David Morrissey (Sherwood / Daddy Issues / The Walking Dead) • Films To Be Buried With with Brett Goldstein #313

I tell them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their life through the films that men the most of them. Previous guests include Barry Jenkins, Amber Ruffin, Sharon Stone, and even said Ambles. But this week it is the brilliant National Treasurer of an actor, David Morrissey. Head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com forward slash Brett Goldstein, where you get about twenty minutes extra stuff with David,

including a secret. You also get the whole episode uncut and dad free and normally as a video, except this week, when for once there was a technical issue in that perhaps I forgot to press record on the video, and I didn't get the video, but at the end, when I realized this, we did record a special quick video message with David so you could all see his lovely face. And that is exclusively for the Patriots, but normally you get a great, old, long good video. Check it out

over at patreon dot com. Forwards left, Brett Goldstein David Morrissey.

lost his way. He's living in a bedsit with a lot of other angry men, and he's sort of being bullied and sort of manipulated by these guys, and he doesn't know how to he's lost the manual to life, really, and she sort of needs needs him to sort of step up, and he does his best to step up, and the comedy is him trying to step up for her and inevitably failing every now and again. But I think it's got great heart. It's written by Danielle A. Ward, who you know, I think is such a She was

a stand up as well and great writer. So yeah, you're right, it's very different for me. But I had a board. Comedy is hard, though, isn't it. I mean, well, that that sort of half hour comedy I found really are because usually in drama, you know, I have time to sit down with the director and talk about motivation and talk about you know the backstory of my character and stuff like that, whereas comedy, no way, You're just

on and you're going. You're like, you know, you don't have time to chat too much, you know, You've just it's like shuts off a shovel. Really, you just gotta get going, you know. And I found that really really actually I found it tough, but really invigorating as well and really sort of challenging in a great way. And when you've got a great David Finns in it as well and sort of you know, so funny, and it's that thing of having great actors around you who are

used to that format. You just spark off them and Amy's like pretty amazing. So it's we got on so well. So yeah, it was a joy to do. Actually, did you find it?

get home by seven, you know. And it was and that would make me laugh even more and sort of like my heart would start pumping and something and my stomach would start turning, you know. But I was, yeah, you could gauge it, I think, you know, if it was making us laugh, and the director and stuff and its it comes out of Fudge Park who did the in between us and stuff, and you know they've got a track record with that, and so yeah, it was.

It did make me laugh though. That was my big thing was trying not to corpse all the time with me and Amy. And even now when I watch it, I can see where they've just got the scissors in just before I start pissed myself. I like that.

If it had been a year. You know, a friend of mine has just been in Guys and Dolls for a year. You know, I think I think I would start banging out against the brick wall then, So I like to mix it up. I like it to be different. I like, you know, what I'm looking at is a character that intrigues me, but is also possibly different from where I've been in the past. You know, and you change what you yourself, you know, you're the things that concern you in life change and what you're looking for.

So and I do like not just in terms of character, but theater, film, television, radio, you know, all those things. Audio books, you know, all those things keep me on my toes and I like that. I like the test of all that. But also sometimes what attracts me to the job is the other people. You know. It's always best to work with good people and talented people. So sometimes I've got into a job not really knowing what it is. I did two jobs with Dominic Savage, and

there's no script with Dominic. You know, you just go in and you're sort of improvising. He's got scenarios for certain scenes, but he hasn't got there's no proper script or dialogue. You're making it up with the other actor. And I love that. But because of him and trusting him and knowing his work, you walk into that with

a lot of faith. But also it's that thing of you never you know, you've got to take risks a lot of a lot of the time with me, I've said yes and found out what it is afterwards, you know what I mean. I'm not trying to sort of get everything locked down before I walk into it. I wanted to cover it as I'm doing it, and that for me, that's always been the best way. That's great.

it was myself and David Tennant. And after about probably about five or six weeks, we were staying in a hotel at Blackpool and the producers decided it would be a good idea to give us a little show reel of what we've done so far. So we were all in the bar, all the cast and the crew, and this showed this show reel of about three minutes of what we've done so far down routines knocking back, and

everybody was like, oh, that's great, that's great. Me and David walked away and we both got into the lift together and we looked at each other, wind We're never gonna work again. We're never gonna work. We were so panic stricken by the whole thing. It was like, you're such a you're sort of such a bad judge of those things when you're in it, and you just have to keep going and sort of trusting what you're doing and fight for what you want to believe in. But

