2:00

And I have to say,

2:02

all of us strangers is just extremely

2:04

gut-wrenching, but really poignant and

2:07

romantic. Andrew and Paul play

2:09

neighbors who become lovers. It's

2:12

also a sort of peon

2:14

to family and loss and

2:16

regret and the conversations we wish we could

2:18

have had with our loved ones. So it's

2:21

a really, I recommend it, but we're

2:23

in Kleenex. Yeah, I've

2:25

heard a few people have recommended it to

2:27

me, but also said bring Kleenex. Also,

2:31

Andrew just finished a one-man

2:33

version of Vanya in the

2:35

West End, where he played

2:38

every part, just the physical

2:40

exertion that that must have

2:42

taken every night, I can't even

2:44

imagine. But it was fun to talk to him about

2:46

that as well. Yeah, I'm so sad

2:48

I missed it. It was closing just as I

2:51

was arriving in London. Well, you can see

2:53

the movie instead. So tell me,

2:55

what did he wear to come to

2:57

see to the Vogue offices? Oh, he

2:59

looked so fabulous. He kind of looked

3:01

ripply-esque. He was wearing this like cashmere

3:04

button-down polo cardigan and white suede loafers.

3:06

Trami, you know how I feel about loafers. White

3:09

suede loafers in New York in the

3:11

way we're... They were car

3:13

shoes. He was going car to car,

3:16

door to door. I mean, clearly not

3:18

stomping the streets of downtown. No, not

3:20

at all. But you know what? They

3:23

looked good. They were lubotaz. Well,

3:25

I'm excited. It's a conversation. What

3:27

do you like to do in New York

3:30

when you visit? Walk.

3:37

Okay. Not in those. Not in

3:39

these shoes. No, yeah,

3:41

I like to walk around. I'm a big walker in

3:43

London, actually, as well. I live pretty centrally in London.

3:45

And so, yeah, that's how you get to see a

3:47

city. I mean, I would normally go to the theatre,

3:49

but where I'm scheduled like a

3:51

young pop star. A child

3:53

pop star being ferried around.

3:56

What were your big events? I saw you went to

3:58

the Gotham Award. Yes, we went to the Gotham Award. Lords:

4:00

A beautiful. Prada Prada

4:02

situation. We're bit of a proud of

4:05

situation. I really love. Clothes,

4:07

Earl of Fum color so it

4:09

was just it's It's a strange

4:11

thing, am I having to wear

4:13

lots of. Different. Types of

4:15

clothes and were them only once

4:17

said to him as as we

4:19

have to look ass in relation

4:21

to has i love color and

4:23

I'm I really embrace the fact

4:25

that now men are allowed to

4:27

wear color. Because. It

4:30

does get little bit boring. swing back

4:32

either way I think. And dad and

4:34

one I'm not a big fan of

4:36

a tie. Him: don't lovely to

4:38

tie. The son. Is. The right strategy

4:40

because I mean a points for come back.

4:42

I would say it now as far as

4:44

around yeah and when when you were one

4:46

time up feeling all subversive the like your

4:48

sources are freaking people are like I like

4:50

a little tiny tiny. don't mind because I'm

4:53

an older gentleman, I don't want us to

4:55

memos. Big huge in Missouri wide wide as

4:57

yeah. That's not a good look for me

4:59

when I have a tiny tiny yes have

5:01

the right color which I live hold yeah

5:03

because I had like a spread collar once

5:05

in a narrow one of those are banned

5:07

of outsiders ties and someone told me it

5:09

was all wrong. Right and I had

5:11

saw was stuck with that you need a

5:13

little dreams encounter on a tiny tiny. every

5:15

old old lady close like I were. I

5:18

always know what I don't like. Id have

5:20

had such a perfect slide a do on

5:22

it. I mean I love the film and

5:24

I'm gonna talk shit about him but I

5:27

thought I thought maybe we could start I

5:29

have of have a theory I wanna run

5:31

by we have men are for yes yes

5:33

and I I think that wanted to ban

5:36

was just a specific the supply. So excited

5:38

that that one is best equipped. To

5:40

handle. Attention. And.

5:42

Same when one is little over

5:44

the and what What I found? I

5:47

discovered you when you were in the

5:49

second season. A flea bag. Are you

5:51

handling Santa? It's it's really about mean.

