April 3, 2024 • 55 mins
LOOK OUT! It’s only Films To Be Buried With! A REWIND CLASSIC!
Join your host Brett Goldstein as he talks life, death, love and the universe with the excellent actor and musician BEN BARNES!
Below will be the original writeup for this episode which originally aired on 21st October 2021. A delicious episode with a ton of insider goodies and tidbits for those who know Ben, but for those perhaps still unaware, it's a really solid one that has everything you want, need, and deserve from a classic Films To Be Buried With!
It's me on the intro/outro (your producer Buddy Peace), so don't be alarmed. I mean you no shock or surprise.
Video and extra audio available on Brett's Patreon!
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
A fantastic chat with Ben and Brett, ranging from fun and funny to honest and heartfelt, with all the rich, cinematic goodness you could wish for. Ben has been in a TON of films and programs in his career which you can dig through in the links below, and he goes through a lot in this episode including good pal Will Poulter, Shadow & Bone, Westworld, Narnia, Los Angeles vs London, swag, on set scare tactics and his own music, but SO much more. You'll love it - whether you know Ben or not, this one will bring you pure joy.
SUPERBOB (Brett's 2015 feature film)
DISTRACTION PIECES NETWORK • FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
It reworn h.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
My name is Buddy Peace. I'm a producer and editor,
a d J, a music maker of hieroglyphic and for
intro and outro purposes. I'm temporarily standing in for your
regular host and proud creator of this particular podcast, mister
Brett Goldstein. As Tom Waits once said, I stay a
little outside the glass. I think I'd like to take
a crack at a wider audience. But with that comes responsibility.
(01:18):
If you're too big, you get self conscious. If you're
too obscure, you feel nervous. So it's hard, I tell you.
It's also hard finding Godzilla minus one on any streaming service. Now,
that is hard. Trust me, Tom, I've tried too. I
think we just have to be patient with this one.
Every week Brett invites a guest on. He tells them
they've died, and then talks to them about their life
through the medium of film. But this week we are
(01:40):
revisiting an earlier episode of the podcast while we take
a little break. Yes, indeed, it is that time once
more for films to be buried with rewind Classic. This
rewind is from October the twenty first, twenty twenty one.
Originally episode one six ' nine featuring actor and musician
Ben Barnes. It's a great featuring someone you might not
(02:01):
have necessarily heard doing the podcast. Rounds a huge a
man over the years, but Ben is a pure delight
when it comes to talking to Brett about films, acting,
and the whole life and death thing. There are a
ton of behind the scenes nuggets and goodies and some
interesting insight on some of the films he's been in,
which is always a treat to hear. You'll definitely enjoy
this one. Let me take this opportunity to also remind
(02:22):
you that Brett has a Patreon page for the podcast,
upon which you get a bonus section on every episode
with a secret from each guest, more questions, and a
video of each episode which looks very nice and very fresh.
There are a selection of tears on there too, and
on the uppermost tiers I make you a cinematic soundtrack
mixtape each month with full track list that I reckon
(02:43):
you'll enjoy very much. So if you're of a supporting
nature and feel like some extras from this show, you'll
find them all there. So that is it for now.
Let's get you settled in now for a really fun
look back, a really sweet episode with the excellent Ben Barnes.
Catch you at the end for a quick sign. But
for now, please enjoy episode one six nine via episode
(03:04):
two nine three of Films to be Buried With.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Hello, and welcome to Films to be Buried With. It
is I Brett Goldstein, and I am joined today by
an actor. He's a West Wilder. He's a shadow and Boner.
He's the principal of Narnia. I think he is a
man from Sutton and he now lives in la He's
(03:38):
a hero to many, a legend to most, and also
he's fit. Please welcome to the show, the brilliant mister
Ben Barnes.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
You said bono within thirty seconds of this.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
That's the quickest I've got to it.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Yeah, you've done. It's over. I did ever thought that.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
You know, groups of fans of shows often have names,
and I toy did the idea of calling them my
shadow and Boners. But then I've resisted the urge to
even say that until this moment. That's the first time
I've said it, because you did it.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
It starts here, the shadow of Boners.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
You that was a very nice thing.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You've got to be the shadow of Boners. I've be
loud and proud of that.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
You're going to get the credit for that now.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I'll take it on the Twitter. I'll take it.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You deserve it, no regrets, you deserve it. Thank you man.
