Russell Howard • Films To Be Buried With with Brett Goldstein #216

or not? Yeah, that's interesting, Thank you, Albert. Every week I'm about a special guest over. I tell them they've died, then I get them to discuss their life through the films that mean the most of them. Previous guests include Barry Jenkins, Sharon Stone, Jamila Jamil and even Clad Lamballs. But this week it is the wonderful comedian mister Russell Howard. Head over to the Patriot at patron dot com forward slash Brett Goldstein, where you get an extra twenty minutes

with Russell. We laugh a lot, We talked beginnings and endings, We talk about secrets. The whole episode is uncut and ad free and as a video. Check it out. Over at patreon dot com forward slash Brett Goldstein. So it's Russell Howard. You know Russell Howard. He's a legend. He's been a huge stand up staff for years and years. He's currently on sky Max every week with the Russell Howard Hour. You've seen his work, and if you haven't,

you can watch a load of his excellent specials on Netflix. Weirdly, we'd never really cross pass before recording this, so it was very special to spend some proper time with him. We recorded this very late the other night. He would brilliant, just as you would expect, and I think you're really going to love this one. So that is it for now. I very much hope you enjoy episode two hundred and sixteen of Films to be Buried With. Hello, and welcome

to Films to be Buried With. It is I Brett Goldstein, and I enjoined today by a writer, a actor, a topiciler, a panel show eller, a The Weaker, a Good newser A, Netflix ser a, ren a any sizey one, sir, a legend, a radio, a movie star, a hero, and a saint. Please welcome to this show. I can't believe he's here. It's the one an Ali Here he is is mister Uzzer Howard w thank you very much for such a lovely woman. You forgot dog over now that was the

only thing you and I'm fucking furious. So we startgeting. Let's startget We'll start let's do it all again. Yeah, yeah, have you ever had that? You know, when you do like radio shows and they kind of really give it that big up and you've just got to kind of sit there and take it. It's so weird being English because you just want to subvert it and just go I'm a dick. When you do comedy in the state and they're like, so what do you want me to see for? Where you go up? It's all right, But

then if you don't, the crowd think you're ship. So you have to have that kind of intro very. It's so weird that in it and it is genuinely the opposite here. If you if I gave you that intro brought you on stage, you'd have a death. You'd have a death maybe like who's this camp? Yeah. It's such funny thing as well, isn't it that you don't realize how English you are until you travel and how that We've been raised in Mordal because part if you're famous people that like the joy they want is for you

to really fail. Like if you're doing new material, it's great if he goes well for you, but if he goes badly, it's such a great story for them. Do you know what I mean of go? Yeah, we've seen him down top secret. Aren't help me in his own ship? Yeah? He was got like, do you know what I mean? That's the story we all want in it. You want to be there with the breakdown. You and I have never properly met. I was thinking, we've never actually met.

However we once maybe I was thinking like fourteen years of sound that I was trying to remember what it was. There was a gig. I think Trevor Luck used to do it. It It used to be a regular gig in angel In like the library bar, maybe Trevor Up and Chris Mayo and new material. It was like a new material night and anyway, I saw you there, but we never we never passed. Yeah, I do remember that, I remember the gig. I don't, but I know We've got a mutual friend in Rochen Connoity, and she speaks very

highly raisins the greatest. You call a raisin? Why do you got a raisin? Because of how it's spelled. I guess I just say she's Raisin. I call her roy Sin because that is how she was. We're in Montreal the Comedy Festival, and this guy when whereas roy Sin? And because there's so many kind of like alpha comics in Montreal, it sounds like the perfect name for like a hard hitting American comic, doesn't it? Look at it comes from roy Sin? Hey, I'm Royce. What's the deal

with fucking women? Am I right? There's a lot of fucking Mexicans? Hey, Royston said it, like, yeah, exactly, smoking dreams, don't give a fuck. I'm writing this. Yeah, you fucking walk piece of shit. I'm voist it. But yeah, we spend the entire week in Montreal just calling them roy Sin. Yeah, but I like raising as well. Yeah, I got a question for you, which I'm curious about. You are one of the few, although I suppose it's more common than it used to be. You were very successful, and you

continue to be successful. But you were very successful very young in this game certainly, Yeah, you you were pretty young, and it happened I mean, I'm sure to you it took a while, but as in comparatively to most comics, you had a pretty meteoric rise. How did you cope with that in the early stages of it, when you were like suddenly famous, You're on TV, you were doing stuff. How was it coping with that? And also how was it with the people you'd come up with? Did it

did it change your dynamics? That's interesting, yeah, because presumably you had with this sort of like stratspheric rise from ted Lasso and Emmy winning and Hollywood and all that, that must have felt like you know what I mean. Yes, yeah, it did for sure, But but I also have been around for a long time, so it's not well, that's it. Well,

that's where I felt super lucky. So basically I started doing stand about eighteen, and it got nominated for the period when I was twenty six, So it wasn't overnight to me. But I had that lovely thing of I'd done well at gigs in Lincoln, and I had a little bit of a following in Lincoln, so I kind of knew what it felt like to be famous every time I went there, like I had this week in Lincoln. Yeah.

I had this sort of university gig that I did from like twenty two to like twenty six, and it was like every time I went there, there'd be like two hundred people. It's like Russell's, you know what I mean. So I kind of had these little moments where you know, I've done welling gigs, I've done really badly at gigs. I died, you know, But I kind of knew who I was comedically and as a person when it happened,

and I have to think we are. So I often feel really bad for like reality stars because irrespective of fame, we always have this hobby, whether it's comedy or filmmaking or writing, whatever it is that you can hold onto. So when you become famous, it makes you realize how much you love your hobby, really, do you know what I mean? And for me that was it. You sort of lean into that of going, oh wow, I get to do my kind of hobby on it on a

bigger scale. And I was, you know, I've always loved it, and I loved it when I was eighteen and up until twenty six, and then suddenly just being given the steroid of fame or TV or whatever to do kind of bigger gigs. I absolutely loved it. And I never really kind of went into the sort of celeb side of things. I've always, you know, rather just just hang out with my missus and my mates from school. So

