WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1548 - Jude Law

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Jude Law and Marc made a movie together but they never actually got to meet during it. They remedy that at the production offices of Jude’s latest project, as he sits down with Marc to talk about the elasticity of time, having a runaway imagination, the traveling life of an actor, and Michael Caine. They also talk about the preparation Jude puts into his portrayal of historical characters, including his recent turn as Henry VIII in Firebrand. 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, Nicks? How's it going? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF. It's been that for a long time. 2009. Still going at it. I'm back home for a few days, a little bit, a while.

It's nice. It's nice to come back. I'm living the life. Traveling up to Canada, doing the acting, coming back, doing the catting. The catting? I don't know what that means. I don't know how people stay away from home for very long

when they have actual kids. But like, I fucking worry about my cats like some sort of idiot. I did get get by the way I'm not Humble bragging but I did get voted cat dad of the year by PETA. I finally won something You know, I rarely win anything and I am honored and I'm happy to be that But I imagine that just by the amount that I worry about my dumb cats, that if I had kids, I'd be out of my mind.

I do think I made the right decision on that. I do think I'm a little too panicky. Not that I'd be, what do you call it, a helicopter parent, but I'd be very panicky. I think my parents were panicky. They were worried all the time about every little thing. I don't know that They were that capable of the nurturing sort of love. Let's get this kid up and running business But I I think they were terrified of something happening to me because of what that might put them through and I'm projecting but Nonetheless, I do worry about the cats and they're fine. I don't know why. I think they're not going to remember me. And it's hard with cats anyways, to determine whether they're excited or not. A lot of people say, well, you ought to get a dog if you want something that gets excited to see you.

Cats, you got to decode. You got to figure it out. Like, oh, that seems exciting. He seems excited. Look, he came over and now he's walking away. But I think that moment when he came over when I got home, he was definitely excited. Oh, see, look, he turned over on his back for a second. Oh, he is excited to see me. That one just ran over to where I feed him.

All right, well, that's exciting. He's excited about something at least. I had this thought years ago. I might've done it as a joke somewhere. When you leave, if you're gone for a couple of days, I don't know what the cat brain is capable of, but I assume they just imagine you're dead, or not even imagine it.

They're just sort of like, well, it's been three days, I guess he's dead. Or yeah, I don't think they process it like that. I don't think they're that sociopathic necessarily, but something in their ancient brain must be like, well, this happens, you know, we've lost a lot over the years. There, you know, you never know with us,

when one's gonna wander out the door and not come back. And I guess that big one, he just, I don't know, a car or a coyote, something. He's in a ditch somewhere, he's gone. And I always thought that they just assume you're dead. So when you come back, no matter how long you've been away, he's gone. And I always thought that they just assume you're dead. So when you come back, no matter how long you've been away, it's kind of like a miracle.

I think there must be a moment where they're like, this is amazing. We all thought you were dead and now you're back and we're hungry. So good timing on that. All right, well today, today I talked to Jude Law. We went over there, me and Brendan, when I was in New York last and we went to

his production offices over at Steiner Studios and You know we sat down in a conference room and we did the thing and it was it was pretty great He's a good guy and also this new movie. He's in firebrand It's it's playing now. He plays Henry the eighthIII, and it's a kind of a monster. You know, I mean, I think he had a, well, I talked to him about it. They definitely had to strap some fat onto him. But, and I believe I brought up the fact

that they might have had a stunt ass in there. I believe there's an ass in one shot, and it definitely, it wasn't Jude's ass. I mean, I didn't have him prove that but I I'm pretty sure But he's a solid dude and this movie is kind of great and it's one of these movies where So many movies happen that we don't even fucking know about and it's annoying and it's annoying also that you know I spent like a half hour with Kit on the couch last night trying to figure out a movie to watch. How many times do you actually go back to movies you've seen before at least once?

It's crazy. We, you know, we were just looking and there's some part of me that's sort of like, I don't know what that is. I don't know what that is. Doesn't look good. The picture. I don't know. Yeah, that one.

That's a silly trailer. I can't. And I just blow past so many movies and we ended up watching Capricorn 1, which is not a great movie. The point was is I don't see a lot of movies, a lot of new movies because there's so many of them out there and I don't know which one to watch. But this movie Firebrand, it kind of gets the period amazing. It's about Henry VIII's last wife who was kind of a rebel, kind of a fighter for the people.

It's kind of a great movie. Jude does an amazing job. And we also talk a bit about The Order, which is a movie I was in that he produced, his company. That's the one where I played Alan Berg. It's about The Order, the first sort of murderous domestic terrorist organization, white supremacists. And they were up in, where were they, Washington, I think.

But they dispatched an assassin to kill this Jewish radio host, the movie and play talk radio was sort of based on Berg, but he was a real guy. And I got offered the role of Berg, and the entire part is really just me getting gunned down in my driveway with some stuff on the mic, but it was pretty disturbing. And I've yet to see the movie.

Why have I not seen the movie? But Jude said it's good. So when that shows up on the menu of one of the streaming services that I have, and I'm flipping through it, maybe I'll get a chance to watch it. But Jude was great. This week I have a show in Vancouver on Friday,

June 21st at the Vogue Theater. I believe that's sold out. Then I'm in Seattle on Saturday, June 22nd, the next day at the Moore Theater. That may be sold out, but I don't know. And I'll be in Phoenix, Arizona at the Orpheum Theater on Saturday, September 21st. You can go to WTFpod.com for tickets.

There's more dates there too. Check them out. I'm getting after the TV shoot. I gotta get back into it because I gotta get ready and get this stuff tuned up for a special that looks like it might happen. What is going on? How was Father's Day for you?

I, you know, I called my dad and it registered, which is good, but I don't think it's going great over there. It's hard, you know, I called my dad and it registered which is good, but I don't think it's going great over there It's it's hard, you know, it's a blessing I guess that my parents had me when they were children That because of that there's a very small age difference between us now me and my parents and they're they're both around but Not going great Not going great. I'll get into that. What are your memories of your dad?

This is, that was what I was trying to figure out. What is it? What do you gotta do to put it together, your relationship with them and you know, what's it built on? Do you know what I mean? I mean, many of you know who've been listening to me for years that, you know, there were times

where I had tremendous difficulties with the guy. You know, we went, you know, we went head to head many times and it wasn't good. And there was a period of time where I didn't talk to the guy for over a year. Yeah, maybe he didn't talk to me either. But I don't know, sometimes you have to do that. I had a therapist once and maybe this is helpful. I don't know who said you know you can train your parents because Ultimately, they're going to want to have a relationship with you and that may work for some Dynamics and you know, it definitely worked for mine But it's an interesting idea that you get to a certain age your grown person and you can tell them to fuck off and there's a real good chance that

they'll eventually buckle and you know at least negotiate with you on the terms of the dynamic. I keep thinking back about the things I remember about my father going back as far as I can remember and I got to be honest with you none of them great, None of them that good. There's many times the things I remember are, well, you know, I remember, I have this really weird memory of going skiing with my parents, we're on the ticket line

and the guy who's taking tickets had a, you know, a hoarse voice and my dad just said out of nowhere, it's like probably syphilis of the throat. And I'm like, what? And for some reason that stands out in my mind. And then there was a time where we were skiing another time and I had those Cubco bindings, which were supposed to be the safest binding

and they kept falling off. So my dad tightened them up. And the next time I fell, I got a spiral fracture, kind of corkscrewed my tibia. he was an orthopedic and I just remember that drive home that you know I had a splint and they threw me in the back of the blazer which was the bumpiest ride ever and it was just awful and then he set my leg I had a waist cast for months and then a shorter cast for a bit longer I remember I went to see George Carlin

when I had the shorter cast. Yeah, that was a good memory. It was better than the memory of my dad breaking my leg. But I don't recall any physical therapy. And to this day, my right foot splays out, not right, because it was broken. And my doctor dad, I guess they didn't have physical therapy then.

