James Corden: How to Know When the Time is Right to Let Go

Juni is infused with adaptogens that are amazing natural substances that act like superheroes for your body to help you adapt to stress and find balance in your busy life. Our superfive blend of these powerful ingredients include green tea, Ushwa, Ganda, acirolla cherry, and Lion's made mushroom and these may help boost your metabolism, give you a natural kick of caffeine, combat stress, pack your body with antioxidants, and stimulate brain function.

Even better, you has zero sugar and only five calories per can. We believe in nurturing and energizing your body while enjoying a truly delicious and refreshing drink. So visit drink Juni dot com today to elevate your wellness journey and use code on purpose to receive fifteen percent off your first order. That's drink j Uni dot com, and make sure you use the code on purpose.

into one of the rooms and you're with me. And so I've been such a huge fan from day one and watching you and admiring your journey, seeing you go crushing from the UK through to the US, and you know, I moved to the US a few years after you did, but just getting to see the impact you had there, the amazing, amazing content that you've created, I'm a big fan of, whether it's Spilly your Guts or Cardboard Carryoku, every single segment you guys produced, such a huge fan

and so to be able to sit with you and even a few moments we've just spent together off camera, I've already enjoyed your company, but I wanted to start off by just saying I'm a huge fan and thank you for doing this.

I think is. Of course, we're more aware of today than we were a decade ago and certainly a decade before that, and I think you're You're a real big part of that. I'm a real fan of the show and it's given me a lot over the years. So it's a real thrill to be here. And I hope I can be deep enough to fulfill the needs required you know, well.

And there was something I was observing about you, and I felt that what I saw in you was someone who had the ability to continuously disrupt themselves, take risks, and innovate when it seemed like there was a clear path. And I wonder whether what's the decision you've made right now is almost the same thing that you've said, I don't want the safe option. I'm willing to take the risk. Would you agree with that?

ratio as clean as you can. You know, in the sort of last sort of six months since finishing the show, and then the few months before that after when we announced that we were on the show, lots of people would say, you know, they would ask why you're doing this and why would you leave such a thing and such a contract and offer and all those things, which I completely understand. I've always been able to separate work and life and that the two one shouldn't outweigh the other.

Does that make sense that actually you have to go, well, I know that for my career, Ruth and I could have Ruth Jones, who I co wrote Gavin and Stacey with, which was a show that became successful in the UK. We could of course have carried on writing that show and making more episodes of that show. But I don't know that that was at the time feeding our life. You know, I wasn't feeding mine, it wasn't feeding Ruth's. It was like, we've done that, it's time to stop.

We have to do something else. And then, you know, I love being in plays. I love being in the theater. And when I was in One Man, Two Governors or The History Boys, there was a path where you could say, well, I could carry on doing this, and there were moments or opportunities to perhaps go and do another play after that, but it was like, well, I don't know that that's

going to feed my life. So I think the key from or what I'm trying to do is go, well, if my work is feeding my life and my family, then it's of benefit and if it isn't, then it won't be. And I think some people perhaps often just look at their career as being the primary thing in their life. Well, the work is the thing. I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do that. Then

I'm going to do this. Then I'm going to do that, and you have to go no, no, But but how is that feeding your life and your soul and who you are as a friend, son, brother, husband, father, you know? And that's the thing I think I've always thought about. So the decision to end the show had nothing to do with not enjoying it anymore. It had nothing to do with it not being fun. Financially, of course it was fantastic, But then it got to a point where it was like, is it feeding me and us as

a family. Is this environment what we want now I don't think it is. Okay, well then we're going to then we're just going to turn it over and shake it and see what it is the other side of that. The thing I keep coming back to all the time in my in my life a lot recently is just to constantly say, well, we don't know yet. We don't know. I don't know yet. I can't tell you if it was a good thing or a bad thing to stop

the show. I don't know. I will only know in a year or two years or maybe five years time, because you just don't know. You don't know at all. You know in the same time that you might accept a role over here, and when you get that job, people are going, oh my god, this is the greatest thing ever. And you say, well, we don't know. Me and my friend Louis wrote dear friend of mine, Louis who moved to America to come and write on the Late Late Show, you know, uprooted his family and moved.

Oh oh, he didn't have a family at the time, had two kids. In the eight and a half years we were there, we wrote a TV show together which got picked up at Hulu or I wasn't going to be in it. We just created this show. And then a few months later we wrote two scripts and they really love the first that we wrote the second script and they said, look, we're just we're not going to make this show happens all the time, and I was really bummed. And my friend Louis said the best thing.

He was like, look, if they'd have picked it up, it might have been the worst thing. It's whoever happened to it. We might have fallen out, we might have who knows what would have happened. It might have been a disaster. We just don't know.

the horse and he looks incredible. But then all of a sudden, he gets tipped off the horse and his son falls off and breaks his leg, and everyone's like, oh no, this is the worst thing ever, Like if only you didn't bring that horse in, And he says good thing, bad thing?

thing which really ruins stuff. Your expectation of what holiday might be, your expectation of what Christmas Day was going to be like. The is actually the problem the thing that happened on holiday, or the argument you had on Christmas Day. That's not really the issue. I didn't have an argument on Christmas Day. I'm just using it as example. That's the thing I think is your expectation of well, when I do this, my life will be like that.

