How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Stephen Merchant: ‘Most famous people are f**cked up’

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Actor, writer and director Stephen Merchant joins How To Fail this week and is reflective, fascinating and - yes - even funny. We talk about what he learned from Ricky Gervais when co-writing The Office, on feeling rattled turning 50 and how it’s hard to fail as a stand-up comedian (but he got over it). Have something to share of your own? I'd love to hear from you! Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Studio and Mix Engineer: Gulliver Lawrence-Tickell Senior Producer: Selina Ream Executive Producer: Carly Maile Head of Marketing: Kieran Lancini How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This podcast is all about personal growth and self-discovery, and travel can play a big part in that. Last summer, I was lucky enough to make an incredible trip to Italy, where I ate the best caponata I've ever tasted, all cooked by local chefs using the freshest produce. I loved exploring off the beaten track, and climbing the hills outside Cortina to find a hidden convent I never would have discovered otherwise. You can create memories like this with Explore Worldwide, who run authentic small group adventures perfect for solo travellers looking to meet like-minded people and experience the authentic side of their chosen destination.

With over 350 tours in around 100 countries to choose from, their local tour leaders take you to the destination's best-kept secrets so you can get the most authentic experience. If you're considering going to Italy yourself, why not book a tour with explore worldwide like the Amalfi Coast Walking Tour, the highlights of Puglia, or maybe Venice to Rome by rail? Sounds amazing. Visit explore.co.uk to learn more. Welcome to How to Fail, the podcast that believes, as Truman Capote put it, that failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. He was so good, Truman.

Before we get to our guest today, I wanted to mention our subscriber podcast, Failing With Friends. This is where my guest and I answer your questions and we offer advice on some of your failures too. Here's a bit of Stephen Merchant to whet your appetite. She's volunteering and giving teas and oncology to it and now she's feeling guilty if she's having a cup of tea. I mean, goodness. Do join in by following the link in the podcast notes and you can send me an email or look out for my call-outs once a month on Instagram for quickfire questions. Let's get into my conversation with Stephen Merchant.

As a child, Stephen Merchant used to draw comic strips of his favourite comedy show, Faulty Towers. From a young age, his hero was the man who wrote and starred in it, John Cleese. When a few years ago, Merchant's parents happened to meet Cleese on a cruise, the elder comedian admitted he was a huge fan of their son. That's because in the intervening years, Merchant had established himself as one of our foremost comedic writers and performers. In the early 2000s, he co-wrote and directed The Office with Ricky Gervais, his former boss at radio station XFM. The Office ran for only two years, and yet it made both Chauvet and Merchant superstars.

When it won a Golden Globe in 2004, it became the first British comedy ever to do so. Since then, Merchant's varied career has taken him from an HBO series, Hello Ladies, based on his stand-up comedy, to writing and directing films such as Fighting with My Family and the comedy crime series The Outlaws. He's also won plaudits for some serious acting as the Gestapo leader Captain Diets in the Oscar-winning movie Jojo Rabbit and as serial killer Stephen Port in the 2022 drama Four Lives. If there is one theme that connects his creative interests, it is perhaps ordinary people made extraordinary by events. Merchant once attributed his desire to keep experimenting to a fear

of being stuck. He said, I think there's probably a part of me that was always scared of getting trapped in some life I didn't want and waking up at 50 and going, what have I done? Steven Merchant, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you so much. You're turning 50 this year. You don't need to remind me. So what have you done? How are you feeling with the stuckness? I remember when people turned 30 in my orbit and they seemed to be having little crises,

little mini crises. And I was just swinging for the fences. I was like, yeah, what are you talking about? It's all great. And 40 kind of came and went and I was like, yeah, this is good. But for some reason, as I approached 50, I do feel a little bit more rattled than I was expecting to. I don't know if it's to do with impending death or if it's more to do with impending death, or if it's more to do with, it feels like there's lots of articles in broadsheets about life after 50, you know, and exercising after 50, and have you got your ISA in check after 50, and all those things. So it's sort of, I'm being constantly told it's a milestone. Whereas I've never really lived life based on those sorts of milestones that are sort of imposed by other people.

