Test Match Special - #40from40: Sir Sam Mendes

Episode Date: April 23, 2020

Oscar-winning director Sir Sam Mendes has a break from James Bond duties to take a 'View from the Boundary' in 2015.

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Now welcome to another classic view from The Boundary from Test Match Special. I'm Jonathan Agnew. During the Ashes series of 2015, we saw some truly remarkable cricket. Who can forget Stuart Broad's 8 for 15 at Australia were bowled out for 60 on that amazing morning at Trent Bridge. In the commentary box, we were treated to some wonderful guests over the course of that summer as well. Sir Sam Mendez is one of Britain's greatest filmmakers, an Oscar winner, many times over for his work on films such as American Beauty, Road to Perdition

and, of course, two films in the James Bond series. The second of these, 007 works, Spectre, was to be released later in 2015. But Sir Sam was able to take some time away from the edit suite to join us during the second Ashes test at Lords. He began by telling me about his cricket playing days. I would say it was brilliant.

I was a good schoolboy cricketer. I loved it. It was the thing I was best at at school. I wasn't academically very strong at school. It gave me a kind of identity at school in the way that often being good at one particular sport does. I was captain of cricket for a couple of years, the last two years I was at school. I played Oxfordshire Colts. So I was a decent schoolboy cricketer.

And certainly, as an off-break bowler, which I was, took a lot of wickets. I think if you're a decent spinner at schoolboy level, I think you'd take a lot of wickets. Whole straight, whole, hit the wickets. And just, I got a lot of people caught at mid-off and mid-on. But that kind of disappeared when I went to Cambridge. I went determined to play cricket and then discovered theatre parties, girls, etc. And I got slightly distracted. And I never really was any good.

But then there was a brief flourish. I have to say about 15 years ago, I started playing quite regularly across a couple of summers for my local village team for Shepton Under Witchwood. And we got to the final of the village knockout. And because the very first at Lords, this was, because my very first visit to Lords had been for that, weirdly, that's amazing. It felt like everything had come full circle.

And from that moment, it felt like I'd sort of come to the end of my intense playing days. And now I play maybe four or five times or summer if I'm lucky. But you played in the file, didn't you? I did. What were your memories of that? In the dressing room?

I mean, it's a proper match here, isn't it? Great tradition. The England dressing room, which was a great thrill. But unfortunately, it was of all things, the day that Prince of Steyer. died. And it was one of the strangest and saddest days. Well, I can remember. It was very overcast. And I think if we'd been playing a day later, they would have cancelled the game. But they didn't really know what to do. So the whole day was played under this terrible cloud. So it was quite a strange occasion. And we lost, which was sad. But I think people weren't really understandably focused on the game. No. But you chose your spot in England dressing room? I mean, you remember walking in there? Oh, yes. By the window. I want to give by the window. Yeah, yeah. But it's amazing to be in there, isn't it?

Don't you think? You can't help but feel the tradition of the game when you're in that law to figure it. Yeah, and it's very difficult to describe to those who don't love the game and also those who don't understand the very subtle differences between grounds. Why this place feels slightly different. When I was a schoolboy, I came a couple of times on my own. I must have been 12 or 13, and to county games. You know, I used to come during the course of the summer.

And I remember sneaking into the old grandstand and climbing over the metal railings that led to the boxes and spending a whole day alone in a grandstand box watching. And I remember it quite clearly. It was Middlesex Worcestershire, and it was the Glenn Turner era of Worcestershire. And he was batting beautifully. And, you know, he made a century that day.

