The Louis Theroux Podcast - S8 EP7: Olivia Wilde on the pitfalls of long-term love, her unusual family name, and upsetting Jordan Peterson

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Today, Louis speaks to actor, director and renaissance woman Olivia Wilde. Following the release of her film The Invite, the pair discuss the secrets to a healthy relationship, her unusual family name, and making Jordan Peterson cry.    Warnings: Strong language and adult themes.     Links/Attachments:    Film: The Invite (2026)  https://a24films.com/films/the-invite     Film: I Want Your Sex (2026)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32332915/     Film: Booksmart (2019)  https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81061054    Film: Don’t Worry Darling (2022)  https://www.netflix.com/title/81592177     Documentary: Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere (2026)  https://www.netflix.com/title/81920687     Book: The Happy Prince and Other Tales, Oscar Wilde (1888)  https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/31359/the-happy-prince-and-other-stories-by-wilde-oscar/9780241776285     Book: Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel (2006)  https://www.estherperel.com/mating-in-captivity     Podcast: Where Should We Begin? (2017 – present)  https://open.spotify.com/show/3fKOTwtnX5oZLaiNntKWAV     Advert: Dinner With the Russians, Cockburn’s Special Reserve (1980)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17rOl7i55ag     Book: Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell (1949)  https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/books-by-orwell/nineteen-eighty-four/     Credits:  Producer: Millie Chu   Assistant Producer: Maisie Williams  Production Manager: Francesca Bassett   Production Assistant: Artemis Chu  Music: Miguel D’Oliveira   Audio Mixer: Tom Guest  Video Mixer: Scott Edwards  Executive Producer: Arron Fellows       A Mindhouse Studios Production for Spotify   www.mindhouse.co.uk   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello there and welcome to another episode of the Louis Theroux podcast. Today my guest is director, actor and filmmaker Olivia Wilde, real name Coburn. More on that later. Whose new film The Invite, a comedy starring Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton, premiered to a rapturous response at Sundance, sparked a bidding war and landed at A-24. I've seen it as part of the preparation. for my interview, enjoyed it. As an older man in a mature relationship, it spoke to my life experience. It's about two couples spending the evening together. And I don't want to give too much

away, but the themes are to do with intimacy and a long marriage, sex, polyamory, communication. The stuff of life. Was that a spoiler? No. Nevertheless, it says spoiler alert. So I might say a spoiler in a minute. The film is the third Olivia's directed. Her 2019 debut was Booksmart, a coming-of-age comedy, which was followed by Don't Worry Darling in 2022, which starred Florence Pugh, Chris Pine, Olivia herself and her then-boyfriend, Harry Stiles. There was an astounding amount of furorre around the film to do with behind-the-scenes shenanigans. There was a casting shake-up early on with Shia LeBerf, departing the production and rumors of tension on set. it all became a lethal cocktail that we discussed the impact of in the chat,

what that level of scrutiny felt like, what it was like being in the eye of the storm as Olivia was. Before all of that, there was Olivia's career in the mid-2000s starring in the TV series The OC and then landing the role of Dr Hadley on House, Hugh Lorry, that made her a household name. We don't talk about that, that's just background. So House fans Prepare to be disappointed Similarly, OC fans

It is what it is We recorded this conversation in July this year Olivia was in town promoting the invite She managed to squeeze in a couple of hours Between Junkets to speak to me That was nice of her So I wasn't in the Junkets I was non-Junkett

Because I'm Crem de la Crem A quick warning This conversation contains adult themes. All that and much more coming up. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Thank you for... Sliding into those DMs. Thank you for reaching back. That was really exciting. When you say slide into the DMs, that sounds indecent. You did it though. I guess I did. I guess I did. Have you got everything you need?

Yeah, I think they're going to bring me a tea, which is very nice, but... Nice. Well, I think we'll just jump straight in if that's all right. Do I wear these? I don't think you need to. I'm not going to wear any. Okay. Congratulations on your new film. Well, films plural, but one of them you've directed, and I loved it. I want to talk about that.

You loved it? I did. I'm so happy. You must be getting a lot of good feedback on it. I am. I am, and I'm so relieved. I cannot describe the extent of my relief. And you've got a film.

You're also another film you're in called I Want Your Sese. The previous one, which I was mentioning that you directed, is called The Invite. I think we're going to be talking about that quite a bit because it deals with relationships. When do you call time on a relationship that's ending? Right. There's a lot of deep themes to do with, well, the state of marriage in the mature adult. You know, not old, but as you sort of, a relationship, it's mature. Isn't it funny that mature inherently sounds like we're saying old?

Sounds like old. People keep saying like a comedy for mature people. It really sounds like we're in the like AARP, like we're holding about like the elderly. And the other thing that I realize is that when people say midlife, and I realize they're talking about the age that I am, I'm 42, and I'm like, oh wow, yeah, if we're lucky, this is midlife. Well, we're going to get onto life extensions if we're not careful. There's people now who,

who think they're going to live forever. I interviewed Brian Johnson. You did. He doesn't want to, he's not going to die. I know you did. I listened to that and I loved that interview. Yeah, he's not going to die. The thing is like... I think he is.

I mean, I disagree with that. Does he look that young? I sort of feel like he looks sort of his age. I think there's a certain, when you do a certain amount of work on yourself, you no longer look old or young. You just look different. It's so true. It's this other age.

He looks a bit like an elf in Lord of the Rings. Yes. And he'll stay that way for the next hundred or so years. If he's lucky. Yeah. He might just end up like one of those really weird looking people. Yeah. Bride of Wildenstein.

Yeah. Was she the catwoman? And then there's guys. There's some French scientists. And their chins just got bigger and bigger. Did you ever see them as they got more and more implants into their cheeks? Oh, yes. Why does everyone get wider?

I was talking to a Hollywood star last night. Okay. Well, that's not a name drop because I didn't say who it was. But they said that at the Golden Globes in the gifting tents, they offer one of the, you know, where they give you free stuff. Yeah. And even in my world, at the BAFTAs, at the TV BAFTAs, you know, you might get perfume or a wireless Bluetooth speaker.

But in the gifting tents at the Golden Globes, you get holidays and facelifts. Stop. You must have. I should know this from the research. Have you got a Golden Globe or two? No. No, I've presented several years ago. I remember actually one year Ricky Jervais was hosting masterfully. Just. It was the year that he actually had my favorite joke at the Globes where he said, listen, I enjoy a beer as much as the next guy, unless the next guy is Mel Gibson.

Really? Was that the famous one where he? He said, so come up on stage, take your little award, and fuck off. Yeah, I think that was the same year. But they hilariously had him back. And he had a fairly aggressive pop at the Sex and the City Girls. Oh, did he? Remember that one?

