It reworn h.
Hello.
My name is Buddy Peace. I'm a producer and editor, a d J, a music maker of hieroglyphic and for intro and outro purposes. I'm temporarily standing in for your regular host and proud creator of this particular podcast, mister Brett Goldstein. As Tom Waits once said, I stay a little outside the glass. I think I'd like to take a crack at a wider audience. But with that comes responsibility. If you're too big, you get self conscious. If you're too obscure, you feel nervous. So it's hard, I tell you.
It's also hard finding Godzilla minus one on any streaming service. Now, that is hard. Trust me, Tom, I've tried too. I think we just have to be patient with this one. Every week Brett invites a guest on. He tells them they've died, and then talks to them about their life through the medium of film. But this week we are revisiting an earlier episode of the podcast while we take a little break. Yes, indeed, it is that time once
more for films to be buried with rewind Classic. This rewind is from October the twenty first, twenty twenty one. Originally episode one six ' nine featuring actor and musician Ben Barnes. It's a great featuring someone you might not have necessarily heard doing the podcast. Rounds a huge a man over the years, but Ben is a pure delight when it comes to talking to Brett about films, acting,
and the whole life and death thing. There are a ton of behind the scenes nuggets and goodies and some interesting insight on some of the films he's been in, which is always a treat to hear. You'll definitely enjoy this one. Let me take this opportunity to also remind you that Brett has a Patreon page for the podcast, upon which you get a bonus section on every episode with a secret from each guest, more questions, and a video of each episode which looks very nice and very fresh.
There are a selection of tears on there too, and on the uppermost tiers I make you a cinematic soundtrack mixtape each month with full track list that I reckon you'll enjoy very much. So if you're of a supporting nature and feel like some extras from this show, you'll find them all there. So that is it for now. Let's get you settled in now for a really fun look back, a really sweet episode with the excellent Ben Barnes.
Catch you at the end for a quick sign. But for now, please enjoy episode one six nine via episode two nine three of Films to be Buried With.
Hello, and welcome to Films to be Buried With. It is I Brett Goldstein, and I am joined today by an actor. He's a West Wilder. He's a shadow and Boner. He's the principal of Narnia. I think he is a man from Sutton and he now lives in la He's a hero to many, a legend to most, and also he's fit. Please welcome to the show, the brilliant mister Ben Barnes.
You said bono within thirty seconds of this.
That's the quickest I've got to it.
Yeah, you've done. It's over. I did ever thought that.
You know, groups of fans of shows often have names, and I toy did the idea of calling them my shadow and Boners. But then I've resisted the urge to even say that until this moment. That's the first time I've said it, because you did it.
It starts here, the shadow of Boners.
You that was a very nice thing.
You've got to be the shadow of Boners. I've be loud and proud of that.
You're going to get the credit for that now.
I'll take it on the Twitter. I'll take it.
Yeah.
You deserve it, no regrets, you deserve it. Thank you man. It's lovely to have you. This is the first time we've ever met. Yeah, so far, it's going great, it's going very I appreciate you doing this now. I I've been aware of you for sometime. Ben Bon's you worked with friends of the podcast, Will Porter in Prince Caspian.
Yeah, and one of my best one of my best pals. He just took me out actually for a really lovely ctieth birthday dinner. Mine not here, hasten to. He's about fifteen still, but it was. He's a low, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely man.
It's a lovely man. But then you know what I was what I mean. Look, I've seen you a lot of stuff. You're a very good actor. But you do something that I really really like. And you did it in Westworld, which is I think it's very brave. You play like a bad type, a bit of a bad type in Westworld, and I think you do it. You're very sort of charming in it, but you also don't at all shy away from the like really unpleasant, sort
of sleazy, sort of unattractive parts of that character. And I always think that that's really I don't think a lot of actors do it. I think it's really cool and really brave because you're not protecting yourself as a You're not sort of like there are people who play bad guys, but they play them like yeah, but you love them because they're so charismatic and fun and cool, like you allowing the parts that are like no, he's genuinely unpleasant as well, you know what I mean. And
I think that's pretty brave. I like it.
Thank you, that's really nice.
I've sort of found myself this we odd little niche in the last sort of five or six years of playing these people who are slightly reprehensible or either that they're psychotic or evil or villainous or just or just a guilty of general douche baggery.
But I've also I'm fully aware.
Of how incapable I am of making character particularly kind of like cool or anything like that.
But I will I.
Do whilst whilst I'm not afraid of the like grim, gross parts of it. I am quite protective of the humanity of them because I'm quite a sort of quite a soft, hopeful, desperate to be happy kind of person. And so I think that that gets a little bit
infused into all of those characters. And like you described it on Westward, when they asked me to come back for the second season, and it was it felt like such a privilege to be asked to sort of scratch away at the character a bit and look at his I know it sounds a bit I was raised by a psychiatrist and psychotherapists, but a little bit scratch away
his relationship with his with his dad. You see relationship with his dad, and you peel away the onion a bit and you see why he's so fucked up and why he's behaving like such a knob all the time to everyone, and because there are always reasons, always, and those things really interest me.
