- 6 minutes ago
Charlie Hunnam ('Monster: The Ed Gein Story'), Kit Harington ('Industry'), Noah Wyle ('The Pitt'), Paul Anthony Kelly ('Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette'), Richard Gadd ('Half Man') and Tom Hiddleston ('The Night Manager') join THR in our Drama Actors Roundtable.
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00:00:00I bet you if you became a general practitioner, you would know a lot more than you say you know.
00:00:05Don't feed this. Don't feed this. I don't need any encouragement. I, for years on the ER,
00:00:10I used to joke that I'd have a little outpatient clinic in my garage and just do little minor stuff
00:00:14on the side. I don't know. If we're all in a plane and we go down on a desert island,
00:00:18I'm coming to you for the medical advice. All right.
00:01:02Hi, and welcome to the Hollywood Reporter Drama Actors Roundtable. I'm your host, Lacey Rose.
00:01:08I'm so excited to have you all here. Thank you for being here. What is the wildest thing
00:01:15you've all done to try to land or prep for a gig? Charlie, I know you've done some. I feel
00:01:21like
00:01:21there was. Did I read about you going into like solitary confinement for a week? Is that sounding
00:01:27right? I didn't. I didn't go to solitary confinement in a prison. I just was the pain in the ass
00:01:33that
00:01:33refused to leave the set while I was shooting a solitary confinement scene. So I said I was just
00:01:39going to stay in the cell for the duration of the shoot. So it was about 10 days. You slept
00:01:44there?
00:01:45Yeah, I slept there and like peed in a bucket. It was just like a complete nightmare for everybody
00:01:50involved as they tried to light the sea and then, you know, paint the walls and stuff. But it was
00:01:55fun.
00:01:55What was that? It was an adaptation of Papillon, the book. So obviously an important sequence of the book is
00:02:03that solitary sequence. And so I just wanted to go for it.
00:02:06Yeah. Did it have any impact on you? I think so. It informed it, you know, I mean, it became
00:02:11lonely and kind of weird in the best sort of way.
00:02:16And it just allowed me to like own that section of the film, like own the space. You know, I
00:02:21felt as though it sort of became a bit of a battle between me and the crew in a way.
00:02:27And, you know, because you come in and really often the crew sort of owns the space until you arrive
00:02:32and then you sort of take over and we do our thing.
00:02:35But I felt as though if you were living in solitary and that your entire existence resided in that small
00:02:41box, the sense of ownership you would have over that would be pretty extreme.
00:02:46What did you do for food?
00:02:46I didn't eat.
00:02:47You didn't eat?
00:02:48No, I starved myself. I got down to I think about 144 pounds, something like that.
00:02:54I can't touch it. I worked very, very early on in my working life with a brilliant British director called
00:03:03Joanna Hogg.
00:03:04And it was her first two films. And it was a new kind of methodology she was just trying out
00:03:10where she was making very sort of intense, quiet, but complex stories about families and family dynamics.
00:03:18And she asked us to live in the house that the family was staying in, you know, myself and the
00:03:24actress playing the mother and the actress playing the sister.
00:03:26This is an archipelago and off the coast of Cornwall.
00:03:29We will be living in this house for real.
00:03:32And then the crew would turn up in the morning, very skeleton crew and shoot.
00:03:35And actually it did have this, I hate to say, but I wasn't alone and I wasn't starving myself.
00:03:40So it was remarkably less challenging in that way.
00:03:43But there was this quality of, like you say, like ownership, the way you go into the kitchen and put
00:03:48the kettle on or make a cup of tea.
00:03:50You're so used to doing that.
00:03:52It becomes a very natural, it was nice to feel that the naturalism that I guess we chase was just
00:03:58there, you know, the way you sit down in a chair.
00:04:00The way you sat down in a chair last night and watched a film or the way you make eggs
00:04:04in the morning or something like that.
00:04:05Anyway.
00:04:05Anything you can do that limits the amount you actually have to act.
00:04:10Is this the goal?
00:04:11Yeah.
00:04:11Anyone else go to wild lengths?
00:04:14Either to try and land something, whether or not you actually did, or to prepare yourself.
00:04:18I inadvertently gave myself a leg up with the character of Jon Snow, but it was completely unintentional.
00:04:25I got into a fight the night before the audition.
00:04:30One that I hasten to say I lost.
00:04:33Okay.
00:04:35I won't go into the full story of the fight, but this guy gave me a black eye.
00:04:39So when I turned up to the Jon Snow audition, I looked a bit rough.
00:04:43And something like that black eye, I think they probably watch a million tapes of all these different actors.
00:04:49And something like just a little, oh, that guy with the black eye was good.
00:04:54I think you might have just, so whoever that guy was, thank you.
00:04:58Did they ever mention it to you?
00:05:00Like, did they, you know, when you were further along in the process, did they ever mention the black eye
00:05:03and go?
00:05:03I think they might have.
00:05:04I think in the recall or something, oh, the black eye's gone.
00:05:07I was like, yeah.
00:05:08But it wasn't intentional.
00:05:11Maybe next job I really want, I'll just go and get beaten up again.
00:05:15I remember, I mean, Baby Randy was all pretty extreme, sort of reenactments and everything like that.
00:05:20But I did a similar thing where I shrunk down for it.
00:05:23I remember I was 68.8 kilograms.
00:05:26I don't know what that is in pounds when I shot that.
00:05:29But you feel sort of, one thing I, you know, when I'm acting, I'm doing an acting job and you
00:05:33turn up in your own body.
00:05:34Or when they put you in a shirt, a bit of gel in your hair, and you go to set,
00:05:37I'm always like, oh, I just kind of feel like myself.
00:05:39So I was, the first thing I try and do is kind of, what does the character feel like in
00:05:42the body, you know?
00:05:44So I always remember back then I felt so, so frail and vulnerable and thin.
00:05:49And before you know it, you sort of almost feel like you're tapping into kind of, almost like this odd
00:05:53psychology, like a different, you almost start to feel like different.
00:05:56And I suppose when I did Ruben for the next one, I was actually at my heaviest, 109.8 kilograms.
00:06:01So you've been on almost 90 pounds in the process if I'm doing my conversions correctly and I don't know
00:06:08that I have.
00:06:08Oh yeah, I can do the conversions.
00:06:10But yeah, so, and again, you start to just feel like a kind of different person.
00:06:14You feel like, there were scenes when I did with Jamie Bell and I feel like I was sort of
00:06:17towering over him at times, you know?
00:06:18And yeah, I'm sort of big into that sort of feel character in your body first.
00:06:23Yeah, it's really important.
00:06:24Almost like the way they walk and carry themselves, it feels key.
00:06:27I'm curious, when you do that, when you, that physical transformation, how does it change how you are received as
00:06:33you move through the world?
00:06:34And how does that then inform how you play the character?
00:06:37Oh yeah, it was crazy.
00:06:38I mean, it's, the best thing was that people stopped recognizing me everywhere I went.
00:06:42I remember that because I had this beard and this awful haircut and people would squint and they couldn't place
00:06:46me, which was quite helpful.
00:06:47But I always remember like, because I was carrying a lot of masks and I always wanted Ruben to be
00:06:51like real.
00:06:52Like I, so a lot of it was actually pretty fat on over the muscles.
00:06:55And so, because I wanted him to be burly, I kept saying like, I didn't want like a Hollywood body,
00:06:58you know?
00:06:59I said, I want him to be sort of, you know, like burly, like a meaty guy, almost like he
00:07:04didn't go to the gym and all this stuff.
00:07:05Yeah.
00:07:05You'd have this haircut and this straggly beard and you'd be big and everything and you'd almost go down like
00:07:10an air, like the middle of an airplane and everyone would simultaneously be put in a headstand as you kind
00:07:13of walk past.
00:07:14Even like you go up to a checkout or something and you'd be paying for food and people would be
00:07:18sort of like flustered or anxious.
00:07:20And it's crazy how, how much people see like bigness as a symbol of something to be feared.
00:07:25It was very interesting.
00:07:26I had an experience like that.
00:07:28I was sitting at the Four Seasons when I shot Ed Gein, who has a, you know, pretty extreme look,
00:07:33like a classic serial killer haircut.
00:07:35And I was incredibly skinny.
