Happy Sad Confused - Kenneth Branagh

Episode Date: November 9, 2017

Kenneth Branagh has been nominated for an Academy Award in 5 different categories, acted and directed in critical favorites and blockbusters alike, gotten his hands and feet enshrined just this month in Hollywood, and is generally considered THE foremost interpreter of Shakespeare's work on the stage and screen today. He also somehow remains humble and grounded and hungry for new challenges, all of which comes up this episode of "Happy Sad Confused".  Branagh makes a return visit to the podcast to discuss his 70mm production of the Agatha Christie classic "Murder on the Orient Express". The actor/director also discusses what it was like to achieve fame and acclaim in his 20s, how his upbringing kept him humble, his thoughts on "Thor: Ragnarok", and why he'll always return to "Hamlet" throughout his career.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today on Happy Say I Confused Kenneth Brana on murder and mustaches. Hi guys, I'm Josh Horowitz. Sammy, is the plural of mustache mustaches? It doesn't sound right, as I say it. Mustaches. Mustachios. Mustache. Mustach eye?

Yeah, because like, oh, they all have nice mustaches. It feels like it should be one of those words where the plural is the same as the singular. Like mustache should also refer to multiple mustaches. They have nice mustache. No, no, no. That doesn't make sense. We're going to settle this with Ken Brana. No, we're not. Hi, guys. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Say, and Fused. My little podcast where I talk to big time movie stars and directors. And Kenneth Brana certainly fits that bill. He's both. He's an amazing actor. An amazing director. His new film is Murder on the Oriented Express.

Murder. That's the way you have to say. Mad. And it stars him as Hercule Poirotro. One more time? Hurtiguerre Plo. So, yeah. Alongside the likes of Johnny Depp, Nelopee Cruz, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gadd.

It's an all-star cast. Dame Judy Dentch. I'm sorry, Dame Judy Dent. Derek Jacoby, okay? Leslie Odom Jr. Okay, I can't. We're listening to entire cast right here. We only have so much time.

I can't believe you didn't say Dame Judy Dent first. Yeah, well, I failed you. She's not coming on anymore. She's off the list. Sammy, that's Sammy's voice. Hey. We also have Lurie. working in the background, a long-time, happy, set, confused listeners will know that Joel.

I am one of the same of the long-time listening and myself. I am Joel. Joel, what happens? You were on the podcast for a while, and then you weren't. I wasn't. I wasn't. Was that voluntary, or did I fire you? I can't remember now.

Honestly, it's all the same difference. But I think it just goes back to before we were rolling when you were saying, you were thanking me for making your career. and then you said you got really jealous that I was starting to overshadow you. So, yeah, I think you could take back the microphone. You did fire me, yeah. It's so thrilling to have Joel back for this cameo on this episode. It really is. If everyone could see what Joel's face looked like right now, it's so appropriate

because he's got a crazy beard and mustache happening. What's the plan for this? What's the plan for this besides repelling the female gender? The plan for my face? Yeah, just like what's the whole? long-term plan. Are you going to have this the rest of your life? Much like our work together. It wasn't really well thought about. It just happened. And I went with it. You should become Amish. You should, I mean, there are always so many things you can do with that.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right. I guess it is. It's Amish or nothing or bust. So, yeah. A lot of people, a lot of sex have. It's a hard words pronounce. Religious sex. It's hot beards. It's ironic that Joel decided to grow this out after he moved out of New York away from, you know, the Brooklyn hipsters where he could have fit in well, and now he's... Because he wants everyone in L.A. to know that he's a New Yorker. He's like, oh, I'm not really from here. L.A.'s stupid. I'm really from New York. I live in L.A. for the listeners at home. Are you driving now?

No. That's so weird. What? That I don't drive? Yeah. This is also someone, yeah. But I don't live in Los Angeles. So if you move to Los Angeles, would you learn how to drive? No. Okay.

As the only adult here that can drive, I would like to say you're both idiots. I can drive. I choose not to drive. Okay. I don't own a car. I can drive. How often does that pose a problem for you? Never.

No, never. Well, you can leave his house and he just grows his beard. So obviously, it's not going great. You know, let's talk about film. Okay. Let's talk about Kenneth Brana. What's your favorite Kenneth Brana? Gilderoy Lockhart.

That's not a movie, that's a character. Well, yes, he was Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secret, and he was so good. He was delightful. He was always delightful. He was so charming, so handsome. I've always had a great affection for all his work from Henry V,

Hamlet, much to do about nothing. Wild Wall the West. Yes. Okay, this is why Joel's not welcome here. But that's a fun film. It's okay. Talking about the canon, the fact that he can pull that off. Right. He went

for it. He certainly I mean that one. No irony. He really is. It's a fun performance. Also, it's a great movie. You got Will Smith. You have a great song that he You really lost steam very quickly. Kevin Klein, though, is pretty good.

You've got Kevin Klein. You've got Selma Hayek. If you want to go back into the archives of Happy Second Fuse, as I recall, Kevin Klein had some good stories about Wild Wild West and how the turning point when he realized that they were in trouble in that one. What was it?

