SmartLess - "RE-RELEASE: Matthew Rhys"
Episode Date: September 17, 2026Open a bottle of beer with a key and grab a fire poker, we’ve got Matthew Rhys on the horn this week. We sit down with the intelligent yet dashing yet wise yet charismatic Actor (and skilled traditi...onal Welsh Chef) to hear recipes from the heart and tales of yore. Grab a slice of meat pie— it’s cooling on the windowsill. #EatSmart #SmartLessThis episode was originally released on 5/22/2023. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Sorry that you guys caught me off guard.
I was just talking to Jason's wig maker,
and he had said that they don't make the hair that Jason uses for the wig anymore
because it's a synthetic thing and it has to do with it because they use a certain petroleum component to it, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, the point is, if you see Jason on the street, just please say, hey, man, your natural hair looks great.
It's an all-new smart list.
Smart.
Are you guys excited?
I'm excited.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Yes.
Are you talking about our, we're on the TV coming up?
With the doc?
We're going to be on TV.
I told my whole family.
Smartless on the road?
Smartless on the road.
On Max.
On Max.
That, that new platform, yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
Should we do what, should we see, should we watch it together?
That's much fun.
That would be super fun.
Oh, God, that's not a bad idea.
I'm really excited.
I'm excited for people to.
See Will Fair.
Sounds weird to say, well, yeah, I'm excited for people to see.
Well, we have so many great guests.
Yeah, so say some of the guests.
We have Will Ferrell.
Will starts it off, though, doesn't he?
Will starts off, then we have Conan.
Kevin Hart.
Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Then we have Letterman.
Then we have AOC with special appearance by, can we mention that Bradley makes a special
appearance.
Bradley Cooper comes in, changes the light for us.
And then we go to Chicago.
We have Andy Richter and Jeff Tweety from Wilco.
Mark Cuban.
Mark Cuban.
And then Maddie.
Maddie Damon.
Matt Damon, the Matt.
Yeah, a turtle, quartal, worldel, perennial third place finisher, Matt Damon.
And then one of the biggest guests of the entire tour is Tracy from Wisconsin.
Tracy from Wisconsin comes on.
Tracy.
Sean's sister.
My sister.
Oh, Sean's sister makes an incredible appearance.
Yeah.
Oh, and doesn't your mother's right eye makes an appearance as well?
And your mother's eye makes an appearance too.
It's all true.
By the way, it's all true, and you can see it.
Get it?
Don't get it.
On Max, smartless, on the road.
Check it out.
I'm glad you asked because I don't think they get it.
And then, by the way, we come back to L.A.,
and then we end here with Kimmel.
With Kimmel and Kevin Hart.
I mean, we get to have, what a soft lander to come back
and have our good buddy, Jimmy, Kimmel,
and then Jan makes an appearance and, God, I mean.
And then what's the final meal of the whole thing?
Oh yeah, then we're over at Shawnee's house for some...
Oh, we go to Shoney's right.
Spaghetti Jos?
Sloppy Jos.
Sloppy Jos.
I made sloppy Joe from scratch for you guys.
Yeah.
It's all on the dock.
It's all in the dock.
Are we watching it at your house?
Yeah, that's watching it.
Let's watch it.
We'll watch it on Max.
It's kind of so fun.
I think, I hope people like, who knows, but...
We hope.
It looks real good, too.
Sam Jones did a great job directing it.
It looks real handsome.
It's black and white.
I hope people like it's, it's why,
it's May 23rd, right?
May 23rd on Mac.
Okay.
I have a crazy story that happened.
I told Will, I said I was going to save it to tell you today.
You have some pre-show patter?
Yeah.
You know, Sean, and his...
Go ahead, Sean.
No, this is crazy.
Sean, what have you prepared?
I've prepared this.
Sean, by the way, not to interrupt it,
speaking of prepared, there's somebody preparing something in the kitchen behind you.
Yeah, Scott is going to make me some tea right now.
Okay.
Tea?
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Are you fasting?
He's on Broadway, man.
He's on Broadway.
I'm on the Broadway.
Oh, to keep your pipes nice and lubricated?
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Well, it is 1 o'clock there.
What was for lunch today?
I just had a...
I can't wait.
I had a, what's it called?
Like a Kaiser roll with egg and cheese and a little bacon.
Apple juice.
I had, what do they call it, like a foot-long sub?
Kaiser Roll.
Kaiser.
Yeah.
Where do you have to go to get that?
Like a bread shop.
Downstairs.
Downstairs.
No, Zabar's.
Kaiser.
Zabar's.
is a Jewish deli.
We live right near it.
And then there's a cafe,
and they don't do bagels with egg.
You'd think they would do bagels
because they sell bagels in the store part,
but not the cafe part, which is really crazy.
You got to go full Kaiser.
All right.
All right. So this is the story.
This is crazy.
This is going to blow your mind.
I think it blew my mind.
So the show takes place in 1958,
backstage at the Tonight Show.
Oscar Levant is the guest on the Tonight Show that night.
The other guests, which we never see,
we only reference a lot,
is Jane Mansfield.
Sure.
Okay, who was, you know, this big star back in the 50s.
Marilyn Monroe, Jane Mansfield, very similar.
So Mariska Hargitte.
You know Mariska Hargitay?
I do.
Sure.
Yeah, she's the star of the SVU thing.
Oh, thanks, Scotty.
Hey, Scottie.
Thanks, Scott.
She just made me tea.
So she's the star of this show for like 20-some years, right?
So she's like, I'm outside of your theater.
Come out.
I'm like, oh, my God, I came out, gave her a hug, said hello.
We took a photo.
we're done and she go and somebody in the show whispers in my ear her mom is jane mansfield yeah i go wait a minute
what yeah well mariska hargette's mom i go your mom is jane mansfield i go do you know that we
reference your mom in this show over and over again did your mom know oscar levant she's like i don't i don't
know um you know unfortunately she was very young when her mom died so then we go back and we say her bays
i go back in the theater and uh i forgot i text her i go by the way your mom
made her Broadway debut in this theater that we're working in right now.
Wow.
No way.
Isn't that crazy?
Crazy, crazy.
Yeah.
So, um, did you at least offer her tickets to the show?
No, she's got to pay for those.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you can give her access to the house.
Yeah, I can get her.
Her dad, her dad was, um, Mickey Hargatee, who was like a, uh, bodybuilder guy from Hungary.
How do you know that?
I know that.
I know that.
Because he just Googled it.
No, I didn't.
I knew that before.
And, um...
Wait, why do you know, you know,
vague Hungarian bodybuilders.
Look, do you want to see my magazine collection or not?
No, I don't want to see your search history either.
I do.
I actually do.
I read somebody in my search history the other day.
There was such a bonkers all over the map.
I go, here, you want to know what I've been searching up for the last 24 hours?
And it was just the weirdest, stupidest stuff.
I want to say just because I want to be, and I don't want to bring it down,
but I've got to be honest about where I'm at, if that's okay.
Yes, yes.
and then we can switch here.
Is that okay?
Yes, of course it is.
It's very real.
Do you want me to say?
You want me to describe it?
My oldest friend in the world, Jeremy, passed away.
Oh.
And I loved them so much.
Oh, well, I'm so sorry.
Yeah, you just found out yesterday, yeah?
Yeah.
And, um, fuck.
Oh, God, I'm so sorry.
And I just got to be honest about it because it's what's going on in my head.
And, um, I, um, I just got to be honest about it because it's what's going on in my head.
And, um, I, um.
I just wanted to say that.
I just, I love the guy so much.
And it's so, Jason and I were talking today this morning.
And it's funny, we always get surprised when people say,
it's such a surprise, such a shock.
