Episode 415 - Simon Pegg
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck what what what happened to that intro
Marc:Huh?
Marc:What what happened?
Marc:I didn't say fuck.
Marc:I said foot.
Marc:I said foot.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Look, I clearly I'm having some emotional or mental block around the intros.
Marc:Clearly, there's an issue.
Marc:I'm not going to sit here and struggle in front of you.
Marc:But I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:If you've never been here before, it's a pleasure to meet you.
Marc:If you have been here before, open your ears and let me talk into your head.
Marc:I'm excited about the show today.
Marc:Simon Pegg is on the show.
Marc:I was excited to meet Simon Pegg, but I was nervous because I had to get up to speed on Simon Pegg.
Marc:I went to see his new film, which I enjoyed, but I had also seen Shaun of the Dead, but I had not seen his earlier TV work with Edgar Wright, his partner, the director that does all the work with him, and Nick Frost, the guy who's in all the movies.
Marc:I wanted to know...
Marc:I actually did a little research.
Marc:That's what I'm telling you.
Marc:I went and watched all the episodes of space and I really got a sense of where they all learned or sort of cut their teeth on their point of view on their oeuvre.
Marc:Can I use the word oeuvre?
Marc:Would that be an oeuvre?
Marc:The right peg or the peg right frost oeuvre?
Marc:Well, I think I got a handle on it.
Marc:And I was a little nervous about talking to him.
Marc:But it's funny stuff, man.
Marc:It's satirical.
Marc:It's genre busting.
Marc:They riff on a lot of stuff.
Marc:Look, I guess I'm just tooting my own horn because I'm actually proud of myself.
Marc:I did some homework so I could respect my guests.
Marc:And we had a lovely chat, Simon Pegg and I. So look forward to that because that's going to happen.
Marc:And if I sound refreshed and clear-headed, it's because I went on a vacation for three days.
Marc:I had no idea that vacations now, they're fucking expensive, man.
Marc:It's hard to enjoy a vacation when you're just sitting there going, how much did this minute cost?
Marc:How much did this hour cost?
Marc:But fortunately, I'm not that cheap.
Marc:I was able to let it go.
Marc:We spontaneously went to Big Sur, drove back yesterday.
Marc:But I drove back six hours and I was strung out from the road.
Marc:I'm no hero.
Marc:But I mean, yeah, it's not Afghanistan.
Marc:It's Big Sur.
Marc:I wasn't fighting.
Marc:I was trying to.
Marc:Well, I was fighting myself.
Marc:But still, there's no comparison.
Marc:It's a very small battlefield.
Marc:It's a sad battlefield.
Marc:There's only a couple of people on the battlefield.
Marc:There's me and the part of me that refuses to to relax.
Marc:And that's what we did.
Marc:We went to Big Sur.
Marc:I'd not spent time up there, really.
Marc:I'd driven through before.
Marc:I knew it had some importance to me because of my weird, nostalgic connection to the beatniks and to the hippies.
Marc:I knew Esalen was up there.
Marc:I'm not even sure what Esalen is, but I know it's up there, and people go there for workshops.
Marc:I think Joni Mitchell lived there.
Marc:Hunter S. Thompson hung out there.
Marc:Maybe Kesey was there.
Marc:There was some stuff going on there.
Marc:People would sit, and they'd fucking...
Marc:Hot tubs or not hot tubs.
Marc:I think actual mineral baths.
Marc:I think that there's a hole in the ground.
Marc:Springs, wells.
Marc:All I know is that over the time that Big Sur has been sort of a spiritual and creative outpost, I know a lot of famous writers have fucked up in the woods up there.
Marc:Henry Miller, I think, did a little of that.
Marc:I think Kerouac was up there.
Marc:He wrote a book about it.
Marc:But I was not going up there to have that experience.
Marc:There's no cabin.
Marc:I don't know anyone up there with a cabin.
Marc:Can you still get a cabin in Big Sur?
Marc:It's stunning, though.
Marc:We went to a resorty place.
Marc:I just wanted to reboot.
Marc:I wanted to try to relax.
Marc:I wanted to have that experience.
Marc:And I paid money to stay at this place.
Marc:And it was worth it, I believe, because I think I actually relaxed.
Marc:It was frightening at first, but I went ahead and let myself do it.
Marc:We went up to this place.
Marc:I got a nice big room, had a hot tub on the deck.
Marc:I went into the hot tub.
Marc:Maybe the first night in the hot tub was not attractive.
Marc:I don't know if you like, if you can picture a guy who is compulsive, antsy, has a hard time sitting still for even a movie in his own house, is now going to get into a hot tub.
Marc:An anxious, antsy, aggravated Jewish fella in a hot tub, forcing himself to enjoy.
Marc:Picture the face.
Marc:Got it.
Marc:How is that not hilarious?
Marc:By day two, I got the hang of it and it was very enjoyable.
Marc:And Jessica had a good time, too.
Marc:And we did not fight.
Marc:This signals one of the first vacations we've ever gone on where we didn't fight.
Marc:There was no screaming among the redwoods.
Marc:There was no strange yelling about nothing into the great wilderness of Big Sur.
Marc:There was none of that shit.
Marc:We actually had a nice time.
Marc:Ate a lot of good food.
Marc:Feel a little shitty about that.
Marc:About six pounds up.
Marc:Going to work it off.
Marc:Don't worry about me.
Marc:It's been a cheat month or two.
Marc:I'll tell you the truth.
Marc:I'm not going to lie to you.
Marc:I did some yoga.
Marc:I got back into that.
Marc:I did a Pilates class.
Marc:It was just me and six women.
Marc:That was nice.
Marc:My stomach is a little sore.
Marc:I'm not ashamed.
Marc:I'm not ashamed to do a little Pilates occasionally.
Marc:I got a couple massages.
Marc:Massages are tricky for me.
Marc:I had one massage by this woman.
Marc:I don't know boundaries.
Marc:I don't know how to necessarily be appropriate when I'm being touched in any way.
Marc:These were not those kind of massages.
Marc:Obviously, they were high-end massage.
Marc:I told her to go deep.
Marc:She went deep.
Marc:I almost cried.
Marc:I couldn't use my leg properly for about an hour.
Marc:I think she pulled all the muscle away from my bone, and they're just now reconnecting.
Marc:That's a good massage, but I don't know...
Marc:how to really handle massages.
Marc:Cause if somebody touches me for that long, there's that moment where they're like, okay, you can roll over on your back where you want to hug.
Marc:You want to hold, you want to cuddle.
Marc:You realize not the place for it.
Marc:This is their job.
Marc:They have a boundary.
Marc:You should have one too.
Marc:Stupid.
Marc:And your fiance is just in the next room getting one as well.
Marc:So it, but it's not that kind of thing.
Marc:It wasn't even a matter of, could have been a man.
Marc:It doesn't matter.
Marc:Could have been a man.
Marc:You're going to touch me that long, that intimately make me feel that good.
Marc:I'm probably going to want to give you a hug.
Marc:I didn't do it, but it's there.
Marc:Maybe I have some stuff to work out.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I had some confrontations with deer.
Marc:I woke up early, took a walk to have breakfast and look at the ocean and realize how small I was.
Marc:Get some zen.
Marc:And at both mornings, I came upon a few deer.
Marc:I saw them.
Marc:They saw me.
Marc:We had that standoff that people and deer have where they're like, what's up?
Marc:And I'm like, nothing.
Marc:Just hanging out looking at you.
Marc:And they're like, are you sure?
Marc:I'm going to cock my head a little bit.
Marc:I'm going to cock my head a little bit.
Marc:We're pretty privileged up here.
Marc:No one's shooting us, so I'm not going to freak out.
Marc:I don't think you have a gun.
Marc:I'm like, I don't have a gun.
Marc:I'm just hanging out.
Marc:I'm only reaching for my phone.
Marc:I'm reaching for my phone.
Marc:I'm going to take a picture of you.
Marc:I'm reaching for my phone.
Marc:Relax.
Marc:Why are you reaching in your pocket?
Marc:Just relax.
Marc:I'm getting my phone.
Marc:I got to fucking go.
Marc:You're freaking me out.
Marc:I'm going to go eat somewhere else.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:Didn't get a picture.
Marc:But I had that exchange.
Marc:I saw some very young deer too.
Marc:And then I had the mild fear of being attacked by a large cat.
Marc:As much as I love cats, one of my biggest fears is being in the mountains and being ripped apart by a large cat.
Marc:And I think that would be a very ironic and fitting way for me to die.
Marc:I prefer to go another way.
Marc:But all in all, Big Sur is one of the most spectacular things I've ever experienced.
Marc:It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life.
Marc:And I don't think I really appreciated it until just this last week.
Marc:And I would love to... I get this feeling every time I go on vacation.
Marc:Every time...
Marc:Within a day, I'm like, why don't I just take the money I have?
Marc:How long will it last me?
Marc:Can I just live off the land?
Marc:Can I just take what's in my car and build some sort of functioning living situation?
Marc:The answer is no, no, no, I can't.
Marc:I don't have anything in my car.
Marc:I've got an old towel and I've got, I think, some cables, some of those pulley cables, you know, that you can close the trunk with.
Marc:Nothing that would enable me to survive.
Marc:Man, there is such a profound part of me that just wants to fucking go.
Marc:Get out.
Marc:I can't get in.
Marc:No one's going to come to Desert Hot Springs to do interviews.
Marc:I mean, I'm already pushing my luck with the garage.
Marc:Yeah, they just have to drive two and a half hours out.
Marc:It's hot.
Marc:I don't even know if I can get a place out there.
Marc:What am I going to do out there?
Marc:Will I have air conditioning?
Marc:These are questions I can't answer.
Marc:I just picture myself sitting on a porch in the desert just outside of Joshua Tree just sitting there.
Marc:And people say, that's that guy.
Marc:He used to do a thing.
Marc:Now he's out here and he just sits there.
Marc:Look what the sun's doing to his skin.
Marc:It's horrible.
Marc:He seems very peaceful.
Marc:He doesn't talk to many people.
Marc:Occasionally he has outbursts at the coffee shop.
Marc:Can I be that guy?
