WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1284 - Benedict Cumberbatch

Episode Date: December 2, 2021

Benedict Cumberbatch is a busy man. When he's not holding the Marvel Universe together as Doctor Strange or making prestige dramas with celebrated directors, he's flying between the U.S. and the U.K. to raise a family. Benedict and Marc talk about his latest projects, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain and Jane Campion's The Power of The Dog, as well as his early life as the child of two working actors. Plus a lot of talk about cats.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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what the fuck buddies what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast i'm going to talk to benedict cumberbatch today okay you know him from Sherlock, the Marvel movies where he plays Doctor Strange, the Imitation Game, and, you know, movies, more. He's been in a lot of stuff. He's got two movies you can see right now. The Electrical Life of Louis Wayne is streaming on Prime Video, and the other one is Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog, which is now in theaters and streaming on Netflix. Both very good.

I watched both of them. If you haven't watched The Power of the Dog yet, here's a heads up. We had a good long talk about the movie, okay, and we didn't hold back. So if you want to watch the movie first before listening to that part of our conversation, I'll jump in and I'll give you a warning when it's about to happen because that's the kind of guy I am, all right? I didn't want to remove the conversation. It was too good.

So I'm going to let you know that spoilers are about to happen. And you can make your choice. I'm giving you that choice. So I think I'm landing in a sort of, I don't know. Is it loneliness? I don't know. I don't know what this grief tunnel is like. I don't know how to frame my life anymore. I know that every day feels like a week and that, you know, by the

time I go to bed, I feel like I've, I've, you know, the morning was, I can't even remember when it started and it's not bad. I don't mind that time is longer than it seems or it is because I know it's all going to crunch at the end and run out. But I guess I'm kind of beginning the dark floundering of what it means to be me at this point in time. It's 58 years old. Having been through what I've been through, what do I need for myself? What do I need from other people? I don't like having to answer these questions, but the life that I've chosen has put me here. I've foregone any sort of sense of security or status quo. I've tried and failed at many relationships. I've had someone I love pass away.

I've fought and lost with many people, places, things, institutions. But I have my success and I and i have you know my voice and you know i'm doing good work but it's like what what does it mean you know when you wake up with the darkness with the heaviness as rodney call it i got the heaviness is on me but i don't have chemical heaviness it's just sort of like you know what am i going to do with this tired old heart It's just sort of like, you know, what am I going to do with this tired old heart? Huh? Answer me that.

What am I going to do with this tired old heart? I've still got juice. I still got energy. I can carry this heart over the finish line. It's just that maybe I can lighten the load or add something to it. I don't know, man. Now, am I sad? I'm not sad look don't don't get me wrong i've been you know i've got friends you know i there's people i lean on a couple not many everything's fine don't be concerned i think this was all triggered in some

weird way by that beatles documentary i can't explain it. I can't explain it. But it's like, I feel, look, I don't know. Am I Beatles fanatic? No. When I was younger, did I listen? Of course. I had a friend, my friend Dean Hines in junior high, had all the Beatles records.

My parents had that Let It Be record. I was in that Let It Be record. I was five, six, seven years old. They're infused into you genetically. If you get genetically if you get it you get it most people get it of course there are those people that are like no i never really saw it in the beatles like okay that's kind of sad more than anything else whatever position you're taking against the beatles it's just sort of all right well it's too bad you're missed out

on some some uplifting shit there some soul nourishment. I just don't get it. I love that position. Now that this 90-hour documentary comes out, there's all these Beatle detractors. I don't know. I didn't get it. Who gives a fuck whether you got it or not? Look, I'm no fanatic, but it's in my soul. It's in my blood cells.

I don't know why. It is. don't know why it is i spent like days and days drawing a picture of john lennon's face that won me an award in the art contest in high school it was good i wish i knew what happened to that thing very proud of it i nailed it john spoke through me but something about watching them you know it's like i've known them all my life you know i've known them all my life. You know, I've known them all my life. And I knew exactly what to expect. But this was the first time I ever got to hang out with them. And it feels like that. They're just hanging out writing songs.

And they're really like old timey rock and roll guys. But I don't know. It's almost like you're just in the room hanging out too. And I don't find that there are any real surprises for me i'm like yep this is the way it is this is who these guys are and you just it just ingrains in you it was like filling this tremendous gap in your soul and in your cells if your cells are filled with beetles which mine are and a lot of people's are. So there were parts of it that were boring,

that were annoying, but whatever. And I'm not even finished with the fucking thing. But there was a familiarity to it. It's like, I always knew these guys. I always knew them. I always knew the Beatles. And I didn't take into consideration any of the tension or anything else.

I'm just sort of like, oh, finally, we're fucking hanging out. And yeah, it's cool to see songs evolve and it's interesting to see how they work. But it was almost filling in a piece of myself that I've been waiting for. The humanization of the heroes continues. Is it good?

I don't know, man. We always knew they were mortals because one was gunned down one died of cancer and i again i'm not of that generation these were hand-me-down myths i'm not sure what was going on when i was supposed to be taking shit in i got the shit handed down hand-me-downs from the late 60s and 70s you know what was going on with me with new wave disco then punk which i missed i'm infused with classic rock that i had to push back against at some point and integrate some eno and some bowie

and some fred frith and some residents and you know then in college you know the other stuff but i was wired post 60s with hand-me-downs one of which was the eternal beatles how did they take over the world i don't know but all i know is watching it and feeling these guys as human was as elating as it was sad you know not because two of them are dead or they're all old or was another time but really because they're just humans and when these heroes or mythic people become human your heart sort of like sighs a little bit. I think it's sighs. You're like, no, that's nice. But where's the bigger than life stuff, man? What if you don't have a God in place? What if your heart's just a skipping stone on some sort of pool of art and stuff that makes you feel better, stuff that moves you. What if that's it?

Maybe I got to pay attention to the pool, man. Let's chase these metaphors. Let's chase them down and fuck them. These metaphors. Huh? Chase it down. My heart is a skipping stone. On the pool of art and stuff that moves me i gotta i gotta let it drop

in man see that that's chasing it down fuck i don't know man the beatles made me sad as as much as it made me excited you know then like, what am I grounded in? What am I grounded in? I'm grounded in insanely deep self-consciousness around slightly real fat. The gift. The gift from the holidays and from my mother. Anyway, Benedict Cumberbatch

is in The Electrical Life of Louis Wayne that's streaming on Prime Video very good it's a very exciting movie The Power of the Dog is now playing in theaters and streaming on Netflix and again there's some stuff in this talk that really gets into The Power of the Dog

there was really no way to avoid talking about some of the big reveals of the movie if you want to avoid that part I'll warn you when it's about to happen okay alright this is me reveals of the movie. If you want to avoid that part, I'll warn you when it's about to happen. Okay? All right. This is me talking to Benedict Cumberbatch.

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FX's Shogun. A new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. I did in my old house did that's where it started again yeah so did Obama come to the house yes all of them have been in the house in the old house yeah same chair from one great ass to another yes do you want to want to wear cans? I do, actually, yes. It feels more intimate. It feels like I know what we're doing. It's better, yeah.

And you can pull that mic up into your face. That's great. I love it. You know it. Yeah. You know how to do it. I do some voice work. You do a lot of voice work.

I do, yeah. You're like the main guy. I miss the voice. You're the main guy of all the things. How long have you been in L. in LA for? I've been here for Monday. Last Monday. Oh, so all for the promotion of both things?

And work. You're working too? Yeah, I pick up that tomorrow, having talked about... Doctor Strange, the Marvel thing? Yeah. Is this the fourth movie? I can't remember how many I've been in. That's a bit forgetful. This is the second one of him on his own. So this is Is this the fourth movie Where you're him This is the I can't remember how many I've been in now

That's a bit forgetful This is the second one Of him on his own So this is your movie Yeah Well Yeah that's part of the problem There's a lot of stuff

Going on in it It's like Everyone's in it Do I have a character Is it working Yeah Right No there's great stuff

For me to do It's very busy It's called The Multiverse of Madness And it's bonkers Oh okay I'm not a guy That watches those No fine I've read the comic books There's great stuff for me to do. It's very busy. It's called The Multiverse of Madness, and it's bonkers. Oh, okay. I'm not a guy that watches those. No, fine.

I've read the comic books, and I believe that you can do it. I've read some Doctor Strange from back in the day. I'm not a big comic book nerd, but I liked him. Yeah. He seemed like one of the ones that I could relate to. Yeah, he's quite kind of, he's out there. What's his angle? How did it happen?

Why does he have whatever he has? He had a his angle how did it happen why does he have whatever he has he had a car crash of course he was a brain surgeon brain surgeon he used his hands and went looking for

physical healing and found something much more profound beautiful so you're shooting that here studio thing we are this leg of it

we did the body of it last year during lockdown in England which was fun and yeah no we just come back here for reshoots it's what Marvel do reshoots so you do them of it last year during lockdown in England, which was fun. And yeah, we just come back here for reshoots. It's what Marvel do.

Reshoots? So you do them at a soundstage kind of deal? Yeah, yeah. They've got the Manhattan Beach Studios. That's a kind of Marvel. Oh, yeah. And what's the studio? It's Marvel. It's Disney, but it's at Manhattan Beach. Yeah. They've got the lot down there. You're so fucking busy.