I'm not a good judge while I'm in it. I'm sort of not a good judge afterwards either as well. I mean, I think I have my instincts and stuff, but I watched myself. I know actors who never watched themselves, and I do watch myself, but I have to watch myself more than once because the first time I watched myself, all I'm saying is the fact that you know, I've got a big nose, or I wish I hadn't chosen

that shirt or whatever. And then I get through that ego watch and I start watching it the way that everybody else would watch it, and I start accept it in a different way. But I also think it's really important. It's certainly important for me to watch myself. And as you get older, it gets harder to watch yourself, but I mean, it's still important to watch what you're doing. I mean, I've I agree with it.

And also sometimes you think, you know, you feel that you're conveying something or you're feeling an emotion and a scene, and then you watch it and you'll think, oh, God, that's not what I that's not the emotion I thought I was coming across. But actually it's quite interesting or whatever. It's just I'm just curious around that process. That's interesting to hear from you when you're so experienced. I definitely

I've had that. I had it recently when the director came over and gave me a note and I didn't say it. I wasn't defensive, but what I thought was, oh, I thought, that's exactly what I just did, what you just asked me to do. That's what I was feeling. But it was obviously not coming out through this head. That's really interesting, though, isn't it, Because for a long time as an actor, as a young actor, a director came over and gave me a note. All I heard

was your shit. That's all I heard. I didn't hear they were saying things like, look at you know, why don't you just dial this bit up or dial that down? Or there's more at stake in the scene, or you know, I'm I'm not getting the emotion as much as I need. All I heard was your shit, and we wish we'd cast someone else. And it took me a long time to know that some directors hate actors. They don't like

actors at all. But mostly when I've worked with really good directors, they love actors and they want you to be good. So what the notes are there to sort of encourage you to be brave or to sort of tell you that you're in a close up so you don't need to give me so much stuff, you know, things like that that they're there to make you better.

need a bit more time. I mean. So I had to sort of do this thing with Thorn where I suddenly went just be the actor. When the camera's rolling, you have to don't be thinking about anything else. And it was that you can. I could only wear one hat at a time, and it was more about the fact that I had to learn not to sell myself short as the actor. I still needed to sort of dig in as the actor. I still needed to sort

of tell that story, tell that character. But the producer head was a bit like, you know, we need to be moving on here. You know, we haven't got them a lot of time, or or also you know, you on a Tuesday, you're just about to do a scene and your partner would say to you, your producing partner would say to you, we've lost the location for tomorrow, and you were like shit, So you were in a scene going what are we going to do tomorrow? What are we going to do? I'm gonna you think about

I'm not here now. I've got to be as as present as I can be in this moment. So it was a real learning curve for me. But I was very proud and I've done it a few times now, but I was very proud with the final product. But it was a learning curve for me about making sure I was one once they shouted action, I was right in the character and doing what I was supposed to be doing.

are you in a state? How are you at? Time off? So there's two types of time off. There's time off that you have knowing that you're going to a job, so you know where you'll you'll finish a job in February, but know you're going to work in April, and that's great.

That's because you know something's coming and you know you can kick back and you can sort of but that sort of abyss of time where you sort of finish a job and you've got nothing in front of the fifth you know that that is like the tumbleweed moments of just thinking, oh my god, you know, and what

was you know? The interesting thing for me about Lockdown was I really and I know lots of people had a difficult time in Lockdown, but I sort of had I was okay in lockdown because we were doing Britannia. We'd been five weeks into Britannia and then we went into lockdown, and we were always planning to go back to Britannia at the end of it, so that was okay. But also I knew that everybody else's phone wasn't ringing

as well. It wasn't just Mate, so that so I didn't have that thing of like, you know, maybe they're phoning him and maybe what's going on nobody There was just that thing about, no, nothing's happening to anybody, So it's fine, And that'd never been so relaxed. It was whereas you usually if you're in that place of you know, waiting for something to come up and you haven't got it, I do start to panic. But I also start to use my time creatively in other things. You know. I'm

developing stuff. I've got a podcasts myself. I do a radio show, you know, so things like that. I tend to stay busy in the creative sphere really, but I love working. I have to be careful in the fact that work becomes my master a little bit. And I've gone through that place of work being the thing that validates me. I don't feel that anymore, but for years I did think work was the one thing that told me I was of worth. What does validate you know,

if anything? Or is that not the point? Yeah? I think you know, family is the thing that validates me. You know, I've got three kids and I see a lot of them. But I'm also able to sort of relax a little bit in myself about you know, it will happen, you know, rather than chasing it like a greyhound around the track like I used to do in terms of work, I now do think, you know what, it will be okay, it's going to be okay. And I know what, having just said that, I thought, Fuck, Dave,

don't say that. Don't tell that's just cast the whole thing. You're never going to work again, now that you've said so, it's quite weird. But it's back in the abyss. If I'm back in the abyss in that you know, it's not right, it's not right. Listen.