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:Maybe that's the place to go.
Marc:Did I mention I'm going to be in Utah this... I didn't mention it.
Marc:I know I didn't mention it.
Marc:I'm going to be at Wise Guys in West Valley this Saturday.
Marc:That's the day after tomorrow.
Marc:That would be the 17th.
Marc:Next week, I'm going to be in Denver at the Comedy Works Friday and Saturday.
Marc:So that'd be nice.
Marc:Mile high city.
Marc:I'm getting to that age where I'm realizing like how much more time is there?
Marc:Wouldn't it be nice just to sit down and look at nothing for the rest of it?
Marc:Wouldn't that be nice?
Marc:Or should I keep complicating things?
Marc:In other words, living a life.
Marc:Tough question.
Marc:Let's talk to Simon Pegg.
Simon Pegg.
Guest:Pull that mic right into you.
Marc:Got it.
Marc:And I think we can do it, Simon Pegg.
Marc:Excellent.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:A lot of times I forget to actually say who I'm talking to.
Marc:But I could take care of it.
Marc:It's an old game, the audience can play.
Marc:Yeah, I take care of it in the intro.
Marc:So how long have you been in the States here this time around?
Guest:We got in from Sydney about a week ago.
Guest:We got in for Comic-Con.
Guest:So we started off in Wellington in New Zealand.
Guest:We left the UK.
Guest:We did everything we needed to do there.
Marc:went to Wellington went to uh Sydney and Melbourne and then we landed in San Diego for yeah which is like obviously landing in Mos Eisley spaceport yeah and it's definitely not New Zealand no yeah San Diego it's like yeah prides itself on its beaches but it's not New Zealand no no I've never been to New Zealand but um what'd you do in Sydney what'd you do in New Zealand you're just pushing the movie
Guest:Yeah, well, we had Peter Jackson has always sort of, ever since Shaun of the Dead, he's been quite a supporter.
Guest:And we did a little premiere there for Hot Fuzz.
Guest:So it felt right that we go and do something for The World's End there.
Guest:So Martin Freeman was just finishing up at The Hobbit.
Guest:He's also in the film.
Guest:So he was able to be there.
Guest:We just did a little, you know, an event at the Embassy Theater there, which was nice with him sort of introducing it.
Marc:Peter Jackson was there?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So he lives there all year round?
Guest:Yeah, it's like he's the king.
Marc:I would imagine.
Guest:He's like the emperor of New Zealand.
Marc:He's the guy that's kind of supporting their country on some level.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I mean, he's the very center of the film.
Guest:He's got an amazing little thing going on out there.
Guest:Studio?
Guest:Yeah, the most amazing post-production outside Hollywood.
Guest:It's incredible.
Guest:In this little island in the Pacific, there's this complex.
Marc:Have you been there before?
Guest:Yeah, a few times.
Marc:It's beautiful, right?
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:I've never been there.
Guest:It's like Scotland crossed with Middle Earth.
Guest:I mean, it really is.
Guest:It's kind of strange.
Marc:It's like Scotland without Scottish people?
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:There's actually quite a lot of Scottish people.
Marc:Oh, are there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's a whole Scottish community down in the South Island.
Guest:There's a place called Dunedin, which is like a little piece of Scotland.
Marc:Are you Scottish?
Guest:My wife is Scottish.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Full-on Scottish?
Guest:Yeah, like full-on.
Guest:Glaswegian.
Marc:Glaswegian.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I've been to Glasgow.
Marc:Have you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I've never had to acclimate to more people throwing up in the street in my life.
LAUGHTER
Marc:It's amazing on a Saturday night.
Marc:But it's really amazing coming from America and knowing there's such a thing as a drinking problem.
Marc:But you go there and it's just sort of like you realize this happens every weekend here.
Marc:Oh my God, it's incredible.
Guest:It's fucking insane.
Guest:I've never seen so many people lying down on concrete.
Marc:Yeah, on concrete or just halfway done with food and sleeping on the...
Marc:it's crazy and like sydney so you see the thing i don't uh like because i'm sort of um i'm not a yeah i don't i don't travel that much but i think that people who grow up in the uk it's very it's part of their life to just travel to the countries that to me are very exotic yeah yeah so you've been australia many times or i have but i didn't travel much until i was i didn't leave the united kingdom until i was 19 and
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I hadn't been on an airplane until I was 19.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I look back on that now and think it's incredible.
Marc:But why is that?
Marc:It wasn't like you were.
Guest:We just weren't very well off.
Guest:We never had holidays abroad.
Guest:You know, a lot of kids went to Europe for their holidays, but we went to Devon, which is in the south of England, which is about as sunny as it gets.
Marc:Is that a beach?
Guest:Yeah, no, it's like an area.
Guest:It's a beautiful part of the Southwest.
Guest:And I had beautiful holidays there as a kid, but we never kind of did those package deals to Malta or Mallorca or wherever the British people go.
Guest:So I went to Germany was the first place I went.
Guest:And I've made up for it since.
Guest:I mean, it's ridiculous.
Marc:You go everywhere.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's great, right?
Guest:And I've been to Australia quite a few times.
Marc:Yeah, Australia's neat.
Marc:You know, I mean, it's like I've been to Sydney, I've been to Melbourne, and then there's part of me that's like, is there anything else really?
Guest:I know.
Guest:Well, the funny thing is, you could probably fit the entire Australian population into a small market town in the UK.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because it's all around the outside.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the amount of personal space over there is insane.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:Yeah, everyone's got like at least 50 meters each.
Marc:Yeah, and it's also like there's part of your things like, what the hell is going on in the center?
Marc:I mean, there's got to be things.
Guest:Did you go out there?
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:I went to the Northern Territory.
Guest:I went to Uluru, as it's called now, which used to be formerly Ayers Rock, the rock formerly known as Ayers.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Does it look like Mars?
Marc:I mean, what's out there?
Marc:It's amazing.
Guest:It is like a huge red wasteland, but beautiful.
Guest:I mean, always inspiring.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So you say you didn't travel much.
Marc:I mean, how did you grow up?
Marc:I mean, what was the... Parochially.
Marc:Parochially.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What did your family do?
Guest:I grew up in a little place called Gloucester.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The original Gloucester, not Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Marc:Right, no, I've been to Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Marc:I was hoping it wasn't that one.
Guest:It's okay, it's nice, but you know.
Guest:It's like, I think the two most famous people to come out of Gloucester are me and a serial killer.
Yeah.
Guest:Two different paths.
Guest:Two different paths.
Guest:But both creative.
Guest:Could have been me.
Guest:And weirdly, I worked at the same place as this guy as well.
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah, I punched the same clock as this guy.
Guest:Are you serious?
Guest:Fred West, yeah.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:Are you age similar?
Marc:No, no.
Guest:He was older than me.
Marc:Oh, so he preceded you at the job.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was actually working as a caretaker at an industrial estate where he worked when I was about 19.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:A caretaker at an industrial?
Marc:Like a janitor.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, I think the janitors here should maybe use that.
Marc:The janitors sort of stigmatize, but caretaker.
Marc:Caretaker sounds nicer.
Guest:Sounds like someone working in the mental health industry.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I was assisting the industrial estate.
Marc:They had problems.
Marc:What's an industrial estate?
Marc:It's so lofty.
Marc:That's so British.
Guest:Everything sounds slightly more elevated.
Marc:That is true.
Marc:That is true.
Marc:I mean, I'm always sort of impressed with it, and I feel intimidated by it, but now I know.
Marc:Caretaker's a janitor, and an industrial estate is what?
Guest:You guys, it's kind of like, it was a trading, I don't know, it was like a retail.
Guest:No, it wasn't even that.
Guest:It was like a factory, basically.
Guest:It's like you guys say sidewalk, and that's what it is.
Guest:It's the side of the road.
Guest:We say pavement.
Marc:That sounds so regal.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:We rarely use the word pavement, unless we're talking about a band.
Marc:Stephen Malkmus and his ilk.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Marc:So what did your old man do?
Marc:What kind of childhood did you have there?
Guest:We had, my dad was a musician, is a musician.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But amateur, but very good.
Guest:He works, he has a jazz and blues band, which he's always been, you know.
Marc:What's his instrument?
Guest:He plays the keyboards.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he, but we had a music shop when I was a kid and he still sells pianos now.
Guest:That's his, that's his living.
Marc:Oh really?
Guest:And my mom kind of worked in personnel throughout her life.
Guest:She's retired now.
Marc:So you had the artist in the world.
Guest:Yeah, but my mom was a big amateur dramatics fiend.
Guest:That's why I got into acting, because she was big in the local drama group and was always doing plays, and I was always hanging around with theater types.
Marc:What is a, like, see, this is something I'm not familiar with.
Marc:What is a, like, they had community?
Guest:Community theater, yeah.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:We call it Amdram.
Guest:okay amdram yeah and she would what her and some ladies that you knew from the neighborhood yeah like all these people but it was an amazing center of kind of it was inspirational because it was regular people who were putting on plays and rehearsing it in on their evening all for all for the just for the love of it there was no sort of monetary gain in it and the people would come from the town yeah and i mean it used to be that it was like one of the biggest events of the year was the local musical you know they put on carousel or or brigadoon or something and the whole town would come and watch it
Marc:So it's sort of like high school drama in a way.
Marc:Yeah, but with adults.
Marc:Right, with adults.
Marc:I think that's sort of what theater was supposed to be for.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:I mean, like a community sort of event that moved you through emotions as a group.
Guest:Absolutely, and you'd have these microcosmic celebrities as well, which would be local people.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And it would be what we see now as the world of entertainment, but writ small.
Marc:Right, right, and with lower expectations.
Marc:Low.
Marc:No, same expectations.
Marc:That lady who worked at the flower shop stunk in the lead.
Guest:They were minimal.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But if someone was quite good, it would be, you know... My mum was very good.
Guest:She could sing, and she was a good actress.
Guest:She won awards at that level and kind of inspired me so that when I got to about 15 and the idea of actually following it as a career...