A little bit. Those are classic. They look old, those glasses. They're nice. Oh, yeah, then you but they're old I am only wearing them because they're prescription. I don't have some yeah, I have that Sorry if they're a bit dark. No, I don't care what I can give you my truth by doing it It's okay if it's necessary if I require some truth lower your glasses. Yes, I'm not buying your I need truth eyes Give me the truth eyes. Yeah, so it's nice to see you as a human it's very hard for me to adjust you know when i see you on camera because uh you're you're you no one looks like you and that's not a bad thing but in in real life you uh you look different you look like i that's just a guy on the street but in movies you're like holy shit that's that guy i don't know if that makes sense to you i mean

holy shit, that's that guy. I don't know if that makes sense to you. I mean, I guess. I'll take the compliment, I guess. It's a compliment. Yeah, I mean, look, anything that changes it up and also makes me obscure on the street is a good thing. Yeah, that's good. But, well, that's like some of the questions,

and I don't really prepare questions, but wait, first of all, I was doing a little research, and have you... Good for you. Not much. You've never done comedy, though, have you? Oh, for fuck's sake. Yes, I have.

I have done comedy. Like stand-up for reals? I'm just joking about how little the shallowness of it. Yeah, no. No, yeah, not stand-up, no. No, I know you've done comedy, but I mean, there's like a little section on the wiki page that says impressionist. And I'm like, was he an impressionist? When I say, have you done comedy, I mean like is like a little section on the wiki page it says impressionist and I'm like was he an impressionist? Or when I say have you done comedy? I mean like stand-up

Rightful title of being a comedian or comedian. Um, no, no My friends who had the balls to do it just reminded me how little I wanted to do it Who you're really good at it? Um, well, there were two there were two at the university became a double act, Matt Horne and Bruce McKinnon. And Matt went on to work a lot with James Corden. They did a series together. And that's what he's known. And Bruce is a great actor.

But, you know, I was just blown away. Not only by... And that was at Solo stuff. And then I started seeing their friends doing Solo Mike stuff and getting to know them. It confounds me. Wasn't for you? Who knows?

I take lots of leaps of faith in my work. I love putting myself under a sort of different pressure and having to interrogate something that I've never experienced before and taking a risk. But that is one I haven't done yet. I also haven't done a musical or a horror.

No musicals yet. I could do all three in one, maybe just... What was the third one? Horror, musical, and stand-up. No horror? No horror. Not really.

I feel like you've gotten close oh hell yeah I mean the sort of psychological darkness of the film we're here to talk about the power

of the dog and also obviously strange in the next film and stuff there's horror elements and stuff I'm not sure but what's this

impressionist thing I don't know just sounding like people but like there's one on there yeah and who I've

talked about recently who Malkovich John John Malkovich I can't But there's one on there who I've talked about recently. Who? Malkovich. John. Yeah. Oh, John Malkovich.

I can't. It's interesting. I haven't heard him for a long time. I'd probably be better at doing you right now than I would be doing John. You got to be right in it, right? Yeah, kind of. I've got to hear it. We were in an animation together, and he was playing this evil octopus. He was so good.

That must have been good. It was, because his wonderful singularity and eccentricity. That's right. Just, you know, it's like Christopher Walken's ignoring of grammar. I think that's true. Right. They're similar. I can't do this.

You know, it's just, and I love it. I love it. It sounds like new minted thought because the form is so odd at what you suppose it to be when you read it off the page. And it grabs you by the balls. You're in. You're kind of listening to something. It's a new music. Right.

But you are more of a transformative. It seems because that's where I was kind of going. Yeah, rather than having a kind of trademark style like those guys. I suppose I am. Although they've also, you know. I mean, what is transformation? I think if you're in a story and you're watching whether whether it's mankovich or me whatever and you're in you're engaged right it is a transformation and i think people by the way who play variations of themselves who are close to themselves in physicality or or sound

still the very i still believe the storytelling do you know what i mean no no of course like i don't i don't begrudge them that because i think like even clooney's a guy that like can't you know he's not going to uncluny himself yeah but do you remember the leap into the you know i thought i thought yeah the character of this movie i mean he was just like that was a complete release oh sure where he's playing the guy with the hair goop and i love watching him no he's great he's great but i always you know but there's always that sort of fundamental clooney charm that he's not going to get rid of. Even when he's playing a menacing guy. Even when it's Michael Clayton, you're sort of like, nah, it's George Clooney there. But it's not bad.

He's a great actor. But my question is, like even watching this, the Lewis Wayne movie. What is it? The Fantastic Lewis Wayne? Is that what it's called? No, The Electrical Life of Louis Wayne. The Electrical Life of Louis Wayne. I didn't know about that guy.

Me neither. Oh, wow. And then I watched the Jane Campion movie, Power of the Dog. Yeah. Now, these are distinctly different, and it just seems that, you know, I don't know what you do. I've done a little acting myself, but it seems that when you're doing someone like Louis Wayne, I mean, what is, how do you construct it? You know, I think we wanted to tell the story of a human being so you look a little bit at the history but it wasn't supposed to be a dry biopic by any degree

it was supposed to be a singular experience of his world through his eye and so thank you and I kind of I kind of just uh dove in with the script and with Will I there was a little bit of anecdotal evidence as to what he was like how he held himself how he spoke this a sort of monotone of excitement where he could be saying i really love your shoelaces and by the way that mountain's about to slide on your head you know that comes with its own sort of interesting diversions from what we see is the norm i guess yeah but um i yeah it took it took a while and the physicality was something that evolves in the picture as well because obviously it is a life and he's aging but there's a sort of electricity in him and energy in him which was there both in his youth and i wanted to have in his old age as well as a scene where he's dancing as an old man yeah um to reference the the dance of falling in love with emily at the

beginning of the film played by the brilliant claire foyer and i i i i saw that he was in improvisational he he did things in a very eclectic, different way. There was something charged about how he would do things. He'd set the room alight. And this is, again, anecdotal. He was a great firebrand and charge of energy in a party. And people would sort of gather around him like a breakdancer and give him the energy to just kind of do this spasmodic, crazed dance.

Yeah, right, right. Get the weirdo going. Yeah. Just get funky. Just don't yeah don't be restricted in the victorian era i mean that guy what kind of a wonderful comment yeah so it came through kind of like a process of of looking at the script yeah understanding the the uh the idiosyncrasies that were documented and then seeing what i needed to kind of get a grasp on it. So asking help with dialect, asking help with speech pattern delivery, that kind of thing.

And also talking to... Who are you asking help to? Dialect coach? Yeah. No, yeah, yeah. Was it a different dialect than you would have? No, but it was just about delivery. It was just about having a look at it,

you know, just playing around with form. And then the other thing I was going to mention was the choreographer, just to work with somebody who's about putting the physical body in the space and telling the story through his body language and what his emotional tells were

when the walls started to come in, because they did with him. He suffered mental health issues at certain moments in a very pressured situation, looking after six sisters, dealing with death, dealing with debt, and a Victorian era of replication of his work illegally.

You know, all this stuff would make a sane guy. Yeah, lose it. And he already was, he had a tentative grasp on reality as it was. So it's a horrible, torturous, lonely place to be. But how that would compound in his body and the way he interacted with things outside of his way of seeing the world and those slides into chaos and real terror. That was something to put in the body

as well as doing the kind of deeper work as to what was going on in his mind and what it felt like to be him. And also his emotions that, you know, there was that pivotal moment in there at the end when he's an old man and the doctor, you know, tells him how to interpret the electricity.

That it's love. Yeah. It's always been love. electricity. That it's love. Yeah. It's always been love. Right. And it is a love story. It's riddled with tragedy and humor and dark comedy.

Yeah, it's really kind of an amazing balance for a film to have the kind of darkness that's in that thing yet still sort of, you know, it's still beautiful.

That's Will Sharp. I mean, he did an amazing job on a series called Flowers. I don't know if you saw on Channel 4, Olivia Colman's in it and Juno Barr is one half of Mighty Bush, which you might know. He's a comedy duo, him and Noel Fielding.

Yeah, amazing, amazing pair. In fact, Noel was one of the guys I saw do stand-up. I thought, yeah, I can never do that. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just amazing, extraordinary. Anyway, but he deals in that with profound issues of depression and self-doubt and suicidal thoughts. In the Flowers? Yeah, and yet it's incredibly funny incredibly moving yeah actually in lead and detail he was our guy

the minute he came in and pitched the film uh as he saw it and the changes he wanted to make to simon stevens great script we were like we're in because you're wanting to turn this into a singular experience for an audience through as much of louis wayne's work yeah also like the sort of foundation of a sort of psychedelic vision because of his misunderstanding of or maybe not of electricity yeah uh but also like but that that pivot that weird moment at the end where it's love and it seems to make sense to to louis yeah uh is kind of beautiful but like leading up to that so you got to see that whole script before you start it sure so you know all that you know holding that thing in because he doesn't understand it to be in that place it's right it's stressful actually and to feel love without being able to sort of uh completely realize it i know and also when he has it when it's held when he

has space with it with emily for that to be cut so tragically short. I mean, there were very, very easy springboards for me to sort of get into a place where I felt a connection to the guy's suffering, for sure, like when he has that breakdown, coming back on the transatlantic ship. Oh, yeah. I was concerned. I was, because I don't know enough about the guy. I'm like, did he die?

