0:00

Welcome Welcome Welcome. This is that

0:02

stretch and pieces Podcast Episode Five

0:04

Hundred and Sixty Seven. An

0:06

hour joined today by John Bradley. Oh

0:08

obvious was I love Lake I was

0:11

I shed So as we discuss of

0:13

a jones been on twice. But.

0:15

Only to only one of them

0:17

was in person and. Both.

0:20

of the previous warms up in part of

0:22

like a press junket and we've kept in

0:24

touch light with we'd met a little bit

0:26

before the first one. and would

0:28

hit it off. And we've met.

0:30

you know, a couple of times outside of

0:32

this, but yet this was the first Tom

0:35

Book or we got to sit down and

0:37

have a really kind of get into it

0:39

tight. Jenna. I mean, are we discussing?

0:41

it's a different vibe? You know, originally I

0:43

didn't do many press junkets and I do

0:45

that now. And you know I generally think

0:48

the vibe still works and is good, but

0:50

you can be slightly. Different. So

0:52

I'm it was great to get. John. The

0:55

A Cost Studio. And.

0:58

Just sit down with no one

1:00

else. prison. Just have a good old matter.

1:02

John. Was a one of my

1:04

favorite shows of all time Game of Thrones

1:07

and is in another favorite Sharma one of

1:09

my shows of the year, Three Body Problem

1:11

on Netflix. One of the because shrugs in

1:13

the world right now. So we get into

1:15

all of that, but we get into a

1:17

lot of other things along the way. You

1:20

know these conversations work at a we start

1:22

with the are of in that generally ends

1:24

up informing you know, The. Personal. The

1:26

internal, am I talking nonsense?

1:28

I don't think so. But.

1:31

It sounds like it or give I'll give you that is

1:33

your sounds like it. By. Don't think

1:35

I am. We bought you as

1:37

ever by Speech Development records.com. Don't.

1:40

Skip, Don't skip. Are you really going

1:42

to want to skip now? So I

1:44

was reading an article and I've been

1:46

talking to friends, not been seen it

1:49

myself. There's been a rise in a

1:51

trance phobic, homophobic, anti semitic islam, a

1:53

phobic generally from racist and horrible group

1:55

griffey him in in in the past

1:58

few years and I'm not talking. big

2:00

amazing works of art that

2:02

happen to be horror. I'm talking scrawls

2:04

on walls just saying horrible stuff. I

2:07

know we've kind of always had that like

2:09

if you want sex call Barry on this

2:11

number or Sarah's a slag

2:14

that kind of thing but it's just there's

2:16

a lot of nastiness because a lot of people are

2:18

angry and nasty so I've made

2:20

some sticker packs that

2:22

are just nice and there's nine in

2:25

a pack and they're free all you have to do

2:27

is pay the postage so I'm making a I'm making

2:29

a loss on this but the

2:31

idea is you get one of

2:33

these sticker packs I think I'm going to try and

2:35

limit it I think we've got it limited to one

2:37

per person because we you know we can't have anyone

2:39

taking the piss but just have

2:41

one of these sticker packs in your pocket

2:43

in your bag in your coat wherever in

2:45

your bum bag if that's how you choose

2:47

to live your life and then you just

2:49

if you see something horrible you just pop

2:52

a nice sticker over it and there you

2:54

go you've taken something horrible out of the

2:56

world and you're spreading just a bit of

2:58

positivity and niceness yeah so they're over at

3:00

speechdevelopmentrecords.com ways

3:03

that you can support me without bankrupting

3:05

me um I include

3:08

patreon.com/scroobiestpip where

3:10

you can donate um or chip in

3:12

not not donate you can have access

3:14

to extra posts it's nothing exciting over

3:16

there I ain't gonna lie to you

3:18

it is essentially a donation each month

3:20

and that helps out the podcast or

3:22

you can head to twitch.tv/scroobiestpipio where

3:25

you can watch for free but then you

3:27

have the option to subscribe to get all

3:29

sorts of benefits so loads of good stuff

3:31

that's enough of the nonsense let's

3:34

get on with this I would recommend you

3:36

go and listen to the first two times

3:38

John has been on but then I would

3:40

also say that this was my favorite by

3:42

some way I would rank them this

3:45

one then the first one then the second one

3:47

so maybe listen to them completely out of order

3:49

in that way yeah you know it's a choice

3:51

it's an option you might be looking at your

3:54

podcast app and going ah there's no podcasts have

3:56

come out today Buxton's on a bit of a

3:58

break blah blah blah blah So, you

4:00

know, you could just go through all three. You could

4:02

have a real Pippen John Bradley day This is

4:05

the distraction pieces podcast episode

4:10

567 with John Bradley Right,

4:32

I'm here today once again with John Bradley.

4:34

How are you? I'm really good, mate. Nice

4:36

to see you again And you is we

4:38

were just saying it's weird

4:40

because this is your third time on the

4:43

podcast. That's right But one over

4:45

zoom, it doesn't feel like it counts really because we

4:47

didn't get to actually see each other and chat before

4:49

and after Do you know I mean exactly yeah You're

4:52

in the zoom you have to chat and then you're

4:54

gone. Whereas even the walk up the stairs here It's

4:56

been nice to have a hard gab a catcher. Yeah,

4:58

so I think the last time we spoke that was

5:00

part of a Junkie day that I was

5:02

doing. Yeah, so even that feels like a kind of

5:04

different atmosphere in the hotel in

5:06

I was in yeah, the the Savoy I think

5:09

I was in yeah, and I think that like

5:11

that's Even that it's a lovely chat and it

5:13

always is with you but it's that even that's

5:15

still got a different energy to it because You

5:18

feel that's that's a part of your day and

5:20

you've got a very hard out and you've been

5:22

talking You've been talking all day. So it

5:25

kind of takes a bit of that casual Vibe

5:28

out of it when it's just part of that day, but this

5:30

is this is how it should be done. I completely agree I'm

5:32

going to give a quick shout

5:34

out to a cast as well because because we're

5:36

in their studio. Yeah, yeah birthday And

5:39

I love having chats in here,

5:41

man Because yeah, it's not it is a

5:43

studio but it doesn't feel studio e and

5:45

promo Impersonal

5:47

yeah, exactly and they just leave me

5:50

to it Yeah, i've more more than

5:52

that. No i'm i'm letting myself in

5:54

and out. Yeah. Yeah. All right, this

5:56

is I've definitely

5:58

had had guests on who I don't know well

6:00

who kind of assume it's my studio. I'm like,

6:02

think that all you like. I'm happy to

6:05

have you think I've got a studio in East London.

6:07

But there's just such a

6:10

lovely vibe to this type of

6:12

building where it's facilitating conversations

6:14

like this. My only concern

6:17

is because it's in Shoreditch,

6:19

I linger out the front just for when

6:21

my guests arrive. And if it's a guest,

6:23

I don't know that way. I'm like, they

6:25

might walk up to about five different people

6:27

thinking it's me because it's very much the

6:29

look of the area. So I

6:31

should almost have a name tag. But

6:33

I mean, how have you been, man? And how

6:35

you find it all? Like we were just saying

6:37

it's been a hectic start to the year because

6:39

you're in this huge show. And last time we

6:41

spoke and a few times like we've messaged privately,

6:44

you were just kind of getting

6:46

going on three body problem. And a

6:49

Benedict Wong is also a power on. I've messaged him a

6:51

little bit about it. And we'll

6:53

get into it more, but it just felt

6:55

like an exciting project from the start. And

6:57

that doesn't seem to have stopped as it's

7:00

coming to the public domain as such. No,

7:03

I think that's the thing about it, really,

7:05

that when we last spoke, which was like

7:07

summer of twenty two, I think, we were

7:09

we've been shooting it for about nine months

7:11

then. And now it's

7:14

April twenty four. And it's just it's just

7:16

been out a month. And

7:18

I think I think more than any project that

7:20

I've been involved in, it feels like such a

7:22

very long time that it's been

7:24

in the future. I mean, we started it, we

7:26

shot it, it was all in the future. And

7:28

then that the period in between where we were doing

7:30

other stuff, but they were doing the post-production on it and

7:33

we knew it was going to be put back a

7:35

few times. It was going to be November. Then

7:38

it's going to be January. Then it was going to be March. All

7:40

of that all seemed in the future

7:42

and something to look forward to. And now

7:44

for the first time, it's in the past

7:46

and it's out. Yeah. And after having such

7:48

an intensive relationship with something for that long

7:50

to actually get it out in front of

7:53

people, even though it's been three years nearly

7:55

since we started it, it still felt like

7:57

we're not that same with same with any

7:59

art. So. form or piece of entertainment

8:01

that you produce, that big thing of

8:03

kicking it out into the world and seeing how it

8:05

does. You're never quite ready for it, no matter how

8:07

long it's been. I can completely

8:09

see. And yeah, you're right. It's mad

8:12

to know that you've been filming it for

8:14

that long at that point, but it

8:16

feels like a project that it was

8:18

like a long experience. It feels like

8:20

I can talk into you and to

8:22

Benny and others. It feels like everyone

8:24

really bonded. It's maybe the first TV

8:27

show you've done since Thrones

8:29

that was this kind of extended, you're

8:32

all bonding together. You're all this gang

8:35

rather than sometimes film projects

8:37

can be beautiful for the two

8:39

weeks you're there. Yeah. And then you're on to

8:41

the next thing. And that doesn't make it any

8:43

less wonderful, but it's not the same as this

8:45

extended. This is, as you say, this is particularly

8:47

in the length it's taken to come out. This

8:50

has been the biggest thing in a lot of

8:52

our lives. Yeah. Oh, completely. For three years or

8:54

whatever. Yeah. Exactly.

8:56

And I think, I think that because

8:58

it's quite similar to Thrones in a

9:00

way in so much as there are

9:02

lots of different elements to it and

9:04

not everybody's involved in every part of

9:07

it. There's flashbacks to, you know, the

9:09

cultural revolution in China. There's there's stuff

9:11

within the, the sort of

9:13

VR video game element of it.

9:15

And it's not like a kind of normal

9:18

procedural drama where the characters are kind

9:20

of feel, it feels disparate

9:23

a bit like, yeah, like Thrones was.