I love that does. Look, that's exactly what we're always trying to do on ted Lasso is that thing of and it's when you're a bad guy. Almost never thinks they're a bad guy. Yeah, So yeah, and you play all that. I just think it's great. But I also I think I'm trying to think of example I don't
want to name in shame, but I can. I can think of people who play bad guys, and you're almost like you're not a bad guy, You're just fucking great, Like you're justining, and like it's you're you're not allowing that character to be ugly, I suppose, whereas I think you do that as well as all the charm and the everything. Anyway, that's my open fan mail to you, to your face, that is from my section fan mail to not do that.
You You are playing something which is entirely lovable from start to finish, even though that's not what it's supposed to be on the page, and you can't help it.
You can't help it at all.
And now and now suddenly everyone in the world who wants to hug you like Teddy Bear, and this makes you uncomfortable.
So moving on, Ben Burns, you live in LA You've lived here ten years I believe.
And yeah, coming up on that, Yeah.
And do you feel at home here? Is it still wild? How much of this? Because you how old were you when you did Prince Caspian?
I was about twenty five.
And that was like the biggest thing that happened, I.
Thought, And that was like quite a long time ago. See your face.
No, no, no, I mean that's yeah, that's yeah.
You're doing massive. Yeah, quite right. I will never I will never tell. Yeah, I'm very comfortable here.
I do miss my friends and family and you know, just in London, I missed that a lot, but also very lucky to have the kind of lifestyle and job which takes me on adventures and takes me you know, keeps me interesting and and you know, I think at least half of the time I'm not sort of at home. So I think that that's a particular kind of lifestyle which I never imagined for myself and would certainly not curate if I did anything else for a living on purpose. But I do love that it is part of my life.
Can I ask you this and again, if you don't want to, we can cut it. Before we started recording this podcast, you tell me something that was very interesting to me, you said, I said, is there anything you're worried about talking about? And you said something like, I used to worry so much about that stuff, and now I'm very happy to talk about myself. And I wondered what had happened to lead you to that?
If I may so, I think it was a combination of things, but it was I think, very very early on, I had some quite aggressive interactions with press, you know, doing sort of basically nothing, you know, a few plays and bits and pieces, and then doing the Narnia films, and suddenly people are interested in you and your life.
I remember having this conversation when I was about twenty five, and the journalist sort of said to me, you have to answer these kinds of questions if you want to do this for a living, and I, at twenty five, full of vim, said no, I don't. I can keep anything I want to for myself. And I still fervently believe that in that sort of freedom of choice, but it sort of it tightened me and closed me off
a bit to feel a bit defensive. I think when talk about stuff, and I've done so many years of you know, just sort of just by virtue of the way film and TV interviews work, I think as well, like you're being asked about characters and things that you
didn't necessarily write. But I think what happened was the pandemic sort of kicked in, and we all spent a year in a bit sitting around wondering what kind of people we want to be and where we fit in if we're not allowed to do the things we do on a regular basis and don't have the things that we have to look forward to regularly to keep us on the wheel and facing forwards, and who do we care about and what do we care about?
And I wrote a lot.
Of music in that time, and it was something I'd wanted to do for about twenty years. I'd started to do it about twenty something years ago and it had fallen apart, and I've done it as part of my career all the way through. I've always kind of done that, but always in someone else's voice. I think I've always even when I was a kid at school, I did some arts or tribute concerts and Stevie Wonders Soul Nights and things like that.
I would love it so much.
And then in my films, I've played street buskers, Americana folks, street buskers, and I played a crap rock star in a comedy, singing sort of like new Romantic stadium rock crap, but it was never me, And I think that it took just the clock tick down on having to make something of my own that was sort of me.
I haven't played.
It's sort of obvious to sort of think, well, if you spend twenty years playing to be other people, at some point you're going to want to do something that's yours. But I hadn't really thought about it until the pandemic, and then I wrote a sort of collection of songs which shown I've just released, and it's sort of it sort of freed up the style of interview the way
I've been talking about it. People asking me about me, not about you know, sort of sordid details of your life or anything, but just interested in me and what it takes to make something from myself. That and that really like freed me up to be the most to feel sort of the most me I could feel, which I think a lot of us felt a bit, particularly during the pandemic, felt a bit floaty and disconnected and all of that.
I think most of the.
People that I know felt a little bit disassociated for a lot of it, And so I think I'm just sort of trying to relish feeling like me again a bit.
That is really interesting, and I've just remembered something, which makes this sort of big revelation you've had and this feeling of freedom sort of a shame because I forgot that I should have told you. I should have told you before.
I've listened to what you're doing.
You've died. You've died, so listen. Good that you had that feeling of freedom, very very briefly.
In this moment, in this very dead I am dead.
Well, I've just discussed well, like I said, I actually found out a while back, and I forgot to tell you. You are deaf in a way, the grim how did you die?
Well?
It being the case that I've listened to your podcast before, and I know that in about an hour's time, you're going to make it try and sound as grim and disgusting and foul as possible.
I'm going to challenge you.
That's not my vibe.
I'm going to challenge you by saying the truth, which is that I hope that I died very peacefully, comfortably and old, surrounded by loved ones, squeezing my hand gently. Or do I know you're going to say, I have to have died in this minute now?
No, no, no, you you you can die like this this is taking place in this sort of timeless zone, so you can be as old as you are.
I would like to be one hundred because when I was a kid, I thought that's.
How you live. Yeah, you get a letter from the queen and then and then loved ones around your bed and one of them squeezes your hand to death.
One of them squeezes my hand to death.
Yeah, it's they love me so very much that they crush my fingers, which causes.