And I think my life, I think I've thought that a lot of my life when I get my driver's license, my life will be like this. When I get a girlfriend, my life, when I get my when I move out of my parents' house, my life is going to be like this. And it's not it isn't it can't be. It's and what it is will be amazing. You're going to be alive, you know. And I think I just feel very accepting of everything now at the moment.

this is incredible. I would give anything.

very difficiure. I also think it's it's an incredibly you know, the anxiety of it, that the fear of it, I can only I don't know. I'm not I don't know, I can only imagine. And so I think because I think that what you realize is that the doing of the work and the climb of it is the thing that is the most satisfying, And how can there be such a thing as best? Yeah, how ever, you can be the fastest runner over one hundred meters. That's not up for debate, you saying Bolt, you are the fastest

runner over one hundred meters. You can't be the best films. That's impossible.

So we grew up in I was we were a family that we're in the Savage Army, which is a church, but that's also a charity. And like any church you're born into, you think that this is completely normal, you know, any church you're wanting to, and then like whether we you know, we would like put on a uniform and we would my dad would you know, occasionally march down the road in a brass band and we would do Christmas caroling and I would play the trumpet, and you

just thought, well, this is just completely life. And then you get to about fifteen and you're like, guys, this is really weird. But it was essentially a church and

that's what we'd go to. And a church, from what I can really work out now retrospectively, was perhaps full of the least Christian people I've ever met in my life, you know, like many churches, you know, and its core good infect it with people become something very very different and and So we're in high wickhambe in Buckham Shehar and my sister was three, No four, My sister Ruth was four and it was her christening, and we were on the platform, which was you know, tall, intensive purposes,

looked felt like a stage to me, and the savage army officer, the vicar, the priest I couldn't see because I was, you know, quite smart. He said, let's get James a chair, and I stood on this chair and I could just see there was maybe, I don't know, thirty people in the congregation, it looked like a thousand, and I just started like pulling these faces and turned around and looked back through my legs and people are chuckling,

and I was like, well, this feels fantastic. And then what I really remember is sitting back down in the congregation and I was sat between my mum and dad and person's back is in front of me, and I remember being like, well, this is boring. This is nearly as much fun as being up there. And I was seven at the time, and No I was four, and my sister was obviously a newborn, so I was four, and I remember just thinking, well, this is that's that's it.

Now life is a quest to be up there as much as possible.

asked me once because I was in that film. I was in that film Cats, right of the musical Cats and that you know, I haven't seen it, but like by all accounts, not good and didn't do very well. And someone said to me, oh God, do you regret that. I was like, no, I'll do it again. I had a great time. You have to separate sometimes your own experience and the outcome of a project, because you can do things that do really well, but at that time in your life it was a disaster.

am I? This is extraordinary? So I think I did this. I did a TV show which came out I think about maybe just two years ago now, maybe eighteen months ago, which was Amazon called Mammals, which I was really proud of, and I really, I really hoped that people would find that and they didn't. That's the only that's the only thing that I look at and I think, ah, because

it got reviewed. Well, it's written by I think the best living playwright at the moment, you know, or certainly young living playwright called Jez Butterworth, who wrote like Jerusalem and The Ferryman and Mojo, but then also wrote Skyfall and Specter and Indiana Jones. And it was me and Sally Hawkins and Melia Cralling. And that's that's the only

That's what I would say. That's the only thing that I go, Ah, I wonder what we could have done differently to make people find it, But then we don't know yet.

knew what you'd created. And I love that that resonated so strongly, honestly.

absolute win. It's an absolute win. And you just have to be so aware that those things are coming and those things are real, and all the stuff that we're talking about over here at work and all those things. It's it's not it isn't. It isn't those things that are just gonna just bang and you're and then you're talking about life before and after, before and after those moments.

Like I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, you know, and I'm forty five, and my friend said to me, and it's quite a dark thought, but actually it's good to He said, We've he said he's forty five also, and he said, we've we've turned the corner into sniper's alley. And I said, what do you mean. I didn't know what he meant. And he said to You're now in an alley and suddenly people are going to just and you're going to go, oh

my god. Like it's just that it's that that shift in life of like, oh, this is where like I'm very fortunate both my parents are still alive, so that's inevitable. That's definite, and then you're in this world of just absolute unknowns. So I think the older I get, just the less I sort of think about work in that way. I just don't. And maybe because I've had six months of real reflection, six months of not really doing anything, you know, started this podcast that I'm really really enjoying.

Outside of that, I'm writing some stuff. Some of it I hope people will see. Other stuff I'm certain they never will, you know what I mean? And you know, and some of it I hope they never will. That's a terrible idea, you know. And you just don't know. And so I just think less about work and I want to think more about my health and all those all those things. You know.

park that as a as a given. Yes, very clear In terms of my reflection, I mainly I just think like I'm so aware of time and the and the and the passage of time, and that this is this is it, and you have to go, Okay, well, now, how do you really really want to use your time?

