James McAvoy

0:00Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dak Shepherd. I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi, James McAvoy. I'm being official because his name's James, you know, James McAvoy is our guest today and James feels official instead of Jim. I love the name James. I used to say that if I had a daughter, I would name her James. Oh, that would be a lovely name for, yeah. James Padman. Do you think it sounds fee? Well, I love James on its own, but then maybe she's a one name person. I just don't know how well it pairs with Padman. James Padman. I mean, you call her JP. I got James Lilly Padman and then JLP. Oh, JPL is what I was just laboratory propulsion. Okay. Anyway, James McAvoy is an award-winning actor and a director. His credits include split, speak no evil, atonement, four X-men. Of course, last king of Scotland for my money. God, did I love him in that? And he has made his directorial debut. It's in theaters now. It's called California

1:03Schemen. And it's based on the most impossibly true story of two Scottish kids pretending they're American to break into rap in 2003. This is a lovely interview. Please enjoy James McAvoy. We get support from Quince. I have to say I am so ready for fall. I want sweaters. I've been craving a true crisp morning where I actually need a jacket. I can't wait. I'm fully there. The second at dips below 70. I'm like, this is my season. Give me the layers. Give me the boots. Give me a reason to wear something other than a t-shirt. And honestly, that's why I love Quince because fall is when your wardrobe actually has to show up. And everything at Quince is 50 to 80% less than similar brands. We're talking 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at $60. $60. $60 for cashmere that you'd expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price. It's amazing. It gets me every time. It really shouldn't be real, but it is because they go straight to the factories. They skip the middlemen and they just hand you the savings. The stuff isn't trendy.

2:05It's the kind of pieces you grab over and over because they work every time. The 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters for me are it. When I look at Steve McQueen, this man owned a couple of sweaters. He wore all the time and he looks iconic. It's a uniform. And Quince isn't just about the close. They have hotel quality bedding, cookware, bath essentials, doffly design furniture. You can really go there and outfit your entire apartment or house. So if you're in need of any kind of fall refresh at home too, same quality, same attention to detail for every corner of your life. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was armchair expert. It's the best way to support the show. This episode is presented by YouTube Premium. YouTube was already great, but premium supercharges it. If you like YouTube, you'll love premium. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash

3:10premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. Now let's get into today's episode. He's in our church. Now really quick, I'm bombed. I've healed so much. It's much different today, right? What? Oh, he had a, okay. Yeah. So yesterday we had a guest and it was insane. They never asked what was wrong with my face because if you've ever been to the dermatologist and they have the machine, they can zap things off. Yeah, yeah, I bought one. And I've been going nuts, getting rid of every danger. It's my bestie danger. This sounds bad. So yesterday it looked like I had been hit with buckshot in the head. Is it like freckles or moles, skin tags, hyperplasia, anything raised I don't like anything. You know when you're just feeling your skin, you're like, what the fuck is this? And especially I'm four years older than you, but at 51 it's like sprouting

4:11up everywhere. I'm like, what is happening? Yeah, no, I've got weird stuff. Can you just get barnacles all the time? Yeah. Well, we on a ship flowing through the ocean of life. You got to scrape your hull sometimes. I've got something in my eye, which I'm like, oh, am I going to need to get that work out? So maybe I'll use your machine before I go. I walk it blind. I've recaded a 2000. You would be the first guest that I offered some kind of surgical services to. It's getting out of control. It's like he walks in and then it's just scabs. Oh, mate. Quickly. So yesterday I was a mess today already. I'm at back to normal. I had that thing when I was a kid. Have we started recording? No, you're always. Yeah. I was teenager. And you know that way when you don't really think about your appearance too much, I wasn't really up on my appearance. And then I think my aunt said to me like, oh, you've got tons of blackheads on your nose. And I was like, I've got what? What's that? And they were like raised. They really needed to have something done about them. So I guess a bit of do something about that. So I went to town on them. And they still look like I've been fucking attacked by a

5:13rotwailer or something like that. Then that was the talk of the town and the skill was garlic. James, Mark, why he bust these plokes? He bust these. Why is this news? Was it scabbed? Or you just look like Rudolph the Red and I was reading it was pretty scabbed. It was scabbed. Yeah. Okay, I don't know what they're to tell you this story now or when we get to it. I don't know. I've told the story on here about you about 35 times, which is why I'm so excited to finally meet you. Michael, I just gonna be bad. I'm gonna start with that. Good story. I guess it would have been 2006 or seven. I get a meeting with this guy T-more. Oh, yeah. This Russian director who's going to direct this movie wanted. Yeah. And we have this incredible meeting. I'm at that point thinking, you know, there's no way I'm getting this movie. It's going to be a huge action movie. But I'd like to meet this guy. That meeting goes really, really well. But there's another actor that's already attached to it. So I'm like, I said, bummer, whatever. Then randomly we get called that actor fell out for scheduling is what I was told. He wants to meet again, meet again. Then the studio calls they want my quote. We're beginning that whole process. I'm like,

6:16all they call me from my quote like play Wesley. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I'm like, I can't believe this is happening, right? And then at the 11th hour, they're like, oh, no. The actor is now available again. I go, who is this actor? And they go James McAvoy. And I go, who the fuck is James McAvoy? You're saying that like whatever. I'm so annoyed. Weeks later, I go to Arc Light here. And I see the last king of Scotland. Oh, yeah. Was that? Yeah. That time. Oh, wow. Yes, you were probably getting that role right as that movie was about to come out. And so I'm watching this movie. And I'm having the experience that I've only had a couple times. I'm having the experience I had watching you and McGregor in train spot. Well, I filmed where I go, who is this fucking actor? I'm watching. He's so hot. No, you way he was watching last king. I watched last king of Scotland. And I'm like, oh my god, this guy's a revelation. Who is this guy? And the whole time I'm watching, I'm like, I got to wait to the credits. I'm going to like write his name down and watch everything he's ever been in. And then it gets to the credits. And I go, oh my god,

7:20that's James McAvoy. I want to know, fire 10 of me to play this guy. There was the most satisfying experience with finding that you didn't get something because of someone else. Oh, because I was so blown away. Oh, thanks by that performance in last king of Scotland. And then I've just been a huge fan ever since. Thanks. Thanks so much, man. Yeah. It's really kind of easy. So we see that. That's our today's mental. Shall I tell you the truth about what was actually going on? Yes. Because I read other shit today that I was like, oh, that's not even what happened. I don't think I think Timor wanted me to play the role and he thought it was me. And then this studio were like this kids not big enough. It was like a $75 million movie. And with Angelina Jolie. We actually Angelina Jolie. We need somebody more established and probably more experienced as well. And who's American for a start? Yeah. And so I think a camera tested about three times for the role. I was never not available. They were just gone back and forth on whether they would let Timor

8:21have this guy that you liked. And Timor was clearly in you as well. Because I don't think he'd have met you more than once if he wasn't. He's a lovely dude. Oh, I love he told this crazy story. Maybe you'd remember it was something about being at university in his book, getting stolen. Do you remember this crazy tale? No. I've got the worst memory for things that have been told to me or happened in my life. Oh, really? It's really boating on podcasts. Is it frustrating? Or are you at peace with it? I'm kind of at peace with it. And it also means you can live in the moment a little bit harder to carry grudges. Are you able to hang onto those? I don't think I carry too many grudges. Yeah. My wife has your gift in a sense that she's not burdened by the past because she just simply doesn't remember it. It's a nice thing. I mean, it's weird sometimes where I'm like monumental things in my life. And people are talking to me about them from their point of view. And it's not just like, oh, people remember things. differently. I'm like, I don't remember half of this. I remember one day my sister said to me, this is a monumental thing. My sister said to me like, you've worked with so many of the best leading ladies in Hollywood and all that kind of stuff. Who would you love to work with? And I was like,

9:22you know, I think Margot Robbie is like an incredible performer. She's proper movie star quality. But also she's a proper actor as well. She's the two things. And she's brave and bold and makes strong choices. And she's entertaining even when it's sad. And she just can do many things at once. So it's her. And she was like, we've met her. And I was like, what? And apparently we were at the Empire Awards in London one night years ago. And we won some award. I can't remember what it was for a film called Filth that I did a long time ago, maybe. And we enjoy we're there together my sister. And we went downstairs to the party. And apparently we were like tearing up the dance floor and stealing each other's shoes and chucking them behind the DJ booth. And I was like, apparently Margot Robbie was like, oh, these two are having fun. And we partied with her. I said, join you. Like, oh, no, okay. I don't remember the drinking incident though. I was drinking by then. Yeah. So the memory might have been a little hazy because of that. I think I've party with some people. I certainly don't remember. Yeah. I'm sure. I think you'd remember if you party with Margot Robbie though. She's very iconic. Yeah.

10:22That's a big deal. Have you thought about getting it looked at? Have you seen in the Royal? I spent so much in my early uptell about 2930. What again, about my mental health? Not what are you in about it, but keeping a real good eye on it. I'm sort of, this is going quite serious. In the last sort of like 15 years or so, I'm fine. I don't need what about it. I want to get in that. I had a little bit of a preoccupation in my 20s. I felt like I was vulnerable to lose my mind. I was worried about that. Yeah. What do you suppose that is? Without going to need finer points in details because other people's studies is where lots of substance abuse and mental illness in my early years. And I just worried that it was like enemy. Also, mom was a psychiatric nurse. Yeah. Yeah. So were you hearing tales? This is in Glasgow. Let's just set the stage. April in 1979, a little baby comes along. He's so cute. His name's James. What's his middle name? Don't have one. Don't need one. Yeah. He's a junior. He gets

11:22three things. Do I need to be named junior? Or am I just like by default, I'm a junior? I think if your dad has exact same name as you, everybody in my family who's named James. I think it was a bit 10 James's. Yeah. No, I was definitely exposed to a lot of that, but also just in the extended family and my community as well. There was a lot of old-sword state going on. Would mom come home and share stories? This is what first thought I had when I saw it, your mom did. Was she coming home with some wild stories? A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And what was the vibe in Glasgow in the 80s? Shit was popping off. Yeah, mentally. Yeah. By end, it was drug. Can I cap it so? I mean, I don't want to talk down about my hometown. I love my hometown. Yeah. But we've got a massive drug problem and it was massive back then and it's become massive again. I think really the drug death capital, the Europe at the moment. Oh, really? So there was just a lot of that kicking about and I think mental illness and drugs and alcohol, just alcohol as a drug, they kind of go hand in hand. They're not always hand in hand. Not everybody who drinks has to get mentally treated. But they can, I think often go hand in hand and one kind of empowers the other a little bit.

12:24I don't know what the underlying issues are, underlying causes of that are, but it's a real thing. Yeah. So I'm from Detroit. So that's a very similar vibe, especially in the 80s. Is Detroit back in his feet? No, he is shockingly. Yes. Mind blowingly. Yeah. Cause I left there in 93 and it was as post apocalyptic as you can imagine a city. And now yeah, there's farmers markets and stuff. It's wild. It's impressive. You can get kombucha. You can get a nice, probably a freshly brewed kombucha. Fantastic. The crack epidemic was just sweeping through the entire city. My uncle in recovery, my dad in recovery, you know, the whole scene, similarly a child of divorce. So yeah, maybe that's the seeds as I saw adults around me that were hanging by the thread. And so maybe it seemed plausible. Yeah. Yeah. I think there was a self awareness that came at me very young. I just say it self awareness. I think it was an awareness of the extreme things that people around me were going through from a very young age. This sort of took me out of the place.

13:24I think most children are in for quite a long time, which is I'm the center of the universe. And the world is really just happening to me. Everybody else, you're just all players in the movie that I'm the leader, aren't you? And then, you know, the process of growing up as a process of sort of looking less inward and looking outward, responsibility to others. But I think that happened to me quite young. And while I didn't have responsibilities to fill to other people, I think that I was sensitized early to what others are going through, which was quite a massive reason why I ended up being an actor or a performer and interpreting what it is that other people are going through in their lives, you know, and making that any stories. As an adult, one of the things that I do is I try and fix issues. I try and fix problems. You might think is a wonderful thing. But I'm kind of commenting the realization that sometimes you've got to let people go through or they're going through, you can't fix everything. And by fixing it, you're creating more problems. But part of that fixing as well is you become quite malleable and you can slightly lose yourself

14:25within that. Yes. Now, I think we share this. So I spent all my summers and all my free time at my grandparents, because I think the mother working around the clock. And when I went there, I think I got the thing that my children have, right, which is I was the center of the universe when I was at my grandparents house. They made me whatever I wanted to eat. I got to have snacks that they were available. They had time for me. And I loved it. It was an Eden. Was your experience living with a grandma and grandpa the same? Yeah. No. My granny and granda were incredible and really just smile like incredible. I was about to say smashing people. I never used the term smashing. They were smashing. Yeah. And what does it mean? Fantastic people. Yeah. Smashing. These were amazing. My granny still is amazing. She's still alive. Oh, wow. That's incredible. Along with the drug death capsule of Europe, we were also the teenage pregnancy capsule. So she was quite a young. They were incredible. But they were also realistic pragmatic. They had five of their

15:27own kids. Alma and his and uncles and my mum, obviously. And it's interesting. Their point of view on my experience and joys experience with my granny and granda because they were never like that for us. I mean, they're always like, you got a totally different side, which I think happens a lot. Meaning you got a better version of them than their kids did. We got them a bit older, a bit more settled, a bit more established financially, maybe a bit more chilled. Also, not having to balance five kids and two jobs, you know? Yes. So it was an easier time in their life. Same. I think my father even resented me a bit that his dad was so gentle and kind to me. Yeah. I think that can happen. We're developing a script at the moment and that is the key thing about the movie, apart from all the other bits, is the relationship between grandfather and son and the gap in the middle, but the father and the gap between the grandfather and the son, but those two are kind of like circumnavigating the father and having this incredible bond, you know? They were amazing. But I was talking about the other day. I can't remember who it was too, but it was a dad at the

16:28school or something like that and talking about how kids played differently before. And I was like, no, that's true, but if you're going to look at it through the lens of the past, the difference in the past was as well. Like, my granny and granda loved me and I felt so loved and protected and safe and cherished. They never played with me. I was never played with, but I think the space that that afforded me allowed me to understand how I could play on my own or with friends or I'm bored wasn't a thing that would have been accepted. That's on you mate. You know, I mean, you don't get bored, you invent things, you think as well. I remember I used to go to bed, excited to think. Right. I mean, you don't do that in a brain. You go to bed and we do that before we go to bed. And I guess a lot of teenagers are doing that now too. The pure excitement, I've gone like, right, one more thing in fantasize about and sort of like building my brain at a young age. But anyway, the playing with thing, I love that I play with my kids and I love that I'm attentive and that I'm present and all these things. But I do wonder sometimes if

17:31this wonderful time that feels so fragile and on the press, but we still have a hold of it at the moment where people with a certain amount of money in the bank have time to play with their kids and we should take advantage of it of course we should. But are we also taking something away from the kid by not allowing them space to just wonder? I think if you feel like it is your job to entertain them constantly, yeah, I think you're going to have a problem. But if when they want to kick off some fake world and you join them, no, then just they're the author of this experience. Totally. It is different though because I would never have asked my parents to play with me. That wasn't even an option. No, right, right. It should be like, hey, will you play house with like no either you're doing it in your own head or you have a friend over. But like now I do think parents are behaving more as friends. Yeah, I mean, there's so many parents I see and I'm not criticizing parents because it's too easy a past time to fall into I think it's to criticize other parents. But I do see so many parents so concerned with being liked by their children.

