Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby, Jodie Whittaker, Napoleon, One Night & The Eternal Daughter

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Strap in for a bumper week of interviews: Simon sits down for an entertaining chat with Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby to discuss their turns in Ridley Scott’s new epic, ‘Napoleon’, which looks at the military commander’s origins and ruthless climb to emperor through the prism of his volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine; and both Simon and Mark talk to Jodie Whittaker about her new Australian-set series ‘One Night’, which follows three friends whose friendship was destroyed by a traumatic event 20 years prior. Mark gives his thoughts on both, along with reviewing Joanna Hogg’s latest offering, ‘The Eternal Daughter’, a gothic mystery drama, which stars long-time collaborator Tilda Swinton in a double role, playing both a middle-aged filmmaker and her elderly mother who are guests at a mysterious hotel. Time Codes (relevant only for the Vanguard - who are ad-free!): 06:26 The Eternal Daughter review 16:37 Box Office Top Ten 29:45 Jodie Whittaker interview 46:36 One Night review 51:26 Laughter Lift 54:44 Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby interview 01:09:58 Napoleon review 01:19:25 What’s On You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, esteemed podcast listeners, Simon Mayer. A Mark Kermode here. I'm excited to let you know that the new season of the Crown and the Crown, the official podcast, returns on 16th of November to accompany the sixth and final season of the Netflix epic Royal Drama Series. Very exciting, especially because SuperSarbon friend of the show Edith Bowman hosts this one.

Indeed, Edith will take you behind the scenes. You can also catch up with the story so far by searching the Crown, the official podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe now and get the new series of The Crown, the official podcast, first on November 16th. Well, thank you for downloading another episode of Cermeter Mayors Take, also known as Whittetayment, but that might get both songs, do you never know? All right, we can use Whittetayment.

I think it's our word. It is. That's right. Yeah. And they probably stop listening now at the beep. They... Well, the lawyers... Yeah.

I don't think they ever listened to this. I was listening to the show when they started reviewing films. When I went to Scala in the first place and the radio station, the radio station, that's right. I classical music for modern life. Around about 1030, I did it. On the first day, I did a new quiz, music quiz called op master and it was all about the opera.

And because I thought that'd be fun. And it lasted one day before, before lawyers said, I don't think so. Really? Yeah. So it stopped. But what they genuinely got in touch and said, you can't say opmaster as a pal on popmus. I mean, I thought it not only was it very funny, but also it was a tribute to popmaster, which is now, of course, which is their safely. Great. It's really, yeah. Since that is now the case, you could reintroduce the opmaster feature.

Yeah, except I'm not on Scarlet in the morning, so they're for the same thing. You're still on Scarlet? Yes, but it needs someone on the phone. And we don't do that kind of thing. Okay. So that's not a great idea. I could do it. I'm also on Scarlet, so I can have an opmaster.

If you can think of a film, it's not a film connection, it's not a film pun that we could do there. I'll figure one out. I'm sure. Or maybe a missed Corn Master. Or popcorn master. That doesn't quite sound like Southern Gothic to me. He was the popcorn master.

And very sinister. He was salty but not sweet. Exactly. And how did he get to be the popcorn master by basically dismembering all the other people responsible for making the popcorn? Yes. Who's doing the soundtrack? Anyway, what you mean? Kings of Leo. Yeah, okay, that'll be good. Fine. Yes. So it's an astonishingly packed show. Is it? Yeah, it is. I'm not just saying that because Simon Pull has told me to. So we have a review of the new Joanna Hogg film, the eternal daughter.

We have a review of a new TV series, six part TV series called One Night with our special guest number one, one of our special guests, Jodie Whittaker. And then we have a review of Ridley Scott, epic Napoleon with our special guests, who are Napoleon and Josephine.

You were literally went and got them back. Wacking Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby. I think it's an interesting and unpredictable interview with Wacking Phoenix. With Wacking Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby. And thank heavens Vanessa was there just to anchor the interview in a degree of sanity. Is he a bit of a one? It was just you're not quite sure, you know, not quite sure where he's going. So for example, right before we've actually recorded anything, I say to them both, there'll be a clip from the movie which will stop and then we'll pick up from there. And working says, what's the clip?

And I said, I don't know because we haven't been given it yet. I imagine it will have you and her in it. And he says, do you not think it should be just me? And she's in the room. Yeah, because I think it should be just me. And then Vanessa's laughing. I realized that he's having a laugh. This is just him.

Anyway, so that's it. Do you remember when he did the spoof documentary in which he pretended to not be an actor anymore but to be a rap singer and then he grew the long beard and then he went on the Letterman show and he was in character as somebody who was Wacken Phoenix having gone mad. And David Letterman's two best questions because he was completely incoherent. I know it was a performance. We remember that. His two best questions. One of them was, what can you tell me about your time with the Unibomber? And the second one was, it's a shame you couldn't be here today. It's very good. Let me know. He was on Colbert, just he came on as a guest and he was just,

you remember why he was the top of his game. Anyway, so I'm slightly on edge going into do working. I have't interviewed working Phoenix before, I have interviewed Vanessa before anyway, but it was great and it was, it was good fun. Look forward to hearing it. And that'll be coming up a bit later on. In Extra Takes, volume two, which is a landed alongside this one, more 90 minutes roughly, that kind of thing,

unless we run out before that. We can watch List and we can not list bonus reviews with big bonus reviews, which is the new Disney film celebrating the centenary of Disney, lost in the night, which is a strange thriller, and girl, which is a really exciting British movie. Pretentious mark, which is currently marked 23, marked 20, one frame back is inspired

by the new Ridley Scott movie, so it's small screen Napoleon's. That small screen Napoleon's. Yeah, one of those. You can access this all via Apple Podcast or head to extra takes.com for non-fruit related devices. By the way, Black Friday is now happening in the merch store. Oh, which means that a 20% discount will be applied

at the checkout for your lovely special limited edition white and silver bottles. Very Christmassy actually. I don't have one left, we've got black. Yeah, so we need to have... Why? They say Van Gogh East and L.O. to Jason Isaacson. But 20% we don't believe in black Friday, it's a horrible corporate thing because we don't get Thanksgiving

So why not should we have Black Friday? However, if there's 20% off, why wouldn't you get involved exactly? Also, we will come and deliver them to your house individually. Oh, we do Added into our contract. We didn't actually know this at the time But we have to drive the Radiant Robber Stomp. I think they're there. They just said yes Of course, they just gone mad even if you you're living in Auckland, Mark will get Auckland. Yeah, and he'll be. I thought you were going to say Auckland, but Auckland, OK.

Anyway, if you're already part of this wonderful club and you're a van Goddys to, as always, of course. OK, I've got emails and stuff, but it occurs to me that you might as well review something. And then if there's any time before, because I'm looking forward to the ads, which are coming up very, very shortly. Excellent. Always.

Very, very important. Unless you're a fan of the extreme, which case you don't hear them. No, that's true. So, very good. So, why don't you review something and then I'll do an email if this time. Okay, the eternal daughter, which is the new movie by Joanna Hogg, who is the writer director behind unrelated, archipelago exhibition, and of course the souvenir parts one and two, which I absolutely loved. This is a ghost story in which a mother and daughter both played by Hogg's long-time

collaborator, Tilda Swinton. Go to spend some time in a remote house hotel in misty surroundings. When they arrive, they are greeted by a very frosty receptionist, brilliantly played by newcomer Carly Sofie Davis, who acts as if the hotel is full, like finding them a room is very, very hard. However, as far as we can tell, they're the only people there. The only evidence of other people is that there are banging noises coming from the room above, but it appears that the hotel is otherwise empty. The daughter, Julie, played by Tilda Swinton, is a filmmaker and she is in the midst of some creative endeavor

which appears to involve her mother. The mother, Rosalind, has a connection to this building, which seems to be functioning as a memory box. Here is a clip of Tilda Swinton and Tilda Swinton. Do you remember this room? Yes, this was the drawing room. And big, big sofas here. Velvet ones. Yeah.