Because I think when I was hosting the show, I think I probably knew this at the time, but I recognize it more now that I think I said yes a lot, perhaps to too much, because I I just loved I knew I wasn't going to host that show forever. I didn't want it to be the end of the book.

I didn't want it to be the last thing I did, so I didn't want it to be a shock when I finished the show and said I'm going to go back to act again now, because I was very aware that there was a lot of people watching that show who had no idea that I'd ever acted before. So I really just said, yes, I'll do it, I'll be there, I'll do it, and I think I understand my reasons

for it. But now I think mainly the thing I'm really thinking is forget what you can do, Forget what's possible, Forget what's in front of you, Forget what's offered to you or not offered to you. What do you actually want to do? What is worthy of your time? What is worth not taking your kids to school in the morning or picking them up at four o'clock, what other thing?

Because that's really the question you're asking yourself, you know, And like, I don't have like so much money that I don't have to ever work again, I really really don't. Whatever you might read on the internet, I cannot stress you untrue. And so you know, it's that thing of just going, well, what do you what do you want to do? Is there anything that you want to say? And if there isn't, then don't and then and it will come, It will will it will, it will come.

And you know, it's interesting this since moving back to London, and I feel in a different cultural space. I'm trying my absolute best to hit ten thousand steps a day. That's I'm really, really, really trying to do that. And so sometimes I'll just go and once the kids are asleep, I'll go and I'll be I'll look and I'm looking at eight thousand steps and I'm like, babe, she's gonna go. And and I'll literally walk up and down the road

and to come back in. And in that time of walking, I'm starting to feel the notion of like, oh, it's maybe that's is that an interesting idea, But don't leap on it. Yes, don't go, that's it. Let's go, let's book a flight, let's pitch it is to go. I let's let it. Let's see if it almost just to treat it like a plant, really, and we're going to water it for a minute, see if there's something there. And then and already now I'm like, well, thank god I didn't go and tell someone about that. Have you

ever read that thing about doing the thing? Yes, yes, I mean that's my I just I just look at that almost every day, doing the thing. Just do the thing, don't talk about doing the thing. Don't tweet about doing the thing, don't just do the thing. The doing the thing is the thing, and that's all I'm really trying to do.

to life and almost removing yourself away from that requires you to rethink your identity a little, like who are you today? Or how are you feeling about who you are when you're not performing when you've been so used to entertaining crowds for so long.

I think it's amazing. You know. But if you were an other way and climb you, you know, drive into a studio lot, you drive past a massive picture of your face. So that's that's the first thing you see when you get to work is a huge picture of your face and your name. You then park in an amazing parking spot with your name on it. You go in,

like I tee. The thing I miss most about the show, it was my like I miss seeing there's a great lady called Tea who was on the front desk and see Bess and I would just my interaction with her every day. I just grew to love it so much. Morning Tea, Morning James, how's it going? All good? And as I walk through the door, she'd say, have a good one, and I go, have a good one. And it would be a racter who could say, at first you get in a lift, you come out the lift

to be greeted by another picture of your face. Do you know it's like another picture of your face and your name. You turn a corner and then you start walking up corridor and there is just your name and faces everywhere, right everywhere. Then you get to say, well, what are we going to do tonight? Back up, and then you get to like shoot a sketch with Matt Damon or drive around in a car with Stevie Wonder.

Then you'll come back into work, get dressed. You work also in a gang of people who are the funniest people you've ever met in your life ever, and they only want to try and make you seem funnier and that's amazing. And you chat with them and you're hanging out with them, and then good day, bad day, in different day. Your day will end with a standing ovation right step out of a curtain and four hundred people

will go nuts. And you've got to remember. And the thing that I would just remember all the time is the other side of this camera is a sign that says applause, you know what I mean. There is people going it go you know what I mean. And the walk down from the from the office green room to the studio is an amazing change in your psyche because you're with all you're buying and very slowly. I remember the first show because really you're in a gang. You're in a team where you make a late night show.

It's just a gang. You're all making it together. And then at some point people tap you on the shoulder and go have a good one. And then you are surrounded by people. You walk it, microphone, make up, touch at the You enter a door and you hear, you know, the other side of this thing. You hear four hundred people screaming. You're going, okay, that's everybody on your feet. Let's go. This is how we do that. Another look

at the jar right everywhere. Here we go, let's get around, okay, and we got five four three, And you find yourself stood behind a curtain, completely on your own, and suddenly this team effort, you're just you are on your own, and the spotlight's behind you. So this this circle is on the curtain and the shadow of you. And I used to stand there and open my hands, take a breath. I would look and I would say to him, I always have this feeling that my granddad is getting a

real kick out of all this. So he is not with me in any spiritual sense. He's just in for the right of it, you know, like I know that he just you know, he's a jazz musician. He would be like, this is fun, Jose, you know, and I would open my eyes and I would look up and I would say, be with me, Just be with me, and be here now and for the next hour. Your only job is to enjoy yourself as much as you can. It doesn't matter what's happened all day, it doesn't matter

what happens on tomorrow show. You're only a job is to enjoy this right now. I and I did, and I you know, we did one one hundred and ninety eight shows, I think, and I just loved it. I loved it. So it's a lot to leave behind, it's a lot to walk away from. But I also think

this period of silence is so good for me. I'm getting as I'm getting as much or more from this period now, Like I you know, it's so odd that I used to do that every day that then even speaking to you now, I'm like, God, I haven't spoken to anybody in this sense.