18:36And I don't know if that's necessarily should be your super objective. Yeah, my parents could care less. Your job is to help them to grow into people who are potentially capable of happiness and functionality. That doesn't necessarily mean they need to like you every minute. Often they shouldn't like you. If they're relying on the gratification of your pleasure, they're going to be needy people and relationships going for it. I don't know. I'm getting very specific about something pseudo psychology. Who knows? Okay, I just had to learn this term today because it sounded fancy. What would you say a council estate is? If you find or someone grew up on a council estate in Scotland, what do you think that mean? Council estate. Okay, so I'm going to say like a government property. Someone who worked as an ambassador. So thing has their own property. Yeah, and are we picturing like some acreage maybe and some fancy? Or a little lawyer house. What's it's what they call the projects? So keep reading you are from the council estate and then you were helping an actor kind of prepare for the first thing you were in. Oh yeah, it was Andy

19:40Serkis and they wanted to know about your accent. He said, are you from a proper council estate when I read that? I was like, wait, he grew up kind of fucking fancy. Okay, that's a different. The other name that we would have is a council scheme scheme, which is why film that I directly call California Schemen. Which I never really explained in the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was kind of colloquial term for it. Yeah, if you live in a scheme, you're a schemy, that kind of thing. And was there shame about being lower income there? Not from us, some people might have, but there was also a bit of like local pride and yeah, it's strange, isn't it? Like Drum Chapel, that's the scheme that I come from. I had a great time growing up there and my days were full of adventure and potential and peril and chases and drama and tons of kids running wild and it felt exciting. My opportunities were limited and my horizons were very close, but it still felt like I was in the wild west sometimes. And yet I look back at like there's something that keeps coming up on Instagram

20:40at the moment, which is this documentary made about Drum Chapel at the time in the 80s and is what it was like. And I'm just kind of shocked to look at it and see how bad it was then because it felt so vibrant. And so when I see movies about people who come from the lower end of the social economic ladder and a lot of these films are brilliant by the way and this find to make films about people like this, but they're often sort of wallowing in the deprivation or the suffering. It becomes almost titillating in the pornography of poverty. And some of that is really valid, totally brilliant. You need it, but you don't really get to many romcoms set in a project. You don't get to many buddy movies about two kids from the project, actually used to a little bit, that's kind of what I wanted to do with this. Even though it's a true story and there's some real big emotional consequences in the movie, the reason that it appealed to me so much is because it was about people who came from a place like I did, but it was entertaining and it was aspirational. Yeah, it was like propellant. Like you went in a nice neighborhood and people were protecting the

21:42property, you know, I mean, and ours, we lived in a row of 20 homes and up the back there was all these flats and apartments and just hundreds of gardens in the middle with middens, what we call middens like where you put the trash out and all that stuff. And basically, all but I'd say 10% of the neighbors were just like, you can go into a garden and do what you want. So we had like this wild area that when you're like eight or nine feels so vast that you can adventure through and the kids that were in that close, like an apartment building we call it close, the kids that were in that close, like they were our enemies, but the kids in that close, they would help us sometimes, you know, like, you get locked in stone throwing battles for four hours at a time, like, I tried to an aden that you couldn't leave. There was this amazing bit between those two schemes and drum chapel scheme one and scheme two and I'm from scheme one. In between scheme one and two, there's vast sort of valley with a burn stream that goes right through the middle of it, we call it a burn and it was a huge hill. We went down like that to the burn and then it would go back up to the other side and scheme two. And I remember I was in scheme two, which even within my neighborhood,

22:44you're like, that's not my territory, I can't be in scheme two, yeah, yeah. And we get chased at a scheme two. And I just remember I felt like it was in the juxtaphas because I had to make it to the county line. So if I could make it to the burn, make it to the burn and I leapt over the burn, I'd be safe, you know what I mean? Yeah, I'll explain. Which of course the bigger boys who were chasing me just jumped over the burn and beat the shot of me. Anybody else on it? Oh, you don't expect borders, okay. That was another one my curiously is about your childhood. What was your kind of trajectory with masculinity? Was that complicated without dad present? I had magranda and I had my uncle Johnny, my uncle Johnny and my nutrition were like another set of grandparents I had as well. They were incredible too. So they were too particularly, I would say kind, funny, gentle, not self-serious, never presenting masculinely, but were masculine figures and they gave you the out of boys. Yeah, not totally. There was a kind of tempered thing with my granny and granda. You sort of tempered the sort of out of boy you can do anything you want to do vibe with you've got the right to try and do

23:45whatever you want to do, but you doesn't mean you can do it. You'll need to make it happen. And sometimes you want you'll just need to pivot because I think that sometimes when the message to our children is so much maybe it isn't so much these days, I think it is though, you know, you can do anything and the pressure that comes with that is that it's implied that they should be capable of achieving anything. Yeah, I thought those are uniquely American thing. I know that's you cheer. I think it's definitely back home as well. And look, I'm not dissonant, it's better than being down on your kid and telling them never going to be a mountain. It's an absolutely. But there's a pressure that comes with that as well. It's just in how we phrase it really. And maybe there's a way to phrase it that propels, but doesn't add weight. I don't know if it's because of the way my grandparents sort of framed it or mystery of what was as well, but I felt like I'd be all right. You did. And I didn't necessarily expect to make it as an actor. I was very aware that you are a statistic of 95% of actors that are out of work at any one time. Really, you don't see that many movies coming to Scotland. How many Scottish movie stars are there? There was nobody there

24:46for me to like see it to be it. I was like, well, look, I'll do this. I did a movie when I was 16 out of the blue. I know where that's the word telling. So there's this famous Scottish actor. Favourite Scottish actor, director, producer, philanthropist, all-round good guy, David Heyman, not to be confused with the producer of the Harry Potter movies. He came in my school. He'd famously played Lady Macbeth in the 70s and an all-male production at the Citizens Theatre. He lived next to my English teacher. We were studying Macbeth in class just for English, not for performance. And he came in and he talked to us. He took a bit of a flack from the kids in the class, giving them shit for being a puffy actor, where they were going on them. But I was like, I've seen this guy in movies. He's been in a movie with Arnold. He was incid Nancy for Christ's sake. He was legit. And I was like, oh, wow. So I went up to him at the end and I said, look, when you're making a movie, again, can I come and make tea or make coffee for you for like a week? Can you all have to do like workplace man, whatever you could do in the corner shop or the bank or go and blast the walls we'd uncle. And he said, yeah, yeah, sure. So six months later, he was making this movie

25:47called the near room. He called the school. He said, does that be guys though there? Send them in. I went in and he gave me the script. He said, right, this part, this part, this part, we scenes here, read that, try and learn that and then come back. And I was like, what am I? I'm out in. Wow. So I read it with him and he went, can you do it again? I think you need to get quite up sick. Can you meet yourself crying? I was like, I don't know. Luckily, I am quite emotionally incontinent. We walked out of the room and he's arms rooming in a nice way, consensual. The appropriate way. Yeah, and it was fully appropriate. Anyway, right, this is the guy that's going to play Kevin. And then the next thing that happened, Andy Serkis walked in with dreads. He's going to ask you knew about the accident. He was playing a glass waging pump and David, the dreaded goes like, he's the real thing. Sit down, we have him and he'll sort you out. So my first seconds as an actor were sitting down with the great Andy Serkis, who I loved from a kids TV show that he was doing called Streetwise, which is about crime fighting mountain bike career in London. Oh, wonderful. Wait, so did you want to be an actor? Never thought about it. Wow.

26:47You're not crazy. I never thought about it. The lore goes though that you then fell in love with your co-star and then you were like, okay, I want to stick with acting. I didn't fall in love, there was that actor in the movie who played my sister. She was really nice to me go on and I fancy there. And so she said, you should come to Paisley Youth Theatre. So I got on the train every Thursday night or some of that and went all the way out to Paisley because I fancyed this lovely young woman. Yeah, here we would say you were in love with her, but there we're not saying that. That's like a big distinction. Yeah, yeah. When you're a little kid, like when you're 15, I was falling in love with like people lying at the amusement park. In love. Oh no, I definitely, I would like imprint it would be a weird stuff. I would get married like a thousand times at 15 if I would have been allowed to. She's a boy scout. Yeah, yeah. Do you have a thing before at the Cubs? Yeah. Cubs Cubs. So we had Cubs Cubs back home and I was in the Cubs. I lasted a week in the Scouts and I gave up, but I was in the Cubs. We went away on camp for the week and the girl guides were also there and they were staying on one side of the Shelley. We were staying the other on the side of this big scout hole out in the mountains of Scotland. And there was this young girl. She must have been about 13. She's called Linda. Linda, if you remember this, you made a big

27:52impression. This is a man who doesn't remember anything, Linda. Yeah, I know. And she was doing her good deed for the day because I was complaining. I was like, I didn't bring enough socks and my mom socks are full of mud and the soaking and like, oh God. Not very resourceful as a boy scout. Yeah, I know. Right. And she said, give them me. I'll clean them for you tonight. That'll be my good deed for the day. And I swear to you for about a year after that, I thought of it Linda. Yeah. And making her your wife. I'm making her wife. I thought I was a bit subjugated in Linda, but a year after that. Yeah, these first questions. Oh, they're incredible. Okay. I've got kind of a like a loose theory. The two things that you've done in your early life that boggled me. One is you were considering priesthood for a minute. Yeah. Like that seemed appealing. It would take you places potentially. Essentially, I was like, I always wanted to travel. I had a sense of the world outside. And I wanted to meet a missionary worker. I thought, I could do that right. You're like, I don't think I can do

28:52that. Self asleep. Yeah. That's right. The second thing that I can't imagine is you had enlisted for the Royal Navy. No, I was accepted. Would you call it conditionally? Was it a probationary? No, the place was like a sure to if I wanted it. Okay. So I'm wondering, those two things also are turnkey stability. You mean you're locked into a life? It's one stop shopping. You join the priesthood. Everything is mapped out for you. It has the appeal of built in structural stability. And I think is where the other thing that they both have, which maybe helped pull me in, was not withstanding the countless negatives and atrocities that have happened in both those institutions. There's a romance to them as well. There's a romance to the idea of the travel, but also the endeavor, the profound feeling of being part of a team and purpose, which I think appealed to me. That was something I was looking for. And it wasn't until I kind of halfheartedly said to myself,

29:57I do like acting. I have done it a few times, like on TV or film. And I've done this youth theater thing for like a year. Maybe I should just try it for acting school as well, because really that is what I should have been doing. But I only tried it for one act in school because I couldn't afford to relocate to London where most of the acting schools are. There's one major one in Scotland and that was in my hometown of Glasgow, thankfully. So I tried out Frit and Loughley I got in, because if I hadn't, I might have been on a boat somewhere. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare, we are supported by all state checking all state first could save you hundreds on car insurance, not checking the weather forecast before you walk out the door. You looked outside, saw blue sky, felt great about your outfit choice. No jacket, no umbrella, fast forward two hours, you're sprinting through a parking lot and a downpour holding a notebook over your head like that's going to help. Yeah, checking first is a brilliant idea. So check all state first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. You're

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33:07They get age appropriate content settings, contact limits, so that by default only people they're already connected to can message them and time management tools daily time limit reminders and also sleep mode that meets notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. sleep mode is genius. Right. And here's the thing for anyone under 16, a parent has to give permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. The guard rails are on and Instagram keeps building new safety features to create age appropriate experiences for teens. I am really glad Instagram's helping to give parents peace of mind with teen accounts. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. This episode is supported by Helix. Dax, is there anything better than crawling into a perfect bed on a cold fall night? Candle it hoodie on maybe even some rain outside the dream. That's the dream. You just described one of my ideal fall nights.