I've always been fairly normal. And the people that I came up with, who my sort of generation, My closest friends in stand up people are our picture who is now kind of fat. Yeah, he's now like a really big comic in Sweden, and I know it's really cool. And I went to see him do a special it was recorded for Swedish TV and it was so great. And who Steve Williams is a good friend of mine, Steve Hall right like Row Sheen is a good mate. So I've got that. That was my kind of sort

of era, like Greg Davies, John Richardson, John Robbins. So there was like a bunch of us that we all kind of came up in different different ways, you know, so I think we And also I was when I was young, I supported John Oliver and Daniel Kitson, So I had this kind of perfect school in comedic excellence and how to be do you know what I mean? So yeah, it was. I was super lucky. Really, I

had lots of kind of mentors. Yeah, those are all everyone you mentioned there is like really decent people as well. You're not talking about fucking yeah. Yeah, there's not that many dicks, I don't think in the circuit there. I don't think it's a surprising at least small amount. Yeah. I can name them on my nad. Yeah it's funny, isn't it surprising? Yeah? I think before I started stand up, I thought I assumed everyone would be awful. I really I thought it would be like so many dickheads And

it's not a tool that way. And it feels like it's getting better and better. Like I remember doing open spots and being sort of slightly bullied by sort of older comics, but only on one or two, and like what you're doing with your notes in the corner, and you're like, because I'm fucking scared, Like do you know what I mean? I want? I want to be Yeah,

but my comeback was always to tell the truth. Oh why you're writing your jokes that because I'm not very good and I'm petrified I don't have your natural swagger, you know, kind of shout it down straight away. But it just doesn't happen, And particularly now, I kind of love seeing new comics and I love kind of having a chat and how is it for you? What was it like that, because obviously you've been going for a while and then bang and presumably everyone's like, oh my god,

you're an overnight success. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely have that say. I mean, I think I'm very very very lucky. I think I'm very lucky in all of it. But I always say, go, I think I'm very grateful that it happened so late, because had it happened when I was twenty,

who the fuck is I've probably been dead. I don't know. Well, that's the thing I often think about someone like Daniel Slots, who was like famous as like eighteen, oh, like Jack Whitehall, and you're like, how the fuck have you kept it together? Because I felt like being twenty six was just just right where you're not mad, you know what I mean? And I think you're right. I think you're right in that. I think very lucky to have a stand up because that is the thing that keeps keeps me sane and

keeps you totally. Yeah, but it's like the perfect mechanism through which to do life. It's kind of anything, whether it's sad or happy or whatever, you can put it through this prism and we when we get a laugh, it's basically an audience saying to us, Yeah, mate, it's not just you, you're not it's not just you that's mad. You're not mad? Like it. And it's sort of like this tangible tick where you go, yeah, fine, fine, I

agree with you. I'll give you that. You know. That's entirely what I think in new material, and new material is me asking an audience repeatedly, am I mad? Yeah? Exactly? And it's something, isn't it? But yeah? And there's a tangibility to it like that's yeah. I've only ever written

one script. I wrote it with Steve Williams, and I've never done anything like that where we had to present the whole thing, you know, and step away from it because everything has been created in bite sized chunks that I knew all of it works. I've done it in little clubs, I've connected it there. It's all fine, you know,

But that feeling, I don't know how people do that. God, it must be so terrifying to go There's things, there's things I've realized, like, you know, working on ted Lasso, you've got people like Jason and Brendan and Joe who did well over their ten thousand hours of improv, right, so they they're funny and they also know what's funny

and there's no arguing. Yeah, but it's it's like you've been in the groove and there's something about the groove of laughter where you just go, trust me to see last thing I think with the script where you go, like, if you were to book brackets, Pul's funny face, Yeah, it's like what And yet pulling that funny face is what's going to happen. It's going to be really funny. And you could write that to yourself and it's like, tell this joke, pull funny face. But if someone's someone's

reading it, it's like what kind of face? And then you have to show them the face and they're like, well, that's not funny, that's just not funny, like what like? And then you having to show someone the face is so funny when you look at it from another lens.

And it's that thing that it's so funny when you meet these gatekeepers that have no self awareness that they can't realize we are in funny now by me having to show you my face, that is funny, but funny how I don't know, it just is you know what I mean, it's trust me, Yeah exactly. Yeah, it's really what's happened with the film. Although that was we did it. It It was a thing called a girt Lush Christmas and it was a thing for Yeah, yeah, we did

it for two years ago. Yeah, I really I really enjoyed writing it with my friend, and I've really enjoyed watching people bring our words to life. But I can't it really difficult to play a version of me that was kind of a traffic cop, do you know what I mean? Because I was quite straight, a bit like Martin from the Office. It was that kind of you know, small and I just haven't got the the acting chops.

But my sister was in it was phenomenal, and that was kind of weird to be in a you know, a thing with your sister and she's infinitely more talented to you. You know, this is she was helping me just kind of don't do that. Yeah, interesting wrestle. I'd like to ask you so many other things, but I've forgotten to tell you something. I've just seen it in my notes. I should have I probably should have said this earlier. You've died. You're dead. Oh no, I'm so sorry.

What happened? You tell me? How did you die? Well? I died at a ripe old age yea, And I was ninety eight, and I was in a really warm scene and I just round like that's a nice way to get Yeah. Yeah, I just kind of slowly, slowly drowned and I was a bit sleepy before I drowned. Did you mean to be in the team. I was ninety eight at that point, and I was kind of I was on a private, private island that I don't

know how I got there, but I was. Yeah. I just had a really loved, lovely kind of like thirty year holiday, just hanging out with friends, and then just went off for a little swim and Diedez that was thirty year holiday. Thirty year Yeah, yeah, on a private island. So you've got a private islands gone. There's at sixty eight, yes, so sixty eight you've retired, that's right, Yeah, and you've gone. How many friends have you taken with you? Oh? How

many mates have I got? Well, hopefully i'll get more friends. But basically I had a road. They were on a rotation, so they weren't there for thirty years. They still have to go back to work. And yeah, yeah, yeah, So I like probably let's say two hundred people would just sort of come and go, and you know, occasionally I'd leave the island, you know, for supplies and such. And then you didn't have people bring you all the people. You didn't say, did you bring some crisps? Turning up

where I sold in a good disco? Um? Yeah, I think old and warm, warm sea drowning and dooming. It does sound if I made like you, this was a choice to end your life at this point in the city. So you've thought this is it for me? Thirty years of old late it's just a bit too much. Yeah, I am had a big, a nice bottle of red wine and I loaded pills, just went for a little swim.