wasn't going to be forever. I always knew I wanted to leave before it ebbed away. I just knew that I wanted to to to do it and then stop doing it and see if there's something else, and if there isn't, okay, great, who could wish for more? Do you know what I mean? I guess that's the thing is I look now and I think I don't want any more stuff or fame or all those things. Like what I'd really love to do is go. I wonder

if I've got one more thing to write. I wonder if there's one more thing to say, Like I wonder if there's just something else.

And I love your perspective because I think not only is it healthier for the mind and the ego, it's actually the reality of life that everything is ephemeral and transient and it will move anyway. Yeah, and so you wanting to hold onto something that isn't yours to control is almost a fool's game anyway.

my wrist so it can't disappear. Because that happened to me once before, and it you know what I mean, I'm gonna just you know, that's it. And then slowly that balloon will just wilt and it will run out of the thing that made it great and it will just then be. Then it's tied to your wrist and you're dragging it behind you, right, and actually there's something quite beautiful. And again, environmentally, I'm not encouraging this. We didn't we didn't know about this when we were kids.

When you let go of a balloon, it's magical, magical. And then you see it and you're like, oh my god, I used to have that. I used to hold on to that and look at it. Now, look it's just that's amazing. And then you go and now I haven't got a balloon. And then you go, well, maybe I'll get another one. Yeah, maybe there'll be another balloon, and maybe it'll be a different shape, or it'll be shinier or whatever. It is. Like, you've got to be able to let go of stuff to make new things come in.

You've got to have the space and the time to encounter something new. A friend of mine a year ago, maybe less, had his heart broken in the most brutal circumstances. It was his first love, first girlfriend, and they broke up and he was just not in a good way. And this was his first real proper serious girlfriend, certainly the first time he'd been in love before. I just found myself saying to him. I was like, this is great, This is great because you really only understand what love

is once your heart's been broken. You understand how tender it is. And I was like, and you understand it now, and what you're looking at this all wrong? You get to do it again. You get to do this again. You're going to meet someone else and feel all these feelings and perhaps you'll go into that relationship learning what you've learned from this relationship and that will then feed

that relationship in a different way. And he's just met someone, right, and he's like, oh my god, this is amazing saying and I'm like.

just a man, You're just a man. Wow, and that sort of practice. And so when you said that, that's what that's the first thing I thought of. When I didn't know you said the applause, I was like, wow, you know you're you're living that.

And phase three will be whatever this is. And I don't know. I I mean, look, I've fallen into all those pitfalls of thinking that you're more of a dude than you really are, thinking any of this is it's like fame and that was successful whatever, you know, level of that I kind of have in a way like it's on the whole a picnic, right, It's great, it's great, it's it's lovely. People come up, they talk about things and that all you things that they that they've liked

or enjoyed. And certainly being back here in London, you know, it's amazing hearing people talk about like Gavin and Stacey and stuff which obviously I would never hear in Americans. And I'm so proud of that show. And I think it's I've started to think of like, don't confuse the selfie, right, I don't think I think for me, I think it's different if you're like Brad Pitt, Harry Styles. Do you know what I mean adele like, I think that's a different,

that's that's a whole. That's an aura and an orb of fame, which I think is not what I'm talking about now, whereas I think on the whole, when people are asking for a selfie with me, it isn't really anything to do with me. I think it's just people go, well, this is going to be good on my story, right, I do no, I do no, I'm not That is

not any fogy. I genuinely believe that. I think people are going, well, he's there, he's only over there, this is gonna this is going to be great in amongst the other four photos of my day, right and so, and I love taking photo people. I don't say no. So I used to say no when I was with my kids or but but now they have a bit a bit better understanding of it, and I don't need to hold their hands all the time. Since that was my My wife was like, you cannot give your attention

to someone else when they're that night. So Charlotte master Road whatever, So Charlotte siks. So if I'm out with like you know, my two eldists, it's always a lot easier now, and it's people are people are really great in corner. But I don't ever, ever in my ever in my life, go I got all these people, they just want to photo. What can I say? I just go no, no, no, this is They didn't find me, They've been waiting for me. I just happened to be in the same Joe and the juices there, you know

what I mean. And it's like, as well, you.

everything good bad. You know, it's if you just can take it with the same bag of soult and distance yourself from it, you can just sort of go well that's over there, that's happening over there, and but I'm but what's really I'm here, and here are my friends and my fan and all those things, and just and also just being so aware of like how lucky you are, how lucky you are, and if you lose sense of that.

And I understand when people do, by the way, and I have, you know, other points in my career, in my life, and I don't. I'm not walking around like this every day. I have all those same things, right, So this it's not like I'm sort of floating around like I'm really really not. And a lot of this really is predicated on just how much sleep I get.

someone I'm not someone who sacrificed to sleep. I enjoy sleep, sleep, and I haven't been able to I haven't really been able to sleep because of this one supplement.

