- 51 minutes ago
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Kieran Culkin, Daveed Diggs, Tobias Menzies, Bob Odenkirk & Patrick Stewart joined The Hollywood Reporter to talk about their respected TV drama series.
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00:00:00Hi and welcome to Close Up with the Hollywood Reporter. I'm your host Lacey Rose and I'm
00:00:12joined today by Kieran Culkin, Tobias Menzies, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Bob Odenkirk, Patrick
00:00:21Stewart and Daveed Diggs. Thank you all for being here. So we have all spent a lot of time at home
00:00:28in the last few months. These are strange times, these are emotional times. What in
00:00:34that period have you guys learned about yourselves? That I can sit and eat cans of
00:00:43food and get really fat and hardly sleep and hate myself. A valuable lesson? Yeah
00:00:51that was a nice lesson to learn to just like sit down and go like this and go
00:00:55you're someone's father and then eat out of the can. I don't know. Maybe you just cut
00:01:00that part out. Everything's going great. It's just wonderful. How about you guys?
00:01:06Well there are two things for me. One is that I've discovered that I'm much better
00:01:13at jigsaw puzzles than I knew I was. I'm actually you can laugh but I'm actually
00:01:21having them framed because they're jigsaw puzzles that are actually works of art. I got a great
00:01:29Frank Stella. But the other thing is I used to think of cocktail hour as being a point somewhere
00:01:37between half past five and eight o'clock you know. Now it's quarter to six. Now go. So that's when the drinking
00:01:50starts and it's I'm becoming a little anxious about that you know so much of it in the evening.
00:01:57I mean I was going to say like I learned you know I learned some things that I probably don't even want
00:02:03to share you know. So all the important things that I learned not going to share those but I did it was
00:02:11it was a time for a real reflection for me because for the past five years really I've just been
00:02:17bouncing around and going from project to project that you know kind of hadn't really had a place or
00:02:22had a hadn't had a place at all since what January 2017. So when this happened I was on my way to
00:02:28Berlin to go and finish the on the matrix or continue on the matrix rather and this sat me down
00:02:36in New York. It dropped me off and I had to say like what do I have who who are the you know
00:02:43relationships that I have how much money do I have literally like not not what not what's on its way
00:02:49like what do I have you know and I had to really do that evaluation all across the board for my life
00:02:55and and just get really really specific. So you know for me I think I'm coming out of this with a
00:03:00sense of direction and and and definitely a better sense of sense of humor about myself too and about
00:03:09and about situations and things like that as well you know you need that I needed that. Similarly I was
00:03:16running around so much it's been it's been nice to sit still in a lot of ways and sort of take stock
00:03:29of why you do anything sometimes you just get in a mode in this in this game right and you're just
00:03:34saying yes to jobs and and going and doing jobs because you you like to work and and but
00:03:41um not having really been home like having all this time to be home has been really good for me
00:03:48um I my capacity for procrastination is so much higher than I knew it was and I knew it was high
00:03:58but I got you know is I have plenty of like on a producer side and writer side plenty of things to
00:04:05do and I still also find plenty of days to do nothing to look around at at at drink o'clock
00:04:12be that 10 a.m or 8 p.m and uh realize I've accomplished zero work um but I'm doing a lot
00:04:22of self work you know doing a lot of work on this so it's good. A lot of stretching that's what
00:04:28so so nowadays when people say self work I just think that they stretch for five more minutes
00:04:33no so that's that's my sense of self work I just stretch in all sense I started therapy for the
00:04:39first time in my life which turns out while in quarantine yeah it's been great if actually if I
00:04:46can answer a little more sincerely like you know sometimes when I hear you saying like procrastinating
00:04:52or the thing that bothers me was when people say oh I'm bored I'm like I would kill to be bored
00:04:57I'm living in like a tiny one bedroom apartment with this you know nine month old baby but the
00:05:02one thing that's really been nice is when this started our baby could barely like do a little
00:05:07military crawl I have a video of her crawling to me uh like the day that we started our quarantine
00:05:13whatever and it's an amazing video now she stands up she spits in my face uh she's trying to walk
00:05:19she grabs if I try to open up the microwave she just grabs whatever's in there first a hot coffee
00:05:24she just yanks it you know it's been cool like because I'm there every day seeing every tiny
00:05:29little moment like she does this now so cool yeah so I guess it's supposed to be away working
00:05:36for like a couple months so the one positive is I'm seeing this and it's not poop diapers and stuff
00:05:41what I want to know Kieran do you see yourself in your child during those times uh yeah and I think
00:05:49my wife has she's told me recently she feels like she's raising my kid because it looks like me
00:05:56so she looks nothing like my wife and it's just this little hellraiser kid which is kind of what
00:06:02I was so yeah my wife's surrounded in it she's drowning in this I love it Tobias and Bob have you guys
00:06:10learned anything about yourself in in this period of time what have I learned I think I think I've learned
00:06:18a bit that I'm a workaholic um I've really missed work I think I realized I kind of that's what makes
00:06:24me tick a bit and so yeah so I found um being forced to stop um yeah I you know my mind has uh has spun a
00:06:35bit um but maybe that you know maybe that's a good thing it's I'm sure it is a good thing to be forced
00:06:41to stop a bit um and like Patrick yes I I realize I do drink more than I realize put let's take a vote
00:06:50put your hands up all those who think they're drinking more than they did before yeah I I shouldn't
00:06:59have my hand up I got I got a baby that I have to sleep in the middle of the night I should not have
00:07:03my hand up what about you Bob oh I uh you know before I uh started acting a lot I was I spent my
00:07:13whole life writing and trying to get shows to happen and writing movies and stuff so I was planning to do
00:07:19that in somewhere in here anyways so now this has given me this chance to take on all these ideas that
00:07:26have been backed up in my head and I'm realizing uh how hard that is again which is cool I thought it
00:07:33would be that and it is really really hard but the best thing is is been to spend time with my uh kids
00:07:40who are college age and otherwise would not be around at all we watch a movie every night and
00:07:46it's just been great to to be I think I'm super proud of those kids and who they are and uh I think
