The Interviews (ft. Claire Foy & Richard E. Grant; Callum Scott Howells)

13:01Chris Hewitt:Yes. Yes, you do, for sure. Yeah.

13:03Richard E. Grant:I grew up in the Southern Hemisphere, Africa, and came to England. You changed your name. There's inevitably that feeling of always being an outsider looking in, and that doesn't go away entirely.

13:16Chris Hewitt:So does that fuel the performance?

13:18Richard E. Grant:Yeah, you understand why that wanting to fit in and to be taken as one of the natives.

13:24Chris Hewitt:And Claire, you said no. I think I said no because I think I feel, I suppose, anytime I feel outside of something in life, this hasn't always been true. But I definitely feel instead I feel a need to hold on to what I know to be the truth or what I am as opposed to trying to reach to where those people are. instead of like, this industry, for example, sometimes can feel very much like there's a group of people and then there's a group of other people. And then there's a group of, you know, there's runs or there's spheres that you can't enter or that you should feel like you're part of or you shouldn't feel like you're part of.

14:03And I suppose that's my only experience of it in a way is that if you ever get on the inside, you don't really want to be in the middle of it. You don't, from the inside. You feel that you are on the inside. No, but if you ever have, you know, certain things that you've gone to or things like that, that actually it devalues it. And I never want to actually attain that. I want to actually keep.

14:23Chris Hewitt:Keep yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I certainly wouldn't do what they do. No. In lots of ways.

14:32Richard E. Grant:You're not on Instagram. No, I'm not on Instagram. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I can't. Purefoy. Purefoy.

14:39Chris Hewitt:Purefoy, yeah. That's a different person. Of course. It is. It is, yeah. James. Yeah, James Purefoy. But Richard, you are on social media, so you've very much embraced that.

14:50Richard E. Grant:I am, but this is going to cause problems with Claire for myself. Please don't bring it up. No, I'm going to cause problems. Why do you say that? There we go. There's no problem. I admire him.

14:59Chris Hewitt:Are you anti-social media? I'm anti it in general, yeah. Uh-huh. Okay.

15:04Richard E. Grant:So please don't go there. No, but that doesn't mean that I judge anyone. Like, I think what Richard does on Instagram, no, but what you do is positive. Okay. You're already putting positivity out there. Hopefully. Hopefully. Yeah. You're not doing horrible things and writing horrible things and being mean? Or are you? No. I like my life too much.

15:25Chris Hewitt:That's the thing, Claire. If you're not on social media, how do you know? Well, I lurk. You've got to get on social media. You lurk. You lurk. I lurk. Yeah, yeah. Do you have a burner account? Or is any of these? What's a burner account? An account under a completely different name, so people don't know it's you, and then you can lurk more successfully. Yeah, you can't get in otherwise. You have to have some sort of weird system. So that's like stalking. No, because no one, that's not stalking because everyone else on Instagram is stalking. Claire, I believe at one point you were thinking about becoming a cinematographer.

15:55Chris Hewitt:Is that correct? Or is that absolute nonsense on the internet? No, I was. Okay. But in a very loose way, because I didn't know how I wanted to, I did film at university and I didn't like editing and I didn't like, I couldn't really understand directing. It was too much. What I did like was how pretty it all looked and making it pretty and putting the camera in different places and things like that. And so I did briefly think about going and doing cinematography, but there was only one course in the UK and they only ever took six men a year. Yeah. Oh, my God. And it was about being, I just loved films, loved them.

16:35And just, it was about learning how do you do that? And really, I just want to probably be in them. Because I'd be a terrible cinematographer. I'd just be like this in people's faces all the time. I'd just be like a single eye. You'd never see any – the only thing you'd see is skies and people's faces.

16:49Richard E. Grant:I think looking like you do, it would have been pretty fast if somebody said, no, you should be in front of the camera rather than behind it. Oh, I don't think so. Yeah, I do.

16:57Chris Hewitt:So very quickly, because I've been wrapped. In terms of that, this film is shot, you know, using a lot of natural light, a lot of candlelight, you know, very, very Barry Lyndon in that regard. What was it like? Adrana Goldman, Adrana Goldman's DAP. He's incredible. He's like the other end of that. Incredible.

