"James McAvoy"

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Speaker 1 Listener, this is Will.

Speaker 1 If you're hearing this,

Speaker 1 it means that something...

Speaker 1 something has happened which I feared for a long time.

Speaker 1 This might be the last time you ever hear my voice. And I know some of you are celebrating it that.

Speaker 1 But just know,

Speaker 1 just know that I loved every single one of you the same.

Speaker 1 You all mean so much more to me. And because, because I'm gone, just know that Sean and Jason don't give a shit about you.

Speaker 1 They literally said, I said to both of them, I said, do you guys know how much our listener means? And they said, I don't give two fucks about our listener.

Speaker 1 Jason said that as he slammed the door on his European car.

Speaker 1 Anyway, I love you. And welcome to an all-new Smart List.
Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 List.

Speaker 2 We had our family reunion.

Speaker 1 I didn't get in. Okay.

Speaker 3 Who's ready with their coffee chat? Let's hear it.

Speaker 1 How was it?

Speaker 1 I just got back.

Speaker 3 Did anybody drink into a fight?

Speaker 2 No, no, no, no. Nobody fought.
It was great. It was fantastic.
It was lovely.

Speaker 1 I called in. I got to say hi.
I got to meet some of the family. I got to meet his niece and her boyfriend.
He called in. I don't understand.

Speaker 2 FaceTime.

Speaker 1 I FaceTime with Sean. We keep in touch and say hello.
This is how normal human talks.

Speaker 3 We talk about this sometimes. What is it? Is it like a nightly thing? I've just been sort of teasing, but now I'm actually, I'm in my Fifies about it.
You guys talk every night? No. No.

Speaker 3 But you do with Josh. Fucking Josh Shotland gets you on a FaceTime every goddamn day.

Speaker 1 Who's Josh?

Speaker 3 Just this guy likes to talk on his FaceTime with Will on his couch without his top on.

Speaker 3 That's true. Yeah, and he frames himself just below the tees.

Speaker 1 That's true.

Speaker 2 Just below the tees. Yeah, it's weird.

Speaker 3 Does he still have plastic on his couch?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 3 Just when he talks to you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he only takes a break when the guy comes, the food delivery comes. He's always like, one second.

Speaker 1 Hey, so wait.

Speaker 3 So how often are you guys FaceTiming?

Speaker 1 A couple times a week, maybe.

Speaker 3 Higher. Go higher.
Higher while you lie to me.

Speaker 3 Is it every other night?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 No, no.

Speaker 3 See, another lie. You go super low or super high.
They're lying. No.
Lying.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 4 But this is fun for you guys.

Speaker 3 You guys stay in contact because you're best friends and you like to keep up on each other's lives and call into reunions and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 You know, I'm fucking sitting here doing nothing but watching.

Speaker 1 Okay, now what we're going to do is we're going to take the clip out of you for the last 10 seconds complaining about it.

Speaker 1 We're going to take your facial expression and your tone, and then we're going to ask you, would you call that guy? Yeah. It's a great point.

Speaker 3 Well, maybe just not FaceTime you so you don't have to see the heavy brow.

Speaker 1 I FaceTime with you. The last time I FaceTime with you last week and you were, you were on, do we want to get into this? You were on a floaty.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Does it pool time?

Speaker 3 Yeah. You know, I've remembered I have a pool.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, like

Speaker 1 you can enjoy. Sean, he was floating.
No, no. No, no, no.
How about this?

Speaker 2 Two weeks ago when I went to visit him, he was on a floaty in the pool at his house

Speaker 2 ordering sushi from the pool.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I like to live the good life every couple of days, you know? Way to go, JB.

Speaker 1 We're trying to get people to dissuade people from the opinion that we're coastal.

Speaker 1 Yeah, a bunch of dicks, total douchebags. And you just

Speaker 1 down at the Y. This is a public pool.

Speaker 2 But at Jason's defense, he picked up, he drove to pick up the sushi.

Speaker 1 No kidding. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Look at you, gross.

Speaker 3 You wanted to put it in my face quicker than Uber could bring me.

Speaker 1 Where did you, you didn't go to the place in Beverly Glenn, did you?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 3 No, this was a sugarfish special.

Speaker 1 Yummy. I love that.

Speaker 3 They make a nice box down there.

Speaker 1 They do.

Speaker 1 They do.

Speaker 3 Is it me or does the sushi delivery now, they've kind of upped things?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it used to be it didn't travel well. Right.

Speaker 3 Real slapdash thing with a sweaty, you know, plastic see-through box. Now it's, now it's a paper thing that's got nice printing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's got little sections on it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 All right. Let's get to the guest.

Speaker 1 JB, before you get to your, I know you're anxious. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We got to, let's remind

Speaker 1 afterwards to stick around and listen to, right, Sean, to our guests. Yes, it's called Goall goalless.

Speaker 2 It's a new show from Smartless Media, our little podcast company. And I'm going to tell you all about it at the end of the episode.
So please stick around.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 3 Tighten up, guest. Here we go.

Speaker 1 Guys,

Speaker 3 I don't know if you like acting talent.

Speaker 3 A lot of people do. For some reason, the three of us seem allergic to it being anywhere near our work.
But this guy has got a lot of it. And if we're nice to him, maybe he'll share some.

Speaker 3 He could also lend us a few of his numerous nominations and wins for his work, which he's been

Speaker 3 well, he's been, oh, God, still rolling, which he's received well-deserved recognition for from all over the world.

Speaker 3 Sean, you're going to want to discuss with him the whimsy and the wonder of projects such as The Chronicles of Narnia, X-Men, Children of Dune.

Speaker 3 While Will, you'll be more interested in the subjects covered in titles such as Shameless, Wanted, Filth, and Ultimately Atonement.

Speaker 3 He's a Scottish treasure, a Celtic FC diehard, and a recovering video game addict. Please show some compassion and hospitality to the one and only James McAvoy.

Speaker 1 Oh, James.

Speaker 4 Hey guys, what's going on?

Speaker 1 How are you doing? James. Look at him.

Speaker 2 I'm a massive, massive fan. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Pump the brakes.

Speaker 3 We're going to get to X-Men and things like that.

Speaker 2 And Split. Split is one of my favorite movie, one of the best performances I've ever seen anybody ever.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 You played like 75 characters in that.

Speaker 1 Let's start with high. Let's start with high, okay? Let's just start with high.
How are you nice to meet you? I've always wanted to meet you.

Speaker 3 You choke the puppy, Sean. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Hey, Will, do you have anything you'd like to say about Celtic FC? Or

Speaker 3 do they mess around with your Liverpool fans?

Speaker 1 No, they don't because they play in a different league, first of all. Don't be shitty.
So if I were a Rangers fan, then

Speaker 1 we'd have more of an issue.

Speaker 1 But I will say one of my favorite players plays for Liverpool happens to be a Scott, Andy Robertson, who I just adore.

Speaker 4 Sure. He's amazing.
And also one of the greatest Liverpool players of all time. Kenny Dougleash, not to mention Graham Sunas, but Kenny Dougleish was also a massive, massive

Speaker 4 icon for Celtic as well.

Speaker 1 So Kenny Dougleash, I had the pleasure last year. I bored these guys when I went on my various trips over to Liverpool, and I got to sit with Kenny Dagleish.

Speaker 1 I got to sit with him.

Speaker 1 First of all, the last game I went to, when I went to Jürgen's second last game, he was behind me with his wife.

Speaker 1 Jimmy, you watch your manners. You're talking about certain things.

Speaker 3 I'm just working on fake snoring.

Speaker 1 That's alright. It sounds so real.
This is, you are, honestly,

Speaker 1 you're you're about to make millions of enemies right now.

Speaker 3 No, listen, I love the shit.

Speaker 1 Show some fucking respect to Sir Kenny Dogleash. The stand up opposite says the Sir Kenneth Dogleash stands at Liverpool, and he's sitting there looking at his own stand.

Speaker 1 He's a fucking icon, dude.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I know. He's brilliant.
He's really, really amazing.

Speaker 4 He's famously dour, but I was lucky enough to be managed by him at a charity football event once.

Speaker 4 And I spent like three or four days with him during this time Sean was managed by a dog leash at one point in your career

Speaker 1 right

Speaker 1 you guys just a couple just a couple tugs and I'm yours

Speaker 1 I love an easy leg

Speaker 1 and I'm sorry James thanks for joining us I'm gonna leave

Speaker 4 guys thanks very much

Speaker 4 I've loved this has been like the real middle point of my career. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Fucking fuck.

Speaker 2 Does anybody call you Jim or Jimmy?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 I don't get Jim too much. There's one guy who brilliantly is also, not brilliantly, he is Scottish, but he rather brilliantly calls me,

Speaker 4 he's called Jockey and he calls me Jockey. And a couple of mates call me Jimmy Floyd.

Speaker 1 Wait, Jockey? Wait, they call it.

Speaker 3 Wait, where does Jockey come from?

Speaker 4 I don't know where Jockey comes from. Jock is also rhyming slang for Scottish person because it's sweaty sock jock.

Speaker 1 Oh really?

Speaker 3 Go back to sweaty sock.

Speaker 4 If you're a sweaty, if you're a sweaty sock in England, if you're like a Cockney and you're referring to Scottish people, you say sweaty sock because it rhymes with jock.