You have to listen for yourself. Just because you're a co-host of the intro doesn't mean you get any of a special dispensation. But I'm also excited the new Thor movie comes out and he directed the first one. There's symmetry. Last week's guest, by the time people listen to this the new Thor movie is out, last week's guest

was Tycho Waititi. Still fun to say that name. Just so wonderful. Yeah, so we're passing the baton in reverse order apparently and skipping over Alan Taylor the second direction. So none of it really makes But hey, thanks for bringing that back around. Yeah, he connected it.

Thor, Ragnarok is excellent. You don't need me to tell you that. It's got an amazing reviews. It's made a gazillion dollars by the time you hear this. But it's great. Does it have Will Smith? No. Kevin Klein.

Oh, for two. Selma Hayek. No. A mechanical spider. Bitch and theme song. Okay. Apparently, you guys prefer Wild Wild West over Thor Ragged Rock. I rank every movie against Wild Wild West.

And if it doesn't have at least one of the same elements, it's not a good movie. Thus, you know. Do you just walk out of a movie Just being like, it was a good, but no Wild Wild West. Yeah, I do. Wow. Okay, let's class it up. Will Smith's still here for you, waiting for you to come in.

We'd love to do a sketch. Bright is coming up end of the year, his new big movie. Is that, like, the, like, ripped? RIPD? Yeah. Did we see RIPD together? I saw it along. It was a dark time.

I did the junket for RIPD. That was a dark time. Well, who was it darkest for it? Everybody. It was Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds were paired together. They knew that was not going to be... But it feels like a similar premise, right? The title's great.

It's a little bit, yeah, it's a little bit Men and Blacky, a little bit RIPDE. It's a little alienation-y, if you remember that old sci-fi movie. That's great. Yeah, that's bright. But we're going to talk about bright down the line. Let's talk about murder. And let's go to Kenneth Brana. We ready? On the Orient Express.

Choo-choo. It's really scary Because he says as the knife goes To-choo-choo! It's always a pleasure to be joined by the only man That maybe loves Tom Hiddleston more than I, Mr. Kenneth Browning. It's very nice to be here. It's good to see you.

You know, I just was literally just working with Tom Hiddleston directing him as Hamlet. He was a very, very, very fine hamlet at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. a nice, quick, limited run. It was a limited run here. It was a tough ticket, as I understand it. Oh, yeah, I mean, it was, that was the frustration, but we also, we wanted to do it in this very intimate way, 180-seat theater there at the Royal Academy. We were trying to raise funds, bring new people into the Academy.

We've got this big capital campaign. We're trying to build some accommodation for first-year students, difficult thing to achieve. You come to the big city for the first time. It's going to make a big difference in that place. But the real thing was to kind of complete, was to try and, absolutely meet, you know, Tom's brilliance. The noise you may hear is not Tom Hiddleston. Thomas Barsden with their tea. Yeah, exactly, but it's another tea. It's British tea.

You know, he had such a sort of, yeah, an interior hamlet, and it really suited the smaller space. It was great to see. So, you know, all the tickets were available by lottery, which was completely fair. We didn't do any. There was no scamming, shmaming. And so we had a really incredibly diverse, interesting audiences from all over the world.

But the main thing was we got to pursue the work in this, you know, really kind of unusual, you know, protected environment in a way, creatively protected. And it was great. Is there any interest in doing it on a different scale? Or was that part and parcel of what you were trying to do? It was always about just doing it there. And, you know, we used all of the technical staff were students. and we had a couple of students who got their first jobs in that show. And it was really about, it really was sort of about the work,

opening up the place to the outside world. And the start of something, who knows, we never had it. We literally never had a conversation about where it could go or what it might do. It was just about that. And that in itself, you know, really did genuinely kind of take a pressure off, you know, some sort of, you know, larger. We're eyeing Tony's in 2019 or whatever.

No, let's just do the work and do it on its own and make it that rewarding into itself. Yeah, because, you know, you just, you don't know. And as soon as you bring the other thing, it does something to the original work. So it was a very, it was an unusual and really, really pleasing thing to do. Well, I'm sure we'll circle back around to Hamlet in some fashion and, of course, this conversation, because it inevitably does. But I do want to start off with your wonderful new work on the Orient Express. Congratulations. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We've talked before a number of times, but talked specifically about my love for your infamously 70-millimeter version of Hamlet. And you have now returned to that format, as very few people have. You've now directed two of perhaps I could count on one hand in the last 25 years, films that have been featured in this amazing presentation. And as a film geek, it's always an event. And I got to see it presented in that format, and it was wonderful. And I'm just curious, talk to me. Has there been an effort in the years since Hamlet to do any of your projects in 70mm?

No. All my projects since have been, and indeed all the movies I've directed have been shot on film. So I guess that the film flag was always flying in that way. But I was aware even back then and now again that it is a different kind of post-production workflow. When you shoot, it's different. The thrill starts from once you pick up a piece of the 70 mil or 65 mill as it is with the other five mils for the soundtrack eventually. But when you pick up that negative and you see it, you see how much bigger it is. And I have some frames of the movie, a murder from photochem who the lab in L.A. who struck the prints.

And it's just, you feel it, feel it, taste, it, smell it, kind of thrill to it all. But it does, it's quite a rigmarole. and in our digital world a movie company really has to make a kind of decision about it. So hats off to 20th Century Fox and Emma Watts particularly, who's sort of a vision behind the potential for Arthur Christie out in the film world

was looking to find filmmakers who were going to have a point of view. And minds were certainly that this story and these kinds of stories take me right back to my early experiences of seeing films with my family. Seven, eight years old was when I first remember being taken to the cinema in Belfast. I mean, obviously, I'd watched films on television.