Guest:which was completely bizarre where i was from i was from you know i was in the tatooine of england it was like the furthest from london you could get it felt like what was the main uh sort of uh uh economic momentum of that area docks probably oh really yeah it was it was a the thing about gloucester was it had these incredible docks they're still used for filming yeah but gloucester is in a valley so during when the germans were bombing the uk during the war the bristol and liverpool which were two other docks were flattened but gloucester because when they switched the lights out it would disappear
Guest:So the dock stayed intact and it was like this vital port.
Guest:And so, yeah, I guess it was it was the docks.
Marc:And so it didn't need to be rebuilt.
Marc:It's sort of like a sort of significance.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's still used as a location because it has, you know, it looks authentic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so when but when you were a kid, were they functioning?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we had other sort of like chemical, ICI was there.
Guest:But it wasn't full of crime and thugs.
Marc:No.
Guest:Gloucester is very famous.
Guest:I saw it once on a TV show in America because we have this tradition, which I thought was completely normal and utterly rational.
Guest:Rational, yeah.
Guest:On May Day, there's a hill in Gloucester in Brockworth, which is the village I was from, which has a very steep face without any trees on it.
Guest:Every May Day, they roll a cheese down the hill and all the local boys chase it.
Guest:Every year someone dies.
Guest:It's incredible.
Guest:Someone dies chasing cheese.
Guest:Somebody is at least.
Guest:No, I mean, one person died once, but there was a cheese tragedy.
Guest:There's always a cheese tragedy.
Guest:There's always like broken ankles, but it's ridiculous.
Guest:The guys get hopped up on cider and they run down a virtually sheer face in pursuit of a piece of cheese and damage themselves.
Marc:And it's like, it's not even a bull.
Marc:It's not a heroic tale to your children.
Marc:Why you can't walk.
Guest:It was to do with cheese.
Guest:Yeah, it's called The Cheese Roll.
Guest:And I remember I was staying in L.A.
Guest:and I was watching some show called Foreigners Do the Stupidest Things.
Guest:And there you are.
Guest:And there it was, my tiny village.
Guest:I was so proud.
Marc:Yeah, I bet it was a real moment for you.
Marc:Look, we are contributing.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I never realized how bizarrely stupid we were until that moment.
Marc:So you get a lot of, you know, like I'm not particularly what one would call a nerd.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But you seem to be a nerd hero.
Marc:I think so.
Guest:Yeah, I think because we've kind of what we've done artistically is embrace that popular culture.
Guest:I'm a child of popular culture, really, is what I am.
Marc:Was that because, I mean, I always wonder, because when I was a kid, I mean, I'm a little older than you, but I spent most of my time just being miserable and listening to music and drawing things.
Marc:But it seems that you seem to immerse yourself in everything else.
Guest:I did a bit of that, too.
Guest:I mean, I was, you know, I listened to the Smiths and sketched skulls.
Marc:Good.
Marc:I just wanted to make sure.
Marc:I just wanted to make sure.
Marc:But so when did you go to college and did you like what was your original pursuit?
Guest:Yeah, I well, what happened for me was I think the grand zero moment for me was was I was seven when Star Wars hit and that had such a kind of seismic effect on.
Marc:And it's a theme throughout your work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it kind of like, I don't know, it was a cultural bomb for me.
Guest:I trace it back to a lot of my interests.
Guest:And some of my interests in music and literature span from it and stuff.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Because I was seven.
Guest:I was a kid.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So that's when they get you.
Guest:Yeah, that's when they attack.
Marc:So when you first saw Star Wars, you're like, holy shit.
Guest:Yeah, I was.
Guest:I walked out of the cinema like, what the fuck was that?
Guest:I felt changed.
Guest:It was strange.
Marc:Well, I think a lot of people did.
Marc:Do you feel like it sort of gave you a sense of story and a sense of everything else?
Guest:Yeah, it made me interested in a lot of things.
Guest:Films I'd already, you know, I loved the Ray Harryhausen movies and that kind of stuff as a kid growing up.
Guest:but those are british movies yeah you know like jason the argonauts oh yeah his animations you know like the uh sinbad movies yeah yeah you know the the many arms exactly yeah yeah yeah sinbad and the eye of the tiger was the first film i actually remember going to see those were pretty spectacular amazing yeah but you know like but when that was all there is you kind of accepted those special effects i like i look back on that and think how amazing it was that we suspended our disbelief nowadays if you know transformers looks a bit shonky it was oh it's rubbish it's terrible you saw that that robot wasn't real
Guest:Of course it's not real.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's like when you're a kid, you believe anything because... And that was it.
Marc:That was the best they had.
Marc:I mean, do you ever watch black and white movies like Godzilla?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're like... And it's just like a... Or the moth one where you... It's like a man in a suit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The fly where the guy's in this giant rabbit suit or whatever the hell it is.
Guest:And you buy it because you... You want to.
Guest:We're never not aware that we're watching artificiality.
Guest:It's just we're getting more and more petulant about what we stand for in terms of looking real.
Guest:Do you know?
Guest:And...
Guest:I was a huge fan of Doctor Who growing up.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, there you go.
Guest:That gives you your nerd credibility.
Marc:That in and of itself.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:But that's more nerdy here because it's foreign.
Guest:At home, everybody watched it.
Guest:It was a mainstream show.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And there's only a couple of channels in Britain, right?
Guest:There was three until 1982.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:See, the intimacy of the entertainment business in the UK is phenomenal.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's why they're anglophiles here that are just like, this is so special.
Marc:But for you guys, it's like, yeah, it was a couple seasons.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:I know, yeah.
Marc:That was on for two years when I was a kid.
Guest:The whole thing is much different.
Guest:The whole idea of the length of seasons, the amount of seasons.
Guest:And when it was three channels, you'd have to make a choice.
Guest:It was like, okay, so it's BBC One, BBC Two or ITV.
Guest:And you chose what... Nowadays, I think the ridiculous surfeit of choice, you just flick because you always think there's going to be something else.
Guest:There's going to be something else.
Guest:You had to settle back in the day.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I think that was better.
Marc:I think when it was a more intimate industry, I think that a lot more people were on the same page.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Well, now you live in a world of like, did you see that thing?
Marc:It's like, how would I fucking see that?
Marc:Where did you see it?
Marc:Where do you get that?
Marc:So people actually look for things that no one has seen before to celebrate them.
Marc:And that's the big thing.
Marc:The search for media that is completely hard to find.
Guest:And also, we own TV now.
Guest:It used to be this emissary from a different... It was like a box that we didn't even own that was in the corner.
Guest:You had to sit down when it told you to and watch stuff that it told you to watch.
Guest:Now you can tape stuff and you can GVR.
Marc:You can watch just pieces of it, the good parts.
Marc:Yeah, on your phone.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I don't know if it's good or bad.
Marc:Do you have thoughts about it?
Guest:Well, this is the thing.
Guest:This is the thing.
Guest:Is it good or is it bad?
Guest:That feeds into a lot of what...
Guest:The World's End is about this idea of nostalgia.
Guest:You think, oh, was it better when that coffee shop was run by an old man?
Marc:No, I love that part of the movie.
Marc:And I like the movie a lot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that it definitely hit on that stuff.
Marc:But your character is such a broken man.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And I certainly relate to the idea that things were better in high school.
Marc:But the fact that his life was so small that the one thing he was holding on to was this tremendous excuse to continue to be alcoholic.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I know.
Guest:We often lament the past and talking about TV like that, I genuinely feel maybe it was better, but was it?
Marc:I only think it was better in the way that it enabled us to communicate more collectively around things that happen.
Guest:Yeah, because we have more common ground, I guess.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that technology in general is sort of a wedge between real communication.
Marc:But I think that the witnessing of an event on television that everybody sort of had to sit through.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like now, even if something horrible happens, people are like, I don't know which coverage I want to watch.
Marc:Yeah, you're flicking through.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Which commentator do I want to listen to while the world is ending?
Marc:Yeah, it's so true.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:So now people don't even want to talk.
Marc:They'd rather text.
Marc:It's like when you see a phone call come in, it's like... I can't be bothered.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:I'll write to you.
Marc:But there was a time where that was all interconnected.
Marc:So I think on that level, it's bad.
Marc:I'm glad we figured that out.
Guest:Also, we had a great double act, a comedy double act called Morecambe and Wise, who were the biggest thing in the UK back in the 70s.
Guest:Their Christmas show in 1976 pulled in 32 million viewers, which is half the population of the country watched that show.
Guest:Half the population of an entire country watched one television program.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This would never happen again.
Marc:No, never again.
Marc:Not unless all electricity died and we were only able to get it.
Marc:That was all we had left.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But in talking about Star Wars, I have to assume that, because that first one, I think the first one was written by Lawrence Kasdan, right?
Marc:Or the second one.
Marc:The second one was, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And these are guys that were drawing on Joseph Campbell stuff.
Marc:They were drawing on stuff that I didn't really put that together.
Marc:So the mythology was effective.
Guest:Yeah, because it was grand kind of ideas.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I had this whole theory that its impact was...
Guest:because it came when it came just after the vietnam war and america was feeling very kind of insular and didn't know what was going on because suddenly they were hearing stories about their own soldiers doing bad things and the ideas of good and bad suddenly got all muddied yeah and all the characters in the cinema were like travis bickle and bonnie and clyde and the corleones all these darkly you know twisted sort of ambiguous heroes suddenly comes along this young blonde boy in a white pair of pajamas going i know what's what yeah and everyone went
Guest:Fuck yeah.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:And it made so much sense.
Guest:And that's why it inspired so many people here.
Guest:And that wave of inspiration just spread around the world.
Guest:So by the time it hit the UK, everyone was saying, this film is the biggest thing ever.
Guest:Everybody in America loves it.
Guest:So we're like, okay, I'll go see it then.
Guest:I'll go see it.
Guest:And it was one of the most incredible models of marketing and success in the history of cinema.
Marc:And it's interesting because all those other film heroes that you mentioned, they come out of the same crew of filmmakers.
Marc:Absolutely, yeah.
Marc:All those guys, you were either going to go one way or the other.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And most of them went the way that's like, let's get dark.
Marc:Let's explore the horrible underbelly of what our society is.
Marc:And Lucas is like, fuck that.
Marc:Let's go to space.
Yeah.
