Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Tom Hiddleston & Chiwetel Ejiofor on THE LIFE OF CHUCK

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Vanguardistas have more fun—so if you don’t already subscribe to the podcast, join the Vanguard today via Apple Podcasts or extratakes.com for non-fruit-related devices. In return you’ll get a whole extra Take 2 alongside Take 1 every week, with bonus reviews, more viewing recommendations from the Good Doctors and whole bonus episodes just for you. And if you’re already a Vanguardista, we salute you.  Supersub Ben Bailey Smith joins Mark this week for reviews of the freshest cinema releases. We’ve got the Good Doctor’s verdicts on ‘Eddington’, Ari Aster’s much-discussed western starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Austin Butler, and Emma Stone. Plus, indie black comedy ‘Sorry, Baby’, and ‘The Life of Chuck’, whose stars Tom Hiddleston and Chiwetel Ejiofor are our very special guests this week.   We recorded this one with them a while back with Simon, so it’s him you’ll be hearing sit down with the two of them to unpack it. It’s a Stephen King adaptation following one man’s ordinary life and the multitudes it contains, and we can’t say too much more than that without giving it away. Best leave it to Tom and Chiwetel...   All the usual silliness and profundity to be found too as usual in another top Take. Don’t miss it!     Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free):  Eddington Review: 07:58  BO10ish: 15:28   Tom Hiddleston & Chiwetel Ejiofor: 28:53  Life of Chuck Review: 42:20  Sorry, Baby Review: 52:22    You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo  Please take our survey and help shape the future of our show: https://www.kermodeandmayo.com/survey   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

Well, hey everybody, it's Simon. And hey everybody, it's Mark. And now August comes around and we're all thinking the same thing. How am I going to keep streaming, like I'm in the UK, is the Kerber de Mayo annual cruise docks in St. Martin, Easter Island, and the Outer Hebrides. Well, I've got a suggestion for you, Nord VPN. You know, I had a feeling you'd probably say that. Nord provides virtual private networks, VPNs in 118 countries,

meaning you can browse safely, securely, and just like you're at home. What, even if you're a million miles away? Yes, they don't cover out of space yet, but I can't imagine it's far off. Even using public Wi-Fi, your details are protected, and you can use Nord across multiple devices. What's not to love? Unwrap a huge discount on NordVPN by heading to NordVPN.com slash take. Plus, with our link, you'll get an extra four months free on the two-year plan, and it's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. Check the link in the description.

Want to know the real story of how Oasis made Britain mad for it? How Friends turned us on to coffee culture and super-layered hair. The secrets of Nirvana, train spotting, gay hookups, Diana's Revenge Dress and what it was really like to be a spice girl? Blunge back into the decade when the world fell for cool Britannia, Bumster jeans and Lemon Hooch with Talk 90s to Me. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. And if you use Spotify, you can watch the whole.

show too. That's Talk 90s to me. Out every Monday. Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguard Easter and get an extra episode every Thursday. Including bonus reviews. Extra viewing suggestions. Viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas. Plus your film and non-film questions answered as best we can in questions, Schmessians. You can get all that extra stuff via Apple Podcasts or head to extra takes.com for non-fruit related devices. There's never been a better time to become a Vanguard Easter. Free offer, now available, wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're already a Vanguard Easter, we salute you. Hello, it's Ben here in for Simon, with my esteemed

colleague in a fantastic T-shirt this week. Mark Kermode, thank you for wearing that. It's Come on, feel the Lemonheads. Possibly their best album. Oh, no, no, it is their best album. Although I want to begin by saying, Hello, Ben. Have you heard Key of Victory? No. This is the new single, the new Lemonhead single.

Shut the front door. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Came out, I think, like a week ago. And there is apparently an album coming up called Love Chant, which is their first in nearly two decades. So I was just, I was thrilled that we're back together again because they've got the band, you know, it's happening. There's a new level.

Lemonheads record. And I just thought that was very fortuitous for us. What beautiful news to begin to show with on a personal level. That is fantastic. And I just like to remind you that there was this weird thing that the first time we ever discovered the shared love of the Lemonheads, the day after we'd done the show in which we'd started singing, you know, It's About Time and all the rest of it, you sent me a message saying you're never going to believe this, but Evan Dando is playing in Southampton. That's right. And I was randomly there. I know. Well, I randomly wasn't.

And you weren't. Anyway. Yeah, very disappointing. How are things, Mark? How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm in Cornwall. You are in Showbiz, North London. Shobis, North London. Shobis North London. Freshly back from my break, you didn't seem to have a break. You just kept on going. Simon swund off. I'm going to have a break in a minute.

So this show, we're actually pre-recording on the Friday before the week that it's going out. And then the next show is a show that Simon and I've already pre-wrecked. So I am actually going to go away for a week of a week or so, yes, I'm going to go away. There's a film festival in France that I'm going to. And not that one, another one, a smaller one. So I'm going to go to France. Me and the Good Lady Professor, Her indoors, I'm going to go to France and do as little work as is humanly possible. Well, I drove the kids along the south coast of France up to all the way up to Menton near the border

of Italy and we stopped in Cannes for a couple of days. I'd never been there before. What a mental place that is. I've listened to this show obviously since the radio one days and one of the sort of recurring themes is how much you hate Cannes. And I've always wondered, why does he hate it so much? I've got one day I'll have to have a little, little nosy. And oh my God, I mean, we just walked around laughing at the cars, the outfits, the fake body parts. the everything I mean it's ridiculous I drove around

for about an hour looking for a parking space on one of the days I was in 10 and still failed I mean it's just ridiculous like kids we're not stopping here this is this is nuts

so we're into the strange time zone I'm almost up to date with the take I'm now presenting the take but this take is in advance of when people will hear the take so I'm still not quite I'm sort of up to date as I'm speaking, because I'm in the future, but I'm listening in the past.

What have we got in this sort of time-travelling episode, Mark, to look forward to? In this time-travelling episode, in Take 1, we have reviews of Eddington, which is the new film by Ari Aster, Sorry Baby, which is American Indy, which I know you've seen, and The Life of Chuck, with our incredibly special guests interviewed by Simon Mayo. Yeah, Chitual Edgifor and Tom Hiddleston. That is, I mean, wow. what a duo. And have we got any bonus films? Yes, in take two we have the reborn Toxic Avenger. You remember how much you were saying to me, wow, Mark, the world's great, but I really think we need another Toxic Avenger movie. You remember that conversation? Well, Ben, it's okay. Your prayers have been answered. And also, Dongy Rescue, which is an action movie about which I'm looking forward to having a conversation with you. Very much so. Plus all the other extra staff, extra episodes, Embargo special.

etc. You already know about every Thursday those come. Indeed, the whole back catalogue of bonus joy shall be available. Okay, first up, we have a tribute here to secret cinemas and the absent Simon Mayo, all in one. This says, Dear Buttercup and Wesley, LTL FTE here, and as expected on your film podcast, the thing that has prompted me to write is not a recent cinema visit, but a trip to Copenhagen. In an attempt to cling on to our crumbling youth, my husband and I, both age 51, are currently interrailing across Scandinavia.