00:07:56you know Kieran I got to spend a lot of time with my kids when they were little not because of
00:08:01quarantine but because I was a writer and I sort of made my own schedule and uh every minute you
00:08:07spend with them now pays off later they become great people Patrick I'm gonna start with you
00:08:14you have been approached about revisiting the part of Jean-Luc Picard for years and years and years
00:08:20and you have resisted it for all of that time including on this project can you speak to
00:08:26sort of what that resistance was about and obviously how you ultimately came around I've
00:08:32always been drawn to diversity in the work that I do whether it was uh tv or film or on the stage
00:08:42or radio for instance I I mean maybe you did a lot of radio at at one time uh Tobias but I love radio
00:08:51um we did seven seasons and four movies of next generation and I felt that I had said everything
00:08:59I had to say about Jean-Luc Picard there was nowhere else to go with it and and people always wanted to
00:09:07revive next generation and then well an email came and when I saw the names on this email of the writer
00:09:17producers I have to confess I was astonished and thrilled and agreed to meet with them because
00:09:25they were all brilliant people uh Michael Chabon Kiva Goldsman Kirsten Beyer and Alex Stilton and what
00:09:35they came up with was something that so fundamentally changed the nature of the character I'd been playing
00:09:42all this you know it's 18 years since we wrapped the last next generation and also because I'd I'd grown
00:09:50old differently in those 17 years and I was interested to see how I could merge that into the character
00:09:57so I I signed on and it was one of the smartest things I ever did your memories your history to you
00:10:05feel like incidents you heard about something that happened to someone else yes you feel that you
00:10:16don't have a past anymore because I don't oh that's not true you have a past you have a story just waiting
00:10:25to be claimed you're talking about data among other things yes but you've been vocal you know
00:10:35over the years about how challenging it was to sort of get people to see past you as Picard yeah there
00:10:43was a film being made and there was a supporting role that I was really eager to have a go at and
00:10:51I couldn't get to meet the director but finally I did and he was lovely and very friendly and very
00:10:55warm but he said finally with a smile on his face Patrick why would I want Jean-Luc Picard in my movie
00:11:02and that had a bad bad impact on me for a long time afterwards I thought oh my lord is this it
00:11:11that's rough I have to accept all these other offers you know anybody else that happened to
00:11:16I I'm sure that's going to happen to me I'm so lucky to have this role it's such a good role and there's so
00:11:22much I get to do within it that uh it's okay if I get labeled with it I mean I come at this from a
00:11:31different place too so I definitely am being followed by the specter of Thomas Jefferson probably
00:11:38for the rest of my life which is a weird you know to have that particular slave master chasing you is
00:11:45is intense you know what I'm saying so yeah I I get I I get even in my limited distance from that the
00:11:53impetus to try and do everything in your power to do something that is not that yeah does it impact
00:11:59the choices that that you make you know the Hamilton effect for me was one of at least it was a sort of
00:12:05multi-disciplinary performance which has meant that people come at me with a lot of different things
00:12:11they come at me with musical things and with historical things and with comedies and with
00:12:16dramas so that's actually been really lovely but there's sort of a point in every meeting where you
00:12:22start to get the feeling that that maybe what they're looking for is Thomas Jefferson in outer space
00:12:28or something you know and uh and and that's uh that is always disheartening and I don't know whether
00:12:35that's something I need to fix or that's actually coming my way like I said I'm working on this
00:12:41Patrick you also jumped into another major franchise in x-men did you have any of those same sort of
00:12:46concerns in taking on another character who could be iconic in in a different way I I did because the
00:12:55meeting with this director came at about the same time that people were starting to talk about x-men
00:13:02and uh I I was very uneasy about that that maybe I was I was going to be damning myself twice now of
00:13:12course I've come to realize as I get older that you you cannot have too many franchises in a career
00:13:18and uh I had lunch uh with uh one of our producers and he persuaded me that uh like Picard there will
00:13:28be an entire difference to the nature of the character I was playing than is was the character
00:13:34on Star Trek and I believed him and it came true for the the rest of you how does Hollywood see you
00:13:41guys what are the things that you feel like continually come up and people approach you for and are those the
00:13:47things that that you're interested in doing if I look at my resume my resume is extremely diverse
00:13:53and fresh out of drama school I said I wanted I wanted my acting career to be just like my theater
00:13:59experience where I've played you know the line that I give is clowns kings and everybody else
00:14:03in between and I wanted to be able to do the same thing in television and in film and then the business
00:14:09sort of started to come in which I never thought about the business when I was in drama school but I
00:14:13graduated and I started working all of a sudden I'm thinking about business and I you know I said
00:14:18well if I take all of my jobs and I put them in a hat I shake them up and I throw them out on the table
00:14:23then for me it felt like it didn't say much about my career it didn't say much about the type of act
00:14:30about the type of actor that I was it didn't say necessarily leading man it didn't say romantic
00:14:37interest it just kind of said that this is a guy who can who can act and can do many different things and
00:14:42he's attached to some really large-scale projects so he's probably moving in the right direction
00:14:47and I had a conversation with Frank Langella about that on a trial of the Chicago 7 because I was a
00:14:52little bit uncomfortable that it's it felt like my career didn't have a specific trajectory or that
00:14:58I wasn't a specific type of type of actor and he reminded me that that's that that's that that's a
00:15:04beautiful thing because that's what it means to be an actor you know to to be able to be diverse and
00:15:09for people not to be able to to pin me down and so one of the things that I've been priding myself
00:15:15on and sort of leading with my Carlin card is is the fact that I can be a dependable actor who can
00:15:22be transformative and who can step into many different worlds and I think that's that's one
00:15:27of the things that I'm banking on now to to help me to stick around for a very long time on the flip
00:15:33side of that I pretty much just play one thing what is that Karen Karen define define what you play