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35:11slash armchair for 20% off site wide. Helix sleep dot com slash armchair. Do you remember having any fear at that moment of the future? Like these things like I'm saying that are turnkey. Did you have anxiety about having to start real life and having to figure that out? Do you remember being plagued with that or not? I don't know if I um, sort of remembering things differently or not, but I had a sort of security and sense that whatever happened I'd be okay, which I have less these days, which is nuts. And I just knew that whatever happened I'd have a roof on my head and I'd be able to feed myself. I'd make it happen. And I think that's part of the childhood as well. Not everybody who goes through some mad stuff in their childhood comes out like this, but I think it did help me. I don't know if this is all true. It's pseudo-physiological stuff maybe. So if you want to argue with it, please do. But I've heard the signs behind having

36:11a freezing cold shower in the morning. The reason why it's so good for you is it puts you in a fight or flight first thing in the morning. Your body also understands and your brain also understands I could deal with that. And I'm still breathing and I'm still alive. So when you miss the bus or you miss the meeting, it doesn't become this fucker thing. You're not defeated easily. Yeah. And I think I can enlighten terms of my whole life that happened to me early in my life. I'd say the last 10 years or the last few years, it sort of tested me a little bit more again. I'm further away from that. I'm almost a different person I guess, you know what I mean? You've gotten soft. I think I'm in the lap of luxury. You're starting to wonder if you're still scrappy. Do you know what? I think I just trusted that I would be the kind of keeping an eye on myself that I did until I was almost 30. I'm speaking very sort of respectfully about mental illness, but I'm literally doing this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The cartoon version of Crazy for the listener. Yeah, where you spin your finger around your temple. This sort of self-awareness and this sort of self-care, I guess, that I would sort of practice something until I was like 30. I then

37:12became sort of like, you know what, I can relax. I think I may be relaxed a bit too much. And I need to kind of keep an eye on it. Well, okay, that's one explanation. What about it's actually weirdly less scary to have nothing in me trying to get something than it is to have something in a curse. Do I might lose it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, yeah, what was at stake for you when at the beginning, virtually nothing, you're not going to make a decision whereby you walk away from something fantastic. It's all out there to gather. You can only go up. Yeah, I remember having a conversation with an actor who described their early career coming out of acting school feeling like, well, I guess what happens is you come out of acting school and then you spent a year or two doing small things and then you become rapid. Yeah. And I never had that. My idea was if I can pay the bills as an actor, that's my ambition. And that would be massive success. That will almost be like at the top end of what I allow myself to expect. Insusiting, I guess achievable goals, but also having a fair understanding of just how hard it is. And I get maybe that's because I wasn't looking in

38:16where I was looking out where I could see how hard it was for everybody. Didn't expect it to just happen for myself. Also just the brass tax of it is like I say, there wasn't 20 Scottish movies stars getting produced every single year. So you're kind of going like, how is this going to happen for me? Yeah. So after you get out of school, you graduate in 2000. You have this pretty long period post graduation where you're just doing a lot of television and you're doing plays. And Joe writes sees you at a play and he virtually over the years offers you kind of a couple different movie roles. You want nothing to do with that. Most of that didn't want to do with it. It was Joe asked me to be in a BBC costume drama, Charles II. And it was a fairly small part that I was up for doing. And then I got offered like a lead role, one of the main characters in the original version of the United States show where you may say that's shameless. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The original version that was sent Manchester and I was in the original cast of that. Oh my god, you know, dumb I am. That's all four to five. I didn't realize you were in the original one.

39:17Yeah, yeah. I did my research today. I thought you were on the showtime version. No, no, it was not. It was like watching the first episode of the American one. I watched the first wait a minute of it. Watching actors and that do stuff that we improvised on the day. You're like, this is wild. Oh yeah. Is this the Jeremy Allen white character? I think so. Wow. I don't know. I couldn't be held to account. Later. I said, look, I've got to go and do this. Show my agent. It was like, you've got to go and do the show. You're going to get paid more. It's a really good writer. It's great. It could be a really good thing. And it's a bigger part. You'd be daft not to do it. And I remember Joe was really annoyed with me. He was really angry with me. And then he got me back when he was going to do a movie version of Birdsong, which later became a really good TV version. And he brought me in and we worked on that. And then for some reason, someday was going to do a tonement. They pulled out and working title said to Joe, get off Birdsong. We want you to do a tonement. And so he brought me in for that. And I can't resist it a bunch of times with Kira. And I knew who I was up against. But I think it was me, Killian, Jake Chilinho, apparently.

40:17Oh, Jesus. Oh, fuck. Oh, he had some of the guys in the world. Yeah. I think last king had come out, wanted hadn't happened. Narnia had happened. Yeah. Well, five is Narnia. Oh, six is Scotland. And then oh, seven is a tonement. Yeah. So short in 2006, I loved playing that part. I loved the process of working with Joe and that. He was like, one of the best actors directors I've ever worked with. And I totally stole from him when I directed my first movie. Not actually with how it talked to the actors, but how it talked to the crew. Why had as he talked to the crew? He did this thing that maybe other directors will be angry at me for saying this because they say, I do do that. I don't know. But he's the only director. I feel like I've ever seen do this, which is you do the rehearsal and usually the DPs there on the first AD's there and the actors and the director. And then you go talk about shots a little bit and then the crew come in for the crew show. That's the end of that. And then the ADO start telling people like, we're going to do this. We're going to do that. And then we all filter away. The movie starts they kind of come together. We would do the crew show and at the end of the crew show, Joe will go right. So that was the scene. And this is what it is to me. And this is what I feel about it.

41:21This is what I want maybe the audience to feel about it. This is what James's character is going through here, part of the arc. The pivotal point for his arc is at this point. And then for Keira's character, this is happening. And what we're really going to do in his playing music through all this as well. And he goes like, okay, let's go. And everybody steps away feeling like a movie maker. Right. They're all in the same place. And I get a script. What are we making? Is this Don't Nabi or what? Oh, that's beautiful. It welcomes everybody in and makes them invest. I think it gives them ownership over it. Yeah. You might talk to my crew and they'll be like, oh yeah, I didn't know what she did that. But it felt like you are making it. It is a miracle. And he said this show and I've said it for your sense. Filmmaking is a miracle of collaboration. The more you can accept that and rely on that, the more you welcome in the great technical professionals and artists that are at your disposal. We've made way more movies in their department than you have as a director. It's really hard, I think, for a director sometimes to do that because they're sitting there having done maybe two shorts in a music video. And suddenly they've got like five million budget and they're

42:22like, okay, I need to have the answers to all these questions. Or they just kick the can down the road a lot of time because I feel like they're scared to say I don't have the answer. Which for me, I was like, I've been booed on stage. I've watched people leave. My movies have been slaughtered. My ego can take you, I think, and I'm not a good director. But I need to find the answer here. So if I didn't have the answer, I'd be like, help me. Yeah. Well, quickly, how did you go from shameless to getting gnarly? That's kind of a big was there some for tourists meaning or something? I was kind of on the up and British TV and I got shameless and shameless to done really well with its first season. It kind of became like a big thing quite quickly. And so maybe that helped get me on the radar a wee bit. But I mean, I'd been kicking about for a few years by this point four or five years. I hear, and I don't know if this is wrong, I heard they had an older actor who was like in his 30s at the time who's really well known comedian. They did a chemistry test or something with one of the regarels that was potentially going to play Lucy and they all went, this is crazy.

43:23This is creepier shit. So they needed to find a sort of fairly experienced actor who looked like a child. And I looked like a child until I was about 29 or 30. Any of a little sister? Yeah, only two years younger, but yeah, yeah. But you have experience. Yeah. So they wanted the lack of threat because you know, Mr. Tom is essentially kidnapped. I know. And drugs her. Yeah. Well, not drugs are put sure you sleep with music. Drugs are with music. Yeah. And then hands it over either way, which is pretty intense when you think about it. You're really making me rethink. Well, do you know, another story to embarrass you. So I saw it in the movie that are with my best friend, Kali. And we walked down. She goes, Mr. Tom is so hot. What? This is so mental. Was it is obsessed? And I'll be honest, I was like the half animal. Half go down. Yeah, I was like that. What? So it was a joke for a long time that she was in

44:23love with Mr. Tom. There's definitely been some Tom this kink over the years. Yeah. It definitely makes me like Kali more. He's kinky again. Yeah, that's great. You know, the weird thing is yes, Lewis, when he wrote that, he writes a scene where they be get out, comes to the wardrobe, she meets a gentleman, they get on famously, they go back home, they have a brilliant conversation, and then he puts her to sleep and he hands her over and kidnaps her, right? For that role, he chose the phone or the satire, which in Greek mythology, anyway, is the not just follower, but disciples, really, of Dionysus, the back eye, the back is who engaged in major raves and orgy. Like they were, they were a promiscuous sexual entity, the pan figure. Yeah. Yeah. I guess she could sense it. Yeah. She was looking for something a little. You really? God bless, Kali. Good on you, Kali. That movie was an enormous success. I mean, it made $500 million, where you experiencing after that movie, like, oh, I'm in a major hit. People are

45:25seeing me on the street where you having that moment after that movie. I don't know. Actually, if I was, because I looked so different, I'm not sure that I really did that. Chainless was the biggest thing back home anyway. Yeah. And it's on TV every year and everyone's living room. Exactly. And that was such a sort of, we must tune in to shameless because it was just what's going to happen this week is mental. I think she and this is a big one. And then we's probably wanted for a long time. Then X, man, of course. Well, there's one interesting thing about last king. I got one in my favorite movie. I love that movie so much. I stole one of the songs for the second movie I directed. I just put it straight on there. That incredible, like, Afro Cuban song that's playing. I can't have the top of my head. I think remember the soundtrack. It's the most incredible soundtrack. But I learned today that Forest Whitaker suggested you to Kevin McDonald. But don't think so. I thought I was on board before for us. Oh, okay. I was on board from like I was 22 or something. And again, it got lucky because we had a Scottish director, Kevin McDonald, and we had a movie that kind of needed a star in it for Fox Church light to back it and

46:26make it work. And we were pretty low budget. But still, I think they were out to Sam Jackson. I've later worked with him love. But he wasn't available in the end. So Forest came in. But before that, I was off for the job. I take the job. I'm going to do the job. But it was like a year of like are we going to get green letter? We're going to find the right guy for you to in that time. Kind of what happened on wanted happened on this as well. Where they were like, this is a low budget independent feature. And they were like, we need a star in that role. Nobody knows who this kid James McAvoy is. The director who was Scottish, I think was like, well, we need somebody who Scottish gives a role to Scottish. The film's called Last Genskot and it's important. And I don't want somebody doing an accent that's bad. And they made him see lots of people who were stars already. And he just fought for me. And I was so lucky. And he asked me to camera test a year after I'd got the part. And I was like, ah, fuck. You can only lose it. Yeah. Totally. And I think I gave a really bad audition. And somehow he still fought for me to get the part. So thank you Kevin McDonald. You're so outrageously good in it. Thank you. Is it a movie you're proud of? Yeah, definitely.

47:27Such a fucking incredible movie. The texture of the movie, the colors of the movie. Anthony Dodd-Montel and Kevin there worked together and that was just stunning. And I've worked with Anthony again, the DP when I did a Danny Boyle film. He's just so, so good. He felt very Danny Boyle. The movie felt pretty Danny Boyle in a good way. Anthony's work is so dynamic. Always on the edge, always trying to push the forefront of a new technology or something. Which I don't think necessarily was doing in last game, but it failed really dynamic. And it's a beautiful film. It looked at as well. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really proud of it. Yeah. It's so spectacular. And you're so young when you got to do that. It's a headman. Yeah. Yeah. I look at myself in that. And I'm like, I look 16. This is so weird. Yeah. Okay. Then the tommet comes along and we talked about that. And you were nominated for Golden Globe for that. You and Kira nominated for a BAFTA. Now, there's not to be me, but I know it's this happened twice where a tommin is based on a novel. And the author came out and said that she did not agree with the casting of you, right?

48:28No, that happened doing it. Well, and I'll go happen. Like, Danny Smith on White Teeth. Both of them. There's a no. You don't want to learn because the one that I wrote now was his dark materials. No, no, no, no, no, never said that. That's not it. But I kind of stayed away from folks. I was scared to meet him. Okay. And I also want to tommin chose to stay out of the way of you and becuring because I was just like, I'm nothing like the character you wrote physically. And I don't want you to tell me that to my face. It's crazy. I remember on that set, I was playing the lover of Cecilia or Cecilia or Cecilia or Cecilia played by Kira Knightley, an incredible actor, one of the most beautiful women in the world. And I was like, and I'm like, I scraped in through endless camera tests past people who already had big movie pieces before. I'm kind of lucky here. And like, the character's written this is like, I think the word adonis is how he's described. He's like six foot five working class, could be going to a private school kind of like adonis, built and all that. And I'm like five foot

49:30nothing and like skinny and paley shit. And you know, still been able to do my job and feel entitled enough to be there. There's a wild you know, they say action and I forget all that. But then I also remember, Kira's boyfriend at the time was on set a lot. And we were filming this beautiful, beautiful country house outside Luddloon, Shropshire. And it was the middle of like a heat wave in the summer. And I just remember like one of these moments was thinking himself like, people believes that she'd actually fall in love with me and remember and like, well, God, that would actually be a couple. And I just looked up and I saw her boyfriend at the time who was no top on six foot odd jacks, worn, flowing, just coming over the hill like heathclift, you know, I mean, I'm just like, ah fuck, if I ever needed a shriveler, that was it. Okay. Now you start X men. That franchise starts in 2011. You play Professor X. I guess I was wondering when you go into that movie and it's fast-bender and Jennifer Lawrence and that gang, how does that relationship of all are you ever intimidated? How does it evolve? You end up

50:35doing four together. Is it like do you keep returning to summer camp? What's the vibe of doing four of those movies? Yeah, the first ones were not sexually the first one. I was like the most senior member of the cast really in terms of movie experience and age and then getting to be on the other side of the decision making process a little bit because like I was part of the camera tests with all these different actors like Moira and Magneto even. And I remember we saw a few great actors from Magneto who were incredible and I've gone on to have amazing careers. But when Michael came in, it was just like a poor, as a movie star. But again, a real actor as well. And we thought that we could definitely build something and have good chemistry to you. I think the first one is great. It's a lot of fun and it's a bit of a reboot in terms of tone from any of the other X-Men movies. I didn't realize Matthew Vonder I could then tell the guy. Yeah, and you really put your zone stamp on it. I loved it for that. The movie kind of like survives on the chemistry of the bodies. You know what I mean? The body movie. Well not to be cruel to previous comic book movies, but this one was actor first. I don't think I had ever seen a cast assembled that was so actor-driven.