And where were your friends? Did you say good Baye or you just like you know the awkward I didn't you didn't say no. No, I should have sayed blood. You should have said something said you you'll kick yourself in, haven't. So that's that is a very nice way to go. I mean, some people fear drowning, but it's a nice warm sea. It's warm, it's warm. I'm drunk. I've got some tablets in me and I'm just slowly drifting away. I really like it. Do you worry about death, oh, mate,

all the time. Yeah, I'm terrified a bit, particularly during COVID. I've got loads of kind of weird little panic attacks. And I'm a real slave to any kind of nick knackery to make you be a better version of yourself. And you know, lots of supplements, lots of My wife is a doctor, so it's this perfect ying yang relationship where she but she finds my my nonsense. I bought this.

I bought this. It's like an infrared far like machine that shoots infrared stuff at you because I because I saw it on some website it's maybe very good for inflammation and whatnot. And my wife was, what's that? And I showed it a video of what it did, and she said, it looks like a fucking brass eye video, which is like, it's like the perfect comeback. You know, when you're looking at it, you go, yeah, yeah, what

I've paid for it now, So that's often the way. Yeah, I kind of, Yeah, I'm really scared of it, and I try and do whatever I can to try and keep it at bay. I'm scared of dying young, really scared of that and being like having an illness, so I try and do anything I can to try and negate that. You know, were you always this way? Did you always feel this way? Yeah? I think it's sort

of pasted down. My dad's mum died when she was young, so my dad's like super into like fitness and stuff like that, so it's just this kind of clearly a weird genetic thing. And one of my cousins died when I was eight and he was eighteen, and I just remember that having a massive effect on the family. He's like it's incredible, and he was the eldest sort of grandchild, so it was just proper sort of sadness. An eight

year old remember seeing my mum crime Auntie's crying. So like, it's always been this weird thing of like two great young people that I didn't really know dying and maybe maybe that's been in my head, who knows. Yeah, what do you think happens when you die? Oh? God? I

love the idea of heaven who doesn't. Do you know what I mean of just seeing everyone and being the best version of yourself and it's you know, beautiful music and there's canna pays and clouds and but I don't think that's I think it's just utter darkness and we're eaten by worms and it's it's wretched and an appalling. Okay, I'm a frustrated atheist. I think atheists is so like they take much pride and then there is nothing. Yeah, I'm so frustrated that I believe in science. Well I

got news for you, kiddo. Oh, yes, you're rug. There's a heaven all right. It's great. It's got it's got all your favorite thing in it. What's your favorite thing? Oh? What's my favorite thing? Do you know? I really like watching people from the north of England come out of water flames, like I don't know if you have been Aquiland in Benadon, I don't know what it is, but me and my brother can spend a good hour there, like like just just get a pint and sit down

the bottom. The noises you hear just but I really enjoy that, Like it well makes me very cold. That's what heaven is. It's it's it's the exits to a ship ton of love flames and you can just sit and watch and it's purely Northern. Only Northerners allowed go in, and you just watch him all day. Everyone's very excited to see you, all the Northerners. At the end of the love thing, they get out of hell and I'm excited, Oh, good to see you. And the one that's a really

big one. All them fuck med Chlorie to me, Jared, very excited to see you. And they want to know about your life, but they want to know about it through film. Okay. The first thing they ask is Russell Howard, what's the first film you remember seeing. I know I was told not to say this, Okay, the first film

I remember watching. I remember watching him Return of the Jedi with my dad at the cinema, so it must have been re released, and it was in Weymouth, and I remember walking home with him and just doing him, just me and dad and just being fascinated with the ewalks, playing the storm Troopers heads, like the drums just couldn't

get out of my head. I was like, I was like, I just really vividly remember holding his hand, just going just I mean, it's just unbelievable that and he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine. But it was the it was just the disrespect and the audacity of it. I just thought you were disturbed by like, Nie, did they kill them? But they then played they played musical instruments with their fucking ahead. I mean that is, and the e Walks are like the sweet Ones. Yeah, that's some real no one ever

thinks about. I remember, even so I'm mate is going, I mean as far as like you know, but the phrase pissing on your grave, that's the next level, isn't it. So you kill him? Imagine that. Imagine someone kills kills you nan and then pulls her apart and turns her into a piano. It's just it's just fucking rib cages a xylopha, right, the disrespect that was it. I just

I just found it. So I just remember finding it so funny, and it's just so wild and just going like obviously not because I'm mate, but but thinking but not having the language to go. Then e Walks don't give a fuck down, you know, it's listen, I don't I don't want to be serious and dissect him. But that is quite a comedians point of view to have had it such a younger. It's like a really interesting

thing to have picked up on as an eight year old. Yeah, that's a real like I really vividly remember it, like genuinely, just going just I just couldn't get it out of my head. It properly. That was the first film I remember, the first film I remember seeing. I wish I hadn't was It felt like it probably would have been around

that era, remember it when I was like nine. I was playing around with the VCR getting the track in right to remember all that, and I just put the video in something that had been recorded the night before, and it was Planet the Apes, the original Planet the Ape, and I'm seeing the gorillas on the horses, and it's just scaring the absolute shit out of me, like properly, like I had to eject it, just go, oh what have I just seen? You know? Just hetrified. So, yeah,

did your dad take it? Because you've got You've got once is the one brother? That's right? Are you the oldest? I am the oldest? Yep, So your dad takes the cinema and left them behind. Yeah, So because I was eight, they were six, and it was clearly you know, a bit of a bit of bonding and yeah, I just I really, I just remember it, and yeah, I'm pretty certain that was the first film. Yeah, that's very cool. What is the film having a planet? The apes that

scared you the most? And do you like being scared? Russell Howard? No, I don't, mate, No, My I remember watching we watch remember the Ring? Have you ever seen the original version of The Ring? Good God? So I remember watching that round my friend my friend good God. Yeah, I watched that at Daniel Kitson's house with Dan and my my now wife, and we were so scared we had to get We got cutlery out of his kitchen and we were holding it and holding like knives and

stuff like that. It really I'm not into it. My wife likes scary films. I cannot absolutely. They remember watching The Blair Witch Project with my brother. Were just on a punt. We didn't even know what it was like like Opening Weekend, hadn't read anything about it, watched it thought it was a documentary, thought it was real. And I remember that moment where the tent is shaking and

just me and him looking at each other. Again this is this is not for us, man, But we were we slept together that night, so we slept in the same bed. I was fucking petrified. So I was like, I think I was like eighteen. But Mike, honestly, I just can't anything like that. What do you think it is? Why do you think some people love it? Why do you think you Is it to do with your fear of death? Maybe? I think it's just it's like, the one that really gets me is it's horror of the imagination.