I'm such a dinosaur that it was black and white, that's how I saw a lot of old Hollywood movies on the television. But going out to see that era of cinema scope, widescreen, colour-saturated, sort of often star-laden, to give an example, one of the ones we were going to see the greatest skates. Sure. Where, you know, Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough and all these people.

And a big story where somehow all of that star power or just acting excellence was required. The images were all encompassing. So you felt like you traveled on that motorbike across Austria as Steve McQueen tried to escape. Right. And it was very immersive. The same thing happened with something like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Sure. Which same sort of vintage. had one of the biggest thrills at the other night meeting Dick Van Dyke

and being able to say, thank you very much. You kind of, weird, kind of, that... Yeah, you wouldn't necessarily connect it at first blush, but there is a lineage. Yeah, he goes, a widescreen all the way from, you know, darkened movie theater in Belfast when I'm eight years old, and that movie was opened in the December of 68. I was taken to see it for my eighth birthday,

and it was just the escape of it. So when Fox brought this idea up, I said, you've really got to give people a reason to say, do we want to see this again, Aga and Christie's all over the television? What would be the film has been done by a master in the past, et cetera, et cetera. So I said, here's where I'd start. We've got to take them on the train. We just have to say, you have to come to the cinema. And when you do, we'll start differently if you know the book.

That's not how the book starts. If you know the 74 movie, it's not how that starts. take you somewhere else and it'll be a big sensorial kind of experience of going to Jerusalem and introducing us to our new Poirot and to this

sort of immersive 70-mill world. Yeah. And one of the interesting things is I think of something like Hateful 8 that utilized that format as well which surprised some people at the time and I see kind of like you utilize it in a similar fashion to the way

Quentin did in that you have the vistas and the beautiful train and the outdoor stuff and the prologue, but there's also, first of all, when you have actors of this caliber and beauty and et cetera, there's nothing like a close-up of just like projected and 70 millimeter of Johnny Depp's face

30, 50, 60 feet up. But also just filling the frame and filling the frame with people, you know, great depth of eight different amazing actors in the same shot and kind of like filling every nook and cranny with action. to kind of feast your eyes on.

Well, I knew, for instance, I remember seeing a still from the 74 film and I counted them up and I thought, God, that's a 16 shot. You know, you might have about a two shot. That's a 16 shot. They didn't take that at film school. No, they're all, yeah, give me the lens

that gives me the 16 shot. And I had this idea particularly strongly that when I went for, like I think last time we spoke, for Cinderella, I'd gone around the world when it was opening and one of the play

I'd try it everywhere usually the schedule was pretty tight but I'd basically try and make sure I know I've been somewhere not just I'm in the next four seasons

exactly so I was in Milan and I said what can we've got half an hour can I get to see the last supper can I get to see Da Vinci's painting and I thought it was a canvas

I was ignorant about what it really was but it's it's painted onto a wall in a chapel in uh in milan and so i did get there for you know and obviously people go do just that so i stood in front of it for 20 minutes and um and i i uh when i came to the beginning of the the sort of end sequence of murder where we wanted to get get the get the characters out of the train carriage and have them in something that in its very presentation was punchy uh i e in this case we recreated the Last Supper which can also evoke the idea of a jury

and in both cases Agatha Christie sort of alludes to both but because of Poirot reaching a point in the story where he is starting to put everything together it feels you have a license for him to somehow see it in classical terms like he puts them into that painting because now he's got to work out who Judas is

and you do 70 mill and you realize well I'm going to be I'm going to be five that level of depth This could actually work. Yeah, I'm going to see that it's not the 16th shot, but Penelope Cruz is on the left there, right in the edge of frame, and she's perfectly sharp and very focused, and Josh Gads at the other end,

and it's going to have that punch for this thing that Christy does of keeping alive 12 suspects, plus the other three or four who may or may not be, you know, under scrutiny. So the, but the format was a lot about escape. It was about, you know, the audience of reason to make this an event. This is a conversation that comes up on, as you can imagine, this podcast over and over again. It's just, you know, everyone that comes on this and myself are just, we're all a little worried and curious about where this is all evolving.

Chris Nolan's been on this podcast for Dunkirk, and I'm sure you guys had long conversations about all of this. We did, and he was a big inspiration in the way that he does more. I hope we tried to do more than simply saying taking some sort of, I can't speak for him, but for me, Assuming some sort of dinosaurish position about film and about the format, there's a reason here. You know, we're in a golden age of TV for starters. We have a million other ways that we can get entertainment and on devices of every size and shape. So we really have to earn the right to invite people to the cinema and say it was worth your while. And so he was very flexible with not only did he shoot 65 IMAX.

He, a lot of that film is shot handheld most of it, which in itself is a, is a, is a, the pioneering kind of technique, the cameras are so heavy and unwieldy. Hoyta van Hoytta did an absolutely masterly job in not only lighting it, but sort of the camera movement of it. And there was a wonderful improvisatory quality, i.e. there was a necessity for them.