And our children would jump off the back of it. And our children would jump off the back of it. And jump from one to the other, see if we could make it over a dog preferably. So a mother and daughter played by the same person in a room full of memories, dredging up the ghosts to the past. Apparently, Joanna Hogg was persuaded to make a ghost story by Martin Scorsese, who's been executive producing,

and who said, I think this is the time is right. And she cites Rudyard Kipling's They, some stories by Edith Worton, Jack Tennel's Night of the Demon, which is based on an MR James casting the runes. And I think there's a lot of MR James in this, particularly, you'll see Jonathan Miller's TV adaptation of Whistle and I'll come to you. No, it's absolutely brilliant. If you get a chance, watch it, it's magnificent. Jonathan Miller's stuff is always amazing. I met him once and I said to him, I have to

tell you, Whistle and I'll come to you as a masterpiece. And he said, yes. Excellent. So the thing with ghost stories is, I mean, I'm obsessed with ghost stories anyway, and I wrote quite a lot about ghost stories when I was doing my PhD. In families, our parents are kind of ghosts of our future selves, and children are kind of ghosts of their past.

And what you get from this story is this sense of two characters inhabiting a world in which they are kind of haunting each other. There's also, as you heard in that clip, there's a lot of kind of, you know, misty stuff. There's a really nice creaky floorboard. Really nice creaky floorboard. Really nicely timed. And a bell sort of chiming somewhere in the distance. It's absolutely beautifully shot, the building and the location are wonderfully handled. The music that Joanna Hogg has used is Bartok music for strings, percussion and celeste. Now, Kubrick actually used some parts of that for the shining.

This uses another movement, this uses the Antitranquilo, which works rather brilliantly. And then at the centre of it, you've got Tilda Swinton doing the central role in which she's having conversations with herself. And because Joanna Hogg doesn't write scripts, what she does is she writes descriptions of scenes. And then Tilda Swinton improvised one part, and then had to go back and improvised the other,

so it's literally Tilda Swinton improvised with herself. Tilda Swinton haunting herself, a mother and daughter haunting each other. I am a big fan of Joanna Hogg's films and you don't go to see them for exploding helicopters and car crashes. You go to see them for a kind of growing sense of family and relationships and in this case ghostliness and dread. And I thought this was really terrifically well done, quite beyond the sheer technical prowess of Tilda Swinton acting with herself. The filmmaking felt, it felt like Joanne Hogg was really enjoying making a ghost story and it's about grief and it's about memory and families in the past and as with all of her stuff it's deeply autobiographical but I also

think it's kind of universal. I really enjoyed it. It's called the eternal daughter. An email from Jill who signs off a very longterm listener, last student to be awarded a Penn at junior school because their handwriting looked like it's signed death warrants. Wow, imagine that. Also, MA media and communication. Anyway, Jill says, confusingly, to start with Kia Ora from Las Vegas. I've been dragged from the loveliness of Christchurch by the good gentlemen's software designer, who is attending a conference, to a pre-formula one Vegas where we appear to be caged in by Macano. A lot of work in that center. Yes. A lot of punctuation. Anyway, last night we went to the all-new sphere. Oh, you might have read about this case. Yes,

where you two are doing their residency. So of course, a couple of friends of mine from Patreuth went to Vegas to see you two play at the suite. They said their minds were blown. Exactly. It is one of those mind-blowing venues and I read this week that the Mayor of London City can't has turned down plans for a similar one in London on the basis of light pollution. In the desert, okay, in the middle of London, maybe it's problem. Light pollution, as opposed to light pollution. Yes, absolutely.

Light pollution. That's right. Anyway, last night we went to the all news sphere to see Darren Aronofsky's part science fiction story, part nature documentary, the beautiful and breathtaking postcard from Earth, which has been specially commissioned to showcase the sphere's new cinema technology, which I mean, you may well have seen film taken from inside.

The key thing is, the edges are gone because you're in a sphere, everything that you're normally used to, even in iMacs, has edges. This does not necessarily, so therefore you have no security. Sphere itself is a fantastic immersive sensory cinema concept with incredible clarity of large format HD visuals, sound, touch and smell. The auditorium is so huge and steep and the film's so beautiful, it was no wonder it gave me ours. Okay.

Okay. So that's how high up Jill was. A postcard from her through my demeanor way of the 1972 version of This Is Sinorama, albeit with an important message, which I was taken aged eight to see on the Cinemarscope screen at the Birmingham Queen's Way Odin by my cinema-loving dad. Well, I'll start probably love it now. This Is Sinorama bored me to tears at age 8. What's interesting is that back then it was, hey, look at all the fantastic things that man has done to the planet. Whereas whilst utterly beautiful, PFE has quite the opposite message. The irony of seeing this in Vegas was not lost on us, with the

strip being, in my opinion, everything that's wrong with humanity in one place, having more single use, plastic consumption than we've seen since we were supposed to know better. And the least I practically know recycling anywhere. Maybe the strip needs to see it. Anyway, go see it if you have a chance. That does sound amazing, particularly if you can see it in a place like the sphere. Yes.

The sphere sounds astonishing. My friends who went to see you too, they said it was absolutely amazing. The good lady first of her indoors and I went to Las Vegas for precisely 16 hours. We got headache as we went in, we had a headache the whole time we were there and then we found it very, very hard to leave. We went into a drugstore to buy some aspirin to get rid of our headaches and in the drugstore and I'm not making this up, there was a gambling machine. Yes, which is what I would entirely expect. Yeah. Jill signs off by saying up with blue head feminists down with hotels who still think it's

okay to give you a non-recycle will take away cup when you are eating in rather than pace someone to wash up and just to buy by saying they're only changing your sheets every three days. Anyway, still to come. What else are we doing? Still to come. We have one night with our special guest, Joe Nipolian with our special guest. Nipolian.

And so many special guests. Josephine. And now part two of a new feature called Wise Wise words in which Mark and I in alternating weeks have to guess the artist in terrible song during the break. So we'll be back before you can say, sans a time of its own. Take your seaside arms and write the next line. Happy Nord Christmas! Protect yourself whilst Christmas shopping online and access all the Christmas films from around the globe. Plus, when you shop online, you'll have to give websites your card details and other sensitive data like your personal addresses.

Those websites should already have their own encryption built into their payment systems, but to be on the safe side, you can use a VPN to ensure that all data coming to and from your device is encrypted. Even if you're using an unsafe Wi-Fi, you'll still be able to shop securely with a VPN. And you can access Christmas films only available overseas

by using streaming services not available in the UK. To take our huge discount of your Nord VPN plan, go to nordvpn.com slash take. Our link will also give you four extra months for free on the two-year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money bank guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description box Highest team podcast listeners Simon Mayo and Mark Kermot here

I'm excited to let you know that the new season of the crown and the crown the official podcast Returns on 16th of November to accompany the sixth and final season of the Netflix epic royal drama series Very exciting especially because SuperSub and Friend of the show Edith Bowman hosts this one. Indeed, Edith will take you behind the scenes, dive into conversation with the talented cast and crew from writer and creator Peter Morgan to the crown's Queen Elizabeth in Melda Staunton. Other guests on the new series include the Crowns research team, the directors, executive producers Suzanne Mackie and specialists such as Voice Coach William Connaker and propsmaster Owen Harrison. Cast members including Jonathan Price, Selene Daw, Khalid Abdullah, Dominic West and Elizabeth

DeBicki. You can also catch up with the story so far by searching The Crown, the official podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe now and get the new series of The Crown, the official podcast first on November 16th. Available wherever you get your podcasts. But you get it. I know this much is true. Tony Hadley, Spanner Bell. I did think for a moment it was winning for that well, or Flanners and Swan, but then it clicked. Take your seaside arm and write the next line. What? With a thrill in my hand, a pillow in my tongue. I'm assuming that's paracetamolting.

It's only something that's just begun listening to Marvin. But what does take your seaside arm and write the next line mean? What? Is it produces suggesting it's a fruit machine? A sea side arm is a fruit machine. But what do I do with my seaside arm? Take your seaside arm and write the next line. Well, a fruit machine can't write the next line. Anyway, and sand's a time of its own.

Well, I suppose the sands of time, I mean, that's kind of okay. Anyway, we're reading too much into it. It kind of scanned, and it was a big hit, and earned lots of money. Gary, if you're listening, please write it and tell us what that was all about. I see Martin quite a lot.

Do you? So I shall ask him, because he should know, shouldn't he? You can just ask his brother. I saw Gary on the aisle, I was a silly a couple of times. He's, he's lovely, bloke, really, really lovely. Martin does the show after me on Friday. So he, and he's still super handsome.

