Why Are Brits So Good At Acting?

0:00The Restors Entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now, flowers, Richard, are a very important part of show business.

0:07Richard Osman:And there is a reason we're talking about flowers. As always with Octopus Energy, they do very interesting things with their customers. We will get to what they do with flowers. But yes, it's sort of the currency that runs everything. Yeah. I mean, in The Bachelor, it's actually part of the format, right? The rose ceremony. So that flower is really earning its money. Yeah. Can you imagine the person, by the way, there will be a rose wrangler on that show who has to make sure that the roses are absolutely perfect. That's a completely full-time job. Also a full-time job doing flowers for Elton John.

0:34Richard Osman:Oh my goodness. One of the great lines in a court case ever when one of his managers was accused of ripping him off and they discovered in court that he'd spent£293 ,000 on flowers in 20 months. He was like, sorry, how's that possible? He said, I like flowers. Now, shall we get on to Octopus Energy? They have a sort of committed team who always look after your account. So if you get an email from them, it's the same people. but also they get to know you so well that sometimes they'll understand if you're going through a hard time and what they will do is they will send you flowers. It's not an apology, it's just because someone was going through something and you get your flowers.

1:15Richard Osman:This episode is brought to you by EasyJet. You must have had that moment when you're watching a film but you completely tune out the plot and start daydreaming about the location instead. The bright Mediterranean colours on screen suddenly make the British weather look even greyer. And sometimes it doesn't even take the Technicolor. Put on a black and white thriller set on the Italian coast and I'll enjoy the mystery. But part of me is already working out which flight gets me nearest, preferably with less identity theft and bluer skies. For me, it is Greece. Once the rumours started that a certain star-star did musical was returning to the islands, that was all I needed.

1:48I was thinking about departures.

1:49Richard Osman:With EasyJet, you can travel to over 100 destinations across Europe, with flights from just£32 one way and they've got package holidays from£399 per person with thousands of hand-picked four - and five-star hotels to choose from. Get your summer holiday sorted. Book now at easyjet.com. Selected dates and flights, July to September, limited availability. Holidays at all protected. Terms and conditions apply. That's right, it's heating up everyone. The Rest is Football is on Netflix for the world's biggest tournament and we're officially in the business end. The knockouts are here and don't worry, myself, Alan and Micah are still here every day from New York City.

2:28All the debates from the biggest games and a special guest or two for good measure. What a time we're having. Don't miss it.

2:44Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment, questions and answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde.

2:49Richard Osman:And I'm Richard Osman. Hello, everyone. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? I'm very well. We've got some really, really good questions this week. Can we start with Louis Campbell? Yes. Who has this question. He says, can we finally have the conversation that everyone is too cowardly to have? Okay. So that's always a punchy way to start a question. It better be good. He said, it is summer. The sun is shining. The World Cup is on. I'm busy. The Odyssey is three hours long. That's too long to sit in the cinema for. Okay. It's a provocative question. It's a provocative question. Is the Odyssey too long?

3:20Richard Osman:It's quite famously long, the Odyssey. First of all, it's three hours of air conditioning. What's wrong with you? Second of all, I would say, no, of course it isn't. It's an epic. There's some Marvel films that I've seen and been like, sorry, how on earth was that three hours and seven? What a joke. But I hope lots of people will go out and see it because I always, I mean, obviously part of the reason we do this is because I want to see and listen to and watch all the things that dominate pop culture. because even if you don't like it or you think it's too long, whatever, just see what it tells us about our times.

3:51I don't think you have to like these things, but you should be interested in it. And go and see if it's too long. If you think it's too long and they could have lost 40 minutes, then great.

3:58Richard Osman:Yeah, but by then, you've had to sit through it. But you should experience it anyway because I tell you what, this is a direct... Because, well, I would go because it will dominate our culture. Oh, I'm definitely going to go. You've got a director whose name is bigger than any star in terms of getting people into theatres, which has been problematic and difficult. And I mean, it's forced this ridiculous discussion, which I sort of slightly love between people like, you know, Elon Musk, who obviously doesn't understand how literature and history work, and Tom Holland, who does. Which Tom Holland?