I don't know. And then I remember the time he ran over my foot. Yeah, these are the great memories and why I make sure I always call them on Father's Day. And then there was the manic episode. Those are actually the most exciting. You get very involved with things, you know, whether it was hats. There was a period there where everyone was wearing hats. My parents had gone to New Orleans and he got a bunch of these hats. There was a period there where everyone was wearing hats. They, my parents had gone to New Orleans and he got a bunch of these hats. There's all

of those times where he was manic and couldn't find a wrench. Not a great day. Not a great day. But I think ultimately as you get older, the best thing you can do is try to figure out the basic vibe or energy or part of your parent that you might possess that is good that gets you through life that helps you do things that you know that somehow somehow it was it was given to you it was passed on and it turns out it was not a bad thing a lot of those things seem bad but then you just got to trim them up trim them up. Trim them up, trim off the bad part and say like, well, at the core of this, once you get it

trimmed up, it's not a bad thing. Manic charm, not bad for a comic. Engaged in life in a very excited, sometimes angry way, not bad. Once you take out the bad memories and the mental illness part of it, not bad at all. Yeah, then there's the times where I remember, well, how about my graduation for college? My dad was on a down then. He was a bit depressed. He was a little bipolar, my old man. And that day was not a good day. He wandered off the day of my graduation and we didn't know where he went. And we were just shy of calling the police

and he showed back up. I guess he had walked to a bridge and did some thinking and decided against it and came back. It made my graduation day memorable. And yeah, it's good. You know, when you have that parent that's that weird combination of mentally off and also, you know, utterly self-centered because ultimately all these these memories Come back to him and then there were the times when he was depressed and my mother used to say

Why don't you go make him laugh? You're the only one that can and that was the beginning of my life as a comedian Thanks, Dad. Happy Father's Day. So look, I will be going back to shoot some more in Canada, and you'll hear me from there. But today I'm here, and I've done some great interviews in the past few days that you'll hear. I actually, and don't go crazy,

I actually finally buckled after years of pestering from fish fans and sat down with Trey Anastacio. And it turned out to be really good, even though I'm not a fish guy. We discussed it. But that's coming up. There's a lot of great other episodes coming up. But today we have Jude Law. And again, I want to mention that Firebrand is playing in theaters. And it's a great period piece and this was a great conversation with Jude Law. From Yorgos Lanthimos, the Academy Award nominated director of Poor Things and the Favorite, comes Kinds of Kindness, a darkly hilarious and unpredictable film that

critics are calling mind-bendingly brilliant. Featuring an all-star cast led by Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and Willem Dafoe. Kinds of Kindness is a wild ride that will leave audiences discussing the experience long after it's over. Don't miss Kinds of Kindness in Select Theatre's June 28th. This is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. As a podcast listener you've heard from us before, today let's hear from our members about what online therapy has done for them. I would recommend my therapist 1,000 times over. She has truly changed my life. The day after my first session, my friends and family said I sounded like myself again for the first time in weeks.

You deserve to invest in your well-being. Visit betterhelp.com to see what it can do for you. That's betterH-E. Visit betterhelp.com to see what it can do for you. That's betterHELP.com. You know how to hold a mic? Yep. Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah, I don't know where all of a sudden time is just screaming by. For years I was like, you know, everyone talks about how fast it goes by and I'm like, I'm not feeling it. And then I turned 60 and I'm like, where the fuck did it go? And you feel it pressing down on you. Yeah, you do. You really do. It's an unusual thing. It's an elastic thing time, though.

Yes. I always love those perspectives back where on the one hand you feel like you've just sped through years of your life and then you look at it in more detail and actually you go, actually, no, I've done a fair amount or that was a good experience you know and it kind of it contracts and expands in equal measure.

Yeah but the one thing underneath it all is like it's behind me. One thing behind it all is it's disappearing. We're all heading in one direction. That's right yeah no way out and half your brain just spends a lot of time trying to stop you from thinking about that specifically. Yeah. And there are a lot of reminders popping up, whether it's kids growing up or parents getting older

or partners getting, you know. I know. I think that has something to do with, too. My parents are kind of in decline. Yours? Yeah. How old are they? Dad in decline. Yours? Yeah. How old are they?

Dad's 81, mom's 77, but my mom's not very well. Yeah. And uh, but dad's fighting fit. Yeah. Doing an amazing job looking after my mom, but yeah, it's, it's tough. I know. And then you start to, yeah, I don't know, man. It's hard not to get a existentially negative, you know, because you like, well, so that's,

that's the, that's the best it can go. I know. That's a no. What you just said to me is like, that's the best. One of them is still good enough to take care of the other. That's about as good as it gets. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. It's true. And do you, do you spend time with them? Yeah, I do. I mean, it's been an unusual year. I'm sure that it will come up while we talk more. I've been away a lot this year with the kids and just on the road. Yeah, but we're a very close knit family.

So on the whole, yeah, we spend time together and make sure we see each other. Yeah, I don't know how I'm still trying to like wrap my brain around how actors do it, because I do the acting a bit. How did that movie come out? I'm in your movies. I've got to say thank you so much for doing it. Sure. You gave it such legitimacy and it you know there was a beautiful kind of pairing also with with your voice and who you are. Right. What that great character was, who he was. Yeah. It just it gives it a really important sort of theme, thread rather. Oh good.

Of, have you seen it yet? No. Oh, it's terrific. So wait, now we're talking about The Order and- Yes. How did you get involved with that? The Order came about as seems to be the way, at the moment, my producing partner, Ben,

we have a company called Riff Raff. And more and more, we've started, I've started kind of reaching out to writers and trying to create our own material. Zach Bailin, who is the writer, knows my producing partner. He sent me the script. It was a wonderful script. We got involved as a production company several years ago. And then we're lucky enough that Justin Curzell got on board

He's intense. He's intense. He's smart He doesn't He doesn't shy away from hitting things Clean yeah, yeah, he had me he had me going there that that one It was so funny because I get this opportunity someone asked me like You know, do you want to play Alan Berg? And I know who Allen Berg was before, right? But I didn't know, you know, a ton about him. I hadn't done a deep dive, but I knew that he was the guy that got assassinated, you know, by the order. And he was a left-leaning radio personality before there were radio personalities like that.

Yeah, he really made his name. Right. So they said, do you want to play Allen Berg? And I'm like, who else is going to play it? I have to, there's no one else is going to play that role. Good. Yeah, yeah, that was what we were hoping you'd say or think. Yeah. Because I just thought, like, because honestly, a day doesn't go by where I don't feel like I'm going to be gunned down

for being a Jew. So I thought maybe if I do it in a movie, it'll correct my karma. Do you really feel like that? Sometimes, but I'm also paranoid and have a hyper imagination that never goes in the right direction. My imagination, if it only worked for me,

in a positive way, I'd be a much healthier person. But it- Damn it. Yeah, but no- I know what you mean when you talk about that. Imagination, I, so, you know, I'm like, I've been doing this job, you know, pretending to be other people for 30 years. And my, my ability at being able to, to pretend I'm going through certain experiences that I'm not has gotten better and better and better,

as one would hope it would the longer you do the job. The problem now is it's out of control. Because now if I just think too long on something, you know, it starts to really kind of living in, start welling up or getting paranoid. Or so it's like a muscle. You've got to be really careful how you exercise that muscle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it could just run away with it. Runs away.

It's like, uh, you know, I talk about, uh, I do a bit on stage where the ideas that these people that are going crazy with QAnon or right-wing, they're literally psychotic in terms of the information that they're taking and believing. And the idea is that if you believe in God, on some level you'll believe anything. So, right, because that's a pretty big suspension of disbelief, right?