That's a bit rough. He did go after everyone for Harvey Weinstein, which was pretty funny. He was like, you all worked with him. Did he do that? And I think he, I don't want to get it wrong, but I think he said something like, you all knew, you all worked with them, which I don't think everyone knew. but it was so alarming to be confronted, I think. Wow.

Is that the Hollywood star who you were with? I'll be taking a few calls during the interview. It's fine. That's okay, right? I mean, he was so brilliant. I wish he would do it again. I'm sure he just... I also loved the last time he did it, he kept saying,

I'm not coming back. I don't care. I don't care. And it really was so refreshing. But he also, the year, I think the last time I presented, because that was the only way I was ever there, I think. He was introducing me and Rob Pattinson. And I remember when we were backstage like, oh, God, what is he going to say?

What is it going to be? And it was relatively kind, but he said, the next two presenters have shiny hair and white teeth and said something else nice physically. And he goes, and that's why they're here tonight. I was laughing. I was like, fair enough. You got off lightly.

Really lightly. He could have been way, way more cruel. But I think it's very important to have satire. We don't have enough of it in Hollywood, in our country, in the world. But he, that was my experience at the Golden Globes was just waiting backstage to see what Ricky Jervais would say. Well, you may be going back in a different capacity. Well, maybe they'll give me a free facelift. In which case you can claim your free facelift. I've mentioned you on the show before because we had Florence Pugh on as a guest, and I really enjoyed Don't Worry, Darling. Oh, thank you. And I remember seeing the trailer.

People obviously know you as an actor and then coming up, and then you became a director. Book Smart was your first film, which was a kind of, You kind of remind me in some ways of super bad It's like it's a friendship story Of coming of age story set on a single 24 hour period In which two girls got on this journey

And it's exquisitely And very humorously directed by you And was beloved In fact it got like I looked it up on rotten tomatoes It's got like 96% Fresh From the critics

And then don't worry darling came out And there was a kind of There was a little bit of a smell around it for reasons which we can or you don't have to go into to do with behind the scene stuff. So I wasn't sure what to expect when I watched it and I loved it. Well, we're interested in a lot of the same things. I mean, your Manosphere doc was excellent. I appreciate it. And I think we share a fascination with the Encel community.

Why don't you tell us a... Tell our audience what Don't worry, darling is. What's it about? What's it all about? That film was, is, it still exists, about simulation theory. And that concept for anyone who hasn't gone deep into the Reddit forums as I have about simulation theory, or listen to Elon Musk talk about simulation theory because he's quite fascinated with it, which is creepy in its own way, is the idea that.

that it's very likely that we aren't living in a real reality, that we are living right now in a simulation. And that that's because of trajectory of technology suggests that it's exponentially developing so that it makes sense that this reality would be some sort of simulated reality created in the future that we are now experiencing. So we're in a kind of waking dream? We're in a waking dream. And when I started reading about that, I thought, whoa. If the people in charge currently, and certainly a couple years ago when we made this film, could create any sort of simulated reality, it would certainly be one that reaches into the past that these men in charge love to fetishize where women were kind of stripped of all real agency and power and where men lived a kind of rat pack existence. It's kind of mad men-esque. Exactly.

It's beautiful. It's almost double-edged because you're sort of enjoying the stylings. Well, that's the, the idea is that, I mean, I'll speak personally, I love the Rat Pack era. I loved Mad Men because it felt like an existence without consequence. Everything goes. And everything's beautiful.

And you can drink martinis for breakfast and smoke all day and wear beautiful clothes and great music and everyone's having fun. And it is this era that we have, I think, collectively fetishized as one that is just like just when everything was fun and great. And then if you really kind of hone in on it, it's like, well, was it great for everyone? Certainly not anyone of color, certainly not, you know,

many, many, many people. I mean, you think of women, and you think how did women factor into the kind of power structure of American society at the time, to be specific, because the movie's very American, it's obviously easy to forget that at the time, you know, women couldn't have credit cards and very few women in medical school and women were, you know, it was obviously a time before much changed. And yet we fetishize it. So I was thinking, like, I'm interested in how women participate in the patriarchy. I'm interested in my own

participation, my, that we can say like, God, it's really fucked up that, you know, we've been, that patriarchy smashes down our power and our agency and society. But boy, are we a part of that machine? And I thought, I want to create a fantasy of this world and draw people's attention to their own attraction to it. And so the idea of that movie was to make everyone really lulled into this dream and to think, I like it here. I would live there. I want that. I would live in, you know, we shot it in Palm Springs and the idea was, I want those clothes. I want to live that life. That sounds great. And then to reveal that this is a simulated reality and all of these women are here against their will. And now to hopefully make you the viewer look back and go, oh, wow, I was fully fully

fetishizing their kind of entrapment and what does it mean and and and yet you know all of these conversations about what the film was trying to say never got to occur and the irony is that by kind of poking the hive of the in-cell world by kind of trying to talk about these things you know it is a actually small community. I don't want to give them too much significance, but they're very loud. Do you mean the online influences? I do.

I do. Opinion makers on TV. No, I mean the online. I think I mean online. I was quite harsh about Jordan Peterson, and then he went on Pierce Morgan and cried. Okay, I'm glad I was going to raise that. So you said in a promotional interview that you said the Chris Pine character,

It takes place, as you said, in this sort of community that's a bit like Palm Springs. It's in the desert, slightly hyperreal. Like, you kind of, it's decontextualized. And there's a Twilight Zone-esque atmosphere over the whole thing. And there's this Chris Pine figure who seems to be the leader of the community. He plays it brilliantly, by the way. He's great. And you call, you say that he's partly based on or inspired by Jordan Peterson,

who you described as a pseudo-intellectual hero to the in-cell community. So that was, I guess, that came onto Peterson's radar. Yeah. I would say like he seems, I think, quite smart. Oh, yeah. But his identification is very much with what he sees as men and maybe we kind of beat her, quote unquote, men who are losing out in the increasingly Darwinian struggle of masculinity. So when he's asked about it by Pierce Morgan, he literally starts crying.