00:15:41I did a movie right before I did succession and they were like this movie is called infinity baby
00:15:45and I was like oh there's some similarities with these characters and they just did a play called
00:15:48this is our youth I'm like oh there he's kind of like that too and I was trying to figure out what
00:15:53it was and I went oh I'm drawn to sociopaths and I don't really want to explore why it's just
00:16:02something I connect with and I go all right let's let's just go for it Karen you are now stuck with
00:16:10and I mean this as the greatest possible compliment the creepiest character that I've ever seen on
00:16:17television I mean I'm not always sure I can stay in the room when you walk onto the set that's a big
00:16:24compliment oh that is a big yeah it's it's it's true but you are weird and thanks yeah I had someone
00:16:34asked me recently like what's Roman's like what's his sexuality I went oh I don't know it's just weird
00:16:40I don't know I don't think he knows yes and now it's like is it weird then yeah I like it or that's
00:16:49too obvious um there yeah I actually think when I read the pilot too I just like it was the pilot
00:16:58was sent to me to read for another character was to read for cousin Greg and I immediately knew that
00:17:02I just wasn't this guy but I read on and Roman walks in the room and his first line is hey hey
00:17:07motherfuckers and he just starts just jabbing everybody just like I'm like oh this guy looks
00:17:12like fun by the time I got to the end of that pilot and I saw the thing he does where he offers a small
00:17:17child a million dollars if he can hit a home run and the kid almost does it and then he rips up the
00:17:24check in front of him there were people on set that said they were really uncomfortable I was like
00:17:28are you kidding that was hilarious that was fun I looked at that and I said if I can do that that is
00:17:33one amazing day of work what was fun about it the kid so you know I was a kid actor too so
00:17:40I knew that he wouldn't take it seriously a lot of people were coming up to the kid and saying like
00:17:44uh like you know that this is pretend like don't you know but he was just cool he thought it was
00:17:48funny I just wanted to work with the kid and really like get his hopes up and really like the
00:17:53moment he's out just rip up that check in front of him I think I gave him a piece of it was like
00:17:57here you get to keep this bit um yeah yeah yeah just that kind of that like what's really fun about
00:18:05playing roman is that he's the kind of guy who just has suffered no consequences ever in his life
00:18:11he can say and do horrible things like that and I have the freedom to just be as awful as I want
00:18:18and then you know go home and maybe turn that thing off before I go home and see my wife and baby
00:18:23yeah but there's like there's something about it that is like
00:18:27freeing that's like just completely filterless and awful like the worst parts of me
00:18:33turned all the way up my father has always been my greatest champion and my hero
00:18:38congratulations on 50 years at the top of the biz I love you dad nice uh you want to try one more
00:18:47why no uh that was perfect uh just didn't know if you wanted one more
00:18:55if it was perfect why would I want one more
00:18:59Kieran as I understand it you and the writers on succession have a lot of fun with your characters
00:19:04one-liners can you give us one or two that that didn't make it that uh bring you joy oh man there's
00:19:11a few the one that I keep remembering there was one day where they gave me 11 alt lines and then I
00:19:16threw one of mine one or two of my own in there so each take I got to do one differently and uh it was in the
00:19:21second season where uh dad Logan just basically says we might sell I want to hear everyone's
00:19:28thoughts and Willis says I think sell seems cool and they gave me a different line each take and one
00:19:33was like uh I said oh I didn't realize we were taking contributions from the floor why don't we call the
00:19:37guy who waxes my balls see what he thinks and I just had so much fun just like get to talk about waxing
00:19:44my balls it's it's a great job so for the rest of are there doors that that still sort of aren't open
00:19:51to you you know if you could finish this sentence if only Hollywood would cast me as I haven't found
00:19:57that to be my experience you know I've I've had a very extremely uh uh privileged experience uh I think
00:20:05in Hollywood I got my first job in 2015 I went straight to straight to work on a show called the get
00:20:13down about by uh Bass Lerman and you know on on Netflix but I have realized that you know just
00:20:19just being in in touch with my peers you know to to be enough to realize that my position is a is a
00:20:25very privileged position and to go back to you know the conversation earlier talking about being able
00:20:30to play the clowns and the kings and everyone else in in between you know uh everyone doesn't uh
00:20:37doesn't get that doesn't get that opportunity especially young young black actors uh older
00:20:42black actors there's a lot of a lot of times we have to um we have to show our worth you know in
00:20:49in in different ways and we have to uh uh really stand out with the characters that are uh sort of the
00:20:57the the stereotypical characters we have to bring life and bring humanity and real real real uh narrative
00:21:03and personality and a heart to two-dimensional characters or one-dimensional characters in order to
00:21:09in order to in order to be given the opportunities to play two-dimensional characters and three-dimensional
00:21:14characters that are that are written written on the page and so um i've you know i i i think i
00:21:22consistently point out point back to the fact that i've been blessed because um you know because then
00:21:28you know the more that people hear that my experience is not a typical experience then then you know
00:21:33then that gives people the uh the opportunity to look back or to look left and to look right and to
00:21:38say well where are the other talented actors who can do the same thing who can do more you know
00:21:42because there's no shortage of talented actors out there at all you know it's it's it a lot of the
00:21:49time it comes down to uh it comes down to opportunity you know your your ability to sort of leapfrog over
00:21:56a lot of those sort of more stereotypical roles was that strategic or uh you know a case of genuine good
00:22:04fortune a little bit of both you know one of the things you know i i made it uh very clear to my
00:22:10representation very early uh that um that i had a very strong appetite uh appetite was actually my
00:22:19word coming out of school and i said i i you know i want to do whatever it is that i want to do at the
00:22:25time so uh you know one one particular day my appetite was to go and and dance and to do colorful
00:22:33work and to be in purple spandex and i end up in you know doing uh the greatest showman and i sat down
00:22:38with uh james juan on aquaman i said i want to just beat people up i want to run through walls and i
