The Rest Is Entertainment - Adolescence, Harry Potter & Doctor Who: 2025 BEST OF

Episode Date: December 25, 2025

What does Chris Columbus think of the new HBO Harry Potter series? How did the creators of Adolescence find 15-year-old superstar Owen Cooper? Why did the Disney-Doctor Who partnership fail? And will GTA VI really cost more than building Dubai's Burj Khalifa? Take a break from bickering in-laws and overcooked turkey, and enjoy some of our favourite questions (and answers) from 2025. Whether you’re hosting or guesting this Christmas, you need the UK’s best mobile network and broadband technology, only from EE. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: Imee Marriott Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Bex Tyrrell Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is bedtime a nightmare? If you fear the chance of accidental leakage and skin irritation, you need to try tennis sensitive care overnight pads. Its skin comfort formula acts as a barrier to help protect your skin. Try them now and have a smooth night. This episode is presented by E.E. Marina, are you hosting or guesting for Christmas this year? Normally, every other year I am a very grateful guest, but I'm now a successful guest. but I'm now a slightly trepidacious host.

Yes, it is me in the apron having a meltdown over all the cooking. No, I don't think I'll have a meltdown. It's a lot, isn't it? Yeah. But you have to just keep saying to yourself, it's just a big chicken. Just a big chicken. It's just a really big chicken. We are also hosting this year.

Looking forward to it very much. If you are hosting, and EE has the best broadband technology, if you are guesting, then EE has the best mobile technology. and my goodness, you need it at Christmas, right? Yes, the third babysitter, the distractor. Just when the family walk into the house is hello grandma, hello granddad, what's the Wi-Fi password? I might need that.

Get the best connectivity for your home and your phone with EE. And if you're guesting, lucky you, EE has the best mobile network to keep you connected to music, maps and backseat streaming for the kids when you're travelling. Search EE does more. Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Resters Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osmond. It is the 25th of December. We are live in central London. Of course, we're not live. We recorded this months ago. It is currently June the 17th.

It's actually quite near to Christmas when we're recording this, but of course we are not recording on Christmas Day. Sorry, Happy Christmas, I think you were trying to say. I think I said Happy Christmas on the 23rd. Oh, you've done it now, have you? No, but people are not going to, people are going to listen to this on the 26th. And we'll be going to be saying, happy Christmas. They go, what do you mean, happy Christmas? Exactly when things are going to happen.

Just say happy Christmas and cover yourself at this time of year. Happy Boxing Day, everybody. The bit between Christmas and New Year, which is when people are most likely to listen to this. Oh, where'd you stand on people saying things like Twixmas? The Merry Neum, I believe it's called. Yeah. Right. Merry Christmas, everybody.

No, I don't think people, if you are listening on Christmas Day, then that's grand. It's a Q&A episode because quite apart from being Christmas Day, it is, of course, a Thursday, which means Q&A episode. If you're listening on Christmas Day, I will be cooking. And just a shout out to anyone who's listening to this. I worry if you're listening to it to keep you saying while you're cooking. But if you are, I'm with you, I understand, and I'm doing the same thing as you right now. Don't forget the Pigs and Blankets.

But maybe you're listening for a little bit of peace and quiet as well, which is a nice thing to get at Christmas, whether you have family around or whether you don't. Just some highlights of our Q&As from across the year, some questions that we loved answering. Do keep your questions coming in, by the way, next year as well. But yes, whether you're listening on the 25th, the 26th, 27th, 28th, then Merry, whatever day it is. But please accept my Merry Christmas from our episode on Tuesday as my Merry Christmas. I didn't, I really, really didn't want to be remiss. I'll say it as many times he's like, Merry Christmas, everybody.

Marina, are you ready? I'm as ready as I will ever be. Excellent. Zerlini Beck a couple of weeks ago, her and her husband argue about what's A-List or not. We had a little chat about it, but I said I'm going to set you a challenge. You said you could tell me if anyone was A-List or not. I wish I had a gavel. I've just realised, but never mind. Everyone at home, see if you agree or disagree with Marina's options. So I can give you a list of actors.

And I just say, say A-list or not A-list. I'm going to say, what strikes me in the moment? This is like one of those things where you're trying, you know, we just have to react to pictures or whatever it is. Are the following actors, A-list, B-list or C-list? Let's go. Your first actor is Idris Elber B. Killean Murphy Oh, B, come on. Florence Pugh. B.