Speaker 4 But he was called Jockey and then for some reason he would call me Jockey but then most of my mates would call me Jimmy Floyd.

Speaker 1 How about that? And where does that come from?

Speaker 1 Wait, where does Floyd come from?

Speaker 4 Two of my favourite football players.

Speaker 4 One of them was Henrik Larson. His name didn't become anything to do with mine.
The other one was Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank. And so they used to call me Jimmy.

Speaker 4 And then they started to call me Jimmy Floyd. And then they just dropped the Jimmy, and most of them just call me Floyd.
And then I've got one mate who's from Newcastle who calls me Jimmy Flow.

Speaker 1 Jimmy Flow. Jimmy Flau Houseboy.
Nobody calls me shit. How come?

Speaker 3 I don't have a nickname, do I?

Speaker 4 Well, listen, by the end of this podcast, we're going to have a nickname.

Speaker 1 Frank Uncle Grumps.

Speaker 1 Uncle Hansie. Yeah.
Uncle Hansie.

Speaker 1 Bitch flap. Wait, James.

Speaker 3 James, I have a feeling by the end of this interview, we're going to have nicknames for each other.

Speaker 3 I feel like we've got a real, a real quick connection right here. Not with the other guys.

Speaker 1 No. Just me.
James McAvoy, what beverage are you enjoying right now? Because it's got a lot of ice in it, which I enjoy.

Speaker 4 It's soda, water, and lime. right now.
I did have a Cosmo right before we started this.

Speaker 2 No, you did not. Did you?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I did. I had a Cosmo.
I love that. Where are you right now?

Speaker 4 I'm in my basement.

Speaker 1 But where?

Speaker 4 Ran back here.

Speaker 4 In North London.

Speaker 2 In North London.

Speaker 1 Fantastic. Wow, it looks fancy.
I want to live in North London. I know.
Look at it. He's just having a little Cosmo and he's got his face.
He's a painted wall behind him.

Speaker 2 Like a Hawaiian shirt on.

Speaker 4 This is my basement. This is my little man cave.
I don't like that term, but it is like my little place that I get to come and be. And I've got a little sort of wanker gem over there.
And I've got

Speaker 1 a TV in front of me.

Speaker 1 We're going to let you

Speaker 4 know it's where I get stronger as a wanker.

Speaker 4 I really work in my technique. I like try and make it harder for myself.
Sometimes I put weights on my hands.

Speaker 1 Sure. But yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, you know, I would say that you operate this very unique space where you are such a great actor and you've, but you've managed to kind of create, you, you kind of stay out of any category.

Speaker 1 You've, you, you're very unique.

Speaker 1 Like you've just, I don't know, you've got this kind of patina about you that's very fucking, I remember the first time I was like wow this guy is amazing I was watching it was Last King of Scotland which was years ago I know fantastic fucking phenomenal film dude and I was like who the fuck is this guy yeah

Speaker 1 this guy's a fuck it right and then you've just every time I see you kind of carve out these different little niches for yourself and you stay I don't know you've got your own lane that you've created which is really admirable because a lot of people

Speaker 1 kind of go into a kind of a cookie cutter thing. Is that something you're conscious of? You're constantly going, fuck, I want to do something a little bit different.
I want to be over here.

Speaker 1 I want to go over here.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, definitely. I'm look 100%.

Speaker 4 I've been really lucky not to just have to play the same kind of thing again and again and again. Although, literally, I have been looking at my fucking career.
And literally, I've been, I've been.

Speaker 3 I'm going to want you to lay down right through this part and just elevate your head.

Speaker 1 And just tell us what you're feeling.

Speaker 4 Well, you know, I am in my wanker gym, which is where I think about myself in my career. Um, generally, whilst looking at myself in that mirror over there, um, wait, no, keep going.

Speaker 2 You were thinking about your career and what?

Speaker 4 No, I think about my career, and I'm thinking and talking about actors that I love and respect whilst doing press junkets for this movie that I've got coming out.

Speaker 2 Speak no evil, sure. It looks so good.

Speaker 3 I think it's out now.

Speaker 1 It's out now, it's out now.

Speaker 4 And so many of the actors that I respect and admire, and it I wouldn't say emulate because I don't try to emulate anyone.

Speaker 4 I are actors who have have repeatedly kind of done the same thing.

Speaker 4 And even if they're playing a character who's a person who's in a different situation or a different scenario, which means the same thing,

Speaker 4 they're kind of the same guy and everything. And yet, I don't disrespect them for that.
And yet, I've spent my whole career trying to go, like, I'm going to be this guy. No, I'm going to be this guy.

Speaker 1 No, I'm going to be this guy.

Speaker 4 And then, luckily, in Split and then Glass, I got to do many guys all in one, some women as well.

Speaker 4 So it kind of makes me call into question like the fucking point of playing all these different characters when all the actors I really love are like a tight.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's a really, really good point. Because

Speaker 3 I am also a big fan of actors that, I mean, I really respect character actors that like yourself or like a Daniel Day-Lewis or something that can really morph into somebody completely different with the limp and the

Speaker 3 thing and the whole. It's all like the limp.

Speaker 3 But I really respect an actor that

Speaker 3 can

Speaker 3 be comfortable with just disappearing and not doing anything except just

Speaker 3 excuse the term, story, servicing the story and just not doing any sort of performance. Do you know what I mean? Like that takes a lot of talent too.

Speaker 3 And I love those actors.

Speaker 4 Do you know what it is?

Speaker 4 Listen, I can put it down to a turning point in my career. Let's go, guys.

Speaker 2 The interview starts now.

Speaker 1 Guys, about to get fucked up.

Speaker 4 Profound. Let's go.
I've definitely got an erection.

Speaker 1 We're not really talking until you say the words my and career next to each other.

Speaker 4 I did a film when I was in my mid to late 20s that was, I can't really say what film it is because I'm going to end up slagging off at the person that I'm talking about.

Speaker 4 But slagging off means bad mouthing.

Speaker 4 Translated for you colonials.

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 it was a great success, and

Speaker 4 everything everything went great. And we got award-nominated, and we were like, we made loads of money, and all that.

Speaker 4 Like, a year and a half, two years later, he comes back to me, and he's like, dude, I want you to do this film with me. It's based on a book.

Speaker 4 And I read the book, and I'm like, I love this character, it's amazing. I get the script, I read the script, and they've chopped the balls off the character completely.
And

Speaker 4 this incredibly dynamic, fucking diverse, like, like

Speaker 4 acting character

Speaker 4 that is in the book is just this guy who's like, Hello, right, how are you?

Speaker 4 Yeah, dough-eyed and cries a lot, and like, yeah, like does a lot of silent acting, does a lot of movie acting, do you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, yeah, which I'd done previously with this director to create again, to great acclaim and all that kind of stuff. It was good for me, and um, and we had a chat about it.

Speaker 4 And I said, Well, look, I don't think it's we've really captured who he is in the book and stuff. And we had, we kind of fell out, we kind of had a bit of a tete-a-tete, right?

Speaker 4 And um, he goes, he goes, Oh no, I get it, you want to do acting.

Speaker 4 Oh, boy, oh, and I was like, That was that kind of made my decision for me because inside i didn't say this to him but inside i was like do you know what mate yes i do right so and but

Speaker 4 then i have this moment at 45 going like why are all the actors i really admire not doing any acting and i'm out here going like look at my lip look at my lip yeah yeah look at my accent and um but i'm I like telling the story on purpose.

Speaker 4 I get pissed off doing movie acting. I don't enjoy it.
And yet I do get to watch other actors do movie acting, and I go, Fuck, that's brilliant!

Speaker 2 It's like, yeah, but I mean, as long as it's you know, not to oversimplify it, but as long as it's real and it comes from a real place, who cares about any of it?

Speaker 3 It's like, you know, yeah, and James, when you say movie acting, you're talking about smaller, sort of leading man stuff, right?

Speaker 1 Where you're just talking about like

Speaker 1 right,

Speaker 1 oh, yeah, acting, face acting.

Speaker 4 Yeah,

Speaker 4 sometimes it's great, like sometimes I can watch something and go, that's full, that is real, and I'm like, I'm there for it. Um,

Speaker 4 but nothing acting sometimes it winds me up so much.

Speaker 1 I'm with you. Um,

Speaker 4 and I want to watch somebody give something.

Speaker 4 Like, I personally believe that the origins of performance and the orange of performance art, the orange, the orange of performance art is, um, is in an orchard in Sicily.

Speaker 4 And I think the origin of performance art comes from fucking human sacrifice.

Speaker 4 It comes from sacrificing a goat or sacrificing a baby or sacrificing a person and a bunch of people people watching it going, please let it rain this year. And that's the origin of theater.

Speaker 4 That's the origin of, and the person that's up there getting sacrificed, turned into performers, sweating blood, sacrificing something of themselves, whether that's literally their health, their blood, their dignity, their sexuality, their

Speaker 4 humanity, whatever it is that you're sacrificing when you're on stage or on screen, you've got to leave something up there.

Speaker 1 You've got to work.

Speaker 4 I want to see somebody sweat blood. That's not for everybody.
Some people want to watch an actor just go like that. Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
James. And put music over it.

Speaker 1 What kind of mushrooms are you on? Because

Speaker 3 And we will be right back

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Speaker 1 No, no, no. I think there's a a lot of truth to what you said.
And, you know, it's funny when you were describing that experience working on that film and you said, yeah, it did well.