Yes. Well, I wonder if it's strange because you had success really young and sort of success that no one could argue with. So it's possibly not about leaving a legacy. Like you've got that in shape, do you think? It feels like there's lots of things I still want to do. You mentioned about me drawing comic strips of Fawlty Towers. The jobs that I do were hobbies before they were a career. People sometimes say, you're a workaholic and you're doing so many things and why didn't you slow down? I always think, well, I get your point, but what am I supposed to be doing in my downtime? Am I supposed to just take up golf? Nothing against golf, but it's like I enjoy the things I do. They were my hobbies. If I have ambitions, they're there for

those creative pursuits that seem exciting to me, whether it's, I don't know, writing a play, or writing a book, or directing a three-hour sci-fi epic or whatever. They're all exciting challenges and I think I'm aware that you only have so long to accomplish those different things. Do you think you had any kind of shame attached to the idea of ambition or success? I definitely think there's something in British culture that seems to force you to downplay ambition. If you become successful, you have to keep making, I was just lucky. I was in the right place at the right time. Of course, there are elements of that, but you need the

drive. The idea of the sort of, you'll hear those guys in the pub, yeah, I could have been heavyweight champion of the world. Did you ever get in the boxing ring? No, I didn't. I didn't. But I reckon if I had, you know, it's like, well, unless you get in the ring, you won't know. And I, and I feel spending time in America, they have the complete opposite, right? Where it's, you know, teaching kids that they could be president one day. If you, if in my school, if you'd said, I'd love to be prime minister, they'd be like, what are you talking about? Know your place. This is absurd. You need to go to Eaton. There was just assumptions about, like I said, a sort of feeling of know your place. I was thinking recently, why on

earth when I was young did I think that I could try and be John Cleese? What a weird arrogance to have as a teenager. And yet in my mind, I was sort of like, well, if you need tall funny guys that were born in the West Country, well, yeah, sure, I'll give it a go. Got that one down, Pat. Just talking about those blokes in the pub, I've lost count of the number of times that men have told me that they come up with the idea of how to fail first. Of course. They just didn't launch it. They had the idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that counts. So John Cleese, have you ever met him? I've never met Cleese, no. Cleese's work for me has been done in terms of inspiring me and admiring him and things. It'd be lovely to run into him and have a chat, but it's not like it's a great unfulfilled ambition. And he was nice to your parents. He was very nice to my parents. On a voicemail that he left on their crew's room phone. Yes.

Your parents, when I said in the introduction that I think one of the recurring themes in your work is that focus on ordinary lives in extraordinary circumstances. Your parents, they sound like very grounded people with very normal jobs. How much of that fascination, if it is indeed a fascination, has come from your childhood? I think certainly my father would have, you know, he's very funny and has kind of a creative spirit, which was not something that was really available to him to explore when he was young. You know, he came from a very working class background and the expectation was to get a job and or to learn a trade. And that was what he did. And I, and I, so I sense from him and he would, I think, say that there were times when he was

in his working life where he felt frustrated, not because he wished he could go off and write a play, but just because it was a job of work. It wasn't a career choice. It wasn't, you know, and there was those pressures of feeding families and so on. He was a plumber. He was a plumber and did some building work and things. I'm not trying to disparage plumbers. For him, it was just not something that he... It was a job of work. It was a way to pay the mortgage. And that, I think, fed into me when I was young. It was a part of my dad's life he doesn't fully enjoy. That's the thing you mentioned about feeling trapped. I didn't want to fed into me when I was young. Like, oh, it was a part of my dad's life he doesn't fully enjoy. That's the thing you mentioned about feeling trapped. I didn't want to ever be

in that situation where I got up sort of dreading the day. And there are times when, of course, you do because you know there's a difficult day ahead or whatever. But on the whole, I look, I sort of, I get out of bed and I kind of look forward to what I'm doing. That's so interesting because the office, which is the thing that first made your name, is exploring that really, isn't it? It's people who are trapped in this office with this ridiculous boss who probably do wake up with a feeling of dread, but they're saved by the people that they work with. Yes. So how much was that exploring your own worst fears?

That idea, I forget who coined that phrase of lives of quiet desperation or whatever, but that idea of- John Ofstine, I think. Was it? Yeah. Well, there you are. One of the only quotes I know. No, no, no. But there's a great truth to that. And it seemed like it wasn't just my family. It was just people that you grew up with. It was teachers, it was other people's parents, it was career advisors. It just always felt there was a

lot of people who were feeling frustrated in their lives. I don't want that to sound sneering. I don't think the office was ever meant to be sneery. It was just that there was a danger that you could wake up, as we mentioned in your introduction, at age 50 and go, what have I done? For some reason, from a young age, that was an anxiety. I remember years ago, I got a temporary job at a call center and there was a guy training us. And he said, Oh, what are you interested in doing? And I said, Oh, I'd like to get some acting and performing. And he said, you used to be an actor. I went, Oh, okay. Yeah. And then

he said, yeah. And you know, and training people in the call center, that's a form of acting. And I just sensed in it a kind of like he was making excuses or apologies for it not having quite worked out for him. And that sort of idea that he had nothing to apologize for and yet he felt a need to, I just thought that, I don't know, I always used to pick up on that stuff when I was young. That's so beautiful. And that's David Brent and his music career. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Final question before we get onto your failures. There are certain comedies that everyone can

rewatch again and again and again. The Office, for me, is one of those. What is it that makes a comedy rewatchable? It's the characters and their interactions and that feeling that even for all of the discomfort that you can feel watching The Office, you sort of know that feeling that even for all of the discomfort that you can feel watching The Office, you sort of know that world that you can kind of fall back into it and there's a strange comfort to it even if there's a discomfort watching the show. I think it's one of the reasons why in the pandemic people revisited sitcoms, whether it be Friends or the American version of The Office or The

