WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 535 - Nick Frost

Episode Date: September 21, 2014

Nick Frost never intended to become an actor, let alone be part of some of the most popular comedies in recent memory. Before Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Nick had no goals, no ambition, and a penchant for getting into trouble. But as Nick tells Marc, everything changed one night thanks to a sudden and undeniable friendship. 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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See app for details. Lock the gates! Okay, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucksters? What the fucknicks? What the fuckineers?

What the fuck buddies? Nice to be in your head. I appreciate you welcoming me into your brain in a very direct and immediate fashion usually. Today on the show, Sir Nick Frost is here. Sir Nick, he's not a sir. Nick Frost is here. I know many of you know him from his partnership with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, both of whom have been on this show. He's going to be in this, he's got a new animated film,

The Box Trolls, opens in theaters this Friday on the 26th. The day before my birthday, the day before my birthday is the 27th, and during my birthday, I will be at L.A. PodFest. That's right. You can get the package deal. You can do all kinds, you know, come down. There's a lot of podcasts I'm going to be appearing on. Aisha Tyler's podcast

on that Friday, the 26th. I'll be doing a podcast on Saturday, the 27th, my birthday. You can actually go to LAPodFest.com and if you click on the live link, it will allow you to buy a weekend stream to see the festival, and I believe there's still tickets available. You can go to LAPodFest.com and get all that stuff.

I'm going to be doing, who's on my show so far? Shelby Farrow, Whitney Cummings, Amber Preston, Desi Jadakin. I hope I'm pronouncing her name right. Maybe one other person. But that should be fun. My niece is going to be in town. I'm happy to have her out for my birthday and with a full agenda of things to do that I think a 15-year-old from Phoenix will enjoy.

So there's a lot going on, man. I've got to do a podcast. I guess I'm just blowing through this birthday. But we'll celebrate. We'll celebrate together at L.A. PodFest. What else do I have happening? Oh, I'd really like you to come. If you're in the Bay Area, the Litquake event I'm doing is going to be a blast.

I'm going to be in San Francisco. They're tied and linked. Attempting Normal. Marc Maron in conversation. It's at the Z Space. But you can just go to Litquake.org and get some seats. I believe there's still some seats left. It's a 7 p.m. show. And Jack Boulware, the fella who's going to be in conversation with me, him and I go way back. He's an old friend. He's a writer in

his own right. He's been a great friend to me. He's been to both my weddings and he's had a falling out with me as well. But it was not a big one it was just one of those ones where it's like are we cool yeah we're cool oh i didn't know if we were cool yeah we are so so it won't be tense but it'll be fun and we'll do a q a and i enjoy uh doing those type of live events i like talking to the audience i like people to ask me things that make me think on my feet not unlike what happened at the Trippany House show the other night. I know what's going on.

I know some of you come to those shows regularly. I know many of you have seen me over and over again when I workshop this material. And I know also that some of that material is stuff I'm going to be doing because that's part of the work. And I know some of you guys have seen it, but I'll do other stuff,

especially if you let me know how many of you have been there, then I feel guilty. But I'll be at the Trippany you let me know how many of you have been there, then I feel guilty. But I'll be at the Trippany House September 23rd and September 30th. I think Nate Bargetzi is going to be doing both of those shows with me. And then October 14th, I think the irreplaceable, unique Ryan Singer will be with me on October 21st. I don't believe I have an opener for that show yet, but those are all happening. You can go to wtfpod.com to the calendar and get links to that. It's an $8 ticket. There's plenty of parking. It's a very small space, very intimate, and things happen. Things happen that

will never happen again. Not out of choice, but just the way it goes. Sometimes I prefer that for some reason. Monkey was acting weird yesterday i you know it's like it always happens he was acting weird i i don't know what's going on yeah i've been very fortunate both my cats the ones that are still with us boomer lives by the way uh i don't know where deaf black cat is i have no fucking idea uh i don't know where any of the animals are i don't know where the skunk smell was coming from. I didn't see them. They didn't seem to reveal themselves.

Where are all my animals? I guess it's just too fucking hot. Too hot. Too hot for the animals. But monkey, I don't know what's going on. And I get nervous. He was acting twitchy. These cats, as they're getting older, are getting very needy.

Not in a physical ill way, but just you're getting sort of softer. They're getting a little... I don know these were these were feral cats but you know i'm starting to think man i always thought that my cats were like twitchy and nervous and amped up because they were feral because they were when i got them but they were just barely feral but for years they've just been like completely nuts barely touchable for a long. And now they're both really sort of warm, but they're just completely skittish. And I got to be honest with you, along with some of the inner work I'm doing, I'm finding that I might be responsible for that. If you were around me all day long with my volatility and my overreacting to things, I think I might have done that to my cats. And now I'm sort of being more aware because I've always thought that i'm not really a cat guy uh i'm certainly not a dog guy but i like cats a

lot i love them but uh i'm a little uh a little anxious a little jumpy and sure enough they're they're both fucking jumpy so now i'm trying to be nice around the cats and just relax because i you know i want them to have a nice retirement but But Monkey just has been going at his dick lately. And I don't know what's going on. The other night I fed him some chicken. And some nice roasted chicken. And then he went to the litter box and he came back out. And he started making weird noises that he doesn't make.

He's not a very noisy cat, though he's a little noisier lately. He just started going... And he just started attacking his own cock. And I thought, oh oh great there's something there's something fucked up with monkey maybe he's just excited about the chicken you know sometimes i eat things i just want to i want to go at my dick too i mean sometimes like you get a bowl of ice cream or a nice piece of cake and you know right after it you're like you want to make noises just like oh yum oh my god and just pull your dick out and go at it can't lick my own dick but

i've felt that urge before so i'm gonna i'm gonna see if it happens again and and just you know sort of uh write it off as uh just overly excited about having some nice chicken is why he gave himself head but i don't know we'll see he seems okay today he's been spending a lot of time under the bed but not doesn't seem sick. Just a little noisy and sort of going at his own dick occasionally. I've seen more cat dick lately than I like to admit because it's not something you're used to seeing. Dog dicks, they're just there. They're just out and dog balls and dog boners. But every time you see a cat dick, you're like, oh, my God.

You just have that hidden? I didn't even assume that that was even in there. But every time you see a cat dick, you're like, oh, my God, that's you just have that hidden. That's all. I didn't even assume that that was even in there. You know, sometimes, you know, because I've done some some talk radio in my in my day back in the day, do a little lefty talk, a little political talk in there. And also because I'm a comic and I and I do have a certain honesty to me, though it's specific usually to me in my life. Occasionally I get people, you know, who will tweet at me or say things like, how come you're not talking about the Israeli-Palestinian thing? How come you're not talking?

Where's your commentary on Ferguson? What's going on? I don't hear you. You're a vinyl guy, but I don't hear you talking about're a vinyl guy but i don't hear you talking about what throwing vinyl away does to the environment where on where are you on climate change uh well right now i'd like to do a segment that i'm improvising let's let's call it mark addresses world problems let's try it let's try. All right, so I'll make up the guy who's all worked up about my lack of throwing my hat in the ring. So what's going on? How come I don't hear you talking about the Palestinian situation?

Well, it's bad, man. It's bad. It's bad, and it's a sad situation. And, you know, I hope there can be resolution. All right. What about Ferguson? Again, fucked up. Seriously bad. Sometimes the racial realities of the country we live in embarrasses me. And I really hope that that that gets better and continues to get better it's bad bad situation what about climate change i'm against it i'm i'm totally against climate change uh it's again a bad situation i do what i can uh i i recycle i try not to to breathe too much um i have a fuel efficient vehicle, but not an electric vehicle.

But it's bad. It's bad and it makes me nervous. I don't think it's going to go haywire completely in my lifetime. And I don't have kids, but that doesn't mean that I don't care. But it means I care a little less. That's enough, man. I think that's, I'm exhausted from that political commentary. I'm exhausted.

Maybe I should just call that segment, yeah it's bad that's fucked up so i always uh it's always fun for me to talk to british people because i i'm completely ignorant of exactly what what goes on over there what it's like to grow up in britain i'm always sort of fascinated by that i i romanticize it i i wouldn't say my perception of it is dickensian but i would say it's a it's a mixture of uh beatles um some information i've gotten a little bit of alan silito uh long loneliness of the long distance runner was that his name like you know it's just a mixed bag i've spent a couple weeks in london but and, and I think the UK in general, my experience has been it's beautiful and it's old, but I don't know a lot. So it's always thrilling to me just to talk about what it's like to live in the UK with people from the UK. But, you know, Nick Frost was very, I was thrilled that we had

the opportunity to talk to him. And why don't we do you can get anything you need with uber eats well almost almost anything so no you can't get snowballs on uber eats but meatballs and mozzarella balls yes we can deliver that uber eats get almost almost anything order now product availability may vary by region see app for details 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 center 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 5 p.m in rock city at torontorock.com dad now in rock city at torontorock.com.