And that's, yeah, B. No, she's B. Yeah. I hope this is not just Marina saying B the whole time. No, okay, no, no, carry on. You get that from a Chris Packham podcast. Zendaya. A, can open a movie. Don't worry, carry on.

Jennifer Lawrence. A. Actually, falling, but she's had two very big franchises, A. Pedro Pascal. B, TV style mainly. Barry Hogan. Fantastic Four could you. Oh, Barry Keogan. No, B, come on. I.O. Adeboree.

No, B, if that. It would be an interesting one. Vin Diesel. A. Sorry, it's a massive franchise. You don't make the rules, right? And if I did anywhere, I'd put him in, come on. What I'm talking about? Rachel Zegler.

Oh, no, I mean, B and falling, I'm afraid. Def Patel. What? No, I mean, I love, very nice, but B, C? Okay, here we go. Friend of the podcast, Glenn Powell. Be rising, strongly rising. Still be, though. Still B. Yeah, come on. A couple of years time, they'll be going to remember when Glenn Powell was B-list.

Well, it won't be through Wond of trying if they aren't. Let's put it that way. Talking of Glenn Powell, Sydney, Sweeney. Again, B rising, both of them, you know, but they haven't yet got those kind of open movie roles. We have to see if they can do it. On the cusp. Cusp. Tom Hardy.

B. Al Pacino. Oh, come on. Okay. A, but heritage. I mean, he's not opening a movie now, is he? I mean, yeah. Heritage A heritage.

It's a special category. If you hadn't said A, yeah, well, that's A Star. Oh, come on, it's ridiculous, A heritage, yeah. Yeah, Don Cheadle. No. Not, we're not even giving you him a letter. He's getting a B. Dustin Hoffman.

A heritage, come on. Okay, Sautier Ronan. I love her, but B, I mean, you know, yes, I mean, it's art house, isn't it? Natalie Portman. Used to be A, now B. Okay, Vida Davis. A maybe. A maybe.

A, B, yeah, A. This guy's got a clue in his name, Michael B Jordan. R A. Michael A Jordan. You're saying, wow. I think so, yeah, definitely. Olivia Coleman. Sorry, I mean, amazing, but B.

Amazing, but B. Well, because, you know, it's, she's not, of course she should win all the awards and the Oscars and whatever, but I don't think of her as a sort of A-lister in that sense. So I think she's many things, but she's not Sylvester Stallone. Yeah, and I think she probably loves that. Yeah, Sylvester Stallone. Oh, A heritage. Amy Lee Wood.

What? I mean, doesn't rate. Sorry, I know she's had a terrible week, so I don't want me to add to it, but that, no, I mean, She's a part in an ensemble on a television program. Okay. The end. Robert De Niro. Heritage.

Seen O'O. Knights. Andrew Garfield. I love him, but B. And we're going to end with this one, interesting one. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Both A. Both A. Yeah.

But would they be A without the other? Does a rising tide raise all ships in that relationship? That's difficult, isn't it? I don't know. Yes, they're sort of somehow have been greater than the sum of their parts, I think. So, double A. I think they're both overrated. No, listen, it's good.

I don't think he's a good guy at all, actually. But, yeah, I don't think he's, I don't get a good vibe of him. I don't mean that kind of awesome. Just like a celebrity monster, you know, I think when you become very, very famous. I think that's the problem with those two, but yeah, they're very, very famous. You did that very quickly. I got through the entire list of people.

That's very, very impressive. I mean, some of those, I honestly think, in retrospect, I didn't know who was coming next. I was trying to sort of always calibrate against the ones before, so I never knew who was coming next. You know, I could have definitely had a couple of Cs and Ds in there. But that doesn't mean that, you know, I don't love them as an actor, but we have to be honest about what type of star they are.

Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock. Oh, I mean, well, Sandra Bullock. I mean, I love her, but, yeah, I mean, she's Heritage A now. Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks are still, A. Aniston? Well, I mean, Aniston's, eh. I should think she could open movies still. Yeah.