And we know that the deal is that everybody's going to die in something.
We're here for five minutes.
Yeah.
You pass suddenly, well?
You know, the last few weeks kind of came out of nowhere, certainly.
And then he finally passed.
And I'm happy he did.
You know, obviously he was in a lot of pain.
And I'm just thinking about his family and all of them.
And I've known them forever.
And, you know, his daughter and his wife and his parents,
whom my parents knew and our great-grandparents knew each other.
Our families are intertwined for generations.
And he was-
So Jeremy was up in Toronto?
He was in Toronto, yeah.
And he was one of the great guys.
He's a, I always say he's a first ballot Hall of Famer.
Just a great guy.
you could always rely on them and and I miss them and you know you never um and I was just thinking this
morning and I was taking the kids to school and it was just thinking like oh man hug the people you love
yeah tell them as much as you can and if you're thinking about somebody call them let them know right
just let them know you're thinking about them you love them how important they are to you um I love that
and I just wanted to say that because it's all my mind and I love you guys so much
We love you. We love you too.
Yeah. Yeah, it's, it is, you're right, it is this sort of like, you're always shocked
that people die, but everyone here is going to. Everyone listening will. And it's like,
it's a terrible thought. And we somehow have managed this little device inside our head and our
heart to kind of put it in a little box and keep it away and deal with it at near the end of our
life. We just kind of pretend it's not ever going to happen. But it does. And we just hope we use
our time correctly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
You know, I just did this, I just did this article, this interview.
And Jay, you were so kind.
I just read it.
You said such nice things about me.
And I appreciate it.
I appreciate your generosity.
And I said, you know, if I can pull this thing off, great.
If not, I'm still alive.
Yeah.
It's my quote.
You know about the play?
So you're feeling bullish about it.
about the play.
Yeah.
It could suck,
but at least I'm not dead.
No, but the point is,
to your point,
well,
is like,
we're still here,
we're here, we're here, right?
We're here.
Nothing matters
other than our health
and our people we love
and all that.
And I just,
yeah,
I wanted to say that,
just say,
Jerry, we love you.
And,
and that's it.
You know,
thinking about you,
buddy.
And I also know that he was,
he was always so quick with a laugh
and he loved to freaking laugh.
This guy made me laugh.
And so I don't know.
He would, he'd be like, great, well, get to your guest.
You have a nice opportunity to give him a nice goodbye this weekend with all of those people you're talking about.
That's right.
That's great.
It'll be a wonderful thing for him to watch too.
That's right.
You know, I mean, that's one of the good things about after we go, right?
We get to, like, it's a narcissist delight.
You get to just pull up a chair and watch everybody saying,
nice things about you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love that.
At least that's my fantasy.
I know. Well, it's one of your fantasies.
Right. Just a big Jason
session for a whole day.
What are you eating?
Right now?
No. In that situation where you get...
Oh. Where it doesn't matter anymore.
Just super salty
puff-inducing things.
Because, you know, you can be as puffy as you want upstairs.
Sure, you can.
Yeah.
Turns out you can be as puffy as you want downstairs.
But actually you lose water weight
Almost instantaneously down there
Because you're always sweating
Yeah
Yeah it's hot as shit
Oh where you're going
Yeah you're going to get
There's a lot of sweating going on
That's a good point
It's a constant schitz
To switch gears
Sure
You know if we can
As much as we can
To somebody who's not puffy
Really?
No
This gentleman keeps it very tight
In the best way
I really
A lucky son of it
Yeah I know he
He really is.
He's got...
This is a guy...
You want to talk about
First Ballet Hall of Fame,
or this is the guy who's got it all.
I mean, he's...
When you got...
When you got talent and good looks...
Forget about it.
When you got an easy way about you...
Oh, boy.
For a freaking good guy.
This guy's done it everything.
He's been on the big screen.
He's been on the little screen.
He's been on the boards, you know,
on stage, if you will.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This guy's from the other side of the pond.
Uh-oh.
He's British.
Yeah, well, he's actually Welsh.
His first language is Welsh according to the internet.
Huh.
He's a guy who's done so much,
and he's one of those guys who, like,
every time you see him, you're like,
oh, I love this guy.
Everything he does.
This is the way I feel.
You know, he was, for years he was on,
you knew him from brothers and sisters,
and then he was on the Americans forever.
And the thing I love about him,
maybe the most, is that he is partnered with
one of my all-time favorite people
the delightful
Kerry Russell.
Guys,
it's the incredibly talented
Matthew Reese.
Oh, Matthew.
Yes, sir.
Is he gorgeous or what?
Look at the stash.
Look at him.
There's no water in that face at all.
No, not for years.
We have a fifth guest today.
He proved that the mustache was real.
He pulled on it just to prove.
No, no, I'm just checking the glue.
Listener, he's got a 30-pound mustache on
and it's looking strong.
Are you playing a motorcycle cop?
No, I'm doing the Tom Selig Biopin.
You could.
You could, welcome to Smartless Matthew Reeves.
Thank you, thank you very much.
You know, that's the real terrifying moment, the reveal.
I know.
At the beginning, I was like, is he talking about Ian McKellen?
Who are they expecting?
What is this?
This is going to go.
It's Terran Edgerton, everyone.
The real Welshman, who can say?
Sure.
Wow, it's so cool to meet you.
I know.
Very, very cool.
Thank you very much for, for.
having me on, Jen.
This is a real pleasure.
Matthew, I wish we don't know each other well enough.
We've crossed paths a few times
because, obviously, Carrie and I are old friends,
and so we've met through Carrie.
And she's such a delightful person, as you were well aware.
And then she's like, I just, I love the idea.
I'm like, you're as good as the people you hang out with.
And the fact that you and Carrie together, I'm like,
Matthew's a good guy.
He's a great guy.
No, I just, no.
I took that idea.
and then I latched myself onto KERRY
so that those around us would think the same thing.
By the way, that's smart.
That's smart living.
How long did you guys do that show together?
Was it five, six?
It was six years.
It was meant to be five,
and I think the poor showrunners
had kind of arced it for five,
and then FX went,
you know what, let's do one more,
and they went, oh, what?
That's nice.
We had the opposite on O'SRGE.
That's a good sign on a show.
We're talking, of course, about the Americans.
Yeah.
And Margot Martindale is a friend.
And dear, dear Margottenale.
Yeah.
They were both reunited on Cocaine Bear recently.
Yes.
So Margo, and you were in Cocaine Bear as well.
Come on.
I muscled my way in.
Just looking out of the kids in Ireland and reading the script
and that first opening scene, I said,
I was like, who's playing that guy?
The guy who bangs his head and falls out the plane?
She's like, who?
I don't know.
And then I said, ask Elizabeth Banks.
I said, ask Banks.
was playing that part.
So she texted, oh, we haven't cast it again.
I said, tell, I'll do it.
Tell, no, just ask it if I can do it.
And she very kindly said, yes, you can come in and fall out of an airplane.
By the way, what an absolute treat?
So you're directing a movie, and then you got a guy who's got like one scene, basically.
And then you're like, Matthew Reese calls, and he's like, hey, can I just do this one scene?
You're like, uh, are you kidding?
Yeah, she smelled the desperation on me.
I was like, can I please get out of the house.
I can't do another zoo or aquarium.
Sean is it true the rumor sorry
that's how you and Scott met right
didn't didn't you put in the search for cocaine bear
no
did I not hear that
no I think technically it was cocaine
cocaine cub wasn't it
it was cocaine cup yeah it was the prequel
that they haven't got it oh Scotty
oh Scotty if he only knew
so so you do cocaine
and of course I want to get
I don't want to just gloss over the delightful
Margo Martin Dale, whom we all adore.