That now. Must have a knife as well on the desk. Yeah, I want to have that there just in case. It kicks off. I never know what the hell, like sometimes people play with shit. I just have stuff there and it just keeps building. Yeah. Seems a popular thing. That thing seems to get some attention this no the uh squeezy muscly oh yeah i don't even know what those are called were they like uh yeah hand

exercise or yeah yeah wanking machine yeah the wanking machine the power wank machine so all right so how long you been in la nick uh I've been in here, well, in L.A. since Tuesday night. Yeah. And how's it going? Good. Really nice. Do you like coming here? I do like coming here.

Yeah, I had a terrible night last night. I was up at like 2.30. Yeah. And then I just thought, well, can I swear? Yeah, of course. I thought, yeah, fuck it. I'm going to stay awake. So then.

You've been up all night? Yeah. I've been watching films. I watch a lot of films. I've watched like four films already. But you said you were hanging out with Edgar at the Chateau? Yes. I managed to get him drunk enough so he'd go at a decent time.

But he's a bit of a lightweight? Yeah, he's terrible. He's a little younger than you two, right? Yeah, I think he's like three or four years younger than me. But I've almost had fights forgar before where he's got so pissed that he's been out of order to the wrong man and they've wanted to thump him and then i've had to step in to say you know you can't touch this little fella but he only does it with you i bet he knows you got his back he's gonna start some shit yeah but he never got his ass kicked?

I'm sure he has before I arrived. I've won it too a few times. So what are you out here doing this trip? Well, I'm here with the film Box Trolls. Yeah. I did like four hours work on it. And then they said, why don't you come to the premiere and meet Sir Ben Kingsley? So I was like, yeah, all right.

Did you meet Ben Kingsley? No, Saturday we're doing a Q&A and he's, I'm having a dilemma as to what to call him. What are the options? Mr. Kingsley, Ben, Sir? Well, my heart as a man to a man says, say Ben. Yeah. But I wouldn't want to say, hey, Ben.

And he says, it's Sir Ben. Oh, my God. Because I think I'd have an issue with that. But you wouldn't feel bad? You'd say who the fuck you think you are? Yeah. I mean, that's what I'd want to say, I think. I don't recognize you. Anybody can get knighted now, asshole.

I could buy one online. Become the Duke of Brighton. It's that easy, man. Yeah, you can actually buy peerages online for Britain. Really? Yeah, just like little known ones that have essentially you know the the lineage has died out and they're just sat there dormant so you could actually become the duke of something or or oh i mean it means nothing but how much does it cost something like that i think it costs a few

grand yeah but yeah there's a famous boxer called chris eubank yeah who was like super middleweight champion of the world in like the 80s and 90s he bought he bought one and like he's now like duke of brighton and he drives around in a giant uh big rig like an 18 wheeler truck but just the cab it doesn't say duke of brighton on the side yeah i think it does and what i that's is that a that's sort of a sad indicator of what's happened isn't it i mean yeah he might as well have the words, look at me, written on the cab. But the fact that you can buy those things, I guess the money goes to the township? Or how does it work there?

Yeah, I think you become like lord of the people, you know, and you can then take your pick of the women. In the town. So it's still kind of old school like that. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You can prima nuptia, isn't it? You get to sleep with the brides on the first night. A few thousand bucks, you get to be a duke, go to the town, pick a lady. What's not to like?

Yeah, it sounds great. I have a feeling it doesn't work that way, though. Wait, so Ben Kingsley's a guy, I mean, I grew up watching him. You grew up watching him. He's a great actor. He is. And why are you going to be hanging out with Ben Kingsley? Well, it's Laika, who are the guys behind coralline and para norman okay and i think they're

doing that nice thing that even though they're making animated films they're doing it stop motion which is incredible oh yeah yeah so i got a chance to see some of the you know with like uh with clay yeah essentially really yeah it's really classic It's an incredible process. It takes forever. It does. I think they started it in 1912. Yeah. And what's your character? I play a man called Trout, who's essentially a violent meatbag with a heart of gold. Right.

I'm not sure why they cast me in that role. But he, you know, through his work with Ben Kingsley's character, a.k.a. Mr. I think it's Mr. People, he starts to question whether or not he's right, you know. Yeah, yeah. Now, dude, but is this the first time you're meeting Ben? Yeah, on Saturday. But you've worked with him for...

Yeah, our voices have worked together in the edit suite. Isn't that amazing about voiceovers? Yeah, Simon's in it too, and Elle Fanning is in it. Yeah. And Sir Ben, and... But none of you have met. Tracy Morgan is in it and Sir Ben and Tracy Morgan is in it. But you've met Simon, obviously, but it was all solitary work. You were just reading.

It was just me on my own, sometimes with a lovely Richard Iawadi and that was it. It's amazing that you're part of a film and it's opening and you're going to meet the cast now. Yeah, I did ice age too and and so i can probably say i work with queen latifah and but never never met him never met

dennis leary that's the that's the beauty and the weirdness of doing animation it paid for my kitchen overhaul right i'd never met any of the other actors in it but what a great ensemble what a lovely cast it's gonna be so awkward in the green room. Well, I'm curious to see, like, stop motion is like, it is something to see because it's almost like a throwback. Yeah. I mean, those guys are, you know, the guys that do the wrong trousers and the park animation down in Bristol in Britain,

they do it. And I was fortunate enough to look around their studios and it was... It's like a universe, I imagine. Yeah. Well, before, like, where they'd, you know, each frame they'd move the mouth and it was... It's like a universe, I imagine. Yeah, well, before, like, where they'd... Each, you know, each frame, they'd move the mouth, and it was made of clay, but now they have a thing

where they have magnetic clip-on mouths. Oh, really? So they have a room with, like, a million mouths in, so they can just snap one up, take that off, put it... and do it that way. That seems almost more work. It's not? Apparently not.

Apparently, it's... You just kind of choose your array of mouths for the day, like 1A to 7C, and then you just... You've got to have such OCD to do that. That would be terrible. Yeah. Well, I hope it goes well with Ben. Absolutely.

I hope you pick the right... I might say, all right, Gendy. Perfect. That might be my opening. I think you've figured it out. Yeah. So what part of England did you grow up in? I grew up in a place called Dagenham,

which is the kind of far reaches of the East End. So as a guy who knows nothing about England, paint me a Dickensian picture. Okay. Well, Dagenham is the most famous thing because it has a big ford plant there. Okay. It's a shithole.

It's very working class. It was a place to buy hashish and weed, but you could also get cut there fairly easily. You could get caught easily? Cut. Cut? Well, really. Okay, got it. I think it's one of the cutting capitals of London. Yeah, when you look at the tourist map, it's got a guy bleeding? Yeah. Okay, got it. I think it's one of the cutting capitals of London.

Yeah, when you look at the tourist map, it's got a guy bleeding. Yeah. Well, yeah, it has like a wound open and one drop of blood coming out. Yeah, it was a kind of, what happened in the East End in the 1950s and 60s is as the immigrant families moved in, the true Cockneys were angry at this so they all moved out gradually right do you come from true cockneys i'm not a true cockney a true cockney you have to be born within the sound of bow bells now bow bells is a famous church okay and if you can hear bow bells as you are being born then you're a cockney that's what that's that's really

what it depends on yeah yeah and where were you so you didn't make it you couldn't hear the no crikey bow bells was a way away it was like five miles away so i did not hear bow bells uh coming out of my mom but what uh how many how many kids in your family though is it a big working class family or it was but i was a i was the only one from my mom and dad oh but my dad had children before me and my mom had kids before before me so i was the only the from my mum and dad. But my dad had children before me, and my mum had kids before me. So I was the only... The only thing that really connected them. Yes, yeah, essentially.

And you had half-brothers and sisters. Yeah, in my mum and dad's sex life, I was the only one in that Venn diagram. Right, right. In the middle. You were the only true one between them. And did your dad work at that Ford plant? No, my dad, he did a lot of things.

I remember when I first kind of became aware of him, he was a gardener. Aware of him? You were sort of like, hey, there's that guy. Who are you? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he was a gardener. And he always had, my dad's not with us anymore, but even when he died, he had the most amazing body for a 74-year-old man.