00:22:42want to break shit and a couple months later i'm doing aquaman after after seven months of being in
00:22:48spandex and and doing aquaman and getting muscles and all of that stuff i said i need to i need to touch
00:22:55the dirt you know i need to be a dude on a tuesday with a problem you know and and then we and then
00:23:02we found uh we found handmaid's tale and i went did a one one small spot on handmaid's tale so uh i
00:23:08have i have i've definitely been fortunate but i've also trusted my instinct and trusted my ability enough
00:23:13to just uh go and chase chase whatever it was that my appetite asked me to uh ask me to satisfy which
00:23:21obviously brings us to watchmen uh... which is ostensibly a comic book adaptation but in actuality
00:23:29it's a season-long meditation uh... on on racism and policing in america and and unlike so much else
00:23:36on tv it does not in any way push the hero cop narrative in what ways did you hope it would be
00:23:43impactful when you were making it and in what ways does it become that much more so in this moment in
00:23:50time tell you watchman was as good on the page as it ended up being on the screen and while making
00:23:57it i was i was just a fan and i wanted people to be able to come in and watch good television i knew
00:24:02that there was a historical relevance to it um i wanted people to to to learn about the uh about the
00:24:07massacre in tulsa oklahoma i felt that a lot of people didn't i learned that a lot of people did not
00:24:12know about that before watching the show um i had and i was really proud to be a part of a show that was
00:24:17talking about uh that part of american history that's often not not talked about and when it
00:24:21is talked about it's sort of editorialized in a way where uh you know the the the the the true
00:24:27horrors of it are never really uh are never really exposed um but then also watchman talked
00:24:33about intergenerational trauma trauma passed down from generation to generation you know where you
00:24:39go back almost a hundred years and then it and then that same trauma lands in someone's lap a
00:24:46hundred years later and and how that follows you so you know for me the biggest impact from watchman
00:24:52was after the show came out and then i got to be a part of the online conversations and to see how
00:24:57people were affected by um by the content of the show and they were emboldened because watchman didn't
00:25:03really back shy away you know watchman said hey we're you know we're calling the problem as it is
00:25:10we're offering um not necessarily a solution but we are saying that that racism and these institutions
00:25:17needs to be eradicated and that there's a way to do that while also telling an exciting story there's
00:25:22a way to do that we're also telling a hero's journey a love story a story about action and sometimes it was
00:25:28it was comedic and and sometimes it was sad and uh it was very very accessible to anyone who was
00:25:34willing to sit down and to allow that narrative to uh to uh penetrate so i was really really excited um
00:25:40and i learned a lot just from the discourse that took place after you know afterwards so i probably
00:25:45learned a lot more from the viewers than i did from being a part of the show no that's not gonna work
00:25:52feels like it's working to me
00:25:53i'm opening it angela you gotta wait i don't wanna wait you gotta wait
00:26:03oh that must be santa claus
00:26:08there's somebody in our house i'm gonna quote back something i read in preparing for today
00:26:14quote watchman might now be the most chillingly accurate portrayal of life in 2020 between its
00:26:20calls for racial justice the ubiquitous masked faces and the tragic theme of inherited trauma
00:26:26watchman has become a mirror for life in america today
00:26:30you obviously filmed and released this series before the recent events but do you think it
00:26:34takes the series takes on new resonance today the thing about watchman is that it's relevant for
00:26:39the past if you watch it anytime in the past 60 years and even go back forward then it then it's
00:26:44going to be relevant in whatever time period you watch it you know it's not really right on time
00:26:50it's actually 60 to 70 years late you know what i mean and so uh uh you know that's a man that's
00:26:59that's uh it's kind of sad it's kind of chilling um but it but but but it still makes me um it makes me
00:27:06excited you know to be a part of that because the time is always now you know the time is always now to
00:27:12make content that's going to make people uncomfortable and that in that and and you know
00:27:17um for as long as watch for as long as we'll be around i believe that watchman will be relevant
00:27:22hopefully it it becomes relevant in a way that causes us to look to look back and to say remember
00:27:27remember when and look look at what we came out of there's there's plenty of warnings to be uh heated
00:27:33in watchmen and you know i think sadly you know we're we're we're living with a lot of the
00:27:38repercussions of uh some of the storytelling that we uh you know talked about but there's also hope
00:27:44you know there's also hope because because none of the characters um solve their problems by or address
00:27:50their problems by by backing down or by or by being complacent and they were actually extremely head-on
00:27:55and extremely combative you know um and that makes me proud david snowpiercer is also a meditation in
00:28:03this case more on sort of class warfare do you think it has a different resonance in this moment
00:28:09what's in the show is in the show and has been true for a very long time we all all of us are
00:28:15participating in in a class system that we were born into and our economically our world was created this
00:28:24way and we have ended up on this train and and our jobs every day sort of involve us interacting with it
00:28:33so that's always been in snowpiercer but there are elements of class divide that have felt like they
00:28:39come to the forefront for people when watching the show now resource scarcity resource scarcity for sure
00:28:45um yeah and and particularly how class interacts with resource scarcity right so that's that seems to
00:28:53come to the forefront uh because we've been we're we're being confronted with with what would have felt
00:28:59like an allegory if our real life were a sci-fi show but it's just our real life i think all the
00:29:04time about like two days after sort of lockdown happened i get a phone call offering me a test for
00:29:14covid19 and nobody could get tests and i got offered one and with the party line across the board
00:29:21politically it was like tests are not available my class allowed me access to a very scarce what i've been
00:29:27told is a scarce resource right which starts to beg the questions about how intentional is resource
00:29:33scarcity and who does it serve and what system is it holding up before long they are gonna cut our food
00:29:39for good we have informants in half a dozen different sectors okay we are building networks
00:29:44there is no time for that now y'all remember the year three rebellion we fought like an army but we