you know I used to. I think just I just I felt that all through my twenties and thirties, I thought about it a lot, and actually through my teenagers. My dad died when I was a kid, so death was always very close to me. How old were you, maya, yes, So he got ill when I was eight, and he eventually died when I was fifteen, but he'd been very ill between that period. But so death was always very close.

It was really, it was hanging over us all through my childhood, really, and so that was that sort of gave me this idea of mortality, you know, that I was going to go and he was fifty four, and that was ancient to me. I mean, the idea of you know, he was an old man when he died, and he died of fifty four, and people around me, you know, I would see adults in their fifties and the late fifties, early sixties, and they looked old. They

were old people. In fact, recently, I did a thing recently called The Long Shadow, where I played a real guy at polacement. It was all about the Yorkshire Ripper and I played this guy called George Oldfield, and when I looked at it pictures, I was like, wow, God, and this is an old man and he was four years younger than me, and I was like, God, this is because it was that sort of These were post war generation, you know, they've been through it. They were smokers,

they were drinkers. You know. It was that type of lifestyle, and they carried it. You know. So death for me for quite a long time was hanging over me. I knew it was there, it was coming. I mean I made life choices accordingly, sometimes quite bad ones. But now, no, I don't know. I'm very much about keeping it in the day, keeping it in the living, being very grateful about my life and what I have, and you know, try to stay healthy and stuff. But you know, I

don't dwell on it like I used to. I was quite morbid for a long time and I don't feel that now. What do you think happens when you die? There's an after life? I don't actually know. I think you're you live on in the in the memories of those that are left. I think you you you know what you like Marley's ghost. I think what you know? What you put down here during your life will live on. But I don't think there's a heaven or hell or anything like that, or limbo or I don't have any

I don't think. I don't believe in reincarnation or anything like that. But I do believe in goodness and spirituality and the goodness that we spread whilst we're alive, you know, having some effect on the people behind us. Well, you're you're completely wrong. There is a heaven God, I knew that God.

and this sort of the size of the screen. Obviously I had seen had a black and white talley, you know, so I just remember having that as my entertainment, but suddenly seeing this massive technical film really blew me away. And obviously, you know, it's got those two characters who are running take them off to the circus and they sing Hi diddly d. So maybe that's where I became interested in acting, particularly the line where they say hi didly do ustily still after two Maybe that was where

I thought, well, that sounds good. I love some of that. But I remember it as an experience rather than I've obviously seen it since then. But I remember it as going with her and her friend and sort of being amazed by the size and the sound of it, and just the whole experience of sixty foot to cross screen with this amazing color and story. It really stuck in my mind. So they must have done those re releases, I.

wanting more of it. And then you know that thing of going back in the black and white TV not being enough anymore or something that that sort of I felt cheated about that really yea, But cinema suddenly began the smell of it and the sort of the communal idea of all these people in one space having the same experience that was really moving for me. I found it very, very sort of exciting. Really, I love it. I love it. What's the film that scared you the most?

Do you like being scared? Yeah? I like being So there's those two types of SCA isn't that there's there's sort of jump scar stuff, which I sort of do find in the cinema fine. I mean I hate fair grounds and roller coasters and stuff. I can't stand them. They just drive me back. I once embarrassed my son very much in Lego Land on the Pirates if they're streaming screaming while all these kids around me were like loving it and I was gonna get me up. So yeah,

I'm not braied on that. But in films, I'm not. So I do like a good film that scares me. And then there's the psychological, all sort of type of film that really sort of troubles one, and I like that as well, So yeah, I do. But the film that really you know, there's things like you know, there's films like Don'tknock Now and stuff like that. But the film I remember being really petrified about was watching it

in my house was The Poseidon Adventure. And I watched it at home and I must have been We moved house when I was about seven and I saw it in that house, so I must have been six or seven and it was on the TV, so I must have watched it in black and white and the bit where they're all this sort of bit where a guy or a woman I think maybe it's Shelley Winton's, and she's got this little space where she can breathe, and the water's climbing and climbing and climbing, and I just

freaked out. And I remember freaking out and crying, and I remember my brother's laughing at me, and my mom wasn't there, and I remember thinking, oh, they're laughing at me, that no one's going to save me. Someone's going to save this woe as Shelley went, she's drowning and I've got and and it was just the experience of watching it, but also the experience of being laughed at bout my older brothers because I was sort of shaking and crying.