And then Pierce was like, what's happening, man? And he goes, he said, I'm thinking of those lonely young men, quote, dying for lack of an encouraging word. Wow. Lack of an encouraging word is so absurd. I'd say there is a large, booming word of encouragement happening at all time for these men, which is just this world is yours and you are entitled to it, which I think is deeply ingrained in our society. and the idea that they need some sort of reminder of encouragement that they deserve more is ludicrous. The thing is, you know, it might have been unfair for me to call him a pseudo-intellectual

because I agree with you that he seems like a smart guy and he's a professor and he obviously thinks about things deeply. And I just feel that he operates in a way as almost like a buttoned-up version of the type of thinkers that lead to the Andrew Tates of the world. And I mean that there are different layers to that

community, some of whom I think speak more clearly the points that they're all actually filtering through. And I my issue with Jordan Peterson is that a lot of people who are not in any way misogynists have, I think, adopted or are sort of attracted to the sanitized

version of this philosophy that I believe is rooted in this deep misogyny that is weaponized by the Inzell community. The basic point of it that I'm referring to is entitlement to power. And I think that that is something that many men are struggling. with in a way that is understandable. I mean, this really, you, you dove so deeply and with such empathy into this topic that it is something they are raised with that is being shouted to them through advertising, through obviously political rhetoric. It is in the water.

I mean, it's like plastics are in our bloodstream, not because we're trying to consume plastic, but because we are just existing in the world and it's everywhere. And I think that is the same with a lot of this, like, misogynistic rhetoric and truly a sense of entitlement. So I think I came off obviously quite unsympathetic, but I was disturbed by what I saw as this kind of misogynistic philosophy that was being obviously weaponized in a way that was leading us to, you know, elect Donald Trump twice and beyond that, just empower these groups of people who I think are very dangerous. And I imagined that if they could create a simulated reality, it would look something like what we created in the film. And the reason it was in the desert, I got very excited about the idea of, Palm Springs to me feels like man creating something where nature doesn't

man overpowering nature I got very excited about the design of it which I love production design and I loved creating that world because I thought everything should be manmade there's nothing that would have grown naturally because the whole idea is that we did this we are more powerful than nature

which I think is a big part of what these guys talk about and it's certainly I mean Elon talking about how we don't have enough people the world is underpopulated and we could handle another billion people. If you ever want to be really disturbed, and I'm sure you've seen this, but the conversation between Peterson and Elon a couple years ago.

I love that we're all calling him Elon now, like he's our friend. Like Madonna. He's not our friend, not my friend. Have you met Elon Musk? I have. I met him before he turned into this creature. I really resent him now. What was the context?

I met him many, many years ago. I think SpaceX had just built their headquarters in L.A. And I got to go on a tour because I wanted to see the rocket ships. And he was interested in donating money to an organization that I was a part of in Haiti that was building hospitals and schools. And he was quite interested in donating money. And I believe he did donate a little bit of money. And that's appreciated.

But I was kind of confused by him. I never would have predicted that he would go the path that he's gone now because he did seem really smart. So we were talking about how, then the film came out, it was derailed by publicity. Yeah. I mean, multi-dimensional, mini scandals. Oh, yes.

Your relationship at the time was breaking up. You had a well-publicized relationship with your co-star, Harry, styles. And there was a kind of misogynist dimension to a lot of the coverage of the drama, the fallout. Full disclosure, I didn't follow it that closely. I was confused by, maybe naively, the atmosphere of judgment. Me too. I guess question one would be, do you have any reflection of why that wasn't in any way? It feels like it hurt the film and why would that be the case? And then question two would be any learnings from that? I think it did hurt the film for sure

because we didn't get to have the conversations about what the film was trying to say which was a shame because so many people worked so hard to make that film. In the depths of COVID, we made the film for $30 million. Yeah, I think it looks like a much more expensive film because of the work of people like Maddie Lu Boutique who shot the film

Katie Byron who production design the film and this incredible group of a couple hundred people who showed up every day testing for COVID wearing masks, wearing shields, working together, living in this bubble showing up to tell a story

that everyone felt really passionate about that felt was relevant and significant enough to show up in these uncertain times but we never got to talk about that so I think it did hurt it hurt the film

it hurt me for sure because I was so naive up till that point about the grinder the kind of the garbage disposal that the internet can be

so at this point I have enough of a perspective on it, I think, that allows me to kind of experience it as a fascinating time. It is interesting to witness a tornado from the inside. Did it feel like it was coming mainly from a particular platform, certain accounts? Or is it just amorphous? I don't know. It's interesting. There was a study done at some point, and I'm trying to remember the name of the organization that did this study.

It was really interesting that they looked at the existence of bots as the engine driving a lot of negative traffic about people. And they were specifically looking at women in the media. And it was a pretty high percentage of the kind of negative discourse that was driven by bots. I don't really understand that so much because I don't really know where the bots.

I still have a very vague understanding of bot farms. I don't really get those. But I think there were a lot of people as well. I don't want to discount the people who felt very passionate about their negativity. They were real. They weren't bots. There were real people.

And I don't blame people for filling a vacuum with assumption. Because I think what happens is when we aren't given information, we have a human instinct to assume. And I think that people right now, particularly now, feel distrustful and they feel manipulated by people in power. And they should. Because, I mean, right now we're being told by Fox News, which is being fed this by the administration, that the reflecting pool in D.C., where I'm from, is blue when we can see that it's green. I mean, it's Orwellian to such a ludicrous extent. It's a comedy.

Because Trump had said he was going to pay for it to be cleaned up, right? And so because it was going green, maybe because of the heat, was it? They drained the reflecting pool and lined it with blue so that it could be the color blue he wanted. Right, for the 250th. For his big party that no one came to. Right. And then the lining, of course, reacted badly with the water, created algae. The whole thing turned like really hideous green.

And then he now claims that people sabotaged him, of course, because he is a perpetual victim by putting something in the waters that it turned green. And these pundits from Fox News are shamelessly standing in front of this green puddle now saying, like, it's blue. The same way they're standing in front of. of the four attendants of his big party saying, it's packed. I love, did you see the very funny thing of,

they were lying about there being thousands of people there, and then there was a performer on stage you had sunglasses on, and you could see in the reflection of his sunglasses, that there were like two people in the audience, and they quickly realized they had revealed this, and then reposted the photo and cropped that guy out, so you couldn't see. I mean, the thing is, I get why,

why people are distrustful. That is a healthy instinct to say, like, I don't believe it, you're not giving me information, I think I know the truth, and I'm going to figure it out on my own. So I appreciate the instinct of questioning a questioning public. When it comes to tabloids, we have lost track of a little bit of critical thinking,

and it's very dangerous in the age of AI to lose track of that, of course. but what happens is we are fed a very rapid infusion of headlines, which don't provide context, which allow for gaps to be filled with assumption. I think that what we were experiencing in that whole tornado of tabloid drama was a lot of that phenomenon. And that's what I mean when I found it really interesting, because I didn't understand it at the time,

and I just felt, whoa, overwhelmed. But now I look back and I think, oh, people were being given headlines without context, and it's a natural instinct to start trying to fill those in. That's a lot, though, isn't it? Yeah. Would you get PTSD from something like that? Well, it's interesting,

because this is my first time back into the press cycle since then, and I did wonder, would this feel quite traumatizing? I find that the conversations around the invite are so wonderfully interesting to me, and I've actually been allowed to have them. So it's been actually kind of healing because I understand that it's not always a garbage disposal. That can happen, and you can get through that. You must, I'm saying you, I suppose, two people in my position who, or if you were to ever be put into that situation, I would tell you that you mustn't confuse your real life with the one you're seeing reflected in those tabloids because it is a very different thing. It's not actually a reflection of who you are.