I'm not getting called into this, lured into.
Your quite I mean quite a horrific death, really squeeze.
And loving, and I barely noticed it, to be honest, I slipped off into the into the never after, is what I did.
Do you worry about death, benburs.
I used to worry about death a lot. I was definitely that kid who actually probably didn't didn't want to talk about it very much because it was it just feels a bit overwhelming, and I think it still does, even though I think through your life you obviously can't but have more experience with it and be exposed to it more, and the reality of it you'll face with the reality of it that that perspective is brought much
closer to your to your face. But I still put it in the category of infinity and time and all those kinds of things that I will never have a handle on, and so it doesn't really serve me to think about it too much. But yeah, I think I probably fearful I think of death. I'm a very I think hope is probably one of my defining characteristics in the one is the one thing you can't be hopeful. I can't find I don't seem to be able to
find hoping. But I will say that there are things that along the way that have made me feel so much more alive that it sort of becomes And I know people have said this to you before, but it all becomes so much more pressure, it will becomes so much more precious for the fact that you know it did its temporary.
Do you imagine anything happening after your die?
Somebody once and I wish I could remember who, But some you once said to me, what do you remember before you were born? And I said nothing, And they said that it doesn't stand to reason that you probably won't feel or know anything after you're gone. And that's to me so far, is the best argument that's been put forward and I'm open.
I'm open, But do you know what I've been thinking about that. I you know, obviously hate that one. I hate that there was nothing before so there's nothing after. Because then I also think, yeah, but when you're born, like humans in particular are the least, you know, born with anything. The only thing they can do is find a nipple. Right, that's literally all the babies.
Yeah, No, giraffe is up and walking in fifteen minutes.
And horse, yeah, horses are carrying people raising their own kids by a week. You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you so when people say, like, what did you know before you were born, it's like nothing, you didn't know anything because when you were born, the only thing you knew was find a nipple. So it's like when you died, you know a lot more by that. So maybe this blank nothing this you're it's a lot more going on. That's my new theory I just come up with.
Yeah. Sorry, I'm still stuck on the on the sort of.
Like the main no more more of the sort of like main thrust of human existence to find the nipple. Just you know, I know, I know people for whom that doesn't change very much as they go through life.
I think absolutely doesn't. That's still. That's still it is. Everything else is just sort of gravy around that, isn't it. I've got yous. There is a heaven and it's great.
Right, and it's it's it's brilliant.
It's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's got all your favorite it's got your favorite thing. And what's your favorite thing?
Oh, I think it's so yeah, I think it's guys, there's got to be music.
Yeah, well then this, this heaven is filled with music. There's music everywhere, except doing screenings when it would be inappropriate. But there's music everywhere. You sit on music, you sleep music, there's music in the trees, and it's lovely. Everyone's very excited to see you. They're all big fans, but they want to talk to you about your life.
Famous.
Yeah. Yeah, it's like comic on. It's like with nice music.
Welcome to the ever After quick photo.
Yeah, okay, no one knows who the fuck you are. But so then you turn up. You're a stranger, So people are like, who are you? Let's talk about your life through film? Oh yeah, You're idea is much better. The first thing they ask is, what's the first film you remember seeing Ben Burns?
Do you know what?
This was one of the ones that I struggled with the most to have one answer, because when people sort of say, oh, yeah, don't you remember your first time you ever ate a banana? Or I remember being born? No you don't, you don't. No one remembers anything before they about six, I reckon. So this was actually one
I struggled with. I certainly remember sort of seeing the Disney of Sword in the Stone and Robin Hood and all that very on and the Never Any Story and flight the Navigator and The Labyrinth, those sort of like early quest early eighties things. Those are the ones that were around, but I couldn't put my finger on what the first one was.
Like I remember, well, let's go with Flighting and Navigate because I haven't talked about that on here for a while. What a movie, Olso, what an eighties movie.
My favorite part of that film definitely was when he gets to space camp and he goes to his room and there's all these like sort of NASA things on his bed. He's got the spaceman Ice Creabe, and he's got his jumpsuit and it's all like laid out in this like perfect way on his like perfectly made bed, and it's all he gets, basically a welcome pack. That is the most. That is my most vivid memory from that film. And I haven't seen it since I was
a kid, and I can still remember that. I don't know what that says about anything, if it says anything about me, but that is the frame of the film that I remember the most.
That is interesting. You like you like free gifts, You like you like a swag bag, That's what That's what it is. You like a T shirt? You like some merch.
Yeah, how ironic. I've just released my own merch for my music.
Now.
It's not about merch. It's about It's not about much. I think it's about It's about he's worried about it, about going there, and I think it's welcoming and it's loving either way. It's sort of set out and I think that that it's like it's like doing nice things for people.
Do you remember when you saw your early films thinking I want to do this, I want to be an actor.
No, that, I think that came much later, mid teens. I think it's because I was sort of quite good at quite a lot of things, but not very good at anything. And I think I felt a bit invisible and a bit sort of like lost, and a bit like I needed to sort of pick something. And I think that obviously, you know, this is this is an industry that you go into and you are sort of seen, You're literally on a stage, and I think it was something that I could maybe devote myself and maybe trying
to get good at. I think I think, I think, I think it was just about trying to sort of focus on one thing. But I was never really able to do that because I was too interested in lots of things. But it started to it was sort of through music actually, and then it was sort of, you know, musical than the song part sort of got stripped away and it became about storytelling and then I found a love of that latterly interesting.