00:29:51were blind at every door we had no help from the other side 62 dead 13 arms taken in punishment
00:30:03we need help we need alliances in the the political moment that we're in in which we
00:30:09we start to ask ourselves what system is being supported by a police force that justifies brutalizing
00:30:15of black bodies right all of these same systems are coming into question a lot and a big part of what
00:30:20snowpiercer is doing is questioning systems um it i i think is super class focused um and like
00:30:31honestly has to be because there is not enough diversity in the workplace for it to not be
00:30:38so it can't be race focused and do it well and do it honestly so it's chosen to be class focused and
00:30:44that's that's how this show is is operating right now but sure um but i do think the allegory is still
00:30:51play and they present a lot of things to think about and a lot of different things come to the
00:30:56forefront as we you know as we travel through the moment that we're in and i suppose when we go back
00:31:01and watch it a bunch of years from now it'll bring different things to the forefront so i think all of
00:31:06that stuff is baked into the show and um yeah i think you know the lens is always a product of the
00:31:13time at which we witness any piece of art along those same lines uh you are i believe turning your
00:31:19beloved uh film blind spotting which begins with with your character witnessing a white cop shooting
00:31:26an unarmed black man uh you're turning that into a television series what did you hope to say with the
00:31:33movie and as you revisit it how has the message and its potential power uh changed you know we started
00:31:41writing that film in uh 2009 after oscar grant was murdered two blocks away from my house right
00:31:52so the instigating incident from that film is the same instigating incident for our current protests
00:31:59is the same instigating incident for every bit of of the kind of calls that we are seeing on a large
00:32:06scale right now that we've seen for my whole life and the our real hope with that film was was kind of
00:32:15just to present oakland first and foremost the city that i come from in a way that felt accurate in a
00:32:21way that i hadn't seen on film before and then also to speak about the act of gentrification of
00:32:29a city as it relates to how a community is policed so it was it was a meditation on the financial
00:32:36motivations for policing communities differently right um but really boiling all that down to a
00:32:41very personal lens so we watch it through the story of this one friendship that happens to be an
00:32:46interracial friendship of two people who are from the same place and are fundamentally treated
00:32:52differently by the world we said all the time when we were doing press for that that we wish it was a
00:32:56period piece it would be really nice if blind spotting felt like oh man 2009 was wild but it doesn't
00:33:03so we're working on allowing it to do a thing that that tv is particularly good at which is just sort of
00:33:09expanding the world a little bit and almost allowing time to tell more and smaller stories um in the
00:33:19hopes that it can give us a clearer picture of the larger context of things right a lot 90 minutes is a
00:33:26is a terribly difficult time to fit a lot of ideas into um and so if you imagine that your show will be
00:33:34on forever then you get to you get to be really slow and doling out the ideas it's probably not
00:33:40going to be true and you'll end up with a half finished statement but you know uh you get you get
00:33:44to you get to at least engage in that fantasy for a little while i think in my limited knowledge of how
00:33:49to create the form thus far so that's what we're hoping to do also sort of remove ourselves from the
00:33:54center of it and focus on on ashley played by jasmine cephas jones and um really focus on her story i'm
00:34:02gonna turn to you bob you have obviously now spent a lot of years traveling back and forth and in
00:34:08time with with saul hopefully you have not become him but how has he changed you i don't know look
00:34:16the hardest thing that uh to play is the immaturity of the character it's weird but you start to become
00:34:23a champion of your character no matter who they are and you want to in a weird way it's like you want
00:34:30him to make the right the best healthiest choice that doesn't work out with saul the idea of calling
00:34:39peter and vince and i do and i've done this i've done this it's kind of embarrassing and saying can
00:34:46he just be a good guy or can he make a better choice i i mean you start to like the guy and you
00:34:52want him to learn the right lessons from his his experience but that's not the story that they're
00:35:00telling what happened tonight none of this would have happened if you weren't with me
00:35:22you crossed the line
00:35:35you're not going to do it again for me playing the character has been a chance to think about
00:35:41uh my own uh short-sightedness in life and uh immaturity and uh impetuousness that is really a
00:35:50big part of who that character is um i i don't think that's as big a part of me but uh it's been
00:35:58something to try to revisit those feelings inside me and see where they still are a part of me and try to
00:36:05vanquish them tobias in in signing on for the crown which already had these two sort of beloved seasons
00:36:13you have the challenge of both taking on a a real powerful figure who people are familiar with
00:36:19um but also inheriting a role that was played to a claim by someone else can you speak to me about uh
00:36:28whatever sort of the process of getting to yes was yeah i mean i really wish matt matt
00:36:34had played it much less well that would have helped me out a bit no yeah it was a very curious
00:36:39very unusual kind of set of circumstances obviously a hugely successful show um so you kind of know what
00:36:44you're getting into uh i was a a great admirer of of the show and peter's writing way before i was
00:36:51any suggestion i might be involved but in a way i think i had to kind of forget all that and in a way
00:36:57as a show and i think as a set of writers we kind of had to reset and because it's kind of a bold decision to
00:37:04recast everyone uh and then carry the story on with the with a whole new set of a whole new set of
00:37:09actors so i think we a little bit took refuge in going we're just going to make this our show uh the
00:37:18best we can i i mean i was a big fan of what matt did so i definitely did nick some ideas you know he
00:37:24had quite some quite good ideas so i nicked some stuff um and and then you've got the weird situation
00:37:31where i've got so much footage so much audio of the real person which i've never done before that's
00:37:37quite a it's like a whole technical aspect to the part you do know if that man wins today
00:37:44they want us out oh listen and half his cabinet would be made up of rabid anti-monarchists
00:37:51we want our heads on spikes vive la revolution except i doubt they speak french in alifax others
00:38:01field where he's from i definitely at times would go down the rabbit hole of just wanting to