And I think that any time any of us in the public, I confuse our real selves with whether it's good or bad, if you confuse yourself with what is being represented in the media, that's a dangerous, slippery slope. And in fact, it feels as though the new film, the invite, well, you've obviously taken time out and you've come back with this new film, but it feels like it's informed by, well, I don't know if it is or not, but maybe, you know, it's about the possible potential breakup of a relationship. And just to reflect back on something you said, you know, breaking up is hard. enough, let alone that it's being documented or speculated upon by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, as if that needed to be made more painful and exposing and raw.

But in the new film, it's an examination of a couple. And a lot of people have remarked on this, but I'm going to join the crowd, that it has as its sort of epigraph a quote from Oscar Wilde. Yes. The quote is, tell me what the quote is. The quote is, one should always be in love, that is the reason one should never marry. Which is very wilde in, by the way, it was in preparing for this that I learned that you took your name from Oscar Wilde.

I did. I did. Which is in no way to suggest that I am comparing myself or, or ever meant to suggest that I was in any way as brilliant as Oscar Wilde. It was very much inspired by his work because I, as a young, young person, really fell in love with Oscar Wilde. I loved performing when I was a teenager. I think the importance of being earnest really became the one.

I remember the moment of being on stage doing that play, playing Gwendolyn, if anyone's read it. And I just was so thrilled by it. So, yeah, for me, it was a very personal thing. It was about remembering that feeling. How old were you when you changed your name? I was 18. And I never expected that it would be... You know, it's not like at 18 I thought that I would be where I am now.

I wanted to be an actress. I did not think, and then I will become a public figure or anything like that. I just wanted to act. I wanted to act on stage. And so I thought, oh, this name will remind me of the feeling that feels very authentic to why I'm actually doing this. It's funny because then when I did become an actress and I was on a lot of different TV shows

and got kind of cast in the public eye more as like an ingenu's always do, but like an object of desire. Then the name became, of course, used as an adjective and it was always like, every headline was like, born to be wild, you know, wet and wild. Ooh, I hope that one was never used. Probably was. But I remember thinking like, I'm such a nerd.

It never occurred to be wild used as like wild. I thought like, wild, such as Oscar, not wild in that way. But it was also because he's Irish and I'm Irish and I wanted that connection. And I thought it was romantic. I had the pleasure of revisiting the Happy Prince and other stories. As a dad reading to my youngest, and that story and also the one called The Selfish Giant are actually, because I don't cry very much. And it was kind of weird. I was reading to my son and I had to stop reading because I was about to start crying.

Why not cry? Let him see you cry. Yeah, it was, I think it would have, he might have found it a bit weird. You know what I mean? Like, I was trying to wind him down. Right. Crying me to sleep, Daddy. You see that thing where you have to stop for a second.

Yeah. Let's just breathe for a second. Yeah. I recommend those stories to any listeners or viewers. He was a mischievous writer who almost enjoyed playing with emotion and kind of being excessively sentimental as a very dark joke sometimes. Yeah, it's a lot like Raul doll. Yeah. It was, there was such a, a cynicism.

I mean, I think Oscar Wilde also as a satirist, you know, it's not full like Jonathan Swift, like we should eat the babies, but it is, that's, by the way, that's a real thing, that's from an essay. That's right. That's something, modest proposal. Modest proposal. That has an Irish connection. Exactly. But the idea of we can use storytelling as a way to make observations about, humans trying to coexist is what Wilde was doing.

It can be misunderstood to be way more shallow than it is, but actually very emotional. And I think that quote that we put at the beginning of the film sounds really cynical, but I hope that by the end of the film you revisit the quote in your mind and you think, oh, actually, I understand that it's a bit more sentimental. It's a little more romantic, I think.

The idea is one should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry is actually, one should always be in love and that marriage can often seem to put an end to that kind of act of loving, the engagement of loving, which is an active process that has a lot to do with curiosity and evolution and allowing for someone else's evolution.

and I think that marriage can feel like something more final, something that puts a engrave something in stone, in a contract that then you are beholden to, and it's like, wait, when you were 24, this was your personality, and this is who you were. So I'm interested in that. It's a big part of the film, the idea of like, are you being authentic in your life as you are now,

does your partner understand who you are now? have you shared that? And are you forgiving of how they've changed as well? So that was the intention of the quote. Yeah, it's making me think of the phrase happily ever after, which is what's said at the point in the fairy story where the prince and the maiden have got married. But actually, what happens for the next 50 years, you know, when they are married?

And just to go back on Oscar Wilde, because there's also real truth there. And I think for those of us in long, you know, mature relationships, I've been with my wife for 23 years. Wow. And I feel like we've had several different relationships. Do you? In the course of that, you know, with each other. Do you know what I mean? Yes, I do.

I do. I'm fascinated by that. And so in watching the invite. And I should say, so we've got Seth Rogen and your good self as one of the couples. Yeah. You both play excellently. Thank you. Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz are the other couple.

It's a forehander, ladies and gentlemen. Those are the only people. That's it. Yeah, there's no escape from us. And 98% of it takes place within the apartment. Yes, everything but the opening credits. The opening bit isn't. And it goes on this roller coaster of what's going on in these relationships.

Yeah, and it's based on a Spanish film. Originally a play called, in Spain it was called Sentimental. Here it was the People Upstairs, written and directed by a guy called Sesque, he made the film from his own play, then that film was adapted into several different languages in several different countries. And I find this really fascinating. Everywhere from, I believe there's a French version, an Italian version, I believe a German one, a South Korean one. And then our version is an English language offering as an adaptation. But each of these films are very different. I haven't seen all of them. But I don't. But I don't. But I

I love the opportunity to adapt something that clearly is tapping into something interesting enough to be felt universally, or at least in these several different cultures, and to adapt it into our version of it. I like that challenge. I think it's why we love doing Macbeth because everyone can do their own version of it, Hamlet, probably done more than anything else. It's not to suggest that the invite is Hamlet. But it is something that I think is an interesting challenge.