And he was always fit as a butcher's dog. And yeah, he was a gardener. And then he became... He was an incredible artist as well. So he painted a lot. And then he started work at a factory which made high-end office furniture. Okay. And he started as an upholsterer.

Uh-huh. And over the next kind of 25 years, he became managing director of the company. Really? Yeah. So he climbed up from upholstery to the guy in charge. Yeah, he was a delivery driver, and then eventually he was the boss.

So I'm always impressed with people that have skills like gardening, upholstering. Yeah. I wish i had it i can't do any of that you can't do anything no yeah no i just i think i could probably upholster as long as it's taught yeah that's all you need yeah stretch that shit out and staple it yeah you got it if it's a hydraulic i'd be all right i think so when you were growing up i mean what was uh how old what was the age difference between you and your siblings were the i was the youngest right then uh did you just

go up or were the two of them the same age was it yeah i think it went like my youngest sister was seven years four years older than me then there was one oh three years older than her then there was you know it went up like that so you've got a half sister a half brother or sister that's probably 60 yeah really yeah are you do you know them all i don't it's a well i i do but it's it's part of my sad life story actually that a lot of them kind of didn't make it oh really yeah they've passed away yeah oh that's sad four of them really yeah four out of the out of the six wow just tragically or yeah just just you know life yeah and how it moves and rolls sadly so yeah i mean it was a real pain in the hole yeah it's uh

pain in the hole yeah it's uh it's it's any you know it's uh a wonder that i can keep going if i'm being honest well i i guess that uh well you seem pretty healthy yeah uh you know i mean i also lost a mom and a dad in that time too so uh yeah so much freaking tragedy that it but i think my oh but not at once not in some no okay maybe that would have been easier to just get it all over and done with as opposed to be a drip fed grief yeah uh yeah i i mean i think my point of my outlook on life is what what what's the alternative you know right get up and keep going you gotta keep going yeah You can't get, because the sadness will drag you down. Oh, my God. You'd stick a nine in your mouth.

Yeah. It's crazy. But we're built to deal with it, from what I understand. Yeah. Humans. Yeah. I think you just get better at it. Yeah.

You know. Yeah. Yeah. Your heart gets cold. Yeah. Cold. By the time my dad's gone, I was like, ta-da. Yeah.

See you later. I lifted his hand up, and we had a post-mortem high five. You put it back in the box. Yeah. Bye, Dad. Yeah, but I have a kid now. I have a three-year-old son, so all that is now gone, because I now have my own deal.

Sure, so that's a pretty new thing. Yeah, I'm looking forward to dying on him. Yeah, you should plan it. He? Decide what age you'd like to go at. What would be best for him to handle. Yeah. I think seven. Yeah.

Seven's good for a child to lose his dad. That might be a little young, but you know what? He won't remember you that clearly. That really upsets me, that notion of. Of what? Of dying. Because I don't remember much before five. Right.

Right? Sure. So all that amazing relationship I have with my son now and the closeness we have, he wouldn't care if I went. He wouldn't even remember me. There'd just be a picture on a mantle somewhere and there'd be a new guy there. Who's that fat bearded? Yeah. He'd call that guy dad.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, this is getting depressing. Don't do it. Stay around. Let's listen to a record. Yeah. What do you got? I got a few records inside.

But when you were growing up uh what your goal was not to be an actor uh no i had no goal good for you that's a good way a creative person starts even now i think yeah you know i've been doing meetings with people this week and they're a weird thing but i could see the generals the general meeting yeah yeah but i could see people going to pitch stuff in the waiting room. Right. And they were just panicking and shitty, and they were saying, have you got enough charge in your iPad for the presentation?

It's like, I've never given a shit about anything that much. Yeah. And I seem to have a real good laugh at these things, and we just go in and we just have a chat. Yeah, it's sort of like, we love you. That was so funny, that thing you did with that guy yeah what are you doing that's a good question that weird yeah what do you want to do yeah yeah what do you have that weird thing and i think you don't you kind of get them in britain too but you get them a lot here and i did that

i did a pilot this year with justin long uh for cbs called sober companion and i loved it i loved that man and i love working with him. But there was that weird thing that you come off set and there's like another set of monitors and behind them are execs from Yeah, just a little stack of untalented people. Yeah, I don't know what the collective

would be for them. Right. They do that thing rather than laugh. They just tell you you're funny. Right. But with the most, oh my God, you're really funny. Right, right. It's like, oh, you mean that? Because what I'm hearing is, oh, you're a massive cunt. Yeah, yeah.

You know, that's what it sounds like to me. Everything's noncommittal. They don't want to get your hopes up in any way. They don't want you to get the wrong idea. They don't want to get fired. Exactly. And the pilot didn't go or did? You don't know.

He did not go. See, so that's what they were saying. Yeah. That's exactly what they were saying. Oh, my God, he'll never be employed here. That's exactly it. But when you were younger, what were you doing in this shithole that you lived in? I was nothing.

I mean, I got into trouble. I smoked. I had fights. I played a lot of rugby. Rugby. See, that's something we don't have here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you do have a team. You are playing new zealand soon oh yeah i knew that and i think i did not

to be honest it's going to be a three-figure mauling yeah by new zealand yeah they're playing in soldier field it's a sellout well we're not it's not an indigenous sport here it's probably new to us i know it happens in some colleges, but I don't know. It's like football, correct? Yeah. Not soccer football, but American football. Yeah, but no pads, and it's almost continuous. We don't work on the down system. So it's like it just keeps moving. It keeps moving.

People are getting the shit beat out of each other. Yeah. And you can see it. Oh, yeah. There's no pads protecting anybody? No. I don't know why they never cut on here. Yeah, it's true.

There's a thing you can get called, you get cabbage patch ears. Yeah. And so you see MMA fighters with big fat ears and rugby players get it too. Oh, really? So now they're kind of wearing a kind of foamy helmet. Yeah. Can we say foamy helmet? I don't know.

But yeah, I played that for a long time as a kid. Was that like, did you see it as a career possibility? I kind of, well, it wasn't paid at that time when I was playing. You didn't get paid, but now they get paid. It's professional. But I was kind of good. I played for. Were you in the paper?

I was not in the paper, I don't think. I think that the scores were and the teams. But not like this guy's special. Yeah. I think that the scores were and the teams. But not like, this guy's special. Yeah. None of that. Watch this lump. Yeah. You know, I essentially played for my state.

I got to that kind of level. Oh, so there's a state team? Well, you have a county team. So county for us is the same as state for you guys. Okay. So it was all right. I was probably five steps from being uh kind of pretty good but was there ever talk of going pro or did you no they didn't have it yet i got to a point i got

injured when i was 16 and i was out for like nine months and then when i came back uh i'd kind of fallen for weed and drinking and girls and yeah it was over i was thought washed up i went i went back when i was 22 and i'm a rugby 22 23 yeah mate of mine a nigerian mate of mine so why don't you come and train with london nigeria yeah and i was the only white man on the team and this is before show business this was before show a long time before show business and they would fight so much during training amongst themselves yeah that i got to i thought fuck this on a tuesday raining tuesday night yeah i thought no no and that was it that was mine you didn't want to fight with them no not really i mean

because they're big you know yeah six eight and 300 pounds fuck that this is training yeah i don't want to fight on match day but why now why am i losing teeth on a tuesday night that's a good question and a reasonable question a memoir for a great exactly why am i losing teeth on a tuesday night that's the memoir of nick frost but are you a guys um i have my moments i think people assume because because I'm a comedian and they see me playing Danny Butterman or Little Ed that I am that man. But coming from where I came from, you kind of had to be. Really? Yeah, it was a tough play. So I'm not, but if pushed, then I will. Are you a winner?

I'm nasty. Oh, really? pushed then i will are you a winner i'm nasty so oh really yeah i think it's that thing there's no queensberry rules it's finish it quickly you know just pummel the guy yeah i've been done a few times too really about yeah simon had to come and take me from the hospital one time because i got kind of done by five men on the street what And did you start it? No, man. They just got jumped for no reason. Oh, that's a mugging. Yeah. They didn't take anything, though.