Speaker 1 We got all the awards. And then

Speaker 1 we made lots of money. And I was thinking about, and I don't mean to get too, too heady about this, but as you said it, it struck to me as like, isn't it funny doing this thing that you do?

Speaker 1 That one of the marks of success is if you go to go and do it, to create art, if you will, is how much fucking money it made. And at the end of, and maybe I'm getting old right in this moment.

Speaker 1 it just occurred to me for some reason it really hit me like

Speaker 1 imagine that that's a measure of how good something is is how much money it made and that all these people and all of us me included consider what we do to be successful depending upon whether or not it made any fucking money yeah i'm not even railing against the system i'm just saying that isn't it funny like sometimes it hits you in in different times you think like wow isn't that fucking here's my spin on it because

Speaker 4 which is maybe it sounds like I'm trying to backtrack and justify and reverse engineer something that makes me sound like I've got more integrity.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 4 I think

Speaker 4 that I do what I do and I

Speaker 4 put myself out there for criticism. And

Speaker 4 even if it's a successful piece, like not everybody likes it. And you take fucking crazy criticism, even in the stuff that people said was good.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 what it means when you make some money is that, fuck, people actually went to see it and we found an audience and we communicated and we managed to communicate with people because that's all it is, isn't it?

Speaker 4 Art is just about communication.

Speaker 4 Sometimes we say when we're making art, people go like, oh, then they go, they're talking about art.

Speaker 4 What it means is we're trying to communicate. Art is an attempt to communicate.
And if you've made some money, what it really means is you managed to communicate. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You managed to find.

Speaker 4 Instead of this nebulous thing where it's like, yeah, I got this movie on a website at the moment.

Speaker 4 It's doing great yeah 4.5 people have seen it worldwide and it's fucking it's out there and you're like that's even you could make a great piece of art but nobody saw it so you didn't get to communicate and that is something that's becoming harder and harder to do in the cinemas maybe it's easier to do it in the streamers but it's also like the streamers are like this this like kaleidoscope of whirlpools that you're getting pulled into and each whirlpool has a thousand things in it that the algorithm helps you watch.

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 1 I think that's fair. I think that's fair.
I think that's really fair.

Speaker 1 It's a marker of

Speaker 1 how many people you were able to connect with, I suppose. And that makes sense.

Speaker 1 How did you get into this game? What was the thing? Did you come by it honestly? Did you have parents in the arts, or was it just on your own? I grew up in

Speaker 4 a council estate in Glasgow called Drum Chapel. Council Estate is something you guys call,

Speaker 4 not schemes, projects.

Speaker 1 projects.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 I was in high school, I was about 15, 16. We were doing Macbeth in English.
My English teacher knew a director and an actor who had done Macbeth in the 70s and he came in and talked to us.

Speaker 4 I recognized him immediately because

Speaker 4 he was like a movie actor. He'd done like movies with Chris O'Donnell.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I was like, I've seen you in Vertical Limit. You're like the bad guy in Vertical Limit with fucking Chris O'Fucking Donnell.

Speaker 4 And I was like, wow and then i was like i've also seen you in a film with arnold schwarzenegger and um

Speaker 4 he was pretty cool he took a lot of from some of the guys in the class um and at the end of it i just went up and i said listen i'm sorry about that thank you very much for coming if you were making a movie again because he was a film director Would you please consider letting me come and making tea or coffee for you?

Speaker 4 Wow. And for a week or something like that.
And he called back months later and he was like, is that kid still there? Send him to the production office.

Speaker 4 He was making this movie about child prostitution and pornography in Glasgow. Wow.
And he was like, Here's the script, read it. And I read it.
And he went, Come in here.

Speaker 4 Can you try and play Kevin? This young guy called Kevin Savage. And he was like, Can you make yourself cry? And I'd never done any acting at this point.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 4 And I got the part. And by we left the room, and he was like, We found the guy.
This is him. And do you know what's really weird, right? There was a TV show called Streetwise.
Streetwise.

Speaker 4 It was a kid's show. And it was about

Speaker 4 mountain bike couriers in London that were led by a saxophone playing Andy Serkis, right?

Speaker 1 No way. I loved it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, man. And I loved it as a kid show.
And I loved it. They were like crime-fighting mountain bike couriers.
And

Speaker 4 it was brilliant. And he played the saxophone.
And I was like, that's Andy Serkis. He was walking into the production office.
And Andy was playing a Glaswegian pimp with dreadlocks. And

Speaker 4 my first bet of being a professional actor was literally being told you're going to play the part. And then I walked out, and Andy Serkis went, Are you actually from Glasgow?

Speaker 4 Are you like the real deal, like from a council estate or whatever? And I was like, Yeah, man. He was like, Great, come sit with me.
And he was like recording me and recording my voice.

Speaker 4 And I was teaching Andy fucking circus

Speaker 1 from Streetwise. I would do my for my sister.

Speaker 2 For my sister, Tracy in Wisconsin, Andy Serkis is Gollum and Lord of the Rings. He was Planet of the Apes.

Speaker 1 He's a great character actor, also great director, incredible guy.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Just a good guy.

Speaker 3 Who was the director of this film, the child prostitution, that discovered you?

Speaker 4 It was a movie called The Near Room. It was a reference to

Speaker 4 Muhammad Ali quote talking about the space that he would go, I think, before a fight where the alligators play trombones.

Speaker 4 And it was a guy called David Heyman, not to be confused with the producer who does Harry Potter and since then, many, many things.

Speaker 4 But Scottish actor, director, philanthropist, and a really good, really good actor. But I'd said to him, and I was not that good in the film.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 4 I've said publicly quite a few times, like, I'd love to pay him back. I'd love to be in something for him.

Speaker 1 And he sent me something one day, and I was like, I don't think it's quite right for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right.
There's not enough acting in it.

Speaker 2 So, so from that point on, and then as you kind of built this career for yourself over many, many years, and you just kind kind of kept going up and up and up and up and up and more

Speaker 2 and bigger projects projects that have more uh recognition and audiences are grew and everything is there something that you learned that was so valuable that you

Speaker 2 that you can share because i think you know i look back when i was a young when i was a young actor and i'm like i wish somebody would have told me blank a b and c and then you get older and you look back and you wish there's no nobody pulls you aside and said this is how the business works this is how this is what you should be looking for like i wish somebody would have told me you know camera last 10 pounds or something like that

Speaker 2 or just the business side of it too

Speaker 3 must have been driving over a canyon when you got that note

Speaker 1 you know what Sean must be using two cameras right now then

Speaker 1 oh my fuck

Speaker 1 you guys you guys are harsh

Speaker 4 you guys are friends right

Speaker 1 you guys like each other and shit right just met we're very old friends

Speaker 3 Well, but James, so you didn't really kind of start this super passionate about it. Like, this wasn't, it wasn't your plan really to be an actor at the gate, right?

Speaker 1 Was it,

Speaker 3 weren't you going to maybe be a priest at one point? Or is that just a Wikipedia lie?

Speaker 1 No way.

Speaker 1 Deep research here.

Speaker 4 It's a lie that I've told in many interviews.

Speaker 4 Really? No, it's, yeah, just to try and make myself sound like I'm the kind of guy you want to corrupt and attract people to me.

Speaker 4 No,

Speaker 4 I considered being a very specific kind of priest, not a handsy one for a start.

Speaker 2 Then I'm out.

Speaker 1 We just lost Sean.

Speaker 4 I thought being a missionary sounded kind of cool because you get to go to far-flung places and do far-flung things and have a great time.

Speaker 4 I then started to finally find a little bit of luck with the opposite sex. Around about 15 and 16, I went, I am not

Speaker 4 selling my sexuality to God for the rest of my life. So it's Catholicism, wasn't it? So that took me out of that.
I was going to join the Navy at one point, and

Speaker 4 then I was going to go to university. And then I thought, listen, I did this acting thing when I was 16.
I'll try it for an acting school, the one acting school in my town, in my city.

Speaker 4 And I luckily got in.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 3 is this the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama?

Speaker 4 Formerly known as, now known as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Speaker 3 And this is this, you don't just pay $10 and get in to that place.

Speaker 1 This is a very, very proud thing.

Speaker 4 I come from a country with a proud history of socialist democracy. So luckily, I was the last,

Speaker 4 I think I was the last year to have their tuition completely paid for them.

Speaker 3 But still, it ain't some swinging door there.

Speaker 1 This is a high-end institution. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 It was kind of, it was, I guess it was tough to get in. I was really, I was lucky I got in at my first try.

Speaker 4 If I hadn't got in at my first try, I might have gone off and done one of those other things, you you know.

Speaker 4 But listen, to answer your question, Sean, I would say there's a couple of things that I would pass on. One is try and be more American in terms of what you do as an actor.

Speaker 4 Try and create your own work. Because you guys, I don't, we, I think it's changing now, but me coming up, it felt like us as young actors, it was like you're a hired gun.