5:54

There is really about the I'm

5:56

I'm a employs to enjoy. Same anymore

5:58

It. Well

6:01

after this, this airs, I

6:03

think you should hire yourself a whole scene. Alright,

6:09

the run through will be back in just a moment. I'm

6:15

Alex Schwartz. I'm

6:23

Nomi Frey. I'm

6:25

Vincent Cunningham, and this is Critics at

6:28

Large, a New Yorker podcast for the

6:30

culturally curious. Each week we're going

6:32

to talk about a big idea that's showing up across

6:34

the cultural landscape, and we'll trace it through all the

6:36

mediums we love. Books, movies, television,

6:39

music, art. And I always want to

6:41

talk about celebrity gossip too, of course.

6:44

What are you guys excited to cover in the

6:46

next few months? There's a new translation of the

6:48

Iliad that's coming up, Emily Wilson. I'm really excited

6:50

to see whether I can read

6:52

the Iliad again, whether I'm that literate. I mean,

6:54

the gurry of out. I can't

6:56

wait to hear Adam Driver go again at

6:59

an Italian accent in Michael Mann's Ferrari. He

7:01

can't stop. I mean, and what?

7:03

I can't wait. Molto Bené. We

7:09

hope you'll join us for new episodes

7:11

each Thursday. Follow Critics at Large today,

7:13

wherever you get podcasts. You

7:15

really don't want to miss this. Don't.

7:17

Don't miss this. Don't miss it. See you

7:20

soon. And

7:25

we're back. You

7:28

became a bit of a phenomenon with that

7:30

second season of Fleet Bag, and

7:33

I just wonder what that was like. I never felt when I was not well

7:35

known that I was failing in a sense. And

7:39

now that I'm a bit more well known, I don't feel

7:42

like I've sort of made it in that sense. And so

7:44

I was really, really obsessed with that. I

7:49

was really interested in getting to become a good

7:51

actor. exhausting.

10:00

We did it about five years ago and I literally

10:02

got over it about last

10:04

week. No, no, that's really hard and so

10:06

after you do that, everything

10:09

seems more

10:12

possible. Having said that, Vanya was

10:14

a crazy idea

10:17

to do this version of it.

10:19

It's one man on

10:21

his own, me. Speaking of

10:24

in the third person.

10:26

It was two hours

10:28

and it was an

10:30

awful lot. In fact,

10:32

it kind of got

10:34

punched me afterwards. I got very physically

10:37

in. After you do eight

10:39

shows a week on a

10:42

show like that, afterwards, because everything

10:45

else in your life has to slightly go

10:48

on the back burner. Because you're like, well

10:50

I've got two shows today, I can't pay

10:52

that bill, I can't do that. You

10:54

know, or emotionally go to places because

10:56

you have to keep yourself

10:59

for the audiences. And then so when it's

11:01

over, your serotonin

11:03

levels are just incredibly low and physically because

11:05

the body, as they say, keeps the score

11:08

and your body's like, okay,

11:10

I'm done. Is there like

11:12

a, almost like a physical fitness thing you have to

11:14

do to be able to keep up

11:16

with that a little bit? Yeah,

11:18

yeah, I think you have to.

11:20

It's extraordinary. What's the Vanya workout

11:22

regimen? Exactly, exactly. It's crying in

11:24

the morning. A lot of beats.

11:27

Exactly. Thinking about Moscow. No, you

11:29

do. I think, I mean physical exercise something that

11:32

I find

11:34

very helpful anyway. But it's really weird

11:36

when you're in a play, you carry the play. You know,

11:38

you're only doing it for, you're only at the theater for

11:40

maybe three or four hours in the evening. But

11:43

you carry around with you all day. I used

11:46

to wake up in the morning and think, oh my

11:48

god, I can't do that again. I can't. But it

11:50

was really brilliant, you know. I really believe, I don't

11:52

believe in like high art and low art really. I

11:54

really, I loved it. Chekhov is incredibly funny and I

11:56

really wanted it to be funny and I really wanted

11:59

it for the audience. like

14:00

a marriage between his

14:02

story and mine. We shared it

14:04

in his childhood home. I read that, yeah. I

14:07

know, that's amazing. And you know, in this suburban

14:09

home. And so when somebody sort of throws down

14:11

the gauntlet like that to say, I'm bringing, you

14:14

know, I can't imagine what it would be like to go back

14:16

to my childhood home when I was nine or ten years old.