It's lovely to have you. This is the first time
we've ever met. Yeah, so far, it's going great, it's
going very I appreciate you doing this now. I I've
been aware of you for sometime. Ben Bon's you worked
with friends of the podcast, Will Porter in Prince Caspian.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Yeah, and one of my best one of my best pals.
He just took me out actually for a really lovely
ctieth birthday dinner. Mine not here, hasten to. He's about
fifteen still, but it was. He's a low, lovely, lovely, lovely,
lovely man.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
It's a lovely man. But then you know what I
was what I mean. Look, I've seen you a lot
of stuff. You're a very good actor. But you do
something that I really really like. And you did it
in Westworld, which is I think it's very brave. You
play like a bad type, a bit of a bad
type in Westworld, and I think you do it. You're
(05:22):
very sort of charming in it, but you also don't
at all shy away from the like really unpleasant, sort
of sleazy, sort of unattractive parts of that character. And
I always think that that's really I don't think a
lot of actors do it. I think it's really cool
and really brave because you're not protecting yourself as a
You're not sort of like there are people who play
(05:43):
bad guys, but they play them like yeah, but you
love them because they're so charismatic and fun and cool,
like you allowing the parts that are like no, he's
genuinely unpleasant as well, you know what I mean. And
I think that's pretty brave. I like it.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Thank you, that's really nice.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
I've sort of found myself this we odd little niche
in the last sort of five or six years of
playing these people who are slightly reprehensible or either that
they're psychotic or evil or villainous or just or just
a guilty of general douche baggery.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
But I've also I'm fully aware.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
Of how incapable I am of making character particularly kind
of like cool or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
But I will I.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Do whilst whilst I'm not afraid of the like grim,
gross parts of it. I am quite protective of the
humanity of them because I'm quite a sort of quite
a soft, hopeful, desperate to be happy kind of person.
And so I think that that gets a little bit
infused into all of those characters. And like you described
(06:42):
it on Westward, when they asked me to come back
for the second season, and it was it felt like
such a privilege to be asked to sort of scratch
away at the character a bit and look at his
I know it sounds a bit I was raised by
a psychiatrist and psychotherapists, but a little bit scratch away
his relationship with his with his dad. You see relationship
with his dad, and you peel away the onion a
bit and you see why he's so fucked up and
(07:05):
why he's behaving like such a knob all the time
to everyone, and because there are always reasons, always, and
those things really interest me.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I love that does. Look, that's exactly what we're always
trying to do on ted Lasso is that thing of
and it's when you're a bad guy. Almost never thinks
they're a bad guy. Yeah, So yeah, and you play
all that. I just think it's great. But I also
I think I'm trying to think of example I don't
want to name in shame, but I can. I can
think of people who play bad guys, and you're almost
(07:34):
like you're not a bad guy, You're just fucking great,
Like you're justining, and like it's you're you're not allowing
that character to be ugly, I suppose, whereas I think
you do that as well as all the charm and
the everything. Anyway, that's my open fan mail to you,
to your face, that is from my section fan mail
(07:54):
to not do that.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
You You are playing something which is entirely lovable from
start to finish, even though that's not what it's supposed
to be on the page, and you can't help it.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
You can't help it at all.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
And now and now suddenly everyone in the world who
wants to hug you like Teddy Bear, and this makes
you uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So moving on, Ben Burns, you live in LA You've
lived here ten years I believe.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
And yeah, coming up on that, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And do you feel at home here? Is it still wild?
How much of this? Because you how old were you
when you did Prince Caspian?
Speaker 4 (08:30):
I was about twenty five.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
And that was like the biggest thing that happened, I.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Thought, And that was like quite a long time ago.
See your face.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
No, no, no, I mean that's yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
You're doing massive. Yeah, quite right. I will never I
will never tell. Yeah, I'm very comfortable here.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
I do miss my friends and family and you know,
just in London, I missed that a lot, but also
very lucky to have the kind of lifestyle and job
which takes me on adventures and takes me you know,
keeps me interesting and and you know, I think at
least half of the time I'm not sort of at home.
