THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.39 - JULIAN BARRATT & GARTH JENNINGS

Episode Date: April 13, 2017

Adam goes for a walk with film director Garth Jennings and actor/Mighty Boosh member Julian Barratt for a convo ramble that takes in Julian’s film ‘Mindhorn’, Garth’s animated film ‘Sing’, what it’s like at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, dog turds, and a couple of Adam’s favourite subjects: double act dynamics and dealing with negative criticism! Welcome back chaps. Music and jingles by Adam Buxton. visit adam-buxton.co.uk for links, merch and mild disappointment. Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support, Matt Lamont for convo editing and to Acast for hosting this podcast. Download their app and check out their many other excellent shows. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Hey, how you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here. Welcome to podcast number 39,

which this week features a conversation between myself, Garth Jennings, friend of the podcast, film director, etc., and actor and sometime Mighty Boosh member Julian Barrett, who, along with Garth and his family, came to stay with us last year, towards the end of last year, in October 2016. We had a fun weekend, and while the children were running around and partners were otherwise occupied the three of us snuck out to take rosie for a walk around the fields near our house where i am right now in fact once again taking rosie for a walk this time on a blustery April evening in 2017. Just approaching the cow field. The cows are back and I've got cow fear. So Rose, let's walk back this way. Rosie, don't totally ignore me.

Let's go this way. There you go. Good girl. there you go, good girl I'm stepping on the bracken oh, that is crunchy oh bracken delicious crunchy bracken I love my bracken delicious crunchy bracken

between my feet anyway, where was I? oh right, We were walking myself, Garth and Julian last October. We had three little mic packs that I have and we recorded the conversation that way. The first time I think that we've had a three-way conversation on the podcast. That's interesting, Buckles. Thank you so much for telling me.

You're welcome. And we enjoyed a properly rambly conversation about, amongst other things, dog turds and funny names, for example, Julian's film we talked about, Mindhorn, which had just been shown for the first time at the London Film Festival at that point. Mindhorn, which he wrote with Simon Farnaby, another terrific and very funny actor, comes out in the UK on May the 5th. Looking forward to seeing that very much. Here's a little bit of blurb about Mindhorn. When MI5 special operative Bruce Mindhorn was captured in the late 1980s, his eye was replaced by a super advanced optical lie detector, which meant he could literally see the truth.

He escaped and fled to the Isle of Man to recuperate in the island's temperate microclimate, and today has become the best plainclothes detective the island has ever seen. So we talk a little bit about Mindhorn, and we also talk about Garth's film. Regular listeners to this podcast will have heard Garth talking about the making of the film at various points, and now it is, of course, done and dusted when we were speaking last october the film had just been finished but hadn't yet been released it came out earlier this

year in the uk and did very well sing in fact i just texted garth a few minutes ago and i said And I said I needed some stats for the podcats. Podcats love stats. And he texted back, Singh has now crossed the $620... Sorry, million-dollar mark worldwide. $620 would have been perfectly respectable. But $620 million is better better well done good result i mean i got a chortle award but whatever garth continues i got a bonus and we bought a new mattress after 15 years the old mattress was relieved to go. Probably Garth listened to me talking to Richard Ayoade

about the importance of swapping out old pillows and mattresses at regular points. Garth continues, A sequel to Sing has been announced and is due for release in 2019. I'm writing at the moment and we begin storyboarding in May. So there you go, that's Garth's news. And Garth also told us in this conversation about what it was like to work on the final stages of Sing at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in California. Kind of the film equivalent of Graceland and Neverland rolled into one, but a bit more tasteful, I get the impression. Garth tells us a bit about what it's like there. We also chatted briefly about one of my favourite topics, dealing with negative criticism. And we

touched on some other bits and pieces in a semi-coherent and ill-informed manner. So join myself, Garth Jennings and Julian Barrett for a nice country walk. Here we go. a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's chew the fat 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, So it's possible to hear what Rosalie's thinking at any point. I mean, she is good though. She doesn't run off.

Did she initially try and leave? Yeah, she would run off and... Not know where she was? Well, you wouldn't know if she was going to come back. And the worry is that she would go into the road chasing after a little monk jack deer. And the other thing is that she might get cornered by one of the creatures that she's chasing and get duffed in. What, like an animal ambush? Well, no, she might get pinned up against a fence or something by a deer.

Oh, I see, sorry. Yeah, you're just laughing at the prospect of Rosie being duffed in. When you say pinned up, it's like, I'm thinking of Han Solo running after all those stormtroopers and then finding out, oh, there's loads of them. Yeah. And then running back, whoa! Oh, yeah, yeah. She's got the good life, though.

You know, she has got to check her privilege every single day. Yeah. The lives of some dogs. Yes, they may be free and easy and having fun. In Shoreditch. In Shoreditch. Our dog doesn't even like going for a walk. He used to have a giant dog right wasn't giant well

it wasn't giant it was bigger than rosie yeah um wolfie wolfie wolfie was a wirehead vigela but we live in a flat in france and and it wasn't fair yeah and there was nowhere paris parks in general don't like you to even walk on the grass let let alone take your dog out on it. You know, so that's why there's so much dog poo in the streets. Yeah. Do you go out with bags and... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, always. And I'd say almost everyone I see out with a dog does the same thing. Almost all the ones you see are good. Have you ever had to improvise because you didn't have any bags?

No, but I heard you talking to Tash. Tash Dimitriou, yes. And she was saying that her dad would pick it up with his bare hands, give it a little squeeze. Why? I don't know. Just check for... No, because he wasn't prepared to leave the dog plops on the street.