Guest:That's so true.
Guest:I wonder what they thought of him.
Marc:And also they did American Graffiti.
Marc:I mean, he did American Graffiti too, which was also, it seemed like his way of doing things, that was a complete nostalgia flick.
Guest:Yeah, and a massive success.
Guest:It enabled him to make this crazy little space film.
Marc:But it is nostalgia.
Marc:I never really thought about that because that came out a little earlier, but America was still kind of recouping from Vietnam and stuff.
Marc:So he's like, fuck that, let's go to the 50s.
Guest:And even Star Wars is nostalgia because it harks back to those kind of RKO serials and a simpler time when you could tell who was bad and who was good.
Marc:Sure, the guy with the black helmet and no face.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:That was easy.
Guest:The Nazi helmet and no face.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's so much easier to kind of, in the face of all that ambiguity and sort of self-searching that was going on,
Marc:so in in in space you know throughout uh the series there's this undercurrent of the phantom menace being a real problem yeah yeah is it a problem for you it was just very disappointing you know it was just kind of 16 years waiting for it and then suddenly it was like oh but you're a grown man weren't you waiting for with a certain amount of like well this you know he doesn't really need to make any more were you one of those people that sort of like it's not finished
Guest:No, the trailer was very good, and then it was disappointing.
Guest:We're all sort of, you know, I mean, this is the age of, we've been so infantilized over the years.
Guest:I mean, you think about how grown up our parents were.
Sure, I'm wearing diapers.
Guest:I look back at my dad when he was like 20 and he looks like he was 70.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Like there was a time where if you look at like, you know, if you look at like Jimi Hendrix.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he died at 27.
Marc:27.
Marc:How the fuck is that possible?
Marc:I know.
Marc:The guy looked like old beyond his years.
Marc:He was wise.
Marc:People seemed to be, you know, dressed properly.
Marc:You think of the Beatles wrote everything, everything between 21 and 28?
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:I mean, they'd finished by the time they were 28.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm 43.
Guest:I'm carrying a Boba Fett helmet around with me.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:it's like what what yeah we don't know how to like i think that somewhere along the line that's right the infantilization led us you know who are approaching middle age i mean i don't know what to wear i know like i just don't what's age appropriate still wearing like you know silly t-shirts and shorts yeah i tried to get away from the silly t-shirts you know yeah
Marc:I am wearing a silly T-shirt and shorts.
Marc:I wasn't referring to yours.
Marc:No, I know, but it was good.
Guest:I think the weird thing is this is all predicted.
Guest:I remember being, you know, studiously reading John Bojellar at university and him talking.
Guest:There's this big essay.
Marc:Bojellar, yeah.
Marc:Which one?
Marc:America.
Marc:Great.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:The one with the coffee table style.
Guest:That's right, yeah.
Guest:oh it's great and that's that all that that has a whole thing about it about infantilization about how the the populace is being encouraged to consume childish things because it kind of keeps us in a state of arrested development and makes us easier to control yes and now you look at all the big films yeah they're all childish things it's all space and superheroes even if you dress it up in kind of like moody darkness and have superman wearing his red pants it's still superman
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And also, it also creates a populace that never feels quite complete.
Marc:Like that constant, that need.
Marc:It's like, when's more?
Marc:How come I can't?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, it's shiny.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:So you read Baudrillard in college.
Marc:Was that your... What was that?
Marc:Were you into filling your head with that stuff?
Guest:Yeah, I loved all that stuff.
Guest:I kind of wrote my dissertation on popular cinema, like Star Wars and Raiders and all that.
Marc:What was the angle?
Guest:It was all about... It was like a Marxist overview of hegemonic discourses and...
Guest:wow yeah what can you can't think in those terms anymore what's a hegemonic discourse well you know like hegemony is hegemony is like and this feeds also feeds back into the world's end because the the bad guys in the world's end are a hegemony they're a kind of like non-aggressive force of change so we're controlled basically by by an ideology which kind of tells us what to think insidiously it makes it we consume certain things we
Guest:if something comes along which is kind of counter cultural it's it's rather than being stopped like i would in a communist country it's kind of it's embraced right way big brother is watching us and that's what we pay him for yeah it's like like punk say punk comes along punk you know it throws everything into chaos and then but gradually then you start being able to buy punk wigs in joke shops right it gets uh it gets appropriated by the uh the by the marketplace yeah
Guest:Monty Python is a great example.
Guest:Monty Python is really subversive, very funny, but it's on the BBC.
Guest:So the very thing that it's satirizing is the thing that it gives it to you.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And by that, it becomes...
Marc:But the British were able to deal with that.
Marc:They allowed it.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:Because they realized that satire is healthy and that there's a long tradition of satire.
Marc:I mean, here's something goes on TV in one of the major networks.
Marc:If it pisses off three people who have the wherewithal to write an email, they're going to be like, we're sorry.
Marc:We're sorry.
Marc:I know, which is crazy.
Marc:It's fucking horrendous.
Guest:And I think there's an argument that comedy...
Guest:as a form of change or satire is actually is actually reactionary because it enables you to experience the feeling of revolution you're going yeah i hate you yeah but then you just go back to normal afterwards yeah i hate you and that's hilarious that's why i love like you watch like the daily show is a show that we just don't have a satirical program like that on the on on british tv
Guest:You don't?
Guest:No.
Guest:And that's it's really, really.
Guest:I mean, it's really biting.
Guest:And the Colbert Report, it says things that we would never see on British TV.
Marc:But why is it?
Marc:Oh, I mean, you wouldn't be able to answer that.
Marc:But it seems that there are political satirists in Britain and that the lines are drawn differently in Britain.
Marc:Some very good ones.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So when you were in college, you were writing about Star Wars.
Marc:You were doing a Marxist critique of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:and what what did you end up graduating with i mean what what was your plan i got a ba in uh theater film and tv yeah two one which is quite a good mark yeah and uh i i kind of i wanted to be an actor but i went to university rather than drama school and during that period i'd always been interested in stand-up and and as a as a performance thing and
Guest:when i started learning about acting and i realized that i might be at the mercy of casting agents and and other people's decisions i kind of wanted a bit more autonomy so i'll be a stand-up because i love stand-up and i listen to my used to listen to my dad's bill cosby albums when i was a kid the best yeah and uh and so that's what i did and i i went it's rather than becoming an actor i i went into stand-up and was a stand-up for quite a while before i i sort of drifted back into acting
Marc:So how long did you stand up for?
Marc:I guess for about ten years.
Marc:And who were the guys that you were hanging out with?
Marc:Because I know a few British comics.
Marc:I've interviewed Stuart Lee.
Marc:Yes, Stuart.
Marc:I've interviewed Simon Munnery.
Marc:I supported Simon Munnery on tour.
Marc:And I wanted to interview Jerry Sadowitz, but he was too sad, apparently.
Guest:Yeah, he's had some issues with Jerry, I think.
Marc:But when somebody turned me on to Stuart Lee, I was like, holy fuck.
Guest:Yeah, he's a brilliant comic.
Guest:I mean, someone whose satire is utterly searing.
Marc:Yeah, and it crushed him for a while.
Guest:I mean, he had to take a break because he wasn't feeling received or understood.
Guest:Absolutely, because he's got so much integrity.
Guest:He's not prepared to do anything other than what he believes in.
Marc:Right, and that was a big lesson I learned from him.
Marc:It's like he realized when people, and he was disappointing people,
Marc:That, you know, instead of getting angry at them, his big realization was like, yeah, you know, what I'm doing is going to really be what it is.
Marc:I'm sorry you made the wrong choice tonight.
Marc:There's nothing I can do.
Guest:Which is so admirable.
Guest:I've seen him live before, and it's stunning, I think.
Marc:When you did stand-up, who were the guys hanging around?
Guest:Well, Simon and Stuart were definitely around.
Guest:The big names at the time were sort of Frank Skinner, Bill Bailey.
Guest:Who you worked with on your show.
Guest:I did, yeah.
Guest:Bill is an old friend.
Guest:I was working with people like Boothby Graffo.
Guest:Who else did I support?
Guest:Sean Locke, who's a very good comic.
Guest:um it was a very vibrant time the early 90s in london was a great time for stand-up there was a lot of sort of smaller pub clubs it's been corporatized now a little bit weirdly getting back to the world's end again yeah uh the the sort of jonglers the yeah yeah there's kind of slightly more right right these guys after work kind of comedy clubs yeah it's a little disturbing isn't it yeah what kind of stuff were you doing primarily
Guest:Mainly kind of whimsical, sort of observational, surreal sort of stuff.
Marc:Yeah, and what'd you get out of your experience?
Marc:I mean, you're in it 10 years.
Marc:I mean, you could have been in it for the long haul.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:I really loved it.
Guest:And the only reason I stopped was because the TV took over, space took over, and...
Guest:I didn't have time to stay match fit with, you know.
Marc:You got to stay in shape.
Marc:Yeah, you got to stay in shape.
Marc:Get in the ring.
Marc:Yeah, you do.
Marc:Keep that connection to that audience happening or else you're going to be frightened in your corner.
Guest:Yeah, because you go two weeks, don't you?
Marc:And you come back and you're like, oh, I'm shaky.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I know how to do this, right?
Marc:I know how to do this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I kind of, I'll tell you what it was.
Guest:I went on tour with Steve Coogan for a year.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's a guy that I'm just, like, now getting, you know, to know.
Marc:And I know you did, what was he, Alan Partridge?
Guest:Alan Partridge, which is incredible.
Marc:It's like that whole world is new to me.
Guest:Yeah, it's brilliant.
Guest:There's a new thing he did called The Places in My Life.
Guest:You've got to watch that.
Marc:Doesn't he have a movie coming out?
Guest:He does.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:That's going to be interesting to see because in that, he'll be a hero.
Guest:And I always think Steve works better as a kind of a scumbag.
Marc:The guy who's getting the short end of the stick.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But...
Guest:He makes me laugh more than most people.
Marc:But the Alan Partridge thing is sort of a satire of British television personality.
Guest:He's this monstrous TV presenter.
Guest:It started off in a radio show.
Guest:It became really popular on a show called The Day Today, which is one of the most incredible news satires ever made.