They just felt like beating the shit out of you? Yeah. You didn't say anything? I couldn't. They were like 18, and I was like, five of them surrounded me. And I think you know you're in trouble when their opening gambit is

i'm gonna fuck you up you fat cunt and for no reason other than no reason that no so it but like generally growing up in a type neighborhood because i don't have any experience with it what would fights be about bullshit yeah just fronting up you know yeah just you didn't like someone for whatever reason just at a pub and it's just sort of fuck you. Yeah, I mean, I hated it, you know, and growing up where I did, it was a large Irish community too. Was that a problem? It wasn't a problem, but, you know,

I went to pubs at quite an early age, you know, I was pubbing it at like 13, 14, and we'd all try and get in somewhere and get in somewhere else and invariably the drink at that point not for me but for pubs and clubs that were full of drunken irishmen on payday it would kick off and it it was kind of horrific to me you know and it frightened frightened the life out of me and i think you know the best thing that happened to british culture was was you know uh ecstasy because it essentially stopped all violence in all pubs and clubs because everybody loved each other yeah yeah punches were replaced by by hugs oh that's sweet

but like the uh like it's weird because it's hard not to stereotype but i had i grew up in i didn't grow up but i went to college in boston and i was uh fairly terrified of irish people yeah they just because a lot of the town was Irish and you'd go to these bars and it would just be like, I'm going to get my ass kicked for no reason. Not bothered either. Yeah, it's that, I love that thing that truly violent people have no,

they have no thought about consequence. And I always had, you know, and being a big man who was agile, you think I could just kill you right now. You know, it's that thing you read about guy hits a guy and that guy is knocked out and he falls over and hits his head. And he dies. It's like I've always been terrified of that. Yeah.

And that's why I don't. Of causing that? Yeah, potentially. Accidentally killing the guy. It'd be terrible. It'd be absolutely awful. And it happens all the time. So, you know. Over the guys in boston and the hard nuts

at home i don't give a shit about that you know they don't even think about it i guess that's yeah it's uh i guess that's what makes somebody a good fighter yeah like yeah it's that it sounds like an oxymoron right right but yeah That guy doesn't give a fuck about anything. He's the best. Who was I talking to the other day? We saw a guy in a pub, and he was a lot of scars on his face. And she said, God, I'm really frightened of this guy. And I said, it's not the guy with the scars you need to be frightened about.

It's the guy who gave him the scars, who invariably has no scars, you know. Yeah. So when you got all involved with the weed and the booze and you gave up your 16-year-old rugby dream, what did you end up doing? Nothing, really. I dropped out of high school when I was like 16, 15 and a half, 16. And I started work when I was like almost 16 at a shipping company for like $7,000 a year.

Yeah. And I kind of liked it because they treated me like an adult, you know. And I hated school because they didn't treat me like an adult. Right. And I didn't act like an adult, to be fair. But I loved it. I loved working. So you're just a guy.

Yeah. Loading shit. Yeah. Doing stuff. Yeah. Making a paycheck. Just making it work. I love working. So you're just a guy? Yeah. Loading shit? Yeah. Doing stuff? Yeah. Making a paycheck? Just making it work. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I did. Working with other guys? Yeah. Chatting to the girls in the office? Hello, darling. Yeah. Yeah.

That guy. Oh, it was that idiot. But you had no, you'd never tried comedy? You'd never done comedy? No. And then by the time you went back and decided not to join the Nigerian rugby team. Yeah. What was going on in your life when you decided to do comedy?

How did that come about? Where were you? Well, I lived away. I ran, I didn't run away, but I was told in no uncertain terms that I should leave London. By who? This is, there are areas that I'm not willing to talk about. But essentially, I was said, perhaps you should leave London for a little bit.

So I did. I left, and I went to Israel. And I lived in Israel for two years. What? I was only meant to be there for like four or five months, and then I ended up staying there for two years. All right, back up. So you get thrown out of England.

Not thrown out, but... But politely asked to asked to leave yeah by people that had some weight yeah okay yeah so you go to israel why israel a mate of mine had been and he said this this would be good for you you should go to israel yeah really like just like weeks after the first Gulf War had ended. What was your mate doing in Israel? He was on kibbutz. So he's a Jewish guy? No, he was Christian. He's a Christian guy.

He's Catholic, yeah. Oh, so it's sort of, I need to get my shit together. Yeah. I'm going to go, I'm going to farm. I'm going to drop out. I'm going to hang out with people. Yeah, I'm going to learn Hebrew. I'm going to pick kiwi fruits

and that's what he did yeah and how old was he uh he was a bit older than me he was like in his mid-20s when i was 18 i didn't know that the the kibbutz system was a a viable alternative for anybody to get their shit together but it makes sense yeah because for american jews it's sort of like go get connected to israel yeah but for apparently people in the UK, it's like better than jail. Let's go. Yeah. But also it's that thing that it's, you're called a volunteer and it's Swedish girls, it's South African girls, it's New Zealand girls, it's Australian girls. So that also appealing.

Yeah. Not the work necessarily. I like the work. I've always liked heavy lifting. So what part of Israel were you in? I was right on the Lebanese border. Oh, yeah. Which was kind of exciting in a way.

What was the name of the town? Baram. Yeah, yeah. Baram, right in the north. And so you go there, you leave England, you pack up your shit. Yeah. Say goodbye to your folks. Yeah.

And go into Israel. Ta-da. Yeah. See you in three months. Yeah. And you stayed on the kibbutz for two years? I did, yeah. I was there for like 14 months, and then I came back, hated it,

and then I was at home for like two weeks, and then went away again for another nine months. So were you out of your mind? Yeah. I just kind of became like a kibbutznik. You know, I just, it was such a weird thing to come back to London after all that time. So what is life on the kibbutz like? It's very formulaic.

It gave me an insight into the fact that I probably do all right in prison. Right. You know, it was like you'd get up. Did you make like sort of a conscious choice between that or say the military or something no i mean i had looked in you know i'd gone to like open days for for the navy and you know it's not it wasn't for me right but uh i i loved it i loved it i like you know what do you do you get up at 4.30 in the morning and you'd go to work, you know, lots of different jobs. You could pick apples or the longer you were there, the better the job you got, essentially.

And then when I'd been there almost two years on and off, I was like Colonel Kurtz. I had like, I ended up driving my own little van and I just hung out with the Israelis and. And you saw several different groups of people come and go. Come in and go in. Because a lot of people would do a month They're doing yeah Yeah, and then the Israelis trust you more the more you're there

You know because they see so many different volunteers coming in and out and they treat the place like shit and get drunk and Can't to them. Yeah, same thing So if you stick through it if you stick through winters, they seem to like you or bombardment by the By the Lebanese hadin.banese yeah yeah so did what was your take on israeli people what'd you learn from them um they're kind of a tough lot they are they are a tough lot and i think a lot of people think they're very rude uh-huh now my problem my problem with that is it's the way they turn hebrew into english so in hebrew it's perfectly acceptable to say give me this yeah that's how right tenly tenly whatever yeah give me don't

dial it up no no yeah i might be killed in an hour yeah i'm like that now in the west bank so please can i have the apple uh so when they speak english they say give me this give me that and people say jesus christ what a rude race but it's it's just the way the right it's just the way the culture operates yeah and so you picked apples and what else did you do i picked apples if you if you've been there a while you could work in fish ponds no really amazing like giant fish ponds and then once every kind of three months you pull the fish out you pull the fish out what kind of fish uh st peter's carp oh yeah nice that's the that's the fish there st peter's

yeah they love it yeah it's great it's got a little black dot on its side and that's supposedly where st peter pulled the fish out of jesus's eye did you did did you find um So you were working the fish pond, you picked apples. Picking cotton. Cotton? Cotton. Really? Yeah. By hand?

Yeah. And they also had like a... That beats your hands up, doesn't it? They don't care, the Israelis. No, I know, but with the experience of picking cotton. You have gloves, obviously. You know, I'm not made of stone, Mark. My mistake.

They had like a plastic factory as well which was mindless that must be that's a huge kibbutz yeah it was it was it was big a plastic factory yeah you know how plastic is made well they would make do you know when you have a little catheter in your arm like a valve right they would make the valves oh that's what so they manufactured that's all they made yeah that's fascinating to me yeah Yeah. Did you tour Israel? Yeah. I mean, if you're there, I think every four or five months, the Israelis say, let's go and do a trip. So you go to Jerusalem or you go to Masada and the Dead Sea.

Did you go to the top of Masada? I did, yeah. It's great, right? Fascinating, yeah. It's a good hike. It is a good hike, yeah. And the story of it's amazing. Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day, actually. Really?

Was it like a thousand people? Yeah. And a hundred of it. It's amazing. Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day, actually. Really? Was it like 1,000 people? Yeah. And 100 of those drew lots. Right. And that 100 killed the other 900. Horrible. And then from that 100, 10 were chosen to kill the other 90. Is that how it worked? Yeah, that's how they did it.