51:38Favreau did that with having Downey play Iron Man. I think that was very actor first. But other than that, this one is just, oh, this is so cool. These are the superheroes. That was Matthew totally, totally gone for that. The character arc was so important to the plot progression. But everybody that came in after that was just one after the other. Incredible actor, incredible actor, incredible energy as well. I never forget the first MMA Gen. And she flew in. She's already picking up awards and up for an Oscar for like Winter's Bone or something like that. I was up for an Oscar for like, anyway, but winning everything. She hadn't done silver lining, generally. No, no, no. That was a good few years later. She was 18. She got off the plane, came in, caution fitting, rehearsed all day, and then took a plane out that night. I mean, I didn't see her again for two weeks. But the energy and the kind of quality of charisma of that person, it was like standing in front of a high-powered fan. You were so full. She's amazing. One of the fastest wits I've been around in the movie business is Jen Lawrence. Harness Stephen Fry. Just, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Special. Okay, split I want to talk about just because you

52:42got jacked. You know, I didn't get that jacked for split. I didn't have time. Okay, glass, the sequel. Split, I got the gig like two weeks before we shot it. Because it was meant to be, I'd get in trouble naming the actor who's, I've done it too many times and apparently I should stop doing it. But anyway, there was another actor playing the part and he, for whatever reason, decided not to do it fairly last minute. I got the job two or three weeks beforehand. So I really didn't have chance to get too big. Now I was told, you know, that's what it's fine. And we made the most out of it with lighting and stuff. Big glass. I'd actually been in hospital. Or what? I had a split personality. I had a lung puncture because he saw Shadow on my lung. So they wanted to buy up, say it to see if it was cancer, which it wasn't, which was great. But that was botched and I nearly died. Because we got an infection. Yeah, I was at home two days later and my lungs just collapsed. And I was on my own as well. So it was crazy. Oh my goodness. I spent like two or three weeks in hospital. They tried everything to clean out. Nothing was working. So they were like, we're going to cut your open bags out, go in with like this sort of basically and just like clean you out. Scoop it all out. Yeah. So I had to then go from that to one of the X-Men movies. And I knew I had the time

53:48of that X-Men movie, which is like four or five months to get ready for glass. And glass, unlike split, I was the beast like most of the movie. And I was just outside and broad daylight as well. So you don't have too much coastal real lighting to give you like the cantors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I was like, I'm really going to need to do the real thing. I'm going to need to go for it. I remember saying in night, like you're going to get me a trainer and I was like, oh yeah, we'll get you down to local gym in one of the trainers or whatever. I was like, no. I want the marble train. I worked with those guys before and they're great. You know what I mean? But I'm going to need somebody that can make you look like a Greek figure from mythology. Do you know that the people who know how to do it? And they're expensive. But the guy that worked with me was amazing. And he came to Montreal where it was making the movie for X-Men. It wasn't Duffy by chance. No, no, no, no. It was Magnus. Magnus, like, back. Perfect name for that. He looks like a Viking. He didn't move in with me, but he was just with me a lot and kind of regulated what I ate and trained me just right. And basically for the first four weeks he re-abiltated me. I could walk back and run, couldn't cycle, couldn't jog. And I was like, on set every day. It's well-do-incrasive

54:52hours as Charles. And so he did a lot of rehabilitation and functional movement and then put the pounds on me really fast. And do you not get addicted to it? Like, I'm so addicted to it. I was addicted to it for about three years. And I was like, honestly, the biggest I've ever been. I was in the film Speaking Weevil. It was a shot in it where people are like, you're CGI, they're you're CGI. I'm not. Was it a decision to like, all right, I'm going to not. Yeah, I got a movie in Germany back in 2024. And it was like, this is not good for this character. I stopped doing that. I started running. I started walking and just eating a hell of a lot less and got skinny again for the first seven years. My neck kind of disappeared. My traps disappeared. My traps get too big too quick. I pour you. Ah, it's oning. It's just too big. My muscles are just too big. They just grow so easily. They're out of control. And then kind of liked the hours that I got back in my day. And then I started directing and you give your whole life to that for like two years. This is two years since I wrapped a movie. I started properly working on the movie a bit three years ago. And I'm still here

55:56three years later. I'm still here trying to sell my movie. It's different as a director. You never let me go. You think about it all the time. You're sweating blood a bit at all the time. You're anxious about it all the time. You're loving it all the time. Hopefully you are loving it all the time. I did. I was lucky enough to be able to love it. But I think that's why it's important to do something if you're capable. And you know, not everybody's in this position as a director. But if you're lucky enough to be able to choose your work and create your work, you really need to be trying to create the stuff that you feel genuinely passionate about because you are going to sweat blood for it. Yeah. If you're doing that for something that you're not really invested in, oh my god, I'd be so destroying. So how do you decide to take on California's scheme? And do you read the script because you're so employed as an actor? We could have gone for another two hours on all the things you're doing. And then also you're doing fucking plays on the West End. Why at that moment do you decide, yeah, okay, I'm going to make the time for it now. What's happening in life? First of all, it's a professional thing. I've not reached the end. I've not completed acting. But I am a place where I'm really quite comfortable. You know, if I've got the right kind of role that

56:59I'm suitable for, then I'm pretty comfortable. And so it was about kind of putting myself in a place where I'm not comfortable again, I guess. And challenging myself. Were you getting a little bit bored? I heard you've said in other interviews that this probably does correlate to a mid-life crisis to some degree. Directing. No, I was either a Porsche or directing. I don't think directing is part of the mid-life crisis. That's something that I felt I needed to do for years and years and years. And since I was at my twenties, really, but having a nice career as an actor got in the way of it, I guess, what was it about this one at this time? I don't know. I put the word out there that I wanted to direct and look, how many first-time directors get to do that? I'm just going to tell me, I don't have fancy directs in the film and then I'll start to get scripted. I'm really very genuinely aware of what a privileged position that is to be in. But everything that was coming to movies, the kind of stuff that, for example, I've played like five or six Scottish people in my entire career because there's just not that many movies made about Scottish people. And when I say I want to be a director, it's a privilege to get furnished with scripts, every one of them are Scottish.

58:00A lot of them are like the poverty kind of exploitation a little bit. I think the writers would argue that it's not exploitation, it's an examination and it's sort of a revelation. But I wanted to do something that was entertaining. So when this came along, it kind of ticked those boxes because it was about that end of the socio-economic ladder. It was also about my home country. And it was also about something that I've experienced. The boys in this film, to make it in the business, in show business, they had to sacrifice their authenticity, their integrity and their identity. In a very specific set of circumstances where they're almost told they need to do that. Now that doesn't necessarily get told to everybody. But that as a path as an artist, you are going to walk. The path that they walk in that film is one that I still feel like I've walked a version of for 30 years, which is how much myself am I sacrificing to get what I want? What do you want? Do you want a bigger part, a better part, more money, awards? Like what is it? And at what point? Because everybody has to sacrifice something. The postman sacrifices is time with his family every time he walks out the house. They're going to be a postman. So we all sacrifice something for our jobs. But when is it too much? When are you sacrificing your identity? Your identity, your health, your whatever. But

59:04when is it too much? Because the business is, I think, based on sacrifice. The whole idea of the show must go on. You wear it as a badge of honor. And you adhere to that principle. The show must go on. You're like, fuck, if the show must go on is really easy to exploit people. Yeah, really easy and also your bosses are usually only your bosses for a few months, sort of a season or whatever. You're somebody else's problem on the next one. So just get what you need to get out of them. No matter what it does to them. Just why it's a dangerous place for kids, I think. And so the idea of the show must go on, being based on this idea that I've always got on my head, which is like the first play was an animal or a person being sacrificed. And they were trying to make the rain come or whatever. And it was smoke and there was production values and all that and stuff. And everybody was just there to try and make the rain come for the crop. But at the same time, everybody was like, I was really fucking cool. Can we do that again next Saturday night? Yeah, I mean, yeah. I think a relationship with what's on stage and what's on screen. And any kind of performance or part of the contract is the audience expect you to sacrifice something.

1:00:06Yeah. They expect you leave something of yourself on the table or on the screen, you know. Because they're going to openly admire and adore you. And we know intrinsically that you should have to pay something in return. Yeah, I think so. I know. But I think that is the, that is the intrinsic bargain on the table. We are social primates. We are status handles for us to willingly give up status, which is what you do as an audience member. You've got to give me something. I want to see you bleed a little bit. You got to earn it. That's the artistic dynamic between you and the audience. But that pair me as I think through the business side and the can institution of the business as well, where it's like all a bit sacrificed. So everybody just sort of willingly sacrifices. And that's why a lot of people get hurt. I think. Yes. Okay. So let's just start with the fact that this is based on a true story, which is kind of mind blowing. And I wonder, did you have any awareness of Billy and Gavin in 2003? Do you know what my sister was in a Scottish hip hop group at the time called Streetside and she, I simply remember her mention is something about these mad guys, cello and brains. But no, I really didn't know anything until

1:01:09the script came across my desk. And then I had a look at the documentaries. It's a really good documentary called The Great Hip Hop Hokes. And I was like, this is wild. And it gives me the opportunity to entertain, but also talk about something that is part of the collective kind of Scottish experience as well. Yeah. So okay. So there's these two boys in Scotland, Billy and Gavin and they're of low economic status. They're getting bullied when we meet them. They're not the studs of their school, right? They're getting chased everywhere they go. And they're super in wrapping. And then they hear about this record label that's open auditions trying to find the next M&M. But yeah, the flight at the time I think was the next D12, the next M&M. Right. So these two kids go down to London, which is its own huge journey. The thing that I loved about it that you immediately capture is like, I just remember being that age and whatever I did, I thought I was in a fucking famous novel. Just the enthusiasm I had to go to downtown Detroit. Or to go do this thing. I usually listen to music on my way to work. I felt like I was in a movie. It was amazing. And I don't know if I just don't have that anymore because I'm old. Yeah.

1:02:13Or if I don't have that anymore because we're never just alone with our thoughts as much as we are because of like social media or whatever. It's not, I think it's just the fantasy. There's so much unknown ahead of you. And so because it's unknown, you're free to just pick the most spectacular version of what the own known might be. But then over your 47 years, a lot's known. A lot's been experienced. If I could implant into 17 year old James, your life currently on paper, what you would have thought that was going to feel like versus what it has felt like. I'd never get between those right would be so enormous. Huge. Huge. And I think I'd look at some of the decisions I've made or some of the ways that I live my life. And I'd be like, nah, don't do that, man. I think I would judge myself a little, actually. Sure. I don't know about you as a performer and as an actor. But one of the reasons why I think performance or in education for young children is really valuable, especially for kids who come from neighborhoods without many opportunities is that for me, standing on stage or standing in front of

1:03:18the camera, getting bad reviews, failing and instilling and I'm still alive. And I get it go again and I get it try again and I learn or I don't. It makes me understand that the next time I need you going into a room and speak to people, whether you become an actor or not, putting your kids on stage, not for work, just for fun. Yeah. It can really help them understand that when the spotlight is on them in every day walk of life, they'll be okay. They'll survive. It doesn't become a fight or flight response. It becomes like, nah, I just need to tell them what my plan is for the next week of this business, do you know what I mean? Yeah. Death is not on the other side of this, man. No, if I can't speak properly, it doesn't mean I'll die and it doesn't mean I'm going to get fired and all these things. And I think that when you get a certain level of higher education and people say entitled, and I think the biggest thing that they come away with is not more intelligence, necessarily, is but a feeling of entitlement. Entitlement is not a bad thing. Everybody should feel entitled to be there, to be present, to have value, to have their place in the room. The only thing that's wrong is that there's only a certain pocket of people in society who get to feel entitled.