It's admirable. No, but why squeeze for density? Oh, I don't know, because she may have been exaggerating, but yeah, I think he was just enjoying the sensation of the warm parcel. Wow. Rosie did a small poo outside your barn yesterday. Right. And then you were walking out and I sort of said to you,

Rosie did a little poo there. And then I thought you were thinking that I was saying you should clean that up. Oh. But I was actually just saying, notifying you so you don't tread in it. Sure. Then I thought, obviously here, you're out in the countryside, you don't pick up after your dog. And then I thought perhaps you were thinking,

oh, he's bringing his city rules to bear upon me now. But was that happening? No, no, no, not in the least. And we do try to pick up. Not for that. The arrangement was always that we would pick up Rosie's tarts. Oh, was it? Yeah. Even in was it? Yeah.

Even in the outdoor? Even in the outdoor area. The thing is, they dry out after a couple of days, and then you can just flick them into the bushes. Just pick them up. Pick them up, play around with them a little bit, juggle with them, and then discard them. Julian, you're much more mindful of...

This is going to sound weird, or it's going to sound weird, or it's going to sound like I had a bad impression of you initially, which is not the case. I'll put this in context. I went to Julian's premiere, Garth, I'm talking to you now. Yeah, hello. For his film Mindhorn. Which I haven't seen yet, but I'm very excited about.

And it was at the London Film Festival. And I came along with my two boys, Frank and Nat. And we got to the Odeon Leicester Square. So we drove from Norwich. Yeah. And it was quite exciting. And we saw Edgar right ahead of us with Dave Walliams and various folks that I hadn't seen for a while. And we get into the cinema and we swish upstairs, go and find our seats.

And as we're sitting down, this guy comes over and says, excuse me, excuse me, can I have a word with you, sir? Can you come with me, please? Which is never good, is it? It's either like it always crosses my mind, they're going to say, we've got a special executive booth, a special place, because you're too good for this seat

that you have been given. So we've got a nice, nice room for people like you, because I think you know the star of this film, don't you? I think maybe it was even the star of this film, Julian Barrett, that invited you to the film.

So you come with me to this special, special place. I thought that's maybe what it was going to be. And I think I even looked at the boys and raised my eyebrows like, get ready for the special place. This is making it much worse. Oh my goodness. And then we went out into the foyer. And this guy says, sir uh how old is your son and so i just lied because i was like okay here we go we're going with this are we i said he's 15 and 15

and he said no he's not 15 he can't come into the film i'm afraid so he's too young to see the film i was like what no it's fine i'm his dad i'm his dad. I'm his dad. I say it's fine. No, no, it's a 15 film. He can't come in if it's a 15. He's younger than 15. I said, well, look, I'm pretty sure the BBFC I went for the BBFC. You went straight for the rule book?

Because in the past I have looked it up, but clearly I misremembered. But I said, I think BBFC says it's up to the parent to decide whether a child under 15 goes to... No, no, it's not, sir. Anyway, I googled it later on. Indeed, that is not the case. No under 15s allowed in a 15 film.

Sure, yeah, yeah. And Mindhorn at that point was rated 15. But I just was completely blindsided. Hadn't even considered that that might be a possibility. And so I thought, OK, well, Julian's going to be here. I'll give him a call. Julian will be. Julian will sort it out.

And I thought, but I hesitated because obviously when you're a day like that, there's going to be lots of people you know, and it's going to be stressful in all sorts of ways. You haven't seen the film in front of a big audience yourself. So I really didn't want to give you a call and give you another bit of hassle but i thought i've got to try uh long story short though it didn't work out and um we you're rejected we were rejected uh i was pleased that i managed to keep my shit together a little bit i didn't totally have a meltdown right which is unusual for me and then also brilliantly i didn't take

it out on the boys later on and ruin their day well done in order to in order to create some kind of payback yes for being younger than they should have been yeah for someone else doing something nasty to me but anyway the whole point of this long story is that Julian, you were very, very, you went above and beyond the call of duty to apologise. And you were very concerned and distressed about it. Well, you travelled all the way from Norfolk, hadn't you? So I just felt terrible. And yes, I was led to believe you could get in. Yeah, but no, thanks a lot, though. Yeah. But no, thanks a lot, though.

And you were really nice about it. Because some people, you do get in those situations and you want them to be a little bit more apologetic. Not that I was expecting Julian to be apologetic because it was in no way anything to do with him, really. Well, I had invited you and said it would be fine for your children to come. Then, yes. I did actually know the younger one was going to be coming until quite late on in the game. What filth is in the film?

There's no filth, really. I think it might be just some drug references probably push it into that region, maybe. And how was your screening? Yeah, it was good. I was relieved. I was expecting sort of... Well, I didn't know what to expect.

Were you nervous, though, before? I was very nervous, yeah. Because had it been shown to anyone in the public before? We had the screenings all the way along the process of editing. Right. I mean, I found it all quite disheartening and quite sort of terrifying and scary, and the film being shown, like, to these test audiences

with bits missing and stuff. Right. Yeah, it's frightening. I mean, I think it's a good process, but I suppose I didn't really have a level head about it, I suppose. Did you sit in those screenings as well? I did. I went to them, yeah. And it was quite painful at times, especially in the early ones.

But I'd sort of lived with the film for so long. Yeah, when did you start? When did you have the idea? I think I talked to you guys about it when we first started, me and Simon started. Simon Farnaby. Simon Farnaby doing the work on it initially, which was about seven or eight years ago.