That's brutal. And it was just, did not give the, what was it, the Romans? The Romans, yeah. The victory. Yeah. And so the ones that were left, I think there were like four or five people left, like women and children hid in wells and stuff. And they let them go because they were so impressed with the fact that they'd killed all themselves.

I wonder what happened to the legacy of those people if that's part of their genealogical history. We were of the five survivors of Masada. They live in wells. Their ancestors still now live in wells. Well, I think it's amazing that the romans spent what was it like five years building a giant ramp out of earth to get up there yeah shit took time and you can still see part of the ramp right it's this i went why did they want the property so badly because it was a good lookout i think i don't know i think it had i think i had aircon i think i had

primitive aircon did you so what do you think of jerusalem that place is a mind fuck it's amazing yeah weird it was a weird i mean all the headquarters are there all the big uh religious are you a religious person no not at all how were you brought up catholic oh so that killed it for you huh yeah i mean uh you know i had to go to church every day because of the school i was in and uh yeah i kind of was there a point where you did believe? Not really. I mean, maybe as a kid. But I smelled a rat from an early age. You know.

Catholics smell the rat quicker than other people usually. Smell the rat could also be my memoirs name. Yeah. I guess there's something about the charade of Catholicism that at some point you've got to realize they're putting a lot of effort into this. Yeah. Why haven't I got a massive ring? Yeah, right. How come that guy's winning?

Why has he got a big ring? Nice clothes are all covered with that Monty Python bit. He's the only one that hasn't got shit on him. Yeah. The king. How do you know he's the king? Yeah. So, all right.

So you spend two years in... That's fascinating to me. And you came home and you're like, fuck this, and you went back to Israel. Yeah. And then what happened? I fell in love. I met a girl and followed her back, followed her back to London.

So she was from England. Yeah. So that's why you left Israel. There's a good chance if it wasn't for that chick, you would still be in Israel. Yeah, I was kind of... You might be in the army by now. I think I'd be an officer in the army.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe I'd lost an arm in a in an exchange with uh with an irishman in a brutal exchange with an irishman uh yeah i mean i got to a point where i was kind of given choices in terms of well you've been here a while now so you know maybe you should get married and stay or oh Oh, to become a citizen. Well, just to become part of the kibbutz maybe. Oh, really? So if you log the hours, there's a cult element to it. We'd like to keep you and your children here.

You have good stock. Perhaps you should go to the breeding tent. You have to give the children. That fascinated me, too, that they give their children to the community. Literally at birth. Yeah. Not all kibbutzes do it but our one did and your children are looked after communally and stay in a house separately

from you what would the old the idea was it was rooted in the idea of socialism right yeah yeah and i guess you know you're there as part of that member of that kibbutz in to to to work and i think their thing was western society the parents or the father is so kind of often at work and they get maybe get 20 minutes or an hour when they get in right and so you know the kids are looked after all day communally yeah and then you get four five hours in the afternoon solid you know with your folks followed yeah and you just sleep in a different house were there people i had that that were brought up that way on the kibbutz oh yeah all of them all the kids yeah i mean there were young adults there you know were they well adjusted and everything seemed like a

good uh yeah as well as any israeli can be i guess living you know did you keep any contacts with any friends from that time i didn't i don't i'm not like that. I don't know anyone from, you know, two years ago, really. That's where it drops off. I don't know if it's the brain thing. Yeah. But, yeah, I'm not a looker-backer. Yeah. I rarely do.

Did you learn Hebrew? Tiny bits. You know, I was good. By the time I left, I could understand more than I could speak. But it just goes. It just went. Yeah. So you followed a woman from England that you met there?

Yeah. Her grandmother was Israeli, and she could speak Hebrew. Jewish girl? Jewish girl. It was doomed from the start. Yeah. Her mom hated me. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, it just didn't work, although I liked her very much. But it got you back in town. It did, yeah. And you were like, what, i was 21 and what was so you what how old were you when you met simon 22 so it's about to happen yeah i could feel it so you come back to england what are you what are you working where you're working well this this girl, she worked at a Mexican restaurant called Chiquitos.

And by the time I got back to London, my parents had moved. Did they tell you where they went? They didn't tell me. I knocked at the door and a lovely Punjabi lady answered. And I said, do you want to know my mom? But yeah, I mean, my mom was a Welsh woman. So they moved back down to Wales. I have no idea what that like i've met one other who'd i made uh john ronson yeah they're a writer he's a welsh john ronson's son is the funniest

little kid i've ever met he's really yeah i could have spent he's i have a theory about certain children that i call them old young men yeah where they're actually really old but they're kind of young you know yeah yeah he's one of those oh really yeah i saw him at the pool premiere uh-huh we were just chatting having a laugh and he's like eight he had like a little green corduroy suit on oh really yeah amazing ron's a good guy he's a good man smart guy yeah but so so your mother's from wales what's wales like um wales is uh it's kind of industrial you know it's known for its steel production and coal, which kind of dropped off in the 80s. And as soon as that industry left, a lot of it died.

You've got beautiful villages that just every man was now out of work. So the beautiful villages masking the horrendous depression. And rampant alcoholism and wife. And wife beating of that. Yeah. But the flip side, where my family are from is a place called Pembrokeshire, which is the furthest west you can go in Britain, essentially. And it's absolutely beautiful.

There's so much. It's just rugged cliffs and beaches. Yeah, yeah. And crystal clear water and a lot of sheep. And that's where your parents moved to? Yeah, yeah. So you had that to go back to if you wanted. I but i hated going back because it was essentially you know it felt like i was living inside a tumor you know you could feel that that kind of loss in terms of

the jobs and everything yeah yeah yeah it's it's so interesting to me when i hear about britain not knowing a lot about it that you know it's been around for so many centuries and there's so much beautiful history but most of the modern stories are like oh it's horrible the industry left and we're about to eat our dogs yeah nothing but sadness yeah yeah i mean not everywhere i mean london booms and yeah but you know little little cities little towns just and also it's that thing that I'd go to this town since I was a little boy. And so the people you'd see who were 18 or 19 when I was five or six, now I'm 24, 25 sitting in the pub

and they're in their 40s still in that same pub. You think, gee whiz, you can feel the town just dying as its youngsters either leave or... Well, there's a little bit of that vibe in um in the in the world's end you know there's that because that happens everybody to some degree yeah yeah some people leave and some people never leave yeah oh it's it's heartbreaking but i don't know like i'm not going to get too existential about it but when you really think about the span of a lifetime oh right and people what they do or what they don't do it's very easy to just sit there and like well tomorrow i'll do it and then

yeah yeah but that and then it goes yeah it all goes but you can do you know when i was a waiter i thought i'll do this for three months and then five and a half years down the line i'm still there and you think jesus christ it goes so quick was this where at the mexican restaurant yeah so you were there for that long? Yeah. So you're in love with this Jewish-British girl. Yeah. And she's working in Los Angeles now.

Oh, really? Yeah. Did you see her? No, no. We haven't seen each other for a long, long time. But you know she's here. Yeah. Is she an actress?

She was at some point, yeah. She had a nice part in James Cameron's Titanic. Oh, really? Yeah. That's astounding, isn't it? Yeah. Kind of interesting. But you just didn't keep in touch. I guess, what are you going to do?

It ended badly. Yeah. She gave me a piece of information when she broke up with me, which I've kept with me forever, really. Yeah. And she said, when you realize you're not going to spend the rest of your life with someone, at what point do you call it a day? And it really hurt me at the

time but now like 20 years later i think that's bloody good information you know sure but when but was that before she called it a day that was at the moment of her calling it a day we were outside woodford bridge train station and that was her that was her that was a rhetorical question to me that was a rhetorical question as a. That was a rhetorical question as a break-up. Oh, do you mean us? Oh, right. Oh, I don't know. Now? Should we do it now?

But during the time you were working at the restaurant with her, you guys were dating for like five years? No, she was a traveler at heart. She was a fly-by-night kind of good-time girl, and she had a massive she had many many friends and yeah you know she's staying she worked for four months and get enough money and then she go to new york or then she'd go to and then come back australia and yeah she'd she'd flit around and you stayed solid at the restaurant i did so she would go away for four months after you broke

up yeah come back hey how's it going she only came back a couple of times before then leaving for good right she moved to a different restaurant that different restaurant. That's kind of a brutal kind of thing. Hello. How you been? Yeah. I like this character that you have of yourself, the sort of hurt guy. Yeah, I know. That's who's in me.

Hello. You look good. You look nice. You look nice is good. Yeah, yeah. How's it been? You haven't been, you seen anyone? Yeah.

