The Rich Roll Podcast - Jamie Dornan & Sacha Gervasi On The Delusion of Celebrity & The Life of Hervé

Episode Date: October 15, 2018

Today I sit down with actor Jamie Dornan and filmmaker Sacha Gervasi, a man I love dearly and have known for over 20 years, to discuss their recent collaboration — My Dinner With Hervé, a brilliant new film premiering October 20 on HBO. Marking his 2nd appearance on the show (his first being episode 249 two years ago), Sacha's credits include scripting The Terminal, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks. In 2012, Sacha directed Hitchcock starring Anthony Hopkins and last year helmed November Criminals featuring Ansel Elgort and Chloë Grace Moretz. But Sacha is perhaps best known for Anvil! The Story of Anvil, his Emmy and Independent Spirit Award winning, real-life Spinal Tap rockumentary about an also-ran Canadian heavy metal band that many critics consider one of the greatest films ever made about rock and roll. Anvil explored what it means to never give up on a dream. Hervé picks up where Anvil leaves off, exploring the darker aspects of lofty dreams realized in a tragic comedy that lays bare the power of unchecked ego, addiction, and unhealed childhood trauma in fueling self-destruction. A look at the wild life of French actor Hervé Villechaize, who famously played Tattoo in the hit '70s TV series Fantasy Island, the film is based upon one insane night Sacha spent with Hervé (played by Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage) just one week before Hervé’s suicide, and the emergence of an unlikely friendship that permanently alters both of their lives. His very first script, it’s a movie Sacha began writing over 20 years ago. Both hilarious and sad, beautiful and surprisingly emotional, Hervé is hands down Sacha's best work to date. Peter Dinklage is a tour de force. And Jamie Dornan — as Danny Tate, a journalist loosely based on Sacha — delivers in an elegantly nuanced, powerful performance that will leave you with a new appreciation for this actor's depth and talent. Jamie is of course most recognized for his portrayal as Christian Grey from the 50 Shades of Grey movies. But if that’s all you know about this young man, you're in for a delightful surprise. I first came across Jamie's work several years ago by way of The Fall, a dark psychological thriller series co-starring Gillian Anderson, and was immediately struck by his keen ability to evoke pathos and empathy for a seemingly irredeemable character. But Hervé is a game changer for Jamie — a role I'm certain will leave unsuspecting audiences with a new and grand appreciation for this actor's considerable talents. On the surface, Hervé is about how a chance encounter between two people in various states of desperation find solace in each other's pain. One survives to embark on a new life. The other does not. Between the lines, the movie — and this conversation — is about not giving up on a dream. Hervé risked everything to become a star. And it took 20 years of persistence for Sacha to see this vision realized. But it's how one navigates success and failure that ultimately determines that which we truly seek — fulfillment, purpose, and of course happiness. Today we explore these themes. We discuss our predisposition to judge people based solely on their outsides. We dive deep into the delusion of fame. What happens when we pervert the need to be seen. And the emptiness purchased when we seek validation outside ourselves to salve the pain of life. Enjoy! Rich

Everyone who meets me who doesn't know me Has a projection Of what I am It's not even their fault No and listen we're all probably guilty of that a wee bit Like with people we meet I did the same thing with Herve when I met him I projected onto him the heart

And it's something we can all work on Trying to not do But I think For me on the other side Of it I guess is that like you're fucked the moment you live up to the projection that's when you're fucked can I say what's really interesting is this whole film is about being judged one of the themes is is how we all prejudge and rush to judgment you know in a way what I love about Peter and Jamie in the film is the audience will bring their preconceptions about whatever they think.

And you're talking about two people who have, for large parts of their life probably, been judged on their looks. But, you know, it's superficial. That's Jamie Dornan and Sasha Gervasi. This week on The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody, what's happening? How's it going? How are you doing?

What is the latest? Very grateful to spend an hour or so with you here today. My name is Rich Roll. This is my podcast, and I am your dutiful cruise director on the Lido Deck on this journey of self-betterment and self-actualization that we are all blazing here together. Welcome. Today, very excited to sit down with one of my very best friends, somebody I love dearly and have known for over 20 years, writer, director, bon vivant, Sasha Gervasi for his second appearance on the show, his first being episode 249 about two years ago. Sasha's credits include penning The Terminal, a little movie you

might've seen directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks. Sasha also directed Hitchcock starring Anthony Hopkins, but he is perhaps best known for a documentary called Anvil, The Story of Anvil. His Emmy and Independent Spirit award-winning real-life spinal tap rockumentary about this also ran Canadian heavy metal band that many critics consider one of the greatest films ever made about rock and roll. If you have not yet seen this documentary, I implore you to do so immediately. It is just fantastic. But the focus of today's conversation is Sasha's new movie. It's called My Dinner with Hervé. It premieres on HBO on October 20th. And it's a look at the wild, crazy life

of French actor Hervé Villachos, who, if you're my age, you will recall, famously played a character called Tattoo in the number one hit 1970s TV series, Fantasy Island. The film is based upon this crazy, insane night that Sasha had with Hervé, who was played in the movie by Game of Thrones' Peter Dinklage, that transpired about a week before Irv's suicide. And it's about this unlikely friendship that develops between these two guys that permanently changes both of their lives. It's a movie that Sasha began writing over 20 years ago when he was still a young buck in film school.

It's the first script he ever wrote. And the movie is beautiful. It's funny. It's tragic. It's surprisingly emotional. I think it's the best work that Sasha has ever done. I think it's the best work that Peter Dinklage has ever done. And I do believe it is the best work that Jamie Dornan has ever done.

He delivers this amazing nuanced performance as Danny Tate, who is the journalist that's loosely based on Sasha's life. Jamie is, of course, most recognized for his portrayal as Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades movies. But listen, if that's all you know about this guy, I gotta tell you, there is way more to this man. He is an amazing talent and just somebody with a lot more depth than you may imagine. I first came across him, it's gotta be four or five years ago at this point,

by way of a TV series that he did called The Fall, which you should all check out. It's this dark psychological thriller in which he co-stars with Gillian Anderson. And I was really struck by his very convincing ability to create depth, to evoke pathos and empathy for this seemingly irredeemable character that he plays. And I really believe that Hervé is going to be a game changer for him. It's a role that's going to leave audiences with a brand new appreciation for this guy's talents. Super

excited to have both of these fine gentlemen on the show today. And there's a bunch more I want to say about them and this incredible movie before we dive into the conversation. But first, let's take care of a little business, shall we? We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming

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I love my sponsors. They make this show possible. So one of the best ways to support the podcast beyond subscribing to it and sharing it with your friends is to patronize our partners. So thank you for that. So I first read a version of the Herve script back in maybe 2005, and I knew immediately it was super special. As much autobiographical for Sasha, who was a bit of a mess when he was sent to interview Irvay, as it is universal.

And this conversation is about how a chance encounter between two people in various states of desperation develop this unlikely friendship that really forever alters both of their lives for better and for worse. But more than that, it's about not giving up on a dream. It's about how we prejudge people based on their outsides. It's about the delusion of fame and this need to be seen. And ultimately, it's about what happens when we look outside ourselves for validation to solve the pain of life. This one is really fun. Both these guys are hilarious and super insightful. And I think you're going to really enjoy it and the movie, which again, premieres on HBO October 20th.

So with that, I give you Jamie Dornan and Sasha Shervasi. I think I took some silent food with me. You can just munch away. This is what we should be fucking recording. I'm just going to lick this until it's finished. Wait, why don't you start with that? Okay, are we ready? Push fucking record, dude.