He is incredible. Is he, he is just one of those people. It's like, like, sting. However old he gets, he will always look amazing. Okay. That's very annoying. Much like ourselves. Box of his top 10 then, at 26,

Tissue. Which I think is a really interesting documentary. If you're interested in photography, if you're interested in social realism, if you're interested in the way in which photography can change people's view of the world, Tissue is really worth seeing. Number 12 is May December. That's rather low. Well, because I think primarily it'll be, you know, it'll be seen on streaming services. I really like that film. We had Todd Haynes as your guest on last week's show and he did an absolutely brilliant interview. I think they're a great performance. I think the thing that you need to say about May December is you keep reminding yourself whilst just, you know, getting on with it and watching it and

enjoying it just how shocking the central subject matter is and just how deftly Todd Haines manages to to work around that. You keep having to remind yourself, oh hang on, this is what this is about. Which when so when I left the film that was one of the reasons why I felt a little bit So when I left the film, that was one of the reasons why I felt a little bit Disconcerted precisely for that moment to feel like that. You're meant to feel like that Number 10 in the UK pop a troll the mighty movie. Well, he's not gonna be that much of a pauper Is he that troll because that film's done very well and taken an absolute ton of money? num Oh, I beg your point. So I, so I should have contributed this from DJ

on our YouTube channel. I'll just back May December, so I just missed this. All right, fine. Let me just say that Charles Mellon completely stole the movie, in my opinion. I felt so bad for his character. One of, if not, my definite favorite movie of the year. So he plays the grown young man now with Julianne Moore's character

and their relationship began when it wasn't a relationship. She assaulted him when he was a 13-year-old and then she had his child and now they are still together and that's why the subject matter is so dark because when you meet them they appear to have a functioning grown-up relationship but then you discover that actually it began as a case of child rape. And so, one again, back to that feeling of discomfort, because you go, right, so are you saying it's all right then? Because clearly it's not. Yes. So, anyway, now I think it's a really, I think it handles those really complex subject matter very definitely.

Number nine in the UK, number 16 of the states anatomy of a fool. I can't recommend this highly enough. Go and see it. You'll be gripped for every moment that you're in the cinema. We had an email a while ago from somebody asking, this was on question, questions, questions. You know, how do I stop worrying? My mind, you know, wondering, well, I'm in the cinema. The answer is go and see an

after-moving fool. When you're watching an after-moving fool, all you will think about is the movie. It's so brilliant. Number eight in the UK number five in the states, five nights at Fred is. Done a lot better than I thought. I still think it's, you know, I still think it's nothing like as interesting as it could be. So I said there is a kind of much lower rent, Nick Cage, don't call me Nick Cave version, which I kind of preferred, but it has done better than I thought it was going to, which once again goes to demonstrate critics don't know nothing. And number seven here, number 10 in the States, killers of the flower moon. I had a discussion with a very famous movie producer just the other day.

And they said two things. One of them was that their feeling was, as mine was, that the film was edited for streaming services in as much as it's built at a length, which is ideal for streaming services, rather than a length, which is ideal for its cinema release. The other point was that an independent film is suffering very much at the moment because streaming service is taking up cinema space. And if you have very, very long films from streaming

services at which we have many, it takes up even more space and it's harder and harder and harder for independent films to find a space. And they were talking about the possibility of streaming services being levied in some way. Now, I don't know what the practicality of that would be, but it's just interesting that people are now saying streaming services ought to pay a levied to cinemas because of the effect they are having. More on that? Anon. UK number six number four in the states is Thanksgiving? Well, Eli Roth tackles the subject of Thanksgiving and Black Friday, all in one movie, which is basically expanded from a trailer from the Grindhouse project, which was however long ago it was. I wasn't entirely sure that we needed the Eli Roth trailer.

I'm absolutely certain that we didn't need the Eli Roth feature of the trailer. And number five here, two in the state's trolls band together. Doing better than the poor patrols. And number four here, two in the States trolls band together, doing better than the poor patrols. And number four here, 13 in the States is Saltburn. So, Phil Hobdon. Yes. This could well be one of my favorite films of the year, a brutal, cutting, dark and twisted film

that offers more scares than most of this year's Teen Horror films combined. I could go on, but honestly, the least you know about this, the better. Other than it's a truly must see loved it, loved it, loved it, and it stayed with me for many days after. Oh, and it might have one of my favorite last scenes in a film ever. Phil Edwards says, dear Genesis and Revelation, I saw a preview screening of saltburn a month ago, and I'm still thinking about it.

It's an odd film, a thoughtful piece of filmmaking, which has very little to say. The cinematic and literary echoes are endless, as well as those you mentioned. I'd cite the little stranger, great novel, so-so film, and in particular, Titus Grown. Mervin Peaks fantasy about a timeless aristocratic family, corrupted and undermined from within. The structure of the film is smart, too too and reminded me of promising young woman. Both films, both films, drop heavy hints that they're heading in one of two directions and end up going for both of them. But the comparison with Finale's earlier film doesn't do saltburn any favors.

It was never in any doubt what promising young woman was about. By contrast, saltburn looks to me like, quote, the director of that feminist film tackles the class system. And all that Emerald Finale has to say about the class system is that extremely rich and privileged people are often insular and rude, which didn't strike me as a revelation. Incidentally, I studied English at Cambridge and new students were indeed sent a three-page reading list with the King James Bible near the top of page one. Unlike Oliver, I didn't read the lot, but I did start at the top of the list and work my way down, so I can honestly say I've read the Bible from cover to cover.

Really? If they didn't want us to, they shouldn't put it on the list, not that I'm bitter or anything. Packs for Biscum, Phil Edwards. That's, I'd be really interested if anyone else has given the King James Bible on a reading list and actually read the whole thing. That's really impressive. Anyway, so two contrasting views of Salt Pinn.

Well, oddly enough, I did it on stage. The thing was, Emerald Finell, early on this week at the BFI South Bank, and I reminded her of your comment that, hello, Emerald, I hated everyone in your film. That wasn't quite how it was. No, no, no, but it was, but you said yourself that it was. I went too early on that I hated. No, you didn't go too early. She thought it was absolutely right

because you're not meant to sort of sympathize with and love these people. You're meant to find them, you know, perversely fascinating. But she directly addressed the question of after promising young woman, people thought about her as that political filmmaker. And that isn't who she is.

I mean, she did, she made something which appeared to be very clearly polemical. Saltburn isn't. And I don't think that that's, I don't think that she should be, you know, asked to make the same kind of film more than once. I think actually as a work of cinema, saltburn is a better film. I think it's more rounded, I think it's richer. I think the message of promising a woman is much clearer, but it's the old adage, you know, you want to use a message.

If you want to send a message, use Western Union. And you know, it's, I think as a piece of cinema, it is a really enjoyable role. And that's the message. The message is really enjoyable. I would still come down on the side of promising a woman. No, that's fine. I mean, that's perfectly fine.

It's perfectly fine to still prefer the other film. But I don't think it's right to say, well, look, we all knew what promising young woman was saying. And this isn't saying very much. I think it's more complicated than that. Tiger 3 is at number three. That is a film which hasn't been press-screened, but it is Indian

Hindi language action thriller by Manny Sharma. And if anyone's seen it, let us know. It's gone straight in. It's done very, very well. But it wasn't a press correspondent at covid-a-mer.com. Number two here. Number three in the States is The Marvels. Daniel O'Donnell, but not that one. Okay. My son and I have just returned from the cinema after watching the latest instalments of the MCU and both had a great time. The movie is a mess, but it's a fun, good-natured mess with all three leads put in charismatic performances.

Neither of us are huge Marvel fans, but still managed to enjoy it immensely. However, what has bothered me and probably shouldn't by now is the usual plethora of quotes from people who should know better, regurgitating the line from a few years back. The MCU is the death of cinema. I even read a piece the other day saying it wasn't just the MCU,

but franchises in general that were killing cinema. People seem to easily forget that these large tentpole movies bring in the punters that are needed to keep the lights on. You don't have to like them, but at least appreciate that without them, there would be a lot fewer cinemas to go to. Thank you, Daniel O'Donnell.

Not that one. Tentpole releasing is an interesting thing. You know, it's what's the other phrase that, you know, a rising tide raises all ships. Okay. So Tentpole releasing, certainly if you know people who run cinemas and I do, if you ever have a big blockbuster movie that underperforms their hearts sinks because those are the things that keep the cinemas afloat. However, there is a conversation to be had about what the relationship

between tentpole releasing and independent cinemas is and again I refer you to the previous thing I was talking about which is to do with the possibility of there being some kind of levee on streaming services in cinemas. Nobody likes it when a big movie fails, least of all cinemas. Marvel's has done, or when in number one last week, it is with Brazil, that was the softest MCU opening.