00:07:37But then going home to the Four Seasons, which is just like a kind of a weird vibe, but it
00:07:41was also lovely.
00:07:42So I was like, fuck it, I'll make it work.
00:07:45And I, um, I got into the elevator at about two o'clock in the morning or maybe, I don't
00:07:50know, a little earlier than that, half past midnight.
00:07:53And there was this like very well-to-do elder couple in there.
00:07:56And I got in and gave them a big smile and said, you know, hello, hope you had a nice
00:08:01night.
00:08:01And they just sort of looked at each other and looked down.
00:08:04I thought, man, rich people suck.
00:08:05Like, can we all not just be like nice to each other?
00:08:08And then I got to my room and hadn't washed my makeup off and had a big blood streak down
00:08:13here with the serial killer haircut.
00:08:15So I just terrified this to people who are probably out celebrating their anniversary, just trying to have a nice
00:08:23time and had to deal with me in the elevator trying to make that friend.
00:08:26Paul, before you landed Love Story, which has catapulted you into the zeitgeist overnight, you spent over a decade hearing
00:08:34no, I'm guessing if you heard anything at all.
00:08:37First of all, I'm curious, how close did you come to sort of walking away from all of this?
00:08:42Oh, my gosh.
00:08:43I was ready to give it up like days before I got the call for the callback.
00:08:49You know, a year ago today, I had no idea what I was doing.
00:08:52My wife and I had to evacuate and move to where we live now.
00:08:56And we were like, what do we do?
00:08:57We were living in Los Angeles when the fires happened January of last year.
00:09:01So we got to our new place, found our footing.
00:09:03And we're like, OK, what do we do?
00:09:04I was a model at the time.
00:09:05It was great.
00:09:06It kept the lights on, but it wasn't fulfilling.
00:09:08And we were planning on starting a family, which we've now done.
00:09:13And we're just like, what do we do?
00:09:14I'm Canadian.
00:09:15So do we just go back there?
00:09:16The health care is free.
00:09:18It's what our taxes pay for.
00:09:19It's great.
00:09:19The education system is good.
00:09:21Maybe we'll do that.
00:09:21We have family.
00:09:22And then several days later, I get an email for a callback for John F. Kennedy Jr.
00:09:28And I'm like, OK, cool.
00:09:30That was the same day that we found we were pregnant and had the callback.
00:09:36And it's also our anniversary.
00:09:37And it was like, wow, OK, crazy.
00:09:39But 13 years of no and getting close to things, getting callbacks.
00:09:45I had a role on a show that didn't end up seeing the light of day.
00:09:49But it was great practice.
00:09:51No longer green for when I showed up.
00:09:52But, yeah, it's pretty wild how quickly things can change.
00:09:56And then, you know, the success of this show was just like strapping yourself to a rocket and away you
00:10:01go.
00:10:02I never thought it would grow the legs that it did and start running at the speed it has.
00:10:07But I'm so here for it.
00:10:08Who else has God at any point sort of seriously considered walking away from all of this at any point
00:10:15in your careers?
00:10:16Many, many days.
00:10:17Every day, right?
00:10:20There are at least, I would say, four or five days in any given job.
00:10:25Where personally, for me, I will walk off set and I'll go, right, that's it.
00:10:30I don't want to do it anymore.
00:10:31That's it.
00:10:31Done.
00:10:33It was nice when it lasted.
00:10:34I'll go and do something else.
00:10:35Yeah.
00:10:35Is there a backup plan?
00:10:36And I have like a sulk.
00:10:37I'll go off in a sulk.
00:10:38And then I'll kind of pick myself up again and come back and do the job.
00:10:41And then you have that one good day.
00:10:43And then you're like, well, maybe I'll do it for another week.
00:10:47Yeah.
00:10:47I don't know about you guys, but I'm always looking for that plan B.
00:10:51And I can never find it.
00:10:53So I just, I'm lucky enough to keep doing this.
00:10:56And it allows me to, I'll keep doing it.
00:10:58But there are bad days where you're like, I can't, I can't do this anymore.
00:11:02Anyone else get close?
00:11:04Well, I mean, I got into the industry kind of through doing comedy.
00:11:07And there's no feeling like going for 10 years and still performing to about five people every night.
00:11:11And so that was, I remember there were loads of times, you know, where you would track around the country.
00:11:16You'd almost like get in a car and you'd drive.
00:11:19Like I would do it all in a night.
00:11:20I remember like I would, I'd be staying in Glasgow and I'd say drive to Birmingham in an evening.
00:11:24Only to perform to about three people to silence and then drive all the way back.
00:11:28I mean, those drives, those drives were so, I've still got the car.
00:11:32I can't get rid of it.
00:11:33I've still got the car that I, it's a 2007 sort of Skoda Fabia.
00:11:37And I still drive it because it's, it's kind of like it was with me through all the pain and
00:11:41all that stuff.
00:11:42Occasionally, you know, if I didn't fancy the drive, I'd nap in it and I'd hang my comedy shirt in
00:11:46the kind of windows that I'd nap in the back of the car.
00:11:49And then I would drive like two hours sleep and then I'd drive back up.
00:11:52And God, I remember those drives were just like, what's up, you know, like existential sort of what's, what's happening?
00:11:59What am I doing?
00:12:01Did you ever flirt with any of it, Noah?
00:12:03I have never wanted to do anything else, but there were many times where I felt the industry was quitting
00:12:09me.
00:12:10And that I couldn't figure out how to be relevant or, you know, what my place was going to be.
00:12:18When you have a very front loaded career, like I did, ER was such a tremendous success so early on
00:12:25that it spoils you a bit into thinking that that's going to be a constant or a given.
00:12:32And when that proves to not be true, you have to do that work that allows you to get validation
00:12:38from something other than the external, which has been something I've grappled with forever.
00:12:42So when I'm working, I'm at my best.
00:12:45When I'm not working, I'm not.
00:12:47So I tend to try to work whenever I can.
00:12:50Can I ask, Noah, I think you mean for not knowing, how old were you when you were doing ER?
00:12:54I got that job January, March 17th, 1993.
00:12:58I was 22.
00:13:0022.
00:13:00I did it from 22 to 38.
00:13:03Wow.
00:13:04You had 40 million living room.
00:13:06I mean, it's...
00:13:0822 to 38.
00:13:09Yeah, I took a couple seasons off.
00:13:11I did the first 11 seasons.
00:13:12Half of the 12th took 13 and 14 off because my son was born.
00:13:17And I suddenly had all my ambition mitigated for the first time and then came back and did the last
00:13:22half of the 15th and final.
00:13:24But that's like the span of an athlete's career.
00:13:27You know, it's like...
00:13:27260 some odd episodes, yeah.
00:13:29Wow.
00:13:30And, you know, a really significant chapter of my life with amazing relationships and it was incredibly defining.
00:13:38And honestly, not until the pit has lightning felt like it struck that way again.
00:13:44When you do a series for that long, like that many seasons, is it like clockwork?
00:13:48Or do you still, every day you find, you have to find the inspiration?
00:13:51Or do you get so used to playing the character that it's kind of like second nature?
00:13:54I find there's more infinite complexity and repetition than there is when you go off and do...
00:14:00You know, sometimes when you do a play, you can find things during the run and you have to keep
00:14:03it fresh for yourself to keep your energy going.
00:14:05But a film, it's so finite, you know, you're telling one story and then those relationships only last for three
00:14:11months or six months.
00:14:12It's television affords you this wonderful opportunity to build almost a surrogate family, create a subculture in and around what
00:14:19you're doing with a sense of buy-in that is, you know, cast, crew, background, foreground.
00:14:25And that's what ER was and that's what the pit is.
00:14:27It's very much like a theatrical troupe with no division between department or role.
00:14:34It's just sort of everybody throws in together.
00:14:36And that energy is what I'm absolutely addicted to.
00:14:40And do you find it gives you that iteration and that kind of collegiate spirit?
00:14:45Does it give you a quality of both relaxation and courage?
00:14:50Because you know where you are, you know who you're with.
00:14:53Totally.
00:14:53And you go further, you go deeper into the story and into the...
00:14:56Totally.
00:14:57The trust is there, the history is there.