That's the worst. It's all the dinnerner wants to below there, the murkiness that it's like that scene in the Lair which when they're running away and she goes, what the fuck is that? What the fuck is that? That still gets me because it's you. You're you're with her, But it's like something like Cheapest Creepers when you see the guy in the car, like, oh, that's ridiculous thing, Like do you know what I mean? And I'm not really

I think it's that it's it's the imagined. I've got quite a full on imagination and it can really it just needs a little spark and it works. But if I see someone googleish or scary. That being said, I remember my friend Neil when we were he's only forteen, like basically he had a cartilage operation and he met some girl in hospital and we all kind of went round her house and stayed over. It was kind of

a bit weird. It's like a sleepover. There's like a bunch of us and a bunch of her mates and we were watching Hell Raizor and my mate Neil was getting whanked off and it was one of the worst experiences of my life like that. So you was just watching this terrifying thing and you just hear like Neil like and You're like, this is It's just not for me this and everyone was cool with it. Everyone was like, you know, that's a really great film. I'm like, well, no,

it's not a great films. This is all. This is like a terrible evening. We could be watching Bottom Bottoms on, but not on BBC two. We'll watching The Bottom. I don't want to watch l Razer and listen to Lil get beat off? What about Oh yeah, how long did you sleep with your brother? After that? I'm saying this because I get it. I'm not idenitally like I finally quite touching he stayed in the bed with your brother. But was it just one night or was that for

the rest of your life? No? No, no, we did. Weirdly, we just sort of went through quite a long period of around that time went so i'd have been how was I I was at nineteen? No, I was, I was eighteen, he's sixteen, and yeah, he sort of slept from it with me on and off in my bed for a while. But he had epilepsy and he had a fit one and he woke up having fitted and he was kind of all blue, and yeah, it was horrific.

And then he then started sleeping in my bed because he's like, oh, I mean fucking it was fucking boring in it sleeping on your own. And I was like, yeah, yeah, totally. And might never put two and two together that he was afraid and there was only recently. I was like, do you remember that when we stepped together. He was like, yeah, well I was afraid because I I'd wake up dead. Um. So so yeah, we did for quite a while because of that. So I was I was happy to have

the company, and I think he was. He was battling demons and we would yeah, just did you did I'm sorry to ask this, but did he ever have a fit and wake you up? As in when when you were sharing a bed, he used to sleep with his leg on mine so that if he started shaking, he would, you know, he wake up. But that never happened. Yes, we were revealing quite a lot. But it's very very sweet. I really like it. I mean, not the Ethles a bit, but the rest of it. What about crying? What's the

field that made you cry? To know? Life is beautiful? I mean, it's an unreal film. It's just but it particularly as a comedian, to write a film and perform a film with that level of depth, humor, nuance, it's it's it's an unbelieved it's a genuine masterpiece. I think it's just it's so funny, it's so sad, and yeah, I remember I did it when it came out. I kind of feel like it must have come out like ninety four, maybe remember that, and just yeah, just oh,

absolutely did for me. You were crying normally, not no, not really oddly. I cry at films on planes of that. I think there's kind of a reason why that happens, isn't it that the atmosphere is a bit funny about that. Yeah, yeah, but not not not really. That was definitely one that got me. But then I cried at m Benjamin Button as well. Really yeah, I don't know, it's just really good. That really got me. But that was that's the one.

Remember Shine? Do you remember that film Shine with Jeffrey Rush. Yeah, yeah, I cried at that film. Yeah, it's a really it's it's a really great film. There's a lot going on. Center. Cried at Center, But yeah, fair enough. What about what is the film that you love? No one else likes it. It's critically not acclaimed, but you stand by it till the day and day. I really I really like that

the Benjamin Button film. I really enjoyed it. I think that's a good answer, because that that is not a film going you tell me it's not a beloved film. It's not beloved film. It's not critically acclaimed. But I just really enjoyed it. I just enjoyed the tone of it and the feel of it and the soppiness of it. And yeah, and I thought they were both great in it.

And I just you know, you watch a film and you go, yeah, it was it was kind of nice and warm, and sweet, and I love that line where he writes back to his daughter, there are no rules for this thing, you know, and if you find that you're in the wrong direction, go you know, something like that. I just thought, yeah, I just really I enjoyed it.

But it's kind of It's so funny, isn't it when you when you talk about film and music, you feel so vulnerable when you admit to like some of it's kind of naugh It's sort of that thing where you go, but yeah, I did, I really, I kind of really enjoyed it. There's a story about the making of Bedroom Button that I often think of, which is sweet is that I can't remember which way around whether it was David Fincher who said this, or Brad Pitt has said this,

but one of them I believe it was. David Fincher wanted to make this film and he'd sent it to Brad Pitt and Brad Pitt had said no. And then five years later or whatever, he said it back to him and he said, I still want to make this film. Have a read of it, and Brad Pitt read it, cried his eyes out and called him and said, what did you change that? I love this rewrite, and he said, it's exactly the same film. He said, but you've had a kid since you last read it, and now and

now you get it. And he was like, ah, fuck now, I don't know if it's the other way around. Brad Pitt tried to get David Fitzy directed. I can't remember who's hearing that story, but that is the story. He was like, he read it through the eyes of someone who'd had a baby and was now a wreck. So I think it's interested. Yeah, I mean god, because I really like interstella and I haven't got kids, but my god, imagine if you had a kid and yeah, yeah, yeah,