He didn't die like that. He didn't die in a shipwreck. No, I know. But I mean, and it sort of tied in with this idea of a recurring nightmare. Yes. You you know he really kind of didn't know himself as a feverish child who had these

these sort of really awful dreams that then broke he thought in Scarlet Fever he said himself and then I felt normal again

and then he clearly carried that for a lot of his life and so for that to come back in Will's narrative at the point where he doesn't find success in america everything is alien to him and he can't he can't find his

place in the world and just the noise is so dialed up that he just collapses it was it's it didn't have to go heartbreaking yeah and it's horrible yeah and also it also like you know knowing now what we know about that particular type of mental illness. Completely. And how he could have been saved or hopefully seen. Or at least understood. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Completely. Completely. But like, I didn't know anything about that guy. I did a movie with Andrea Riceboro. What did you do with her? It hasn't, it's not out yet. Oh, great. Okay.

Like, I'm like, I play her, like, it's called To Leslie. It's a movie that we shot in the middle of COVID. Oh, wow. We shot it in 19 days. She was probably on it longer. It was shot on film by a guy named Mike Morris, who's I think British, and he does a lot of Better Call Saul's in his first movie. And she plays a Texan. I play a Texan.

She's so fierce, isn't she? She's just so good. Yeah, I don't know what to do with her. You watch her, you're like, holy shit. But this part for her is such a beautiful, kind of a classic Victorian aggravated spinster. Yeah, absolutely. She's trying to be the adult in the room

where everything is just so fucking chaotic because Louis can't do it. And he marries the governess who, in real life, not that Claire Foy looks anything but 10 years younger than me, but she was 10 years older so those are both sort of exilable conditions so yeah they lived in exile they were literally exiled from the family and from victorian society as the odd couple who lived near hampstead heath back in the day when that was an exile from london and they that's when they adopted the cat it was because andrea's character is the matriarch really yeah with a mother who's a

little bit ill and out of it just couldn't bear the shame she couldn't bear being right the one the proprietors kind of authority figure in that family and she was i think it was it's a it's a comic role it's very comic i mean that scene with her and claire at the door yeah it's crazy it's a master class yeah sort of the fine line between terrifying and funny yeah and i didn't realize that cats were so like you know people just didn't like them they were just like for mousing and like the lower class people they were one up from the vermin they were trained and bred to catch and a bag of cats drowning was not a phrase it was a reality all the fucking time their coffee call yeah it might be hold on so wait you went you you haven't had coffee lately

not much no no i had covid and i just kind of cut out anything not because i had it about a month ago really that's three weeks ago is when my sort of isolation ended yeah oh so oh so you got it late i mean yeah compared to everyone else that has it or had it yeah did you but you hadn't gotten vaccine yet oh yeah double vaccine and you still got a breakthrough case although i have to break compared to everyone else that has it or had it. But you hadn't gotten vaccinated yet? Oh, yeah, double vaccines. And you still got it? A breakthrough case. Although I have to say about the breakthrough thing, I think, you know, vaccines do probably work for six months.

And you should really look at a top-down. You only got it once, though? We didn't. No, we had both. But I'd had my second dose six months before I went into a very crowded room. But you only had COVID once? Yeah, yeah. I do know a couple of people who've had it like three times.

Really? Yeah, and all of which not badly. And I'm like, you motherfuckers. Just like, you're the ones living free lives and taking all the risks

and you'd be very lucky. I tested myself today. Yeah, I did too. Yeah? And yesterday and the day before. Well, because you got to shoot. I don't have to shoot.

I just have a box of tests. But you know, and also we're doing this and a closed room. But yeah, and I got to travel tomorrow but I just got the booster. I'm boosted.

Oh, you're fine now. A week ago. Who the fuck knows? i had to get my own by getting sick which i don't recommend how sick did you get you know five days of pretty nasty really fever and headache yeah i wasn't well and i taste of the taste and smell things so weird and it's only just now come properly really i would get the taste of something at the beginning of it and then it would just go like a ghost it It was like, oh, what was that? And then when it came back, it was the same thing. It was like, hang on, hang on.

I think that's an apple. I know it is because I'm eating one, but it didn't last. It's the worst. It's really weird. It's the worst. I can't. Okay, so let's talk about this cat thing, because I'm a cat guy.

My friend Kit's a cat person. I just did a benefit last night for pit bulls, and it was difficult for me. Because they have these big pictures. Oh, you're so much a cat guy that you're not a dog guy. No, I grew up with dogs. But, like, I really cannot handle the neediness of dogs. I resent them. Okay.

You're much more sophisticated than me. I'm so needy. I fucking love it when someone else needs me. Really? Yeah. I mean, I'm needy, but, like, you've got to go through quite an obstacle course with me. It's pretty easy to satisfy a dog's need. I find them, I don't know, Claire made a really good comparison, Claire Foy, who plays-

She's great. She's just always amazing. She's a dear friend. We worked together before and we know each other well. And she said in one of our interviews, she yeah i don't know i like cats i can admire them but i don't know if i'd want to live with them a bit like a supermodel you're like you know you're great but it's kind of freaking me out yeah that's right well you know you gotta you gotta work awfully hard uh and you're not even sure you're getting i know you've built a whole

i built a catio for them catio well yeah yeah, there's only a couple of frequencies that cats have. But, you know, they are... When you do get something, it's a lot more exciting. I guess, because they're pretty wild. They're in the magical sense. Yeah, but like dogs, they're all out all the time. Cats, they'll do something like, holy shit! But I love whippets who have quite a sort of eccentric...

Yeah, they have bursts of affection. And then they're very happy to just curl up by a fire. But they love whippets who have quite a sort of eccentric. Yeah, they have bursts of affection. And then they're like, they're very happy to just curl up by a fire. But they're so skinny and weird. But they're very affectionate and lovely. Do you have one? I don't need a dog to be fleshy and airy to love. You know, I can love a skinny dog. No, I know.

I grew up with old England sheepdogs. We have four of them. That's too hairy for me. Too hairy. Yeah, a lot of hair. A lot of hair. But I didn't realize that Louis Wayne sort of helped popularize the cat as a pet. Very much.

Are those paintings worth money now? Yeah. Maybe this will bring him back into a focus again. Because they are sort of illustrations. Yeah, you should get one now, Mark. That's what I'm saying. Hopefully if our film does anything, it might raise the value of this work.

He was what you would call, I think, an outsider artist. I guess so, yeah, definitely. As he got later in his life. Because that's a great moment in the hospital where the nurse says, you know, he's insane. And, you know, look at what he's doing. It's crazy. Remember what the amazing. And it was actually really kind of provocative.

And that was the stuff that was completely. It was the psychedelic era that then picked him up again in the 60s and 70s oh they did yeah massively and you know who's in the film he's a massive collector and fan of him yeah yeah he's got that brief is he hg wells is that who he's supposed to be he's nick cave as hg it's one yeah it's it's one of those sort of things again with the biopic of like you know it's a very loves that guy yeah he just wanted to do it and he you know he said oh am i doing. He just wanted to do it. And he said, oh, am I doing okay? I just feel like I'm me.

And I said, that's kind of what it needs to be. It's brilliant. You're in it for 30 seconds. Knock yourself out. Don't sweat it too much. No, just be cool. Yeah, I love those idiosyncrasies

throughout the kind of casting. Will's just a great storyteller. He creates a world and you don't really question it. It was great. It was great. I found it moving because I had experienced out the kind of casting and just will's just a great storyteller he creates a world and yeah it was really it was great it was great you know i found it moving you know because i had you know experienced some grief in the last year in a very profound way in a similar way that he had and um and you know it was i've been noticing it's a hard it's a hard watch for that yeah no it's a good watch for that you've experienced that recently it's it's well okay that's good to hear that's

you know because like you don't know what the hell to do with that you know no one knows what to do and I, yeah. No, it's a good watch for that. You've experienced that recently. It's, well, okay, that's good to hear. That's good to hear. You know, because like, you don't know what the hell to do with that. Yeah. You know, no one knows what to do with that. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. And it's not really, and there's no real public discourse around it. No. And like that guy, you know,

even the way it's handled, I think that oddly, you know, in those, I would imagine in those cultures, in the Victorian culture, because so many fucking people were dying of so many different things,

that there was a different type of acceptance and process around grief. Of course, of course there was. I mean, you know, and also there was this formality, I guess, whereby, you know, I don't know. I mean, there was a lot of grieving.

Victoria was in black for a lot of her life. I mean, I went to a freaking school where we still wore a black tie out of grief and that started in the Victorian era. I thought, why are we still wearing a black tie? Oh, because of Prince Albert. Really? What Prince Albert? Oh oh you know queen victoria's husband what that's where it started yeah that's that i mean yeah there was a lot about i guess

it's just darkness crazy yeah yeah and there's there is that but um i don't know there's a huge sort of burst of productivity in life and mechanization and energy with the victorian but there's this huge slapping kind of restriction of sort of sober conformity, like stay in your fucking lane. And if you don't, you know. Repression and weird moral judgment, you know, restrictive. I didn't look into the death thing so much. I just, I saw it through Louis's eyes. I saw it through Will's scripting of it, which I just thought was so extraordinary the way, you know, he just said,

look, I just want you to come into the room, see it, and just walk away from it. Right. And try and deal with it somewhere else. Right, well, I think that, like, for that guy to process it properly and not, you know, in a, you know, I don't think there was any way that guy could integrate it properly. And I guess, like, where I'm going with this, in my

own curiosity, and you explained how you constructed that character. So when you approach a story like the power of the dog which i didn't know what the fuck that movie was you know like you know when i got into it like it seems like this has happened to me a lot i go see the movies and i don't read much about it which is the only way to do it i didn't know great i know anything about louis wayne zero isn't it yeah it's great you have a discovery that's based on what the storytellers give you right so i So I'm watching this sparse Western.

