The Rest Is Entertainment - The Met Gala, The Rock & Clarkson's Return

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

The hugely successful Clarkson's Farm returns to Amazon Prime, have we now seen the full reinvention of Jeremy Clarkson? For fashion there is no bigger party than that of the Met Gala, but what is the history and how do you go about securing a ticket? Lastly on this episode, can Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson really backup his claims of being the hardest working man in Hollywood? Richard and Marina tackle these subjects on The Rest Is Entertainment. Twitter: @restisents Instagram: @restisentertainment YouTube: @therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Recommendations: Marina - The Responder (iPlayer) Richard - Red Eye (ITVX) 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another edition of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina High and me Richard Osmond. Hi Marina. Hello Richard, how are you? I'm really, really well. We've got so much to talk about this week. There's about 800 things to talk about. It's all great fun. We are talking about the Met Gala. Something I know, by the way, absolutely nothing about them. Looking forward to learning about. It's very jolly and we'll have a laugh through that. I did get invited this year, but other than that. And you said no. Of course. Why?

Well we'll talk about how you'll be frozen out forever as a result of that declining. What else are we talking about? We're talking about Clarkson's Farm which has just come back on Amazon Prime the first four episodes and its future I think might be quite interesting as well. Yes and we will also be talking about The Rock. Is he in fact not, as he would put it himself, the hardest working man in showbiz? Wow, that's a teaser. Imagine if we got to that bit and we went, yeah he actually is. Absolutely puts in a shift. I've literally listened to half an hour of you

banging on about the Met Gala with Jeremy Clarkson for you to tell me that he really, really works hard. Don't worry listeners, we're not going to say that. Let's start with the Met Gala. If you're listening to this on Tuesday morning, it is the morning after the night before and the Met Gala has happened. This is a big, big event. It's the ultimate fashion event. I have to say actually, it is the mega red carpet event in the world, but it leaves everything else for us.

Better than the Oscars? Yes, and you know what? A couple of years ago, someone got leaked some internal presentation from the Academy in which the Oscars were saying, we need to be more like the Met Gala. Well, I mean, how beaten is that? Anyway... Is it better than the TV Quick Awards?

Okay, Richard, I know you've won there. I doubt it. You haven't won at the Met. No one wins at the Met, well apart from fashion-wise, but let's hold fire on the TV Quick Awards and we'll get to the end and see where it is. One day we're going to do a deep dive. Okay, this year's theme is Sleeping Beauty's Reawakening Fashion, okay, and it's sponsored by TikTok, which is very significant, we'll come to that.

Now, it is to raise money for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and specifically the Costume Institute, which is a sort of fashion bit, a bit like the V&A bit of it. So it's for charity, but the charity is the institution itself. Yeah, and it makes a lot of money. It makes, I don't know, 20 million a year, this one event, and it probably costs about six million. OK, we don't necessarily care about the numbers, but there are some numbers that are really significant we'll talk about. It is a pop culture triumph. OK, this thing, by the time you're waking up on Tuesday, this will be beamed into your

subconscious by every single possible platform. People are even discussing on things like Discord. But Instagram was the main platform because obviously it's a very visual event. Anyway, back in the day, the Met Gala was one of a lot of New York charity parties. And there were lots of doyen socialites in New York, sort of all the women who give money to the arts, blah, blah, blah. The sort of thing Frasier goes to in Seattle. Yeah, yeah.

But Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of American Vogue, who is the most extraordinary Titanic figure who has in so many ways completely defined her era in fashion. She gets control of it in 1995. And in those days, anyone, you or me, could spend $150 if we had it and go to the after party. You could buy a ticket to the after party, okay. And the tickets for the event itself were $1,000.

This year, for one ticket, it is $75,000, which is up 30% on last year in this economy, okay? In this economy? And you know what? Okay. You can just go there. But you've got to be approved by Anna Wint. This is the most dictatorial event. So you've got to pay 75 grand and be approved. Oh yeah, I mean, you're not getting it. Is it like the David Lloyd Health Club?

Yeah. Where you pay but also, yeah, they show you around. You need to, yeah, you need to be approved. Yes, okay. Now Anna went to choose the theme, she chooses every last tiny detail, but what happened after 1995, these socialites gradually started sort of getting binned off in favour of celebrities and stars were desperate to get, you know, actors, musicians. The Kardashians tried for years to get into this thing. And Anna

Wintour obviously would have had a lot of views about how complete trash they were and wouldn't have let them in. Then, you know, Kim becomes a business woman. She's interested maybe in prison reform, whatever it is. Something turns and she thinks, okay, she can get me a mega red carpet a moment, because this party is essentially all about arrivals. All the stuff you see is people arriving in this huge tented red carpet area outside. It actually obscures the front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art now, the red carpet area, which tells you quite how big this event is. And then you go up the stairs and you have to shake hands with Anna Wintour at the top. And I've spoken to people who go and say,

you can genuinely see how scared the celebrities are to go up the stairs and shake her hand. So Kim Kardashian was never allowed into this event. And then eventually she gets in. And rather than, you know, what you'd expect people to do is think, yeah, fuck you, you weren't interested in me before. I'm not going to go. What you do is you say, thank you very much. What would you like me to wear?