And I just remember sitting alone and watching it and being absolutely perfectly happy. Yeah. And it's a real golden memory of. my childhood so to come back to the ground that has that personal significance on top of which the historical significance really it always gives me a thrill have you moved with the times i mean you've got very romantic and your eyes very very misty eye there with glenner and lords and how it was and i remember that old grandstander very well it's where i've watched my first match here actually

um you know do you do is your cricket sort of based in that sort of time or have you have you moved with it i i i am misty-eyed to one to to to some degree Because I think when you first fall in love with the game, that is, that forms your, you know, your central experience in a way. And I don't work in the game in the way that you do, so I don't see it daily. No. And, you know, I feel like the love was formed during that period, 76, 77, 78, so the Brayley Ashes of 77. I have a very, very powerful memory of Randalls in the Centenary Test in Melbourne. Listening to it, were you on the radio?

I was. I was listening with it too at school. Yeah, fantastic. I mean, that was really... Alan McGilveray and all those amazing voices. And, you know, Lily in his pomp still and Rob Marsh and Greg Chappell and, you know, that was a special time. And so that, you know, the Braley boycott Both Amira

was my, you know, the beginning of my love for the game. I do think what's happened in the last 10 years is astonishing and I think it's fantastic for the game. It is very, very tricky because, you know, social media, as you well know, has introduced a whole area which is very, very difficult, I think, to navigate for the players particularly. In what way?

Well, I think that there's just too much direct contact with its audience. I think that they need to learn a way to wall themselves off from the media and from the public. And I think it's almost impossible now. I mean, I speak as a filmmaker, you know, you're constantly being bombarded by opinions, particularly for the media,

you're doing something like I'm doing at the moment, which is a Bond movie, you're constantly being bombarded with opinion, you know, and I wish it was more like this, and you have to sort of find a way to strategically remove yourself not dissuade by it. Yeah, because it does have a real impact on you. You read something in the day

that you shoot a scene, I hope this one's got more jokes in it, or I hope it's got less jokes in it, whatever it is. And however strong you are, you are affected by that. And I think that it's taken me 30 years of experience in theatre and film to learn how to cut myself off from that.

And I think these guys are 21, 22. They know nothing except social media. How do you cut yourself off from it? We just don't read it. Don't read it. And you have to, but you have to be strong because it's so easily available. And it's not just social media. It's the newspapers and it's the television.

And you have to go through a sort of detox period, you know, and wean yourself off it so that you can concentrate. And I think that that has really affected. And I think that the KP saga is a good example of that. that, you know, it was fought out on Twitter and the pages of the newspapers and, you know, YouTube and the art of direct communications. It was almost seemed to be the last thing that was considered was actually sitting down and talking about it, you know, between people. And it was all based on text messages that were supposedly sent to something. I mean, it's absolutely unnecessary and very, very difficult to manage.

I think you'll see as people become more used to social media that they become better at managing. but I think what we've been present in the last 10, 15 years is simultaneously the explosion in 2020 cricket combined with the explosion in social media, which both very, very new. And I think it really has made some shockwaves. Yes. Interesting, I mean, the T20, though, you like. I mean, the hard, fast entertainment. I love it.

I love the, I mean, look, Test cricket, of course, is the thing that I love the most. As any true cricket felt, I believe, must do. but for me the way that test cricket is being played has changed because of the developments in the game and they've changed for the better you know I look at a player like Steve Smith or a player like Ben Stokes and they're looking to score of every ball

just the intent is there you know and the era where I fell in love with the game is a completely different they were waiting for runs well I've got a very interesting I wonder if you know this stat actually This is where I really prove my geekness, which is that, you know, as a reader of many Frindle scorebooks of the 70s at early 80s,

Jeff Boycott, a man close to your heart, batted in the 78-79 series, which was, let's face it, not an exciting series. It was a six-match series, and it was the Packer era, so it was a very denuded Australian team. But he faced more balls than any other player in the England team in that series. He faced over 1,100 balls. How many boundaries do you think he scored? Well, I've got a bit of a stat that I think this is involved as well.

Because I know that at one period, I think it was on that tour, he went 530-something balls that hitting a single boundary. And that wasn't obviously in one game, but there was a string of that. So that, I think, is in the same run. So I'm going to go four. Six. Six boundaries. But it's an appalling, isn't it?