9:25

But even, even despite that,

9:27

it was like there's teams, there's groups that

9:29

are doing this bit. Here's which was what

9:31

Thrones was. Exactly. You've got your island group.

9:34

You've got your totally exactly the same. And

9:36

I think that the thing that that you,

9:38

that you have to get your head around

9:40

when you're on a set like that, or

9:43

dealing with such an enormous group of people is it

9:45

really gives you an indication of what it's like to

9:47

be a showrunner. Yeah. Or you know, be

9:49

a writer on something like that, particularly David

9:51

and Dan and they brought another guy on

9:53

Alex Wu to help to

9:56

show run three body problem with them. It's a

9:58

bit like we come in, we do our bit

10:00

and then we disappear. Tomorrow you look on the

10:02

call sheet and you see, oh, they're doing a

10:04

flashback sequence to China in the 1960s. That's

10:08

nothing to do with me. But to them, all

10:10

of this stuff, they care about all of this stuff.

10:13

All of this stuff as much. And just

10:15

to hold that in your mind, have

10:17

the mental capacity and stamina

10:20

to just have your mind across

10:22

all of that stuff for what was 18 months.

10:24

It's what I love about these projects

10:26

and being since, because I guess the

10:29

first time we spoke, I probably wasn't acting at

10:31

that point. So having moved into that, it's

10:33

what I love about these projects is witnessing

10:36

how important, I mean, I bang on about

10:38

casting directors a lot and a lot of

10:40

my mates take the piss because

10:42

I think I'm just trying to get work. Makes

10:44

you realize how important the casting

10:46

is and not just for on

10:48

screen, but the project itself. And

10:51

I think the key to things like that is

10:53

David and Daniel and whoever

10:56

else, because there's loads of people that are

10:58

creating. They have to

11:00

be all over everything, but they can

11:02

manage that when they have faith in

11:05

you being all over your

11:07

character and your themes and

11:09

whoever else, knowing that they're

11:11

all over it until they put people in these roles.

11:13

And then there's a little bit there that they don't

11:16

have to be quite as, like they're still over it,

11:18

but they don't have to be quite, like a lot

11:20

more can be put into that. Because they've put the

11:22

right person in that role who is going to go,

11:24

right, well, this is my job

11:26

now. All the nuances and intricacies are on

11:29

me now. Exactly. And that's when it becomes

11:31

a real collaborative effort, not

11:33

just in terms of actors

11:35

and writers and directors, not just in terms of

11:37

that circle, but across the entire crew when it

11:39

comes to, you know, when

11:42

action is called on a take,

11:44

that's not just action for the

11:46

actor, that's action for absolutely everyone.

11:49

Action for the camera, people on hair

11:51

and makeup, they're watching the monitors to see if everything's

11:53

okay with everything. It's across the whole,

11:55

and for a long time I was quite, I

11:57

don't know how you felt when you first started doing that.

12:00

But I was quite, I thought if a take

12:02

went wrong and it was my fault, it was at the end

12:04

of the world. And they were all judging

12:06

me and they thought I couldn't do it. And it

12:08

took me a long time to kind of get over

12:10

that until you realize that there are hundreds of elements

12:13

for every take. And any one of them could go

12:15

wrong. Yeah. That costume could go wrong, somebody's hair could

12:17

fall down, the camera could be in the wrong thing.

12:19

And when that happens, everyone just goes, okay, fine, we'll

12:21

have another go at it. Yeah, you don't hold that

12:23

anger if someone else messes up. Completely. So why are

12:26

you putting that on yourself? Yeah, completely. But all of

12:28

these moving parts have to be doing the right thing

12:30

at the right time. And if

12:33

that doesn't happen for whatever reason, it's fine because

12:35

you could mess up this time, it'd be somebody

12:37

else's turn next time. And that's

12:40

when you take a bit of the pressure off

12:42

yourself and just realize everybody is there to support

12:44

everyone. Yeah. But I think

12:46

there's a difference between

12:49

just being in front of the camera and behind the

12:51

camera. If you're facing that way and everybody else is

12:53

facing this way, it feels like

12:56

there's a separation there. And the sooner you realize

12:58

that there isn't at all, that's when you start

13:00

to become more of an organic process. It's good

13:02

for you in every way to realize that. Yeah.

13:05

Because it also stops you having the ego of

13:07

this is not about me. Exactly. It's realizing it

13:09

isn't all about you. Again, I think it's made

13:11

me a lot more or a lot less openly

13:14

critical if I don't enjoy a show or a film

13:16

or something. Because you realize there's so many things that

13:18

have to go right. Moose

13:20

Rockwonger, great writer and journalist

13:24

in one of his books about football, he

13:26

wrote about how England fans in particular really

13:29

failed to realize how much has to

13:31

go right to win a World Cup. Oh,

13:33

God. Yeah. Players, all the stuff

13:36

that has had to go right in the

13:38

previous league seasons for these players, then their

13:40

preparation, then this, then that. Yes. It's

13:42

like there's a sense of entitlement almost

13:44

of, oh, well, we should win. It's like, no,

13:46

it's so hard to win. Oh, yeah. So much

13:48

has to go right. And I think of that

13:51

when I am on film sets now that you're

13:53

like, wow, for this to turn out good. Yeah.

13:55

So many things have to go right. Oh, completely.

13:57

It's why I'm extra excited when

13:59

they do. And to be clear to

14:02

our listeners, if this podcast is us having

14:04

a catch up, it's not specifically about three

14:06

body problem, but I don't know

14:09

if I'm going to get anything else in because

14:11

I loved it and there's so much I want

14:13

to talk about. It's kind of an unintentional and

14:15

I want to kind of keep a spoiler free

14:17

as possible. But yeah, I think

14:19

you're completely right. And I was I was really lucky

14:22

because the first time I was ever on a set,

14:25

it was a Guy Ritchie film and

14:27

Charlie Hunnam was in the lead. It was

14:29

King Arthur and it was all on

14:31

a mountain top or up Snowdon with

14:33

a helicopter shot, all this kind of

14:36

thing. And they messed

14:38

up loads and just reset. And that made

14:40

me go, oh, so that's just okay. Like,

14:42

imagine if that had been me messing up

14:44

and it's okay, send the helicopter back. Okay,

14:46

all the horses back in position. But there

14:48

was points on that first thing where they were

14:50

like, and Guy Ritchie,

14:53

director was like, I don't know if

14:55

that dialogues working like something else. It

14:58

had that relaxed nature, which made me really

15:00

early on go. All right, if it goes

15:02

wrong, it goes wrong. That's the beauty of this versus

15:05

what I used to do on stage. Yeah, if it

15:07

goes wrong, there's no hiding from it. Yes. All

15:10

right. We've got a level of comfort here. Yeah. Yeah.

15:13

I remember I remember once I was on I was on game. It was

15:16

very early on in Game of Thrones. I think it might have been even

15:18

my first or second day on it. And on

15:20

that show, we had big resets because there

15:22

was lots of background and lots

15:24

of set dressing that needed to be exactly

15:26

right. So the resets could sometimes take, you

15:29

know, 15, 20 minutes between takes. I

15:32

remember being very nervous because I haven't, you know, I

15:34

think we spoken about before I didn't do any camera

15:36

stuff. I didn't quite know what I was doing for

15:38

the first part of that shooting

15:40

that season. And I remember walking

15:42

back to my place to start again about

15:44

reset. And I went back to my opening

15:47

mark. And I heard the

15:49

assistant director ask a background actor what

15:51

he was doing in the take. What

15:53

are you doing over there? And he was

15:55

messing about with his bucket and he went, Oh, I'm just

15:58

pretending to fill this bucket with water. a bit

16:00

like, oh, we're all just pretending to do stuff.

16:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can

16:04

talk about action in very kind of

16:06

highfalutin ways. Basically, he's pretending

16:08

to fill that bucket of water. I'm pretending

16:11

to be Samwell Tarley, I'm not really. I'm

16:13

pretending all of this stuff's really happened to

16:15

me. And as soon as you get a

16:17

sense of it, it's just a bunch of

16:19

people pretending to do stuff to entertain people.

16:22

He demystifies it. And you just a

16:24

bit like, well, the

16:26

stakes suddenly become a lot lower in

16:29

quite a liberating way when you

16:32

are mindful of something like

16:34

that. I love those moments

16:36

of realization. I had a

16:38

moment just realizing that what we're trying to do is

16:41

present as close to truth as possible. We want

16:43

you to believe what this is. It is lies,

16:45

because it's all written, but we want to get

16:47

as close to truth as possible from our own

16:49

connections. And it's what has made me obsessed with

16:52

all the roles I've played. I've never had a

16:54

stammer. And I've got a stammer, actually, in real

16:56

life, but I've never had a stammer. And

16:58

I had this real breakthrough, this thing of kind of

17:00

being not ashamed of my stammer, but knowing it's not

17:02

right for everything, like on stage and so on and

17:04

so forth, trying to get it under control and all

17:07

this kind of thing. I'm now obsessed with getting a

17:09

character that stammers, because it

17:11

is uncontrollable, and the roar

17:13

is truth. So it's for

17:15

truth constantly. I've got

17:17

a few scripts in development where I say at

17:19

the start, for the character that I'm playing, this

17:22

character has a stammer. It's not going to be

17:24

scripted. It's going to present naturally, because I've been

17:26

badly written scripts that have a stammer. It's like,

17:28

you need to stammer at this point. Like, that's

17:31

not where I would... That's not how it

17:33

works. So the excitement of that, I've

17:35

realized, oh, that could be something out of my control.

17:38

And then in a way, realizing all

17:40

the things out of your control, take the pressure

17:42

off a bit. As you say, there's so many

17:44

things out of your control in every take, not

17:47

just on every set, in every single take. So

17:49

I don't know, I find that really liberating.

17:51

It's very liberating. And talking about three-body problem,

17:54

it's probably the most liberated I've ever been

17:56

when it comes to acting, because I was

17:59

playing a character that was... written for me and

18:01

based on me. Beautiful. Which is a really

18:03

strange thing to be confronted with that. That's

18:05

so cool though man. That's such a leap

18:09

of faith and an affirmation

18:11

of your ability, who you are.