Guest:I often think that...
Guest:There are parts of The Daily Show which draw on the kind of that bombastic pomposity that news has.
Guest:The day-to-day was that.
Guest:And then he had his own chat show and he's just done stuff ever since.
Guest:But he was a stand-up.
Guest:He was kind of like an impressionist, really.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And he did a number of characters and I went on tour.
Guest:I supported him on tour for a year.
Guest:And I was doing his show and I was doing my own stuff, my own character comedy in his show.
Guest:But at the end of 98, I'd done this TV show called Big Train, which is a sketch show, which was in a very sort of Python-esque, sort of very surreal, very funny show.
Guest:And and that led to other things.
Guest:And I hadn't done any of my own material for a year.
Guest:And I got to the end of that year and thought, oh, geez, what am I going to do now?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But just at that time, other things took over.
Guest:And so almost by accident, I left stand up behind as I had been doing it.
Marc:Well, OK, let's talk about the British television industry a little bit.
Marc:So you were able to create spaced.
Marc:with Edgar and with Jessica.
Marc:But it seems to me that, and I might be mistaken, that if you pay your dues in the UK and you're visible and you come up with a good idea, you'll probably get your opportunity.
Guest:I look back on space and think that was lucky that we got that show made.
Guest:We got approached.
Guest:We'd done a show for the Paramount Comedy Channel.
Guest:There was a producer that had left to go work for a company that was related to ITV, which was the third channel.
Guest:He said to me and Jess, can we make a vehicle for you guys to be in?
Guest:They were looking for stuff to make at the time.
Marc:And had you worked on stage together or?
Guest:No, we'd just been in this show called Asylum, which Edgar directed.
Guest:It's the first time we ever worked with Edgar.
Guest:And they were just sort of like looking for stuff.
Guest:It was a very fertile time.
Guest:They were like, you guys, you make something for us.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because they weren't sure what.
Guest:They were kind of going to young people and saying, you must know what's what.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You do something.
Marc:Yeah, come on.
Marc:We need to bring in the kids.
Guest:Help us.
Guest:We're losing the kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And so by sheer chance, we wound up getting seven episodes, which is actually one more than usual at Channel 4, without even making a pilot.
Guest:And they commissioned the second season before the first season had even aired.
Guest:And that just would not happen these days.
Marc:Well, it's a pretty ballsy show, you know, because it's fresh in my mind because I wanted to know it before I spoke to you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, you could never do a character like Brian on American television.
Guest:No.
Marc:And you could never, like, you know, be as candid about, you know, drug use and all that other stuff in a network American comedy.
Marc:Like the character that you played and also Mike and Nick Frost's character, you just never see that shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:here you know what was really weird was that we they tried to reversion it for here uh an american tv company picks we're going to remake it yeah like they did the office or something yeah but but they did a pilot and it was it was unbelievably bad and uh they they removed all the references to casual drug use and they removed all the references to guns that you know because mike is like this kind of weapon yeah he's like an army nut right but
Guest:You're allowed to have like howitzers in your garden in America.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:They wouldn't do it.
Guest:They wouldn't allow him to talk about guns.
Marc:And I also think like the whole idea of being on the dole or the way that Britain works in terms of unemployment, the way that Britain works in terms of just the social fabric enables these personalities to sort of exist for real.
Marc:Here, I don't know how they'd even do that.
Marc:I mean, how would they make that?
Marc:I mean, there's a judgment involved in saying, like, oh, these two are they're not slackers.
Marc:But, you know, you understand her character.
Marc:She just can't get a handle on.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But people are like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the country sort of takes care of them.
Marc:And here that in and of itself would be like, yeah, he's unemployed.
Marc:Look at that.
Marc:What a scumbag.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:But it's sort of like just the way it is.
Guest:Yeah, it's funny looking back in that respect.
Guest:I mean, we felt completely unrepresented.
Guest:That was what it was.
Guest:We were watching a lot of shows that were on TV about 20-somethings, and they were just trying to be like friends, and they just didn't speak to us.
Guest:There was nothing about us on television.
Guest:And Jess and I thought, let's make a show about us and put it on TV.
Guest:And it spoke to so many people.
Guest:The response was so kind of passionate.
Guest:that that we realized that there were lots of other people just like us around you know that had the same kind of concerns and neuroses and yeah and insecurities and not everybody was really good looking that's right and it was a big hit yeah it was i mean in on in a critically and in a cult way it was on channel four uh-huh so it got like a few million viewers every friday night used to be on after friends uh-huh so we get we pick up a little bit of their audience and uh and it's endured you know in 2008 we came out on
Guest:a tour of the states because it was released on dvd finally here and it was insane the amount of people that came out to get it signed who'd owned it on you know yeah there's a lot of people here that that that love and now it's on netflix it's like you know this is just a little show yeah i had dylan morin in here you know and he did yeah yeah and he was talking about his series yeah yeah
Marc:black books brilliant which i had to like i'm like i don't i have to watch this you know and it was amazing because i don't you don't see stuff like that yeah you just don't see stuff like that here that that has a discomfort that has an edge to it that has characters that you don't necessarily like well even like even like a show like uh big bang theory which is on here which is dealing with a kind of subcultural element
Guest:They're all still really good looking and they all wear different clothes every day.
Marc:And also they're joke delivery machines.
Marc:Like, you know, what American television seems to be, you know, when it's successful, sadly, what it seems to do is like, all right, we've got our puppets.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And we know what they need to say.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you basically see the same show over and over again.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:And it's kind of relentlessly.
Guest:It's a different I guess it's a different dynamic.
Guest:There's there's less room to be.
Guest:And if you if there is emotion, it's quite sentimental.
Guest:It's suddenly like a very special episode.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But none of the guys, you know, on Big Bang Theory are dealing with a sexual identity crisis.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're not dealing with, you know, drugs in any casual or at all, you know, where to have a guy like Brian, you know, who is sexually ambiguous and ambiguous and also has this weird idea that he's an artist.
Marc:It's like I loved it.
Marc:I mean, I loved all the characters, but I and I know this is old news, but I just you don't see that.
Guest:It was nice to finally get Mark, who played Brian, into The World's End.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We wrote a part for him in Shaun of the Dead, but had to lose the character in the end because of timing.
Guest:He couldn't be in Hot Fuzz because he hurt his back.
Guest:So everyone just assumed we didn't like him anymore or something.
Guest:But it was just sheer, you know.
Marc:It is interesting that before we get into the crew that you work with in the new movie, what are the benefits and how does it work?
Marc:in in when you're making tv in the uk that because usually there's only a few seasons here they try to you know they try to get 100 episodes i mean that's the big goal how do we get 100 episodes but it seems like in the uk you're like well let's let's do the best ones we have without is there a thought i mean is every season your last in your mind or i mean i don't know it's i i guess you never assume you're going to get another series it's like
Guest:And I think maybe because we're trying to appeal to less people, obviously, there's much more money in the American television industry as the film industry.
Guest:And the advertising's different.
Guest:There are different priorities and impetus.
Guest:And, you know, we thought we'll do seven episodes.
Guest:And then we did another seven episodes.
Guest:And we kind of wanted to do another series, but...
Guest:Because we did Shaun of the Dead and everything sort of changed when we did that and we preferred that environment to work in because working in TV, we were making a very, very ambitious show for not much money.
Guest:And I don't mean in terms of what we were getting paid.
Guest:I mean in terms of what we were given to make it.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:uh and it was it was hard and it you know it was soul destroying at times and suddenly the film industry felt a little bit more a bit more freedom and a bit more scope yeah and we didn't really want to go back to the kind of restrictions we've been working but but i think the benefit of it is you know in retrospect or i don't know if that's the right word is that you know what you end up with with a lot of british tv series is that like they only made yeah 20. well we call it the curse of faulty towers it's like faulty towers only did two seasons
Guest:And it became like this model.
Guest:So loads of shows like The Young Ones and The Office and Space as well.
Guest:You know, it's this sort of two season thing.
Guest:It's like the cool number.
Guest:I think some of those shows, I think Ricky Gervais' Office could have gone on a lot longer.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:And it should have done.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It would have saved us two series of extras if he'd done that.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:That had its moments.
Marc:That moment with David Bowie on extras.
Guest:See, I hated that, though, because it's like, that wouldn't happen.
Guest:There was never a VIP area in the Groucho Club.
Guest:David Bowie would never have sung that song.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:That was just Ricky saying, I know David Bowie.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I agree.
Marc:But I guess I'm a fan of Bowie, and to see him keep repeating it was sort of funny.
Marc:No, it was funny.
Marc:Are you friends with Ricky Drew?
Guest:I am, yeah.
Marc:It's possible to be friends with Ricky Drew?
Guest:We have a friendship of sorts.
Guest:Ricky's an incredible... Publicly, he has zero humility.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He would never say anything nice about anyone.
Guest:He's incredibly competitive, and it's not enough that he be the best.
Guest:Everyone else has to die horribly.
Guest:In person, he actually has some humility, and he's very sweet.
Marc:Are you telling me that's a character?
Guest:He could be a nice guy.
Guest:Which one is the real Ricky?
Guest:I think the real Ricky is probably the public one.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:The real one is the guy that you meet and you have dinner with, and he's very funny and personable and nice.
Guest:The public Ricky is a dick sometimes.
Guest:He says things.
Guest:He's never said anything nice about anyone.
Guest:He's said horrible things about us.
Guest:Really?
Guest:In person, he'll tell me that he wrote, they used to write sketches for me before they did The Office.
Marc:Sure, why wouldn't he tell you that?
Guest:But then he'd say, but I'd never say that in public.
Guest:I'm like, oh, cheers, thanks.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Guest:I hate public Ricky, but I like private Ricky.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I understand that.
Marc:That was diplomatic.
Marc:All right, so let's talk about the relationship between you and Nick Frost and Edgar Wright because it seemed that... I don't know where it came from, whether it was the writing or Edgar's vision, but it seemed that even from space that genre play and it was...
Marc:was really a style that you guys didn't invent.
