THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.170 - KAYVAN NOVAK

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

Adam talks with British actor and comedian Kayvan Novak about how he made the transition from being a jobbing actor dealing with his share of typecasting, to creating comic characters from a wide range of nationalities and ethnicities on Fonejacker and Facejacker, and the joys and dangers of doing so. And there's a clash of the BBC documentarians as Kayvan unleashes the full force of his uncanny Louis Theroux impression and Adam does his best to respond with Adam Curtis.Recorded face to facejacker (oh dear) in London on 21st June, 2021.Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for his work on this episode.Podcast artwork by Helen GreenRELATED LINKSADAM ON YOUR OWN PERSONAL BEATLES PODCAST - 2021 (APPLE PODCASTS)DAVID BOWIE SEASON COMING TO BFI SOUTHBANK - 2021 (MUSICNEWS WEBSITE)BEST OF FONEJACKER COMPILATION (YOUTUBE)4 LIONS FUNNIEST MOMENTS - 2010 (YOUTUBE)BEST OF WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS SEASON 1 PT 1 - 2019 (YOUTUBE)KAYVAN NOVAK IMPRESSES LORRAINE WITH HIS SEAN CONNERY IMPRESSION - 2017 (YOUTUBE)SEAN CONNERY ON PARKINSON WITH BORIS JOHNSON, RICKY TOMLINSON - 2003 (YOUTUBE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh no! I've just realized that the notes on my phone haven't synced with the notes I just typed up on my computer about this week's guest. So now I've got to walk back home, open up my laptop, get it to sync with my phone, then come back out. I'm just saying, you think this podcasting lark is easy. It's not. It's highly skilled and it's really difficult. I've got to walk back now and it's cold and I didn't bring my gloves. So just think about that for a while. Rosie, come on. I've got to go back and get my phone to sync with my laptop.

Come on, Rose. That's what I'm talking about. A flypast from the hairy bullet. Alright, I'll see you in a second. I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now

you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton. I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this. That's the plan.

Right. Back on track. Literally. Metaphorically. Only half an hour later. It's now nearly dark. Cold afternoon. What is the date? I've sort of lost track. Oh my God, it's nearly December. And how you doing, podcast? Sorry, I didn't even say hello or anything. Adam Buxton here. Nice to be with you. A little bit stressed. Just got back from London a little bit earlier.

Before then, I was in Ireland doing the last few dates of my book tour show in Belfast and Dublin. Booktour show in Belfast and Dublin. Beautiful country, people, an idyllic train journey from Belfast to Dublin. Sun streaming through the windows, the magical Irish countryside sliding past the window of the train. I had a day off in Dublin. I googled music gigs and saw that Sleaford Mods were playing. Went to see Sleaford Mods at the Dublin Olympia with Goat Girl supporting. Amazing. Loved it. It was a great evening and then I did a final show at Vicar Street in Dublin on the Monday night. And no disrespect to the other wonderful audiences that I've met over the last few months,

but I think that Vicar Street audience is hard to beat for the sheer warmth and enthusiasm. Anyway, look, let me tell you a bit about my guest for podcast number 170, British actor and comedian Kayvan Novak. Novak facts. Kayvan, currently aged 42, was born and brought up in London, the son of Iranian parents. After graduating from drama school, he landed roles in shows like Family Affairs, Holby City and Spooks. On British TV, in 2005,

Kay Van and his writer-director friend Ed Tracy made a pilot for a phone-prank TV show in which the calls were accompanied by crudely rendered animations. The show was called Phone Jacker and it became a hit series on Channel 4 in 2007. Despite not being spelled correctly, phone is spelt P-H-O-N-E, not F-O-N-E. Luckily, no-one noticed.

And in 2010, the Phone Jacker spin-off show face jacker arrived on channel 4 this time k van's characters came to life on screen with the help of elaborate makeup prosthetics and costume to enable k van to interact with unsuspecting members of the public on camera all the while k van continued to take on acting roles, including TV sitcom Phone Shop, Phone, spelt correctly this time, the Oscar-winning feature film, Syriana, and in 2010, K-Van starred alongside Riz Ahmed,

playing Waj, a dim-witted jihadist from Sheffield, in Chris Morris' film Four Lions. Kayvan, of course, also featured in Morris' 2019 satire of American homeland security, The Day Shall Come. More recently, Kayvan has been starring with friends of the podcast, Matt Berry and Tash Dimitriou, in What We Do in the Shadows. But when we spoke face-to-face in a London hotel room back in late June of this year, 2021, we focused mainly on how Kayvan made the transition from being a

jobbing actor, dealing with his share of typecasting, to creating characters from a wide range of nationalities and ethnicities for comic effect on phone and later face jacker. And we spoke about the joyful and the potentially problematic areas of doing so. Towards the end of the podcast, there's also a clash of the BBC documentarians as Kay Van unleashes the full force of his uncanny Louis Theroux impression. and I respond with my best attempt at Adam Curtis. Back at the end for a bit more waffle, but right now with Kayvan Novak. Here we go. Then concentrate on that Come on, let's tune the bat And have a ramble chat Put on your conversation coat And find your talking hat

La, la, la, la, la, la La, la, la, la, la, la La, la, la, la, la, la, la La, la, la, la, la, la, la Should I be really close to this? Yeah, I like being close. Rolling rat's arse. Close on the mic. In my face.

I've got a big fluffy cover on Kayvan's mic. Yeah. It's funny. You can watch it on the youtube stream is there a no i'm not visual it's not podcast is not about visuals should be i think i've never listened to his podcast i've only ever watched it oh really yeah do you watch it right the way through for three hours or whatever no i kind of got into watching just clips on youtube and then i got into watching him trying to absorb other people's knowledge whilst not being funny

ever or making any jokes and i find that quite it's a it's fascinating that he can spend that long without cracking a joke even though he is a comedian and he's a stand-up i just find that amazing i mean i've gone 58 seconds without cracking a joke which is a long time for me you are you always on oh well no i'm always off um sure being off being on uh being funny being extroverted being introverted it's something that I can never quite get on top of or decide whether I am introverted or extroverted. Because when I was younger, the people I looked up to, the people I wanted to be like, were charismatic, loud, confident. Who are we talking about?