1:04:19Yes, yes. So these two kids, they make their way to London and they wrap for these scouts and they're so fucking Scottish. Yeah. And I guess what would be funny to us over here is like, we don't know all the rungs of the status ladder as far as these accents go. But what is clear is that it's pretty looked down upon you. Yeah. There's definitely a regional bias. There's not just a Jewish Scotland actually. It's like to do with even the north of England and certain regional parts. We have it obviously with the south, right? Like the north makes fun of the south. And the implication is that they talk dumb. I'm learning that's a similar. It's definitely a part of our culture. It's not every single person, but it's been enough that I can 100% back up that happened. You know, I mean, is it the worst kind of bias? Is it the worst kind of prejudice? No, there are many kinds, but this is the one that I've experienced in my life and it's also a movie that I resonated with because of it. But it also gives you a fun chip on your shoulder, I think. A chip, a chip, I don't know who I've had the chip in my shoulder. I used to do a little bit when I was in my early 20s. I was looking for the fight because it made you feel like you were solid and you were on

1:05:22solid ground and you were you were. Just find the injustice and fight it. Whereas I'm a bit more forgiven and kind of take it on with conversation more now. But I think that one of the reasons why the story's fairly universal and even though it is very specifically Scottish is because that happens everywhere. There's whole swathes of North America who get left out when it comes to the people that are allowed to be seen on screen all over the world, all over Britain. There's parts where you don't get to be an artist in that way, you don't get to be on screen in this way. There's whole swathes of our society that aren't served culturally or represented culturally. As we know, it's a reductive thing for me to say, we know this. But this example of it was something that I noticed and sometimes people got me up and there's so many Scottish actors and I'm like, name me 10. Go. Like, name me 10 Scottish movies. And name me 10 in the last 10 years. You kind of go boohoo. It's nobody's responsibility to serve the culture and needs a Scotland other than Scotland. We need to do better. It's not Hollywood's responsibility to make movies about Scottish people. But that's why I wanted to make this. I wanted to make a film that was about the Scottish

1:06:23experience, but which is also sort of celebratory of Scottish culture and also entertaining. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. We've talked before about Rob building our website on Squarespace and I bring it up again because it's a perfect example of what they do well. Rob had all the pieces, the content, the vision, the ideas, but he needed something to actually take all that and make it public-facing in Squarespace was that bridge. Maybe you're in the same spot. You've been developing something, a business, a skill set, a body of work, and it's been private. It's been yours, but at some point you're ready to put it out there and that transition from private to public can feel like a huge leap. Squarespace makes it feel like a step. Beautiful templates, built-in SEO, email campaigns, scheduling, analytics, everything you need to go from. I've been working on this to hear it is, come find me. All in one place, no code, no stitching together a

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1:09:31Meet your match on Zip Recruiter. Brrrrpum ppana. Wow. We get support from our sponsor Lillie. For adults with obesity or with excess weight and weight related medical problems, it's time to find out about Foundeo or for Glippron. Foundeo is a once daily prescription GLP1 medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Foundeo should not be used with other GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Foundeo is safe and effective for use in children. Don't take Foundeo if you're allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medjolary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrineoplasia syndrome type 2. Stop and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck or severe stomach pain. Serious side effects may include inflamed pancreas and gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes. If you're nursing, pregnant, plant-a-by or taking birth control pills and before schedule procedures with anesthesia.

1:10:32Taking Foundeo with an insulin or sulfonyluria may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include diarrhea, nausea and vomiting which can cause dehydration and may cause kidney problems. Daily Foundeo is available by prescription only in 0.8 milligram, 2.5 milligram, 5.5 milligram, 9 milligram, 14.5 milligram and 17.2 milligram tablets. Learn more at foundeo.lyli.com or call 1-800-lyli-RX. Now it's perfect to talk to your doctor about Foundeo. Yes, so these kids they do this audition and of course they're promptly told like when can you fucking understand you they literally get called the wrapping proclamers and that's a line that the two guys say that they heard right then and by the way the proclamers wrapping I'm here for that. What are the proclamers? The proclamers and I would walk 500 miles and I would. Yeah, I'm down for the wrapping proclamers honestly but for these two guys who are so in love with American culture and hip hop and comic books that was the worst thing you could have said.

1:11:35Not even being rejected but like to be likened to these arguably quite straight square folks say rockers from Scotland and told that nobody wants you doing this. So then they decide they're going to present themselves as rappers from California. And this is a real story. Yeah, the inventories. They basically engage in method acting for 2.5 years of their life and the real story was 2.5 years. It was doing it. Our movie feels like 2.5 months. There's a millivinelli parallel a little bit. These guys could actually perform. They could rap. They could write. They were quite good but they were a lie at the heart of it. Yeah, so they start pretending they're from LA but then they don't know anything about LA. At one point they see where in LA and they go like Beverly Hills and they're like oh that was a myth. We're from the projects. Which projects? Do you know the ones in Beverly Hills? Where are you from? When they go sandy and the other one goes angeles and they're like you're sandy. Yeah, they don't know shit. So they got of like and get their stories straight and then lo and behold they go and perform somewhere as these American rappers who are apparently on tour in Europe and there's a scout in the audience

1:12:41from the same record label of which you play the CEO or the president of that and they get now round 2 audition with the same company now there as Americans and they get signed. The same music. The same song. Same with the few litig tweaks and different accents. They get a record contract. Wow. And then they start performing and then now this pressure of like when are they going to finally announce? Yeah, the gig. So the idea was that they were going to go down there, hopefully get the deal and then the game was as soon as we release something we're going to come out and expose the industry for this regional bias that we've suffered because here we are with the exact same tracks and you all of it. And here we are on MTV and they did go on MTV a lot. And then of course when they get that moment in the movie they get that moment where they release the track and they're on MTV and here's the moment they're going to come clean. They're going to embarrass the music industry or at least this label that they've been working with and of course they can not enjoy the fame and okay back to the thing that we just said about you too is like they were

1:13:47fearless when they had nothing to lose. They were overrun with fear of losing it. It's weird I don't think I've ever been afraid of losing my career. Yes I have. I don't know. What is it that made me mentor in the last few years? You would concede you'd have to adjust your lifestyle now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a legitimate fear. It's like I live this way. I enjoy living this way and I'd have to change that. I guess so. But I don't really feel fear. It's weird. I don't get motivated by fear. So it's an interesting question for me but I think one that I'll bore everybody by sitting here pondering. Yeah, it's weird to think about you can rest on a big moral high ground when you don't have anything. I mean this is going to be an unpopular opinion I think but I do think it's true. And when I listen to people on podcasts and stuff and they're always taking down like people who have money or people who are famous and I'm like it's really easy for you to say because

1:14:49you don't have it. And when you have it of course you want to keep it. Of course you like it. Of course it changes you. I don't know. It's a tricky judgmentalism. I find it so hard to accept. I'm not patting myself on the backs and I never judge people. We judge people every day. We do subconsciously. We have to do not get mugged. You make an assessment of the person you're chatting with are they going from my wallet or not. Do I get in there? Exactly. There's nothing wrong with a certain level of it. Yeah, you have to to survive. But go out of your way to express your opinions on how other people are living in your lives that have got no betting on your day. How they peed in, how they park. It does not affect me. Let them be. Do you know what I mean? It's hard enough being yourself with having opinions about other people's shit. Yeah. Anyway, it's a weird one. There's a lot of different uses for it. Some of them are just vials. Some of them are to shore up your own motivation, which is like, ah, that's why I work really hard on the things so that I'm not like that. Did you spend time in the playground with other parents? People you've never met before, but your

1:15:51kids are playing together. The other parents kind of telling you their parental choices with conviction, like no, no, no, it's the only way. You must. You must. You must. I know when you go home, you're doing the exact same thing as me, which is, this isn't working. Is this right? I don't know. She'll be trying something else, but you're in the park proselytizing to me. Ed, it's horizontalizing to me. Preaching to me, like you have completed parenting. Yes, but that's to make you feel better. That's the great illusion of parenting is you do figure it out. And then one week later, they're different. Yeah, they move to go put. Yes. And you're like, oh, no, I need a new strategy this week. And then they become teenagers. And you're like, oh, my God, now I need an entirely like I'm remedi-mem almost as totally different people now because there's quite a lot of years between my eldest and my youngest. You're 16 and four. Yeah, yeah. I'm doing it all again. And it's kind of hilarious being back in the park and all the dynamics with other parents. Yeah. Is this thing that guys do quite a lot where you'll be watching your kid play with some other kid and we've never met before, but our kids are suddenly like tight. And you're like standing beside this guy and we're met before and you'll go, oh, your kids really like you can really run or like, oh, he can

1:16:55hold the monkey bar brilliantly. That's great. What did you say? What did you say? I mean, because he's trying like, I can't let it go. Is my kid failing? Should my kid be doing better? And you're like, oh, it's a weird thing we do with this kind of comparison. I always want to see like, oh, he's three. It comes from a sweetness because I do think you don't know when you have a baby, you don't know what they're supposed to be doing. So you are, you're kind of looking to see like, are they on crap? Yeah. Do I need a specialist? You're always waiting to find out if you need a specialist or not. Yeah. They go, but she's been making this weird noise really loudly for a month and a half. Is it time for a specialist? This goes away and you're like, oh, thank God, we didn't need to split. I know. It's a way of a thing you do being a petting. Well, the other fun thing that it exposes once you turn on the light switch to being popular, the intoxication of that and the availability of drinking drugs and attractive people in late nights. The rapidity at which that took

1:17:57over these two. Right. Right. How one navigates that in a healthy manner is beyond me. Anyone who can do that, I'm impressed. Especially when you're young is well and you're still forming it. Look, I navigated it a little bit with for a lot of my 20s. I was kind of keeping an eye on myself and I think I went too far, but I was like, work ethic, work really hard, be super professional. That was my life. It was kind of devout actor too. Were you not going out and partying at all? Little bit, but nothing, nothing regular. You were married really young too. I was married pretty young and nobody home was going, oh, we're working class and I was a member of your working class. But it's in you. You come from it and I left it really young. But in my head, it was like the whole idea of stay true. You come from don't forget, you came from all that, which is a good thing in some ways. I think I went too far. A little bit. On my hatred of judgmentalism, I was way more judgy when I was in my early 20s and all that of your peers and I've heard of the sessions they were making and all that. And so that stopped me from really taking advantage of all the opportunities

1:18:57I could have had. They could have also messed me right up. Yeah. Do you think some of the two is driven by the fact that you didn't feel like you belong there? So you had to really prove with this crazy work ethic and this crazy dedication. Maybe. Is this piece of shit from Scott on this terrible place with this ugly accent? Not just that. Not just even the regional bias, even just physically as well. Like I say, against your Plinter romantic lead against Kieranightly and like an amazingly beautiful costume drama that you just know is one of the best things you've ever worked on and will ever work on in your life. You're like, like, five, five, seven, malnourished pasty, transparent skin looking like they wouldn't have cast you if people saw you like that though. That's as easy as I know. Like in terms of your self perception. I know. All these things that I've just said are true as well. They're not really arguable about me at the time. And so you go like, I'm not the usual thing that would get here. So I realized I look at him. I better not fuck up. I got a work extra hard on a tone. And I remember Joe wanted to live with some of the key crew and all of the actors and structure near Ludlow where we were filming.

1:19:58They all stayed in this big manor house. Kind of like the manor house that was used as a location. And I remember thinking to myself, I can't do that because I was scared of it. Them theme, the real you, maybe, or drinking too much going off. If it's parties every night, I don't know. That's what happened there. But if it was like that, I would have able to kind of resist that and would I then be able to do my job. And so I remember it being a bit of a thing. And it became quite clear that it was like, no, he definitely won his ought to stay together. So I kind of framed it as an actor. And I was like, like, Robbie is he's the only one of the whole group who's working class. He is separate. He speaks like them, but he isn't like them. And I think I should be separate. You convince them. Yeah. I lived in like the gardener's cottage of the property that the film was shot on. It was amazing. It was really beautiful. I was definitely three months. It was gorgeous. Okay. So to finish up California scheme, it obviously comes to a head. This lie is going to come out. And then their life just kind of collapses. And the title sequence, we see footage of these real guys. And it's so rad to see it because

1:21:03it's a very unbelievable story. And it kind of cemented it for me at the beginning when it comes up at the beginning, it says, based on a true story. And then we flip the watch story to lie. Is that make you think that you're watching a true story? Or does that make you think it's possibly fictional? No, I didn't do that. Not the latter. Because I think sometimes we did have a version of it without that at all at the beginning. So people just thought they were watching a rag series to rag story. And then at the end, they dropped the information that, holy shit, this actually happened. It's way more rewarding in my opinion to know it actually happened. All right. But I also love non-fiction or fiction. But whatever. The notion these two guys are going to pull off being American. They're not even that good at it. You know what? Do you ever watch the documentary, which is a really good documentary? The great hip-hop folks. The guys' accents are not really good. They're slipping left, right, and center. You would have to be an angle and for you to believe that these guys were American. They were on MTV and no one's kept on doing it. They were on MTV multiple times. It was TRL was the show by now. But we copyright. We couldn't. We could say it was MTV, but we couldn't say it was TRL. Back then, I would be able to tell you if somebody was doing a bad American accent. Like in 2003, I'd be able

1:22:06to go, you're doing an accent. But here's the thing. There was execs from the record label, because the record label was a massive international record label. They had the American offices at Arminolack and stuff. The execs from the American office coming over to Britain, going, what are you guys doing here? You need to get on a plane. We're going to take you over. We're going to go wild in America. That's where you need to be. And the guys, the whole time, we're just going like, we got British passports. They still hadn't signed a contract. Because how could they sign a contract? They've got no ID. Is anything other than Scottish? They couldn't get ID. It would be judged to be fake if they made it. So they had to just keep dodging and swearing. That was all in the script at one point, but we condensed it down. Were they involved in the movie? Gavin and Billy were involved in the movie. That's what I was going to add to the title sequence. So did you spend time with these guys? Yeah. Gavin, at first, more so, because Billy was weirdly affiliated with a different film that was going to be about their journey, but from his point of view more. And in that film, never happened, unfortunately, and Billy came on air as late. But Gavin was really involved with the music. What we realized when we got the rights, the music from Gavin who held all the rights back then, only 20 or years ago, you were releasing the hip-hop