Marc:I mean, there seems to be a pace to the way you fool around with formats that I think might be original to you, is it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think with Spaced, it was simply that we never tried to jump on any kind of bandwagons or anything, but as I said, being that...
Guest:Being a child of the 70s, being a child of popular culture, of the TV revolution, the VCR revolution, of the demythologization of television and all that kind of stuff, we wanted to write a series about two people who lived their lives through the prism of popular culture.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:space was almost like so that was the agenda you said it was like who'd you sit down and have that conversation it was me and jessica basically we wanted to write a flat share sitcom about two people who's it was almost like the show was like how they described their lives it's like oh my god i went to the i went into the bank and it was like the matrix but you just saw it all literally you know right all those kind of references were like but cuckoo's nest i mean that was a weird poll and it was kind of great yeah i mean you milked that one more than most of them yeah that was quite an extended yeah yeah
Guest:But that was like, imagine, imagine, you know, your friend came back from a restaurant and said, oh my God, the kitchen, it was like one floor of the cuckoo's nest.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But instead of relating that, we actually show it.
Marc:You know, that was the idea.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:But that, but that style has defined your entire career.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In terms of your output.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, in that way, we were trying to use those those references as little Trojan horses to say certain things about their lives.
Guest:And what we did with the movies was on that on a grander scale.
Guest:So we appropriate like the zombie movie and which is something a lot of people recognize and use that as a way to do a French film about friendship and relationships, you know, because that's what it's about.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's about letting go of old friendships and moving on and being an adult.
Guest:You know, Hot Fuzz was also kind of about male friendship and about how sometimes you have to dumb down a little bit if you want to get something done.
Guest:And we've dressed that up as a cop film.
Guest:You know, The World's End is a film about the dangers of nostalgia and the loss of identity, but we use a science fiction film to say that.
Marc:Right, personal identity and cultural identity.
Guest:Yeah, so popular culture is like our kind of palette.
Guest:That's what we used to say...
Guest:That's our reference grid.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it also works to – the strange thing is I understand that as a vision and as a way of saying, like, well, that's what I grew up with, so that's how I see the world.
Marc:But, I mean, by doing what you do, you were able to sort of put a lot of heart into really kind of pretty cutting satirizations and also homages of these forms, you know.
Marc:It's like – I think, you know –
Guest:If you look at the poets or whatever, but of the past, you know, they always they always use metaphor to get ideas across to put to communicate emotions.
Guest:That's what we're doing, except what we're drawing on is a far more sort of facile kind of bunch of things, which is film and TV and.
Guest:video games you know right but people get it I think that's why Shaun of the Dead ended up getting you know opening some doors for us here because the American audience recognized the language we are using which is zombie movies because it's an American tradition you know from Romero so right that's how we managed to bridge the cultural gap a little bit I think
Marc:and is has that been a why do you think uh you know i guess we can talk about that is that you know i know there definitely is an audience in america for british comedy yes and everything british yeah yeah there it's a very odd thing because you know there are some people that's like oh i don't care what it is as long as it has that accent sounds so important what do you think that is have you ever thought about it to the people who are anglophiles who you've talked to in your life yeah do you think it's a what do you think drives that
Guest:I think part of it is that it's a different perspective in exactly the same language.
Guest:There's a big thing with us is that we speak the same language.
Guest:That's why there are so many British actors in Hollywood.
Guest:It's not because British actors are better than actors in Europe.
Guest:It's that we speak the same language and there's a point of connection for us which enables us to kind of swap.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's a different perspective.
Guest:I think, you know, I get that sometimes.
Guest:It's so weird when you say something on the phone, you know, to an American and they go, oh, my God, you sound so sophisticated.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you're like, I just asked for a burrito.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Pasta.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is that how you say it?
Guest:Pasta.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's a strange thing.
Guest:Maybe it's because there's a...
Guest:And maybe because this is a relatively new country and Britain is ancient and there's a kind of a, you know, the obsession with the royal baby over here has been phenomenal.
Guest:I mean, people keep saying, oh, my God, has she had it yet?
Guest:And we're like, what?
Guest:Who?
Guest:What?
Guest:Oh, them?
Guest:Oh, them?
Guest:You know, it's because of that kind of sense of history.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah i'm always i'm always it's there it's like star wars to us yeah well that's interesting when you look at star wars in in star wars all the older character all the slightly more the the you know the villains and the character authority they're all usually played by british actors even the older jedis because they represent an older order right and all the youngsters they're all american and thrusting and and you know that's some smart shit yeah that's that's what it was saying you know
Guest:And they were trying to leave this old order behind in a way and get away from this imperialistic idea, which I think was with the British.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:And yet still they come back to it.
Guest:And I think as the world's getting smaller with the internet and stuff and YouTube and our ability to share each other's culture a bit more, like BBC America's on now, this whole interest in British television is bigger than ever now.
Marc:Do you think there's a difference in the audience?
Marc:I mean, I know you've spoken to it before, but I guess I can only speak for myself.
Marc:I liked Python, and I think that my experience with British comedy was that it always seemed more broad, less personal, a little bit more sort of...
Marc:You know, bigger.
Marc:But like, you know, when I watch something like your show, like Spaced or The Office or anything else, is that it was there a time in British comedy that you can identify where where something that was more prevalent in America, which was speaking in a neurotic way or self-effacing way or like, you know, without without romanticizing things or wigs and stuff.
Marc:Was there a shift in England?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Yeah, maybe.
Guest:It's interesting in a way because what I remember from American comedy as a kid was very broad because basically we were seeing each other's mainstream output.
Guest:Even Python, you know, because the way that became popular here is incredible.
Guest:The Hollywood Bowl thing, I still look at that and think, how did that happen?
Marc:I just remember someone telling me about it and it was on PBS here.
Marc:It was like the public broadcasting network and no one fucking watched that.
Guest:It was probably so exotic.
Marc:And when it came on late at night, it was on film.
Marc:It looked like it was film.
Marc:It didn't look like television.
Marc:I'm like, who the fuck are these guys?
Marc:And what is going on here?
Guest:But when I talk about, you know, so many times here, if I meet someone who's not, maybe not the kind of person who would be into Shaun of the Dead, and you mentioned British comedy, they'll go, oh, Benny Hill.
Guest:Or Are You Being Served?
Guest:Or, you know, stuff that was, and I'm sure there were smaller things that were going on in America that, you know, that we never saw, much more personal, much more smarter, drier.
Marc:I think that's probably right.
Guest:nowadays that stuff is is it's easier to to access it like i can watch portlandia now yeah even though it's not on british tv because i can watch it on the internet right you know shows like kirby enthusiasm larry sanders which was an incredible show a great show to the end towards the end of the 90s you know we started to see we started to get access to each other a little more and realize what was going on underneath you know the more personal stuff and that you know that coincides with spaced and and the rise of shows like you know even seinfeld and curb and sure
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's funny.
Marc:There was a time in America where all we got, I think, was Masterpiece Theater, Benny Hill and Monty Python.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Alistair Cook's talking about things.
Marc:I know.
Guest:I remember as a child.
Guest:I mean, you just sort of, I would just hang my head in shame whenever, oh, yeah, yeah, Benny Hill.
Guest:No.
Marc:No.
Guest:Sort of chubby old pervert chasing a bald man and some women in a bikini.
Marc:Did anyone respect him in Britain?
Guest:He was very popular in the same way that that kind of stuff, you know, there is a broad comedy here that would be very popular.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:I guess that's true.
Marc:Because I know there was a lot of underground guys around punk rock.
Marc:But Munnery, it's like, he's hard to wrap your brain around.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:He's willfully kind of goes against what you expect.
Marc:And Kitson is a genius.
Marc:And it's like, you don't know where that comes from.
Guest:Well, in the same way that people like Lenny Bruce would actively try to die on stage just to challenge you.
Guest:That kind of stuff is terribly exciting.
Marc:So the new movie, it was interesting because I went to see it.
Marc:It was weird because I wanted to see it before I talked to you.
Marc:They wouldn't send me a screener.
Marc:And I couldn't make the screening.
Marc:And then it got down to this sort of like, they're doing one for you.
Marc:I'm like, oh, my God.
Marc:So I go to the screening room in Beverly Hills.
Marc:I didn't know what to expect.
Marc:And when it opens with you in that AA meeting, I'm like, well, this is interesting.
Marc:This is going to be some deep shit here.
Marc:And we're going to go through a journey that this is a personal struggle with substance.
Marc:I can relate to this.
Marc:And then all of a sudden, it's like, what happened in the men's room?
Marc:Where did this go?
Marc:It's a pretty amazing turn.
Marc:And for me, the poetry of it and what it was saying about culture was great.
Marc:Because I'm not a huge sci-fi guy.
Marc:So there was part of me that's like, oh, here we go.
Marc:But then by the end, I was like, well, there's a real message here about Missed Out.
Guest:And the important thing as well is that when that left turn happens in the movie, and it is a heck of a left turn.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:it doesn't stop being about what it started to be about, which is the pub crawl.
Guest:That's what Gary is there to do.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And in a way, the fact that he continues it and uses it as an excuse to carry on with it, it says a lot about how selfish addicts are, you know, and how kind of focused they are on getting what they want in the next minute.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And not thinking about tomorrow or anything like that.
Guest:And that's Gary all the way, you know, he's kind of, he uses essentially a kind of, you know,
Marc:No matter how apocalyptic things are going to get, he's going to get all those beers.
Guest:I'm going to drink my beers because that's all he cares about.
Guest:It's a suicide mission for Gary.
Guest:And in the end, it's like takes it's takes like essentially an intergalactic intervention is what happens in the end.
Guest:You know, he's back in a circle at the end of the film.
Marc:So when you came up with the film, I mean, you know, and you put an addict at the at the center of it.
Marc:Was that was that the seed of the idea?
Guest:What happened was Edgar and I were traveling from Sydney.
Guest:We were in Wellington again, weirdly enough.
Guest:And we were traveling to Sydney and Edgar had this idea about a film about a pub crawl when he was younger called Crawl.
Guest:He'd written it and it was about five 19-year-old boys on this night out.
Guest:And he suddenly, we'd shot World's End, sorry, The Hot Fuzz in his hometown.