4:30Not the one in it.

4:32Richard Osman:Okay, you see why I was confused. But people who saying, you know, oh, this is an adaptation. Yeah, you don't understand how literature works. You don't understand how arts and history of arts work. and you don't understand the history of your literature and the history of art. You're insanely good at catching spacecraft. Which is it? In a way that I wouldn't be. No, but you, okay, it's the idiot trifecta culturally. Honestly, all things derive from things, build on them, on new versions of them, you know. But also you should be clever enough to know that other people are cleverer than you in other areas.

5:01Yeah, yeah. He's got some personal growth to affect that, I would say.

5:05Richard Osman:And also Elon Musk has as well. But that's not, yeah. I was pretending I was talking about Tom Holland. I know, I know. but yes so I no I don't think it will be too long I'm pretty sure he knows quite a lot about pacing and I will love to go and see it I'm really looking forward to it my view would be if any film should be three hours long it probably is the Odyssey and if any director could be trusted with making a three hours long film it is Christopher Nolan so they put the two of those together either way though I do sort of think any film where you pick a mix runs out halfway through you know if your pick a mix runs out if you have your last cola bottle and you just have like a sneaky little look at your watch sorry I've got an hour and 40 left and I have got no white mice.

5:45Richard Osman:I find that quite difficult. I don't want to double pick and mix it. No, no. Well, I mean, you must have a ratio. Like if you're going to see something quite short. Yes. No, I eat at the same rate, whatever. Pick and mix. Pick and mix it. Just buy more. Why can't you do the maths? I mean, if anyone can do the maths, it's you. If you think I'm not... Pick and mix maths. Why don't you just get enough for a three hour film? Right. If you think I'm not filling it right to the top anyway, you're very, very, very wrong well then get to i just think i just think with the you know the cost of that get to and make ingrid carry one so i could she would not do that i could honestly fund odyssey 2 by buying two pick and mixes don't you think it's quite expensive now well it's a it's a food court with a digital screening room attached yeah but yeah i think it's okay to be three hours long if it's Listen, we may come back in a week's time and just go, oh, my God, Louis.

6:41Richard Osman:You're absolutely right. But I think there are a few things better when it is really, really hot than going to a local cinema during the day. It is air-conditioned. There's no one in there. Someone has spent millions of pounds producing something just to entertain you, and you can have a mint chocolate chip ice cream. What more honestly do you want? Yes, please. Yeah, I wouldn't have pick and mix during the day. That's an evening cinema snack. Oh, really? But during the day, I'd have like a little ice cream or something. Okay. And a bottle of water. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Just in case you were wondering.

7:12I was on Tenderhook.

7:14Richard Osman:Yeah, good. Oh, you told me you were going to answer this one, and I like it. It's from Chris Ellis. He says, it often seems like British actors are overrepresented in Hollywood. Firstly, is there any data to back that assumption up? And if there is, why do you think it's the case? I struggle to understand why the UK would consistently produce uniquely fine actors. Yes, it is. Funnily enough, we were talking about Disclosure Day the other day, and we were just saying, it was interesting because you've got Josh O 'Connor in there. There's a lot of British actors in there, and then you realise they're pretty much all British.

7:42Richard Osman:Josh O 'Connor, you've got Emily Blunt, there's Colin Firth, Henry Lloyd Hughes. There's a lot of Brits in that movie. So I was thinking, oh, perhaps maybe it was filmed in the UK. No, it was filmed in Hollywood. Well, it was filmed in New York, in fact, I think. So they've flown everyone over. So you are definitively right. There are a huge amount of Brits in Hollywood. and more to the point, they're not playing Brits. There's a huge amount of Brits who go over and play Americans. So obviously we share a language, so there's that. But as to why it is, I hadn't really given a huge amount of thought.