Oh, yeah, she's the greatest.
No one can swear like Margo Martindale.
Oh.
I mean, she should have a kind of course at NYU,
like swearing for film and television,
because no one can, no one can swear like her.
And no one can get their ire up quicker
and then get to swearing over, like, something that seems trivial.
We did that show together, the Millers,
and she'd be like, can you believe they just did this reroute?
I got to fucking remember this fucking thing
and they want to shoot this afternoon.
you're like, Jesus, what?
Yeah.
She said of one very famous actor who's in our show,
she went, can you fucking hear the way he breathes?
I went, well, before then, I had, no, I happened, actually,
but I can hear it now.
You brought it up.
Oh, Jason, you love to work with her.
Jason, you will so fall in love with Margo-Martindale.
You won't be able to contain yourself.
Guys, am I right?
Yeah, gold.
She's absolute gold.
Now, tell me,
Welsh is a...
language? Is that what I heard you say, Will?
Oh my God. First of all.
Wait, so it's not English? Get ready for the letters.
It's not English. It's much older than English. It's one of the oldest in Europe.
So let's start there. So I just want to say, so Matthew, you are, it says that your first
language was Welsh. Is that true? It is. It is. I grew up speaking Welsh, so the whole family
speak Welsh. But isn't Welsh just English with an accent? I don't understand. Yes, basically.
What we do is trying to adopt such a harsh accent. No one really understands the English
No, no, no, no, no. He's putting you on.
So I've spent some time in Cardiff, which is where you're from, yeah, Matthew?
It is. What were you doing there?
I was filming there a few years ago, and I remember we had this.
What were you driving?
I had, I was going to say, the driver I had when I was working on that show, you know the guy.
Jerry Lockett?
Oh, the Fet, the Locket Rocket.
Oh, the Fet, Rocket, yeah, the famous Jerry Locket.
What do you mean, driver? What are you talking about?
You got a Rolls Royce. That's what I was trying to bait you to.
Oh, no, no, no.
Loan you a...
Yeah, they loaned me a Bentley when I was in...
When I was in London, I was drove around for a few weeks.
I know.
It's a long story.
Wait, did you drive yourself in this Bentley?
Yeah, I did. I did. I drove myself.
Right side drive?
Sure did.
Oh, my God.
And then I drove up to Ricky's to Jervis' house in London
because I was going to have...
Go to his house to have just a visit.
Who are you?
And I called him and I said, I'm outside and he came out and he saw me in this Bentley and go,
where can I park this thing around here?
And he was like, Jesus, fucking Christ.
It wasn't mine.
It was literally, I don't drive a Bentley.
That was why I made a point.
Anyway, so you're from Cardiff.
We know Jerry Lockett.
We've got Jerry out there.
We know that he's listening.
We love you, Jerry.
So we know that you do.
How are you?
And I knew that you guys knew each other
because he was always like, do you know Matthew Reese?
And I was like, I do.
I do a little bit because I know Kerry.
He says, yeah, Matthew, Matthew's from here.
And he's so proud of you.
And all the Welsh, you're so proud of Matthew for what you've done.
I think there's, because there's only three,
million of us, three and a half million.
That's all of Canada, isn't it?
What?
What is the population of Canada now?
30, 30.
Oh, okay.
You missed it by a zero.
10%.
Yeah.
So anyone who's Welsh and has done anything, even if they haven't done anything,
we're just inherently proud for a country the size of Connecticut.
Two of them are named Bale and one of them is named Reese.
Yes, that's it.
So Christian Gareth and Bail and Matthew Reese.
Well, there's also Hopkins.
You also got Hopkins.
Oh, yeah.
You do.
Yeah.
And then Burton, obviously.
There are a bunch of them.
So wait, I don't know.
I don't know anything about you, and I know you.
I know you, I know you.
So were you one of those people that grew up in the theater and stuff as a kid?
And you're like, oh my God, if I can go to America, wow.
We're going to get to that, John.
That's exactly right.
She's right in the middle of a story.
He's telling the story.
What story about a Rolls-Royce and a Bentley?
Speaking Welsh is his first language.
Say something in Welsh.
Landing the plane on that.
Okay, sorry.
Go ahead, Matthew.
and...
Sean, check your chat, please.
So talk about, no, but growing up, speaking well,
you guys spoke Welsh at home, yeah?
We did, we did.
And in Wales, there's a great, you know,
there's a great reverence for, you know,
performing arts, and there's a very,
there's kind of an ancient tradition.
It's pre-Christian,
whereby everyone congregate, in the old days,
everyone would congregate,
and then you would sing competitively
or cite poetry or anything of that ilk, basically.
And it's very modern these days,
but twice a year, all the children of Wales will gather.
And it's a competition now,
but you're very much encouraged to get on stage
and in some form, art form or another,
and compete for your school or your county or whatever.
Oh, wow.
So, yeah, so from a very early age,
you're kind of kicked onto a stage whether you want to.
Really?
Yeah, yeah.
And now, a word from our sponsor.
All right, back to the show.
So you grow up, you're speaking well, obviously you speak English as well.
They speak both there.
The signage and stuff in Wales is delightful.
It's, you know, one in English and one in Welsh.
And it's a, it's tough to read.
It's a hotbed of contention, yeah.
What's the distance between English and Welsh?
I mean, I've absolutely no idea what it sounds like, what it looks like.
Yeah, you can talk a little bit in Welsh, just so we can hear it.
I'll just get, one of the oldest poems in Welsh is about 600 BC.
And it just says,
Goyraith,
Gatraith of Frayth,
Glastferi Hankuina,
Gwai,
and Gwadi Eluch,
to Eluch, Thouelch,
Tao Eluch thee.
It's Lord of the Rings,
the Elves.
It's how the Elves speak
in Lord of the Rings.
Yes, well,
Tolkien based Elfish on Welsh.
Oh, I just made that up.
Is that true?
Oh, yes, are you kidding me?
I mean, I'm a 54-year-old man
that is not living in a cave.
Why have I never ever heard Welsh?
It's a golden cave.
Let's be honest.
Well, yes, a beautiful cave.
I've heard tell.
Yes, one cave to bind us all.
Why? What, I don't understand how that's gone by me.
Well, I do.
Well, I think, listen, I don't want to get into on the English bashing soapbox, but the English, you know, if we're going to, we'll do with a quick history, the English did their best to kind of eradicate all the Celtic languages for the Scots, the Irish, the Welsh, the Cornish, you know, they, they weren't too Celtic friendly.
So there was a lot of stamping out of the language in the culture.
Wow.
And was it influenced by folks more northern?
Like, was there a Viking influence to all of those Celtic languages?
I mean, there's the great evolutionist, Germanic-based.
And then, you know, I think the Celtoy were a Spanish tribe initially.
And they, you know, then the goals got involved and amalgamated.
And then they set up camp in Britain and then the Romans came.
We're all such babies here in America.
Well, you don't learn any.
Even if you did pay attention,
you know, even if you did in America go to school,
not on a massage bus,
you learned, you learned, you learned history.
How dare you.
You learned history.
But at least in Canada, we did,
we had to take British history.
So we knew we, oh, we were always studying
a fucking battle of collodin and all that shit.
Like, was the, is the empire still stamped down your throat in Canada?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
I mean, I don't, I haven't lived there in 30 years.
This is a guy who reads World War II books on the can, going to bed.
It's not as bad as Justin Thoreau who will watch World War II documentaries
through the facehole of a massage table on his iPhone.
Okay?
He takes it to a new level, this lust for World War II.
And he lines it just for comfort and stuff.