17:11Richard E. Grant:Incredible. He's just so sensitive. Yeah, it feels the opposite of a merchant ivory where everything is perfection and beautiful. All the kind of decadence and falling apart of this world is absolutely perfectly captured. And Gary Williamson's production design absolutely supports that.

17:29Chris Hewitt:Okay, that was Richard E. Grant and Claire Foy talking about Savage House. I had enormous fun talking to them. Although I am still blushing about you know what. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Savage House is out now in cinemas across the country. It is, as I said at the beginning of the show, a very different film from Carolyn Jones' Mad Fabulous. Although they do explore similar territory to an extent. Although Mad Fabulous has the distinction of being based on a true story and a real life figure. Lord Henry Cyril Padgett the 5th Marquess of Anglesey who was an incredibly flamboyant figure who burned through his inheritance money faster than you could say Jack Robinson and who lived fast, died young and left a good looking corpse at the turn of the 20th century.

18:18Chris Hewitt:He is brought to life memorably in Mad Fabulous a term which is used in the film to describe his approach to life by the Welsh actor Callum Scott Howells who shot to fame in It's a Sin a few years ago. I had a lovely chat on Zoom with Howells just the other day, and we talked about a great many things, including his approach to playing the character, how the film handles the subject of Henry's sexuality, and how Howells approached saying the film's title in a line of dialogue which comes towards the end of the film. We also talked about his origins as an actor playing Oliver in Oliver, which leads to a very surprising and I'm sure completely genuine offer to me.

18:58Chris Hewitt:Here he is, Callum Scott Howells. Enjoy. Callum Scott Howells, star of Mad Fabulous. Welcome to the Apple Podcast. How are you? Very good, thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. I was very tickled by the fact that you get to say the name of the film. You get to say Mad Fabulous. I do, which was, you know, it can go one of two ways, I think. when i read her i was a bit like oh i sort of i cringed a little bit not at the writer but at the just like the idea of saying it it's just it because it's always like you can't just like say the film the title of the film right it's not just like mad fabulous you know there's the whole bit and it's one of the i think it's almost one of the last things i say yeah um if not the last spoiler alert for yeah sorry that's my fault i started it yeah so it's you know it's the whole body of the film exists before it and then but i i really am when i when i watch it back and i think about how we shot it i'm i'm really pleased with i think it's actually really sweet and um i i really like it yeah was the film called mad fabulous when you signed on so when you when you shot that day you knew you were saying the title of the movie yes i i yes i can confirm it was always called mad fabulous um which you know as you probably know it's that's not always the case where the the film is the same title when it gets released um i actually had a fight that was actually a thought i had i was like what if it takes it or if it ends up being called something different but um thankfully they um they kept the title throughout well it's really fascinating because um yeah it's true you say this at the end of the movie uh when henry is looking back at his life and I don't think it's a spoiler though, Callum, because he's a real life guy.

20:49Chris Hewitt:If you want to look him up on the internet, you can look him up. Lord Henry Padgett, 5th Marquis of Anglesey, and you can look him up. And he led a life that I think is mad fabulous, which is obviously a made up word, but it makes perfect sense in the context of the film. And at that point, it's really interesting because you imbue him saying that with a real sense of pride at the way he lived his life, which was unapologetically him, but also regret because things have not turned out that well for him. So it's an incredible load of emotion to pack into one portmanteau word what was your approach to that what were your discussions with the director kellen about that yeah it was it was complicated and and i suppose that's that's the big sort of thing that's the big sort of question that this film poses i think and i'm obviously playing henry himself it was one that i had a big question hanging over my head was that you know he lived as you say very unapologetically as him um and it was very extravagant very entertaining um and very fun i'd imagine but it obviously came with kind of dire consequences um and one that had a lasting legacy on the family even to this day you know it's it's sort of his name is is certainly um i know within the family shrouded with controversy um however you know it is kind of a fact that people loved him people really did love him um and i just i my personal feeling towards him is i feel like he was very he just wasn't supported enough in that role and in that title and i just think sort of he became a laughing stock i feel and then i think you know when when someone feels like that i think you know they there's that there's there's there's a sort of essence to like rebel i feel um they you know against the establishment and and it's a very it's a very yes that just to answer your question that that line i had to sort of to pack it in there, you know, it was, it was a lot of that in it, but also, you know, I think he, he, he saw supported by the end of the film, by the people that he loved.