Because I don't want to to a huge extent approves what people are wet which labels they're wearing this year Lauren Sanchez Who is friend of the podcast friend big friend of a podcast? Jeff Bezos is intended Lauren Sanchez is going this year now. This is the level of Anna winter There's been a lot of my say by the way, I've never seen you so happy. So cheery. I know. I love this. So people saying, Anna thinks that Lauren Sanchez dresses trashy. And so she's going to choose what she's going to wear. By the time you listen to this, we will know whether Lauren Sanchez wore Oscar de la Renta.

First of all, it's one of Anna Wintour's absolute classics and go to. She wears it all the time. It says, yeah, I'm mega rich, but I've kind of got a foundation. I have a job which is philanthropy. It says that sort of thing. I'm not some rube who's going to turn up in Ralph and Russo, okay, with some great extra embellishments all over my dress, okay. Oscar de la Renta, for that money I'd want Oscar de la Bayer. You know what I mean? This is all I have on the Met Gala. Marina.

I should say there are no comedians doing red carpet, but there should be. Because you're getting people who have turned up essentially in a sort of $100,000 gimp suit sometimes. Kim Kardashian once had the completely covered, she was in a sort of gimp suit really. So this is the one every year with the most extraordinary looks. Yeah. Like people spend hundreds of thousands on that. This is the ultimate fashion.

Oh yeah, and it's huge. And it's now built up and there's these dinners before. If you're asking me what happens in the party, there's very little. She's banned all social media. What she hates apparently is a party where people don't know what they're supposed to be doing. So everyone who works for American Vogue and a lot of other people besides are in there, constantly saying to people, and now you go over here, there's some live performances, there's a dinner, which I imagine nobody eats.

I mean, actually, Azempic was pretty much launched at the Met Gala a couple of years ago. It all came into public, exploded into public consciousness when Kim Kardashian wore the dress that Marilyn Monroe had used to sing Happy Birthday Mr. President to John F. Kennedy, which is now owned by some attractions placed in Vegas. And she'd said, I've been so disciplined.

I've managed to get down into this size in three weeks. And everyone's said, I've been so disciplined. I've managed to get down into this size in three weeks. And everyone's like, wow, that's amazing. She just like at steamed fish and vegetables. I think within a few weeks, everyone realized, oh my God, what is this thing called a zempik? What is this a zempik fish? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The steamed zempik fish. And yeah, yeah. So that was a big moment. But these are these huge moments. And it's quite interesting. Vogue has kept it all on the platform. It comes out on Vogue.com.

They haven't partnered with a TV network or streamer or anything, which they could do because it's obviously very watchable, the arrivals. But they belatedly got properly into online and now they've made all the right decisions. But Instagram used to take a lot of tables at this event, and obviously it is most discussed on Instagram or was. This year, it is partnered with supposedly soon to be banned platform in the United States, TikTok. Okay. I mean, listen, it's got everything I love so far.

Yeah. It's got fashion, it's got TikTok. But... It's got Oscar de la Renta. I know that you now love Oscar de la Renta. One of my favorite boxers. It's got Oscar de la Renta. I know that you now love Oscar de la Renta. One of my favourite boxers.

But anyway, so it will be on TikTok. Now, I think Instagram will fall away because people will just want to see it on TikTok. The only place that you see internally in the party is the Lou, where celebrities feel like this has kind of been licensed by Anna Wintour, maybe. So they have these kind of big group selfies where everyone is like mega famous and they're like sitting on the floor like smoking in the Louvre. What are celebrities doing in the Louvre? Yeah, I mean it's really hard to put my finger on it.

Yeah, so they have that but I wonder whether you'll see some TikToks from in there this year. I tell you what I don't think we will see but you know call me up on it next week if you do. You won't see any political protests at this event, okay? you do it at a party you might be coming back next year Jeez I mean it seems to me it gets its enormous cachet from a being incredibly secretive but b people I'm listen I'm not I'm not a fashionista I don't want to break your heart or anything but you know I'm not but it seems to me that people who like fashion absolutely love fashion and this is the absolute ultimate night of it. It's about a museum that is dedicated to fashion. It's run by a woman who's sort of sat at the top of the world of fashion

for many, many years, and it is attended by people who literally adore it. So anyone who is a fashion fan, it's like the World Cup for fashion. Yeah, it's the World Cup for all red carpet things. This is like, please go avant-garde. Please like staples and felt around your head and look absolutely insane. I know somebody who once went to a celebrity party wearing a mask that people didn't know who they were. And he said, it's unbelievable that like none of the other celebrities talk to me until I took my mask off. And then they went, hey, you're right, man. He said, I understood I understood then why, why people spoke to me. Cause I was a celebrity.