She just likes doing, you know, brands now, as far as I can work out, fitness brands and things like that. Listen, it's less easier than acting, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. Leone, thank you so much for a question from two weeks ago. And Marina, congratulations. That was very, very good. We've got a question now, which was from my interview with the wonderful Chris Columbus, one of my men of 2025, who I loved working with and loved speaking to as well.

So you had to cut down the first two Harry Potter books into shorter films. When you look at people making these big HBO series who can sort of cover every piece of dialogue on every page, are you jealous of that, or do you think that's less fun? I've not, no, no, I'm sort of like, I'm so beyond it. I did it. My feeling is, okay, I've done that. It's time to move on. I've always had issues with idea of franchise. Franchise, when we did Gremlins and Goonies in those films, people were, that's why I never did the second Gremlin's film. I said, my attitude then was, I've done it. It's time to move on and do something different. Same with Potter. I feel like I've done it. I'm really proud of those films, the first three that I was involved with. And I, and I'm moving on. So, no. Now, it's interesting, as of yesterday, I think, I looked in the, online, and there were photographs of Nick Frost as Hagrid, along with the new Harry Potter, walk. Now, that's not Nick Frost, that presumably is still Martin. I don't remember his last name, a rugby player who played, Martin Bayfield.

Yes, who played Hagrid with a giant sort of fake rubber Hagrid head that we were played, we sometimes replaced with CGI. So I'm seeing these photographs of, now it looks like Martin. I could be wrong, wearing a Nick Frosthead walking down the streets of London. And I'm thinking, and he's wearing the exact same costume that we designed for Hagrid. Part of me was like, what's the point? Part of me is like, okay, great, you're doing, I thought it was going to be, I thought the costumes were going to. I thought everything was going to be different, but it's more of the same, which is interesting. It's very flattering for me because I'm like, that's exactly the Hagrid costume that we designed.

So part of it is really exciting, so I'm excited to see what they're going to do with it. of it is sort of a deja vu all over again, so. Marina, a question for you from Harriet Bateson. Harriet says, I'm obsessed with stranger things. I was wondering what happens to the money child actors get paid. Do their parents get the money? Who are the best paid child actors? Oh, right.

Well, I mean, yeah, I think we know from entertainment history is that sometimes their parents take the money whether they should do or not. the Stranger Things, children, the sort of quartet of the boys, Finn Wolfhard, Gate, Matarazzo, Noah Schnapp and Caleb McLaughlin. They, for seasons one and two, which, you know, you do your deal for seasons one and two, they got $25,000 per episode. By season three, this is a real entertainment story, by the way, always, if you get to season three, everyone's contracts go nuts in American television. And they then were earning about $250,000 an episode. So it was 10,000. 10 times as much.

That is a lot of Panini stickers. It's not clear how much exactly Millie Bobby Brown gets, but I think she was on a million an episode. She's got to some sort of overall deal with Netflix, so it's not entirely clear how the money works there. And they're very, very secretive about what they pay her, but she's a huge star for Netflix. But then, you know, there were all those stories where Drew Barrymore got a million for ET, and by the time she was about 14, she was earning millions.

That little boy in young Sheldon, he got. $30,000 per episode for season one, but by the end of season five, I think he was on a much more than a million per season. But there are laws to deal, which by the way, are not at all or is observed in the US for dealing with child actor fees. Children have to get a minimum of 50% of all adult minimum fees and payments rather than saying, yeah, we're going to give Winona Ryder this. She's in it a lot less than you, but sorry, boys and stranger things. Here's some pocket money and an ice cream and some panini stickers. So I think that it's 15% or something has to be put into something called a Coogan account. Oh yeah. I would

never put any money into a Coogan account because I never know what it would get spent on. You have no idea what it could be spent on. But anyway, that's a special trust account and it's supposed to be held till the child turns 18. Yeah, does that come from Jackie Coogan? He played alongside Charlie Chaplin. And I think even in those days, he had earned $4 million and it was all spent by his mother and stepfather, and he had absolutely nothing left. There are all sorts of rules, by the way, governing child actors, and they have to have chaperones, and they have to have certain breaks built in that you wouldn't necessarily have to have with adult actors.