Yeah. And then when we finally made it, all the dreams of what it could have been and this and that and the other, were all reduced to one sort of baggy version. So there was no more possibilities anymore. And it was that moment of going, oh, all right, so we've got this have we

this is what we're going to make into the film rather than all that sort of stuff that was in your head but no one knows what that was no one's seen that of course so then we started putting it together and it got got it to as i think as good as it it could be as an edit but i'd sort of then i at that point i was so um drained of any sort of joy from seeing myself and in the main part trying desperately to sort of become objective about it i don't know i just sort of joy from seeing myself in the main part, trying desperately to sort of become objective about it. I don't know, I just sort of got worn down, and then I sort of, I couldn't see what I was doing as being a very important part of the film,

but I didn't want to start being really arrogant and going, well, of course, my performance will carry a lot of this stuff, and carry some of the problems i was fixating on with the structural stuff stuff that we were desperately trying to fix failing to sort of see that it's basically you're in a funny outfit and you're running around and falling over and doing stuff that sort of allows you to forget about some of those gaps and things so i sort of was just so so relieved when it when it went okay that I felt great afterwards. Oh, well done.

But then I was down again when Adam... Adam ruined it. Adam sort of took the edge off that. Well, I think it's amazing that everyone loses their way making something, whatever it is. There's always a point, isn't there, where you're like, I don't know what this is anymore. And it must be doubly hard if it's your face that's in it. When you start fighting for stuff and it's your stuff you've done, little things you've done, you sort of feel like, God, what am I doing here?

I could do that if it was an actor, you know, but if it's yourself, no, but this is great, this thing. Look at my brilliant funny face. Look at my amazing thing I did. You idiots. So it's hard, yeah, to do that, I suppose. And so I did actually, eventually, I let other people just sort of look at it and be a bit more objective about it, I think, in the end.

Did you ever consider using someone else to play the main part? I think we did, yeah. I mean, I sort of mooted that. Put that out there initially as a thing to Simon. And, you know, he was saying, no, no, no, it's got to be you i mean that was the initial idea he he sort of came up with the initial idea the kind of uh galaxy quest idea of a kind of naive deluded sort of race of aliens or what have you mistaking a fictional hero for a real one and so that was the initial thing and then simon said oh you'd be great as this actor who used to play a detective. And then who were you thinking of? Bergerac and people like that?

Yeah, Bergerac. John Nettles. Shoestring and all those shows. So it was great because we could just dive into all that. And initially, we were so excited about being able to replicate that era of show. And we thought there was going to be a lot more of that in it in the end.

But as we sort of went along, we realised it became more about an actual real character and his arc and all the other stuff sort of fell away a bit and in a good way I think you know well yeah but that's often the way isn't it that one idea is the launch pad idea it's like it's the one that gets you up and running yes and then you often have to sort of leave quite a bit of that behind because it was only there to get you up and running yeah but I saw a picture of you online I haven't seen the film yet but I saw a picture of you with a you've got an eye patch is that the idea?

I remember you saying that you could see the truth yeah he's got eye patch and he can see the truth I mean he went through various iterations at one point he was going to have a nose that could smell the truth like a special nose we thought it could be it could be a terribly conceived idea because it was a show that didn't work so it could be a terribly conceived idea because it was a show that didn't work,

so it could be really badly conceived. But I think there was something... Right, the show in the film. The actual show that we were parodying that he'd been in, which had been a disaster back in the day, we thought could have been anything. But we wanted it to be a bit more believable, and I think the eye patch had a sort of heroic element,

and the nose was... We went through a bit more believable, and I think the eyepatch sort of had a sort of heroic element, and the nose was... We went through a few ideas for that, but yeah. And where did the name Mindhorn come from? Well, that came initially from a friend of ours, Olly Ralph, who's in a band, Ralph Band. And he had a character he did once on a Boosh radio show, which was called Bruno Mindhorn, and he played a sort of weird belgian poet character who

he just wrote some weird things and then he wrote a song about bruno mindhorn and then simon was listening to um his album and thought oh that sounds like a detective mindhorn yeah from the 80s so that's where the name came from. It's a great name. It is a good name. You guys are good. You and Noel were always very good at doing odd names for things. Who was the Ladder Coins? Gosh, I don't know. That always used to really make me laugh, the Ladder Coins. Yeah, yeah.

They were a band, weren't they? They were, yeah, on the radio show, I think. I love that thing of when a name will just stick. It's like a good idea for something. Yeah. It just won't go away. And there's nothing worse than a bad one. Sometimes when you try too hard...

Yes. Ah, they're so painful. And then you hear them... I found myself doing that the other day with a script. For about half an hour, maybe even an hour. God, I don't know. Just going, Trevor. Trevor said... No, not Trevor, Steve, Brian, Barry.

So I had about 20 pages, and then I just kept going through, finding a place and changing their names through the script, see how it felt when I read it. I'd spend days on that stuff. Yeah, because I find once you've got the name... Everything else slots in. It really does. Then you try sort of Hannibal. Yeah, yeah.

Try those crazy names. Just weird names. Louis Cipher. Yeah. I mean, God. There's some people that are happy to go with Louis Cipher or, you know, John Horizon. There's not a John Horizon. I'm just picking that out.

Yeah, there could be. Or Don Protagonista. There was a receptionist, or a security guard really, who he worked at a production company, and he had a name tag, and it was, I don't know what his first name was, but his surname was Noodleman. Oh, yes.

And I was like, just all I've done since i met that bloke was try and find a project project where i can call someone noodleman and finally in this film we've just finished there's a character in it called nana noodleman and she's this elderly character and she has a grandson called eddie noodleman she's voiced by joanna lumley no no jennifer saunders well she's actually voiced by two jennifers jennifer saunders. Jennifer Saunders, yeah. Well, she's actually voiced by two Jennifers. Jennifer Saunders does her speaking part, and Jennifer Hudson does the singing. Right. Yeah.

But that name, Noodleman, I just love it. It's great. Noodleman. Get me Noodleman. Get me Noodleman. Matt Berry and Arthur Matthews are very good at names in toast. They've got quite a formula, I think, which is just more or less marrying boring first name,

Christian names with inanimate objects. Right. And that works quite well. I've used that in the past. Give me an example. Well, one that I had that I was very fond of for ages was Carol Spatula, who was a sort of playwright.