That is, yeah, that's, that's a reckoning, isn't it? Yeah. It's haunting. Yeah. Um, so now people can flick through TikTok, Instagram, every single newspaper will be full of these incredible, um, costumes. But it's come from nothing in, you know, less than 30 years to be not nothing, but a party that was quite glamorous, but you wouldn't have been registered in the public consciousness now, like everyone knows what this thing is, and it's entirely eclipsed the Oscars. But having said all of that, if I can return to top and tail this, where do you think it ranks next to the TV Quick Awards? I would say, well, TV Quick, TV Choice, that's the real debate.

Sorry. I would say well TV quick TV choice. Oh, that's that's the real debate. Sorry Those is better, but you know, listen, it's a it's a decent third Behind the two of them is that I was reading about so all the people who help out there have to be models But one of the models last year was too good-looking So they fired him Eugenio Casanahe all the photographers started taking pictures of him instead of taking pictures of celebrities There's a picture of Kylie Jenner. Oh my god. Literally they're just focusing on him. Get me a poison apple right now because if someone is too pretty, if someone's fairest of them all, that's it. Yeah, listen, you can look him up.

Eugenio Casnay, his nondisclosure has just passed so he started talking about how they fired him for being too handsome. Oh that's amazing. Yeah, I mean the waiters and things like that are effectively cast. It's like a casting process. Here's my question to you. What do we have to do? By the way, would you like to go to

the Met? Oh my God, I would like to go. Anything like this. Never even ask me. I'm a writer. I like to go and see these things. I would always like to experience what it's like. And I would stay right to the bitter end, try it like I do at every party. Trying to work out like how it's all working. Yeah, I love that stuff. The dress code this year is based on a J.G. Ballard short story called The Garden of Time, which is an incredibly dystopian thing, sort of about rich people being overrun by the mob. So if you were this year, what would your outfit be based on J.G. Ballard's Garden of Time?

I would like my outfit to be so enormous. Like that time when Elton John went to a party and he had to go in a horse... I love all his fancy dress parties. when he had to go in a horse box because actually the wig and everything was just so big it's like how the fuck am I going to sit down in this okay don't worry Elton we'll put you in back a horse box and he emerged in this enormous kind of Louis Cato's flowing you know brilliant I would like to have to have a dedicated vehicle possibly a Pan-Technican take me down Fifth Avenue yeah yeah yeah

Pocmobile maybe no I don't want to spoil the entrance, so I don't want anyone to see me before I get out. Get me off the back of a sort of, you know, low load like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just wheel me in. Yes, it's a little bit like a Dalek, isn't it? Can they go upstairs? Doesn't matter, once you're in.

Once you're in, but you've got to go up the stairs and shake her hand. So probably something I wouldn't want to really wear flat shoes, but underneath I think it might be wise if my dress was that big. Because I don't want to fall down the stairs. You don't want to fall down the stairs on the way to see Anna Wintour. Or they would have given me shit once I'd seen it one year. What do you think we would have to do by this time next year for you to get an invite?

What would we have to do? I think it would be impossible. I don't know. I would love to see it. No, I don't think, I don't know, because I don't think you're allowed to talk about it. I can't sort of stop myself talking about everything, so I think I'd be the least welcome guest.

This time next year, if I go, wasn't it the Met Gala last night, and you go, don't know. Yeah. Oh no, you got invited. I go, because you're being very quiet, isn't she? Or we'll do a link up from New York. You'll be here, at this this studio and I'll be like,

sorry, it's still happening, I'm in the loo. Here's Kylie Jenner. I would absolutely love that. We should make that happen. Let's try. Meanwhile, yeah, have a look at all the ridiculous outfits, but it's all for a good cause. I mean, it's for a museum that's never gonna go bankrupt.

Let's put it that way. Shall we move on to something that probably will go bankrupt, which is Clarkson's Farm, which has just started again on Amazon Prime. It is a show. Jeremy Clarkson runs a farm, the Diddley Squat Farm. It's a farm he bought many years ago and the farmer who was farming it retired I think in 2019 and Jeremy said, well look, why don't I farm it myself and while we're at it, why don't we film that farming? Which, you know, in the sort of realms of TV, you think, oh, Clarkson's going to be a farmer. If I was in that commissioning meeting, I'd

say, how many series do you want? It is dependably brilliant, I think. Essentially, it's exactly the same as Top Gear. Every single beat is exactly the same. Jeremy's got his sidekicks. He's got Caleb and Gerald and Charlie. It is entirely confected in the way that Top Gear was, but in a way that gives you such joy that it's very, very watchable. But also, unlike Top Gear,

it does have like a copper bottom of reality to it, which is why I think it's such an interesting and such a good show. Because while of course there's lots of artifice, I mean in the first episode Jeremy's getting blackberries off the hedge with a Dyson and you know... They're always those comedy bits. And then next scene suddenly there's 800 jars of you know, blackberry jam. You think, yeah, have we missed a scene there? Between this thing of him sucking