It's fucking recording. I'm silently going to lick the pickle until it's done with. I just want to lick this until it's finished. Podcast over. We're done. I think we did it. Is that it? We did it?

Isn't lick the pickle quite a satisfying thing to say? Lick the pickle. I might start my own podcast called Lick the Pickle. You've got something in your teeth. I do. I thought you were going to tell him

when he has shit on his face. You sort of set the tone for being polite, so I went for that. Well, thanks for slating some time for me in between Ellen and Ryan Seacrest. I'm quite touched. You're a priority over those two.

You are a priority. You're a top media outlet. I'm excited to talk to you guys. And I just watched the movie like half an hour ago. And? And I was quite moved. I was moved by the movie itself and the narrative. I was touched by it.

But I think that I was also very touched by it simply because I've known you, Sasha, for so long. And I've known this story for so long. And I read your original short script version of this that you wrote when you were in film school and I know how many years you've been working on this story. I probably wrote it 20 years ago I think the first short script. Yeah I think so right. Yeah. So it's got to be an emotional moment for you. Definitely it really is it's a kind of bizarre sort of out-of-body experience because it's taken so long to get here. And then, you know, like, for example, just today to be running around with Jamie and just promoting it and having people responding emotionally to the film is, is incredible.

Yeah, and I think it's interesting that that You know Irv a was 50 when this all went down and now you're 51, right? Like you're and you're at the age that he was at so there's something kind of poetic about that but most importantly Peter as well because we tried to make the film 15 years ago and We couldn't get it made is too young And just like we couldn't get it made. He's too young. Yeah. He was too. He really didn't have, seriously though, he didn't have. And just like there was only one guy who could play tattoo. There's only one guy that could play tattoo in the movie. That's right.

You know, that's right. You know, and, and so it was just not, it's time. And we had so many, you know,

frustrating times and people who nearly wanted to make it and then didn't. And then we had offers that were just useless. And I think I said this earlier, I was talking with Jamie about it, but I cannot tell you how many times people said, dude, this is the most seriously uncommercial concept in the world. It's a suicidal dwarf film set in multiple time periods. Set in multiple time periods.

It's incredibly expensive. It is literally, you could not come up with anything more completely uncommercial. And people said, just give it up. And I was like, I just couldn't do it. Right. But, you know. What is the elevator pitch?

I mean, what was the one-liner? I mean, I don't even know if there was one. It was like, how can you even? You can't even pitch this as one line. But, you know, it was just a true-life encounter with Hervé Villachez in the final week of his life. And the film is basically that. It's this unexpected meeting between two people who, at first, could not be more dramatically different or seem more completely dissimilar,

but who, as the narrative progresses and the layers are peeled away, become almost the same person. Yeah, as the night progresses, it's almost like this odd couple. You feel like these guys have been having this argument for 20 years. You know what I mean? You're like, wait, they just met like five hours ago. What? What?

That's it? No more questions? I've got more than enough. Actually, I have another interview to get to tonight. Another interview? Tonight? Unfortunately, yeah. I'm already late. You know, I haven't given an interview in ten years, but when your paper called, it has quite a reputation, you know?

Yeah, it does. Which is why I'm so surprised. Why are we surprised? They didn't used to send the juniors. I'm not a junior. Only a junior would have written the story before they got here. Knick-knack. Tattoo. Just a silly little moment,

but I'm sure that's all someone of your stature would be interested in That's funny, you know, you should be very careful a few years. I'm gonna be editing that paper But there was this intuitive sort of understanding and recognition of the other even though they really didn't really like each other. I think they were both in a similar place, these two characters at that time. And Hervé, obviously, in the final week of his life, and the Danny Tate character wrestling with the same issues Hervé is in a certain way. The difference, obviously, is I think there's hope

and a future for one character and the others very much at the end of the road. And I think it's interesting because when i met herve for real and he was drinking and popping these pills i mean he had that green samsonite vanity case filled with all these different medications marked with like strong do not take at night and extra strength and you know it was just this sort of walking pharmacy and and knives and guns and it was just so bizarre um you know he was obviously going down and i think that when characters are going down um you know they do one of two things they either

take someone with them or they rescue them and i think throughout the main body of the film herve is wrestling with toying with this guy like fuck life fuck everything i'm going out i'm going to take this guy down too just almost for you know evil fun almost and what happens is through danny tate's forcibly kind of basically making herve face the truth of his own kind of responsibility and his downfall in one sense you know herve i think gains a kind of respect for him because he really senses that this guy also has everything to win or lose from this encounter he knows he's fucked up this other interview he knows that the stakes are pretty high for him and through this ultimately this incredible conflict i think you know if the film works a kind of friendship emerges and these two people realize they're kind of ships in the night you know one lives one doesn't but the point is that

what started as a kind of i'm going to take this guy down with me becomes an unintended rescue story that through her vase kind of own experience tate is able to recognize that the path he's on is one that's not going to end well and he really changes his life at the end of the at the end of the film and that is pretty much true to really what happened in real life too was you know was what i got from her which is why here we are 25 years later i think if there wasn't something profound and real about it i would i would never have persisted for this long and roped all these incredible talents into you know helping me to tell the story you're basically a lunatic i'm a complete lunatic yeah i mean you you have

to be i think you have to be i think you know like like anvil you know it's just this story of people who refuse to give up no matter what you know even when it is ridiculous and any normal person would quit right this is this is in some, a parallel track to Anvil and you're not giving up on this script. I mean, yeah, you wrote the first draft 20 years ago, but it's not like you put it away and picked it back up. I mean, we were in Italy in, what, 2005? And I was rewriting it then. You were rewriting it then and that was 13 years ago. Well, I was making other films and I kept coming back to it. It was constantly evolving because I was disswriting it then. You were rewriting it then, and that was 13 years ago. Well, I was making other films, and I kept coming back to it.

It was constantly evolving because I was dissatisfied with the script because I just felt it didn't really bring you into the feelings of the actual experience, and I wanted to try and somehow do that. So it was one of these labors of love. You know, it's like you need the story to kind of marinate in order for it to distill. It sometimes takes a long period of time. And so this one, it took an incredibly long period of time and so this one it

took an incredibly long period of time i was always just on the cusp but never getting it and finally you know i decided to pick it up again about three years ago having left it for about five years you know properly and me and peter i sort of rewrote the script and pete really liked it and we were really excited to make the film and And then again, it didn't happen. You know, we got the same comments, the suicidal dwarf thing, you know, blah, blah, blah, you know. And so we were really willing to let it go. We just said, you know, fuck it. It's never going to happen. You know, if we can't do it right, let's just accept our fate and just let it go.

You know, it was a thing that could have happened. And then it's funny. That's very un-Anvil. It's very un-Anvil. But we had no choice because, you know, with Anvil, what was easy was I was able to control that because I was paying for the movie myself. So, you know, it was a documentary even though I shot it over two years. But with this, it was like we needed a lot of money. You know, we needed to be able to afford, you know, the best people.

And as I said, it was a very ambitious schedule and, you know, it covers a lot of worlds and timeframes. Well, you mentioned the character Danny Tate, which Jamie plays, which is more than semi-autobiographical. I mean, it's not you per se, but it's certainly your story and your experience with this character. Like, where do you, you know, first of all, Jamie, like, how did you approach playing this version of Sasha? And where does reality in your experience depart from the fictionalized version that Jamie portrays? I mean, I think, you know, the word to take from that is like a version of, you know, like I kind of, I think we agreed quite early on that there'd be a separation between the reality of what happened and what Sasha experienced with Hervé and what we portrayed on screen. Now, listen, obviously there's a lot of stuff that's very similar and some stuff that's exact, but the first time I read the script,

he was scripted as Danny Tate, although I'd been filled in by my agent about the real story and that it was really Sasha who was the journalist all those years ago. But I sort of, in a way, although at times it was difficult, but in a way I always felt that I was doing my own thing. And it was, I sort of needed to feel. You were trying to mimic Sasha's behaviour. Yeah, well, geez, good luck. Good luck on that one.