Can you take a story that's been told before and can you put it through a different prism and can you allow for these actors to personalize it and specify in a way that feels original? I think that's an interesting challenge. And when Will McCormick and Rashida Jones wrote this English language adaptation and I read it and I laughed so much and I thought, wait a minute, this is a. opportunity to tell a story and make a film in a way that I had fantasized about for a long time, which is to really simplify the process. It takes place in one location which allows for shooting sequentially. So we shot the film in page order, which is really fun and allows... How unusual is that?

Very. Because as a layperson, I think a lot of people assume, oh, they filmed it in the order that you saw it, But because that's not economical. No, it's logistically really, I won't say impossible because I'm sure people have figured it out. It's usually very, very, very difficult for location reasons and for schedules. We not only got to shoot it in order,

which allows you to feel like you're doing a play. It also allows you to continue workshopping the material as you go. So you learn from where your character has been and you can make decisions based on that. You know your character much more thoroughly by the end. and can perform the end in a way that is much more authentic to who the audience has been spending time with. We also had two weeks of rehearsal,

which I also have never experienced. It's very rare. And I had dreamed of having that because it's crazy that most films, the performances you're seeing have not been rehearsed because there is just no time built in for it. And you think how ridiculous to put something out there that hasn't been marinated

and the actors are expected to kind of immediately plug into a tonal rhythm with each other and it makes it much more difficult than it has to be. I think it robs the experience of so much value unless it's your intention to try that kind of like complete

unprepared spontaneity which is its own cool thing but we had two weeks of sitting with our screenwriters and our cast around a table pulling the script apart and forcing ourselves to justify every decision and to really investigate the conversation we wanted the film to have, which is about relationships and whether they can survive over a long time and why they

do or don't. And what is the definition of a happy couple versus an unhappy couple and how much sex is normal? How many secrets are people allowed to keep from each other? All these questions that I think we all found interesting. What did you conclude about how much sex is normal? I think my real conclusion is that no sex is not normal and that is something that I think a lot of people have miss it sounds very judgmental to say misunderstood I think

I heard you say that was it on the call her daddy podcast or on what you said you said I've been talking too much it's probably I have no idea you feel like actually if there's no sex in the relationship it's a bad sign it's not a good sign It's not a good sign. And I think that... It's a sign that it might be a friendship.

Yeah, it's a roommate. I really think that... They call out the dead bedroom. Yeah, bed death. Have you heard of bedroom divorce? No, what's that? It's when you sleep in separate bedrooms. I don't know. I think that's kind of sexy. I'm intrigued by that.

You could invite her over in a way that allows for maybe there's a little bit of mystery in there. I think that's interesting. Isn't that interesting? It's that whole thing. Like, how can I, you can only chase something that's moving away? Yes. How can I miss you if you'll never leave? Exactly, exactly.

We, I mean, this is very Esther Perel, who was a consultant on the film. Who wrote mating in captivity. Yes. The manual to keeping the physical side alive in a long-term relationship. Yes. I haven't actually read it. Oh, I recommend it. And she just.

She's got a podcast as well. Yes. Where should we begin? Where shall we begin? where she deals, she talks to couples, coming back from infidelity or... All sorts of things. And what's interesting about her podcast is you get to kind of listen in on a couple's therapy session and then hear her asides, you know, hear her insights and you kind of feel like

you're in her head. There's a very good recent episode about a man in love with his AI. It's fascinating. It's happening more and more. It's happening more and more. And I understand. Even I'm developing feelings for my Spotify. Not Spotify, for my Duolingo.

Nice Spotify plug, though, that was good. Contractually obligated. Even I'm developing feelings for my Duolingo AI. Oh, yes. And you get upset when the duolingo is disappointed in you. The little owl looks so sad. The owl, yeah, they guilt trip you. Yeah, like the owl's dying because you haven't practiced your French.

Yesterday, it went, please, with like 11 E's. And I was like, oh, this is bad. This is desperate. Yeah. But I think that what's interesting about having Esther as our consultant is that she wasn't on set with us, but it meant that we could ask her questions about her research as it pertain to these conversations that are happening in many relationships and how we could have the most authentic version of it in the film. But I really learned a lot about how little sex a lot of people are having.

and how they assume that's normal. Yeah, yeah, and particularly after children. Wow. It makes me sad to think about how people have misunderstood intimacy to be about merging identities and yet not really maintaining a curiosity about this person that allows for the kind of necessary separation that leads to eroticism, right?

And that's very, that's very esterra. I'm badly paraphrasing a lot of her ideas, but I think it was a large part of the research for the film was, you know, why, at least in, I would say, in American culture, why do we think, oh, we're so intimate, we know everything, I know everything about him, he knows everything about me, that means we're really close. And it's like, are you close?

Are you close? Or do you feel an entitlement to this person's private, life because that makes you feel somehow safe and does that work for you in one way but inherently remove the necessary erotic charge that keeps you interested in this person and is that one reason why so many marriages fail maybe in our movie there's a lot of shame in this couple about their lack of sex. They never talk about it. They instead just kind of bicker

and subtly resent each other. They're sort of standing on a vibrating volcano of resentment, but they just allow it to come out in little barbs. They haven't had sex for a year. But I think maybe this is more about me. Like, I could imagine a relationship in which you bicker and a passive-aggressive, but actually love each other and it kind of works more or less. Well, I think that...

As long as it's not belittling and... Well, that's the thing. If it veers into contempt, I think you're in a bad place. Contempt is supposed to be the toxic. That's, I think, what's hard to come back from. Apparently, eye-rolling is a big thing. Oh, God, it's my pet peeve. That is the worst.

If you do that, it's like... Because it's very disrespectful. And I think when you lose respect. Because it's saying, what does an eye roll say? It's dismissal. It's like, you don't, that's not worthy of a response. Yeah, it's not worthy of a response. And there's no value to what you've just said.

And I, I won't even engage in it. Because I do think the opposite of love isn't, hey, I think it's indifference. I think it's just like, oh, I've just, I don't even, there's, I don't have time for your feelings. This episode is brought to you by Claude. I have Claude on my phone. It's an AI that helps out with projects. It gives me advice. I asked it for the best episodes of the Louis Theroux podcast.

It came back very quickly, mentioning Adam Buxton, John Wilson, Marco Pierre White, all solid episodes. Nice to have Claude as a listener. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, whether you're debugging code at midnight. Not something I do very often. but you might or strategizing your next business move I definitely do that. Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter.