23:35I think that, you know, he, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a complicated thing, I think, because yeah, even now I'm saying it and I'm going, I go like, well, gosh, yeah, I mean, he did, you know, he, he took, he took advantage of people as well. So it's, it's constantly something I'm, I'm sort of pondering over, but I do think that Henry, you know, lived a life at like full throttle.

24:02Chris Hewitt:Before I started to watch the movie, I googled him very, very quickly and there's a Wikipedia page for him. And on the Wikipedia page is a picture that I think gives you a kind of indication of what he was like, which is just this incredible picture of him in an elaborate costume, incredible headgear that a glam rocker from the 70s would kill for and he has his leg out in a very provocative manner and you know this was at a time when anyone venturing outside the norms of society of what you know quote-unquote polite society at time was kind of ostracized you know you can look at this picture you go oh i i get this guy completely but that's a surface level reading how did you delve beyond that and get this guy who was many many things so multifaceted he was a delight to be around but he was also capricious and he was at times very testy uh so how did you how did you find your way into him yeah it's funny you say that because because i looked at the images and on a first glance i i was sort of like so struck like first of all like the fact that it was going on at the time it was going like he was sort of he was wearing those clothes in the late the late 1800s which is like so beyond and you know and the title that he had it's sort of it's so scandalous it's it's brilliant um but but i then also when i when i was then thinking about portraying him i i had this like just huge i just i i had this huge thing about like what is going on underneath it i was just sort of always thinking about if he is doing that something must be going on there right he must be quite a complicated guy because you know as we know like now because because you know people that existed i guess after henry that when people have this kind of larger than life persona and they sort of present themselves in these extravagant looks or they know they they publicly are sort of expressing themselves that way we know that like these people are not these people are complicated creatures and and that is the kind of beauty of humanity right it's it's that and these are this why we love these stories so it was for me then i wanted to get into the nitty-gritty of why like why does he'd behave like this um and that was that was a a big challenge but i was particularly putting it on camera you know there's one thing to sort of do it on stage which would be you know in itself a big feat but then to really get into the nuance of it putting it in front of a camera where it picks up the the most minor of things that you do um muscularly as an actor it was um it was a big one of the biggest challenges I've had in my short career so far.

27:04Chris Hewitt:And how did you and Kellen approach things like his sexuality, for example? He has this relationship with his wife, Lily, played by Ruby Stokes, but there are also senses that he's attracted to men, but never really acts on that. Was that something that you and Kellen talked about? Yeah, a lot. and I suppose how we deal with it in the film is to a large extent what I wanted to do with it, I feel really passionate about not imposing a sexuality on him because we don't know I didn't want it to be some sort of you know crazy sex scene where he's surrounded by a load of men and neither did I want that with women because we ultimately we we don't know about his sexual relations unfortunately because i would have loved to have known how he conducted himself um in those environments however we we do know that the marriage was never consummated that is a something that was a largely known fact so i i then wanted to i wanted to sort of interrogate it but i i'm i I didn't want to sort of answer it in a way.

28:23I wanted to pose the question, but never. But then, you know, that's not to say that when we were shooting it and when we were sort of, I did have my own opinions and especially in those scenes with Nick, played by Tom Rees-Harries and Ruby also. You know, there's, and we say, you know, I suppose, you know, we can sort of argue whether he was gay or bisexual, but you know, let's not forget there's also asexuality on that spectrum as well, you know? So I'm not, I'm not, that's not me sort of saying that that's how he identified, but I just wanted to sort of, you know, flirt with, with the idea of him also, maybe, you know, not wanting to pursue sexual religion.

29:08So yeah, it's a, it's a very complicated question that the film pauses, but yeah, it's one that is a, is a tricky one to answer, but I did have, I don't know, Yeah, I had a really interesting time exploring it. Yeah, absolutely.