There was authenticity to the use of film, which I think I do share with Chris Nolan, the idea that at least in my view, and Keanu Reeves made such an interesting film about this, But in my view, the life of the celluloid and the silver in the celluloid and the chemical movement, the photochemical part of it involves both science and art. And somewhere in the intersection is a sort of human element, which is unlike the pixels that can be locked into every frame in the full digital version of things,

contains literally a living element, which is different frame to frame. And for me, that is something that it's not even if the audience intuit it, but I believe they do, but it becomes part of the event that you continue to try and construct inside an experience of inviting people with the cinema. So that is, for instance, saying to all these actors and to the crew, it's film, different ritual on set each day. It isn't just an open-ended, we're shooting all the time. Right. There's a finite amount of period of time. There's a pressure on the actors, too, which can work in your favour.

And there's a little bit of theatre that is, you know, loading the magazines and thinking, all of this money and everything and it's a couple of hands in a in a bag that you know has to not expose that film before the appropriate moment but it if inside that

you know you're producing in the actors a sense of event and then when something like this in addition to the format but the format's trying to meet trying to be congruent with all of these things the event of such a film is in a single shot to start at one end of the room with Willam

Defoe in close-up and realizing there's a figure at the back somewhere can't see a sort of blurry figure and as you pass Michelle Pfeiffer Penelope Cruz and Judy Dentz you get to see the blurry figure at the back and he is Johnny Depp and we haven't cut and you suddenly realize

why in some subtle way you were pretty intrigued by the guy at the back at the same time as you know you are aware that and this was such a master class for me to watch that all of these kinds of actors, have a technique, have a familiarity and a kind of ease in front of a camera and with a technical process that means without showing off or without sort of elbowing for position,

you know that if Penelope Cruz knows that she has maybe a second as she passes the camera while you're tracking somewhere else, that something will happen there that isn't merely, as it were, you know, she scratches her nose, but just that there is an awareness and a sort of placing of the character at that point that just gives you this. this extra kind of freesaw. You get a bit of detail, as well as this sort of meta thing of going, you know, sort of,

God, they were all in the same place at the same time, that pretty interesting group of people. What was that like? How much did, when Johnny Depp arrives on set, did it hurt him in the gut to realize that for once he was not, did not have the most unusual facial hair on a film?

He's like, wait, that's my thing. I have the funny hat. I do the funny hair. What are he doing, Ken? He got the sideboards prize, though, because he's got two really super downward triangle sideboard things. Did he bring any ideas that you had to Nix? Because, I mean, this is, yeah, it's not like, he's actually a very classical kind of movie star in this.

Like a really, like, we haven't seen him in a while, which is kind of pleasurable. Yeah, yeah, and I think that he responded to that. I think that he kind of, I remember once being in a discussion with a couple of actors, and one was asking another, so what are you going to do, what are you going to do in this scene? are you going to do something or you're going to do nothing? And the other actor said, I'm going to do something. Oh, great, then I'll do nothing. And then they turned to me, said, so he's doing something, I'm doing nothing.

That's amazing. But with Johnny, again, he's got the sort of instinct that just basically was trying to find out. What's truthful for the character, as Michael Green's screenplay seems to demand, and then what would amuse him? And he went back into period gangster research of the Dillinger's and so on. particularly Dillinger, and also we were quite sort of direct about saying, you know, having been creating a range of the most sort of, you know, unforgettable movie exotics across a brilliant career with performances, I believe nobody else could possibly have given.

And one of my favorite performances in movies is, Johnny Depp in Ed Wood. I cannot I cannot think of another act. It's a perfect movie. It's an amazing performance. It is and it's quite, it was really inspiring because it, so he can he's literally done things that just nobody else seems to do. So he's got

that adventurousness, that experiment that pioneering thing, but he also he's smart so he knows that you know, you do do what it requires. So the whole plot revolves around Samuel Ratchet

for us to have Johnny was such a of gift for the for the piece and also that he genuinely um doesn't mind being perceived as a as a bad guy as the character right um and just has that sort of he has that freedom uh that that uh that uh still allowed that character to be as car as charismatic and to make as many waves for the characters in the story and for us as an audience as agatha christi intended so uh but i think he actually He relished kind of being, as it were, you know, tall, dark and handsome. Yeah, yeah. As I said, it's refreshing in a way.

I want to talk about some, you know, we talked about Johnny. We should also talk about some familiar faces that you have in this cast. And, you know, it struck me when I was, like, looking back at your career. I mean, your links with Dame Judy Dench and Derek Jacoby go way back in terms of, I believe, they both directed you way back when. You directed them relatively early on in your career. And what occurred to me was, you know, as is well known, if anybody knows your work, like, you, you know, in your 20s, you became very celebrated pretty early on in a career. Even before Henry V, on stage, you were directing Paul Schofield and, like, legends. Did you, was there a struggle in terms of, like, did they question your merits, your ability, or did they have full confidence in you?