He lines it with his discarded sleeves just to protect his face.
Just to pad the ring.
So, Matthew, so you're in, you're what?
You're sort of 17.
and you go to Rada.
Yeah, yeah.
Rada.
The Academy of Dramatic Art in London,
which is the preeminent classical acting school in the world.
That's what I tell everyone.
I was what I've told my parents they allow me to go.
It's like everybody who goes to Rada, they'll tell you.
And it's the same way with everybody who's ever gone to Oxford,
make sure to let that be known.
Yes, we'll drop it in.
You know, they're all called...
You walk in and they've left the honor boards
is still up in the foyer.
So, like, you know, has Peter O'Toole and Anthony Hopkins.
It's incredible.
I did a summer course there years ago.
Did you?
In 1987.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shakespeare?
Yeah, I did the whole thing for a few years there.
Yeah.
Come on.
Come on.
At Rada.
I sure did.
How was that?
It was amazing, man.
What did you do?
You seem so dumb.
It was amazing.
Is there a lot of pressure
when you go to a school like that to make it?
I mean, obviously, you did.
But, I mean, is there just sort of culturally,
do you feel they're like, oh my God, okay, so I'm in Rada now.
I got to, I got to maintain our batting average.
Or is there a lot of people that go there and then go into other fields?
Is that more common?
It is, it is.
It's a very small intake.
There's only 30 to each year, 15 men, 15 women.
Every year.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's very small.
So you feel the pressure immediately.
That's small.
Did they do it on a bus?
Yes, like a massage bus.
Yeah, it just kind of goes around, around to Picadilly circus.
We have 30 on the massage bus comfortably.
That's what I heard.
And then you guys stop for lunch at Jinkies on Ventura, right?
Yeah, I mentioned that.
Some reading at the Bodie Tree.
But it's very exclusive.
But here you are, you're a kid from Cardiff.
Were you the only Welsh person in your year?
Yes, I was.
I was.
I had a friend who was a year older,
and then Michael Sheen had just come through.
and kind of blazed a trail
and was kind of, you know,
setting the west end on fire.
So there was this, you know,
there was a,
the flag of Wales is the dragon.
So there was a kind of a dragon firmly stamped
as to, you know, the Welsh are resurging again.
But, you know, like I said,
Anthony Hopkins was the chairman of the board at the time.
So he'd beat in and out
and he'd just done shadow lands.
So, you know, there was this,
there was this great air that, you know,
anything was possible.
really. I think one of the things that
the Welsh and Wales suffered from enormously
is small person syndrome.
And at that time, there was just this
little bubble of a few
Welsh people doing incredibly
while Catherine Zito was bursting to the ranks.
So I was there at this Renaissance
when anything felt possible.
You know what my question is going to be?
I can ask it now or later.
Did you ever forget a line on stage?
What's your favorite theater story, Matthew?
Yeah, because you've got to have one or two.
Yes, I
I have quite a few, in fact.
No, but possibly when I was, because I was doing theatre for the first, well, five years, solidly.
And then at 25, I thought I got the role that was going to change my life and my career.
It didn't.
But I got to play Benjamin Braddock in a stage adaptation of The Graduate with Kathleen Turner as my Mrs. Robinson.
Wow.
And to me, it was the first real introduction to Hollywood because I'd never experienced anything
like it in every sense.
Like, PAs, and I was like,
what's a P.A? Who has a P.A?
It was just incredible.
Anyway, fast forward.
Halfway through the run,
it got a little, you know,
there were a few bedroom antics in,
in the production,
and there's one moment where I jump in bed
and with simulating sex.
And I have to kind of plunge my face
between her legs as if I'm,
I'm pleasuring her.
Sure, sure.
She did have the, you know,
the obligatory kind of, you know,
flesh-toned
underwear on.
But anyway, I had a streaming head cold.
Sure.
And being the malicious vindictive type
that I am, I wouldn't let the end of study go on.
So I went on and I had,
my nose is just streaming.
My nose is streaming.
And I couldn't, I didn't want to kind of sniff heavily
during, you know, during dialogue.
So I'm doing this.
Yeah, and I go, oh, I know what I know what I'll do.
I'll just clear my nose in that quiet,
when I'm between, I know, and I did, well, I didn't think.
So I jumped in, and I'm between Ms. Turner's legs, and I just went,
and inhaled deeply, and the covers kind of shot up.
And she's looking down me, like, what the fuck?
What the fuck are you doing?
And I was like, oh, oh, no, I'm not, no, I'm not, I'm not sniff, I'm not, I have a cold,
I have a cold, I'm not saving you.
You're not trying wine out.
No, no.
No, my God, no way.
Yes, I always live with this deep regret of that moment.
That and when someone, there was a paparazzi photo,
in the moment she took off her robe,
and this paparazzi photographer stood up and photographed her,
and a big flash went off, I know.
And I looked at her on stage in this moment,
and I was like, oh, we should stop.
And she came in with the next line.
And I always remember thinking,
regardless that she was an consummate professional,
I'm going to come in with the next line,
I'm going to carry on.
I bitterly regret in that moment
not stopping the production,
because the next day in a tabloid newspaper,
there was a huge photograph of, yeah.
Yeah, I was ashamed.
Oh, my God.
Well, you know.
But it was.
And the headline just said,
Welshman, you know, just fucking coweres under pressure.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
Spineless Welshman does nothing.
We'll leave it to the English tabloids to say that.
Yeah, I love that.
Oh, my God.
So Matthew, so you did, as you said, did, did you play another great Welshman.
You played Dylan Thomas, didn't you?
I did.
At one point?
Yes.
Oh my God, if you feel so long ago.
About 12 years ago now, yeah.
He had this incredible moment, the poet Dylan Thomas had this incredible moment in his life
where he was having an affair.
That part was played by Kira Knightley and Cernabiller's playing my wife.
and
Killion Murphy
is the husband
of Kieraniteley
and this is all true
that he burst in on
Dylan Thomas
with a machine gun
because it was during the
Second War
he came in with the machine gun
he opened fire
and then
missed everyone
and took out a grenade
pulled the pin
and the grenade
didn't go off
and it was that story
that we told
in the age of love
yeah it was an
unbelievable
story that he survived
and then
tragically drank himself to death.
Wow.
Talk about the worst assassin you could ever imagine.
Yes.
And I was like, talking to killing about it.
I was like, but you're playing a commando.
You're a trained commando.
Do you want to play this part?
So you are not, you do not live in Wales, correct?
I do not know.
I now live in leafy Brooklyn.
Leafy Brooklyn.
Yeah, so you live in Brooklyn,
but you come over, you do theater, as you say,
for basically five years.
And then you move over to,
America to do what?
What was the first thing that brought you over?
The first thing I did, I was doing a play.
I was actually doing a two-hander at the Royal Court
with Paul Bettany called
One More Wasted Year, and everyone called it
One More Wasted Evening, because it wasn't
good. My own family said as much.
It was terrible.
Didn't they really?
So they come backstage, what were they saying to you backstage?
My uncle was the first person of the entire group
and they came in and is an old sea captain,
very salty, and he went, well, that was
shit.
Yeah.
And I couldn't argue.
I went,
you're absolutely right.
And then, yeah.
Stephen Daughery,
who was the artistic director at the time,
and Press Knight came in,
went,
darlings,
was it the play we need to see right now?
Probably not.
Should we go to a party?
That's hysterical.
Oh, wow.
That's so hardcore.
So you come over with Paul Bettney,
you do that.
Sorry, yes.
Yeah, an American agent came to see the play
and he said,
Do you want to come over for pilot season?
And I'd no idea what it was.
And I said yes, and then came to L.A.