00:14:59The familiarity with set and prop and language, you know, that's really, I mean, the benefit of not only having
00:15:06that 15 years of putting a stethoscope around my neck every day.
00:15:1110,000 hours.
00:15:11It's in the muscle memory.
00:15:12So that was such a pleasure to come in and feel like I was building on an old skill set
00:15:16for sure.
00:15:16I think what I've realized that I've fallen in love with, with acting, with the job we do, it's performance
00:15:23but it's ensemble.
00:15:24It's being in a group of people.
00:15:26Entirely.
00:15:26The funnest jobs I've ever had either in the theatre or on TV generally is being in a group of
00:15:33people that are all singing with the same notes.
00:15:39And I think there's, I mean, when I watch The Pit, it's like you can see that just straight up.
00:15:45It's a group of people who are loving what they're doing together in a group.
00:15:48And I love that about what we do.
00:15:49I think that's the thing I've fallen in love with, I think.
00:15:51I love that.
00:15:52I find myself advocating for it actually with, with producers in a way like, because I completely agree.
00:15:58That's the thing that I find is the most inspiring element is when a cast and a crew become a
00:16:05team and they stop being people who are just here for this gig.
00:16:08Like any team, like a sports team or a, or a choir or like the, we rise together.
00:16:14And that feeling of, of camaraderie, that feeling of we're all in this, we're all going to do the best
00:16:20we can with the responsibility we have.
00:16:22And actually it's dispiriting when you have to break the team up.
00:16:26And sometimes we're expected as actors to like, you go off to another job and you don't, you don't have
00:16:32all the, the power and the, the warmth and the heart of the team is back there.
00:16:37And I love it when, um, you're in a, in, in that sense of a crew where the team spirit
00:16:42is the thing.
00:16:43Did you manage to maintain that for the second?
00:16:45Cause there was such a gap between the night managers.
00:16:47Yeah, we try, we absolutely try.
00:16:49We tried to get as many of the same people back as we could.
00:16:52Obviously people have busy lives and because also there's a, there's a level of institutional knowledge as well.
00:16:56There's like, we all know how we did the, did it the first time.
00:17:00We all know which bits looked easy, but weren't.
00:17:03And we sort of know the blueprint.
00:17:06You built the house together and you suddenly get a new set of builders.
00:17:09It's like, Oh, I like what you've done with the kitchen.
00:17:11I could probably make it better.
00:17:11Like you say you can make it better, but it's really hard to make it like that.
00:17:16Um, but I felt that when we worked together, Charlie, with like when we worked with Guillermo del Toro, he
00:17:22in Toronto, this is in 20, I want to say 2014, early 2014.
00:17:26He works with the same people all the time because he knows the value of that collegiate spirit, that sense
00:17:36of everyone knows when the energy flags, who picks it up.
00:17:39Everyone knows who's got the loudest voice.
00:17:41Everyone knows, you know, who's the fun one on a Friday afternoon.
00:17:44You know, there were times I remember once, maybe a couple of times where the entire casting crew will break
00:17:50into song.
00:17:51Like Guillermo will start singing.
00:17:52Remember that?
00:17:53Yeah.
00:17:53You just, everything stops and we sing a song from beginning to end.
00:17:58I mean, I didn't, because I didn't know the words.
00:17:59Right.
00:18:00These are songs that they just sing all the time.
00:18:02Right.
00:18:03And it's an, it's an amazing thing.
00:18:05I would, yeah, I wish in a way that, that the business would acknowledge that more.
00:18:11Sure.
00:18:12Um, that it's a team game.
00:18:14It's not a singular game for everyone.
00:18:17And the things that I see that I think are brilliant, you always realize, well, that's, that's a team.
00:18:23That's a group of relationships that have been invested in over time, that have been nourished and cared for.
00:18:29And the best work comes from that trust.
00:18:32Well, I think, Noah, you were talking about sort of how early you had that success.
00:18:36And I think your, your co-stars also taught you how to sort of navigate what comes with success.
00:18:42I think you've said, you know, George Clooney, for instance, taught you how to be famous in a healthy way.
00:18:47Since we're talking about this all being sort of new, what did that look like?
00:18:51What does that invite, what did that advice entail?
00:18:54Take your work seriously.
00:18:55Don't take yourself seriously.
00:18:56Yeah.
00:18:56Keep a sense of humor and humility about you.
00:18:59Be on time, be professional, be, you know, be personable.
00:19:03Recognize that you're an ambassador for this show wherever you go.
00:19:07And that there aren't any more private moments for you to be had publicly.
00:19:12To a certain extent, you are accountable and you should live your life accordingly.
00:19:16Also, start thinking of your life anecdotally because you're going to have to chunk it into talk show stories for
00:19:22the rest of your life.
00:19:23But mostly just sort of reinforcing.
00:19:27And this sounds like you're demythologizing the industry, but it is a very blue collar, hard hat, lunch pail business
00:19:35where you go to work and it's a union job and you get there early and you work long hours.
00:19:40And there's dangerous equipment and you have to be paying attention and you have to look out for everybody's safety
00:19:46and make sure everybody's pulling their weight because there's a lot of money and pressure on the line.
00:19:51And it's not play, but within action and cut, you get to play.
00:19:56And so it's about protecting those really, really precious moments of creativity in and around something that is really serious
00:20:03and, you know, not taking it too seriously.
00:20:06Paul, I heard you or I read you say that you were sort of watching the guys from Heated Rivalry,
00:20:11Conor Story and how to navigate the overnight stardom.
00:20:15Yeah, I mean, those guys are on a crazy ride.
00:20:18What did you learn?
00:20:19I think kind of the same thing, like to find yourself chunking your life anecdotally is a good thing.
00:20:26I mean, their rise to stardom with their show, I use that kind of a template to see how they're
00:20:32managing it and handling it and being in the public eye.
00:20:35Anyway, this is my first show and my first foray into all of this and being in the public eye
00:20:41and, you know, no longer having private moments in the public.
00:20:44You have to really watch your P's and Q's, as it were.
00:20:46But I think that they were a great template for me to kind of glean from.
00:20:54Obviously, it's different, but the structure is kind of the same.
00:20:57So I was just keeping an eye as to like what they're doing and all the cool stuff that they're
00:21:02doing, too.
00:21:02I mean, they got to like run the torch for the Olympics.
00:21:05Wild.
00:21:06Yeah, it was kind of an interesting thing to watch and behold at the same time as I'm just going
00:21:12into that same crazy arena.
00:21:15I mean, there's discourse surrounding like your chest hair on the Internet right now.
00:21:18I mean, it's wild.
00:21:19Oh, heavens to Betsy, not the chest hair.
00:21:22The comfort level in that, it either is there from the start or you have to figure out a way
00:21:26to either tune that out or embrace it.
00:21:29People can think whatever they want about my chest hair.
00:21:32I'm keeping it.
00:21:33And, you know, and I think that that might have also been part of me getting the job, too.
00:21:37You know, they were looking for like a real 90s man, and I just seemed to fit the bill there.
00:21:42There has been a lot of discourse, but there's also been like an overwhelmingly positive reception of the show.
00:21:48And, you know, doing these things, and especially a show set in the 90s in New York, like when I
00:21:55got the job, I got the job three weeks before we started filming.
00:21:58So I'm Canadian.
00:21:59I had to learn a different speech pattern.
00:22:01I had to bulk up a little bit, not as much as you.
00:22:05I would love to do something like that, though.
00:22:07I had to work with an acting coach because it was my first thing.
00:22:09Like I really, Ryan Murphy, as you know, really takes the time to take all the thinking, your personal thinking
00:22:17away.
00:22:17So you just show up and you prep, you prepare.
00:22:21I read everything I could, and I just got into it.
00:22:23And then playing in a show set in the 90s, I didn't do a holding cell, but I didn't have
00:22:29a cell phone.
00:22:30I really kept it as quiet as I could on the outskirts and live within that world to keep it
00:22:37truthful and understand.
00:22:38And it was also like the best six months of my life, just being kind of off-grid within the
00:22:45thing.
00:22:45You all have had experience sort of navigating fame, fandom, paparazzi, whatever it is.
00:22:53Does anyone else have tips, have things that you learned perhaps the hard way, or maybe not?