In 1,100 balls. Now, it didn't seem, it is quite appalling yet. But you think you'd make one to conclude down through third match? How could you not score a boundary? You know, and, you know, you look at it now, and you'd be disappointed if even Alistair Cook, who was hardly a dasher, went 100 balls without scoring six boundaries,

let alone 1,100. And, you know, the game is just totally shifted. Now, there wasn't anything particularly strange about that. I mean, Boykin had a bad series, even by his standards, in terms of boundary hitting. But, you know, you had Gower and both of them, and they weren't hitting, they were hitting 20 boundaries in a series, you know. And that is completely changed,

And I think that's largely down to 2020. And I just think it's very, very exciting now. And the speed at which, look, the game is always perpetually full of potential. You know, this has not been by anyone's normal standard. It's a particularly exciting test for a day and a half, the first day and a half. But what happened last night, although bad for an England fan, it was suddenly thrilling. And the speed of which it changes and the speed of which a batsman can take control of the game,

like Stokes against New Zealand or Root at Cardiff. You know, you're talking about people changing matches in an hour. You know, a test match could be turned around in an hour. And I only witnessed that happening maybe two or three times in the whole of my test cricket experience up to that point, which was, you know, let's say both of them in 81. You know, he came in at Old Traffat, which for me was the great innings of that series. And, you know, Tavre scored, I don't know, 10 runs while he scored 120.

and he totally changed the game in an hour and I think that that is happening almost once or twice a test match now and that makes the game of test cricket for me much more excited. Is it accessible enough Sam? I was looking at some figures today that suggested actually the open goal

from the BBC figures down cricket on the show sky down about 200,000 I mean when you and I were watching and falling love with cricket we were there watching off when my kids are flickering black and white set and watching them

and looking at our heroes and developing heroes and a love for the game that a lot of people now haven't got. Do you think that's an issue? I'm afraid I think it is an issue, yeah. And I think there are some areas the game has to look at itself a little bit. I think personally, I mean, today

you see the pavilion at Lords is full, but I remember having a quiet go at Roger Knight, who was then chairman of the MCC or president. I can't remember. Chief Exactly. Chief Executive a couple of years ago about the fact that it was an Ash's test match and the pavilion was half full

and he said well that's the members they come and they want to and I said that's not acceptable I don't think because if you're a young person watching at home and you're being told this is the greatest game in the history of cricket or historically the greatest game and behind a bowler's arm

the stand is half full it doesn't make sense you have to find a way to to try and get over that. So I think there are areas where, you know, there is still a discrepancy between the tradition of the game and, you know, what it wants to be. You know, and I was scouting for Skyfall.

One of the places we considered was India and I went to Mumbai. And I toured 15 years earlier with the gaieties, actually, with Harold Pinter's team as a player, I mean, as an amateur player, and I hadn't been back. The place was utterly, utterly transformed. And I went to a 2020 game,

Tendorca was playing at Mumbai and it was completely mind. It was a totally different experience and I thought this is what's happening to the game and we have to try and find a way to to ride that wave in this country specifically. I think it's possible. I think English people do watch cricket in that way with that sort of passion that just explodes amongst the

if you've been to one of those full houses at Wang Kaley presumably. I mean could you really generate that atmosphere here in England do you think? No, I don't think you can. think the grounds are made for it. I think they're smaller. Somehow, you know, the watching of cricket is a slightly more polite enterprise in this country. But I think that we failed to capitalize on 2020 when it was really emerging. I don't think still the structure of the game domestically is properly organized. So you don't feel there's a big bash or, you know, an IPL. There isn't a section of the season that's given over to it. And so, you know, there's just this jumble of matches. And

every year I try and I follow cricket and I can't keep up with the domestic season and how the 2020s are interspers with whatever one day competition is now being suggested plus the county championship and you know have we really got space in this country with that many county teams of course nobody wants to see any of those counties go out of business but surely there's a way of combining some of them combining resources still playing at those grounds but maybe not so much every year and having a northeastern or whatever it is something closer to the Sheffield Shield, so that you feel like there's a much higher standard across

the game. And I think that that kind of oversight for the domestic game is something that really is necessary and needed now. And I think we miss it in this country. I was chatting to Simon Hughes. I know you know pretty

well. And he mentioned the fact that, I mean, surely, I would imagine, apart from squeezing the orange, the finest cricket book ever written was The Art of Captain by Mike Breivie, which you, I think, it's been quite an influence in your life, hasn't it?