So once that door is open, you've gotta be kind of vigilant about what goes in and out. And in the same way, I imagine, especially if, well, I don't know, like lately, because I'm getting older, there's a fragility to my sense of self that you kind of build your whole life around avoiding. And I think acting is one of those things that enables you to not be whatever you are

and to whatever level of panic you are in. But I mean, do you find that? Do you find that the reason that you can't unlock from a certain way of thinking because of a character is because you want to avoid yourself? I think the journey somehow of trying to lose myself and understand others more and more, which I've always seen as a really positive thing.

Yeah. A positive offshoot of acting has become not not it's not like it defines me, but but somewhere in that weird quagmire is who I am. And I don't know that it shed light on who I am, but in fact almost the opposite in that it sort of is who I am. I'm the guy kind of pretending to be someone else trying to find myself.

Will that make any sense? It does. It makes a lot of sense because you're one of those guys who can, you can carry a movie, but you can also do character work that's like not the necessarily the lead of the movie and you're kind of a mysterious guy and I don't know if that's on purpose but it's good it's good as an actor. I couldn't be more thrilled that you say that. Well you don't want to be I don't want anyone to know who I am right

but I don't know who I am I mean what a nightmare to for everyone to say oh we know who you are right but that is on some am. I mean, what a nightmare to for everyone to say, Oh, we know who you are, right? But that is on some level the the essence of what a movie star is, right and Different from an actor. I mean some movie stars are good actors But usually if someone's a movie star like if you go see Clooney in something you're like, what that's Clooney doing a thing When I just saw firebrand I'm like that's Jude Law? How is that fucking possible? You know what I mean? You have the freedom, I don't know if you worked on it,

to be a great actor as opposed to be a personality. That was always my hope. Honestly, I couldn't be happier that you're saying this, not as some sort of desperate need to be complemented, but it means a huge amount because, yeah, if I can remember who I was as an actor or my aspirations as an actor when I was a kid, I grew up in Southeast London. Give me the character of Southeast London, because that doesn't mean anything. Southeast London is, well, it's quite hard to describe really. It was, it was always

quite a kind of rough part of London. It's no, it's got, it's got, it's got sort of upwardly mobile areas. My parents went to university there. They were both from working class backgrounds. They kind of got themselves a great education and became middle class. And so we grew up in a sort of an aspirational, Bohemian kind of community, but it was, you know, it was also a lot of working class folk around us. Same part of town that Gary Oldman grew up and Tim Roth, and they were always big heroes of mine.

So they're, they're a little older than us. They're a little older and They're probably my age. Like I'm 60. I'm not sure how old Gary is. Yeah, I think maybe a little older. I'm not sure how old Harry is. Yeah, I think maybe a little old. I'm not sure, actually. So are we talking Michael Eland?

Yeah, I guess. Although Mike's from the north of England and his films are... I'm trying to think. I can't really place any particular film or character. Well, Michael Caine was from Up the Road. He's the best. He was from...

Michael Caine and Harold Pinter were from Elephant and Castle, which was just up from where I was. I was a little further south. But those kind of character actors, the sort of work I saw Gary doing when I was a really, you know, aspiring young kind of wannabe kid at school dreaming of being some kind of actor in some kind of form, were those guys who could disappear and try, just sort of lose themselves in characters and not hide, but find a truth that was so far removed from who you were that people wouldn't know it was you.

And I've always loved the idea of that. And then as you become, as you get more entrenched in the business, you also realize there's another avenue, which is just sort of gloss, a kind of glossy version where you use what skill sets you have and you just play a type and that can work too. Right. You know, to me, the joy has always been

the two opportunities. You can kind of disappear in character. You can play the kind of movie star role. You do Indies, you do the franchise. I mean, so try and do them all yeah always there was never a point where you're like, I'm not doing that. I Don't know. I've ever said that Which is has been to my? detriment Honestly, and there's also sometimes been a triumph, right?

So there's party that sort of like oh they want me, I guess I gotta go. Yeah, there's a lot of that. I'm always worried this could be the last call. Really? I'm getting a little better, really stopping for a moment and looking at the kind of elements and thinking, because you know what it is,

the older I get, the effort, it does take a lot of efforts. I'm exhausted all the time. New project, new project, page one, how do we do this? And also I get more and more nervous now. I trust the process more, but oh my goodness. So I've just started this show here. We're in the production office for it.

Started two weeks ago. The week before I was chewing myself up, I didn't know whether I could, you know. What's the character? He's a guy who was in a band in the 90s and he and his brother kind of kamikazied the band with drugs and ODing and all sorts of mess and then they set up a bar that became

the New York hotspot. The brother tries to kamikaze that, he gets bored out and sent away and it's about him coming back and sort of leaning and bringing all his crap onto the brothers success. So it's sort of like another, it's this new trend of restaurant bar centered. I know there's a lot of them.

I guess there's such a, there's such theater in them right? The bear too. I think there's a lot of emotion going on and family and what we, what's interesting is, of course, a lot of people that work in these places are actors or singers or performers or have been. And there's a sense of, okay, the show goes up when the door opens. That's right. You know, the clientele are our audience. Totally.

When, you know, lights go out, everyone goes, do it again tomorrow, folks. Right. You know, there's a lot of theater. When you know lights go out everyone goes do it again tomorrow folks right you know And sometimes theater when you're in a bar or restaurant you kind of you kind of feel that they're not loving their role Not loving their role there for the money So what what were you afraid of? Oh everything can I do it have I got it in me? Oh, yeah, just is this gonna be honest am I gonna let everyone down on have I got it in me? Oh, yeah. Just is this going to be honest? Am I going to let everyone down? Honest? Have I got the energy? You know, it's it's it's I'm proud that I still have a high bar.

Like I always want things. I don't want to just phone something in or be like, you know, I really care about. But do you but can you phone in? I don't think I can. I don't think I allow myself. I think that's the point of all the the nerves and the sort of self analysisanalysis and the upset prior to starting. And then we start and of course I'm like,

oh, this is set, I love, I'm at home, I'm on set. I know how this works. It happens. Yeah, and you've done the prep, if you've done the prep, if you, you know, the work all kind of catches up. I remember once doing a play several years ago, it was a wonderful, Eugene O'Neill play, and I was playing this big, brawly, brawny Irishman. And I was eating steak and lifting weights and practicing this Irish accent and the swagger.

And I'm walking around my house. I'm about three weeks into rehearsal, and I suddenly think, what am I doing? I'm a fool. You sound like an idiot. You're trying to put on muscle you don't have. But talking about life earlier, the only direction was forward. It was like, I've got a couple of weeks left. I better just keep going. Trust the process. And it all worked out. I like to think it was a success anyway. What movie?

It was a play. It was called Anacristi. It was a wonderful Eugene O'Neill play yeah, and you did you did a long run of that we did that was a limited run in London at the Donmar warehouse So, you know, it's about eight nine weeks eight nine weeks and you got to prep for a month Couple of months. Yeah couple of months. See that's the thing about theater like, you know, just well There's never a point though because I have to do a show I'm gonna shoot a series in in Vancouver and I I don't like I don't live in though, because I have to do a show. I'm going to shoot a series in Vancouver. And I don't like, I don't live in actor's life because I just like to be around my pots and pans. Right. I like to be, I don't even...

Literally, domestic. Yeah, I don't have kids, but I got three cats. And part of me is sort of like, what are they going to do? They're cats. And I'm still fucking my head up about it. But the idea of just going somewhere else, being detached detached and like living that life for so long. Yeah, I mean How do you like make yourself not lose your mind? Well, I nowadays it's simple. I'm with my family Oh you bring them and before

There were periods of time when so I I'd been married twice, my first marriage, there were periods during that period of my life when I was away a lot on my own and it drove me crazy. But you were just trying, you had to do it. Well, I was working, following, getting the job, I'm going to, you know, the money's going home, it's going, you know what I mean? It's got a, I can't just stay at home. But sometimes for months, right?