Yeah. Carol Spatula's new, very upsetting play. It's a good formula, like Dennis Lamp. Yeah. Me and Joe, it was always things like Julie and Donny is one of my favourite ones. I like Judith. Judith is good. That's a favourite of mine, yeah.

Yeah. We've got a character played by Ria Perlman called Judith. She's a llama. And Ria Perlman, you know Ria Perlman. Yeah. We've got a character played by Ria Perlman called Judith. She's a llama. And Ria Perlman, you know Ria Perlman. Sure. From Cheers. Yeah, she was fantastic. But I just love hearing Matthew McConaughey saying Judith over and over again.

Uh-huh. Judith, hi. Just hearing him say Judith feels like a triumph. I like the name Judith because for me it reminds me of Life of Brian. Him being so embarrassed about Judith and then when she takes it when she stands up

their mum walks in on them shagging Terry Jones, you know. Yeah. She stands up and she's got her big undergrowth on display.

Yeah. And she's all strident and powerful. Yeah. I love the face of Terry Jones in that scene. He's just looking at her up and down. After just horror and indignation. Oh, it's so good. You know how sometimes there's nothing on TV?

I mean, often these days you'll go through and you'll find an old movie that's playing. And you'll think, oh yeah, it's only 20 minutes in, I'll carry on with that one. It's usually something like The Rock for me. Right. You know? I haven't seen The Rock in a while. I'll carry on watching that. Which according to Adam Curtis in his hyper-normalization doc,

According to Adam Curtis in his hyper-normalization doc, one of his theses is that early versions of ISIS or some sort of terror cell out in the Middle East watched The Rock, the film with Nick Cage and Sean Connery, and looked at the way that they dealt with chemical weapons in there. And there's a whole scene where he talks about the string of pearls configuration when he's pulling it out of this canister and you remember it's all the little glass spheres and they're green and they've all got green liquid right and it's like if one of these spheres landed on san francisco it would kill 10 000 people

instantly and all this kind of stuff so adam Adam Curtis reckons that some guy watched this film and then said, or made it, like, leaked out the information, we've got chemical weapons, and to prove it to you, this is how they work. They're in a string of pearls configuration and they're in little glass spheres, so you better watch out. And then that became part of the dossier that was handed to tony blair and it became part of the reason that tony blair was convinced that we had to invade

iraq oh because they had weapons of mass destruction is this really in the documentary yeah i mean it's adam adam curtis's things are like essays more than documentaries so it's his this is him him weaving some kind of truth I love the sort of the idea of fictional stuff impacting on the world

in some strange psychological way like the way we sort of seem to be making Star Trek come to life or we make

sci-fi we're somehow planning what we're going to do with these fictional imaginings you know so we're sort of creating stuff because we've visualised it already or something right right exactly that's like a negative version of that

because like the donald trump character being like the paul verhoeven vision of the future do you know what i mean that's right i'd buy that for the dollar kind of you always were watching that going well that's a funny idea but it's never going to be like that and it really is it's almost as if and i by the way i i'm probably misattributing who came up with what it may even have been someone in the american government that watched the rock and then attributed that information to the iraqis or i can't remember exactly but that's more or less the implication was in some circuitous way or other it was the fucking rock that indirectly helped tony bla Blair make his mind up to invade Iraq. And you do sometimes feel as if various aspects of culture are sowing the seeds, laying the groundwork.

It's a shame it wasn't like Desperately Seeking Susan or something like that. Just something a bit more fun, like My Big Fat Greek Wedding. And I thought, why don't we do that instead instead of the rock yeah it's weird how they get some things right obviously and some things completely not seen at all like the internet is never never seen in any film that's true it's not it's hover boots or it's um you know robot butlers but it's never it was never the internet uh well there's better there's aspects of it i mean if you look at 2001 he's doing a skype call to his wife that yeah i mean that's

communication isn't it yeah that's not the internet the idea of being interconnected in that way yes i think that's what i meant this sort of idea of all the information being somewhere yeah i think there are hints of it every now and again. Well, George Orwell being the main guy in terms of predicting where things are going to go, right? Yeah. Well, 1984 is a good example of a thing that wove itself into the public consciousness to such a degree that it was almost as if people were willing it to become reality. It was like, here it is. It's coming. It's coming. I told you it was coming. Here it is. No, it's really coming now. It's going to be worse next year, watch out, here it is. Fuck it, it's Big Brother.

I told you it was coming, it was bad last year, it's fucking way worse now. It just carries on. But I guess that's just something in human nature, isn't it? It always ends up with that paradigm of there being some despot who has some superficial veneer of, I'm going to look after you and you have to just do what I say. That's how I'm running my family. Yeah, well, exactly. That's the thing is that family dynamics,

you often feel that they get expanded into a system of governments. And, you know, you sort of think, well, sometimes you've just got to tell the people what what's gonna happen just to sort them out uh like i do with my sons we're halfway through the podcast i think it's going really great the conversation's flowing like it would between a geezer and his mate. Alright mate. Hello geezer, I'm pleased to see you. Ooh, there's so much chemistry. It's like a science lab of talking. I'm interested in what you said.

Thank you. There's fun chat and there's deep chat. It's like Chris Evans is meeting Stephen Hawking. If my dad was here now, he'd be saying, you know what, this is going to burn off. It is going to burn off. He'd be looking up at the sky and he'd go, this will burn off. We're walking now. Should have worn your shorts today.

It's a lovely autumn morning, but it's quite misty. I'm not here. I'm being put on afterwards. Yeah. With a bit of foley. We're going to add Julian in post. Some breathing. So...

And it is, Garth's right, it is definitely the kind of weather that's going to burn off. The sun is... I'm plucking a blackberry off the bush. Yeah, just to... Mmm. Yeah. Just the right... They're still good.