00:38:07sound exactly like him i wanted to move exactly like him really kind of sweated that um but you kind of
00:38:14have to come out the other end of that probably because in a way the show is not uh you know it's not
00:38:20mimicry i think probably you know if we were all doing sort of pastiche of it it would be unwatchable
00:38:26so you have to have enough of them that the audience go oh yeah that is a bit like them and
00:38:32then through that they can get into the story and the their lives has there been any feedback or or
00:38:38advice going in from from that or feedback what from the real people the royal family oh no no no
00:38:44no the the crown never never comments i'm afraid no i would love it if he watched it but i don't know
00:38:49i don't think he does sadly i get i think probably he watches sort of documentaries i think he'd probably
00:38:55have no time for like fiction he'd be like this nonsense so yeah you've also interacted with a
00:39:00number of different sort of passionate fandoms i'm curious as people approach you do you often have a
00:39:06sense of of what they're going to know you from you know can you tell the difference between a game
00:39:11of thrones fan a crown fan uh an outlander fan i really can actually now yes they're all they're
00:39:19all wonderful of course all fantastic um and i love being stopped in the street uh yeah um i mean
00:39:28they're all very different shows um uh yeah outlander is obviously um
00:39:36a science fiction show essentially at its heart and a romance and it's based on a set of books which
00:39:41have a huge following um i mean one of the lucky things living in london is the show is much less
00:39:47well known here so i i i get um i get less love um here um um and then yeah i mean thrones obviously
00:39:58is a a phenomenon unto itself um but i was a bit more periphery to that you know so i it was a lot
00:40:04easier just to kind of like uh swan in and out of that uh i wasn't really a carrying proper weight and
00:40:10then you know the crown feels like another kind of audience all together and yeah to come back to your
00:40:16earlier question i feel yeah i feel pretty lucky to be able to kind of swing between some quite
00:40:22different stuff and when david was talking about the role of history in these things and the crown
00:40:27seems like a meditation on how history repeats itself you keep on coming to the same kind of
00:40:32dilemmas the same questions um and yeah it feels like a big yeah really beautiful theme in in that show
00:40:41and and and something that definitely seems worth remembering for the rest of you would people see
00:40:47you on the street what are what are they apt to say kieran i can only imagine what uh what succession
00:40:52fans what do they stop and scream on the street everyone that yells that i'm an
00:40:58asshole thinks they're the first one to say that yeah i'm wearing i'm wearing a mask i got this like
00:41:05mask on i'm carrying my baby it's like oh you're on that show you're a real asshole my baby leave me alone
00:41:14but i take it as a compliment i do i do like it like there was one guy who stopped me he was
00:41:18a security guy i was getting on a train he was like hey hey hey what are you you're a real
00:41:22asshole on that show keep it up
00:41:23one that i actually enjoy and usually this happens around construction sites i will just get a call
00:41:36coming across the street thank you yeah you know i've never had that one ever
00:41:44uh maybe mentioning that will encourage people to do it oh no people will call out hey captain how
00:41:54you doing now i like that because my father was a military man both my elder brothers did military
00:42:05service i didn't do any of it and i know my father was very disappointed that i i never got into a
00:42:14uniform and sadly he did not live long enough to see next generation and to find that i am known
00:42:22as captain he did it he did it that's beautiful patrick if gene roddenberry were alive today what do
00:42:30you think he would think of your continued success in this role i know you've obviously joked in the past
00:42:36that you were perhaps not a top his list to play this part but but given where we are now and the
00:42:41success that you've had with it how tough was that then and where we at where are we sort of now well
00:42:48it was very odd with gene because i was dragged in to audition for him in his living room the morning
00:42:56after i'd been seen doing something at ucla and my meeting lasted about six minutes and then it was
00:43:06perfectly clear i was not wanted in that room any time longer and it was gene who said why the hell
00:43:13i don't want a bald middle-aged englishman i was middle-aged in those days no no no no not at all
00:43:21but there was a faction who were very enthusiastic and rick berman who when gene sadly died in the third
00:43:29season rick took over and he had been a campaigner for me but there were i wonder if any of you guys
00:43:36have experienced this gene used to come on the set once a week maybe twice it depends on who the cast
00:43:47were and he would and i would catch him looking at me with an expression on his face which said
00:43:56what the is this guy doing in my show it was clear he couldn't understand why i was there he'd say
00:44:06that there is somewhere in the in the in the cellars of paramount pictures a postage note which says
00:44:15i do not want to hear patrick stewart's name mentioned again ever signed gene roddenberry so
00:44:22uh you know it made me a little uncomfortable and when i said i i had i had lunch with him only once
00:44:30just the two of us and i said so gene to help me where did the idea for the character spring from can
00:44:37you give me any connections that i could use and build on for this and he said oh yeah i've got it
00:44:44here with me and he pulled out a a beaten up paperback copy of one of the horatio hornblower books
00:44:51and said it's all there so the character it turns out was based on horatio hornblower but as i was in
00:44:58a spaceship and not an ocean going ship i felt that i never really satisfied gene the way he wanted to
00:45:04be satisfied yeah yeah when you took on this part in watchman you obviously did not know uh until i
00:45:13think two two episodes in that you were going to be dr manhattan take me back to that conversation with
00:45:19damon and sort of what is going through your head and what ultimately that sort of the power of of
00:45:25what uh that role means i mean you're right i i i i was um doing what i was doing following following
00:45:32my model which was follow my appetite well follow my appetite but then also at the same time followed
00:45:38the the good work the content creators and i felt like hbo regina king damon lindelof it had enough
00:45:45of enough good ingredients uh that i felt like if i allow you know if i just hop on that train then
00:45:52good things will come from it you know um it's pretty you know pretty good train right so um i'm
00:45:59sitting down and i have a um i know that i'm have a have a conversation with uh you know damon about
00:46:04where the character is going to go and very soon into the conversation it was basically him saying so