As I said when I reviewed it, I took no pleasure in saying that I didn't think it was any good, but I did think if somebody sees it and enjoys it good, I haven't seen the plethora of quotes about saying it's the end of cinema. It's, of course, it's not the end of cinema. It's a full hardy thing to say. And I don't know and enjoys it, good. I haven't seen the plethora of quotes about saying it's the end of cinema. Of course, it's not the end of cinema. It's a full, hardy thing to say.

I don't know who said it or what context. I wish, I wish that the Marvels was a better film. Number one here, number one in the States, Hunger Games, the Ballad of Songbirds and Stakes. Lucas McQueen in Edinburgh, Rachel Zeglitz, the true star of the film, her presence here, as it was in West Side Story, is captivating the scenes in which she sings live, her standouts. I did find moments of genuine intensity within the games. These were well-complemented by blips of levity from Jason Schwartzman's character of Lucky, who had my cinema bursting out into quite raucous laughter, though the fact that it was halftain on a Friday night might have

actually embellished this. I was invested in the story and the chemistry between the two young lovers. I'll be interested in here in Mark's further thoughts about the third act of the film and then it goes into some detail there, which we probably can't do. And Peter and Atherton, the good lady here in Doors, took the teenagers to see the Hunger Games, the ballad of songbirds and stakes at the weekend. My 14-year-old daughter has insisted that I email you with her thoughts. Yes, go ahead, please. She was not at all happy to hear of Mark's mid-review and instead felt the film was, quote,

amazing with 10 Gs. Okay. And is now in her top three films. She did concede that it was a bit violent for a 12A, but it was super exciting. So you have it. Some brief thoughts from someone who is possibly the target audience. Never mind that she wasn't even born when the first book was released. I have no opinion to share myself.

I stayed at home and made the Christmas cake. I'll let you know how good that is in a month or so. Thank you, Peter. So, Hunger Games number one. Well, I mean, I am delighted that it's had that response from its target audience. That's absolutely fantastic. And the reason that the film series existed, because that enthusiasm for that world that was created so effectively by Suzanne Collins in the original Hunger Games

is still out there. And that's great. Personally, and I'm sorry, I'm an old man, but I have seen all the Hunger Games movies and I didn't feel that I needed it in my life. But then I, as Sherry Lansing famously said to me after I explained to her what was wrong with Titanic, she said, you know what your problem is, you're not a 14-year-old girl. And here is quite specifically somebody who is gone to the cinema and had a great time and we'll go back. Exactly. And wasn't born when the first book came out. Exactly. So in that case, that is nothing other than utterly valid and a hooray. I'm really glad you liked it that much. Back in a moment with Jody Whitaker. This episode is brought to you by Mooby, a curated streaming service dedicated to

elevating great cinema from around the globe. From my Coddic directors to emerging otters, there's always something new to discover, for example. Well, for example, the new Aki Karazaki film Fallen Leaves, which won the jury prize at Cannes, that's in cinemas at the moment. And if you see that and think I want to know more about Aki Karazaki, you can go to Mooby the streaming service and there is a retrospective of his films called How to Be a Human. They are also going to be theatrically releasing in January, Priscilla, which is new,

so if you're a couple of film, which I am really looking forward to since I have an Elvis obsession. You could try Mooby free for 30 days at Mooby.com. Slash, Kermit and Mayo. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash Kermit and Mayo for a whole month of great cinema for free. With banking packages from Scotia Bank, you can put money back in your pocket. That's how Marcus was able to invest in everything he needed to launch his podcast about his pets. Welcome back to PetGasd!

Visit ScotiaBank.com slash welcome offer, Scotia Bank conditions apply. That was a very entertaining commercial break. Thank you. Unless you're a Vanguard Eastern, in which case, you didn't have one and we've just continued very strange. I guess today, one of our guests today is a best known as the, perhaps best known as the 13th incarnation of the doctor in Doctor Who. So we're not talking about working Phoenix, although he would make a very good doctor.

He's a very different doctor, who? Also Beth Latimer in Broad Church, and all are written in a recent BBC Prime Time drama time. She now stars in the thriller One Night. You can hear our conversation with Jodie Whitaker after this clip. What's happening with your novel, Mon? You're still gonna try and get it published?

What's happening with your novel, Mon? You're still gonna try and get it published? Um... My agent is encouraging me to write something new. So you totally chucked it? Yeah. What was it about? Your book? Yeah, give us this synopsis.

It's about... It's about two best friends who fall in love with each other but can't admit it. I thought you said it was a thriller. It's um... ...was about many things. That is a clip from the new TV series. One night, one of its stars is Jodie Whitaker. We're delighted to be joined by Jody who's

somewhere in a luxury hotel. I don't own it. Do you not? Hello Jody how are you? I'm good how are you guys? We're doing very well I think I'm I speaking on behalf of both of us. I think we're both doing fabulously well. Yes. All right. Introduces to the show. Introduces to where we are with one night. So one night is a six-part drama that follows three friends who 20 years previous to the story starting. My character test is the survivor of a sexual assault and it essentially is a journey through friendship and what time can do to memory, to when such a horrific event happens, how that decimates not just the individual, but the people who are involved in it. But it's an exploration of friendship and

grief and ownership of memory, because one of the characters Simone decides to write a fictional in Invertecomer's novel about this, for her, it's her way of dealing with it. But for my character, that is perceived as, I suppose, the ultimate betrayal. But it's, what is beautiful about this to me, having read a lot of scripts, and particularly a lot of scripts that explore communities or situations with sexual assault, it's very often an outside POV, so you've got the police detectives, everyone talking, slightly third person

about the actual people it affects, whereas this is about what happens to the individual and it's inside out and within friendships. And it's a beautiful, authentic journey through lifelong female friendships in this instance of these three women. And I, as someone who's had friends since I was little, it felt so real and layered in the way that you can love, hate and be besotted with someone in an instant and in one moment. And it can be more than just the one layer of,

I suppose, often we explore relationships when it's from marriage or a kind of relationship where it's, are they gonna get together? This story's being centered around friendship is less, I've read that less, and it really appealed to me. And I would imagine it would need something really strong and powerful like this, Jodie, to make you think,

yes, even though I've just come off a very high profile gig as the doctor, what I'm going to do is I'm going to uproot my family, we're going to go to Australia, we're going to live that. I would have thought that wasn't the first thing on your list of things you wanted to do. It wasn't, I'd also. The good thing about Doctor Who is that the episodes get scattered, so you shoot it all in quite an intense period

we shot for a year, and we wrapped in October 21. But my last step doesn't come out until October 22. So I didn't work for that entire year. So if to everyone else it's like I'm so busy. But actually, I was on maternity leave. I wasn't, you know, I was at home and I was enjoying kind of like a new dynamic in the family. And my main thing was, if I go back to work

with a little one and a bigger one, it has to be convenient and it has to suit us all because I'd done commuting between Cardiff and London for three years. And then, yeah, and then, I totally, I'm not allowed to swear, do you have some now? And then we can believe it. I told some of my own rule and it was like three o'clock in the morning and I had read, I was sent three episodes, which I have to say all credits to the writer, you know, very often you get things, you get one episode and then you fingers cross him for the rest.

With this I was given three EPS to read, to see if I wanted to do it and I was engrossed. I couldn't stop reading it, but I did, you know, there's no downside to moving to Sydney in January because I missed one of the word winter. The subject matter is obviously dark. It's about the unearthing of a horrible event from one night many years ago. But the way you're talking about the project seems to be entirely positive and upbeat and empowering. Was it fun to make?

And I asked that in awareness of just how dark the subject matter is. I think the thing is, like jobs like this has to be approached with the, with boundless kind of energy and enthusiasm. And whether that translates as enjoyment or not, it has to be met with that same energy that I would approach like playing the doctor.