00:22:58Kid, I've heard you talk, I mean, you remember those magazine shoots when you have to sort of project a
00:23:03sense of cool and sophistication.
00:23:06I've heard you talk about how you actually feel on the inside.
00:23:08Yeah, I mean, it's taken me a long time.
00:23:11I think I'm still learning within this business how just to be myself, you know, and that being myself is
00:23:17okay and probably desirable.
00:23:19For the longest time, you started ER when you were 21.
00:23:23I did Game of Thrones, similar time.
00:23:24I spent 10 years in the odd state during my 20s, not knowing how to deal with any of it.
00:23:31I'm quite a shy person, I think, at heart.
00:23:34And trying to pretend not to be shy was very difficult.
00:23:37Like you said, people are going to think what they think.
00:23:39And this is only, I can only speak for myself, but it's like you, I've had to learn that people
00:23:48will idealize you and they will demonize you and neither picture is accurate.
00:23:55And it's really healthy for me just to keep all of the idealization and the demonization over there and trust
00:24:02yourself and trust the people who know and love you and only you know what you've been through, what your
00:24:08personal experience is.
00:24:11To be rigorous with that, be honest with yourself.
00:24:13I thought, no, your advice is amazing.
00:24:15I mean, sort of potted acting advice for budding actors in like two minutes.
00:24:19Be on time.
00:24:20Be kind.
00:24:22Take the work seriously.
00:24:23Don't take yourself seriously.
00:24:24That literally is like top four for me.
00:24:26But in terms of navigating other opinions, you cannot take them in.
00:24:30And it's so dangerous, actually, I found it's very dangerous to take them in because they can distort your picture
00:24:35of yourself and your sense of self and your capacity to generate any real self-esteem.
00:24:41If you start to put that agency in people who aren't in your life and who don't know you, of
00:24:47course, we know the work we do is for the audience.
00:24:51And I believe really strongly in that responsibility.
00:24:54So when we go to work, it's always about them.
00:24:56And I commit myself with everything I have, with all my energy and all my thought and all my physical
00:25:04presence to delivering the best work I can.
00:25:09You can call it art or entertainment.
00:25:11That's not up to me.
00:25:12But I will be there and I'll be there with everything I have and give you everything I have.
00:25:18And then what you think of it is up to you.
00:25:20And that's, I think, a really healthy balance.
00:25:23Audience often do conflate the actors with the roles that they play.
00:25:28I mean, you're nodding because I suspect whether it was, I mean, you played a character on Sons of Anarchy
00:25:34for years and years and years.
00:25:35I suspect there are people in the world that sort of thought you were him.
00:25:38Yeah, I think just generally it's a trap that you can fall into identifying too much with your work.
00:25:44I mean, that was a lesson that I learned late on, that I'm really not my work.
00:25:48Like, I'm my own person who operates in this weird moment of time and space, completely independent of the work
00:25:56that I do.
00:25:56And I always have had the approach of taking it very, very seriously, but not thinking it's important.
00:26:03You know, that I like to think of myself in a really sort of working class, blue collar way, that
00:26:07I'm a plumber and my job is to make the pipes run water.
00:26:11You know, and that it's no more important or mysterious than that.
00:26:16You know, it's a skill set like anything else.
00:26:19And it serves a function, you know, just like any other craft or trade does.
00:26:25But that it's not more important than making the water run through the pipes.
00:26:29And the pipes are stories and characters and...
00:26:32Yeah, the illumination of the human condition.
00:26:35Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:36All right, but Noah, what happens when you're on a plane and someone asks if there's a doctor on board?
00:26:43I just flew back from New York and as I'm sitting down, everybody's looking at me and I said, nobody
00:26:48have a medical emergency.
00:26:50I will only pretend to help you, but I won't save you.
00:26:54And this one guy goes, you never know.
00:26:56You know, you'll be surprised.
00:26:57I go, we don't want to be surprised.
00:26:59We know, we know.
00:27:01Yeah, I mean, I could have really become a doctor by now.
00:27:04I've been doing it long enough.
00:27:05You probably could.
00:27:06My family will tell you I'm delusional into thinking that I know way more than I do.
00:27:11You must have picked up some stuff.
00:27:13Yeah, you pick up a little bit.
00:27:14It's dangerous.
00:27:15Yeah, it's dangerous, a little knowledge.
00:27:17Mostly you learn how you can make things really, really wrong by doing the wrong things.
00:27:21So you learn non-intervention medicine first.
00:27:24Do nothing first.
00:27:26Do no harm.
00:27:27Do no harm.
00:27:28First rule of medicine, indeed.
00:27:29It's the ordinariness, I think.
00:27:31Like, we're ordinary people who have extraordinary jobs in some way.
00:27:35I'd sort of think about it like that.
00:27:37I always think if people really knew, they'd be so disappointed by how shatteringly ordinary my life is.
00:27:45I would rather people think I knew how to heal them than knew how to fight them.
00:27:48Because I would imagine that would be much harder to walk through life having a reputation of being, you know.
00:27:55That has come up a couple times.
00:27:57I was just talking to them and thinking about you.
00:28:01But it did.
00:28:02It was very helpful on two occasions when I got broken into.
00:28:06And all of a sudden, I'm like, I'm a pretty cowardly individual, truth be told,
00:28:11and really panic at the prospect of having to have any sort of physical altercation.
00:28:16And I got broken into once at 3 o'clock in the morning by a guy who was literally twice
00:28:22my size.
00:28:23And I had been working night shoots, and I had a little separate structure from my house.
00:28:28And I had my cat on my knee, and it was 3 o'clock in the morning, I was just
00:28:31learning lines.
00:28:33And we both heard something in the backyard.
00:28:34My cat panicked and sort of went into a little commando shuffle out.
00:28:38And I knew this cat so well, I could tell from his reaction, because he just bolted, just left me,
00:28:43that there was somebody in the backyard.
00:28:45And I sort of scurried up to the door to look out.
00:28:48And there was this colossus of a human being walking casually through my backyard.
00:28:54And I had two French doors.
00:28:56We had a single-story house, two French doors, and my wife was asleep inside.
00:28:59And I thought, fuck me, I don't know how to handle this situation.
00:29:04And then Jack's teller went, don't worry, bro, I do.
00:29:08And there was a little machete on my door frame that had been there since I moved in to the
00:29:15house,
00:29:15and I just never moved it.
00:29:17And so I went, oh, that's handy.
00:29:18So I grabbed it and went and told the guy, you've got, I don't know if I, well, I'll say
00:29:24it.
00:29:24I mean, it was stupid.
00:29:25It was crazy, the things that happen in the heat of the moment.
00:29:28I went out and I, we've done so much fake fighting in my career that I knew how to swing
00:29:33this machete,
00:29:33but not actually hit the guy.
00:29:35So I swiped at him, and he, like, fell backwards.
00:29:37And I just said, very calmly, you've got 10 seconds to leave, or they're never going to find your body.
00:29:42And he left, he left, lickety-split.
00:29:46And I went, all right, well, that was a manifestation of a character that I've been playing for seven years
00:29:52that, you know, I didn't know how to handle the situation, but he did.
00:29:55Amazing.
00:29:56That's pretty badass.
00:29:57That was good.
00:29:58It was a good moment.
00:29:58It was my one heroic moment of my life.
00:30:01I assume there were, it was a decade where people almost assumed you were Jon Snow.
00:30:07And maybe you even grappled with that as well.
00:30:10Yeah, that was a weird, that was a weird decade.
00:30:13I always had, I had the problem that Jon Snow was a very good person.
00:30:17Like, he was almost defined by his goodness.
00:30:20He's morally perfect.
00:30:21Honest.
00:30:21It's actually quite hard to play at times.
00:30:24But he was a, he's a, he was the hero.
00:30:27And the trouble I, the trouble I had is the closest thing I, you know when actors talk about
00:30:33getting confused with character and I had the opposite thing of like, I didn't feel anything like him.
00:30:38I didn't feel like this hero.
00:30:40I didn't feel like this good person.
00:30:41I didn't feel like this perfect human being.
00:30:43And yet everywhere I went, people treated me like I was.
00:30:48And that gave me a very strange sort of inner conflict of like, but I'm not good.
00:30:53Kit's not good.