18:14

I'd like to think so, yeah. But it's just like,

18:16

you know, when you get a sense of... It's

18:19

the same as you're saying with

18:21

taking the control of your

18:24

thing and your world and your experience. I

18:26

then felt much more capable of adding,

18:29

you know, collaborating and things. Having an

18:32

opinion on this character more than I ever

18:34

would before. And it's kind of difficult to

18:37

argue with if a character is based on

18:39

you and you have an opinion. It's

18:41

kind of difficult for them to argue with it. So I sort

18:43

of... You

18:46

just bring everything that you have in

18:48

your entire life experience to this role,

18:50

no matter what the role is. I

18:52

often said that the acting,

18:55

no matter what the character is, is

18:57

basically doing a remix on yourself. Yeah,

18:59

completely. Because everybody's got everything within them.

19:01

So you just do a remix for

19:04

that side of myself that's not useful for this

19:07

character. I'll pull back and this character I'll push

19:09

forward a bit. So I think

19:11

all of that, all the best and most

19:14

truthful actors are truthful because they're

19:16

not guessing anything. Yeah. Even

19:19

if it's one second of their life where they've

19:22

been in so much of a rage that they

19:24

could kill somebody. Even if that's

19:26

just one second, they embed that

19:28

into their psyche and they can contact

19:30

it. Yeah, completely. And you can turn

19:33

these things up and make certain

19:35

things more of a deal breaker than they

19:37

would be in your day to day life.

19:39

So then that becomes your character's personality. It's

19:41

like, no, I don't waver on this. Whereas

19:44

in real life, I'd take it or leave it. Yeah,

19:46

totally. That's fascinating.

19:48

So have you found the huge promo

19:51

side of it? Because as we were saying, it has

19:53

been international. It has been the glasses

19:56

things I've seen at different like comic cons.

20:00

a cause, cause stuff like that. Yeah.

20:02

What's the balance of excitement and exhaustion

20:05

in that world?

20:07

How's that balance? It's

20:09

a, it's very finely balanced and various

20:11

points I've kind of slipped down the

20:13

other side of it. But I think,

20:16

I think the unique thing about this

20:18

show is the fact that very rarely

20:20

for various reasons, but very rarely does

20:22

a first season of something have such

20:24

a huge attention on it.

20:26

Yeah. We didn't really have that with Game

20:28

of Thrones because they were fans of the

20:30

book, but nobody had heard of David and

20:32

Dan before. It was HBO doing this

20:35

fantasy thing and everybody was like, Oh, let's see how

20:37

it gets on. And we didn't

20:39

even really get big on that show

20:41

until maybe season three or four. Yeah.

20:43

First two were kind of under the radar,

20:45

but this feels like because it's David and

20:47

Dan's next thing, there's an

20:50

enormous amount of expectation on it that they never

20:52

had before going into a new thing. And I

20:54

think, I think just getting a sense of that

20:56

where people are already have an opinion

20:58

about this before it's even out

21:01

there. Yeah. And, and, you know, people are very,

21:03

it was talked about for a while as kind

21:05

of unfilmable. It's been this year is a book

21:07

that are adored, but kind of talked about as

21:10

it's very complex. And yeah, exactly.

21:13

So, so, I mean,

21:15

we had that on Game of Thrones as

21:17

well in terms of book fans who were

21:19

very passionate and very kind of militant about

21:21

it. And if something's not right, they, they'll

21:24

kick off about it. They really will. But

21:26

I really did. But this is a whole

21:28

new level of expectation because, you know, how,

21:31

how, how is that followed? And the thing

21:33

about David and Dan, that you have to

21:35

admire in them is they've not taken it

21:37

easy on themselves when it comes to their

21:39

next thing. Yeah. In terms of the, you

21:41

know, the reaction to the end of Game

21:44

of Thrones and the various opinions that were

21:46

being thrown around. I think that

21:48

they could have easily been forgiven for taking something

21:50

a bit more straightforward or, you know, an adaptation

21:53

that isn't quite as, got so much

21:55

scope to it and isn't quite as

21:57

complex and quite as demanding, but they've

22:00

kind of picked an even more unfilmable

22:02

and more complex source material for this

22:04

thing. Yeah, truly. And as soon as

22:06

you do that, you're setting yourself up

22:08

for a fall in a way, but

22:10

I think that if they pulled it

22:12

off all the way along, it was

22:14

going to be like a

22:16

huge moment in recent TV history,

22:18

I think. They're a bit bigger,

22:21

aren't they? Yeah, completely. It's paid

22:23

off. How did you... I

22:25

mean, speaking of the kind of complexity

22:27

of it, how did you find that

22:29

for taking in the script and the

22:31

source material and all that? Because there's

22:33

a thing now that studio execs and

22:35

commissioners will talk about, and it's

22:38

about whether something

22:40

is second screen enough.

22:43

And it means... Like, I've

22:46

heard of stuff that they've been

22:48

asked to kind of simplify the script a bit,

22:50

because it'd be hard to follow if you're looking

22:52

at your phone. Yeah. So much... And

22:55

again, that kind of annoys me, but also I know I've

22:57

done it myself for shows, so I get it as well.

23:00

And Three Body Problem went in the

23:02

complete opposite direction for that. It was

23:04

not second... You didn't... They

23:06

didn't... You have to pay attention.

23:08

You can't be browsing on

23:10

your phone as you're watching, because it's so intricate.

23:13

So how was that to kind of take

23:16

in on your part? I was going to

23:18

say, did you just kind of accept that,

23:20

well, I don't need to understand all of

23:22

it, but then your character is a fucking

23:24

genius, essentially. So you kind of

23:26

had to go as deep as you can. That

23:29

was exactly the thing I tried to read up.

23:33

I think we all knew that... Kind

23:35

of pointless in a way, because you're never going to

23:37

know enough about it. No, you've got to go, I'm

23:39

going to become a genius

23:43

or some kind of scientist as

23:46

research. That was the key

23:48

into it for me. I read a book

23:51

about it, or tried it, basically just looking at it.

23:53

I looked at a book about it and read it.

23:56

And then I sort of realized that

23:58

it was useful. I think, oh, my

24:01

character Jack Rooney would understand this. And

24:03

that sort of lets you know how

24:06

would somebody who comes from a working

24:08

class background in Manchester like me, how would

24:11

a character from that background who could do

24:13

all this in his sleep, how would that

24:15

make him see the world? And

24:18

how would that make him feel to

24:20

be in really rarefied company where people

24:22

from that background don't normally get there?

24:24

Yeah. And have it almost

24:26

come easy. Have it almost come completely easy.

24:28

And what does that do to how he sees

24:31

the world? Goes around the world with

24:33

an incredible sense of confidence and a sense of

24:35

ease in himself. And the way

24:37

he interacts with the world, he's got a

24:39

very easy rapport with the world and people

24:41

around him because he's a fucking

24:43

genius, naturally instinctive genius.

24:47

And I think that even though I didn't

24:49

understand the physics side of it, it led

24:51

me to understanding his attitude

24:53

to life and himself really

24:55

clearly. I love the idea of you

24:58

getting the book and trying to read

25:00

it and then thinking about, man, how

25:02

good would it feel if I could

25:04

read and understand, to find the character,

25:06

even find your limitations to go, oh,

25:09

I'm ending the day going, oh, man, this is too

25:11

much for me. Imagine not.

25:13

Exactly that. It's as simple

25:15

as that. Yeah, exactly that. And imagine

25:18

you're defying all the odds in terms

25:20

of what... I mean, I think

25:22

that's kind of something that when we're talking

25:24

about truth and how you extract your own

25:26

truth, that was something from my truth about...

25:29

One of the things that we most have in common,

25:31

me, in this character is that we have come from

25:33

a background and ended up doing something that people

25:36

from our background don't really do. We've

25:39

kind of exceeded our expectations of

25:41

ourselves and we've exceeded the limitations

25:43

that a sort of prejudice society

25:45

would put on somebody from that

25:47

background. And we've both

25:49

kind of gone above and

25:51

beyond anything that we'd expect from our own lives

25:54

growing up. And that was a

25:56

really sort of interesting thing to contact.

25:58

But I think... The thing

26:00

about telly is, and movies, but

26:03

as opposed to novels, when it

26:05

comes to the science of

26:07

it and all that stuff,

26:09

making telly is a balancing act

26:11

between how much you've got to say

26:13

and how much time you've got to say it in.

26:18

There's a 30 episode, very faithful Chinese

26:20

adaptation of Three Bodies Project. It's 30

26:22

hours long and it goes into all

26:25

the detail of the book. We knew

26:27

that we didn't want to do that.

26:29

We wanted to make an eight episode,

26:31

very intensive blast through this source material

26:34

and make it fun and make it

26:36

accessible. Yeah. So all of that,

26:38

that's a very different demand on it in

26:40

terms of how much of the physics we

26:43

could put in and how much we could

26:45

get across to the audience. And just

26:47

to expediently whip through this story, some things

26:50

have to be removed and some things have

26:52

to be changed. But I think when

26:54

it comes to the genius of an adaptation like

26:56

this, it is in what you leave out and

26:59

what you think. We haven't got

27:01

time to go into that, but we'll allude

27:03

to it in this line of dialogue. I

27:05

think you also, I think they did really good

27:08

in kind of almost showing the audience that

27:11

they don't understand this. They're

27:13

just, these guys do. Do you know

27:15

what I mean? Kind of have a bit to go, well,

27:17

it's this, it's this. So we can kind of go, all

27:19

right, we'll spoon feed it to me then. Yeah, yeah.

27:21

Rather than just going straight there, it had elements of

27:23

that. You know, it's kind of,

27:25

you can kind of go, well, a physicist

27:27

might actually understand that, but I need it

27:29

spoon fed. I accept that. Yeah, completely. And

27:33

I think one thing about it, which is a great, which

27:35

is a huge sort of feather in its cap when it

27:37

comes to the audience that it was going after, in the

27:39

same way that Game of Thrones was going beyond

27:42

a fantasy audience and into the

27:44

fantasy, into the mainstream. Yeah, yeah.