Oh, mate. You're going to eat it. That's nice. Yeah. They look good. We picked some apples off our little apple tree outside the farm. I tried those apples. It was amazing.

Yeah, I was expecting them to be a bit, you know, say, oh, a bit tart. Yeah, yeah. No, they're great. Delicious. It was really good. And there was no way I was going to have one because I don't like supermarket apples a lot because they're too tart. Right. I gravitate towards the jazz apple as regular listeners will know.

I love the jazz apple. And I used to love the Fuji because that was similarly sweet, but the jazz is even better. But Sal said, you should try one of our apples. I just said, no, that's not going to happen. No way. Why would I? Because also they have little welts in them things you don't get in on supermarket apples little blemishes yeah

you're allowed those though yeah but I I'm so thick and childish that it I didn't even consider oh I see them but yeah she she lampooned me and um held you down stuffed an apple in your face she stuffed an apple in me like a little piggy. Yeah. And it was really great. I guess it's partly that thing that people say, you know, if you grow something yourself and you taste it, it tastes extra special. Yeah. That must be what cannibals were into it for as well.

It must... Yeah, homegrown food. You know. They had that sort of pride in their own... If you eat like a nice guy, you just think, you know what, this is delicious, because he was actually a terrific bloke. Yeah, although they were usually eating their enemies, weren't they? You would think, yes.

Where was that most popular then? Cannibalism. Was that sort of New Guinea or somewhere like that? I mean, is it even a thing? It was a thing. Aztec sort of ceremonies of sacrifice and then eating an enemy gave you his power, perhaps. Ah, if you eat their heart.

Yeah. Well, now I'm just thinking of the Temple of Doom with the Kali. But weren't they a real tribe, the Kali? Now, you see, this is, we're going into the same area as the rock and George Bush. But it's possible, though.

It's real. There's a real culling tribe. We've got to go to India and get them out of the mine. There's some crystal skulls. Well, there are some crystal skulls, aren't there? I think there are crystal skulls. I don't think that you can hide in a fridge and expect to survive a nuclear explosion,

which is what Indiana Jones does at the beginning of that. Do you know why you never even got to that bit? Yes, I do remember that. It's such a weird feeling to watch, a peculiarly modern feeling, to be excited about something to that degree, and then from moment to moment just to be denied pleasure. Denied, denied, denied, denied, slap, slap, slap, slap. It's really weird it was all it was weird because you can

obviously the original indiana jones film is not based on accurate physics and science yes but they didn't push it they knew how far to push it you mean the supernatural element the alien everything about it all the you know the the physical stunts and getting dragged under a truck and all sorts of little bits. It's cartoonish, yes, but you go with it and you're happy to go with it. Whereas Crystal Skulls, you didn't want to go with anything. Well, I didn't. I always liked the fact that in the first one all the mysticism surrounding this supposed arc Indiana Jones he was having none of that he's like just some hocus pocus you know

that was I love the fact that it was at the end right at the end he's like oh my god you know and initially when you open that thing it's just dust that's another another great thing. So even I, when I remember when I first watched it, thought, oh, it really wasn't anything. And then... Yeah. Multiphase. Yeah. Garth, you were on the Skywalker Ranch doing the post for your film.

I honestly... Are you able to describe that? It's a very, really super relaxed, very busy, lovely environment and i should explain it's it's predominantly a sound mixing facility it's these great big sound mixing studios but the building that they're contained in is nestled in this valley that george lucas owns this entire valley and it really is like if you picture a beautiful valley covered in vineyards and olive groves. Northern California.

Yes, northern California. It's just north of San Francisco. And I've always dreamed of going to this place. It has been a dream of mine to be able to work there. And it just so happened that the studio I'm now working for always have a tradition of finishing the mixes up at this. Illuminations. Illumination Entertainment. They always finish their animated films up there. They the mix there so i got to stay there but it

was unbelievable just how great it was you drive for miles through this sort of windy roads with redwoods either side yes where they filmed scenes from return of the jedi and stuff you can see where the inspiration came from really i mean if you were if that was your if that was his home he was thinking oh we should do it here. And it really is lovely. And then you turn up at a very nondescript gate. Then you go down this beautiful sort of country lane, which is all part of his estate. And then you come to the guest area.

It's like a little mini village, a very very very small village of cottages and apartments ranging from a very small room if you're just staying there overnight to places like mine which are like a little apartment like log cabin style buildings do you know what i mean and it all smells of that lovely sweet wood and there's beautiful trees everywhere but it's very small and cozy and you go and check in you get your key and you you basically live there while you finish the mix and you get on your bicycle with its little basket on the front and you cycle up through the the lanes up past the farmyard you end up going past lake ewok which he dug out and you could swim in that if you wanted to it's so nice does george stride about and i sort of he does apparently i didn't see him while i crop on a horse it's like a gaucho sipping wine this is ripe he is this wine needs more cg he's around but i didn't see him and and the deal is

that you don't go up to him right no one No one says that to you, but you just can feel that being like, that would be very uncool here. Yeah, yeah. Like one morning, I got up, there's a communal kitchen. It's very nice. You have to, there's no like, you're not pampered.

It sounds like you're pampered from what I just said, but you have to cook for yourself and look after yourself. Oh, I'm sorry. It was very hard. No, no, but it's great because you go into one of the communal kitchens and, you know, do some eggs or whatever. Yeah.