And like, dude, I don't want to be awake right now, you know, And it's only like in in Alan Debotton's new book, Please, which I just bought for you as a gift. I think it's called a Therapeutic Journey. A therapeutic Journey which I bought for you, is that I don't know if you want to plug other people's books. No, please, No, I'm not as good as How to Live Like a.

And then at some point we just decide, well, I don't need to do that. That's only for a baby. I can sit with my phone at midnight just looking a stream of thirty second videos to then character to not sleep and imagine that I'm going to be okay tomorrow. And I find that that sleep is just like this gift, and that the better sleep I have that with out question, in every facet of my in every facet of my life, I'm better. Yeah, Like I'm really thinking about you don't drink?

to just stop doing that. Like with no great declaration. You know, you know, I am saying, I just am really really going to try not to do that. Because my friend, a good friend of mine, my friend jezz I, spoke to him about it, and I was like, how did you just manage to just did you just stop doing this? And he said something to me, and I think you'll really like this, he said. He said, I started asking myself, and I do think this changes post

probably like thirty seven thirty eight. It starts to change in your body. And he said, I started to ask myself, how how much of tomorrow do I want to borrow? All I'm doing now by drinking is borrowing from tomorrow.

hours do you want to borrow? And sometimes you borrow a day and then the only way you think you can rescue that day is to go, let's have another one, you know, And I thought that was a really amazing way of looking at it. And so my intention is to really try and and not do that. I just want to try, try and just be healthier. I don't even sort of think about weight loss anymore. I've done that so many times in my life, just made so

many like decisions just right, this is it. I'm not going to go and what wy don't you change that acts that isn't working. Why don't you just only try and do what is healthy and see how that impacts your frame?

be hyper intentional in January. Yeah, and trying to go from one extreme to the other, and none of us can hack that it doesn't work well.

like three sets of suits. Lauren Shapiro, who was our wardrobe designer on the show Who I Am Now saying, as I said it out loud, I would have hated hearing her name on your podcast, and my time with her I used to just love so much because, like I said, so much of the day would be a lot of people, and then it would just be me and her choosing suits and choosing what I'm going to wear, and we'd chat about the day, and you know, we've had moments where we cracking up laughing with other days

where one of us is really down, and it would just be this little precious moment in this very small walk in closet that was off my office where all the suits were, and my time with those are the things I really miss. That's the stuff I really really miss. And she very very subtly, and we never talked about it. We never ever talked about it, but I knew what she did, and I was grateful. Was she basically started organized in my suits into like really fat, fat and

always looking good. You could see and she would just you know, but she would just very very in the in the just and I would go. And then we just became a thing where I'd be like, I think we're you know, particularly if we came off a hiatus or a go away and I think we're going to be and she'd like, and we'd never really speak about my friend. My friend said, my friend Simon said, you need to stop going on a diet. So what do you mean? Said You've got to stop. You've got to

stop going on a diet. He said, because going on a diet is like going on a holiday. You are going to return, You're going to come back. Wow, he said. If you go on a diet, what you're saying is this is short term. He said, you need to just go this is how I live now, and this is it. That's not going. I don't eat any bread. You know, in moderation, it be probably good for you to eat certain types of bread, but that's it, and you're going to don't just stop this thing of being like, oh, guys,

I'm not I'm on a diet. Ye, And he was like, and stop broadcasting saying it, Just stop saying it. Just go this is what I'm going to do, and to try and exercise like this. I'm going to try and walk like I'm trying to do and just be like no, no, I'm gonna I'm going to eat this, And don't don't be like, well I want to be down twenty pounds in thirty five days, Like because you've done that and you know how that plays out. Don't go on something that's changed. Something that's good.

almost harder to have those vulnerable relationships. But you seem to be having a lot of open, vulnerable, healthy conversations with men in your life.

bravest thing you can do. It is it is a tremendous act of bravery to say I'm not doing too great at than And as soon as those words leave your mouth, I reckon twenty percent of those things have gone.

And I'm very I'm very, very fortunate. I just have a lot of I love a lot of friends that I've known for a very long time, and I and I love them, and I tell them I love them and I I and I enjoy the company of people so much, you know, I just you know, it's interesting you talk about who would call it like my friend Louis that I was just telling you about who we wrote that script together. Louis had a previous life where he used to he would go out sometimes for three days.

I don't think he'd mind me saying this. He'd go out for days on end. And I always always. And then I said to Jules when we met, I said, just so you know, I've got this friend Louis, and he goes out for a long time, like you know what London was like in those times, in these very streets. Yes, And I said, if he calls me, I always, but I have to pick up, always pick up, because I always used to think he might be in trouble. This resulted in some of the funniest things I've ever heard.