Who wants to see that anyway? I don't have the energy to do that, quite frankly. Very bad idea. I mean... It would also, you know, it would be, it would have been a very different experience had I been directed by the man I'm trying to portray and trying to capture his characteristics and his voice and his

I just think it would have taken away from something that was more sort of grounded in what we wanted it to be and feeling like it was within myself and I speak for Pete as well in a way because in a way he didn't want to mimic Herve he wanted to get the voice pretty close but it still wanted to be his own version of and in terms of how he looked and where we went with, you know, I think at one time down years before I was involved, you played around with prosthetics and stuff to make him look more like Hervé. And actually it ended up becoming a bit...

It wasn't like just a cancel strike, you know. And at a certain point, just like Jamie's absolutely right, you know, Peter is playing his version of herve and danny tate yes the basic core facts you know young journalist final you know final week alive with her interviews herve and then has is left with this story i mean those things are true but you know in order for the film to work danny tate had to become a fully fleshed out a fully a character that was fully alive and and And Jamie had to take ownership of that character. I mean, as much as you're playing a version of me,

I think it's fair to say, you know, you've had, I'm sure, things in your life. We don't want to get into too much detail, but there are moments where we've all been through things that, you know, Danny goes through. And so he was bringing as much of himself to it as possible. And I think that, you know, it was wonderful for there to be no pressure on either of us because I wasn't looking for him to do anything specific other than to be hopefully emotionally authentic and to really dive into the role.

And he did. And Peter, similarly, you know, we knew that Peter Dinklage really doesn't look anything like Herve. Right. And he doesn't really sound anything like her face so But the essence the spirit is so close to the real her Bay that Kathy his real-life girlfriend who lived with him for the last Four at four years of his life and who sadly was there the night that you know have they killed himself She saw the film the other day and she just was speechless because she felt she she said To you know me and Jessica produced the movie. said, thank you for giving him back to me. It was really intense.

So I think whatever Peter captured, it was close to the spirit. And similarly with Jamie, he caught something authentic that I think is not just really about me or even about him, but it's about a character who's on the edge, who's literally, as much as Hervé's stakes are life and death, it's life and death for Danny's career. It's life and death for Danny's soul, you know, if he's not able to face the wreckage he's caused through, you know, his incredibly destructive alcoholic behavior. And so, the story is as much about those things as it is about the specifics of, you know, Hervé and my story. I mean, those are really the backdrop.

Right. Yeah. It's in confronting Hervé with the truth of his life and his behavior that he's able to finally grapple with and come to terms with the truth of his own wreckage and situation to come to this place of acceptance, really. Because that's what the movie's about. I mean, the most impactful line in the whole movie for me, and what I think is really at the core of the whole thing, is when Hervé says, when Peter says, life depends not on what a man can do, but what he can accept,

right? And that kind of is like, that's the thematic through line. I think there are several things going on. That's part of it. And I think for both characters, the theme is almost the same. You've got two people, as I say, who present so dramatically differently, but ultimately who are both really facing the same thing. They're both struggling to find the courage to own their own truth, to recognize their part in things.

And that's really why I think the film is, you know, resonating with the people who've seen it so far is, you know, we all walk into situations and we prejudge, as I did with Hervé. I walked into my first interview with Hervé and I thought, oh, this is going to be funny. This will be a laugh. You know, the plain, the plain, ha ha, get a few stories. And then, you know, when I was packing my stuff away, he walked around the table and he was pointing his lock knife that had been using to eat his duck a la range you know at my throat you know he's two feet from me and he had this look in his eye and he was like i've told you all the bullshit stories now do you want to hear the real story

of my life and it was just something that punctured basically my own stupidity my own prejudgment because it was impossible for me to perceive or conceive that this surreal Fellini-esque creature was an actual human being he was just a punchline to me that's how the world saw him and so he was able to kind of get my attention and bring me into the world and I hope that the film in some way reflects that because when Danny shows up at that restaurant he could not be less interested in this kind of stupid little interview. He's got bigger fish to fry. And that was really what it was, how we all do that.

You know, we think that, you know, we know what's up. And how often, you know, our judgment is just a wall between two human beings. And often we're so wrong because we don't know the whole truth or even part of it sometimes. And with Hervé, his story was so complex and different and painful and joyous and insane that, you know, it was just too much to really take in. So, it's just put him in a pigeonhole of punchline, ha-ha, funny tattoo. But, you know... He also was somebody who imprinted on our young brains. I mean, Jamie's too young, but for you and I, we're the same age Are you saying we're old?

Yeah, we are old, dude You're saying I'm young? Yeah, how old is he? He fucking looks 14 It's this cream that he's been using Honestly, it's like this special vegan cream Let's talk about your workout from the age of... Can we talk about your workout routine? We're on the fucking Hatch Roll podcast

We may get into the vegan face cream You know, if you're... Your latest Marlin campaign. We're on the fucking Hatch Role podcast. We may get into the vegan face cream. Oh, Christ. You know, if you're, I think you have to be our age to really grasp the impact that that character had on, like, the psyche of a young 12-year-old. I mean, I don't know what it was like in the UK, but in the United States, you know, when you were a kid and you were our age, there's three channels, and that's it. That's all you get to watch and it was the love boat and fantasy island and like emergency and charlie's angels and like that was it and i mean what was the viewership on fantasy island it was massive i mean they did the pilot it was immensely successful i think for the first four seasons that hervey did

the show i think it's roughly 78 to 82 roughly it was by I think 80 81 the number one TV show in the world so in the UK it was the same imprint Australia you know everywhere her tattoo was world famous and you know what's interesting is the parallel with Peter now you know so Peter is the most famous dwarf on the world on the biggest TV show in the world now and so there's this meta thing that he's playing the most famous dwarf in the world on the biggest TV show in the world now. And so there's this meta thing that he's playing the most famous dwarf in the world on the biggest TV show then. And I think that's what drew him to the story. And I think that's what will hook hopefully the audience in. But the movie that we're giving them, I think is quite different to what they're going to expect or to what

they might perceive. They're probably going to think it's quite kitsch and funny and ha ha. And it's about ego and fame and, you know, sobriety and these heavy, you know, these heavy issues. It's also about friendship, about how out of conflict sometimes. But that's right. This movie is about two desperately lonely people who somehow find each other and connect and are able to alleviate their loneliness. And I don't know, that was something I felt at the time. And I knew how lonely Herbie was. And I was not dissimilar to Danny Tate in some sense.

I was struggling with coming out of a very bad period of booze and drugs. And I didn't... You weren't that newly sober. No, I wasn't. You were about a year, weren't you? That's right. I was about a year. And obviously, Danny is 30 days, a month or so.

Again, in terms of the movie, we wanted to bring the audience into the intimate feelings of the experience. And there were three meetings with Herve over a week. We made that into just one night. Danny's 30 days sober rather than a year. We just wanted to up the ante and increase the stakes so people could really feel what was going on. And Jamie, what was it for you that attracted you to this project? Just money, really. Yeah. I got paid a fortune.

You're only promoting like 20 movies right now. No, I know. It's going to be a big year for you. It's a busy time. When I heard they're going to pay me more than Pete, I was like, yeah, why not? I mean, appropriate as well. Did Pete get paid? That's very meta with the storyline.