Unfortunately, no stop in the Netherlands, but I, of course, insisted on a stop in Copenhagen to pay homage to the Juno Bakery, often mentioned in this parish. They say the best purchase was the card of memorial. On our first evening there, after a long train journey, we were wandering the streets, tired and hungry,

and stumbled across the Danish film, Intempted in by free entry in a rooftop cinema, we found an amazing spot. Panoramic views of the beautiful city, a free cinema showing kids at the time, dub-free, is well worth a cruise stop. There are booths showing classic Danish movies, loads of interactive displays for children, and serendipitously, a rooftop cafe and bar, which felt like an oasis. Not only did we have wonderful food and a couple of well-deserved drinks, we got to eat with an Oscar, Golden Globe and golden lion, all earned over the decades by Danish cinema, well worth the time of any Wittiteini visiting this lovely city. Sounds good, doesn't it? Thanks for all the years, a listening pleasure.

We thank you for many lovely family movies which may have passed by otherwise, such as the way, way back, Kings of Summer, and Hidden Figures. All trips to the cinema are now prefaced with Mum, what did your podcast say about it? Child 1, 23 years old, made us chuckle, probably doesn't sound like that, does he? Child 1, 23 years old, made us chuckle recently when he came back from work and asked if we knew Simon Mayo was also a DJ. He'd caught your show on his way home from work. TAC from Georgia Satchwell. So that is from Georgia, and we are actually keen to hear any other secret cinemas or, you know, hidden cinemas in capital cities that people might have stumbled across. And the email for that, and anything else is correspondence

at Kermode and Mayo.com. I had to change, I had to get a connecting flight in Bristol and we were staying in a little place just for one night that was next to a cinema called The Cube. Have you heard of that place? Yeah, yeah, yeah, because

the tiny little box. It's from Bristol then, so we kind of, we're on time territory. Well, shout out the Cube because it's a little non-profit box that fits a few people in. The program that it has is phenomenal. It's only the most interesting, I'd say, alternative films that could easily be missed, I'd say, other cinemas. Well, I'm just on the, I'm just on the Kube website now, and right now they're showing friendship, which is really worth seeing.

I think it's a really interesting film. Yeah, I still need to see that. Tim Robinson, kind of cringy, cringe comedy. Yeah. Don't mind it. My toes curled so far. I thought they'd come out the tops of my shoes. I mean, I really enjoyed it, but it was.

was painful, painful, painful. And I love the tagline, which is that men shouldn't have friends. As you, as you found out to some dismay when we went to see the Phoenician scheme. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Give us our first review, please. Well, on the subject of divisive films, because you just come off the back of the Phoenician scheme. So, Eddington, which is the new film by Ariaster, Ariaster, made a splash with these twisted sort of comedic shorts, Munchausen and the strange thing about the Johnson. Then he had horror hits with hereditary and Midsoma and then he made Bowes Afraid, which he described as a three-hour anxiety comedy. I remember reviewing it and saying it was Aster's most unruly and indulgent film,

and it was like a kind of like a shaggy dog story. And you either sort of went with it or you didn't. And I saw that film with Simon Mayo and he didn't. Simon hated it. I remember that. He absolutely detested it. And the more he didn't find it funny, the funnier it became and it was literally three hours of just sheer pain okay so now um wacking phoenix and ariester back together again for a two and a half hour covid era conspiracy theory provocative satire posing as a latter-day western so you know it's a trip down memory lane back to all those uh you know the recent horrors of uh of lockdown and the fun times we had watching society descend into Looney Tunes' online paranoia and broiling, ill-informed resentment.

You know, good times, the Ariester, the Ariasca kind of area. So, Wacken Phoenix is Joe Cross, who is the sheriff of Eddington, New Mexico, which is under a mask mandate, which is governor's orders at state level, but the mandate is implemented by Mayor Ted Garcia, who's played by Pedro Pascal, who is apparently in everything. I think there has now been a rule pass. Yeah, I mean, you know, materialists is doing very well. at the moment is in that. He's in absolutely everything. Anyway, so he's in this. So Joe lives with his wife Louise, played by Emma Stone, who is very fragile, and her conspiracy theorist,

Mum, Dawn, who doesn't believe in masks, and he doesn't believe in masks. He says he's asthmatic, he can't breathe through them. So because he's in a mask mandate place, he decides that he's going to run against the mayor, Ted, who's up for re-election. Ted, meanwhile, is campaigning on behalf of a big tech company who want to build a data center. That will take a lot of water. So Joe starts accusing him of corruption, first financial and then personal. Here is a brief clip from Eddington. Can we just talk? Can we just, can we just, just the two of us? We are. We are. Okay. So maybe I just talked to your video. Ask where all your deputies went. Okay. Well, why not just ask your governor?

about her little catch and release policy, okay? Because if it wasn't for that, maybe I could hold on to my deputies and the people we arrest. I know one of them was fired for excessive force and another one was forced to quit by a YouTube First Amendment auditor. Okay, yes, that is the same auditor

that drove away your work. Your undershare has died with a fentanyl overtones. From the handling fentanyl. And your captain and your chief deputy took jobs in Rio Rancho. That was devastating. You can't keep your own office going, but you're going to run mine.