Do you remember, like, having to earn the trust of the likes of Schofield and Judy Dench? Yeah, most certainly, and not surprisingly, I remember one of the most satisfying sort of arcs of experience with an actor was to very early on see Paul Schofield in his Academy Award-winning performances, Sir Thomas Moore in the film A Man for All Seasons by Fred Zimmerman from the play by Robert Bolt. For me, one of the great performances of a good man, that difficult thing to portray. It's perhaps more immediately effective to be playing the villain. but a complex, a good man and still seems sexy. He did that. He won the Oscar Best Actor in 66, or 67, I can't remember, but to then find myself working with him

and asking him to be in Henry V, and going for what was effectively the audition at Brown's Hotel in London, where... I'm going to hear a very distinctive voice. So I remember he... said, how are you going to do

this film? And he of course had played Henry the 5th famously along with a million other things that he'd done. And I took him through what I thought. And then I thought dare I give him this note

which is and so the French king, he was to play the French king in Henry the 5th at one stage was thought to be mad because he believed for a while that he was made of a glass and I just saw his eyes light up

and so you didn't need to say anything else to an actor like that that's just a little, that's a stone in the pool of an imagination that liked that kind of note and then you almost intuitively I know, shut up now I can I think that got him that got him and indeed it did

he played and rehearsed in it. He was wonderfully... He listened. Fred Zineman, who directed him in A Manful Seasons, came on to the set. It was a great, great, great thrill for us. We couldn't speak. Although Schofield then told the story of how, on that movie, when Zinemann was directing Schofield and Orson Wells,

that he said Fred was wonderfully said, because he just stepped aside, because there was obviously no way in which Orson was not going to be directing those sets. scenes. And he did. If Orson's in the room, he's probably, whether he's directing it or not, he's directing. And of course, Paul Schoford had played the part in the theatre. Fred Zimmerman already Oscarning, you know, filmmaker of major status.

But no, they all cleared back. Orson came in and he did his thing. But then, then cut to, like a year later, we're on tour with our theatre company. We're in Los Angeles playing at the Mark Day before him. When I'm staying at the Oakwood Apartments, I don't know if you're aware of those. The infamous Oakwood Apartments. I remember getting there, people, they're just on the valley side in L.A. And people say they're for transients, basically people between marriages or studio executives who've just got sacked or whatever. And we were there with our theatre company.

And a handwritten envelope arrived at the Oakwood apartment. But already it seemed weird because it was from an address in Sussex, in England, Hazelmere. So it was already, it felt like I was getting a letter from Shakespeare or something. Anyway, somehow Paul Schofield had found out that I was on tour and I was working at the Oakwood apartment. The first and only letter he's run into the Oakwood Apartments in his career. I bet. And everything about it was just like when two worlds collide and he wrote this very simple. He said, he said, I have just been to see your film of Henry V.

And all I can say he said is, and he just put this three times in capitals, total, total, thank you. And so I'm assuming that meant good. I think so. It was just, and it was so sweet of him to do that. He was such a hero. Yes, of course you had to earn your spurs or whatever. But you know what I learned about somebody like that is, this guy couldn't have been more experience,

couldn't have been a bigger star. A hero to all of us who worked on that. They're the ones who are so ready to listen to. It's the ones that are secure enough in their craft. They want to be stimulated. They want to collaborate. And also particularly, they want to be encountering youthful energy and ideas. You know, just that, so it was really, it was a fantastic experience.

He absolutely is one of my acting heroes, I must say. Just a few days ago in that seat, Tycho Waititi came by. Ah, yes, a charming man and a very talented filmmaker. Obviously, inherited the mantle a bit from you, two films removed from you. your wonderful Thor with Ragnarok. Remember when we spoke about Cinderella, you were excited that they were going to tackle Ragnarok. That was always something you thought they should do.

They've obviously done a whole different kind of a thing than you would have done, which is that's a filmmaker's prerogative. You want a different filmmaker to do a different thing. Have you seen it? I haven't, but I will. I literally haven't had time, but I will. I love the trailers as I've been reading about it. I love the sort of completely confident and joyful tone.

It doesn't feel like they've like screwing. up your pond here like everything you built up they were kind of having fun with I think but fun's good the the I remember we I mean because it's such a thrill that you know they've got the chance to do that when you had a different task we had a different task and remember we were at a point in the in the development of the old MCU where we were going to be the like the third film out of the blocks and the one for sure they were most worried about tonally I mean you know you've got you got guys in tight riding horses across rainbow bridges in outer space

and a mythology to deal with and a fish out of water thing that tone you know and I remember Kevin Feige who I love was always saying Kenny just the just thought can't be Fabio he can't be Fabio that's the just don't let that happen so it's not going to happen Kevin you're not going to let it happen so

but Kevin was in touch just recently and he was you know we get on very well and I'm very fond feelings towards all my Marvel family and I felt privileged to be part of that and it's always been very kind to me subsequently you wrote a note just to say you know we're really thrilled with the Thor

and as you know it's a great fun space adventure he said but you know what right at the end there's a moment that we get to surprises we all got a bit choked by it where Patrick Doyle's theme comes back in and Thor has to do something without a spoiler alert there

that felt like it was a kind of arc back to that. I mean, one of the things I'm really thrilled for the franchise is that Chris is so released in this, you know, and he's an actor that we still haven't seen the best of, and we've still, and we've seen plenty of great stuff, but they found a terrific director and, and performer indeed, and somebody with a real, real point of view. And I think hats off to Marvel for doing that, you know, and for, for, for, for, for, sort of understanding that a strong point of view really well carried out as it seems that

clearly is is something that will help keep that that thing breathing so there's no need to in a way I was just so happy that you could have the the luxurious problem or challenge of what tone do we adopt for this thing that now that now found its way it found its way because the fans were ready to go for it there's no question that you know we did our best but The fans of the, you know, the MCU, you know, open their arms wide and, you know, I mean, not uncritically, but they welcomed a character that they might otherwise have dismissed. Is there, since Thor, have you discussed with Fagie ever helming another film, whether Thor or another character? We haven't really. We've certainly met and talked over these. He's, because he's a great, he loves movies. And what I think one of the reasons that Marvel has worked so well is that Kevin and those around Kevin of which there are really significant players in Louis di Esposito and Victoria Alonzo and the various executives who've made a big difference there.