It seems like it's going to be a Western. I have no idea where it's going. And then by the third act, I'm like, what is happening? So with that guy, with Phil Burbank and these brothers, I like Plemons and Dunst. And the kid was really good. Everyone was good. But here you are in an American environment, like a classic American setting, so you've got to do that accent business.

Yeah. But what do you do with that guy? When you read that script, what is the thing you see in it that makes you go, well, this is the engine of this guy, outside of whatever repression we're dealing with. But, I mean, what was it? Well, that's kind of it i mean you know that's it i think yeah the real fuel for him is is how how vulnerable he is what his scar is and his secret and it's a pretty big one it's rare that you get to carry that sort of

thing out of you know anything other than the backstory which is just that bit of the iceberg that's not actually on the screen but you kind of need to give you that you know know, surety in your choices. Well, this whole thing is the unfolding of that. Exactly. And we don't want to spoil it. You get both, which is part of the gift. I mean, look, Jane Campion comes calling.

You do get both. Right. Again, tick. Yeah. You see a part like that in a book like that, which I only had until after the conversation with Jane.

Yeah. I mean, I think the book is just a masterful piece of, it's really one of the greatest American novels. Really? Oh, it's really one of the greatest American novels. Really? Oh, it's very special.

How, is it new? No, it was written in the 60s. No kidding. Yeah. Thomas Savage is based on a family interaction, you know, his uncle, great uncle, I suppose. Because it's almost like as a film, it almost, it plays like a fable within a fable. Right. Like after a certain point, you're like, is Bronco Henry real?

Oh, you thought that? Sometimes. Interesting. Because like, you know, the shrining of the saddle and all that stuff. I get that. Yeah. But it plays in that story on screen. I guess you could question whether the stories are real or if they're a bit tall.

But yeah, he's almost a mythical figure completely. But I think it's, and yeah, I see what you're saying about a story within a story. There is this off-screen character who has a massive presence but isn't there too yeah and and a massive presence that that is that is multi-layered yeah completely because because your character is telling stories about this guy and obviously the relationship between your character and bronco billy is something we don't understand and all the other guys are jumping around hooting and hollering and thinking it's funny and what a guy i wish we'd known him and and and jesse's character my brother george who you know that we've run this ranch for 25 years he taught us all everything both of us everything we needed to know to make it but jesse never talks about it and he's not interested he well this is the

thing that happens at the beginning of the film you meet these two characters who are brothers who live this very kind of codependent life but one of them to guess what is drifting towards the future and love yeah and the other one is trying to hold back and celebrate the past and it tears him apart he sees his brother and he can't move forward i can't move forward from it because he you know the only the only way he can live with his secret is to sort of is to keep it alive in some way in the public vein and then you know see privately how he does that as well but also but because of that you know that character that kind of you know the repression that becomes antithetic the the opposite character logically of what he is yeah in order to to maintain face among the men yeah it's a huge problem yeah it is

it's like it's a huge problem with fascism yeah yeah in some ways absolutely yeah they look under the hood of most monstrous people in history and you know you've had a couple of them pass through in this in this neck of the woods and uh and we've got them in europe and they're everywhere in the world for christ's sake i'm speaking to brazilians today and thinking about him and you know it where is the repression where's the the mom that didn't give the love or the secret of the sexuality or lack of authentic self-lived and how does that twist people into a pretzel of hate and bitterness

and anger and rage and you know that's where this film is important we need to set out to make a piece that was thematically based but you know Jane's obviously

somebody who's tackled aspects of this before but more through a female lens of a female lead but that was definitely one of the lures I think for her as an artist

wanted to tell this story but it's just come about I mean the book is the most amazing blueprint for my character's characterization you can imagine I mean when you're talking about how to build a character and where where those ideas had it all there massively and then jane script our discussion the kind of investment we gave the the runway i'm usually building a plane as it takes off

because of scheduling this time i had months to talk to admittedly with some other projects that fitted around yeah you know she we kind, we kind of both held this thing very, very delicately. We really wanted to get this man right because of his complexity and what Savage was carrying in it and where it should take the audience, this abhorrent character that then you lean into through understanding and empathy. And we did everything.

I mean, she said to me one day, have you ever tried dream therapy? And I went, no, Jen, I haven't. I'm doing it. It's really good. She said, try it. Do you want to try it? And I said ever tried dream therapy? And I went, no, Jen, I haven't. I'm doing it. It's really good. He said, try it. Do you want to try it?

And I said, absolutely. Really? And I said, yes, of course I do. You're offering me another tool to get there. Let's dig deep.

Just do it. Dream therapy. Yeah. So I work with an amazing woman called Kim Gilliam, who's a Jungian dream analyst. How'd that go? Would you learn? Never ever say that word first time.

No, I know it's funny. I always say analysis. I don't know what an analysis is. An analyst. Analyst analyst and she's um she's just an expert in that realm of seeing the subconscious would you wake up and you got to write it down exactly yeah you have a journal and you kind of just write that week we surprised by what she said uh yeah because because i found what i was dreaming to be very mundane and guess what you know every night again i'd get jane comparing her dreams and it was like you know i'm paraphrasing it but like lily's exploding with blood in someone's face and i was like okay

cool you're jane campion yeah i mean while i'm dreaming about leaving the oven on or have i fucking left the house without the keys you know i mean different threshold anxiety is about as high as my imaginative state different character that's a different character those are the ones that inform the the louis character and the other Actually, but eventually stuff did come up and even if it wasn't the mundane it was kind of extraordinary and yeah What a great resource to be able to use working when you're asleep I mean you shouldn't use it all the time because you do I think sleep a lot lighter Like lucid dream even you ever tried that I've done things were like, you know what I've noticed and I don't necessarily write it down But there are moments where especially when I was in like deep sadness where if i would drift off for a second yeah it

was like i had this whole other life that i had a lot of things it wasn't a dream thing though it was sort of like i had a schedule i had to be places right okay no it was literally like an alternate world wow where i was living different life wow And it seemed very real in those moments. And I'd wake up and I'd be like, holy shit, I gotta hope that guy's okay. He seemed to have a lot to do. Someone living a parallel existence in your dreams. It was me. That's amazing. With a whole other set of

things to do. And it seemed very, it was like... What if that is happening somewhere? Well, that's the thing. It's almost like on your computer if you have an Apple where it says guest user. You kind of sign into that one. You're like, no, that's the thing. It's almost like on your computer, if you have an Apple where it says guest user, you kind of sign into that one. You're like, no, that's the other me. You do that?

That's amazing. No, I don't do it, but that's what it felt like. Like there's a whole other hard drive. There's a whole other iCal there. Yeah. With similar shit, but slightly different. Slightly different, yeah. That guy's doing better than I am.

He's got a hoverboard or whatever that is. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Hey, hi, excuse me. This is me in the present. Okay? I'm not talking to Benedict Cumberbatch right now. I'm talking to you. This is the part of the talk where it really became impossible for us to continue talking

about the movie without getting into some of the details of what happens to the character. So, you listening? Listen. If you skip ahead exactly 10 minutes and 15 seconds from when I tell you to, you'll jump over that whole part of the talk. I can tell you this. This part wound up being a really great part of the conversation.

And we were actually kind of arguing about the movie in a good way, the way you're supposed to argue about something provocative. So do what you want. Just don't say I didn't warn you if you haven't yet watched the film. All right. So you can skip ahead 10 minutes and 15 seconds right now. But, like, I thought that the resolution of that thing, like, it's weird. As empathetic as that guy became when he was able to, you know, at least have moments of sensitivity and connection with that kid. You know, I didn't feel bad.

About? Well, I don't want to spoil too much. You know. want to those guys okay fine that's okay you like beginning middles and that's fine no but i mean like when when when whatever happened happened no i get you yeah i know exactly what you're saying i know what we can't say but it's sort of there in a book but yeah it's weird no no it's like i just like i want people to have the experience i don't know listen i'm a marvel guy and i'm i infuriate fans by saying i'm not going to give anything away before the film because i just yeah well this isn't one of those huge reveals but it's kind of a clever thing and it's the turn kind of is the third act in terms of this story yeah it's a huge yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's we kind of dance it around and starts an obvious way i think people could pick it together but i you know maybe know. Maybe, but not in a specific way.

But like that moment where, you know. Netflix will not be ringing us saying, what the fuck? It's all right. Don't be angry. Netflix is going to be fine. But that moment where, you know. You didn't have any empathy for a man who's not able to live his life. I had empathy.

You didn't have any empathy. I'm saying I had empathy. Yeah. But it's the way it should end. No, I think it's obviously the way it should end. But when the moment that it had empathy. Yeah. But it's the way it should end. No, I think it's obviously the way it should end. But the moment that it goes down, I was like, my heart was with the kid. As dark as that kid is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And as seemingly emotional. That's a shame. I think it should be more confusing than that. But people will do that. It's obviously confusing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but how many people did that guy break? At what point is karma...

I mean, I understand empathy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at what point does karma become operative? You know, in reaping what you sow on some level. For sure, for sure, for sure. But the tragedy of it is it's just to the point that he's transforming, that he's becoming... Is he, though?