It was quite traumatic actually, So yeah, they owe me a lot for that, But that that was That was the film. I remember being really scared of and understanding that entertainment could be scary, you know, you you I always put of entertainment as sort of pleasant and and

sort of you know, there to give me joy. So suddenly to see something on my television which I knew was fiction but its purpose was to scare the shit out of me, I thought that was a new concept really, But then after that, you know, things like The Bird. I remember The Bird again with my is really scary. I remember my brothers who'd already seen it talking about the bit where you see the person who had their eyes pecked out, and I was like, oh, and then

you see it for like two seconds. But it was like just absolutely And there's a bit where she's on the phone and this one bird just flies and on this sort of telephone line behind it, and then there's all of these other ones and you're.

O Deliverance really freaked me out. I mean, oh my god, I mean that was that was a film where I was watching it thinking I was watching one film which was like this sort of nice sort of adventure and you know sort of there's nice bit of music in it and stuff like that, and then sodden you think, what the fuck is just that? You're like, oh my god, this is just you know, I didn't see that coming at all sort of and I just and I sort of adore John Borman as well. I think he's a

great filmmaker. So that's sort of that's the film that really, you know, freaked me out by. It's the way it turned and it's in its narrative.

sort of slightly outside of our groups. So you know, there was I was in a youth theater and she sort of came to the theater, but not a lot. I used to see around town and she's just gorgeous, and I plucked up the courage to ask her to go for a date and I took her to see the Champ the John Voyd and Ricky Shed and exactly.

So then I'm sitting in the cinema next to trying to beat that cool and stuff, and then you know, I'm just in I'm snotty tear and all the way through, just when John Voyd's on the canvas and and Ricky Shriander's go get up, Chimp, Get up, Chimp, and I'm like, oh my god, Oh my god, It's like just pouring. And I remember through my tears turning to look at her, and she was looking at me like, you know, the

most embarrassed person in the world. She just felt to shames for me, I think, and just you know, as we came out, I said, do you want to go through? Come through coffee now you're all right, and she just marched off and I was like, oh my god. It was just terrible. So yeah, that was so that was my big Crime one and also Michael Hanklettermore you know that film that just broke me That just broke me up.

But on the other hand, what it did for me was it made me go, yeah, of course, how the fuck do you end it? Of course he doesn't want to end it. He loves her.

the work he's done. And obviously he died years ago, and she's an old woman now, she's in her aces, and she decides to go, and she's on the boat going over to America and she's sort of replaying in her head this relationship that she had with Lewis Carroll and she's she's the girl in all those photographs that he So it's quite it's quite a sort of troublesome sort of you know, relationship and a very troublesome memory

that she's having about what went on. But Ian Home is just heartbreaking in it, and it's sort of weird because it's also it's Jim Henson's sort of creations in it as well, where he's having she's having conversations with you know, the sort of different sort of creatures throughout the piece that Lewis Carroll's sort of creations. And but I loved it. I just loved that sort of three or four times. And it's really that broke me up. Actually, it was an amazing film. Gavin Miller, I think, was

the director. Yeah, Sarah Polly talks about it a lot in her book. Yeah, very interesting. Tell me this, what is the film that you love? People don't like it, critics definitely don't like it, but you love it consistantly. It's big Fish. You know, big Fish, Big Fish is one of my favorite films. I love it, but it

got slagged off. Honestly, it's just I love it. It's like it's Billy Credible and it's Albert Finny and again it's this sort of memory for peace about you know, He's with his dad, and his dad used to tell him these stories and he's realizing that they were all bollocks, really, and he can't really get to his dad. His dad is pushing him away in this really strange way about just keeps telling them stories and his dad's like a liar.