Sometimes for months. I mean, we would never, as parents, you know, have mean, he's got a, I can't just stay at home. But sometimes for, for months, sometimes for months. I mean, we would never, as parents, you know, have it that the kids would be away. I wouldn't see them for months, but the, but the weeks even wasn't with them. I'm kind of sitting there in these hotel rooms thinking, what am I doing? What is this? It's miserable on set. Fantastic. It makes sense.

You're having fun. You're working, you're, you're being creative. You're surrounded by lovely creative people. Yeah. Team. Yeah. But at home you go kind of nuts. So now I'm very lucky, you know, my family are with me all the time. We made a choice to sort of travel together like nomads. Well, that's great. And they have a good time? Yeah. And this last year has been insane. We've we moved house in London. Yeah, the house is an old house

It needs a lot of work and so we've just Taken jobs and traveled we've been in France. We've been in Australia doing the work on the house You got people well, we're still we got we got we got a team but it being England. Yeah we need a Endless sort endless approvals. Because there's certain- You're rebuilding permits? Yeah, and then certain parts of the land

that you're not allowed to change because it's an old historical piece of land. Yeah, yeah. Bats in certain trees. And I mean, honestly, the amount of loops and hoops I've got to jump through so but but that's now This is my issue now, isn't that in the back of your head all the fucking time all the time So you're checking your phone. It's like it's the yard that again Yeah, I I call it plate spinning. Yeah, I feel like I have suddenly got it a hundred plates

Yeah, and I'm the guy running I have suddenly got a hundred plates. Yeah. And I'm the guy running around. And you, but you keep it together, aren't you? Just, some days are better than others. Yeah. So, okay, so that happened. Do you ever meditate? Have you ever started?

I tried. I tried and now, even though I don't like lose myself. Yeah. Just any excuse to be able to take five, 10 minutes and breathe. You do it? Yeah, really. I was doing it during COVID for a while, you know, with the headspace app. Yeah. Just any excuse to be able to take five, 10 minutes and breathe. You do it? Yeah, really. I was doing it during COVID for a while, you know, with the Headspace app. Yeah. And that guy's British, I think, isn't he?

Oh, well, there are options. In Headspace, the one where you get multiple choices of different people. Yeah, maybe. But I thought it was, I was always with the one guy and, you know, he would, I would sit for 15 minutes and I got it. It was good. But for some reason I get jacked up on coffee and I'm back on nicotine and you know, and I'm sitting around wondering like, why am I so fucking stressed out? These two sitting there looking at you. And I'm doing nothing. I'm doing nothing.

I know why, but like my brain's choosing that. So what am I gonna do? But don't you think, I mean mean I'm realizing more and more like life Is this like balance like you know, I I love to get I love to keep fit. Yeah, but I love a glass of wine Yeah, so I'm like I'm thinking well, you know what I I quite like this balance that I can have a glass of wine I feel guilt-free. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's nine glasses of wine. Yeah Well, there's sometimes there's nine glasses of wine. But then at least when I'm having a little workout in the morning, I feel like, okay,

this is a healthy balance. Yeah, I try to get. I'm putting in, I'm taking out. Yeah, I try to get there. So tell me about this, you know, finding this honesty. So when you're starting, when you're growing up, you're watching Roth, Michael Caine from up the street. Do you know him? Yeah, I've worked with him and I know him a little.

Yeah, he's a wonderful man. He's like the best. Yeah. And he just retired supposedly. He's 100. Well, supposedly he is nearly. No, he's 90 something, yeah. You know, and-

Do you know what I love about Michael? No one likes being Michael Caine more than Michael Caine. Really? He's like, I mean, he's, he, yeah, he just loves the life he's led. And he loves to share the experiences and the stories. And if you've got a story, if you went to the moon, he went to the moon before you and tells you, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, you know, I have this wonderful holiday. So I'll tell you about holiday I had my and his holidays always better than yours.

He's a raconteur and a gentleman. Yeah, and quite a career, right? Yeah. I mean, he's another guy though that like, you know, he did the leading man thing, he can do it, but he's not beholden to it. And you know, he's, he's not, he doesn't, he's not a complete sort of transform, you know, he's not a complete sort of transformed, you know, he doesn't lose himself, but he's got these varying degrees of intensity. And never underestimate, you maybe, you should, I wonder whether it was as clear in the States as it is in the UK.

He was pretty groundbreaking because, you know, when he was coming through in the 60s, it was expected that you as a Brit had to lose your accent and become much more like I've got a kind of middle class standard English accent. Michael's obviously got that voice, right? And he never lost it. Now, if you look at his contemporaries around him, Eric, Terrence Stam, Albert Finney, you know, they all kind of, Tom Courtney, they all sort of leveled out their voices and Michael kind of broke the mold by saying,

no, this is my voice, I'm sticking with it. And it became part of who he was and his persona. It makes him like, people who can do a good Michael Caine impression are very impressive, right? Yeah, they are, yeah, yeah. But like, I just remember, did you ever see that movie where he played, he worked at an ad agency or something,

and it was an indie movie, it was the one where he starts killing the people who were, he wasn't getting promoted, and I can't remember. Oh, that sounds great. Yeah, well. He's killing everyone above him, so he gets the next, I don't know. Yeah, but in a way that, like, is very, you know, yeah,

it's kind of a great movie, I can't very, you know, yeah. Yeah. It's it's kind of a great movie I can't remember, you know, I'll look it up. But so how old do you like there's like I just interviewed Malcolm McDowell Oh, yeah, dude. Wow that guy's fucking what a career up, but he's lit up It's an interesting career because you know, he did clockwork orange and that's and that's it in the way of if if people remember those Yeah, he's been working, working three movies, four movies a year. But like he's never gonna get out from under Alex in Clockwork Orange, we talked about Collegia. But he's got these great stories

and it's my belief that it seems like in England, even with rock music, I'm gonna interview a geezer butler who's a bass player from Sabbath and I'm reading about them. It seems like within show business and within music and I imagine other arts and whatever There's a fairly small place and everybody kind of knows who's doing what? Like you and I imagine that that crew of British actors that you just talked about

You were probably when you were a kid like they're they're amazing and they're down the street. This all happened here. Yeah actually They're amazing and they're down the street. This all happened here. Yeah actually That's interesting. I you know, I think there was a There was this there was this crossover period when to me acting on film suddenly became a Possibility as a kid, you know film was this other. Film was this other world. And then it was in my teens when I was aware of Gary Oldman's work, Tim Roth's work, you know, the history of, or the actors

who had come out of the area that I was growing up in. And then films by people like Stephen Frears and Mike Lee, you mentioned earlier, that suddenly were also films that were of people I kind of knew. I grew up around. I remember My Beautiful Laundrette or Meantime. And watching those and suddenly going, oh, film is also an expression of us, of me, of those around us. And that was a real light bulb moment where I suddenly thought it wasn't this other world, this alien kind of island where people make movies. It was a potential avenue for me. Prior to that, it had all been about theater, really,

and just performing on stage. But even with the older generation, like, I mean, there's a lot of the British films, like you mentioned Courtney, like the long distance runner, you know, If, and then the Olivier stuff, and Pinter, like it's kind of brain bending or Joseph Lozey. Yeah.

I mean, what the fuck is that? Yeah. What is that? You watch his movies and like, what am I, what am I watching? And that was sort of the art films of that time. But then I guess what you're talking about is when it shifted to, you know, kind of more working class depictions, you know, more neighborhood depictions depictions, like guys like Mike Lee, I guess, would be Daniel Day Lewis, I guess, earlier.

That's right. So you saw it, but when you started, you were all theater. I was, well, theater just seemed, you know, theaters were everywhere around me in London. You drive into town from where I grew up and you go over the bridge and there are theaters there, so you could see, and to me, getting a job in one of those seemed more realistic.

It was like, oh, you know, that's where I want to get to. And I was doing plays out of school and I was- You weren't early on, so you were always into it? Yeah, I loved it. I loved it from school and then, you know, youth companies outside of school. Like Shakespeare? A little bit.

