Jack Whitehall: From Fangirling Over The Rock to Fatherhood



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30:32Taking ZepBound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbounds.lily.com. Alterations to sort of what the industry standard was after, I think, the strikes and stuff. Or maybe it wasn't that moment, but there was definitely this seed change where they're like we need to be like nicer to actors because in the, it used to be like, you'd send them like fucking 15 pages of dialogue and then they'd have to learn it on the day and then go in and audition.

31:13And it's so hard. And then you'd never even hear back like, or get any feedback from, from the, from the kind of producers as to whether it was good or not.

31:23Romesh Ranganathan:Yeah. You don't get like the weird thing I found is you don't get a no. Yeah. Right. So you just don't hear. So then like just days go by and gradually your hope sort of fades and fades and fades. And then you see it announced. Yeah. So now that the changes that they've made, I think, are that you have to be able to get some feedback, which is good. I think it's gone from like 15 pages to maybe a limit of 10. And on the 10 pages now, they normally put something at the bottom going, it's fine if you can't learn this. You don't need to. And you're like, well, yeah, it's all good and well putting it there.

31:59but everyone else is going to be learning it. So I do kind of still need to learn it.

32:03Romesh Ranganathan:If everybody else auditioning has learned this and I haven't, are you telling me it doesn't reflect badly on me at all? It makes no difference. Just reacting like... Yeah. Yeah. Is it like a panel of people? Sometimes it is. Sometimes, yeah.

32:25Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. You're not on camera! You're not on camera! but i was reading because it said it said it's fine if i read and i've got to hold the handbag as well at the same time and it's hard to stay in frame my own hat yeah it's it's it's it's really it's really hard man auditioning with an accent i that's one that i found challenging because the minute it goes it's gone yeah it's like it's very hard to get it back I did one for I think it was um some it was a movie where I was required to do an Irish accent and I'd done a bit of time with the dialect coach before and I and I when you say done a bit of time

33:05Romesh Ranganathan:how much time do you have to do with the dialect coach I mean you're pretty you're an all right mimic aren't you but I'd done maybe like you know a couple of hours okay with it with the dialect coach going through the scenes and I was like I think I've got this and then I went into the room and maybe the first couple of lines were pretty good and i was like oh yeah this is going great and then there was one line where i just heard one syllable go a little wrong and within seconds we were in jamaica we were in south america it went all over the shot yeah i was desperately trying to get back to ireland but it would not come back to ireland and i got to the end and it was one of those ones again where you're like there's three more scenes to do but let's just call it here let's just call it i'm not i'm not the guy you there's absolutely no way i've had it where i've had it where like you do it like with an accent it's i was the martian yeah and i said do you want me to do it in american accent and it no way did it it said i have an accent she goes oh yeah let's do it in american i was like like shit and then i started doing it and then i remember in my head i was i read the line i thought that was shit you've got five lines left to to save this fuck the next one okay you got four left eventually there's a lot hinging on this last line fuck that and i spent anyway i think it's been a waste of time hasn't it for everybody so hard man um audition for the hobbit at the casting director's house i remember going around to do that and just before the uh the audition started he told me that i was the first person in the entire world to audition for any part in this franchise and then hit like record on the camera and i was like some like thrown and it feels like a lot of pressure now yeah yeah and yeah i was supposed i i got a i didn't get an audition i just had a chat with the director for the last ghostbusters film and he said you know it'd be really great to have you in it and da da and then um he said let's keep in touch and then he didn't and then um and then i got in touch with a few weeks later and i said hey man just checking i tried to be breezy yeah but obviously i'm like not breezy yeah it's really you know i've told everyone yeah and uh i go just checking about the film and he's an oh that character's gone take care it's bad oh my god the whole character yeah okay well i just think like what i was worried about then is that there's a deeper paranoia that what you've done or how you come across is so bad yeah that not only do they want to recast, you've ruined the character for them.