I mean, in terms of taking it with you and using the example, particularly that Mike talks about dealing with people. You've crossed the bridge into your own world with that. I wrote a foreword for the previous edition. I think he's just republished it, actually.

For me, it's one of the great sporting books, and as I said earlier, Brerley was my era, you know, and I grew up kind of idolizing him. And not just the art of captaincy, but the books he wrote about the Three Ashes series that he played in are incredible books and really deserve to be reprinted as well. And for me, it's about more than just cricket captaincy. It's about leadership. It's about reading players about unifying disparate talents into one team, which I think, you know, for example, since Bray, there have been very, very few examples.

of English captains who've been able to do that. And I, Michael Vaughn would be, for me, the last time I felt a captain was able to control such a disparate bunch. Yeah, very galvanise them as a unit, yeah. Yeah. And for me, you know, there isn't an enormous difference between sporting leadership and directing. And, you know, I said that in my foreword.

And, you know, I've said it to Mike since, which is that, you know, you are trying to make everyone, you know, directing. is a very solitary profession in which your job is mainly to create a team underneath you. You're standing on the shoulders of many, many other people and to try and make them all

work and create the same thing and work towards the same goals. Seems to me almost one of the chief achievements if you've managed to do it at the end of a movie or a play and that's not that dissimilar as a sporting leadership, certainly in cricket terms. And by the way, one of the

ways I learned to to exert authority as a young person and to exert my influence subtly over people was captain in the cricket team. It was the first time anyone had given me any authority. And so I spent time captaining a club side, many of whom were much older than me and learning how to give them some form of instruction

without feeling patronised or, you know, or bossed around, suggesting things cajoling, understanding everyone needs something different from the captain and everyone needs something different from a director you know every actor is different

every technician is different every cinematographer is different and that's really your goal is a lot of it is reading other people and so for me Braley was the master of that as a cricket captain you know he

you know everyone knows this but he made absolutely no impact at all with the bat but he made an enormous impact on the series and you could argue that he turned it around by giving both in the confidence, giving the players the confidence they needed,

to go out and play as they really felt. And that's something that I felt Vaughn did very brilliantly. And I think there's obviously, you know, there's been a big turnaround in the English camp at the moment with Cook and with Trevor Bayliss that somehow flower made them, for whatever reason, feel cramped, feel stifled. They didn't go out and play the natural game. And you had a team full of fantastically entertaining cricketers, KP being amongst them, going out in the 2009, 2010 era, well, maybe 11,

it was just more like 2011, wasn't it, playing quite dull cricket for a couple of years. And I think that all came from the way that, you know, the leadership positioned itself behind the scenes. And you also had a captain, Cook, who had never exerted authority over any team and struck me as exactly the sort of person, you know, in club cricket, you go into the changing room,

and there's the one quiet boy in the corner who you know is just going to get on with it and score the runs. And he doesn't really mix. And he goes home early and maybe has a half at the end of the game. And he doesn't really put himself around and he's very contained.