Big Bang Theory or whatever, people, there's something about the cosiness, the familiarity that the problems they encounter are not world-changing. They're arguments over a desk or a coffee machine or whatever. There's something reassuring about that. There's something comforting. I said it was my final question. I lied because that's made me think of something else. So the comfort of that sits in opposition to the darkness that you explore in your quote unquote serious acting. There's not a way of saying that without it sounding like I'm being facetious and I'm not. But is that a deliberate decision that you want to explore sort of dark, tricky roles and people? You know, a Gestapo officer

and a serial killer. Well, I think that they're all in a strange way. You can see the thread, because to me, what's interesting about a Gestapo character is that those were often people character, is that those were often people that were mundane nobodies, that were given power of life and death. And yet, in ordinary civilian life, they would have been petty bureaucrats. And so, you can see a sort of warped version of the office in which that's what David Brent becomes. It's petty people with too much power. They're not, and the same with Stephen Port is that these people, when you start to dig into them, they're not these fascinating Hannibal Lecter-esque, erudite, classical music-loving, Shakespeare-quoting genuses. They're mundane people with some wiring that's gone awry that has made them

do abhorrent things. But they're the person who lives in your street. They're the person on the news where the neighbor goes, it just seemed like a quiet, ordinary bloke. I was totally shocked. There were 14 bodies in the basement. Again, that's what's fascinating about human nature is that people are very rarely, when you scratch beneath the surface, utterly unknowable and extreme. And that's, I think, what's interesting about those people. Such a good answer. Yeah. Okay, let's get onto Seamless Link, your first failure. Your failure to realize that your height was an advantage. Yes. When was the first time you realised you were tall?

I feel like I was always tall. I can't really remember a pre-tall era. But I suppose by the time I was in my early teens, it was a sort of feature. It was, oh, you're the tall guy. And then by the mid-teens, you're the lanky, gangly guy. And that that's the sort of hallmark of you. If people were to characterize you or had to describe you, that was the thing. And so I suppose it made me self-conscious in a way that, as the reason I mentioned not realizing it was an asset, was that it took me a long time to realize that people dream of being tall. They're jealous of tallness and they're envious of it. So for a long time, I think, where it made me feel awkward or self-conscious, someone said to me in an interview once, I thought it was quite a presumptuous question, but there's probably

some truth in it. Did you go into comedy to control when people laugh at you? And I think it's sort of this degree of that, but I think it was more that I felt like I stood out without asking to stand out. I didn't need to have a mohawk or a crazy sense of dress. I drew your eye whether I liked it or not. And so comedy was a way of leaning into that, I suppose. And sort of, well, if you're going to look at me, you may as well look at me for a reason because I'm being amusing on stage or whatever it might be.

So what were your teenage years like at school? What was your experience like? It was pretty good really. I mean, I know a lot of people who went into comedy talk about bullying. I don't really remember any bullying. I felt like people were always kind of sniping in every direction, but it was never directed at me exclusively. I didn't dread going to school. I enjoyed school. And by the sort of later years of school, as a kid who was sort of doing quite well, grades wise, you know, it gave me a lot of leeway with teachers because it was like they thought we got to keep this kid on the books because he'll probably get a couple of A's

that'll look good in the stats. But I suppose, I remember when I look back now, I feel like I was, there was an insecurity that was masked by a certain kind of, by a outspokenness or a sense of humor or whatever it was. Yeah. Are you an only child? No, I have one sister. Is she tall? She's relatively tall, but no, I'm the freak of the family. So height is very interesting because I've had Richard Osman sitting exactly where you're

sitting on this podcast before, and I think you're exactly the same height. Yes, that's right. And he talks about the way people respond to him as a form of body shaming. Do you feel that? Well, it's funny, I'm working on a new standup routine at the moment and I'm talking about how people feel that they can make remarks about your height and they can make jokes about it. And again, I'm not, this is not an oh, woe is me thing. It's just interesting that when we talk about body shaming or sizeism or whatever it is,