35:38Romesh Ranganathan:Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've basically scorched earth. You've killed the character. Scorched earth. Yeah. It's like napalm. Do you know what I mean? I can't. It just smells now, that character. Do you know what I mean? We've got a question from my mum, I believe. My mum's a big fan, Jack. I love your mum. Yeah, I'll ask this afterwards, actually. Let's see what the question is. It'll be something horrible. Hello, Jack. you have such a nice speaking voice can you please teach my roommate to talk nicely thank you wow um that's can i just say i just want to say something this has happened a couple of times now my mom can speak english but it it sounds like she's in a citizenship test or something it was so broken also yes and for it to be broken when she's calling you out for needing education lessons I don't want to throw any shade at Shanty because I never respect her you've really got to nail that she needs to speak English better that's what you're saying no but that's the gist no you I'm literally just saying if you're going to criticise someone's pronunciation learn the fucking language That's from Jack Whitehall.

36:57Not from me. I did not say that.

37:00Romesh Ranganathan:No, Shandy, we can work on it. How do you feel about your voice? My voice? You code switched at the beginning. I code switched, yeah. And then now you're comfortable, aren't you? In fact, it's like in your standup, I think being public school educated and talking how you talk is arguably a disadvantage in a lot of ways. Do you know what I mean? because you're being a stand up is about being like relatable and you're making these observations. And I think that I imagine it sort of makes it a little bit tougher for you. And also it suggests privilege. Right. So then when you walk into any room and start chatting with people, there's immediately like a bit of a barrier, I guess.

37:44Romesh Ranganathan:Do you know what I mean? So so how I mean, obviously, you're like super famous now. but when you're coming through, was there a point in which you like, I feel more comfortable with this now? I think so. I think it was the minute that I unlocked that it was like an angle because I think in the initial stages of me being a stand-up, like talking to that period of like the Amuse Moose and me talking like a Cockney, like then my angle, my voice, my USP was just that I was young and I remember that being the angle of all of my jokes and, you know, the jumping off point. and you know someone said to me i was like you do realize that that that that will end at some point like you can't just rely on that being your gimmick yeah forever i was like oh god yes you're right like that will eventually dry up so i was like i feel like i need you know another angle and need to find out like what my comic voice is and and then i sort of gradually i think became a little closer to how i am in in real life and then if anything sort of pushed it further because i was like i think the only way of you know dealing with that is sort of tackling it head on and almost playing it up and uh owning the fact that you know i have a sort of you know this this higher status over the audience yeah and sending it up and being like oh well i'll play play up to being privileged and make a fool of myself and use it as a sort of funny conceit that i'm this sort of like ludicrously unrelatable slightly like hoity-toity character on stage so it's like a heightened version of my personality but I was like oh that can be a funny angle and that can all of my jokes and sort of being imbued with with that and and and it felt like it was a sort of a funny comic motive for me as a stand-up was it was it like difficult because without getting too like heavy or bad or whatever but was it difficult because like when you started you're a young posh kid who's like absolutely smashing it in stand-up on paper you should be a prick really do you know what I mean and so and so then whenever you meet somebody you're introduced to somebody you meet other comics have you heard about Jack Whitehall blah blah blah you you've slightly got to break through that yeah that thing was that did you were you conscious of that at the time yeah yeah definitely and i was like i do remember being very conscious and probably still have a little bit of being like that will be most other comedians perception of me so like make sure when you're in a dressing room that you give them no opportunity to think you're an asshole make sure you behave impeccably yeah and are very you know deferential and not a prick and so i was like I was really conscious of not wanting to in any way like you know like put people's nose out of joint but without naming names but there must have been people that were just like who's just like people must have been rude to you when you're coming through like in dress yeah yeah yeah there was definitely some like old school circuit comics that no matter how much like ingratiating behavior yeah like it just impenetrable just be like yeah yeah it's horrible yeah but that but like you know similar thing happened to me probably not on the same scale as you but i had the same thing where like just people just think this guy's like on a fast track or something like that completely and so they're like you've not done the hard yards or whatever yeah i remember like just getting people like just going i remember like walking into dressing room and somebody's going oh yeah it's one of these guys just passing through aren't you just passing through all of that i used to get that all the time yeah yeah and then um what do they mean what do they mean when they say that that you're just using the circuit as a sort of stepping stone to getting onto television and you don't really care and that's not true neither of us have done that no we used it to get into podcasting um but you do sort of like i think the only way you can sort get respect from from comedians like that is you just gotta like get enough like miles on the clock you have to do enough gigs but i feel like both of us did a lot of gigs a lot of shows and died on our ass and and and you have to have that experience you know and and it's useful it's great like it does sort of like i don't know make you feel worthy as a comedian yeah definitely like What I found was like, one, you want to work your ass off at becoming a great stand-up.

