The Life Of Chuck/Charles/Charlie (ft. guests Eva Victor; Olivia Colman & Jay Roach; Sir Ben Kingsley)

20:34Chris Hewitt:He's in the game. Okay, I'm going to finish this off with a little thought experiment. All right? We remake Citizen Kane tomorrow. Oh, God. which of the actors that I've just named in the last 10 minutes or so we are going to be restricted to those who are still with us. Sure. All right. Otherwise it's a weekend of Bernie's situation. One of these actors is going to play Kane. I think it's pretty clear. Okay. Charlize Theron. Helen's going for Charlize Theron. Ben? Charlize Theron but in a dreadlocked wig.

21:15Chris Hewitt:I like it. I like it. What about Charlie Day? Can I interest you in Charlie Day? Like getting really angry about Rosebud. Rosebud! Rosebud! He'd be like that. You really don't remember the film well, do you? No. He'd be so furious about Rosebud. I don't think that was what Kane got furious about. Because he turns into Rosebud. No. It's like Jekyll and Hyde. When he turns into Rosebud, bad things happen. Okay. So you're seeing Charlie Day in sort of Pacific Rim solving problems. but he's trying to solve the problem of a sled. Yes. Ben? Can Kane psychologically link with the brain of a kaiju? Is that something that we can do with this if we cast Charlie Day?

21:55I think so. I think so. We can do it. We can do it. Charlie Day. I'm sorry, guys. We have to finish up this conversation because it turns out we've all been cancelled by film.

22:04Chris Hewitt:Well, it was inevitable. It was going to happen at some point. It might as well be now. All right. Should we have a guest? Go on, then. Thanks, Ben. Who do you want? Do you want, you know what, should we have Ava Victor? Yeah. Let's have Ava Victor because they were meant to be on last week's show and got bumped in the end because we had too many guests. Too many guests. Too many guests. And anyway, so Ava Victor is the star, writer, and director of the excellent Sorry Baby, one of my films of the year. It is a wonderful film. It is funny and sad and bittersweet and very compassionate. And there's one scene in particular, we mentioned this on last week's show, there's a scene where she meets someone called, played by John Carroll Lynch.

22:52Chris Hewitt:And that's just a wonderful scene full of maturity and emotion and forgiveness. And we talked about that quite a lot, actually, as it turned out in this interview with Ava Victor, which you're about to hear now. Enjoy. Ava loved the film. I'm sure you're sick of people telling you that. No, not that part. What are you sick of? Not sick of, but I have answered a... You know, it's funny because you make a film and the film says everything you wanted to say so eloquently or like as eloquently as you possibly could imagine. And it's funny to have to then be asked questions and use my words that are, I feel, quite lacking in eloquence to explain something that was meant to be explained over an hour and 40 minutes.

23:42So that's like the trippy part. That's the absurd part to me. But I'm not, everyone's very kind. So there's no problem.

23:51Chris Hewitt:Do you find yourself when people ask questions about the movie and go, what did you mean by this bit? What was your intention behind it? You just want to go, there's a scene halfway through the film. That's kind of the thesis of the film. What are you talking about? I keep being like, well, what do you think? because it's much more interesting to me. Like I know why I did everything, but I'm curious what you think happens that I can learn about whether what I wanted to do did what it was meant to do for you. So it's like, I don't know. And it's like, well, I think there's a million reasons or there's a million takeaways from everything in the world.

24:26And it's much more interesting to hear what you took from it than what I tried to do.

24:33Chris Hewitt:I want to dig into certain aspects of the course, but I have to ask this. You're probably sick of being asked this, but you must be getting a lot of questions about the cat. You know what? Not as many as I'd like. Really? Yeah. The cats. I love the cats. There are three cats in the film. Two kittens played the same role and one older cat played the older cat. And, you know, do you have a cat? No. Well, consider it very special. And yeah, I have a cat who kind of saved my life and he is a diva, so he couldn't be in the film. But we got very, very sweet kittens to play the baby cats and they got adopted before they even got to set.

25:15So they were doing sort of a movie and then moving calm. But it was it was very special. But it is. I found out later that people say you shouldn't work with animals or babies. And I didn't really know that. And the thing about working with animals and babies is like, they don't know they're in a movie. So their performances are incredibly honest and present. And they force you to work off of something happening really in the real world. So yeah, the baby's crying, but Agnes is still trying to talk to it. What does that mean? And the kitten is meowing like, is she going to keep talking like it's just there are things happening that force you to be present and i really i did enjoy that part of it though it does make the day a little bit more

25:57Chris Hewitt:confusing and long but i liked it and do you yearn then for a scene with a human partner with a you know i know i know miaki or a lucas hedges or john carol lynch at that point because they don't start meowing halfway through the scene no not not all of them one of them does but no um i i I definitely think for the rest of my life, I'll yearn for scenes with Naomi and with Lucas and with John, with everyone. I think, yeah, Naomi is a significantly more brilliant scene partner than a cat. No offense. Naomi is like the best actress we have in the world. And doing a scene with her is like, it's like butter.

26:39I don't know what to say. She, she is just so luminous and so easy to talk to in every, in every space like on set offset um and yeah i do think it was pretty amazing to get to surround myself with like the best actors we have to uh to work with on this it was a real dream come true

27:00Chris Hewitt:in that way i wanted to talk about the john carroll lynch scene because he's basically in a couple of scenes and it struck me as really really important in a number of ways i think uh i read another interview with you where you said that basically the thesis of the movie is in that scene. It's a lot of time, but it's not that much time too, which is something that he says. But I was also struck by a number of things in that. One is that you wrote a line, and I'm quoting here, I did not think I would end up looking like a yam with a mouth on it. Yes. Now, did you write that thinking, I don't know who I'm writing this for?

27:36Chris Hewitt:Did you write that thinking John Carroll Lynch looks like a yam with a mouth on it? I need John Carroll Lynch in this movie? Or did he read that line and go, that's me. I looked like a yam with a mouth on it. I wrote that line before we even were thinking about casting anyone in any of the roles of the film. And interestingly enough, I wrote a letter to John to ask him to do the film. So ultimately, I wanted John Badley to do the film. But in thinking about who would play the role, you'd be surprised how many people actually do look like yams with a mouth on it. I would say, more often than not someone looks like a yam with a mouth on it so i'm heading that way so am i we all are that's the beautiful thing about this world so uh so yeah i think actually that is he does like no one actually looks like a yam with a mouth on it but if you think about it for like 20 seconds it definitely feels like you look like a yam with a mouth on it so it works um and i was and i think he i really liked how he said the line too he takes a lot of time with it which i really loved and i was he's very funny i and he's very smart he um the scene was written to have agnes and uh and pete the sandwich shop owner eating sandwiches side by side and he was like i don't think he would make himself a sandwich i think he would just make her a sandwich and i was like oh really because i couldn't imagine it with two and he was like well in fargo uh i was supposed to make us both eggs but i ended up just making Francis eggs and they liked that.

29:06And I was like, okay, so we'll just do one sandwich then. But no, he's very smart and he's very, it was very cool to have someone with so much experience come in. And he also is a director and it was cool as my first time to get to be around someone who's worn many hats.

29:25Chris Hewitt:You wrote this obviously for you to play, but the idea wasn't always from the off that you would direct it? Yes, there was never someone else who was meant to direct it, but it was like, they asked me, do you see yourself directing it? And I was like, well, I don't, I've never done that. And I, the main thing I didn't want to do was have something fall through the cracks because I was too busy or I was, I didn't want something to be sacrificed. And so once I came to the like frightening conclusion that I desperately wanted to direct it. It was then about, okay, I want to do this. I don't know how to do this.

30:03Now I need to spend two years learning how someone does this so that when I do it, I can do it as fully as I need it to be done for the film to work in the way I want it to work. So it really required a lot of time and a lot of investment in learning and admittance of not knowing a long time. And still feeling like once you will having done one film it almost like shows you the matrix of what you don't know even more so it's it's a very cool job because it has so many parts to it and you get to work with so many people but you're the one that is there from the beginning to the end and it's a real honor to get to move through the world on this like journey with all these amazing people coming in to add their like special special magic to the film i promise you i'm not fixating on the

30:56Chris Hewitt:same with pete but it's really interesting to me that you come into that out of a panic attack and i was watching i was watching agnes going through the panic attack and i just thinking about the complexity the technical complexity of you directing yourself getting into that powerless state as a performer what that's like for you do you did you have someone else in set kind of checking in on you, making sure you were okay to get to a place like that? How did you do it? With the panic attack, particularly, the intimacy coordinator was very helpful because I told her, I was like, I'm feeling anxious about, yes, there are these intimate scenes, but I'm feeling like this panic attack scene, like I just need to pull it off and also be able to live through that scene and film all the other things we need to do after doing that scene.

31:48she gave me some really useful tools one of which was to have this like like a like a lemony um smelling oil thing and that kind of allowed me to have a routine of when we shot it like I would take myself to this real intense breath workplace and then once I it was a real routine of I park I smell it I watch the playback and do we need to go again You know, it was like it became OK and I did get lightheaded. But but we had a stunt coordinator, too, who was in the car with us because the camera is in the back of the car. And and he was helpful in figuring out the driving parts. But, you know, a lot of it is very helped by sound design.