And he's coming to terms with the fact that his dad's just a big liar and has told him these tales all his life. But then when he goes back, he realizes that there's something inside of having had this relationship with these tales that his dad told him that actually is quite magical and wonderful and sort of and he reassessing it and I just loved it. It just

broke my heart. I thought it was great. And then I remember when you're because when you're a member of BAFTA, it's all changed now, but when you're a member beft used to get used to love that end of the year because you would get all these First of all, you got sort of VHS's, and then you've got DVDs and stuff. It was great. It was like Christmas had come too early for you because we were getting all

the best films to watch. And I remember getting this VHS of Big Fish and I was on my own and I watched it and thought, that's one of the greatest films I've ever seen. I just absolutely love it old and everybody I mentioned it too, went oh, it's just sentimental Tosh, And I was like one. And then I read reviews which weren't really good and stuff, and I was like, this is a great film. This is a wonderful film. And I had to defend it amongst

everybody I knew. Nobody else liked it. Everybody. I mean, now that I've met you, obviously we can have a big Fish night. But it was like, I just made that's my answer one of my answers to film. It made me crying about I think, amazing. It's just the end scene. There's a scene at the end where Billy is sitting next to Alberfinny and they're talk and it's just one of the great great scenes father and some scenes I've ever yeah seen in my life. It's just brilliant.

So that's the film that I really felt that nobody got it. Nobody, certainly nobody in my circle got it. Nobody sort of. And when I read the reviews, I was like wow. And then when I looked at the awards coming out with Nowhere, nobody had voted for it, so I couldn't believe it. And mcgreg McGregor is fantastic. He's just he's so, he's like such a wonderful sort of presence of both innocence and magical sort of thinking. You know, he's just wonderful. I loved him. That was my real beauty.

he'd done and gone, let's get this guy. But then Scorcese I think less Temptation of Christ went down or something and he was suddenly available, and he was very gracious about saying, oh God, you know he wants to do it, let him do it in But what a different film that would have been. I'd see that. Yeah.

about these three mates who one of them. His wife dies and he's having a little bit of a breakdown and he decides he wants to go to London, so his two mates go with him on despair at the moment, and it's about their time here in London. And I remember, just as a younger man, I'm a really big fan of John Cassavetti's and Husband's was the one that I thought, you know, and Gazarre is an amazing actor, and Peter Faulk And then I watched it again about four or

five years ago, and I hated it. I absolutely hated it. I thought it was so misogynistic and crass and too long and too indulgent, and it really pissed me off as a movie, and it was like it was a real whank in the end. I thought, I just like, God, no, this is just I'm not having this film. And it really disappointed me in the sense that i'd sort of championed it and loved it. You know. I feel the

same about On the Road actually as a novel. I mean, it was a novel I read so much as a younger man, and then when I went back to it, i read it again, I thought, what what the fuck is this this is shite? It was so like by change, but also the world had changed. I was like, I don't know. And again I like, I love other stuff of Karrac but that book I just thought, no, I'm not having this anymore. And Husband's was very much that I think interesting. I have not seen it. Yeah, maybe

I don't need to. There's a really interesting bit where all three of those actors are on the Dick Covit Show and they are all battered, I mean absolutely drunker stunts, and they start they start having this raw and I can't work out whether it's sort of them manufacturing in terms of because that's the relationships they have in the film.

But Guzara gets really really angry with Peter Falk and piece of Fox trying to calm everything down because it just can't stop laughing in that sort of mad way, and it's really just can't keep them under control. It's

really amazing. But something like, you know, the other film that they did together was The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and that's a brilliant film and and really you know, Gazarre and that is absolutely and that really stands up for me and obviously has stuff with General Rowlands and stuff. Is Opening Night and stuff. They're great, great movies. Faces is a really interesting film, and I love him as a I mean, you know, he's a great actor as well.

You see him in something like Rosemiye's Baby and he's just yeah, he's amazing in that film. I mean, that's a skirt. I mean that was a film that really skirted me a lot, and I still think is a great piece of work.

and I think it was a twelve. It must have been a twelve, Rocky and I got in with him, and you know, I never did think like that with my dad. I never went to the cinema. It never took me out in those ways, you know it. It wasn't what he did. And as I said before, you know, he was ill at that time, and we went together. So even just being in his cinema with them, sitting next to him, it was just the two of you, not with the others. No, it's just me and him. Ah No, And Rocky came on and it was just

like the great story, you know. It was the story of this you know, rags to riches sort of madness, and we both both loved it. You know, we're both having this experience together of absolutely adoring what was going on around us, which was this amazing story. You know, this really that we sort of could relate to, you know, because we were both you know, we both love boxing

and stuff like that. And so that's the film and I come back to that, and it's one of those things I watched it with one of my sons actually years and years ago, and I wanted the same experience, but he was just a little bit too young. But the other film like that is a film I didn't watch with him. But what was interesting was I was sitting on the sofa with him, or sitting on the sofa, and he was in his chair. He always had this chair that he sat in, and we didn't have much communication.