42:13Romesh Ranganathan:Like, you know, that thing of like, and listen, I'm nowhere near as good a stand-up as I want to be, but you'd be working your ass off to try and get as good as you possibly can. Then if you have an experience like that, you go, I really want to rip this gig. But then the other side of it is like when I started doing a little bit of like, when you start doing a little bit of telly or whatever, then when you go and drop in on a gig, all the other comics are like, or some of the other comics will be like, let's see if this guy is any good. and then if you do new material and die on your ass, I remember you used to walk out and I go, I mean, the story from tonight is romish is shit.

42:47Romesh Ranganathan:That's going to be the enduring memory from this evening. Do you know what I mean? And that's like, it's a bit, yeah, it's a bit mad. But can we talk about League of the Rome, which is obviously done now? Yeah. Yeah. You finished it off. Yeah. It's like they asked me to host and they said, can you, we feel like it's on its way out, but we need somebody to be the figurehead of really driving it into the ground. And they allowed me to do that. You know, it's really good. You, James and Freddie, managed to sort of jump off at the right time. You've been eulogised as the elites of League of Their Own and there's people like myself, Jill Scott, Michael Richards, and Sandy Jamie.

43:29Romesh Ranganathan:Sandy Jamie. But at least Jamie's got some legacy from being there from the very beginning. Do you know what I mean? I've never actually said this to you because I think when whenever we when we were doing League of Their Own we were like we did it we did it it was a little bit of crossover yeah it was a bit of crossover and but it was it was a horrific experience not horrific that's such an exaggeration it was an amazing experience but the biggest challenge was following you on that show because I sort of went on as a regular after you and you were so beloved and I'll tell you this now genuinely when I first came on as a guest like obviously I knew what your stuff but I'd never watched you gig live and I'd never been in a room where you were doing your thing.

44:09Romesh Ranganathan:And like, you were so good at that show, man. Like, it was amazing to watch. Like, it was incredible. And I do think personally, I think that's maybe up there with the most difficult panel show to kind of land, I think. It's like, as a guest going on there, it's hard. But that show, I loved it so much. and you know you found it when you did it it's like the reason that show was so good is because it was the the dynamic of the people that are on it and and once i realized that and i realized it's not about like working out what the joke is to do with the question that i've been asked on the topic that we're doing it's more the joke about freddie or james or james and this dynamic and this sitcom because it was almost like a sitcom yeah it's like a minute i realized that i was like oh yeah this is so much so much better yeah yeah and and like you're brilliant at it as well like i see the way you have that dynamic with jamie on the show and and me it's like it's great because it's like it's a it's that chemistry and it's so that's what people love and that's what people are tuning in for and the other stuff is great and it gives it like you know color and scale and all of those things but like what what when it really sings is those moments where it's like watching two mates yeah it's watching you like rib jamie or him say something stupid and you like pull him up on it or like that's that's the like the the the great joy of that show and and i had such a laugh doing it it was such a hard decision to yeah to like move on from it because it honestly especially those road trips felt like a stag do and it was just the like the most fun i've ever had professionally even that one we did in the in the uk the the when we were in the woods yeah it's hilarious with that SAS guy the SAS stuff was insane so seriously when we had the bag shoved over our head and we were they came to rescue us and they were like hugging me and just left you there with the back on your head you're like mate I'm here hello yeah it was it's like an amazing it's an amazing time and what's great for you is I don't know if you'd got wind that it was going to get cancelled a few years later but you jump you know it was really smart for you to jump when you did i don't know what damage it's done to my we just got we just got to say man well it's like that um that part in ghostbusters you've you've finished not just league of their own but the entire like panel shows there's no way they've got rid of panel shows it's like let's get let's get rid of the weight roms on that a lot the grim reaper of formats we've discovered what's the problem with comedy ends it's are you going to go back out on tour again anytime soon yeah i'd like to i'd like to at some point um you know i think it's so important to kind of have enough time off in between the tours as well because i'm always like slightly itching to get back on stage and to get back out and tour and i nearly went on tour this year but i was just like i haven't got enough i've got enough material but it's not like it's not there yet yeah and so i uh i think i'm going to take a little bit more time to sort of gig and to to write and um yeah probably go on to uh a little bit later on what's your attitude towards uh doing stuff about being a parent because your call has been forwarded to voicemail hi this is zoe deutch and nick robinson a brand new movie voicemails for Isabel is all about those little moments that feel like the universe is looking out.