So I think that that's a particular kind of lifestyle
(09:10):
which I never imagined for myself and would certainly not
curate if I did anything else for a living on purpose.
But I do love that it is part of my life.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Can I ask you this and again, if you don't
want to, we can cut it. Before we started recording
this podcast, you tell me something that was very interesting
to me, you said, I said, is there anything you're
worried about talking about? And you said something like, I
used to worry so much about that stuff, and now
I'm very happy to talk about myself. And I wondered
what had happened to lead you to that?
Speaker 5 (09:40):
If I may so, I think it was a combination
of things, but it was I think, very very early on,
I had some quite aggressive interactions with press, you know,
doing sort of basically nothing, you know, a few plays
and bits and pieces, and then doing the Narnia films,
and suddenly people are interested in you and your life.
(10:00):
I remember having this conversation when I was about twenty five,
and the journalist sort of said to me, you have
to answer these kinds of questions if you want to
do this for a living, and I, at twenty five,
full of vim, said no, I don't. I can keep
anything I want to for myself. And I still fervently
believe that in that sort of freedom of choice, but
(10:21):
it sort of it tightened me and closed me off
a bit to feel a bit defensive. I think when
talk about stuff, and I've done so many years of
you know, just sort of just by virtue of the
way film and TV interviews work, I think as well,
like you're being asked about characters and things that you
didn't necessarily write. But I think what happened was the
pandemic sort of kicked in, and we all spent a
(10:41):
year in a bit sitting around wondering what kind of
people we want to be and where we fit in
if we're not allowed to do the things we do
on a regular basis and don't have the things that
we have to look forward to regularly to keep us
on the wheel and facing forwards, and who do we
care about and what do we care about?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
And I wrote a lot.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Of music in that time, and it was something I'd
wanted to do for about twenty years. I'd started to
do it about twenty something years ago and it had
fallen apart, and I've done it as part of my
career all the way through. I've always kind of done that,
but always in someone else's voice. I think I've always
even when I was a kid at school, I did
some arts or tribute concerts and Stevie Wonders Soul Nights
and things like that.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
I would love it so much.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
And then in my films, I've played street buskers, Americana folks,
street buskers, and I played a crap rock star in
a comedy, singing sort of like new Romantic stadium rock crap,
but it was never me, And I think that it
took just the clock tick down on having to make
something of my own that was sort of me.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
I haven't played.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
It's sort of obvious to sort of think, well, if
you spend twenty years playing to be other people, at
some point you're going to want to do something that's yours.
But I hadn't really thought about it until the pandemic,
and then I wrote a sort of collection of songs
which shown I've just released, and it's sort of it
sort of freed up the style of interview the way
I've been talking about it. People asking me about me,
not about you know, sort of sordid details of your
(12:05):
life or anything, but just interested in me and what
it takes to make something from myself. That and that
really like freed me up to be the most to
feel sort of the most me I could feel, which
I think a lot of us felt a bit, particularly
during the pandemic, felt a bit floaty and disconnected and
all of that.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
I think most of the.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
People that I know felt a little bit disassociated for
a lot of it, And so I think I'm just
sort of trying to relish feeling like me again a bit.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
That is really interesting, and I've just remembered something, which
makes this sort of big revelation you've had and this
feeling of freedom sort of a shame because I forgot
that I should have told you. I should have told
you before.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
I've listened to what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
You've died. You've died, so listen. Good that you had
that feeling of freedom, very very briefly.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
In this moment, in this very dead I am dead.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Well, I've just discussed well, like I said, I actually
found out a while back, and I forgot to tell
you. You are deaf in a way, the grim how did
you die?
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Well?
Speaker 5 (13:21):
It being the case that I've listened to your podcast before,
and I know that in about an hour's time, you're
going to make it try and sound as grim and
disgusting and foul as possible.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
I'm going to challenge you.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's not my vibe.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
I'm going to challenge you by saying the truth, which
is that I hope that I died very peacefully, comfortably
and old, surrounded by loved ones, squeezing my hand gently.