Oh, mainly classmates, I'd say. Okay. confident who are we talking about oh mainly classmates i'd say okay to the point of me being 13 i was the class clown and i loved my school i loved the teachers i just felt like yes i knew my place when i left there i went to secondary school and it became like i'd left this little pond and suddenly all these tributaries of all these leery kids kind of were all kind of coming into this new lake or ocean it felt like i felt very out of place i don't know what the fuck no longer the big fish no no no longer the big fish it was like no you're in secondary school and it was about smoking weed i didn't until I was 17 or something.

Getting girls, which I hadn't. I'd had like one kiss when I was 13 and then that was it. It was like, bleh. Were you always a big, good-looking galoot? Or were you sort of one of these people who starts out being quite weird-looking in their adolescence and then blossoms into a wonderful-looking human? Like you, Adam. No, I'd say I was handsome. looking in their adolescence and then blossoms into a wonderful looking human like you um no i'd say i was handsome i was tall till i was 13 and then something extraordinary happened my nose exploded and it became more pronounced right yeah so then i guess i was the class clown up to that point but it was really I think my sense of humor

was always there but the personality that I built around it was actually kind of trying to reach around this nose that was in the middle of my face giving your nose a reach around giving my nose a reach around right which it was possible you know it was a well-endowed nose which I've had you know since then I'm I think i'm sure i've mentioned this i may not have but i i did have some rhinoplasty did you i did yeah best thing i ever did i've thought about your nose you're you're a very nicely proportioned person think about it sure was it a curvature that you were unhappy with well if you yeah i mean if you see my kind of earlier television work or film work, then my Mark I, as my mate calls it, is there, you know, in all its glory. Yeah.

You know, in such things as Spooks or Siriana. Right. Or George Clooney, you know, my old nose is there. coincided with i guess from 2001 2005 playing terrorist doctor pimp uh strip club manager which i had great fun doing because you have a strong look i mean where where are your family from iranian okay so they're iranian yeah um so yes you have that kind of quintessentially middle eastern middle eastern look look and then yeah most of the parts i play i would adopt this So, yes, you have that kind of quintessentially Middle Eastern... Middle Eastern look. Look. And then, yeah, most of the parts I play,

I would adopt this kind of Middle Eastern menacing voice. Is that what your parents sound like? No, no, no. My parents left Iran. They got married at 19, went to America, and moved to Texas, of all places, went to university in Arlington, Texas. And around the time that I was conceived,

the Iranian revolution was kicking off. It was kind of bubbling under the surface. It was 1978 when I was born. So they decided not to have me in America. They decided to come to the UK. I was born here. Then I went to Iran for a bit for like seven months then the Iranian revolution kind of was really kicking off and they were like well we

should come back to the UK so that was the story of my birth the story of my birth and then fast Fast forwarding 20 years or whatever. Drama school, acting agent, terrorist parts. 2005, our nose exploding. 2005, oh God, is it my acting or is it my nose? I haven't been laid in four months. This is just, oh my God, get it off. So then found a plastic surgeon called Dr. Mattyty wait how why did you start getting paranoid about your nose i mean did you get comments or anything yeah i'd have comments in my life totally really yeah man but from dicks though surely yeah but it doesn't matter you know it was prominent i had to

it was part of my identity yeah and i would kind of flip-flop between going i love my nose fuck them you know this nose is here to stay and then i wouldn't get an acting job for eight months to be like i just gotta go you blame the nose i blame the nose i mean yeah i blame the nose and then i wouldn't blame the nose and i would blame the nose um were you nervous about getting surgery i wasn't actually i was really excited about it did i even tell my agent i don't know that i now listen my agent my old agent my first agent simon beresford simon if you're listening love you very much thank you for all those lunches that we got now listen i know you haven't worked in eight months but look we're going to get

you a little film this is simon this is simon and get you a lovely part in the film um maybe a little tv series in there you know might do a couple of shorts and uh maybe a theater on the western how does that sound that sounds great simon okay darling don't call me again bye i mean you need that you know if you're not working then you're like oh my god no i can imagine that's why i mean i mean, I've never been an actor in that way. Have you not? No. You've acted in stuff. Yeah, but only because I knew people who were doing things

and they said, oh, do you want to be in this thing? Flucky. I didn't know anyone. I still don't. It's weird. I know you. But I only got a couple of parts that way. And then...

Hot fuzz. Hot fuzz I got because, yeah, because I knew Edgar a little bit. I still had to audition for it. Did you? Yeah. Cheeky fucker. I was going to go, I was going to be one of the cops, but I think Kevin Eldon ended up getting the part that I might have played.

Yeah, he's great. He's better. Yeah, they chose well. He's always good. But you were great, man. Well, all I had to do was get killed. You did it so well. And get slapped on

the back very hard by pierce brosnan no not pierce brosnan mr stoutfire not allergic to papa your accent's a little muddled that's the noise bronson noise now who am i thinking of another bond um you know dalton oh yeah. Timothy Dalton. He's great. I've told this boring story enough. I can't even remember the names. Yeah. Oh, the boring story about Hot Fuzz? About being in Hot Fuzz and getting slapped too hard on the back by Timothy Dalton.

Well, look, then I won't mention Hot Fuzz again. No, that's fine. I like it. You know what? I threw myself with the whole anecdote about nose jobs. Oh, yeah. Do you not normally talk about that? I've never spoken about that.

Really? No. I mean, you know. Why why because you think it makes you look superficial do you think it it's a superficial thing to do no people have surgery all the time i never quite understand i understand totally for an actor some for a person who is all about the way they look on camera you know that's part of your job but for an ordinary citizen i don't know i suppose it's because i'm quite vain myself so i just don't want to respond to my vanity in that way i'm not suggesting that everyone who gets surgery is acting under the same impulses as me but that's that's what it feels like to me i just sort of think don't worry about it you're fine you know you're you you don't need to change that thing that's yeah it feels like to me. I just sort of think, don't worry about it. You're fine. You know, you're you.