27:46

We sort of, we sort of

27:48

wanted this to be more than

27:50

a sci-fi drama, because it is a sci-fi

27:53

drama, but it's also a love story as

27:55

a detective story, is a political story. Yeah.

27:57

And I think that, I think that because.

27:59

Because our show starts in the

28:02

real world, it's a heavy

28:04

sci-fi thing, but it doesn't start in space. It

28:06

doesn't start by something like June, which

28:09

is 10,000 years in the future or whatever,

28:11

because it starts in the real world as

28:13

we see out of our window and then

28:15

goes crazy. I think

28:17

that's an easier way in for people and

28:20

makes people who don't necessarily

28:22

aren't heavy sci-fi people, it

28:25

gives them something to latch onto, recognizable

28:27

characters that they can latch onto, and

28:29

then the stakes get massive, and then

28:31

the circumstances get huge for these characters.

28:34

It's a way of making people invest in it

28:36

slightly and taking them out of their comfort zone

28:38

by putting them immediately in their comfort zone and

28:40

then showing the characters going out of their comfort

28:43

zone. And that's exactly, I think there's something really

28:45

beautiful about the way the story is told. And

28:47

having not read the books, I assume it's from

28:49

the books, but it may be in the way

28:51

the adaptation has been taken on. But it kind

28:53

of, the way the VR stuff's

28:55

done and all this kind of thing, it

28:57

reminds us that there's loads in our life that

29:00

we don't understand, both accept. Our

29:02

mobile phones are a prime example. I

29:04

don't understand any of it, but I accept all, like

29:06

I use it every day, probably

29:08

more than I should do. I don't know how

29:11

any of it works, but we

29:13

accept it. And that's kind of the beauty of this,

29:15

there's loads of tech stuff that comes in

29:18

that you kind of go, it doesn't feel like

29:20

a crazy leap. You're going, yeah, all

29:22

right, that's, you can't do that now, but

29:24

yeah, okay, I can see. 10

29:27

years ago, I wouldn't have thought that we'd be able

29:29

to do half the things that we can do now,

29:31

so. Totally, but I think

29:33

what the show does great as well

29:35

is it draws parallels between the absolutely

29:38

huge and the very small. If

29:40

we're talking about an first contact

29:43

with life from another planet or whatever, and

29:45

yet you have a character in it who

29:47

is, not

29:50

too much of a spoiler, but you have a

29:52

character who's placed in a very personal sense of

29:54

mortality. It's not about the

29:56

Earth being destroyed by aliens, but why should

29:58

I care about the Earth? If been destroyed

30:00

by aliens in six months, if I've got

30:02

four months to live yeah yeah yeah exactly

30:04

what he saw. A ain't that bad thing

30:07

you say by the so most of the

30:09

we don't understand about our phones and to

30:11

we also don't just a my our own

30:13

heart keeps beating the name but you but

30:15

I just things that you just have to

30:17

accept a cat or are happening and Jesus

30:19

has to live your life as you possibly

30:21

can. And one thing as dray about another

30:23

thing that bothers us is a is that

30:25

it shows that is the circumstances A huge

30:28

He doesn't mean that the personal things go.

30:30

Away Yet He doesn't mean if people

30:32

stop fallen in love doesn't mean that

30:34

people stop saying funny things. He doesn't

30:36

mean that friendships don't still go see

30:38

those things. In fact, when it comes

30:40

to huge circumstances, those things or even

30:43

fund the microscope even more because you

30:45

know your and enough time. Yeah, exactly.

30:47

And I think I think that that

30:49

sense of humanity within within a story

30:51

be so it's scope to. I think

30:53

I think that's what separates the goods.

30:56

Good side fi some grapes isi yeah,

30:58

I completely agree. and that. The

31:00

mix of again i think just the way

31:02

he looks of mortality in general is the

31:04

pave the characters a man who have as

31:06

you say like a six months to leave

31:09

versus the ones who have been told that

31:11

these ideas are going to kill us all

31:13

in yeah however many hundred years yeah versus

31:15

the ones who could die in the again

31:17

that was the whole Game of Thrones thing

31:19

was anyone could are any my yeah that

31:22

really interesting to have the an oven. For.

31:24

Also have. Levels along the way.

31:27

yeah I saw you. Not to diners you're

31:29

going to die Yeah this point enjoy your.this

31:31

point this are wow That really changes the

31:33

way for next as yes and it will

31:36

when we consider the that you know. This

31:38

in our in however many billions he has,

31:40

his son's gonna burn out and a if

31:43

is not going to exist anymore. Still make

31:45

you stop worrying about stuff here because you

31:47

believe what I could try and a melee

31:49

alive forever but nobody is and anyone is

31:52

shaking their heads. The prime example is the

31:54

state the planet Sydney yeah is for generations

31:56

with kind of gun is going to be

31:58

the next generations problematic. To become hours

32:01

were. Ah, Yes

32:03

I know can we resolve this neck of

32:05

the game is. but since thing and so

32:07

he says you can easily say hours I

32:09

know I still care about the next generation

32:11

is a lot but historically people have kind

32:14

of just go on other sites is worth

32:16

yes or light. Yeah having my code sign

32:18

of go away bros it might be awesome

32:20

people to don't believe asshole which is which

32:22

seems that seems like a we may as

32:24

well believe it just in case yes and

32:27

find his hims in about a distance. I

32:29

sort of asia already stated yeah if a

32:31

if is. Insisting that you've been denying it

32:33

happens. It actually happened imaginative just to

32:35

make a point use yeah the world

32:37

to And I actually had. This is

32:39

our wow I'm grateful that yes exactly

32:41

know but it's not that hard. That's

32:43

who I'm in. A One thing I

32:45

wanted to talk about when you were

32:47

saying about how we just a month

32:49

for sell off for coming Now. Since

32:52

I've been to his Game of Thrones was

32:54

one of the last a psycho babble series

32:56

that people are tuning in every way, gear

32:58

and in. the next one and then the

33:00

next one says this is kind of the

33:02

first big thing you would have done that

33:05

you've said three years of a building up

33:07

for it and then it comes out and

33:09

is all this excitement with an it is

33:11

kind of onto the next some place nazis

33:13

kind of or what do we bins next

33:15

year since I it's still haven't experienced the

33:17

other where it was yeah Monday morning or

33:20

she's human and aware of where he works.

33:22

At times as everyone's talking about it

33:24

as it was one guy with friends

33:26

again was on last exam in bus

33:28

such anger over any spoilers associate. know

33:30

at least give us this amount of

33:33

time to watch and or that or

33:35

is this is a different city from

33:37

or guru of wife sings a consumer

33:39

yeah completely and and you do find

33:41

the. Weather it balances our a don't

33:44

know book. You. Do burn incredibly

33:46

brightly for know as long? Yeah!

33:48

and the conversations very very intense

33:50

with something that has spent a

33:52

me. I was talking to my

33:54

friend Rose Cartwright a row episodes

33:57

to just a great says him

33:59

Amazing office. Though am your right that

34:01

does. He succeeded. Be about the bus about

34:03

Aussi day in and then she's she's moving.

34:05

Very very happy to have around. Very grateful

34:08

to have around and we were talking about

34:10

because been right on it since day one.

34:12

Yeah David dancers heard about the project for

34:15

God's has the products and Twenty nine T

34:17

while I was just come out and and

34:19

it out the disproportionate famous your how long

34:21

it takes to make an incident mates and

34:24

was told him out for couple of weeks

34:26

and was a sense does it feel so

34:28

I'm over already. Were gonna into

34:30

that we we feel it made me feel

34:33

that we rarely kind of tests and take

34:35

of it but as that that this it

34:37

is it's a model of how your the

34:39

insatiable appetite for tally Netflix have gone you.

34:41

That was when when we came out it

34:43

was replay and now it's baby reindeer. yeah

34:45

yeah that was just on Netflix on it.

34:48

Doesn't. A toy television engender of my head

34:50

in a moment as I really wanna watch

34:53

baby right? They've now got three things I'm

34:55

game fruits is Ripley fool and shotguns. and

34:57

I don't want to start a false yeah

34:59

I need to finish from one of them.

35:02

Yep, a fourth can start, start the next

35:04

on. because again, ups. I hate the fact

35:06

that yeah, I'm really enjoying something yeah and

35:08

then. I said oh so because of

35:10

spoilers you know we have to talk about

35:12

it so so you really enjoy it privately.

35:14

yeah and then you move on to the

35:17

next thing is to how with a tree

35:19

for was yeah was fair to say it's

35:21

completely and because of make a sound and

35:23

because of that. If you want to

35:25

watch because been things burn incredibly brightly for

35:27

not very long and you've got but com

35:29

a few weeks and and people saw him

35:31

as of and else if you want to

35:33

be part of the conversation you faster latch

35:36

on to the at the time. And

35:39

I think that's one of the glorious

35:41

things about consumers. anything. Build. In

35:43

communities around talking about and it I

35:45

have seen in a social media does

35:47

have it's sale in the one thing

35:50

one great thing about is if you

35:52

have a certain emotional responses leave Watts

35:54

you can share that with other people

35:56

and then it becomes like a conversation.

35:59

But now. Become tonight with something like

36:01

Game of Thrones or recently Succession which is

36:03

which is their final season games in I

36:06

watched episode Against the first thing I have

36:08

a stayed up late to watch it had

36:10

to remind them on and you had quite

36:12

a long time to join the conversation here.

36:15

Now if you've not joined it within a

36:17

couple of the conversation stale exact is a

36:19

bit like it's a bit like we've been

36:21

a watchman. Big Brother first came out yeah

36:24

and literally it was on every night and

36:26

as you didn't see the night before was

36:28

he was completely out the conversation. Human be

36:31

talking about what happened on Tuesday on

36:33

Thursday because that conversation So everyone and

36:35

and the arcs of those correct, yes,

36:37

the fastest Like no one would write

36:39

a lot that you start of. would

36:41

you love an occurrence of midweek? You

36:43

hate them Yet And the way to

36:45

back him up? Resist make a special

36:47

reality tv down completely so everybody's trying

36:49

to. Everybody's trying to be part of

36:51

whatever the current com stage of the

36:53

conversation eyes. And because of that it

36:55

means that A means that people know

36:57

that they've got a shelf life to

36:59

have that conversation. Before the way of a

37:01

show that talking about is replaced is and

37:03

I think that that that's to good singing

37:06

away because it shows that people even in

37:08

you know people talk about used to watch

37:10

telly on the telly or from films at

37:12

the cinema. Watch them on your phone is

37:15

is coming courage in that people are still

37:17

what's in it not necessarily in a vacuum

37:19

but they also signs in English as a

37:21

way that they engage with other people about

37:24

exchange that not talking about it with people

37:26

at work necessarily open in the living room.