32:31Like you hear all these honks and that's all sound design. Like I wasn't veering off the road, even though it kind of feels like I am. And the weird thing about that day was that it was raining, which I was so happy about because it adds like production value in a very small film. But also because it was there was so much going on. We didn't have any connection from the camera in the car to the monitor where Video Village was. So we were kind of just on our own, like in the car, doing it a few times. And yeah, I mean, it was sort of also kind of fun because so much about doing something that seems like it feels so emotional or so scary to do, like the panic attack or even the intimate scenes where, you know, we were making sounds that are like intimate sounds is about de-sexualizing it or like de-escalating it.

33:31So it's really about breathing the right way, making the right kind of sound to make it sound like something we know. But also the task is really staying in control of the body through that performance. So it wasn't the hardest day. Okay, okay.

33:50Chris Hewitt:What was the hardest day for you? There was a day that not until it was over did I realize it was an impossible day to make. And that was the day that we filmed every part of Agnes walking through the school to the professor's office, out of the school, to his house, all the shots of his house, as well as the intimacy scene between Decker and Natasha, as well as the whole walk and drive home to her house. And that was all one day. And it was a really hard day. And that was the one day when I went home and I was like, I don't know if we got the drive home that I need. And then I watched it the next day and I was like, yeah, we have it.

34:39But that was the day that I didn't sleep. Because I was like, the dailies need to come in so that I can decide what we need to do next. But I think there was a real, we all pretended like the day could be made. And I think that was very helpful because it kept us going. But, and it was also an emotional day, you know, it's like not the easiest thing to shoot that whole house and the whole Decker, like departure from his house. So that was, I think, the hardest day.

35:05Chris Hewitt:I'm just fascinated by the journey that you went on as a director in this. You know, I know that this began in some way for you when Barry Jenkins slid into your dms which which happens to me all the time um only happened to me once okay i'm always going jenkins get out of my dms for the love of god just just chill did he effectively encourage you to direct it at that point and you kind of went through a sort of directing school in a way yes you know i didn't realize it was that until like looking back i was like oh i did grad school but just like a self self-created and created with my producers um at that point he asked me if there was any scripted thing I had that Pastella's production company could read and at that time uh I didn't have the thing but then uh we met anyway and he kind of talked about how he felt like my videos were a version of filmmaking and he said you are directing those videos, whether you feel like you are or not, you are making every choice in them.

36:11You're deciding where the camera goes, you're deciding what you're wearing, what we see, you're editing the whole thing. And I think that's like planted a little seed of like, excitement in me that someone could see the kind of work I was trying to do before, though many like, of the videos I made were like silly or sort of small, I do feel like the care I put into them, it was very special to feel that was acknowledged. And then when I went and wrote Sorry Baby, they were the only and first people I sent it to because I was just like, they see me as I want to be seen. And more than anything, more than I want them to make this movie or not more, but yes, I'd love for them to make this movie, but I am very interested in their feedback on this film because I thought they were very smart and they made very beautiful, smart films and were very caring and selective.

37:04And so that was, uh, and then it was two years of, I want to direct this. I don't know how. And they would say, well, what do you need? And part of what they did for me was they produced a two day shoot of, uh, me practicing shooting two scenes from the film. I was afraid to shoot and put, I got to go through an edit with an amazing editor named Kate Brokaw and, um, figure out like, Like, oh, well, if I got to redo this, what would I change? And that was so helpful. And I shot listed the whole thing through storyboards. Like I tried to do an edit in my head through drawing of the whole film. And then I shouted at my friend Jane Schoenbrunz.

37:41I saw the TV glow. And that was, I think, the final step of, oh, I will never know how to, how I direct a film until I direct it. I just know that I am prepared to do it and that I'm prepared for the work ahead. And then that was when I called and I was like, I'd like to do the film. They're like, okay. And I was like, wait a second. So all I had to say was I'm ready. They're like, yeah. So, you know, it was a journey, but I am very, I'm very glad I took the time. And I think something like that I really think is true is it feels like an industry where someone really has to give you permission to do a job.

38:19And I think that's really true. like you need money to do stuff and that's just true but as you're waiting and as you're creating on your own you can like prepare to direct a film before someone gives you permission to you can you can have everything ready to go so if money comes to you you can say yeah I'm prepared and and it's a way to feel less crazy I think when you're before you're given the go-ahead there are things you can do like as an actor you feel like you need to get a role to play a role and it's like well could you just prepare a role on your own oh my god everyone's mad at me for being here okay well i'm talking a lot i always talk too long well thank you i don't want to have you kicked out of that room so i'm gonna let you go okay thank you so much it's been great thanks so

39:05Chris Hewitt:much okay that was ava victor sorry baby is in cinemas right now and is absolutely well worth your time check it out folks check it out okay so time now to dig deep into this week's movie news ordinarily in the movie news section when it is new empire day we save the shameless plug-in of empire until the end but because there's so much god darn news from this month's issue of empire shall we start with that then we can talk about all the news that has been squeezed into the issue of Empire. So on the cover is The Running Man. That's exciting, isn't it? Well, who in this room would know anything about The Running Man, Chris?

39:50Ben? I know some things, but mainly because I have been reading through things that other people in this podcast have written.

39:59Chris Hewitt:Ah, I see. I see. Who would that be? Oh, that'd be me. That would be me. Yes, I was on set of The Running Man. I went on a couple of times this is Edgar Wright's new movie based on the Richard Bachman slash Stephen King book from 1982 made of course previously once for the big screen as the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie directed by I forget correct Chuck Norris Chuck Norris directed by Paul Michael Glazer aka Starsky Orhuch Starsky Orhuch Starsky actually so so I went and said that spoke to Edgar Wright Glenn Powell, Coleman Domingo, Josh Brolin, Katie O 'Brien, everybody, and had a great time. And this is a very, very exciting movie indeed.

40:45Chris Hewitt:So Glenn Powell is a man in the future, a distant future, or is it a near future? I don't know. But a dystopian, I'll tell you that much. And he is a contestant on a game show, a deadly game show called The Running Man, where he has to literally run for his life. and if he can survive 30 days in the wilderness with everybody in the world hunting him and able to kill him, then he will win a big old pot of cash. I would just go on Destination X myself, but he has chosen to go on The Running Man. So that is very, very exciting indeed. We obviously have a show called The Shameless Plug dedicated to shamelessly plugging the magazine.

41:21Chris Hewitt:So I'm going to race through some of the reasons why you should buy this month's Empire. We also have a feature on Paul Greengrass's Return to Cinema, The Lost Bus, with Matthew McConaughey, we have a great interview with Harris Dickinson as he turns director of the film called Urchin we have an interview with Dwayne Johnson and Josh or Benny Safdie the director of Benny Benny Benny this is my starskin hutch isn't it this mashing machine we have a feature on the 20th anniversary of The Descent we have an interview with Thunderbolts Jake Schreier we have time capsule with Guy Pearce we have Timothy Ollivant doing Pint of Milk Shane Black Rian Johnson talking about Wake Up Dead Man Ben Wheatley on his weirdest movie yet John M.

42:10Chris Hewitt:Chu on Wicked For Good Oh my word It is an absolutely banging issue But it poured forth, didn't it Ben? A whole ton of actual news as well Yeah, we have newsy news In this issue Obviously the biggest being that I got to talk to Rian Johnson Oh my goodness Huge deal for me Big time for Benny not 60 and uh yeah big time for benny blanc benoit blanc uh because we have basically the first proper interview with ryan johnson on the third knives out mystery he's talked about it a little bit when he was doing some press for poker face but we had really yeah the first chat with him as he's starting to prepare for the film making its way into the world it's going to be at various festivals and things soon uh all we've had is like a little teaser video from netflix and a couple of images but we have ryan talking a few plot details and confirming a few things so uh yeah in that conversation that i had with him he confirmed that uh josh o 'connor is effectively the lead in this one he's taking on the sort of janelle mona anna de armas role from the first two films as really the protagonist of the film who will team up with benoit blanc to solve a murder and this murder is like a church-based murder it presents itself as something maybe divine or miraculous uh an impossible mystery that uh benoit blanc is going to come in as the rationalist and be like this is not a divine situation this is uh straight up good old-fashioned murder but how exactly that is the case remains to be seen uh and he's taking inspiration from you know real classic mystery authors johnson always with these films his influences aren't just other mystery movies a lot of it is literature based so he talked about uh gk chesterton's father brown mysteries um john dixon carr's mystery stories which are those like locked room logic puzzles how could this possibly have happened because there were no what there were no walls or there were no doors or no one could come in and out that kind of thing so we're looking at that sort of mystery this time around all the people involved in the case they are part of the local church parish in this pastoral new england town he's drawing from like washington irving and edgar alan poe in that kind of uh milieu this time around so we have just tons of little details of what this third film is going to be and i'm so hugely excited for more benoit blanc i love those first two films so much i think they're so smart but such pure entertainment to watch as well and so clever but they wear it really lightly and it just sounds like all of that incredible attention to detail and playfulness that we got from those first two films i really hope will be present in this one as well yes it might be my most anticipated film of the year although there there is another one that we'll talk about in just a second but uh anything else inside the magazine you want to talk about any other news yeah a couple of bits actually from both of you from the two people in this podcast chris you had a chat with jake schreier for thunderbolts i did back on his whole thunderbolts experience and he sort of firmed something up that we have known for a little while but in his own words he is directing x-men he has started work on his x-men film and you guys spoke a little bit about what he learned from thunderbolts making this like team-based marvel movie and what he's going to bring to x-men so just he talked about you know even just learning the ropes of how to balance uh the action on a marvel project versus the character dialogue scenes and how you get that balance right and yeah very exciting because i thought thunderbolts was excellent really it might be my favorite marvel movie this year i know the bar is not wildly high but um thunderbolts really really works for me and so just confirmation that jake schreier is indeed currently working on x-men yes uh is a big deal so that was that was a chris special and we have some helen specials as well because we've got a couple of early peaks at wicked for good uh with uh the yellow brick road being built and uh what glinda and elphaba are going to be going through in this kind of second part of the story we have brand new images of both Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo as they head into that second film so yeah tons of juice from this issue for me the magazine is the juice it's available right now all good evil and virtual news agents absolutely well worth your time and indeed your money so yes thank you for that pay our wages if you please you lovely lovely people there we go well done much better I'm growing and maturing as a person you're becoming a better man yes I said that Wake Up Dead Man is my most anticipated film of the year and that's absolutely true but there's another one there's another film that I am anticipating another Skylar correctly another there is another anticipated movie and that is my Charlie Day is getting worse and that is a film I didn't even know existed until four days ago when there was discussion of it in a meeting at work.