00:30:54Kit's not thing.
00:30:55But this guy is.
00:30:57So I always felt almost in competition with the character, which then sort of spiraled.
00:31:03And by the end of the show, I really wasn't very, I think it might've had quite an impact
00:31:07on me.
00:31:08I wasn't very well by the end of the show.
00:31:09And that was, that was odd.
00:31:11It's taken a while to like move past that.
00:31:14The perception of the character in conflict with who I feel I am was odd.
00:31:21And yet maybe a part of him is in you.
00:31:25Yeah.
00:31:25Otherwise you wouldn't have done it and it wouldn't have been so loved.
00:31:28Yeah.
00:31:28I think he, I think there was, I think what was interesting about, because there's a way
00:31:33of playing that character of like, just heroic.
00:31:37And I don't know if I intentionally did this, but he was, he was heroic, but tortured.
00:31:43And I think it was that tortured thing that might've helped, helped the characterization
00:31:48a bit, but I'm not entirely sure how purposeful that was by me.
00:31:52I think it was just part of me coming out in the character.
00:31:54Yes.
00:31:55And maybe it was that thing I'm talking about.
00:31:56These two people in conflict.
00:31:59Yeah.
00:31:59But it seemed to chime with people, which was interesting.
00:32:01Well, you've just reminded me of something.
00:32:03I mean, very wise man once said to me, the only meaning in life is to reside as a good
00:32:09object in the minds of others.
00:32:11And it's not small that you reside as a good object in the minds of others.
00:32:17That's something you did for them.
00:32:19Yeah.
00:32:19And it's something I've always never tried to take for granted when, you know, the power
00:32:24you can have or the gift that you can give to people.
00:32:29Like when families with young children have come up to me and they're so excited because
00:32:34they, because these kids, they're looking at Loki and, and I, and it's not small.
00:32:39And I want to live up to whatever they, whatever they can see, because actually it's a gift
00:32:45to them.
00:32:46And the thing you've made means something to their imagination.
00:32:49And young people are, you know, pretty vigilant about what they love.
00:32:53And it's such an honor that they've accepted that into their minds.
00:32:56So I always try to kind of honor that respect because for them, it really matters.
00:33:03And so, and so for all those people who loved Jon Snow and, and watched it season after
00:33:09season, like it's, it's not insignificant that you reside as a good object in their minds.
00:33:14They're not so young anymore.
00:33:16They're getting older by the day.
00:33:18Maybe that conflict is sort of built into the design.
00:33:21It's like paragon of virtue that they chose the kid who showed up with a black eye.
00:33:26Yeah.
00:33:27Yeah.
00:33:27I mean, they, they cast that show, they cast Game of Thrones brilliantly.
00:33:32I mean, it was Nina Gold who cast it.
00:33:34She was brilliant.
00:33:35It was incredible.
00:33:36And, and David and Dan who, and I think there was definitely, whether conscious or not,
00:33:40they, they picked actors who had some sort of conflict that the character had maybe, you
00:33:46know, I always felt that the actors on that were quite similar to their characters in a
00:33:50strange sort of way.
00:33:51It's funny because I, I always think as good, playing good characters, it's different because
00:33:55I, in Baby Reindeer, I obviously wrote Donnie who was based on myself as a sort of very
00:33:59flawed kind of person in a lot of ways.
00:34:02And you would, you would always, you'd always get kind of very interesting reactions to
00:34:05that in public.
00:34:06Like Jess was always adored, you know, Martha, like kind of bubbly, mad Martha.
00:34:10But it was an interesting thing.
00:34:11I think, you know, there's a line in, in sort of, uh, uh, Baby Reindeer where, where he
00:34:17says, uh, something like that's what abuse does to you.
00:34:20It makes you a sticking plaster for all of life's weirdos or something like that.
00:34:24Uh, and I always remember that's the line that people come up to me the most and they
00:34:28say they relate to.
00:34:29Yeah.
00:34:29And I remember that the thing with Baby Reindeer was this kind of crazy thing because Baby
00:34:33Reindeer was like an indie film in a lot of ways.
00:34:35Yeah.
00:34:35No expectation that it would blow up in that way, that this kind of idiosyncratic kind
00:34:39of dark story would, would kind of explode that way.
00:34:42And I remember it came out on the Thursday to very little fanfare.
00:34:45Then by, by the Sunday, it was kind of blowing up like crazy.
00:34:49Like I remember always walking through a supermarket, maybe about two weeks after it came out and
00:34:54on the newsstands, my face was on the front page of all these newspapers and it was like
00:34:58Richard Gad struggling with the weight of fame.
00:35:00And I was like, what?
00:35:01How do they even know?
00:35:02I was like, I was like, I was like, how do they know what's going on?
00:35:06And, but I suddenly felt like people were coming up to me in the street and they were
00:35:09kind of looking for answers almost in a way, you know, because of the honesty and the kind
00:35:13of raw honesty of Baby Reindeer that they were kind of coming up to me and being like,
00:35:17hey, what do you think about this?
00:35:18And what do you think about that?
00:35:20And suddenly I realized I was in a slightly dangerous position because I never wanted to be the harbinger
00:35:24of good advice.
00:35:24I mean, look at the story based on my life.
00:35:26I never, I never took good advice myself.
00:35:29And so I was suddenly in this predicament where I, you know, I, I, I, I was, I suddenly was
00:35:34like,
00:35:34well, hey, look, I can't give advice, but I can listen, you know, and that, that helped,
00:35:38I think, a lot with kind of dealing with the situation.
00:35:40But the craziest part about all that was that I think I felt like people felt like they could go
00:35:46to me
00:35:46to unburden secrets almost in a way.
00:35:48Wow.
00:35:49And that was one of the great pressures of Baby Reindeer.
00:35:51I get a bit of that with the reaction to the pit.
00:35:54It's, it's intense the way that it hits certain people.
00:35:57It's more than just, I like your show.
00:35:59It's, you know, I lost my mother last year or during COVID, you know, I had a really hard time.
00:36:04And it touches people very specifically to a very specific aspect of their life.
00:36:09And much like you said, I have a tendency to want to kind of awestruck my way through life,
00:36:14you know, and deflect that type of thing.
00:36:16I don't take it in very easily.
00:36:18But you feel like you're dishonoring the intensity of the connection that they have to the work
00:36:23if you don't stand there and be present and acknowledge that it has had this impact
00:36:28and own that it has had this impact.
00:36:30But that, that's not organic to me.
00:36:33The only correlative I have, which is, which was so unusual with what you're saying,
00:36:38is that thing where people slightly attribute the characteristics of your character to your own self.
00:36:46I remember I was a guest of The Guardian at the White House Correspondence Dinner in 2016
00:36:52with Carrie Fisher and I looked after her dog and her little rubber duck, Princess Leia.
00:36:57It's a kind of good luck charm.
00:36:59She was the absolute best the whole night.
00:37:01She said she only came because she wanted to see Obama speak.
00:37:03That was the night he dropped the mic.
00:37:05Oh, yeah.
00:37:06And we were invited to these parties in Washington afterwards.
00:37:09And there was a party, I think it was hosted by Vanity Fair.
00:37:15And President Joe Biden walked in and made a beeline and shook my hand
00:37:20and was talking to me about the general election in the UK.
00:37:25But with the sort of transference that I was a vetted member of the intelligence community.
00:37:31And I thought, he was the vice president at the time.
00:37:33And I thought, this is, this is not an interaction I expected.
00:37:38Because he'd watched the night manager and it was, it's a couple,
00:37:42it happened again like the following summer.
00:37:45I was at the tennis and I was sat having lunch with the head of the British Armed Forces.
00:37:50Who told me things I'm sure I shouldn't have known.
00:37:54Because he'd seen the night manager and he said, wow.
00:37:57I mean, that's exactly how it is.
00:37:58And I thought, I don't know if you, I didn't know.
00:38:02I'm not actually a spy.
00:38:04I'm just an actor.
00:38:06But it's extraordinary how people, in a way, like the privilege is you get to grow.
00:38:11You get to grow into those interactions that you have with people.
00:38:15And again, like you try and keep it all at arm's length because I have a really ordinary life
00:38:19and I'm really in touch with that ordinariness all the time.
