think it all the way through.
Marc:I really think that in this country, and I think also anywhere where people are just constantly living the day-to-day struggle of their existence, when you start throwing math into the picture, I imagine a lot of them don't, and myself included, don't understand their own texts.
Guest:bracket but the fact that mitt romney's pays like 15 tax and has a fortune of like 100 million that doesn't seem alienated they don't see like how is he going to represent me the working class guy they see that as something to aspire to and he's obviously made a great success of himself well i think the the the approach that uh politicians have to to real lower class people is is that um you shouldn't be paying any tax because it's uh it's illegal there's this whole sort
Marc:Sort of idea that we should live off the grid.
Marc:So I think you're going to find angry people that are more willing to say fuck the government than fuck the rich.
Marc:I see.
Marc:I see.
Marc:I see.
Marc:That's the schism they've thrown in there.
Marc:And I think that middle to upper middle class people are hypocrites in that most people are trying not to pay taxes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yes, of course.
Guest:Which is obviously true in England as well.
Guest:I would not want to suggest that we are in any way different, really.
Guest:It's just it's much more it feels like the rich are not as rich somehow or or that the politicians are not as wealthy.
Guest:They are, but they're not.
Guest:So somehow it just doesn't seem as distinct.
Guest:It's a bit more gray and a bit more muddy.
Guest:Yeah, there's very right and left are slightly less defined in the UK as they are here.
Guest:There's really very little left here.
Marc:There's a lot of people that portray themselves as left out of guilt, but there's hypocrisy to it because I imagine that most people with money in this country never gladly say, I'm happy to help finance our government with my money.
Marc:Sure, sure, sure.
Marc:The conversation is going to be more like, they're talking to their accountant.
Marc:Is there any way we can get out of that?
Marc:That's the conversation.
Marc:And I think that poor people begrudgingly pay taxes, but their anger is really directed at the government.
Marc:And I think that not unlike poor people everywhere, if they see someone well-dressed and someone drives up in a nice car, they're like, how the fuck do you get that?
Marc:They're not considering that he's not paying taxes.
Marc:They're even breathing the same air necessarily.
Marc:I imagine that's how the royalty works.
Marc:I mean, how that is still respected is baffling.
Guest:Royalty is an extraordinary phenomenon.
Guest:And isn't it amazing how seductive it seemed to be to the world when the royal wedding happened recently?
Guest:I mean, I don't know what the impact was here.
Guest:From what I understand, there was a great fascination by it.
Guest:Maybe that was just a press manufactured thing.
Marc:Well, they tried to make it big.
Marc:And I think that royalty in just in this country on a fairytale level is very exciting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I don't know if it was it certainly wasn't as big as Charles and Diana.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:You know, because I don't know why I think everyone really liked her.
Marc:I don't I think.
Marc:As the lineage continues, in my lifetime, it's pretty much been Charles and Elizabeth, right?
Guest:Yeah, right, right, right.
Marc:So now, like anything else, it's like, who are these kids?
Marc:Yeah, these upstarts coming in here.
Marc:What's he going to do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I think it's fascinating because the royals, they just have no impact on your life in the UK.
Guest:They have no impact at all.
Guest:They have no power.
Guest:They are just this weird soap opera that we're paying for.
Guest:And I don't begrudge them.
Guest:I think they're great for tourism.
Guest:I like the sense of connection with the past that they provide.
Marc:They're nice to look at for other people.
Guest:There's a lot of tea towels and, you know, pins you can buy with their faces on, which is great.
Guest:I'm sure some people are making money from that, which is tremendous.
Marc:It's like a zoo.
Marc:Buckingham Palace is like a zoo.
Marc:It's funny, though.
Guest:There's that thing where Google Maps, and I was looking at Buckingham Palace from the air the other day.
Guest:Just what a huge piece of real estate that is.
Guest:Like, wow.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I was so impressed.
Guest:And I suppose I quite like the fact that, you know, that it dates, that it leads back, you know, generations.
Marc:Sure, that they've managed their bloodline for this peculiar amount of time.
Guest:Well, yeah, although there's obviously a great deal of German blood, I think, in our present royal family.
Marc:Is there?
Guest:Greek blood.
Guest:I think Prince Philip is Greek or half Greek or something.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:Well, they do that.
Marc:Oh, yeah, you'd be married off to some archduke somewhere.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:But it's still to keep it within the global aristocracy.