Yes, that's true. It's funny, you know, I guess I'm relatively privileged, definitely acutely aware of my privileged position at this time in my career where I have an element of say over what I do a bit of choice which um uh I'm sort of very grateful for and you read a lot of varied uh projects a lot of very different scripts and different worlds and I I love that about this doing this for a living I love the variety of it all and occasionally when i'm sent something by my team or whatever my agent will then send a they'll send the sort of main bump

of what it's about like who's directing who's producing when they plan to shoot what the budget is whatever in one email and they did that with hervey and then i got a follow-up email directly afterwards from my agent saying uh put this one at the top of the list, read this first, which I always know means that it's a sign that she, you know, it's something that she cares about. And, you know, this has obviously been around for a long time. It's had previous incarnations. It's nearly been made.

There's been other actors in Sasha's mind to play to play danny and you know so i was made aware of all that by my agent and i read it i was i just was very caught up in it i find it very emotional um it was mad it was like this isn't like the other scripts. Yeah, no, it's really, like, just really wasn't, you know. I just felt like it was something totally unique. Did you, were you familiar with Fantasy Island? A wee bit, a wee bit. Like, where I come from, Belfast in Northern Ireland, and I guess we had, like, similar,

we had three channels growing up. If someone had said to me, who's Herveville, it's just, I would have, I would have recognized that name. I would have known who he was from man with the golden gun, the bomb film. He did as well.

Like, um, uh, Nick, Nick, you know, I would have known him from that. Um,

we got love boat. I remember love boat been on at some ungodly hour, uh, and, uh, watching that a little bit, but, um,

it wasn't like massively in our sort of social consciousness growing up. Did you go back and watch old Fantasy Island reruns? I did see some of it, yeah. How did they hold up? Well, I mean, the pilot is one of the most genius things. The pilot was phenomenal. It was really dark and strange and original and unique. And then I think, you know, by season two or three, it's sort of...

Rolling out of ideas. Yeah, it was, you know, it was not necessarily the brilliant show that it could have been. But it was for a while. And I think that Hervé as Tattoo really became the sensation. Because remember, that show was originally a vehicle for ricardo montalban who was a big star and he danced with sid charisse and done many you know mgm musicals and it was a really big deal and had been in a lot of western films and so they wanted to really find a vehicle for ricardo and then they thought oh let's have a a henchman a sidekick and that became herve i understand this is the most difficult moment

in your personal life, but we have a crew waiting, and this is not the first time you make them wait. Contrary to what you may think, I am your friend and I understand your pain. Although I hate the sin, I've been taught to love the sinner, so please listen to me very carefully. If you decide to leave now, your life will never be the same. And I promise you, you will regret it.

So come, Tatu. Let's welcome our guest. Thank you for trying, Ricardo. Perhaps there's another little man. Ultimately, Tattoo became so popular that the scenes you see in the film with the kind of fan mail were pretty exactly what happened that suddenly tattoos started getting Seven bags and ricardo got one and so it became the tattoo show And I think it became so I mean well, that's when the demand started as well to be paid

That's the same as ricardo and all the sort of madness that ensued the madness And I mean, I remember her they telling me a crazy story That's not in the film that he was so famous that he couldn't go shopping at a supermarket and one time or the last times He went shopping. He was shopping in this guy this business and came up to him and said hey My kids are like huge fans of tattoo. I I really want you to meet them and he said oh, thank you so much I'll sign an autograph said no. No, you've got to meet them and have a simple. I'm kind of shopping now I mean are they here? No, no, they're at my house. Will you come and have they said I can't I'm sure I've got to go Somewhere anyway, the guy picked her they up and put him into the trunk of his car.

The trunk? And drove him. What? And drove him against his will to his house to meet children. And from then on, he said he always carried a gun. Because he was 3'10". But he always carried a knife anyway, right? He carried a knife always.

But from then, that was the moment he carried a gun. He was 3'10". You could just grab him. And so he was heavily armed because he was tired of being forced to do things like that. And tired of walking down the street in Paris and having its head kicked in, which really happened. But it's a push and pull because on some level he wanted that and demanded it. of push and pull because on some level he wanted that and demanded it like his the the the drive behind his ego which is fueled by pain of course uh propelled him to arrive at such a place but but of course and this is the thing with fame and i know jamie's experienced a lot of the other side

of the curtain you know and and for those people i spoke to i don't know how you feel jane but it's quite hollow From what I've seen in others There's no there there and I think that her they as you say had this very deep Primal pain like most human beings do and he wanted something outside of himself to fill it up and for a while it worked You know, but at a certain point, you know, he says it Peter says I think very eloquently in the film You know at the end of the day, I realize I'm no different to anyone else addicted to a fantasy, the fantasy that something or someone will take away the pain of life. And we all have that.

That was the other quote that I wrote down. That really does capture it. It captures because all of us, we pursue these things. I'm going to make a million dollars, or I'm going to win an award, or I'm going to marry this amazing person, or I'm going to trade. And there's going to be this thing that's going to get, you know, I'm going to make a million dollars or I'm going to win an award or I'm going to marry this amazing person or I'm going to, you know. And there's going to be this thing that's going to fix it. And I think, you know, Herve is like, you know, one of the most salient examples of you can have everything. But if what you're looking from everything, you know, is the wrong thing, you have nothing.

When you're looking outside of yourself to fill whatever hole. And he was. And it was the pain was too great. He had this this, he wasn't really an actor. He was a performance artist. He was a brilliant painter. He kind of fell into this thing. And for a while, the fame really filled him up. And I think that's where he and Peter is so dramatically different in that Peter really understands the emptiness of the world. and he really sort of protects himself from it. I think Herve, in one sense, was so desperate to heal this kind of inner pain

that he sort of filled up with as much as he could. And ultimately, there's no there there, you know, and he realized that. And I think Danny helps him come to terms with that and make peace with his life before he ends it. Right. I mean, intellectually, we all understand that on some level, that we're not going to find that sense of peace and purpose and fulfillment in anything outside ourselves. And yet, I think we all still fall prey to the delusion that like, well, maybe. You know what I mean? Of course.

It's an ongoing battle. And like you said, I mean, Jamie, I can't imagine what life is like for you having to navigate the world being who you are as somebody who can probably relate to what that's like more than most people on the world. Like how do you maintain your sense of self and groundedness? I mean, it's got to be math. A lot of it is doing methamphetamine. Yeah, you did a couple movies. Which is incredible.

I mean, he keeps it quiet. He's a pretty mellow. He's sort of dealing now. So if anyone wants to call him. Right. Medicaid heavily. Do we have a number then? Yeah, it's 188-VEGAN-MATH. pretty mellow. He's sort of dealing now. So if anyone wants to call, I think Medicaid, do we have a number of them? It's one,

you know, vegan. My cell number is, um, I, to be honest with you, like I almost, I'm not conscious of it. I don't,

it's not something that I am aware. I, I, I don't, I sometimes live in LA, but don't really live in LA. We live in the countryside a couple hours outside London. I see the first things I see in the morning are my beautiful little girls

and my wife and then some sheep and some cows. And our life is separate from whatever it is that people expect that comes with being in the public eye or whatever i feel that was a decision we made that you know particularly because we have young kids and want to protect them from it i don't want them to know what i do for a living until they really sort of have to you know what i mean and um my feeling is that it's it's very isolated I find with recognition or fame or whatever within my life it's very isolated to moments where people know where you're going to be

if people know where you're going to be you're fucked but any other time you're grand especially if you live where we live there's no one out there, there's no paparazzi we've chosen to separate ourselves from that. But if you're at a premiere or you're at an event or whatever it is where people know you're going to be, then it can be uncomfortable.