So, clearly, things start to escalate. Meanwhile, into this cult leader, Vernon Jefferson Peak, played by Austin Butler, because everyone's in this. Ted son Eric becomes involved in Black Lives Matter protests, which start to theoretically get out of control. Suddenly, it's all, you know, paedophile gang conspiracies, alleged Antifa killings, riots in the streets, extremists with explosives, everyone's screaming at everyone else. You know, you remember this period. So, fun time. Here's the thing. The film premiered it can, and then it opened in the US, where it did not great, okay? It took, I think it was, it took something like 11 million on its release in America, which sounds all right for what's basically an art house, you know, movie. But consider this, without wanting to just fixate on figures, right? Hereditary cost 10 million, made 88 million. Midsomar cost 9 million, took 49 million. Bo is afraid, costs somewhere, between 35, 40, 45, and took 12. Okay. Okay, but it was an indulgence. And I think you should

allow a filmmaker the chance to make an indulgence. But after they've made an indulgence, what they need to do is get back on the horse. This isn't getting back on the horse. This is making a movie that cost around about 25 million, and it's not going to wash its face as far as I can tell. And the reason is because it is, I think, Ariaster's weakest film. It's also Ariester's weakest film being made after he's just made an absolutely divisive indulgence that, you know, okay, fine. I actually really liked Bowes, afraid. But even when I was reviewing it, I said, you're either going to like it or you're going to just find yourself, finding it incredibly grating. The problem is this, I think Ariester is a very interesting filmmaker. And there are

things in this that are darkly funny and darkly satirical about the state of modern humanity and particularly that period of COVID. However, and I also, you can say, if you're going to make a film about a divided society, isn't it interesting to make a divisive film about that? The problem is it felt a little bit, and believe me, I know what it feels like hearing me use this word, it felt a little bit smug. It felt a little bit pleased with its own divisiveness. And worse still, it was occasionally a bit boring. And for all the sort of, you know, the political satire, it's, what this doesn't have is any of the gasp out loud moments that Ariasta's previous films did. I mean, whether it's hereditary and her head hit a tree or mitzoma and

everything, or there are things in Bowies Afraid, which really make you. you gasp. And it is possible that had this come straight off the, you know, had this been the film before, you might have said, okay, fine, but that was, that was an indulgence. Now you need to pull things back together again. But I think going from Bowes Afraid to this is a, is a, is not a positive progression. And I do think it's like, okay, well, you found that testing, see how you find this. And it's, the thing with Bow is afraid is that it was so devised. And as I said, I did have that experience of sitting in the cinema with Simon, and the more Simon hated it, the funnier it became. In the case of this, I don't think you'd hate it. I just think you'd think, yeah, okay, that's nothing like as sharp or as piercing or as disciplined or as as satirical as it thinks it is. It's not bad. It's just, hmm. And I don't want, hmm, from Ariasta. I think it's a case of ever-decreasing circles

because I thought mid-summer was amazing. Hereditary, I thought, was incredibly silly, but I sort of went with it. I had that mark moment of, oh, for heaven's sake, in the last half hour. I was like, this is just stupid. But it was still kind of enjoyable. I did it for this show, actually.

Yeah, yeah. And then, I was afraid, yeah, I'm afraid I was on Mayo side with that. And I, Eddington, will I even go? Maybe not. And I think that's the thing. The question is, you know, will I even go? And I suspect that it's, because it doesn't, it doesn't even have, as I said,

it doesn't even have the kind of cutting edge divisiveness that I think Bo is afraid did have. I think it's just, it's just, mm. All right. So as we said at the top, we are recording in advance. So we're kind of, there's some predictions here in terms of this week's top 10. Oh, are we making it up, Ben? Are we making it up? I mean, we've got to be, we've got to be open here.

Okay. It is not, it is not as late in August as we've led you to believe up until this point. Okay. We're kind of guessing. Here's our completely made up fake news top 10. Yeah, I mean, the best way to do this is just to like dip into a pot of Pedro Pascal films and maybe that will work, you know. So, see, you guys, listeners out there, you tell us how well we did.

Okay, at number 10, Superman, which you enjoyed, right? Yeah, I did. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I was going to, and I thought it was kind of cute. I mean, it is sort of all over the place, but it's sweet and good-natured, and that goes a long way at the moment. At number nine, another reboot of kinds, of sorts, Jurassic World Rebirth. Yeah, good direction. David Beck? Did you see this, Ben?

Child 1 went to see it, and I was going to see it, but her review was pretty meh. So I thought, I think I can probably skip it. Well, Child 1 in that case is very smart. And number eight, materialists? Well, I would have expected materialists to go in higher than this, Ben, but obviously in a made-up chart. I like materialists. Sanjeeve did a brilliant interview with, sort of.

song. I have never heard two people agree with each other more than that interview. It was just, it was amazing. I don't think it's on a par with past lives, but as I said, that is, that's good. I mean, come on. Precisely. What's the movie that was. And very few things are on a par with it. But I do think it's a kind of, it's, it's a sharp, intelligent rom-com about the dating scene. with good performances and good writing it's just past lives is past lives and that sort of pierced my soul whereas this kind of entertained me

and I thought it was sharply done but just not brilliant I liked what she said about the protagonist at the beginning and the protagonist at the end disagreeing with each other from both sides nice I like that at seven the bad guys two

that's doing really well isn't it hanging in there at number seven Ben that's great that's doing that So Bad Guys 2 is, if you saw Bad Guys 1, it's that. It's just more of that. And at number 6, oh my gosh, we're only done five here. And four of them are either remakes or sequels or reboots. The Naked Gun rebooted.

So I have to ask you, please tell me you haven't wasted your time going to see this. Of course I haven't. Should I tell you the way I felt about this? The second I saw the poster, I was informed that there was a trailer. I was listening to an older edition of this podcast and you were talking about the regenerated version of the Wizard of Oz and you said, you know, I have to be honest, I haven't seen it, so I have to withhold some judgment,

but it just doesn't fill my heart with joy, you know? And that's kind of how I feel about this. I mean, I can't say it's terrible because I haven't watched it. I also have no desire to see it. I don't know if you remember when Steve Martin felt, hey, did sellers really, did he really nail Cluzzo? I'm not sure. I'm going to have a bash. You know, it's just, no, just don't do it.

Someone's nailed it. Absolutely nailed it. I think you said about Leslie Nilsen, nobody could do what he did. And it's true. He was a one-off in that particular job. Because he just underplayed everything. He underplayed everything. He played it completely straight.

And what Liam Neeson does in this is he sells every gag and the gags aren't that funny. I think, I mean, I laughed once. I think the charitable way of looking at this would be that it's a 25-minute sketch squeezed into an hour and a half movie. I don't know what could be the motive. Sex, Frank. Not right now, Ed. We're on duty. And number five.

Together. Well, I'm so pleased this has done so well and has zoomed in at number five because it's, I mean, the thing with Together is it is a body horror rom-com about what it means to define your other half quite literally. And I thought it was really well done. I really enjoyed it. I thought the scrungy bits were really scrungy and the romantic bits were really romantic. And we played a clip last week that involved the buzz saw.

And that scene is just remarkable. Anyway, I thought it was really sharp and really well done. I liked it a lot. And I'm glad to see it's doing so well in the chart that we've made up. Excellent. And we're not done with the reboots or sequels. At number four is Freakier Friday. Which is so much better than I had expected it to be.