I've done that more in my adult career rather than as a kid. Was it daunting? Do you know, Shakespeare to me, I always had this weird relationship with, I just always got it. You did? I did, I don't know whether it was the way it was introduced, probably by my mom.

I never, yeah, they would take us to the theater a lot. What did they do? They were both teachers. Oh, so, well that take us to the theater a lot. They were both teachers. Oh, so, well that's- They're tired teachers now. So that's supportive. That had to be kind of like, at least you got educated. And they made it fun. They made reading and going to the theater

and watching movies and paint. My sister's a painter and they made creativity. Oh, that's great. A fun thing. So you never thought, they never were like, what the fuck are you doing with your life? Do you know, they never, never did that. They were super supportive.

What an amazing thing. They lent on me emotionally in other ways. Oh yeah. And that's why I'm an actor. I need approval from everyone else. Exactly, thanks mom and dad. I. I need approval from everyone else. Exactly. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

I'll go over here to get liked. Yeah. But so they brought you to theater. So you saw Shakespeare because I have this ongoing thing, especially with British actors, where I'm always like, I don't get it. I get it. And Ian McKellen has done it to my face. Wow. Like still, still you did. No, I got it. I don't get it. And Ian McKellen has done it to my face. Wow.

Like still, still you did. No, I got it. Yeah. He gave it. He definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To be this close to him. Wow.

I'm jealous. Doing a monologue. But do you feel like you have that kind of stage training? Where'd you go to learn? No, I kind of learned on the hoof, if that's the right term. Yeah. I kind of learn on the hoof if that's the right term. Yeah, I did a lot of theater as a kid and then got employed in and did theater professionally from quite a young age.

So I was doing stuff from about 19 on. There are a lot of, in the same way in New York, you have off Broadway, there are a lot of small theaters in London away from the West End, and I was doing plays in these little theaters above pubs or in back rooms and learning. Experimental stuff, weird stuff. Yeah, really weird stuff.

Yeah, where it doesn't make any sense and someone's naked? Yeah, a little bit of that. I'm trying to, as I remember, yeah, quite a little bit of that. As I remember, yeah, quite a little bit of that. It's like, I don't know what we're doing, and where are my pants? But it's theatre. Yeah, exactly. It means something. There's nine people out there waiting to see this.

That was always the rule. If there are more people on stage than in the audience, go to the bar. Really? Do you know what I mean? Come on. There's nine of us in the play and six of you. We'll talk about it in the audience, go to the bar. Really? Do you know what I mean? Come on. There's nine of us in the play and six of you. Let's just, we'll talk about it in the bar. Believe me, I've done, that's what stand-up comedy,

you have to deal with that. Yeah. And like, you know, how do you maintain a fourth wall when they're, like, how does the temptation be like, do you guys just wanna, we don't have to do this. Yeah. I, but where do you pick up the craft? Because I know I've talked to enough actors.

And talking about craft is not necessarily the greatest thing in the world. But when you say you look for honesty in material, where do you start learning and who do you learn from to? To go to the depths that you want to go to or does that happen naturally as well? Well, I guess nowadays It's a process that I've just Accumulated over the years. Yeah stuff boxes. I need a tick and areas I want to go to, to make it just feel authentic. And, and it's a good excuse to read up

and learn. Yeah. You know, hopefully you've you've taken on board a character or a situation, a character that's in a situation that's interesting. Yeah. But what about accents and stuff? I mean, do you so accents that that's that's an area of technical area, you got to really, yeah, you got to do the work. You gotta be specific. It's not enough to go, he's American.

You gotta say, well, what state, what street, where's his mom from, where's his dad from? So you put that all in place. Yeah, all that stuff. And you work with the dialect people? Fantastic dialect coaches who train you up and get your mouth working in different ways. And he gives you that little decoder sheet.

That's right, phonetics. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the whole thing. But do you that little decoder sheet. That's right, phonetics. That's the whole thing. And then you walk around listening, I mean one of my faves, before The Order, Tim, who I worked with on The Order, Tim, the great Tim Monarch, a kind of legend in dialect teaching, he gave me all these recordings of guys.

So I wanted my officer to be from Buffalo. And so he found all these amazing recordings online of guys reading at funerals and guys giving speeches and people on the news. And so I'll walk around listening to these guys on my headset. Yeah. Hearing the sounds. You feel like you got it? I hope so. I mean, that's for others to say. Hearing the sound you feel like you got it. I hope so. I mean, yeah others to say but I did that for the first time with

With that to Leslie movie with with Riceboro. Yeah, and it was a I didn't want to do it I was like because I know what I'll see myself as an actor really so this guy this director keeps you know pushing me You know, he wants me to do it and I'm like, but there's a million, you know half cowboys out there You know go get an me to do it. And I'm like, well, there's a million, you know, half cowboys out there. You go get an actor that can just like be this guy. And he convinced me that he wanted me to do it because he liked my TV show. And I'm like, I'm not going to do the accent, though. It's too much. But then I thought, like, well, if you want to act at all, you better figure this out.

So I got the coach. How do you find it? That process? I like to kind of interesting. But to your point, like she says, well, we'll do Lubbock, Texas, because there's not really a Texan accent. Right. Okay. And I'm like, Lubbock, what the fuck is Lubbock? And then she sends me these links and they're all of this, this old songwriter and singer and actor, Mack Davis. Okay. It's just an old dude. And it's like this behind the scenes Grammy interview that, you know, for the industry. Which by the time you listen to it 40 times you know off by heart right?

Right well but it's just sort of like you know that's the only example but I think it's interesting that he went and dug up just anybody in Buffalo just regular people to just find how this works but I had to have that phonetic sheet in my trailer. Oh yeah me too. To make choices. Still as a guide yeah. Right well it's extraordinary that the muscles in your mouth are just programmed to fall in a certain way

because of how you've grown up. Right. I remember, what was it someone told me once about that you, oh, I'm gonna get the age wrong, and I'm gonna disappoint Tim, because he told me the story. I think your accent is sort of locked in by the age of 12. So say you you know you're born in London yeah and you move to Michigan age 12 you'll

probably pick up the Michigan accent and that'll be your accent right but prior to that you know it's still forming and so what we're talking about is literally training the mouth to operate in a different way or place it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy technical. So work, when do you start doing like, how do you get from theater? What were you doing to, you know, get the first break? Well, if someone saw me and offered me a job, that was it. You know, the usual. Like, what was it? What was the first job on set?

On a set, it would have been. You know, the usual... Like, what was it? What was the first job on set? On a set, it would have been... So I did some TV as a kid, and then, yeah, a lot of theater. And on a movie set, it was probably... Oh, I did a film, a little indie film in England called Shopping about car thieves. Yeah. And then I did a film about Oscar Wilde. And then-

Did you play him? I played Boise, the young guy who he got, his lover, whose father was the guy who took him to court and accused him of grooming Boise and being a sodomite. Yeah, yeah. But my real break was to I got offered a part in Gattaca. That was big. And that was a big break. That was the first time I went to Hollywood and suddenly I'm there with Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman and Alan

Arkin and Gorgor Vidal's in it and yeah that was a big deal. Yeah. And a real a real sense that things were moving in the right direction or in a direction. Alan Arkin. Alan Arkin. The best. He's so good. Yeah.