up kind of eight Blackberries and then suddenly you've got this thing. So that confection is all there and Caleb, who's now the farm manager, you know, they have a bet about who can make the most money this year. Yeah, that's the spine of this season, will be a competition between the two of them. Caleb's doing the arable land and Jeremy's doing the non-farmable land basically. Hope you can make the most money. Which of course is nonsense because of course they're not doing that. But you need that narrative spine. Exactly. And that's why, see I think the real hero of Clarkson's farm and the real hero

of that whole career is Andy Willman, who is the producer. So he was the producer on Top Gear and Andy Willman is a brilliant producer, because he understands what people want to watch. But Clarkson, we will get onto other interactions with producers, but Clarkson's key strength is he understands how brilliant Andy Willman is, and he listens to him. And he understands, which a lot of presenters don't understand, the value of a really, really good producer, and what that producer can bring you and the fact that you are made to look so much better than you would ordinarily be because a

producer is taking care of that program. So Andy Willman did Top Gear. He's never won a BAFTA Andy Willman. Yeah yeah. Awards. Bullshit. I've said it before. I mean he looked sensational at the Met Gala, I'll say that, but he's never won a BAFTA. And then after the brouhaha, the BBC, when Clarkson was fired, rightly so, I think, I don't think anyone would disagree with that, they signed the biggest mega bucks deal you could ever sign with Amazon. I mean, you know, hundreds of millions between Clarkson and Andy Woolman and Hammond and May as well. And the Grand Tour has done great business for Amazon. But this is the show that's really, really done great business.

I mean, it's probably a tenth of the price of the Grand Tour. It's by far Amazon Prime's most watched show in the UK. By far. And I have to say, if this was on terrestrial, it would probably be the biggest show on TV. I think it's pretty much... It's hard to know where it would sit. Well, it's the only show I can think of actually that would work at 9pm on ITV and is a hit on a streamer.

Yeah. You know, the streamers have not been able to do that kind of factual light entertainment type stuff and this absolutely knocks it out of the park. But the thing that's really genuinely great about it because it comes from reality, I was talking to the producers behind it and they said the very first, they made a little taste of tape with Jeremy. Jeremy said, said look I want to do this thing I've got a farm and like anyone who comes in and says I'm doing this you kind of go oh no. But they said they went along so the people helping him on the farm were Charlie, Gerald and Caleb they were all there in place the first ever taster tape has

got all of them on they're really running this farm. Charlie's the land agent, we should say, and the advisor who's unbelievably good. Amazing, because he absolutely does not play up to the camera. No. Anyway, his job all the way through, which is why it's such a great show, is Clarkson can say whatever he wants, whatever hair, brain, scheme. And then Charlie goes, here's the reality of farming in modern Britain. And it's sort of devastating. Such a great character. Yeah, but it has this gravitas, because you're hearing tragic stories,

and you hear this kind of the impossibility of making these things work. We should say he's probably getting about 10 million series from Amazon, not Charlie. And he's very upfront about the fact of why this works. It is fascinating that it is a show about something. I mean, Top Gear is not about something, is the truth. It's lovely it's got cars and we're mucking about, but it's not about something. This is a show, you can't watch a series of this and not understand the countryside more, and not understand farming more, and not understand that industry more, and not understand the difficulties people running any sort of business are facing. It has a lot of truth at the bottom of it.

The thing that I do think that is absolutely great about Andy Wilman is that he is like one of those old-style Hollywood producers in a a way who understood a screen persona. And I would argue that there's a bloodline to Clarkson's Top Gear persona in this show in that he is kind of like an amateur, he knows a lot about the subject and he has hair-brained schemes and what have you. And he now says, oh, I was just playing a character on Top Gear, which I think is well, to extent he is because it's a screen persona and it is so brilliant that screen persona, but it has evolved. Well, it's interesting that his whole career I think he sort of is a bit of a wink. There's certainly people who do know him well and met him.

You hear an awful lot of good things about him, but then you know, you read some of the stuff you go, there's a trouble with being a persona is, you know, you can push it over a certain line. It's hard. Certainly a lot of people who play a persona for a long time become that persona because that's where the money is And you can see that culturally at the moment lots of people who started appealing to a certain base It's the only way they've got to go Clarkson is able to pivot because he's got more if you can't pivot it is diminishing returns Yeah, and you have to get more and more awful. But actually, you need to keep a version of yourself.

It's interesting, I mean, sorry if I've told this story before, I feel like being on a podcast is a bit like being drunk. You're constantly thinking, did I say that five minutes ago? And also we're drunk. And also we're, yeah. So it's... For Humphrey Bogart, they didn't know what to do with him at Warner Brothers. They didn't know what to...