Marc:I have to assume they have a lot of money and still a lot of territory that is within their coffers.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I don't really.
Marc:It's kind of bizarre to me because it seems like the only royalty we have here is who you saw at the Golden Globes.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And we're all very thrilled that it's taken me like if you would have talked to me two years ago, I still watch the Oscars and the Golden Globes with a certain amount of reverence.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You dress up.
Marc:You pull the tuxedo at home.
Marc:And I'm waiting for my name to be called.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:But, you know, like you were saying in your show last night, I mean, to see Robert De Niro and stuff, I mean, after I've realized he's just a person.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And we've all grown to see these people age and whatnot.
Marc:But to me, it was like, yeah, guys, great.
Guest:Well, yeah, but plus, I don't know where you grew up, but you are at least a few steps closer to that because you are American, you know, growing up in Bristol in my hometown.
Guest:Yes, we have movie stars, but, you know, I grew up and the idea that I would ever be in the same, as you say, the same airspace as Clint Eastwood or Jack Nicholson is insane to me.
Guest:I went to the Lakers game the night and Jack Nicholson is there just enjoying the game.
Guest:It's baffling.
Guest:It's amazing to me.
Guest:It's incredible.
Guest:Because we build up such a... Yeah, of course.
Guest:We love them so much as movie stars.
Guest:Of course, but I think you can't deny... How close were you to him?
Marc:Pardon me?
Marc:How close were you to him?
Guest:Not close enough that I could touch him, and my camera, I couldn't get a decent shot of him, but I could certainly see his head, if that counts.
Guest:I could see the back of his head.
Guest:Sure it counts.
Marc:Did you identify any other back of the heads?
Marc:No.
Guest:Ray Liotta.
Guest:I saw the back of Ray Liotta's head.
Guest:LL Cool J's head.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Yeah, some pretty big names.
Guest:Pretty big heads.
Guest:But no, I think it's because if you... I don't know, but I was always a huge movie fan and it's seductive that, you know, I think you... Growing up, you know, I wasn't... This will surprise you.
Guest:I wasn't one of the great ladies' men of my school and I wasn't... And I think I did live vicariously through movies and through music and stuff.
Guest:And so...
Guest:And I'm sure as many people do.
Guest:And I think those people mean a great deal to you because the stories that they've helped tell are very impactful to you.
Guest:And that's not like the royals.
Guest:No, the royals have provided nothing to me.
Guest:And also, again, it's that thing you say.
Guest:You feel like you could somehow be friends with them or you could somehow enter their world if you yourself are creative or successful.
Guest:But I can't get into the royal world.
Guest:Maybe my hope is that I could meet.
Guest:They knight a lot of people.
Marc:They knight a lot of people now.
Guest:Yeah, but even then, you have to bend down and they put a sword on your shoulder.
Guest:It's very clear what the power shift is there.
Marc:No, obviously, but they seem to be throwing out knighthoods like it's nobody's business.
Marc:This is the only reason I do charity work, is in the hope that one day I can get a knighthood.
Marc:You'll be knighted?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Who were you saying you would hope you would meet?
Guest:You know Pippa Middleton, who is the sister of Kate, who married?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And Pippa Middleton got a great deal of press because she had a nice ass.
Guest:And there's part of me that sort of thinks maybe I could meet her at a social event and buy my way in to the royals.
Guest:But I think I would date her, you know, take her out for a couple of months.
Marc:I used to have that with Carolyn Kennedy.
Marc:When I was a kid, I had a crush on Carolyn Kennedy that I couldn't understand.
Marc:But I do think, you know, you're a little more cognizant of it.
Marc:But I think when I was a kid, I didn't think, like, I'm going to get into that family.
Marc:But there is that proximity to power.
Marc:You know, if I could just stick my dick in power, that would be something, right?
Marc:And then at least you'd have a story that no one would believe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I think it's terrible.
Guest:It's like the more you spend time at events like the Golden Globes, particularly in Hollywood, the more you feel like I have a shot with Charlize Theron.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, she'd like me.
Guest:I'm funny.
Guest:But people, you know, I'm charming.
Marc:But that's the weird thing about actors.
Marc:You do.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:The sad thing you realize about actors when you're at an event like that is like, oh, they're just fucked up people.
Guest:If I could just tap into how fucked up they are, I could get with these people.
Marc:Why not?
Marc:But they're just people.
Marc:Whereas you don't ever get that from the royals because they're so insulated and there's such a sequence of manners, let alone money.