And then the first audition he set me up with,
it was Julie Tameau's first movie, Titus,
with Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lang.
And I just thought, oh, my God,
Los Angeles is truly the promised land
where you just turn up and get these huge movies
and everything's great.
Yeah, you just sign up.
And then I did that, yeah.
And I shot that in Rome for six months,
and then I went back to L.A. and didn't get a job for a decade.
Yeah.
I thought here's another time
my career is going to be made
and it was just like
yeah
just paid a few bills
isn't that amazing
I love that feeling
of it like yeah
it's gonna be like this
forever
yeah yeah
it's like the Klondike
I arrived who's like the Klondike
where they throw you these scripts
and go
this is being made for MGM
with this as a lead
and you're like
oh my and you're allowing me
to audition for this
this is madness
all I have to do is get the part
and I'm set for life
you never know anything
you really don't
I mean look at us three morons
Like, we've, each of us have had great success, as I knock on wood,
we're super grateful for in our careers.
But then, you know, this thing comes along.
It's more successful than anything we've ever done.
And it was just us three idiots chatting during COVID.
Right.
The world basically was saying,
we don't want you guys to do the thing that you think that you're going to just...
Yeah, the things you're professional are.
Yeah, you can keep doing that a little bit if you want.
But we just want you to be that you're...
We want to hear your idiotic thoughts on stupid shit.
Yeah.
Just like wonder at the moment where Sean learns that whales was,
you know where whales got its name, Sean?
You know, that's where they made the first harpoon.
That's not true.
That's not true.
It's not true.
Correct.
But you bought it for a second.
And that's what they tune in to here.
Because he'll fuck with me and he'll say something that's completely not true
and then he'll say something that's completely true.
I never know what to believe.
It's tough.
I know, Angel.
But wait a minute.
They did shoot Moby Dick in Wales with Gregory Peck.
And my grandfather worked on it.
Is that true?
Is that true?
Yeah, they built three large rubber whales.
And one of them, I know, this is the great joke.
It's like they came to Wales.
And one of them sailed off into the Irish Sea,
which I think is fantastic.
I have a whale that needs a rubber, but go ahead.
Hey-oh.
Ooh.
My grandfather caught Moby Dick, but there's a cure for it now.
Hey, oh.
Wait, wait, wait.
What did your grandfather do on that?
His friend Edgar was a carpenter
and they kind of helped out
in the framing of the whales
I love that
That's cool
Wait I want to ask about Kerry
And I want to know like
Did you meet each other
Because I'm an idiot
I don't know
Did you meet before Americans
Or on the set
And how did that go
And when did you know the sparks flew
Just one question at time
We did
Because I get easily confused
Because I love Carrie
I love Carrie
So do I
We met quite a few years before
the Americans in Rusty Canyon at a kickball party that Jennifer Gray hosted, and I had no idea
what kickball was.
Boy, all of that adds up, by the way.
Yes, yes.
How I just ambled through life, bumping into the furniture and ending up going, how did I get here?
How did this happen?
And we were the last two to leave.
We were in the parking lot, and I was trying to open a bottle of beer for her with a key and failing.
And I asked for her number then.
And that was all I can remember.
She was moving to New York two days after that on the Tuesday.
It was a Sunday.
And that's all I sort of remember.
And then the road to the Americans was a long, crazy one.
And then on the first day of fight training, I said to Kerry, I said, oh, we've met, we've met before, actually.
She was like, no, no, we definitely have.
I said, it had been years.
He's been years at this point.
And I said, yeah, yeah, we met before.
We met her a kickball party in Rustic Canyon.
She went, I know who you are.
and you left me a message on my answering machine,
a very drunken message.
And I went,
Oh.
Did I, I'm so sorry.
I had no memory of leaving a long,
rambling, incoherent, drunken message,
which is probably why I should think of-
No way, did you really?
Wait, can I be a super moron?
Are you guys together?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, okay.
Wait, did you, so you got together,
you started working together,
that they're just good friends.
No, because they worked together
on the Americans for six.
Cheers.
That's what I'm saying.
That's why I was asked.
But then, but during that, you guys fell in love, got married, had a kid?
We did, yes.
Yeah, but I want to know what happens.
So she goes, okay, now I remember you.
And then what?
And then it was, it was just a very, it was a very slow burn.
The first season, you know, I, I think we were both trying to be sworn off to that thing.
We're going to go, I'm not going to do what everyone tells us never to do.
I'm not going to do that.
And then, but the beginning of the second season, it was.
It was, it was, it was, yeah.
Okay, so now were the producer,
did the producers take each of you aside individually and say,
hey, this is, you're dealing with an asset here, okay?
Everyone has jobs.
If you guys go south, we have to shut the show down.
Were there conversations?
No, no, they were very gracious about it,
because I've had friends.
They were all so nervous.
I know, I've had friends who, you know,
who've had that conversation to sit down from the producers going,
look, we've all been down here before.
You guys are in you.
You're mid-30s now.
You know, you're not 22.
Right off the company,
and they were very, yeah,
they were very kind and gracious about it.
Do you know, do you know the TV director Tommy Shlami?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so Shlami was directing the beginning of the second season,
and he has that kind of beautiful voice,
but Kerry and I were having a,
we're doing a sex scene,
and Shlami just goes,
these two have been naked together before.
Uh-huh.
And they just, it was like, called out.
Oh, really?
So at that point, no one knew,
but he could tell.
He could tell.
And then there's a longer story
as to how we got found out,
which was just...
We've got time.
Well, Kerry got broken into.
I was in the house at the time,
and the robbers kind of grabbed my backpack,
shoved it full of her stuff.
You're in the house alone during a home invasion.
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
Start there.
Well, so here's the other thing is
it's early day,
and this is just a testament to my abject stupid
but with early days of our relationship.
And she wakes me up, she says,
there's someone in the house.
And I go, no, there's not.
And then I just heard this voice.
Oh, shit.
And I remember thinking, in any logical moment,
you'd go, let's lock ourselves in the bathroom, call 911.
And for some stupid reason, because it were very early days,
I thought, what I do next, she will judge me on for the rest of our lives.
What's that film?
Force majeure.
Force major.
Where the avalanche comes and he just runs.
He leaves his family beyond.
Right, right?
I swear to God.
I was like, if I suggest to go into the bathroom,
call 911, will she think me a coward?
Your relationship's over.
Yes.
I had all these weird things going to my head.
So what did I do?
She had a working fireplace in the bedroom.
So I picked up the poker.
Sure.
And with not a stitch on me, I walked out to meet my fate.
Oh, God.
Wow.
And we'll be right back after these messages.
Okay, so now we're back.
So now we're back.
So now you're...
So after eight months of treatment, yes.
I was fine.
No, I'm kidding.
So did you face to face with this fella?
No, because what I did was, I think,
what most people do is you turn the light on,
and they run straight away.
Right.
So I heard them kind of run, and they ran out the front door.
Oh, thank God.
I know.
I know.
Jesus.
So you do this and now Kerry thinks that you're her hero?
I wouldn't go that far.
Or did she think you were stupid for chasing up to the guy?
She was locked in the bathroom.
Yeah, calling guy one.
Yeah.
Then seven cops turn up and they start, they clock her and they're like looking.
They'll have no idea why, but they're looking at her.
And then all of a sudden the DA were like, they catch them and the DA said, oh, I tell you what,
we would love to return your belongings on set with a photographer to Kerry.
if that's okay.
And she's like,
she wasn't wild about the idea.
Try to put it on.
No, no, no,
because the DA was retiring that year.
He wanted kind of a, you know, hero ending.
So the NYPD, come on set with a photographer,
and then they're holding up my bag.