Him calling me at two, three, four, five in the morning resulted in some of the funniest things I've ever heard. And so that's why I say to anybody who doesn't pick up the phone to a friend in the night. It might not always be bad. It might be said. He called me once, I think it's okay to tell you this. He called me once and I was half three in the morning, same man, okay, and he went, I'm and he's drunk, and heone, I'm going to tell you something now. And it's a fact. I went, what

he went, it's a fact. I went, sorry, you went. What I am about to tell you is a fact. It is a fact of life, and I would like to share it with you. Okay, this quarter four And he's like, it is a fact, James that I have never and will never see the Jersey Boys goodbye and hung up. And so yeah, I don't know. I don't think for a friendship is I think it's something. It's sort of everything, isn't. He like it's it's I cherish

it so much. I also think, you know, with kids, it's really important for them to see you with friends, Yes, to not separate those things, to be to involve your friends with your children and your children with your friends. Because I'm really aware that, Like my son's twelve, and like he's right now, like we just get on great, We get on so well, So we get on so well's I love It's beautiful, and I'm so aware that that is about to change, because that is just nature.

You know. I took about a year ago, before we moved before we move back, I took my son. I can't even remember what happened. He was kind of strappy and you know, stomped upstairs. He's really not that kind of boy, but he did. And I went upstairs and I sat in his room and I just went to him. I said, can I ask you some questions? And he was quite taken aback because because he thought I was going to go what was that about? And can I ask you some questions? And he went yeah. I said,

do you think I love you? And he went yeah. I said, do you think I would ever do anything to intentionally hurt or upset you? He said no. I said, and do you think in the eleven years that you've been on Earth, do you think I've changed dramatically? He went no. I went, well done, he scored one hundred percent. They are all the right answers, I said, And I'm telling you this because over the next few years, there are going to be points you are going to think

I don't love you. You are going to think I am intentionally trying to hurt or upset you, and you're going to think that I've changed. And I need you to remember this, that I haven't changed. We haven't changed. You've changed, and you need to and you have to, and you are going to go through immeasurable changes in your life and body and all we are trying to do me, your mum, your sisters, and it's going to

happen to them too. Are just trying to help you navigate these bumps that are going to come your way and these changes both mental and physical that are happening for you. But I need you to know that I haven't changed. I'm never trying to intentionally hurt or upset you. And I love you. I love you more than you'll

ever know. And he went, I think we should have some sort of code word so I remember this, And so we came up with some silly code word that I would just say to him, like do you remember, and he'd like and he'd be like, oh, yeah, you haven't changed. I was like, my hair hasn't changed, dude.

I got the same hairstyle that I had when I was eighteen years old, you know, and that was and I refeel that with friendship that they I'm so painfully, painfully aware that there's going to come a point where the influences that aren't me are going to become bigger on my children for a moment. And so if I can make sure that those other people that they look to are people who are aligned with how I feel, then it's going to be great, you know.

show and I remember you were. You were so wonderful, even if between the show where you're in between segments like it's not live, and you would come and chat to the audience. You'd shake people's hands, and then I remember you'd go and call your kids and you'd literally sit at the desk before in between and just like get that because and you tell us you'd be like, guys, I'm just gonna call my family because I'm gonna say

good night to my kids. And it was such a like it was so amazing to see someone who's in the middle of everything you described so phenomenally earlier. But then be like, I just want to say good night to my kids because it's that late, right, however late it was at that time. I think kids were going back to bed at seven or seven or whatever may have been, and I remember you facetiming them and then we got to wave it, and I just remember how

special that was. And I just think, you know, I've heard you say before that you know, for so many years your your family was marching to the beat of your drum like they were. They were therefore, they were just holding it together for you so that you could build and create. And I just think about moments like that that you were having with.

I could live anywhere, because we're very fortunate that you're here now in London. You're going to go back, You're going to go to India, you're gonna go to New York, You're to LA Like, what a privilege. I'm so aware that that hasn't been my wife's life for the last twelve years, thirteen fourteen years, you know, And so really our our decision to move back was like I was

going to stop the show regardless. You know, there was a there was a moment where I was going to stop it a bit earlier, and then it was done so beautifully. My leaving of the show, like me and my boss George just sat in my office and literally talked it out like this, no agents, no lawyers, no nothing, Like I said, I'd like to leave it this date. He said, is it any way I can get you

to stay to this day? It's like I can't stay to that date because we've got to resettle, the kids have got like they have to start school in September, you know. And then at one point it was going to be May, and then there was like I think there's golf and masters and all this, and we literally just were like, okay, we'll end it then and that will give us the right gap. And all of that came from me just saying to Jeles like, I'll live

anywhere where, where, Where do you want to be? Where do you think it's best for us to be, because I know she would never make a decision that isn't best for the kids, forget me, and she was just like, I think it's time to go home. I was like, Okay, that's it, and I'm so I'm so grateful that we that we did. Just in my family before Christmas, we had a My mum sings in a choir. It's not a church choir, it's just a choir with some of her friends and we all went out to high Wickham

to watch her sing in this choir. I sat in this room in a in john Hamden sports hall or there, you know theater, just a a school hall that we were in. I cried my eyes out. I cried. I couldn't stop crying because I'm my mum. I was in this choir with like forty other people singing Christmas songs, and it was so pure. It was so pure, it was so the antithesis of what our life of being in Los Angeles. And my mum was in the corner of this glad, you know, and I just she couldn't