8:12Richard Osman:So I thought the perfect person to talk to is an amazing casting director, one of the biggest casting directors in the business called Tamara Lee Notcut. And Tamara works mainly in LA, but she is British. So I thought, ah, I will ask Tamara. And she said something that hadn't occurred to me before, but of course it's true. She said, well, look, when the Brits are coming over to Hollywood, the actors, she said, Britain is quite a small industry. And to make it as a working actor in the UK, actually, you have to be amazingly good because there are far fewer opportunities. I said, we have this culture of theatre as well.

8:50Richard Osman:So actually, by the time these Brits come over to Hollywood, they are so honed. They're so brilliant anyway. They're incredibly honed by, you know, doing theatre or doing soaps. so Australians as well, by the way, she said, same thing. So they speak the language and they go over there and they already have a school. She said, a lot of people come to Hollywood without training, they'll be working as waiters and stuff like that. And of course it's amazing American actors, but actually the Brits come over, they are already the finished article. So they'll go into a read or to an audition and immediately they have years of training.

9:24Richard Osman:They've been on sets forever. They They know what they're doing, she said. So they're incredibly highly valued in the UK. I said, is there an issue where they would be cheaper than an American actor? Because sometimes people think that. And she said, I mean, maybe on your first job, if you're not repped by one of the big American agents, she said, but A, not really. And B, if I want to cast a British actor in an American show or an Australian actor, there are so many hoops I have to jump through in terms of visas and in terms of working visas. So actually, you have to go out of your way to cast Brits and to cast Australians in these things.

9:59Richard Osman:So it's sort of the opposite. So she said, no, they just come over and they are just unbelievably brilliant because of the way our culture is. And because we do have these theatres and we do have, weirdly, we have things like soap opera, which she's talking about when the Australians go over. And, you know, in your own country, if you've been in Home and Away, Our Neighbours, you might slightly be looked down on. Whereas in America, they genuinely go, oh, my God. So you've spent a long time on set. You're professional. You know exactly what you're doing. And the craft has been honed as well. So it had not occurred to me just that even to go over there in the first place, usually you're passed through a school which a lot of American actors, a lot of American actors, some do of course, a lot of American actors have not had to pass through.

10:41Richard Osman:So you're immediately at this incredible level. And I was talking about Widow's Bay on Tuesday's episode about how brilliant it is. And, you know, the star of that is Matthew Rhys, who's incredible, has been incredible in American things for a long time. One of the co-stars is Cato Flynn, who's another British actor. You absolutely wouldn't know it from the accent for anything. She's done loads of theatre. And again, they just go over and they're already brilliant. You don't have to do anything with them. You don't have to train them up further. You don't have to show them how to act and work on a set.

11:10Richard Osman:You don't have to show them how to work with other actors. They have done it all before. So I thought that was fascinating. So thank you to Tamara Lee Notcut for filling us in. But also she loves to talk about it because she was like, oh, yeah, it's fascinating. And we sort of rooted that out, isn't it, Chas? Yeah. Yeah. Makes you proud to be British. Yes. She also points out, of course, that lots of things like the Marvel films are filmed in the UK. And so that's sort of helpful. But the main thing is just the sheer quality of the people who present themselves. Funnily enough, you know, I saw the producer of Only Murders at Wimbledon.

11:46it was so they're filming only murders in london there's a lot of brits in it now oh my god the cameos i think are going to be off the chain i'm i think it's going to be very very fun

11:57Richard Osman:question for you marina from sean mcneill given that television and movies have been able to reproduce audio and sound for us for whatever 100 years when do you think that technology will allow for reproducing other senses for a more immersive entertainment experience okay that is a good question and what people always think about when they think about this is smell which Which is why it was the first thing that they ever did. Smellovision debuted at the World's Fair, which I think was the one in New York in 1939. And there's these guys called Mike Todd and Hans Lauber. They believed that the sort of smell of stars and the smell of what you were watching could create this kind of primal, atavistic connection with them.