And, indeed, one of the young PA's went,
wait, that's not Kerry's bag.
That's Matthew's bag.
And as I'm running, trying to go,
shut the fuck up.
And that's how the crew kind of found out.
No.
Wow.
Wow, wow, wow.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
It was a lot to go through just for the big reveal.
Wow.
That's kind of cool.
So then this guy managed to grab a few things before he went running.
He did.
He did.
Wow.
And when I saw the picture, when he was arrested, I said, oh, I said, look, there's a picture of the guy that caught him.
I said, look, he's been cuffed by two little tiny cops.
She said, they're not tiny.
And I saw the size of him.
He could have turned me.
into a kebab with that poker
and done what he wanted.
I wouldn't have had it.
Now, did you have any sort of war cry
as you turned on the light?
Was there any sort of
get the heck out of you?
You're going, hey bear.
Hey, boy.
You know.
Was there any of that?
No, no.
As much as I have a poker.
Yeah, yeah.
As much as I love that moment
in Gladiator and all the Celts
kind of attack the Romans
and I always think, you know,
if it came to it, that's how I'd react.
I was not,
I couldn't move.
my legs. Don't make me come down there.
Yeah, yes. I'm classically trained, you know. I've done fencing.
Totally naked.
Yes. Let's get this going. Yeah.
And we will be right back. And now back to the show.
All right, so you and Carrie have a child. That's a boy or a girl.
He's a boy. He's a boy. Carrie has two older ones. So there's three, you know,
there's three in the house who outnumber us. And what are the ages of all three?
15, 11, and 6.
15, 11, and 6.
Then the 15 and 11 are boy girl?
A boy girl, so it was boy girl boy.
Boy girl, boy.
And how are you liking being a dad?
I love it.
Do you love it?
I do love it.
It's the madness that I love.
It's when it's most catastrophic,
the small stuff irks you,
but when it's catastrophic, it's brilliant.
When those mornings, when the wheels so royally come off,
that's when I can sit back and go,
oh, this is just brilliant.
Who's the more patient one with all of the,
with the chaos?
Is it you or her?
Her.
Yeah.
Chaos I'm fine with.
But manners, like rudeness, I don't tolerate.
And that's when I...
No, me neither.
Yeah.
No, that's what I can.
How old are yours now, Jason?
I got 16 and 11, two girls.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And I'm totally permissive and the guy that plays around
and I don't have to really be the disciplinarian.
But if it's the rudeness, if it's stuff like that,
and I just like the switch gets thrown.
Yeah, same.
I pick and choose my moments.
Yeah, the chaos is great.
Yeah, rudeness I have.
Yeah, we've got, we've got 14, 12, and then my partner, she's a five-year-old,
and then we have an almost three-year-old.
Oh, wow.
All boys, all boys.
No way.
Yeah.
You've almost got the hockey team.
Almost got the team, and it's the fuck, and it is, sometimes it is absolute, just abject chaos.
Like just...
How do you like it?
I love it.
The chaos.
It's great.
Yeah, I love it.
It's, I don't know.
I just wouldn't have it any other way.
I embrace it.
It's fun.
Same thing.
They're all nice kids and everybody, you know, has good manners and stuff.
That's one of the things.
But I love it, man.
I love it when it just gets absolute, you know, sometimes when you get into the witching
hour sort of near bedtime, it gets fucking bonkers.
Yeah.
How about the complications, Matthew, of travel and stuff?
Since you guys are both very active in your careers
and your kids are now deeply entrenched in school
and having that sort of social and academic continuity,
like you can't really pick them up
and take them places with you as much as you want, I'll bet, right?
How do you guys manage that?
Is it easy or tough?
It is tough.
I mean, we try and live by this ridiculous rule where one of us works,
one of us doesn't and that, you know, kids stay at school.
Right.
But it's just...
That never works out, right?
Because, like, what if somebody gets a great, great call?
And it's, you just can't say no, but this is your turn and, you know.
Yeah, this is what happened last year.
Grandma came in and, you know, the kids ate sugar for six solid months.
They loved it.
I think that my sort of view on it always is that, is that you have this idea of how you want it to go.
So you say, like, one of us is going to work, one of us, not, whatever that thing is,
and you try to set those parameters and you try to get as close to it as you can.
And you have to be flexible and allow yourself to, you know, that there are going to be moments where it's just pure chaos.
Yes.
And the trip is kids are so incredibly resilient.
Like they don't know any different.
You know, I grew up in a house where my mom was a stewardess for Pan Am or flight attendant.
She was gone two weeks of every month.
It was just normal to me, you know, just had my mom half the time.
And that was just normal.
Yeah.
I had my dad.
No, no, no, Matthew's going to love this story.
No, no, yeah, go.
So it starts with a Chevy Pontiac, the engine turning on.
Yeah, and it ends with a peel out.
Yeah, just a peel out.
And a real...
And a sort of a distant kind of, fuck you.
Fuck y'all.
Fuck all you.
I'm out.
This is John, this isn't true, is it?
Yeah, it's true.
My dad left him.
That's five.
And he left his mom to keep an eye on all of them.
And I stress and I.
His mother has one eye.
And I'd stress and I.
Matthew, it's brilliantly tragic.
Traged.
You have to laugh.
It's fun.
Yeah.
It's the same thing we have to do.
We have to laugh at our misfortunes because...
But wait, I'm going to ask you a weird question
only because you're wearing a black t-shirt.
And I've seen a lot of photos of you and stuff
where you seem very...
You seem very kind of fat...
Like, you're into fashion when you have to be...
Like, I know nothing. Like, I'm terrible.
But, like, you're probably like Will...
You're probably like Will where you're like,
I like to look good when I even go to the store.
I like to look good when I go out in public.
Like, is that... It seems like a lot of effort.
Oh, no. No.
If you truly knew me,
It's, Kerry said the other day, because I have, I have these beaten up car hearts and I wear,
usually just the same black t-shirt every day.
I even care is like, you've got, you've got to change for the school run.
You've won the same thing for, for, it's now, it's now months.
Right.
And my car hearts are really beaten up and there's, there was this, there was this, what's
cards?
Car-Harts.
Sorry, it's a brand, clothing brand.
Oh, oh, Har- Hearts.
It's like, what are all the carpenters wear them and the, and the,
Real worker guys.
And I wear them into the ground
because they look so terrible.
I was standing in school pickup in the line
and this mother kind of looked at him like Travis
and she said, what is it you do?
And I went, oh, I'm actually an actor.
And she went, oh, oh.
It's like, almost like, why are you wearing car?
Why are you masquerading as someone who works for a living?
Well, you have your uniform.
Well, it's like Jason always gets the question
when they see him.
They always say, what times are your tea time?
Right? Isn't that the question that gets most of the day?
Well, when I wear this little outfit, it's clear.
You know what I do get a lot, you know what I do get a lot is do you color your hair?
And now recently, because of this film where I play in a guy in 1985, they think it's a wig.
Just a full-blown wig that I'm wearing.
Yeah.
I'm looking forward to that immensely.
No one thinks that my hair is the right, is the real color.
Because in your 70s like you are, it's nobody that's not true.
It's not believed.
that a 70-year-old would not have to admit
that there have been,
I've had a few people in the last year
who have asked me, Jason, if you color your hair.
Yeah, same.
I tell everyone that you color your hair.
It's what I did that, huh?
Yes, son of a bitch.
It was, yeah, it was during that moment.
Do you remember what, do you know,
I don't know if you remember this,
in the Golden Globes,
this is, this is,
perversely pretentious,
but it still makes me laugh.