But that is so, that is, you're talking five days or nights a year. And the rest of the time,'s not it's not my consciousness are you aware jane going for your life as you do are you aware what it would could you see how people could fall into totally and i always think you could make so much more i mean i'm not in social media i think that's a great way to separate yourself from whatever it is fame recognition whatever you want to call it that's in fact that's the key way of staying out of it is not to be on social media. There's so much more you can make of it and you could choose to, you know, which I think Harvey did, you know,

make the most out of. And listen, I think part of that is down to the fact of his physical size and the opportunities that come, especially then. But even now um that there's less opportunities in that in this sort of world to to do to make money and to to continue the the ride and i think hervey was acutely aware of that and made the most of that whereas pete um has the opportunity to you know make so much more out of who he is and he's the lead in the biggest tv show and you know, make so much more out of who he is. And he's the lead in the biggest TV show in, you know, the last, you know, certainly decade. And he chooses not to do that. He has a pretty anonymous life in Brooklyn and very normal existence.

And again, isn't on social media. And that's something he's done to protect himself and his family. And so Pete and I, that's not the only reason we get on so well, but I think we both share that same thing, the same sort of approach to it. And it just has no, the idea of fame has so little interest to me. It's not, it doesn't.

What do people most misunderstand about it? I think the biggest thing is that people think you're going to be, I'm trying to get away from saying like actors are humans too, but like, but it's that thing of like, you are just people who do something different for a living. We just do something different to,

to other people. Like it's, but it's still a job. I think the, the onus and the attention and the amount that is given to people who are fans, they might have fucking magazines and the amount of shit websites and the amount of social media stuff,

it's just fueling this need for people to know more. So then it exasperates that idea that if you're famous, you're like this untouchable thing. You're like your other. Oh, well, they do. They're not just fucking walking about. They're on a yacht. Yeah, right.

You know, in South Africa. Right, constantly. But that's the thing. I think the social media thing is absolutely key and that's why I think the film you know if it has some timeliness a large part of it is because of this meditation on fame because Since her they lived in the past 25 years particularly in the past 10 to 15 You know the idea of the value of celebrity and the value of fame being sort of elevated to this kind of almost princely kind of Otherworldly level of kind of achievement and importance. I mean I find it really disturbing when young kids who I run into or whatever What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be famous like, you know

They think they can go on American Idol and you know, you know, people don't understand that it takes a ton of work it takes years of work they say it takes 20 000 hours of something to get good or to get excellent at any particular skill and i think what's worrying is a lot of kids growing up with this incredible entitlement and they're on instagram which to me is basically a big promotional campaign for either your business or to boast and say how incredibly happy you are for me the people who insist on how happy they are usually aren't and you've got kids young kids growing up kind of comparing their insides with other people's outsides and so i don't think you know there could be a better time to really speak to ultimately the hollowness and

emptiness of something which is so ephemeral and meaningless and people famous for for being what for being on a tv show you know to me it's it's a very in a strange way strangely degraded time in culture where we've got to get back to just being real human beings and stop really you know selling ourselves out to these flimsy, false, inauthentic ideas that somehow, if we're famous, and we have 14 million followers on YouTube, that, you know, that has meaning in the real world. It doesn't. It's going to take some U-turn, though. Yeah, it's going to take that. But I'm saying I agree. And it's worrying. And I think we need to be discussing this stuff. We need to be telling be telling kids listen fame is like it was for her

you know you that jamie and peter's attitude toward it exactly the right one because it will devour you it will swallow you and if you give yourself over to it there is nothing there except a whole bunch of you know suicidal depression and you know it really is but i find the kids growing up as i say comparing their insights to other people's outsides with no sense of what it means to actually work hard and achieve something over a long period of time you know that they're in for a really rude awakening it's a confusing time because there are those outlier examples of people who do seem to suddenly you know become culturally relevant for very little reason yeah exactly

and they're making all this money and it's it's it's you know as somebody who has kids you have you have young kids i got two two daughters me too um as a parent it's frightening terrifying it's it's scary i mean i have a 12old daughter. Lord knows what she's exposed to. But the reality is, I do know that it is really hard for young people who are just emotionally developing, just beginning to feel who they are and trying to find their feet. pull out a supercomputer out of your phone and see all the people that didn't invite you to the party having fun at the party at your expense. It's horrible. You know, like, imagine that on a young, impressionable brain and what that does to your sense of self. Well, I think what we're seeing is the symptoms of that, which is an increasingly desperate and awful opioid crisis amongst middle-class families and their kids. And, you know, the degradation that we're seeing is as a result of those things,

because, you know, we're teaching kids, rather than to feel good about themselves, to feel like shit, the online bullying that goes on. I mean, I'm just happy that we're able to have the discussion, to at least shine a light on it, whether it makes a difference or not, who knows, but to be able to discuss these real things, you know, and,

and to be able to, to have this film talk about fame in the way it does. And even if you achieve it for the right reasons and you're grounded, like Jamie appears to be, I don't know you, but you seem like you have your shit together. Uh, I would imagine it's different.

Like one thing I would imagine it has to be incredibly challenging is, is every time you meet somebody, they're projecting some idea of you onto you. And second to that, like where, you know, what's the angle? What do they want? You know, you have to like, what's it, what's everybody's agenda, right? You can't just take people at face value. I think that the projection there, I think you've touched on something,

that's exactly how I see it, is that anyone who meets me who doesn't know me, everyone who meets me who doesn't know me has a projection of what I am. It's not even their fault. No, and listen, we're all probably guilty of that a wee bit like with people I did the same thing with Herve when I met him of course I projected onto him the and it's something we can all work on trying to

not do but I think for me from the other side of it I guess is that like you're fucked the moment you live up to the projection that like um you're fucked the moment you you live up to the projection that's when you're fucked or you start playing to it yeah because we all know i i know what the projection of me is like and people you know i don't know what is that what is it it's probably

not something massively positive i think people think i'm just going to be a tool, like a tool. But you know what? But can I say what's really interesting is because this whole film is about being judged. One of the themes is how we all prejudge and rush to judgment. You know, in a way, what I love about Peter and Jamie in the film is the audience will bring their preconceptions about whatever they think. And you're talking about two people who have, for large parts of their life probably, been judged on their looks. But, you know, it's superficial. Once you peel away the layers, once you actually try and interrogate, what is the truth? Who are these people? It's, as Jamie says, so different to what you imagine. And we also want to discuss that. The idea that, you know,

you can't literally, that old maxim, you can't judge a book by its cover. You really don't know. It may seem a certain way, and your word seem was appropriate before, because the way things seem or appear, they're mostly not that way. Yeah, that's a super interesting point. Because somebody who doesn't know anything can go into the movie and go oh, it's the Fifty Shades guy It's the Game of Thrones guy. What is this gonna be and immediately they're in a place of Prejudging something before they've seen a frame Yeah, and I and I I think what Jamie and I and that's what the movies about as well exactly Which is exactly why I think Jamie and I recognize that it was a great opportunity. Because, look, for most people in my world, for example, being British, growing up in England, people actually know Jamie for The Fool, which is one of the most incredible series for which he was nominated for a BAFTA. I mean, it's incredible performance.

That's what I know you from. But a lot of you have to understand, a lot of people in mainstream America don't know that series necessarily. They don't necessarily watch The Fall on Netflix, or they don't know The Siege of Jadaville, or they don't know all the interesting projects that he's done over so many years. They just know him for this sort of massive commercial behemoth. So for us, there was the opportunity to completely defy those expectations and perceptions. And that's one of the things that so many people who don't know jamie's work in depth have seen the film and said oh my god dawn it is so completely different to how i imagined i mean he's you know i i'm the director so i can say but i think his performance in the film is is pretty fucking incredible yeah and and

it defies what you what a lot of people think. And so that is absolutely something we were conscious of playing with. And I think you wanted to play with too, right? For certain parts of the audience. No. He didn't. No.