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48:09Romesh Ranganathan:Because I've done a lot of that. Yeah. And I actually went for a period of deep paranoia. Yeah. Where like I've been quite harsh about my children. And then I was like, oh shit, they're going to like, they're going to get to a stage where they see this. And then their mates are going to like, what if their mates go, what happened to me, I talked about it on stage once, like I talked about my first kid being amazing and the second kid being like a little shit. And then I was like at Chessington or something. And this bloke comes up, she goes, Romesh, which one's a shit one then? Oh no. Like just at the kids.

48:41Romesh Ranganathan:And I'm just like, what the fuck? Like, do you know what I mean? Him. Yeah. but um but um but in all seriousness i did start to get a bit worried and i went for a period in between doing the stuff and them getting to have an age where they'd watch it yeah there were times when i was like what have i done they haven't chosen to they haven't chosen to be spoken about generally so this is a bit like and then it turns out they love it i mean they're like totally fine yeah you know they're like are you going to do more stuff about how much of a little you know They do actually like it, but I feel like I got lucky.

49:13Romesh Ranganathan:But do you have an... Is it anything goes for you stand-up wise? No, I think I'm definitely someone that asks for forgiveness, not permission. So, I mean, well, no, to an extent. I'll always get like Roxy's approval if I'm doing material about her. But I'll always make... What's she like about it? She's pretty good. She's pretty good. Although there have been moments where she's used her power of veto. Oh, really? But I, you know... And also historically, I've had a couple of moments where I've asked her about a joke and said, can I do this? And then everyone has done it and it hasn't worked. And I've felt like, that is a complete waste of an argument.

49:50Like, I definitely should have road tested that at least once to see whether it worked as a concept. And I've literally, like, I'm sleeping on the sofa for a joke that I will never say out loud again. And I'm like, I'll learn from that moment. So I'll always try it once. And so Roxy's pretty good with it. but then with with elsie's arrival i was like oh you know i definitely do feel a sort of like a pang of guilt when a thought or a joke comes into my head and and you know once rox was pregnant i was like oh this is going to be great because it is going to be this whole like you know um it's her wealth of material yeah your wealth of material exactly but i was like i i guess i'm gonna have to like sort of wait until the moment's right and see how i feel about it when i do it on on stage and you know maybe i'll i'll wait a couple of years until she's a little bit older or she starts talking and then you know at least maybe feels a little bit fairer and i'm just you know regurgitating some funny things that she said yeah that's how i thought it would go in my tour that i did last so roxy sort of got got pregnant during the tour within i mean maybe she was four months pregnant and we'd announced it we just announced it we hadn't announced it like the sun had found out and we'd been forced to announce it so it was sort of out there in the public domain and so yeah i guess within like weeks of it being public i had a joke about lc who hadn't even been born yet and the joke was that i had this routine in my show about roxy having dated Leonardo DiCaprio and had a load of jokes about that.

51:27And so within three weeks of the pregnancy being announced, I had a photograph up on stage of the ultrasound with Leonardo DiCaprio's head superimposed onto Elsie's face. So I was like, she's not even got all of her organs and she's being used as a punchline. And at that point I was like, yeah, maybe I'm a bad person.

51:56oh that is funny so yeah yeah oh my god it was such a good smashed yeah it smashed holy shit and does elsie find you funny uh yeah i think she finds me funny i think she finds me funny um and she's yeah she's like she's only two but she's definitely she's got she's definitely mischief first and she's got like uh she's got a her own little sense of humor now which is amazing and she laughs all the time and and uh she's got a really beautiful character and uh and i'm loving

52:31Romesh Ranganathan:this this this period of being a parent it's great i mean my kids are 16 14 and 11 one of the things that people keep saying to you is like they're gonna when they grow up you know this time's like really short and it'll go quick or whatever but i feel like every stage is like amazing do you I mean, it's like my oldest son's 16 now. And like we chat about music and stuff like that. It's like really good. But I'm now at the stage now where they no longer sort of, they no longer find me impressive. You know, like I imagine Elsie's like, that's my dad. And like, whereas Mike is like, that's my dad.