no one feels they have to hold their tongue about someone who's tall. Because it's seen as some kind of accomplishment. I had no involvement in being this tall. It's not like I worked out in a very vertical sense. It was just something that happened. But yeah, there is, as Richard says, there is a sort of, you walk in a pub and you place a drink for two pints of beer and someone will say, that's a tall order. And everyone will laugh. But everyone laughs because then it's not seen. And again, I don't go away in tears. It's fine. It doesn't bother me. But it's

interesting that it's something people feel very comfortable about commenting on. But it must be annoying as well. Well, it's annoying because it's boring. If you ask me, do I play basketball? No. Where's that conversation going? What's the weather like up there? Okay. But I've heard this for 40 something years. It's not, I try to be polite, but there's part of me that wants to go, mate, come on. So much from you. MS Do you think that people try to be funny with you when they meet you because they want to

impress you? AC Yeah. Or sometimes I think it will go the other way, where you'll have people that will want to do a little dig, so as if to say, I'm not impressed. Have you ever had feedback from an audition or from conversations with, I don't know, TV or movie execs where they're like, you're just too tall? I haven't, but I would imagine that it must be a deciding factor in people's casting decisions. There must be part of them that has pigeonholed me slightly as the very tall guy. When you get to this height, it starts to seem abnormal

on screen in a way that just sort of being a strapping six foot two just feels manly. When you get to six foot seven, it's like, all right, come on, mate. You can play a mutant in a Wolverine film. But the reason I mentioned not realizing it was an asset was I think more in private life. There was a moment probably in my mid to late 20s where it dawned on me that this is something people are envious of. And that instead of trying to make yourself feel smaller, as if to not draw attention to yourself, just embrace it, walk with that with a swagger or a confidence that comes with being tall. I did feel like it kind of, it opened something up in me, not feeling so self-conscious about it.

And funny enough, years later, someone said to me, I was working on a project and someone said to me, you know, the thing is, Steve, you know, because of your height, you know, you can seem intimidating. And I was like, wow, you're right, of course, like that never occurred to me, because I try not, I'm not trying not to be that person. But of course, it can, you know, you can walk into a room and it can seem quite commanding, particularly if you're in a position of authority as a director or whatever. And so it's just interesting the way that my relationship with height and my own height has sort of

changed over the years. What are the greatest assets now? What are the things that you experience because of your height that you're really grateful for? Well, there's the obvious things of being at concerts, being able to reach things down from a high shelf. And it's funny because even when I hear, I'll hear someone like Donald Trump sort of boasting about how he's tall and how he's making some sneering comments about Bruce Springsteen, of whom I'm a big fan, little Bruce Springsteen or whatever. And it's funny to me that, you to me that, but I'm taller than

you Donald. There's always someone taller. It's such a strange thing to be arrogant about. It wasn't even something you didn't accomplish this Donald. You're just taller than some people. It's still a pain in the arse. I mean, it's a pain in the arse in terms of getting clothes. It's a pain in the arse in terms of fitting into cars and plane seats and beds and this chair. I mean, no, it's a little bit too tiny. I'm sure Richard felt the same. It's all fine. But you know what I mean? So it's a bit of a pain in the arse as well. But you know, it's all fine. As a complaint, it's a minor one. Is it true that you've got a lifetime ban from High and Mighty, the tall person?

I don't know that High and Mighty is still going. I feel like it might have gone into administration at some point. Yes, but I gave a comment years ago in an interview in Time Out, and I think probably because I didn't realize that anyone would really pay attention to it. And so I made some comment about how High and Mighty, which was a shop for tall and larger people, the clothes were kind of not great quality, but were rather overpriced. And then some years later, a costume designer on a production had gone into High and Mighty to buy clothes for a character I was playing. And

she had asked, oh, I'm buying these for a TV show and can I bring back the ones we don't use? And they said, which actor are these for? And she said, I have no liberty to say who the actor is. And the person behind the counter pulled out a laminated copy of the timeout interview and said, is it him? We don't serve him. And yeah, so I guess I hadn't gone in there for a while, so it hadn't come back to haunt me. But I do feel bad that, particularly if that had any involvement in there going under. I used to hate the week before a period. It was that crushing existential sense that I was really, really depressed and then I'd actually get my period and it would all make sense. The spots, the fatigue, the hot flushes, the cravings, the sugar cravings were extreme.