I don't think you have said this before. Humphrey Bogart played didn't know what to do with him at Warner Brothers they didn't know what to I don't think you have said this before. Humphrey Bogart played Vickers they kept putting him in movies thinking who are you who are you and eventually they put him as I've said before I've definitely said this one before the third version of the Maltese Four-Quarter and they're like oh I see you're Humphrey Bogart but it took a while to realize strangely and then forever after you play that persona but this is what the old studio in the golden era of Hollywood, they spent ages trying to find out what your persona was. And then as lots of the actors ended up hating, you're made to pay a version of that forever. And to get back to Clarkson, he has adapted that. And that is the key thing. But it retains elements of the original.

And I think that this version of him, which I suspect is slightly nearer the truth, I think he can say all this very, very, very, very nicely for the rest of his career. As you say, it's really serious issues and he's highlighted so many, the kind of farce of British bureaucracy, which is what, because season two was, I guess the narrative spine of that was, we want to open a restaurant and they managed it, and then it's like, now the restaurant has to be shut. It is honestly like this has a bloodline that goes back to things like Passport to Pimlico and things like that and it's an understanding of a particular type of British farce weirdly. So lots of the time I think of this as a show that works so well because it adopts those tropes of fiction and

the structures of it you know that you'll have an A plot in an episode and a B plot and sometimes a C plot and then of course it looks effortless when you're watching it, you know, that you'll have an A plot in an episode and a B plot and sometimes a C plot. And then of course it looks effortless when you're watching it. And I know this is something we expect, but the reason this works so well is because someone has thought about it that carefully all the way through and it comes off as effortless, which is how you know it's a win. It's interesting with Clarkson, because obviously the reason you got fired from the BBC was supposedly assorting a member of production team and it was quite rightly… Because he didn't get a hot supper. So he didn't get a hot supper. After filming.

I spoke to people again on this show who said he could not be nicer. So you know you have to sort of applaud that. My two real encounters with Clarkson, the first one was after he'd been fired, the first thing he did back was he hosted Have I Got News For You. So Have I Got News For You got him in as a guest host. So he hadn't been on TV, certainly hadn't been on the BBC since he got fired and I was on the panel that week And you know, I'm a course I'm a fully paid-up member of the producers union So, you know, I'd never try and be horrible or mean to anyone

But I absolutely did jokes all the way through at his expense. Yeah, people were Furious on Twitter stuff. It's the only time really I've ever on Twitter gone, oh, this is interesting, this is what people like. And it was fascinating that everyone would write exactly the same thing, like there was a template that you would copy and you would send out. So I found it so sociologically interesting. One person who didn't take offense at all, Jeremy Clarkson, had a really lovely chat after this. I was doing stuff off the cuff, he's the chairman on that show, he's getting paid 10 times more than the panelists, all his jokes, so I'm just riffing. And then I was on, he wants to be a millionaire when he was hosting, and

there's a lifeline now, which is ask Jeremy instead of ask the audience. And I used that lifeline on the question that cost me £90,000. So he got his revenge. I get it. I get it. And it's, of course, there are issues with Clarkson's public behaviour and what have you, but if we're just taking this one show on its merits, I think it does an awful lot of good for the world. He's done that very rare thing, which he's created something that is loved by people in the industry in which it concerns, and also people who know absolutely nothing about farming. That is the true gift. If you can prescribe it all so you can have the specificity so

that people in farming recognise all these things and think, yes, finally someone's saying this, and then people who have nothing to do with it think, God, that's a lot harder and think more about how the things go onto their plate or whatever it is. One thing I will say is, where do you stand on this idea that country file, which is the BBC show notionally set and dealing with similar issues perhaps to this, has sort of stopped talking about these things and has now become, I do not want to use the word woke. But we're using it as a, we're using it as a- Well, Jeremy Clarkson has become woke.

Well, yeah, Jeremy Clarkson has become woke. And as that interesting audience research that we covered a couple of weeks ago on the podcast shows that that show now skews Labour voting, Chances Farm viewership. So that shows you, yeah, he's followed a mainstream as it were. He's a bellwether. Yeah. Sorry, he's a bell something. He is the Overton window. And there is a sense among some people that this is a better way to explore those issues

and that Countryfile to some extent has got kind of sidetracked talking about other things that don't really reflect the experience of life on farms in the countryside and the issues. But this is always going to be more captivating and... Well, because it's much, much, much, much higher budget. Yeah. We're quite apart from anything. Yes. But yeah, Country File is an absolute sidebar. It's a really interesting one. Again, that's

Jay Hunt, who absolutely turned around Channel 4 when she was at BBC. It was like a little Sunday afternoon show and she's the one who went, do you know what, if you put this in prime time and made this about the British countryside, more than just farming, I think this would be a huge hit and turned it into the biggest show on British TV. But I think, yeah, it's in its DNA as a Sunday night show, Country File. I don't think it was ever the biggest show on British TV, was it? Country File, yeah. You think?