00:38:22But it's still an honour when people can reflect back the meaning that they found in the work.
00:38:29The conflation is so, when people, people always say to me,
00:38:34I'm so glad you found that thing because your comedy was terrible.
00:38:38And I would say, well, hold on, I wrote it like that in the show.
00:38:41I promise you it landed occasionally, you know.
00:38:44I mean, you are out in the world.
00:38:46You are having interactions with fans.
00:38:48There's got to be some fun ones, some hilarious ones, maybe some scary ones.
00:38:54What do they look like?
00:38:55I was at a restaurant the other night and a lovely couple came up to the table,
00:38:58an older couple, and they said, we love the show.
00:39:00We've seen every episode.
00:39:01And the woman said, I just had knee surgery.
00:39:05Would you mind taking a look?
00:39:06And she rolled up her pant leg right through the table.
00:39:08And I'm looking at her incision and I thought, this is, I said, it looks like it's healing very nicely.
00:39:15Are you putting full weight on it?
00:39:17She was so pleased that my, you know, and I thought, not a lot of actors get shown open wounds.
00:39:23They've been asked, you know, to vet the opinion.
00:39:25At dinner.
00:39:26At dinner.
00:39:27Lucky you.
00:39:28I bet you could do it, you know.
00:39:29Are you being very modest?
00:39:30I bet you if you became a general practitioner, you would know a lot more than you say you know.
00:39:35Don't feed this.
00:39:36Don't feed this delusion to them.
00:39:38I don't need any encouragement.
00:39:39I, for years on the ER, I used to joke that I'd have a little outpatient clinic in my garage
00:39:43and just do little minor stuff on the side.
00:39:46I don't know.
00:39:46If we're all in the plane and we go down on a desert island, I'm coming to you for the
00:39:50medical advice.
00:39:51All right.
00:39:53I like our various skill sets here.
00:39:55If we went down on a plane, I think we'd do all right together.
00:39:57Yeah, we'd do all good.
00:39:57Anyone else have any wild ones?
00:40:01I've had some moving ones, thanks to Baby Reindeer, like really kind of moving ones.
00:40:06I still get it because it's the nature of Netflix, isn't it?
00:40:08People, you know, that it's kind of constantly regenerative in that respect.
00:40:13You know, I get a lot of like moving letters.
00:40:15You know, I always remember a family once coming up to me and being like, thank you, because of Baby
00:40:21Reindeer, it allowed us to speak about what happened.
00:40:24And I remember almost in the street, you know, like having this kind of amazing kind of moment of feeling
00:40:29really like choked up, talking to him, but being like, I need to kind of be like, I need to
00:40:34hold my composure here in a way and sort of listen.
00:40:36But I remember that being really powerful.
00:40:38Like, I'll never forget it.
00:40:39Like, you know, and that's, I suppose the most proudest part of Baby Reindeer was the fact that I think
00:40:45it allowed people to kind of understand the complexities of these things and kind of come to terms with it
00:40:49in certain ways themselves.
00:40:50An actor's ego is a fragile thing.
00:40:54I'm always amazed at the amount of interactions you have, which start well and then gradually become a kind of...
00:41:01They'll go, oh my God, Jon Snow.
00:41:05And you go, yes, no, I did play Jon Snow.
00:41:07And I go, where have you been?
00:41:09What have you done?
00:41:10And you go, well, I'm...
00:41:11And then you start listing off your CV.
00:41:15No, I've not seen that one.
00:41:16No, what's that on?
00:41:17And then they go, wow, you are much shorter.
00:41:20Than you are on TV.
00:41:22And the whole thing, you walk away from it going, I feel terrible now.
00:41:26My favorite one was like that was doing a...
00:41:29I was doing an interview, a print interview with a journalist in New York and it was a beautiful morning,
00:41:33spring morning.
00:41:34And we were at a cafe, a French cafe, having breakfast and the waiter was incredibly kind.
00:41:39And I could see he was quite excited to sort of be serving the coffee and the pastries and whatever.
00:41:45And at the end of it, he said, I'm so...
00:41:47I really, I just have to say, I'm such a big fan.
00:41:50And I loved you in Prometheus and Shame.
00:41:52Oh, no.
00:41:53And I was like, oh, no, no.
00:41:55I don't know how to let you know that...
00:41:58I just had to go, thank you so much.
00:42:00Yeah, thank you.
00:42:01Not him.
00:42:02And, yeah, not me, sadly.
00:42:05After the interview?
00:42:06After the interview?
00:42:07Yeah, after the interview, the waiter said.
00:42:10Oh, the waiter.
00:42:10I thought the interview was...
00:42:12Oh, my God.
00:42:12Yeah, that would have been, I'd have to say, oh, sorry.
00:42:14But if you don't know by now that I'm not Michael Fassbender, then I don't know.
00:42:18You could have really, like, given him a bad breath.
00:42:21I was just thinking the same thing.
00:42:23You could have really played into it.
00:42:24Get to the table.
00:42:26Fassbender out.
00:42:29He loved that story, though, when I told him.
00:42:30I bet he did.
00:42:31Anyone else ever been mistaken for other actors?
00:42:34Who do you get?
00:42:35I was at an airport.
00:42:36This guy goes, you're Keanu Reeves.
00:42:37I said, no, I'm not.
00:42:38He goes, I got you.
00:42:41I'm a down mom.
00:42:43Yeah, I was in a taxi recently, and the guy thought he recognized me.
00:42:48He wasn't sure, and so he asked me what my name was, and so I told him my name.
00:42:52And then he decided he was going to Google me while he was driving the taxi.
00:42:56And then he decided he was going to play the first video that came up on his Google search
00:43:00over the speakers in the taxi, and the title of the video was
00:43:04Whatever Happened to Charlie Hunnam?
00:43:07And it was just this, like, catalogue of all of my failures in life.
00:43:14And I got out of the taxi just as the moment was getting, and it said,
00:43:18and then came the catastrophic failure that was King Arthur.
00:43:23I got out of the taxi, and I went, wow, that was so shit.
00:43:28Just rude.
00:43:29Just as I got out and was sort of settling, you know,
00:43:32I got out of the taxi a little bit before.
00:43:33I was like, I cannot listen to any more of this.
00:43:36And then this guy came up and was like, oh, bro, you are so important to me.
00:43:42I just love your show.
00:43:44I thought, oh, this is what I need right now.
00:43:46He said, yeah, I watch every episode of Vikings.
00:43:51But to your point, I was going on a talk show the next day,
00:43:54and I went, oh, right.
00:43:55Perfect!
00:43:57Turned this grand humiliation into talk show gold.
00:44:00The most charming, I find this really charming meeting sometimes when,
00:44:04and maybe this happens a lot, and if you guys in the UK,
00:44:07where, like, I'll be at a petrol station, and somebody will quietly say,
00:44:13I'm so sorry, has anyone ever told you you look just like Tom Hilston?
00:44:17I would be like, I go with that a lot, you know, but you look exactly like him.
00:44:21Yeah.
00:44:21I go, I know, it's weird, isn't it?
00:44:23And you buy your coffee and you pay for your gas or whatever,
00:44:25and he would go, you look like him.
00:44:28You really do.
00:44:29And then I'll literally be driving and be like, it's you, it's you.
00:44:31And I think he's missed the whole thing.
00:44:33But you feel like such a dick going, well, actually I am.
00:44:36Yeah.
00:44:39Charlie, I've heard you talk about the hardest part for you of this process is ending a project,
00:44:45is coming out of a character and an experience.
00:44:48I believe you, I mean, you won't, while you're in it,
00:44:51won't talk to sort of people in your life for months at a time.
00:44:55I only did that once.
00:44:56Okay, okay.
00:44:56But what is, what is that re-entry like?
00:44:59Well, I find, you know, it's sort of, I was, I could really relate to what you were saying
00:45:03before, Noah, that I just, I sort of, my life makes sense when I'm working.
00:45:07I know who I am most readily when I'm able to put my machinery to work
00:45:14and that I'm part of a community with a unified focus or goal.
00:45:19And we climb this mountain together and it's, it requires us to work 80 hours a week.
00:45:24And we're told that we have total purpose and immersion and it feels important in a very sort of personal
00:45:30way.