What's the film that scared you the most? Do you like being scared? No? I don't.
And I said I would never do a horror film, And I've literally just finished work on a horror Gamo Dog Tores doing an anthology horror series called The Cabinet of Curiosities. It's a bit sort of black mirrors, but instead of tech, it's all sort of horror tropes.
And I've just finished it.
This week was a very creepy, creepy, scary episode of it, with all manner of grizzly things and a really terrifying and really terrifying ending. Great and I purposefully asked the director and the team to mess with me as much as possible and to stop me at doing it the acting, because I call him and said, lot, I've been doing this twenty years, but I haven't really played anyone that that's sort of scared a lot, and it's not a
genre I'm very familiar with. When I was looking down your list, I looked up like the one hundred scariest films ever, and I've seen about two of them, so I was like, well, it's not on this list. So I was getting them to bang bits of wood together and play horrible scream at me during takes if possible, just to sort of just to sort of like mess with me. And I did not like it, and I
still won't watch anymore, but I will watch that. But but one of the things that he was asking me about, can I play some sounds?
And I suddenly had this.
Memory of the film The Return to Oz, which is a sequel to the Wizard.
The most the Wheelies, the Wheelies.
These these creeps were they look like sort of human circus clowns, but they've got wheels instead of hands and feet, and they squeaked. So the director, because it requires me to be scared of things that that aren't really there.
Lot this this this job I've just done, and.
So he would he would play on speakers the sounds of the Wheelies during takes, just.
To fuck with me, in mess with me, and it worked and it was horrible.
And then I remember that, you know that that sort of Alice in Wonderland, the thing of her falling down I think it's Dorothy or Dorothy's or or whoever it is, falling down this sort of rabbit hole, but there's hands grabbing at her in this horrible sort of gropy way, and it just those two images are again, I haven't seen it in so many years, because why would you put yourself through that again? But those images are really really stuck with me.
It's Banana's return to Us. It's fucking like when you watch it, you're like, I cannot believe this was a Disney film that got made for kids. It's so scary.
No, someone was on someone was on drugs.
Yeah, yeah, there's heads in fucking in There's a whole cabinet of heads. It's scary. Ship, It's horrible.
It's horrible. Although when I was I can tell you what films scared me the most.
I mean, obviously I saw that when I was probably quite young, but as a little kid, I remembered this story and maybe I remember it, and maybe it's just because my dad has told it to me about me, to various people in front of me many times, which is that I think on about my sixth, fifth or sixth birthday, I was on one of those Channel fairies and it was my birthday and there was a little screening room on the ferry and they were playing role do was the witches, And there is the moment in
the middle of the film for anyone who hasn't seen it, where the witches removed their wigs and gloves and they be cut and skin and they look pretty gruesome. And at that point in the film, apparently, according to myth legend, I waltzed down. This is very apparently this was very out of character, but I waltzed down to the front of I hate speaking public, speaking as myself, by the
way you should. It's about me, absolutely so scared of it, so scared of it, and walked down to the to the screen at the front, turned around and said in the most precocious way possible, well this is a bit too scary, isn't it, and walked out.
My dad has not.
Run after me because even like you just met, I'm going to make a.
See so I'm jumping overboard. Good day.
Yeah. So I have never told anyone that, but my dad has told lots of people.
Why do you think you're so scared of talking as yourself? I mean I don't. I mean I sort of understand, But do you know why?
Well, I don't know.
In my new found of revelation about about not being so worried about it, maybe I'm maybe I'm not anymore. I don't know quite what it is. Maybe it's just too long sort of doing it in front of people as someone else. But I do get even on the wrap of a film or something, when that in the thirty seconds you have to say thank you to a crew that I'm so grateful for, my heart just goes a bit fast, my palms go a bit sweaty, and
I'm not quite sure. My words get jumpled up, And I don't know why that is, because I'm very comfortable doing this with you. I'm very comfortable in any sort of social situation. But when it's suddenly your sort of when there's a pressure on it, expectator. Expectation is the mother of all fucking horror, isn't it. And I think that, you know, whenever you're sort of expected to say something, I can sort of climb up and get a bit tight.
I think I've just sort of realized that it's actually not I'm not worried about necessarily being embarrassed, because you can just go thank you very much and keep it very short.
But I think it's about.
Sort of letting people's perception of who they think I am down not being charismatic enough, or not not being eloquent or charming enough. Not being enough, I think, is what's fueled a lot of that stuff over the years for me, of which I've now managed to sort of let go of it. You are enough, that's the title of this episode. Enough No Ben Buns Colon.
Speaking of speaking of crying what's the film that made you cry the most? Are you a crier?
Yeah, I like a good cry. The film that made me cry the most, and it made me cry for about three days, almost NonStop, because I think I saw it just too.
Young was Spartacus.
Oh really, it's a very specific reason, which was when you get to the end of the film, Kirk Dodson and Tony Curtis are forced to fight to the death on penalty of death. Obviously they're both going to be crucified unless they fight to the death, in which case only the victor will be crucified and the other one
will be killed by their best friend. And the catharsis of this a word that I didn't know at eight or whenever I saw it, but that sort of unbearable pressure and tension, and the fact that they both love the other so much that they can't bear to be the one that would put them through the agony of the crucifixion, and so they actually fight harder for it.