You don't need to change that thing. Yeah, if I'd heard that, which I'm sure I did, I'd just been like, no. I'm still doing it. Yeah, fair enough. I worry about, you know, my kids. Why? Because, you know, there's a time bomb. You don't have children yet, right?

Not yet. No. But when I do, you know, daddy, Daddy, there's this thing on my face. It's like, oh, shit, I didn't tell you. There it is. It's back. It's come back. It's the ghost of Christmas past, and it's on your face.

I can't remember what you... I'm going to have to Google your nose now. Do it. What would I look for? Cave-in? Spooks. Spooks. You can watch it on iPlayer.

I mean, you look good. Yeah. You look like a guy with a face. That's what they say. You really do, though. I just would not look at that person and go, look at the nose of this guy. It's a 2D picture. It looked good.

I mean, you know, I looked slick. I looked, you know, well-groomed. Yeah. But it was just, you know i looked slick i looked you know well groomed yeah but it was just you know you need a bit of extra help and dr matty's gonna do that for you that's you know what dr matty will do he got me in a sit down so what you don't don't what don't you like about your nose i was like well you know this bear is a bit there's a bit of a hook there and it's a bit bulbous on the end okay you know what You will always have big nose But perhaps we can make it better big nose I'm like better big nose it is man

Let's do it And it was good It was great And then when the anaesthetist Kind of put me to sleep He Suddenly Dr Matty's there And I'm like getting sleepy I'm on the trolley he's

like tell me again what you want i'm like he was winding you up though wasn't he was he i don't know that's a good wind-up it's that's it. So at what point then did you suddenly take your destiny into your own hands and think, look, acting is fine. I've got other things I can do. I've got my own skills, my own naughty comedic wind-up skills that I can harness to be my own boss the lesson I enjoyed most at drama school was radio because I got to be everyone I got to do all the voices take piss out teachers you know suddenly I was like oh wow I can do that thing that I would do all my life which was watch spitting image at the age of four and you know suddenly i'm prince charles oh bottoms oh prince philip what's the bottoms you know just doing that but like from a young age and then

getting wheeled out dinner parties and doing these impressions i'm like okay well i'm a natural mimic but then suddenly i'm like this career that i have this acting career does not utilize any of those skills at all i'm just going well you look like this so you have to play this kind of character you look like that so you have to play that kind of character okay i can do my sinister middle eastern accent for you yeah um but that's it i'm like nah man this this grapefruit ain't getting squeezed okay so i'm like right well i'll go and do a voice tape and then i'll send it off to all these voiceover agents and they'll be like he's incredible we must have him on our books.

Nothing, you know, nothing. I'd call up, hello, did you get my CD? Yeah, sorry, books are full. So I was like, oh, okay. So then that frustration created this beast, this animal that would then go and do these calls where I just pretend to be other people, record them and then send that in.

But it was this kind of ball of energy that I knew I had to make a change in my own life somehow because otherwise I'd just be swallowed up into this you know this fucking machine of I don't even know how to describe it it was just like I had to do something so you know a lot of my motivation was kind of political you know i do these little you know in the same way that you would do your stuff with joe and you know make things you don't necessarily know why you're making them you kind of go i have to make it i have to make this my motivation was always to play it to friends yeah which i would do eventually after i made these prank calls i would make a cd

and then i would play it but really you know i wanted i wanted more than that i wanted the world to know that i was talented and i could do all these funny voices and i was funny you know i had to escape this whatever this glass ceiling of like no you will only play these kind of characters and there's no you want to be in the driving seat i want to be in the driving seat right hey you need to move much faster in the street come on i want you to be speedy with your feet you're wasting my valuable time i got people to meet but instead i'm moving very slowly behind your ass. You're married, right?

I am married, yes. Happily? Am I happily married? Yeah. Oh, no, not really, no. No? No, I always pretend that I am. Okay.

But I think this is a great opportunity for me to say, not really. But wait, are you going to get divorced? I suppose at some point, yeah, yeah. No, I'm sorry. I haven't thought this riff through. You're a very good actor. I was very, I think I was very convincing. Why would I admit that I wasn't happily married? It's easier to say that because, you know, I guess part of you is like, am I happy?

I don't know. So how are things? You're really great. You know, am I lying? You're not married yet though, right? Yeah, you have a fiance. Yeah. Do you think your listeners are married or are they more single?

I've got no idea. What are you? Are you married? I would imagine there's quite a few married people listening to this and they will I hope be able to relate to a lot of the things that I say about marriage it is a very unique condition it's a constant challenge to keep recalibrating and adapting because the kids everything everything about it everything about just sharing a life and a house with the same person. I mean, this is our 20-year anniversary coming up.

What's your wife called? I never say. Oh, really? Yeah. I always just call her my wife. Okay. Although I don't always do the voice now. She's called Sarah.

I was spending time with Adam and Sarah. They'd been married for over 40 years. I'd known Adam as a child. We were friends. We used to listen to hip-hop together. I sensed that he was a little tense. I asked him why. Are you a little tense, Adam?

Do the are you okay one. Are you okay? Well, I just... I don't know i just got this sense that you hadn't had sex with your wife for about three or four years are you okay presumptive of me to say that so you're doing nick broomfield right yeah that's exactly what matt berry said to me when i did an impression of that's louis through listeners i'm gonna make you do more louis through later on but anyway to circle back round and to close the loop the marriage the unhappy marriage i believe

that i am happily married i love my wife very much she's the best thing that ever happened to me she's an incredible woman i am very attracted to her you give off happy vibes and i just say like when i good meet you and speak to you like there's a good vibe there all right good that's a nice thing to say yeah but it is i mean it is hard it's it's like you have to kind of when you every now and again you sort of think oh they're not doing what i want them to do and i think it's important that they do do this thing that i want them to do and you have to kind of think really hard like is this actually important is this worth getting bent out of shape about and uh that i've i'm slowly getting better at judging those moments it kind of reminds me of um when i hang out with my parents because they've been married for 50 years and they're still in

love and they still make each other laugh and there's still moments of intense cruelty between them but they still they just kind of shake it off and you know my mom will be mean to my dad and my dad will react badly and yeah that's cool they're still together that is that bodes well man oh man that's they're my heroes when it comes to you know a lot of things and that is one of them they really are cool motherfuckers a pair of them you know they've been a unit they married at 19 and they're off man at 19 19 good effort very good i mean my parents uh didn't do so well. Did they not?