Yeah. That dude in the fall was dark. He was dark. He was dark. By the way, how close is that to you? I want to know. Too close. Too close to talk about.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, pending charges. No, what was interesting about that is, I mean, it's confusing to watch that show because what he does is so reprehensible and incomprehensible. And yet there's a humanity to him. You have some empathy. Yeah, he seems like he's a humanity to him. You have some empathy, right? Yeah, he's like, he seems like he's a pretty good dad. That was our pointer when we were trying to get across

it. Not to compare famous actors to serial killers, but there is an element of like that thing of, you know, how you're perceived or portrayed or, you know, they're humans too.

I mean, it's that thing of like, you can have the guy next door who holds down a really good job and who has a wife and two kids and be seemingly normal from the outside and he's killing people at night. I mean, that's a thing. That's a real thing.

You know, I don't know. I watched a lot of interviews with Ted Bundy. yeah well yeah ted bundy was a lot like that he's an he's an impressive person to absolutely listen to he's so eloquent clearly so bright um charming um by the time just before he was killed i mean he wasn't hiding the craziness as well as sort of you know other footage you see of him from before he was found out but he you know for all intents and purposes he's a normal dude you know

apart from this slight psychopathic part on the surface you know but he's compartmentalised it's just this little area you're right exactly like any normal guy apart from the fact he has this additional he likes to kill people part. A little asterisk.

Just a little asterisk. But that was great. Again, defying expectations, defying people's expectations or perceptions about Hervé, also about Danny Tate, all of these things. And the other thing was, as journalists, particularly living in that world of British journalism of the 90s it was so cynical I'll give you an example I was sent sent to interview a very and and you you know these journalists have this horrible reputation much of which is entirely deserved but what people don't

understand is that often an editor or a newspaper has a particular agenda and they'll send in a journalist right to basically do uh you know do a shiv piece which is you know like completely kill them right um and that's not what the journalists themselves want you know and and i was sent to an interview an incredibly famous pop star and i was told by my editor this bloke is a wanker and here are the reasons why and i want you to basically skew him and kill him and i went to meet this guy and I was like, okay, he's good-looking. He's incredibly fucking brilliant He's an unbelievable songwriter. I mean and I and I loved him and yet here I am in you know In you know, and my task is to fucking attack this person and it felt like shit

And I think that that's that's a tallest poppy syndrome though isn't it it's just no one likes the tallest poppy and in britain that was particularly what it was but you know they will you know i can imagine a british journalist from a you know certain newspaper going oh jamie dawn and what a fucker you know and they'll come up with all he's good looking he's a movie star fuck him you know and and you know but then there'll be the person who actually meets jamie and goes actually, he's pretty fucking cool. He's grounded. You know, he's not he doesn't take any of it or himself too seriously.

You know, that's and then can you imagine you feel that and then your job is still to kill that person and again to to judge them and pigeonhole them in the same way that I was asked to do that with her. So I wanted to also shine a light on the fact that not only an actor's human, but also sometimes journalists in that situation Really are in a really horribly treacherous Bankrupt moral place because they're asked to do something that they don't believe in And the only response to that as I discovered at the end of the you know As danny tate discovers at the end of the film is to get the fuck out yeah i couldn't stand the hate that these people had any longer and the hate and this came from jealousy and that came from being too afraid to have the courage of their own convictions and stand up and take a risk and risk failing and being embarrassed which is part of success you've got to fail you know and these guys it was happy

for them to sit behind the wall and sniperipe at other people. That was easy. And like Herve says in the film, it's easy to sit on the sidelines and judge, isn't it, Junior? And it is, because I've done that. And that was early mid-90s, right? Imagine it now in the clickbait culture that we live. I mean, the pressure to create sensationalism out of these short, stupid articles is unprecedented. I'm totally at the mercy of the editor. Right.

To jump in on that, I've had many interviews in my career where you're always tempted to ask them at the end to be nice. Will you just be nice? Will you write someone nice? We've had a nice afternoon. Please don't turn this into a hatchet job and that's exactly what's happened I've left and gone

oh that was really nice I didn't say I didn't embarrass myself I don't think you know we talked she seemed very or he seemed very you know

non-judgmental and you know it was it all went well and then it'll come out and I it made me come across

like a fucking prick yeah yeah this is typical you know like wait till you hear the edit that I'm going to do on this podcast come out and they made me come across like a fucking prank. Yeah, this is typical. Wait till you hear the edit that I'm going to do in this podcast. What's the title? Are you going to re-voice me? It's just a short mini essay, Jamie Dornan

Cunt. That's what it's called. It's very short and it's going to be a great piece. I can't wait. It's all about the pickle. You'll get more hits. So what I'm getting from this is that we really are setting the world bang to rights. I think, are we all running for president? Is that what's going on?

We have a decent chance in this country. We fucking have a decent chance. We've got fucking... You're not American. None of you guys are. I'm the only person who could be. Okay, well, we'll be on your team. We'll support you.

We'll support you. Can we be on the card or anything? Yeah, we want to be on the card. I might move to Ireland, actually. I love Ireland. Before we end, do you want to have anything to do with it? We're ending already? Who said that? Why are you making that a note?

Because I know before you end, that could be 30 minutes before we end. I just want to talk about you, Rich. No, this is not about me. I'd love to know because you're... I don't want to talk about Rich. Do we not talk about him? He doesn't want to. But he's amazing, too. We talk all the time. I just want to see if there's some sort of... I want to talk about Rich. Do we not talk about him? Yeah, he doesn't want to. But he's amazing, too. We talk all the time. Okay, I know. We can do that later.

I just want to see is there some sort of – I want to talk about the movie. Okay, talk about the movie. And you. I want to know more about – well, I want to talk about the decision to go with HBO. But, like, walk us through the experience, you know, not the movie, but your own personal experience of what it was like, you know, where you were in your life when you were sent off to, you know, cover this guy. And really the emotional impact that he had on you. Literally, Jamie, literally just fell asleep as he heard the question.

I mean, he's literally closed his eyes. He's got a blanket. It's like fucking more of this. Okay. No, look, I was nearly sober. I was i was uh you know in a mess i was a mess i was a young 23 year old kid i'd got into lots of trouble with different things i'd ended in a really bad situation in new york when i was 23 i was sort of my cousin flew to new york brought me home set me down and said you are going off the rails you've got to calm yourself down and luckily i was very fortunate

and i have to credit my mom millie javazi who was astonishingly like the sort of lioness fighting for her deranged cub you know she she made sure that i you know i had to go and get some fucking help so have i been saying your surname wrong no no what was the surname you just said javazi yeah well you can anyway i said jav Gervasi, it's fine. You can say Gervasi. I said Gervasi, yeah. I've been calling him Jeremy all day, so anyway. But anyway, so, yeah, so I was really in that thing,

and I, you know, I really always wanted to be a writer, and I was very fortunate in that I called up Punch magazine, which was a satirical magazine, quite famous, had been going for about 200 years, and I managed to get through to the deputy editor an incredible guy called sean mccauley and i called up sean and pitched him an idea and he said yes and thus began my journalistic career and then sean then went over to the mail on sunday and kind of became my mentor and was incredible gave me lots of jobs and he was

part of the decision making process actually to send me to la to meet herve and i remember coming and saying to Sean, look, man, we've got to get the fuck out of this racket. This is just terrible. And so, you know, within not too long, Sean and I both moved to Los Angeles to kind of work together and try our hand at screenwriting. And Sean obviously co-wrote the story with me on this and was a big part of it. And he wrote the Eddie. Yes, he wrote the brilliant Eddie the Eagle eagle which is phenomenally hilarious and fun but tell that one story that you told me about being at punch where you took out uh an ad yeah yeah you know what happened was there was there was a notion around the office like when you see the bond film you see

these bond films and it's like you know there's a caribbean headquarters and there's like 400 kind of you know like nimble little assistants in yellow jumpsuits with clipboards and they're all and they're all trying to you know they've all got these nuclear weapons that are going to kill the world and so the concept was do an article putting the real ads so you know caribbean headquarters seeking disciplined kind of assistance for a nuclear-based program. Absolute loyalty a must. And so we actually placed ads, punch-placed ads. And the letters that we got back.