It seemingly, I mean, that's interesting, isn't it? I was gonna just say effortlessly, because what we've just talked about is the work that goes in. I bet you there was a lot of work going on there. Yeah, I mean, because- What a wonderful, but an actor, my kind of actor in that you don't see it all work. You don't see all the workings. Yeah, it looks

sure easy. Sure. It's just like I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, I talked to David Krumholz recently, you know, that guy. Yeah. He does now an Arkham impression and he loves him. And just like, you know, you're off screen, you know, he was just as crazy as anybody. Yeah. And, you know, off screen, you know, he was just as crazy as anybody, you know, and, you know, kind of like, you know, neurotic and everything else. I think that acting is a great way for neurotic people to calm down. I'm going to take that. I like that. I really know I like that. It's so true. Yeah, because I realize that, and this is just me trying to put a craft together, is that like, I realize that and this is just me trying to put a craft together is that like I know that I I can't Transform like I'm not gonna be fucking you know, Dustin Hoffman Hmm, but I you know, I can listen and I have an okay presence and you know

I have an intensity and I but you're not giving me a tremendous amount of hope that I can count on that You know in the sense that like it seems like if you're getting insecure or scared before you do a role, and you don't have the belief in yourself that like, I'm fucking Jude Law, I'm gonna go be Jude Law. How am I gonna be like, well, Mark Maron, I'm just gonna go out there and be who I am, on some level. I realized with the character like in Two Leslie that, for me, I have a spectrum of emotion that is me. And if I look at the script and I realize, well, this guy's not neurotic. So then I just figure out which parts of myself to turn off. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that seems to be a good chunk of it. Yeah. And it's almost like there are two directions you can go in. And sometimes, you know, one direction is required more than

the other. And sometimes both are required. What I suppose I'm saying is there's an emotional journey, right? So take Henry the Eighth. I mean, what the hell have I got? How am I in any way like him? But you go back and you sort of take away the fact that he's a king. You take any, you learn or fill in the gaps if you need to, but learn as much as you can about, what was he as a child, you know, what

was he going through? What's the emotional infrastructure that created the man that he was? So you're reading sort of dense historical biography? Yeah, lots of fascinating biographies. But then what you realize, I'm like, I get obsessed, I'm like 10, 12 books in. The more you read, the more you realize, God, there are only a few facts here that all these books actually have, because this is 500 years ago.

That's crazy. So they're all spinning their own perspective based on these, let's say, 25 specific touchstones. So you then yourself are creating that emotional world. And like you're saying, you think, well, okay, there's a little bit of that. I know what that's like. I'll turn that up. Right. He's not got a lot of that. I'll turn that down. Right. There's that. And then there's the other direction we were

talking, I was talking about, which is, what does he look like? What does he, how do you play someone who is either like, you know, more muscly than you or, or, or more athletic or less athletic or more obese or, you know, whatever it might be. and you start leaning into those directions too where you're creating a physical presence so you've got an emotional presence and a physical presence right at some point they they right they meet and then you have to do the dial the dialect and the dialect on top is is is I would put that with the physical journey like trying to create the kind of physical presence. But this movie, Firebrand, is like, it's one of those movies like that,

it's a different approach to it, because there's a realism now that I think that the director was going for. What was the director? Kareem, yeah. Yeah, well, he's Brazilian, and he knew what he liked about it as a subject was the thriller aspect.

He liked the fact that how does this woman survive the danger of this man, this monster, this blue beard figure. And he wasn't so interested in the historical. He didn't really know an awful lot about Henry VIII as a kind of historical figure. And that's what I loved. It felt so refreshingly original perspective. But it was very visceral in terms of the setting. Like, you know, that there is certain, there's not a lot of it, but even Monty Python did it well. That just the disgusting,

Yeah, the grim. feasting and darkness and disease and food. Yeah, dark times. Yeah. Hard times. Yeah, and I mean, he definitely got that. Yeah. But, but also, you know, you've got this gangrenous wound that won't go away, and it's just like this festering puss and everything else, and she's just,

you know, this beautiful ideological person up against this monster, but also such grim times. Yeah, hard times. But I did realize at some point that they brought in a stunt ass. It was Henry's ass. That's all I'll say. It was Henry's ass.

I'm like, that's not Jude Law's butt. Ha ha ha ha. Let's just say it was Henry's ass. I think it went pretty well. Clearly, in terms of immersion, that maybe I'm projecting, but maybe you're just, you were vain enough to realize you weren't gonna put on 150 pounds. At some point, when I first started talking

with Kareem about it, there were two roads. One was try to, and the other was, that's just not gonna be possible. In the time I had, there was no way I was gonna be able to put on that weight. But would you do it? I mean, at this point, were you? Maybe not that excessively, no.

I mean, I let it go and we kind of, we did it in other ways and gained a weight in another way but never to that, never to that extent. No, I thought it looked good, it worked, you know, it definitely worked. And you seemed massive. I mean, and I imagine that was somehow part of the physical portrayal of it.

Because, you know. But the clothes were so huge. They were these voluminous clothes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, we put on weights and padding and all sorts of things to kind of create the scale and just the presence of the man. But, you know, it was talk about bling.

They were wearing their wealth. I mean, we went to this extraordinary historical costumier who was part sort of museum, part clothes makers, and so they were obsessed with clothes of that period. And they were making them and sewing them in exactly the same way. They were using gold cloth. They were you know, all those jewels that were what it was basically Henry saying, Look how rich I am. Right. I mean, everything was

gold or rubies or, you know, the most expensive yarns brought in from Yeah. It's it was heavy. So heavy and layer upon layer upon layer they would wear. And how do you were you sweating and just sweating like crazy miserable. I loved it. Yeah. Honestly, it was we didn't have a lot of time because we didn't have a lot of money. But we just all dived into the the excess and the setting and we were fortunate to shoot it all in one area, one castle, and we're all staying nearby in this little Derbyshire village in the north of England. And it felt like a real group kind of obsession. We all just dived in and yeah, the sweat and the pus

was all part of it. And the smell, that was another thing, like the smell at some point. So when you were, okay, when you're breaking Henry down, what were the things that drove the character? Like he was tremendously paranoid. Paranoid, absolutely. Paranoid that he, first of all, he didn't want to die.

And he was, no, you know, well, who does? But my point being, he, I think, was particularly scared at that point that he had to face his maker, an answer for the many deaths that he was responsible. So he was, so when you read the stuff, you're like, he's a believer. Well, he had used God, he saw himself a second only to God. He said,

he's known to have called himself God's secretary, right? He was so, so to him, God was mega maniacal. Oh, like huge. Yeah. So, but deluded. I mean, poor, so the poor guy, I mean, he'd been told so since he was a young boy, right? You know, he first of all, his brother was going to be king. He was probably told, well, you'll be Pope or you'll be, you know, you'll be you'll be something else. We'll get you in. Don't worry, son. Then brother dies. So you are king. And he's this glorious sort of six foot golden head boy. Suddenly the, you know, everyone wants to marry him around Europe. He's he's healthy. He's a great swordsman and a great writer. Yeah. And you know, he he

probably didn't plan to have, you know, numerous marriages. He didn't plan for all this this disastrous love life. And and and killing a couple. Yeah. Killing a couple and thousands more who who disputed his power. And so you knew you had to carry that. But also he was jealous and insecure and weird. And then by the time, when we get to the period that I played him, drunk and high on pain.

Yeah. I mean, he was in agony. We spoke to doctors who treat people with these open wounds, these ulcers, and they're very hard to treat. But the idea that he had no anesthetic and no painkiller, nothing, is a miracle. He survived for 10 years with them, but he was drinking heavily.

Just a painkiller. Just to try and numb the pain, yeah. There's some moments in there, like where you have to, the sort of knowing that you would have no problem killing your wife. And for some reason, because of his vulnerability at that time, he kind of loved this one. The weight of that, when you're working with,

what was the actress's name? Alicia. It's great Yeah, right at least you've a candor. So in those moments like that moment where we saw it. Do you love me? Yeah, it was But you see I okay you're asking about getting down to the sort of the touchstones of who he was I I decided early on that I think he was a bit of a romantic. Yeah that you would think he was just this sort of bullish and non-feeling, you know, egotist. I think he probably was all those things. But I think he kind of desperately wanted the love. He wanted to be loved.