47:38Chris Hewitt:And I was like, sorry, what? Excuse me? They're doing a what? And it's not just that they're doing, they have done. And by lei, I mean the Finnish director, Yalmari Helander, has made a sequel to his absolutely bonkers action movie, Sisu. Woohoo! Entitled Sisu, Road to Revenge, and the trailer for it debuted this week. I'm very excited about this. And it's coming out soon, like in a couple of months' time. Yes, I'm so hyped. So hyped. The first one was extremely bloody, but just extremely pleasing. You know, there's something about seeing a grizzled man just absolutely go to town, violent sense, on a bunch of Nazis that just, I find heartwarming.

48:23And it's another totalitarian regime. I mean, this time is post-World War II. That was a World War II story. Yes. This is just immediately post-war, so he's going up against basically the Red Army. But again, not great people. Not great people. Not great people. So I'm kind of okay with that. And you've got, obviously, Stephen Lang, as you say, there representing... I didn't say. You didn't? I didn't. Well, Stephen Lang is there representing the ne 'er-do-wells of the Red Army of that era. So, yeah, I'm here for it. It looks bonkers. The weaponry, some of the stunty kind of nonsense. and some of it, I'll be honest, is pretty nonsensical looking.

49:00There's some bits with planes flying and possibly a gigantic missile but I'm just, I really enjoyed this trailer. I cannot wait to immerse myself in it for a couple of hours.

49:11Chris Hewitt:In case people don't know what the first one was about, it was a movie about a man who is a grizzled one man army who incurs the wrath of Nazis and woe betide them and vice versa yes because they incur his wrath and his wrath is more formidable than the wrath of the Nazis and he's an older gentleman and he is virtually unkillable and he's played by Jorma Tomila and he's back back back for this one so spoilers for Sisu in case you were wondering if he survived Sisu I'm so excited about that and I really really hope it sticks a landing I was disappointed recently I must say by Nobody 2 and I really, really hope that this is an action sequel that holds up to the first one and delivers a bit of an oomph, a bit more of a punch.

50:01Chris Hewitt:But yeah, excited about that. It's out later in the year, I believe, October or November. What do you want from me? Details? Anything else that you want to talk about, folks? We've got the trailer, and I'm honestly amazed you didn't lead with this, Chris, for Shane Black's new film, Play Dirty. Oh, do we? With Mark Wahlberg and Lakeith Stanfield. Ah, okay. Which looks pretty fun, I've got to say. That's kind of a little bit of nice guy's energy there. And I don't require much more than that from my movies. This is an adaptation of the Parker novels by Dalde Westlake under a pseudonym, Richard Stark.

50:38Chris Hewitt:This is a film that stars Mark Wahlberg as Parker, who is a career criminal, who is brutal and efficient. And if you cross him, a bit like Cesar, woe betide you. Oh no, not the woe betides. Oh, Woe Betide. And I spoke to Shane Black for this issue, in fact, about that movie and about, you know, it just feels like a match made in heaven, him and this character and this series of books. So very, very excited to put that indeed. Anything else you want to talk about? There was a new trailer for All of You, which is the new film from Brett Goldstein, who also stars in it with Imogen Poots. And the idea is it's a world where you can basically find your soulmate and they are lifelong friends or at least college and university friends and she decides to go and get told who her soulmate is and isn't him and he's kind of just romantically convinced that they're meant to be together and it's basically you know the story over years of them not dating each other I think but it looks really kind of thoughtful and interesting and romantic and a bit sexy.

51:51A little bit sexy? I'm feeling it, you know?

51:53Chris Hewitt:I beg your pardon? Helen, you should not be feeling it. No, I'm not. Not literally, but like, you know, emotionally in terms of excitement for the film, Chris. Oh, I have one more thing. Oh, hello. To take away from Helen lusting over Brett Goldstein. That's what was happening, right? Sorry, Helen's putting the poster of Brett Goldstein up on the wall right now. It's really weird and disconcerting. Ooh, I'm really glad I'm not there right now, to be honest. This just sounds really uncomfortable. I'm just going to stick around in Liverpool for the foreseeable future. Did you hear that, Helen? What's that?

52:22The way he said Liverpool. He's getting there. He went Liverpool. Did I? You did. I don't even know. I don't even know. It's just happening. But finally, something has overtaken Red Notice as the top Netflix film of all time. Everybody is watching K-pop Dean Manhunter, including at the cinema. Turns out, Netflix, people like to watch movies at the cinema.

52:46Chris Hewitt:Who'd have thunk? who knew who Laphotic knew yeah so K-pop Demon Hunters was actually the number one movie at the US box office last weekend which is an incredible triumph for that movie that I think was what's the word dumped on Netflix a couple months ago and through sheer word of mouth has fermented this wonderful fan base and and now it's not even just word of mouth it's like catchiness as well now we should say that it was only released for one weekend only, which meant that a lot of people didn't flock to it. But there it is, atop of the US box office. It's now out of cinemas. It opened here as well.

53:28Chris Hewitt:I don't know how it did over here, but I understand very, very well. And hopefully this is something that they're going to do with more films. I've said it on the podcast before. I genuinely think Happy Gilmore 2 would have been one of the biggest movies of the year if they'd released it in cinemas. And it certainly would have had a huge opening weekend. And, you know, they've got things like Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, which they have committed to a theatrical release for. Do you know anything about Wake Up Dead Man, Ben? It's getting some kind of cinema release. Sadly, I think from what I hear, it's not going to be the hugest cinema release for that one.

53:59I will absolutely be seeking it out because I saw Glass Onion in the cinema and that was such a great experience.

54:05Chris Hewitt:Yes. Yeah. I really hope that they reconsider this stance on putting their movies in the cinemas. And yeah, it's fascinating. So, So K-pop Demon Hunters has taken what record exactly? The most viewed film on Netflix. Really? Yeah. And it was previously? Red Notice. No. Yep. So, you know, a step up for sure. Yep. That is for sure. Oh, that's interesting. I wonder where Happy Gilmore 2 is on that because they were talking about it having broken records recently as well. But who knows? Who knows? Yeah, this is old time, I guess, so it's got some way to go. I think that K-pop has really benefited from the fact that, you know, small children are basically streaming it end-to-end and back-to-back.

54:55My small niece, can I just say, among her group of friends, recently got to play Rumi because they measured each other's hair and she had the longest hair, so she got to be the lead singer. I'm very proud of her, for some reason.

55:06Chris Hewitt:Okay, that's good. Well done on having the longest hair, I guess. I guess. But I just love the coldness and methodology of this approach. Everybody wants to be roomy, obviously, so we have some kind of way of figuring this out. That's amazing. But it is a phenomenon. It's everywhere. You cannot escape it. It is inevitable. I've escaped it, but I'm sure it'll track me down at some point. It will. All right. One last thing to talk about. This is good news. If you remember last year, Todd Haynes was mere weeks away from starting shooting on a movie that was billed as a period gay romance that was going to star Joaquin Phoenix and Danny Ramirez.

55:50Chris Hewitt:But five weeks or so before filming began, sets were already being built, Joaquin Phoenix pulled out from the movie. Sorry. I must add, from the movie. Thank you so much for clarifying. Helen tittering away here, looking up from her Brett Goldstein scrapbook long enough to be interested in what I have to say and and you know he copped a lot of shit for that yeah like Christine Vashon the producer of the film yes you know was pretty harsh about it yes because a lot of people lost lost money that they would have been guaranteed to get crew members and such but even at the time there was still a hope that one day it might be revived and it's been revived hurrah this is taking the long way around to this one but it's been revived and Pedro Pascal is in talks to star as in the Joaquin Phoenix role not star as Joaquin Phoenix that would be weird but he's going to star in the Joaquin Phoenix role Danny Ramirez is still doing it and it's called D 'Hinn De noche?

56:57Chris Hewitt:De noche? De noche. De noche. Which means? At night. At night. I don't think we need a name of this. Of the night. But that's interesting. Now, Pedro Pascal, this is not a shock. It is a movie that's being made. So automatically his antenna went up and went, hello. And God, I love that for us. Wait a second. I've got a spare Wednesday. I'm sure I can fit you in then. The movie. Boy. Is that the official name? I'm sure I can fit you in then the movie. Dear Lord. Yeah, but this is good news. I'm excited about this. It's very good news. So they play, just to clarify what the story is, they play two men in love who leave LA for Mexico in the 1930s.