stop smiling. And I just thought, Oh my god, this purity that's here. These are a group of women and men in there. I guess they range between thirty to sixty people, and I just was like, this is everything. I don't want to be anywhere else. This is I only want to be here. And it was so weird. It's so weird the effect it has on me even now saying I can't understan and it. I can't tell you why. I think it just felt in that minute like, Oh, this is the sacrip, this is why we made what

you would perceive to be a great sacrifice. Yes, this is the reason something here that I would never see, I would never come back for, I would never be part of. And then my dad joined them with a few numbers playing the saxophone and I just I just was like, oh my god, this is worth everything. This is this is this is everything I need to feed me and my kids watching their grandma sing this song, I was like, how lucky are we to appreciate and

have this experience? Yeah, to have come back and everyone be healthy? You know?

very much. We really really try to talk in the day right to not make it the last thing we do, even if you are going to bed with like and it's more her than me, and she's like, well, I'm going to talk to you about that tomorrow, you know what I mean. But it's so much better than going to bed, going to sleep. Just don't go to sleep on an argument. That's the first thing. And I think I learned quite probably halfway through our marriage that that actually, if all you're doing and this is this is an

almost impossible thing to do. But if you're but if you're at least trying to, you're pretty much there is if you're going well, if if all you're trying to do is meet your partner's needs, then all yours in turn will be met. They just will like how many times do we hear it's funny we had a friend of ours or a friend of my wife's. They're friends of ours. You know, if we ever broke up, she'd get her. Now you've got me thinking about friend, Oh, divide it up a fun game and going to take

what's quite a fun game. And she was saying, this is a few years ago now, She was like, he just never does anything for me. I never. He never surprises me and takes me out for dinner. He never says ah like, oh I'm good, you know, buy the theater ticket. He never says, oh, Friday night, me and you, let's do this. And I just went, well, when do you do it? How often do you do that? She went, what I don't. And I was like, right, well, you have to see that that might be a that that

might be a thing. For all we know. He sat somewhere now going she never takes me out? She never, because let's go the cinema. And she was like, and that's it in its most base level. I think that's probably the thing I've learned the most.

and I'd always appreciate those when they came out. I know, you guys have a real romance, but seeing it on screen was always a real treat. Whether you're doing the Calvin kleinads together or whether you know or doing each other's nails or whatever it was, it was. It was so funny. And you went to the premiere recently of his documentary, which I thought was just, yeah, brilliant, phenomenal. I read Bex's biography when autobiography when I was like

fifteen or something, and it was life changing. I loved it, and getting to what's the doc was obviously reliving it again.

Syracuse University is brilliant as you can imagine. It's just so brilliantly written and he delivers it. It's exceptional. It's my favorite thing to watch on YouTube is people's commencement addresses, and his is particularly good. And I would urge anybody to go and to go and look at it. I use it, I quote it. It's fed into me, you know.

And he says a brilliant line and it really came to the forefront of my mind watching the Beckham documentary where he says, the world doesn't care how many times you get knocked down, so long as it's one less than the amount of times you get back up again. And that's what I think the Beckham Dock is. It is a story of a man who just doesn't stop. He just gets back up and he carries on. And that's what it's about. You could say it's about the

first sportsman to become a global brand and icon. You could talk about it's the first family to have become, perhaps in Britain outside of the Royal family, a family of intrigue and interest. You could say it's a story about fame and sport. It's not. I think it's a story of someone who just kept going through adversity, through challenges, just got up and carried on. And that's why I think it's resonated so much with people, because it's interesting.

I don't know if you found this, but like it's interesting being British and watching it. Yes, yes, then because because people in America are.

something different because they give you moments. They give you moments in the and really what I put those moments down to is they made you feel less alone. That's actually what it is. It's why our relationship with singers

and art and recording artists is so personal. Because I was in this play called The History Boys and it's written by Alan Bennett, and there was a speech that Richard Griffiths used to deliver every night, and he'd say the best moments in poetry are when you think a thought or a feeling is particular to you, and then suddenly someone who is long dead you will never meet. Now, someone who you will never meet, perhaps even long dead,

has written down the very thing you're feeling. And it's like a hand has reached out and taken yours and it says to you, you're not on your own. You're not on your own. That's a great bit in a John Lennon documentary where there's a guy saying to you on Lennon, that song you wrote, but you know that that was about me. It's about me, thats how I am. And John Lennon's going, they're just songs. They're just songs. It isn't that And he's going, nobody is you wrote

that about me? Because you can't know how I felt, And so I think you don't. Suddenly you feel very alone.

You hear something and you realize you're not. And then I think sport when David Beckham curlled that free kick in the top corner, which when we qualified for the World Cup, it did not matter Tory, conservative, Republican, Democrat, left right, all the stuff the divisions everything suddenly yeah, and you're hugging people you don't know, you've never met, and you're you're brought together and you're not alone anymore.

And that's where I think sport and music is such a powerful thing in our lives, which you don't feel when you watch a film. You can watch a film or a TV show and go, oh, yeah, that's good. That was amazing. Even if it moved you hugely, that connection isn't the same.