No, as far as each other were concerned. Did you witness a lot of arguments and shouting growing up? Yes. Okay, we don't have to do that. This isn't the Dr. Kavanilberg. For a while, not. For a while, not. But it all just suddenly blew up because my dad got very badly into debt.

And so there was a period in the 80s where he just didn't know what he was going to do. And he was really out of his depth. Debt from gambling? No, from sending us to posh schools. Oh my God. Bless him. Bless him for that. Yeah, well, exactly.

What a waste of fucking money. Well have the thought has occurred to me is that where we met did we meet there did we meet at posh school are you okay yeah we did meet at posh school yeah that's why we all speak a little bit similarly me and joe and louis anyway look back to you yeah back to me so all your phone call shenanigans eventually come to the attention how did they come to the attention of channel four you sent them in or no no i met a dude at a house party i said you look like matt leticia and it was ed tracy i said what do you do he said oh I'm a director um I said well I'm an actor and he said oh well I'm making a film about a short film about minicab drivers I was like I'll be in that that sounds great man I'd love to play a minicab driver so I went and starred

I did a day's filming on this minicab film where I had a little part. And I just fucking, I was so, it was a summer. I was frustrated. I had sex in months and months. I wasn't working. I was like, outlet, perform. Performance, go. Ready to explode.

Explode. You know, in this cab office that he'd got. He'd hired it out. I was working with other kind of non-actors. And I was just like, I was in heaven, man. And I was working with other kind of non-actors and I was just like I was in heaven man and I was on fire that day and he was filming it and he was just capturing it anyway I didn't know whether I'd done any good or what off I went then he was like I get a call from him he's like oh I've cut some of the stuff up in the minicab do you want to see so i was like yeah so i met him in a pub he sat me down

he had his laptop and he played me this footage of me in this cab office and like some music and i was like this is amazing i'm a genius i was like you've captured it you've captured my brilliance and it's brilliantly shot and it looks real and it feels wicked just like awesome so then you know i was smitten yeah uh we did this short film and then we did some other character stuff but he hadn't yet heard these prank calls that i'd done i know it was one night around his with a few mates i put on my cd my prank call cd and we listened to it who wants to hear my prank call c? Right, this party's shit. Let's get it cooking. Have you got a CD player?

Excellent. Everyone, everyone, listen to this. Hello, you have doved? What do you think, guys? Anyway, he was like completely, he was like, this is brilliant, right? So he took it upon himself. He took one of the calls and he started putting pictures to the call. Yep.

Send it to me. I was like, this is brilliant. I love this, man. I did one where I called up the first full one that we did. I called up a random dude and I was like, my first line was, to get away driver eight o'clock tomorrow morning kilburn high road yes or no he's like what you need to get away drive i was like yeah i need to get away drive i heard you would have meant to call uh yeah well the thing is uh like i don't know how i kept this guy engaged right but he was telling me that yeah the thing is i can't drive at the moment because i

got my injury i was like i pull our body it's like i was like perfect it's a decoy so i was like i wouldn't let him go and he started animating it did the mouths and stuff and then i was like this is brilliant so then we kind of sat down and we did it together and i was like oh look this is awesome like we're properly working together on these visuals to make this call um didn't know what we're going to do with it anyway it's a friday night or a thursday night 2005 really hot i'm watching channel 4 and it's comedy lab modern toss oh yeah and then at the end of it they were like do you think you can do better than this well send your stuff into comedy lab channel four i was like oh my god yes so i can write down the address called up ed i was like ed man can you put together everything

like edit all together like a 10 minute thing and i've got some scripts and stuff and my prank call cds yeah and i hand delivered it on the deadline at horse ferry road channel four month later ed calls me up dude we've got a fucking meeting at channel four they've seen the stuff they want to meet us i was like oh my god yeah so then we got a pilot and we were like oh my god we've got a fucking pilot did you have to jump through a lot of hoops legally were there problems with you get consent right okay so i only call that if i call someone then you would have to get consent would you phone them back or would you say at the end

of the call yeah i wouldn't but someone else would a researcher right and most and did most people give consent a lot of them did a few few kind of, they were like, no. And those would hurt, you know. Because you were, from the beginning, not in the business of humiliating them. I mean, I never enjoyed prank calls that were trying to kind of screw with people's minds too badly. I felt with your stuff that you, I mean, it's always going to be a little bit on the edge were you conscious of pushing things and making them edgy were you sort of thinking well this feels a little bit edgy i'm just going to push it a little yes but i never wanted to kind of i never wanted to

like ruin someone's day um i wasn't looking for an aggressive reaction i was looking for an interaction that would develop a lot of the time what was your favorite or one of your favorites that maybe is a little bit offbeat that isn't a regular um i remember the one of the first times i played terry tibbs who's like my uh who just came from like oh you know what kind of guy buys an aston martin because a lot of the time a lot of the sources of my numbers as well were car adverts phone book ads in general I mean how well was the internet working and it was working pretty well but I would just have phone book phone book phone book Thompson directory Thompson local and the the calls would either be inspired by the ad or loot you know things for sale wooden ladders talk to me you know that's like one of the the the most kind of terry tibbs quoted back to me calls that i do you know and it

was like my 58th call of the morning you know what i mean it's like wooden ladders talk to me and she was like who's this oh she was a northern lass she was like oh i'm not having you talk to me like that you know and it was like it got her blood going right yeah and that's what you want that kind of interaction where they're giving as good as they get and i love that and what would happen actually we had in the office i'd be in like my booth and all the animators would be there with ed and they'd be like if a call was good i'd upload it and then they they'd all be listening to like the calls that i made that day and when i'd come out of that booth if i could see them kind of giggling at their computers i felt so good it was hard man i

think it took like eight or nine months to make the first season it was intense man because i do the calls and then i come out and i'd be animating with ed and all of them lot what was the impulse to turn it into a more visual thing i suppose it's obvious that you you're an actor you you like to dress up you wanted to be on camera i'd spend two years um doing prank phone calls uh and animation and i yeah i wanted to do some characters in real life and you know we didn't know what we were going to do but channel four were like right we believe in you guys here's some money play just do some shit and see what happens good old days good old days. Good old days, right? So we had a little office in Hattrick Productions. Myself, Ed, and our researcher, Joe Varley.