Guest:And so we both of us had this experience of going back to our hometowns because I lived quite near to him when I grew up.
Guest:and sensing this odd feeling of familiarity and alienation you get everything's the same and yet it's totally different and we get that here too yeah yeah it's for the same reason partly it's different because you've changed partly students because yeah other things have come there are new shops in the high street people don't recognize you and we thought it'd be funny to have that to make a film about that sense of on we but it's because there's
Marc:been invaded by alien robots yeah that was the kind of thing it was like a really serious setup and then we went away but is that a moment that when you and edgar have that moment like you know do you say like well this sounds pretty you know deep and yeah and a little bit uh a little bit disturbing let's let's relieve ourselves yeah yeah well let's use it's feeling a bit too honest we should try and yeah you you experience that though yeah we thought it's it's a bit too earnest you know because you're like leave that to mike lee
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, this is the thing.
Guest:I mean, Shaun of the Dead was supposed to be like a Mike Lee film with zombies.
Guest:And with World's End, it was like, this is too real.
Guest:We need to tip it on its side a bit.
Guest:So we'll bring in the sci-fi element.
Guest:But it never is just about that.
Guest:The sci-fi element just exacerbates everything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It invigorates Gary to carry on with the poker.
Guest:He thinks that continuing the poker is the only way to go.
Guest:He doesn't really.
Guest:He just wants to finish his beers, but he convinces the other guys that we should keep going.
Guest:This is important.
Guest:And they just follow him because they fall back into their old roles.
Marc:And also, like, you know, by middle of the movie, you realize that none of the other guys were that happy.
Marc:No, exactly like that.
Marc:All the your suppositions or the character of Gary's suppositions about their lives was off.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that, you know, they were having their own problems.
Guest:Yeah, we don't prescribe any kind.
Guest:It's not like you should grow up and get married and have kids and job.
Guest:what we're kind of saying is the most important thing is that you're happy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whatever that is, it's happiness.
Guest:You know, Gary's not happy because he's, you know, he's an alcoholic and he's depressed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he never snapped out of it.
Guest:No, he never snapped out.
Guest:And the rest of the guys are kind of, you know, they all say about Stephen, he's got a company, but it got bought out and he's less stressed.
Guest:And Andy's doing corporate law when he really wanted to do family law.
Guest:And so no one's happy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And this is sort of reflected as the night goes on.
Marc:yeah yeah no yeah that evolution of the characters happens but i imagine doing the shooting of that you're like you know how do we balance it yeah yeah because like they're they're you know once you know once enough of that stuff starts flying around and the alien thing becomes you know all all invasive yeah it becomes sort of hard to have those reflections of sort of like i'm not happy yeah yeah i know
Guest:But what it becomes then is about nostalgia, about the fact that there's a speech in the movie that Eddie Marzahn's character makes about this bully that he sees and who doesn't recognize him and he's pissed off because it's, he says it's like it all meant nothing, you know.
Guest:That's a great moment.
Guest:Yeah, and childhood does mean something.
Guest:And the relationships we have when we're kids, all our emotional barometer is set when we're very small and very young.
Guest:And all the stuff that happens when we're kids, it's not a rehearsal for life, it is life.
Guest:It's how you're wired.
Guest:Yeah, it's totally.
Guest:And you can't just go back and see all those people and see the kid that beat you up in the toilet and go, do you remember that day?
Guest:Oh man, I was so bleeding.
Guest:It still hurts.
Marc:Oh yeah, and the greatest thing that can happen if you have the fortitude for it is to go to your 25th high school reunion
Marc:Just to see those jocks, all fat and bald, and you're like, oh, I'm going to let that go, I guess.
Guest:And not be bitter about it, or not.
Guest:And the fact is, in the movie, it's only after a few beers that they all return back to how they used to be.
Guest:They fall into line.
Guest:Andy becomes the protector, and Steve's the second in command.
Marc:It's interesting that in that movie, and also in...
Marc:in space the dynamic between you and nick frost is that like you did some fucked up thing yeah yeah that you know kind of remains unspoken for a good portion of it yeah gary's gary's a terrible i mean he's like the villain of the film as much as he is the hero well what's your relationship with nick in real life
Guest:We've known each other for 20 years and we met as humans, not as actors in Cricklewood in North London.
Guest:I moved to London from Bristol University in the early 90s.
Guest:My girlfriend at the time got a job at a Mexican restaurant nearby.
Guest:Came back one night and said, there's a guy at work.
Guest:He's really funny.
Guest:I think he kind of wants to do stand-up.
Guest:Do you think you can put him in touch with a few clubs?
Guest:I was like, yeah, I've been doing it like a year.
Guest:I thought I was like Yoda.
Guest:I'll give you a list.
Guest:And then so I took him out to his first few gigs.
Guest:I met him at a party and we got on really well straight away.
Guest:And I took him out to a few gigs.
Guest:He kind of did 10 gigs in the end.
Guest:Five were great.
Guest:Five were the lowest point in his life.
Marc:So that's where that dynamic started.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why'd you get me into this?
Guest:Well, it was kind of, but he was like, all the time I was like, you gotta, he's literally the funniest person I've ever met.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:He makes me laugh like nobody else.
Guest:And I was in a, my social circle was comedians and none of them were as funny as Nick.
Guest:And I was like, how is this, how does this work?
Marc:Oh yeah.
Guest:But he couldn't quite translate his natural funniness to a performance.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's fascinating.
Marc:It happens a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, yeah, there are guys that I know like off stage.
Marc:It's like, oh my God, why?
Marc:How come you're not?
Marc:And then they get on stage and they, there was this one guy who was like an improvisational genius off stage and you just want to hang around him.
Marc:And then you get on stage and you do the same fucking 10 minutes.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Every time.
Marc:And you're like, why aren't,
Marc:We were just in the car.
Guest:There's a process.
Guest:And I don't know what it is.
Marc:But he couldn't do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And does he know what it was?
Marc:I mean, it was at a comfort level.
Guest:I think he'd stuck at it.
Guest:He was embarrassed.
Guest:And he was nervous on stage.
Guest:I cut my teeth in the university comedy clubs where it's quite a partisan crowd.
Guest:They were quite nice to you.
Guest:So my confidence grew there.
Guest:And you know what it's like.
Guest:Half the struggle is confidence.
Guest:And he never quite nailed that.
Guest:right you got to spend you know most of your career pretending like you're not afraid exactly and then one day it's like oh it's gone yeah and then suddenly you can take on anybody exactly so five years later you know we've been just become friends best friends and jess and i got the opportunity to write space and nick used to do this character for us you know for shits and giggles in the pub of mike the the territorial army guy the kind of reservist guy who was and i said to nick look if i write this character into this sitcom will you just be in the sitcom because you've got to
Marc:you can't be a fucking waiter forever right when you're this talented and he's like all right and um and that's how it happened you know so we were friends a long time before we were colleagues you know that's the other thing about the about space and about especially about space is that you had all these weird there was you know the sexuality yeah issues of brian and of mike and of your friendship it's sort of like
Marc:You never see that.
Marc:It's sort of like, what's going on?
Guest:That's the funny thing is Nick and I, when we sort of, the girl that introduced us, basically, was my girlfriend at the time.
Guest:She very unceremoniously dumped me for this other guy.
Guest:And it was awful.
Guest:And that actually formed the basis of space, that whole being dumped by a girl.
Guest:so i went to live with nick on in his crab pit flat in crickerwood i used to sleep on his floor yeah and then like after one day he said i'll just sleep get in the bed and sleep top to tail with me so we slept top to tail for a while and eventually it was so comfortable that you know nothing was going to happen we were quite quite quite confident with our sexuality we'd sleep next to each other like you know like laurel and hardy and so for the longest time we had this really easy physical relationship where there was no kind of
Guest:Get off me, you fag kind of silliness.
Guest:And that became the basis of Mike and Tim's relationship.
Guest:It was a very easy male relationship where you can be affectionate with each other.
Guest:You can love each other.
Guest:And it doesn't have to be some, you know, and even if it does turn into something, which it didn't, but if it does, it's okay.
Guest:Yeah, well, that was coming.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, yeah, so what?
Guest:We needed to do that, clearly, yeah.
Guest:So our sort of, our friendship over the years, and we always sort of flinch at this sort of bromance buzzword that's come up, as if there's no equivalent for women, because it's not weird if women are friends.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Suddenly, it's such a modern phenomena that guys can be honestly friends with each other and not have to pat each other on the back.
Guest:Right, like, hey, bro, come here, man.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, a little of that.
Guest:Because of homosexual terror,
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That straight guys have.
Guest:And macho garbage.
Guest:It's ridiculous.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Now there has to be this word for it.
Guest:And it's just, it's crazy.
Marc:It's sad is what it is.
Marc:It is totally sad.
Marc:But now with Edgar, like in terms of the style of like, again, from watching Spaced, that the sort of quick cut and the games and the punchlines, the fast moving camera and all that stuff.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Now, was that something that he was doing before he met you?
Marc:Or is that something you guys came up with together?
Marc:Is that his thing?
Guest:That's his thing.
Guest:I think he kind of when you look at his early, early, early films that no one saw.
Guest:I think there's one on the Hot Fuzz DVD.
Guest:It's like on Hi8 video or something.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Cop thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was his thing.
Guest:And I think because he was a big fan of Sam Raimi, he was a big fan of the Coen brothers, like Raising Arizona is an absolute fan.
Marc:Oh, you know what?
Marc:I see that sort of a template for what you can do.
Guest:And he that was for both of us.
Guest:That was a film where we thought, oh, so you can the camera can be funny as well.
Guest:And the direction can be funny.
Guest:And it's not just pointing the camera at funny people.
Guest:You can say stuff with the way that the camera whizzes in on something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, that was the that was the big mind blower.
Guest:And for Edgar, it was like when Jess and I wrote Spaced, we were like, we need someone who can bring this.
Guest:We don't know how to do this visually.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We'd written the scripts, but we didn't have a visual language for it.
Guest:And Edgar was the last part of that jigsaw.
Guest:And we always Edgar's the even though I didn't write the show.
Guest:He's the third writer on the show in terms of because he wrote the look of it.