And if your school attendance is affected by work, then they've got to put a tutor in place. By the way, another reason we should be talking about this anyway, because it's really interesting, is that they've got their three children for the HBO Harry Potter. They've announced the casting of Harry Ruehers. Ron and Hermione. Now that production, everything I'm hearing about it is absolutely crazy. They're building effectively pretty much a school because there's so many children on set for something like that. And as I always say, you can expand Leavisden seemingly infinitely. Every time I ever go and work on a new thing there, it's a former airfield and they just like double

it inside. So I guess, yeah, they're going to have a school. So that's interesting anyway. But the first Harry, Ron and Hermione, I think they got a million dollars each for the first Harry Potter movies. But Obviously, it does go wrong, and people's parents rip them off like Jackie Coogan's parents did. McCauley Culkin took his parent, from Home Alone. He took his parents' name off his trust and found an executor. And then everyone said he's divorced his parents, which I think he felt was not technically what had happened. Many of these children end up absolutely hating their parents. Aaron Carter, I think he'd made something like $200 million before he was 18.

But he owed a huge amount of taxes. He was declared bankrupt. up, his parents didn't put the required amount of money in his Coogan account. There's so many dreadful stories. I don't know if you've ever seen this thing. My daughter's watched this a load of time. She was in I-Carly. Yes, I remember I-Carly very well from my children's upbringing.

Well, Jeanette McCurdy, who was one of the people in that, her book is called I'm Glad My Mum Died. There's a picture of her on the front of it. She's holding an urn and it's like confetti's coming out of it. Anyway, she said it was absolutely dreadful, but her mother just forced her to work. the entire time. She didn't want to do it.

She had terrible eating disorders. She made a show about it. So there was terrible resentment among some people. Will Wheaton. Do you remember Will Wheaton? He's in Stand By Me, Star Trek, Big Bang Theory. But he said, I remember telling my mother every day that I just wanted to be a kid and how she'd dismiss it and come up with these ways of saying, well, no.

But actually, you love doing this. It really reminded me, actually, when I was watching that documentary about Piper Rockell, the young YouTube star. I mean, you know, we're seeing it now, and you can see it happening almost, I mean, you can see it in these family YouTube things all the time that the children are the most kind of winsome aspect of it, but the parents are the ones who really want the money. They should be putting that YouTube money nowadays in a Kugan account, whether or not they do, as we've seen lots of people, it doesn't always happen. But there are supposed to be laws governing in it. But the thing about something like YouTube, which, sorry, I've gone all around the houses now, but that is so unregulated and it's just not really watched over. The actual sort of legacy entertainment industry is pretty well regulated, but you can never

legislate for the fact that these parents want to put their children on the stage when they probably are not to be, and they want to do it for their own financial benefit. But the basic principle is they will get roughly half what an adult actor will get, and that's good money. And obviously, the second something is actually a hit and you are a star in it, then actually you're treated like an adult. You'll get, you know, whatever money you can get. And to bring it back to Stranger Things, the show.

is all about the kids. Without them, it's absolutely nothing. And they're remunerated accordingly. And no matter how quickly they, how much they grow up, because there's three years between series. I mean, there'll be about 30 when we see the next season. But if you look on the Sunday Times Rich List and you see, you see now what Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are worth that you can work out what they were getting paid by the, uh, by the final Harry Potter movies. Yeah. It was good money. Deservedly so. And their parents didn't rip them off, which is great. Yeah. Absolutely. That's what we like. Okay, today my 13-year-old son, Rex, amazing name, Rex Reynolds, told me that by the time

the much delayed GTA 6 is released next year, it will have cost more to make than the Birch Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai. Surely not, says Richard. No one is spending billions on creating a video game. Are they? He asks leadingly. Oh, Richard. Hello, Rex. By the way, of course Rex is right. Richard, of course you know your son is right. He's absolutely right. I mean, they've been very, very expensive video games before. I think Spider-Man, that was like 400 million And cyberpunk 277 was 400 million. But yeah, this is costing around about $2 billion. And the Birch Khalifa itself cost between 1.4, 1.5 billion US dollars.

So Grand Theft Auto 6 is more expensive than the Birch Khalifa. But I tell you what... It's built by slaves? I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Of course I am. I always kid. What Grand Theft Auto 6? What do they call it crunch culture? Crunch culture.

