00:00So, why did you decide to take the third chapter of Johnny English?
00:06Because I like the story. I like the story that we came up with,
00:10which is a sort of an analogue versus digital fight
00:15between Johnny English and this digital villain
00:18whom we portray in the movie, played by Jake Lacey.
00:22I don't think I'm giving too much away by saying that he's the villain.
00:25He's an American villain.
00:27And I just enjoyed the story and I thought it would work.
00:32Well, it was a story that we conceived together with myself and the writer and the producers.
00:36And as soon as you get a story and then we did a first draft script
00:40and I thought, hmm, yeah, that should work.
00:43So we decided to make a movie.
00:45Are you an analogue or digital person?
00:48I'm a little bit of both.
00:50I'm old enough that most of my life has been largely analogue.
00:56But at the same time, you know, I'm an electrical engineer by training.
01:01So the digital world is not one that holds much fear for me.
01:07So I've got phones and tablets.
01:14So I'm, you know, I'm reasonably digitally proficient.
01:18I don't do social media.
01:19That's the only thing that I don't do.
01:21I have no interest in that.
01:23I find life much more relaxing without social media.
01:27So, yeah, I'm a little bit of both.
01:30But at the same time I love it when I go back to vinyl records or, you know, the analogue past.
01:37And do you think there are, I mean, the digital world has changed the life of people?
01:45Yes, it certainly has.
01:47I mean, I think it's empowered an awful lot of people to have a voice and a presence in the world
01:54who otherwise, which otherwise they wouldn't have.
01:57But I think my problem with social media is it feels a bit like the mob.
02:02I don't mean the mafia.
02:04I mean the sort of medieval mob of people with flaming torches, you know, roaming the streets late at night looking for victims.
02:11That's what it sometimes feels like for me.
02:14It's a very anarchic, unpublished, unedited world.
02:21Which obviously is what gives it, in theory, a great, you know, that's its freedom.
02:27That's its great thing.
02:28It's the fact that it's given everyone a voice.
02:31But the frightening thing is when you express that voice, when you use that voice,
02:35and then suddenly you find that there are millions of other people who would like to disagree with you.
02:40And it becomes a very harsh environment.
02:44So it's ironic and arguably militates against free speech.
02:50When in theory it should be the perfect mechanism for free speech.
02:54And it turns out to have a much greater complexity than anybody thought.
02:59And what do you like about Johnny?
03:03I like the fact that, I mean, he's a bit of an idiot.
03:09He's a bit of a fool.
03:11He's not as good as he thinks he is.
03:13He's smug.
03:14He's arrogant.
03:15He's selfish.
03:17There's all sorts of things that are wrong with him.
03:19But at the same time I admire his pluck, as we say.
03:23I like his courage.
03:24He's brave.
03:26And he's determined.
03:28He does keep going.
03:30Which I didn't think...
03:32And therefore, bizarrely at the end of the day, he wins.
03:38You know, he tends to succeed.
03:40Which I didn't think...
03:42Which is surprising.
03:46Because you see him failing all the time.
03:48You know, you see him failing to achieve that ambition.
03:50And failing to achieve that ambition.
03:52And yet bizarrely, he takes two steps forward.
03:56But then he does only come one step back.
03:58And then he carries on.
03:59And so, inch by inch, he gets...
04:02He achieves his goal.
04:04There's something that you have brought from the character of May Gray inside this Johnny English.
04:13I don't...
04:14I don't think so.
04:15No.
04:16I can't say that I've seen much of that.
04:18Much of May Gray.
04:19I mean, May Gray is a much more quiet, much more reasonable man of much better self-judgment.
04:29Johnny doesn't have enough self-judgment.
04:33Do you have repeatedly said that your comedy is inspired by Jack Stattie and Buster Keaton?
04:40But there's so many other interpretations of detectives that helps you to make Johnny English.
04:49I mean, Bond or Clouseau?
04:51Uh...
04:53Well, I mean, James Bond is definitely the inspiration for Johnny English.
04:58You know, clearly, James Bond is his hero.
05:02And I think the James Bond that he prefers is probably Roger Moore.
05:06You know, more of that sort of raised eyebrow sort of...
05:09And just enjoying it.
05:12You know, Roger Moore seemed to be having a really good time.
05:15A far better time, I think, than Sean Connery had.
05:17And it's that enjoying the fantasy of being an exotic British spy is something that Johnny enjoys hugely.
05:25Um...
05:26So...
05:27Sorry, what was the question before?
05:28Was it just...
05:29Um...
05:30I always say that you're inspired by Jack Stattie and Buster Keaton.
05:31Oh, I see.
05:32What do you...
05:33Oh, that's a more general...
05:34But generally speaking, uh, personally, I was inspired by Jack Stattie, the French comedian,
05:44by another British comic actor, Peter Sellers, who I never met, but, uh...
05:52Uh...
05:53He died quite young.
05:54I was always hoping to meet him, but never did.
05:56Uh...
05:57And he was a great, uh, genius of cinema.
06:00A great genius of, um...
06:02A visual cinema, which is something that I've come to admire and, uh, enjoy and exploit in my own career.
06:11Um...
06:12You're a big fan of cars and automobiles, and I wanna ask you if you use the stuntman or make...
06:18Or you made the scene with cars, and if you, um, work with the troupe to choose the cars for the movie.
06:27Yes, uh, well, I, I am very much a part of the, uh, of the writing of any car chase or car action in, uh, in movies that I'm involved with.
06:36I...
06:37If you're gonna have a car chase in a comedy movie, it's got to have, it's got to have some comedy in it.
06:41It can't just be a spectacular car chase.
06:43Um, and, and I enjoy finding ways of putting jokes into car chases, like having a car chase in which a learner driver is doing the driving,
06:55which is one of the car chases in Johnny English, uh, and, and another one, well, I won't say what happens in the other one.
07:01Anyway, we, we, you know, we do try to invest them with, with jokes and silliness.
07:06Uh, so that's a very important part of it.
07:09And in terms of the choice of cars, yes, I think they're all mine.
07:12Yeah, I mean, I bought the, the main red car in the movie, the 1979 Aston Martin Vantage, that is mine.
07:18It was a car that I bought about six months before we started filming, with the movie in mind.
07:24I was thinking that could be a perfect car for the film, and I think it, it's turned out to be.
07:29Thank you.
07:30Great. Thank you.
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