Or do I know you're going to say, I have
to have died in this minute now?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
No, no, no, you you you can die like this
this is taking place in this sort of timeless zone,
so you can be as old as you are.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
I would like to be one hundred because when I
was a kid, I thought that's.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
How you live. Yeah, you get a letter from the
queen and then and then loved ones around your bed
and one of them squeezes your hand to death.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
One of them squeezes my hand to death.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
Yeah, it's they love me so very much that they
crush my fingers, which causes.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
I'm not getting called into this, lured into.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Your quite I mean quite a horrific death, really squeeze.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
And loving, and I barely noticed it, to be honest,
I slipped off into the into the never after, is
what I did.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Do you worry about death, benburs.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I used to worry about death a lot. I was
definitely that kid who actually probably didn't didn't want to
talk about it very much because it was it just
feels a bit overwhelming, and I think it still does,
even though I think through your life you obviously can't
but have more experience with it and be exposed to
it more, and the reality of it you'll face with
(15:08):
the reality of it that that perspective is brought much
closer to your to your face. But I still put
it in the category of infinity and time and all
those kinds of things that I will never have a
handle on, and so it doesn't really serve me to
think about it too much. But yeah, I think I
probably fearful I think of death. I'm a very I
(15:31):
think hope is probably one of my defining characteristics in
the one is the one thing you can't be hopeful.
I can't find I don't seem to be able to
find hoping. But I will say that there are things
that along the way that have made me feel so
much more alive that it sort of becomes And I
know people have said this to you before, but it
all becomes so much more pressure, it will becomes so
much more precious for the fact that you know it
(15:52):
did its temporary.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Do you imagine anything happening after your die?
Speaker 5 (15:57):
Somebody once and I wish I could remember who, But
some you once said to me, what do you remember
before you were born? And I said nothing, And they
said that it doesn't stand to reason that you probably
won't feel or know anything after you're gone. And that's
to me so far, is the best argument that's been
put forward and I'm open.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I'm open, But do you know what I've been thinking
about that. I you know, obviously hate that one. I
hate that there was nothing before so there's nothing after.
Because then I also think, yeah, but when you're born,
like humans in particular are the least, you know, born
with anything. The only thing they can do is find
a nipple. Right, that's literally all the babies.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Yeah, No, giraffe is up and walking in fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
And horse, yeah, horses are carrying people raising their own
kids by a week. You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So you so when people say, like, what did you
know before you were born, it's like nothing, you didn't
know anything because when you were born, the only thing
you knew was find a nipple. So it's like when
you died, you know a lot more by that. So
maybe this blank nothing this you're it's a lot more
going on. That's my new theory I just come up with.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Yeah. Sorry, I'm still stuck on the on the sort of.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Like the main no more more of the sort of
like main thrust of human existence to find the nipple.
Just you know, I know, I know people for whom
that doesn't change very much as they go through life.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I think absolutely doesn't. That's still. That's still it is.
Everything else is just sort of gravy around that, isn't it.
I've got yous. There is a heaven and it's great.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Right, and it's it's it's brilliant.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's got all your favorite it's
got your favorite thing. And what's your favorite thing?
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Oh, I think it's so yeah, I think it's guys,
there's got to be music.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, well then this, this heaven is filled with music.
There's music everywhere, except doing screenings when it would be inappropriate.
But there's music everywhere. You sit on music, you sleep music,
there's music in the trees, and it's lovely. Everyone's very
excited to see you. They're all big fans, but they
want to talk to you about your life.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Famous.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like comic on. It's like with nice music.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Welcome to the ever After quick photo.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah, okay, no one knows who the fuck you are.
But so then you turn up. You're a stranger, So
people are like, who are you? Let's talk about your
life through film? Oh yeah, You're idea is much better.
The first thing they ask is, what's the first film
you remember seeing Ben Burns?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Do you know what?
Speaker 5 (18:36):
This was one of the ones that I struggled with
the most to have one answer, because when people sort
of say, oh, yeah, don't you remember your first time
you ever ate a banana? Or I remember being born?
No you don't, you don't. No one remembers anything before
they about six, I reckon. So this was actually one
I struggled with. I certainly remember sort of seeing the
Disney of Sword in the Stone and Robin Hood and
(18:58):
all that very on and the Never Any Story and
flight the Navigator and The Labyrinth, those sort of like
early quest early eighties things. Those are the ones that
were around, but I couldn't put my finger on what
the first one was.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Like I remember, well, let's go with Flighting and Navigate
because I haven't talked about that on here for a while.