This is 2010. Yeah, this is 2010. Or is it 2009? And we just start playing. And I'm just there doing voices doing impressions uh doing characters jumping up and like doing something and then we kind of go oh what should we do what should we do should we and the first character i ever did actually out and about was like an old indian man i didn't have any prosthetics i just had like a really bad gray mustache and I had a mobility scooter and he was called Dean

Hooney and it was just I don't know why it was called that it was like a play on Houdini or Dean Hooney and so we went with some hidden cameras to Ikea and I had learned the lesson very quickly that it's all very well pretending to be someone else but for an audience to find that interesting you've got to be doing something you can't just be driving around going oh hey look at me I'm pretending to be everyone thinks I'm an old Indian man because I'm you know going going on my scooter in Ikea literally five minutes in to be in Ikea we had security guard they just clocked us immediately so we're like okay this is quite tricky then hidden camera stuff with a real person having real interactions with

people this is going to be weird because there was no like hey you've done those things on the on the on the telephone just put some prosthetics on you can play them in real life be great it was like no actually what am i doing in these scenarios yeah that's a it's a totally different genre with a different set of challenges completely and it was again it was like and you're in the heavy prosthetics and makeup yeah so i'm like well look i need to do something like eddie murphy did in coming to america in the barbershop scene where he's playing like six different people i can do that so then joe finds a prosthetic makeup artist called christian mallet and i have a meeting with him and he's very serious and you know he's not i keep cracking jokes and he just completely ignores me and you know he's a very serious and talented individual who was like look if you want to look like Terry Tibbs I can make you look like Terry Tibbs and I was like no fucking way you're gonna make me look like Terry

there's no way and the first morning of when we were going to shoot that we hired a Rolls Royce and I go to Christian Mallett's workshop I walk in and I just see Terry's face on a fucking plaster cast of my face and I'm like there's no way that you're going to stick that on my face and I'm going to be anyone's going to fucking believe that I'm actually a 60 year old white man from Rickmansworth no fucking way anyway four hours later it's just unbelievable the excitement and the rush it was just amazing i was terry tibbs i couldn't believe it i was like this is amazing i felt like a superhero i felt like i could fly and again it was like actually even though that day was amazing and i love being terry the point of him existing didn't yet make sense within a new show whatever that show would be and even after you know our three-month development period had all these characters

but again the purpose of them wasn't nailed down and i was like this is this could fail man and i remember i was doing i had to do it was january i was like this is this could fail man and i remember i was doing i had to do it was january i was like i've got to do the pilot of this i've got to get this right figure out what the next thing is i'll have to phone jack it then i've got to go off and do four lines right you'd been cast in that yeah been cast in that so i was like fuck this is like serious i remember it was new year's eve i had a fucking brandy and marijuana induced meltdown in a pub and i was like right i'm gonna stop drinking so i stopped drinking i wasn't alcoholic or anything but i was just got to the point where i was like this is bad my

relationship had gone bad and I was like right I didn't drink for six months and this six month period I did the taster for whatever face jacker was going to be those long days in prosthetic you're paranoid you think oh my god they know it's I'm wearing a prosthetic I'm not fooling anyone you know your nerves are shredded like i think with actors as well the reason that actors sometimes have meltdowns and go off is because their emotional taps have to be open and sometimes it's not easy to close those taps yeah you know because you're using that part of yourself that is it's fucking you know it's it's also slightly unhinged it's also it's unhinged it's also kind of unnatural in a way it's not what most people do in normal social interaction most people tend to be straight with each other honest with each other they don't put on an accent they don't

try and fool each other they do obviously it does happen and there are layers of it i think that happens more than actually an honest interaction takes place yeah they do put voices on they do try and pull the wool over your eyes they are trying to make you think something of them i think it happens all the time and when i become these characters it's like i'm free of that because i can just go fucking all out with it do you know what i mean yeah yeah so any insecurities in my own life i really want you to think i'm this or that or you know handsome attractive uh charismatic funny all those things go out the window and also that's something to be said about acceptance which is what i think a big part of playing another character in this way where it

does feel like a holiday from yourself and your own insecurities and how you see yourself in the world and how you imagine other people perceive you but you know i'm talking like this but i'm really having a conversation you know it's that actually i've made myself into this shape because i'm luring you in and then you might think a certain thing about because you hear that voice so you imagine i'm a certain way why is he doing the racist voice why is he doing the racist voice um but you know i've called you up you don't know that i'm doing a voice you think that's a real person and actually that's speaking to the racist or the prejudice in you because that's the whole point yeah i think that doing this character is going to induce some kind of reaction from you now i'm going to use that

against you or i'm gonna you're going to prove me wrong and actually we're going to have a great conversation and a great interaction and that was part of the journey that i was going on before we come back to you being a massive racist and doing the accents, which, you know, we have to talk about, I think. Obviously, I don't think you're a massive racist, but there are elements of that show that I'm interested in the conversations you are having about them. Maybe we'll talk about it now. Because also you're involved with Four Lions at that point. That is also a production that had a lot of controversy around it before people had seen it. And they were this is Chris Morris's film about these wannabe jihadis from Sheffield. Yeah. Not even a decade after the Twin Towers attack, when the war on terror is still very much raging, Islamophobia is raging as well. And that's the kind of project that could easily be

and was easily misinterpreted. I don't think it was controversial when it came out. I mean, when people saw Four Lions, they understood what the deal was. I got a sense that people wanted to be outraged by it before they watched it. But actually what happened was it came out in like 96 cinemas and then by the weekend it increased to like 300 cinemas yes because it