57:40Now, I personally am having flashbacks to Daniel Craig's Queer, which I'm going to have to try and suppress by the time this film comes out. But I'm sure this will be a very, very different thing. It's a different era, to be fair. Two different men. yeah I know I just there's something about the sort of going down south to escape your problems and maybe bringing your problems with you kind of a thing so anyway alright but exciting exciting indeed very good news

58:06Chris Hewitt:there we go alright so hopefully that will actually happen and well done to everybody and all concerned alright shall we have another guest let's let's have another guest shall we have Olivia Colman and Jay Roach yes yes let's have Olivia Colman and Jay Roach So they are the star and director, respectively, of The Roses, which is out this week. And it is not a remake, necessarily. Certainly, it's a new take on the source material that inspired Danny DeFito's 1989 movie, I think it was, The War of the Roses, in which Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner played a married couple whose idyllic life gives way to utter hatred, and they basically declare war on each other.

58:48Chris Hewitt:It was very, very dark, very, very scabrous, and brilliant. absolutely wonderful film better than Jewel of the Nile and the praise doesn't come much higher than that and now the roses are back but with a slightly different name change and this is directed by Jay Roach and Olivia Colman is a chef who is married to Benedict Cumberbatch's architect and once again their married life is idyllic and then things just start to go wrong she begins to become more successful in her career while he goes down the pan, career-wise, and it creates resentment and bitterness and envy and maybe even hatred. It's a comedy.

59:31Chris Hewitt:We should mention, it's a comedy. And I sat down and I spoke with Jay Roach and Olivia Colman. God, a couple months ago now, had a great time with these two. Olivia Colman, national treasure. Jay Roach, directed all three Austin Powers movies. Give the man a bloody knighthood. I don't care if he's not British. Enjoy. We're delighted to be joined on the episode of the podcast by the star and executive producer of The Roses and the director of The Roses, Olivia Colman and Jay Roach. How are you both? Hi, good, thank you. I forgot I was in EP on this. Oh, good. So your role was extensive then in terms of executive producing.

1:00:06Chris Hewitt:Yeah. You were everywhere all across it. Yeah, totally. I was amazing. You've completely forgotten that you were... Couldn't have happened without me. I'm actually glad you didn't realise it because you would have had a lot of power, a lot more power on it. Damn it! And Jay, you haven't forgotten that you directed this, right? I think I remember most of it. Because you're still kind of working on it right now, aren't you? Yeah, we're finishing it now. We're just now starting the scoring process and some of the ADR. Yeah, just trying to get through it. Olivia, have you done any ADR recently on the Roses?

1:00:36Have I? Yeah, just a little bit. Yeah, we got to improvise a little bit the other day. Oh, yes. Yes. But it's always by Zoom. It's always, you know, everything's remote now, so you don't do it in person. It used to be more fun.

1:00:48Chris Hewitt:over zoom and then but speaking into your iPhone and then yeah but then I've got a friend who has a studio that he built when he was 18 in a shed with egg boxes and things and really Norfolk yeah right so I can drive 10 minutes down the road through the fields to my friends and he's got all the gear it's amazing but when sometimes people go we'd like to come and and be with you oh don't do that there's nowhere to get a coffee I really wouldn't it's just too far away it's literally in the middle of nowhere right so he's got egg boxes and he's got all the equipment but he doesn't have a decent coffee machine yeah if he hears this it would really cross me it's much it's it is in a shed okay it's not very professional yeah no it is he's got all the gear alright people would be quite surprised he's had this stuff then for years right yeah way ahead of the curve way ahead of the game and he's no added to it as the years have gone by as I've sort of moved back home and said can you do all my ADRs we never have to go back to London.

1:01:49Chris Hewitt:Well, that's not too bad at all. Excellent. I was intrigued to find that you'd forgotten that you were an EP on this because I was wondering if this movie began with you in a strange way because obviously you've won an Oscar for saying Tony McNamara's words in the past. I love the way you're spinning this. Yeah, let's go with this. Well, yeah. It'll be two for two. You never know. But, you know, I'm wondering, did this begin with you in a way in conversations with Tony or did this begin with you, Jay? No, I think this was... It started with these guys, with Benedict and Olivia's companies. That's Searchlight.

1:02:19Searchlight had the rights to the movie, and then Tony worked with them, and then I came. I was the last guy in. Yeah, what he said.

1:02:31Chris Hewitt:So the conversations began with you and Benedict then. It was years ago. I think at Venice Film Festival is when we were all quite pissed and said, let's do something together. Because Ben and I had never worked together. and yeah and such like I don't know who came up with the roses first wasn't me although if I get do I get extra pay for saying it was me you do you also get a big fat executive user check as well so you know it was me as I recall yeah she's like created by yeah at the beginning of the movie not Danny DeVito not Danny DeVito at all but so it's interesting it's the roses not the war of the roses so do you see this as a remake or loosely inspired by the previous film and of course there's a book as well yeah I love the original film and I was a little skeptical when I heard it was you know based on that and then I read Tony's script I was like oh yeah this is completely different it has it has enough connection to it that it's it's it's derived from it that the word we've been using is reimagining but he found a whole different tone of a different set of predicaments and a pretty amazing new, I don't know, commitment to the characters in terms of the original was more about, oh, they really have started to despise each other really early in the story.

1:03:55How are they going to destroy each other in this horrible divorce fight? In this one, it's a bit more about, wow, they're in a really tough situation and there's a big twist at the beginning that throws their relationship sideways. Are they going to be able to figure it out and will they keep trying? And so there's much more of a, I think they're more committed to trying to put it back together. It's almost like an old-fashioned remarriage comedy in a certain way. Those old school ball comedies where you really realize that they might self-sabotage and they might screw each other up, but they really do care about each other.

1:04:30And I think with Olivia and Benedict doing it, you relate to how hard they try, how much they care, but then you also relate to, oh, no, they're going to a dark place to try to mess with each other. And Tony's script had all of that. So I just couldn't put it down. And right away I said, yes, with these two and that script. And it is different. It is different.

1:04:51Chris Hewitt:What was the scene that made you say yes and you really looked forward to directing? There's a bunch of them, but I will – there is one that stuck out for me. There's a dinner scene in the middle. I think a lot of I think I'll just speak for myself as an American that I have an inferiority complex around British people and how much smarter much more humorous and witty they are in banter and there's a hilarious thing in the dinner where their American friends try to imitate that and think that their ability to be sort of mean to each other but in a really funny way that that's their love language and the Americans say, oh, let's try it.

1:05:38And they fail so badly. And so that was the scene.

1:05:43Chris Hewitt:I was like, oh, I want to see that. I thought that might be the scene that you left out. And Olivia, as an actor and as a hell of a scene for you guys to perform. So much fun. And with those incredible, see, it's hilarious you say that, you know, you feel amongst British people because that's just not the case. And the words, the American cast are incredible. and I think so much better at improvising than us. Well, me. And they're just, they're brilliant. Oh, my God, they were so funny. And I think Ben and I sat there going, my God, look who's here. And when we did our first read through Zoom and, you know, these incredible people kept popping up and Ben and I were texting each other going, fuck, Andy Sumber, Kate McKinnon.

1:06:27It was too exciting. And so mucking about with those people at that dinner table was brilliant. didn't go on for long enough. Oh, really? I felt I could have filmed that for days. We wanted to. I think we could have kept on because every take was some wild, weird thing. So was there a lot of improv? You know, Tony's script was so good and the character design was so good going in. But when you get Kate McKinnon and Andy Semberg, you're going to let them try some things. And, you know, I was reading about the definition of screwball comedy. This will just be a little tangent. Screwball, I always thought meant more slapsticky or more broad, but it actually comes from a baseball metaphor where it's a ball that comes at you with a crazy twist or a curve that's called a screwball pitch.

1:07:20And I started thinking about it in terms of Andy and Kate because Kate will come at you with the most unpredictable, wildest thing and that it's still dialed in and it's still going to go over the plate. you know, to overuse that metaphor. But it's going to surprise you. And Andy does the same thing. But sometimes Andy comes in with improv in rehearsal and then has a whole, he's like the special ops comedy guy who has written 10, he'll say, just let the camera roll and I'll do 10 versions of that. Yeah. And they're all funny, every single one. But so we could have just kept shooting because I would just let them try things in the middle of Tony's great script.

1:07:57They were throwing screwballs at us the whole time. So it's pretty cool. Wow, as well, with the iPad on the airplane. Zoe and Jamie Dimitriou. I was meant to be asleep, and I kept going. Just for the Jamie. When she's coming at him about how successful she is and how he's still been cancelled. I can't tell you. Yeah, they're all, and they're all, yeah, they're all the whole cast. And then Alice and Jenny comes in. I mean, just like, we were so lucky.

1:08:25Chris Hewitt:The baseball term, a pinch hitter, I guess. You're bringing her in. See, I can speak baseball. Very good. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. Oh, you didn't know anything? No. I read it somewhere. I wanted to sound smart. Sorry, good. I thought I said it. Yeah. No, that's the right use. Someone comes in just for that one special moment. Yeah. The dinner table sequence. I mean, I thought Mike Lee and Ben Wheatley had cornered the market in excruciatingly uncomfortable dinner party sequences. But I think you've topped it. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, is it wrong that I wanted to be there? No. At that dinner party.