He wasn't a chatter my dad. He was quite distant. And this film came on, which was on the Waterfront, and my dad went, oh, this is great film. This is a great film. And he got out of his chair and he came and sat on the sofa with me, and the credits starts, and the credits are like the sort of on a white black print on a on a white background sort of stuff. This great bansteam music coming up. Yeah, And my mom came into the living room and she said, what's this And my dad said,

it's on the Waterfront. And my mom went, he's too young for this, he's too young for this. Don't let him watch this. And she took me out, and I was so upset, and I was like, I couldn't you know. I was about to have this great experience with my dad watching this movie. And I think that was before the Rocky experience, and so I never got to see it. And then you know, he died and stuff like that. And then I watched on the Waterfront later and I absolutely loved it. It's one of my favorite films of

all time. And I thought, God, I wish i'd had this experience with my dad watching this movie, and it's sort of been taken away from me, and my mom had good reasons for that, you know, but I was sort of like, Oh, if only i'd had that with him as well, you know, But they're the two films that I have, those that memory around, which they're both to do with him. Really that phrased my heart. He came and sat in the same movie. Yeah, it was so And it was really sort of like I remember thinking, Wow,

what's going on. This is weird. It's like, I don't think, yeah, he's he's broken. It's like someone walking across the floor of the House of Commons, you know. I mean, I was like, oh my god, it's coming over to our site. And it was like, you know, just even him just being close to me, it was like amazing. And then that music, of course, that Burnstein soundtrack for Waterfront. I just think it is one of the great film scores of all time, and the film itself. I just think

is pretty wonderful. You love big fist there you go, of course, thank you, doctor.

slightly I couldn't work out. You know, mostly I'd watched films or television. I was a big soap watcher. You know, I love Coronation Street, so it was just a lift for that. I love TV shows like Cold Its and stuff. I watched everything. The TV was my best friend when I was a kid, and so when I watched Cares, it was like I couldn't work out. There was a there was a new style of acting that I was seeing, a new style of observation that I was seeing. It was a new It was like, as we know from Loach.

You know, he was using non actors, even though there was some actors in it. I did know, like Colum Well and I knew obviously I'd seen him on the Turney. But the world, the school, the kids in the school, the teachers, it was my world. That was my school. It was exactly the same as my school, even down to the fact that you know, during the football match there's two kids playing pit a pat rather than none

of their kids fit. The teachers are bastard, you know, the injustice of that kid getting caned when actually he's only just turned up to give a message. That stuff that, the noise in the classroom, the sort of shouting of children, you know, the danger of the streets and the funniness of the streets and stuff like that. I'd never seen

anything like that. And to see it as a movie, and to know that people like us were being portrayed in film, it gave me this weird thing of going, oh, there's a worth here, there's something we are we can't give, something we can give to the world. In some way. It was like, really it was an amazing experience for me.

And then years later, obviously there was Distant Voices Still Lives, which you know, that was the street I grew up in, my mom and dad and my grandmother Terence Davis film, So Terence Davis lived, He grew up in the in the street to streets along from us. So that's where we grew up in Kensington and Liverpool. And so my mom knew everybody in that film. She knew them all. She knew so you know, and they she I remember her saying to me, she phone me and said, have

you seen this Terry Davis film? You know, little Terry Davis has made a film. I said, you mean Terence Davis mom, and she said, yeah, used to live. I couldn't believe it. And it was like when I saw it, I sort of saw my ancestors and my family and the way they grew up and the streets they grew up in and how they grew up and the trauma that they carried and the secrets that they carried, and and that that had a big influence on me as well.