In a real way. In a real way. And somehow every time sort of thought, oh, well, do you love me? Am I lovable? Please, don't cheat on me or don't Don't lie. Yeah, because then I'm gonna have to kill you Yeah, and I really quite like you, you know

And I think he probably went through that almost with each one of the the wives Maybe not and of Cleves, but but because famously with Anne of Cleves. He just decided she was ugly And he'd been sent a painting that he said was a lie. Actually there's a great story about Anne of Cleves that Hilary Mantel writes about or tells that, so this is wife, I'm gonna get this wrong and I apologize all his stories, I think this is wife four, this is wife four, and so he's getting old and they decide that he should marry this woman who's coming over, I think from the Netherlands. They've sent the picture, he agrees,

and he decides, he was a bit of a, he liked joshing around Henry apparently, so he dressed up as a commoner and rides down to meet her and tells everyone, don't tell anyone that I'm the king, and she apparently slighted him on on appearance yeah and he just decided there and then get rid of it that's it that's it that was it like I know it's hard to like to so when you play the the honesty of that guy you know he's a monster yeah but I mean the real goal is if you do your job and you find the honesty that

There are moments where you're empathetic even with a fucking monster and I think Yeah, I don't know that you have to find the empathy when you play no character But I do think you have to strip it all down and not be judgmental and play them and that again So we've come back to the word truth, you know, just play them truly rather than sort of leaning into I'm the monster yeah I want to be a it's like well why it's more effective to my mind when you see someone really portraying them honestly let the monster side just be take care of itself you know if they're killing people if they're tyrannical if they are egotistical if they're youannical, if they are egotistical, if they're violent,

whatever it may be, well, that's gonna be in the DNA. You know what I mean? What our job is, like, make them real. Because then they're more scary. Yeah, because they're humans. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, as opposed to caricature. Exactly.

But it just feels like now you're part of this, some sort of, like, I think is specifically a British tradition of actors playing kings. Like, it doesn't happen that often. But like it used to, it feels like it used to. Like a tool. Yes, yes, yes. I think probably Olivier did a king or two.

He did. And I think it comes from, it probably comes through Shakespeare. Yeah, maybe. To sort of like create these historical epics. But like, but this one was fairly intimate. Like it, you didn't see, he came back from the war, which I think in back of the day, you know, that'd be half the movie.

Yeah. Is whatever the war was. Yeah, yeah. But this was really a kind of a human portrait of the two. Again, that was something that I really liked. Kareem's perspective, he was like, let's just see it as Henry and Catherine. Right.

It's just about this couple. Now, obviously, we have to pay respect to the time and the power that was being tug of war over the religious implications of the time. But ultimately it's a domestic. Yeah. And it's about a woman. A dysfunctional household.

Hugely dysfunctional household, yeah. I mean, apart from anything, they were never alone. That, you know, he was again, paranoid, but also, I mean, the stuff you learn is just so mind-blowing so he would have a boy sleeping in his bed to keep his bed warm you know so when he was ready to go to bed out so he could get in and the bed would be warm there would be someone probably in his room on call if you wanted to take a piss or a shit yeah to take care of him but literally just standing there he'd have guys around like the, you know,

we have the radio nowadays or we have Siri or whatever. He would have musicians just standing by because if he wanted a tune, he'd be like, that was sort of interesting part of it. At any moment there was a guy with a lute or something. Because he loved music. And they were just like in bed with him and just hanging around.

Yeah, hanging around because that, so he was also the creator of the this that they say the middle classes because there was the there was the privy council. Yeah. And then the privy chamber and there were a group of people who had fought with him that he trusted that he wanted close so that they could protect him and his advisors. And he could gamble with and get drunk with. Yeah, yeah. Just have a party in the house whenever he wanted. All the time. So did doing...

When you did, you did Hamlet, right? Yeah, on stage here, yeah. And in London. So how old were you when you first did that? 34, 35. And what did that experience reveal to you? Because that's sort of like a life-changing role, isn't it? Yeah, it is.

I was looking back, it came into my life, someone mentioned it to me and said, you should think about doing this, you're about the right age. And honestly, it just felt like, A, the time was right. The person that brought it to me was someone I trusted. And I think I knew myself well enough that if I, I obviously had a confidence that I could pull it off,

but I also felt I didn't wanna be the guy that got to a certain age and was like, damn, I wish I a confidence that I could pull it off, but I also felt I didn't wanna be the guy that got to a certain age and was like, damn, I wish I'd done that. Yeah, right. It seems to be a rite of passage. Yeah, so it felt like the right time and the right people around me who I trusted would guide me and not bullshit me

and lead me in the right direction. Like what were you worried about in terms of bullshitting? Well you don't want to be in a situation like that where people are saying, you know, you can do this, you can do this, you're great. And you're not, you're crashing your car every night. So you know, you want to know that you're with people that are like, A, gonna guide you and say,

okay, this is the area we need to work on, or this is the area that you could improve on, whether it's vocal technique or understanding text or whatever it might be, delivering those massive monologues. But I think honestly, looking back, I'm just really thrilled that I did do it. And part of me also looks back and thinks, how the hell did you do it? I remember, okay, I've never shared this before. So we did 200 performances in total. We did a season in London,

and then we went to Elsinore Castle actually in Denmark, and then we came to New York. And we ran it, we did five shows a week, pretty much straight through, it was like eight months or something. And I remember when I finished here in New York, And we ran it, we did five shows a week pretty much straight through, it was like eight months or something. And I remember when I finished here in New York and end of every night you're like exhausted and sweating and I got in the shower and I remember I just wept.

I was so pleased that I'd managed to pull it off. I'd done it, it was over. But proud, proud and happy that I'd managed to do it. And I don't know that it was one of the greatest, I don't know that it was the greatest production, it was a success, but I was thrilled that I kind of tested myself and just about got through it. You were overwhelmed with emotion.

Overwhelmed, honestly. I guess that's relief, I think, also. But also, we were talking before about the exhaustion, the effort. Yeah. I think also it was just such a relief that I didn't have to do that show again eight times a week. Like, oh. It's like, that's like when we were talking about theater at the beginning, because I've

thought about it and I talked to guys, you know, like I never, one of the funniest things that I ever heard about doing theater was, you know, David Harbour? Yeah. He's great. Yeah. He's a real fucking character. But he did a lot of theater and we were just talking about that moment of like, I don't know my lines.

It's the nightmare. It's the fucking worst. Yeah. But he did this impression of like, he would be, one time he was about to go on. It was his entrance. Oh, crap. It was like 10 seconds away. You see, this gives me the shakes.

I'm like, I... He says, I'm 10 seconds away from going on. And he says, somebody give me the script. That's right. Where's the fucking script? I've got to just check. I just want to check. Oh yeah, okay, I do know what I'm doing.

Awful. Oh my God. I remember once during that run of Hamlet, we've done it so many times. I've tried to understand this and I've never understood what was going on. It was this one night. Now I was probably, I think I'd been up a little too late the night before. I think I was a little over tired, but I was on stage and obviously I know it so well by then because I'm like five, six months in, it's just coming out of my mouth. Right. I'm thinking, have I missed something? Like, and I remember coming off stage saying

to everyone, did I miss it? Did I miss it? Like, did I? And they're like, no, no, it's great. It's going good. It's going good. And then I go back on and it's all coming out. And I'm still thinking, wait, I've got to slow down. Like, is this, am I on top of this? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or is it just coming out of my, am I talking absolute crap? Yeah. And I'm kind of looking at people and they're going, no, it's okay, thumbs up. Did you? Bizarre. Did you, you didn't fuck it up?

I dried, I think twice, but I didn't dry. I remember there was, uh, the, The lines don't come. They don't come. And I just started. Riffing. Riffing. And then it came back. Riffing in Shakespeare is pretty hard, let me tell you. What's that moment on stage like where you're like, I'm on my own? All on my own, by the way, because you're delivering

a soliloquy to the audience. Who know the fucking soliloquy. That's the awful thing, yeah. They all know Shakespeare and they're judging you because. What's that great, there's a great story of Mark Rylan says when he came on to play Hamlet and he says to be and then a guy on the front row goes or not to be and then he looks right goes that is the question.