Well, I was discharged unceremoniously from the army four years ago, but I have a really disciplined. And so basically we put in all the plots of the fucking Bond movies, like Goldfinger, everything. You know, we are located at Antigua. And people wrote in and did not fucking get it and wanted to interview. And there were literally things, clues that were so obvious, like, if you do not fear the end of the world and would consider a long-term future in space,

you know, like fucking Moonraker. Like, it was madness. And people fucking loved it. They wrote in, and so really the Punch magazine then published all these different letters, and it was just fucking brilliant. Like the cover letters that people wrote in.

Yeah, wrote in, and they were serious, and they wanted to do it. Surely blanked out the name. And they showed their references, and although in combat I was unfortunately blamed for killing 11 people in a friendly fire incident, I still have incredible skills with weapons, because there were certain ones asking for you,

are you able to drive a tank and could you submerse a ball? It was like people saying hi. But Punch was like legendary for its snark, right? It was sort of a predecessor to Spy magazine. It was sort of similar. It was like the British version of Spy, which obviously proliferated particularly in the 70s and 80s in the States. But it was very funny and it was always of similar. It was like the British version of spy, which obviously proliferated, particularly in the 70s and 80s in the States. But it was very funny and it was always just silly, you know, and it was basically a ridiculous idea.

And you would find people to take it seriously, such as the Bond thing. So, you know, there was always that element. And I have to say that spirit of snark really was the thing that began the Herve article, we were sitting in the office of associated newspapers which is as it appears in the film these giant floors of open desks and hundreds of reporters miserable these were in the days where you know there was money in journalism and if i mean i remember being you know oh we've got this uh brilliant violinist sarah chang we're going to put you on a first class flight to florence you're going to meet her interviewer and then you're going on a river tour You know I mean they spent

Fortunes on these stories and these interviews and so we were sitting around in the office and above there were banks of televisions and at That point there was really one cable channel called super channel, which was the worst One channel and they were rerunning fantasy island I remember sitting around with Sean and some of the other editors and we were like we saw her they go you know come on and it's a ridiculous scene with ricardo montalban and i said where the fuck is he i gotta find him because i was on my way out to la and what was really unusual about it was we managed to get to herve but we had to go through three people we went through a sort of drunk manager and a former assistant and then a publicist and it all led to his personal publicist kathy and we were like oh great we're going to do

this interview you know and then herve requested samples of my work he would not agree to the interview until he had read some interviews i'd done so i was like what is this howard hughes routine like the more absurd it was the more intriguing he became because we all thought he should be so lucky, you know, tattoo that someone even cares 10 years later to do something on him. And so that was really the first clue that something about this situation might turn out to be a little bit unusual.

And so that's how it began and eventually ended with this, with me meeting Herve. And again, what I thought it was going to be, what I imagined when I saw him again on the TV and the story and the film that we have 25 years later is so wildly different. I could never have conceived of what's happened.

How deep into it were you with him before you realized what was actually going on, that he was in fact giving you this last will? I really didn't know over the three meetings. I knew that he had this tremendous emotional need to spill his guts and to tell his life story and to talk about how he emotionally felt about things that had happened in his life. I knew there was something wrong. I mean, when he came up to me the first time and he was holding the knife,

I could smell the medication. I mean, he was not well. So I knew he was not well. I knew he was sort of desperate. I knew he was also the most fascinating person I'd ever met because he would veer between making a really clever, urbane sort of joke to sort of throwing a knife.

It was just like this. It was like being in a Fellini movie I knew something was going on my intuition obviously told me I mean look when when a guy pulls a knife on you saying that you want the real story of course just as a journalist you're going to be like okay what is it so I didn't quite know so over our three meetings it just became increasingly clear that he was trying to somehow just make peace with whatever it was and just kind of tell someone. It was like a confession. So what kept you going? Was it self-belief?

Determination? Or was it just pure desperation? I mean, you had nothing to lose, nothing to go back to. No. It was God. God is the one that kept me going. You seriously believe in God? Yes. And I know he will never let me down. Well, some might say he already did. Yes, he make me this way, sure. But I know he offer fame as one of his little compensations. I know it. How could you possibly know that? Because I pray for a miracle. And it happened.

You know, I just felt I was a priest at a certain point. It just kept going and going and going. And it was, of course, fascinating just to listen to the story. It really only made sense a week later. I returned home to London, and as I said, you know, I was in my flat. And I remember the afternoon vividly. It was about 536 o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday, the September the 4th, 1993. I was in my flat in South London. And my roommate, Mary, was making us a sort of an early dinner. And I was listening to these 12 hours of tapes going, how the fuck am I going to

do a funny 500? I was like, there's no way this is going to work. And the phone rang and I picked it up and it was Kathy Self, you know, who was Herve's real girlfriend who said that Herve had killed. That's who Mireille Enos. Mireille Enos plays her in the movie. Kathy called to say that, you know, Herve had killed himself just a few hours before, four or five hours before. And I immediately actually started to cry because I thought,

because it clicked. And I started listening back to the tapes and i realized okay so he knew he was going to do this and for some reason he just grabbed this random journalist and just told him everything in almost a desperate hope that you know this story would be recorded and so i walked into the newspaper as it happens in the film with this you know much bigger piece completely different and the editor said to me she said look this is a great bit of journalism but you know we have six million middle-class readers on a Sunday morning and they're going to choke on their chocolate croissant this is too dark it's too morbid it's not what I want I want a funny piece and I was like well this isn't funny and she said i know um so i said look let you know

we'll take it somewhere else you can't do that we flew you out there we own the photographs we want you to rewrite it and i was like forget it and so someone came in and rewrote it and it just became a trivialized sort of much more truncated version because you know we were pushing for front cover it's a world exclusive like even at that Hervé was fucking famous around the world. When I was with him in LA, people would shout out of cars, the plane, the plane. We'd be walking down, people ask for autographs all the time. So despite the fact that he hadn't been on the show for 10 years,

Tattoo had made such a massive imprint on the culture, particularly here in the States, that wherever we went, we were kind of, there was a lot of activity and people wanting to meet him and give him a hug and say hi and obviously do his catchphrase. So we felt it was front cover. And they were like, no, it's not. I remember one of the editors saying, look, what's he done lately? An ad for a mobile phone and some Dunkin' Donuts commercials?