was like a huge hit and chris morris was never interested in just pushing people's buttons for the sake of it he spent and always does spend a great deal of time researching and spending time with the kind of people that he's very much so writing about forensic he's forensic and he's always looking for the truth in everything and he's not sensationalist and there's there's no slop in anything that he does there's no laziness in anything that he does and that's what makes him just an amazing director and someone you will just do anything for and would he break down what he was trying to do as far as the portrayal of british muslims things like that did you ever have conversations he wasn't trying to portray british muslims he was portraying five guys who were muslim who had decided that they were going to do something about what was going on in

the world in their own misguided way. Right. You know? Yeah. Fair enough. That's, that's a, I sort of fell into the tabloid trap of assuming that this is a kind of,

we'll get you out of that. But you know what I mean? It was, the film was easily portrayed as that. It's like, that this is a kind of... We'll get you out of that, Dan. Do what? But you know what I mean? The film was easily portrayed as that. It's like, this is what Chris Morris thinks of Muslims in Britain kind of thing. There would be a conversation now about a person of one nationality playing a person of another nationality

or a different... Oh, just spit it out. No, but you know what I mean? Like, those conversations were not happening to the same degree that they're happening now back in 2010. No. No. I mean, it was never a conversation I ever have had, really. Ever.

Ever. Little Britain had been out since... Well, it started in 2003, I think, Little Britain. Yeah. On the radio, right? On the radio, right the radio right the tv show had been out for a few years i can't remember if they had started doing their more outrageous prosthetics blacking up etc yeah by that point but did you have a conversation around that

area with your producer and with your commissioning editor and about the wisdom of portraying black characters particularly and wearing the big black prosthetic uh i didn't have any conversations with anyone because for me i was playing white black brown i was playing everyone basically so it was just another character in my repertoire yeah no and going back coming back to Eddie Murphy in that barbershop, you know, that for me was the inspiration of like, listen, man,

I can do characters like Eddie Murphy can do characters and I've got the prosthetics. And now, you know, as I said, to actually nail a good prank in prosthetics was like really difficult so the fact that we actually did two seasons of face jacker and it was as popular as it was um that's just down to all we wanted was to make something that was very funny and that was difficult did you ever get any pushback at

the time from people saying, actually, it's not as simple as just saying, oh, I'm an equal, because sometimes what you get from comedians, certain comedians is they say, well, I'm an equal opportunities offender, I'll go after anyone, blah, blah, blah, I don't care what color they are. But actually it's not that simple, is it, because it becomes whether you believe in the whole Marxist idea of everything being a power struggle

or whatever the fact is that not every minority group has a similar status within society so the idea of kind of taking the piss out of one group is not necessarily the same as taking the piss out of another group it has a different effect it's it's operating within a different nexus okay but what i'm saying is that um you're saying that um me playing a character is taking the piss out of that character that's the way it's easily portrayed or assimilated that's not a motivating factor in me wanting to play a character i look any character i want to play feels like i'm stepping into a superhero's skin and that superhero allows me to interact with anyone and to do it in a funny way where i can outsmart them and manipulate them to the point

where we've had an interaction that's worth editing down and presenting as entertainment on tv you know i love all my characters that i play and i've only ever been motivated by love you know and actually wanting to be funny but you know i didn't pick an easy medium to try and make jokes but for me it wasn't about making jokes as much it was about wanting to play characters in real life situations which i do very well yeah so it was i mean with with you got from some other shows sometimes if people portrayed certainly black characters and they weren't themselves black you got the sense that there was a part of them that knew it was they were on dodgy ground you know what i mean yeah that they'd lived through the 90s and felt as if most of the conversations around race had been more or less

had everyone was fine with each other everyone knew that racism was bad so now let's just play around and go a little bit nuts but by the end of the first decade of the 2000s i think that people were beginning to think about it a little different i mean i made a point around the time that i made phone jacker and that was if phone jacker had been made by four white guys it might have been looked at very differently. Right. Yes. Yes. Rather than being performed by one Brown guy. I me. Yeah. And it,

it is, it is a very complicated and complex world to try and, um, navigate, navigate, but also, but I don't want to feel that I'm navigating because I don't want to feel like, Oh,

I mustn't say the wrong thing in case it gets put into a exclamation marks and, you know, used against me. It's like, actually, no, my comedy is, has come from me.

It's very, it's honest in the way that I honestly wanted to play these characters. I honestly wanted to, from my background being second generation iranian in london these are the people that i have experienced and these are the characters and these are the personalities that i've absorbed and all i'm doing through either the the deception of being over the telephone or in a disguise i'm able to express whatever it was that i absorbed in a comedic way that people find funny and i find funny

now in 2021 or 2022 whenever you put this out 2023 maybe um yeah definitely things things never stop changing and they will continue to change and evolve and absolutely when i hear people go oh you can't make jokes about nothing anymore you can of course you can you can make jokes about everything about everything now you know you don't want to be there going oh i can't say this i can't say that oh maybe you can't say something else you know what you want to say the same joke that you said 25 years ago well you're welcome to yeah but you will get you'll meet some resistance well you'll you'll but also you know the joke that you deliver the joke that you present to someone is presented to them right their experience that got them to this point where

you're now going here have a joke right they need to feel that you may have swam through the same waters of experience because you're going i'm a comedian i'm basing my joke on my experience which i've now put into this joke and I'm presenting with this joke if I'm trying to give you a joke that I gave you 15 years ago then you're like have you just where have you been for the last 15 years you know yeah everything my experience I'm carrying the atmosphere that we're the air that we're breathing is clearly different. And this dies because this no longer survives in this atmosphere. I like that because you made it sound like space. But, I mean, you've done a new series on Spotify of phone jacker calls.