Marc:I mean, just to get in.
Marc:Like when you walk onto the property, you better know the dancer.
Marc:You're going to look like an idiot.
Guest:Well, I always remember thinking as a kid, it was like, yeah, if I ever meet the Queen, I'm not going to bow and scrape.
Guest:They'll tell me what to do, but fuck, I'm not going to do that.
Guest:And then the more there's a chance that I might at some event have to, of course, I'll do exactly what I'm told.
Guest:I won't shake my, bow my head.
Guest:Because I'm not, what am I going to do?
Guest:I'm not an enfant terrible.
Guest:I'm not going to, you know, kick the system.
Guest:So, yeah, it's amazing as you grow older how, I mean, I think part of me when I was younger, I talked earlier about trying to be rock and roll.
Guest:In my head, I thought...
Guest:yeah i'm probably pretty rock and roll yeah you know i just haven't had the chance to show it yet but when i get the chance i'm going to show i'm not going to just have 2.4 kids and you know and a house in the suburbs and now i think wouldn't it be great to have a wife and kids in the suburbs relax exactly yeah yeah because eventually you get to a point where it's like i kind of want to sit down in a comfortable place yeah i can't keep kicking over bins and you know yeah yeah please you've probably got an important call coming in no it just told me that you're supposed to be here in 10 minutes sure yeah well i'll be here any moment
Marc:Well, I think that that's, that's interesting.
Marc:And that was sort of like the, the, the bubble breaker for me is that, you know, when you see someone like, you know, Anne Hathaway, who like, even up to like a few years ago, I had on some sort of weird pedestal.
Marc:Like, yeah, she's stunning.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know what you think about her or her.
Guest:She's wonderful.
Marc:Or that English accent that she did in that movie that no one saw.
Marc:She was fine.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But when I heard she was involved with this idiot, this con man, I'm like, oh.
Guest:Well, that's not fair.
Guest:She got suckered or whatever.
Guest:But I don't know.
Marc:But then I thought if his bullshit could work, why can't my bullshit work?
Guest:No, that is what's appealing about that story.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:She's not like some princess that I've got in my head.
Marc:Sure, yeah.
Marc:I saw her walking down the street.
Marc:I think I could fool a movie star.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:I could con a movie star into thinking I'm something I'm not.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Exactly, yeah.
Marc:But I saw her walking down the street one day, and I literally was like, oh, God, what do I do?
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:She doesn't know who you are.
Marc:I don't want to bother you.
Marc:You need to be one of those people.
Marc:You probably had to deal with those people.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I don't want to bother you, Stephen.
Marc:There's no way you're going to win in that situation.
Guest:Well, it's tricky though, isn't it?
Guest:Because I...
Guest:yeah I get people come up to me and sometimes um it's a hassle and sometimes uh it's charming and quick and they're quick and they're like just want to say hi to them and they move on um lingering with cameras is always bad lingering with cameras is a problem if I'm at a table and they sit down uninvited then I know I'm in trouble um
Guest:But yeah, I still have this urge.
Guest:Who did I see there?
Guest:David Lynch.
Guest:And I did actually lean over and I just said, Mr. Lynch, I'm a huge fan.
Guest:I just wanted to say that.
Guest:It's weird.
Guest:It's like you've got to somehow get it out of your brain.
Guest:You've just got to somehow.
Marc:It's earnest.
Marc:And certainly you get to a point.
Marc:Where like you're a known person and you've done great work and people respect your work.
Marc:So you're on the same playing field.
Marc:So it's not so bizarre.
Marc:But then if you have that moment with David Lynch and you realize that he has no idea.
Guest:He has no idea who I am.
Guest:No.
Guest:And I presumed he didn't.
Guest:I presumed he didn't.
Guest:But it's weird because what is it?
Guest:It's not that he's going to go, you're a fan of my work.
Guest:Well, sit down.
Guest:Let's become friends.
Guest:So it's me.
Guest:I have to get out of my sister.
Guest:I know he doesn't care, but there's something in me that needs to show my appreciation.
Guest:And so I understand it when people do the same to me.
Guest:It's just amazing how exhausting it can be at the wrong moment.
Guest:You're having an argument with your girlfriend and someone comes up and you want to say something.
Guest:Fuck off, I'm having an argument.
Guest:What are you doing?
Marc:He says, I'm trying to help out.
Marc:I am trying to seduce Adam Gathaway.