Speaker 4 You're like a carpenter that's hired in. Right.
And you guys, when I met you guys,

Speaker 4 you guys, when I met you guys back in like 2003 when I first started coming to America I was like whoa whoa whoa wait you're like you've got two editions a month and you've got a production company and you've written four scripts and you're like

Speaker 4 how do you do this like what do you mean you got development deal with who I was like what I could not believe but it's also grown up within an industry that is actually an industry whereas in Britain it's a little bit we feel lucky to be here and we feel lucky to get to do this secret thing that like fairies and elves get to do and it feels a bit more like a cottage industry yeah i guess that's kind of what i meant a little bit was like do you do like

Speaker 2 you know being an actor is plenty you know there's a lot of work that goes with that yeah but as to your point a lot of people are realizing the industry is changing you kind of have to be all things in order to you have to kind of cultivate your own work for yourself and so i just didn't know if that was something that you're doing now like are you delving into other aspects directing producing writing anything like that?

Speaker 4 I'm directing at the moment. I'm about to go into prep for my first film in the 26th of August.

Speaker 1 It's really exciting.

Speaker 4 Which is really exciting.

Speaker 4 But I don't want to produce. I don't want to write.
I don't want to do those things. I've done those things in the past and I did not find it to be my wheelhouse.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 What's drawing you to the directing?

Speaker 4 Control, power, abuse of it.

Speaker 1 Not the paycheck.

Speaker 1 Not the paycheck.

Speaker 4 Do you know what? I've been looking to tell stories about my own country for a long, long time. And every single story I got sent was like gritty Scottish drama.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 About drugs and the kind of neighborhoods I grew up in.

Speaker 2 Transpotting. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 But actually, transporting would be okay because that was

Speaker 4 an incredibly beautiful,

Speaker 4 artistic way to tell stories about people who have no opportunities. But

Speaker 4 likewise, this is a true story about... I just burped on camera really loud.

Speaker 1 Did you guys hear this?

Speaker 3 Do not cut. I can smell it.

Speaker 2 It's only audio. It's only audio.

Speaker 4 Audio smells.

Speaker 4 Do you want me to tell you what it's about?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, please.

Speaker 4 It's not going to be out for like 14 years. So don't worry.

Speaker 3 Are you in it or are you just going to direct it?

Speaker 4 I need to be in it. I need to be in it to get it blended.

Speaker 4 It's about a true story about two rappers from Dundee who rapped about Scottish things and their Scottish accent. They came down to London in the early 2000s and they did an audition for Sony.

Speaker 4 They literally got laughed out of the room, even though they were were awesome and they came back like a year later they'd re-recorded all their demos and all their backing tracks with American accents and they pretended to be these two um skater dudes from from Hemet in California yeah and

Speaker 4 they got a record deal from the same label That day oh my god for 35 grand and they got housed and they got given a studio and they got an AR rep and for two and a half years they pretended to be 24 7 like even when they were alone together, they pretended to be these two dudes called Simple and Brains.

Speaker 4 Wow. And

Speaker 4 they nearly made it.

Speaker 1 They nearly made it.

Speaker 4 It's an incredible story.

Speaker 4 But yeah, so

Speaker 4 that's the film we're making.

Speaker 1 That's pretty, very exciting.

Speaker 4 It's called California Scheming.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's so good. Wait, who's doing it with you?

Speaker 4 It's just me on my own with my camcorder.

Speaker 1 And a mirror.

Speaker 4 I'm going to shoot it on my iPhone in my basement. I'm really excited.

Speaker 4 We're independent at the moment. Studio Canal are involved.
Screen Scotland are involved.

Speaker 1 No, but I mean, it's two guys. It's you're one of the guys, and who's your guy?

Speaker 4 I ain't one of the guys. I'm too old.
These guys were like 19, 20.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm saying. Well, Will, you can hang on.

Speaker 3 I don't know where Will's going with this. Will, you got a pretty high, you know, low range there.
You can play just a little bit.

Speaker 1 Can you

Speaker 3 give us just a little bit of rapping, Will?

Speaker 2 Yes, and Scotland, and Scottish.

Speaker 1 No, no, no, they're American. Yeah, they're American, so you're perfect.
Oh, listen to James's story much? Fucking

Speaker 1 all right. So I will

Speaker 1 throw us an opportunity

Speaker 3 Now, James, what about now this film? Oh, he's rapping.

Speaker 1 Go ahead.

Speaker 3 This film that you're going to be directing, the role that you're going to be playing in it, is it a role that is going to,

Speaker 3 that is appropriate for you to do sort of character type acting, or is it a a role that would be more appropriate if you were to do that level of acting? Would you be overplaying the part?

Speaker 3 Or do you just need to just be a guy?

Speaker 1 Or can we see some good hard looks? Will you just throw a bunch of hard looks?

Speaker 4 I think there's going to be some hard looks. There's going to be some

Speaker 1 smoke out there. Hard looks.

Speaker 4 I think it just requires me to be kind of me.

Speaker 4 But I might get nervous and at the last minute throwing a limp.

Speaker 3 Or just have the guy have a cold the whole movie.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea.

Speaker 4 He's got to be Scottish.

Speaker 1 Can I make a suggestion? First of all, the hard looks are good, so I don't want to eat into them because you do them really, really well.

Speaker 1 Have you thought about an eye patch?

Speaker 1 Hey, this is the thing.

Speaker 4 If I internalize the eye patch, you will see the eye patch.

Speaker 2 I want to talk about, wait, first of all, I know probably everybody comes up to you and says how brilliant you were and split, but I just thought it was, I thought it was like, you should have won an Academy Award.

Speaker 2 Like it was incredible performance.

Speaker 2 And tell me,

Speaker 2 you played all these different characters because the guy was a fucking serial person.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 also these different accents and different characters. And you buy each and every one of them.
Like to your point,

Speaker 2 they were all real. They were all very real.
So tell me about the process and were you scared to do that many different kind of people?

Speaker 4 I was not scared. I got that job pretty last minute

Speaker 4 because it was meant to be Wacky and Phoenix. Oh, really? Excuse me, I just burped again.
I'm drinking fizzy water, guys.

Speaker 4 It's all I drink. It's all I drink.

Speaker 4 Wacky and Phoenix was supposed to do it because he had a relationship with M. Night Shyamalan from like signs.
And was he in the village as well? I think he's in the village, isn't he? Yeah. And

Speaker 4 then, I don't know what happened, but like two weeks before they started shooting, he read the script or something. I went, I don't want to do this.
and for whatever reason, he fell out.

Speaker 4 And so, I get the call saying, Hey, do you want to read this? It's super secret, you've got to read it and then, like, give it back. And I was like, Cool.

Speaker 4 And they were saying it's Em Night Shamalan, and I've been a fan of loads of his films. And I was like, Definitely.

Speaker 4 It came to me, and I thought, this has got the potential to be really good. Like, it could also go off a cliff and be really bad.

Speaker 4 But I think that's the case with most really interesting or fun things.

Speaker 4 They could go either way. That's not a criticism of his material there, by the way.

Speaker 4 But yeah, it was a lot of characters, it was a lot of work, but it was well written. And I thought, it's good, hard work.

Speaker 4 And as long as I've got enough time to come up with this, we can figure it out. But it was down to the wire trying to find all the characterizations.
The last one we found was at the table read.

Speaker 4 Fuck, like Jason Blum had flown in, and like people for Universal have flown into Philly where we made the film. And

Speaker 4 I'm doing this table read going, like, we haven't really found the character Hedwig. and at the last minute

Speaker 1 he modeled it after Blum

Speaker 1 I just drove around LA in a van all the time

Speaker 1 I just want to say to Blum you finally made it onto the podcast you know what I mean

Speaker 1 he's listening he's listening he's in the queue he's coming in

Speaker 1 very much like we love him soon we're gonna bring him on we hope he's good man he's cool I think their company do good things for Tracy Jason Blum is blum house of blumhouse pictures all day and he does also he also does drive around LA in a van so Jason writes about it.

Speaker 1 He does.

Speaker 3 Yeah, a plumbing van. But this new film is a Blumhouse as well, right? Speak No Evil?

Speaker 4 This new film is a Blumhouse as well. And it does.
Blumhouse does so well.

Speaker 2 The trailer looks great.

Speaker 1 I think so, too. We love him.
We are going to have him on. But I wait, I want to hear.
So you're there. You haven't found the last thing.
You're at the table reading.

Speaker 1 It's like fucking down to the wire.

Speaker 2 It's down to the wire.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 the

Speaker 4 director Knight goes, listen, I think for the character of Hedwig, the kid in the movie, he's like, I think you should do it with like a sibilant S. And I'm like, like a lisp?

Speaker 4 He's like, we say sibilant S. And I was like, all right, cool, I'll do it with a sibilant lisp.
And

Speaker 4 I'm like, what?

Speaker 1 I'm just going to throw this in to the table read. I was like,

Speaker 1 are you kidding? Oh, fuck. Okay.

Speaker 4 And then within seconds of doing it, I was like, this was a good call.

Speaker 4 And suddenly the whole character came together.

Speaker 4 But no, look,

Speaker 4 it was a lot of heavy lifting that job. But like, if you can lift it, then it's a good lift.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm speaking like I'm a total broke.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but again, for Tracy,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 3 when you shoot a movie, it's all out of order. You're not, you're, you're not like taking care.
You do one character and then you're done.

Speaker 3 And then in James's case, you do another character and then you're done. You're, so you're probably playing what, sometimes three or four different characters on the same day, right?