will Yeah, you're being a fucking guy. The only thing with Benjamin Button, I don't want to criticize it. I think it's an entertaining thing. I think I don't quite fully understand the concept because he's an old man that becomes a baby. Yes, but he's only physically an old man who physically becomes a baby. He isn't born with an old man's head. Yeah, so really it's just a normal life. But he looks a bit weird at the beginning of the end of it. Yes, yeah, yeah, is

that fair? I think that is fair. But I think that's the It's kind of a weird little novella, isn't it. So it's that he wrote and was like, you know, what if what if you're born but you're old and then you're die, you're young, that'd be interested in it. So it's kind of like it's like this weird little so it's oddly almost like a little Woody Allen hypothetical. Do you know what I mean? It has like like

do you know what I mean? It's quite simple. I think it's because baby's little like old men, and that's I think it must have been that. It must have been the summer went went from there, what's the film that you used to love but you've watched it recently and you've gone you no, thank you, I don't like

this anymore. The team Wolf there is there's there's a really fucking bizarre scene in it when so when he confesses the styles that he's going for some changes and Styles goes, whoa, well, Scottie, you're not a fat and he goes he goes, no, no, no, no, I'm a wolf and Styles goes, oh fah jeeus called you want to dance on my van then, and it's so bizarre that a film in the eighties could be that homophobic. But the very idea that if he were if he were gay, I'm there's absolutely no way I can hang

out with you. But you're a wolf. I've got no problem with that. You know, I'll sell memorabilia with you. But if you're gay, And it's just one of those where you go, god, it's it's it's a little thing like that. You go, bloody ell. You forget how rampant kind of homophobia was. That's just that's like a kid's film and it's just got that Yeah, but I'll be gay. Well I'm not gay, I'll go, you know. And yet it's like this beloved kind of teen moving God. I wonder if it must be edited out of that bit

when it's shown on TV nowadays. I would have thought, I have no idea. Yeah, I guess so, but it's it's in the rags. I don't know where. I think I must have seen it on DVD, like, and I was sort of trying to think of like a film that I've watched again where you're like, bloody yell, this is it's a bit spicy. Yeah, I mean probably all lateies comedies. You can't. You just can't. Just don't watch him. That's my rule. Yeah, you're clear, what's the film that

means the most to you? Not necessarily the film itself good, but the experience you had around seeing the film will always make it special to you. Well. The negative one, obviously is watching a horror film whilst my mate gets beat off, you know, I mean, that's a given. But one of my favorite moments in the cinema I watched The Nutty Professor in Florida in nineteen ninety five, I believe,

and my dad was working out there. My dad had like this sort of three month contract, and we went to watch The Night Professor and there was a young girl in front of us. And I have never seen anybody enjoy anything more. So I was enjoying the film, but I was enjoying it through her as well. Like we're talking, this girl must have been about eight. She was getting she was laughing, she was standing up, she was running down the aisle. She couldn't believe what she

was seeing. She was like tapping people, are you getting this? Oh my god? Like just everything it was. It was so great. It was like this beautiful running common tree and I've never I've never seen a human being enjoy a film like that. It was it was sensational. That's great, but it's so lovely. I remember my friend Dan had a great story. He watched the latest Planet of the Apes where Caesar, not the Mark Wahlberg ones, but the new ones. Yeah, the good ones. He only grabs his

hand and goes no like that. Apparently somebody at the back of the room in the cinema way yes, boss, and sort of just cheered along its. So, you know, that's one of my favorite things about cinema and I've kind of missed it because of COVID. I've been to a few things, but not a lot. But what I've missed so much is and I don't know if this happens everywhere in the world, but it definitely happens in the UK. When the trailers come out and we get them in the world and you know it's a big

fat trailer. It's that beat after every trailer where you hear the whole cinema go fucking shot like this just this tiny You know it looks all right, you know it's so small, but you can everyone go and It's one of my favorite things. You just remember going back to the cinema, just forgetting you've got I've missed this, just this small judgment where it doesn't matter how much millions you've spent on the trailer, it's going to be

ruined by a mumbling man. That's a really good observator. Yeah, but it's that it's so tiny, isn't Yeah yeah, no, I mean, looks are right now enough. I mean it's just like that. Yeah, what is the film you most

relate to? You know, I watched Once upon a Time in Hollywood, and decathy relates to DiCaprio's character, just that kind of the need to be liked, that bit when he does you know, he's he's much the acting up and then he does that really great scene and the little girl says, that's the best acting I've ever seen. I mean, he's so delighted. I that was what I was watching. My friend Steve, who Steve Williams, brilliant comedian, and he was like, fucking oh man, it's you. And

I was like I was like shit, yeah. It was like it was such like I've really got that. It was so funny how desperate he was to be acclaimed and that I was like, oh my god, who really got me? Yeah? Saying this about yourself? Do you feel that way now? Is that? Has that always been the way? Is that still the way? But I just I don't think.

I think yeah, with stand up, you just ultimately it's just like you really love making people laugh and you really hate, like, I don't like people not liking me, And so if someone writes a really nice review, you're like thank you, oh yeah, and you feel great about it, And if you get a shitty review, it's like, what have I done? Why do they hate? You? Know what I mean? It's this I don't really take things to heart.

I've got I've got better at it, but I still have really quite thin skin really for a comedian in terms of you know what I mean, when people don't like me, I kind of take it personally. I completely understand. But well there's always that thing as well as like because you would one could say, well, surely you've tafened up over the years of doing all this stuff, and you go like, yeah, but if you make your skin too hard, then you can't do this stuff. Yeah, make

this stuff right? Yeah? Yeah, it's yeah. I don't know. It's It's just an interesting thing, isn't it. Where you get zen, it's probably a better way of putting it in you, but you still have that initials. There's an amazing scene in the cold Play documentary where Chris Martin is on stage at the stadium in Paris and he's just lead on the floor. They're about to play to one hundred thousand people in Paris, and he's like screaming into the air, why did the Sunday Times hate us?

And that is just that thing where you just go, You know, it doesn't matter where you get if you have that kind of what I tried my hardest. I tried my hardest to make a thing. Why do they hate it? You know? I think I think that's what propels you. And you know, if there's a better mechanism than fear, there has to be. But I haven't found one that you go, right, I've got these gigs coming up. You better work really harder. It's gonna be fucking shit.