Claude's been helpful for me. You know, sometimes you just need like a screen grab, like a metaphorical one, a sense of what the landscape looks like. What's the key part of the narrative? You know, Steve Coogan, what are the key episodes, what are the parts of his story that I need to dig into, the landmarks on the journey, and it'll give you citations.

You can click through to the relevant websites. magazine articles, stories, podcasts, and like that, in the blink of an eye, you have all the information at your fingertips. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at clod.aI-I-slash-th-th-R-U-S-R-U-X. And check out Claude Pro, which includes all of the features mentioned in today's episode. Do you think, this is a tee-up, do you think women and men have different attitudes, to sexuality, connection, and maybe even different sex drives? Sure. I think, in my non-professional opinion,

that the language of intimacy can be very different in men and women. I think women are more verbal, and so we can communicate our needs in a way that sometimes it can feel very frustrating that men don't. But I do think that's partly the way men are biologically designed maybe, but really the way they're raised. I think there is an encouragement of verbal communication in young women that we seem to come to more easily. And I mention it because I'm interested in how that relates to physical intimacy as a kind of communication. They think that there is something to non-verbal communication as an essential part of being in relationship. It's not only about

expressing verbally what you need and how you feel about someone else. Sometimes there is a need to do that without words. And I think sex is a part of that. It's a part of communicating. And so I think that there's this really unfair thing, this assumption that women don't want as much sex as men. and in many marriages it becomes a battle of who is engaging, who is instigating, right? And that's something that comes up in the film. There is a conversation that Seth and my characters have that I'm really, I'm proud of because it feels very authentic to me, where we battle over whose fault it is that we're not having sex. And he says this line, he says, you're supposed to want me.

And it's very sad. and I think that people are familiar with that feeling. You're supposed to want me, you married me, and that makes me feel entitled to you being attracted to me. I mean, whoa, does that veer into the manosphere in-cell conversation? But in terms of, like, in a lot of relationships, this sense of I shouldn't have to earn this, I just want to be loved,

which is connected to how we feel about our parents, You should, you are entitled to the love of your parent. I do believe that. I think that as children, children don't need to earn affection from their parents. It should be completely unconditional. And I think if we hadn't, if we haven't been given that, which many people haven't, there is a frustrated sense of like, you should love me, just hold me and want me. And no matter what I do, but that is a familial thing.

It is not something that should exist between couples. In a relationship, there's times where one person wants to have sex in order to feel connected and then the other person might only want to have sex because they feel connected. Exactly. That was said so much more succinctly and perfectly. My wife sometimes says like Foreplace starts 12 hours before. Correct. I do think that there is something kind of. of tantric about a long lead-up to sex that I think that there is a thing that we do when we're dating where we say you are let's meet next week. Should we have dinner next Thursday?

And it's like, yeah, sure. And what we're really saying is like, do you want to have sex next Thursday? So the next, you know, six days are going to be a lead-up. And I get to enjoy a slow build of anticipation. When we're married or in long-term relationships, it feels pretty corny to say like, shall we have a date next Thursday? It feels like, this is sad, we shouldn't have to do that. But actually, I think there's something really tantalizing about a bit of a long runway and saying, and everything up until then will be a part of this anticipation and seduction. So I get that. I think that people feel that that is energy that shouldn't be required that it feels like oh god i've already given you my hopes and dreams i've given you my life i'm not

gonna also make dates with you i mean that's certainly the couple in the movie they feel this resentment that they have not spoken about that is really surrounding their their dreams that they've given up they're both frustrated artists they gave up uh he gave up a music career she gave up a career as a visual artist and they've never talked about how they blame each other for this sense of complete dissatisfaction in their own creative lives. And so the sense of like, and do you want me to take you on a date, it becomes like, I'm sorry,

I've already done all this and now this, and now that's too much for me, I resent you. But if we've never actually talked about the first part, it feels very unfair. And the movie is trying to suggest that through the introduction of this other couple, which ostensibly is the sexy, happy couple. Sexy upstairs neighbors who've been having,

very loud sexual activity. Yes. Kind of rubbing it in our faces. Yeah, and one of them is kind of a sex therapist, the Penelope Cruz character, and the other guy's a firefighter. Yeah. Edward Norton.

He's so good, isn't he? He is so good. Let me just explain how good he is. Because I think that being able to watch these actors up close was really exciting for me because I've admired them for a long time and it was like getting to be right up against, you know, Yo-Yo Ma's playing the cello and really getting to look at what he's doing.

And I found myself just in awe of the way that they prepare these characters with so much depth and so many layers. And it's not just about I've shown up and I've learned the lines that I'm here to perform them. It's about an enthusiastic authorship of the character that builds in so much texture. And for Edward, he created a character. that had so much dimension that wasn't necessarily there when we all began the workshopping process of the script. It became his internal process that I was very excited to kind of bring into the material. So I'll give an example. We've talked about it a little bit, but I'm really excited by it, that there is a story he tells in the third act of the film.

He's called Hawk. Yes. And he's kind of a, in other hands, like it might have been a kind of a kind of a kind of, of cartoon character. Completely. He's so self-actualized. He's on the edge of being almost like a Woody Allen movie character

where he's like, I've forgotten my mantra, the kind of thing. Do you know what I mean? Greatest line of all time. Overly-therapized, sort of ludicrous California self-help. Exactly. Exactly.

And yet, what we learn is that there is a real source for that choice that this character has made in his life. And what that, I don't want to give it away, But basically that there is a reason he changed his name to Hawk. And it's actually based in a very painful experience that he tells us about. And when we were making the film, Edward said, I have a reason.

Well, his name was originally, I think Lance and then Shane at some point. Because it felt like kind of a funny name for a sex-obsessed fireman, I guess. And then once we started really working the material, he said, I think he should have changed his name, which is a very funny thing. You know, people come up with burning man names and that kind of thing. He should have changed his name to Hawk. And then he said, I have a reason for why Hawk. And I'll just keep that. And I said, well, I think it would be great to hear that at some point.

And he said, well, why? I have this story. And I said, okay, don't tell me the story, but at this point in the story, in the script, we'll just write in Hawk's story. Hawk tells a story. And on the day of filming, we'll set the cameras up on set's character and my character, and then I want you to tell the story for the first time. So we hear it for the first time on film.