What's crunch culture? In the gaming industry where they make them work absolutely around the clock. and they just try and iron out everything and people are just like not sleeping at all. Actually, it's got very dark very quickly. Yeah, it did. But it seems, I think, worth spending. So it's coming out, we've got a definitive release date

which any gamer all knows 26th of May, 2026. I saw a recent thing saying they reckon in the first 60 days this is going to gross over $7 billion, Grand Theft Torto. It's one of the great works of art of our time. That's more than 70% of the entire Hollywood box office. Well, you said before, Hollywood needs to break about $9 billion a year.

To kind of stagger on in its current form. Yeah, and this itself in 60 days will make $7 billion. Isn't that incredible? Rex, because you won, you're allowed to call your dad Ryan for the rest of the week. So, yeah, Ryan, I'm ever so sorry. Rex is absolutely correct there. It costs more than the Birch Khalifa, but it is going to make an awful lot more than the Burj Khalifa as well.

Although actually I don't have the receipts for how much money Burj Khalifa makes, presumably, with high occupancy. The developers don't either. Yeah, presumably it may, yeah, yeah. I understand it's something of a Wild West out there. And even, I mean, TV's got very expensive. Certain bits of TV that the streamers of, I mean, the Lord of the Rings, that was so expensive. That was something like 58 million, the Rings of Power per episode.

Stranger things has got very, very expensive. That's about 30 million per episode. I mean, lots of Taylor Sheridan things are sort of 22 million an episode, which is becoming quite expensive. The most expensive movie that we know of, but remember, there's all these accounting fiddles, is Jurassic World Dominion, which costs 453.6 million. But actually, I think one of those late stage Avengers won a huge amount. I think maybe Age of Ultron costs a lot more than they ever said. And I think it was sort of terrifying that they couldn't actually say it out

that. But in these years where we're obsessed with the budgets for movies and the take of movies, the idea that a video game of all things has a $2 billion budget and it's going to make $7 billion. And we still don't really know how to talk about them, which I find so interesting. We don't have proper criticism of them isn't given anything in a tenth of the highest status as movie criticism. We don't really understand how to talk about things that don't have stars necessarily. Traditional forms of media have just completely lost this medium. A different form of criticism or not, which is watching some people you like play it on YouTube or on Twitter or whatever it is. By the way, if I was rock star games and I was listening

and I still had time, I'd get a character called Rex Reynolds in there. It's quite every rock star game's name. Yeah, because it could sort of be anything, right? I mean, listen, a wrong-in, but, you know, it could be any sort of wronging. This episode is brought to you by Disney Plus. Christmas is a time to tell stories. It's part of the festive tradition. And with Disney Plus, you can enjoy the work of master storytellers across a huge range of genres.

You were fan of the classic Christmas movies? Oh, you know I am. Okay. I love the Christmas movie. We love, I mean, we both love these so much. There's certain ones that I literally have to watch every single year. Home Alone, one, and two, that might be controversial to some, but it's not to me. Not to me. No, Miracle on 34th Street.

Oh, yes, please. Always. It's a wonderful life. Muppet Christmas Carol is non-negotiable. It's simply non-negotiable. You know that bit in between Christmas and New Year? It's actually the perfect time to watch the big blockbusters or hit shows like the new season of Percy Jackson. Between Christmas and New Year.

It's got various names. What are you doing? What are you streaming? What are you watching? Well, I actually will catch up on family things that, for whatever reason, I didn't see at the cinema. So I will this year watch Lilo and Stitch, which I didn't see, which was massive. And I will watch Elio because I want to watch I'm a Pixar completest, and I want to watch everything that they do. Whatever's on your list this Christmas, you can be sure a lifetime of great stories awaits on Disney Plus.

18 and over, subscription required. Shall I ask you a question? Please do. And it's a question. We've had lots of versions of this question, but Rob McGoff, you are first out of the trap, so I'm going to do your version of it. Rob asked Disney have ended their much criticised co-production deal with the BBC to make Doctor Who. Will Disney consider the whole ordeal a mistake?

Okay. Clearly Disney have ended the deal, so they certainly consider it something they want to get out of. It's strange because it sort of happened quite late. It happened almost after the era of what we remember now. The lovely co-production money era where basically streamers were trying to build scale and get a hold on various markets. And so lots of things were co-production and lots of very expensive things and lots of, you know, this was the peak TV era. But people were, you know, losing money, huge amounts of money, but they wanted to build scale. So someone like Netflix was just spending enormous unsustainable amounts of money trying to do these things.