And that felt like who Cook was. And to turn that figure around and to give him the confidence when he's taking over a team that he's already seen being led brilliantly by Andrew Strauss with a lot of characters in it, the swans and the broads and the wide of you, I think that's

him a long time but he's got it now and you can see his body language on the field is different the way he he treats the media is different he's much more confident about not saying things which of course uh you know something that i i find very impressive because i think dealing with the media is half the job in that you know of a captain obviously you know the rest of it's out on the field it'll be your job for a while now won't it dealing with the media my word i mean it's great timing the fact is only yesterday i think that the latest bond film specter was the announcement wasn't going to be released on october the 26th in which you obviously knew ages ago

but we were very excited last night when we saw this pop up but I mean are you excited about this? How does it feel to be almost there as far as what must be a massive project that's concerned? I'm talking about Mike Brearley's team okay, there's only 11 blokes. I mean how many are in your team for goodness sake? Yes I counted them

when we were up for a BAFTA last year I wanted to accept it on behalf of everybody and I counted them up myself and there were over a thousand and you really do feel it and this is a bigger movie than Skyfall it shot in more places we were in Mexico City

and Tangier and Northern Sahara and Rome and the Alps and London we shut down great sections of London and anyone listening who was who was you know his evening was ruined because of the traffic around Westminster Bridge over the last few weeks

I apologise to them but you know it's been an enormous undertaking and it feels very I think one of the most rewarding moments as a film director is when you finally finish shooting you know it kind of starts all over again when you're editing, I mean, direct the movie really four times, you know, when it's being written, when it's being cast and prepped, when it's being shot, and then when it's being edited and music is being added. And that, the fourth stage is just beginning. So your hands really are all over it, from start to finish as director, as it were.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think if you're, you know, if you're any good as a writer, you want to, you want to be all over every department. You want to be, you know, influencing everything. It's your film, it's your vision. And, you know, unlike the theatre, which I, you know, when I learnt a lot of my craft, I don't think theatre is a director's medium, but I think film is. And I think you can pretty much blame the director if it's, if you're having a bad evening at the cinema. But because I think at the end of the day, it does fall on his shoulders. Yeah. British brass bands playing down there. But the great British tradition bond, though, isn't it? I mean, is that, I guess you have to really grasp that, do you and say,

this is fantastic. Wow, what an opportunity. I mean, it'd be quite easy to be, I suppose, quite coward by the fact that you're moving this incredible tradition on in a, well, newish direction, are you? I mean, the last form, Skyforward's view as being, you know, a bit grittier maybe than the other ones, perhaps? Yeah, I mean, I made the movie I wanted to see, you know, and I think I've done the same thing this time. I hope I've done the same thing this time, although it really is just emerging out of the

mists in the way that it does in the editing period. I think that you have to... Again, so, I mean, you talk about editing. seeing it now, but have you really not got it almost in your mind absolutely how it's going to go, or can you be swayed in various ways while you're editing it? I think narratively, in

terms of the story, yes, it's pretty much set out, but as any director will tell you, you know, how you tell the story is everything, and the story itself is not enough, and you know, so I've spent a long, long period with music for the movie, which is

100 minutes of music for this film, it's a lot of music, you know? And, you know, there's a lot of visual effects, and there's a lot of sound work, you know, and there's any number of ways that you can mess your film up, even at this late stage, however good the story is. So you have to stay completely focused, and it is like kind of rebooting and starting again.

It's much more pleasurable. For me, I love editing. It's the best part of it, because you've done really the hard work, and then you're into, you know, the thing I enjoy the most, which is the storytelling. And that's, you know, I was 15, 20 years telling, stories in the theatre and in that respect it's when it becomes the most similar to that but you know

for me the bond franchise as a whole has been a wonderful a wonderful unexpected gift at this point in my life you know because it's not just the making of the film it's it's the relationship you suddenly have with an audience it's the dialogue you have from the beginning of the process to the end because you have to embrace the fact that everything you do is is going to be reviewed and debated from the title, to the music, to the casting, to the trailer, to the... Social media will be all over it, to Sam. Exactly, yeah, no. Do you think you know Ian Fleming?

Do you think you know him? I think I know him a little bit better, having read all the books again. Yes. But he's a very unknowable figure. There's a great mystery. And I think one of the reasons why the books sustain is that that figure of Bond, there's a core of mystery there and a core of darkness, which is always slightly out of reach, but keeps you drawn forward.