Oh, I know. Really? What viewers? Yeah, eight, nine million every Sunday night. Like crazy numbers. Wow. Well, because it's the British countryside. People absolutely love watching the countryside. But as you say-

Most corrected, okay. Yeah, but you're right. But it's not anymore. Yeah, but you know, The Archer started as an educational program for farmers. And everyday story of farming for you, yeah. And that's, you know, that's changed over the years. That's got a few detours, yes. And there was a thing a couple of years ago with the Meghan Markle comments on Amazon,

it was reported that they weren't going to be making any more. This is Clarkson's Meghan Markle comment. Yes, not Country Far, not John Craven, who has been thus far suspiciously silent on the subject of Meghan Markle. It was reported, I think, that they weren't going to renew the contract. I would be shocked beyond words if this doesn't run and run and run. I think Clarkson's Farm is going to be with us for a long time to come. Absolutely, yeah. And someone from Amazon last year said, you know, Clarkson's farm is bigger than Clarkson.

And in a way that's right, because the things we're talking about in that it's about something that's bigger than Clarkson and it tells us something, you know, more important than Top Gear used to tell us. But on the other hand, it's, it's, it's, it's not bigger than Clarkson. He's such a kind of colossus on TV and he's so kind of people love watching him so much and he does interesting things. So listen, he's spent his entire career in the court of the second chance, hasn't he? But at the moment, he's literally making hay.

Very good. Yeah. If I was going to the Met Gala, I would go dressed as Caleb in his tractor. Yes. Yeah. That's what I'd like. On a $100,000 budget. Yeah, exactly. Before we head to the break, we just wanted to give a quick nod to another Goalhanger podcast,

Legacy, made in conjunction with Wondery. If you're into the amazing stories history provides us with, then check out Legacy with Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch and their brilliant new series, Exploring the Life of Cleopatra. Truly an iconic figure in the Egyptian world and within history. Legacy will trace her life from birth to ruling a vast empire, her relationship with Julius Caesar, her death, and the vast shadow she has cast. Spill the tea. You can find Legacy from Wandery and Go Hang Out

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I've been covering American politics for almost three decades. Welcome to the Rest is Politics US brought to you by Goalhanger. Go on, tell us, with those donations you made like Obama in 2008, was that idealism? Were you hoping to get something out of these campaigns that would serve your own business interests, for example? So I think this will either make this podcast incredibly successful, Katty, or people will be horrified

and they'll shut it off right now, because I'm gonna be very real with you. The Obama donation, I had gone to law school with President Obama. We were not classmates, I was gone to law school with President Obama. We were not classmates. I was a few years ahead of him. It was 2007. It was then Senator Obama.

I had a check in my breast pocket. I went over to the senator. I said, Senator, I said, you and I didn't really know each other in law school, but I'm about to hand you a big check. Can I lie to my friends and tell them that you and I knew each other in law school?" Well, Obama looks at me, had the best smile in American politics since Jack Kennedy. Forever. Yeah. He lights up. He looks at me and he said, I'll tell you what, if you double the

amount of the check, we'll take it back to Hawaii. Okay? And I looked at him, I said, you're done. I had another check in my pocket. I ripped it up. I doubled the amount of the check. And I'm going to tell you right now, I've been to more White House Christmas parties during the Obama administration than the Trump administration. In this pivotal year for the United States, democracy and world affairs, Britain's biggest podcast, The Rest Is Politics, is launching Stateside. Uncovering secrets from inside the Biden and Trump inner circles and how they shape the world's most important economy, but also the global economy too.

New episodes are released every Friday morning. Just search the rest is politics US wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, welcome back from the break, everybody. Welcome back, everybody. Let's go straight into The Rock. Self-styled hardest working man in showbiz. Now, last week, an article came out in The Wrap that was extremely well-sourced. I think they talked well into double figures on the background of The Rock's forthcoming

film, which was pushed a long time and the budgets ballooned, blah blah. Red One. It's like some big new movie for Amazon, some, you know, Santa action bullshit anyway. We don't care about that. Oh, that sounds good. Yeah, I wouldn't have called it Red One. You know what I would have called it? What? Santa action bullshit.

Right. Santa action bullshit working title. Is it supposed to be an embryonic franchise. We'll see about that. Okay. But what's happened is that people have said a big part of the reason why the budget's ballooned, by the way Amazon deny all this and say it's totally normal that the budget were ballooned by $50 million, is The Rock's lateness. Now look, I'm so thrilled this has come out because I've spoken to people on two of his

most recent films and let me tell you something, The Rock is a diva. I'm so thrilled this has come out because I've spoken to people on two of his most recent films. And let me tell you something, The Rock is a diva. I'm sorry. That's the reality, okay? People say he is so late on to set. And the article brags that, I was just sure that, you know, I've put right in my denials at the start. Dwayne Johnson says this isn't the case. Although he did say that about four hours late. Yeah, it took a long time to get back to us.