That kind of green,
the virtual green room,
if you remember,
is you, me,
Bob Odenkirk,
Josh O'Connor,
and then we were all waiting
for Al Pacino to kind of pop up.
Do you remember?
Into the virtual green room.
We're all waiting.
And then he pops up
because we're all at home during the pandemic.
And he looks like a Bond villain
because he has like a small dog in his lap
and he's stroking it.
Yes.
And we all sort of say,
we all go, hi, hello.
Hello.
Hi, hi.
And then there's silence.
And then we kind of do a second round
we're like going, hello, hi.
No, nothing.
And then I think you said,
I don't think he can hear us.
And then Pacino just goes,
oh, I can hear you.
Oh, boy.
Yeah.
We all went, oh.
Just doesn't want to do the group high.
And then he said,
I think he colors his hair.
Yeah.
Oh, this guy?
Oh, oh, hair color.
Oh, Charlie.
Oh.
Hey, so, Matthew.
Yeah.
Quick question for Jason.
Why is the emblem?
Why is the person holding an umbrella?
What is that?
Oh, this is some silly golf sweater.
Mary Poppins.
Oh yeah, what is that?
It actually is a Mary Popp.
This is a, I believe this is an ATT thing, Willie.
Yeah.
From ATT?
Yeah, this is one of the...
From that swag room we went into?
Free Swetter.
We have smartless golf stuff coming out soon.
I love it.
Oh, let's take the opportunity to do a merch tie-in, show.
That's smart.
Thank.
Matthew, Matthew, can you commit right now to wearing smartless golf merch on the school run?
My entire closet is mainly made up of clothes I've stolen from jobs.
I don't buy your thing.
Well, we're going to send you some smartless golf swag.
I love it.
I love it.
Some plus fours, right, for the golf pants.
You know, you can wear that.
Yeah.
You know?
We were listening.
I do want to say, your show gives us so much joy.
And we were listening.
Yes, it does.
We were listening to it recently.
And Will, I think you went to dinner with Sean at Jarr.
And Sean, you were.
Yeah, I was not invited.
Yeah.
Well, we brought that up in the car.
We were like, I wasn't Jason.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I never asked.
These guys have been all over the world together.
Oh my gosh.
I've been to Turkey.
They've been to...
Where else guys?
Yeah, we have.
Where else?
Your passport's been stamped.
Venice, Italy, right?
Venis Italy, yeah.
You guys play golf every day.
Okay, go ahead.
Oh, that's different.
So you did say that you were wearing ugs.
The kind of slipper ugs for dinner.
Is that right?
Did I remember that right?
Absolutely, yeah.
And I said to Canada, went, see?
It's fine!
And she went, they live in L.A.
Right.
She's right.
Sean, that was you wearing the comfy?
shoes?
He's been doing it for years.
He's doing it for years.
Who looks at your shoes?
Nobody looks at your shoes in a dark restaurant.
And then I would choose to never come to dinner with you again.
Cobblers around the world.
Cobbler's.
Listen.
So Matthew, so now recently in the last couple of years
you've partnered with our good friend
Mr. Downey Jr.
Oh yeah, Perry Mason.
Now that's a handsome looking show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Talk to us a little bit about that.
First of all, how that came about.
And what an absolute.
absolute terror he is as
executive producer.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
He's been checked.
Yells and screaming.
Oh, what a screamer.
He strikes people.
Yes, yes, with a glove.
Has a leather glove,
a small gauntlet that he sometimes
put a metal thimble in it,
just for the little, ah!
Yeah.
Oh, Christ, he's here, he's here!
He speaks so highly.
How did that come?
How did, yeah, he loves you.
Yeah, he does.
He really does.
Robert loves you.
And talk to us a little bit about,
And Susan as well.
Susan does not like, oh, she does.
Well, yes.
The great Susan, the brains of that duo.
It's the wind beneath the wings and the brain and the head.
Yeah.
How did that come into your sort of into your world,
the Perry Mason project?
I mean, I'm trying to think what year it was now,
because it was a while back.
Probably three, four years ago maybe?
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
And I always, this is, this.
This is how my brain works.
When my manager calls and he goes,
you know, Team Downey would want to talk to you about a reboot, Perry Mason.
My first question was like, who's turned it down?
Who's turned it down?
Why does it Robert want to do it?
Yes, and I think he did.
I think that was the whole point that Robert was supposed to do it.
And it took them almost 10 years of development.
And it went through many, very many guises of a TV film, a series.
And I just think Robert never quite got.
there.
So yeah, they reached out for a meeting,
which I was terrified about.
And the brilliant Mr. Van Patten
directed that.
Oh my God. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
There was just the, yeah, it was a dream.
By the way, I love that
their company is called Team Downey, which is always
fun to me. I think that's a great company
name. I've always been jealous
of that, but I don't want
Robert to know. I would have called it Touchdowny.
Yeah. Oh, that's good.
That's nice. That's fun. Yeah, it's fun. It's just
like I'm looking to call,
name mine, Master Bateman, but it will not, has not cleared.
So Robert, so Team Downey reaches out and you go and you meet with these guys and you're like,
you're like, did you know that it was going to become this group?
Like what was your first thought of it when you, were you like excited?
Were you sort of skeptical?
Were you?
I mean, I was, I was slightly skeptical because I have, like, did you develop it with them or was it a script?
Well, you're also carrying a bunch of peddict.
out of the Americans.
You won the Emmy.
The Americans and brothers and sisters
that you did for five years
with our old buddy Robbie Bates?
My old friend.
You did not want it to suck.
No, no.
But that was never in doubt
because, you know, I think
when you saw Team Downey,
you know, the writers on it,
Tim Van Patten, HBO,
it was kind of, it was straight to,
I wasn't concerned that it wouldn't be
of a certain caliber.
If anything, like, you know,
usually it stems from my own insecurity as well,
know, how I can turn it into a catastrophe more than anything else.
But I was very excited. I loved it. It was pitched as a one-off.
And they were like, look, we just want to do the origin story and that'll be it.
And then, you know, halfway through, they were like, you know, it works pretty good.
It looks good. We should think about doing this, you know, we should think about doing more of this.
I did have that small reservation where I've done, where I've kind of, you know, Perry Mason is still revered.
Well, it was in the UK. It was huge.
And here also, there is a certain generation of an age group up
that kind of go, no, no, no, you can't touch Mason,
but you know, you have to leave that alone.
And then a ton of people have no recollection of the show whatsoever.
And that's what Susan said.
She said, look, there's an entire,
there are swathes of generations ready for a new Perry Mason.
Yeah, we can do it.
We can make him whatever he want.
And where did you guys shoot that?
In L.A.
They went back to the origin story in the books,
which was 1930s L.A.,
which to me was, you know, with Chinatown and everything else,
was such, was so alluring.
And as a kid growing up watching old movies,
I was like, oh my God, I get to wear a fedora in L.A.
And you do an American accent?
Yeah, yeah.
You get to wear a fedora in L.A. like everybody else in Venice, right?
In air.
Yeah, or Los Feles, yeah.
As an actor, is the American accent a tough thing to do?
And do you have like a phrase that clicks you right into the typical American sound
that's sort of like a shortcut for you?
No, there's not real short.
It's still a huge, it's like a, I say block.
Like hamburger.
Well, I tell you what, well, yeah.
I tell you what, killer.
I went up to one of the writers early on in Perry Mason.
I said, hey, is there any chance we can change, like, murderer to killer?
And he's like, you do realize you've signed on for Perry Mason?
Like, you're going to be saying murderer a lot.
And I was like, yeah, I hadn't quite thought that one, too.
That's a bit of an Achilles heel for me.
That's a tough word to say.