There was something in my eight year old and at whatever however I was brain that just had a schism, and I could not bear the idea that anyone could come up with this and this I do remember. I remember being in tears for days about it. Inconsolable.
Yeah.
Interesting, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry for your lost. What is the film that you love? It's not critically acclaimed, most people don't like it, but you don't give a fucking shit what anyone says. You will stand by this film.
Sister Act too.
I love Sister Tract too. Thank you back in the habit, yes please.
There are moments of Sister BacT two that I will pull up on YouTube at any given opportunity. When Lauryn Hill sings bit of Eyes on the sparrow at the organ or the or the sort of like George.
With joy for at the end, I think I just loved Lauren.
Hill's voice so much, and it's so much more exciting than the first one. And it follows all the proper trait of those kinds of cheesy films when they take the ropes off at the end and the dancing and the mum turning up and all of that and locking father Creasy or whatever in the cupboard with a salami.
Come on, I won't hear a word against it.
It's flawless. It's flawless. He gave us Lauren Hill, it's flawless. You can have that.
Thanks.
Wait, does that mean I've not been able to have anything so far?
Yeah? Up to now, now, up to now, none of them have been allowed through.
But this I didn't it was a challenge.
I didn't realize there was a challenge, gentlemen to it.
Nor did I. But until this moment, and we're both late.
Everyone else has got every film they've ever said through, but you so far?
Yeah, that one. This has been quite a strict process of this episode. I don't know why, but for some reason, it's a much bigger filter.
I think it's because I looked at the list of films that you said I must have talked about and thought, I need to mention several of these.
I'm your system, and the system is fine. Back. What's the film you used to love? You loved it, you've watched it. Reason that you've gone out, No, I don't like this no more, but for your own reasons.
So I'm sure there are lots of those, and I couldn't think of them. But what I could think of was one of my favorite films of all time. And I've got a collection in my home of eighties movies. Original posters of eighties movies that I just loved and have a connection to, some of which you are on your list of things and not talking about. But one of them is The Princess Bride, which I think is one of the greatest films ever made.
One of the greatests.
However, it's one of those films that are pedal to people and say, this is one of the greatest films ever made. What do you mean you haven't seen it? Because my cast, especially of my cast of the show that I do on Netflix st they're in their early twenties. Mainly some don't seen it. They watched it and sort of came back and I plug them came back and said, yeah, I got about thirty minutes in.
I didn't really to really get it.
So I went back and watched it again, thinking maybe maybe it's maybe it's a bit dated, maybe it doesn't quite hold up. It absolutely fucking does. It's brilliant, and they're is brilliant.
They're wrong.
So there's a film that does hold up, which is I think what you asked, do you.
Know what I like you flipping the question. I'm going to let that through. It was cheeky brilliant, but I've letting it through because I love the Princess Bride.
I feel it on One oh One, which I did used to watch as a kid, and I don't think it's on anymore. I always wanted to go on that and this is about as place I'm ever going to get.
And I'm going to enjoy it.
For one episode only. This is seeming to take that format. Now, what is the film that means the most to you, Ben Burns? Not necessarily the film itself is any good, but because the experience you had around seeing it, that will always make it meaningful to you.
Again, there are a few, but this film is very good, but it only sort of makes it into the pantheon of one of my favorites because of what I saw it, which was the film that I saw on my first ever date I ever went on. Was and I realized my mistake after the fact. And I don't know why there weren't more people in my life to tell me
that this film was setting just setting unreasonable standards. Was bats Lehman's Romeo and Juliet came out in the cinema, and the day was released in the cinema, was my first ever proper date.
I took someone on Wow, how are were you?
I don't know, probably fourteen.
Or fifteen, okay, And what happened on the date.
It was actually wonderful. It was actually wonderful. She was a sweetheart. It's actually quite quite sad, again working against the comedy of your podcast format. But we dated for a few months, I think, and just hung out and watching films at each other's houses.
And it was so innocent and lovely.
And I found out that she I think she went on a gap here and an accident passed away and I read it in the local paper, and I remember, and I remember that night watching thinking about it and watching Room and Juliet again, and I sort of sort of separate it in my head from that.
God, that's so fucking tragic. I'm so sorry.
Yeah, it was so it was a weird thing. I've actually never told him.
That you hadn't seen her for like a couple of years when that happened.
Yeah, it'd been, Yeah, it had been probably it was probably yeah, four four years or something.
It was.
We went touch anything, but yeah, And then a couple of years ago, one of my best palers took me to the secret cinema version of it where they do bits of it live and everything, and yeah, that was That was quite But that helped reframe it a little bit. It was raining, it was raining the night we saw it, and it was it was you know, and I think so, I think it was.
It helped it. Yeah, it helped reframe it a little bit.
But it's definitely has that association in my mind.
Don't get me wrong. It's a fond it's a fond memory because it was a very.
Yeah, I can see that. It seems so a beautiful thing as well. What what's the film you most relate to?
Okay, so this is stupid, because I'm sure there are millions that are. Probably I was thinking, there's got to be something a bit romantic, cute, grantee or something.
There's got to be something that I'm.
Probably the thing that jumped to mind was the opening scene of Swingers, John Favreau calling the girl about forty two times and getting increasingly more pathetic with each one. And for some reason, I find it's incredibly relatable, not because it's something I particularly done, but just something that I feel like I understand better than I understand than the other scene from a film.