But is the genuine enthusiasm for comic books and comic book movies and a kind of an honesty and a sort of humility as well actually. I feel like these are the same guys, nearly 10 years on, who were nervously sort of, you know, getting ready to deliver that movie. They do put their hearts into it. It's always been about the, I know they run the entire world and have made squinty to trinity splinty billion

for the company, but the work was what mattered. And it was interesting to see, for me, it was very moving, to see when I had the privilege of being shown Dunkirk for the first time in the summer by Christopher Nolan. Not only was he, but he also said, as did Emma, the pair of them were together. It was just me watching it that afternoon. They said, we feel quite vulnerable at the moment.

It's finished, and it's, you know, I was really heartened to hear that. There was no side. It was just a straight up and down. They were vulnerable about the movie, vulnerable about the fact that I was going to see it, and sort of, the fact that they happily admitted, I thought, Oh, God, I've found that extremely healthy and inspiring. There's no filmmaker that has licensed to feel more confident. Exactly.

Because we're no one at this point. At this point, but as you know, going into that, I mean, you know, we live in the world we live in. So, okay, guys, pitching you this next thing. So I just want to be clear up front. No movie stars. Three different time frames. No Americans, no romance, no, no women.

and it's about a British military defeat, or let's call it, a retreat. So what do you think? Sounds pretty exciting, yeah. That was a, that was ballsy always round for Chris and Emma and for the studio. No, I love that he's kind of become like, he's Uber franchise. He is the franchise at this point. He is the reason to come to a movie like Spielberg was back in the day and still is. Speaking of franchises, and you know, you've been around a few, just randomly, I'm just curious, you know, because it comes up for, for,

for so many, has Bond ever entered the picture in terms of directing villain, Bond himself over the years? I'm just curious. Has that entered? Not really. No, not in none of those departments, certainly not and never Bond himself. But, you know, I guess any British character actor is occasionally considered for Bond villains, but no, I've never been near one of those. And directing hasn't come up either. But I really, one of my nice sort of memories of sort of film camaraderie was being in the, on the same corridor as Barbara Broccoli and Michael Glenn, Michael G. Wilson, Ron, when I was making Jack Ryan and they were making Skyfall. And it was fun to be having a cup of coffee, you know, down the corridor at Pinewood and having a natter about. about how the day would go.

And again, I was, we were talking about Skofield, weren't we? So how many of those musics have they made? How much sort of real estate in the world, how secure? And yet they were so sort of refreshingly sort of excited about, you know, today's big shot, as if they'd never blown something up again or whatever or had him jump off a high building or whatever it was. And also sort of humble about the, the difficulties of doing it and the and the impossibility of sort of resting on your laurels there was a desire to make things better and it was uh it was impressive but i know but also frankly you couldn't i i got you know pretty nerdy and fan-like walking down that corridor you walk past those posters and everything and you know we were talking earlier about uh you know murder

on the Orient Express is about those early is about for me a connection to an early experience of movies at the movie theater and Bond was part of that for sure and that yes that sort of size the sense particularly that you're definitively traveling to another place and you'll definitely

feel that you were there and understand it in a in a sort of fantastic cinema tourist kind of way you're talking you know the word humility has come up a couple times in our conversation here I'm curious like you know again, dovetailing with what we were talking about sort of like directing Schofield relatively early on and having like that early clout in your career, did you feel like if I had met you in your 20s, were you a cocky son of a bitch? Did you have humility then? I mean, did you need kind of like to be taken down a peg at some point or just going to be a sense of sort of where you were at then? And if there was a point where you felt a misstep, whether of your own or the audience deciding something was a misstep was needed for you. Well, I don't know if it was needed.

And to be honest, I couldn't tell you, I might well have been an absolute arse. I mean, I don't... I'm sensing no, but I'm guessing, but probably not. But I was definitely somebody who was, on one level, I think, I didn't get a chance to be a real arse because I was so busy. You know, you just didn't have the room to be, you know, kicking up, you know. I'm sure, as I find anyway, I don't mind a bit. bit of temper in people, a bit of passion is good, means they care about stuff.

You know, cruelty and, you know, people, bullying people is not good. And so I don't particularly approve of that. And try to avoid doing it, even though sometimes when you're obsessive, you know, in pursuit of these creative moments, me, yeah. Sometimes you can do things you wish you hadn't. But I think, I think that basic, It's a background thing. You know, my parents' cardinal sin was for you to sort of, the idea that you'd get above

yourself, you know, that you would, the idea was to be fair with everybody. And also, they were proud working class folk, did not, so they were not cowed by, as it were, the high ups, even though they were very conscious of the class system in our country. But they didn't believe they were necessarily better people. Definitely than anybody else. You know, we lived in a sort of, you know, in a world where the religious differences were sometimes part of, sort of everyday language.