Speaker 1 And, and, and,

Speaker 3 and would you agree that you know, you seem to be the kind of kind of real actor that will find the version of each character inside you um and and if that if that is true then when you're playing in a movie where you're playing multiple characters and basically you know going through schizophrenia does it ever become super taxing on yourself to explore all those different parts of yourselves and try and try to try to be as authentic and as believable as possible and it sort of like triggers and brings these characters up in you and you don't know who the hell you are then when you go home or are you just doing a lisp?

Speaker 1 I'm just.

Speaker 1 You see me, man.

Speaker 1 You see me.

Speaker 4 I think there's only really been one time in my career where I brought it home. Actually, there's maybe three times in my career where I brought it home.

Speaker 4 But I do like what you just said. It is always me.
It doesn't matter how weird it is or how wacky it looks or how different it seems from my personality.

Speaker 1 It's always me.

Speaker 4 There's no becoming the character. it's always me.
There's always some version of yourself, you know. I mean, that's all you have to give.

Speaker 4 And if you, if some other actor says, but no, I actually do transform into someone else, like, I'm cool with that. I'll believe them too.

Speaker 4 But for me, it's just all you have is your own tool, your own body.

Speaker 4 But the only jobs that I brought at home were Macbeth, because it was all about losing children for me, and that just the whole of Macbeth,

Speaker 4 I was apparently not an easy person to live with when I did Macbeth. And then,

Speaker 4 and then, whenever I've played a victim, I've played a victim kind of twice now, maybe in a Danny Boyle movie called Trance, and then a movie that I just made in Germany.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 4 I just felt awful about myself because I was such a victim of circumstance in other people's control. I did not enjoy that experience.
And that's the only times that I've ever brought it home with me.

Speaker 1 Those three. Wow.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 3 All right, back to the show.

Speaker 2 Now, in this trailer for Speak No Evil, you, by the way, you look huge. Like you were, like, did you go to the gym like just for this part?

Speaker 3 Cool it, Sean.

Speaker 1 I'm just asking.

Speaker 4 I'm like six foot four. It's on my IMDB page.
I'm like bigger than she jackman.

Speaker 1 Are you really six's four? No,

Speaker 1 I'm five seven. I'm five.
Oh, are you? Are you? By the way, Sean, you said it. I just want to say it should be noted because it's to be fair, you said that you always often bring it home from a movie.

Speaker 1 Sure. Sorry, by it, I mean craft service, right? You usually

Speaker 1 bring a lot of it home with you, don't you? Just bags. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wait,

Speaker 2 I just came home back from a family reunion. There's all this extra food there.
And it's just like, there was like a bag of donuts. I grabbed those.
I grabbed a couple other things.

Speaker 1 Did you really? Yeah.

Speaker 2 But there's all this extra food, and I felt so bad to get out of it.

Speaker 1 What's that image of you, Sean Hayes, with a bag, bringing a bag of donuts onto a plate? Hugging everybody goodbye with you slinging the bag over their back while you hug them all.

Speaker 4 Hollywood bad boy steals donuts from people.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you can even get it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, powdered sugar just on people's

Speaker 1 bad boy.

Speaker 2 No way. You do.
You do look so buff in that trailer. It's like crazy.
You look like you worked out crazy.

Speaker 4 Do you know what? I didn't do it for the movie.

Speaker 4 I just did it for the fun.

Speaker 4 I did it because we were in the lockdown. We were in pandemic land.
Yeah, yeah. And I just had my second child.
And I was like, do you know what?

Speaker 4 I can't let having a child again stop me from exercising for three years. So I was like, I'm going to double down.
And I started eating crazy amounts of food and lifting crazy heavy weight.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 two years later, this script came along and it was like, oh, perfect.

Speaker 1 This works.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 Let's talk about when you decide to toggle between

Speaker 3 mediums, when you go between theater and film.

Speaker 3 Because you've done an incredible amount of very prestigious theater work. And I would imagine that's very, very rewarding to you.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 But you also have to pay the bills. And you're a big movie star and you probably enjoy doing that stuff too.
So how do you decide between, is there a rhythm you like to maintain or is it just kind of

Speaker 3 job to job kind of thing?

Speaker 1 Rhythm

Speaker 4 is a dancer.

Speaker 1 It's speaking my language. Honestly, wonderful.
Wait, wait, let's try to get some music in right here. That was wonderful.
That was wonderful.

Speaker 4 Rhythm, I don't know if there's rhythm.

Speaker 4 My agent, Ruth Young, who I've been with since I was 20,

Speaker 4 always says do one for them, do one for yourself. And it ends up being more a little bit like do like four for them and do one for yourself.

Speaker 4 If I come back and I manage to get to do theatre, it has generally over the last 15 years been with Jamie Lloyd, the same director, again and again and again.

Speaker 4 And the biggest thing with theatre for me is it's a risk because it's the most exposing thing you can do as an actor.

Speaker 4 And you have to go up and sacrifice something every single night. And if it's shit, you're sacrificing and it's like going down like a cup of cold sick.

Speaker 4 And the audience are sitting there literally going like

Speaker 4 or they're asleep right and you can fucking see it and that kills man that hurts so it's the rest whereas you make a movie like the audience experience of that is like time traveling a year and a half in the future and you're not even there like

Speaker 4 you can get back and you get paid like way better and

Speaker 3 it's a different thing but it's not it doesn't have the creative fulfillment for you does it

Speaker 4 it does they both have the creative fulfillment but if i was going to be in a bad play or a bad movie i'd rather be in in a bad play.

Speaker 4 If I was going to be in a good play or a good movie, I'd rather be in a good play.

Speaker 3 What about the time that it takes,

Speaker 3 the commitment you have to make ahead of time to commit to that play, rehearse, put it up, and you can't leave until it's done? Like,

Speaker 3 how many really killer jobs have you missed because you've committed to a play and you're like, oh, fuck.

Speaker 3 Had no way of knowing that script is coming.

Speaker 4 Not many,

Speaker 4 actually.

Speaker 4 I've missed some killer jobs because I didn't get them.

Speaker 4 And I've missed,

Speaker 4 but then your career pans out differently and you're glad you didn't get it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Everything happens.

Speaker 3 Is there one job that you're comfortable telling us that you wish you would have gotten?

Speaker 1 Yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 Totally.

Speaker 4 Deep throat. No, I.

Speaker 1 Good night, Oscar. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The Broadway show with Sean Hayes. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 So I went up for Pirates of the Caribbean

Speaker 4 when I was Nazobide.

Speaker 3 This is Orlando Bloom's part?

Speaker 4 Orlando ended up getting it. It was me.
I think I remember. It was a guy called Paul Nichols

Speaker 4 and Orlando and someone else. And I don't even think Orlando was auditioning, actually.
I think he was off in Middle-earth doing those movies with Peter Jackson.

Speaker 4 And it was me and these two other guys who were.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that's where it was. Yeah,

Speaker 3 I believe it was the

Speaker 1 second film in the

Speaker 1 point they were in Middle-earth, of course, but

Speaker 1 you know, the precious.

Speaker 4 I believe they were in the land of Mordor where the shadows lie. Yeah, Mordor.

Speaker 1 Mordor. Mordor.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I went and screened camera test that. I felt like I think I got really close to it.
I ended up having to do this camera test with Kira Knightley, who I later ended up doing atonement with.

Speaker 4 Anyway, got real close to it, and then it never happened.

Speaker 4 But that was one that I was like, I would get to go to like sunny places and be on ships and dress, dress like with a wig on and like shoot like guns that have powder that come out of them because they're muskets, man.

Speaker 1 And like, like, oh, Johnny Depp ended up being in it.

Speaker 4 And Kira was amazing.

Speaker 1 It was, it was.

Speaker 3 And there were like five of them, right?

Speaker 4 So there were like 15 of them. And I was,

Speaker 4 I was, I was kind of gutted about that one that I never.

Speaker 4 But then my career went a different way. And I was so happy with how my career went that I was very philosophical about it and like totally fine with it.

Speaker 4 But at the time, for about a year, I was like, Man, the one that got away, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah, there is one more I could tell you about, yes, please.

Speaker 4 Yes, but I don't want to tell you about it.

Speaker 1 Let's just have one more sip.

Speaker 3 One more sip.

Speaker 4 There was a big one. There was a big one, and the director who cast me in it,

Speaker 4 I'd seen him really early in my career for a small part in a movie, playing like the younger version of one of the main bad guys at the beginning of the the movie.

Speaker 4 So I'd only be in it for like five, ten minutes, but it was like an awesome part. Yeah.
And I came in for this audition.

Speaker 4 And by the end of the audition, like we'd shared so much life shit, he was crying. I was crying.
Like the audition went amazing. Like the acting was like, it went great.

Speaker 4 And as I'm walking out of the room, he's like, he's like, oh my God. Well, we found the guy.
It's him. We found the guy.
They never even called my agent.

Speaker 1 Christ. Wow.

Speaker 3 And then when you saw who they cast, did you, were you like, oh, that's, that's why I didn't get it?

Speaker 1 No. No?

Speaker 4 I did not think great of their casting. However, that was like the

Speaker 4 snidiness of youth movie. But years later, there's this big, huge gazillion dollar movie getting made.
And they come to me and they go, listen, we would love you to meet so-and-so with this director.

Speaker 4 And so I go and sit down with this director and I'm like, you remember me, right? And he's like, no, have we met?

Speaker 1 I'm like, I love your work.