I never thought it would work as well as it did. Yeah, and credit I have to say to the to the actors in that sketch, I mean just just brilliant.

come from? Where do you seek it? When you've let go of something without knowing what's next.

I spent a long time squeezing so many things in that Actually now I just sort of think, well, don't force an idea to be whatever it is that you might you know, write or do or But then at the same time, I think what I have to really be conscious of now is to not be too afraid, to not be too scared to do anything, because I think I've been so enjoying this feeling of not being on TV every day and putting out content on whether it's you you, you know, social but I'm so aware of

how much was just being pushed out all the time, and that can come with so much stuff. Totally, it's good to sit and work, but then don't be scared to do it. Don't be scared of the failure of it. I've only took a screen grab. I think it's the guy who's the new CEO of Van's Shoes. I think we used to work at Logitech and it says here, I've just got the screen grab which ran for a decade, which he ran for a decade, and he penned a doctor Seuse like poem titled the Secret of success, Oh sorry,

the Secret to success. Avoid it. It reads in part, success makes you fearful of losing your place of gambling with stature of losing your face, and it is there is an element of that I feel of like, well, there's a very very very real answer that you do something and it's shit, you.

Room one o one. Of course, so Room one oh one was a show where people would take things they hated in life and they would be they would put them into Room one o one and they'd be gone forever. It was a really funny show. It was a brilliant show and premise and I was like sixteen. I was like, well, this is great. Wouldn't it be brilliant to make a show which is just people talking about things that they love and things that are really significant in their life?

And I wrote this like thing this planet Lovely, it's not called Planet Lovely anymore. The decision that that's it and not great, But I was like, why don't we just have people talk about things that are significant in their life, whether it's a film, a place, a person, a memory, a possession, a song, and the you know, I really really wanted to do it. So I was like, can I create something in a completely different medium that feels almost the antithesis of what the Lately show was?

It's it's completely different. It's calm, and it's quiet and it's soft, and it's people talking about things that they love or that were moments in their life. And like, some of the stuff that we've heard has just been great. So I've really loved creativity. I'd love the creativity of just I don't you know, like we're going to put this on serious exam and hopefully people find it and

hopefully it will be just a piece of joy. It'll be a warm hug on a Sunday afternoon, and that would be a lovely thing to put out into the world. But that's a sort of gestation period of thirty years. I don't think I should do that again. But I do think what I'd really love to do is try and write one more thing. I'd love to try and write one more thing. I'd love to write again with Ruth Jones, who I wrote Gavin and Stacey with. I love her so much. She is and has been a

constant in my life as a friend. And you want to talk about a long friendship, you know, And so I'd love to try and write something else with her. I don't know what that'll be. I don't even know if we'll ever before do it. I don't know, but you know, we we do. We do have chats about maybe this is the thing, you know, so that that's

what I'd really love to do. It's just if you listened to Bradley Cooper talk about making my well, he really just made a decision to give himself over entirely for three years to that project, to just go, well, what does it feel like actually to not move from one thing to the next, to be to hear they're

doing this doing and what is it? What does it feel like to just give myself over in every way to the point where I imagine a lot of people around him on that set were earning more financially, but like as a as a as a challenge to give himself over to it in the most beautiful way. I think is it's so inspiring to watch. And I don't know if I've ever done that. I don't. I know

I haven't done that. I never liked that on that level, But like, I don't think I've ever completely just given myself over to something and seen it through from inception to pushing it on the water and letting other people decide whether it's good or not and seeing who I am the other side of it. Like that's I think that would be a really good thing to do. Like

I might go to I might go this. I just found this like seven weekend course at the Film School in Becconsfield or seven, I don't know how many days. I can't That might be wrong, but I like I think, oh maybe I'll maybe I'll do that. I wouldn't mind doing some acting classes. I didn't I just wouldn't mind just going, well, can I I wonder if there's one more thing, And if there isn't, how lucky was I? You know? But I really feel like I might be getting to a spot where I might have something to say.

vast that is. So like when I look at when I look at your staff and I see the things that you're putting out, and like, I think, I walk past like a huge billboard of view the other week and I was like, and I don't know, we've never met, but we have friends in common. And I was like, yeah. I was like, gone, boy, yeah.

You just go, I'm sorry, what was that someone say something? Think about it? Oh, that's none of my concern and carry on.

Ask whether you want to do it? Do you really want to do it? And then do it.

to think that. I just think that actually, we regulate the speed on the road, we regulate what age you are when you can vote, what age you are, when you can get married, have a child, do a degree, drink alcohol, all these things. And actually, I think one regulation would be that you know, you could expect if you need to spend seven hours on it. The second is dormant for a minute. You're locked out for seven hours. And I think people would be I think it would

be great. I think it would be brilliant.

accept it. And I'm sure someone somewhere will find a hack that means you can't, but on the whole people would just go along with it, and they'd like, I can't open it. I'll open it in a minute, and then they would stop and look up and realize that actually, maybe maybe out here can nourish me more than it does in there. It's very hard to leave in there when it's always there.