Marc:But the weird thing that I deal with a lot is the, so can I take a picture with you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then the people wrestling with whatever...
Guest:you know technology they have right it goes on forever and you stand there arm in arm with somebody well the funny one happened to me i um i had this uh where i was unwittingly offended by a fan really so i'm in i'm in the line for the atm yeah and this guy's ahead of me on the atm and he we're waiting in line and he turns he sees me he turns he goes hey wow oh i'm a fan
Guest:Can I get an autograph?
Guest:And I sign this piece of paper.
Guest:He says, do you mind if I get a picture as well?
Guest:And he takes the picture.
Guest:And then he's next in line.
Guest:And he goes to the ATM.
Guest:Then he glances around, looks at me, and covers up his security number.
Guest:and i'm like i wanted to leave i go like sorry what how bad do you think my career is that i might steal your card and your number but more than that that how dumb a criminal am i that i'm like i'm gonna have my photo taken with my victim at the scene of the crime seconds before and it's like i know he didn't think but it's sort of weird that that strange yeah yeah kind of where he just didn't it didn't occur to him and
Marc:What happened with David Lynch?
Marc:Did he give you some love or what?
Guest:He just nodded and said, thank you.
Guest:And I just, I left.
Guest:It's like, I didn't want to bother him.
Marc:Well, have you had an experience?
Marc:Because I know that like in Britain and also like before I forget, see exactly what you're talking about, you know, in terms of the class system in Britain is that I would imagine that the people you're talking about that are in the North still have a weird reverence for the Queen.
Guest:Well, I wouldn't want to label it that clearly.
Guest:I've offered you what is generally thought of as that north-south divide.
Guest:I don't think it's as clear-cut as I've said.
Guest:But I think there's reverence for them all over the country.
Guest:I think my parents are very reverent towards them, or at least see them as emblematic of something.
Guest:uh they're very well regarded particularly by older generations because they were very they were a very strong presence during the war right uh particularly you know the the the queen's parents you know they stayed in london during the blitz so they they risked their lives to some degree they were always very visible and and you know the king's speech obviously illustrates that in some way so i think there's a you know that there's something to be said for that as people who are emblematic of something and i don't think that americans really realize that on some level that that you know london was destroyed
Marc:I mean, destroyed.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Just barred to shit.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I mean, you know, people often say how beautiful Paris is.
Guest:Well, if London had just rolled over and let the Germans walk in, we'd still have a beautiful city, you know.
Guest:But, yeah, no, exactly.
Guest:And so I think the rules, particularly, as I say, for the older generation, are still very...
Guest:I think just for younger people, they just don't understand it.
Guest:There's no connection to it.
Guest:It seems archaic.
Guest:They're just rich people.
Guest:They're just rich, privileged people that we're paying for.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And is there anger about that?
Guest:In some cause.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Some people try to, you know, a Republican and would like to see him.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Taken out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where would they go?
Marc:What would they tell them?
Marc:Like, you can live here, but you're not on the money anymore.
Right.
Guest:I get you've got to get a job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That sounds like a bad comedy movie, doesn't it?
Guest:Where the royals have to get jobs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So now that you've become somewhat successful, I know that Britain is a fairly intimate media landscape.
Marc:I mean, this is one thing I've noticed over and over again.
Marc:It seems that if you keep plugging.
Marc:they'll fit you in somewhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For a little while.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And now have you been able to sort of, like you grew up loving Monty Python, and now have you been able to sort of hang out with any of them?
Guest:I met Michael Palin once briefly, and he was a fan, and that was wonderful.
Guest:But the most charming thing was my parents were on a cruise, and one of the speakers on board the ship, and I guess he was doing it because he was getting free passage, was John Cleese.
Guest:and um he might need the money i hear he had a bag of course right so he's on this ship and my parents were all excited about going to see him to do this talk and they got the wrong day they showed up they missed him and they were very disappointed they missed him on a boat they missed i know how could you miss what could they have been doing i've no idea that's typical of them i mean my father was like 10 minutes late from my stand-up show you know i mean it's like the first time i've ever done it in my hometown on a big scale he didn't even show up in time
Guest:But anyway, so they sent a note via the kind of, you know, somebody on board.
Guest:Could they get a signed copy of his book that he was writing, that he was selling?
Guest:And I remember going back home and they had this shoddy camcorder footage that they said, we must show you this, we must show you this.