Yeah, I think so. I think he's melting into something that's utterly different. He's, you know, he's no longer in the position where it's just a power trip to try and rip the umbilical cord away from the mother by recruiting him. Yeah, he's not just a tool in destroying the mother or destroying the kid himself. He's falling in love with him.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, again, we're really in spoiler territory now. For fuck's sake. This is like the entire fifth act. But, you know, there is a shift at the end of this film, ladies and gentlemen. I'll tell you, though, that turn, you know, where you miss,

your character sort of misunderstands the depth of that character's emotional callousness. And he just kind of snaps the neck of that rabbit. And you're like, what? Whoa. Okay. I know. I know. and he just kind of snaps the neck of that rabbit and you're like, what? I know, I know. That's not who I thought I was having a picnic with. Yeah, exactly. It's all very reminiscent.

There are moments where it's reminiscent of Dahmer. There's moments where it's reminiscent of a potential serial killer in terms of his disposition, his detachment. And also you start to question the repercussions of his necessary repression. Right. I wish we could talk about the whole film.

It's so frustrating because, of course, you know, it leaves you in a place where you're going, hmm, I wonder what's going to happen next. You know, and what's his scar from it? Where's the horror movie? Does he shut the door on that? Or is there? Exactly. Or does he turn into Anthony Perkins? And I was right.

Does he shut the door on that? Exactly. Or does he turn into Anthony Perkins? Right. And I also think that, you know, the Plemons character, like the one thing that you start to realize with his, you know, you call him a fatso all the time or whatever it is,

and then, you know, his lack of ability to communicate properly. But he's also the one that didn't have the relationship that you had with Bronco Henry. True. So, you know, like, and he knows what happened

Right. Oh you think he does of course he has to so he's got to shut that shit down He has to sure why because everyone knows you know if you're gay you don't think your brother fucking knows do they though I think they could see the obsession and wonder but does he actually know that's a look if that kid can find the secret Fort you don't think the fucking brother could you grew up with I don't think so Well, that's I mean it's a question for Jesse, but oh, but the secret fort, you don't think the fucking brother could or you grew up with? No, I don't think so. All right. Well, that's, I mean... It's a question for Jesse, but... Oh, but I don't know. I didn't read the book,

so you know something I don't know. I just think there's such a disconnect with this brother. He needs him because that is who he runs his life with. The disconnect with Jesse. Yeah, he can't get it. It's not just... It's in this, it's very... In that moment, but in the book and in their relationship throughout their life before this moment, we meet them where they're drifting apart completely.

He's tried to engage him. He's tried to make him someone who's invested in the world, who's curious, who's just wanting to be more than just existing. And he can't. Yeah. And I don't know that that's really rich enough makeup for someone to kind of completely understand well not understand that would have had to be well i just think it's very easy from the 21st century perspective to go right okay yeah the kid got it yeah he's ticking off the booty that's great all right that guy uh he's he he understands his brother but he's just sucking

it up like he does every i don't think he understands every kind of body shaming insult i think if you look at 1925 culture yeah where this man could not my character Phil could not be who he really was yeah because of it being illegal

and let alone culturally unacceptable societally like literally personally unacceptable unlawful and just and personally

yeah for himself he probably doesn't even fully understand it before it's cut short in the book he sees Bronco being trampled to death in a corral when he's 19. Wow, I've got to read this book.

It's great. I guess if we get deeper, we're going to... I don't want to get into an arm wrestle about your perspective because I think a lot of people share it. The thing is, I do get defensive of Phil in a sense, not because I played him, but because I think there should be ambiguity

about what is, it's not black and white. It's not just a vengeance drama. No, no, no, no, no. No, I don't think it is. And that was not the feeling I got. Okay. It was just, it was.

The kid has to do what the kid has to do. I think that. And that's the propulsion of the tragedy in a way, because just when there is a possibility, I think really a door opening of, oh, this guy's behavior is going to mellow mellow he this is going to be a tutor mental relationship with something else potentially involved okay fine yeah the mother is going to recover from her alcoholism it's been discovered george is on it no by the way you know okay fine you know

alcoholism doesn't just get cured overnight but if the source of her terror yeah is something that's being pacified by a new relationship with the son. But it's... I think there's a moment of hope. Maybe I'm being naive about it, but yeah, okay, how many people is he broken? Sure, but it still goes back to... Yeah, but still the assumption is the

moment of hope is like, that means that somehow or another... I don't believe, I guess what I'm saying in a very kind of liberal ways, I do not believe in vindictive justice. I in restorative justice i believe the idea that people okay should be examined and understood fine and not just locked up and thrown away otherwise the problem keeps existing i believe that too but i'm talking about the movie you know we're making movies here so so and and it's like you know i believe all those things too but i think in in the movie that i saw, you know, for the only satisfying outcome, I agree.

It's a satisfying outcome. But also, like, you know, like if you understand people and you believe in restorative justice and all that stuff, there's no reason to believe that that guy overnight because of that kid is going to change his ways for the duration of it. It doesn't make what he wants and what he does any more legal or comfortable or anything else. So, like, however however that's going to go he's meeting someone who's comfortable with who he is and if he falls in love with someone it becomes openly gay but not openly gay of course he can't do that but there's a secretive love affair sure he's sure enough not going to go on hating on rose why would he may not hate on rose but what's he gonna do about all those fucking roughnecks what's he gonna do about his brother

he will be he will be the same alpha male but will not. He doesn't need to control things in the same way as I think he does if he's living with a secret by a river where he gets naked every three months. Sure. Okay, I get it. I get it. Yeah. So, like, well, this was. I just think we can really underestimate what that damage was that he lived with all his life as a 21st century audience, you know. No, I get it.

So, but you put this like, in order to make this guy, these were thoughts that you had to have. For sure, for sure. So I can't undo them, you know. I'm getting hot in here. It's getting so fucking heated. And I can see things objectively,

but I think what I have a problem with sometimes in the Q&A afterwards, and it's like, cheers for Peter, and God damn it, men are fucking assholes afterwards and it's like cheers for peter and god damn it men are fucking assholes and poor rose sympathy for her as a victim i think if you just go hero victim nice guy george and baddie i just feel then it's like oh we're doomed to be telling this story yeah i get that but like what i'm telling you is you know i didn't feel good like i didn't have any high hopes for the kid either.

Oh, really interesting. Because there's a bill to pay there, you mean? Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. From the beginning, there's a bill to pay. Cody's got it down. What he says in, we've talked about it in public to people who've seen the film.

But he says, you know, he, and I think all of us had this reaction when we first encountered the material Fresh's audience, you know, do when they see this film. Right. It is our misjudgment of this character

that is the character arc of that character. He is who he is at the beginning of the film. The kid. Cody. Oh, yeah, yeah. And that's what you're alluding

to now and then. And I completely agree with that. It's just a slow reveal because guess what? Yeah, it's a slow reveal, but I'm not, I completely agree with that. It's just a slow reveal because guess what? Yeah, it's a slow reveal, but I'm not. We're misstepped through the storytelling purposely. But on some level, you know, that kid's transgression is much deeper than yours and much more horrible. So it's not like, you know.

I know. Yeah, it's not black and white. I know, I know. I don't see him as the hero. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just saying, like, you know, the sort of the provocative nature of that dynamic and how they both paid for whatever the fuck they are is horrible, but that guy doesn't go on to live a dandy life in the city.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe he does. Maybe he writes a novel about it. Maybe that's Thomas Savage's secret, and I shouldn't say that. His family is still alive, and they're very supportive of the film, but, you know, it's based on a true story.

It's based on a true story? Yeah. Holy shit. So, all right. So when do you, you grew up with actors? I did. Mark, can I ask you

something again? You go to the bathroom? No, no, no. I'm fine. I am slightly worried about how much we've talked about stuff that we can't reveal. Is that cool?

What part do you not want to reveal? It depends when this is coming out as well. Once this is on Netflix, hopefully people have seen it, but if this podcast is like next week, I'm like, ooh. I don't know.

We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. I hope we don't lose all of it. It's good. I know. I know. What were the instructions you got? What, from Jane?

Yeah. Oh, from what to talk about? Yeah. It's difficult. I've just done an interview with a guy who's, you know, it's going to come out on the LA Times or something like in January. So I was like, yeah, baby, let's just get it all of it yeah exactly so but like where because i don't like i don't live in the uk and like you seem to have uh been at it for a long time a little bit yeah yeah i'm

sort of a 17 year overnight success kind of thing i sherlock was the sort of big leap into the limelight i guess which translated internationally for But before that, you were a big stage actor as well? Yeah, and theater and some film as well, yeah. But where does it start? Like, you grew up with a family? Mom and dad, both actors. Both actors? Yeah.

But working actors? Yeah, yeah, working actors, yeah. Like, the name you have, it seems like a big complicated name. Benedict. Yeah, my dad was advised to change it, and everyone said people won't be able to say it is one of those families that goes back i mean do you like is there something similar in class to uh to the uh louis wayne character like are you uh you know bordering on royalty of any kind or

i don't know but there was one thing when i was i spoke at the internment of richard iii's um body and um yeah somebody had worked out on the day or a few days before that there was some lineage and some relation to him oh really i mean but i mean you know that's it's a small island what can i say i don't know i don't know but deeply british but no it was it was a bit of research and it made me i guess it made me feel a little bit more the internment i'd also i just, I just played him in a BBC adaptation of The Hollow Crown,

the series that Sam Mennies did and for Dominic Cook who directed all three of our plays. I played him from when he first appears in the Henrys to Richard III itself

and I guess that was the first correlation that meant, oh, okay, we could ask him to read this beautiful poem by Caroline Duffy,

the ex-poet laureate. And and boy can she write something extraordinary for the occasion it was in the intern the internment so there was the whole thing of the king in the car park right they found his body underneath uh ncp and you know a car park firm's have they know it was him oh you know carbon dating stuff that was around i can't actually remember all the details but it was so we were all there because it was verified it was real so they and then they properly buried him when was this oh i want to say about four at least six years ago now wow that's i don't know that story yeah huh um so i guess that's my closest link to royalty so no i mean not not a long history of actors either i mean mom and dad

were the first generation to do that in their families and it was very much frowned upon when they they said what were the family what was the family's mom came from a pretty sort of middle to working class background dad was a wine uh trader and a desert rat in the second world war you know that brigade that yeah yeah. My dad's side, my grandmother on that side came from a sort of English family that owned, I think, a tea estate in India or something.