We'll see you in court at about half six. Is that any good to you? Now, what he does is he will turn up so late to set. And if you've ever been on a film set and obviously, particularly for the type of movies he does, which these big blockbuster movies that have crews of hundreds of people. Now, on that crew, you know, the Rock's got a massive trailer. We'll come to the things in his trailer, the Rock's got a massive trailer, we'll come to the things in his trailer shortly. He's got a massive trailer, he gets picked up by a car, he's in the most palatial place accommodation. There are a lot of people on that crew who

have to get that, you know, the grips, the people who set everything up, get there so early they drive themselves there and they have to drive themselves back at the end of the day and you are bargaining on 10 hours shooting. Right. The Rock will give you four or five hours according to the people who spate this article. Again, the Rock denies this, but this is borne out by some people I've talked to on two of his most recent films. And you know, what happens is you've got hundreds of people on often very low incomes standing around doing absolutely nothing. So they try, you try and pull up things and try and do different things. You kind of shoot random stuff that you're probably never going to use, just so people can be occupied.

And then he turns up. Now, first of all, there's a lot of actors who will tell you they're the hardest working person in showbiz. I remember Gerald Butler saying, nobody on this earth works harder than me. Wow. Now when the UN do those reports into like, you know, who has the toughest occupations on earth, and it's like salt miners and

hazmat divers and Filipino fishermen They never mentioned being Gerald Butler as one of those. It's just never in the list. I'd say being an actual Butler would be harder work. Yeah, I mean really another back-breaking day down the dressing up line. Come on. Okay You're so fated and coddled if you're an actor and I'm this is not to denigrate You know obviously the rock is a huge star and people go to the cinema to see him and people love him wrestling and all Of that and there's something about that that's ineffable and that you know you can't buy it although. It is quite expensive

Yeah, he can open a movie and almost no one can yeah in your film. It's very hard Yeah, but you can't imagine what his day on set is like I mean there are people who are giving you absolutely every tiny thing, your every need is attended to. Now, here is something that came out in this article, which has actually weirdly come out before, is that the Rock pees in water bottles, because he can't be bothered to go, as they call it on a movie set, go 10-1,

which is when actors stepping off the set to go to the loo. 10-1 is... And you see everyone on the walkies going, yeah, he's just going 10-1. But on the walkie talkies, all the runners, all the assistants, as the actor's coming to set, you'll see somebody, they're just stepping on now, the rock's stepping on, and it will go down all the walkies, almost like a receiving line, on his sort of 30-meter walk to set.

Do you know what my favourite bit about being a TV presenter rather than a TV producer is when you walk on the floor and like four people go, yeah, the boys are on the floor, the boys are on the floor. And you're like, oh yeah, that's amazing. I'm one of the boys. So the Rock will go in a specific, the brand of water bottle that's named Avos water bottle, this is quite big. Anyway, I don't want to get into that. But the Rock will use that. Now, of course, like all Rock stories, once it's come out, he finds a way to repurpose this to make himself sound like the hardest working man in showbiz, as opposed to someone

who just literally hands an assistant bottles of his own urine. Like, come on. Okay, so he'll say, yeah, you know what? I don't even want to step off set. I don't even, like, I'm the hard, you know, I'm essentially the hardest working guy and I don't want to leave the gym when I'm doing a workout. So yeah, I'll pee in bottles, but you know, sue me for being hardworking. Well, I just kind of slightly want to see you fally me a bottle of urine.

But yeah, that's I'm surprised he hasn't marketed it. Yeah, so am I. It's coming. You know, if you've got foxes in your back garden, you use tiger urine to get rid of them. But I bet the rocks urine would do the job as well. Well, he has got a tequila brand, which I'm now wary of trying. By the way, everybody has got a tequila brand which I'm now wary of trying. By the way, everybody has got a tequila brand. I know. And his tequila brand and also everyone's tequila brand is worth three billion dollars. I know, how is this possible? Again, that's

one for the rest is money. Yeah, I would actually love to know that. How are, given no one really drinks tequila. Well, they do but they always immediately regret it. Yeah, like a bit but it's not like wine or beer. And I'll tell you this is a sipping tequila. I'm sorry what? Come on mate. What's a sipping tequila? Three billion? I shouldn't have thought so.

I would love to know the answer to that question. That's such a good point. Yeah. Why are all tequila brands worth three billion dollars is our question. Yeah. Riddle me that, Rastasmani, because I'd like to know. Okay. If we're asking why has this story about The Rock come out now, I think The Rock is trying to do something, okay, because having said all this ridiculous stuff about him, because he is obviously a ridiculous thing.