Guest:And it's them in the cabin.
Guest:And you can hear my mother saying, is it working?
Guest:Is it working?
Guest:And they press play on the kind of voicemail of the room.
Guest:And there's a voice comes on.
Guest:He goes, hello there, Mr. and Mrs. Merchant.
Guest:It's John Cleese here.
Guest:I just wanted to say thank you for your note.
Guest:And I...
Guest:Am I right in saying that your son is Stephen Merchant?
Guest:I'm a big fan of his work with Ricky and his stuff.
Guest:And I am more than happy to sign a book for you.
Guest:And it was so... They were overwhelmed.
Guest:I was overwhelmed.
Guest:It was so thrilling.
Guest:And that sort of stuff is...
Guest:still a thrill like that you can't deny it's like the idea that he's even on that he's that you're on his radar or yeah oh yeah it's wild right because when you grow up he was everything to me like i just you know he was tall and he grew up near me in bristol or he famously went to school there and i just yeah amazing to again to breathe the same air yeah did you ever work in that area of uh absurdity or were you always the surreal thing well yeah yeah i think probably early on my comedy was more surreal were you a friend of simon munnery at all
Guest:I'm not friends with him, but I'm a fan of his.
Guest:Some of his characters, particularly Alan Parker, Urban Warrior, used to do, you know, that kind of left-wing, would-be revolutionary.
Guest:But yes, no, I was always a fan of this real thing.
Guest:And I just, I guess as time's gone on, I found something more appealing about...
Guest:uh, pseudo reality confessional comedy.
Guest:I'm a big fan of, you know, the Louis CK's, uh, Richard Pryor, the stuff where it feels like they're sharing their demons.
Marc:And that is something not specifically British.
Guest:No,
Guest:Not at all, no, no, no.
Marc:And I think that's sort of interesting in that there was some evolution because – and I think it's true.
Marc:I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but there is some sort of social repression that seems to exist in British culture, that there's this stiff upper lip shit.
Marc:Yes, absolutely.
Marc:And that there – whereas in America, we wallow in our shit and celebrate.
Guest:Well, the psychoanalysis thing, the idea of an American saying that they're in therapy is –
Guest:Still slightly comical to people in the UK.
Guest:Although therapy, I'm sure, is on the rise, and I hear occasionally people talking about it, it's just by no means common.
Guest:It's still kind of odd.
Guest:If someone says, I'm in therapy, you roll your eyes.
Guest:You're quite surprised.
Guest:It almost seems a bit new agey.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:What's wrong, man?
Marc:What could you possibly not handle?
Guest:They bombed us here, you know.
Guest:Exactly, exactly.
Guest:And you're right.
Guest:So I think back to comedy, particularly when I was growing up, the comedy that was very successful and influential was Monty Python, was Spike Milligan and The Goon Show, which was kind of Monty Python on the radio, if you like, kind of surreal.
Marc:That was before, though, right?
Guest:Right, that was in the 50s.
Guest:But that was very influential.
Guest:Dudley Moore and... Dudley Moore and Peter Cook always had a strong vein of surrealism.
Guest:But...
Guest:alongside that there were British sitcoms and sort of comedy or theatre, I guess, that was a little bit more honest.
Guest:But certainly I remember growing up when Woody Allen, and I saw Woody Allen for the first time, that blew my mind because it was like, there was nothing like that in England.
Guest:There was nothing that had that, that was a sort of
Guest:That placed you and your problems at the center.
Guest:And that was kind of adult in that sense and urban.
Marc:Did you have the record or you saw him on TV?
Guest:I saw the stand-up tapes I had, which I listened to religiously, and then I remember started watching the movies.
Guest:And that revolutionized things for me.
Guest:I was blown away by him.
Marc:Because you felt that at that time you could give voice to some of your own idiosyncrasies?
Guest:I think partly because I related a lot to it, the kind of the nebbish who wanted to be a great ladies' man but wasn't, you know, the sort of... And I was weirdly also a big fan of Bob Hope, particularly in his movies.
Guest:Bob Hope's movies, I think the movie persona, I think is very charming and comic, you know, the kind of...
Guest:the the the cowardly uh guy who's sort of who would like to be a lover right um you know and just uh i think that the stand-up bob hope is is is is one thing but the screen bob hope i think is very and that's woody allen says very influential on him you know he sold a lot of those ticks and those tricks sure and i guess chaplain too a little right and so i i um that i found very appealing the idea that you could talk about sex and you could
Guest:And you could be the butt of the joke, but sort of empower yourself by becoming the joke.