And also I felt that the film was beautiful, that it was an observation of a world that was tough and monochrome, and he brought this real, almost you know, like a Terrence Malick like look to it. That was this beauty and observe and the observation of it was just through the eyes of a real, a real craftsman. I thought. I thought he was a real sort of visionary and I loved I loved hisself. And that film particularly was something I'd seen a version of it because

he'd done it for the BFI. I think beforehand he'd done the Terrence Davis trilogy and he dealt with certain stories that he brought in later on, but this was he now had the real budget to be able to do what he needed. I love what you're saying. I love what you say about Kaz.

in a tradition. M it's in you know when you see something like Saturday night, Sunday morning, or you know, kind of loving and stuff like that. There's those films that came of that British new Way. They were basically set in a room at the top. They were saying, you know, it's it ain't great, it's not you know, your work hard and you'll do this and you'll you know, don't let the bastards grind you down. But you know, stuff is tough out there. It's grim up north sort

of stuff, you know, and they have that. But you know that that was the message.

Barry Hines and Hines. You know, he wrote lots of stuff like that, which were really tough stories of northern life, you know. I mean you see something like the Sporting Life. I mean you see that and God it's grim. It's really grim, and it's tough. And Saturday night, Sunday morning it's tough. You know. These are tough stories in a

really big tradition of that. You know. So if if at the end of Cares he'd sort of, you know, his brother had put a you know, hidden the bird and sort of brought it out and gone, ah, you know, here he is, and he'd gone off and the bird sanctuary or something, you would have gone, fuck off. I'm not having that. I'm not believe. You know, this is

a real ending. This is and that bit when the actor's name is David Bradley, obviously there's another David Bradley Bill when he runs in and he starts hitting his brother and going, he's killed my bird, He's killed my there's you can't fake that. There's something in there that is so heartbreaking and brilliant, and Ken Lodge captures it in such a raw their was dead. I think right he I think he did do that, but always I also think what he did was the little boy gets

caned in the school. I think ken Loach had a dead bird on certain showed it to the kid just and that's when he gets his When you can't do those things nowadays, you see Brett youze, you can't do that. But if you're going to get tears out of an actor, but no doubt, can't bring them dead birds, just can't make them dead anymore. Great, he's gone back, so yeah, but I loved it.

never never got a chance to work with him. Look, Davis Funny.

just so sexy was the go Between. Of course, Joseph Losi and I think Hawld Pincer wrote the screenplay, and it's also obviously a story about class as well. It's about a little boy who's on his summer holidays from his public school and he goes to his friend's house

spending the summer with his friend. And his friend is really really rich and lives in this amazing sort of country pile with his big sister and which is Julie Christie, and all their friends, and they're very, very posh, and this boy who's come along for the summer, he's sort of out of his depth, really, and then his friend gets ill and so he has to sort of fend for himself through the summer, and then he's used as a go between between Julie Christie's character, who's about to

get married and stuff, and she's having an enlisted affair with this blacksmith sort of guy in the village played by Alan Bates, and this little boy is that runs messages between them and it all goes horribly wrong and he feels very compromised. Yeah, but the stuff between Julie Christie and Alan Bates are so hot, and the whole illicit nature of it was quite amazing. And it's a

beautifully shot film and the score is brilliant. They used the score again recently and the film may December because it's just such a theatrical score and the whole atmosphere of it is just really just hot.

I've never seen anybody like him, really. I wish I'd seen him on stage and know whether he ever did it on stage, but there's just something about him.

it again and again. But when I first watched The Red Shoes, it was sort of it had all that with it, which was those big you know, the ballet in it is just second to no It's just an amazing piece of filmmaking. But it also had this story inside it of what it takes to create something brilliant and what it takes in order to get a group of people together to have the highest heights of performance.

And it was really it's a wonderful film. It's a great script, it's brilliantly acted, it's brilliantly short, it's magical, and I do think it's got so much of everything we need from cinema. It's tragic again the ending, you know, it's not a barrel of left at the end, but also this is something that is so about love and connection, and yeah, I love it. I mean, it's it's the

film I returned to again and again and again. The score is wonderful, the ballet in that which goes on for ages, it's one of the but it's so filmic. You're not watching something and thinking, oh, they're just they're just filmed. The stage version here, it's absolutely cinematic, and that is that is just joyful. And you can tell, you can tell in all their films actually that they're pushing the envelope, but they're actually, you know, having so

much fun in their own inventiveness. You know. I think The Cancery Tales is a great film. Blimp Connel Blimber is just the amazing film, you know, a massive life and death. So you know, all those I just adore them. So but The Red Shoes is the one that I will take away. I think, very good answer. I don't think that has been chosen on this three episode. So boo, what.