Here, can I just read out one Instagram post? Yes, please. Which is my favorite one ever. Okay, he's got I'm going to find it again. Excuse me. I can fill in with a Humphrey Bogart anecdote. Okay, there's a brilliant one of my favorite ever Instagram posts from the rock who obviously I'm obsessed with is him sitting at a large large wooden table in his trailer. This is his caption. Secret weapon. Many productive meetings and big business deals have been sealed with a handshake at my GSD get shit done table that's inside my trailer. This table holds a lot of great mana, brackets spirit slash power, and energy. And if these wood slabs could talk, well it's best they can't for national security

purposes. Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, The Rock, the hardest working guy in showbiz but... Available at B&Q, hashtag ad. Can I have a get shit done table please? I want one so much. Yeah, exactly. Oh god, we've got to put it together. Oh no. Do you know what? Forget this Get Shit Down the Table. I can't be bothered. Get one of the grits to do it. Yeah. What I would say is that ahead of the big WWE weekend, he came back for it, you know, age 104, I'm joking, but nearly, to be in the ring. He did a big interview with Fox News, choice of outlet relevant, I feel, saying, because he's always been linked, strangely,

with the United States presidency. And people have always said, are you going to run? And he said, look, you know, I don't want to, you know, and he's often said, yeah, it is my goal and I want to do it. And now, now, you know, he's really serious because he's saying, look, I've, you know, I've got no ambitions. What he did say is, he endorsed Biden last time round. And he said, this time, I'm not endorsing anyone, because my endorsement caused an incredible amount of division in our country. Yeah, that was the thing, wasn't it? Big market mover on that election. Yeah. And he said...

Because he came up for Susan Hall in the London mayoral elections as well, didn't he? He is. Yeah, he's the Barbra Streisand of elections. No, actually, no, Biden won. He is, yeah, he's the Barbra Streisand of election. No, actually no, Biden won. Sorry. So, Streisand of course famously endorses the things that the candidates aren't going to win. So, he's sort of, it feels to a lot of people like he's repositioning himself for a run

and he said, and is he, would he actually run as a Republican? I mean, it's so mad people have said to him that you could be the president, although we do know that you can be extremely lazy Yeah, and be president you can basically play golf all day exactly so naming their names Yeah, and you can you can probably hand bottles of urine to you. Oh, yeah, I think that's basic isn't it? Yeah, um funnily enough the the sitcom young rock which is based on his sort of younger days That the framing of that is Dwayne Johnson running for president in 2032. You also claimed that two years ago, both parties approached him about running in this

election. Yeah, okay, rock. But he's had to say no for now. So he's really keeping it open. So I wonder whether people are just like, I would they think he's maybe skewing to this iteration of the Republican Party, which is beyond the pale for a lot of people, whereas previously maybe it wouldn't have mattered so much. And I wonder whether people are now becoming willing to talk about

the actual rock versus the screen persona rock, if we can return to personas. Oh my god, but it would be, that would be quite something. But you know, the parties probably did say we'd love you to run for president because you just want them to support you, right? So this is one of those fun ones that some will be played back to us in ten years time So do you remember having a big old laugh about the rock running for president being lazy? Look at him now Yeah, I should say that I mean genuinely stranger things have happened as we've already seen Stranger darker things have happened and probably could again. So the rock, you know, I don't want to say that that would be a, it would be a trade-up, but it would certainly be watchable.

Listen, it would open big. He could open in the United States. That's a guy who can sell tickets to an election. Yeah. That's for sure. Gosh, that was a packed show, wasn't it? It was. Met Gala, The Rock, Clarkson.

Very jolly. I'd love to see them all united in some format or other. You could come up with that, but... That's a show, isn't it? Yeah, that would watch. Talking of would watch, recommendations? I have a recommendation, which is a returning BBC One show that is absolutely mega. The Responder stars Martin Freeman as a sort of night cop.

If you've watched the first series, you know how good it is, but the second one has just returned and is terrific. And we just finished watching the ITV drama, Red Eye, which I loved, it was set on a plane between Beijing and London. And it's absurd, but just the right side of absurd. And it has lots of good payoffs, I really, really enjoyed that. But also the wonderful novelist CJ Sansom died last week.

And so I would recommend, if you've not read any of his Shard Lake novels, they're absolutely brilliant. The first one is Dissolution. It's my mum's favourite author. I was about to say, was it your mum's favourite? Of all time. So I said to my mum, will you tell me why you love CJ Sansom so much? So if you don't mind, just to contribute to CJ Sansom, this is what my mum said.

To me, CJ Sansom was the best writer of historical fiction of our era. He made the times of which he wrote come vividly to life, not by accounts of momentous events in our history, but through the lives of the little people, through the journeys they undertook and the sounds and smells that surrounded them. His stories were all set against the backdrop of historical events we've all heard of,

the dissolution of the monasteries, the sinking of the Mary Rose. We come across Henry VIII, Catherine Parr, and Thomas Cromwell, but these are incidental to the lives of the rest. Matthew Shardlake is one of the nicest heroes in modern literature. He is such a decent human being so convincingly written that you cannot help but empathize with his many trials and tribulations. I will miss him so much.

Thank you Brenda. So CJ Sansom, honestly, he was an absolute genius. Thank you, Rochers Mellon. Thank you Brenda, and thank you Marina, that was fun. That was brilliant. We'll Thank you, Richard's mom. Thank you, Brenda. And thank you, Marina. That was fun. That was brilliant. We'll see you for our questions edition on Thursday. On Thursday, questions and answers.

Yes. Please email your questions. The rest is entertainment at gmail.com. We'll see you then. Bye bye. The end.