Oh, my God. So you're a waiter at a fucking Mexican restaurant. Yeah. How was the food? Well, the food was good when I started. Yeah. But it's the shittiest food in the world right now. It was taken over by a chain.

It's still there? Yes, yeah. There's a few of them. But when I worked there every day yeah they would make everything fresh right and it was absolutely delicious and how now this is like this is a great story because you know like something you could not have expected yeah comes into your world and changes your entire life. Yeah. Simon. Yeah, Simon. Yeah, but like it's a rare thing that that happens.

Yeah. Because you had no, because it sounds to me that, you know, you were heartbroken, lost. I've had that a lot. Yeah. A lot of heartbreak and loss. Well, right. I like it. I know it seems weird, but I like that.

What about it do you like? I like that angsty pain of unrequited love. Sure, sure. I kind of got quite good at it. So in terms of it being a default setting, I was all right with that. I knew how that felt. Right. And if you've got a handle on that, you can handle anything, really. Yeah.

But in terms of other women, that shit gets old. That left bank poet is fine for a bit but it becomes fairly unattractive in your mid-30s but are you saying to me that you you resigned yourself to it yeah i think i always fell in love with women who were fairly unattainable in terms of they were really beautiful and you know what that? That you stay in that shitty place. Yeah. That must be how you feel comfortable. Serving pints of margarita to thick-fisted Irishmen. Okay, so you're heartbroken. Yeah.

You have no goals. No. You're just working at a restaurant. Yeah. Going home every night to your sad little house. Well, we'd all go out. There was a curry house called the Pink Rupee in a place called Cricklewood. And every night, literally, we'd finish our shift and we'd go there and we'd have a late supper, all the waiters.

Oh, yeah. And drink. So you had friends. Eight, nine pints of Stella. Yeah. And then go back and sit up till four or five in the morning just puffing on, you know? Yeah. And that was your life.

Good life. And what happens? A girl came to work at the restaurant called Charlotte and me and her became really good friends really quickly she was just there was never any attraction there but you know when you just yeah get someone yeah you think wow how did this begin yeah and she had a boyfriend called simon yeah and uh one night i had a party at my place and she was bringing him along and i'd never met him before and i was nervous i was nervous to meet this guy because he was a stand-up and i was like the funniest bloke at chiquitos that's that was official by the way uh and yeah i met him and and we had like a weird

we kind of circled around each other for like two hours at the party like i didn't want to yeah yeah and then i got yeah yeah and then i got to a point where he was outside on this balcony and i kind of went out there and i remember us we stood there for like two hours doing impressions at one another like the dueling banjo scene from from a deliverance but with impressions what impressions were you doing i like characters from the young ones and news readers and there was a weather guy called ian mccaskill and he was really famous for like he'd start every every uh like weather thing he'd say this oh and that so like me and him but even now like that can make me and edgar and simon laugh a lot if just out the blue one of us is oh oh oh no way oh oh so yeah we did that a lot and then as was my want

at that point i then became so so paralytically drunk that simon as simon left the party i had like a big a big bass bin in my flat like a big big speaker yeah and his last memory of that party was me unconscious slumped on top of it as music went kind of vibrated me off of it yeah uh that was and that was that you know and we didn't suddenly realize that kind of three or four months down the line we'd spent every day together and really you just became friends the three of you usually the three of us yeah the three of us became thick as thieves and we were just like how with uncontrollable laughter and i'd never met anyone like like simon and did you go see him perform yeah there was there was a time there was a year when i went with him to 250 gigs well i drive him and a couple of times i'd intro him and uh you know charlotte at the point that he started to say maybe you should try some stand-up and at first he wrote like a list of

of clubs right for you that would take me on and i could do an open spot and and i'd never ever dreamed of doing anything like that or being an actor. And I shit it. I was fucking terrified of doing that, you know. But you did it? I did. I did 12 gigs. And six were amazing.

Oh, yeah? What did you do? Impressions? No, I just wrote like a little eight-minute routine. I didn't really have a voice. It wasn't my own voice. It was kind of surreal. And, you know

we really loved the comedians Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer and their thing was surrealism at that time and so I wanted to be kind of like that and I think the problem with it is

I wasn't very good because I hadn't done it a lot you know it's like everything you just have to get up there and just just do it and do it and do it yeah

and so six were good and six were the lowest points of my life and that includes burying both parents they were completely awful i did a gig which lasted three seconds what happened in three seconds i was working in the restaurant i'd done a like a chiquitos chiquitos um a waitress was taking over from me at six o'clock i had a gig at like half eight but the other part you know the other side of the city and you have pro plus here what is that pro plus are like caffeine tablets i've been taking i've been eating those during the day and drinking coffee and by the time she got there i was so fucking furious and and you know my teeth were grating and then it took

me two and a half hours to get across the city in the rain on buses and when i got into the venue there was probably 14 people in there oh yeah and they were all aged between 18 and 24 year old men yeah and they were all from the same soccer team and when i walked in there was a heckle war going on between them and the compare and the host and the host and the compare saw me with my coat on and i kind of waved and still with my coat on did you have that face hello uh he introduced me uh to get himself out of the shit it sounded like my third gig thank god you're here and i kind of got on i still had my coat on and i kind of went oh hello kind of a bit humble hello and like this big lump stood up and said fuck off you fat cunt and i i clipped i just clipped the mic back on and went

home i just walked off and went home and And that was it. Heartbroken again. Yeah. Still out in the rain for another two-hour journey back. Was that the last gig? I did a couple more after that. There was almost a fist fight with a heckler. But yeah, the return in terms of... I'd get sick afterwards.

I'd get the worst migraines. Oh, really? Because I'd been thinking about it for three days up to the point where I do it. Oh, yeah, the worst. The worst. And then that release of actually, you know, if people would laugh and it would go well,

I'd still feel so sick afterwards. Yeah, because you put yourself, and if they don't laugh, then it's all still inside you. Then it moves from spending three days thinking about it to spending three days beating the shit out of yourself about it, thinking about how how the fucking go wrong yeah i was just bad at you know so it didn't you know you didn't stick it didn't stick no no so how did it lead to um the the creation of uh of what was it space right yeah well it was

simon you know he he he was a great stand-up. Yeah. And, you know, he got more, he did Edinburgh Festival a few times. Right. And he started to get the attention of TV commissioners and script editors, you know. And they offered him a show called Spaced with him and a lovely lady called Jessica Hines. Yeah, I saw that. I watched all of them.

They're great. Oh, cool. Thank you. Yeah. And so they got offered this sitcom. They offered them a series straight away. We didn't have to make a pilot. Whose idea was it?

Was it Edgar's or who? No, it was Simon and Jessica's. Oh, so they pitched it. Yeah. Okay. And then, you know, they got Edgar on board and then Edgar was essentially the third Beatle, you know, in that team. Yeah.

the third beetle you know yeah in that in that in that in that team yeah um and simon came to me at one point and said i used to do a character called mike watt who was a member of the national guard and he said i want you to come and do that character on on the show and you know being a never wanting anything or never you know never having an idea of what i ever wanted to do i had that and it annoys simon, but I have that thing where he says, why don't you come and do this? And I kind of went, yeah, all right. What if I've got nothing better to do? Yeah, I will.

And I, to be honest, I never thought it would ever happen. Well, it's actually the best way to be because you don't have expectations, you don't get into a place where you're desperate, and you don't, it's just sort of like, it's neither here nor there, really. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, if it wasn't that, it would be something else. Right. You know, I've always had a weird kind of Jiminy Cricket in me that says, it'll be all right. Yeah. No matter what's happened to me in my life. Right. That voice has said, it'll be all right. That's the best you can have.

Yeah. It's like, you know, I'll be okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be all right. You'll be dead soon. Keep right and and so that's in keep going but that character became was sort of a complicated interesting character yeah because like i mean i imagine as the however you conceived of it or whatever you were doing you're doing it

on stage occasionally you're just for fun no just uh yeah just to make him laugh right him sitting in a pub because it became like the the relationship between you two became interesting and that character had you know had a a sort of softness to its weirdness yeah and it became sort of an endearing thing yeah i mean i think you could see me and simon's relationship right in that right i think we've out of every character me and him have ever played we've both been each other's characters at different points of our lives right right which is kind of fun and did you like what how what was the reactionist based how it was successful people loved it yeah it's people loved it and it's amazing to me in in britain that like you did what'd you do like uh seven episode well 14 but seven in a season right and that's it you did two seasons yeah

is you just sort of like that's what you do in britain you do no think it's just, I mean, you do get sitcoms that go for longer, but I think at that point it just fizzled out and Edgar was keen to do a film and Simon and Edgar, you know, wanted to do Shaun of the Dead. So we were offered that option, so we went that way. And were you now sort of an established actor to a certain degree? No, I went back to Waiter Inn after the first series of Spaced because I'd, you know, come in from a place where I never had money

when someone then gave me, I don't know what the figure was, someone gave me like six grand to do Spaced. It was like, that went in eight weeks. I just spunked it up the wall. And eight weeks later, I came to literally mopping the floor at 1 a.m. in a different restaurant, just kicking myself saying, you fucking idiot. Why did you do that?