Marc:And you could be your own spokesman for you being a unique person.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Whereas like, you know, because you see like even Richard Pryor, who is the best as far as I'm concerned.
Marc:And I love Louie.
Marc:He's a friend of mine.
Marc:And he sort of evolved into a very revealing guy.
Marc:But when you deal with the type of comedy you were talking about, you know, in northern culture, or I don't know how to frame it, but the working class comedy, which is where you're personal, but it's a shared experience.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And then, you know, black comedy is certainly like that.
Marc:But then there becomes something more specific where you're sharing like some crazy shit about yourself.
Guest:It's very specific to you, but you hope it resonates with people because they have a like...
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like experience.
Guest:It's kind of similar, but they or they relate to the uniqueness of yours.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They can just laugh at you because you've given them license.
Marc:Either they'll relate to you or they'll laugh directly.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you got to be OK with that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also, I think there's something about the owning when people laugh at you.
Guest:You know, if you were, if you grew up self-conscious, if you grew up feeling a little bit of an outsider, you know, now you own when when the laughter happens.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Harry Shearer.
Marc:And I've quoted this a million times because I think it's brilliant.
Marc:I asked him once about why people become comics.
Marc:And he said, I think people become comedians so they can try to control why people laugh at them.
Guest:Yes, totally.
Guest:Brilliant.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Marc:But, you know, the weird thing is, is that there's those moments when you're feeling OK about your performance that if you're lucky, something embarrassing will happen on stage and you get to own that.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That is one of the most that's like a baptism in some sort of weird freedom.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That like something out of your control happens, you know, hopefully it's not you don't pee yourself, but but something.
Marc:And then all of a sudden you're up there and they're laughing at you and you had no control over it.
Marc:But you're professional and you're like, OK, we can use this.
Marc:We can take this.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Or if an audience gets it gets over on you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like if you're interacting with somebody and they get the laugh, you just got to let them.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:but I think it's also because for me I'm not a big fan or I'm uncomfortable with vanity like I'm a vain person like anyone but I think maybe if you grow up and you're not you know a great looker and you're slightly gangly and kind of awkward like me you it's hard to be vain you know and so it's hard to be well dressed it's hard to carry yourself with great poise and elegance and so for me anything that kind of undermines vanity is very appealing to me and and uh
Guest:So, for instance, comedians who try to seem sexy in rock and roll, I find a little bizarre.
Guest:It seems odd to me that a clown would try and be superior to the audience.
Guest:Much as I respect and have great admiration for Eddie Murphy, him in those stand-up specials coming on in a kind of leather jumpsuit.
Marc:I've heard this like, you know, I remember when years ago when I was walking through the Lower East Side with Louie, you know, probably before he had even done Letterman, you know, he was angry because he's he was like, there were a couple of things happening.
Marc:There are these new kids coming into comedy that looked good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he was literally like, it's not for them.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:They were fine.
Marc:They didn't grow up.
Marc:He's like, I just want to get on Letterman before I'm fat and bald.
Marc:Why are they here?
Guest:Isn't it funny that when he was fat and bald, that was when Letterman wanted him.
Marc:Yeah, he was already on his way.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But there's a lot of truth to that, that there is something about attractive people that seem to have their shit together, unless they make themselves caricatures, unless they're mocking their vanity, then it's a little hard to feel bad for.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And it's interesting as well, because some people often...
Guest:uh we'll see the self-deprecating thing as they won't see it as charming they'll see you as a loser yeah it's like why would you not want to be in control it's tricky with that it's tricky between self-pity and funny right self-pity is the dangerous self-pity and bitterness not funny yeah yeah i tried to make bitterness funny for as long as i was bitter
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I realized, like, oh, this just amplified self-pity.
Marc:There's no way to sell this.
Guest:Well, that's the thing I realized when I was working on the stand-up, because I had to revise it when I went back to it more recently.
Guest:The old persona I had didn't really work anymore.
Guest:What was that?
Guest:Because that was more sort of postmodern and knowing, and it was more of a character, where the joke being that I was this comedian who no one had ever heard of but thought he was a big shot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whereas that didn't work anymore.
Guest:And so I realized I had to tread a fine line between anyone ever really thinking I was asking for pity.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or being too tragic.