And even at that time, we're Protestants who lived in a street that also had Catholics. And they were very, they instilled basic values about the respect for other people. And just don't be, don't be cocky, be kind to people. And, you know, all these things. it sound a bit sort of waltonish and sappy, but I saw it happen practically, and also I saw it enforced quite practically, because if I was not behaved in the way they like,

in those days, I'm not saying I approve of this, but I certainly received a clip around the year on a number of occasions. Yeah. Was, in your capacity at Radha, what is your capacity at Radha now? I am called President at Rada, at least on the note paper. Do you teach often?

you have classes? I mean, and is that something that is rewarding for you? Certainly I've contact with the Academy that includes things like that. So in this last year, for instance, I did a sort of poetry workshop with some of the first years. And then when we prepared for our production of Hamlet, I did Shakespeare auditions with all of the third years. And I was involved in judging the physical stage combat evening where they all have to get a certificate and they each have to do a fight from a play or a movie or whatever and so in that sense you get to you know see everybody at work and it's it's incredibly rewarding and and almost always um sort of kind of moving to go to go in the front door there because hey it's been

there for over a hundred years and uh i went in that door when i was 17 not knowing we you know whether you'd get past the first round of the audition and you come back, you know, nearly 40 years later and with a different relationship to the place. And it's, each time you go in, frankly, I can't not think about the 17-year-old kid. I'm sure. The years fall away.

And without indulging into some sort of daft nostalgia, you're just very, very aware that actually, if you can make some kind of contribution now, it's really important because you know the 17-year-old you was really grateful for it. When we knew there was a council meeting and those famous faces were going to come in for the day, I mean, we would skip classes and just hang about in order to be in the doorway or on the front hallway when John Gilgood or Richard Attenborough or Anthony Hopkins came through the door.

I mean, we just were breathless with excitement. So some of it was just they were legends, but some of it was just working actors. If they came back and they could talk to us, the mystery that is, wow, how does it, what comes out there? It might also rub off on us, perhaps. Yeah, yeah. And just sort of tell what's it like out there because we're so protected. They're keeping us locked up in here, almost literally.

Yeah. Is Hamlet looked at the text you think you'll always come back to in some capacity? I mean, I don't know how many different productions you've directed or been in, but it's probably quite a number at this point. Yeah. Well, it's certainly, maybe this last encounter with Tom is maybe the last time. I don't know. But I certainly, in working on it,

It felt as revelatory to me, but from an entirely different standpoint in my life, it seemed for me to be about, you know, loss. And frankly, murder on the Orient Express in its different way was a parallel thematic experience of essentially looking at how human beings have to handle loss. You know, the one thing we know when we arrive on this planet is that we're going to be leaving it. and that law of averages says that probably those we know and love will leave ahead of us and we'll have to deal with that loss. And we discover that it is difficult or painful or it's not easy to arrive at whatever accommodation you have with that. Some people talk about death as a wonderful new birth, an awakening and everything, and could get philosophical and sort of deep about it.

Other people just find it is incredibly painful to lose someone that you'd, love and that's at the bottom of both of these pieces of work and they call in hamlet for at least as it spoke to me this time of just attention at this as they Arthur Miller says at the end of death of a salesman attention must be paid and you know the passing of human beings attention must be paid ritual must find its way whether it's conventional and funerals but but it must happen in hamlet it is frustrated in murder on the orient express it is frustrated and when that is then deep suppressed suffering in human beings will spill out in some other kind of way. They need catharsis and therapeutic release of all of these tremendously painful feelings.

And so it felt to me like strikingly modern as opposed to maybe that younger man finding his place in the world from the inside that I engaged with earlier on all the larger political thing. But, of course, Tom was finding all sorts of things that I'd never cross my mind. So, again, there was the thrill of just seeing somebody open it up. And people ask me, why do you do things again? Well, for that reason, I came to Hamlet, having, I don't know how many times I'd been in it or played it or watched it. And it was a revelation to see it under the bright light that was Tom Hiddleston's intelligence and performance quality. And from a sort of emotional point of view, feeling the way. weight of the play, sort of kind of in a different way, celebrating and compassionately understanding

what it is to be a human being, which is a great, big, flawed, beautiful miracle. I tend to be, you know, obsessed with this generation that we're currently seeing, kind of light up the big screen in terms of the great Brits and Scotsman and Aussies, that many of which that you've, you know, you've really helped launch, obviously, Tom and Chris, but, you know, comfort Bacch is just so talented, and I revel in trying to ruin their careers by having them do silly sketches with me, and I'm kind of knocking them off one by one. I just said, well, McCumber batch, I need Fassbender next. Maccaboy, I've ruined like three different times. Is there someone that you're itching to kind of play with, whether like actor to actor or as a director? You've

worked with a lot of them, but I would imagine some of them still must excite you. Oh, yeah, no, I mean, all the names you've mentioned are very, very talented. I mean I just I had a ball work with Tom on this one I'd love to direct Chris again really really love to do that and I think Benedict is

also has as they all have they've handled these sort of intense periods of sort of hyper scrutiny and sort of walk through it and still producing good work which is I you know is an impressive on a professional level.