So yeah, I don't know why that. I don't really know why.
That's my answerability is and you're just gonna it's they're my answers.
So that's that's all happen.
I told you. I fully accept that answer, and I think it is a very real scene. And I've definitely I've definitely done that via text. I've definitely sent a text and I then sent another text and stop sending.
Texts it it.
And then it reads like a mad, insane novel when they finally look at it.
I think it's also more curious to that question.
I'd be more curious what other people think, what the film they think is that they've seen that reminds them of me the most, you know what I mean? I think as an act, I'm always curious. I'm always curious to know what people would. You know, people say, what do you want to do next? I don't know what do they want me.
To do next? It's sort of right, you know, because that's a part of it, isn't it.
The truth is the relate what film you most relate to? It is the question most people struggle with, which is interesting, and you get many varied answers, but I don't. I'd say probably five guests that I've had in all the time have an answer like that. Most people go, I really struggled with this one.
Yeah, I think I think.
I think it's because it's one of those ones that you it's because the one I most want to get right. And I think I'd need much more time to look through all films I've ever seen and be like, oh, yeah, that, but it didn't just come to me.
Yes, because maybe if you're taking it as like, what's the film that defines me as a person, that's too bigger.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the most intimate question in a way.
Yeah, anyway, tell me this, Ben Burns. I think this is why people have tuned in what's the sexiest film you've ever seen?
I do enjoy having both my names every question. Is a lot of people do that with my name because it's a limit of in it, and I enjoy you doing it. But I enjoy you doing it, I think more than anyone ever. Maybe if you have to get you a.
Badge, you thank.
You sexiest film.
So yeah, I think the film I sort of remember being the sexiest film was Eating Mama Tambien. Correct great moving on and then and then more recently, I saw a film called The Handmaiden correct which I don't know if I'm allowed to find it.
So it was supposed to be sexy, but it is very sexy.
It's very sexy. It's got the sexiest tooth failing scene in the cinema history. Yeah, yeah, you'd be hardposed to find a sexier tooth failing seed.
But just in case you were going to sort of not agree with me so quickly and readily, which luckily he did, because those are very sexy films, I had a more PG answer ready, which was that the film has the date, the date that I would most like to go on in it, which is quite sexy, which
is the Karate Kid, preferably with Elizabeth Shoe. Actually still what happens in the date they go to golf and stuff in that beautiful yellow retro car that Miss Maggie has given him, and they go to golf and stuff, and he's sort of putting his arms around and helping her put away, and they're having delicious looking at you know, fast food, and they're just giggling a lot. And it just was not an experience that I was having when I was watching that film and I wanted I wanted it with.
That's very very sweet. Speaking of sweet, traveling boners worrying, why don't what's a film you found arousing that you weren't sure you should.
I just realized that the Karati Kid was my answer to that one. Because I was going to say the Karate Kid and then you were going to go, what no. I just was just like, go on, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I was going to explain that sort of subverting the question of making it sweet. And now I've ruined it by offering it too early.
But what I liked is what we're doing here is a deconstructed version of that bit. Yeah no, which is very very la It's like a deconstructed taco or something.
Yeah, it's stop, body, We do it backwards. It's fine, it's good work.
Yeah, it's better this way. People. What we've done, we've given you. We've given you all the ingredients. You get to make the meal yourself in your head.
I'll give you the answers and you provide the question.
It's the Jeopardy version of it. I love it. What is the crime? What is troubling? Bonus?
I'll take Troubling Shadow and bonus for five hundred.
What is objectively the greatest film ever made? Not your favorite, necessarily, but the greatest.
It is one of my It is absolutely one of my favorites. And I know that the answer is not interesting You've had it so many times before, but is back to the Future. I've got the original poster there. I just think it's perfect and I've always it's always been the answer I have given about my favorite film. I will say this, this horror show that I just finished. My coastar was Crispin Glover, who was in the film
obviously is how he's wonderful. Yeah, he's wonderful. He's totally eccentric and loves films and making films and being you know, sort of collaborating on it. Loves you know, playing characters. I think didn't didn't have the gumption to talk to him about about it, but it was still thrilling to sort of just just to hear his voice. Actually, it's just quite It's just probably the film I've seen the most.
So you can have that, of course, you can have it. You can have that way and what we'll do go.
Back and anyone who said it already in one hundred and fifty.
I'll delete them out of the podcast on Actually I'm going to Yeah, Buddy Peace's the producer. When you listen to this, could you do that? Please? Shouldn't take you long?
What what is?
What's the film that you could or have watched the most over and over again?
I don't know what the film is I've watched the most, probably one of the ones I've already mentioned, but I was My metric is always like that one that like when you're like in a hotel somewhere and you just sort of turn on the TV just to have some noise, and then it's it's twenty five minutes into the film, but you just sit and watch it anyway. I've got a lot of those, I think. But you know, there's something also. I know I completely avoid the question about
how where you see yourself in it? And I'm not necessarily even sure which character, But there's something about notting Hill that I can't I find unavoidable. I just love it, unashamedly love that film. And I don't know if I'm Hugh goan't On, Julia Roberts or somewhere in the middle.
Yeah, you're the characters, but I do love it.
And there's something sort of very Londonly about it, which which I love, and something at the Hollywood coming into London, which I understand. But it's just I love the structure of those rom coms. I've been trying to find a rom com with that kind of simple concept and structure for literally for fifteen years.