And I was making some coffee early one morning. I noticed into one of the communal kitchens and you know do some eggs or whatever yeah and i was making some coffee early one morning i noticed that one of the people that worked there had had got some donuts and stacked up a stack of donuts and i thought i was the only one there and i was laughing looking at these donuts going i think i said out loud something like only in america would you have this for breakfast and this voice said i know right and i turned around and it was jodie foster whoa sitting just making notes doing her thing she was mixing i think money monster at the time yeah but it's walking along with you now it's it sounds like a really pizzazzy starry moment and i was very very taken to meet her because i really think she is phenomenal in every respect and uh but because this place is so super laid back there's none of that hollywood atmosphere there it's very

much like being in a sort of farming community and just getting things done and uh so you end up having a nice chat and she goes on her way and does her thing and you do yours and and it's only when you write home that night or you phone up you go yeah i saw jodie foster this morning yeah just having a cup of coffee that was amazing and the facility itself the sound mixing studios are just incredible and i've never had that level of technical amazing brilliance it's phenomenal they have a cinema there where you can go and check your mix as if it was in a real cinema it's a huge 400 seater cinema with the greatest sound system in the world so you wander in there at lunchtime and you go and play it back and you're like wow that sounds a bit loud there but half the time i'm just sort of almost

breathless with just joy at being there really it. It's really, it never, there wasn't a single day where I wasn't bowled over by what we were doing. And the people are so nice. They're like sort of Ben and Jerry's kind of characters. Nice, hippie-ish. Yeah, really laid back. Hey, how we doing? They've seen everything. They've dealt with every filmmaker from James Cameron through to...

Every type of Wally. There were some great James Cameron stories. Apparently someone said, yeah, James said to one guy, let's call this guy Bill. I don't know who it was who he said this to. This is Bill's doing something on his film. He goes, Bill, you and I have the same size head. How come you're so much dumber than I am?

Yeah. So I used to love hearing all these stories it's a good life yeah i'm gonna say that to my children when they're a little bit older exactly no there were lots of lovely filmy character anecdotes you would get along the way but generally people that work there have worked there all their lives because it's such a lovely environment it really is spectacular do you see people in the distance getting sort of removed and is there no must be some sort of quite a lot of security unless it's far away from it's very very very far away from anything it really is they must have nerd lasers there and stuff though just to pick off the well there's here's the thing. Yeah, the nerds will find that place, won't they?

You would think. Well, here's the thing, right? It's a very nondescript road and a very nondescript entrance. And even when you got in, there is a security guard, but it's so laid back. It is not like going into a movie studio. Do you think there's a hidden sort of, you know, ferocity? Like Disneyland where it's not this good for nothing.

It's an affable front. And that's the place where he keeps all the old bits and pieces of paraphernalia and models etc. That's the one thing I didn't get it together to do. Right. It's tricky to go and look around there. It's not like something you can just tour. But I'd been there long enough I thought maybe I could ask. But I up being so busy with it all have you ever seen that stuff

what the the little museum yeah i mean there are some things there's a main house there uh that you can uh get your lunch there's a canteen up at this big beautiful main house has it got aliens in it playing jazz not quite but you go in there and there's indy's hat and there's his and there's charlie chaplin's cane and all kinds of amazing movie memorabilia and um and a library like you've never seen the most beautiful library um with reference books for everything and it's just it's really very special i was that was the biggest treat of the entire last five years for me. Yeah. And then how have your previews been going?

Has that process been, because you're all totally done and dusted now, right? Only just, yeah. Just finished. Nothing else you can do to it? Nothing else I can do now. It's done now. It's too late. Got to let it go.

Yeah. Yeah. And how are you feeling about it? I feel really good about it. Do you feel like you've got any kind of perspective on it? Yeah, I do now. But we had two sort of public previews where you just invite anyone in, families. You try and find a mix of people and they know nothing about it.

Yeah. And both times that was to about 400 people. And both times they went really well. And most of the time we had, on both occasions we hadn't finished the film. There were still huge chunks that were in storyboards, you know, sort of very crude, animatic kind of versions of the scenes.

That all was fine. But then the big one, the big terrifying one was our first proper invitation screening, which was at the Toronto Film Festival in September and that was really an extraordinary experience because I was very nervous in the run-up to it obviously there were 2,000 people in the audience so quite a lot of the cast had come along some of them hadn't seen it yet my wife had come along she'd never seen any of it not a bit of it so which cast members have you got there uh that came to toronto was matthew mcconaughey scarlett johansson reese witherspoon

taryn egerton tori kelly jennifer hudson and nick kroll right yeah and turnout it was a good turnout and um just but just really you know i very violently ill earlier in the day from nerves yes absolutely oh really yeah yeah do you get like that yeah yeah um because you're it's just too much it's just a bit too much but then once once you get uh got once i got up there and introduced it, I felt a bit better. But then your heart is in your mouth. I mean, you just had your premiere, didn't you, at the London Film Festival?

Yeah. And do you not find those first few minutes... I was ready to leave at the beginning. I didn't fully sit down. I was hovering above the seat. I just thought, if it just carries on and no one's laughing, I'll just quietly yeah slip out yeah away and probably just change my name you know but um i um yeah as i sort of

gradually lowered myself as the the laughs came and yeah suddenly i thought i know it's it's okay people are getting the joke getting the idea of the film they're getting because it's a thing of looking at it in pieces isn't't it, for so long? Yeah. Which you just, it's so hard to see what that thing is that is keeping it aloft. And often it's not in any of the individual pieces that you've been examining for so long. It isn't, is it? It's the greater... Yeah, which you can't, it's somehow, you lose sight of what that is or forget it.