He feels like a very unknowable figure ultimately, and that's why I think so many different actors, so many different versions of the character exist because you feel like it can go in almost any direction. There's a sort of neutrality somewhere. There's a mystery at the call which I think is very enticing. And it felt, for me, my way into the whole thing was Daniel Craig. I had cast Daniel Craig in a movie I made in Chicago

about 15 years ago called Road to Perdition. And it was his first big American film. And then, you know, the role of Bond came up four or five years later. And I was called by Entertainment Weekly by a showbiz publication. And they said, your old friend and collaborator, Daniel Craig, has been suggested as Bond. What do you think? And I said, it's a terrible idea. He shouldn't do it.

And then, because for me at the time, I thought Bond had become, you know, the opposite of what Daniel was, kind of slightly disengaged a bane, joky, eyebrow raising, you know, a pastiche in a way and I felt Daniel's reality and his passion and his

sort of honesty as an actor would not work in that. But of course what happened is the franchise and the character adapted to work with Daniel and so then I saw Casino Roll and I thought what a fantastic piece of casting.

And it was that that got me re-interested in Bond as a movie, as movies. And do you write and create and edit for him? I mean, could you do it with anybody as James Bond? Or how much is Daniel Craig the central to what we're going to see in October? It's completely central, actually. And that relationship with Daniel artistically and on the floor is the centre of everything. And I think if it comes from that, particularly on the second movie, I think we had a much harder time.

physically on this film. It's much longer, much more tricky locations. I had much more second unit work, so I had two unit shooting and I could only be in one place, obviously, so I'll often be, you know, in Mexico and watching footage being shot in the Alps,

you know, for example, which is, you know, that's a real mind-bending, you know, operation, balancing two different parts of the movie at the same time. But even though it was hard, it was much more fun, because there was much more trust. I felt much more trust from everyone around me,

the crew and from Daniel because we'd done it before and had a good time you know. Yeah. Well, worth throwing. How much can you say about it? How much can you give away to our loyal ones? We've been talking all these Bond films today because we thought actually what a great James Bond, Jeff Boycott

would make. Could you could you create a Bond movie starring Geoffrey Boycott and Miss Money Piny? Do you think it's possible? I think to Geoffrey might be a fine bond villain. But, you know, someone said to me,

they're riffing about bond titles that might be appropriate for boycottless bond. Yes. You know, and I think of social media, you know, I think a little campaign, boycott should be born. I think you should launch that. But there is one, isn't there?

Doctor No. No run, I think it was. Exactly, yes. No. So, yeah, I think... But the music, the piece of the song is sung and created... I mean, you can't tell any about that? No, I can't.

I'm sorry to frustrate you. but I can say that it's been the song's been recorded and it's fantastic and I'm very excited about it isn't much but it's something and you know you won't have to wait long there's no felt I mean we've got Henry with There's only one blow felt for me and he's dressed in a mustard suit

and he's sitting right behind me but I believe is it not the case that there is some relationship between the blowfelt's and the Fleming's isn't that yeah my father and Ian were at schoolgather and he named a number of his villains after people he didn't particularly get on with at school although when he

Ernst Tavro and his white cat appeared for the first time didn't name Thunderball and Ian and my father exchanged letters very good humouredly which I think is still my nephew or my brother have still gone and I met Ian in fact in the West Indies when my first honeymoon in Jamaica and I was staying at Eucharist in Jamaica in and he rang up because I met him in Bulls in London club longtoe

and he said come to lunch we went to lunch and he told me the lovely story of before lunch we were standing outside Golden Eye which then was very ramshackle and run down and he said I don't think I ever told you how Aunt Stavreau came into being and I said no you didn't he said well I started to write a book after dinner having had dinner at home one night and it became published Thunderball he said I wanted early on an evil name and I couldn't think of one. And he said, I went to bed scratching my head, which isn't the best way of getting

to sleep, and woke up in the morning and still couldn't think of one, and got a taxi to my club and sat in a gratefully in a leather armchair, picked up the membership list and with thumbed through it alphabetically looking for an evil name. And I got to the bees, I was confronted by a phalanx of three

blowfels, and in his own words he said, I slammed the book shut, gave a gulp of delight, ordered a pint of champagne and have a look back. That's a fantastic. Well, there it is. So you're directly related. Directly related. My uncle...