00:45:30And often it requires us to travel.
00:45:33So we're away and disconnected from family and our life.
00:45:36And the duration of it is very long.
00:45:38So you come back four months later and the thing you wrap on one day and the thing is over.
00:45:43The thing that you spent six months in a very singular way,
00:45:47only really thinking about and letting everything sort of else get neglected.
00:45:52And then you have to reenter your life.
00:45:54And there's always, for me, this sort of uneasy process of accepting or rejecting the parameters of this life
00:46:02that I've created for myself.
00:46:04And I come in and I go, right, because I've been living out of a suitcase.
00:46:07Like, oh, right, these are my clothes.
00:46:09What the heck was I thinking wearing that, you know?
00:46:12And like, and then friends, those lives have gone on without you because they inevitably,
00:46:17those relationships get a little bit neglected.
00:46:19So, but it's really saying goodbye to a character in, on the ones that are really meaningful
00:46:25and that you sort of tap into in a more granular way.
00:46:29I think that it's very sort of sad to say goodbye to that community,
00:46:33but to say goodbye to the character, I find very difficult.
00:46:36And my wife is really fed up with it after all of these years.
00:46:40We've been together 20 years.
00:46:41And she said, she, a few years ago, just said to me,
00:46:44dude, like, do what you need to do, you know, exercise this stress, you know,
00:46:51and grief out of your system because when you get home, you better be ready to see me.
00:46:56And it was, like, really beautiful that she sort of created that agreement between us.
00:47:02And so I always just take a few days after I finish a job.
00:47:05I just recently, when I finished Ed Gein, we shot in Illinois, but he was from Wisconsin.
00:47:10It was pretty close to where he lived.
00:47:12And I definitely did not want to carry any of that character back into my regular life.
00:47:18And so I drove up.
00:47:20I took the day and drove up and went to his grave and said sort of what I needed to
00:47:25say.
00:47:26And that felt like a very definite, healthy way to just put a full stop at the end of the
00:47:30experience
00:47:31and then get on a plane and go home.
00:47:33My wife sends me away.
00:47:35Does she?
00:47:36When do you finish your job?
00:47:38Well, the last two seasons of the pit especially because I've finished them just kind of a basket case.
00:47:43And for Ed, blissfully, she sent me to a beach for four days after season one
00:47:47and did the same thing after season two just so I didn't have to be around anybody for a little
00:47:51while.
00:47:53It's hard.
00:47:54I mean, you said it perfectly.
00:47:56I couldn't say it any better.
00:47:57The investment, the buy-in, the world building, and then you're going at 120 RPMs and then the next day
00:48:03it's just done.
00:48:04And you have no place to put it and there's no sort of decompression to not get the bends as
00:48:10you're coming up from those depths.
00:48:11You just have to come up and react with me and it's hard.
00:48:15With industry, I found I was filming them.
00:48:19I had my kids out with me and they're both very small.
00:48:22And I had to do some pretty drastic stuff in the fourth season.
00:48:26But I'd come home and they didn't give me the choice but to get out of that.
00:48:31Yes, kids are wonderful.
00:48:32And it won't last forever because they'll grow up.
00:48:34But while they were young and I was being dad, I came in the door and I had like five
00:48:41to ten seconds to acclimatize to the other person.
00:48:44And there was no choice because I can't be a prick to my kids.
00:48:48So I'm like, okay, just switch out.
00:48:50And it was the most marvelous thing.
00:48:53Best medicine.
00:48:54Yeah.
00:48:55Best medicine.
00:48:55Yeah, it was kind of, I hear what you're saying because it's that post-job thing can be really disorientating.
00:49:02You can turn into a different version of yourself that's not the character or you or whatever.
00:49:08You're just this kind of grumpy prick.
00:49:10Right.
00:49:11Well, the abrupt stop, you know, when they're like, okay, that's a wrap.
00:49:14And then it's just, it's done.
00:49:16Yeah.
00:49:17It's overwhelming at times, especially when you're stepping into someone else's skin and you're living like that and in a
00:49:24different period.
00:49:25Or just being the curiosity, you know, I now have a new child.
00:49:32So that's kind of where I focus everything.
00:49:36We didn't have it after we wrapped, but it was that changing of gears or tracks, as it were.
00:49:43And a whole new focus.
00:49:45It was like, okay, cool.
00:49:46Now I have to step into like pre-dad mode and start prepping.
00:49:50And it was like prepping for another job, really.
00:49:53You know, as the actor dad.
00:49:56The longest job of your life.
00:49:57Totally.
00:49:58And us are the best.
00:49:59And it's method.
00:50:00You got to stay in it.
00:50:01It's very, very method.
00:50:02Was there an odd like, because you played this character who lived and died not so long ago.
00:50:08Yeah.
00:50:09When you wrapped and you said goodbye to him, would you say there was a deeper sadness there?
00:50:13Because it's like, I mean, you portray someone so beautifully and so brilliantly.
00:50:17Within living memory of so many people and so recent.
00:50:20And I think you did incredible justice.
00:50:23Thank you very much.
00:50:23But was it when you said goodbye to him?
00:50:25Was there a kind of profound like, oh, okay, bye, mate.
00:50:28You know?
00:50:29Yeah.
00:50:30Thank you for asking me that.
00:50:33I still haven't said goodbye.
00:50:35You know, I think there's a lot of qualities of John that I will carry with me for the rest
00:50:39of my life.
00:50:40And the things that I think that, you know, maybe I had hidden underneath and being able to step into
00:50:46his circumstances unveiled them within myself.
00:50:51And, you know, like one of the things I learned about him in my studies and research is he always
00:50:57wanted to be an actor.
00:50:58And it's the same thing I always wanted to do.
00:51:00So there's this similarity that like, I now get to do this.
00:51:04So in that, I take him everywhere I go.
00:51:07Because it was him that got me here.
00:51:10So I never really truly get to say goodbye to this character.
00:51:13And I think that's a beautiful thing.
00:51:15But there is like, you know, coming back and stepping in and being Paul again was a bit of an
00:51:20adjustment.
00:51:21It's an odd thing stopping what you've always wanted to do with the people you've created this family with doing.
00:51:28And you're going to set every day.
00:51:29You know everybody's names.
00:51:30And you're like hanging out with key grips in between takes.
00:51:33And you're just, you build this family that you get used to.
00:51:36And then it's, you know, action.
00:51:38And you're playing.
00:51:39And then cut.
00:51:41And then it's done.
00:51:42And you're just like, okay, well, what do I do now?
00:51:45Yeah, it's scary.
00:51:46It's scary.
00:51:47Yeah, you know, there's no job security anymore.
00:51:49So you don't know what you're doing.
00:51:51And you just like, you get into this routine of pushing yourself and learning and being curious.
00:51:57And then all of a sudden you don't have that anymore.
00:51:59And it's an adjustment.
00:52:01Yeah.
00:52:01You know, I don't think I've ever let go of my projects in a lot of ways.
00:52:06Like, I still, you know, even two years on now from Baby Reindeer, I still sort of ruminate quite a
00:52:12lot on it.
00:52:13Like, I know it's obviously been a massive positive in my life.
00:52:15But I still always think, you know, there's that old adage, isn't there, that a project is never finished, only
00:52:21abandoned.
00:52:22I don't think I've gone to bed in the last 35 years without going, oh, that would have been so
00:52:28much better.
00:52:28Yes.
00:52:29Oh, idiot, that would have been so much better.
00:52:31Oh, yeah, it's crazy.
00:52:32And it could be quite, you know, it could be quite overpowering at times as well.
00:52:36All right, we're going to move to the lightning round section or the fun section, if you will.
00:52:41I thought that was the fun section.
00:52:44Looking at all of your work and your public appearances that you have found online, what is your favorite meme
00:52:50of yourself?
00:52:51Paul Kelly's wearing the fuck out of those jeans.
00:52:55Do you send that one out to others because you should?
00:52:58I will now.
00:52:59I've noticed that most of the fan art that's done of me give me your chest hair.
00:53:03Oh, really?
00:53:04Which I'm flattered by.
00:53:06Not having been granted, given much chest hair.
00:53:09I've donated my chest hair to the various sound departments throughout the world.