I went in with a heavy heart thinking, really, do I really need to do this? And then I laughed. And then, as I said when I reviewed it, not only did I laugh for the last 10 minutes when it's all the sort of, everyone solves all their problems and they all realize that they all love each other. I actually started crying. So it got me in the fields, which was completely unexpected. As I heard in the review before this, and I thought, wow, that's, that's where Mark is at now. He's crying at Freakier Friday. Yeah. What did you call it, the fifth or sixth in a crazy series of technical reboots of, yeah. Yes, that is where I'm at, Ben. Thank you for putting it in those

very blunt terms. Well, it's fine. It's fine. I respect it. And at number three, we have the Fantastic Four, First Steps. Which I liked very much. I love the design. I like the way it looked. Obviously, the more crashy, bashy, smashi it gets, the less interested I am.

But for a lot of it. And it's good to see Pedro Pascal getting a role because he needs work. Yeah, he's really struggling. Yeah, yeah. I saw a picture of him on Hollywood Boulevard, will act for money. So, you know, if anyone's out there, please give him some work.

He clearly needs some work. Yeah, I mean, he's just hit 50 and become Olivia Coleman, hasn't he? He's just in everything. At number two is nobody to. Which I liked. I mean, as I said, when I interviewed Bob Odenkirk, that was a real thrill for me because I love Bob. I can't wait to hear that. I'm not up to that point yet.

It's good, and he was very funny. And I went into nobody. I said to him at the beginning, look, I went because I loved nobody so much. I went into this with a sense of, on the one hand, thrill, on the other hand, absolute dread that you don't mess it up. And he went, oh, there we go. That's the English cynicism.

There it is. I said, no, but I'm just telling you. It's the truth. And then a bit later on, he said, yeah, well, he said, you know, people say to me, why did you do this movie? Well, money, obviously. But also because he said he had so many fans coming up to him and talking to him about nobody rather than better call Saul or whatever.

And so he said. Yeah, had a real cool feel to it, didn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think they have managed very, very well to reproduce an awful lot of what was very good about the first film. Obviously, it doesn't have the absolute simple clarity of the first film, which is boring schlub 9 to 5, but suddenly his violent past comes back to, you know, to free him. But I really enjoyed it. And the greatest compliment I can give is at the end of it. I thought, well, I could do that a third time, you know, so yeah, I really liked it. Wow, okay. Well, that is the number one, the official UK number one, official, is weapons. Is it unusual in your experience to have a period like this that isn't October, to have so many horrors doing so well? I'll tell you what it is, Ben.

You spoke about together, weapons, bring her back. Yeah, it's incredibly encouraging. It is really, really encouraging that right now, those three that you cite, together, weapons, and bring her back, are all playing in UK cinemas all at the same time. And I think, you know, it's great. Just the only thing I would say is, I'm very glad to see that people have stopped using that stupid term elevated horror. These are not elevated horror films. They are horror films. All horror is elevated.

Mike Amos says, Dear Love and Hate, long-time listener first-time email a one-time drunken poll answer, okay, Mike. Much has been written about the modern horror renaissance, and I'm enjoying every minute of it. If I'm occasionally tired of the unending spate of issue-driven trauma tick-box efforts with marauding metaphors, it's because when horror is done well, it works in spite of the message and invites the audience to explore what it thinks rather than telling you what the writer thinks. As a white male who voted for Brexit, I feel I've taken to taken a particular keynote kicking recently, but maybe I'm taking things a little too personally, which leads me to share my thoughts on weapons, a beautiful example of a film that poses questions

instead of giving answers and invites us both to think and feel. To me at least, it was a film about fear itself, about a society ravaged by it on both the personal and collective level, and what that does to us and encourages us to do. Each of the individual character vignettes illustrated their each of the individual character vignettes illustrated their particular worst fear loneliness, intimacy, infection, imprisonment and each of these fears had very particular consequences

that played out through the course of the plot. Scary clown lady's appearance seemed tied to each one of these fears and she was as though herself the very personification of its power and specifically its power to control otherwise sane and kind people and turn them into monsters. For what it's worth, I thought the twirling gun referred to Josh Brolin's own particular fears about his interpretation of the inexplicable incident

as grounded in terrorism, be it domestic or foreign, though his ultimate fear was the expression of love. I thought it was a scathing, satirical view on a society overwhelmed by anxiety and the inevitable consequences. We're all weapons when we're terrified, all capable of harm when driven by fear.

The movie dwelt on the particular consequences for the young. Ultimately, the next generation is shown to be resilient and capable of overcoming that fear, but at great cost and in its own way, necessarily monstrous. Never has there been a more timely message or greater urgency to share it. Fear makes monsters of us all. Tolerance, kindness, and I'll say it, love is the only thing holding us together, even and especially if we disagree. And love is a choice. Heroes are defined by the darkness they face, and in times of darkness, love makes heroes of us all, best with all the usual sinus. And if you read this out, my wife will almost certainly make me a sandwich, Mike Amos. That's a fascinating take. I mean,

it feels like the things that are left open in weapons encourages more thoughts and theories and ideas from its audience, right? Yes, and it reminds me of a conversation I had with Mark Frost recently because I was doing a program about Twin Peaks. And I said, to Mark Frost, okay, I'm going to ask you two questions. The first one is, are you absolutely clear of everything that happens in Twin Peaks and why it happens? And he said, yes. And I said, and is it, wait, and I said, and is it important for the audience to have that clarity? And he said, absolutely not. That's the point. Okay. Yeah. The point is, no, you decide what, you decide what you think it's about. We know what we did.

But then you decide what you think it's about. And I think that's what horror does when it's at its best. I mean, I've watched Twin Peaks not long after it came out. And so what are we talking 30 years ago? It still troubles me and like unsettles me. Just thinking about it. Just like a really bad dream. It's still kind of makes me feel slightly uneasy.

Excellent. And for anything to do that. Over that length of time, I think, is phenomenal. And I had no idea what was going on. Excellent. Excellent. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, we will be back with the following films, Mark.

The most important thing is we're going to be back with Life of Chuck with a fantastic interview by Simon with... Oh. Yes, of course, with Tewittle Edghafore and Tom Hiddleston. So, stick around, unless, of course, you're a vanguardist, when no time. time will pass whatsoever and we'll just be right back. Now Mark, if you've shopped online, chances are you've bought from a business powered by Shopify. You know that purple, shop pay button you see at checkout. The one that makes buying so incredibly easy, that's Shopify.