00:46:09i brought you here to give you you know to let you know that uh cal is actually dr manhattan on the
00:46:17inside i'm going crazy and i can't believe it and and it's and i'm thinking i should have asked for
00:46:22more money if you know and i should have really stretched out that negotiation and i got to get
00:46:27in shape and things like that and on the outside i'm just trying to just keep it just keep it straight
00:46:32up cool you know probably a little bit a little a little bit too cool um and so then you know you
00:46:38go and you know you do the things like you get in shape you start to do the research and think about
00:46:42how you're going to portray the character and how you're going to differentiate differentiate your
00:46:46performance from uh from from the last on-screen performance and things like that and then i you
00:46:50know i go through the process and i find something that i you know that i really enjoy
00:46:54and um for me dr manhattan was very very complex to learn how to play a god right um people thought
00:47:02that it was so awesome to see the most powerful human being on the earth uh living within the
00:47:08embodiment of a black of a black man and telling this story that was a love story but that was at
00:47:13the same time a black love story or a story about a black woman being loved by god and that was so
00:47:20important to be able to tell those stories um and to and to go through that acting exploration at the
00:47:26same time if i push dr manhattan to the side a little bit and go back to cal what cal was for me cal was
00:47:32a cal was a lesson in uh and uh talking and listening it was a lesson in being supportive
00:47:36it was a lesson in understanding the importance of showing um a husband who was a stay-at-home husband
00:47:43whose job was to support his wife and to hold down the fort and to not be conflicted with that you
00:47:49know cal wasn't the character who wanted to be out there saving lives and who who who wanted to be more
00:47:54than where life sat him down you know he was he was content and he was supportive and there was no
00:47:59conflict between him and angela uh so so that was really important to show that image on on a
00:48:05television as well and and and to not to make sure that cal wasn't a character who was uh who needed
00:48:11to be the savior who needed to be the hero so you know there were so many different lessons and uh
00:48:15blessings that i you know that that i came across from playing that from playing uh cal and dr manhattan
00:48:21in the different iterations you know the three or four different iterations of of the dr manhattan
00:48:25character as well it also meant that you had to be naked a lot it did mean that it did mean that i
00:48:31had to be naked were there any hesitations what were those sort of conversations like and i've heard
00:48:38you say it was liberating and i'm hoping you can sort of elaborate in uh on how so why yeah well one i
00:48:46had to get in shape like i had to i had to get in real physical like real safe i think it would have
00:48:50really been the same if dr manhattan would have showed up and he just then he didn't have the
00:48:55body you know and he just couldn't yeah he was just i think that would have just really been a
00:49:00disappointment and i said look i'm on hbo everybody's gonna see it uh and it's gonna live
00:49:07it's gonna live like after after me you know what i mean it's gonna it's gonna continue to go so
00:49:11i wanted to show up for that uh but then also man you know there's this thing that that that we kind
00:49:17of adopt in school about tolerating your discomfort you know and uh for me it wasn't i wasn't i wasn't
00:49:24looking at this as like oh i get to get in shape and then i get to and then i have to walk around
00:49:28naked and do that you know i i said look this is not comfortable um but i'm gonna do it and somehow
00:49:35that's gonna make me a better actor a better person a more confident person because like i'm gonna
00:49:42it didn't it didn't kill me at the end of the day you know what i mean like i was i did it i walked
00:49:46around and i'm naked and my ass is out and and everything else and um and then the sun came up
00:49:53the next day you know what i mean and i was and it was still cool so it was really a lesson in courage
00:49:58you know i i you know i'm still in the in the in the beginning of my career and i'm so so so blessed to
00:50:04be where i am in only five years uh and so for that reason everything is still most things are still
00:50:13lessons for me you know learning opportunities and uh that was really a opportunity and speaking
00:50:18up for yourself making sure that i had everything that i needed that i'm comfortable and then moving
00:50:22forward and finding out that when i step out on faith and uh and that i prepare because i did have
00:50:28to prepare and get in shape and things like that as well um that the sun will still come up in the
00:50:33morning you know and and that i'll be cool and that's where the liberation came came from and then
00:50:38after that i'm kind of looking for more scenes and more opportunities to get out there and
00:50:42you know be naked and be you know be free so to speak i would say you're definitely brave like
00:50:48for me in your situation if i was told i was dr manhattan i would have been like oh yes and then
00:50:53they still get naked i would be like pass hard pass i can't even tolerate seeing myself in the mirror
00:51:02as i get to the shower my wife averts her eyes if i'm walking past naked it's not a nice thing you know
00:51:08i said you were brave but you know what if i look like you i would probably be like yeah
00:51:13i guess we'll get naked i guess i i don't get naked i have masturbated i think three or four
00:51:20times in my show so there is that and i've heard you think about your mother watching it in those in
00:51:26those moments there was the first time i sorry i i think i'm shouting because i'm not good at these
00:51:31things i feel like i'm like can you hear me i'm sorry uh i'm gonna try to talk in a normal volume
00:51:40uh the first time i had to do the masturbation thing mark mylove was directing and he just didn't
00:51:45cut so i was just
00:51:50and there was the camera behind me and then there was another one that was kind of roaming back and
00:51:53forth and it was just like it was like two full minutes my arm's getting tired i'm like does he want
00:51:58me to finish like what is this so i eventually just had to stop and look at the camera and i just said
00:52:03hi mom because that's all i could think of is my mother is going to watch the show has your mother
00:52:09since commented on your your many masturbation scenes the only thing she said about it is she said um
00:52:16what's the deal with all the sex why is there much like there there isn't much there i was like mom
00:52:21like there's one sex scene and i've masturbated three times oh that's her way of saying can you please
00:52:27stop doing that i think that's quarantine sex that's what that's called that's called quarantine
00:52:31sex that's called that's called being married sex um yeah do you guys think about whether it's it's a