Speaker 4 And I'm like, no, no, no, we met. And I relayed the whole story to him.
And he's like, nah, don't have a single memory of that, dude.

Speaker 1 I'm like, God, we were in tears together.

Speaker 4 You said we found the guy and looked at me as I left the room.

Speaker 3 And so did you do this big film for him or did you tell him to go follow me?

Speaker 4 I actually did sign on to the film, but it took three years. And yeah, I was like, I wasn't trying to like take him to task.
I was just like, dude, this is funny. We need to talk about this.
But

Speaker 4 it took like three years

Speaker 4 to actually get it going. And by the time those three years had passed, I had a kid, and this movie was being filmed on the other side of the world.

Speaker 4 And I was like, I am not going out there for a year and a half of my life to go and do whatever you do.

Speaker 2 What does Jimmy Flow do on the on the side, like when he's not acting?

Speaker 1 On the side, I'm talking about that, bro.

Speaker 1 Drive a cab

Speaker 1 for free.

Speaker 4 Just get my shits. Um, what do I do on the side? Yeah, yeah, do you know what? It's like being a dad, and

Speaker 4 being a guy at home. And

Speaker 1 I'm like working out.

Speaker 4 no not anymore i haven't worked out in about six months but yeah i was doing a lot of that before yeah yeah um play video games with my kids oh yeah yeah yeah what about what about how didn't you burn one of your one of your video games uh because you were too addicted to it wait what yeah so it's aptly james had a problem i had a real problem i don't i don't like to talk about it but i feel like

Speaker 1 the more i can make people aware maybe i can help someone else yeah one person

Speaker 1 if one person if you can save person.

Speaker 3 Save a life right now.

Speaker 2 You have a little gaming issue because I do too. I play a lot of games on my phone.

Speaker 1 What do you play? What do you like for?

Speaker 2 Oh, just the dumbest shit.

Speaker 1 No, he plays fucking Candy Crush. It's not gaming.

Speaker 3 You don't talk to him, James. It's not gaming.

Speaker 1 I played Call of Duty.

Speaker 1 I played Call of Duty with the same dudes for like 10 years straight, like fucking five nights a week, man.

Speaker 1 I feel your pain. During the pandemic, I had my eldest son was 11 or 12.

Speaker 1 How long ago was that? He was like 11 or 12. I started letting him stay up to like 2 in the morning to play Call of Duty with my friends and me.

Speaker 1 And his mom calls me and she's like, He, you cannot let him stay up till fucking two to play with you and your moronic friends. Right.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they're not my friends. They're like laser dude six.
And he's also.

Speaker 1 These are my comrades. These are my brothers.
We're in war together. These aren't my friends.
This is bad.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 you're in remission now or are you

Speaker 4 started? Listen,

Speaker 4 I've lapsed a couple of times. The first time I realized I had a problem, problem, I was making a movie in Ireland with Anne Hathaway, and it was called Becoming Jane.
It was about Jane Austen. And

Speaker 4 I'm getting home every night.

Speaker 4 And my wife at the time had bought me an Xbox and this fantasy role-playing game called Oblivion, the Elder Scrolls, aptly fucking entitled Oblivion, because that's what it was taking my life.

Speaker 4 And I remember getting home from work at like seven or eight or like nine, one of those crazy hours that you get home at in the movie business and i order a pizza and like a two liter bottle of coke or as we call it in scotland a two liter bottle of ginger any any soft drink fizzy soft drink can be called ginger

Speaker 4 two liter bottle of ginger and a pizza hut and um

Speaker 4 and i stick in oblivion and i go to oblivion and then i just remember going i'll just play for five minutes more i play for five minutes more and then my driver is waiting to take me to work at 6 30 in the morning and i was this is like not the first time it happened on that job either and i was like something has changed

Speaker 4 And I press the eject button and the CD comes out of the disk drive. And I go over to the gas stove and I turn on the gas stove and I'm standing there like this.

Speaker 4 How am I going to fall in love with Jane Austen?

Speaker 4 And I'm like,

Speaker 4 because, you know,

Speaker 4 and then I just drop it on the gas stove and I just watch it melt. And then

Speaker 4 I...

Speaker 4 I walked away.

Speaker 1 That's a bottom. Yeah, I mean, it's a real thing.
Like, people, it's a thing. Yeah, and your bottom is only when you decide to stop digging.
You know what I mean? That's up to you. Yeah.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 the pandemic, I had the same thing as you, man. I had like three buddies.
We all went, hey, guys, should we just get like a, should we all get like a, like a PS4 or something like that?

Speaker 4 And we're like, we'll all play some shooting game. Come until like two years later.

Speaker 1 And we're like, John, John, I'm going in. I'm going in, man.
Bite me up. Bite me up.
Push, push, push.

Speaker 1 I know. It got so fucking crazy.
And then I recently had one of my friends say, hey, we're still playing. I'm like, no, I'm never going.
I can't do it, man.

Speaker 4 Not right now. I think I'm the last man standing.
I'm the last guy still playing.

Speaker 1 You are. You are still playing.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 you've managed to find the right size for it.

Speaker 4 The right size for my addiction?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, you're not staying up until dawn anymore, are you?

Speaker 4 No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 4 There had to be a cap. Do you know what? To be honest, I came back from a job in Germany where I did a lot of it because I was just on my own and I didn't have my family with me.

Speaker 4 And that was quite good. And I bought a little laptop to make it portable.

Speaker 4 But since I've come home and I'm getting into prep, and I'm casting, I'm working on the script, and all that, there's just no time for it. Yeah, it's all good.
Actually, it's been kind of good, yeah.

Speaker 4 But, um, because it's time to be an adult at 45.

Speaker 1 What game is it? What game is it that you're Call of Duty, man? Yeah,

Speaker 4 like during the pandemic, it was running around Verdans getting killed by like 12-year-old guys in China.

Speaker 1 How crazy was that when they did that first? Uh, what do they call that big map that they dropped during uh the pandemic?

Speaker 1 The fucking um Verdansk, yeah yeah it was crazy wasn't it it was crazy it was but within a month those kids were so good at sniping that you couldn't even last for a minute like you'd land and you'd be dead we were we were bad at that game for two years my squad and i we were what were the name there was k chuck

Speaker 4 there was there was a because it was the pandemic one of them named himself touch of flu and then

Speaker 4 and then the other one was severe severe shock oh and i I was Walker Janeway, which is a character I played in a kind of a middle-class New York play once.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, there's people running around going like, I'm going to kill you, Severe Shock-O, I'm going to kill you, touch a flu. And then going, I'm going to get you.
Walker Janeway?

Speaker 1 It was like so bougie.

Speaker 4 But yeah, no, it was.

Speaker 4 And do you know what I found as well, right? I've been pals with those guys since my early 20s.

Speaker 4 And what was really special about it was that we'd be running running around going like, push, push, push, I'm going to fucking hell, John, support me.

Speaker 1 So when did you say that you got that procedure done? Oh my God. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I never knew that about you. And we would just like, bruh, in a way we never had.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you know what? It's funny that you say that. As much as I sort of rail against it too, and I do love gaming, is that I stayed connected to a lot of guys.
We have this crew of us, the clown crew.

Speaker 1 We're still in a, we're on a text chain that we've been on since 2007.

Speaker 1 And that we all play this game together. And these guys know, and Jason especially knows because we did a few things in the gaming thing.

Speaker 1 And it's like me and Giles, who goes by Kid Lightning and Mark, who goes by Foreman Beast. He's known as Beast to all of us.

Speaker 1 They all call me Wendell because my handle is Wendell Leaf because it's named after my favorite hockey player. And we've had so many moments.

Speaker 1 I was texting with the guys this morning, our buddy Jerry, who we also call Gary for no reason. Gary just had his second kid and we're all congratulating him on the thing.

Speaker 1 And we all know each other from the gaming thing. And so there is a community thing.
It's really quite nice. I don't don't know if you remember.

Speaker 2 Well, you try to get me like years and years and years ago, try to get me in one of those groups. I played for maybe seven minutes.
Yes. And

Speaker 2 I couldn't exit the thing. I just would get shot

Speaker 2 every single time, right away.

Speaker 1 And I couldn't figure out, like, so I'll be like, let's try it again.

Speaker 2 Let's try it again.

Speaker 2 We'd start again, and I'd come out with these guns, and everybody's just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, like I'd just be dead in two seconds.

Speaker 1 It was awesome.

Speaker 1 But it is a good way to connect. And that's that part of it.

Speaker 1 I do like that part of it for sure.

Speaker 4 We were so bad at it for two solid years. We never got any better.
And it was a lot of fun. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We laughed our asses off. I love that.

Speaker 3 Well, James, you're a lot of fun. We've laughed our asses off with you today.
We appreciate your time, my friend.

Speaker 3 Very nice to get to know you. Huge fans of yours.

Speaker 2 It's really cool to meet you.

Speaker 3 Have a great time directing.

Speaker 1 Yes, I talk about you all the time.

Speaker 2 I just think you're an incredible actor.

Speaker 3 Incredible guys. Speak No Evil,

Speaker 3 out now.

Speaker 3 It is from the great Jason Blum.

Speaker 3 Directed, written by James Watkins, everybody. Speak No Evil.
Check it out. Go and see it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Jimmy Frau. Thanks.
Jimmy Frow, Jimmy Frow.

Speaker 1 Jimmy Flow. Jimmy Flow of the House back of the board.
Thanks, you guys.