Guest:You know, that you need to know that I'm fine, but I'm sharing with you my frustrations and my annoyances.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That, you know, I'm not really going to leave the theater and cut my wrists.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's difficult to judge that.
Guest:It's a tricky line.
Marc:Well, no, part of the profession is if you are that person inside, it better not be too close to the surface.
Marc:You see that in comedy all the time.
Marc:These people that are on a bridge ready to jump and like, oh, wait, there's an open mic tonight.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly, right, right.
Marc:There's that tone to it, and it's too heavy for an audience to deal with.
Marc:There's that weird line between, like, does he need us to help him?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It doesn't seem like he's in control of his game.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But in dealing with, getting back to what we were talking about before, in presenting something that it really, I don't know if I can say that it wasn't British, but to deal with, you know, like even extras and on The Office, where you're dealing with fairly...
Guest:you know people that live in a kind of perpetual heartbreak whether they're aware of it or not uh how conscious of you were how conscious were you that you were you were sort of you know doing something different and well i think actually there is a there is a vein of um the david brent character for instance is in a long lineage of british sitcom characters who actually are delusional um who aspire and it used to be to greater social standing
Guest:to move up the chain of, you know, from working to upper class.
Guest:So John Cleese's characters were often that.
Guest:There was a great comedian called Tony Hancock, who in the late 50s and 60s was the biggest name in British comedy.
Guest:I mean, people would, the streets were empty when he was on TV.
Guest:And he had a sitcom, which was really one of the first British sitcoms that was actually very mature and very sophisticated looking back, in which he was this slightly pompous, slightly pretentious guy who was always trying to seem more urban and more educated and more sophisticated than he really was.
Guest:And the disparity was the big joke and some wonderful stuff that he did.
Guest:And then that later, Basil Fawlty, the Fawlty Tower's John Cleese character, again, a man who runs a hotel but wishes that his clientele were sophisticated and the great and the good, but he's frustrated by the scum that he's got to deal with.
Guest:And then later we had Alan Partridge, the Steve Coogan character that was the kind of low-level showbiz character that wished he was more famous and more successful.
Guest:So in a way, you know, there was that long lineage, but...
Guest:It was not stand-up comedians confessing.
Guest:It was fictionalized characters that were losers.
Guest:And so I suppose what we did was take that and just try and make it as raw and as real as possible.
Guest:There was always a sitcom-iness about those other ones that insulated the audience from their pity.
Guest:Whereas we tried to make it much more uncomfortable for you and raw, and so you felt it more...
Marc:Did you have any idea, not only with your own performance in Extras, but with Ricky's performance in The Office, that he was going to bring that kind of depth to that guy?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, not of course not.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I mean, I think that developed.
Guest:Well, the one thing we did know is that he was always obsessed with the truth of that character, Ricky.
Guest:He was very scrupulous about saying, I think that's phony.
Guest:I don't think he'd say that.
Guest:I don't think he'd do that.
Guest:we did talk a lot about reality and about obsession about this documentary team and what could happen in front of a documentary camera and what you would do and what you wouldn't say.
Guest:And so we were very scrupulous about being real.
Guest:But it's interesting because actually our influences were...
Guest:largely american movies like to us films like um king of comedy uh-huh had dabbled in this territory long before us right and i think it's interesting that actually that film was not a big hit at the time because it was probably seen as a bit too painful to watch you know yeah actually i feel like that comedy of discomfort they did in that movie sure long before we did it ma right and spinal tap was a big influence uh-huh um uh so
Guest:So to us, we weren't trying to think about being different.
Guest:We were just trying to think about how could we make this feel as real as possible.
Marc:And what to you was the, of both series, but in The Office, what to you was the sort of ultimate moment where the character was just purely as embarrassing as possible and perfect?
Marc:As embarrassing as possible.
Marc:The great thing about that character was he didn't seem to be aware that he was embarrassing himself.
Guest:Well, there's a line that a lot of people I think are a fan of, which I was a fan of, where he's doing that role play.
Guest:He's doing a role play with a guy who's being brought in to kind of instruct the office on how to deal with customer service.
Guest:And they're doing a role play about David Brent's supposed to be a hotel guest and he's complaining about his hotel room.
Guest:And the other guy is the sort of fictional hotel manager saying, well, you know, sir.
Guest:And he goes, well, I think my room is in a terrible mess.
Guest:He goes, well, I'm sorry about that, sir.
Guest:And he goes, I think there's been a rape up there.