00:52:40mom a spouse a child um as you're doing what you're doing and are there times where you either said it
00:52:46can't do this or you're just sort of wildly uncomfortable in the process yes is my answer just
00:52:51straight up yes yes my uh my mom has seen and comes to see everything i do um so i just had to
00:53:01get comfortable with it pretty early on like she's gonna be on set probably while we're shooting a nude
00:53:06scene like she she's she comes to my band i have this band clipping that like is not you know the most
00:53:14appropriate of music anytime we're in a town where she is she's there moshing with the 19 year olds like
00:53:20she my my mom is gonna be there uh no matter what so i just i actually the answer is no uh because
00:53:29had had i actually taken her opinion into account i probably wouldn't have done anything she's always
00:53:34right there at some point all right we're gonna do a a final question and and it is a lighter one when
00:53:42was the last time you guys were genuinely starstruck patrick stewart very serious very serious i was
00:53:54actually gonna say the same thing i met you very briefly at like a restaurant at comic-con the last
00:54:00time i was there in san diego and i was like oh i don't have words right now i that's that's patrick
00:54:09stewart i i i kind of have one of those too actually i got to visit the set of x-men 3 and
00:54:16what was really cool is i i walked in a room and i stopped like oh i probably shouldn't be here because
00:54:21you were sitting down holding court and you were playing a game where um a game i guess where you
00:54:27were writing out a list of all the awards that everyone in the cast had won uh-huh yeah do you
00:54:33sort of remember doing that i remember like that is so cool yeah and it's like seeing who had like
00:54:38what list i was like this guy's so cool i also have to say i learned something from you about 15
00:54:42years ago patrick you were on i think it was ellen and you were telling a story and you said in the
00:54:47middle of your story you said like oh i poured myself a nice glass of tanqueray gin and ellen said
00:54:53well you know because of that they're going to send you a case of gin and you went i'm no fool
00:54:57so you have since listed many uh alcohol brands in every interview you do well you know personally
00:55:07i love loggable and scotch for anyone who's listening all right i gotta combat and playstation
00:55:13i gotta get better at that i actually just got sent a huge box of beyond burgers because i mentioned
00:55:18it offhandedly in an interview and i was like oh they are good but i don't know that i'm gonna eat
00:55:23this many last year uh i saw ed norton at the theater in london and i'm a big admirer of him
00:55:34so yeah that's probably the last time i was starstruck yeah and i you know i'm never i'm never
00:55:39no i'm terrible at going up and saying you know hey you're amazing i'm i'm a bit useless i just sort
00:55:45of grinned at him from across the room which is probably kind of weird i don't know i find that i
00:55:49get starstruck and it's never the people who i expected to be it's it's never who i expected to
00:55:56be i did a film called boundaries myself vera farmiga uh christopher plumber was in the film
00:56:03also and and the day that i i worked i worked maybe three days on that film and uh chris you know they
00:56:10just brought him by just to sort of see the set and get acclimated with the space and he walks in the
00:56:15room and my heart just don't go go go go go and i'm like what the fuck is going on and i was like
00:56:24wait christopher plumber i said yes and i had no idea that i would have that feeling and so i just kind
00:56:31of kept staring at him just kind of kept looking and i'm surprised at myself and i'm surprised that
00:56:36he's there and i don't know what to say at all and so i kind of asked ask vera i said hey do you think
00:56:41you can ask him if he if he would take it if he would take a picture with me and uh or no i said
00:56:46i said if maybe we all can take a picture together and i think she knew that i wanted to have i wanted
00:56:50my own picture with him so she helped to or she helped to orchestrate that and that really really
00:56:55caught me off guard guarantee i can also guarantee that in 10 minutes after this is over i'm gonna i'm
00:57:01gonna walk off and i'm probably gonna go get into a t-shirt or something like that and i'm gonna i'm
00:57:06gonna freak out because uh patrick is on the is on the call also i mean that's that's just absolutely
00:57:13gonna happen i i was um i remember when i first uh uh started started acting and i took a shakespeare
00:57:19class and we had to do it you know to do a scene and so i'm on youtube looking up everything that i can
00:57:24find and i see the the video of uh patrick doing uh the the scottish play and i did my best patrick my
00:57:32best patrick stewart uh impersonation uh for you know i just said well that's good acting so i'm just
00:57:38going to repeat what he does and then i come on this is this is you know i come out and i did the
00:57:43same thing and everybody thought that i was i won't say brilliant but they thought that i was very very
00:57:47good and i you know i just in the back of my head i took all the credit but i was just really doing the
00:57:51same thing that patrick was doing uh i love that well i think we have to end with you patrick since
00:57:58you've made many people on on this uh at this virtual table starstruck when's the last time
00:58:03you felt starstruck well it was quite recently but uh here's what i'm uncomfortable about this story
00:58:10i'm 80 and names are now going out of my head i i can't you know names of plays i've been in names of
00:58:18good friends it's just getting worse and worse but at an event a few weeks ago a woman came up to me
00:58:27and asked if she could take a selfie with me and i was about to say um you know i this isn't really
00:58:34cool here and and and then the man who was with her who proved to be her husband said her name and
00:58:42i'm crazy about sports i love all kinds of sports and i i mean i i learned to ski at the age of 75
00:58:53and i love it but this person was a romanian gymnast i saw competing in olympic games maybe 25 30 years
00:59:05ago i want to say her name was natalia but i cannot remember her second name and i was speechless with
00:59:14excitement and i actually grabbed her and said selfie yeah come on i was so enthusiastic but
00:59:22but that's you know any any sports people anybody who plays a game i'm hooked i have to take this
00:59:30opportunity to tell you patrick that your voice work on american dad is so great oh so you it's just
00:59:39hysterical every line i've been just watching that show for years and i'm taking this opportunity to
00:59:43tell you you're great thank you he's almost as big an asshole as you are in the succession me or yeah
00:59:50okay me yeah thanks no no you no no no
00:59:56well thank you guys all for for being here and and part of this uh conversation i look forward to
01:00:02doing it again when we're all actually sitting at a table together but i appreciate your time great to see
01:00:08everyone take care
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