Because the subject matter, because it's written so powerfully, and it's in such the thing about it is as well written by Emily Ballou, who is extraordinary. It's incredibly poetic, and it also has no gratuity within it. And we know about the event event and in this horrific moment, but there isn't the sense of let's show every single detail of this. And because it's an exploration of aftermath, rather than that, that's how, I suppose, the way into it is, it's maybe... It's not that it's easier to play, but it feels as if there is an approach to it that can keep you kind of a bit separated from it in a way that, for your own head, a lot

of the times you need to. But it certainly didn't make it easy, but it was, because it plays with memory and it challenges when something happens and if you don't remember it, what effect that can have on you. That was the challenge. But in some much as go in there, meeting a brand new cast, I've never been on set with an entire crew and cast I've never worked with in 10, 15 years, because you always overlap a grip or a boom operator. And the cast were phenomenal, the crew was phenomenal. And everyone brings such a bounding energy that it's an absolute joy to make. And you just want to be there every day with the most extraordinarily beautiful backdrop. Yeah, it is. It is very beautiful. Tell us about Testo because she just introduces to her and

your accent. Oh my god. Well, it's different from mine. So I, the thing for me with Testo is I don't think I would have got this, had this been a British, I'd have been set in England and the characters were British. I wouldn't have got this, I don't think. I certainly wouldn't, I don't think if you read the character to Thor, um, Joey Whitaker, because for me, the thing that appealed so much was most of the time when I've played characters that have kind of explored events that have been incredibly emotionally challenging. The exploration of it has been to feel it and show it. And with tests, we meet her having had 20 years

of layering and protection. And so her demeanor could be perceived as cold. It's certainly keeping even the people closest to her at Am's length. She's not tactile, absolute polar opposite to me. Doesn't over share, complete opposite. And is quite, I would say, contained with an elegance and maturity that I definitely don't have.

So I was fascinated with the cast in. So I just, when I read it, I was like, how the... Shhh! Am I going to play this? And it was amazing to embody someone who it's all going on, but you don't have to give everything all the time. And as someone who gives away tears so easily in life,

because for me, everything's on the brink of something, it was extraordinary to play someone who's so tightly wound, but we understand why. There's also a kind of key plot point, which is somewhere around episode three in which your character is talking about, look, can I stop this story, this Ramana clef being out in the world? And she's basically told, well, firstly, you don't own your own story. But secondly, in order to do anything about it, you would have to confess that it is your story and you'd have to find specific areas in which your story has been mistolled. And there's

a beautiful sort of depiction of the quandary of somebody not knowing how to deal with ownership of their own story. And the fact that if they want to stop it, they have to admit that it is their own. Yeah, and I think also what's really brilliant on the X-Blaude is that actually, for tests, it has been the defining moment of those 20 years and has taken it to the other side of the world to run away from. Without maybe, I think, Tess's journey is a kind of lack of acknowledgement that it happened to her, but the effect it's had on the people closest to her is as great.

And I think that that, realizing that this isn't just hers is a really important thing, maybe a spoiler. I don't know if I'm articulate that in the best way. No, you did that very elegantly. So we have, so three women, two time periods, we're talking about a, in cold terms, a historic sexual assault. There's a conversation, I think I've remembered this right, Jodie, where you're talking about it. And a hat, one of the other, one of your friends, talks about the word consent. And you say, I think we weren't using that word back then. And I think a modern audience will come to that thinking,

wow, 20 years. It's only 20 years ago, but this conversation particularly has moved a long way, hasn't it? I think the conversation has moved. And it's not where it should be, but it's absolutely moved. And I think that what is so powerful in this, which was one of the reasons why I wanted to be a part of it, was the use of the 20 year period,

so that this isn't this thing that we remiss or, or reminisce or talk about, it's there, and it can be in a scene and it can overlap. So I can look in a mirror and the reflection is 20 year old me, not me now. And the use of that to highlight that these moments can are playing at the same time because when something happens like that,

it is the soundtrack and the narrative of the rest of your life, whether it's 20 years ago or a day ago. And I think that the fact that we see the way the police handle it, the way the language is used and who we are now in our articulation of these things, and also having the daughter Lily who plays my daughter in it, her way of articulating things is so much different to the way tests at that age would have articulated or been able to see what the, the, what's the, it's a really difficult things pinpoint, but it's as if we as women now,

or if a 20 year old woman now, doesn't have to explain ownership of themselves. It doesn't necessarily have a different outcome, but that necessarily in this instant doesn't maybe need explaining, whereas, you know, for the way we're interviewed as 20-year-old versions of ourselves really highlights that time difference. Or hopefully it does. Did you work with Michaela Bins-Rocque

who plays the young version of you? Did you work together to unify the performance, is it all? So, interestingly, we went into this and there was a lot of rehearsal beforehand, but the rehearsal was sitting and talking and having a kind of table discussion. And it was a good few days and you don't often get that and it was really vital. What me and Michaela had that was really interesting was sometimes we would read in our rehearsals, we as the older ones would read the younger scenes so that it wasn't just done by those guys. And me and Michaela spent a lot of time together,

but there was nothing, there was no expectation of me to mirror her or her to mirror me, because I think casting wise it was so brilliantly done. I found there's a particular scene which I can't talk about necessarily because it is a spoiler, but where we particularly interact physically with each other and in a moment that is not, it is quite upsetting for my character. And I think the casting of her was extraordinary because she looked, I feel like she looked like me at that age and seeing your memories of yourself. If I think of myself at 19, I still look 41

because I can't quite see what I don't, I see what I look like now, but having the 19, 20 year old version of yourself there and realizing how young and how vulnerable that person is made filming it, so it was a very emotional experience for both of us. And it was her first job and she absolutely smashed it. Jody, and it's a series which is on Paramount and it's getting a big thumbs up from us. We haven't seen the final three episodes, but it's an astonishing series and everyone needs to watch it.

Can I ask you a question just finally that I did ask Christopher Eccleston and I did ask David. But they gave a better answer. This is the hat trick. No, no. So the question is very simple. However, brilliant a time that you had being the doctor, was it quite freeing to stop? I would say, no, it's my absolute happiness that job.

I will never play and I will never get to to dance through a series and have the joy and magic in any other role. I will be forever grief ridden that I'm not the doctor. Since you did the doctor's question, I'm going to do very quickly. 2013, good vibrations with my favourite film of the year. I just want to say thank you. I know it was. Thank you. More people should see that. That's a

classroom. Yeah, absolutely. But I also remember being interviewed by you when you hated the title Perry is about it. And you get to say now what you ate at the title. Good film. When someone lose some genuine to get always a pleasure. Thank you so much for talking to us and good luck with one night. I'm sure then she came back and said, thank you so much. Thank you. I was very much one night. I'm sure then she came back and said, thank you so much. Thank you. I was very much enjoyed. It was the best of it.

It was an interview I've done. So I'll just say the pause in her answer to your doctor who questioned. He speaks volumes. Because David Tennant had a blast clearly, he did, because he's gone back and he's repreasing it for a few episodes. But he said, yes, he did find it for him. Inevitably, you would find, when he've only been one thing for a long period of time. So it was very interesting that fact that she said, she will always be grief-ridden that she's not the doctor. That was a wonderful phrase, wasn't it? And how great

to hear somebody saying that. To say, no, I loved it. I like to, I want to be it forever. Can I just say before you review one night, the fact that it's on Paramount is another, it's one of those, so we interviewed it because it's a good series and Jodie is always very interesting. There are so many streaming services now asking for your extra, you know, amount of a month. Yes. That you, and Paramount are very kind of new to the party. And people might be thinking, I already so subscribed to X1Z, so maybe I'm not going to go out to Paramount of very kind of new to the party. And people might be thinking, I already so subscribed to X, Y and Z. So maybe I'm not going to go out to Pat, which means that inevitably these kind of shows

are going to be seen by fewer people than if they were on, you know, it was a new series on ITV or BBC2. So I guess what a lot of people are going to be interested in what you have to say about it, but they're going to try and work. Is it worth me subscribing to get Subscribing to get this show. Okay. So just slightly repeat some of the stuff that was said in that interview. So this

is a six part series created by Emily Balook directed by Catherine Miller and Lisa Matthews, three women, two time frames, many stories. In their youth, this trio tests Simone, Simone and Hat were inseparable.ess was actually assaulted, so she's a rape survivor, moved away as did Simon. Now Tess is back with her wife and kids to spend a year in Sydney. Simon has returned to care for her ailing father and she's written a book, a Ramana clef, a true story mildly fiction-ized, telling the story of that one night. But is it her story to tell? She publishes the book anonymously, but a local journalist joins the dots and follows the

dots to test his door. So, it becomes this whole thing about the story has been told, it's out there, and you know, people are now figuring it out. Meanwhile, Hat is worried about her own culpability in an old drug dealing ring case that's tied up with the original case. So let's start with the negatives. To say that the mechanics of the plot are contrived is to put it lightly. I mean, it is very plot heavy in terms of its coincidences. It's intrigued in the way that they intertwine.