37:28

They're going on Twitter Salt about. his but

37:30

i just means that you got very finite

37:32

amount of time to do that in in

37:35

for your just talking about something that nobody

37:37

else he's talking about him after sunday night

37:39

and be next to get something box get

37:41

on my who wants to talk about it

37:43

success is a prime example of that yes

37:45

if i could have moxie the day came

37:47

out yeah i'd have my brother my my

37:50

mustache or theorems been lots of you what

37:52

she really needs her life or a good

37:54

thankfully i've got my to really good at

37:56

not given any kind of sport is yeah

37:58

my sights always to be one or your

38:00

mind's just an army, then you're prepared. So, but

38:02

yeah, there would be that pressure to get it

38:05

watched to get it. Yeah. But I think that's

38:07

lovely. Yeah. I think, I think, I think that

38:09

that's a really, that's a

38:11

really important function that all entertainment

38:14

plays. And so it's

38:16

not just how going to street,

38:18

going from episodic weekly to streaming, what

38:20

that's like to experience. It's all the

38:22

peripheral stuff around that that changes the

38:25

entire dynamic of the culture when

38:27

it's like the peripheral

38:29

conversations around it, and how those

38:31

conversations are had, everything gets changed as

38:33

soon as the format changes. Yeah. Yeah.

38:36

It's bizarre. How's this project been for

38:38

you and for your, your

38:40

mental health, your professional mental health? Cause

38:42

I remember when we were talking in

38:44

2016, it was kind of, there was

38:48

excitement and nerves, because as you've

38:50

touched upon before, like Game of Thrones was kind of

38:52

the first thing you'd done. As you just said, you

38:54

didn't know about screen acting from Hell 3

39:08

Theory. So it's kind of a big thing. And you've done a

39:11

load of other things I want to touch upon as well. But

39:13

this feels like the first thing to really make you be able

39:16

to confidently go, nah, this is,

39:18

this is another huge show. This

39:21

is because of me. It's not just I happened to

39:23

get this role on this show that no one knew

39:25

would be the biggest show of all time. Yeah. I've

39:27

got this role because of me. They wrote me in

39:30

mind kind of thing. Has that, has that been good

39:32

for you as for your, for yourself? Definitely has. Yeah.

39:35

Especially when, you know, you think

39:37

about Game of Thrones was we shot the first

39:39

season of it, 2010 and you

39:41

know, in, in, in the past few weeks

39:43

when, when people have come up and, and,

39:45

and, and recognize me and, and spoken to

39:47

me about it, I still expect it to

39:49

be Game of Thrones. Yeah. Because that's why

39:51

that's basically what people have talked to me

39:53

about for all those years. But

39:55

now if they're in their twenties, it's

39:57

more likely to be three body problem.

40:00

now because it's out and

40:02

it's having its moment and everybody's watching

40:04

it. And I do find that when people talk

40:06

to me about Game of Thrones, I'm still very

40:08

flattered and I'm still very proud of it

40:10

and the way I have that interaction hasn't

40:12

really changed. But when it's something else, when

40:15

it's anything else, it just means an awful

40:17

lot more in the moment. It's

40:20

me with a song of ours called, Kudth

40:23

Vash or Waykill. Oh yeah, absolutely. It's like that's the one

40:25

that will still come up a lot, but anytime any other...

40:27

and it's lovely still, anytime in here because for

40:29

me, there's songs I'm far more proud of.

40:31

So anytime one of them comes up, it means

40:34

that bit more. And again, it's still nice and

40:36

I completely can see how it's not like you're

40:38

saying, oh, they're banging on about Game of Thrones.

40:40

That's still amazing. But I can completely connect. It

40:42

hits more when it's like, oh, that one. Yeah.

40:45

Oh, thank you. It just feels slightly more

40:47

like... It just feels

40:50

like the less obvious thing to talk about. Even

40:52

though, you know, Three of Buddy Problems are

40:54

a big shell, lots of people are watching it.

40:57

It just feels like I'm just a completely

40:59

different person as well. And getting to

41:01

show a side of my personality that's

41:03

very different to the character that I'm

41:06

most widely known for, it

41:09

gives me just... Because

41:11

if you are a certain type

41:14

of character or your character is a certain type

41:16

of persona, if that's all you're known

41:18

as, people will approach you like that. And

41:21

they will think, oh, he's quite nervy or he's

41:23

quite nice or he's quite meek. And

41:26

that's kind of how you're perceived by

41:28

the world. But if you play a

41:30

character that isn't like that, that is confident

41:32

and all the things he said comfortable with

41:35

himself and very self assured, it just kind

41:37

of rounds you out a bit more. You

41:39

get to be you now. Yeah. You

41:41

get to be you and people are recognizing you as you

41:43

rather than that one character. I remember... This

41:46

is going to sound like a weird one, but I remember Will

41:48

Smith saying one of the best things he ever did was

41:51

getting his character in the Fresh Prince

41:53

called Will. Yeah. And

41:55

then it transferred over. Whereas Carlton.

41:58

Oh, yeah. Yeah. of Carton. That's

42:00

not his name, that's not he's done other stuff and

42:02

that's all you think of him as because of Carton

42:04

and Will was like he's adamant that obviously he's done

42:07

a lot of different things but that was one of

42:09

the things that made him able

42:11

to be recognisable outside of that

42:13

because that's the same thing.

42:15

Whereas I said you think of Carton as Carton.

42:18

It's as simple as that regardless of what else

42:20

he's done. Carton is Carton.

42:22

I was saying that recently that maybe

42:25

when we touched upon this the last time

42:27

we spoke about there are very few actors

42:29

that can get by without brackets

42:32

after their name in

42:34

terms of nobody would say Robert De

42:36

Niro brackets Godfather part two. Yeah, yeah,

42:38

yeah. Good fella. Taxi driver.

42:40

All that stuff, yeah. But I think there are

42:42

very few people that can kind of get there.

42:45

But even if you do one other thing that

42:47

a larger number of people want to talk to you

42:49

about it does feel that you've

42:51

sort of cast something off. And I

42:54

think what's happened now is this

42:56

is an interesting thing that I found that Dan

42:58

Weiss and David Benioff, they said that they

43:01

wrote this character for me because they knew

43:03

as we were filming Game of

43:05

Thrones that I was nothing like that character at all.

43:07

Yeah. Dan said that

43:11

the real me is almost diametrically opposed to the

43:13

characters that I was playing. So

43:16

they wrote me this so I can play a character that's

43:18

a bit closer to myself and show different sides of myself

43:20

which is a very generous thing for them to do. Beautiful.

43:23

It feels a bit now like people think that

43:26

Sam was really me and

43:28

that this is a transformative acting

43:31

role. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because like

43:33

people only have people. That was

43:35

the first introduction. Exactly. So

43:37

people think, oh, he's really playing, he's

43:39

really like adopting this character of this

43:41

quite signed a kind of confident, smart

43:44

ass, kind of a little bit dickish. But

43:47

people don't realize that I'm doing sort

43:49

of less acting than ever. Yeah. And

43:52

it's a new thing. Yeah. It's like

43:54

they can see the work going on to it

43:56

where instead of putting stuff on, I've been taking

43:59

stuff. away. I love it. Me

44:01

and Tim Key have a bit of a

44:04

game where I think of shows that he

44:07

wasn't in but that you believe it

44:09

if someone's ready was like the easy

44:11

one is is ghosts.

44:13

Yeah, Tim Key's probably

44:15

ghost. Yeah. I've kind of now transferred that

44:17

game over to three body

44:19

problem because of the

44:22

VR world or alternative reality

44:25

bits were just awash with

44:27

amazing iconic British comedy

44:29

actors. Oh, absolutely. Mark Aces, Rees, Shears, Smith,

44:31

Phil Wang. Yeah. But then I'm sitting again, was

44:33

Kevin Elden in there? I think Kevin Elden was

44:35

in there. Was Mark Heepp in there? Mark Heepp

44:38

probably was. Was Mark Heepp? Was Loli

44:40

Adafopi in there? I'd imagine so. But

44:42

again, it's now I can now

44:44

remember. You give me almost any

44:46

comedy actor, British comedy actor, I go, yeah,

44:49

I think they were in the China bit.

44:51

Wasn't they? In that bit? It's

44:53

thrown off its own weird little game. Yeah.

44:55

How cool was that to kind of obviously

44:57

I want to talk about the core kind

45:00

of team because it feels like

45:02

you made a beautiful family there. But how

45:04

cool was that that I think they

45:06

did really good in just casting these

45:09

Yeah, in these small roles, these really

45:11

distinct, iconic kind of characters. Yeah, well,

45:13

I think I think that mainly came

45:15

from our showrunner Alex Wu, who did

45:18

True Blood is his big kind

45:20

of success before this. He was a

45:22

amazing show. And he's an amazing mind

45:25

as well. And he's in the

45:27

same way that you do get some

45:29

American people, especially in LA, who are

45:31

just British comedy obsessives. Yeah, you're

45:34

amazed at the things that they that

45:36

they know about, because they kind of

45:38

absorb it in the way that people

45:40

here who are into like, Japanese comic

45:43

art, yeah, they obsess about that, because

45:45

it's something out of your culture, you

45:47

just immerse yourself in. So

45:50

they were there all my heroes

45:52

as well. Yeah, because that's very

45:54

much my my kind of sensibility

45:56

is is, you know, the game

45:58

getting to be on a set

46:00

doing scenes with Mark and Reese. Yeah. It's

46:03

like in Steve Pemberton's place, it's a bit

46:05

like the Beatles saying Ringo's

46:08

off. Yeah. Do you want to

46:10

come in and just step in and just get into

46:12

see a sense of their, it was like I'd won

46:14

a competition because their shorthand between each

46:16

other, they've known each other their whole lives and

46:18

just getting to listen to the way they interact

46:20

and the way they make each other laugh. It

46:23

was literally like being a sort of fly

46:25

on the wall, being a fly on

46:27

the exact wall that I'd want to be a fly on. But

46:31

like Phil was awesome. I

46:33

love working with Phil. Yeah. But

46:35

the big one for me in the show, which

46:37

people kind of, it's kind of

46:39

slipped under the radar that Adrian Edmondson's in it. Yeah.