You know.
I love the format I've seen.
I watch a lot of kind of films except torra At, but those sort of rom coms, when they're done well, sort of Richard Curtis style, are my favorites.
Interesting? Interesting, you haven't found one in fifteen years. As well. I think they're very, very very hard to get right.
I think I've seen a lot that have been made in the last sort of ten years, and a lot of them are not very good.
One or two that cut through, but I was not offer them disgusting. I don't know what they were thinking.
We don't like to be negative, do we, Ben Burns, You and me are united on that, Yeah, hope FC. But what's the worst film I've ever seen?
So I don't know if it's the worst film I've ever seen because I haven't seen it since I was small, but there was a sort of running joke in my family that we were once traveling somewhere and we watched a film because I think we were sort of stuck somewhere or something and that you can only get the TV, and we watched a film called Basil, which stars Christian Slater, and it's a sort of a period Victorian esque kind of a film, and it was completely shit, suffering from
the main crime, main cinema crime of being very very boring. And I remember my dad saying, I think that's the worst one I've ever seen it. I said, I agree,
I think that's the worst one I made. And then, in anticipation of this, I watched the trailer again online and it looks speciously like a film version that I did of Dorian Gray, which I think most people would contend is the worst film I have been in frond with, or one of one of at least, even though it looks very, very beautiful and there are good things about it, and it's often on Telly it Christmas, and people tell me they love it, but that we didn't quite sort of hear.
How do you feel about it? I said, honestly, hand on, I haven't seen it. I have no skin in the game of this.
Mixed feelings about it because I loved making it.
I loved the producers and the director and Colin Firth starring Colin Firth, who is one of my favorite humans listeners.
He just held up a mug that said Keep com and Love Colin Fast.
Given to me by Colin Base. You see, you're the only one who will bloody drink out of it. So and then I found that you can buy I Keep Calm and Love Ben barnesmug on line. So I sent it to his his wife, because Shenanigans for the purposes of shenanigans.
But he's a.
Wonderful human and we had a brilliant time making and I think we thought we were making something that was maybe perhaps a little bit edgier, and I think I think I think it tried maybe to sort of be a bit edgy and make some changes and also try to sort of please lovers of literature and faithful lovers who were hoping for a sort of faithful adaptation of
the book and everything. And I think that sometimes you know you can do everything right and put it all in the right sort of order, but it doesn't quite capture the sort of zeitgeist of what that adaptation needs to be for this generation or whatever. It just got very Also, you know, I was twenty six or something and that was the last time I read a review. It was very poorly reviewed, very very mean about me.
And now I'm able to use those criticisms actually, especially for younger actors, when they say, oh, you know that so and so wasn't the best thing about this film or whatever, And I'm thinking, you think that's a bad review, I'll show you a bad review, mate, and I'll whip out the Daily Mail's review of Dorian Gray, which the most scathing review of any acting forms in history, I think.
But it definitely like knocked me off kilter at the time.
Maybe think maybe I'm not made of stern enough stuff to do this, maybe I'm a bit sensitive. But then actually it just served to sort of embolden me and make myself actually want to be bolder in my choices maybe or more it may be double down, maybe more committed to making a success of this and being the best, you know, just being the best actor I can be anyway, And.
Do you avoid all things?
Then?
Do you avoid all press? Do you avoid social media.
Yeah, I was working on the third Narnia film in Australia and to Toronto for the for the for the film festival, and the reviews came out that that day and I had to I had one to fly from Australia to Toronto and back again in a day and a half or something and night. So I was upside down and inside out at that point. And I think that that just the reviews coming out of that time,
it just it really knocked me. It really knocked me, you know, as I say, I think there are great things about it, and really I'm still really proud to have done it. I'm very proud to have been casting it with those people and you know, to have been trusted with that story.
Do I think I'm a better at to now? Yeah?
You know, yeah, you're fucking twenty six, is there? Yeah, it's mad.
Yeah.
Interestingly, the horror thing that I've just done as a sort of couple of little elements of it that made me think, oh maybe this is you know, another go to.
And I got asked to do the.
Audio book actually Adoring Great last year or the even before, and I was like, oh, I get to sort of have another go here as well.
But yeah, still very proud to have been involved in it.
And I think, you know, all all these moves that we make make us the person me on, I'm proud of the person that I am.
So do I watch it often?
No, really good answer, I'm so. I think it's absolutely right not to read anything. But I think it's hard. I'm impressed a hard lesson. I suppose you're just used to it.
Yeah, yeah, any way to learn it, of course that is the only possible way, you think is in the fire and get burned before you know not to touch it.
Yeah. I definitely definitely experience that, and I should never look I shouldn't have looked. Okay, what's the film you're you're funny, ben Burns, You've been funny and stuff. What's the film that made you laugh the most?
I think the film that has made me laugh the most number of times is this is spinal Tap?
Correct, You've got a few of these, completely right.
I'll win it.
Well again, these are the ones that my that my collection of eighties post is this is this is one of them. I get probably one of the films I'll watched the most, certainly the film that if people haven't seen it, I will. I will immediately pull up something or start quoting it, or I'll be unsufferable talking about it. But it's just endlessly close ball. I mean, it's funny. It's the first second before you've even got any actors
in it. Rob Bryan is introducing it and he does this thing where he folds his arms and then just sort of lets them. It is so uncomfortable that he sort of lets them hang down.