And I know how to motivate myself, but it means that you need the laughter, or you need the review or something to Yeah, you need the validation. You know. I've never been one of those guys that could go, well, that was it, take it or leave it? I very much was all right? Was that was it? Okay? Yeah? Fine? Was it? Do you know what I mean? I kind of well, that's my art. I've done it, like do

you know? Well, I think I do think in stand up in particular, because it is fairly binary in terms of if they're laughing, it's going well, and if they're not, it might not be good. I mean there's you know, there's I suppose ar tia things, and you could still have a good gig if it's quiet, but you know, it's better when they're laughing. And I think any I won't name them, but I remember talking to a comedian earlier on and he was like, I don't fucking care

if the audience like me. I want them not to like me and and be unable to not laugh. And I thought, I don't think there's a comedian that's ever done that, because even hardcore comedian, you know, even Edgie, Edgie edgy comedians, you like them, Yes, I think you like that. You know, Frankie Boyle says really hard to sit, but you like Frankie Boyle as an audience yea, you love him. Yeah, I don't think you. I don't think a comedian exists that you watch and think, God, they're

so funny and I fucking hate them. Yeah, you know what I mean, Like, I don't think it exists. I think it's a myth completely. You're completely right, Yeah, and it but it's but and it'd be so interesting to know what they feel like as well, because the great the Great, like edgy comics, I bet you, they're just as kind of paranoid. In fact, I know they are because it's just like, you know, they get worried about people not getting it. You know, Yeah, what's sexiest film

you've ever seen? Myself? Splash? Great? Great? Just I just remember, you know again, I don't know when I'd be about seven eight and just going, what the fuck? What kind of world are we living in? This is bad to see math, This is absolute chaos. That that that if you if you hang around Murmaid, yeah, yeah, exactly that, Daryl, Hannah just can you could suddenly be in your house

and you just keep her in the bath. Unbelievable, just and then you sort of see you see her ass and you see a little bit of her boobs, just enough to get your seven year old mind going, well, when the time comes, I'll have some of that just like you know what I mean, it was like this weird sort of definitely like I think that was just that that it really it really got something going to me. I was like, yeah, he's all right, do you know what I mean? It was yeah, yeah, exactly that dead

best um. But yeah, I just think I'm into mermaids. Yeah yeah, yeah, Well I bet you. I bet there's a lot of kids my age that that definitely had that weird thing where they were into mermaids first and foremost gradually had to get round to humans, had to get round the legs as well. We will work. The problem we had is that we had you know, Mermaids, and then we then we had Cheetara, So we had that going on, you know what I mean. And it wasn't until yeah, we rarely had vaginas. When you think

about it, it was always tail or. It was there something in the way of it. Yeah, and it was always kept quite you know, probably the same for women when they saw missed the tumblus, do you know what I mean, there's there's something kind of well, there are a lot of women fancy Simba, don't they you know he's got that had he does he does have Yeah, sure, but but he's to be fair. Now I'm thinking about it. I'm sure mermaids have vaginas. I just don't know where.

I guess it's a Netflix documentary being do you know? In fact I met some I met some in Australia. Yeah, I was doing a doc and they were telling me that there's there's a lot of kind of creepy men who watched them perform at carnivals around Australia, and these men called mrvts, which I really liked. It's like everything's got the Internet, Like there isn't one sexual pecket thing or you can't have without someone giving it a name,

and it turns out and is fucking great. I there's a subcategory troubling boners, worrying why I dones a filmy founder, rousing you may thought I shouldn't. I don't really know, if I'm honest, that was That was the only one I kind of flanked on. Well, if you think you're a MRVT, we can we can do with that. Yeah, what is objectively the greatest film you've ever seen? So I love Life is Beautiful. That is up there. I would also say The Royal Tenebombs is definitely. Oh, it's

an absolute parlor. But I really loved the Grand Budapest Hotel as well. I'd really like The Midnight Midnight in Paris. But if I were to go for one, I would say my favorite film is Life is Beautiful. I just think it's for your favorite and the greatest for me, it is. Yeah. I just think it's the creative scale is insane. Just like to make a comedy about the Holocaust and make it unbelievably sweet and touching and profound. It's just, you know, incredible, absolutely incredible. You can have it.

I love it. You can have that. What's the film you could or have? What's the most? Over and over again? I would say the Grand Budapest Hotel is really Yeah, that's the film you voiced, really, the grandest, the most? Yeah fan wow, Yeah, yeah, I'm just I wouldn't have immediately thought that's the film you can repeat all day every day. Forgive me zero, I've been a dedful. Yeah. I love him. I just think I think he's ah, it's such a great film. Yeah, what what is it like? Comforting?

To you as well, is it like, yeah, like just sort of hanging out in it. I like hanging out in it. I just think he's so funny. I like it just pootles along. And I've watched it so many times now that I've got a few like that where I can watch what have I watched a lot as well? From my young Gears. I've watched The River Runs through it a lot. I don't know why. I actually really enjoyed it. The Big Lebowski I have watched a lot, but just I've watched Interstellar quite a bit as well.

But I'm sort of weird about like because what like me and my wife watched mad Men pretty much every night to go to bed. We have done for ten years, and it's just we know every word in it now, but it's kind of what we have to have on TV when we go to bed. Are we sure you have to have this? Yeah? It's weird, so we like literally, so whenever you get to the end of season eight

or whatever, you start again, go again. Yeah, it's you know. So, yeah, there's only one episode we won't watch, and that's when Chancey the dog gets thrown away in the street. That's the only one because we've got a little dog and it kills us. But apart from that, yeah, it's funny, isn't it. How about you watch the film you've watched the most. I mean probably it's technically The Map of