If the internet had existed, like, when you were in your 20s and, like, you were kind of, like, coming of age and all that, there would be, and there probably still are, memes galore and obsessions with, like, you know, needing you to, like, dance on a bed with Josh for hilarity. Like, you evaded a lot of that, by the way. You came away with your class, so it worked out at the end. No, I thought, no, I parked dignity at the door on numerous occasions

for many different things. And as soon as you sign up for acting, you realize, you know, you know what? You've got a, all of these are beautiful ways to, as my parents would say, get over yourself. Right. You know, cruel to talk about what's next, but I know there are a couple of potential interesting projects that you are going to be directing next. Do you know which one is going to happen? The next movie I'll direct is Artemis Fowl for Disney. Which is a big one.

People have been talking about that for a while. Yeah. and another property that's going to be a lot of scrutiny on, I would imagine. Sure, yeah. I mean, the good news, and I think it's only good news in the end, is that those stories and that character have a community of people passionately interested out there. So, yeah, they'll have strong views. You've been through it before.

You can add to it. That's okay. It's nice when people are passionate about things, isn't it? It's just we should be so lucky. so it's often quite helpful actually to understand when you know even if you make decisions that ultimately may not please die hard fans but if you're aware of where their kind of passionate likes and dislikes lie then you know you have information and so so I always view that as a as a privilege rather than if you're going to be intimidated by that kind of thing, thing you really shouldn't be doing it. Because the other thing, you then try and do second guess, and you can't make 50 versions of Artemis Fowl for 50 different kinds of people who prefer this or that

about the character. You hope also that people understand this idea about the translation from another medium that just does not kill the original. Hopefully it wouldn't spoil the fun for people who haven't yet seen the original, but is making a response in a different medium. Yeah. Well, you know, congratulations. on this one. It's an interesting marriage

of a lot of things that you've kind of dealt with before, whether you've worked with some great ensembles. You obviously, we've talked about, you know, just from the filmmaking standpoint, the use of 70 millimeter. You know, we've geeked out about dead again, returning to kind of those kind of thriller roots or sleuth.

It seems like this one made sense for you in a lot of ways, and the proofs in the pudding on the big screen. I hope you had a good time with it. Hopefully, maybe we'll see more Poirot in another adventure. There's certainly a tease. There's a tease. There's a tease. I know I loved playing him, and I found that as the important projects in your creative life do, they keep giving you something right from the very beginning and all the way through.

You live with these for quite a long time, and so both the character and the subject matter, I found richly rewarding, very illuminating. I learned a lot, a lot from, and I learned a lot from working with these actors. It was really, it was so fascinating to. as Poirot, the detective searching for truth, and as the director searching for the truth, the performers, to sit there. It gave me some extra little ratchet of concentration on the glories. We were talking earlier on.

To get a little OCD rub off on you, what's good for a director? I nerded it out of, yeah, a bit of a neat freak emerged. But watching, as you say, when you do something like 70-mill, it's not just that it serves up the spectacle in a sort of full-blooded way. that encourages you to be in a dark room, but it is those close-ups. So when you watch, especially when you're watching people in interview situations

where it's a matter of life and death, their response to these questions about who may have murdered this man and indeed was it them, body language and subtlety of thought are so powerful. And so to be able to read that kind of sort of invisible stuff really close up in, I don't know, Penelope Cruz came into my mind that just as I was thinking, just because she gets asked

sort of pretty directly about whether she's lying or not and she gives a great reaction and then there's a sort of beat and then she just blinks once and you could almost feel her trying to fight it and we get to cut after that and it really it leaves a big impression it just reminds you that

if sort of thought and intention is behind it but it's interesting what people think watching people think if they happen to look like Penelope Creases. It's pretty nice way. watching people think. Is this the first conversation about a movie that hasn't spent

20 minutes talking about your facial hair? I feel like almost like I screwed up. It's the it's the double-swelled elephant in the room that's special.

It is like a mustache gave birth to another mustache. Attention must be paid to go back to Arthur Miller. Attention must be paid to that mustache. And if you if you'd spent the mornings

I had trying to negotiate my breakfast while knowing that I've got to eat because I'll be hangary if I don't but we had to we had to deliver on in the books

Agatha Christie makes so much of the immensity of the moustache and its immediate impact which this one clearly seems to have had on those who witness it

for the first time the people are ready to make an assumption and often in the books it's to disregard or ridicule Poirot to assume that he is vanglorious, dandyish

or whatever it is and of course that in his itself is a nice great big statement early on of saying yeah yeah I am me I am different I am happy with it I am happy with my mustache so if that means you don't want to speak to me or you find me amusing or you feel superior then then so be it and then while all that's happening or they're laughing at his broken English an accent that he it says in the book she has him saying oh I can speak perfectly good idiomatic English I choose not to because it's much easier

They think you're a silly little foreigner And then people come up with You know the lines like the one in the murder of Roger Ackroyd Where someone said Someone very annoyed with him You could tell his profession immediately With that ridiculous moustache He is clearly a retired hairdresser

So I mean I'm fairly comprehensively patronising To a vast group of people, Belgians Moustache wearers hair dresses Routts off a lot in one sentence Well come for the 70 millimetre If you can come for Penelope Cruz and Michelle Pfeiffer and Daisy Ridley

and Johnny Depp and stay for the mustache and Judy Dench Ken, it's honestly, it's always such an honor to talk to you you're welcome here anytime and good luck with the film man Thanks Josh, really enjoy it, lovely to see you And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused Remember to review, rate and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, I'm a big podcast person I'm Daisy Ridley and I definitely wasn't

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