Yeah. So when people start to see that again, it's like, oh lot you know it has got through to them and did you feel did you were you relieved at that did that feel good yes it does it felt very good yeah and i was uh yeah i didn't realize i'd been quite sort of weighed down by the i sort of didn't see that it had been it had its grip on me for quite a while i didn't realize until that moment started to evaporate i was like oh i feel sort of light what is this feeling well i remember seeing you earlier this year and i remember the two of us were quite anxious about what we were doing but when i walked in and saw you the other day it was like a new man yeah even if i hadn't had a bit of work done as well of course as soon as the premiere ended i was off to get my get your face face well yeah yeah no it was exactly the same it

was a very frightening sit down my wife sort of gripping my hand because i'm she's the she's a tough critic as well she won't hold back i'm going to hate to tell you this isn't this i often i think i feel relieved now because i think i've seen it hate to tell you this isn't this i often i think i feel relieved now because i think i've seen it with an audience and they enjoyed it and i felt like it connected yeah whether that works in terms of oh i see who knows whether that's going to translate to but you can't be successful or anything like that but i know in that just even for that one screening it was like it's almost well you know it can work yeah and i think that's the sort of it's up to the

gods you know as to what what happens exactly whether it catches the right kind of thermal yeah you know but i yeah i it's a little bit like reminds me of a live you know after a good gig you had that sort of feeling of it connecting and yes um but then often there will be bad gigs as well and it's quite sort of interesting to see how differently films play. I sort of took, in a way, having done live stuff and finding the same show going down badly and well in other, in different places and blaming myself for it. It's quite interesting to see something that is exactly the same

go badly and well in different places and go, oh, so there's a sort of something else going on here that maybe was going on back then. Well, there's a chemistry in the audience as well, though, isn't there? And you see that at live shows, definitely, when there'll be a loud laugher sometimes and they can positively infect the rest of the audience. That's what they need to employ those guys.

Yeah, just one or two of those. You don't want to go too crazy, because sometimes you can get a too idiosyncratic a laugher. Yes. Oh-ho-ho-ho! And then everyone's like, whoa! And everyone's laughing at that. And everyone makes them wait for that guy to do his funny cuckoo laugh.

You hear it on radio comedy programmes sometimes. Oh-ho-ho! Oh-ho-ho! You're thinking, who the hell's that? And then sometimes the opposite is true in an audience as well you there's there's just a little frosty group everyone's all self-conscious or i feel exactly the same way though that i don't know how the film is going to do out in the world yeah and i have no control over that but the three times we've shown it, especially the last time, it did everything we wanted it to do.

And if anything, it really exceeded... Your expectations. Yeah, oh God, it was very emotional at the end of the Toronto screening. Because there's two things going on. There's this enormous relief at having finished something after five years. Yeah. And there's people they were literally out of their seats dancing at the end and cheering oh wow it was it was great

and there was this sort of excitement of like wow it did work and uh like you said though it may not work somewhere else or it'll go up and down in terms of how it's received depending on the audience but it was a it was a great feeling and then that's why I got really sick afterwards because I just realized, ah, I'm done. Yeah, you just crashed. Crashed, yes. But you said like, you sort of went back to work

fairly quickly after finishing Sing. Yeah. And you were all emotional and all over the place. Oh, it was ridiculous. Yeah, I didn't realize i just thought i'll keep going i'll keep working on other things i just had this rhythm that i've been running at for the last few years and i kept going on this other stuff and i was i was on a skype call with this lady called dana and all she said to me was something like yeah that idea works and what about

if you moved it up earlier and as she was saying this i could feel my heart rate going like oh god dana and i started going oh you know what dana oh i'm gonna have to do not do this and she was just thinking i was being a bit silly and sort of said no no it's fine i'm not saying anything big just change it i'm like i don't know what's wrong with me right now and she said why what's wrong don't you like this idea or you know the thing and i didn't see it coming otherwise i'd never have gotten a skype call i just started welling up and going i'm really sorry i poor weller poor welling up oh weller weller yeah it was really really really so you started blubbing oh yeah

and i felt very embarrassed and stupid and she was very sweet and she got a bit upset too and i said i think i need to stop this is what it's like in the high powered film business is it just people but it's just pathetic it's pathetic it's embarrassing really it's nice i think there should be more crying in business anyway i rang up the team i'm working with and i had to say look i'm really sorry, but I was also feeling really run down. And I thought, I said, do you mind if I take some time off? And they were very good. And they said, sure, go on, do your thing.

You've been replaced. Been replaced, yeah. Well, we've replaced you with someone that doesn't cry. Yeah. When we're trying to work. Yes, yes, that's how it came. You're a really great guy, but pro tip, generally, we don't cry

while we're working. We don't cry about seeing animals. There's really... What we do is we keep the crying for private time. So you went and you did the John Lennon time off, baked some bread. Is that what he did?

Yeah, after the Beatles for a while, he stayed in the Dakota with Yoko and he learned how to bake bread and he spent time with... Yeah, I did a lot of cooking. Sean. Yep, did that too. Not with Sean, obviously.

Yeah, I was a house husband, so I could just do all the food and all the school runs and it was great. That is a good tonic actually just basically other people being more interesting and important than you are for a bit. Right for a little bit yeah that's very good. I don't like that. Yeah then you can marginalize it. I don't like that. It's not good. Even if I'm doing a school run, Julian? No, I don't think so. No, only in Salon.

Noel and I, sometimes, if we ever had arguments, we'd quite quickly make up and there'd often be tears. Oh, really? That's nice. Sorry, mate. I don't know what... Oh, that's great. Just, you know.

That could happen quite easily. That's good. Makeup sex. Not in there. That's what you want. That is the secret of being a productive duo or unit of any kind, is being able to do that. You don't want to...

Hold on. You don't want to hold on to the tension, no. I'm not sure that Joe and I were that good at doing... Did you have a few make-up tears? I don't think tears, no. We only got to the wavery voice stage. Wobbly Voice. And so we'd be at Wobbly Voice.

Do you think we need more of the sort of, you know, Metallica, the therapy? Oh, yes. Metallica, was it, that documentary? It was, yeah. Making a Monster, was it? Yeah, the sort of bringing together of, I think, it could be good for a lot of creative partnerships to do that. Well, it's served them well, hasn't it?