What a movie, Olso, what an eighties movie.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
My favorite part of that film definitely was when he
gets to space camp and he goes to his room
and there's all these like sort of NASA things on
his bed. He's got the spaceman Ice Creabe, and he's
got his jumpsuit and it's all like laid out in
this like perfect way on his like perfectly made bed,
and it's all he gets, basically a welcome pack. That
(19:44):
is the most. That is my most vivid memory from
that film. And I haven't seen it since I was
a kid, and I can still remember that. I don't
know what that says about anything, if it says anything
about me, but that is the frame of the film
that I remember the most.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
That is interesting. You like you like free gifts, You
like you like a swag bag, That's what That's what
it is. You like a T shirt? You like some merch.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
Yeah, how ironic. I've just released my own merch for
my music.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Now.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
It's not about merch. It's about It's not about much.
I think it's about It's about he's worried about it,
about going there, and I think it's welcoming and it's
loving either way. It's sort of set out and I
think that that it's like it's like doing nice things
for people.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Do you remember when you saw your early films thinking
I want to do this, I want to be an actor.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
No, that, I think that came much later, mid teens.
I think it's because I was sort of quite good
at quite a lot of things, but not very good
at anything. And I think I felt a bit invisible
and a bit sort of like lost, and a bit
like I needed to sort of pick something. And I
think that obviously, you know, this is this is an
industry that you go into and you are sort of seen,
(20:52):
You're literally on a stage, and I think it was
something that I could maybe devote myself and maybe trying
to get good at. I think I think, I think,
I think it was just about trying to sort of
focus on one thing. But I was never really able
to do that because I was too interested in lots
of things. But it started to it was sort of
through music actually, and then it was sort of, you know,
musical than the song part sort of got stripped away
(21:13):
and it became about storytelling and then I found a
love of that latterly interesting.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
What's the film that scared you the most? Do you
like being scared? No? I don't.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
And I said I would never do a horror film,
And I've literally just finished work on a horror Gamo
Dog Tores doing an anthology horror series called The Cabinet
of Curiosities. It's a bit sort of black mirrors, but
instead of tech, it's all sort of horror tropes.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
And I've just finished it.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
This week was a very creepy, creepy, scary episode of it,
with all manner of grizzly things and a really terrifying
and really terrifying ending. Great and I purposefully asked the
director and the team to mess with me as much
as possible and to stop me at doing it the acting,
(22:00):
because I call him and said, lot, I've been doing
this twenty years, but I haven't really played anyone that
that's sort of scared a lot, and it's not a
genre I'm very familiar with. When I was looking down
your list, I looked up like the one hundred scariest
films ever, and I've seen about two of them, so
I was like, well, it's not on this list. So
I was getting them to bang bits of wood together
and play horrible scream at me during takes if possible,
(22:23):
just to sort of just to sort of like mess
with me. And I did not like it, and I
still won't watch anymore, but I will watch that. But
but one of the things that he was asking me about,
can I play some sounds?