1:23:11tracks, you were sampling, sampling, sampling, building the back-and-track, and then you were putting it out there. And you kind of went like, that's a bit of sting, that's a bit of a so-and-so, that's a bit of a wreath of Franklin, whatever. And nobody cared. Now people care. Now people are like, so we got the rights, the other music, and then realized we couldn't use any of the music. Because they had millions of dollars with the samples in it. Exactly. So we had to rebuild everything from the ground up to sound exactly the same, but have no samples in. Yes. Which was not. So he was really involved in that, along with their amazing music supervisor and music editor. And then Billy, when he came on board, we found ourselves needing some, there was like some freestyle rap moments in it, but it meant to be like freestyle rap moments. And our writers, Archie and Elaine, who are brilliant, they ain't rappers. So they were like doing their version of something to be fair to them. Like they even held their hands up, we're like, you're going to need to get somebody from the culture to do this. So we got into it. She's Billy. And he was like, what do you want it to feel like? What do you want to be talking about? Where's the character at this point? And I just give him a whole list of what I thought it could be. And he gave me like 20 things back in like 20 minutes. And it was amazing. And so his

1:24:14off the cuff kind of threw it out in a bit half an hour, freestyle was open and closed the movie. That's awesome. I'm assuming they both must look back on that and go like, what an incredible, wonderful chapter. I'm so glad that was part of our life. I think so. I mean, I think it was a really complex time for during the fallout for Gavin. Yeah. And you know, as much as I was really keen to exploit the opportunities that this journey presented me as a filmmaker, which is to make a really propulsive momentum driven entertaining mainstream movie that's funny and all that. There's a guy in it who almost pays the ultimate price because of the effect it has in his mental health. You're trying to like weigh that up and also not be exploitative of the guy's experience on a right and it exploded but not exploited in a titillating fashion. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And also even for Billy, although things never got quite as mortal for him, he felt more certain than who he was going into it. So he was more certain when it was time to leave. But we're also showing him and who's now still married to Mary and his three

1:25:17kids were showing him making some pretty dodgy decisions at the time as well. And he's kid to got you watched that and all that. So that was very aware of all that. I was really grateful to but Gavin and Billy for coming with us and trusting me to handle those moments sensitively and not just expose them sort of titillatingly in a cartoonish way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. My last question for you is you're premiering this movie at the trial film festival. Yes. And you got belted by a Canadian. He told me he was from Mexico. Oh, okay. What do you mean belted? Here we go. You got a bunch at a bar. Yeah. I was sitting like this. I was sitting at the bar. Bar is here and I'm sitting producer on this side, producer on this side. We've done like six days selling the hell out of our film. I'm exhausted and it's the end. We're just going to have a little round up. Well done guys. We did it. And some of you just call cocks me in the back of the head. Like, oh, that, that, that sort of a slap. And I looked at producer Danny and John as well. I was like, and I was looking at the like, I was really sore about I was like, what the fuck? Yeah. And then I looked over there and I saw the guy storm and I he'd been getting thrown out because he

1:26:18was really drunk and doing something weird during the corner. We'd never laid eyes on each other. He just randomly smacked. He dudes. And so I immediately kind of went from zero to 90 and went after him. Sure. And then the two producers, they came after me and they put their hands me. The minute they put their hands me, I was like, I need to get a play and I need to go back to my wife and kids find up like the police or something. This is a judge and I immediately went from 90 to like zero. But by this point, the guy turned around and he just sees me getting held back. So that then makes him come. And so I'm getting held back, even though I'm not looking for a fight anymore. I've never gone like that hot to cold in my life that quick. And he's like coming at me. And he's getting held back. And then he starts to do this thing that I don't know if you've experienced when you're in a fight. You just happened all the time when I was a kid. When you're squaring up to somebody or somebody's like coming at you just before they throw a punch, whatever, they're telling you where they're from. I'm from Mexico. He goes and I was like, and I almost went, I'm in drum jappel. Why do we feel that? To get that so weird?

1:27:23To get our zip code and post it because you're trying to establish your bonafide. You're trying to intimidate the person in the backing down. But it's like, you know, game of thrones that are like, for fucking worse or worse. He's like, maybe we're still doing it for drum jappel. Yeah. So he is. It's like an odd thing. If a guy says I'm from Beverly Hills versus I'm from Baltimore, these are relevant details. Yes. Nobody goes like, I'm from Chippin, Northern. All things equal. I would prefer to fight the guy from Beverly Hills than the from Baltimore. Look, maybe I pull a lot of something in nothing. I've said as well, if I saw that guy, I'm a hundred percent sure he'd be an alright guy. Ninety percent sure. The reverse engineering I would have done was like, people knew you were there. The dude knew there was a hot shot there. He didn't like that someone was getting a lot of attention. Do you think it was fully random or do you think it might have had something to do with the fact that you're in movies? I think it was fully random. From the way that the bar staff were talking to me, they didn't even think you could see properly

1:28:24at that point. He's just swinging. The bar staff said he thought he was in the bathroom and he was urinating in the bar around the corner. But he was so far running the other side of the bar that we hadn't even laid eyes on each other. Some people will say that they have a punchable face, but you could say you have a punchable back your head. You probably never heard of you. You're like maybe an inviting back of your head. I've had some pretty offensive haircuts. I've got some desperately in need of a haircut right now. Oh, I can't hair. I've never had this thing as an actor where they're like, could you just keep growing your hair? You just keep growing your hair and then the movie keeps going on that and you're like, this is not a haircut. This is just growing out here. This is bad. So yeah, I need a haircut. There's no shape to this. I've got to frame you a film and I don't have a haircut. Well, James, it's been a delight to meet you. I thoroughly enjoyed your movie. Thank you. An incredible first time out directing is called California Scheme and it's out right now. Thank you. Thank you so much. I feel like this is so full circle for me. Yeah, it is. You have hated you. You have admired you and worshipped you and now to sit and talk with you as

1:29:25the little guy. That is wild. That story. I hated this guy. James McVoyer. Who is James McVoyer? I'm so glad that you got to see him last king of Scotland without knowing that that was the guy. Yes. Because that might excuse your opinion of my performance. I hope I'm more objective than that, but no, it probably would have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thank you, everyone. See California Scheme and it's October 9th. Why do you think we need two words? Excuse yourself or recuse yourself? Yeah. Don't they mean the same thing if you have some conflict of legal issues, you give the recruiter what you would do same as if you excuse yourself. Yeah, but I think recuse must have been an old word, an old time illegal. The original word. Latin. Yeah, it's more official duty. You will recuse yourself from. Okay, excuse is the more layman's term. You know, I keep trying to add

1:30:29words to my vocabulary. I don't know if you are you act you actively try to still I do. I should. I should. I know that you do. Well, you just say words that I know you've never said. Well, the other day I used decamped I think successfully and I was so delighted because I've like heard that term and I've read it a few times and I just heard it coming out of my mouth. We need to decamp to this location. Oh, wow. Yeah, you were present. What? That means it must have come out very organically. You don't even know. Or maybe maybe you don't even think of the word decamped. I don't. I don't think of that word. It's a weird word. Where are we decamping? Well, it was like someone was telling a story and I said, so you had to decamp to blank. You weren't listening maybe at that moment is also likely. Okay. So decamp is new. What else is new? Well, we were taught by an arm cherry in an interview. Edenic. I love that word and

1:31:30I've found that it's applicable pretty often to say Edenic. Yeah, like that one. You do use new words. I think you use a new word today. I heard. I don't remember what it was. Okay. But I was like, that's cool. No, it wasn't clunky, but I was like, that's new and that's going to be sick. I'm going to start hearing this come out of this mouth of it. This is, you know, this is the cost of being around each other so much and the cost and the benefit. Like you really, if I start saying a new word, I'll know. You will know because you're used to the way I do. You see me once a year, you might assume I use the word all the time. Yeah. Or even sparingly, but not like, oh, that's the first time he's trying it out. Right. You know, because you love now, you love love. Oh, here's one. I would see if I know about it. Well, we were taught it here. Prima Fesha. We were taught it by Steven Dubner. And we discussed it in the episode. He said it and then

1:32:31was like, oh, wow, oh, I like that. I'm going to start using that. And when you say I'm going to start using that, you mean it. I mean it. Yeah. Yeah. I do love Prima Fesha. Yeah. It's a good word. Yeah. I was defending myself about Prima Fesha in my head, Lane and Bad. What do you mean? Well, I'm like, some of these words, they're identical to other words that are more cloak wheel or more well known. So then you come across as trying to be snobby or seemingly, but I was like, no, so often these words, they're just a little bit different. And then I was even thinking, so Prima Fesha's on the surface. So minimally, it's more efficient. It's just two words as opposed to three. This is twisting yourself into a pretzel when you just lie down. Because I lay in bed and I hear criticisms from my hometown. Yeah. That's what you're hearing. That's right. And I defend myself against these criticisms from my hometown a lot of the day. Yeah. It's a big preoccupation of mine. It's funny because maybe in this very specific case for some reason we're reversed.

1:33:34I don't know why, but I, because I don't care if people think I'm snobby. But I do when I notice people using 10 cent. What is it? Yeah, 20 cent word. 20 cent word. Quarter 25 cent word or whatever. I'm always like, it doesn't make me think anything bad, but it does pull me out for a second. Okay. Yeah. And, and so I don't really do that. And I don't think I use 25 cent words. I think I was heavily rewarded in my teenage years for having a big vocabulary. But me too. Because I liked older girls. And I would be on the phone all the time with older girls just talking for hours. And they would say that they like that about me. Yeah. I like people who have strong vocabularies. And I think I used, I think I'm going in the opposite direction. Yeah, you're dumbing down. Yeah. It's healthy, I think.

1:34:36I am dumbing down. Yeah. You're getting real simple. That's not good. That's not good. I also think, again, I think it's genetic. Well, how would we know? Because I'm, my mother was horny for words. Still is. She's the only one left in my life. I'll say something and she'll go, oh, I love that word. What does that mean? Like she still gets peaked when she hears a new word. And I certainly have and Lincoln has a tremendous, she's collecting words as fast as she can. So I'm inclined to think there's some genetic component. Like it's just, it's very curious that three of us are. But what's the, what and why have I changed? Because I, why are you sliding away from that? Yeah. Because I used to, maybe it's just I really, really, I, maybe I used to do that because I wanted to sound smart. And now I really don't care about that. That's likely. If I gave it a percentage, I would say I was only really 25% motivated out of sounding smart. I love, I love,

1:35:36like I just love words. And I love having to say them in my mind a bunch of times before I, I feel confident enough to say them out loud. I don't know why I just, I think there's a genuine love. I don't do any flash cards. But I get used them for your birthday. Yeah. Stack of flash cards. I do. I was, last time I was home, I saw all these old SAT flashcards. They made me laugh. It brought me back to a time. You had saved them. Oh, I saved everything. You saved every day. I'm thinking why not? You should see my parents' basement. It is horrifying. Well, I've been on many Zoom call with you in that basement. Oh, yeah. And I've seen this, this stack, the shelves of your belonging. Those, no, those are my mom's pots and pans. Her extra pots and pans. Her second location. That she will never ever pull out of you. No, she uses, she goes, she uses them all the time. Runs down the stairs. She doesn't have space in the kitchen for her. Oh, okay. So she does that. But there's another room that has all the old stuff. And I don't know what happened. Some tornado went through there. And it's a full disaster. I think it was my brother.

1:36:43Or in all of the collections looking for something. Yeah. Okay. But you'll find really fun treats in there. Yeah. Old beanie baby. Well, yeah. Remember I found Valentino. Yeah, it's fun to go look through your youth. I am so excited. This is the most excited I've been in a while. I'm like counting down the minutes. So you're because I'm meaning Tyrell and Weekly. Yes. And just days in Las Vegas. I'm so excited. It's my first time going to Las Vegas. That's fun. What do you think about me wearing shorts to a Metallica concert? I'm like struggling with this for some reason. What kind? It's too hot. Right. And there'll be a lot of walking. I think it's fine. To wear shorts to a concert. Is that the sphere, right? Yeah. I think so. Yeah, I don't know why I am questioning. Yeah. Is there like a step in repeat or something? Well, we are going to stay house beforehand. They might not want me in shorts. That might be. But in Vegas, do you think they have rules? I also think anything goes in Vegas. That's what they say. Well, they say

1:37:46everything stays there. I don't know about everything goes. But can you, what kind of shorts are? Gene shorts? The ones I wear every day. You see me? And I have three different pair of marine layer dressy pants that I've cut off. Shorts are totally fine for Metallica. Okay. All right. And what about the steakhouse before him? That might be more questionable. Okay. Maybe I'll buy a pair of disposable pants. Where are they? Why don't you look on the website? It'll say if there's a dress code. It's probably calm too. It's easier to just look on the website. But I don't know. Where are they going to bury that info? It might be a dress code. It would definitely be on the website. Okay. But they do have to expect people are like, it's a hunter. They're coming off of, I guess, a golf course. People go to steakhouses after a golf course. Like, yeah, I think in Vegas, I think it's fine. Sure. It lists. No. Okay. That's an absolutely not draw the line there. Maybe at the concert though. Yeah. I wonder what the

1:38:48age range will be at the concert. Yeah. I do too. I'm presuming a bunch of old guys like Aaron and Aaron and I. But you never know. Like now this Smith's, their huge fan bases, young Latinas. The Smiths? Yeah. So California, this is huge. Yeah. Subculture of Latinas and Latinos that are super into the Smiths. Cool. But what I'm aware of is how different now. Like when I was a kid, Metallica came to Pine knob and Detroit with the cult. Aaron went. We had a friend whose older sister took those two and I was like so jealous that I didn't get to go. But also I was so scared to go to that concert as was Aaron. We were just talking about the other day. He went. Yeah. There was like 20 or 30 fights he saw in a bunch of aggressive dudes with long hair and drunk. And so it's just funny now. Like I'm going to see Metallica at the sphere and I think, oh, it's going to be a quite lovely evening. Yeah. I should normal be because we've all aged out of that craziness. It's wild out differently.