I mean, they're still putting out stuff. It's a lot of unspoken sort of energy isn't there and when you when you're in a team and it can go it can drive you forward and it can sort of go wrong and by definition almost you're not grown up because you're sort of still playing dressing up and lots of right you're sort of maintaining a sort of childlike energy which can work and then not work and you don't know why it's not working I sort of yeah think maybe you could check into some therapy as a double act you know

my worry would be that you'd lose the comedy yeah you suddenly see why you'd start tiptoeing around each other you'd be too respectful and then you're triggering me with that set up you've set up I'm setting up too many of your joe he's becoming a trigger from my childhood from setting up things and i felt um yeah you didn't laugh hard enough when i suggested that idea well earlier on um today we were talking about the way that you deal with other people's ideas in a creative situation and how you often get people who think they're being sensitive.

And I'm sure I've done this myself. And you think, no, I don't want to just totally rubbish that person's idea. So I'll start off by saying that is a great, great idea, which is very funny and interesting. We're not going to do it. and then you move on to something else that's the thing i've read some where the writer of uh um castaway yeah geezer who wrote the uh tom hanks film yeah he just said something about he'd written the film but he'd taken him something like seven years to write he said so he just said i've spent seven years writing this so it's not that you have to like it it's just if you don't just don't tell me yeah that's what he was saying you know sometimes i feel like i wish trashing things was more frowned upon

like this is just in little moments because it's obviously fun trashing things sometimes but i always think if people understood that it's not cool to trash something, even if you think it's absolutely shit. Is this in public? This is like a fantasy scenario. Imagine what would the world be like if this was how everyone behaved. You don't have to lie.

You don't have to pretend you like something if you don't. But the understanding is that you only enthuse about things you genuinely like. So you apply that to the kind of critical landscape. And in fact, that's what some Word magazine, I don't know if you remember Word magazine, but that, when that started, that was their philosophy, was that they would only write about things they liked and that they could enthuse about. I don't know. I mean, I think anger and stuff is great.

It's fuel in terms of making stuff and what gets you angry and stuff. But in terms of reviews and criticism, how does that help things? I just think the culture of reviewing being some kind of respectable art form is totally out of hand now. So that if you go online, everyone wants to be a critic and everyone is setting themselves up as some little reviewer of every kind of thing you can imagine. And they're really into it. And there's people doing these long, in-depth, very wordy reviews. And I'm sure some of them are perfectly insightful and have many valid points to make,

but you just think, God, there's more to life than this, surely. It's more fun either to make something or to enthuse about something rather than to sit there going through, here's 50 reasons why the new films from so-and-so sucked and didn't make any sense you know it's exhausting i remember there's a guy i don't want to even him to know that i know who he is really but um he uh wrote a

quite a bad review of the boosh um but he i went to a gig i think it was a ennio morricone gig or something and afterwards came out and i was with some friends and he was there. He went, oh hi. Name of critic withheld. I said, oh yeah, you actually wrote a really bad review for us, didn't you? Yes, I know. And, you know, I've since watched the boosh and the whole thing now, and I think I was right. Wow. I was like, Wow. He was like, what? And I think I swore and got quite angry. And then my friend sort of pulled me away slightly.

But he was, you know, I mean, wow. I just, I mean, I admire his balls. It's not worth it. Yeah, I really admire his balls for the sort of cold just thing. I mean. Did he actually come over and say hi? I still kind of think he must have done because i wouldn't you wouldn't have gone over to him i know knew who he was but i just remember that moment and then yes i uh i sort of fumed about it for a bit and they once showed the bush to um on a show like they're showing bernard manning some sort of modern

comedians i remember that see what he thought of it. Yeah, alternative comedy. He showed Bernard Manning the bush, and he said, what do you think of that? I went, at least I haven't got a fucking clue. About as funny as a burning orphanage. I mean,

I quite like that. At least I haven't got a fucking clue. Wait. Continue. Music. Oh, look at that sunset, Rosie. And there's some clouds as well, making it even more spectacular. Well, I guess we should head home. I think it's tuna pasta tonight. Maybe an episode of Homeland.

It was Line of Duty last night with DCI Buckles. Looks nothing like me. And in Homeland, of course, we have Mandy Patinkin playing the part of me. Yes, I'm aware that I look a bit like Saul Berenson. I've got a video where I inserted myself, or rather I put my mouth over Saul Berenson's face, in a scene from Homeland and used it as part of my live show. It's not on YouTube, but it will be available to download at some point. which incorporates various videos that I've made over the last four years or something. And I collected them all together in a show that I called Adam Buxton's Old Bits. Because it sounds like I'm talking about my genitals, and that's funny. I mean, I'm aware that it isn't funny and I did try and think of another title, but I honestly couldn't think of a better one. That's not very good, is it? Anyway, at some point that will be, that's been recorded. We taped it earlier this year at the BFI.

I should have waited until summer. Everyone looks sexier in the summer. Don't tape things in January when you're getting over a cold and you've just been eating non-stop cakes for two months. I'll let you know when that's available to download. It should be fairly soon. Only a few weeks. Thanks to the good folks at Go Faster Stripe who do Richard Herring's bits and pieces,

and Stuart Lee, and lots of brilliant comedians. But I will let you know about that when it happens. Don't worry, I won't shut up about it. Thank you very much indeed to Julian Barrett, who was a little bit nervous about being on the podcast he's shy and modest and doesn't like to go on about himself

really so I was really pleased that he agreed to have a mic pack strapped to him while we went for a walk and thanks of course to Garth Jennings I'm sure he'll be back to let us know how his sequel to Sing is going and just talk about life in general at some point.

Thank you very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support and to Matt Lamont for conversation editing. I'll be back same time next week. Till then, remember that I love you. Bye. Give me a like and smile and a thumbs up Nice like a five for me, thumbs up Give me a like and smile and a thumbs up Nice like a five for me, thumbs up Like and subscribe Like and subscribe

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