29:24Chris Hewitt:I mean, the film starts the very first line. We talked about one of the last lines. We might as well talk about the first line as well, which is voiceover. And you say, as Henry, I was born a good story, which is a cracking line. Were you, Callum, born a good story? Oh, my gosh. i'd like to think so and i'd like to think my parents would feel the same way i i suppose what i love about it it's like when he when he says that it's like sort of the idea that he's sort of like crashed down to earth as like an alien and like he's sort of and that's sort of that's how i imagine him in the film like when he comes on that boat it's like he's a creature from another planet arriving on on earth to sort of inflict his his ways of being and and i i sort of it's it's it's a it's because i think the thing is this film also it's so fun like it's this idea of him coming into this sort of very sort of rigid establishment and sort of smashing it up it was i really enjoyed that aspect of it you know um with all the all the sort of people like you know of paul reese's penren etc um but yeah was i born a good story i yeah why not where would it start if we were doing the callum scott hamill's biopic where would it start where would it start well i was i was i i think i came out apparently and i was told that i didn't cry which is an interest always quite an interesting thing um i'd like to think i was kicking and screaming from the off but apparently I was very quiet, which is hilarious now when I think about what I do for a living.

31:10Chris Hewitt:Yeah, cry at the drop of a hat. Yeah, well, exactly. You know what? Funny you say that. I cry at everything nowadays. I've been to see, I went to see a play the other night and a film and I sobbed at both. And I just, I don't know what it is. Like, as I get older, I'm 27 now, and as I get older, I'm like, oh my gosh, like, what's going on? I'm like, I haven't even had kids yet. God, God, God, I'm not going to be like that. You know, it's called, and this is great for an actor to have, it's called Empathy. And you're full of it. Yeah, I think so. It's a beautiful thing. What was the film and what was the play?

31:53Chris Hewitt:What made you? So I saw a play at the Donmar Warehouse called Mass. Okay. oh my god but based on the film but the mass shooting i think so yeah it's a it's a film first it was a film first yeah it's fantastic so it's um yeah it's it is based on uh it's based on a school shooting that occurs and um yeah yes right uh with with adil akhtar um in it and paul hilton and monica dolan who i am i am huge fans of the three of them uh particularly paul hilton who went to my drama school um and and it is i can't tell you how earth shatteringly devastating it is it's yeah it's sort of um i i came out and i had to sort of uh i had to go for a walk because i was just so um affected by it um i was particularly shocked at how i felt about the perpetrator's parents i had so much empathy for them and this play is just um beyond uh so yeah i saw that and the film what was the film i watched i can't even remember um you're just you're crying at anything these days again um no what was called what was the film um oh uh it was it was american booty um which, yeah, I mean, yeah, I think I just was so struck by just how brilliant the film was in that respect.

33:30The amass was very special.

33:33Chris Hewitt:While we're talking about theatre and we're talking about acting on stage, I want to talk about what you're doing next, obviously, which is Amadeus with Michael Sheen, which is amazing. But first, I wanted to talk very quickly about one of the things you did first, which is you were Oliver in Oliver. Now, Callum, I was Fagin in Oliver in my high school play and I fucking sucked.

34:02Chris Hewitt:I nearly said rock there, but I've got to be honest. How were you as Oliver and what do you remember of it? Now I'm sort of gutted. In a parallel universe, you could have been the Fagin to my Oliver That would have been so much fun. We'd be reviewing the situation. We would be reviewing the situation. And I'd be trying to pick your pocket or two.