1:08:59Totally. to sit back and watch that.

1:09:02Chris Hewitt:Yeah. I wouldn't participate, obviously. I've done a couple of those kind of scenes. We had one long one in Meet the Parents, and I like a dinner scene because it's like a play. Everyone's trapped in the same place. They're all totally handcuffed. They're not going to get up, but they're going to come at each other. So the predicament is kind of exquisite. And with that kind of cast to just go, oh, I wonder what's going to happen today. It was pretty fun. Olivia, you were saying a second ago that you and Ben, I don't know him well if they call him Ben, I'll say Ben and then leave a pause and go, addict.

1:09:40Chris Hewitt:We're not as good at improv as some of the other people around the table. I refuse to believe that, first of all. Well, Ben was really good at it. Okay. I'm not right, but Tony's script was so good. And I'm a little bit old school about that. The script's really good. Stick to it. Our job is to do up, you know. But then you sort of get a bit of confidence because you see people go, okay, this is what they've always done. Oh, my God, they're taking something great and lifting it. I'm going to have a go. But I'm not as good. That's totally. I was going to say. She makes it seem so easy, but there's never the same take.

1:10:19It's always a little different. And it's not always in dialogue. It is usually it is the same word sometimes, but it's some other improvisation going on. That's how she comes at it. And it's it's yeah, you can tell everybody else is just as surprised by what she's doing as she is by them. So it was a blast. Yeah, that's great. It'll be worth your trip over here. Thanks for using your executive producer power.

1:10:50Chris Hewitt:the powers of the executive producer but Olivia as you said you and Ben Eddict were I'm going to start doing this you should were waiting to work together for a while then you finally start working together and then there are days in this movie where you're hurling the filest epithets at each other the worst insults imaginable must have been a blast so much fun it is fun also you know We're not, neither of us are method. So we didn't take it personally. You know, we really cared for each other and looked after each other, which you have to do. You have to trust each other to be able to do anything, even if it's, you know, funny.

1:11:33You have to trust that you're not going to, you have to sort of be equal. And we had such a nice, he's so empathetic and so, you know, in it. And we just had a really lovely time doing it. You were saying about how vile they were to each other, the characters are to each other sometimes. It's one of my favorite sort of ways of going at comedy is that comedy loves conflict so much. And it's also part of what goes on with these characters is they say such horrible things, but they trust each other most of the time, especially at the beginning of the story. And it's very enviable that people can be so honest and so direct.

1:12:13And again, it's that kind of thing that I project onto British people, that British people are just better at that, at being, you know, really kind of tough on each other in a funny way that it becomes a love language. And you, I fell for that, you know, in the script. And I fell for it with you and Ed, her amazing husband. I listened to you guys talking. How do you trust each other? We vibe to each other when talking.

1:12:40You know, that's rare to trust each other, that you can tease each other about anything and say anything because you give the benefit of the doubt. But what happens when you lose that benefit of the doubt when you start to go, wait a second, are you actually saying something that's truly, you know, insulting and trying to tell me something about what's horrible about myself or whatever? That can get very funny, but it's also really relatable. Oh, yeah.

1:13:05Chris Hewitt:I mean, as much as it's a comedy, there are moments when you and Ben, Edict, are playing incredibly raw and painful emotional scenes. And there's so much going on underneath the surface as well. And that aspect, I'm guessing, was maybe less fun than Shabby Let Each Other. But it is fun. Okay. It's sort of playing tennis with someone who's really good at tennis. You know, that sort of… Oh, I'd hate that. You play a bit better. I'm not sure. Not someone who's sending you over there or sending you over there but sending you the ball back. It's really nice. In this metaphor, you can play tennis as well.

1:13:43Chris Hewitt:Yes. In this metaphor, I'm amazing at tennis. It's my dream. Is pitch hitting everything in tennis? It's not. No, damn it. But spinning ball comes out. There we go. Yeah, top spin. Top spin, screwball. It's all happening. But you know, when you go, okay, we're going in and you have to trust each other and he gives it back and you go, oh, this is great. There's a couple of scenes of the two of them coming at each other that I've – it reminds me of like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Yes. It's the great writing too that Tony brought to it. But these two in that kind of a tennis match, it's like, ooh, where's this going?

1:14:18And it was so compelling to watch. Oh, fun. Thanks, Jay. I love this is mutual love insertion. This is terrific. I think I should be better at insulting you or something. Please don't cry. I can only do it if it's a script. But I'll do it in a funny way. it'll be our love language. Yeah, I'm like, okay. Maybe, maybe not.

1:14:39Chris Hewitt:Was the, was it always the idea that they were Brits in America? Or was that something that developed over time? Yeah, yeah. They were, they were always, you know, which I, which is, my favorite scene that shows that is when they, they are brought to a gun club. Andy, Andy Samberg's character and Kate McKinnon's character invite them to a shooting range and, and there, we had this loud speaker that we would use. Because when we had scouted, we went to Bisley, which is a shooting range here. There's like 12 gun ranges. And the guy was taking us around and saying, oh, you know, don't worry, there's not that much shooting going on.

1:15:17And every other second, there was a crazy loud gun thing going on. And we were flinching. And I said, we have to put this in the film because that's how British people must feel when they go to America. And there's guns going off everywhere. So that fish out of water, they're bonded by their Britishness in the American situation. But there were some really wonderful, and that was always Tony's design.

1:15:41Chris Hewitt:Olivia, of course, you're a dab hand with guns, you know, from your hot fuzz days. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yeah, I'm brilliant with guns. That was, they gave me a machine gun, didn't they, for that? I believe they did, yeah. And we all had to do some gun training, and I was quite flinchy, and then they gave me a machine gun, and I went, ah! I love it. So they went, okay, well, she's going to have to have that. Just spraying bullets all over the place. I'm slightly ashamed how much I enjoyed that. And, Jane, it must have been a fair amount of gunplay on the Austin Powers movies. You know, there was. And in those days, you would use the real blank fire things.

1:16:22And we had a few in the first film. We had a few machine gun moments. But they're just like, it was so disturbing. so I yeah it's hard to get used to that even on a even on a movie set even when you know it's just blanks on this one we it was it was sort of a challenge because there aren't we don't use those kind of blanks anymore and everybody had to just kind of bang bang you know you kind of bang you put the flashes in later and the sounds in later but and there's they start she and Benedict start shooting at the end and start enjoying it and she's just you know just firing away at this moving target and it was really funny to watch you get lost in it.

1:17:03Chris Hewitt:Jay, Olivia, thank you so much, Steve. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, that was Olivia Colman and Jay Roach. And we'll talk about The Roses in just a few minutes because now it's time for the reviews section of the show, folks. Ben, over there in Liverpool, we're going to have you talk about Caught Stealing, which is a new movie from Darren Aronofsky, Darren Aronofsky himself. I'm excited about this one. I haven't seen it yet. should i be excited ben yeah i think so this is one i feel really conflicted about and i guess i'll explain that now and you'll read it in the i wrote the empire review for this the three star empire review let's jump straight to a spoiler there uh so yeah as you say this is the return of aronofsky who i think we generally think of as making like very intense uh nightmarish character studies often with a bit more of like an indie arty uh inflection this is much more mainstream aronofsky so it's the story of hank a bartender played by austin butler in late 90s new york city and uh he is asked by his neighbor russ matt smith as a punk with a massive mohawk which is his own hair he shaved his own hair into a mohawk for this and uh yeah his neighbor russ says, I've got to go back to England for a couple of days.

1:18:26Can you look after my cat? And Hank agrees, along with Yvonne, his sort of not quite girlfriend, played by Zoe Kravitz. And during the course of this cat sitting, some pretty nefarious types come to Rutter's apartment, clearly looking for something, these really bad burly men, and they beat the ever-living shit out of hank uh it's a big case of sort of mistaken identity they are looking for something they think hank is withholding on them and the entire situation spirals completely out of control hank's life goes to total shit overnight and across the course of this the film more and more nefarious characters from the new york criminal underworld all come out looking for him because they think he has something involving russ's place and so the the general like tenor of this is it's a very intense rollicking thriller stressful gritty urban has a little bit of that uncut gems and after hours flavor of you feel like you are in some kind of new york nightmare um and yet all of that is really exciting and it's shot by matthew libertique the cinematographer who i just think captures new york so incredibly well you feel the grit and the grime and the sweat of this story you're with hank who you kind of come to understand that he's in a lot of pain that he's not necessarily admitting to himself there is some kind of typically aronofsky and character study stuff going on here in the guise of this like really stressful madcap thriller where all these crazy people are trying to chase him down and yet all of that is exciting and i had an experience with this i don't have very often where you're watching a film and something happens in the film and you just feel yourself go oh uh okay and what i'm kind of torn with with this film is i think it's brilliantly made and i think the pace of it is great the tone of it really hits it's a great piece of filmmaking aronofsky is a great director austin butler is brilliant in this matt smith is great in this really great zoe kravitz and all the supporting characters but i just felt so like punctured and deflated and thrown out of the film by something that happens and i it took a long time for the film to claw me back yeah and helen i was so intrigued for you to see this this week because i went to this screening on my own sometimes we're with empire colleagues or we know other people in the screening i didn't know anyone else in the screening so i had this reaction to it and And I was kind of feeling, is this just me?