And his dad was a submarine commander and his uncle was in the diplomatic. It's a bit of a line in that. And it goes back. I think it goes back. There's lots of history. Lots, as I've been discovering. Exciting. Yeah discovered exciting yeah exciting british history you got the full uh spectrum of it yeah yeah all of it the good and the very and your wife's british uh she is yes

100 sophie as kind of yeah well i didn't all the way back i didn't that wasn't a prerequisite but i'm just curious because like you said it's a small island so like you know you kind of wonder because like this is a country built on immigrants. You're not going to find any pure white people. No, of course not. And so that whole idea of nationhood and nationalism is what's so fucking ridiculous about it. And this state we're in now where we're like, shut them out. Don't let any more of them in.

The others. It's become viral. It's horrible. No, it's terrible. Yeah. It's really horrible. And you just think, come on, what are we composed of here? I know. We're all the terrible, yeah. It's really horrible. And you just think, come on, what are we composed of here? I know.

We're all the same. Yeah, you know. So when you're growing up, though, do you, like, I imagine there's something about having parents who are actors and seeing them on stage and then not on stage. You kind of, a couple of things happen, I guess. You realize the job of it. Yeah. And you also realize the transformative power of it. And you realize that there is a a

craft to it yeah all those things yeah yeah and a community and um a very exciting enjoyment of it community absolutely and a diverse community you know just yeah seeing a crew and a cast hang out after a wrap party seeing at the house i imagine at someone's house no it wasn't our house no we we mom and dad have a flat in kensington which they've had since the 70s yeah something like three grand oh yeah yeah it's always one of those things as you know posh boy brought up in kensington well yeah i'm certainly very privileged background and up yeah but it was a flat that mom bought for three thousand pounds and that's where they stay still the same paisley wallpaper in the bathroom yeah yeah so then the parties were at the house of the producers?

Oh, it was another actor. I think it was Murray Watson of that particular production. Yeah. A lovely, great late actor of our country and a dear friend whose granddaughter, I'm actually godfather to him and me and her daughter were really good friends. And I sort of had my first boyhood crush on Emma emma watson and uh not the emma watson but another one yeah and uh yeah i was i remember being at her wedding turned around with if anyone yeah and there's any due impediment by these two and everyone turned around i was just kind of smiling cheekily but a bit of an age gap yeah yeah it was very sweet very sweet and um i do all that family and so yeah i remember that party but i also you saw

about the transformative thing i remember standing on the back of, I can't remember what production it was, but it was a comedy and it was in the West End. I think it was a Ray Cooney farce, potentially, because mum did a lot of those in the 80s and 90s. I don't even know what that is. Farce? No, no, Ray Cooney. He's a, yeah, he's a farcer.

Oh, yeah. He's a writer of farce. Yeah. And it's a British thing? It's a very British thing. Okay. Full of lots of sort of duplon topper and people can't compromise in positions and it's yeah um but based on the kind of fado model of like opening and shutting doors and you know the pace

builds up and then you know the stakes get higher and higher it gets more and more ridiculous it's an entertaining thing yeah man and i saw um mom just in the wings kind of chatting to somebody about to cue her. And then, actually not cue her, what am I talking about? I don't think there was that. It was not a live show. So it must have been just probably the stage manager doing her cues. Yeah.

She was about to go on. And, you know, there's this flat. It's just like there's nothing there that speaks of the world she's about to enter. And I just saw this sort of drop of her and this and this opening of the door this blast of heat and light and my mom just becoming someone else and walking out into this world where there are people watching yeah it's like what is that yeah what is that that's crazy that's the best part it's the best part she was my mom and i just suddenly saw this shift uh i can't remember young you know but there's that world that the world of the wings

is the best part of showbiz it's amazing It's amazing. It's like you just step through the door. And you guys say it's immediate transformation. It's the whole thing of method. It's like these, you turn it on and off. You have to, you can't being the person you're on stage all the time. I take my hat off to anyone who does,

or even more the people that, that suffer that way. But that's like the weird thing about dues paying and about like, you know, the experience, like no matter what your training is, like when you walk out there, there's some part of you that is naturally going to open up to that yes and you know and that's all

you're hoping for yeah is that like you no longer fear that yeah and and you don't have to worry about that or that the fear propels you to be brave and go into that darkness and unknown and sure sure but like at some point you can't be afraid to be out there no no you've got to do it because an audience is going to come in and watch it yeah you can't be afraid to be out there. No, no, you've got to do it because an audience is going to come in and watch it. Yeah, and if you're afraid to be out there, they're going to feel it and you're not going to be accessible. No, no, because you'll want to control stuff and you'll want to be safe. Do you have brothers and sisters? I had a sister from my mom's first marriage, Trax, who sadly passed away before Christmas.

She died of cancer. She'd been battling it for seven years. Oh, God, sorry. Terrible. Yeah. Life seven years. Oh, God, sorry. Terrible. Yeah. Life is terrible. Yeah, yeah. As the great,

greatly awful Donald Rumsfeld said, shit happens, or stuff happens, I think he said, but yeah, it's horrible. It's horrible. So, I guess the benefit...

She was nothing to do with this world. That was the other thing. She was markedly different. She was an artist. She went to the same universities I ended up going to with my sister, Trax.

Yeah, she was a brilliant artist, a brilliant, fine fine artist but ended up doing a lot of restorative work on well canvas but also on the frames and really for old stuff antiques yeah that's great um but still kept her hand in and did her own work and made the most beautiful christmas and celebratory cards of any kind of festival and yeah she was she was very gifted and um mum is as well. She started as an artist but then, you know, visual artist.

Salacious director. No, she was a scenic artist actually. She was the set deck and she, this director who sort of took a shine and usually be in front

of the set deck and all that fruitiness and she went, oh, okay, and got into Central at the same time as Judi Dench

and Vanessa Redgrave and that great swathe of young British talent. And yeah, she's that, those are her peers. Oh, really? Yeah. I just saw Kenneth Branagh's new movie. Oh, I'd love to see that. Belfast.

Yeah. Is it good? Yeah. It's a, you know, it's personal. Yeah. It's black and white. It's heavy. I didn't, but I didn't know any of that stuff.

Yeah. I live here and I, you know, I didn't know the beginning of the troubles and what that must have felt like as a kid i mean can you imagine yeah no i can't imagine yeah but again not unlike uh whatever the subtext of the power of the dog is you know you you're dealing with a fracturing of the of the of the people absolutely around political lines and you know these are neighbors yeah yeah yeah that's the fucked up thing that people don't realize is like neighbors will kill neighbors and it's happened over and over again. Every single history is full of it. It's the worst.

Just one day just turns on and there you go. And it's not just the other against the other. It's, it's people who live on the same street. You're right. You've known for your whole life. Yeah. Yeah.

Fucked up. It is fucked up. Yeah. So I guess the benefit of having actor parents is that you know get a reality check there's no there's no dream supportive too right completely of course they were but not all the way because i'm not at the beginning because they wanted me to do anything but you know this peripatetic life this uncertain income this not being able to plan your life blah blah you know and you know as parents they they grieve some of that you know school

holidays cut into by dad having to fly off back from Greece where we often went as a family to do an advert call that he then didn't get. But that was the end of him in Greece with us as a family. It's shit. But, you know, so it was a reality check. I had no romantic notions. I just wanted to do what they did. I wanted to earn a living and I wanted to have the respect of my peers and have a great time. That's what I saw them doing.

Were they disappointed? Are they disappointed? Did their careers, like, you know, no bitterness and no, like. God, no. No, which, again, is a huge thing to do with how egoless both of them are. Well, that's rare. Yeah. My dad is rare in particular, I think.

Mom had a lot of really, you know, she was in the limelight a lot. My mom's Wanda Ventham, and she was in a series called The Lotus Eaters in the BBC, as well as sort of award-winning drama like Breakdown and all sorts of stuff. And she was very well known. She was picked up with Gerry Anderson to be the sort of live-action version of the Thunderbirds thing he did called UFO.

She was in a lot of cult stuff. She was in Hammer Horror films. Oh, okay. And, you know, she's guested in a lot of great, great stuff from Only Four Horses. Oh, so she really had the thing. Yeah, she's known. And she lot of great, great stuff from Only for the Horses. Oh, so she really had the thing. Yeah, she's known. She was the one in the Frozen P section of the kind of supermarket

who would be stopped by someone and say, Oh, wait, wait, I know you. You're that Sheila Gish, aren't you? No, no, I'm not. No, yeah, you are. You're in that musical. You're in, yeah, that's on. I'm thinking, no, that's Sheila Gish.