14:18

Just the, even the smell of the place,

14:20

of the aspect or the perspective looking out into the

14:22

garden, you know, and to

14:25

have this crew kind of come in and create the story

14:27

is so wonderful to me. So that just

14:29

made me just feel like, well, if he's offering

14:32

that up as well as this beautiful personal

14:34

tender script, I've got to bring my own

14:36

stuff. So you create something and you sort

14:39

of intermingle around experiences. The big

14:41

challenge of it, to be honest, was to

14:43

how do you go back to a childish

14:45

place where you get the sense that this

14:47

man has sort of regressed into childhood as

14:49

he's talking to his parents who in the

14:51

film are played by Jamie Bell and Claire

14:54

Foy who are younger than me. And

14:58

we meet them at a time when they, he

15:00

kind of conjures them back. We talk to them as

15:03

they were when he lost them. Right, he was 11th and

15:05

they were maybe in their 30s. So you're

15:08

almost enacting the boy. Exactly. Because they died

15:10

in a car crash when he was young.

15:13

But I have to try not to be too specific

15:15

about it and how he has to sort of let

15:17

them know about his own life as it's come and

15:19

how he's an adult now. And so

15:21

he has to tell them about himself and he has to tell

15:24

them about the world as it is now and he has to

15:26

spend time with them. And really just

15:28

what I think the film is about

15:31

is about somebody who is in kind of

15:33

purgatory on their own and needs to be seen

15:35

and loved by his parents in order for him

15:37

to love. Yeah. It's about, you

15:39

know, to love and to be loved.

15:41

That's what we all want to do.

15:43

So it's incredibly tender and very, I

15:46

think it's incredibly beautiful and a very sort

15:48

of audacious, imaginative idea. It's

15:51

kind of a lonesome movie. It's about loneliness

15:53

to a degree. And there's so much like

15:55

TikTok is like fueled by loneliness right now.

15:58

These sort of trends people love and

16:00

act. their loneliness on TikTok and it

16:02

goes viral. Really? Yes, yes. And it

16:04

seemed like a Mitzki song suddenly becomes

16:06

top of the charts because everyone is

16:09

putting this sad sounding song on TikTok

16:11

and it's popping. Anyway, so it seemed

16:13

very of the moment. And it's great.

16:15

And I imagine everyone would like to

16:17

imagine themselves having a little affair with

16:19

Paul Muskell too. Oh, absolutely. I also

16:21

want to know, I have dreams of

16:23

what do Andrew and Paul do during

16:25

filming. What was your hanging out off

16:28

time? Did you cook together?

16:31

Did we cook together? Wow. I

16:34

don't know. When I talked to all the ladies who did

16:36

The Lost Daughter, they had such great stories about

16:38

when they were filming together. They all cooked and

16:41

had rosé every night. Olivia Colman got, she was

16:43

like, Haribo or not? She was like, Olivia Colman. Yeah,

16:45

that sounds, yeah. We did

16:47

not cook together. We

16:50

had Haribo tankastic. We

16:53

probably drank together. During

16:56

the filming, we had not a lot of time to film it.

17:00

We were filming in West London. But

17:04

I absolutely adore Paul. He's

17:07

a really hard worker. I

17:09

love that in actors because

17:12

somebody who really cares and wants to be there.

17:14

And he saw something in that character, which is

17:16

a supporting character. And

17:18

he's interested in acting and getting it

17:21

right. And sometimes when you're talking about

17:23

these films, you never actually get

17:26

the chance to say how hard

17:29

these people like Paul work. So

17:33

what did we do? We, well,

17:35

it's more in the, we've just

17:37

been starting our

17:40

promotional duties for the movie. Oh,

17:42

yeah, you're doing your sort of a duo press tour? Yes,

17:45

well, we have been doing that. Yeah, so we've got a

17:47

really good. I love his outfits for press tours. I have

17:49

to say. Yeah, he's really stylish

17:51

boy. Oh, such a stylish boy. Yeah,

17:55

but yeah, we've got. Are you

17:57

guys coordinating your outfits? We

17:59

have. Oh, weirdly. Are your stylists

18:01

in touch? I don't know if that's the thing. I think

18:03

we just have a sort of weird, similar... I don't know

18:05

what the hell's going on. So witchy power? Witchy

18:08

power. We're telepathically linked, but yeah,

18:11

no, we've gone sort of slightly feral in

18:14

our promotional tour. Everybody's like,

18:17

okay, calm down, calm down, boys. I was talking

18:19

to an actress who was at Vogue just yesterday,

18:21

actually, and she has a big role

18:23

coming out in 2024, and she talked about this thing

18:25

she did to get the part, which is a chemistry

18:27

read. Now, I've heard about this before. Have

18:30

you ever done a chemistry read, and did you

18:32

have to do one with Paul? No. Thank

18:35

God. It strikes me as the most

18:37

awkward sounding thing I can imagine. Well, they shouldn't call it

18:39

a chemistry read. What it means is

18:41

an audition, and they're trying to

18:43

see if the two of you have chemistry, and

18:45

if you don't get it, it's like, oh, wow.