Now however, it's easier to manage PMS with Estro Control. Estro Control is a formula developed by Happy Mammoth, a supplement company dedicated to making women's lives easier. Estro control contains science-backed herbal extracts that help support hormonal health, especially in women who suffer from PMS. The ingredients help support the liver, and that's where our hormones get processed, especially estrogen. So when the estrogen isn't processed well in the liver, women may start having PMS, spots on the skin, they get cravings and they feel low all of a sudden. Estro control is made specifically for women who are perimenopausal, so it's perfect for women that haven't entered

menopause yet. Listeners, you can get your first bottle of Estro control for 15% off if you use the code FAIL on the checkout page. Go to happymammoth.com and enter the promo code FAIL on the checkout page. I really sympathize with salespeople. It must always feel like they're sifting through leads endlessly hoping to find a buyer. Happily for all those sales teams out there, LinkedIn's Sales Navigator is here to help. It's more than just a tool, it's your strategic sales partner.

LinkedIn's Sales Navigator is a sales intelligence platform that helps professionals effectively prospect and engage high value customers, drive high revenue and increase sales performance. Sales Navigator helps you to target the right buyers and shows you hidden allies so you can find those buyers that are most likely to convert. LinkedIn Sales Navigator has new AI features designed to help sellers find the right people and conversations, all at scale.

Sales Navigator gives you the most up-to-date, first-party data enabling you to unlock conversations with the people that matter. Are you ready to get into the right conversations? Try LinkedIn Sales Navigator now with a 60-day free trial at linkedin.com. That's linkedin.com. Terms and conditions apply. How long do you think it took you to catch up with the level of fame that you attained? Well, I think it's sort of because I've always, my analogy is that one that people use about the frog in the pan of water, right? And you slowly heat it up and it doesn't realise it's getting boiled alive. Whereas if you throw a frog into the boiling pan, then it jumps

around. And I think if you're on the X factor and you're suddenly well known overnight, it must be quite a culture shock. Whereas if you begin as a writer behind the scenes of a show and then you start to perform and it's over time, you know, the snowball of your celebrity is, it takes a long time to get down the hill. And so probably the time I gave that interview, I was relatively unknown. I probably didn't think that it would have any bearing. Do you like being a celebrity?

Well, I think it goes back to that point I made initially about being tall. It was that I always stood out. People always made comments. They always looked at me. They always remarked. I could never blend in. And so now when people look at me, they, they go, oh, it's that guy. You know, and they, they, on the whole, because I think comedy generally is something people, it puts a smile on people's face. I very rarely have negative comments. So people are normally always very lovely. I mean, it's frustrating at times because, you know, you don't always want to stand out from the crowd. But on the whole, it's treated me very nicely. Your second failure is your failure to get into Oxbridge.

Yes. So you mentioned that at school you got good grades. Yes. Was this an early ambition that you... Well, again, I was very lucky and I felt like I knew what I wanted to do from a young age. I can't remember exactly how young, but I do feel, as you mentioned, I was writing my little comic strips about sitcoms and 40 Towers. I used to read about them and I read about someone like John Cleese, who'd come from

Western Super Mayor, not far from Bristol where I come from. He had gone to Cambridge. The Footlights was the comedy breeding ground of great talent. That was the way you ended up on the BBC, and that seemed like a career path. That was my plan. I was like, well, I'll just get to Cambridge, and then I'll go in the Footlights, and then I'll be on TV, and I'll do comedy. I didn't have a full-back plan. That was like, well, I'll just get to Cambridge and then I'll go in the footlights and then I'll be on TV and I'll do comedy. I sort of didn't have a full-back plan. That was it. I remember going to teachers and saying this is my plan and they just sort of looked at me like, you're a maniac. Again, just going back to that feeling. Maybe that's changed, but certainly then it felt like people were like, what are you talking about? You're not

going to be John Cleese, it's be sensible. At the same time, they just, they didn't think I'd get into Cambridge. They were like, I think this is a pipe dream. I don't think you're gonna get those kinds of grades. And so they said, you're not gonna get into Cambridge. The best chance you have is trying to go for Oxford, where you could do an exam, an entry exam, which I think

at the time wasn't available at Cambridge. But the problem was I got that news quite late and so I didn't really have time to fully study for the Oxford exam. So I did it and I guess I didn't do very well and I never got a place. And you could only at the time apply to either Oxford or Cambridge. So it went out the window. And then the exams came along and I got three As at A level, which I think would have been sufficient for Cambridge, but having never applied, it was too late. And so I felt like I'd sort of felt like I'd been done a disservice because other people's ambitions for me were lower than my own. And I felt frustrated by that. And so I had sort of pivot. And as it was, I went to University of Warwick, I studied film. There was a radio station at Warwick, which

is one of the reasons I went there. I started doing a radio show. I started making some short films. That radio show gave me a sort of grounding in radio, which subsequently got me a job at a radio station in London, which is where I met Ricky Gervais, and off we went. So it all worked out, and looking back now, I think it was sort of for the best because I don't think that very kind of erudite, sort of Stephen Fry brand of comedy, although I'm a huge fan, that's not really me. And I think I would have been slightly out of depth at Cambridge.