Speaker 4 Guys, thanks a million. Seriously, love your stuff.
And as performers, actors, writers, directors, these are fucking amazing threes.

Speaker 3 Thank you. It was really, really great to meet you, my friend.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 4 See you around, guys. All right.

Speaker 1 right

Speaker 1 thank you

Speaker 3 bye buddy

Speaker 3 wow hey guys yeah um we're back we're back uh we're back from commercial hi um do we do we do commercials after no we don't really don't we just do you remember hearing a commercial play you were just he just hung up uh right right right right right so guys that was james mcavoy and you know what i gotta tell you i'm not buying the accent i think he needs to work on that really you don't think it's yeah i mean everybody knows he's from dayton ohio um and he's been working on the sky Dayton, Ohio.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, he's great, though.

Speaker 2 Like, I didn't ask him about Narnia and like Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I was obsessed with that.

Speaker 1 Or X-Men. I mean,

Speaker 2 I know. I know.
I'm not, like, a massive X-Men thing.

Speaker 1 Like, I think

Speaker 1 walk us through it, though.

Speaker 1 What's missing for you?

Speaker 2 No, I like it. It's just,

Speaker 2 I just never hooked into it. I mean, I watched them all, and they're great.

Speaker 2 I'm not a rabid fan.

Speaker 1 What about Narnia? I'm not serious. What about Narnia?

Speaker 2 But yeah, the Narnia things.

Speaker 1 I wish they was that word

Speaker 2 Life or the Witch. No, so he played the the fawn.
What was his name? Tumnis. The fawns.
Tumnus. Tumnus, Mr.

Speaker 1 Tumnus.

Speaker 2 Tummy Sticks. Something like that.
And didn't you guys like that book when you were a kid?

Speaker 1 Of course. I never read it.
Oh, it was the best. Of course, I read the whole series.
They were fucking great. Yeah.
So

Speaker 1 great books. Great book.
But anyway, I didn't get a chance to ask him.

Speaker 2 When he popped on, I was like, oh, I've actually always wanted to meet him. And so I got to meet him.

Speaker 1 Who wrote those books? Quick.

Speaker 1 C.S. Lewis.
Nice. Yeah, thanks.

Speaker 3 Hey, Willie, are you still doing that book club thing? Yeah.

Speaker 1 When's that launching? Book Club with myself. I don't know.
We are going to do, yeah, we are going to be launching the Smartless.

Speaker 1 It's been a time thing, but we are going to do the Smartless Book Club. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because if you mention a book, I will read it and we talk about it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
And JB, thank you for sending us over those book recos from your pal, from Laura,

Speaker 1 which is always, it's nice to get book recos.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because you don't want to, it's like, it's like television recos recos or movie stuff.

Speaker 1 It's hard to fucking narrow it down. There's so many fucking books out there.

Speaker 1 And I'm just like,

Speaker 2 James kind of looks like if Heath Ledger had a baby with Jude Law.

Speaker 3 Right. You know, I was thinking,

Speaker 3 he looks a lot like Josh Charles, our friend Josh Charles.

Speaker 1 Do you guys know Josh? Oh, he does remind me of Josh Charles. Sure.
Josh Charles. I love Josh.

Speaker 3 Baltimore Orioles fan. Yeah.
Incredible actor.

Speaker 1 Well, because he's from Baltimore. He's a wonderful bloke.
He is a wonderful bloke.

Speaker 1 No, they don't. But you know what? That's okay.
I think they might sometimes.

Speaker 1 That McAvoy, that Jimmy Flo?

Speaker 1 Jimmy Flow. Jimmy Flow.
Flow. Flow.
Jimmy Flow. Jimmy Flow.
Yeah, he's got something about him.

Speaker 1 He's just cool. He's very down to earth.
He's got a real sort of authenticity to him, which I

Speaker 1 really like. I like the pet of his chip.
I like the pet of his chip. Very much like the kind of chip.

Speaker 3 You could hang out with that guy.

Speaker 1 I could hang out with that guy. Yeah, he's really cool.

Speaker 1 We would hang. We would do some hard hanging.

Speaker 1 And every single time he plays, I have a lot of comments for people who walk by. You know what I mean? Like a lot of, like, look at this fucking guy.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Every time he plays, he plays a different character. I totally

Speaker 1 buy

Speaker 1 it.

Speaker 3 We really snuck that one up on a shiny boy.

Speaker 4 Nice going. Smart.

Speaker 4 Smart.

Speaker 1 Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Bennett Barbaco, Michael Grant Terry, and Rob Armjarf.

Speaker 1 Smart Less.

Speaker 2 So, Jason and Willie, we have a new show on Smartless Media called.

Speaker 1 That I'm very, very excited. Sorry, I just cut off when you said the title, Goalless.
Goalless, right.

Speaker 3 Now, Sean and I are excited about it too, but here's what's good. Sean and I are much more sort of like the

Speaker 3 bit more of the typical American audience that does not know as much about soccer

Speaker 3 as you do. So you have taken that into account with the way in which you've gone about developing this podcast.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Well, I brought in, I want to introduce you guys to the greatest.

Speaker 1 Hello, Russell Howard. Russell Howard, hello, Russell Howard.
Here he is. Yes.
Russ, here. So, Russ, I'm going to let you describe goalis because football is my soccer.

Speaker 1 Whatever you want to call it is my passion. I love it.
But you are our host because you are even more passionate and have grown up in this milieu. Go ahead, Russell Howard.

Speaker 2 And also, by the way, for my sister, Tracy, one of the most successful stand-up comedians in the UK.

Speaker 3 And not related to Ron.

Speaker 1 No, just to be clear. Just to be clear.
Not related to Ron.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I'm a stand-up comedian from England.

Speaker 4 And I was.

Speaker 5 Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 5 I was given the opportunity to do this podcast about football and basically it's gonna be like a late-night sort of show about soccer football whatever you want to call it we're gonna talk about the champions league we're gonna be interviewing ex-pros current pros celebrities of the light football it's everything you can imagine you have a band you have a band I don't have a band no yeah we'll get you one of those okay

Speaker 5 imagine that if that's the first complaint of the show it's good it's there's a lot of funny chat about football, but where's the blunt? Yeah,

Speaker 1 you're going to talk about Champions League now. Now, Jason and Sean, Champions League

Speaker 1 is the tournament that they do yearly of all the top, basically, in essence, the top four teams from all the domestic leagues all over Europe and the UK play against each other in midweek games throughout the year.

Speaker 1 And finally, in the spring, they narrow it down. They start in group play, then they get into elimination.

Speaker 2 And again, Will, and by the way,

Speaker 1 Russell, Will has gotten me excited about soccer. So I actually have to.

Speaker 1 Champions League football is incredible.

Speaker 2 At some point, though, at some point, we're going to have to figure out, so you don't have to keep saying soccer. I mean football over and over.

Speaker 1 We have to figure out what to call them. But anyway, that's.

Speaker 5 I'll call it soccer for you people. I don't mind.

Speaker 5 Just at home, I can't.

Speaker 1 If I say football, it's, you know, I'll be able to. Well, but this podcast can be listened to all over the world, though, right?

Speaker 3 So what do you, do you prioritize the American audience, the global audience? What do you do?

Speaker 5 I don't know, Jason. It's It's very difficult.

Speaker 1 We'll wait to see the numbers. Whoever listens the most gets soccer or food.

Speaker 1 By the way, the way Russell said, I don't know, Jason, that sounds like some PA on Jason's set when he's like, what's for lunch, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I don't know, Jason.

Speaker 1 Would you fucking leave me alone? There's a lot of dips.

Speaker 1 But we know we've been through this when

Speaker 1 we had David.

Speaker 1 We had David Beckham on. I think we were talking about, you know, that soccer is actually an English term, right? Yeah, right.
Yeah, yeah. So you know this.

Speaker 1 Well, exactly, but it was whatever we want to call it.

Speaker 1 I can't call it soccer.

Speaker 5 It would be like calling my mum mummy.

Speaker 1 It just it feels, it gives me the ick.

Speaker 3 But you know what? The British accent covers you. I think anytime you say football, people are going to think you mean soccer because that's what you're saying.
You're saying with a British accent.

Speaker 4 Exactly. And we'll just be, it's like...

Speaker 5 Not only do I love football, but it's such an innately funny sport.

Speaker 1 Like the supporters are hilarious.

Speaker 5 I don't know if you two, if you've never been to a live football game in England, if you go

Speaker 1 just being, oh, it's the best. I like the singer.

Speaker 1 How do you learn?

Speaker 3 Is there a website you can go to to learn the chance before you get to a game?

Speaker 5 That's such a good point because

Speaker 5 they must meet up in a pub and harmonize.

Speaker 5 So there must be like football hooligans who are sort of sat there in a council flat going, look to me for the changes. Here we go.
You're going home in a fucking ambulance. Come on.

Speaker 1 All together.

Speaker 3 When I listen to goalis, I want to learn about these things.

Speaker 3 I want you to take care of the dingbats like me too yeah you know not just the smarties like will russell you're you're a you're a reds fan yeah you're a liverpool fan

Speaker 1 yeah it's the same here hardcore and i have been i'm newer obviously to it it's only been like 10 years for me oh wow uh yo yay so what was your in oh what was your inn my my uh A friend of the podcast, Chappie, Mark Chappell, he's an Englishman who lives in London.