And there's a reason so many businesses sell with it. Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, including names like Mattel and Jim Shark to brands just getting started. Shopify has hundreds of beautiful, ready-to-go templates to express your brand style. Tackle anything from inventory to payments, to analytics, and more all in one place. And Shopify has built-in marketing and email tools to find and keep new customers. If you want to see fewer carts being abandoned, it's time for you to head over to Shopify.

Sign up for your £1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com. go to shopify.com.uk.U.k. slash take. Go to Shopify.com.uk.uk slash take. Toronto. There's another great city that starts with a tea. Tampa, Florida. Fly to Tampa Airlines to see why it's so terrific. On your way there, relax with free beer, wine and snacks, free fast-streaming Wi-Fi, and no middle seats. You've never flown to Florida like this before, so you'll land in Tampa ready to explore. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. This week's guests are a couple of little-known actors making their screen debuts.

It's Chirtle, Edge of Four, and Tom Hiddleston. And if it wasn't clear, of course, I'm joking, they're massive. And they met Simon Mayo before his summer break to talk about their new film, Life of Chuck. And you'll hear their conversation after this clip. The world loves dancers. It truly does. But it needs accountants. So there's much more demand.

So there's much more opportunity. I know that might hurt. But it's the truth. Math is truth. It won't lie to you. It doesn't factor in your preferences. It's pure that way. Math can do a lot of things.

Math can be art, but it can't lie. So take another run of those two, because Chuck, oh, you are good. You have art in you. And that is a clip from The Life of Chuck. I'm delighted to say I've been joined by it stars Tom Hiddleston, cheer to ledger for gentlemen. Welcome, how are you?

Well, thank you. Very good, wow. Yeah. Very nice to see you. You're both looking spectacularly healthy. Wow. Thank you. Chirotel especially.

So how to tell the story of this film, which is told in reverse order, but Tom, as you are Chuck, just introduce us to Chuck and the movie, and then we'll get to Chutel because he opens in the film. Well, it's quite a hard film to describe. Yes. That's why I was asked for you. I'm happy to try. Based on a very recent short story by the great Stephen King, obviously called The Life of Chuck, and I play Chuck, and yes, it's about his life, but really it's about all of our lives, I think.

And it's about how Chuck Krantz is an ordinary guy. And he seems, in the external world, like an extremely ordinary guy. And when I play him, he's an accountant, wearing a grey suit. He's Mr. Businessman, you know, walking to the business conference and staying in the business hotel. And on an average day, he might seem unremarkable. But on the day I play him, he sets his briefcase down and listens to the music of a busking drummer. And it's surprising to the drummer and surprising to him.

And he dances. And it's a kind of explosion of spontaneity and freedom. But what the film is trying to say, I think, is that inside the soul of every human being, not just a chuck, but all of us, is a breadth and beauty and range in our internal world. that you can't see, that actually every relationship we've ever had, every memory we've ever made, we contain multitudes. This theme of that quotation from the Walt Whitman poem, The Song of Myself, comes up a lot, which is,

I contain multitudes, is that we are, none of us are one thing, we are many things, and any ordinary life contains within it a universe of connections. And in the last days of our lives, Of course, none of us know when they will come. Those connections are precious and magical and what remain. And I think it's a really beautiful story, really, about how life can be difficult. And in the path of life, we can encounter hardship and pain and loss and grief.

And those are real things in life. And they come to all of us at some point. And we encounter joy and love. And that those are also profound and real. counterbalance the other things. I don't know if I summed up the film... Yeah, that's the entire film, actually, so we can leave it there.

So we don't actually get to see you for quite a while in the film. But you kind of open the film and we start with, like, things going terribly wrong, so introduce us to Marty. Yeah, so I play Marty Anderson and he, yeah, he starts off in the first part of the film, which is

Act 3, but is Act 1 in the as you watch the film. Obviously, it's the beginning of the film, and everything's falling apart. You know, it's a really sort of apocalyptic moment. And what I loved about this as an idea was that it wasn't just, you know, it's not the sort of hysterical form of that. It's not the kind of crazy, you know, dynamics of the end of the world or something. It's the moment after that.

It's when you have to kind of get up on the Wednesday and still try and figure out what the business of the day is, you know. And I think it was something we all sort of experienced in some form, you know, collectively. during COVID, you know, that all of the panic and the anxiety, and there wasn't one of us who wasn't worried about somebody or some people in our lives or ourselves, you know, and at a certain point, you sort of have to still get on with it, get on with the business of the day. And that's where we pick up in this story, that everything is falling apart. The world is substantially ending. That's kind of happening off camera, isn't it? Yeah. You know, you think the news

is bad now, you wait till you see the life of Chuck. The news is absolutely terrible. I mean, in some that reflects the news now, but yes, yeah. But it's a very ordinary, we are looking at ordinary lives, and we're looking at you, you're a teacher, and I love the fact that parents are coming to you, worried about the fact that the internet's not working, and I don't know quite what they expect you to do about it, but we then see you in a series of conversations,

and you have been in a relationship, you've been married to Karen Gillen's character. What went, it's a very interesting sort of character study between the two of you, and you're clearly made for each other, and you clearly still love each other, so I just want to know, what went wrong, and why does it take the end of the way? world to bring you guys back together.

Yeah, that's true. Well, we had this conversation, you know, and one of the brilliant things about working with Karen Gillum is that she really does put in all of the subtext, you know, everything is there. It's all completely filled out. I think their relationship, as you say, is really strong. And I think that a lot of the problems were Marty's fault. I think we kind of established that in the story.

And his inability, really, to deal with everything that's happening. And that kind of starts to collapse their dynamic and they end up divorce. But they still have this connection. And as things become apocalyptic, that's what he really, that's what they both really long for, is to re-understand the connections that they've had and the loves that they've had.

And so they kind of find a way back together in a way. So there's a slightly more complicated question to answer than it is for me to ask. But what is the connection between you two guys in the film? Well, literally the connection is that Chuck was a pupil at the school where Marty is a teacher. That is literally the connection, yeah. And anything else?

In spoiler territory. So I'm sort of like... I mean, yeah, I suppose it's not a spoiler because it happens in maybe the first five minutes of the film is that Marty is teaching a class and it's the Walt Whitman poem, the song of myself. And so you hear that line, I am large, I contain multitudes.