And this was something Edward and I got really excited about, because you very rarely get to have this opportunity when making a film. and I was thrilled by it because, wow, as an actor, the gift of actually getting to have an authentic, spontaneous response to something is really exciting. So I was excited by that. But as a director, I was so curious, what will this be? And I think there are very few other people I would trust with something like that because we were rolling actual film, and film is expensive.

but I can't stress how moved I was by the story he tells and also moved by the generosity of Edwards and actor to create something like this which we really needed as a kind of emotional a ramp between two different tones in the film and I would argue that the film does take a turn and he allowed for that through this story and then Seth Rogan because he is such a fucking genius

his response to it is a perfect leveler for tone and it was totally spontaneous. So my experience of directing this movie was just getting to be continuously surprised by these people who were bringing

so many great ideas. Penelope Cruz came up with the whole Chadee sequence. Right. She's dancing with Seth and Charday's playing. Chade is playing which, oh God, it's so funny. It's so funny. And kind of romantic as well.

very romantic and she's also singing to him, which is, and he's singing with her. And there's so much, there's so much that they brought to it. It felt it was the most collaborative experience. It was the most joyful experience. We had these great screenwriters who were so generous and they're open as to the evolution of this piece of material that they cared deeply about. And it kept changing because we kept getting so excited. And I think when you're making a film, it can become this process that then is high

stress and logistically difficult and becomes about kind of checking boxes. Did we get it done? And you can overly kind of sanitize it. And this didn't feel that way. It felt it felt very fertile in terms of creative ideas. So many of the things. There's a lot of improvisation. I can't overstate how fortunate I feel for the whole thing. And I know this sounds like bullshit. it. But even if the film had never been picked up by a distributor at Sundance, which was not a given, we went to the festival with no distribution, even if we weren't now able to be in theaters, which is incredible and very rare for a comedy these days, I would feel as proud of it. I would feel as happy I had this experience because I think personally it created a really deep

opportunity for catharsis and kind of a restoration of my faith in this business. all of it. I want to move on, but just before we do, I'll say also, it feels very of the moment. I think what I got from it was have high expectations for your relationship, but don't expect them to be, just to happen, right? Absolutely. And also, separation is not something to overly stigmatize. In fact, I was talking to a friend and he said, you know, I'm a big fan of divorce,

which sounds quite dark, but actually in some contexts, is completely appropriate. And we're living in a time when, certainly in the States, they want to get rid of no-fault divorce. There's significant forces on the right of the Republican Party who want to turn back the clock to a kind of manosphere era in which people are constrained to remain in relationships that either aren't fulfilling or might even be abusive. like the arrival of no fault marriage laws was a massive achievement. And, you know, it really, the government benefits from marriage, that's why they incentivize it through tax incentives in other ways. I think that it's becoming less popular. People are getting married less.

People are having kids less. This threatens the establishment. I think it's healthy. That sounds unromantic. I'm obviously not a married person and you are. But I believe that it is a good thing for people to get married for the right reasons and to get unmarried if they so choose. Is your energy all right? Yeah, I feel good.

I would love to talk to you a bit about your upbringing, your family. You come from a very literary family. And in fact, your given name at birth, your surname is Coburn. Correct. Spelt. C-O-C-B-R-N. Spelled Cockburn. try growing up with that one.

I mean, people, did people call you Throoks? It's not as devastating. No, but Therux doesn't sound like you've got a genital injury. Oh. You know what I mean? I know, exactly what you mean. You must have got a lot of shit for that. Oh, yeah.

It's an Irish name, is it? I think a Scottish name originally. And, yeah, there's Coburn's Port, which is a port wine. But I absolutely was thrashed for it emotionally, you know, by kids in school. And, you know, I understood it and I still do. There was never a part of me that felt like, how could you get that wrong? I was never horrible.

Obviously. You would see it written down and you would. Yeah. You'd have to know in order to call it. I too would get it wrong. Do you remember the advert? No, because you didn't grow up in the UK. No, but my dad has shown me these.

Really? Yeah. And they meet a Russian guy like in the Navy. Yeah, it's like those who call it Cockburn's Port. I can't remember the punchline. That's terrible. He goes, so in Russia, I come from Moskok. Oh.

That's the joke. Like if Coburn is pronounced, if Cockburn's pronounced Coburn, then Moscow must be Moscox. Yeah. We used to say in our event like cockroaches or co-roaches, like we used to joke around a lot about it. Obviously we had, we, my family has an amazing sense of humor. We were raised to laugh. It is a formative thing to grow up with a name that teaches you to. laugh at yourself young and to kind of be able to understand that, you know, to make the joke

a lot or before anyone else in a way was my way of kind of surviving it as a kid. I felt bad for my brother because I think it's harder to be a, maybe, no, maybe it's harder for a, what's harder? For a woman, I think. Yeah. I think it would be, maybe, I don't know. It's hard, it's hard. I think hard for both. I really, you know, it's funny because I have such deep respect for my family. I revere my dad and his family. And my mom, you know, proudly took his name. Correct.

And then there's Alexander Coburn. Also, your dad was a writer. Alexander Coburn is a writer. Patrick Coburn is a writer. Your mom is Leslie Coburn. Yeah, and my grandparents were both writers. My uncles, as you said, cousins. And they were many of them writing on serious international relations subjects. Yes.

Like Soviet studies or the Middle East. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. American politics and culture. Yeah. And my dad still is. He writes for Harpers and he's the most interesting person I've ever known. And it's because he's the most interested person. He's so, genuinely curious about people and about things and he's so brilliant. And you had literary people stopping by, as I understand it, like Christopher Hitchens? Yes, I loved Hitchens very much. He was a very, very dear friend of my parents, and he was a part of this kind of community of people who raised us. He's incredible, and right by raised, I mean that they were just present, and he did

babysit for me, which has become kind of a funny thing that's mentioned, and I think he wrote about it. He wrote a profile for me. I think I did, I can't remember what fashion magazine it was. It might have been L. But it was so funny to have Hitchens writing this profile of me. He described me as headstrong,

which was the most generous way to describe me as a child. But he was very much a part of this community of people around when I was a kid. It was like a salon, salon, as you might say. I really, I feel grateful for that because it just exposed us to lots of different types of conversations. And they always took us seriously when we were kids.

Like they asked what we were thinking about and reading. Was there a time when you thought you might be a writer? It's funny, I never considered it as a professional path, I think probably because I was too intimidated, the idea of following in those footsteps. But I have immense respect for journalists. and documentarians such as yourself. And I grew up with my mother producing 60 minutes and pieces for Frontline, ABC News,

and working in really dangerous places, doing interesting things. But, you know, the basement of our house in D.C. was her editing room. So I used to be kind of plopped on the carpet while she was editing these pieces about, you know, the famine in Somalia or, you know, different conflicts. and I got a front row seat to watching a woman in a male-dominated field

thriving in a way that was very inspiring. I know the doors open, which I think means we're coasting, we're coming into land, ladies and gentlemen. I wanted to squeeze in two quick ones, because it's too tantalizing, not too. One was, my notes told me that you had a brush with competitive eating No. And ate 22 pancakes in 30 seconds.