I don't think I even realized I had a Bristol accent until I went to university. So I suspect I'd have got to Cambridge. I might have felt slightly out of place with lots of very well speaking RP accents. I think I'm academic, but I don't think I'm Cambridge academic. So as it is, I think it kind of worked out for the best. And I think that wouldn't have been the natural fit for me. But of course, when you're a teenager, you don't realize that until later. Yeah, it's crushing, especially if other people seem not to believe in you in the way that you secretly believe in yourself.

That's right. And it comes back to what we said about ambition. It was like, no one was kind of, they weren't sneering. It just seemed weird to them. Certainly at the time, I just ended up putting a lot of faith, I think, in adults. Yes. You know? Yeah. Well, I think it was a different time as well. I mean, we came of age of very similar decades and there wasn't the internet. So you couldn't find your community of other like-minded people who might also be drawing comic strips for 42 hours and have these admissions. So you

only had that sort of immediate community. Yes, that's right. You relied on the sort of advice of the people around you. And again, my parents weren't disparaging. They were very encouraging. But what did they know about how you got into Cambridge or what my grades were going to be? They were, in a sense, as dependent on, and I'm not trying to throw teachers under the bus, I just think there was culturally a sort of feeling, particularly in suburban Bristol in a relatively modest school, that that wasn't what people did. I'm very interested in this idea of little Stephen being very into comedy. It sounds

to me like you always knew what you wanted to do. Yes. So was your mother, did she also have this aspect? You've spoken about your dad having this kind of creative side to him. What about your mom? Do they both have really good senses of humor? I would say my mom's got a sense of humor, but I think my dad is the Joker of the pack, and he's the one who I bonded with watching old comedy and movies and things like that. And so laughter was a currency. As I got a little older and I would hang out with my dad and his friends, laughter was a currency among them. And blokes joked with each other and they were wise asses to some degree. And so humor

to some degree. And so humor was valued and had an asset. And so because my dad was and remains quite a gregarious funny man in a social situation and will make jokes and will be fun and often the life and soul, the idea of taking that to the stage and actually performing didn't seem a mad idea. It was like one step further in a way than what you would do down the pub. So what does stand-up teach you about failure? Well, that's pretty immediate because it took me a long time to pluck up the nerve to do stand-up and I eventually did it probably when I was about 19. And the first gig I did was about five minutes and it went terrific. It was great and I thought, well, I've cracked this. It turns out,

I'm naturally brilliant at this. Then the next gig I did, oh, not so good. I sort of bombed. It swung back and forth then. Sometimes it went great, sometimes it didn't. I think any stand-up will tell you that particularly when you're building an act and working up material, however well-known you are, you've got a grace period of five minutes maybe and then people will laugh or they won't. They don't laugh just because you're the bloke off the telly, they laugh because it's funny. I remember when I was doing stand-up in my early 20s, I did a gig in Exeter and no one laughed except the waitress. Someone actually shouted taxi for the comedian.

I phoned my agent and said, well, you've got to get me out of all future gigs. I can never do this. This was terrible. He said, well, no, you're booked for another gig in Plymouth or somewhere. I thought, and I went to Plymouth and I had an anxious day in Plymouth and I went out and did the act and it went great. And I was, oh, no, I'm back on the horse, you know.

But what was interesting was when you die in front of a room of whatever it was, you know, a hundred people, you don't die physically, obviously. And so you're like, you kind of dust yourself down and you think that was embarrassing, but on you go. And it's a baptism of fire in some way and it's not fun. You never enjoy it. And if it happens again, you never look forward to it. You want to avoid it, but you sort of battle on. I guess it's also such a lesson in subjectivity of taste. And so you were doing the same material

for different audiences in different locations, and you had an entirely different reaction, which suggests that it's the audience who are bringing their stuff and their emotional baggage and their perceptions. Well, that's happening even at the moment. I mean, I'm working up on new material, I've got about an hour, and so I'll try this out, this hour out as I'm trying to refine it in different places. Some nights, everything will go gangbusters, sometimes certain portions, sometimes other portions will go well and the things that went well the night before, not so well. And so your brain's frazzled because you're like, well, I'm doing the same words here

and they're having different impacts. And so people will say, oh, there's no such thing as a bad audience, but there's definitely the night of the week, the time, the size of the crowd, how much booze they've had. And of course, also, whether you're tired or whether you're complacent or whatever, or whether you're feeling too self-confident, whatever, there are a lot of variables about what makes something same. Wow, that's so interesting. So then ultimately, do you just have to have pure faith in you and your own material? You have to think it's worthwhile. Well, what you try and do, I guess, is build up stuff that is as bulletproof as it can be. It's like, well, I've done this

enough times that 70% of the time it works. So that's the best you can kind of hope for. But it's tricky. I remember Eddie Yuzard early on saying, with standup, you need to walk to the edge of the precipice and be brave enough to step off. And that's very hard to do, particularly when you're well known. Because when you walk on stage, there's an audience anticipation that you're going to be funny. And however much you say this is new ideas, new material, I've never said it before, people don't really quite understand unless they're in the game that that means it could just be terrible. They just assume you have a base level of funny that they're going to see. And it's hard to walk out there and fail.