Christmas Carol. Really yeah, what is that? Well? Ay, I'll watch it a lot around Christmas and is the greatest film ever made technically, so probably that okay, okay, why is it? So? Are you into musicals? I like a musical? Yeah, yeah, because the stuff wrong with that? But see what if I'm fascinating is I always find it frustrating when we start singing, you you as an audience, have to go all in otherwise it's not going to work. So it is it actually requires some investment on your part to

sort of buy into. You have to go quite a big hurdle, which is in this world people suddenly sing and you're like, that's fucking mad about to go all right if I'm coming in, And then if you go in, it's everything's heightened. It's very motion. No, it's very funny, sweet whatever, but it's a joy, is what it Usually that's interesting. But see see that that's one of my main things, Like I really like being convinced of something

by somebody, do you know what I mean? Like I remember, I know, I didn't really drink until I was twenty six and living with John Richardson and he really drank no, but he kind of showed me. It was like, now, what what you do? You're having a bit of steak. What you want? It's a nice bit of red white. But he was a real love it. I love a connoisseur. I love somebody explaining why they love a thing and

sharing there. I didn't know if you've ever met Danny Baker, but that Danny Baker is such a and Roschen is as well, so clever, like so so clever and so kind with dispensing their information. And I kind of love like that, you know what I mean? Sur would you like musicals? So your musicals and explained it? Okay, it's interesting. I just think that's such a It's so much because I've never got to that thing. I remember watching the first five minutes of La La Land and I wanted

to join ices. It was just like it's just brutal, but then but once you get over it. Yeah, I loved it. I loved Mulan bruge. I absolutely loved it. But when i've when i'm live something about it, I can see that I remember watching cats and I've never felt so sorry for human beings in my life. Like genuinely, I was going, these people were in agreement and yeah, but not not the not the film. Yeah we're still a degree. Yeah, but everyone's like, oh my god, it's

the poetry too yellow. And you're like, he's a he's a dad. That's not right. They shouldn't be making him dress up as a cat and do that thing with his whiskers not And I was with a friend of mine and he was really upset. He was like, why can you not see it? But I love being convinced of something, so yeah, yeah, it's a bit like dancing, Like I take fucking ages to like I'm very sort of shy and feel embarrassed and like don't want to dance.

But then at some point, sometimes in an evening, I will finally like cross over, do you know what I mean? Like you sort of let down the barry wherever the fuck it is, or just like I don't care anymore. And then once you actually do dance, like this is fun and you're free and I think it's similar to that sort of thing of like everything's so embarrassing. It's also fucking embarrassing musicals or embarrassing, but then if you just go fuck it, yeah, then it's like it's much.

It's sort of pure. Music is pure. It hits you in a way that totally it's liquid emotion, isn't it. But I've never I've never danced ever. Yeah, but I'm again deeply and an envious of people that do. Like my cousin's husband Robin, he's the only man out of all of us to dances like family parties in that and he's having the time of his life. We're the ones that are kind of on the edge, so scared. I've never. It always blows people in mind, like what do you dance? What do you dance? I just get

unto too embarrassed. I can't what your comedian just fucking do it. I honestly, I've never got to that level of comfort where I could fully let myself go. And just I remember when I got married, I was petrified about the first I had sort of held onto her like the other scene, like a woman dance like a drunk woman dance with a dog. It was that kind of you know, I sort of just held onto her and like sang the music and like because it was the that this is for lovers running in a way,

it was so it was that song. So I was kind of like holding onto it and it was fucking brutal. And then whenever I see people do a choreograph dance, I just feel like this sort of cringe. But why because they're doing a lovely thing. They've made it beautiful, They've created this moment together. But I've got this horrible no. Yeah, I hate it. I get it, man, I really really really get it, and it's we gotta fight. Yeah, true,

because I always think about this. When I was like a teenage Yeah, I used to be in clubs with my best friend Paul, and I would like stand in the corner looking men and moody, thinking that would be that's the way to a girl's heart, looking like a psychopath in the scary looking like a scary psychopath in the corner. And my friend Paul would be umping around dancing like a fucking clown, and I'd look at him, I think, you fucking idiot. Girls loved him. Of course,

they loved him. Because he looks fun. You're going, there's a man he's enjoying his life rather than this fucking psychical Yeah yeah, but you're just desperate. Also there's um, oh god, what's his name? You know, the fifth Beatle, Billy Preston. Have you ever seen him dance? There is a performance he does with Ray Charles were singing a song called double O Soul. It is the most complete entertainment I've ever seen in my life. He sings a song they can't meet Double low Soul, and he dances

like a lava lamp. It is. It's like he's possessed. It's phenomenal. So if anyone listening honestly Billy Preston double Soul, and I would That's the thing. If I could dance like that, oh I'd be a happy man. What we don't like being negative? What's the worst film you've ever seen? What's the worst film I've ever seen? Good luck, Chuck. Jurassic Yeah, yeah, I watched. We walked out of that. I've walked out of a few Jurassic World. That first

one't good. God. I was there for about thirty minutes and bounced, um muma mia, Oh well, I remember watching Muma Mia, and the only thing that kind of got me through it was my Nan was really enjoying it. It's like so she was like tapping along. I should have said earlier. Actually one of my one of my favorite films actually is Jamanji because my Nan watched it

with us at the cinema. My Nan had this incredible like properly like what like just gone, just gone, and ship that film blew her mind and she was got that lovely laugh where she would laugh and then tell you why she was laughing. So she was like, oh, these monkeys, these monkeys are everywhere, like so there was something about having and then this sort of started this weird where every crisp and I would give mine a

nan like a stuffed toy monkey. That was just that sort of It started from like ninety six until she passed away. So I'd always get a little monkey, big monkey, whatever. But I've sort of forgotten about them, I just you

know what I mean. And then I remember being around Nana Grandad's house one day and just seeing my nan put all the monkeys on the bed because all the monkeys are on the bed, and then and then they take the monkeys off the bed before they went to bed every day, and I realized that it's lovely, but I get my burden my granddad with this awful job where every night he was like, get these bloody apes off my stinking fucking bed. I love him. It's a

nice gesture, but equally not just bying with Shane. It was like it was so yeah, it was weird too. Many was years ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You're a comedian. What's the film that made you laugh the most? Have you ever seen The Martian with Matt Damon? Yeah? So I remember seeing it on a flight too. I think Dubaie and You weren't allowed swearing in the films, so that bit when he pulls the spike out of his stomach and then looks up to the skies and goes fudge,