There is something which is pure melodrama about the way that the bits of the story kind of, you know, neatly tied together. But the performances are across the board terrific and have a real ring of truth about them, I mean, not least, Jody Whitaker. As does the central theme of blanking out trauma of shutting the door on the past, rather than facing it,

of people being confined to silence as opposed to being able to discuss something. Also, I think that ultimately, for all the mechanics of the plot, what the film is about is it's about friendship, it's about ownership of stories, ownership of your own story, the acceptance of your own story is not just your own, the way in which, as Jodie Whitaker said in the interview, you can love and hate people at the same time. There is a really terrific performance by Yelstona's hat who I thought was great. Nicole Solv does a really good job of encapsulating Simone's conflict about having

written this thing and then suddenly wishing that she hadn't but knowing that she had and then The position that it puts her in but I think that at the none of this would work if you didn't buy the central performance by jody wittica who Because her character basically goes back into an environment that she has walked away from because of this terrible thing in the past And then has to negotiate this really complicated position because on the one hand being very sort of forceful and very, you know, front foot, but on the other hand, still being related to the earlier version of herself who is trapped in this kind of this awful event. So it's, I mean, it's probably, it's not in the same league for me as unbelievable, but then it's not the same kind of story.

This is, in the end, it is a melodrama in as much as it is a, you know, it has the kind of mechanics of the plot and the contrivance. And some people may find that some of the subplots, some of the outer ring plots are not quite as engaging as the central thing. But at the central heart of it, this idea about a traumatic, forgotten, silenced event that brings together three people who were as close as anything and have been thrown to the four wins by this and are now forced to come back and confront it is really powerful. And the last episode, the time that we did that interview, we'd only seen three, I've now seen all six.

The last episode is very good. And the last episode, there is a shot in the last episode in which Jody Whitaker doesn't say anything, but she's listening to something. And the camera is, you're not, you don't hear what she's listening to, you just she's listening to something. And the camera is, you're not, you don't hear what she's listening to, you just watch her listen to something,

and it is absolutely brilliant. So I think it's, after having, maybe you had some reservations around four or five, episode six has got a very, very good closure to it. So I would say it is definitely worth seeing because I think the performance is great. There is a really interesting idea at the center of it. There is some overworked plot mechanics,

but I can live with them because the characters kept it grounded. Should I consider subscribing to Paramount Plus because of it? I think it's a good argument. I mean, if you can't see it anywhere else, I think it's a good argument. I mean, if you can't see it anywhere else, I think it's worth it. Yeah, I think so. Correspondence at cominemail.com wants to,

you've seen anything or just want to take part in any of our conversations. The very good news is, of course, it's time for the ads in a minute, which I always look forward to, my favorite part of the show. But before we get there, it's time to step into the laughter left. Do we have to? Yes, we do. Okay.

Well, hey Mark, while we're in the laughter left, let's have some laughter. Okay, yeah, that would be good. Finally, drummed up the courage to have that conversation with a good lady, ceramicist, her indoors. I told her she'd been drawing her eyebrows way too high. Apsi-says she looks surprised. She said,

You have absolutely zero empathy, do you? I have no idea why she feels like. Not as bad as last week, when she got crossed because I don't know Eminem's real name. I have to say I don't see why it matters. I don't see why. I'm a. Ever say I don't see white mothers. Don't see what? Wait, yeah, fine, fine, fine. We'll mark that. Yes, I got it.

I got it. Marshall Mathers, yeah, I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. Did you get that one? I'm down with the kids. Did you get the Slim Chance reference?

Yes. Slim Shady. Just hear that song playing in my head. Try to make things up with a good lady, ceramicist. So I've done some more Christmas shopping. I bought some new beads for her vintage abacus. It's the little things that count. There we are. We'll be back after this unless you're a van Goddaster. In which case we have just one question. When you shuffle a standard pack of cards, what are the chances that that exact

sequence has been dealt before? It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain-alice? Yes, we deliver those. Golden-tenders know, but chicken tenders, yes, because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials, order

Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See out for details. Metrolinks and crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful. Product availability varies by region. See out for details. along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. So when you shuffle a standard deck of cards, what are the chances that the exact sequence has been dealt before? The answer is that it is very likely that the specific order has never before existed in the history of car playing. No. There are more ways to

order a properly shuffled deck of cards than there are atoms on earth. And even if someone could rearrange a deck of cards every second of the universe's total existence, the universe would end before they could get even one billionth the way to finding a repeat. I find this. That can't be right. The odds are somewhere in the range of eight times 10 to the power of 67 ways to sort a deck of cards. That's an eight followed by 67 zeros. How many ways are there to leave your lover? Just 50 ways to leave your lover.

Wow. So it's much easier to leave your lover than it is to deal the deck of cards the same twice. However, also, this is a more interesting fact, I think, although that is kind of mind-blowing. You know what? My mind is blown. The riffle shuffle. The riffle shuffle, yes.

A perfect riffle shuffle. Yes. Everything interlocks all the way through. If you can do that eight times, the pack is back to where it started. So if you're literally going, card A, car day, car day, car day. So if you say, I'm just going to shuffle the cards, you do a perfect, refrains shuffle eight times.

And it's back where it was. It's back to where it was. And I have magicians ever used that. I mean, how many people could actually do a perfect refrains shuffle? I didn't know. I mean, you know, people can do extra magicians

and do extraordinary things, probably. Anyway, this is magic. Very, very interesting. However, it's not quite as interesting as our next. It's not getting the baby washed. do extra magicians to do extraordinary things. Anyway, this is magic. Very, very interesting, however, it's not quite as interesting as our necks. It's not getting the baby washed. What do that mean? Coming next, Napoleon and Josephine. Or to you, Wachim Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby. I chat with them after this clip from Napoleon. I'm not built like other men.

I'm not built like other men. And I'm not subject to petty insecurity. You're a beast. I feel sorry for you. You want to be great. Hmm? You are nothing without me. You are just a brute. It isn't nothing without me.

And that is a clip from Napoleon. I've delighted to be joined by a wacky Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby. Wacky, hello. Hi, it's nice to be here. That's what, what do you think of the clip? We've had a long conversation about the clip and Wackin's concerned that it involves both of you. What do you think? Do we get the right clip? We don't know what the clip is, this is unfair. That's true. We've set us up. We probably haven't been given the clip. But anyway, that was a clip from Napoleon.

Yes. Mike and Vanessa are here. Thank you very much, Deepa, for talking to us. Mike, as far as your concern, where does this story begin? How did you get involved? How did Siridly get you onto this project? I mean, it's really boring. My agent called me and said, you know, really wanted to make this movie.

You know, you would meet him. So I went and I met with him. And this was quite some time before we started shooting because I think it was at another studio. And then it fell apart. And I just assumed that it was one of those movies happens quite often, right, where you get involved in something,

and it falls apart for whatever reason. And then about a year later, he called again and said, oh, we're going with the Apple and we have the funding, and that was it. I didn't think that was boring at all. Really? I did. I mean, I'm was boring at all. No, I did. I mean, I'm like, finally.

Okay, well, I pull it. We'll get to the exciting stuff. Let's hope. Yeah. What would mean exciting question for you? Oh, no, you can't do that to me. Okay, fine. Vanessa, I hope you don't find this boring question.

I would recommend. Well, it was like your question that was boring at all. It was a fantastic, normal, good start. I'm reassured. I'm good start. For this, when did you come on board this film? A lot later, I think it was this before Christmas. And I had so much catching up to do

because the information on that whole time is just immense. And I didn't really know much about it, honestly. And not enough about her at all, other than her kind of reputation. It was a really interesting, trying to cram as much. and I didn't really know much about it, honestly, and not enough about her at all, other than her kind of reputation. It was a really interesting, trying to cram as much. I remember on Christmas Day, I was reading Napoleon books.