46:42

And he is my ultimate. And the key role, if the only

46:44

reason he wasn't on the list was because it wasn't kind of

46:47

a cameo bit. It was a key thing. Yeah,

46:49

he wasn't quite as stunty as

46:52

the rest of them. Yeah. But

46:54

he just came on and I wasn't in scenes

46:56

with him, but I met him and I sort

46:58

of got to speak to

47:00

him about basically Rick, him and Rick were the reason

47:03

I wanted to be an actor in the first place.

47:05

Cause I saw them, you know, when I was very

47:07

young and just laugh, remember laughing so much. And I

47:09

love to make other people feel like this. It's

47:12

a good sense for him to be in a show that I'm on.

47:14

And I get to say that kind of stuff too. It was just

47:16

awesome. But that's the thing about

47:18

having a show that is this, it's

47:22

got so much scope to it. You

47:24

can have Adrian Edmondson in a show

47:26

with Asa Gonzalez. Yeah.

47:30

And Benedict Wong and Joe Van Odeppo.

47:32

And Benedict Wong should be in there

47:34

on, because again, him in 15 stories,

47:36

is one of my just favorite

47:38

comedy series ever. And he's done so

47:40

much dramatic stuff since. It

47:43

gets overlooked, but I'd put him in there with, I said,

47:45

you're Mark Heaps, you're Kevin Elvin. Oh yeah, completely. I

47:48

did a BBC series with Aide Edmondson.

47:51

Never met him, never had a scene with him. But

47:53

that was the name I mentioned any time I was

47:55

telling anyone about the show. Yeah. It's

47:58

got Aide Edmondson in it. Yeah, completely. So

48:00

many amazing people in it. Yeah.

48:03

And he's just wonderful. And,

48:05

you know, people, because all my friends back home, they

48:08

were so obsessed with bottom and the young ones like I was. And

48:11

they say, like, what was he like? Was he

48:13

kind of funny in real life? I was like,

48:15

not really, but at the same time, didn't try

48:17

to be. And I found that really refreshing that

48:20

he's very, very comfortable in himself. And he's built

48:22

back to that thing that we were talking about,

48:24

about like, he has this thing where he filmed

48:26

the young ones for however many weeks it was,

48:29

like a very short amount of his life, but it's

48:31

the thing that's constantly being talked about. Yeah. He's

48:34

escaped that now. And when he meets

48:36

people, he doesn't feel the need to

48:38

meet their expectations of him. Yeah. He

48:41

knows that he's just a kind of

48:43

very studious, very intelligent, quiet man. Yeah.

48:46

Who just lives his own life. And I think

48:48

that that, that, that, that seeing his comfort

48:50

with the, with the world is kind of

48:52

inspiring. Yeah, that's beautiful. Somebody to be so

48:54

closely connected to one thing and

48:56

then just know, well, no, I don't want to, I want to,

48:58

I want to, I want to be in things like

49:00

three body problem now. There's nothing you can do

49:03

to stop me. And that can be one of

49:05

the biggest inspirations is seeing people that are

49:07

on such a pedestal for you. Yeah. Playing

49:10

smaller parts and things. Yeah. A

49:12

few times where I'm like, oh, wow,

49:14

I've worked with actors who are quite

49:17

new in a small part who feel quite

49:19

indignant about how small their role is and

49:21

how insignificant, how low that, and down on

49:23

a, a cool sheet. And then you

49:25

look across at an aid, some of someone who's

49:28

there and they've not got, they're excited

49:30

about the role. They're proud to be there. Right. And

49:34

that's a massive inspiration. Anytime you're sitting there going off,

49:36

because I'm not one of the key people I've had

49:38

to wait on set for so long. And we'll move

49:40

this, move that. And like, you're looking

49:42

over at, yeah, it really puts you, it

49:45

puts the right perspective on it. It's like, it's

49:47

like, it's like, I don't know if you've seen

49:49

it, it's like Jesse Plemmons in civil war. Yeah.

49:51

Yeah. Have you seen it? Yeah. No

49:54

spoilers, but he's not in that film as much as the

49:56

trailer might. So just being in it. Yeah.

50:00

a bit like if you're Jesse Plemons

50:02

found watch the Kylo. Yeah, he was

50:04

a pretty much. He's

50:07

amazing. He's amazing. I came out. I came out

50:09

of the cinema with my friend and he's I

50:12

think I think the phrase he used would have

50:14

been Plemons fish. It's

50:17

a completely Plemons fish. Then again,

50:19

it's a bit like he, there was this part in that

50:21

in that film and they presented it to him. They thought

50:23

he'd be the best person in the world to play it

50:25

and he was. He just does

50:27

it and his influence and his

50:29

presence permeates that entire film.

50:31

I love that. I love when kind

50:33

of auteurs like Alex

50:36

Garland and you put Scorsese and people like

50:38

that in there. They know that they can

50:40

ask almost anyone to play any size role.

50:42

Well, I'm going to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

50:44

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like

50:47

you're going to go. Yeah. Yeah. I'm up for it. Yeah. Regardless

50:49

of what it is famously

50:51

Nolan apologizing

50:54

to Florence about the size of the role. I'm

50:56

going to be like, mate, I'm honored to be

50:58

on your set. Yeah. It's insane because she'd blown

51:00

up in between the kind of yeah,

51:03

approaching and all that. And I think David

51:05

and Dan, especially coming after, you know, when

51:07

they were, when they were sort of trying

51:09

to cast who they wanted to cast in

51:11

three body problem, the

51:13

luxury of having their name now attracts,

51:16

you know, people to it. But industry wise

51:18

as well, like they're high on my list

51:21

of people I want to work with just

51:23

because of hearing you and

51:25

Benny talk about credits aside,

51:27

I genuinely think when people are nice

51:29

people and a joy to work with

51:31

it resonates. I think it's a combination

51:33

of those two because there are also

51:36

huge people. Yeah. People aren't keen to

51:38

work with because yeah, it might make

51:40

a lot of money, but yeah, exactly.

51:42

Whereas I think they've got that perfect

51:44

combination of everyone you talk

51:47

to. Yeah. Just speaks so

51:49

highly of them as showrunners. Yeah.

51:52

And see, and see in a whole, the

51:54

thrill for, the thrill for me and Liam

51:57

Cunningham and Conner pill and all the other.

52:00

Game of Thrones actors. I think there's five of us

52:02

that were in the... See if any of your listeners

52:05

can name the five. Yeah, I love that.

52:07

Great test. To see a

52:09

whole new cast of people fall in love with them. That

52:12

was a very intensive decade but now people

52:15

who've never met them before, actors that

52:17

have come from all over the world

52:20

again to be part of this thing,

52:22

you hear them say like, those guys

52:24

are really awesome aren't they? Yeah, they

52:26

are awesome. But seeing the way they

52:28

coalesce a cast and crew together. Something

52:31

very special about that

52:33

kind of quiet, authoritative

52:36

book, very approachable leadership.

52:39

It's an amazing study. It resonates and

52:42

it goes on and on. Again, the beautiful

52:44

thing is there's going to be people

52:47

from the Game of Thrones family who

52:49

now go on and make

52:51

sure their sets are like that and their working

52:54

environments are right. So I just love how that

52:56

stuff goes on and on in the right way.

52:59

Speaking of working with people and little

53:01

games, I've got a bit of a

53:04

challenge for you

53:06

because the whole what's next is

53:08

always an impossible question with actors

53:10

because either you don't know or

53:13

you can't talk about it. It

53:15

occurred to me, you've started to

53:17

make a habit of working with

53:19

award-winning gorgeous icons and people worth

53:21

the surname Wilson. So J

53:24

Lo and Owen Wilson in a

53:27

rom-com. Halle Berry and Patrick

53:29

Wilson in sci-fi. So I've been

53:32

trying to think, so I'm thinking you need

53:35

to work with maybe Salma Hayek and Luke

53:37

Wilson would make

53:39

sense. Eva Mendes and Rain Wilson. But

53:41

then mixing it out Brad Pitt and Rebel

53:44

Wilson, George Clooney and

53:46

Ruth Wilson. We're not going to say

53:48

even before that. Tom Hopper. He's gorgeous

53:50

isn't he? Yeah,

53:58

yeah, yeah, absolutely. I did

54:00

Merlin with Tom Hopper and Richard Wilson. There you go.

54:03

It's a gorgeous icon and a

54:05

Wilson. It seems to be the

54:08

way it goes. But just looking

54:10

at the genres you've

54:13

played, kind of thing, from

54:15

sci-fi to rom-com to period.

54:19

Is there anything that you'd like to do that

54:22

is on your list? Funnily enough,

54:24

the things that I haven't done,

54:26

I mean, I was talking to

54:28

my team about this recently because

54:30

I've just written a screenplay, which is kind

54:32

of doing the sort of rounds at the

54:34

moment and we're getting feedback on it. And

54:36

it's very much quite gritty

54:39

and quite real life

54:41

and quite unglamorous and

54:44

straightforward and real

54:46

life as it's lived from the background

54:48

that I came from. And

54:52

when I was doing it, I just thought I've

54:54

never done anything like that. Yeah, that's really good.