53:07Romesh Ranganathan:Really? Yeah. First of all, they don't. One of my kids said to me, do you know that stand-up's dead? my oldest son said to me not that long ago he said do you know stand up stead and i said what do you mean he goes no but like it's got no it's not there's not a future right and he said can you just shut up and watch the rest of this special i asked for your feedback at the end and maybe like we could lose this joke here or maybe we could get into it a little bit quicker

53:40and that's another thing you kill the carriage in ghostbusters you kill panel shows and now dad you need to stop this is a horrible realization no but he's just going like

53:52Romesh Ranganathan:he just said to me nobody wants to hear somebody going i think this and every night is that uh don't you think like your your kids are at the age where it wouldn't be it wouldn't be cool for them to be a bit you know if they were like i read fans i read somewhere that like there's something in the development of a child that they have to have this like uh period of not repulsion but like there has to be a bit of there has to be a bit of kick against what your parents are doing so i guess it's part i mean they're never then i mean like my oldest is 16 as i said and he's never been like rude or anything like that but they don't think i'm they don't think it's cool what i do and they don't think i'm cool do you know what i mean yeah but it's better that right he's saying stand-up's dead rather than going oh my god have you seen james acaster's new special or i'm oh my god this katherine ryan show is unbelievable yeah just other other stand-ups yeah that would i think that would be worse i think it's better that he's just like written off the entire genre no you're right i hadn't found that silver lining yeah have you seen Rob Beckett's solo work it's so good dad at that point you're like right boarding school you know I do a show with him yeah I watch that but I don't like it as much I feel like you take the edge from a bit yeah yeah he's funny as solo although he does watch Taskmaster and he didn't like my he didn't really enjoy my work on that anyway this has become like a therapy session yeah the point is i hope elsie doesn't disrespect you in that way that much no i'm building up showing her clifford the big red dog i'm excited about that oh my god that'd be amazing yeah yeah she watches the cartoon at the moment and she really likes that does she have any awareness of your connection with clifford the big red dog no no no because she's never seen that movie but like that i'm like i'm kind of that's gonna be amazing yeah um i had a on a different scale um i played the magic mirror in the panto at the hawth in crawley when did you do that about three four years i'm surprised you didn't know um yes sorry no if you're gonna come on somebody's podcast do a little bit of research i'm so sorry i'm so sorry um anyway we we that that was the time we were going to panto all the time so i just had to film it once and then they like play it you know how recording works yes wait you did it one off one night of a banto No, I was on it every night, but they'd recorded it and the mirror drops down and then it's like, oh, I'm the magic mirror.

56:26Romesh Ranganathan:Oh, sorry. Okay, yes, right. So that's probably why I hadn't heard about it. But it's just a one-off. Anyway, we took the kids there and it's going to be like a big surprise. I was like, Lisa, this is going to be so mad when the magic mirror drops down. Yeah. And so watching the panto, I'm getting all excited. The magic mirror drops down, I appear. And then one of the kids goes, oh, it's you.

56:51Romesh Ranganathan:i was like this is what i've been waiting months for yeah it was so sick that'd be an amazing that'd be amazing though i one of my favorite stories uh a friend of mine is this guy um in america called max winkler and he's a very successful director and his father is henry winkler the fonts and he told me this brilliant story where he said that uh he was like dad had been out of work for you know a while it was before we'd done barry and had that sort of resurgence oh yeah and he said he couldn't get arrested and then out of the blue he gets this call from his agent and they say we want you to go and do a play in in the west end in london and dad told us we're like oh my god you've got to do that that's amazing dad that's in london's west end and you're going to be doing a a play and we were so excited for him and he went over and he did rehearsals and then he was like we all went there as a family and we arrived at uh i think it was wimbledon theater and we went in to the auditorium and i was expecting it to be like you know arthur miller and dad comes out dressed as captain hook and it's full of children and within five minutes they're they're chucking candy and they're booing and hissing him it was It was the most surreal experience of my life.