Was there anything that you underlined and thought, oh, that, I can do that? I don't know if you ever think that. I mean, especially when sort of playing someone real and you can't say any footage of them, it's not recent history. So you have to go on all these different accounts and every single account is so biased

because we read her lady in waiting book and she really didn't like Napoleon, so she was very anti-Napolian and she kind of deified Josephine in a way that made her very pure and sweet. And then another account was that she was, you know, a mad shopaholic and extremely insecure and emotional. And you know, so there was just every different version was an angle. And so you had to try and combine all of them and then distill it into

some kind of essence of what useful that person was in this version of the story, you know, the fictional version of the story. What kind of Napoleon did you want to do working? What did Sridley want? Because there are options, aren't there as to what kind of the pattern? Sure. I mean, it was apparent early on that we wanted to play with several different disparate tones.

In one way, it's a epic war film. It's a character study. And one thing that I think we really discovered through the research process was there was kind of this absurd humor to it all. And particularly, there's something about Josephine and Napoleon's relationship, which was so, so interesting.

They were really like immature, bratty kids at times that were like involved in this really volatile, strange relationship. And I felt like that was something that I hadn't really seen in the context of a film, like in a historical drama. And it felt like, all right, well, that's something really worth pursuing. And so that's, I think that became like important is really finding those

absurd and kind of comical moments within their relationship. Also, they were, they were actually quite playful with each other. And I didn't anticipate that. Of course, part of the most people you think of in of Napoleon, you think he's a cold and calculating strategist, but they actually had these absurd wild parties and arguments at those parties that almost seem performative. And so I think that was pretty unexpected. And an example of that would be when we're having the scene when he first says why you're not pregnant yet at breakfast.

And I had no idea what Waking was going to do and suddenly he was crawling under the table and pulling me under it. And I would never have imagined I would have laughed a lot in that scene based on what they were discussing, deeply painful for her. So this is it improvisation really. Yeah. Is there a lot of that in the scenes that you two do? We never, I don't think that we ever rehearsed a single scene.

Nothing. So and oftentimes, I don't know which take we had to use, but he hasn't do many takes. And so we definitely didn't, it was where we were like, I think it kind of seems so much their relationship in which we were united in many respects. We were working together. And yet there was almost this element where we were not revealing our intentions or what we might explore within the scene to each other. So it created this really unique energy in which we felt like it's you and me against

the world. We're in this little moment together. And yet, let's try and surprise each other. I don't really want to know what you're going to do in this scene. And I want you to surprise me. And that created a very interesting energy. So even if it was take for it, she might have a different reaction to something I do advise first.

So that whole under the table scene, you thought up on the moment? On the spur of the moment? When it was a, it was a, it was a expository and dry scene. And I think we were always looking for some flavor that might kind of send it off into a new direction. And when I arrived on set, the doors behind the table had been open and the light was pushing through the tablecloth

and I saw clearly under this long table and I was like, oh really? Well, do you think I should try to take where I go through? And he's like, there it is! I was going down! Something, things are flying around. And I don't, you know, the thing that I really think is, like, you can try anything.

And he's going to capture it. And then, you know, sometimes we would go down the road, we would try something, and you'd find like, oh, that doesn't really work, does it help the scene? And we'd go back and change it again. So it was something that we were finding in that moment. There is an observation from David Scarpot, the screenwriter on Napoleon, talking about the similarities between Ridley Scott and Napoleon Bonaparte. And he used the phrase that neither of them have an internal sense of limitation. I thought that was very interesting. Obviously,

they're both, I think Ridley said he's a benevolent dictator, but no sense of limitation. That sounds as though it matches with your experience, as he's working very fast and saying, okay, you do this thing. I mean, I would say so. I mean, he's more energy than all of us put together. He was steaming around set, you know, and...

He said he five, isn't he? I think. Is he eighties six? Oh, yeah. I think he's older than that. I mean, you're a very, very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person.

I mean, I'm a very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person. I mean, I'm a very sick person. was really easy to do that, even though what he was doing and the lack of limitation on what he wanted to do was kind of terrifying. And also, I would argue that towards the later of her life, I think she just did end up loving him. It's the beginning she wasn't sure,

but sort of avoidantly, then possibly. But I think the more that her love grew, the more I felt that she wanted him to just stop it all and just not do it. And he just couldn't, it felt. And I remember feeling so much pain around that as her, because in the end, it was almost what's it for? And we have this, and then it sort of, that's why it kind of crumbled.

I think it's fair to say, working that Napoleon didn't like the British. Yeah. Well, here's the, from a very young age, right? Because during the rebellion and the local revolution in Corsica, Pascal Pauli asked the British to come in and protect his side, and so the Bonaparte were ousted. So it started from a very young age. And then, of course, they had a superior Navy, which was very frustrating to Napoleon. The biggest laugh in the screening that I went is when you,

as Napoleon... Let me guess, it's... You think you're so great because you have both? Yes. Right. And everybody laughed. So the night before we shot that scene, I was going through what was written in my head and it's like, oh, there's something else, something missing I need. Like this last line, I can't forget what it is. I called the writer and I was like, you know, he needs to like, he basically wants to say, I hate the English. And he was the writer, like, you't say, I said, I know what is

it? He goes, you think you're so great because you have boats. And I just fell on the floor laughing and I was like, well, that is a perfect line. And that, you got to do this. And so then we just do it. I do have to mention the battle scenes because Ausstilett and Waterloo particularly are standout moments in this film. They are quite extraordinary. If you can see it on I'm Axit on a big screen because you need to get the breadth of what these battles,

the 19th century battles, what is it like being a part of one of those filming days as opposed to the intimacy of your scenes with Josephine? What is it like to be there in that moment? Usually it's really tedious and boring. But with Ridley, again, you will do a continuous take, you will shoot, you know, a large portion of the battle in one shot. Of course, he's got, you know, multiple cameras, so it's not one shot, but as one sequence. So I think on one day, we started out

where Napoleon is getting dressed. He walks into the main part of his tent, has a small discussion, walks out into the rain, and then walks all the way up surveying the troops. And it was like, you know, I don't know, it was a very long take, I don't know how long it was, but that is exhilarating because then you actually feel like you were part of it.

And while this is happening, while you're walking, they're firing off cannons that are here in the background. And so, you know, oftentimes what happens in a scene typically with most other filmmakers, most of the films, they're going like, oh, we're not going to fire off any cannons because I sound with this dialogue. And so, you're acting everything, right? You're not in the elements. It's a short little piece of a scene that they need. And here, you're walking in the rain, in the mud, in the cold with cannons firing off, troops running back and forth and it's actually, you have to exhilarate.

We're out of time and the same Josephine can't be a part of those epic scenes, but anyway. I know she, I think she rarely visited and I was even, you know, I was reading up all these battles and I realized half of it, she wouldn't necessarily know exactly what's going on. So I remember texting Joaquin on those days, he was like, how's it going? He was like, it's crazy. It was, it was, it was seemed like such hard work compared to the stuff that we were doing, which is emotional, but it was big physical days.

I mean, I would have loved to be out there on the, on the front line with you guys. Vanessa Joaquin, thank you very much. I hope that wasn't too boring. Thank you. I want to clear this up. I never thought you were boring. I think your great, I thought my answer was boring. It was great, Joaquin. You're just saying that.

No, seriously. I really enjoyed the interview. Because I was at the start of the pod. I really didn't know what to expect. I think it really mattered that working was doing it with Vanessa because they, they really, you could tell they really like each other. And at the end of the interview, they left the room. And then when we left the room, having

acted, they were still talking in the corridor to each other. Like, maybe they hadn't seen each other. Yeah, yeah. He's a cheeky monkey, though, isn't he? He is very much a cheeky monkey. Just to clear up a few things. First of all, this is certainly the week of swearing guests. Yes. It was very fruity in the room. And so Ridley Scott will be 86 on the 30th of November, so in a few days time. And as a Sony executive said, God bless

all Sony executives, obviously, he said Ridley Scott is the best argument for a Biden second term because Ridley Scott is much, much older. And is at his most productive Ridley Scott is currently in the most productive. I mean, Gladiator 2 is, you know, well underway. There are 16 upcoming projects listed. And I think one of the reasons why Vanessa Kirby was late into the project was you might remember an interview with Ridley Scott and Jodie Coma from a couple of years ago.

Yes. And I think, and at the time they were talking about Napoleon and I think Jodie Coma was going to be Josephine anyway, and the way these things didn't happen. Anyway. Okay, so Napoleon directed by Ridley Scott from a script by David Scarpa, the tagline he came from nothing he conquered everything. Just say that both of those, it's a great tagline, complete rubbish. Yeah.