But I'd never done that again. You know, that was my lesson in terms of financial now. You blew the money and what? You lost your job at Chiquitos? I left it. I burnt my bridges. It was like, I felt like Homer Simpson saying, I'm never coming back.

I'm going to be in that. You get me? Yeah, yeah. And then after the first season? Yeah, I was back to waitering in a place called Old Orleans. And the tagline was, A Taste of the Deep South. Oh, boy. Terrible.

I like that you at least went with strange kind of North American ethnic cuisines. Yeah. You have New Orleans and you have Mexico. Yeah, I'm a soul food kind of, you know, any place that does gumbo and jambalaya i'll be working there so you're working there and then when you got the second season you tell them to fuck off yeah yeah i was off yeah and then it started to pick up you know i started to do little bits and pieces and and you know but most of it with simon or you were doing other stuff too well most of my acting was with simon and edgar at that point but i'd done other little bit you know i was doing a

sketch show at one point, and a lot of that thing where you're kind of sitting on a panel and talking about current affairs with a comedy slant, you know, that kind of... Oh, you were with that guy? Yeah. The big funny guy? Panel guy, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Panel show guy. And it was fun. It was good. We did a couple of seasons of that thing, and I did some presenting, and I did a show called Danger 50,000 Volts, which I loved. We did two seasons of that thing and i did some presenting and i did a show called danger 50 000 volts yeah which i loved we did two seasons of that and i was essentially playing a character of of it was a

bit like mike watt uh-huh and we did a lot of work here in the states but it was what if you're attacked by an alligator how do you get out of it yeah it was that kind of thing but it was real it was real yeah i ended up talk to florida yeah yeah a lot of expert a lot of ex-military i ended up wrestling an alligator in florida and it almost breaking my arm uh i got into a boat crash in florida and was hospitalized florida is a dangerous place i never got i don't go back no because of those horrible memories yeah edgar he sent me an email a few weeks ago and on it was uh i don't know where it was from, it was from something over here,

and it was every state in America, and it was number one torrented film in each state. Cuban Fury was the most torrented film in Florida. And what movie was that? Cuban Fury, I did a dance film last year, where I played a Cuban salsa champion. And it was the number one torrented film in... The most highly stolen movie.

Yeah. Yeah. I thought, I wish you'd paid. It did like 100 grand over here in the box office. But I was weirdly proud of it. Why wouldn't you be? Yeah. You're a cult sensation.

I wouldn't have to pay for another drink in Miami in the Cuban quarter. You got to go down there. Yeah. And was it an over-the-top hilarious character that you were doing? No, it was a man who was down on his luck, predictably, you know, a bit broken. He was a champion dancer when he was 12, and then he got essentially beaten up by bullies, and he turned his back on the world of Cuban salsa. And then like 20 years down the line,

he's a bit of a sad sack. And this woman, Rashida Jones, comes to work in his office and he falls in love with her and he finds out that she dances salsa. So he finds his old teacher again to try and get him to learn all the new moves. Did you learn?

I did. I trained for seven hours a day, six days a week for seven months. And right can you do it i can yeah that's something i'll never lose now do you do it for fun now i do yeah i was out a few weeks ago but now okay so the the the big movies you did with um with simon yeah are you did you did shawn the dead and then you did uh what was the other one uh fuzz hot fuzz that's a good one i watched them i watched them all and i watched uh i had world's end and we did paul yeah oh i don't know if i saw that one uh so there was a little alien they have to get the alien back

oh okay and me and him play comic book nerds yeah and uh we hire an rv and we treat ourselves by having a we go to area 51 to to see what it's all about and while we're there we bump into an alien who has escaped from the facility and we have to drive him up to Devil's Tower to get home. To get him home. So a little E.T. riff. Did Edgar direct that one? No, that was lovely

Greg Mottola who did Superbad. Oh, okay. Who's a mate of ours and he did that which was amazing. I got to live in Santa Fe for like five months. I grew up in New Mexico. I liked it. It's gorgeous. Too much Amber and Dream Catchers for me.

But that's Santa Fe. That is Santa Fe. I grew up in Albuquerque. A lot of ex-astronauts wandering around and you know, Neil Young had come into town. A lot of ex-everythings

with money end up there. David Byrne had drifted through town at some point and do an acoustic set. It's weird, right? Yeah.

It's a little town. It's a little town. It is. Did you go to Tia Sofia's and have the blue corn enchiladas or Pasquale's? I don't know. Yeah, tons of places. Beautiful, right?

Green or red? Yeah, exactly. Christmas. That's a big question in New Mexico. Yeah. I'm a green guy, mostly. Yeah, I am as well. Enchiladas I'll have red.

I had the slowest getaway from a club while I was in Santa Fe. Me and my wife went to this. We went to the state fair where we witnessed mutton busting. I don't even know what that is. Where kids ride sheep. Oh, okay, okay. As if they're riding bulls. Right, right.

Training for a horrible life. Pre-bull. Pre-bull training. Pre-bull at this point. And then, weirdly, we ended up in some techno club yeah uh and a local drug dealer took offense at the fact that i like wouldn't have a drink with him and he kind of started to get a bit angry at me and he got to a point where he's like you better have a drink with me because you're just being rude now i was like to my wife let's have a drink let's have a drink uh and like better have a drink with me because you're just being rude now. I was like, to my wife, let's have a drink, let's have a drink.

And we had a drink, but we sat there in stony silence. He didn't have anything. But he kind of wanted to be seen in the club hanging out with a Shaun of the Dead guy. And so I ended up saying to my wife, why don't you just go to the toilet, just walk away, go to the toilet. And so she went to the toilet and I kind of did a thing and I said, I'm just going to go to the loo. And then we ended up kind of me and her outside just panicking. Do you think this'm just going to go to the loo and then we ended up

kind of me and her outside just panicking, do you think this guy's going to fuck us up? And there was like a rickshaw outside do you know the bikes and you sit in the back and I said just get in, let's go, let's go and me and Chris got in this rickshaw

and it was like a 19 year old girl and it was like a 19-year-old girl who was obviously like a ladies' soccer major or something. And I said, let's just go, just go. And we made a getaway at like one mile an hour. Did the guy come out? No. Oh, good.

Well, I mean, we were in view of the club for an hour, so he would have seen us. My buddy Dave really liked the hyperdrive. He misses that. Oh, cool. I didn't know about it, but he's like, oh, it's great. I love it. How many of those did you do?

We did two seasons, so 12. It was good, man. I really enjoyed it. I love science fiction anyway, so having to. Were you always a nerdy guy? Because you don't strike me as a nerdy guy. I lived a double life. I was a jock by day.

Yeah. And then at night, I'd come back and read 2000 AD. So you all have that in common, you and Edgar and Simon. Yeah. But I think where they were lucky and fortunate is they got to embrace theirs a lot earlier than me. Right. I had to kind of keep mine hidden. Yeah.

You were a closet nerd. I was a closet nerd. And it was only when I met Simon, really, that that became... You were able to embrace it? Yeah, absolutely. And think about films as being a cinema. Right.

And think about intertextuality and the fact that I'd heard a riff from a soundtrack in a different film. I know what that is. You know, that thing, I'd never thought about that before. I knew how I felt, but I never knew there were words for it. You know what I mean? Well, yeah, because Edgar's sort of a sophisticated sort.

Yeah. He's a real film head. Yes. And, you know, all this sort of weird genre play you guys did in Spaced, so that was all sort of mind-blowing to you. Yeah. I mean, it was like well this is what we do at home yeah this is what me and simon do every day we have yeah you know i i

used to do lots of uh different sound effects of firearms that was part of mike watt's initial kind of mo that he could kind of do every firearm and so that kind of slow motion gunfight was stuff that me and Simon would do anyway. Just sitting around the house? Yeah, I'd come in one day to Simon and I'd say, this is the flat hollow boom of a shotgun. You know, and I'd ranch it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In terms of making movies with Simon and Edgar, you're a producer now a lot of times?