I have. And you're not doing all the characters that you would have done 11 years ago. I'm doing a lot of the characters. I'm doing a lot of the characters i'm doing a lot of new characters and you know depending on when you put this out currently it's been very positive and it's at number two in the charts good one thanks man yeah i'm blown away by it because actually there was a time when i thought oh god i'm doing characters and accents and people from different countries and also you know quite a lot of posh white people too um but is somehow is this going to be misconstrued or

you know is it going to be used against me somehow is there going to be some kind of backlash and I mean it's a weird thing to be anxious about because really as a comedian all you really want to be anxious about is are people going to find it funny um yeah but now there's a whole new machine that i feel can you know inhale this and spit it out in a way that creates a shape that people recognize as oh no that's bad yeah without actually going you know like oh four lines you can't make jokes about terrorists without actually having seen the movie yes but you know my comedy is very personal to me and the mission and the journey that i'm on and have been on in my life and ultimately any interaction i have is about tolerance is about acceptance and i need to play

characters from different countries or you know backgrounds if i want to because that's the character that i've created for whatever reason and there's never any bad intention behind it it's never about making fun of that character it's always a part of me yeah I guess characters are all parts of me I guess the argument would be that I don't really care what your intention is this is the net result of these kinds of attitudes or these kinds of jokes. Like in the, in the olden days you would have heard, I think most people were on the same page about like, well, where's this coming from?

You know? Okay. So you're going to do an accent of, uh, you're a white person doing an accent of a person of color. Where's the joke? Who's the butt of the joke? Is this making fun of their culture?

Is this sort of bel their culture? Is this sort of belittling them somehow? Or is it coming from a more generous place? That's the way you used to process those kinds of things. But I think now it's just like, no, don't even go there because you haven't walked in that person's shoes. You don't know what their lives are like. Best just leave it alone. You know what what i mean i think that's the argument that i hear from some people i'm my i don't believe that you'd listen to any phone jacker calls and think that no i i mean i didn't you know i i still you experienced the characters as well you're basically experiencing a conversation between a real person and me yeah in character

and what you get from that interaction is very different to if i'd played that character in isolation in a scripted thing then yeah i mean i wouldn't go near that i wouldn't do that you know but because it's an interaction with a real person, there's value there. Intrinsic value that is funny and enlightening and interesting. And it makes you laugh. And these are all people who will have found out that it was this bloke of Iranian heritage doing the voices do you still speak the language I speak Farsi yeah but I'm mainly Farsi you have to do it like Farsi Farsi Farsi if I'm ordering an Iranian takeaway then I'll be the fucking whiz kid Farsi سلام حال شما

مرسی خیلی ممنون میشه تیک آوی سفرش بدم میشه تیک آوی سفرش بدم بله یه دونه پور سکوبیده سکوبیدو نه کوبیده یه دونه پور سکوبیده یه دونه مخصوص this for the iranian listeners if you have any i'd be surprised if you do

have you had that i'd unbox on his fantastic fantastic i don't know you'd be surprised it's very anyway I mean, you know, to be honest, this is the first conversation I've had about this. And it's, I don't feel that I'm enlightening anyone. I don't feel that I'm doing anything other than either painting myself as a victim. Yes. Or painting myself as someone that doesn't care. Yeah. No, that's the problem with these conversations is that, especially social media you're you're expected to occupy one of two positions i want

to have an intelligent conversation about it but also i feel like the energy that goes into trying to have a nuanced enlightening conversation is just ends up feeling like please don't hate me i just really love doing these characters and you know if i don't do these characters and what am i going to do everything i've ever done that was good was based around this kind of thing and you know i enjoy it and so do a lot of other people please don't hate me. That feels like the most honest reaction. I'm going to prove you all wrong. I'm going to get on that telephone and I'm going to pretend to be a Turkish man

that I met in Kilburn High Road just two weeks ago who thinks that a DVD is pronounced doofed. And you're going to love it. And I was right. They did. You know, you call someone up. Yeah.

What's up, mate? Yes. How much for your doofed player? What? Doofed player. DVD, mate. Doofed. DVD.

And what I'm doing is I'm going, can you tolerate the fact that I, English is not my first language, that this is an innocent mistake but I'm sticking with it and I'm happy with it and does it really bother you that much that I don't say DVD and if it does bother you so much then what does that say about you you're talking as the character now this is what's going on in my own mind right in this interaction where i've managed to get someone that runs a hi-fi shop to get angry at me because i don't say

dvd i say doved because what i'm doing is going now this is how i'm gonna say it and yes i'm i'm foreign but is that enough are you gonna let me do it and just get on with your life are you gonna hold on to that little thing and what does that say about you and that's what i find so revealing about this medium that i found myself in where yeah it's a prank but at the same time it's a prank, but at the same time, it's a test. Every time I speak to someone as someone that is foreign, that foreign character that I'm doing is my foreignness. And it's the foreignness that I feel, even though English is my first language, I was born here.

The foreigner that I feel, that skin that I can't shed, I'm going, you know what? I'm just going to go full pasty with it and throw something at you and and try and expose part of you because i sense it in you even if i'm talking to you as me you know what's going on between us what happens between two human beings when they interact with each other where's my prejudice where's your prejudice you know um what are your uh pre-existing uh notions of me just by looking at me and then when i open my mouth how does that shift your perception of me i'm not racist i'm not prejudiced oh uh yeah you know this is a very tolerant country very tolerant country that racism doesn't exist

anymore you know that's i'm hearing people say that to my face and i'm going well that's not true is it because i know that i'm no angel and i know that you're definitely no fucking angel um why can't we have a more honest conversation rather than just slap a fucking band-aid on it and go you know look i love this country i love the uk it's stunningly gorgeous i grew up here and i love london and the mix of people that i've got to experience in my life here you know i haven't fucked off to norfolk yet but I'd like to my granddad's buried in Norfolk by the way I buried him I buried him up there so yeah my closing gambit that was good man that what is it I was spending time with Kavan Novak he's having a total meltdown he couldn't when you were doing your speech just then that was an incredible portrait of a lady a man having a total breakdown all the voices and the thinking and the double thinking and the anticipating i'm an artist i

know i'm an artist i've got to express myself it was a very compelling portrait of the modern sensibility in crisis i was spending time with adam buxton he'd invited me onto his podcast i got a sense that he was a little tense and i realized it was because he hadn't ejaculated in over six days have you not ejaculated in six days that must be strange for you are you okay you know i don't like it when people do impressions of my impression back to me when i'm trying to do an impression it's very close to broomfield though isn't it is it i mean it is that they sound similar they have similar vocal mannerisms and and it's the the the slightly strained thing i think i'm a little offended by that statement you're very good at doing the whispery thing that louis my time with adam was done after four hours of talking shit on his podcast my time with adam was at an end

you're listening to the Louis Theroux podcast. I turned my microphone upside down in order to create a pre-credit sequence fuck up that always put my audience at ease. Are you able to break down how you do your impressions? Are you able to? I have zones, I guess. But I mean, I don't do a lot of impressions. No, okay. I hardly do any. Who do I do? Louis, I don't do a lot of impressions. No, okay. I hardly do any.