That's a hard thing to do. Do you think you are confident now that you have a base level of funny? No, not with stand up. Because it's unique in that you cannot test it out except in front of an audience. You can try it out with friends, family, you can run the lines, you can work on it in your room until you put it in front of an audience. It's all irrelevant. It's only an audience that can tell you. And sometimes the thing you thought was funny isn't and that something else is. It's a unique kind of art form.

What did Ricky Gervais teach you about comedy? I mean, I'd ask him what you taught him, not what he taught himself. Yes. What did Ricky Gervais teach me about comedy? I think with Ricky, I would have to give him credit for making sure you embrace your own uniqueness. I think when I met him, I wasn't many years out of university, and I probably still was a bit chasing that kind of Cambridge-y, that particular sense of humor. I think in working with him, it helped me find my own voice. Because we were working together, drawing on our own experiences, a lot of time we spent just talking about our own lives and what

made us laugh and sharing anecdotes and stories. In doing that, you're in a little sort of laboratory together where you're kind of finding your own interests, what makes you laugh. You tell a story and the other person laughs and someone like Ricky's got who's a very hearty laugher and a very encouraging audience. If it's funny and he laughs, it probably is funny. And I think it gave me confidence to sort of trust my own instincts, my own sense of humor, my own interests, I think probably the biggest asset. Everything that was presented to me, I just swallowed completely whole. We are one of the richest families in the world that could never change. We're Steinbergs. Like, we are Steinbergs.

We're made of money. The family was drawn together by the money. I was so aware this could come to a screeching halt. Do you think I would have stopped? And then all of a sudden, the volcano erupts. I'm Ariel Levy, and this is the Just Enough Family. Binge all episodes now on Apple Podcasts. Hi, I'm Laura Webb.

And I'm Lindsay Wolfington. We are two friends and fellow music supervisors who are obsessed with sad songs. So we started a podcast called Sad Song Queens, where we dive deep into the songs that make us cry. We are always wondering what the story is behind a song. And we thought, what better way to find out than by having authentic conversations with the creators of the songs themselves.

So join us for in-depth conversations with Ash, Licky Lee, Simmel, and many more. So grab those tissues and let's get into it on the Sad Song Queens podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. That leads us onto your third and final failure, which is the failure to understand earlier that no one has life figured out. Yes. Yes. Well, it comes back to what we said about relying on teachers and other adults early on in life. Aside from not going to Cambridge, I remember I had to choose for some reason, I had to choose between art, which I loved, and Spanish. I don't know why I couldn't do both, but for whatever reason I had to choose

one or the other. And I'd got quite a good grade in French, but looking back it was because I copied off Neil Tomlin, who I sat next to. But Neil didn't do Spanish, so I couldn't copy off him. So for some reason I remember saying to people, should I do art or Spanish? And everyone said said oh Spanish you know it's good to learn a language and I was like well looking back I'm like what did they think I was doing was I going to be doing business in Europe was that the plan whereas art just was what I was good at I was I enjoyed drawing and it kind of so I did Spanish and I sort of let the art go and I did terribly at Spanish because I wasn't

actually good at languages and again I remember thinking I've sort of let the art go and I did terribly at Spanish because I wasn't actually good at languages. And again, I remember thinking, I've sort of, I've listened to people there because I thought they knew better and they didn't know better. And I guess what I mean is that, I think when you're younger, you can think that if you reach a certain level of success

or celebrity, that some door is opened and that you're sort of, the world makes sense to you or that those people have life figured out or that they're happier. The older you get and the more you meet the people that are in those positions, you realize, my God, these people are fucked up. That it doesn't matter how successful they are or how famous they are, or the veneer of confidence that they project, as soon as you get beneath the surface, most people are just guessing.