And, you know, I think, I really don't want to spoil what happens at the end of the, you know, Chiaweta's act. suppose. But I think in some senses that's what we're both doing in the film. We spoke actually. Tewitt and I have known each other for a long time for I think 18 years

was it? Nearly 20 years. Well, yeah. A couple of old times. It's quite long. But we did a play years ago, Othello, in London. And before starting on this film, we spoke on the phone. And we were talking about, I think you came up with a really

elegant phrase of being two painters working on different corners of the same canvas and i think that's really true of what we're doing is marty and chuck is you know in that first five minutes you introduce this idea of i contain multitudes which i think steven king and mike flanagan who's the director yeah mike flanagan writer and director very passionate about that theme and that marty is not just a teacher he's got a deep relationship with his ex-wife and he's got friendships and he's got his own interior life. Chuck isn't just an accountant. He's got this interior life of his childhood and his grandparents. And I just find the idea very beautiful. And that when it feels as though the world is falling apart, and that may be literally in Marty's case, it may be physically in Chuck's

case, actually it's that those experiences of one's interior multitudes that give you the courage to keep going. And they sustain you in the heart. hard times. So we mentioned talking about Stephen King, who his work has been referenced so much on this program over the years. His first editor said, Steve has a movie camera in his head. And it's always like every story. There are 50 films have come out of his work, which is genuinely astonishing. So people listening to this, we're thinking, which Stephen King are we getting? And I think it's a useful shorthand you would tell. This is the Stephen King of Green Mile, Stand by Me, Shawshank. This is not the horror Stephen King. Yeah. I think that's right.

This is, you know, there's a lot of emotion in this film, and I think it is that thing. And, you know, I think the amazing thing about Stephen King, of course, is that it is true when you read any Stephen King, all of the images pop up in your mind. It's very vivid. It's always such a vivid read. And what that means as well is that he's able to connect to the emotion

because it just speaks to something very deep, you know. And that's, I think, what Mike has really been able to capture with this, you know. I have two more questions, one of which is, again, expand as you wish, why is Chuck so important? Because even when the world is ending, which we see in the first act, all these posters turn up, celebrating your life 39 years and Will I'm Chuck and so on. Why is your character so important to the universe? A huge question, Simon.

I've got one other question after this. No, it's a good question, and I really love it, actually. I think it's to say Chuck represents that every ordinary life is in fact extraordinary. And he's like a mirror for all of us. And I don't know whether this is a Stephen Kingline, but it's one we've thought about. The phrase, when an old man dies, a library burns. And Chuck says, your life is magic, and it's unique, it's special,

and there's no one like you. So live it. And when you get the chance, find the joy. Because life is hard enough. And it may be, for Chuck, the joy for him is dancing. He danced. His grandmother taught him to dance at home in the kitchen, and he danced at middle school.

It was something he loved, and then he became an accountant. But it might be that it's painting or playing the piano, or writing, or running, or having an unhurried conversation with someone you love. Do those things, find the joy, because the joy is transformative, even as the world feels like it's falling apart. Okay. So I'm going to give Chewettel the first run at this question.

This will prove me the last one. We talked about on this podcast a lot about people getting out of a movie what they bring to it is so often the case. And I think one of the powers of this film is that it's like Mike Flanagan is almost inviting you even more so to bring an awful lot to this film and you see yourself reflected back in it. And people will leave this film thinking about joy and thinking about their relationships.

And that seems to me to be why you leave this film under a spell. That's my take on it. Yeah, I think that's... I realize that's not a question. a statement. Yeah, but I mean, I agree with that. And I feel like, I just reflect a little bit on how my experience when I first read it, which was similar, you know. But I was, also, I found it so entertaining as well, you know. Like, I just thought that the characters were very rich. And what Mike has done with this, I think, and the way that he's casted and the totality of the casting. And then the overall experience of it is, I think it's very three-dimensional. I think everybody can obviously see themselves, I think, reflected in the way that he's cast. And then the overall experience of it is, I think, I think, the story. But also, I think, if you allow yourself to slip down the rabbit hole, I think it's an incredibly rewarding experience. My final 30 seconds, Tom, obviously every single interview about this movie has to have a question about your dance routine. So just sum it up for us,

Cynthia, it's just an astonishing piece of work that you've done. I know it took a long, long time to make. How would you describe it to people I haven't seen this film? How would I describe it? Somebody very ordinary, dressed in a very ordinary suit with a very ordinary briefcase, puts that briefcase down, here's the music in the street and starts to move. And it surprises him. It's completely instinctive. It's completely spontaneous. And it is an explosion of freedom. I loved it because I had to learn techniques and styles and dance I've never learned. Quickly, jazz, swing, cha-cha, Charleston, Bosanova, Salsa, Samba, Samba, Samba, polka is that it

but it's all there because it's trying to demonstrate that freedom of expression is a wonderful thing and our lives are short and we should all aim to be as free as that if we can Tom and Chertell thank you very much for your time thank you thank you Simon

Mike Flanagan is a horror guy right well Mike Flanagan he has done a bunch of really, really interesting things. So Simon and I some time ago reviewed Midnight Mass, which is a Mike Flanagan project, which we thought was really, really good.

He helmed the Doctor Sleep, which was the Stephen King. That's right. Charles Game, which is also Stephen King. He did A Haunting of Hill House, the miniseries. And he is currently working, I believe, on a TV mini-series of Carrie. So he has form. I think that's the way to say it has form.

But of course, as Simon was saying in that interview, the fascinating thing is that he said, this is the Stephen King of Shawshank Redemption. This is the Stephen King of Stand By Me, as opposed to the, you know, because Stephen King himself contains multitudes. So, yeah. So yes, Mike Flanagan does, has done horror.

But this was the phrase, Horatai was funny. He's a horror guy. And Stephen King is Stephen King. I mean, just a phenomena. So what did you make of Chuck? Life of Chuck. Well, here's the interesting thing.

So Tom Hiddleston said in that interview that it's quite a hard film to describe, to which go, yeah, no kidding. All right. So just basic. So adapted from a Stephen King story, written and directed by Mike Flanagan, of whom we were just talking, divided into three acts that play. out in reverse. So it starts with Act 3. And in Act 3, we meet Tuiter Leisure Fools Marty. He was a teacher

in an everyday American town who finds his class interrupted by news of earthquakes, a total outage of the internet, and we soon learn that the world appears to be dying, huge swathes of land disappearing, sinkholes, bees, gone, power outages. Meanwhile, the town is increasingly filled with posters thanking Chuck Krantz for 39 great years. although no one appears to know who on earth Chuck Grants is. We meet Chuck in Act 2, which follows Act 3, because the thing plays out backwards. He is an apparently unremarkable accountant, played by Tom Hiddleston. We meet him properly in the second act.