And it makes it.
I cannot watch that without laughing. And nothing's happened yet. The film hasn't even started yet. It's yeah, it's just it's genius.
Love.
It really is, Ben Burns. You've been an absolute joy. I've loved talking to you. However, when you were one hundred years old, you had a birthday card from the Queen who is who was at the time about one hundred and ninety. When I was first to send the card, it was very scrawrey writing, but I believe it was from her herself, and she did the past. You're a
bit tired. You went to bed, and your loved ones, he said, gather around, gather around, your loved ones, gathered around, and your your great great great granddaughter took your hand and in a piece of madness, squeezed your hands so hard.
So much despair, because you loved me so very much.
Yeah, squeezed it so hard that it snapped in twenty five places. She screamed. Everyone started screaming around you. Right, Oh God, why am I done? Were screaming a hate you? No, I know that's chaos. All your loved ones is just so what we've done. And there was blood and then the blood got infected and you had the instant sepsis and it spread through your body quite quickly, to be fair, and then and then you were just choking on the
infection and then people screaming. Everyone was screaming, and you died. It was one of the least peacefulness I've ever seen. And I hear this, I hear this chaos. I'm like, what's going on in that house? And Ben bunders has it sounds like a massacres happened. All your all your loved ones. They run out of the house, screaming like they've been in a horror. I've got a coughin on me, you know what. I'm like, Drag it up, st go where it's Ben Barns. Oh, detective friend, Ben's Ben Barns.
Where is he? I go up the stairs and there you are, and your body has exploded from the instants, fucking everywhere. It's everywhere, on the walls, on the it's disgusting. And also insects are floating through the winter. They're already eating on your rotting flesh. I'm like, get out of here, scram and I scrape off all the bits of you I can. I put you in the coffin. It's a fucking I'm having to wear industrial gloves. It's gross. Even I'm gross stat by it. It's a mess. It's like
I've made a fucking pool of cess in this coffin. Anyway, it's full. It's full, and there's only really enough room for me to slide one DVD into the group to take across to the other side. And on the other side it's movie night every night, and one night it's what film were you taking to show everyone in heaven when it's your movie night? Bed buds, Please, I've poked.
The bear, there, haven't I At the beginning, I challenged you.
It's like I sat, I was like I went to a comedy show and sat in the middle of the front row, thinking this would be fine.
I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate you for that.
How you listen? I'm so sorry that listen.
It was screaming.
Made my peace, all of them. It was quick, though, it was quick. Okay, what film are you taking with you to show to Heaven?
I am taking with me, arguably.
And when I was argue, I mean arguing with myself because it's impossible to answer the film ever is but the one I would most like to share with, the one I most like to show people, the one that I has bought me, probably the most joy.
When Harry met.
Sally, oh fucking perfect answer. I almost feel bad about how you died with that answer. But I'm not in charge of those things.
I'm up. I'm up in heaven and now I met Sali. I'm having a lovely time.
Yeah, you're having absolute and.
Everyone's going andone's going bringing this brilliant, brilliant choice, brilliant, brilliant choice of film for us to watch. The thing probably the probably the best choice of all the hundred things.
You're the best person anyway. Just before we settle down to watch this lovely film, how did you die? Again, buds. What a joy. Now, I assume you would like people to listen to your album. Is that what we have to look forward to next from you?
Yes?
What's it called.
It's called Songs for You And it is five songs that I wrote at that piano and and then had some brilliant, brilliant producing pop people helped me make more shiny sounding with exciting, brilliant musicians from around the world sort of contributing their bits during the pandemic, which is kind of thrilling and amazing. And now it's this sort of little it's this little record which is just going
to be everywhere and it's brilliant. Yeah, people have been The first song came out a few weeks ago, and people sending me you know, actually, I think one of the things I love the most is this this this this girl's dancing in a kitchen, this big smile on her face to it. And then people have been doing some of pole dancing corribly, or ice skating routines, or doing a sing cover of it, or drawing something from
the music video or whatever. Just like just just feeling like, I think something about me doing it at forty rather than at nineteen when I first tried. Is making people go I can well, maybe I can just do my thing now, and that feels good.
I love that. I love that. Congratulations, congratulations on your album. That's fucking huge. Thanks. I hope that more and more people love it. I have loved talking with you. Thank you for your time, and good luck with everything, have a wonderful time in heaven and love to you. Good day, sir Cherry bye.
So that was Ben Barnes on a rewind Classic episode. Be sure to check out the Patreon page at patreon dot com slash Brett Goldstein, where you'll get extra chat, video and mixtapes at various tears and otherwise. If you fancy leaving a note on Apple podcasts, that would be lovely too, but make it a review of your favorite film. Much more fun and Brett and more in love nothing more than reading them. It is gratefully appreciated. Thank you so much to Ben Barnes for fun times and presents
on the podcast. Thanks to Scrubius, Pip and the Distraction Pieces Network, thanks too. And this is where Brett thanks me for editing and producing the podcast, so I say in return, it is a pleasure. Thanks to iHeartMedia and Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network for hosting it. Thanks to Adam Richardson for the graphic and Lisa Lydon for the photography. We will be back next week with another rewind classic. But that is it for now. Brett and I and all of us have films to be buried with.
Hope you're all very well in the meantime, have a lovely week, and now more than ever, be excellent to each other.