54:56

I tend to do these quite heightened things, whether

54:58

they're sci-fi, whether they're a fantasy thing,

55:01

or even like something like Marry Me,

55:03

which was a rom-com set in the

55:05

world of elite pop music. That's a

55:07

very heightened environment to be in. And

55:11

so the thing that, the sort

55:14

of sensibility that I have in terms of

55:16

that brutal, left-leaning, compassionate,

55:18

working class, regional

55:21

filmmaking or TV making,

55:24

something that's very much in my

55:26

heart and something that is my

55:29

artistic sensibility. And you can tell that

55:31

because the first thing I ever wrote was

55:33

about that. Just something that

55:35

I've never really made contact with in

55:37

my professional acting life. Yeah,

55:39

it's interesting, isn't it? Because again, often, I don't

55:42

know, you'd think almost the closest

55:44

to home is the first thing you'll get

55:46

cast in because it's so familiar. But yeah,

55:48

it's been the exact opposite so far. It's

55:50

been the exact opposite. It's just

55:52

bringing it sort of back down to

55:55

earth and if I was gonna, did you see

55:57

the thing about Carolina Hern

55:59

over? of a Christmas. It's

56:01

amazing. In terms of the

56:04

way she took elements that

56:06

be so routinely

56:09

overlooked by

56:11

people who make Telly or people

56:13

who commission Telly. So

56:15

nothing happens. There's like four or five

56:17

people talking and she knows exactly who

56:19

each of those characters are and how

56:21

they interact. And all the

56:23

world is there. There's nothing more interesting than

56:25

people. And I just think that everything that

56:28

I've done, humanity plays a

56:30

big part in it, but it has

56:32

this umbrella concept over the top of

56:34

it. Or there's a certain intellectual leap

56:36

that the audience have to take. But

56:39

just in terms of studies of people

56:41

and really letting the acting shine and

56:43

really letting the personalities shine. There's something

56:45

that's kind of a bit

56:48

of an itch that I need to scratch, I think. Just

56:51

doing something Shane Meadowsy or something

56:53

Ken Lochi or something like that.

56:56

It's all very part of my palette,

56:58

but it's not been explored

57:01

yet. No, that's beautiful. It sounds

57:04

exciting. It makes me think of when

57:07

Paddy Considine decides

57:09

to go, I'm going to give directing

57:11

a try. He did Tyrannosaur, one of

57:13

the best things. And Journeyman as well,

57:16

which is just, and again, it's like,

57:18

well, yeah, it's world that

57:20

he knows and that he can connect

57:22

to in that way. So how much

57:24

is writing playing a part in your

57:26

mindset of what is ahead and what

57:29

is the

57:31

future? Are you focused on what's

57:33

the next acting job or are you focused on, right,

57:35

I've written the

57:37

next action job I want this to

57:39

be ideally. It's an interesting thing

57:41

about the writing element of it because I wrote

57:43

it over a long time. I can't remember

57:46

if it was deliberate or not, but I finished it. And I just

57:49

thought, oh, there's no part for me in this. And

57:52

I wasn't going to crowbar one in and I just thought

57:54

it's a completely different muscle and I want it to be

57:56

separate. I kind of don't want it to be separate. I

58:00

want the right to facilitate acting. I'm

58:02

kind of happy for it to be a different thing. And

58:05

I think I'm not confident enough as

58:08

a writer to commit to it seriously

58:10

as a career. I

58:12

think because I'm something else means that

58:14

I'm more comfortable writing rather

58:16

than staking everything on it. As

58:21

a handy sideline away from

58:23

acting and just being a bit

58:25

more creative and not necessarily relying on the phone to

58:27

ring but being the originator of an idea. That

58:30

was the point of it. I think

58:32

it's amazing for sanity and anything anyone

58:34

in this industry in particular can find

58:38

to keep you busy. And I think

58:40

specifically creatively. It is that thing

58:42

that you've no control over when

58:45

the phone is entering. And

58:47

when you're, I've definitely had periods where

58:49

I've had scripts in development where I'll

58:51

suddenly realize, oh, I've not had an

58:53

audition in four months. And I hadn't

58:55

noticed because I'm so in this world.

58:57

Whereas if I wasn't, I'd be going,

59:01

I haven't had any auditions in for

59:03

a bit is looking at all the projects that are

59:05

coming up and all this kind of thing. Whereas, yeah.

59:08

And just doing it for your own

59:10

sense of fulfillment. And

59:12

basically, this is the

59:14

first script that I've finished that's in decent

59:17

shape and that would be kind of willing

59:19

to show people. But me and my friend

59:21

tried to write a film a couple of

59:23

years ago. And the problem with that was

59:25

we told people about it way too early.

59:27

People were phoning up and saying, if you

59:29

got, you know, the development wing of my

59:31

agent rang up and we're like, if you got any

59:33

ideas. And we'd been talking about it for a couple of

59:35

weeks. And then we told them, they were a bit like,

59:37

right, okay, great. We'll get you a meeting. We want you

59:39

to write a pitch. We'll get you

59:41

a meeting with these news where you can pitch it.

59:44

And ultimately, because we hadn't written anything before, we kind

59:46

of crumbled because we didn't know how it worked. We

59:48

dragged on and on. And it

59:50

sort of fell apart. So this time, the

59:52

idea of telling people about

59:54

it too early and crumbling again was

59:56

just too humiliating to think of. So

59:58

I wrote it completely. in secret,

1:00:00

delivered it finished, writing

1:00:03

it just for the sake of writing it and then

1:00:05

when I came to finish it I thought it's pretty

1:00:07

good this I'm going to show people it but that's

1:00:09

like all of the same

1:00:11

we were talking about before the difference between writing

1:00:13

when there's no pressure on and

1:00:15

the difference between writing when there's pressure on creating

1:00:17

when there's pressure on completely different attitudes. Again I

1:00:20

think something else comes out though in the art

1:00:22

as well if you're writing for the sake of

1:00:24

writing and for the sake of the art and

1:00:26

then it's the industry sometimes things have to be

1:00:28

tweaked and changed and whatever else but I think

1:00:31

there's a beauty and purity in that and I

1:00:33

saw someone on Instagram

1:00:36

posted today and again

1:00:38

it's I guess it's about

1:00:40

time it's about when you because this industry is one

1:00:42

where you do need to ask people fucking permission to

1:00:44

do this yeah yeah get things signed off

1:00:46

but it just said don't talk

1:00:49

about your moves and moves announce your arrival

1:00:51

yeah yeah I really I really like that

1:00:53

kind of thing yeah so being able to

1:00:55

go I've got a script rather

1:00:57

than I've got a script idea and it's going to be this and

1:00:59

I'm going to do that and that go there you

1:01:02

go I've got a script now who do we talk

1:01:04

to what do we need to put together for a

1:01:06

pitch document yeah how do you have to have the

1:01:08

meetings I think completely it's a really good kind of

1:01:10

way of doing things because again it also it wipes

1:01:12

out because again you could have an idea and then

1:01:14

as I said you could fuck it up because it

1:01:17

gets too good a response yeah

1:01:19

and then you've got all this doubt and imposter

1:01:21

syndrome and panic of like oh no everyone's everyone's

1:01:24

interested I've not even written it I don't know if I

1:01:26

can yeah totally and that can be the thing that means

1:01:28

you can't exactly whereas if you've just done it then yeah

1:01:30

it's what it is it might not be right for

1:01:33

everyone but here's here's what it is so but

1:01:35

at least at least you're proving to yourself as

1:01:37

much as anything that you can you can have

1:01:39

an idea and execute it yeah you can see

1:01:41

it through and it may make you

1:01:43

you know you know there's

1:01:45

that thing about some people haven't everybody

1:01:47

has ideas but some people

1:01:50

most people probably have ideas and then just forget

1:01:52

about them yeah because they've got to get the

1:01:54

bus or you've got to do but there's other

1:01:57

people who just won't let an idea go yeah

1:01:59

and then the people who get

1:02:01

stuff done. Exactly. I've definitely since I've

1:02:03

known writers and then again, since I've

1:02:05

started writing, I've had numerous mates say,

1:02:07

I've got this great idea. Like, would

1:02:09

your mate like to write it?

1:02:11

No, they've got their own idea. Yeah, totally. Everyone's got

1:02:13

a great idea. The difference is, as you say, the

1:02:16

ones who do it and the ones who don't. But

1:02:18

you just get it on paper yourself. Exactly. And if

1:02:21

you do it once, it just gives

1:02:23

you the confidence to do it. My biggest regret was

1:02:25

how long it took me to write my

1:02:28

first script. Yeah, I felt like a fucking idiot. Yeah,

1:02:30

I put it off and put it off and put

1:02:32

it off. Yeah. And then when I wrote it and

1:02:34

I was really pleased with it, I was like, Oh,

1:02:36

man, yeah, I could have been doing this for years.

1:02:38

I've been telling myself, Oh, I need to learn more

1:02:40

in this area. And there are things that you need

1:02:42

to learn. But yeah, the things that my scripts have

1:02:44

got hyped for is because they've got my voice. So

1:02:46

I've learned the right bits,

1:02:48

but it's not the perfect structure

1:02:51

every time it is going to have a little

1:02:53

bit more. Yeah. About it. And that's fine. That's

1:02:55

the that's the character that will get not

1:02:57

worked out, but any lacking structure will come

1:03:00

in in the process. Oh, yeah.

1:03:02

Completely. And I think that's why I

1:03:04

think that if you are going to do it, you should

1:03:06

definitely do it on your own first. Yeah. Because I think

1:03:08

I think when I think when I tried to write in

1:03:10

collaboration with other people, if you

1:03:13

don't know what your own process is,

1:03:15

it's impossible to create a process between

1:03:17

you that coalesces properly. Yeah. And since

1:03:19

then, since I've been able to

1:03:21

get this this screenplay finished in some form,

1:03:23

I know what my process is now in

1:03:26

terms of I'd never I'd never

1:03:28

go to the computer with a blank screen

1:03:31

because I think it's intimidating. I basically wrote

1:03:33

the entire script out in freehand. Amazing. Because

1:03:35

that doesn't feel as intimidating. Yeah. Yeah. It

1:03:37

feels much more casual and the stakes of

1:03:39

it feel lower. Yeah. But if you if

1:03:42

you start with a blank screen and you're

1:03:44

not quite sure what you're going to write

1:03:46

or even how you're going to start, it

1:03:49

just seems like a void that you're that

1:03:51

you're peering into. I'm similar. My version of

1:03:53

that was always stop early. Right. Yeah. The

1:03:55

next day. I know where I'm starting. If

1:03:57

you know what I mean, then get to the end of my

1:03:59

idea. stop a chunk before. So, and again,

1:04:01

I get a lot of insomnia. So I'm going to be

1:04:04

going off on it anywhere overnight. More will come, but at

1:04:06

least I know in the morning, I know

1:04:08

which scene I have to finish up or

1:04:10

which scene I'm starting with. So again, always

1:04:12

got that kind of, you

1:04:15

know, where you're starting rather than you sit down.