He's gone to a conference. We see him walking during a break in the conference. He doesn't want to hang out with accountants. And he walks up to a busking drummer. And as he walks up to her, she starts to change the beat. to, you know, fall in with his, and for some reason he stops and he puts down his briefcase and then he starts to dance. And the best way of describing this is he dances in the manner of Christopher Walken in the weapon of choice video. You remember that video when the guy's sitting

in the suit and then he starts, he starts moving in an unusual way. Then this is an amazing dance sequence. And then we get to act one, which we shall not talk of really because you kind of, you know, that you need to discover the movie for itself. So there's a lot of Walt Whitman, as was said in that interview, Song of Myself, and particularly that line about I contain multitudes. The suggestion of all of it, and I think I'm only saying what was said in the interview as well there is that the inside everyone is their entire lived experience. The universe of their entire lived experience is inside every person.

So there are certain echoes of, there was a Twilight Zone episode, a famous Twilight Zone episode called It's a Good Life. I know Stephen King knows it very well, in which there's an entire town which is at the mercy of a child who is effectively God. And the town seems to be existing perhaps within the mind of the child, because if the child gets angry, bad things happen. And what we find out in life of Chuck is that there is a similar sort of idea. going on about worlds existing within people. The thing that Tom Hiddleston said, inside the soul of every human being is a universe of connections, and in the last days of life, those connections are precious. And he also said that they talked a lot about when an old man dies, a library burns, meaning that within everyone, there is the multitude of everything

that they have known through their life. There's also an echo of Ted Chang's story, story of your love, the short story that was filmed as a rival. That idea of seeing the world, I mean, as I said, this plays out in reverse. And it's that idea of, you know, what would it mean to know the shape of your whole life? Why is it that somebody says, the worst thing is the waiting? Also, I was reminded at one point of that, it was a film called Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, that idea that only when everything is ending, do we really become aware of what everything is. You know, it's only in the final moments of anything that we actually appreciate what

it is. And like Shawshank Redemption, Life of Chuck makes very good use of a sonorous voiceover, in this case by Nick Offerman. And it's a musing film and an amusing film, but it's also kind of beautifully poignant and profound. And it's got these strange sequences, I mean, the dance sequence that Tom Hiddleston was talking about then, which he had to learn all those sounds. I mean, that's a remarkable sequence. The slow, the slow reveal about what it's about, and it's not like a reveal like, oh, suddenly I get it. What it is, is it's a kind of, you know, a cumulative, you start to understand it.

You start to, you know, it starts at the beginning. The world appears to be ending. What is going on? And who is Chuck? And as the film reveals its secrets, it reveals its truths, as it were, you just start to understand them. And it's got a lovely, melancholy poignancy to it. It's very well made because Mike Flanagan is a very good filmmaker. It's very well played because Tewittalajia Four and Jacob Tremblay and, you know, Tom Hiddleston, these are very fine actors. But the reason it works as well as it does is it is a film about an idea. It has got an idea at the center of it.

It's not a film about narrative. It is a film about an idea. And I would just say, once again, Stephen King made his mark in horror, and Stephen King understands that better than anyone else, that horror is a genre of ideas. And it doesn't surprise me at all that a person who once described himself as the big Mac of the horror world, you know, 30 million scared, would be able to make things as profound, write things as profound as Shawshank.

and stand by me and this. And I think the film is really lovely. Oh, good. All right. Well, we've got a one frame back this week about whole life movies. And you can check that out in take two. And we're going to have some ads again in a moment. If you're not a Vanguardista.

I don't know what are you doing. But before that, Mark, you'll be pleased to know that we're going to go from the profound to the ridiculous, which is, you know, it's a great way around, I think. It's time for the laughter lift. Hey! Hey, Mark. Have you seen the scary science news this morning? I mean, whatever next.

Listen, they're now able to splice the DNA of a cheetah into that of a crab. I'm telling you, that could go sideways fast. Now, listen, I've. I've just come back from my holidays, as we've established. And, you know, you're constantly checking the weather when you're out there. You just don't want any rainy days. And I woke up one morning, Sky was looking a little bit dodgy, a little bit ominous. So I asked Siri, I said, surely it's not going to rain today.

And she replied, yes, it is. And don't call me Shirley. Yay! That was when I realized I'd left my phone on airplane mode. Oh, boom! Ooh, yeah, yeah. You like that? Now listen.

That was a stealth punchline. Well done. Anyone who's been on my Instagram page recently will clock that I'm a huge Beastie Boys fan. And I actually, I once a long time ago, bumped into MCA, rest in peace, outside Penn Station in New York. And almost 30 years later to the day, I bumped into Mike D. That's true. And he told me they have a five-part anthology. collection coming out on vinyl.

It's very excited. You can get parts A, B, C, and D for free. But you've got to fight for your right to part E. That was a very long walk. Up a very long path. That's the redacted speciality, isn't it? He was doing so well. He was doing so well.

Fight for your right to part E. Okay. Well, let's just, let's skip right along. Can I say that brings me. That brings me rather beautifully to the fact that in the next section of this program, we're going to record Sorry Baby, which is what I think you should be saying. It's what I should have said at the end of that joke. All right.

Well, we'll be right back with Sorry Baby after this. And we are back. All right. So I should have been apologising for the last joke. in the afterlift with the phrase Sorry Baby which beautifully is the name

of a new film written and directed by Eva Victor is it? Yeah. This is American indie black comedy drama written directed by

Eva Victor who worked at the feminist satire website Reductress, made videos for Comedy Central appeared in season 5 billions and as well as writing and directing Victor also stars in Sorry Baby

alongside the great Naomiaki, who was so brilliant as Whitney Houston in that biopic, I thought she was absolutely fab. Barry Jenkins, you know, Moonlight Bill Street could talk, and weirdly Lion King is an exec producer. This played at Sundance in January and was then picked up by A-24. Apparently there was a bidding war. They picked up to A-24, and then it was the closing film at the director's fortnight section of Cannes, where it got a Waldo Salt Screenwriters Award.

So here is a clip from the trailer of Sorry, Baby, perhaps gives you a sense of a bit of the tone. Have a listen. Did you bring a cat into the grocery store? No. Yes, you did. What, did you say? You're lying.