To the greatest supervillain history. But none of my family have ever owned a white cat, I don't think. Well, that's just, you know... But at that lunche, I must quickly say, before we go on, the principal guest of our 20 people in the garden was Noel Coyard. Wow. So that was... That's another story.

That's not a bad series of names to draw, isn't it? No, it's not. Could you do another? I mean, honestly, it's such a massive project there's. Can you imagine there is another Bond movie. You know, after this one, I know, it hasn't come out yet, but... I said no to the last one and then ended up doing it and was, you know, pillorid by all my friends,

including Atherton, who's taken great pleasure in reminding me that I said no to the last one and ended up doing it. But I do think this is probably it. I think five years, you know, for the two movies. And it feels now almost, even though we've only just finished shooting it, like one big experience. And it was a fantastic, life-changing thing.

But I don't think I could go down that road again. And it really is, you know, it's more a lifestyle choice than a job. I mean, you do have to put everything else on hold. So you have done nothing in the meantime, really, apart from them, just totally dedicated to these. I did a production of Charlie the Chocolate Factory that's still running at the Theatre, Roger Elyne, between the two. But I spent several, a couple of years before doing Skyfall planning and helping to write that or supervising the writing of that. So that was something that overlapped. But no, it's pretty much all-encompassing.

And live, I want one of these enormous production, theatrical productions that you've done, you know, live on stage as opposed to, you know, the red carpet display that there'll be, no doubt, for this. Does live get you more? The live performance? Yes, I think that the places that I'm happiest,

I'm happiest rehearsing a play or editing a movie. And I think that when I've finished a movie, I generally, you know, want to be back in a theatre environment again. It feels like home. it feels controllable after the chaos of a movie set. But it won't be long before I want to do another film. And I'm very, very fortunate to be able to go back and forth between the two. Well, wasn't that a fascinating insight into the world of filmmaking?

So Sam Mendes kept his word and has handed over the reins of directing the James Bond series. He's been busy, though, directing the brilliant 1917 that won three Oscars in 2020. If you enjoyed that interview, there are many more from the Test Match Special Archive. how about this from 2012 when I was joined by the rock star Alice Cooper I don't know why they're called silly they're not as silly as they look

well they are because they're very close and that'd be silly but they're very close to being to being hit you see that's why they're silly that is silly to be that close to the batter that's what it is yeah that's why it's cool but it is very traditional isn't I mean look at when do you old rockers stop being rockers

when do you have your hair care when you take the leathers off There's not one guy I know in rock and roll that doesn't want to play a professional sport. Almost every American... Someone else said that. It's true. It's true. And almost all of these guys would rather be in a band.

They all play an instrumental band. And one or two of them are in bands. It's an amazing thing that when we meet a baseball player or a football player or basketball player, they all go, all they want to know about some music. Hey, I play bass, you know, and I play drums. And we're all going, well, what's it like to hit a three-pointer? Or what's it like to, you know, the swing at a hundred mile an hour fastball? So I think most guys in bands played sports as kids

and were usually pretty good. Yes, yeah. So it connects up. Yeah, you're right about sports. Certainly cricketers and music. They are, I mean, Graham Swan, you've just seen bowling his spinners there. Yeah. He's in a band.

Yeah, I would believe that, and I understand this guy Peterson is a rocker. That's one word for him. Is that a bad? Did I say rocker? Did I say, should I said another word? I think probably stick with rocker at life. Make sure you don't miss a thing from the Test Match Special Archive

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