Speaker 1 There it is. And here's the Chappie mansion.
He got me into it like 10 years ago when we were working together. And I've become full.
And I, you know, now, look, I'm into Arneslott.

Speaker 1 I'm so happy he's there.

Speaker 1 And, but Jürgen Klopp has been my hero, my North Star for years now. I had the opportunity to hang out with him a couple of times in the last few years.
Coaches, listen. It's just been incredible.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I've and I've gone out of my way to learn some of the songs, some of the, like, you know, we conquered all of Europe. We're never

Speaker 1 gonna stop.

Speaker 1 From Paris to Turkey.

Speaker 1 We won the fucking lot.

Speaker 1 Well, Paisley and Bill Shankly, let's do it.

Speaker 1 The fields of Anfield Road.

Speaker 1 We are loyal supporters and we come from Liverpool. Now, how do you learn this?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 3 is it on a website? Like, how do you

Speaker 1 look up? Yeah, because you're like, what are they singing?

Speaker 5 What the most about it is it clearly is on a website. But this is the fact that Will Arnett has clearly been in his shower.

Speaker 1 So you get practiced.

Speaker 1 Yeah, of course you have.

Speaker 3 Who gets to decide what songs are going to be sung on what week? Like, do they have to be aware of that? Well, this is the point.

Speaker 5 Because, and they're often really funny. I remember there's a brilliant story of the Rangers goalkeeper Andy Gorham, who basically came out and said he was a schizophrenic.

Speaker 1 And his own crowd that week started chanting, there's only two Andy Gorhams. Two Andy Gorham.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 So it's, that's what I mean.

Speaker 5 With football, there's all, there's sort of like this sort of galaxy around it that is sort of just naturally piss taking. Like some of the best moments at a football game happen with the crowd.

Speaker 5 Like footballers get abuse. Like, and I'm a stand-up comedian.
The heckles you get are nothing compared to footballers. I remember seeing, I went to a Bath City game.

Speaker 5 I don't know if I can, this is, there was maybe about 500 people there. Yeah.
It was boxing day,

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 5 it was a pre-match warm-up. And the goalkeeper was quite a heavy-set lad.
And he was just getting one of the balls out of the net.

Speaker 5 And he looked at this kid, who must have been about 11, and he said, Did you have a good Christmas? And this little kid went, looks like you did, you fat cunt.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 there is no there's no world in which that's allowed like yeah this this poor guy just had to take it from an 11 year old kid and it's that just vicious this is the kind of flavor and spice we want to get from you on

Speaker 5 it was so fascinating and if you've never been to a football game you i remember taking my wife to watch liverpool paris and german and she was just fascinated all the sort of french football fans took their tops off and they were kind of swinging them around and that

Speaker 5 it's like this weird church that just goes crazy Anfield on a European night.

Speaker 4 So basically that's what the podcast is.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's growing.

Speaker 2 I love that. And it's growing and growing and growing.

Speaker 1 I mean, like,

Speaker 1 what's so crazy is I was going to say that, sorry, Sean, but I was going to say that kind of, that vibe that you get, I remember, like I said, I remember

Speaker 1 just a couple of months ago, I was at it at Anfield and sitting and watching, I think maybe I told you guys this story, watching Sir Kenneth Dogler sitting right behind me with his wife and how many times they've they've been to Anfield, he was as a player and a manager, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 And them singing

Speaker 1 Do You Never Walk Alone? You Never Walk Alone. And his wife, and his wife dabbing her eyes.

Speaker 1 And so moved by it.

Speaker 5 Well, he's an incredible man as well.

Speaker 1 He's incredible.

Speaker 5 To get serious, the Hillsborough disaster.

Speaker 5 where

Speaker 5 a lot of Liverpool supporters died, he went to every single funeral when he was the manager. Yeah, every single one.
And so the club is, you know, it's in his bones.

Speaker 5 So I think that song, you know, really takes him to a special place.

Speaker 1 It is beautiful. And the whole stadium sings it.
By the way, we're sitting there and

Speaker 1 the stand opposite us is the Sir Kenneth Douglas stand.

Speaker 1 And he's sitting right behind me. It was just incredible.

Speaker 5 Which is a bit harsh that they don't let him sit in his own stand.

Speaker 1 I know. No.

Speaker 1 No, it's better. It's better.
He gets to look at it. He can look at it.
He gets to look at it. You know, Jason and I shared an office once, and I'd had an

Speaker 1 excuse. And it was a big, long office.
And I I had this huge painting from a show. I wasn't there a lot.

Speaker 1 And I had this huge, he's giving me shit, and I'd be like, I don't want to be in the fucking show.

Speaker 1 I had this huge painting of myself from a show. And one day when he was there, I had it put it behind my desk, behind where I sat.
He was always there.

Speaker 1 And so he calls me one day and he goes, why they put this fucking painting of you? And I go, because when I'm not there, you still get to look at me.

Speaker 5 I remember doing that years ago. I had loads of kind of posters of various stand-up shows shows that I'd done, and I kind of thought, well, it'd be a nice thing to have them.

Speaker 5 And then I put them up in this room in my house.

Speaker 1 And then, as soon as I put it up, I just realized it was such a mistake because it just looks so weird and arrogant.

Speaker 5 I don't know if you've ever seen that MTV Cribs episode of Mariah Carey, where she goes to like this party room and she reads all the notes from her fans.

Speaker 1 It was just like, oh, what have I become, man?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. I know, right? What a house that was.
But at least we have you. And it's you and Chris Whittingham as well.
That's right.

Speaker 5 Yeah, he's a CBS commentator.

Speaker 5 He's a funny guy and he knows loads about football.

Speaker 3 Now,

Speaker 3 this would be your sidekick.

Speaker 1 He's going to continue with the

Speaker 3 late night show

Speaker 3 analogy.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Yeah, he's basically, he's got all the knowledge and

Speaker 5 we're just going to kind of riff and then we'll have kind of celeb guests. And it's going to basically be

Speaker 3 the dream job for me. Will, are you going to be the first guest?

Speaker 1 I'm hoping I will be a guest if they'll ask me.

Speaker 1 you're waiting for someone to reach out well yeah man i mean well i can reach out right i don't want to well i don't want to be presumptuous and think that they make some news want to talk to me uh because i'm just i would love to talk to you would you and oh there it is we have first booking have you ever played at anfield that would be my first question i've never i've never played i've been on the save it for the show

Speaker 1 save it for the show yeah yeah yeah don't get yeah you don't yeah try to make

Speaker 1 i've seen mo sala getting a rub down after a match

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 5 And I had to- Was that at the changer room, or did you just

Speaker 1 need a good telescope? No, no, no. That was

Speaker 1 through the blinds.

Speaker 1 This one fucking truck wouldn't move, and I finally got a glimpse. I got the fuck at the angle I wanted.

Speaker 1 I had Darwin Nunez walk by and basically give me a high-five holding a towel, and he was just in a towel. I mean, surprisingly, you were in the changer room.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 Right after the match.

Speaker 1 That must have felt so awkward. It was very awkward.
What do you do in this?

Speaker 5 Because basically they're all having a shower.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And, you know.

Speaker 3 You're just waiting with a stack of towels.

Speaker 1 Does anyone want a Lucas aid or a Gatorade or a power bar? Which I like.

Speaker 1 I tell you what they didn't appreciate was my boner.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's what you should have done.

Speaker 5 You should have got in the shower.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 5 You should have got in the shower with them.

Speaker 1 I know. I should have.

Speaker 1 Now you would have wanted to have me as a guest if I'd been in the shower.

Speaker 1 But there's so much to talk about. The football, as you said, Russell, it's so endless.

Speaker 1 The stories. And that's what drew me into football, how I became it.

Speaker 1 I love sports, but I became a football fan once I started to understand the stories of who this manager was, who this player was, and stuff. That's actually what got me.

Speaker 1 And I started watching all the docuseries about the various things. So we want to bring on Goalis, kind of bring listeners in so they can start to understand the culture of football, soccer, right?

Speaker 1 That's exactly it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I need that.

Speaker 2 I'm actually excited about it. Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 it premieres Guys Windows. 19th of September.
19th of September. Thursday, September 19th.

Speaker 2 And two new episodes released each week, every Monday and Thursday, which is good. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's going to be great.

Speaker 2 Russell Howard and Chris Whittingham. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Great. That's right.

Speaker 5 If you ever find yourself in England, I've got two season tickets to Liverpool. Have you? So I would love to bring you along.

Speaker 3 I think that's more for me and Sean that you will.

Speaker 5 No, no, I could probably get another one. But to be honest, we'll be down in the showers.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was.

Speaker 5 Just getting them ready. just getting the temperature ready.

Speaker 1 Anybody? Anybody want to get ready?

Speaker 1 Just putting your elbow in.

Speaker 5 Yep, that's fine.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's good. That's so good.
Very nice. Russell, thank you so much for your time.
We're so excited for goal. It's gonna be great.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 5 thanks for it. I'm really looking forward to it.
Nice to meet you.

Speaker 1 You too.

Speaker 1 Cheers, Velvet.

Speaker 1 September 19th.

Speaker 3 September 19th.

Speaker 1 All right, chops. Have a good day.
See you later. Thanks for us.

Speaker 3 See you, buddy. Bye-bye.

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