But is it like you say it comes easy to you but do you did you find like I mean the people that love Shakespeare, they just believe that all questions are answered. Well, wait a minute. When I say it comes easy to me, what I mean by that is, I've always relished it, and I've always felt a general understanding of what it is. It's not like gobbledygook.

It's not like a kind of a puzzle to be solved. I read it and I go, okay, there is a language here of a bygone time. There is a poetic perspective and embellishment. And I kind of got it, but Jesus, learning it and really playing it did not come easy. That took a lot of work. Did you have to have a Shakespeare guy? We had an amazing guy who came who was an expert who helped us really fully understand the references of the time and then how to modernize them if we wanted. Oh wow. Oh because there's little little asides where you're like what's he

talking about? Yeah sounds. Yeah right yeah yeah it could be anything right is that food? What is he? Yes exactly exactly. Right What is that? What is he talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're usually, they're usually some kind of pithy put down. Right. Right. Calls you a, I don't know, scrawny dog. Unbelievable.

And it like, did you feel like, and it must have been like that moment where you got overwhelmed with emotion. I mean, you're, it's, you're part of some sort of tradition when you pull off a hamlet, like a global hamlet. Yeah. Right? Yeah, it's true you you enter into a albeit a crumbling pantheon. Yeah Yeah, they're all kind of going away but uh when over the course of the the career do you do you mark points where

you know where you grew as an actor because of a specific, either another actor or a director's guidance, where you enter situations, like you did two movies with Anthony. Mingala. Yeah. And you know, three. Three.

Three? Yeah, you worked with David O. What's his? David O. Russell. Yeah. But I mean, were there, who'd you learn more from, other actors? Because if you're just coming at this and you're working with heavyweights, I mean, I know you knew what you were doing and how to be on set, but were you like, that's a

good trick? Oh, endlessly. I mean, I think honestly, you've just kind of summed up my approach and my whole career. I don't think there's been a single job where I haven't, even if I'm only subconsciously absorbing how people do stuff. And my lack of training early on was the reason I was all eyes, ears, all senses open to learning everything I could from anyone.

Right, but it didn't make you insecure? No, more just bloody curious, you know? What's the trick? Yeah, and absolutely, like you say, that's a great trick. And that could be just off the top of my head, whether it's someone like Mingela teaching me that, you know, if you're the lead, it's like it's your party. You've got to welcome people. You've got to make them, you've got to set the mood for the party you want. Don't be the guy

who just sort of ignores the day. No day players have got it hard. They come in, they've got to one day, let's say to play the cop in the room who's going to deliver. That's a really hard task. You know, we've been shooting for three weeks, four weeks. Yeah. And you can't be like, Who's this guy? Or ignore them. Right. Set the mood. Give them a give them an insight. Like you're the leader. Right? you're the leader, it's your party. But you have to be gracious.

Right, and take that seriously. That's a responsibility as much as just tipping up and being like, hey, I'm the leader. Yeah, yeah, right. You know, set the tone. Right. Set the tone for the work expected, the pleasure, but the effort and all of that stuff.

That was an important one. But also watching the containment or the process of someone like Sean Penn or Philip Seymour Hoffman or you mentioned Dustin Hoffman, I worked with him on that O Russell film. They can be present and they're charming, but they've got their shit together and they're working, they're working, but they got their shit together and they're working, they're working, they're working, and they turn it on, you know, or what they're saving it for,

when they're saving it for the close-up, they're saving it. All of those tricks, I've just been absolutely stealing. But that's our job, right? You know, take what you can. Well, I mean, I heard someone tell me a story about Gene Hackman, you know, like, you know, been between scenes

and I don't remember who told the story, you know, but he seemed kind of like just casual between scenes, but he's like, I know how to fill myself up. You know, that there's just a muscle. Yeah. But it doesn't overbearing. It's not, you know, it's just, I guess it's a focus, it's an intensity.

Yeah, and it's an on button. Yeah. You know what on button. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. I remember saying this to a young actor who, and this is the funny thing in our business, I guess it's the same in any, but I do feel like in our business,

you know, we get, have you got any advice? Yeah. Have you got any advice? I'm always like, learn your lines. Yeah. Be on time, be nice. But equally, I do remember saying this to this young guy once who I was working with. And he was burning up so much energy being chatty and being a nice guy.

It was like, save some, save some of that. You don't have to be best friends with everyone with the focus puller and the caterer and just chill out. You've got to save some of that energy and put it in the lens because that's really your job. Yeah. Did it land? I think so. Yeah.

I think so. I think he knew what I meant. And it all is about the script ultimately, isn't it? I mean, when you know... I guess so. Yeah. I mean, you've got to integrate and trust the writer. And then there are moments where you're sort of like, I don't know about this. Yeah, I was going to say that.

The interpretation of the script is key. Are we all in the same space? Are we all interpreting this in the same way? How often have you had to be like, I don't know if this guy would do this? I've said that a few times. And it's a nice moment. I feel like it's a wonderful moment

that you can, with conviction, say, Really? I don't know. And you know, yeah. And you know, if you've done your work, and you can back it up, then it's a wonderful sense. I mean, I'm also discovery. Yeah. Yeah. To be able to be that committed and say, I just don't think he would be behave like this or say that. Can we do it like that? Yeah. You know, of course, I just don't think he would behave like this or say that. Can we do it like that? Yeah. You know, of course I'm also the kind of person who suddenly sits there thinking, maybe they're right.

Maybe I should just do it that way. Am I really, am I really that certain that this guy wouldn't do that? Maybe, can we do it both ways? Yeah. Well, that's what they usually do. It's like, yeah, do one the way you want. Yeah. That's how they placate talent. Snip, snip, snip. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, just go, yeah we do it both ways? Yeah, well that's what they usually do. It's like, yeah, do one the way you want. Yeah. That's how they placate talent. Snip, snip, snip.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not just go, yeah, do it. That's a great idea. Great directing though is also that lovely sense that you think you're coming up with all the ideas and then you realize you're doing exactly what they want. Those are the good directors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You get high when you go, hey, that was, was that what I wanted to do? Was that what, yeah, yeah? Was that what you did? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you have an idea, they're like, yeah, but maybe like in the- Yeah, but maybe like this. Yeah, and then, oh yeah, okay, good, good.

And I came up with that. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was great talking to you, man. Oh, it's my pleasure. Yeah, and I'm looking forward to seeing the movie we're in together. I'm excited for you to see it. You saw it?

Yeah. Is it done? It's done. We are close to getting a distribution deal. It will be out probably by the end of the year. I'm very, very proud of it. It couldn't have been in better hands than Justin Kurtzell. He's brought a real authenticity to it.

Well, it's a non-judgmental film, but it really leans into these patterns of misbehavior and disenfranchisement that seems so apparent today. Yeah. And it's the first real American domestic terrorist group. That's right. And did he use my radio stuff throughout the movie? You're like an angel in it. Like your voice, Berg's voice is the voice of reason

and his death is very much the kind of pillar of everything turning and getting suddenly, oh shit, these guys really mean something. Or trying to make a hell of a statement. Okay, I'm glad he used all that stuff. The presence is in there. It's beautiful. You bookend the whole thing and you come in in the middle.

Yeah, it's lovely. Because he had me that night when he had me on the mics, he was just writing me, like, do it again. Do it, make something up. It's really touching. It's really touching and it's a kind of overview of just decency. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But there's a wonderful kind of almost like prayer that you say, did he use it at the beginning or in the middle? There's a beautiful way he just says, you know, be nice to people. Right. I was in and out of the, that was one of those things where I'm like, I tried to do a little touch of Chicago,

but I don't know if it stuck. That's terrific. It was good. Well, it was great working with you. Yeah, and you. Thanks. ["Firebrand"] There you go.

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