34:29Yeah, gosh. Oh, God. I'd like to think I was brilliant. But, you know, in a way, I don't... This sounds sort of crass, but I don't care. I think my mother says I was great. But, but I just, all I remember selfishly is how, how falling in love with being an actor, like the thought of being an actor or even though it would have been, I was 11 years old. And, you know, I, at that point I would never have even known what was going to come obviously. but I I just I there was there was just this sort of magic to having an audience right there and like singing where is love you know or please sir can I have some more and then you know having the audience sort of be like oh you know and it's it's nothing beats it and even even though like with films you you know you can't there's not that sort of live element to it I still enjoyed like the when we do when you do screenings of stuff and you can hear people you know react to things and it's just you just you can never be a live audience and how they react to a piece it's just um the best feeling in the world and i even at that sort of young age it was it was just something that i i'm i'm addicted to it really i suppose all right which i guess is one of the

35:55Chris Hewitt:reasons why you're heading back to the stage to do amadeus with michael sheen which will be amazing yes i i and also it's it's i i'm sort of terrified as well i i i never i never um it always amazes me how nerve-wracking it is um that that first night is just like i'm i'm always so ill the days after um the opening night because the day of the opening i i i wake up and i i wish i could just wake up and i wake up side of stage i the day beforehand before the show is always like so rubbish it's like such a waste of a day because you just go about your day going oh my god i've got the thing tonight um and then you do it and it's always so much fun but it's just like so nerve-wracking but also so brilliant and i suppose that's the beast of it right is it's like trying to wrestle this kind of crazy thing and sort of try and lock it in it's it's that's what it's that's what it's like doing theatre and um i'll always put myself through it but boy does it um

37:01Richard E. Grant:does it always shock me how um yeah nerve nerve-wracking it is so if people book tickets

37:09Chris Hewitt:now and they've got tickets for say this second night there's a chance you might not be there because you might be sick no i'll be there but i'll be pale as a ghost spewing in between every scene tonight the role of mozart will be played by callum scott howell's understudy i'm very excited for amadeus though it's it's a role i've wanted to play for a very um long time i i love the the play it's so beyond it's for me it's like the sort of pinnacle of theatrical experience that play because it just stretches everything um you know it's so brilliant It's about these two men, but also it's about this kind of like massive thing.

37:52And that's music and the music, the experience of music and what that does to us and what it is capable of. So it's I'm very excited to put it on stage.

38:07Chris Hewitt:And of course, it'll be another kind of fabulous role for you because Mozart was not someone who hid his light under a bushel. yes it's certainly i sort of like the idea that again that he's like this like meteorite like sort of crashing down to earth and he's like he's got this kind of like this fusion inside this fission nuclear fission inside him that's like always on um and sometimes he can sometimes he can sort of tackle it but a lot of the times he can't and i just love i love that thought so i'm very very excited to portray him i mean talking again about someone who smashes the rule book up yeah like you know i'm i'm i'm right now listening to his music a lot every day basically and i just every time i listen to his music he just always does something that shocks me um i was actually talking about uh his his piece car si fan tutte the other day um and and And it's sort of very lighthearted.

39:10And then there's this song that comes in. And it's so operatic. And it just breaks your heart. And that's what he does all the time. When you think one thing is one thing, he always comes in and goes, ah, but what about this? And I just, I love him. And, you know, I'm very excited and honoured to be portraying him on stage.

39:33Chris Hewitt:I'm excited. Yep, consider me sold. Two tickets right here. thank you very much indeed but will you come on stage and be Fagin yes I will do that I will send people racing for the exits when I come on well well funnily enough like Henry would do his butterfly dance in the intervals of his plays in Mad Fabulous you could maybe come on and do reviewing the situation in the intervals yeah because plays don't do this and they should do this you know you have the halftime you know big performance at the Superbowl right yeah so they should do this in plays so we get Chris Hewitt coming on Fagin yeah as our half-time Super Bowl performance yeah I think I'm there I mean I remember most of the lyrics to reviewing the situation so I'm there consider it done I'll see you on the 29th of April on the Noel Coward stage alright fantastic I'll book it in brilliant Callum on that note I'm going to let you go thanks Chris lovely to speak to you okay that was Callum Scott Howells talking about Mad Fabulous which is in cinemas right now and if you want to see Amadeus on the West End stage The tickets for that are also on sale right now.

40:39Chris Hewitt:It'll be playing at the Noel Coward Theatre next year. Obviously, the night that I'm due to appear during the interval as Fagin singing, reviewing the situation, those are almost certainly sold out. Sorry about that. Right, that's enough for me. I am very much reviewing the situation right now. In fact, I think I better think it out again. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Bye bye.

41:07Thank you.