I'm Wanda Vantham. Who? Oh, yeah, I know you. So I had all of that kind of. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the pre selfie almost,

almost star. The, just like not get it. And we're just people just occupying a moment with me and my mom by interviewing her. Trying to figure out who she is. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like weird.

Yeah. And then the worst is I kind of get into elevate. I mean, she was, she is beautiful, really beautiful. And, uh,

she was a bit of a pinup and, you know, it's very odd when you get into an elevator with a man who's twice your age and goes, oh, yeah, your mom. Yeah. Yeah, I like your mom. And you think, Christ, get me out, get me out. But it's nice, I guess, you know. It's a compliment to her beauty, but I don't really need to hear it from a person who is creepy about it. So you, but they, once you, your interest was undeniable, they were like, okay.

There was a turning point. There was a moment where at university, it took a while. I had to prove to them that I was willing to do further education to have something to fall back on. Although I did a drama degree. I didn't do like, you know, maths and economics. In undergraduate or before? No, I was an undergrad, yeah. So it was just a master's.

But I then did a, there was nothing about acting to do with it at all. It undergrad yes so it was just a master's but um i then did it there was nothing about acting to do with it at all it was all it was about writing it was about drama theater and prison separation those are the kind of practical elements and then it was also a huge two-third chunk of it that was academic so everything from studying kind of like you know verna herzog and fassbender and tragedy and yeah yeah stage design in the restoration era or post-war American everything this was what would make them comfortable if you had a broad education of everything that went into theater so like no no no that wasn't done to please them even then it was a turning point because I was like uh you know like I said if I wanted to be a lawyer or

diplomat or anything else that would be more grown up in their eyes and more uh assured as a living or way to live a life um then you know i would have chosen a different degree in a different university in a different so already they knew it was going that way but there was just a decisive point after a production of moats above amadeus i did at university where i played salieri and dad just got a hold of my shoulders in the car park and said um you're you're better at this than i ever was or ever will be. And I can't wait to see what you do.

And we're so excited to see it and support you all the way. Just completely. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's an amazing moment. Did you cry? I guess I did. I mean, I feel like choking up every time I speak about it. It's a beautiful thing to me to say to his son.

What a gift of a blessing. Yeah. And that is their love. That's what it's been like. Well, that is selfless, especially for an actor who generally requires an inordinate amount of ego. And that is easily threatened that he was able to be that selfless in showing you his belief in you. Yeah. That's a gift.

It was amazing. So then where'd you go? Where did you study? I went to Lambda for a year, which they were a bit against. They're like, you're ready. Just get on with it. I wanted to be with my peers and just figure out the stuff that wasn't working, the stuff that was. That's the Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Yeah, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. That's the big one. It's one of the two. RADA and Lambda, the big London-based ones. Actually, it's not. Sorry, that's really unfair. Guildhall. I mean, I am present at that drama school, so I would say it's the big one.

Yeah. Or one of the two. There's some great drama schools in London. There's Guildhall. Right. Sylvia Young and all sorts of other different places. East 17th? So did you go there and get hammered with shakespeare no yeah a little bit of classical english theater training that's what the year was about but really

the kind of key lessons and things that i locked into and still served me well were just tiny vignettes and different classes could be an alexander technique class could be a movement class yeah just working with one director who was like, do nothing. Just say it. Just do fucking nothing. Right. I was very much in my sort of adolescent and pre-adolescent stage. Just hat boxing.

I was just going, I want to, I've been given the chance to go from playing Rosalind in as you like it to play Willie Loman, a death of a salesman at school in a year. Yeah. You know, after my balls dropped,

sorry for the visual image, but you know, that's the, it was an all boys school. So girls in the Shakespeare productions and then hello, I'm an, You know, after my balls dropped. Yeah. Sorry for the visual image, but you know, that's, it was an all boys school. So I play girls in the Shakespeare productions and then, hello, I'm an, you know, an aging salesman. This is when you were a kid? Yeah.

I was 17 when I played Winnie. But that was not at Lambda. That was not. No, that was at school. But my point is I was hat boxing. I was just trying on these very rich, different, varied characters. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Just going all out to sort of uh transform i guess and then lambda was more about no no you walk into the room it's you yeah what's that like right and what was it like uh pretty limiting casting wise it's just like you immediately fit a box it's just that beginning stage where they go okay he can do the officer class posh kid or you know whatever right and then you go, yeah, I can, but I'm actually going to say no to that and try to get the other part

and whatever it might be. So really they're casting minded? I think they just want to give you a security in the marketplace when you immediately emerge. I mean, you know. But they see a marketplace, which is good. And it's beyond. A little, yeah, a little.

Is it beyond theater? There is also a very cloistered and in a good way, closeted experience of exploring what acting is, what is what bringing truth to a moment and imagine moment is. But, you know, it was, yeah, it just, when you get to that, I already had an agent, so that was okay. I got one by doing a, by playing Jerry in The Zoo Story in Edinburgh, Fringe.

Edward Albee? He's my first man, my wife, actually. Really? Yeah, we've known each other for a long time. She was, it was another production I was doing what's her name Sophie

Sophie Hunter and she was um getting into a hookers nightie and I was stripping out of a wet

sort of sweat soaked fat suit having been playing George in Convergence Stephen Berkoff play brilliant

um and uh yeah I was just head over heels but I just I was I was a goofball I didn't know

how to speak to women I was all over the place and just was kind of accompany her going oh you're amazing and uh yeah i was just head over heels but i just i was i was a goofball i didn't know how to speak to women i was all over the place and just was kind of accompany her going yeah you're amazing and just yeah how old were you uh i would have been 20 1920 so and she's uh uh an actress she is a director director yeah yeah yeah of uh opera and um events and classical music and um and also of straight drama and um yeah sort of classic stuff or interesting or like you know like she's working on an amazing production of the carmelites um with um a fantastic architect who am i gonna forget the name of fuck what's his name um he's very famous it sounds like it doesn't sound not non-traditional stuff that she does kind of yeah and i think her you know a lot of well i shouldn't be doing an interview for her but you know she she's better at talking about her work yeah but um she you know she wants to

democratize the sort of elevated experience of seeing classical music she wants to broaden its appeal and give it an accessibility that's not cheapening the the the brilliance of it but that is somehow to do with scale that's good that people have been trying to do that with classical theater for years but yeah it's time for me yeah i think so i think so and you know she's getting into producing as well um there's an amazing book that we've got in our production company called the end we start from her sister-in-law megan hunter i mean her yeah my sister-in-law megan who married tim her brother has wow the end we start from it's just an amazing story about the early stages of motherhood with this

catastrophic environmental disaster in the background this flooding of London this sort of event said oh my god yeah I guess that's what that's where we're going in terms of reflecting the world we're living in a little catastrophic apocalyptic and can the human spirit to? Yeah, and I think we need more of that, actually. Of course. I do. I think we also need some sort of solutions and prompts to know how better to live our life. Absolutely.

It needs to be more present. I don't know how you get someone from knowing something to taking action. Neither do I. And I think the biggest fault that we have as a species is short-termism. We can't see far enough to understand that our actions today have such a profound impact in generations to come. Yeah, and also we're completely overwhelmed with information, tasks, the pace of the way we live now. But truthfully, I think also we give ourselves more credit than we deserve for the individual changes that we are capable of making. Yeah, I try not to give myself more credit than we deserve for the individual changes that we are capable of making yeah i don't i try not to give myself any credit it's it's it's a it's a hiding to

nothing in my position that's for sure um so but you were you've been uh you don't want to direct i'd love to yeah when's that gonna happen probably when the kids are older it's so consuming you know i just want to be i love what i've got have you been approached to do it um like as your agent no a couple of times people have said i'd love you to direct an episode or do something yeah um of like sherlock and that kind of stuff no no they're very protective of that shit um let me anyway a marvel movie oh yeah likewise protective i know i'm joking i i i want to start small anyway i wouldn't want that kind of taika was in the louis movie he was yeah he's a good friend oh he's a good friend of yours he's great yeah and will and you know and uh and cole who who does the voice over

olivia coleman yeah collie but you know she um he rather was just um yeah he was around and he's he was just in that sort of manic phase of just saying yes to everything and we got him for a couple of days or an afternoon I can't remember it was really brief but he just like

set the set the whole crew alight it was wonderful but like he's a guy that like has a beautiful personal artistic vision

that's able to apply it to a Marvel movie with some success and I love that about them letting him in and i know they were they were jittery about it but that's that's an example of where that works where the

house style is still there but you have someone who has a really individual voice who's going to do something that shakes it up yeah and what is it like to uh to play like you know when you deal with these guys that you play because you play people that are real uh a few times some most of them are dead i think yeah so i'm very alive and then coming more like dominic cummings no one really knew who he was until he kind of broke lockdown and did everything he did as a as the parliament as the prime minister's personal way during right covid but yeah i was outside of the corridors of westminster no one really knew who he was and then james graham this amazing uh political satirist but also just this writer

who has the ability to put you in the room where it happens in a really profound way like okay do you have a bug in that room and that's how

people are very freaked out because you know and Julian Assange Julian Assange again yeah I mean he was far better known and still alive I hope

how do you feel about your depiction about his depiction my depiction of him yeah do you know it's been a while was he freaked out how does he feel about it I thought he meant how does he feel about the uh about your depiction about his depiction my depiction of him yeah do you know it's been a while was he how does he feel about it how does he feel about it oh uh there was a very spicy email conversation that happened on like the morning of the first day of shooting where he was like go fuck yourself well no very polite but like very

much like you have a moral obligation not to tell this story we're trying to do good work here and you're gonna torpedo it and i said yeah i don't think this film will torpedo at heart what is essential about creating a platform whereby you can publish whistleblowers anonymously that is a great thing you did for democracy but this examines the personal relationship you had with that enterprise and the people involved and you are very public and that's that's there are certain things you did brilliantly in certain things that should be held up for examination right the idea was beautiful how do you respond to that with another load of emails and he kept writing to him for me he was very and he was very flattering he's very sweet about it so we should publish these and

give them to vanity fair and christ when i am writing to a publisher so i spent some hours trying to think of you know a way, really where I was with the argument. And I'm not against him. I'm not against what he did at all. I think it's extraordinary what he did. It's just, it was, there were some provocative moves that were about personal politics and a human being, not about the ideal. Sure.