Yeah, like your batteries run out halfway through.
You just go, murderer.
Murderer.
Murder.
I was like, can you say killer?
What about suspect?
Suspect would be great.
Right, because the British accent would put an A-H on a murderer.
Yeah.
Murder.
Murder.
Yeah.
Murder.
By the way, if you're going to live in America, you've got to learn how to say murderer.
I mean, sorry.
I know.
That's not true.
Yeah.
It's going to be the thing you're going to say the most.
Jesus Christ.
Well, I mean, now, so now you've got the second season of,
of Perry Mason coming out,
which is fantastic,
which you never thought you'd do.
No.
And that was delayed a bit, yeah?
With COVID, perhaps?
Hugely delayed, because it's too
into a detriment moment, no, we're going to wait.
We're not going to shrink the show
and make a smaller show of the first one.
We'll wait until we can make the same big show
with hundreds of supporting artists and do it right.
Right, because there's a lot of background players
in a lot of crowd scenes.
It's a massive production.
Oh my, it's a beast.
There are those days I turn up on set
and I go, I don't even know how this works.
My brother-in-law was a tank commander
in the British Army for most of his life.
And he said it's all,
it's like if you think about the logistics,
they have to do, it's insane.
But he came on set one day and he went,
how does this work?
And he was just so shocked.
He goes, what amazes me,
he said, what amazes me is that so many components
have to come together in one tiny moment
and be quiet.
he said it was
it sort of staggered him
he was like he was like
amazed at the cold sheets and everything
it is it's true when you watch
when you go to a big film television set
and you watch all these people who are at the top of their game
and they're seeing like you said
come together in that moment where everybody's got to be silent
and everything's got to be great
and you see it pulled off
sometimes it has the timing of something
that has to happen in the shots
whatever it is it is pretty amazing
to watch how good these
people are at what they do.
Yeah.
And filming in New York,
which we obviously did the Americans.
Oh, yeah.
It's staggering that they get away
with what they do in the kind of...
Like, location department should be given flack jackets these days
for the amount of abuse
they just get from people who want to park,
drive down the street, or, you know,
enter a shop.
But how many times have you had that
when you're shooting in New York on the street
and then it's like pretty good
and then like somewhere in the take,
you just hear somebody leaning out of window going,
I want to be in the fucking...
movies.
All the time.
All right.
If it says exterior night in the Americans,
you know you're looping it.
You know you're ADRing it
because you know there's someone shouting along the line.
There was this one time in Harlem.
I was doing a scene.
And it was like eight guys
because I had to shout the scene.
Eight guys were shouting the exact same words
along with me.
Because they've heard it so many times.
Yeah.
Matthew, we have taken up so much of your time.
My God, I just really, we can talk to you
for every.
You're a real treat. You're one of us. You're one of us. God, you're one of us.
This has been a real treat. Shaw, I can't wait to see the show. We're all coming to see it.
We're very excited about it. Oh, that's so nice. Thank you. How our preview's going?
Really well, really exhausting. But thank you for asking. I walked down the street one day,
today, walked down the street to go get my little sandwich, my egg sandwich.
On a Kaiser roll. And this woman, this woman stopped me. She was really sweet, but this is how much energy was in her voice.
She grabbed my eyes. She goes, I saw your show last night.
I go, yeah?
Thank you for coming.
She goes, it was really good.
And she just kept walking.
I love New York.
New York undefeated.
And that's it.
I was like, last time I did a play, I was, I was walking from the theater.
And this woman just shouted, you're an asshole.
And I just went, I hope you saw the show.
That's not personal.
Matthew, well, when we come to New York, I hope that we can grab a meal.
you, me and Kerry, and maybe one of these
ding-dongs as well.
Let's go.
Yes, please.
Get Sean and Scotty and J.B.
and we'll do it up.
It'll be great to see you, man.
Thank you for having me.
This has been such a treat.
Thank you, Matthew.
And send all of our love to Carrie.
We will.
We adore her as well.
And we adore you.
You are, as Sean said.
You're one of us.
It's been such a pleasure, buddy.
And a continued success.
Perry Mason comes out.
What's the release?
It's out now.
It's out now.
Monday nights at 9.
Yeah.
Monday nights at 9.
There we go.
HBO, Max.
Yeah.
Congratulations.
So, thank you.
Yeah, congratulations all the success, buddy.
Thank you guys.
Thanks, amen.
Thanks for being here, buddy.
Have a good day.
Bye, bye, bye-bye.
And you slam it shut.
Now, there's a nice guy.
Well, what's a nice guy like that being,
how is he friends with you?
Because that's the kind of,
that's the ilk of people that I attract.
You know what I mean?
It's just like-minded people.
Birds of a feather.
Cool dudes.
He's charming.
He knows that to carry on a conversation.
Yeah, I know.
I'm always impressed with guys like that
who were just so, like, relaxed, like that late.
Like, well, he's confident, you know.
He's comfortable, you know, he's got his uniform,
he has his black t-shirt and his-
He's not like you guys, he doesn't have an ax to grind,
you know what I mean?
He doesn't have something to prove all the time.
He's not trying to prove anything with his fun tops that he wears, Sean.
I'm a fun top.
Now, listen.
I know you want.
Speaking of which, where's the cocaine bear?
What's he fixing now?
Huh?
He's fixing something.
Scotty, what are you making?
What kind of sandwich?
Oh, you had a Turks.
He had a Turk sandwich.
Oh, a Turk sandwich?
Wait, what else is on it?
What goes on a Turk sandwich of the day?
Hang on, what percentage of the day when you yell out,
hey, Scotty, what are you doing?
Is the answer, I'm making a sandwich?
Well, usually it's for me.
Making Sammies.
That's what I mean?
Well, so what do we got on the turkey?
How do you like your turkey sandwich done, Sean?
I ordered one, I had one yesterday for lunch.
It was a turkey, avocado, lettuce, and extra, extra, extra, extra mayo.
Oh, and are we toasting the bread?
No.
Really?
How about a light toast?
with a little snap on it.
It's like a real soft thing there.
Extra, do you literally say extra, extra, extra, extra mail?
Yes, I always do, because they never put enough on.
You know what I like?
I like it when you get one of those, like a sort of like an Italian, you know what I mean?
With different cuts of meat, some cold cuts, lettuce, tomato and get some...
Drop it into the Brooklyn eggs.
Some oil and vinegar and get a little salt peps.
You know, by the way, it reminds me I was saying about the wearing the hats all around.
I remember, remember Thoreau went through a long phase.
He was always wearing, like, hats and little pork pie hats and fedoras and stuff.
And I remember Polar said to one day,
you look fedorable and just really killed us.
Hey, what kind of hat do I have on today?
You got one of those smartless merch hats.
That's right.
Yeah.
Where do we get one of those?
Sorry to interrupt, guys.
It looks like Carrie Russell's entering the waiting room.
She might just want to say hi.
You want to just pop up.
Put her on.
Put a carry on.
Then we're going to air it.
There she is.
If you can hear us, hello.
We'll have to have her on.
I will tell the boys they can't hear you.
right now because they're on the other system.
You were fantastic.
Thank you.
Bye.
Okay, thanks for everything.
Really appreciate it.
Well done.
I love that we just had a quick visual visit from Kerry, Russell.
We couldn't hear her, but we got to see her and she was there.
She was probably with the kids, right, Sean?
Yeah, she probably would.
It's about time for pickup.
Yeah, it's probably for nap time for our kids, which she would then sing.
What would she sing to them if she was going to put her kids to bed?
She would probably sing like.
Rock of...
Bye!
Maybe.
Jason hates when we go up.
He just pinches that voice off.
Bye.
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