58:20And he hadn't told his son that it was Panto. So his son thought it was gonna be like Ibsen.

58:31They have no concept of what Pantomime is either. They don't have it there.

58:34Romesh Ranganathan:If you come into it, cause like it is like, I'm a big fan of Panto and long mate continue. I love Panto. But if you're not, if you don't grow up with it, the idea of showing it to somebody brand new, yeah just go what the fuck is this do you know i mean it's also mental to me that it doesn't work in america because it's it's big it's brash it's loud it's kind of camp and dumb and yeah feels like all of the things that american culture has embraced yeah it's like you know yeah yeah theater for dummies yeah it really does feel like america would grab hold of that with two hands and devour it and it doesn't have they ever tried it do you know i don't know maybe that maybe that's our play yeah maybe that could be the next thing i kill did you hear that romesh did panto in america so bad that they've decided to end it in the uk yeah and they stopped doing theater in america um now we uh i uh recently uh this is a spoiler we recently did another series of the weakest link your mum was a contestant oh wow oh yeah she was very excited she told me yeah i can't divulge how well she did right but um she was brilliant on it but your parents we we both share we both have this thing of having our parents on tv yeah how's it been for you yeah i mean in in the most part i would say very enjoyable and rewarding and i like that i've got to share in the experience of what i do with them and it's great doing stuff with them i'm quite pleased now that they seem to have they've got their own thing they've got their own thing yeah that's great yeah and they have their podcast and people seem to really like it and uh it's very funny and and they're off doing a little tour now as well um and they're doing a little tour now so i don't think they thought through when they rooted it because i was like surely you just do the home county i mean know your crowd and my mom was like no i think we should like broaden our horizons i want to go to stoke-on-trent i would like to go to stockton on tees i was like yeah i mean maybe bath maybe just do bath in oxford and eastbourne yeah and so they're doing like a proper nationwide tour and they're going off and doing that which is insane to me uh but i'm very pleased and and and they love it and it's great and now we can so what what you with your dad you did you did a chat show didn't you did you do a chat show the first thing i ever did with him was at edinburgh festival when i was up in edinburgh doing a couple of nights and my friend who sort of produced and directed my shows back then went you talk about your dad so much on stage and i was like i just i don't think i can do any more material about him because i've sort of exhausted that he went why don't you just get him up on stage and you do a chat show best of the fringe and then you just have him up there and he'll be like madge on the dame edna show he'll be a prop that he'll sit there looking grumpy and you can interview people and it'll be a funny sort of joke and we did three nights of it and he obviously didn't sit there in silence he sort of interjected and undermined me and was much funnier than me and just generally took control of the whole endeavor and then off the basis of that someone was there and said oh you'd like to do this on the bbc so then we did a chat show yeah and then from that chat show netflix went oh why don't you do this format where you kind of travel around the world yeah and and do that so then it was yeah like 10 10 years of doing a double act with him that's amazing man i mean every time i do a show with my mom now i get told uh do you know that jack whitehall does this yeah and i go yeah but his dad is not a Sri Lankan woman.

1:02:24Romesh Ranganathan:Do you get it? It's different. Tonally. Yeah, tonally. I mean, as you know, Jack, you can't speak the fucking language. I feel so bad about that. That's not what I was saying. I was literally, you said it. Yeah. And then I just sort of elaborated on a point that you had made. Actually, I've got to say, if you don't mind me saying it, it's the most animated you've been in the conversation up to that point. It's like finally clamping down. No. and also you when you do the edit you have to keep in romish's point otherwise i am gonna look like yeah but we won't be able to get all that in the in the trailer right um do you get a lot of um i get this endlessly whenever i walk down the street people going where's your dad your dad's funnier than you yeah yeah um and also my mum will sometimes get comments online and then she'll relay them to me without any thought for what it does to myself yeah yeah so she'd go to me i got a message today saying that i'm just naturally funny whether you have to whether you have to write and prepare something i don't know it's just something do you know i mean stuff like that i always said to you like what we should what we should have done is just send them off together i know it would have that would have been the show it would have been it would have been really it could have been like idiot abroad like me and you just in a room and then we go right Michael, Shanti, me, each other.