So we had all these shows. This actually came later than that. They didn't even put out a statement, Disney. saying that, you know, the statement came from the BBC saying that this was a, they had been a great partner and so on. I mean, clearly they're disappointed. I don't know if they've been a great partner. No. Listen, I'm sure they've been, you know, they're no David Harbour, but I don't know if they've been great. Obviously, they put it on Disney Plus and what they, it's quite tricky. We know what it is because it's very sort of idiosyncratically British.

It's a sort of tea time family drama thing that's sci-fi as well. To them, it might have been like, Well, is it YA? Is it like, or is it like Percy Jackson, which has done a show that's done in that kind of space? Yeah, where's it's done much better for them and, you know, is on the second season and all of that. Certainly, I'm never sure they quite answered it. They suddenly didn't promote it in lots of ways like their native shows, as it were. And also, by the way, because Russell T. Davis was such a big part of that deal and is such a big part of Doctor. He was, I think they accepted that he was going to have creative control of what it looked like.

So Disney executives were not able to say, I wonder if we can make this a bit more Disney, which, of course, was the thing everyone was terrified about. And a bit more categorizable for them in their, you know, much more set categories. And he is idiosyncratic and a maverick and all those sort of things. He's obviously brilliant and amazing and we love him. And so I think in some ways, I mean, as I say, what they want is they want there to be awards and nominations and it didn't have those apart from, you know, there might be a technical award or something. but I've seen different estimates on the episode cost. And I think there's kind of north end of them where people were saying that it's 10 million pounds an episode.

Russell T. Davis was like, oh my God, I would literally be talking to you for my moon base if that was the case. Having said that, it massively, and by multiples, increased what the budget was before on the BBC. Whether you need that or not, you know, there'll always be people saying, oh, we like cardboard sets and just great stories. I personally, and this is nothing from anyone on the show,

but I think they had a problem with the casting. of the lead character. I think Shuti Gatwa, I am told, he didn't particularly love doing it. And it's not for everyone that role. And you are so much more than the lead in a particular drama. When it came back, and under Russell T. Davis, there was Christopher Eccleston. He did it for one season. And then it clearly wasn't for him either. David Tennant, revolution, you know, brought a baby. He grew up. It's fair to say it was for him. Yeah. It was for him. But he was a who he was a doctor who obsessive. So was Peter Capaldi who came next but one. And they fully understood what the nature of that role is.

You're not just the lead in that thing. You are an ambassador. You do all sorts of other things and it all feeds back. But it's a really, you know, it sort of occupies a role in the life of the nation to some degree. Matt Smith, who was, who was so young, who is absolutely one of the most amazing doctor who is of all time. I think he's incredible. Sorry, one of the most amazing doctors of all time. I think he's incredible.

And it's extraordinary that he played it with such sensitivity and he was both old and young at the same time. did it amazingly. But he also understood that you're a former ambassador. I didn't get that at all from Shuti Gawa at all. I think he had other projects. He wasn't that committed to that thing. I definitely think that the Americans thought that he wasn't necessarily 100% available there to be a kind of... He's definitely in demand for obvious reasons. Yeah. And he's done lots of different things and he's done theatre. He's done, you know, two plays and whatever in the time of all of that. He said, I, you know, I'm getting old. I'm 33. Hmm. Okay. As I say, it's a failure to car someone who fully understood the full implications and weight and responsibilities of the role.

And also, actually, I think if you are the lead in a big American TV show and this purposes is both, there are certain things that might be expected of your time. And perhaps that didn't occur. And it's absolutely a deal that made sense for the BBC and made sense for Disney. You do all sorts of collaborations in this business. and a lot of the times they don't come off for lots and lots of reasons. But you have to look back and go, was this a mistake? I don't think it was. I think that Russell T. Davis felt that he would have the same creative control,

he would have elsewhere, but with more money. And I think Disney were thinking, we've got this piece of IP, this franchise, that if we can just get a bit of traction on this, this can serve us for the next 10 years, because we can have lots and lots of spin-offs. We can build a whole universe around Doctor Who, this thing that we feel has been undervalued, and there were lots of places.