and it was something about him. I wasn't expecting it, and I didn't know it wasn't swearing that. I don't think I've ever laughed more than that, just seen him scream fudge. It just I wasn't expecting it. But it's just it's the big build up and then him suddenly going fudge and me going that has to be that has to be Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something's happened. Um, soccer dog moved, soccer dog. Have you ever seen those the soccer dog movies. There's a elaborate dog does an

over read kick and it's just say. There is a bit of slapstick in the film Inherent Vice. I didn't have you ever seen that? Yes, really good. It's the funniest that. There are two scenes in that that the funniest scenes in any film ever. When she's describing breastfeeding her daughter who was on heroin, and she says, we've got the photo of her if you can stomach stomach it, and it's just she shows the photo and he just goes,

just screams and then goes it's it's it's unbelievable. And the other bit when he gets hit and he goes to punch him when he's gone away, just red hot slapstick. I like that film a lot. Yes, it's great. It's great film. And the we're talking of slapstick, the nice guys with that and Ryan Gosling. But that bit would the gun in the toilet when he's trying to keep

the toilet open. Just there's so many beautiful bits, but the bit when his character goes into the bar and probably says it's a free bar, and the look he gives it's just somewhere between a double take. But it's not like like me. It's sort of that I've got a good girl on me. But it's like, that's when that's what I mean by a really great actor, where you go, God, it's so deft, like the look he gives so small and yet you know it and yeah, I kind of, yeah, I would say that's that. It

was the real slapstick moments. So here's the thing. You've been a wonderful guest, and I'm very grateful to you. However, you retired at sixty eight. Comedy World mourned for thirty years. You did nothing for the thirty to sixty eight. You made no stand up nine, You moved from Private Island. You were happy you didn't. You didn't miss it enough. Yep, I had Yep. My friends were there, had lots of You had two hundred people mixed in and out, flying in and out. They had their life. They bring this

guy's et cetera. Sometimes occasionally you'd leave the island for supplies, cross cutter, and he'd come back. Yes, yes, and then at ninety eight, your friends who kept coming back. You you were, you were sat around the lunch with him when he thought, I am fucking people. I am sick, sick to death for these people. It wasn't it wasn't even that. No, I just went it was like I was having lunch. I went, I'm going to kill myself.

It was so but you forgot to tell them. So you put, You took a load of pills, You finished your bottle of wine, and you walked into the lovely warm sea. You went for a little swim out in the sea, and then he slowly sank into the sea until your lungs filled with sea warm seawater, and then your lungs burst and exploded. I was not can about on a private island. Thank you for the inviters. I've had a lovely year. And walking around with a coffin,

you know what I'm like. And I say to your mates that I'll get to lunch, and I'm like, where's where's rustle? And they go, fuck it. I thought he was with you, And I go, no, no, I was having a nap. And they go, oh, I think he won't swim. I just a swim was it. Yeah, I think he just went, you know what his likes to swim. He didn't say anything, did he know? I said nothing? And then we see empty bottle of pills. We go how many pills are supposed to take? And then we're

looking to see can't see you anywhere. I work on a mask and snorkel. I swim out. I find you bloated a carcass at the bottom of the sea. You've been nibbled at by mermaids. They've taken chunks out of you. You've got a grin on your face. He went happy, Yeah, drag you to the to the to the beach. You're fucked. You're bloating to get knives, chop you up, put you in, get all the bits if you put you in the coffin. But there's more of you. I was expecting. What we

build a bloat and algae. You've eaten and seaweed. Anyway, you're in the coffin. It's rammed in there. There's only enough room that I could slide 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, and one night it's your movie night. What film are you taking to show the Northerners? Is that come out of a love flame in heaven? When it is your movie night, Russell Howard, Life is beautiful, Life is beautiful.

He is gonna make everyone cry. I Am going to make everyone cry because what's going to happen. They'll come out chlorine all over their bodies like the other exhausted Jesus Christ's gonna be up, down, up, down down them flumes. I'm absolutely sodden. I need a film. I need a film that's gonna not gonna be funny film Holocaust. There's absolutely not five minutes in. I take it all back, I take it all back. You see that? Oh god,

that is my god. Can you imagine watching like something like what kind of like an artsy film like that? Fucking else he's a bottle. She started a fucking bottle. Oh god, I don't know what it is. It's yeah, really really really enjoyed that, mate. That was fucking great. Thank you very very much. I've had a lovely time. Is there anything you would like to tell people to watch look out for listen to in the coming weeks

or months when this comes out? All right, Yeah, I've got a tour that is going on sale and you can find tickets to Russell Howard dot co dot uk and the TV show is on Skymax every Thursday at ten thirty. Brilliant Russell, You're a joy. Yeah, it was really good fun forward to seeing you on the dance floor and hearing all about the music. Be as you've said, I will stop the recording, have a lovely death. Thank you very much. Good day. So that was episode undred

and sixteen. Head over to patreon dot com forwards. Lest Brett Goldstein for the extra twenty minutes of chat, secrets and video with Russell. Go to Apple Podcast give us a five star rating. Right about the film that means the most to you and why it's a lovely thing to read. It helps numbers and it is really appreciated, so listen up. I hope you will understand. But I need to take another short break because I've got to concentrate on filming. So for the next few weeks, I'm

going to rerelease some all time classic episodes. I'll do a little intrade for him, but I don't really have time to record brand new ones for a few weeks, so give me a break. I hope that's all right. I hope you enjoyed the old classics. I'll put out ones you haven't heard in ages. Some you might have missed, the ones that I think are very very special. I mean they're all special, but the most special ones. You know what I mean, Not that you have favorites, but

I've got favorites, but you should now favorites. They're all my favorites for all my babies. I do hope you understand and you can manage without brand new ones for a few weeks. Thank you so much to Russell for giving me his time. Go see his shows on Netflix and What's Their Russell howard Our on Skymac. Thanks to Scrupious Piper and the distraction pieces of Network. Thanks to Buddy Peace for producing it. Thanks to Akas for hosting it. Thanks to Adam Richardson for the graphics at least align

them for the photography. Come and join me next week where I will be doing a classic rewind Epp and all time classic going way back in a day. You're going to love it. I hope you're all well. Thank you all for listening, and that is it for now. In the meantime, have a lovely week and please, now more than ever, be excellent to each other. He took Cliff at THET THET