That's sort of the last question I expected you to ask. Is that true? 22 seconds, no, minutes. 22 pancakes, it said 30 minutes. 30 minutes. Seconds would be really gross. That would be insane. 22 pancakes in 30 minutes.

Yeah, I was... Is that true? It is true. It is true. It's the only award I've ever won and I'm proud of it. How big were the pancakes? Pretty big. I came up with a system, though.

Go on. To stack them five at a time. and this also sounds disgusting, but it works, and eat them like a burger. And that was how I won. And the reason I did it is because I was in Australia. I was 15, and this wasn't like last week. This was 15, and I was in a pub. I was part of like a student group that was traveling through Australia.

And we saw that there was this competition. And I said, as a woman ever entered or won, and they said no, so then I had to do it. It was part of a period of my life when I I think that that kind of thing felt like I had a duty to do, you know, to do the thing. I never turned down a dare. Really? No, that was something I made,

I think a part of my personality for a long time. Now I, God, I can barely be dared to go out past like 10. Did you not feel ill afterwards? Oh, yeah, I was extremely sick. Keep it down? No. No. But competitive eating, I think famously, that's never the requirement.

I think they often don't keep it down. Certainly back in the day, many of the great competitive eaters were skinny Japanese guys. There was a guy who did the hot dogs. Yes, famously, the Nathan's hot dog one in Coney Island. And every year the guy would turn up and it was a tiny Japanese guy. And then there'd these huge Americans who turn up and get completely rolled over by this skinny Japanese guy. Don't judge a competitive eater by their size. By their size

by their appearance. Jennifer Lawrence once vomited while watching your 2017 Broadway debut playing Julia in a production of Orwell's 1984. What was that all about? She really helped us sell tickets with that

vomiting because basically we did this production of 1984 and it was directed by Rob Ike and Duncan Macmillan, two British theatre directors and

really brilliant people. The production was extremely intense and involved a lot of flashing lights and sound design that was very intense. It was meant to evoke the kind of torture chamber that exists

within that book and play. When Winston Smith's taken off to be reprogramed because he's showing dissident science. Yeah, that's right. It's room 101, isn't it? Yeah. He's got a fear of rats. Oh, God, it's so scary.

And the production was really scary. We would have around 12 people either having seizures or fainting or getting sick was rare. That was really Jen, who was an outlier. I think that she was actually sick for another. I think she had food poisoning, but it was great for our publicity because when she threw up during the play, that was public. and it made people think, oh, this must be, this must be intense. This is in a theater sounds cool.

If you dare. And we sold out. So, thanks, Jen. It was, it was a really wild experience that play because Orwell is co-opted by both sides of the political spectrum. That text in particular. And so we had this very weird range of fans. some, you know, like really right-wing bright-part journalists, if you call them that, were big fans of the play

and I guess it makes sense because they each see it as a confirmation of their bias. But I count myself, I suppose, as part of that, I'm on the left, I see that text as a warning, a warning we haven't taken because we're living in a strange time. We're in a self-administered surveillance state in which we're surveilling. We're surveilling ourselves with our handheld devices, surrendering massive amounts of data to sinister tech platforms. Constantly. And we are now doing the job of surveillance by agreeing to not only film ourselves but each other. I remember in the book and the play, the thing that became scary was sleeping because if you spoke in your sleep, they would hear you.

And I think about that a lot now with all the devices that are obviously, you know, we've agreed by checking boxes and contracts none of us read to have them listen to us. Yeah, famously a Samsung smartphone was harvesting your data, and they could do it because they're only accessing it constitutionally if they listen to it. So we're just scooping it up, but don't worry, we won't listen to it yet. Unless we need to. Unless we find out we think we should. But at what point will we be afraid to sleep because we might say things that get us thrown in prison?

Anyway, the invite to comedy. Go see it. And a very funny one at that. Thank you for joining. This is a real dream come true for me. I have been a fan of yours for so long. I think you are an essential part of the discourse. And I learn a lot from you.

And I hope you do it forever. Thank you. I'm glad Millie heard that. She'll definitely be taking that out of the final edit. And welcome back. Big thank you to Olivia for coming by. Perhaps I should slide into more people's DMs, Millie. Leave the booking to me. I'll take care of it from here.

It's tricky because it feels like you're presuming on... What is it? Well, it's because I'm exposed and I'm the one going like, hey, you want to come on? It's a direct invite. There's no buffer. If Millie or the team reach out to the star or the guest's team, And they're like, fuck no. And then that could be come back as like, it's not quite right now, you know, but they love the podcast.

It can all be softened. There's a few stars I've DM'd and they haven't said fuck no, but they've said, oh, big fan, but let's hook it up when you're coming through someplace I'm never coming through, right? Or they don't reply. That's quite a common one. it's kind of a lame thing like will you go on my podcast you know what I mean it feels a bit like really like you're going to be that guy come on my podcast I've spoken before how like having a podcast isn't a real job right it's like a thing that everyone does and that's like a cliche of people in

Brooklyn supposedly the most romantic thing a man can say to a woman if he's of a certain age and a certain kind of, I don't know, media class or something is to say like, I don't have a podcast. It's a green flag. It's a green flag if you don't have a podcast. Literary names, Millie's written, these talking points, were you in a rush?

Harper Beckham is named after Harper Lee. And I've written, this is what is interesting, Lionel Messi is named for Lionel Richie. You're saying, is that literary? And I'm saying, have you read the lyrics to hello? It's like a poem. Well, there's a World Cup connection, so that's not completely random. Yeah, Lionel Messi, every time you see him playing on the pitch, some little part of you should be thinking, she's once, twice, three times a lady.

Listen, this is the important thing I want to share with you. I messed up the punchline to the Coburn's port advert and even in the room at the time I knew there was another bit which lands the gag there's upper crust British guys and they're taken onto the Russian sub and they explain about Coburn he says Cockburn and they go no no it's not Cockburn

but it's Coburn then this is a clow he's pointing at a clock he said no that's a clock This is a so he's pointing at his sock No, that's a sock And then he says The Russian captain says In that case I come from Moscow I did that bit

But then the posh English guy says Yes I think you probably do Did I murder that gag It's on YouTube And you can decide whether you think it's funny It's kind of a little bit funny That's it for this week Apart from the credits

The producer was Millie Chew the assistant producer was Maisie Williams. The production manager was Francesca Bassett. The music in this series was by Miguel Di Olivera. The executive producer was Aaron Fellows. This is a Mindhouse Studios production for Spotify.