1:04:17

And again, it might be you write that one

1:04:19

scene, it takes you 10 minutes and then you're

1:04:21

blank, but at least you've got the ball rolling.

1:04:23

You've achieved something in that session. And I think

1:04:25

that comes from going from one

1:04:28

discipline that you're proficient and comfortable in

1:04:31

into a different one. Yeah. Because

1:04:33

you hope to

1:04:36

be proficient and comfortable.

1:04:38

But for yourself as

1:04:40

a, you know, the

1:04:42

spoken word stuff and

1:04:45

the poetry stuff and me from acting, you

1:04:47

know that you can rely on that. Yeah. Because

1:04:49

you know what your method is and

1:04:52

your processes for that. And it becomes like a thing

1:04:54

that you can trust yourself to be able to pull

1:04:56

off. Yeah. When you go into something else, it all

1:04:58

feels much more mysterious. Exactly. And

1:05:00

it can be so scary.

1:05:02

I got a message the other day

1:05:04

from, from papa essay ado, who I

1:05:07

think are the best actors in the

1:05:09

fucking world. And it came at

1:05:11

just the right point because I've got a few script

1:05:13

projects that I've been hitting walls on and you get

1:05:15

a bit this hard and done. You have those moments

1:05:17

of this is the best scripts ever. And then you

1:05:19

have those moments of what's the point? Yeah. And he

1:05:21

sent me a message kind of out the blue because

1:05:23

he'd come to some of my spoken word shows back

1:05:25

in the day and stuff like that. And it was

1:05:28

just, I won't go into the details, but it was

1:05:30

just a really nice message kind of saying that your

1:05:33

voice is important. Yeah. Keep pushing through. It

1:05:35

was like, Oh yeah,

1:05:37

it is nice to have someone you respect.

1:05:39

And again, he probably won't even remember sending

1:05:41

it, but it came at just the right

1:05:44

point. Yeah. Make me go. No, yeah. Fuck

1:05:46

this. I need to, yeah, to get, get

1:05:48

remotivated on this and see your own value.

1:05:50

Cause again, you're completely right because you're starting

1:05:53

in a new area. Yeah. You think, and

1:05:55

it's a working class thing. You

1:05:57

think you're right down the bottom and you

1:05:59

have no value. But everything that you've learned

1:06:01

on every set on every script you've read

1:06:04

you've worked with some of the best script

1:06:06

writers Yeah in the history of TV Everything

1:06:09

you've learned there has Gone

1:06:12

into you. Yeah taken parts from that. So you're

1:06:14

not starting right down at the bottom You're starting

1:06:16

somewhere else and it might not be at the

1:06:18

top, but yeah somewhere in the middle But it's

1:06:20

easy for us to think oh

1:06:22

well the script stuffs a new thing and what

1:06:24

you've learned of characters in acting That's all really

1:06:26

important for going into scripts and

1:06:29

for writing. So yeah, it's easy to

1:06:31

forget that these are really transferable Experiences

1:06:34

I wouldn't even say skills. I'd say

1:06:37

the experiences are really yeah a transferable.

1:06:39

So yeah, yeah Having

1:06:41

different, you know, if you do have a

1:06:43

voice that's worth Listening to you

1:06:45

know, if you do have a little

1:06:48

bit of belief in yourself that can transcend I

1:06:51

started to write a thing recently about

1:06:53

a medical thing that I've had recently

1:06:55

and When I started to write

1:06:57

it I didn't know if it was gonna be a

1:06:59

book or it was gonna be an article or it

1:07:01

was gonna be a you know A treatment for a

1:07:03

film or whatever and as it's gone

1:07:06

on it's turned into I think what the best

1:07:08

the best thing It could be like a one-man

1:07:10

show. Yeah. Yeah, but that I

1:07:13

would never have sat down and then I'm gonna

1:07:15

write a one-man show About this the idea it

1:07:17

just becomes quite obvious If

1:07:19

you if you persist with an idea It's

1:07:21

like the idea is looking for a hole to drop into

1:07:23

yeah And he's dropped into the

1:07:26

one-man show hole and then that's an exciting thing,

1:07:28

you know what you're right before That's beautiful to

1:07:30

hear man, and we'll talk a

1:07:32

little bit when we wrap but

1:07:34

I really believe in Projects

1:07:37

existing in the world that they're meant to

1:07:39

exist if you know, I mean that it's

1:07:41

yeah You could have mentioned that idea to

1:07:43

someone professionally and they could have pushed you

1:07:45

know This has to be a TV series.

1:07:47

Yeah, it has to be a podcast or

1:07:49

a book or whatever. Yeah And

1:07:52

you might have been swayed on that and gone. All right.

1:07:54

Well, that's the way to go But to find its natural

1:07:56

place and go no, this is what is yeah, it's meant

1:07:58

to be easy example I can say is this podcast, but

1:08:00

when it started and when it got big, I'd have

1:08:02

people asking if I'm going to do it as a

1:08:04

TV show or if I'm going to get a six

1:08:06

music show and I'm like, no, this

1:08:08

is the thing. This is the

1:08:11

thing. It's not, it's not to try and get to something

1:08:13

else. It's its own thing. And I think there's

1:08:15

a beauty in that when you're creating

1:08:17

and it's hard when you're in the industry and

1:08:19

been in the industry as long as you have,

1:08:21

because you do start to think in the market

1:08:23

and why things are and where this slots and

1:08:25

what's best and what, what Netflix

1:08:27

are looking for in this period and what's

1:08:29

happening with cinema and so on and so

1:08:31

forth. And it's can be so important to

1:08:34

shut all that off and go, how about

1:08:36

the art? That sounds so presentive. I know,

1:08:38

but what does the art need? Yeah. What's

1:08:40

important to this piece of art rather than

1:08:43

how's the market in, how's this and what's

1:08:45

the runtime have to be. Exactly right. Because

1:08:47

if you take something like, if you take

1:08:49

something like Fleabag or Baby Reindeer, they were

1:08:51

both one person shows that they did for

1:08:53

a long time. And then if they would

1:08:56

have pitched them as shows or if they

1:08:58

were, if they were TV shows from the

1:09:00

first, you know, origination of

1:09:02

the idea, they may not be what they've

1:09:04

become. They certainly wouldn't be what they've become

1:09:07

because the chewing gums and everyone, a great

1:09:11

example in terms of you spend that

1:09:13

much time with an idea. If you

1:09:15

do it, perform it every night for

1:09:17

years sometimes, that you really dig down

1:09:19

into what your characters are and what

1:09:21

story you're trying to tell rather than,

1:09:23

oh, if you

1:09:26

can write it quickly and shoot it quickly, we can

1:09:28

have it on by the end of the year. Exactly.

1:09:30

So that's not, that's not, that expedience is

1:09:32

not always the, you know, you ring the

1:09:34

most out of it. I completely agree. And

1:09:36

again, it's, it's beautiful to you. But I'll

1:09:38

wrap things up here because I think we

1:09:41

could ramble on for hours and hours on

1:09:43

end, but I don't want to take up

1:09:45

too much of your time. It's been

1:09:47

a pleasure as ever, man. It's mad that we've done

1:09:49

three of these and we've still got loads to talk

1:09:52

about. Absolutely. I definitely have, have people

1:09:54

every now and then who hit me up. And I think you've been

1:09:56

on a few times. I don't know if we're going to have anything

1:09:58

to say, but this was, to be clear, me acting. hitting

1:10:00

you up saying, dude, I need to

1:10:02

talk to you about the three body

1:10:04

problem. Come back. It's been a pleasure

1:10:06

and I'm excited for all that's ahead

1:10:08

in whatever shape or form it may

1:10:11

take. Thank you, mate. Thanks for having

1:10:13

me on. This always flies by so

1:10:15

quick and doesn't feel the

1:10:17

great thing about it is you can forget that

1:10:19

you're even what you're doing sometimes. Like you were

1:10:21

saying, this is a podcast format, but if you

1:10:23

just make it feel like a chat, you forget

1:10:25

about it all. The whole point of it is

1:10:27

why I don't film them still. Yeah. So this

1:10:29

day as film podcasts have gone through the roof,

1:10:31

I could be wrong, but I still feel if

1:10:33

we had a camera there, it would be a

1:10:35

little bit more performative. Even when I'm doing them

1:10:38

over zoom, if I was

1:10:40

recording that, you act different.

1:10:42

Whereas these feel

1:10:44

more. Yeah. The performativeness

1:10:47

can just come from self-consciousness most of the

1:10:49

time. Yeah. 100%. And then that makes you

1:10:53

feel more scrutinized and shows. This is once again,

1:10:55

you found the perfect format here for what you want

1:10:57

to do. And you've been a pleasure and we'll do

1:10:59

it again soon. I'm sure

1:11:01

I'd love to make absolutely. You've

1:11:19

been listening to Scroobie's

1:11:21

Pips Distraction Pieces. There

1:11:24

we go. That was John Bradley. I hope you enjoyed that

1:11:26

and I hope you agree. It was the

1:11:28

best conversation that me and John have had. And the

1:11:30

other two have been classics. Make no, I'll

1:11:33

make no bones about it. The other two have been

1:11:35

classics. So we're delighted to chat

1:11:37

with John and I'll be back next week.

1:11:39

I'll be back next week to talk to

1:11:41

you lovely, lovely people until then stay safe

1:11:44

and stay Here's

1:12:01

the show that we recommend. Welcome

1:12:07

back to 2 Judgey Girls. I'm Mary from the Bay. And

1:12:10

I'm Courtney from LA. TJG is the

1:12:12

podcast where we spill all the tea

1:12:14

on your favorite reality TV shows, celebrity

1:12:16

gossip and everything in between. We're

1:12:19

here to bring you our unfiltered opinions, hilarious

1:12:21

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1:12:24

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1:12:30

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We break down the drama, dissect

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But that's not all. We're not here to just

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