1:21:31Have I just had a weird reaction to a part of this film? And I was kind of relieved that I think you maybe had some similar notes. Very much so. I knew instantly when you said you had a reservation about the film exactly what you meant. And I had the same feeling. Because this does feel like a caper. To be honest, the person I would compare it to is the Coen brothers. Or at least even something like the...

1:21:53Chris Hewitt:The person you compare it to is two people. Specifically, it felt like Ethan Coen's driveway dolls. actually. Although that's also two people because he co-directed. Anyway, my point is, but my point is, it feels like it's kind of knockabout, you know, there's kind of like, you've got this really likable guy at the heart of things. Yes, he has dark stuff in his past, but also he calls his mom every day and has a nice chat and like is popular with the people in his bar and seems like he tries to do the decent thing by people. You know, he seems like a good kid who's kind of trying to figure things out and and then all of this happens to him and sort of throws him you know out of whack and then but then when you have something that happens like that's quite dark and quite tough it just really doesn't feel like it fits in the same film where you know you have a cute scene of two hasidic hit men basically taking him home for lunch with their mum which is the vincent vindofrio and leo schreiber characters you know it just doesn't quite work around that.

1:22:57And everything else in the film is kind of light and frothy. I didn't get a lot of, I mean, grit, yes, you know, sort of visually maybe, but not sort of in the tone of the film for me. It was more just a couple of moments where you're like, oh, that feels just too violent or too extreme for everything else that's going on. So, yeah, I liked it with the same caveat really as Ben. I had a really good time. And I also feel like it's the first, it's one of the most complete illustrations of austin butler's star power that i've seen because elvis was so disappearing into a role you don't necessarily know if that's going to translate in the same way that maybe rami malek star power has not necessarily translated outside of you know a freddie mercury film that has not necessarily propelled him on the a-list austin butler seems very much more positioned to step onto the a-list and i think this is a really good example you know illustration of why that is to me he's very charming in this he's very likable and he's got that easy kind of confidence not necessarily the character's confidence but i mean the sort of the actor behind it you know the charisma kind of comes through which i really enjoyed so um so yeah like 90 to 95 really good fun and then uh one bit which i just didn't like

1:24:11Chris Hewitt:okay all right well ben's given us three stars which means empire's given us three stars uh so yeah, I'm intrigued. I'm very intrigued. Since I saw the first trailer for this, I was like, oh, this is, we haven't seen Aronofsky doing something like this before. So yeah, I'm still up for it. But yeah, three stars then for Caught Stealing. Ben! Yes? It is time for you to go. Go and practice my Scouse accents. Yes. Start singing The Beatles because The Beatles famously had very thick Scouse accents. From the 60s. From the 60s. Bees in love, Bees in love, Ben. Ben's got to go. Ben's tossing your fan mail.

1:24:54Chris Hewitt:All right, Ben, thanks a lot. Thank you, guys. Bye. Happy podding. Alone at last. Oh, God, no. Oh, my God.

1:25:05Chris Hewitt:So, what else should we talk about? What other films? We talked about Thursday Murder Club last week. We said we'd review it in a little bit more detail and depth this week. We could do that. Should we? I mean, we could try. We should, we should, we shall. Alrighty then. No less. Because we gave this two stars last week. And we both agreed it was a little harsh. It's a little harsh. I don't think it's good, to be clear. But I had a nice time watching it. Like if it's raining on Sunday afternoon and you put this on with a cup of tea. Perfectly distracting. You know, you're going to have a nice time.

1:25:42Chris Hewitt:Yeah. Maybe wrap yourself up in a blanket. Maybe just wait till autumn. I don't know what I'm saying. My point is, I guess, that it feels quite Sunday evening British TV. It feels a bit Miss Marple-y. And I think it's meant to be a little bit hipper than that, and I'm not sure that it is. But I did still enjoy it because, you know, you just have a cast of very, very talented people going through the motions of adapting this book really remarkably faithfully. And I think it's the very faithful adaptation that makes it at times feel a little bit baggy and slow moving. And I know it's meant to be gentle and slow moving because these are older people and we don't want them to fall and break anything.

1:26:21But at the same time, it could maybe have done with a bit more pace in the storytelling to just keep things moving on a little bit more. Now, I will say...

1:26:30Chris Hewitt:It feels a bit TV movie at times. It does feel TV movie. And I think, you know, people will say, oh, well, Chris Columbus, you know, he did the same thing to the early Harry Potters. But I think he's facing a similar thing here, which is that he has to establish quite a lot in this film. He has to do a lot of world building here in the same way he had to with the first Potters. Like there was stuff that they wanted to take out with the first Potters that they couldn't because it was important to book three or four or five or six. I feel like there's something maybe similar happening here. They can't edit very much because they still have to have all these characters established and their relationships built up.

1:27:04Chris Hewitt:So who are these characters? What's going on in this movie? Good point, Chris. So these characters are four retirees at a very posh looking nursing home where they form the Thursday Murder Club to spend their free time, of which they have a lot, solving old cold cases just for their own amusement. And then, of course, a murder happens on their own doorstep and they have to kind of swing into action. So we have Helen Mirren's retired spy, Serban Kingsley's retired psychiatrist, Pierce Brosnan's retired union leader, but a guy who knows how to get things done and how to talk people and then celia emery who's a retired nurse so she's bringing a little bit of medical expertise um and also a lot of cake to proceedings i did approve of the cake 100 there for that you also have naomi acky and daniel mays as actual police people who come along to investigate murder you have um david tennant as the very corrupt crooked owner of the establishment and people like tom ellis as as pierce brosnan's son and uh i've forgotten all the other hangers on there's I mean, like Jonathan Price is in it, Richard E.

1:28:10Grant is in it, there's like a million other people. So it's a really, really good cast. It looks very beautiful, even beside the fact that they're shooting at the X mansion and the surroundings are literally palatial. They've also zhuzhed up the interiors and everybody has a beautiful little flat. I mean, honestly, if I ended up retiring anywhere like this, I'd be over the moon. I don't think this represents in any way reality. Let's be very clear about that. but you know it's just the storytelling for me I think was the problem it all looks lovely everyone's having a lovely time everyone's still clearly thrilled to work with each other and so they should be

1:28:46Chris Hewitt:thrilled to be alive they should be they should be I'm sorry if you're offered the chance to work with Helen Merrin you should be like thanking your lucky stars you know I mean what a time to be alive so I think I think there is that sense everybody's just happy to be there and having a lovely time and aren't we lucky to be making an adaptation of a very successful series of books that everybody's going to enjoy and it's going to be nice. Yeah. But I don't think it ever really raises its expectations or its hopes much beyond nice. Nice. It's a nice thing to end for, though, isn't it? Nice. Nice, it's great.

1:29:18Chris Hewitt:What did you make of Pierce's accent? He's playing a Londoner. He's playing a West Ham supporter. I thought he was fine, actually. I didn't have any major notes about his accent. I do think Richard E. Grant is slightly miscast in his role. that was the one thing that really kind of leapt out at me interesting I didn't I felt like that was a kind of a Ray Winston-y role he doesn't have Ray Winston energy to me see Brosnan feels that Ron is a Ray Winston role and that he's unusual left field casting I think of the casting when it was announced for this movie because the Richard Osmond books have got a vociferous and large fan base I think he weirdly enough Brosnan was the one that had people going, oh, I'm not so sure about that.

1:30:05But then they talk about Ron having been terribly handsome and, you know, that was why he was on TV a lot.

1:30:10Chris Hewitt:Ray Winston's terribly handsome. I don't understand. Well, I can't explain it to you. Let me just put this poster of Ray Winston up in the wall. The wall is getting really crowded in here. It's a very crowded wall. Yeah, okay. I kind of got it. I read the book after the casting announcements, actually, so it kind of worked for me. You had them in your head. Yeah, I had them in my head. Yeah. But also, like, Like Helen Mirren, they could literally have written Helen Mirren on the page like she is. The description of her character, Elizabeth, in the book is essentially a description of Helen Mirren.

1:30:40Chris Hewitt:Yeah, the book's really playful and fun. I prefer the book. But this is fine. It's amiable. It's amiable. It is nice. A nice Sunday afternoon movie, but we did give it two stars. It's on Netflix now. It was in cinemas last week. So Netflix, again, putting stuff in cinemas and then on to their service. so if you want to check it out on the sofa on Sunday afternoons it may be raining this Sunday at least in London it is you know check it out check it out Thursday Murder Club is the roses amiable? Hell's Bells amiable is not the word I would entirely use is it nice? at times yeah the house porn is real I'll tell you that I put a picture of the house up on the wall as well yeah I noticed that when I came in blimey yeah weirdly that's the only one that's laminated oh no Come on now.

1:31:29Oh, no. Right, so yes, we have Ivy, who is Olivia Colman's character. Theo Benedict Cumberbatch's architect character. They have a sort of a meet-cute after a dinner he's at goes wrong in a restaurant, and they jump each other's bones instead of continuing to eat. I have worries about the hygiene and how that's all going to go down. I've watched a lot of The Bear recently. Well, I bet you have. and then and we cut to basically 10 years later they've been they've gotten together they've gotten married they've had two children they've moved to California they're living in a very nice house he's about to hit great heights of architectural success and it seems like the whole rom-com has come true you know this like they have rom-com jobs they have rom-com names they're living in a rom-com house everything is wonderful and then his career goes you know and hers goes woohoo and And everything kind of changes.