Well, I'm just total rubbish. I know, I'm just selling it up. Okay. So the film follows Napoleon's rise, you know, through the ranks of authority to war, from warrior to emperor, from emperor to exile from Victoria, from, won't make it, massively compressed historical narrative. And of course, the fab line, which you quoted in that interview, you think you're so great because you have boats set to the British Empire. Which I think should now be put on the on the British passports. We think we're so great because we have boats. What I wanted to say was, I effing hate the British.

No, I know. However, with all that, I have to say that for me, the central theme of this is the relationship between Napoleon and Josephine, as, you know, Phoenix says, it's part historical drama, part character study. There has been much praise for the spectacular battles. I should say the spectacular battles are really grim. I mean, they're first for a start, they're murky. I mean, they're shot in the kind of, yeah, they're battles. It's mud, it's rain, it's violence, it's, you know, people running at each other with pointed implements and horses getting hit by cannonballs and, you know, blood, it's almost like saving private Ryan and Napoleonic style. I thought that the battle scenes were horrific and I think they meant to me. And when you, you know, people talk obviously about,

you know, the battle scenes are huge and spectacular. They're grim. It's interesting to know it incidentally, that's a movie by Ridley Scott, who everybody used to accuse of being all spectacle and no substance that I think what this is, the substance that's more interesting than the spectacle. So Napoleon is not sympathetic.

I mean, he may be a brave warrior on the battlefield. She calls him a brute, but in private he is a weasel little boy. Out there in the world he leads armies into death and destruction. The death tolls are astonishing and on much is made at the end of just what the death tolls were. When he's with Josephine, he is to use a word that Waking Phoenix using that interview, a winy, bratty, kind of like a schoolboy. She exerts her power over him in a particular scene in which she says to him, they're sitting opposite each other, and she's sitting on a chair, and she says to him, if you look down, you will see a surprise and once you see it, you will always want it. Now, it takes a very fine actor to deliver that line and get

away with it. Luckily, Vanessa Kirby is a very fine actor. And thus, so the whole... She's a big fan of the podcast. Well, good. That's great. And she delivers that line as, you know, a threat, a tease, a come on, a stale. I mean, there's so much power in the way she delivers that line. Phoenix talked to that interview about the absurd humor of their relationship. And I think that absurdity is central. I mean, in fact, on one level, the movie itself is preposterous. Ridley Scott's Napoleon would cover it, and I'm at what, all of it, is preposterous.

But actually, that preposterousness is particularly aposite considering the nature of their relationship. People have talked about the great love between Napoleon and Josephine. The love scenes are ludicrous, deliberately so. He makes this weird sound when he wants to be with her. It's this kind of weird gesture, you know, I want to be with my,

and then the scenes of them together, they are played for ludicrousness, that it's they're not long, langarest, passionate scenes, quite the opposite. They are perfunctory and canine Christmas that it's they're not you know long-language passionate scenes quite the opposite they are perfunctory and canine in their the way that they're Pulled out the madness of him crawling underneath the table and during that scene about you know why aren't you pregnant yet?

The other thing I think we hasn't quite been flagged in our fears This is a film that manages to portray Josephine as a sexually independent, strong woman without ever demonizing her for it. She is who she is. He take it or leave it. She asks him straight off right at the beginning. I have a past. Is that going to be an issue? And he says no. She takes lovers. She says to him, have you had lovers? He says, oh yes, yes, you think no, you haven't. No, you haven't. It's just what she does. She's completely charismatic. She's also three-dimensional.

I mean, when she said in that interview, not first that she wants a kind of, you know, distance avoidance thing with him. But then later on, she thinks that she genuinely does love him. She's never portrayed as a demonized force. And this is very unusual for mainstream cinema to do something that and I think that's partly to do with the filming, but I think a lot of it is to do with

Vanessa Kirby coming in and taking control of that role and making it the kind of lightning rod at the heart of the film. As for Phoenix's Napoleon, I mean, he's a narcissistic lunatic. He's kind of like a, a colligula figure. Actually, weirdly enough, in terms of performance, there are flashes in his performance of Malcolm McDowell's colligula, petulant, whiny, bratish. Or so his previous emperor for Ridley Scott, commodities. Exactly, exactly.

And that kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. And those things, they're not, you know, what a fantastic, you know, admirable leader, quite the opposite, whiny, bratty, andirable leader, quite the opposite, whiny, bratty, and brave in as much as the winter is coming. We have to stop. No, we're gonna carry on. Oh, look, everyone's freezing to death.

There are a couple of other performances, he's worth mentioning, Rupert Everett is very, very good. He is as sensational as well, in terms of leadership. Having a fantastic time. It looks like he's drunk an entire bottle of bitterness. Fantastic. You know, and thank heavens for the support. Um, there was that weird thing when you compared, you said that, you know, people have said

that Tony Scott is like Napoleon, the weird thing when you said that Ridley Scott is like Napoleon. The weird thing when you said that a Ridley Scott is like Napoleon, but he's a benevolent dictator. Actually, the comparison is between Ridley Scott and Stanley Kubrick because of course, Stanley Kubrick tried for years to get Napoleon project together. He researched it. It was called the greatest movie never made. He just never got it done. Abel Gauntz's version originally wanted it to be six films, even though the end result of that Napoleon is considered to be one of the greatest works of cinema.

It wasn't the full thing that he wanted to do. Ridley Scott just went, I'm going to make Napoleon. Oh, there we are. I've made Napoleon. Apparently there is a director's cut coming later on, which is four hours that will come to an apple. Coming to Apple TV. But so, you know, if you look in the history of cinema, you know, the fact that that really Scott just went, I'm going to do Napoleon.

There we are. I've done Napoleon. Man, he shoots fast. 62 days the whole film took. Breath taking. Breath taking. You know, could brick decades didn't happen. I will dance.

Huge amount of something. And only did some of what he wanted to do. But I do think that at the end of it, the thing that makes the film interesting is the portrait of Napoleon as this whiny, weasley, bratty, narcissistic, colligular-like figure. And the portrait of Josephine as a strong, independent, three-dimensional character who absolutely has the measure of him at the beginning of him. And I think Vanessa Kirby is the key to it.

I think those people who think that Ridley Scott likes events, not explanation, will find this as more proof of that. I think the events are better than the explanation. In terms of who Napoleon was and who he, there is no explanation as to why he is that guy. There is no explanation as to, for example, the incredible reforms that he passed, the man who reintroduced slavery, reintroduced slavery into the French colonies. Where is that guy? There are other people like Andrew Roberts' historian, who said he was the Enlightenment on a horse.

That's how, where is that, where is that, Napoleon? So I don't think, and when Ridley Scott, that's a great phrase. Yeah, when challenged by Dan Snow and others about the historical accuracy, instead of saying, it's a film, I've just done a version. He has this preposterous line where he says,

we there, no. Well, shut up Ben or stronger language. That's not how history works. Absolutely, that's not how history works. So I do think Ridley needs a little bit of a media. Yes, but I want to be clear. Firstly, I'm reviewing the film, not the history, exactly, and secondly, Ridley's always been like that.

Ridley has always been like that. Anyway, it's spectacular. If you get a chance to see it on a big screen, do that before it's on your laptop or your phone because the battle scenes are brutal. They're not lavish and glorious, they are. But it's like gladiating, it's brutal stuff. Also, when I said komodus, Emperor komodus,

it wasn't Mark komodus, obviously it was. Oh, I thought he'd played me. Oh, he could do. He could play me. That's why he would be great. It would. I mean, you know, he did Johnny Cash, he could do me. Right. Just time for a brief, uh, what's on for a cinematic event, which has been sent in here and attached to an email to Correspondents at KermannMahde.com. Here's this week's episode. Hi, Simon and Mark. It's February, cut the number six in Iran, the historic dot-card

in Portsmouth. On Saturday, the 25th of November at 7pm, we will be screening the amazing 1972 classic cabaret when we will transform our bar area into the KitKat Club. And even if cocktails dress up and general fun, log onto number six, dot-code.uk for more info. Frederic imports, Matt. That's fab. It does, again, Frederic, a couple of inches further back from the...

And here we are, the Simon Mayer School of Broadcast. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous.

Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous.

Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very famous. Very. And Monsieur Le Ragnacter was Simone. Mark, what's your film of the week? The Eternal Daughter. I think it should be in a poll. And on YouTube. Take two has landed a Jason Lots of Extra Stuff, more recommendations, bonus reviews, and take three will be with you on Wednesday with your questions and your questions. on Wednesday with your questions and your questions.