Who do I do? Louis, I've enjoyed doing a lot for friends and family. And I'll make them, I'll make my father-in-law, for example, the star of one of his documentaries. I was spending time with Paul the Builder. He just bought a house in his daughter's name to save 30% on stamp duty. Shit like that. he fucking loves that um adam curtis then i don't know if my adam curtis is that good because he's quite a

he's just what was happening next would change the course of history forever that kind of thing yeah but there's a let's see let's remind ourselves of his voice i really enjoy doing don't enjoy doing a lot anymore um well i saw you on lorraine doing quite a good sean connery yeah well she made that because she was enjoying it so much you know oh man have you seen um just to segue but him on asppel with a young Boris Johnson. No. Oh, man.

Oh, yes. And Ricky Thomas was like... Every time he cracks a joke. Or every time Sean Connery makes fun of Boris. It's very... Boris used to be a sort of amusing panel guest. He's like a whipping boy, but now he's Prime Minister. Adam Curtis, it's more...

That's quite good. If you like doing shit impressions. ...be a confident self, to over the last 10, 15 years, to be a very unconfident self. Unconfident. Unconfident. Unconfident, it's quite high to being very unconfident. Unconfident. Unconfident. Unconfident.

It's quite high. Unconfident. Whenever Buckles was preparing food in the kitchen, he noticed that all the kitchen knives were blunt. This made chopping veg, especially squashy tomatoes, a frustrating and dispiriting process. He invested in a set of expensive ceramic knives,

and for a while, they worked well, slicing through even the squashiest veg cleanly and precisely. You're Buckles. I'm A.A. Buckles. Adam Buckles. Dr. Buckles. Oh, fuck. Is this like a... When we were on the radio, me and Joe, people used to give us silly names. And Buckles was one of them. Yeah. Oh, shit. So this is actually playing to your core. Yeah. Fuck.

Sorry, guys. Oh, God. But Buckles' instructions... Are you angry at me for some reason? Yeah, but I thought... But Buckles' instructions... You can't red card my Louis Theroux. About taking care of the ceramic knives... See, I'll put some Brian Eno under this and that'll lift it.

Oh, OK. All right. Which included not dropping them or putting them in the dishwasher were ignored by the rest of the house... Can you not record this when I'm gone? ..who claimed he was being uptight. But you need to always come to the abrupt end that he does. He shot himself he always man everyone shoots themselves it's brilliant especially in his latest one it's nuts you're like oh wow this story's great and then he shot himself oh god he did but i thought he was going to change the world

alan greenspan believed in a philosophy called logical positivism. Oh, that's good. Yeah, positivism. Well, his isms are good. That's good. I like that. But at this very moment, a new president of the United States was elected who believed the opposite. He was convinced that he could use political power in its traditional way to transform the world for the better. I was spending time doing impressions of Adam Curtis

in Adam Buxton's podcast. Could I have a go at that? Adam Greenspan believed... I'm just not getting... I feel silly. Are you angry at me for some reason? Wait, this is an advert for Squarespace. Every time I visit your website

I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. I love browsing your videos and pics and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop.

These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash Buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code BUXTON to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue.

Table for one, yes. And are you looking for lunch or dinner? Um, no, I don't know. It's my birthday, you see. So are you looking for lunch or dinner? Well don't know, it's my birthday you see So are you looking for lunch or dinner? Well I don't know, it's my birthday you see What would you recommend? I don't know, would you like to come at lunch or at dinner? Well I don't know, it's my birthday you see

So what would you recommend? Hey, welcome back, podcats. That was Kayvan Novak talking to me there. And you also heard a short clip from his recent Phone Jacker series on Spotify. Link in the description. Very nice to see Kayan and to be pleasurably assaulted by the many people that live inside him including Louis Theroux of course don't think Louis heard that impression of him maybe I'll see what he thinks next time he comes on the podcast oh man my hands are cold rosie come on black fox

let's head back thanks again to everybody who came out to my book shows over the last few months i'm so grateful to you all for hanging in there with all the rescheduling i had a great time and it made me want to do more live bits and pieces which i hope i'll do next year try some slightly different stuff out as well as do some more bug shows that's the plan i hope we're going to do a couple more new shows i'm doing the bowie special as well again haven't done that in a few years but i'm doing two shows on the 6th and 7th at the BFI South Bank, but it's part of Bowie's screen season that they're having there. Coincide with his 75th birthday. I'll put a link in the description to a piece that describes what you can expect from that BFI season.

Hello, dog. I love you. Oh, did you know? Yes. Flappy reset. Also, I was recently on a Beatles podcast, Your Own Personal Beatles, it's called, hosted by Jack Pelling and Robin Allender. Very enjoyable podcast. They've had lots of good guests on there. John Ronson's

been on there. Matthew Crosby even got a shout out on that Matthew Crosby episode. Nish Kumar, Felicity Ward, Laura Barton, music journalist, was on there. Very good episode, that one. And I went on there recently to waffle about my Beatles-related memories from over the years. Gave me another excuse to play my version of How Do You Sleep. And also I dug out a bit of audio of Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek talking about Rubber Soul

from when we did Vinyl Justice with him, me and Joe, years ago at his house in Los Angeles. But it was good fun talking to Jack and Robin. There's a link to their Apple podcast page in the description. That's a link to their Apple podcast page in the description. That's it for this week. Thanks very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for all his work on this episode

and his general production support. Thanks to Helen Green, who does the artwork for this podcast. Thanks to everybody at ACAST for helping me keep the show on the road. Thanks as ever, most of all, to you for listening. Till next time, stay fresh with the beat. Keep your room nice and neat. Be kind to your feet. That's the word on the street. It's raining. Do you want a hug? Come on. I love you. Bye! Bye. Thank you.