1:03:42You would do two hits, off you go.

1:03:45Romesh Ranganathan:It would have been great. It would be amazing. But the one thing I find is that I get very nervous on behalf of my mum, like on camera and stuff like that, because my mum, I would say my mum, listen, it's not a horrible thing to say, she benefits from an edit, you know? Oh my God, likewise, my dad. And so you're like, putting them into that world, I feel a bit protective and a bit, it feels a bit weird, doesn't it? Yeah, definitely. Like they have to be looked after. My mum pretends she's not been briefed. You know, she insists, you know, she's just a bit, she's quite show busy. Yeah. I find it, I think it's stressful.

1:04:21There's lots of benefits, but it is quite stressful. You can though also, and I'm sure you've used this, hide behind diva behaviour. Oh, what? Because they're older. It's my mum. It's my dad. It's my poor old dad. He's 85.

1:04:33Romesh Ranganathan:I think we need to wrap a couple of hours there. Yes, yes. You do pay. Plan B is a backup birth control option that's there for you when things don't go according to plan. It specifically works after unprotected sex and before pregnancy occurs by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is available nationwide at all major retailers and through delivery apps like DoorDash. No ID, prescription or age requirement. It's the number one OBGYN recommended brand of emergency contraception and it won't impact your future fertility. That's freedom to be. Use as directed. Aaron hours it's the best thing ever and then you go back to doing a normal show and you're like oh it's not like that yeah but like my dad he'd be like right we'll start at 10 we'll finish at 12 30 on the dot and then there'll be an hour and a half for lunch there will have to be wine at lunch and we'll have to eat in a proper restaurant and it'll be good food and I'm like oh god oh you're so what you like with your demands and I'm like yeah great and then we'll be finished by four and in the bar and then there'll have to be a nice dinner and then it'll be and it'll be like the the nicest shooting schedule ever and you could just hide behind it being because it's you know we're looking after this poor little old man that's so good uh right i've got a little game for you yeah this is called misquoted misquoted yeah uh i'm gonna read some quotes yeah you've got to tell me if you said this or not oh i quite like that yeah do you like it it's like we're trying to get a feature right because let's be honest with you the podcast was quite homogenous yes we're trying to give this a hook.

1:06:00Romesh Ranganathan:I like it. Hasn't really got one.

1:06:06Romesh Ranganathan:It's misquoted. Okay, so this is the first one. If I could look like anyone, it would be Jamie Redknapp. Even up close, he's amazing. No, I didn't say that. Did I say that? Guardian 2011. Oh, that was before the surgery. So maybe yes, in 2011. A little bit of tweaking done. $20 ,000 and a little bit of tweaking. Okay, next one. I'll admit I'm posh, but I draw the line at red trousers. I mean, it's a sentiment that I... That you endorse. ...and endorse, but I don't know whether I've said it publicly. No, you haven't. It's false. It's false. Yeah, well done. Here's your next one. I've got a punchline about wanking off a tramp behind a wheelie bin.

1:06:51Romesh Ranganathan:I mean, that's not art. I've definitely said that. you said that on the diary of a ceo podcast yeah how did you find that podcast um i thought i would really hate it and i didn't hate it as much as how emotional did he get i got i did get a little bit emotional he did he did draw some stuff do you think they pumped something into the room yeah i don't know mate yeah because i was like you're gonna get shit did you did you yeah i did it and i did i was i did get a bit like yeah and then he's just sat there kind of just looking and then he does something with his eyes and he goes oh what a feel yeah a little bit of a quiver yeah it's so weird in fact in the one i did as well he did at one point get out a book and just start saying slang words at me and ask me if i knew what they meant and we went through it and at the end he was like that we're definitely not doing that well let me tell you something It'll definitely make it to this one Whenever I try to look sexy in photos I just end up looking like I've lost my inhaler No, I don't think I said that No, you didn't say that That's a good line though, I might take that I thought I might get a slightly easier time from the audience at a comedy club in Oldham if I didn't sound like one of the Conservative Party I could have said that He did say that in 2021 in an interview with The Independent Yeah I don't mind them coming over but learn to speak English properly