18:47

A lack of chemistry. Yeah, exactly. Chemistry-free read. So

18:49

that's what it is. It's like, do you

18:52

have a sort of sexy vibe between you? I

18:57

think it's slightly old

18:59

school, but I have done

19:01

them in the past. I've

19:04

done the thing where you go in, and you've

19:06

already been cast, and then they bring in

19:08

five people to read opposite you. It's

19:12

very informative, actually. And actually, ultimately, what it

19:14

led me to believe was that nobody really

19:16

cares what you think of the script. When

19:19

you come in and go, what do you think of the script? Oh,

19:21

they only ask you that. Yeah, that's what you think of the

19:23

script. You're not going to say, it doesn't

19:26

go, it wasn't really for me.

19:28

Although, I remember one time an actor did say that, they're

19:30

like, I don't know if you like it, and then you're

19:32

just like, what are you

19:34

doing here? It's sort of arrogant, but

19:37

it's like sometimes when you're doing press,

19:39

it's an unusual sometimes

19:42

thing because you say, well, what first drew

19:44

you to the script? No one would ever

19:46

say, well, I had serious doubts, or

19:48

I had a mortgage to pay. People

19:51

don't really, I don't

19:53

know if you find that like talking to

19:55

people, but do you find it

19:57

like having to ask? the

20:00

same questions do you find that oppressive

20:03

sometimes? Well absolutely and I

20:06

think one just doesn't do it. I think

20:08

the inexperienced people do it. Well it's a

20:10

difficult thing, it's an unusual thing because sometimes

20:12

the publication that you're talking to is very

20:15

respectful but then there's like other tributary articles

20:17

and you take something is taken out and

20:19

then that becomes something else or something else

20:22

and then dreaded daily mail

20:24

spin-off. Right, right exactly and

20:26

then you have and then you

20:28

know there's a thing that happens

20:30

on every interview that you do. You

20:33

know mercifully I don't have that kind

20:35

of scrutiny on me but definitely

20:38

things that you think oh that's completely

20:40

or something that becomes a headline that

20:42

you think that was just literally a

20:44

passing thing. A really brilliant actress

20:47

said to me once that you should in an

20:49

interview dare to be bland which

20:52

is probably not. I'm not terrible about it.

20:56

You're terrible about it for you guys but I

20:58

think you know it's like it's

21:00

a tricky thing because obviously you want to

21:02

have a nice time and you want to

21:04

it's an interchange isn't it? But

21:07

yeah it's sometimes just

21:09

the it's the the seedier elements of things that

21:11

you have to just sort of protect yourself against.

21:14

I want to know what culture

21:16

Andrew is consuming this season. Like

21:18

and actually I heard a formative

21:21

moment for you as a young man was reading

21:23

a Barbra Streisand biography.

21:25

Come on! Yes! And

21:27

then it just the 900 page told

21:30

just came out. I gotta book for you. Have

21:33

you read it? No I have not yes I have not

21:36

yet done. Because she does the audiobook and it is quite

21:38

a treat. I mean forget Hamlet. Forget Hamlet

21:41

doing that audiobook. I was listening our

21:44

culture writer is a long time barber fan and

21:46

she's been playing it for everyone

21:48

and it is just a real barber delight.

21:50

It's a little bit of a cliche but I do love

21:53

a bit of Streisand. I mean look

21:55

the talent is there. Why am I defending this?

21:57

You shouldn't be. Actually

26:00

yeah yeah I just I he I suppose.

26:02

what would you wanna go back to Dublin

26:04

as of a because my family are there.

26:07

So go there when I can. but I'm

26:09

I suppose I just go out for dinner

26:11

and to seal the people that I am

26:13

I so I love. It

26:17

was really fun and I love the

26:20

sound like thanks guys really for. Around

26:29

five? Happy now? Yes!

26:35

They're unsure about as a production of

26:38

container and can't to sell is produced

26:40

as uses Latin Bird, Selsey, Daniel and

26:42

Alice Com Burn engineered by Jake Loomis

26:44

and Gates well Death and Not Spend

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as such and. He.

26:49

Soon as. He

26:58

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