Can we hold up for speculation? It sounds like it'd be a good play, these correspondences. Oh, stop. Well, I don't know. It's been a while since I've seen him. But, you know, he's in a terrible hold at the moment. I just, yeah. It's pretty dark.

I don't know what's going on. He's in Belmarsh. And he's been held there for quite some time. He's not been in the embassy for a long time now. He has a family. He has two kids with one of his lawyers that he sees, but, you know, from a prison. Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a...

But there's a huge conversation. Yeah, we don't have to have it. I don't feel equipped to have it. I don't think I do anymore. It's kind of, it's too dusty. He's gotten away from it a bit. Well, I wouldn't be doing it any service by saying I'm on it and I really have a clear line.

How do you manage your family when you are doing so many movies um oh well they really are the priority you know it's like most people do they go with you yeah if it's someone like new zealand and if it's if it's cool with sophie's work and yeah and what their scheduling is you got stuck there too didn't you which was a dressing in disguise it was amazing it was amazing good family time i mean yeah not that anyone knew that at the time we were kind of sanitizing groceries and not going outside the house for fear it might just drift through the letterbox right um but once we kind of understood where we were which we'd never been before and um well the predicament was i always

had my parents you know they came over for like a three-week visit a week to acclimatize and meet jane and see what we were doing on the South Island and watch me kind of cattle steer like a hundred head of cattle through a village or whatever. And, uh, and then go on a two week road trip that, um, we'd planned together.

And by the end of that, it was like, I, I think it's too risky for you to travel by then. It was a really circuitous route home. It's like three days almost. So they stayed too. Yeah. For yeah for five months wow it was crazy it was crazy and you know that is crazy so you got to know each other even more than you thought oh yeah what is this story about you getting

kidnapped oh wow okay we're going there um yeah i got kidnapped i got car jack no i was i was on a weekend off with two other actors. Where was this? This is in South Africa. What were you doing there? I was doing a TV three-parter of a William Golding trilogy called To the Ends of the Earth. And I was playing the sort of landlubberly gent Edmund Talbot. And he's on this boat and it becomes a sort of metaphor as everything does, whether it's an island or whatever. For Golding's kind of press right you know pressurizing environment

to study the human condition and how it falls apart and what societal strains and weaknesses there are in certain eras that expose the true nature of our animal being and all the rest is he the lord of the flies guy yeah right right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah martin he's he's an amazing writer but he this is a great role great part and i was two-thirds of the way through yeah we'd all wanted to the three of us had wanted to go off and learn to dive to do you know like get a paddy certificate go scuba diving right and um we had this you know course and it was very kind of method based and there was just a little bit of practice of breathing underwater but it was in a pool it wasn't out at sea sure they do it safely and it was cold it was getting to be a south

african winter and i kind of felt a little sick and i got guys i think we should go back tonight rather than early tomorrow morning before we start filming monday oh yeah and south african with us uh you know he was like kind of it's kind of sketchy out there at night i think we should just wait until the day i went oh okay it's just i don't feel great he went okay well we'll find a route yeah and we went and i feel really guilty about that i wish we was he gone in the morning given what happened and we drove we drove the section that we thought would be a little sketchy, the kind of more unstructured road, the kind of dirt track, to get to the N2, which is this big trunk road

that runs all the way down the east coast of Africa. And, yeah, we didn't get far down it when one of the tires blew. We got out to try and fix it, because what we didn't know is you could run for quite a while on three tires anyone listening keep driving, you know and We stopped and then out of the bush these guys came and threw us back into the car drove us off road plundered the car and Yeah, it was a pretty horrible deal about two hours long. Yep

Yeah, there was well there was intimation of a gun, but I didn't turn around to see it because by the time we were out of the car, I was then put in the boot of the car. A surety at one point with my shoelaces is a bind for my hand. Oh, my God. So you're in the trunk? Yeah, and I kind of argued my way out. I said, look, I'm going to be a problem for you because I'm like,

I have, it's not, it's the small space. It's not the fact that I can't breathe. I have a problem with being a small, which is not true, really. I was definitely, I thought I've got to give them a reason why this isn't a good idea, you know. I can't believe for my life it's very much the way that if that happens in a family, the child is taken as surety and the parents are left behind. I mean, it's so, yeah, we learned a lot that night.

And I was dragged out having argued my way out of it and we were all sort of tied together up the side of this three of us yeah and how did they find you?

who found you? well they eventually left us alone once we gave cards and drew out money we'd used our cash to pay so the whole deal might have been over far quicker

if we'd had cash and they'd just taken the stuff out of the car and the car obviously and might have left us alone but because of needing to take a card to a bank machine it lasted for like two and a half hours oh shit so we then walked down the road away from where it happened and um you got unbound yeah and we kind of got to this roadside um oh my god these two uh women which was selling these fantastic goods that the um

cossie tried the local tribe had been making yeah beautiful um yeah like beaded bowls and wooden carvings outside just slewy game reserves one of those drive-through safaris and we just waited with them and a security guard and um called the production company and yeah the cavalry came and picked us up in our shaken form it was it was it was heavy yeah yeah we were so lucky i mean literally the next day in the paper there was a there was a uh yeah a guy got killed at a road stop and all that was in his car was a two round coin and a lighter and uh you know the guy got blown away at the lights just the opportunism to just take whatever might have been in them i think it's just got lucky but yeah and we were very lucky in a very big country how does that uh what does that uh

inform you how does it well i went back there i mean i stayed out for a period of time afterwards i also went traveling on my own in nimbiba and i think i kind of got this weird thing which i'm still processing as well a little of needing to live a life less ordinary at a kind of pace or i don't know a level of looking over the ledge and being in control of my mortality that's not necessarily very productive. But in that moment, I just, I became an adrenaline junkie.

I hung out with South African special forces and did, you know, helicopter flights and jumped out of airplanes, did parachute jumps. Interesting. Yeah. I used to like, Chris Hedges wrote a book called

War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. He was a war journalist. And, you know, he talked about that addiction. Yeah. Of that. How's that going for you? Have you tempered it a little?

A little, yeah. I have three little people at home that I want to stay safe for, you know. You don't want to go too close to the edge of the cliff. Yeah, I have a wife

and a family. Just for fun? I just think, yeah, it's actually, I'm a little bit more temperate. There is a skateboard in the back of the car.

It's about as risk-taking I get these days. Or a surfboard. You're getting a little old for that shit, too. I know, man. I'm a sidewalk surfer. Oh, yeah, breakable, too. But, you know, I'm not going up any ramps or jumping in the bowl. Okay, as long as you're not doing the pools.

Not these days. And with the Marvel movies, you have peace with that? You love it? In what sense? Just like there seems to be on some level some Faustian agreement one makes with themselves as an actor or else you embrace it. And I don't... You've got to embrace it.

You've got to just enjoy it. It's a celebration. You do enjoy it. Yeah. Because I know Brolin enjoys it. Completely, man. You just have to... You're in, man.

You're hired to do the job. How fucking lucky are we to do this job period and let them to do it with those resources with those rewards and and often with material that's really engaging and fun and complex and you know yeah the hours are long um it's never right until the movie's kind of just about to come out so you're constantly being called back to perfect things they're going to production without a third act there are loads of things that yeah are frustrating um but you know it's uh it's a mighty thing to play dr strange in the mcu i just i love it i absolutely love it oh good and you feel well you said like going into this character over and over again that you know you've had to sort of build him in your own way

a little yeah completely and i wasn't a comic. I didn't know much about him. I lent very heavily on Scott, who directed the first one, Scott Derrickson. And we built him from a great origin script based on the origin of the comics to a large degree. And then he's had these sort of stepping stones in the Avengers film, but we haven't really kind of stressed him out until this one.

So yeah, we'll see how he goes. There you go. That's a responsible plug for a movie that's not even out yet. It might not be till next year sometime. I can't, I can't escape any kind of conversation about it when it comes to, uh, interviews at the moment.

Cause it's just that, that was Spider-Man is obviously on our doorstep. That's about to happen at Christmas. And then strange is a big part of that. And they, uh, you know, if they,

if you speak publicly or if you spoil Marvel movies as an actor, they... Little red dots appear on you. Yeah, they'll kill you. Yeah, seriously. That's it. Good talking to you, man. Contractor, nice to talk to you too, Mark. There you go, Benedict Cumberbatch.

Great films he's in right now. I don't know about the Marvel one, but I do know about the electrical life of Louie Wayne and the power of the dog. Both terrific. And now guitar. Again, it sounds good. I got my Stratocaster set up. Thank you. Thank you. boomer lives monkey and Lafonda. Cat Ames is everywhere. Yeah.

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It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of

Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5pm in Rock City at torontorock.com.