1:08:20i didn't that's that's the times last year i was doing it and say that was you 20 minutes ago

1:08:29Romesh Ranganathan:no we've got one more question for you it's totally up to you yeah how you do this but one of the things that to try and help the podcast yeah is to like get an exclusive or you know something you've never you know something that could potentially go viral yes have you got anything in mind um well i and i've never told anyone this but it genuinely one of the most real experiences of my life i did acid with mary berry at wilderness festival she was there doing the spoken word tent and i was there with my ex-girlfriend at the time and I got given some acid by one of my friends and me and her, Mary Berry dropped it.

1:09:12And it was like the most surreal, like the worst place to come up on acid in a tent surrounded by a load of like, you know, hippies and then Mary Berry just off her nut. What's Mary Berry like on acid? Pretty sloppy, I would say. Soggy bottom and a soggy top. jaw swinging around all over the shop pupils like saucers i was meant to make up the story right to be clear yeah it's made up it's made up they did

1:09:46Romesh Ranganathan:yeah they did mdma yeah uh jack uh one thing actually i know that was supposed to be the final question but i do have to ask you one thing there's a moment in malice and this is a bit of a spoiler where your body's revealed yes and listen i've seen your league of their own you've always been in fairly good nick yeah but you like sort of play the comedic discombobulated i mean you looked chiseled it was incredible to watch and confusing and amazing how difficult was it for to get into that sort of shape uh yeah it was quite challenging yeah it was quite challenging and i was really really determined to try and get into good shape for it because i knew that there were going to be all of these scenes yeah and i wanted to try and look the best that i could and i'd had a an experience on the show that i did before that called the after party where i had been cast in the after party and when i'd read the script it had described my character taking his shirt off and it said sebastian removes his shirt to reveal rippling abs uh elizabeth looks over at him and flutters and and i read that i was like oh god i'm gonna have to get abs so then i like got a personal trainer started starving myself going to gym all the time doing like 100 crunches a day and uh maybe a month later they sent through the the the rewrites of all of the scripts and and all of the revisions because it was the shooting script and i reread it and and they'd just taken that line out and they just assumed that i was incapable of attaining abdominal muscles yeah so they just removed it from the script i was like i mean come on give me some i mean retrying my my hardest and then it got to the day and the the scene that was there in the script having like really like put a shift into trying it in shape to be clear i hadn't got the rippling abs i mean there was like you could see just like the beginnings of an ab and with like the light like right up there like shone down if i tensed for the whole scene it might look like i had abs but the director was like oh yeah i'm i'm just gonna shoot it from the shoulders it was the same job where i had to uh stand naked in one of the scenes and they put a posing pouch in my um dressing room before because you you have to put like a cock sock basically right that you're cocking to a sock.

1:12:15And they sort of left one like laid out on the dressing room table. And I went into my trailer. I was like, okay. And I picked it up and had a little label inside it. And it said small. And I was like, cut that out. I mean, surely that is a label that you trim. It did. It said small. Like way to make a guy feel even more self-conscious before he has to do a scene like that.

1:12:42Romesh Ranganathan:I would think they'd like generating a label saying specially ordered, extra massive. Extra large. Jack Whale, thank you so much for joining us on the Ramesh Ranganathan Show. Thank you so much. Great work. That's the image that we'll leave everyone with. If you've enjoyed this episode of the Ramesh Ranganathan Show, make sure you follow wherever you get your podcasts. Apple, Spotify, YouTube, all the big ones, and you can enjoy more great content like this. And in fact, I'd go further to say, even if you didn't enjoy this episode, just follow anyway for Shits and giggles. And on the Thursday episode, we're going to be taking questions from viewers and listeners.

1:13:17Romesh Ranganathan:Oh. So that's exciting, isn't it? It's interesting. Yeah. And if you've got an interesting story or a question for my mum and I, or even like a family dilemma you'd like us to help you with, please do get in touch via our email address, podcast at rangaby.com or you can voice note or text on this number. 07731 6233 55. I'm Ramesh Ranganathan and this has been the Ramesh Ranganathan Show. What a narcissist. See you next time. Oh, shut up, Romesh.

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