12:35Which is true. Yeah. Sort of. Yeah. But it was a while until something came out with it. And there was a movie called Scent of Mystery. And it synchronised the smell with specific scenes. So there was roses, there was pipe smoke. And it had a hilarious tagline, which was, first they moved, brackets, 1895. Then they talked, brackets, 1927. Now they smell, brackets, 1960, about the movies. 1960? Yeah. But the trouble, we can see what the trouble is.

13:09Richard Osman:So they're just piping that into the cinema through the vents. Well, part of the trouble with it was that it didn't reach back. So the people at the front were overpowered. It's one of those things that in the old Batman series, the Adam West Batman series, where that green stuff comes out. So it's always on the verge of coming back, this thing. The actual release cinemas is struggling. And the idea that you'd have to specially equip theatres with it is very difficult. And the biggest problem has always been not the creation of the smell, but the dissipation of it in time for the next smell. And also the dissipation of whatever smell is in the cinema anyway.

13:42Your pick and mix.

13:43Richard Osman:Before my pick and mix. You'll pick a mix. But people are eating, you know, tacos or something. Some things are so, yeah. They've now created something called Olorama, which is kind of… Olorama. Olorama. Olorama. That's better than Olorama. Yeah. But that sort of VR and home TV, which might be more successful, they're trying to get into home technology. But Smell-O-Vision gets so much coverage because it's the most intuitive one in a weird way because I suppose it is this primal instinctive thing. Yeah. Having said that, what's much more, I think, and what lots of people who watch this sort of stuff think will become bigger is haptic cinema, is the feed, is touch.

14:21And so you might have wearable vests. You might have, I mean, people say chairs that move. Again, that's especially equipping theatres. But if people had wearables of different types than the ones we have now, and you could watch the film with them or without them, either bring them from, you know, either have your own. That is much more doable. Wristbands, things like that. And actually, if you go to somewhere with an extraordinary technology department, like Harrods or Selfridges, you will see these incredible gaming rigs that are kind of cordoned off that you're not really allowed to touch, which people wear so that they can be immersed in the game.

14:54And that's much more likely that you might have...

14:56Richard Osman:Yeah, it feels to me that it won't be cinema going down that route. It'll be the world of gaming will come towards you and people will start making content for that rather than filmmakers doing it. For sure. People will have rigs. People will, there'll be wearable things. You will be able to experience the film with or without it. Yeah. And they're doing a lot on this. Anything that is more immersive, they are doing more. I just think if 3D glasses didn't take off. Pelvet glasses. Pelvet glasses. Pelvet glasses. Then, you know, it's, I think, as you say, for cinemas, which are - Well, no, but you see, we did that article on metaglasses.

15:31Did you see, like, every single advert on the tube now is incredibly hot people wearing these glasses. Metaglass, people are talking about them.

15:37Richard Osman:Yeah. And literally no one is quoting you as calling them pervert glasses, as quoting them as Kendall Jenner's pervert glasses. Kendall Jenner's. It's so weird. It's Kylie Jenner's pervert glasses. Sorry, Kendall Jenner's pervert glasses, something completely different. Yeah. Kylie Jenner's pervert glasses, yeah. I would just have that Kylie Jenner's pervert glasses, Marine Hyde, rest of the entertainment. That feels to me like an open goal. Meta, reach out. Yeah. Anyway, so I think that that is going to become both at home because you can see it's already so aspirational in gaming. And obviously there are these rigs that cost like 35 grand or something so that you can do it.

16:12But there are also much cheaper versions of it. So you experience some of this and it will come down and down in price. And I think that that sort of immersive thing will happen. I think Smell-O-Vision remains just around the corner forever.

16:24Richard Osman:They used to do all sorts of like, they used to do scratch and sniff sometimes. A TV guide in the States where you would, for a particular episode, and you'd just scratch it while something was happening. Yeah, scratch it, that sort of thing. But actually just trying to wholly equip a theatre is a whole different thing. Exactly. Let's go to a break. After the break, we have a lovely question about stories we wish that happened while the rest of the entertainment was on air. Stuff that happened before we started the podcast. What we would have liked to have covered. Looking forward to that one.