And they were already starting to do that. There's this spin-off the war between the land and the sea and things like that. So they are coming. Yeah. But so it absolutely made sense for both sides. Yeah, sometimes for whatever reason, it just doesn't work. And sometimes personnel change in organisations and sometimes... And cultural change, I have to say.

I'm afraid in contemporary America and contemporary Disney, where they're thinking, oh, we've corrected too closely towards what, I mean, for one of a better phrase, a woke agenda, they're now moving away from that and back to some. some reason, but to back to some form of what they consider to be returning to some form of mainstream. Again, I don't, you know, I can tell you what those sort of thoughts are. And Russell T. Davis is an enemy of all of that and he'll do whatever he wants. He's not going to compromise. But the reason that Disney signed up is the same reason that lots of other people will sign up as well, because it does feel like it's an underutilized piece of IP.

Yeah. So if I can just talk about the magic show business for a moment. You know, it feels like you could really create a huge world out of this. And there are plenty of big media companies with very deep pockets at the moment, content companies at least, that, you know, somebody else, it will be worth their while to put some money into this. And BBC are very good now at doing deals with other people, you know, whether it's unall-encompassing umbrella like Disney, which comes with certain expectations, as you say, and where there has, suddenly there is a corporate thing that is bigger than, you know, Disney is one of the few corporate things that is bigger than the BBC. But it's such a great franchise, and you could see a way through this that Doctor Who lives forever on a different streamer. So, yeah, I think, you know what, wrong place, wrong time, right idea. Ah, now this is from our adolescent special with its amazing director, Philip Barantini, and director of photography, Matt Lewis. First question we put to them is from Charlotte Green.

How on earth did you find Owen Cooper, who was the star of this thing, the young kid, who's extraordinary? How did you find him? What was that process? And also, how did he learn all of those lines? How did he get everything done, given the whole thing this shot in one take? Yeah, well, we, I'd received, you know, hundreds and hundreds of tapes through Shaheen Bega, a wonderful casting director. One of the first things I asked for was just an improvised moment of two sort of ideas. One of them was, you've been to, you've been to, you've been brought into your head teacher's office and you're guilty of something. And then the other scenario was that you were innocent of this thing, right?

And I just wanted to see what, you know, how they played it. Owen was someone who just was so real and so natural. And, you know, it's quite rare to see that in an actor, especially in auditions. And I think he just didn't really have any preconceptions about what acting was. He'd done some acting classes and, you know, he was doing it for fun, really. we got him in and we put him through his paces really we had like five auditions and a couple of those were with Stephen and towards the end of the of the of the process and it just every time he came in he just absolutely nailed it and I sort of you know I would I would give him more and more

things to do and you know Matt even came in on one of the on one of the screen tests with with Stephen and filmed it and we were all just like as he left he were just like oh yeah this this kid is like different level different level you know so it was really special yeah he didn't know the the full scope of what he'd had he would have to learn um you know along along the way i was saying to them you know this is this is this is a this is going to be all shot in one take and and i don't think he understood he didn't quite grasp what that meant because he'd never worked before you know and when he finally got the script uh you know we we sort of worked with him quite a lot and you know, we sort of, we got a wonderful sort of acting coaching to come and help him to sort of

learn his lines. Not to, not to coach him in the acting side of it, but, but to help him to sort of get these lines in his head and, you know, just to be able to get off the page. But you know what? He was an absolute natural. The first day we came on to set, we shot episode three first due to Stephen's schedule. The first day he came on set. We all sat around the table and we sort of just we're going to go through the script and read it get the script off the page read it we all had our scripts in our hand Aaron had a script in a hand

all the other actors had the script in a hand and Owen just came in and he had a script he put it on the table and he just went he just did it it was mind blowing he does what most actors train for most of their lives which is to be real be natural be you know in the moment

and just and listen it's so important to just listen as an actor and listen and respond naturally in the moment and he just does that instinctively like you know to the to the point where you know I give him notes and I wouldn't think that he was taking these notes in I was like I don't know whether he's actually taking all that in and he then he'd go and smash out to take and you'd be like whoa what did I'm just like yeah it was it was mind-blowing

No.