No, I'm not. Is your cat food? Okay, so sounds like quirky offbeat comedy, right? Okay, except not quite. So, Victor is Agnes, who is at a liberal arts college in rural New England. Naomiaki is Liddy, who is a friend who comes to visit her from New York City, is pregnant, they go and visit some grad friends, things are a bit chippy with them. At the college, Agnes is starstruck by Preston Decker, who's a lit professor, whose first novel she really loves. He admires her, he appreciates her, he appreciates. her thesis. He shows her a copy of the first edition of To the Lighthouse, which he happens to have on the shelf. She ends up at his house, at which point the camera stays outside the house, night falls, and then she leaves, and we follow her home in what

appears to be a traumatized state. Someone tells her that a shoe is untied and she barely registers it. And what then follows is her account of what happened, words of support from friends and colleagues, and then not much support, lack of action from the college and the authorities. So it becomes a film about a very dark subject matter, despite the kind of, you know, sort of the quirkiness of the surface. And the rest of the film is a film about what then happens, how she then moves on with her life, how she deals with the sense of rage and shame and confusion and anger. And she swithers between wanting to do something about what's happened and not wanting to ruin somebody else's life and all the sort of, you know, all the conflicting

emotions of that. So tonally, it is very, it is a strange film. I'm going to ask you directly about this in a little bit, Ben, because obviously, you know, your background is in comedy. And there is, it's a comedic film. There is black comedy all the way through it. At times, it reminded me if there's a film by Eliza Hittman called Never Rarely Sometimes Always, particularly in a scene with a doctor, which is, which is really, on the one hand, really kind of affronting and on the other hand, sort of really oddly comedic. And it's got this sort of this satirical edge that it brings to a very sensitive, and I have to say, triggering subject, which also reminded me of things like Gillian Robes-Pierre's The Obvious Child

or that brilliant film, Shiver Baby, by Emma Seligman. These are uncomfortable comedies that seem to me to be an authentic voice of shared female experience. They're bold, they're frank, but they're also unafraid to be comedic. Now, look, it's impossible to judge how individual audiences will respond to any film. I know that I've spoken to two women who've seen sorry baby who have not particularly liked it. One of them because they thought that the tonal thing was odd. And another one because they, well, actually a sort of a sort of slightly similar reason. The BBFC advice is this. 15 for strong language, sexual violence references sex. And the BBFC description flags up that there is undetailed references to self-harm.

And I'm flagging those as well because those are the things that the BBFC, you know, are flagging in advance. However, having flagged those things, I think that I need to say, I found sorry baby to be engaging, to be insightful, thoughtful, I mean, often entertaining, a drama about a young woman confronting an all too common horrible situation, how it affects her, how she deals with it after. And there's a very interesting sequence, a jury selection sequence, in which potential jurors are asked questions about their own experiences. And I won't tell you what happened, but it's very well-balanced between absurdist comedy, like genuinely absurdist comedy,

and something really creepy and threatening. So I think Eva Victor is a bold new voice. I can't wait to see what they do next, and I'm really interested to know what you think, then. I think you summed it up really, really well there, and I can totally understand why that person who spoke to you had problems with the tone, because it is a difficult thing to take on board,

because as soon as you start you start talking about a subject matter that's serious, to have sort of almost flippancy within dialogue feels like an affront at first. You know, so it's very difficult for an audience member to sit there and go, oh, wait, are you taking the Mick here out of a very serious thing? Or are you taking it seriously? And for me, once I sort of settled with, okay, this is the tone of the movie. and also crucially, this is how the character is, I was like, fine, fine, this is fine, because she,

and that is, that is who Agnes is how the character is. And there is a scene in the doctor's office in which she makes a joke that is really piercingly funny because it's piercingly not funny. I'm not one of the, I'm not going to spoil the joke because I think people should see the film for themselves. So, I mean, I understand entirely what you're saying, and I agree. I don't think it's being flippant about the subject at all.

The reason I flag up these things and the thing that the BBFC said is that people need to know that it's dealing with subjects that some people will find triggering, and those include sexual assault. They also include talking about self-harm. But I don't think it's flippant about those subjects in any way at all. And I think you were spot on when you said, that's her character. her character is somebody who deals with these things with a certain sardonicism because it's almost like a self-protection a defence thing

and then of course the thing about getting the kitten so when we heard that clip that just sounds like a jokey thing about oh she's got a kitten the reason that she's got the kitten is much more complex and is much more to do with a kind of underlying character development

and I thought that was what was smart about it was that it understood that people express those things in very different ways. And I, you know, did you like it, Ben? I did, yeah. And I, you know, I watched two films in preparation for this show knowing very little about either film. In fact, I knew absolutely nothing about it.

And the other one is very different. It really is. I knew absolutely nothing about Sorry, Baby. So I didn't know what the tone was going to be. I didn't. So my only concern when I was reading it after, reading about it afterwards and people calling it a comedy, I'm not sure you're going to laugh out loud at this film.

I sort of chuckled internally a couple of times, but it's not really that kind of... It's a drama, let's be real. It's a drama, but one of the central character deals with things in her life with humour. Perfectly-posed. Which, like I say, these people exist in real life, and they're not doing a stand-up show.

That's just who they are. And I agree with you. I thought it was whipsmart. If you want to laugh out loud, what I didn't realize was I was already a fan of Eva Victors because I am obsessed with Reductress. I mean, did you ever read The Onion? I'm a huge onion fan. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. So when I was a kid, I was a big Viz fan. And then as I got a bit older, private eye, and then my sister introduced me to the onion and I was obsessed with the onion. Reductress is very similar to the onion. If you can imagine the onion, pretty much exclusively written by women. And the headlines themselves literally make me laugh out loud, the headlines. So Eva Victor is a very, very funny, very, very smart person.

And they've been doing it for a long time. But Sorry Baby shows another side to their work. And it is complex. It has depth. It understands that there is humor. There is light even in the darkest moments. I think that they're going to be a big name in movies is what I think. Same.

Same. Okay, an email from Chris in Liverpool says LTL here, listening in awe to last week's episode and felt compelled to correspond for the first time. If Celine's song's latest movie is as engrossing as her chat with Sanjeev, wow, just wow. Wow. I did like that chat, actually.

And you know it's gone well when the last thing in the interview is the interviewee saying that they could chat to the interviewer for another couple of hours. Yeah. You know Sanjeev was... I know. Was running his fingers through his lush hair at that moment,

enjoying himself very much. He was very lush, his thick head of Elvis-like jet black hair. Yeah, and you could catch that episode on our feed and on YouTube and write in with similar ebullient reactions, please. Go for it. Okay, that is the end of Take 1. This has been a Sony music entertainment production. This week's team was Jen, Eric, Josh and Heather.

The producer was Gem. The redactor was Simon. Paul, of course, and if you're not following the pod already, what are you doing? Please do so wherever you get your podcasts. Mark, you'll film the week, please. I think it's got to be life of Chuck. Fair, I can't wait to watch it. All right, back next week. Ta-da.