They're just trying to find their way like anybody else. Some of them are more ravaged with insecurity or neurosis or depression or trauma than you are. Everyone is this vulnerable thing just moving along trying to figure it out. Some are doing a lot of work on themselves to help and they are often the more settled and balanced people. And there's others that are just covering their insecurities with bravado or bullying or whatever it might be. And it gives you a great release because you're like, Oh God, you know, oh, I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm all right. I'm

pretty even keeled. I'm not suffering terribly emotionally. And I'm one of those people, I'll look at someone like Donald Trump and I just see this neurotic insecure man whose father clearly never gave him any validation. Who's got a black hole of insecurity that can never be filled by anything. Crowds, the presidency, and he's this damaged, fragile child with this awful kind of way of dealing with it. And it just seems sad to me. It seems tragic. People see him as a villain and I just think he just seems pitiful, you know. And so, yeah, so I suppose it's sort of, like I say, not realizing that it's sort of just, it evens the playing field of life. And I don't mean that in terms of like, oh, now I can win. I just mean you go, oh, yeah,

we're all just guessing. ALICE Do you think that's partly because you have attained a level of success, that you get to meet these people now, and so you get more of a window into there? SIMON I think it's partly that. I think it's also age. I feel like I'm at the age where a lot of people in charge of institutions, of society, of government, they are this age. And everyone I meet who is my age, like I say, when I scratch beneath the surface, they are figuring it out. They're guessing. And so, it's both terrifying because you realize, yeah, there's sort of no one at the, there are no adults, there is no one at the helm really that we can rely on. But at the same time, it's really reassuring because it gives you perspective, it gives

you the feeling that you're in charge of your own life, the life of the people around you. You're responsible for yourself. You have to be the sort of adult of your own existence. I really want to ask you about celebrity parties and the worst one you've ever been to. You don't have to name names, but was there ever an occasion that you found yourself surrounded by people who in a past life might have been your heroes and you sort of saw this bucket of neuroses. There are specific instances I can think of of people, particularly very famous people,

where they've revealed unwittingly some aspect and you're like, oh wow. If we pulled that thread, goodness knows where that would lead. I don't mean that to sound like a power move. It's helped me understand people. For instance, I find that if I'm working with people who are a little bit difficult, and that can manifest itself in all kinds of ways, and that could be actors or producers, you work with anyone, but it can often manifest itself in all kinds of ways. Sometimes it can be, you know, mood swings,

or it could be a slightly, you know, mistreating other members of the team, or it can manifest in all sorts of ways. But what you realize is that's almost always insecurity that's feeding there. It's an insecurity that they themselves may not even be aware of. And so it means that what you're trying to zero in on in order to work with them is what's the thing which is making them feel insecure? And can I put a bandaid over that for the purposes of our working together? Because

I can't fix it, and it's not my job to fix it, but can I reassure them in this, can I cocoon them enough that we can get this job done, this job of work done? And that can be people of any age and any background. It doesn't have to, it's not always, it's not like always young people or inexperienced people. It can be people from who've had the biggest success. And so it's just, I guess it's that, like you're trying to, and I know again that sounds manipulative, but it's just navigating your way through

your day-to-day existence. Where are you at with your own insecurities now, having come to this really profound realization that people don't have it sorted out and people are all messes really in their own way. Well, I actually think I'm quite lucky in that I would say I'm relatively even killed emotionally. I'm not someone who has suffered particularly. I'm sure if I was to dig deeper there, I'm sure there's pockets of things that I could deal with. In an age in which people talk much more openly about their mental health and about their trauma, I feel very privileged that I don't relate to a lot of those much more difficult experiences that people have. I suppose if anything, I feel, yeah, I do, I feel quite lucky that I'm not more sort of troubled.

Do you feel happy? I think I do feel quite happy. Yeah, yeah, I do. The ambition was always to sort of wake up and look forward to the day. And if that's a measure of happiness, then I do. The ambition was always to wake up and look forward to the day. And if that's a measure of happiness, then I do. Are you going to have a 50th birthday party? I think we'll just let that swim by. Really? Yeah. Again, there's an insecurity there. Yeah, I don't know what that is.

An insecurity about having attention predicated on your birthday? No, I think probably more just about turning 50. It's fine. Everyone is in their 50s. It happens to everyone. They're like, great, J Lo. That's true. Yeah. Brad Pitt, maybe don't follow his example, but other people. It's been a delight. Thank you. I've loved this conversation. Great. Thank you so much for having me.

And you're staying on for Failing With Friends, where you get to answer listener questions and queries and failures. So stay seated in that uncomfortable chair. And we'll be right back. Stephen Merchant, thank you so much for coming on How to Fail. Thank you. We heartily recommend you follow us to get new episodes as they land on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Please do tell all of your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening. One more, you got this! The gym strengthened me. The pool soothed me. And the pick-up games energized me. Great game! The Y is everything I needed it to be.

Because the Y is so much more than my gym. Try the Y free for seven days at TryTheY.ca