Guest:oh yeah well he was able to sort of like uh you kind of do these weird homages that were satiric but dead on yeah yeah to things and is what is he as much of a film tv nerd as you are more so he's he's so fluent in uh in cinema he speaks cinema you know he just he he's totally possessed by it all and he's yeah he's more knowledgeable about film than i am
Marc:Okay, so Raising Arizona, man, that movie was a big influence.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know what that character's based on?
Marc:H.R.
Marc:McDonough?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No.
Marc:Wile E. Coyote from the Roadrunner.
Marc:Really?
Marc:How fucking great is that?
Marc:So they were doing a riff almost like you guys did.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because if you think of the Roadrunner cartoons-
Marc:oh yeah because he doesn't have a roadrunner tattoo on his arm yeah he does yeah but why would coyote just you know he's the sympathetic guy that just gets fucked every time by that bird and when i heard that that's what he was based on i was like those guys are geniuses it is a brilliant movie and i i love the coen brothers when you look at the the variation in what they've done unbelievable the the outright crazy comedy of that movie and then compared to like blood simple or miller's crossing or no no country no country
Guest:i'd love to be able i hope we're allowed to do that one day i hope we're allowed to make a really serious movie you know we you can decide that yeah but it's that the audience might not want you to you know sometimes they're like it's like you know you said about partridge and you're going come on do your funny thing but you've done serious roles i have yeah yeah i mean you know it seems like you've had an opportunity to was there a point there where you felt like you know i'm gonna go that route
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's weird in a way because comedy, if you're a dramatic actor, you're allowed to do comedy.
Guest:But if you're a comedy actor, people are less inclined.
Guest:You see people like Jim Carrey or Steve Martin, Woody Allen, those guys who, particularly like Woody Allen, who resolutely went serious.
Guest:They get frustrated because Jim Carrey is a classic example.
Guest:He did films like the, you know, like even Cable Guy, which is a comedy, but it was darker.
Guest:The audience are like, no, no, where's your all righty then thing?
Guest:And
Guest:You know, he clearly wants to do he has acting chops, Jim Carrey.
Guest:He wants to do more serious stuff.
Guest:But you can see there's a kind of frustration that that he's not permitted to do it because he's so outrightly funny as a. Well, he keeps trying.
Marc:He does.
Marc:But what was your experience?
Marc:Did you feel that?
Marc:Did you feel that when you did it, that there was a backlash?
Marc:I don't know yet.
Guest:I haven't.
Guest:I just did a show for Frank Darabont's doing who did the Majestic Wiggly with Jim Carrey.
Guest:In fact, I wore Jim Carrey's jacket in this thing.
Guest:It's a strange circularity.
Guest:Do you know him?
Guest:I don't.
Guest:But Frank did the Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile.
Guest:And he's doing a show for TNT called Lost Angels, which is all about the 40s era struggle between the Cohen gang and the LAPD.
Guest:Really, it's great.
Marc:Mickey Cohen.
Guest:Yeah, Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That period when Bugsy Siegel went to Las Vegas and Mickey Cohen took over all the rackets.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's the L.A.
Guest:Confidential period, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I did a guest spot in the pilot for that show as a comic actually called Hecky Nash.
Guest:And it's a really serious role.
Guest:And it was fantastic fun to do just because it was so different.
Guest:And he's American and so I'm playing completely against hype.
Guest:And I hope, what's nice is that he's a comic.
Guest:So I kind of, there's a little segue.
Guest:But you're afraid.
Marc:i'm not afraid i i i like serious acting i mean you've done but yeah i mean i guess you've done well i mean the star trek movies i mean it's serious yeah i'm still like the funny guy i know yeah i still like comic relief yeah yeah yeah bring that guy yeah you're the funny guy did that have an impact on you as a as a nerd star trek to be part of that movie where you're like i can't believe i'm on the enterprise absolutely it was crazy when i first put on my uniform it was like this isn't happening
Guest:i stepped onto the bridge for the first time it was ridiculous i mean all the kind of you know that stuff i watched that show as a kid i love that show and to become part of it was just insane have you met uh any of these people that had these uh the effect on your life like uh lucas or yeah we worked for spielberg nick and i did uh we were in tintin and that was right that's right yeah we got to chat to i met lucas once and had a kind of interesting conversation with him and
Guest:About what?
Guest:Phantom Menace?
Guest:No.
Guest:As the huge hypocrite that I am, I went to the premiere of Revenge of the Sith, the third one, and arguably the least crap.
Guest:Of the new ones.
Guest:Of the new ones.
Guest:And I got introduced to him.
Guest:He was talking to Ron Howard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this guy who worked for Lucasfilm sort of took me over and I saw the light go out in George Lucas's eyes when he turned around and saw me because it's like, oh, here's another sort of mid-30s fanboy who's going to, you know, goo all over me.
Guest:And...
Guest:Ron Howard saw me and went, oh, hey, Shaun of the Dead.
Guest:My kids love your movie.
Guest:And he shook my hand.
Guest:And Lucas kind of changed completely and was like, oh, OK.
Guest:So I immediately got a little in with him.
Guest:And he said, what are you doing?
Guest:And I said, we're making this movie.
Guest:I think we were doing Hot Fuzz at the time.
Guest:and he said oh you know what let me give you a piece of advice don't be in 30 years time don't be making the same movie you made 30 years ago and i went okay yeah yeah which is a very interesting thing to say you know yeah because he does yeah yeah yeah and it was weird it was and i i suddenly i warmed i i was nothing but warm to him irrespective of the new films he's still yeah sure but it was an interesting insight into him as a man you know
Guest:He kind of almost regretted it a little bit.
Marc:It's weird when you see that, isn't it?
Guest:He seemed a bit lost, you know?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I suddenly saw him as big.
Guest:All alone with billions of dollars.
Marc:Poor guy.
Guest:Oh, my heart bleeds.
Marc:Yeah, I hope he's okay.
Guest:yeah it was totally there was a sadness i felt like you know he'd become this yeah this this this this corporation and no one was saying no to him anymore and i felt like he kind of almost wanted someone to say george no yeah do something yeah don't do that do thx 1138 again again yeah if you're gonna make remake one make a cryptic weird one yeah yeah disturbing yeah
Marc:Well, no, I think that speaks to... It's a good lesson to learn.
Marc:I mean, even when I asked you about serious roles, there's a fear there.
Marc:There's a fear of the audience turning on you.
Marc:And you know what it is as well?
Guest:As a comedian... Yep.
Guest:And you know you feel sometimes that people don't take you seriously simply because your profession is by its very nature non-serious.
Guest:You're a comedian.
Guest:You're a funny person.
Guest:Comedy is a break from seriousness.
Guest:That's what it is.
Guest:And so comedy...
Guest:as an art form, isn't taken particularly seriously.
Guest:I mean, it's changing a little bit, but there's no Oscar for best comedy.
Guest:There's no Oscar for best comic performance.
Guest:And yet you would argue that, you know, there are a lot of serious actors who can't do comedy.
Guest:There are a lot of Oscar-winning actors who can't make you laugh.
Marc:I think it's seen as more disposable for some reason.
Guest:I think it is.
Guest:And I think it's because it's non-serious.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like it loses credibility by its very nature.
Marc:It's so fucked up, though, because that classic quote that everybody quotes is that, you know, the only thing harder than dying is comedy or whatever.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Yeah, it's true.
Marc:And people know, you know, how difficult it is.
Marc:And certainly the personality of the comic is well explored as this dark brooding disaster that
Marc:So exactly.
Guest:And so comics, who are by their very nature slightly insecure because they require immediate validation, constantly feel underestimated because no one takes them seriously.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So that's why they want to do serious stuff.
Guest:So someone actually says, oh, you're good.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:Well, maybe that's the agenda of the industry.
Guest:It's like, we've got to keep these guys nervous.
Marc:Or they're going to get cocky and we're not going to be able to get funny out of them.
Guest:Yeah, it's good.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Conspiracy theory.
Guest:That's a good one.
Guest:It's great talking to you, Simon.
Guest:You too, buddy.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Thank you, people, for listening.
Marc:Thank you, Simon Pegg, for being in the garage.
Marc:I really enjoyed that conversation, and I enjoyed the new movie, and I'm looking forward.
Marc:I hope to interview Edgar Wright.
Marc:I think that is going to happen.
Marc:I do know next week, this one's been a long time coming, Maynard James Keenan will be in the garage on Monday from Tool.
Marc:Had to cram a lot of tool into my head to get up for that thing.
Marc:Good guy, though.
Marc:What else?
Marc:Get the app, will you?
Marc:I just want to try to get people to get the app.
Marc:The free app.
Marc:The app is free.
Marc:You can get it for free.
Marc:It's the fastest, easiest way to get every episode of WTF.
Marc:And it's free for all your mobile devices.
Marc:And you can get the newest episode as soon as it's ready to download.
Marc:And the most recent 50 episodes are always on there.
Marc:I'm going to start doing a little premium content.
Marc:If you get the premium app for a few bucks, you can listen to all 400-plus episodes.
Marc:You can get it at WTFPod.com.
Marc:Click on the WTF app link.
Marc:Go to your preferred app store and get the WTF app.
Marc:I just think it's the easiest way to listen to this.
Marc:I'd love to just say, get the app.
Marc:Go to the app.
Marc:It's on the app.
Marc:But you can also go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Check out the merch.
Marc:Sorry, I'll be getting more of the mugs.
Marc:I'll get more of the ceramic mugs.
Marc:The Brian R. Jones mugs.
Marc:Brian R. Jones, the potter in Portland that was making me mugs for my guests only.
Marc:Then I made them available and I put them up online.
Marc:That 50 of them made, they're all gone in minutes.
Marc:Poor Brian's got to sit at that wheel and throw some more for me.
Marc:I'll get them out to you.
Marc:I saw elephant seals sweeping outside San Simeon.
Marc:It's the second time I've seen them.
Marc:It's the most amazing thing.
Marc:Just sitting there, looking at the seals, sweeping, making weird noises.
Marc:I think that was pretty good.
Marc:I think if I was in the water, I could probably get some elephant seal pussy.
Marc:Boomer lives!