1:39:51I feel about this concert in previous ones. Are you going to buy a t-shirt? Do they sell them? There's nothing in life I want other than the safety of my children that's worth me standing in an hour long line. In fact, you know, I did when I went to Sabrina Carlin, I stood in a half hour line. But for Delta. I know, but it's like it is for them because one day that will be a vintage shirt. Sure. And I might even for their their kids. Like that's a good shirt to have. I mean, I'll also be with Aaron and Aaron. They're going to have a vote and whether or not we stay in the line. But I also might just say like, hey, see at the seats. Yeah. You know, see at the seats. I'm going to go get some vintage shirts. See at the seats. That's when you're saying it's when you motto. See at the seats. Okay. I'm just wondering if you get in line if I want you to get me one too. Oh, wow. Okay. So this was ultimately maybe about thinking about the vintage shirt. I can't imagine I cannot get the shirt that's resailed there on the internet. That feels impossible.

1:40:52No, sometimes they have ones you can only get there and you can ask which ones can I only get here? Yeah. Yeah. There's some very famous shirts from Metallica. See? Do you know about metal up your ass? Okay. Well, there's there's a song metal up your ass very early on. Okay. And the iconography on the shirt was a toilet bowl with a sword coming out of it. Okay. Yeah. That's pretty extreme. That is. Yeah. Metal up your ass. I mean, better than this thing's up your ass. Yeah. And it's a ding ding ding to armchair anonymous for an object's prompt. Right. People have metal up there. They do. And it gets stuck. Yeah. Um, this is a reminder. Oh, there it is. Wow. That's the tea. That's probably worth $30. 30. I don't know. I'm just getting it for $16 on eBay right now. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Aaron had that shirt. As you can imagine, the vice principal of our school

1:41:54did not appreciate anyone wearing that shirt to school. Wait, you said 16. Yeah. Oh, no. I mean, it looks like a remake though. So. Oh, it's a thing. Yeah. It doesn't even look. There's an at one on Etsy for 300 that look. Okay. That's what I'm talking about. That might be an rich. Yeah. I would be in a rich. Okay. Nice and thin. She's. Oh, I hope it's thin. I love. You love them. I love them. I love them. Teas. I love vintage teas. You love liberate teas. I do. Yeah. What do you think about? I healed up a shockingly fast. No. Yesterday, I was in an absolute mass. Oh, this is going to be confusing shit. Okay. Because the episode comes on on Monday. This episode comes out on Monday. But Wednesday's episode, we did yesterday. I'll just tell people. Yeah. Wednesday's back check. We did yesterday. Oh, so this will be a reverse. This is a reverse back. Oh, so on Wednesday, you'll see Dax's face is all scarred up. Yeah. Yeah.

1:42:56Tremendously so to be fair, you are right that in within 24 hours, I was almost excited for today's episode. I was assuming I would have as many scabs all over my forehead and cheeks and nose to see if our guests today would say anything. I really wanted to be able to use my whole metal grinder thing. Yeah, which they don't know about yet. Yeah. I don't know. Anyway. But then I woke up this morning into my dismay, not a new word. I saw that I had very little scabbage. Yeah. You in 24 hours, you really shed a lot of those scabs. I think that's a testament to how good I am at the high fricator 2000. I don't think that's it. But I asked, it's rare that I request a Christmas present. Come come Christmas. I'm like, I don't know. Just forget about me. Okay. But I did request that Chris and make me a high fricator 2000 t-shirt. I want high fricator 2000 written. And then I want an image of the device. Okay. Kind of like that metallical shirt. Yes. Metal.

1:43:58Kind of like metal up your ass. So yeah, that's that request has been made. Okay. That sounds nice. Yeah. Because I got new air conditioners that are finally the right size for my house. You're still dealing with that itchy ear. Have you tried putting any high high to high to record a zone in your ear? No. Why do you think that's good? Of course. Do you think it might be bad for my hearing? No, that's what I'm putting. You're not going to put it on your eardrum. I need to go deep. Well, let's start like midway or maybe. I feel crazy with this ear thing. You need to definitely put some higher courtesan on that. Yeah. It's making me feel like I even have the perfect thing. Swab. No, I have an ointment that was given to me specifically for this. Oh, really? Okay. Maybe. Yeah. I'll try. Because I for bug for bug invest. I'm ready to just spray some raid right in there. You get sprayed on a Q tip and then. Yeah. Yeah. Well, people haven't heard

1:45:00it. Yeah. Well, bugging. No, we've heard that. But people haven't heard yet that what I learned is that itchy ear canals also horrible phrase itchy ear canals also sounds like a band. Yeah. itchy ear canals are a sign of parimenopause. And so I hate that reality mixed with this is like I wake up in the night and I have to itch. That's rough. We got to put some hydrochlorosone in there. And I just have a couple of apples for good measure. Get the high fricator in there. Saps, apps, apps. Once you have scabs in there, that'll distract you from the itching. Yeah, probably. Well, a lot of people want me to tell you that the guy you're upset with betraying his friend who I think is hot. Yeah. Rob R. Rob R. That he bought her a Birken bag. I do know this. People really wanted me to let you know. And that's just a testament to his hotness. Like people are defending him. Oh, they're saying like it's actually fine. Yeah. Like, remember when we had on this was a fun thing to observe when we had on Scotty's to Wood.

1:46:03And he told the story about working with Shia LaBouf that he didn't. LaBeef that he didn't like. The amount of people that were outraged someone had anything negative to say about Shia. Was was noticeable. Wait, wait, wait, when we had Scott Eastwood on people were up. Because the clip had to do with this dust up he had with Shia on the tank movie. And people were coming out and drove to defend Shia and mad at Scott. As if he was reporting like his opinion, he's just reporting these facts. That story he was involved. Yes, right. And so when I saw this like really passionate thing, I was like, oh man, the power of having a crush on someone is so strong. Yeah. You know, because I adore Shia as an actor, I think he is unbelievably talented. Yeah, he is. I also deeply admire his level of honesty. I've seen him having public. Also, he's beating up guys and saying he's a homophob and his hit his girlfriend. So it's like

1:47:08very interesting to see these women come out in such droves to defend him. I think he's an incredible actor. I think if you're hitting women to like that, that is a problem. Or not like that, obviously, but in some ways, you are. You're endorsing a person that does that. I'm drawing a line there. Yeah, but it was a real unabashed. So this thing with Rob, mere that it was so important people knew. No, he is a good guy. And that's just the power of being cute. Well, that was my whole point of that whole story is like, wow, what a handsome white man can get away with. Yeah. Yeah. Is that everyone in this entire house just thinks he's perfect and good and nice. Yeah. And I'm sure he's nice by the way. Yeah. But like that he could never be a traitor because he's hot. He's enjoyable to look at. Yeah, that is upsetting. I did know that he got more a Birken bag. Yeah. And or said that helped alleviate your anger towards him.

1:48:15I mean, I'm glad he did that. That's nice. I was eating wind on this show. I think you win like 250,000. And then how much is a Birken bag cost? Range. I hope she I hope he got her a nice right. I hope he got her a $30,000 one so they can be 30 grand. $16,000 apparently was the bad one he got her. Yeah. Like anyone. $220,800. Okay. So of that, he got one 10. Yeah. Maybe about her $16,000 bag. He gave her basically 15% of his money. No, but to the matter. To me, it's not about that. That's see, that's the thing. They're trying to be like, no, but he got her a Birken bag. So it's fine. It's not fine to pinky promise her and humiliate her. I mean, that's really it is. That's where you're it's you. That's where you're projecting a little bit. No, she said she said like I it was really hard to watch. I really kind of couldn't watch it.

1:49:17Projecting is not the right word. You were easily able to imagine yourself being made a fool. Oh, I could empathize. Of course. I was like, and that doesn't get fixed by a bird. So like, that doesn't bother me because I can't even imagine being made a fool by him, you know. Well, he could. Yeah. Of course he could do that. You might believe him. Well, his superpowers wouldn't be powerful on me. They were. They were powerful on every person. That's my trust. Anyone good looking. Well, you would have trusted Rob. I don't know how he did that, but every person trusted him. It is funny though to have people mad at you for entering a game, which we already know what the goal of the game is. And then he did well and won. And to be mad at a winner is is counter. I don't think you should have pinky promised. Now you like him. No. Okay. First of all, I didn't mean look. I like Rob. Because he's hot. And he is seemingly nice. And I like that he got her the Birken. But look at look. She's

1:50:17wearing a t-shirt that says, I'm dumb question, Mark, because I guess it's like, I'm dumb. But I'm not because I got this Birken out of it. I'm dumb. Like you think I'm dumb. I'm the whole of the Birken back. Yeah. I don't know what her intention is with that shirt. I think that's what it is. But really, then it's like, this is upsetting. See, she lives with this, like, now she lives with this contention that she's dumb. But you don't think she's dumb, do you just try to sit down? I don't think she's dumb. So maybe everyone thinks. See, okay. This is a deep, right? Everyone trusted Rob Arb, because I don't know why I wasn't there. Part of it, I do believe is his handsomeness mixed with his kindness. I think he was kind to everyone. And I think he, and he said this, and I, this is not his fault. This is everyone else's fault. But he said, people just think I'm a dumb guy from Alabama. And then another guy was like, I don't think that I think you're really not whatever. That was a sweet exchange.

1:51:20But I do think some people might think that they might think like, well, he wouldn't really be able to get one over on us. Yes. So that's on everybody else that deserve that. They do deserve that if they believe that. But more and Rob Arb had a special connection. And very flirty. Were they fucking do you think? So they say no. Okay. They say no. And I got to take it. I got to take it at face value. But you felt like maybe they were fucking. I feel like they had an intimacy. Whether or not it was fucking, they definitely did have an intimacy. She felt like she had this special, I guess I am putting words on her mouth a little bit. But not really. She says on the show, like Rob and I, you know, they're their best friends who might fuck and kiss and cuddle with each other and snuggle. Serenade to each other's eyes. Yeah. And like you can tell she felt like,

1:52:24no, I know him. She would say like, there's no way I would sleep with him last night. I know him. And that's no, that's bad. When I'm saying is she's also got acknowledged, she's in a game. She probably thinks the fucking part is not connected that he's not that if he, well, I don't think he, I think he would love to fuck her whether it's in a game or not. Yeah, but he needs to be that's not nice. If you are a traitor, yeah, that's not nice. What's not nice is intentionally fucking her to gain her trust to win a game. Not good. But you're trying to win a game. That's one thing. Another thing is you're attracted to this woman in the house and you guys start hooking up. Yeah, you can't, you have to be. You have to be not enough to be aware of what that means for the other person. That that an intimacy whether it's not compartmentalized. Maybe it is for these him hot men. Okay.

1:53:26Maybe they can compartmentalize like, oh, this part is like I'm trying to win the game. She's trying to win the game. We're all trying to win the game. And we're sleeping together. No. No, you don't think that's not nice. That's not nice. It's not nice. So what'd it be nice? Sure. She was like, please sleep with me. He's like, no, she, no, what should say? You think that's nice? But girls, please sleep with me. No, no, thank you. I'm not interested. That's not what he would say. What would he say? I don't think it's ethical for me to do that in this game. Oh, because, oh, so you're the wolf? Huh? So, on a reason it wouldn't be ethical is if you weren't, you, you, you'd be exposing the fact that he's the wolf. No, we're here for two weeks. Yeah. I don't know it. You don't know me. I don't know you. This isn't, it wouldn't be fair. It could only be unethical if you were the trader. No, it could just be like, you're just both, whether the other people called losers, trader and what? No, traders and faithfuls. Thank you.

1:54:31Faithfuls. Faithfuls should be free to fuck, right? Yeah. Yeah. So if he says no, he's kind of blowing up his spot. But he doesn't have to. He could just be like, I have a girlfriend. Just lie. God. Okay. He's lying throughout this entire game. Of course, it's preferred. If you're the girl, and you've just had set, okay, I don't know if they've actually really happened. But really, quick, what if you found out that she's glad they had sex with that change things for you? That she doesn't feel betrayed by that aspect of that. Then sure. Yeah. They're all really right. But that's also part of why the bottom fell out so hard for her, where she was like, like, could not sleep on the enemy. She doesn't know if she can trust herself anymore. Right. This is a very upsetting thing for her. Moira. Yeah. She's now undancing with the stars. Maybe hold on. I don't, I say this without having seen one frame of the show. So I, yeah. This is a theoretical question. I don't know her at all. Neither. But if she's learned,

1:55:35she can't trust herself. That's a good thing to learn. Like, I need to be a little more savvy. No. No. Because someone manipulated her. She can't trust herself. That's not fair. He manipulated her. He manipulated everyone. He manipulated everyone, which is fine. Right. That's the game. That's the game. Okay. But with her specifically because of this intimacy that was built, that is a step too far, I believe. Okay. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare, we get support from Scottsdale, Arizona. Monica, with summer ending or heading into fall, I've been researching a nice quick getaway location. And I keep coming back to Scottsdale, Arizona. Oh, Scottsdale's good. What's drawing you to it? Well, first of all, I have this wonderful memory of going there as a kid when I go see my stepdad when he's working out there. The weather is perfect in fall, warm, sunny, no humidity. And you can really do whatever you want with your time

1:56:39there. I want to do a sunrise hike through the Sonoran desert. Be surrounded by Soiro and then at the same afternoon, just completely melt into a spa treatment at one of their luxury resorts. Oh, that sounds amazing. I want to do that. Also, I was there visiting my brother once and I loved old town Scottsdale. It's so walkable. They have galleries and cute little restaurants and shops. The food scene alone is worth the trip. What I keep reading is that it's luxurious, but not stuffy. There's no pressure to do it a certain way. You can explore public art, check out the architecture, go off-roading in the desert or just sit and watch a sunset. It really is the perfect fall reset. Learn more about all Scottsdale has to offer at UnwindInSkotsdale.com. Yeah, this is a common. I'm going to leave it. I'm going to leave it. I want you to imagine it as delta. Yeah. As a father of two daughters, I would say just like you have to evaluate whether the person

1:57:43you're about to get in a car with and Uber is crazy or not. You have to evaluate people. That's part of life. You have to be realistic about people. If not, if you're wanting the world to change and the world to be, everyone's got perfect intentions, I'm here to say that's not going to happen. So your only choice in life is to be discerning. I had to be discerning about the people I dated and women have to be discerning about who they date. That's also true. I don't think you can say that you're powerless over the ways of manipulation. I think that's like then what are you also going to give your credit card number to somebody that's trustworthy? There's all these areas and realms where we all realize we have to be discerning. I think in love, you have to be discerning too. Yeah. You can expect that people who you grow to care about or have intimacy with or tell you they care about you, you can believe them.