1:32:25Those are technical terms for careers, by the way. Yes. Everything changes. The dynamics shift and we see them gradually begin to resent each other's choices as they try to navigate this new phase of their relationships. I talked to quite a few people after seeing this and there was a general consensus that the balance maybe between the two is off. And the balance in this film is really, really important because you have to think they're both equally bad. otherwise it just becomes a what a bitch or what a dick i i do wonder i i wonder as well though

1:32:59Chris Hewitt:is it calibrated along gender lines because i wonder if you ask guys yeah who they think is largely at fault yeah they might say olivia coleman and if you asked women they might say beneline cummerbund do you think that's the case i think uh butter cake cupcake stands comes out of it better because I agree we don't see the 10 years of her sacrifice yes which the film skips we only see him starting to make sacrifices when the shift happens and therefore I think he does slightly come out of it better he has resentments and he doesn't always express them well and he can be very childish and pompous at times but I think we see more where he's coming from than we do where she's coming from and I think that is a fundamental imbalance I think there's also arguably a slight problem of of comedy styles i think i think that he can be beneline cucumber can be very very funny he's a really funny guy and he can do very funny roles if you saw him in starter for 10 like way back at the start of the power of the dog hilarious okay well maybe not that one um but i but she is like a comedy powerhouse yeah and has a lot more experience of kind of going for bigger laughs i think he's been slightly more you know common comedic drama rather than full-on comedy.

1:34:22I think she's done more full-on comedy. And I feel like, therefore, sometimes Ivy maybe comes across as more childish or sillier because she goes harder for laughs. And maybe I'm being very unfair to both of them. I don't know. That was my impression. And so, again, that creates sometimes a slight imbalance to me. I would say also that the more outlandish it becomes,

1:34:46Chris Hewitt:there's moments in this where the characters for me stop behaving like recognizable human beings now I've never been through a horrific divorce where you suddenly can't stand the sight of the person that you've been in love with for years and years and years and maybe that would make your behavior become unreasonable but I don't know, I bumped up I had a good enough time with it but I bumped up against some of the turns in the last third of the movie which by the way we should say if you've seen the trailer for this you've seen all the funny comedy physical comedy that the two inflict upon each other like she throws crabs into the bath when he's having a bath that sort of thing that's all in the last 25 minutes yeah it is a sudden rush to the finish isn't it I don't I don't entirely agree with that I don't think it's wildly off tone and I will say like having said everything I've said about the balance slightly being off I did laugh a lot I really enjoyed it I think there's inherently a sort of fish out of water culture clash thing already when you have British people in California because everybody there is like well at least the sort of stereotype that we're playing with here everybody there is very like clean living and polite and very socially conscious and everything else and doesn't casually swear in the way that these two characters do and I think that created some nice sort of tension and some clashes and there was a very awkward dinner party scene which I really enjoyed and you have Andy Samberg in essentially the Danny DeVito role which I also really enjoyed I think he's just great in everything but I yeah I had a really good time watching it it's just I don't feel like it nails the landing the way that the original film did and so that didn't quite work as well for me but I had a really nice time watching it.

1:36:43I give this three stars and a pretty warm three for all that we've said negatively about it. I had a nice time. Good performances. Looks very glossy. Like I say, the house porn is off the charts. It's well performed all around. I had a nice time. I just don't think it's quite as sharp and as bitter maybe as it could have been.

1:37:05Chris Hewitt:Three stars and for the Roses. Very quickly this week, we have Macon Blair making a return to the director's chair with The Toxic Avenger, which is a remake of the trauma, open air quotes, classic, close air quotes about a man who is drenched in nuclear waste and becomes a toxic avenger. And in this movie, Peter Dinklage is Toxie. He is that character. and this movie was on the shelf for a long, long time. It was filmed a few years ago and at one point there were fears that it might never be released. But here it is, folks. It's in cinemas this weekend. Hell's Bells. Yeah. Is it worth the wait?

1:37:54Chris Hewitt:All right, three stars in for the talk. That's okay. You know what? It was very silly and fun. It felt like a throwback. It did feel like a throwback to sort of, you know, grungy kind of kids against the world, 80s and 90s movies. And I say kids advisedly because it does feel young skewing despite the wild amounts of gore and grossness that this film gets into. So you have honestly an evil, you know, an evil kind of pharmaceutical company straight out of one of those, like, you know, Tim Burton Batmans or something. Well, the real world as well. To the film's credit, by the way, they've basically given their marketing budget to people with unpayable medical debt and are trying to actually help people.

1:38:40Really? That's an incredible way to market the feeling. I haven't seen that. That's amazing. Yeah, really, really nice.

1:38:44Chris Hewitt:The fact I haven't seen it means it's not working. But also, it's a great thing. But let's hope all of those people tell 10 their friends that we had no works better. That's great. Yeah. Anyway, but this... Five stars then. Five stars. Five stars. This one, you know, judged on those terms, judged as a throwback and a deliberately kind of lo-fi, grungy, very physical effects heavy, very silly film, if I'm honest. It's quite fun. So you've got Peter Dinklage, who's a really likable guy, working as a janitor, trying to get medical treatment for a condition he's just been diagnosed with, trying to keep things together and look after his orphaned stepson, who's played by Jacob Tremblay, you know, and he falls foul of the local big shot pharmaceutical boss, Kevin Bacon and his sort of fixer, Elijah Wood.

1:39:37Chris Hewitt:This film has Macon and Bacon? Oh no, yes it does. Carry on. Oh boy. I just wanted to establish that. It's very, very stupid and doesn't make any sense and I enjoyed it. It was fun. It was very stupid. Sounds to me, Helen, that you did not enjoy it and that you are actually just trying to be nice for once. I would never try to be nice, Chris. Come on. I think you're being nice. I don't think you like this movie. I put it to you, Helen and Harry, you did not like this movie. I genuinely didn't hate it. I genuinely thought it was okay. But to be fair, I had read like a one-star review of it going in, so I had very low expectations.

1:40:15Chris Hewitt:I've managed to talk you down until I didn't hate it. All right. We gave it three stars. Sophie Butcher gave us three stars. So there you go. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen much this week. I've been very, very busy and I apologize to everybody. but I did see Thursday Murder Club and I did see The Roses that's that's two out of four two out of four ain't bad ain't bad at all alright nearly time to wrap this bad boy of a show up yay nearly time to wrap this bad boy of a show up I should say we're going live in two weeks time if you haven't bought your ticket to come and see us if you're waiting for payday payday has come and gone folks I got paid today I looked at it I wept but if you want to come and see us we're at King's Place in what two and a half weeks two weeks two weeks today no two weeks from tomorrow so Saturday September 13th at King's Place we're doing a live show it's going to be a lot of fun we've got some great guests we're going to do Mount Rushmore yes we are it's going to be awesome you're going to enjoy it if you've ever come to one of our live shows you know that they are a hoot they gave us an award for a live show once and that should mean something shouldn't it I think it should mean something at night when I'm staring at the ceiling gripped by paroxysms of terror.

1:41:31Chris Hewitt:It should mean something. Okay. kingsplace.co.uk if you want to pick up your tickets for that. There are still a couple of tickets left in the stalls and the balcony, of course, is also available to you should you wish to see my bald spot. That's always fun. Anyway, we're about to finish the show but we have one last guest and that guest is Sir Ben Kingsley who plays Ibrahim, who is one of the quartet that Helen mentioned in the Thursday Murder Club. And I went along and sat down with Sir Ben Kingsley in a hotel room last week. And I was really weirdly deferential. Well, finally, we found someone you'll defer to.

1:42:11Chris Hewitt:I don't know what happened. But, you know, I do the whole Sir Ben Kingsley thing on the podcast. And then he sat down and I just couldn't stop calling him Sir Ben. I just could not stop. and I don't know when you're actually face to face with Ben Kingsley sorry Sir Ben Kingsley see I've done it again but if he'd been here I would have said Sir Ben Kingsley wow and I would have been accused of being a lick spittle I wouldn't have accused you of that I would have accused you of being polite for once but I was overawed is what I'm trying to say okay as you should be he's blooming gandy isn't he yes he's Sir Gandy he's Sir Don Logan he's Ben Kingsley yeah anyway if you want to hear me being overawed it begins now enjoy this is a film obviously based on a book that became a phenomenon were you keeping track of it at this point uh at the time that richard osman's book first exploded no no it was a complete surprise to me the okay i first i first may i tell you how i came across the whole project um my agent chris andrews he works for caa with CAA, and he told me that Steven Spielberg, the King of Amblin, whom I adore personally, was interested.

1:43:31He wanted me for a project. My mind raced. I wondered what it was, but I'd already said yes without a moment's hesitation. Then I heard it was Chris Columbus, so that was two yeses. and then I heard it was Thursday Murder Club, which I didn't, I had no idea what that was. Isn't that terrible? It was probably the only person in the world who had no idea what that was. And then I discovered through the scripts what it was and the team with whom I was to play and it was a delight to join them. But Stephen, Chris first, and then of course Richard Osman's book, script. Yeah, that's how it came to me.