Guest:And it's just the idea that he must win at any cost.
Marc:Well, to me, the dancing contest was.
Marc:Right.
Marc:There's another example of it.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I can never forget that.
Marc:And with extras, when you guys regrouped to take on show business, what was the development around that?
Guest:Well, that was born more out of we felt we had a certain cachet and we felt that showbiz was something we could explore while we were kind of hot.
Guest:yeah and we heard that celebrities were kind of interested in working with us and it's what we thought well this may not last forever so we should we should hit you know right now and originally the idea was going to be that we'd get people like Kate Winslet and they would literally be extras in the show they would never say anything you would just see them moving around in the background that's a little too it's so meta yeah it's kind of like you know that's just dickish so we realized we could we could have fun with them but um
Guest:To us, again, it was just what we realized was all of the pretensions that we'd given David Brent, all of the absurdities and the power politics of office life, we realized was exactly the same in show business and was exactly the same that, you know, people saw celebrity and David Brent desired celebrity.
Guest:Right.
Guest:as a way out of that pettiness, that somehow life is bliss, that there's a utopia when you become well-known.
Guest:And obviously that's not the case.
Guest:And there's as much backbiting and as much sniping and as much complaining that your hotel room's not as big or your limo's not as big or whatever.
Guest:And it just seemed a fun thing to explore.
Marc:And how was that David Bowie day?
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:Amazing.
Guest:Incredible.
Guest:That was the first moment when I really realised that it was because Ricky had called him to see if he'd do the show.
Guest:I remember Ricky said he just got off the phone with him and he called David Bowie and David Bowie said, hello, Rick.
Guest:Sorry, mate.
Guest:I'm just eating a banana.
Guest:And there's just something so charming about the image of David Bowie, who in my mind is wearing the Ziggy Stardust outfit, but is eating a banana.
Guest:Iman, have we got any bananas, love?
Guest:I'm rather peckish.
Guest:It's just something so beautiful about that.
Guest:And it was so wonderful, to me, that idea of him as a human being.
Marc:Yeah, that's the weird thing about everybody.
Marc:It comes back to what we were talking about when you go to the Golden Globes.
Guest:It's so heartening, though, when you realize people like that are humans.
Marc:Yeah, they're all humans.
Guest:I don't know about the royals, but I know... Yeah, because they never experienced any semblance of real life.
Guest:I think maybe if you're born into celebrity, if you're Michael Jackson's kids, then maybe that's the closest thing to royalty.
Guest:But the fact that David Bowie spent 20 years in real life, it's nice to know that he's still kind of...
Guest:Just the idea that he sat down and put the office on, like he'd watched it.
Guest:That was amazing to me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That he was sat there watching it, that he had to get, what remote control do I need?
Guest:You know, just trying to get it out of the wrapper on the DVD, the cellophane, you know.
Marc:Perhaps changing outfits for each episode.
Marc:Who knows?
Marc:You're going through his different phases.
Marc:He watches half of the series as the other half is a thin white Duke.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, I know you've got to run to HBO.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah, I got a show off, but I hope you don't mind.
Guest:I hope you've got something of interest there.
Guest:I hope you've enjoyed talking.
Marc:It's very good, and the show is good.
Marc:What are you doing down there?
Marc:Going to pitch a thing?
Marc:Just, you know, schmoozing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just make sure, you know, sort of grease some palms.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:How are you?
Marc:You were at the show last night.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Oh, you liked it.
Marc:Great.
Marc:Well, Stephen Merchant, very good to talk to you.
Marc:Thank you very much indeed.
Marc:So it was great fun.
Thank you.
Marc:all right that's our show i hope you like that i think steven as i recall is on a little bit of a time budget but i think we got a lot in i am still in the ambassador lounge i paid 50 to rent a conference room so i could give this to you on time i need to go catch a flight go to wtfpod.com for everything you need over there remember you can go to wtfpod.com and a special thing.com on tuesday to order that
Marc:that special edition DVD with the first 100 episodes and MP3 files and the special two-hour video live WTF with Artie Lang and Morgan Spurlock and others.
Marc:Get some justcoffee.coop.
Marc:Go down to WTF Pod and get the app.
Marc:Get everything you need.
Marc:Come see me.
Marc:I got to catch a plane.
Marc:Boomer.
Marc:Ha ha ha.
Marc:He's not here.
Marc:Stupid.
Marc:All right.
All right.
you