1:58:44You shouldn't have your guard up for your entire life. That's bad. I think you have to have a reasonable size fence, not to the sick guy, but it has to be realistic. I had a friend who met a guy who was on a TV show who was gorgeous and rich and young and within a week of dating, he was saying he wanted to have a baby with her. And I said, hey, I'm waving my hand over here. That's crazy and not normal. That's not how it works. You may have found the one person. That's how it's going to work. But like I'm here to say that's crazy. No guy in that situation is trying to have a baby with somebody's known for two weeks. And that person did not want to hear that at all. Okay. And then that person was later revealed to be like an addict and all this out. There was a lot of other stuff going on. Yes. But my point is no, it was on her to be realistic

1:59:46about that. No, no. It's on him to not lie to her. Yes. Absolutely. Well, first of all, I don't think he was lying. He was an addict thinking this this life raft had just appeared. And he was going to pull that to save him from this opiate addiction. So I think he might have been dead sincere at that moment that he thought, this is the solution. This is my way out of this and my way forward in life. But I know who you're talking about. And also this person was very vulnerable to hearing that. This this person who. Yes. When I'm saying, but here's here's my overall thought is like, is the lesson to be learned from that that she shouldn't be more realistic about things going forward. And that she should just hope that no other. She doesn't mean another person is trying to pull themselves out of something like ultimately, it's it's on her to choose her partners.

2:00:46It is, but you also have to take what people are saying in. Yeah. In evaluated, you can't just be like in a vacuum in a relationship. But part of it is what's going on between the people to assess if someone has love addicty behavior. That's not you have to unless you want to be in an endless cycle of falling in love with people who are just love addicts. I know, but you're not giving any responsibility to the love addict who's causing wreckage. No, I am. Okay. I just want to hear that because any guy who's telling a woman that he loves her and he doesn't love her so that he can have sex is a piece of shit. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yes. But I'm not raising those boys. I have two daughters. And it would be my goal and my desire that they are realistic about assessing behavior. Like, well, this is very unconventional that a dude wants to get married in a week. That a dude's telling me he loves me in two weeks. You might be swept up in the emotions, but you do have to go,

2:01:47like, well, this is abnormal. Someone saying, I love you in two weeks. That's a very short amount of time to determine what he loves. So like, but also some people do that and they get married in there and love for the rest of their lives. I think it's a very low percentage. Yes. But it happens. So to be like, I don't know. I don't know. It's what I'm saying is one sounds very victim. And then you're just going to endlessly be a victim. If you're not willing to say, no, I got to get realistic about the real behavior of people. And I can see this dude's never been someone for more than a year. Let's take immediately. Let's take that in account. You're 30 years old. You're meeting a guy who's telling you he loves you in two weeks. He's never been someone for more than a year that is relevant information that you are either choosing to ignore or not savvy enough. But once it happens once, I think anyone who wants to protect themselves should go like, Oh, I got to be on the lookout for this pattern. I mean, a four year old dude has never had a relationship for more than two years. And he's telling me he loves me in 10 days. Pretty big red flags. Sure. You can be aware of abnormal tease. And like you can have,

2:02:54you can have awareness. But I don't think when someone lies to you, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's your responsibility. It's just like addiction. It's not my fault. I'm an addict. It is my responsibility. So it's like, it's not your fault that guys are out there trying to lie. If your responsibility, I guess moving forward, if you don't want to be hurt all the time to be aware, but it is not, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, Rob are. Okay. Some facts for another hot person, James McAvoy. Oh, yes. Yes. James McAvoy. As I said, in the episode, he's Callie's first, not maybe not first, but but biggest deepest celebrity crush, Mr. Tumnus is the fun. Specifically, Mr. Tumnus is the fun. Yeah. And will you ask her right now if in her fantasies about him at that time, she would be hooking up with an animal. I don't think

2:03:55she's comfortable with me asking that. And I think the answer is, can I ask her? Um, I should. It is a question from from DAX. Like, did you want in your fantasy him to be half animal, half person or all James McAvoy? I think she wanted all James McAvoy. We ask her. She's going to be mad. She's just saying I'm as say I'm as bad. She's out work. Oh, wow. Netflix. Right in the middle of an important meeting. She's running out. Hi, she knew it was coming. I'll get back to you on this. Okay, great. But I have a strong, I'm sure I asked back then because I was very, the, Heron I wrote the movie theater. We loved. She was just, it's kerfuffle, you know, she was curplombed. What's it? Um, the clamped. Yeah, her clamped. She's a lot of those things, you know, and she, she was obsessed with this. It makes me quickly go through my memory and try to see if there was any moment I wanted

2:04:59to have sex with a half human creature. I've never had that. I did desperately. I would have loved to have had sex with the, the Navi. Oh, you did want to absolutely. Um, right. But that's not really what there's right. They were, they were on two feet though, right? Yeah, yeah, they're bipedal. Yeah. So, but they were big blue creatures, but that feels they feel more human. I would have loved to have. I think a lot of people wanted that because like, Zoe Salton is so beautiful. But it's not her. It's just her voice. But the haunches of the creature were just extraordinary. And then the face was pretty. It was definitely not human, but it was beautiful. But it kind of had a human like faith. So athletic. What was, what was it? Avatar. Well, there's her, right? So that's not a human for sure. You're making no mistake. Those ears popping out of the way. The ears, the lips are human. Yeah, the lips are good to go. The eyes are incredible. The nose is kind of human. It looks like a lion's. Yeah, but someone's nose

2:06:02could look like that. Yeah, they might get it fixed, but yeah. No, I think this is a beautiful human. Well, I know, but I'm just saying I think this is way more human. Yeah, I would love to make love. Okay. Yeah, we get it. Do you have a full body shot? Rob? Oh, yeah. That's also a human body. Well, they're way big though. Remember when the humans are actually with them, there's so much bigger. This is not the same as Mr. Tumnus. I'm sorry. Can you pull at Mr. Tumnus? Okay. That's a silly name too. I know. That's the whole thing. I was so confused. Which I grew, I grew to respect. You know, I got respect for love for Mr. Tumnus. But at first, I was judgmental. Yeah. First stop is sometimes judgment. Yeah. And then intrigue. And then at what, yeah, at some point, I saw him in something else. You can cure. That's what they say. That's the antidote to judgment

2:07:03is curiosity. Yeah. Once you start going like, oh, well, tell me why? What is it? Is his haunches? Well, it's like, I do think it's giving furry or, you know, like you, you're into animal sex. And I don't condone that. Oh, he actually is on two feet too. He's pan. Yeah, he's fine. He's go. He's go like in my head. He had four legs. Oh, wow. She wanted good for her. He's got crazy years too. Anna crazy knows he's wearing prosthetics. This is what this is not how I remember Mr. Tumnus. Wow. Are you sure that's Mr. Tumnus? Oh, my, oh, oh, yeah, it was more this. It was more this, which still though, but you can see more of his body. This is making sense. You can see his human skin and human. I think now that I've seen an image of Mr. Tumnus, I don't need to ask her the question. I already know the answer because he is all lower half. I mean, he's leading with no,

2:08:09like, I think she liked this. I do. I think she liked that part. Okay. So it's clear to you and it's clear to me. I know her. You do. I know you do. Okay. I know what she likes. She likes human bodies. You're only basing that on her past lovers. She hasn't had as an option half a go. No, because you know what I'm actually she wanted to feel the goat fear on her legs as he was like pumping away like only a goat. This is why she doesn't want me to talk about her on the show. But I can actually now, if I'm taking just the torso, you're in. I like it. What about the legs? I don't like the legs. Okay. All right. You lose me at the legs. Okay. You got to wonder if that creature has a human penis or a goat penis. You got to wonder. I think it's a very obvious question. I think it's a goat because if the bottom half is goat, everything from the waist down is gold.

2:09:10Only two legs. They should have made him on four legs. I think Pan was on two. They use bipedal. Who's Pan? Pan is the Greek god of like, well music, he played the flute. So, but but Mary met in temptation. He's very sexual, uh, a siren towards the debauchery. Yeah. So he's that's how he's oh no, I see he's got foreign back too. He's got two prominent ones up front. He's crossed his legs. But in back, I'm seeing two little tiny legs. They snuck in there leaning against the wall. I don't think those are are those legs. Look at the hooves that they match perfectly on his it does. They're so tiny and disproportionate. That they might dangle behind him when he's bipedal. Wait, I thought there he is. He doesn't have four. He's just got the two. I thought Pan was god of the woods. He was in the woods. Okay. I think because there's a book I was really into called god of the woods. But I think he would play his flute and people get really horny. It was like a hypnotic flute. That was his power. He's start to not that thing and people

2:10:15will be like, let's do stuff with goats. He was the god of shepherds and flocks wild nature. Especially of mountain and forest wild. So I think also yeah god of the woods. I think he's like appealing to man's naturalistic animalistic side. Well, and the word panic comes from that. It does. I learned that in my book. Okay. Great goats of the 18th century. He's standing up right though. He's bipedal. Okay. Wow. In Harry Potter, the centaurs are on four. So I think that's what's your complaining. Yeah, complaining. Okay. Give Rob a shout out for doing these facts real time. Yes, Rob did the facts real time. We just finished this interview. Just left. So Rob took on the facts today. Empire awards for filth when he met Margot Robbie says in 2014 James won best actor for filth, defeating Leonardo DiCaprio for Wolf of Wall Street and Tom Hanks. Captain Filum.

2:11:15He wasn't sure what movie he was there for. It was filth. Yes. Do you imagine having won so many awards you can remember? Do you automatically get the suffix junior added to your name if your parent has the same name? No. Oh, junior suffix is not added automatically to a name. It must be requested and recorded explicitly on the birth certificate. Oh, okay. That kind of makes sense. Yeah, I don't think my brother doesn't have that. My brother is a junior. Right. And people they call Dave senior and Dave junior. Right. But I don't think it's anywhere in writing. Do you think that's going out of Fad? Yeah. Like men love to name their first born's their own name. I would have never allowed if we had a boy for him to be named Dax. Yeah. But I would have been open to a girl named Dax. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, women never pass on there. There's no girl. You're going to lose your last name anyways. Even more reason to have the first name get passed. That's why we gave the girls bell as a middle name. They can't ever lose it. Right. But it's like you I'm saying no one's like Kristen. You're not having a kid Kristen.

2:12:21Right. Which is weird. Yeah. There's no girl juniors that I know about. I'm going to make one. I'm going to make one of Calili Padman. It feels ego maniacal, doesn't it? It does. That's what I'm saying. Like the cultures changed. It does. But no one thinks that I don't think people think that about boys. I don't think like, oh, it's ego maniacal to name you after you're passed. I think today it would be like an LA. I think it'd be a bad look for a dad if he had a junior. A little bit. But in the past, not you want to even think anything of it. It's almost standard. I know. Did James play the Jeremy Allen white character in Shameless? No. James played Steve McBride in the original UK Shameless. Fiona's boyfriend. His American counterpart is Jimmy Lishman played by Justin Chaplin. Love Justin. He was in chips. He's a phenomenal guy. Oh, Justin. Yeah. He's gorgeous. Oh, yeah. Super into motorcycles. The fact I think he has a book out right now about motorcycles. Everyone should buy it. I saw him in school. Yeah, I adore him. Probably do great on traders. Yeah. Yeah,

2:13:24he's gorgeous. He's an incredible actor. Yeah. He played a junkie junkie the junkie son of Vincent and offrio in chips. And he was out. He was better than the movie. Was he in a scene with me? Did he pull me out of that car? Yeah, but I don't know that it was him. It was a stunt double. I think he couldn't make it that day. Well, he's a busy guy. He's doing me a very large favor by doing the small role he did. Song in the last King of Scotland and hit and run fever by Jingo. That's right. I did know the name of that fever. Had Jennifer Lawrence already won an Oscar before X mentioned nominated for Wintersbone, but did not win that. Oh, that year Natalie Portman won for Black Swan. Rightly so. Great. Great movie. What a performance. Emillo is so incredible. Yeah, she was also nominated. I believe. I hope. Yeah, she got best supporting actress. Nice. Nice. Nomination. You know, they call it a nom and a nod. Yeah. Shake your pics. Shake your boys. Like we're cues. Excuse. Pick your boys. That's it. That's everything. Yeah.

2:14:30Okay. Well, I just again, I said it in the interview, but what a fun full circle for me. Yeah, me too. Mr. Tumness. Yeah, we each have. We all come in with some history with his 30 year career. Yeah. He's a great actor. He sure is. Check out his stuff. Give him a look. All right, love you.