1:44:13Chris Hewitt:That's interesting, because I was wondering, because it was such a huge hit. It's unusual to have a book break out the way that the Thursday Murder Club has, the subsequent books. And obviously, there are roles in that that are tailor-made for actors of a certain generation, shall we say? Yes, of course. I was wondering if you were maybe looking at that going, well, one day, maybe I've got my eye on something in that, but completely organic, the way it came to you. I love that. Completely. Oh, yes. But, you know, I don't really have that. You know, you're alluding to a strategy that I might have, but I don't.

1:44:47I don't scout things. I don't pursue projects. Unless, of course, as a producer, which I am now, I'm pursuing my own projects and producing my own projects. But in the outside world, I love to be invited to portray somebody, and it takes me, as it has done, thank goodness, completely by surprise. That means I'm going to have to take a leap from myself to the character, and I love that leap. What is the leap from you to Ibrahim in this movie? I think I have to take a leap in his compassion. I have to take, not that I lack it, but he specializes in compassion, empathy, and the capacity to listen without loving the sound of his own voice.

1:45:43so there's a modesty to him but there's a terrific intelligence to him as well and a wonderful manner amongst people which has made him a successful psychiatrist and a specialist, a consultant

1:45:59Chris Hewitt:psychiatrist so that niche that he occupies of course I must take a leap into That journey, that leap over the years has the way you've approached it changed? I don't think the way has changed. I think the way I can comprehend the leap and the way I can describe the link has probably got refined over the years. But the leap has always been exhilarating, has always been the same process. I think one thing that has changed, and it was the wonderful director, Peter Brook, who directed me in his world famous now legendary Midsummer Night's Dream and he asked me, I was playing Demetrius in Midsummer Night's Dream and he asked me, what do you think of Demetrius?

1:46:54I said, well, Peter, I think he's rather silly. Big intake of breath from Peter. He said, no, always look for a quality in your character that is greater than that quality in yourself. so I realized that I was I was unkindly judging the character of Demetrius and that has stayed with me ever since Peter said I can still see him saying it to me I know exactly where he said it I know what room he said it in in the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre and don't judge the character, that can be difficult

1:47:31Chris Hewitt:It can be difficult, I mean I mean look at the characters I've played it's very difficult, I played Adolf Eichmann And it was, I resisted judging him and went the other way, dedicated my performance to his victims. That's how I, that's what gave me the energy to portray him in Operation Finale. That is extraordinary. And we're also in the 25th anniversary this year of Sexy Beast. Oh, yes, of course. Don Logan. They're remastering it. Oh, my word. Yeah. I adore that film. I talked to the chaps last week. They're remastering it. Now, there's a character, going back to your original question, that completely took me by surprise.

1:48:15Chris Hewitt:Yeah. But when I read it, I realized, my goodness, that's exactly what I want to do. Sometimes that random invitation, and it coincides with a buried longing in you to tell that story or to scream that scream or to sing that song. That leap as well from Sir Ben Kingsley to Don Logan, I do not know how you did it. What aspect of that character did you find that was greater in him than in yourself? His wound is greater in him than, thank God, would ever be in me. I realized during shooting with Jonathan Glazer, I was a week in, and I said to Jonathan, I think I know what's wrong. I think I know what's hurt.

1:49:04He's an abused child. He's an unhealed, abused child. And if the abused child remains unhealed, he will go on to abuse others. And as an actor, I really need to find those equations that cause an effect in the performance. And then it gives me the energy to take those leaps and the security to take those leaps in that I might be imparting a truth to the audience. and so strangely enough I cared for Don because I knew he's really wounded he's in pain I don't want you to be happy why should I what a line

1:49:48Chris Hewitt:extraordinary and of course acting is something that it's not done in a vacuum how do you react to your castmates and how do you react to the other performances and how did they change the things that they're doing because everyone has their own journey everyone has their own leap Well, one of my heroes, probably one of yours from the great Hollywood days is Spencer Tracy. And he had a marvelous saying, make the other guy look good in a scene. So the only way you can do that is by giving them your absolute undivided attention. And in doing so, that level of attention feeds your performance. It's like tennis.

1:50:32there's not one person bashing a ball across the net because nothing will come back but it's how you adjust your agility to adjust to what comes back at you and that I find exhilarating and in this movie

1:50:47Chris Hewitt:obviously you're part of this wonderful quartet yes but I would say that in terms of screen time you spend more time with Pierce yes it's the Ibrahim and Ron show yes for your characters yes, Laurel and Hardy Very much so. But we both claim Hardy.

1:51:07Chris Hewitt:What was it like working with Pierce? Delightful, because just as Ibrahim and Ron come from very different worlds, so sometimes the actual circumstance of the casting feeds into the performance, so we were curious about each other. therefore we were discovering each other on camera one of one of pierce's great qualities is is empathetic and curious a lovely combination and i hope i share that too so that when we're working together the camera is catching two guys discovering one another curious about one another and discovering one another and i think taking delight in each other's company. He, Pierce, Pierce is wrong as a rugged, belligerent, almost, trade unionist.

1:52:08He is a great speaker and I as a listener. Abraham as a listener. So I think that symbiosis paid off really well. I love working with Pierce and I think it's reshared.

1:52:22Chris Hewitt:Was there a getting to know you period before cameras started rolling? I'd met Pierce socially briefly once and then the second time he came to an opening of a movie of mine and we had a lovely conversation afterwards. But then Pierce arrived a little late for the cast read through so no we dived in. Oh so you're literally discovering each other as you're going. What you see on screen is us discovering each other. Fascinating. Which is great. Absolutely. There's also a thread that runs through the movie because of course it's set in a very upmarket retirement. Yes, yes. Retirement home. Acting seems to me, Sir Ben, that it's one of the few professions where retirement is a four-letter word.

1:53:04Chris Hewitt:Is that fair to say? Is that something that... Retirement has never crossed your mind, for example. But let me be clear. I have great respect for those who choose that to be part of their lives. Yes. Their life that preceded it demands that that is the absolute appropriate next step. And I respect that and wish them well. But you've never wanted it for yourself. I wish to lead a creative life until I stop breathing. What is it that keeps pulling you back? Is it the fact that, you know, just the chance to create something every day? It's not a question of pulling me back. I never left it. You never left it.

1:53:48And it never leaves me. Every day is different. Yes. And I think my function on this earth, as well as being a song and dance man, is a storyteller. That's my tribal function, if you like. That of the storyteller. And I can't, that is it. It's almost in my DNA. It's not something that I can leave and come back to. It's there constantly. Not that I'm acting all the time, but that I relish the human condition and I'm fascinated by it. And my way of contributing to it is as a storyteller.

1:54:28Chris Hewitt:It's a pretty ancient role. My word, you've told some stories over the years. And I suspect you'll be telling more as Ibrahim down the line. Do you? Because I do not think this is going to be the last time we see the Thursday Murder Club in action. Well, I would welcome that with open arms. There have been too many roles you have played more than once in your career. One of them is Trevor Slattery. Oh, yes, Trevor. I'm very intrigued to see where he goes next. Yes. Well, we have a series coming out called Wonder Man. Yes, indeed. And he will be hitting the screen quite soon. Yeah. Dear Trev. Is this one of the great unexpected gifts of your career?

1:55:04Yeah, well, Kevin Feige, the great Kevin Feige of Marvel, came to my house in Oxfordshire because it was very top secret and told me that this character is two people. Okay. It's an actor playing the Mandarin. I was absolutely fascinated. Again, another ambush. It took me completely by surprise. And yet when I was offered it and I read it, I thought, this is exactly what I want to do. Because, okay, one narrow thread of the show, of all the shows could be, this is the life of an actor, an actor, as Trevor would say. Gosh, there are many dear colleagues from when I started out in theatre that are in Trevor, that have become part of Trevor.

1:56:01It's an homage to the actors I worked with in rep before I joined. And the Royal Shakespeare Company too. My theatre days.

1:56:09Chris Hewitt:Amazing. Yeah. I wonder if Trevor had any conversations with Peter Brook. He would have loved to, but I'm afraid he didn't. No. Trevor is not someone who looks before he leaps I'm guessing Dear Trevor Sir Ben Kingsley what a pleasure it's been Great pleasure Thank you very much indeed Thank you Thank you Okay and that was Sir Ben Kingsley talking about the Thursday Murder Club which is on Netflix right now and that's it Oh my goodness Hells Bells we have reached the end of the road it is time to take down the posters of Brett Goldstein and Ray Winston for some reason he is in his speedos though from Sexy Beast oh wow we should say that that was a choice yeah who else is up on that wall the house the house the Thursday murder cover up there that's a good house as well isn't it oh it's an amazing house it's a nice house anyway we're taking those pictures down from the walls and it's time for us to leave but anyway hey join us next week join us next week for more film related fun we'll be joined by Orlando Bloom making his return to the podcast just a couple months after he was last on honestly Orlando just tell us you want to become part of the team and we will find a chair for you you can be in the fourth chair from time to time wow you're so generous I am so generous anyway he will be on the show to talk about his new film The Cut and he'll be alongside his director Sean Ellis I did an interview yesterday and it was very interesting and compelling Orlando Bloom as you've never seen him before he really goes for it in that movie we may be joined by someone else I don't know it's me there's always a possibility I've booked someone and forgotten about it but it's very very exciting indeed but until then until we meet again until that auspicious occasion it is goodbye from my one colleague of such lethal cunning goodbye Helen O 'Hara toodaloo and it's goodbye from me I'm off to answer that age old question how much chuck would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck Norris thanks for listening see you next time bye

1:58:15You