Yeah, I produce Cuban Fury and I produce World's End. How was that job? I mean, how did you come into that job? movies with simon and edgar you're a producer now a lot of times yeah i produce cuban fury and i produce world's end and how is that job i mean how did you come into that job what does it entail really um you know i think it's about just having that official stamp that you have a voice essentially you know i i think during shaun of the dead and certainly not so much hot fuzz but you know i was kind of young to all this and new to it all. And I think I was very aware of my place in the food chain. And even though it was the three of us making films, I was acting in those jobs.

But I did have a kind of voice and they would always let me hammer the script for notes. And then they take those into consideration or they don't take them you know right uh but then obviously the more and more we did together the you know it and after hot fire after hot fuzz it was and world's end was saying i kind of was confident enough to say i'd really like to produce this with you yeah and it was yeah it was cool so you're like a guy now you're a show business guy yeah now i'm a showbiz guy it's an amazing story yeah i guess

you you still don't consider it you know i mean i know you only go a couple years back you don't look back much but don't you don't aren't there moments where you're like holy shit yeah i was thrown out of england yeah well i was asked to leave uh yeah i mean listen i i was kind of approached recently by a publisher to say, would you ever write a memoir? And so I'm not sure. I mean, I've sat down for five months and I've written one. And I'm like, I'm 23 and I've written 190 pages of a story. So I don't think I am going to do it.

But I enjoyed sitting down and doing it for myself. You know, it's kind of interesting. To engage engage the memories yeah and see the journey yeah what what why are you apprehensive about doing it because of that that area that you know i think i wanted to write the whole thing and then take out everything i wouldn't want anyone to know and see what would be left right see if there would be an amusing story there you know without the without the embarrassing parts. Without the shit. Yeah.

But that's what people want. They want the shit. Yeah. Yeah, but see, there's a weird thing in our culture today is that I'm not sure people are ready for that shit. You know, what they want is a story about meeting Quentin Tarantino or me and Bill Hader hanging out together or people want that. What they don't want is those,

maybe what the publishers don't want are those very interesting autobiographies of the 70s and 80s by people who lived a life and that's what I want to read about. Right. But that's not necessarily- Right. The ones who barely made it out

but they're now big and old and rich enough to not care. And they had an amazing life. Sure. You think, jesus christ you sounds like you had one that happened to you yeah still you survived and and thrived you know they of course they want that you don't think they want that no well did you meet creed and tarantino i did yeah how was that amazing yeah i've met him a bunch of times yeah is he a fan yeah he has a picture of me and edgar and simon and he's in his cinema. When you go out for other directors and stuff, what would you like

to do at this point? Let's have a general meeting now. Okay. It's so nice to see you finally. Hello. I became that guy. Hello. Hello, you. Enjoy your work. Thank you. Love Simon. Edgar was just here yesterday. Good friends of yours. So what do you want to do?

I don't know. I'm not really bothered. What have you got? I went into a meeting years ago. It was the first time I'd done generals after Shaun of the Dead. I had a meeting with, I think it was Amblin. It's one of those guys. Was that Spielberg's old company?

Yeah. It was one of those, you know, it was quite a big deal. And I was terrified and it was hot and I was sweating. And I turned up three minutes late and then they kept me waiting for a while to punish me. And then they said, you know, you can go in. And this lovely girl kind of showed me into the office. and this lovely girl kind of showed me into the office. And there was a woman sat behind a big desk in quite a dark room,

kind of lined with rich mahogany or sequoia. And she did that thing where she just pointed at a chair and she didn't look up. And then she stopped after a couple of minutes. And she looked at me, I mean, she really looked at me. And then her thing, she said to me, I got three words for you. Shrek on Broadway.

And she actually put her chin on her fist to underline the fact she'd finished talking. And I think that says a lot about me. I was like, oh, I actually remember saying to her, what else have you got on your slate? Like I'd heard someone say slate in an office. Take your head off your fist and give me some other options. Yeah, I had chin fist. Well, they were trying to cast that. They thought you were the guy, huh?

I mean, I guess the criteria for that is, is he big? Right. Can he dance? Can he sing? Not that. Is he fat? Yeah. Is he shaped? Yeah. And you said Is he fat? Yeah. Is he shaped?

Yeah. And you said, thank you. Yeah. Anyway, thanks for seeing me. Yeah. Well, do you have some things you want to do? Well, you know, I've just written a kid's thing, which I want to turn into a graphic novel.

I've just met a really amazing artist called Rebecca Foster, and I think she's keen to illustrate it for me. And you do a lot of voiceovers as well don't you do voiceovers yeah and uh yeah i mean i just want to make good things with good people right i've written a wrestling film oh that'd be good i think we're going to try and get that off the ground are you a wrestling fan i am a wrestling fan i like a bit of rough and tumble and uh i'd like to do all the wrestling myself so oh that'd be great i need to put a cap on it in terms of, I think I'm 42 now. I think 45, and that's when you start getting spines busted. Yeah, you've got to find another guy that looks like you to take the hit.

Yeah, maybe the guy who's playing Shrek at the moment on Broadway. I don't think it lasted long. He's probably looking for work. Yeah. They cast a guy who turned out not to be the right guy, who I know, but they already did the contract with him, so he paid out for it oh nice but he wasn't even the dude i think it's now probably so you could go and see it in atlantic city sure it's that kind it's always on broadway in atlantic city yeah yeah and what what did you and simon do what are

we doing with this uh shaun of the dead re uh revisiting is that happening uh what for the for phineas and ferb? Yeah, what is that? Yeah, it's a cartoon. I've seen it a couple of times, but I know the guys in there. They're lovely, but they've written us in as Sean and Ed for the Halloween special. I mean, I think we're in it for like 60 seconds. That's it? Yeah.

And when you go back, where do you go back to? Where are you living? I live in the southwest of London, a place called Twickenham. Yeah? It's very beautiful. The Thames flows through it. Oh, that's nice. And it's famous for having the world's biggest rugby stadium.

And it's the headquarters of English rugby. And so, like, 16 times a year, we have 100,000 lunatics descend on our small town to go and watch rugby. Do you go? I don't. I get a lot of hassle from being in the films that I've done. I get, you know. Oh, you can't get through the crowd. No.

I mean, literally everywhere I go, people stop me and want photos. Isn't that weird? It's like the new autograph. Autographs, I think, were even more daunting. Photos, it's almost too easy. Because they can just sort of... What happens to them? We're just holding you.

Yeah. Do you do it? Yeah. I'm always lovely. I mean, I'm chuffed to bits, really. I'm thrilled that someone would give a shit that I'd done anything that would mean that they would want to follow. Are you upset, though, that you can't go to the rugby games?

Not really. I mean, I've always had... I think this comes from being a kid and trying to get into those thick-fisted irish bars and seeing all the fucking hassle between groups of massive massive groups of men yeah it put me off being with massive groups of men yeah i can't deal with this i'm not a fan of that at all i'd rather just be a few of us and yeah you know even stag nights bother me yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd rather be with... I'm a girl, man. I like hanging out with girls.

Yeah? Oh, really? Yeah. I like girls. I'm good with girls. I just like one or two people. Yeah. Once there's three, it's like, who's that guy?

Yeah. You should go. Too many. I didn't make enough for you. Yeah, party's full. It's just me and these other two fellas. Yeah. Well, it was great talking to you, Nick.

Hey, listen, thank you for having me. Yeah. So now, well, Simon's in Morocco. Yeah. Texting you. Yeah. From the quail quarter. What was the last thing he said to you?

I just had a hawk on me or something like that. Do you get that a lot? Does he send pictures and stuff? Oh, we send so much shit to one another. That's sweet. All right, he's a great guy. I'm glad you got good friends. You've done great things.

Thanks, man. Thank you. Well, that's it. Wait. I love talking to that guy. What a funny guy. Nice guy. Happy for his success.

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and you can stream all of them. Going to restock the merch for Christmas. I should probably make a new shirt or something. Something. Oh, did I mention that Fences wore his own handcrafted Boomer Live shirts on the Tonight Show with Jimmy

Fallon? That was exciting. I guess I should talk to that guy at some point. I'll have to get into what he does. It's not that I'm not interested in things. It's a lot of times I just don't make time for them. I guess that would be sort of similar to not being interested. Would it not?

Yes, it would. I'm working on it. I'm telling you, man. You're going to go into music. Yeah, because there's always room for a 50-year-old mediocre blues player. Big market. Boomer lives!

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