and it always breaks my heart. Is when he sees her compact mirror and it's the compact mirror that he's given He's given to Fred McMurray because he's found it in the flat and he really and he puts the two things together and his face and you just you just go because he's so in love with her, and then he realizes that it's her that's it's just wonderful, wonderful and then you know, can draining the spaghetti with the tennis racket and the joy he has, And I mean,

I do love Jack Lemon. I think he's sort of someone I watch a lot, and just that line he treads between being utterly comedic but always true. He's never not true. He's never never has a false emotion, you know, and people talk about Brando and those actors, but what he does is just like that as well. For me, you know, he can make me laugh, but he actually he's always real. He's always honest, and even in you know,

something like a hot he's always honest. You feel his fear he's shitting himself, you know, it's like that thing, and you go, God, this is absolutely a man in this place, right here, right now. And I love I love that. But The Apartments is the one that whenever I come back to it, I'm like, oh, I love this, but and it always still still makes me laugh or makes me you know, makes me cry or whatever. It's

always that thing. And when and also it's got that you know when she she's at the New Year's Eve celebrations and she just runs away from him and it's just that great ending. It's just and she thinks he's shot himself and actually he's just opened. It's just great. It's just all of it is just wonderful. And I love the guy who's the doctor who lives downstairs and he has to keep kidding and he's like, how many women do you have? Will you donate your body to science?

It's just and so that's the I love that. I love that film. Great, what's the worst film you've ever seen? We don't have to dwell on it. So the worst film I've ever seen. And this is because it was so I was looking forward to so much. It's a film called Tetra by Francis fool Couple and I was and it's got Vincent gallow in it. And I was in Bayreuth and I was working. I was I ran a charity for a while and used to we used to do this thing where we took creative arts to

people who didn't have it. And there was a school in Bay Route that we doing that with. And of course you have to jump through all the hoops of British ambassadors and all that, and there's this guy there and he said, I'd like to take you to the opening night of the Bay Route Film Festival. Francis for

Copola's new film is there. And I was like great, you know, of course I had nothing to had no posh talks, just went me t shirt britshots, got there and it's honestly, it's Compola's there, everyone's out the film cruiser, aud everyone, it's massive, flashing lights, it's like everything you would want for an opening of this film of a film festival. And this film comes on and it's absolutely terrible. It's it's like I mean, it's like a film made by someone who's never made a film in their life.

It's really strange. It's like, you know, obviously you know, believed in it, and why would he make a film that he doesn't believe in it? But it's just self indulgent madness. And I couldn't. Like about half an hour into this, the guy who took me, who was this like sort of British Ambassadors sort of person, turned to me and said, I'm so sorry, and I was like, but it was it was I mean, I couldn't figure out.

You know, this is the man who's made some of the greatest films we have ever, you know, the Conversation, Apocalypse, to all those fun you know, Peggy who Got Married? I love it. You know, he's a great, great filmmaker. In one from the Heart, I fucking love it. And this film go what. I could not understand how someone who could make such great films had made a film like this. I might be in a minority, but I just I just thought it was awful.

It's Jack Benny and it's lubbish and it's it's Jack Benny Carol Lombard and it's about It's about a Polish theater troupe as Hitler is invading Poland, and it's a knock about comedy and it's sort of Jack Benny plays the leading actor, Carol Lombard plays the leading actress, and they have to recreate this sort of scene and use all their skills as an acting troop in order to get out of this terrible situation that was happening and get these they get these sort of secrets back to

the British and stuff. You know, it's it's absolutely brilliant. And Jack Benny is so he's sort of he does nothing the whole thing. He's so cam but he's also sort of slightly loose, and he's very back foot. He doesn't it's just hilarious and it's like one of those real knock about comedy sort of times were brilliantly done. I really strongly recommend it.

held it like what's this? And then you cough and you died and the place burned down. But the only thing that didn't burn was the piece of paper that said I did it.

carbon on it. Lot you know, like you've solidified. It's difficult. You have to chop you up into bits, put you in the coffin that's rammed in there. There's no room in this coffin. It's only enough space for me to slip one DVD into the side for you to take across to the other side, and on the other side it's movie night every night. What film are you taking to show the people of Heaven after you watch Match of the Day and have sausage and mash when it's your movie night.

them to see what we think of them. That's great.

time she reads it. Thank you so much to David Morrissey for giving me his time, Thanks to his previous pip and the Distraction Pieces Network.