I mean, come on, really? You know, and that was the attitude. They didn't have the bandwidth to understand what had happened they they couldn't it was a world that could not allow for someone to have an unexpected human experience and express it it just and that's why i just i felt like i was choking i had to get the fuck out of that world because it was so narrow and cynical and and and kind of small in its mentality yeah that i just couldn't do it and and i looked around the office i remember before i sort of quit looking around the office and seeing all these guys who you know had been there for 40 years and probably

had the same feelings i did you know at that time and and and they hadn't acted on them and there they were sort of broken men you know like trying to, you know, call designers about what their favorite wallpaper for autumn was and wanting to kill themselves. I just thought, fuck it, man. I just, I can't do it. Fuck it. And I got out. Yeah, so it's this, the film is like this polemic on fame, on celebrity, on ego, but it's also a referendum on the press in a certain respect, I guess. I don't know. From my point of view, I don't know how you feel about that,

but it certainly wasn't an intention. I think it was really, for me, a look at that particular time in that particular culture. And I don't, because I haven't worked at a newspaper anywhere for many years. I mean, the last piece I think I wrote was for Financial Times five years ago. It was the culture and i don't because i have haven't worked at a at a newspaper anywhere for many years i mean the last piece i think i wrote was for financial times five years ago it's the last bit of a journalism i did so i don't really know the world but i do know that the world at that time was really quite you know was awful to me at least other people i guess you get used to it but i mean you jamie have been on the other side as you said you know you think you have a great interview with someone and then someone just like you know know, does a hatchet job on you.

So it still goes on. It's just I couldn't I just couldn't live with myself because I was being asked to, you know, attack people that I respected. And that is not a great place to be if you want to make your living that way. Jamie, it had to be weird doing this movie movie knowing that you're playing some version of Sasha. Did you ever, as a director, say, no, no, no, it's got to be like this? And you're like, no, the character would not do that. Did you guys ever go to loggerheads

over how to play the character? Well, the character became Danny Tate. You were able to distance yourself from the person. Well, I made it clear to Jamie. When we first met, I was like, listen, man, this has to become your own. Yeah, because I if I'm I just got a director film I can't be like oh, this is what you know, I I 25 years ago would have done that That's just a waste of time. So Jamie said look I'm gonna do it as me I'm gonna do it in my Irish accent and I'm gonna make it as much me as you sort of pretty much

Yeah, and I was like like great so there wasn't really that ever a conflict of like you know you know i think we pushed each other we pushed each other in quite monumentous ways at times we did but not about that not about that no um more about just you touching me i mean i still say it was not inappropriate. But yeah, no, it was, this story means so much to Sasha and, you know, through time, not very much time at all,

really meant so much to Peter and I as well. And emotions were high a lot of the time and a lot of what we're um dramatizing it's very high stakes stuff and very emotional stuff and uh that carries through to you know the the actual doing of you know it becomes something in itself that is very emotional and you're the lines become blurred. And if you get what you think is the wrong note at the wrong time. I mean, Sasha and I love each other dearly.

You're the closest I've ever come to punching a director. Yeah, and I'm probably the closest I ever came to punching an actor. I mean, it was very intense, but it was intense because because of several things because of the time pressure we were under because also I felt like And this is a fair thing Jamie like I would push Jamie beyond where he wanted to go But when I did that which I didn't do all the time, but maybe on two or three occasions when we were shooting You know, I said you've just got to trust me Jamie You need to go farther and it was his discomfort and his you know, whatever he was going through but actually Fed into the performance. This is a guy who's on edge who's not comfortable who's out of his comfort zone

Who's terrified who's angry and so what we did was created that emotional environment Basically what he's saying is he was right When you look at the film now and you think about all the stuff Pretty much everything we did even the two or three times where I push you too far are in the film Potentially. Yeah, I haven't seen the last He was right also because he was like, how do I deal with this fucking director? It's his, you know, so I think that out of that came something real.

I mean, we'll never work together again. He could just project that emotional state onto Peter on screen. Well, I mean, Peter, we had also similar. Well, yeah, exactly. And also there was a lot between the two of them. I know, Peter, we had also similar. Yeah, exactly. And there was a lot, and also there was a lot between the two of them, you know, and it was very claustrophobic at times. We were literally inside a fucking limo,

uh, you know, like a shell of a limb, you know, like a, a set limo set. And we were shooting through the weekend because we had no time. And at the pressure of making the film absolutely informed the atmosphere.

And of course the performances, but the whole movie is about pressure it's about this pressure that builds so it worked for the film but you definitely get the sense from you Jamie you're like get me out of this limo which is exactly what you want and also he said to me at times get me

out of this is it too late to fucking cast someone else so yeah I had Andrew Garfield on standby of course yeah he was in the boot in the trunk ready to step in we gotta wrap it up

you guys gotta get on the road to some other more important interview I could talk to you guys for hours there's so many other things I wanted to get

into with you you should finish up with any final points you wanted to make what? are you queuing me up to say nice things about the movie?

no I'm queuing you up to make final points. I've got to use the toilet. I did love the movie. It was emotional for me. I think you did a beautiful job. And like I said, as somebody who has, you know, from arm's length been on, you know, sort of in a sidecar on this journey, witnessing it from afar, I'm super proud of you for making this movie, for fulfilling your vision.

I'm super proud of you for making this movie, for fulfilling your vision. On some level, it perfectly bookends Anvil because Anvil is about the quest to achieve some level of fame and stardom and success. And this serves as a sort of reminder counterpoint to what can happen if you're not paying attention to your insides and you're not grounded and you don't have a healthy relationship with who you are and why you're doing what you're doing and i thought it was beautifully executed jamie you were amazing in the movie um and really incredible no i mean i was blown away you know what was amazing for me just having a front row seat to this was sometimes just watching the monitor and seeing what Jamie and Peter were doing and go, fuck, man. It was so much better than I had hoped it was going to be. And it was just a privilege to witness it as well as birth it and all that stuff.

Okay, but on the subject of wanting to pay attention to the insides, can I use the fucking loo now? Yeah, you can. The movie premieres on HBO worldwide all on October 20th, right? And from there, yeah. Everybody check it out. I saw the billboard on Sunset. Looks amazing. Beautiful as always, Jamie.

Thanks for doing this, you guys. Thanks, Rich. Love you, man. Peace. Cheers. My mic wasn't on. I told you, right? I told you that would be a fun ride that was so cool what a treat hope you guys enjoyed it smartly neither of these dudes is on social media so you can't hit them up there but do them a solid and just make sure to tune into the movie when it premieres on hbo on october 20th

my dinner with hervey i it. I think you guys will too. Hey, listen, if you're looking for some additional nutritional guidance, you know you should eat better, but you just don't know how to do it. You don't like cookbooks. You're not great in the kitchen. This is what our Plant Power Meal Planner is all about. Go to meals.richroll.com and there you will find thousands of plant-based recipes, literally thousands, all super customized based on your personal preferences that you input when you sign up. It integrates with unlimited grocery lists and even grocery delivery in most U.S. cities. So when you decide on the recipes you like, all the materials, all the foods that you need to prepare

those dishes magically appears at your doorstep. We have incredible customer support seven days a week from experts who know what they're talking about. And all of this is available for just $1.90 a week when you sign up for a year. So again, go to meals.richroll.com or click on meal planner on the top menu on my website, richroll.com. If you would like to support the work that we do here on the show, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or on whatever platform you enjoy this content. What else can you do? You can share it with your friends and on social media. You can leave a review. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel.

But really just tell a friend, spread the word. And I appreciate that very much. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. I want to thank Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for graphics, theme music by Annalema. And I want to thank Jamie's team for being very helpful in making him available to do this podcast here today. And, of course, much love to Sasha. I love you.

Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here next week with the great Scott Harrison, founder of Charity Water. He's going to talk about his work and his new book. It's called Thirst. It just made the New York Times bestseller list. It's an amazing conversation. Look forward to sharing that with you. Until then, peace plants. Namaste.