00:53:13Then I've taped microphones to my skin and then ripped them off at the end of the day.
00:53:18I maintain I probably would have been a lot hairier if I hadn't been an actor.
00:53:23There's one, funnily enough, there's a bunch of baby reindeer ones that go round.
00:53:27But the one that mostly comes up is if you do shot on, you know, gifs or whatever.
00:53:33Like there's one of me, I did a show called Clique ages ago, which was this BBC show.
00:53:36And it's basically a shot where a shot goes down and it pans to somebody looking at it.
00:53:40Well, me, looking at it kind of like hungrily.
00:53:43And that is used a lot.
00:53:45And everyone says, hey, have you seen this?
00:53:46Because it goes around so often.
00:53:48And it's, funnily enough, me, just the guy at the back of the pub sort of staring at this.
00:53:52That's a good one.
00:53:52I'm a granddad.
00:53:54I'm like, I'm useless with all of this stuff.
00:53:57But people do send me memes.
00:54:00I sound like a granddad.
00:54:02Memes?
00:54:02Memes.
00:54:04There's one of me.
00:54:05Is a meme the moving?
00:54:07Is it a gif or a gif?
00:54:08I don't know.
00:54:09There's one of me crawling out through a load of bodies in Thrones.
00:54:13I get sent every now and again.
00:54:15What's the context that people use it in?
00:54:17Like as in you're desperate or I don't know.
00:54:21You're having a really bad day.
00:54:24You're doing all your admin.
00:54:25They're just crawling through.
00:54:26They're just crawling through the dead.
00:54:27They sent me that one again.
00:54:28She's my mate.
00:54:29She's just being, yeah.
00:54:30I'll never forget that episode.
00:54:32The Battle of the Bastards.
00:54:33Yeah, it's from that one.
00:54:34That was amazing.
00:54:35The years Miguel Sapochni directed the hell out of that episode.
00:54:38He's a genius.
00:54:39Amazing.
00:54:40That was where you're stuck in the middle and you're suffocating.
00:54:43Yes.
00:54:43And that's the meme that I get sent.
00:54:46Of me like clawing my way out.
00:54:48Yeah, yeah.
00:54:49It went on.
00:54:50They did it so well, didn't they?
00:54:51Because it went on.
00:54:51They really played with the time.
00:54:53And I was like, when I was watching, I was like, oh my God.
00:54:55He's actually going to do it.
00:54:56He's going to die.
00:54:57He did that.
00:54:57He's a genius, Miguel.
00:54:58Because he said that was all because we run out of time.
00:55:02For what he wanted to do.
00:55:04And he was like, what's your greatest fear?
00:55:05What's your greatest fear?
00:55:06And I said, well, human crushes.
00:55:08And so we put it in.
00:55:09He did an episode of a show I did up in Canada.
00:55:11And I just thought, oh my goodness.
00:55:12This guy is a real artist.
00:55:14His prep and his thoughtfulness.
00:55:16And then he went on to do Game of Thrones after that.
00:55:18And we never got to see him again.
00:55:21He's a fan.
00:55:21If you get to work with Miguel, unfortunately, too.
00:55:23He's fantastic.
00:55:25Tom, you must have some.
00:55:26And I don't know what this is about my algorithm.
00:55:28But I feel like I get you dancing on the Alan Carr show.
00:55:31I apologize without that.
00:55:32I love it.
00:55:33It brings me a smile to my face every time.
00:55:36Yeah, it was, you know, that's a long time ago now.
00:55:39It was 13 years ago.
00:55:42And it was like a silly thing I did in the last five minutes of a show that goes out
00:55:47on a Friday night at about 10.45.
00:55:50So I was like, most people are in bed.
00:55:52No one will ever see this.
00:55:54Little did I know.
00:55:57Yeah, it's, but also kind of amazing.
00:56:01I got a job out of that.
00:56:02Did you really?
00:56:03Yeah.
00:56:03What job?
00:56:04It was the life of Chuck.
00:56:05It all came full circle where Mike Flanagan had written an adaptation of Stephen King's short story, The Life of
00:56:12Chuck.
00:56:13And it's really about, it's about life and it's about death.
00:56:16It's about a middle-aged man whose life is cut short at the age of 39.
00:56:20And a beautiful idea that Stephen King's trying to articulate, which is that, you know, we contain multitudes.
00:56:26And that at the end of any individual life is the end of a universe of connections and memories and
00:56:33connections to real people, connections to books and music and stories and all the things that we carry within us.
00:56:41And for this particular guy, it was dancing.
00:56:44Well, he's an accountant and he's dressed like an accountant, gray man, gray suit, off to the business conference with
00:56:51his business briefcase.
00:56:53And on this, about six months before his death from brain cancer, he just dances in the middle of the
00:57:02street to this drummer busking.
00:57:05And it's the most unlikely spontaneous explosion of joy and presence.
00:57:11This mild man of the accountant just dances.
00:57:13Anyway, long story short, Mike Flanagan calls me and goes, I've seen this clip of you on the Alan Carr
00:57:20show and you look so happy.
00:57:24And he did say, I know that technically you may not be the most proficient dancer, but the joy that
00:57:34you're transmitting is the joy I want in my film.
00:57:38And I was amazed.
00:57:40I was so touched in a way.
00:57:41I was like, and then it was a really happy experience making the film.
00:57:45Not for nothing.
00:57:46Always danced on talk shows, kids.
00:57:47You know what, I thought you were quite proficient.
00:57:49I thought you had moves and joy and I love it.
00:57:52That's just a misspent youth in the 90s.
00:57:55There's no training there.
00:57:57In doing these jobs, you pick up things, you pick up knowledge, you pick up things.
00:58:00Noah, I'm going to put you on the spot here, but you have a party trick that I'm really hoping
00:58:04you can do here.
00:58:05Really, again?
00:58:06Really again.
00:58:07In front of these guys.
00:58:09Exactly.
00:58:1065-year-old male with severe peripheral vascular disease manifested by claudication in the left cap.
00:58:1510 days post-op from Mercy General after having an order by femoral bypass.
00:58:18Normal post-operative course to about six hours ago.
00:58:21And again, experience the gradual onset of lower left quadruple pain without palliative or provoking factors.
00:58:25BP 120 over 80, pulse 112, respiration 78 upon auscultation.
00:58:28Deminished breath sounds are noted.
00:58:29The basis of the patient's right lung and treat detested vocal freminus per bait.
00:58:33Second edition leading me to diagnosis of pleural fusion confirmed by this radiograph,
00:58:36which shows fluid in the patient's right cost of fitting circles.
00:58:38Yes.
00:58:39There we go.
00:58:42Was that an actual line?
00:58:44That was season one on ER.
00:58:45That's been in there for 31 years.
00:58:47Wow.
00:58:48But it was a dare.
00:58:49It was Eric LaSalle and I used to have this competition about who could get their stuff done in less
00:58:53takes.
00:58:54And he got one of those long monologues once and it took him a few to get through it.
00:58:59And I, you know, was young and mean and cruel.
00:59:03And then I got one of those the next week and he was just like...
00:59:08So I learned it in the shower.
00:59:10I learned it backwards.
00:59:11I learned it running.
00:59:12I learned it on standing in my head.
00:59:13I learned it to the point where I can't get it out.
00:59:16I love it.
00:59:16That's what you have to do though, right?
00:59:18Like otherwise.
00:59:19I mean, how do you learn something like that?
00:59:21These days?
00:59:22Well, I will say that that show, having to memorize 14 pages of medical jargon every night, five days a
00:59:28week, nine months a year,
00:59:29built a really great muscle for memorizing dialogue.
00:59:33Now, I run it a few times with my wife.
00:59:36I ask her to kind of help me be letter perfect so I can show up and show the kids
00:59:39that I'm professional.
00:59:41But for the most part, I credit building a muscle early and working it pretty consistently.
00:59:49All right.
00:59:49Does anyone else have a party check?
00:59:50If not, that was a perfect way to end.
00:59:52Oh, God.
00:59:53I don't think you can top that one.
00:59:54Yeah.
00:59:55I'm going to try.
00:59:56Cheap, cheap of you to...
00:59:58I think it was perfect.
01:00:00Cheers.
01:00:01Cheers.
01:00:04Cheers.
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