Speaker 4 (22:34):
And I suddenly had this.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Memory of the film The Return to Oz, which is
a sequel to the Wizard.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
The most the Wheelies, the Wheelies.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
These these creeps were they look like sort of human
circus clowns, but they've got wheels instead of hands and feet,
and they squeaked. So the director, because it requires me
to be scared of things that that aren't really there.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Lot this this this job I've just done, and.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
So he would he would play on speakers the sounds
of the Wheelies during takes, just.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
To fuck with me, in mess with me, and it
worked and it was horrible.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
And then I remember that, you know that that sort
of Alice in Wonderland, the thing of her falling down
I think it's Dorothy or Dorothy's or or whoever it is,
falling down this sort of rabbit hole, but there's hands
grabbing at her in this horrible sort of gropy way,
and it just those two images are again, I haven't
seen it in so many years, because why would you
(23:32):
put yourself through that again? But those images are really
really stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It's Banana's return to Us. It's fucking like when you
watch it, you're like, I cannot believe this was a
Disney film that got made for kids. It's so scary.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
No, someone was on someone was on drugs.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, yeah, there's heads in fucking in There's a whole
cabinet of heads. It's scary. Ship, It's horrible.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
It's horrible. Although when I was I can tell you
what films scared me the most.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
I mean, obviously I saw that when I was probably
quite young, but as a little kid, I remembered this
story and maybe I remember it, and maybe it's just
because my dad has told it to me about me,
to various people in front of me many times, which
is that I think on about my sixth, fifth or
sixth birthday, I was on one of those Channel fairies
(24:24):
and it was my birthday and there was a little
screening room on the ferry and they were playing role
do was the witches, And there is the moment in
the middle of the film for anyone who hasn't seen it,
where the witches removed their wigs and gloves and they
be cut and skin and they look pretty gruesome. And
(24:46):
at that point in the film, apparently, according to myth legend,
I waltzed down. This is very apparently this was very
out of character, but I waltzed down to the front
of I hate speaking public, speaking as myself, by the
way you should. It's about me, absolutely so scared of it,
so scared of it, and walked down to the to
the screen at the front, turned around and said in
(25:09):
the most precocious way possible, well this is a bit
too scary, isn't it, and walked out.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
My dad has not.
Speaker 5 (25:17):
Run after me because even like you just met, I'm
going to make a.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
See so I'm jumping overboard. Good day.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Yeah. So I have never told anyone that, but my
dad has told lots of people.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Why do you think you're so scared of talking as yourself?
I mean I don't. I mean I sort of understand,
But do you know why?
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Well, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
In my new found of revelation about about not being
so worried about it, maybe I'm maybe I'm not anymore.
I don't know quite what it is. Maybe it's just
too long sort of doing it in front of people
as someone else. But I do get even on the
wrap of a film or something, when that in the
thirty seconds you have to say thank you to a
crew that I'm so grateful for, my heart just goes
(25:59):
a bit fast, my palms go a bit sweaty, and
I'm not quite sure. My words get jumpled up, And
I don't know why that is, because I'm very comfortable
doing this with you. I'm very comfortable in any sort
of social situation. But when it's suddenly your sort of
when there's a pressure on it, expectator. Expectation is the
mother of all fucking horror, isn't it. And I think that,
(26:21):
you know, whenever you're sort of expected to say something,
I can sort of climb up and get a bit tight.
I think I've just sort of realized that it's actually
not I'm not worried about necessarily being embarrassed, because you
can just go thank you very much and keep it
very short.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
But I think it's about.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
Sort of letting people's perception of who they think I
am down not being charismatic enough, or not not being
eloquent or charming enough. Not being enough, I think, is
what's fueled a lot of that stuff over the years
for me, of which I've now managed to sort of
let go of it. You are enough, that's the title
of this episode. Enough No Ben Buns Colon.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Speaking of speaking of crying what's the film that made
you cry the most? Are you a crier?
Speaker 5 (27:05):
Yeah, I like a good cry. The film that made
me cry the most, and it made me cry for
about three days, almost NonStop, because I think I saw
it just too.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Young was Spartacus.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Oh really, it's a very specific reason, which was when
you get to the end of the film, Kirk Dodson
and Tony Curtis are forced to fight to the death
on penalty of death. Obviously they're both going to be
crucified unless they fight to the death, in which case
only the victor will be crucified and the other one
will be killed by their best friend. And the catharsis
(27:40):
of this a word that I didn't know at eight
or whenever I saw it, but that sort of unbearable
pressure and tension, and the fact that they both love
the other so much that they can't bear to be
the one that would put them through the agony of
the crucifixion, and so they actually fight harder for it.
There was something in my eight year old and at
(28:02):
whatever however I was brain that just had a schism,
and I could not bear the idea that anyone could
come up with this and this I do remember. I
remember being in tears for days about it. Inconsolable.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Interesting, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry for your lost.
What is the film that you love? It's not critically acclaimed,
most people don't like it, but you don't give a
fucking shit what anyone says. You will stand by this film.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Sister Act too.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
I love Sister Tract too. Thank you back in the habit,
yes please.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
There are moments of Sister BacT two that I will
pull up on YouTube at any given opportunity. When Lauryn
Hill sings bit of Eyes on the sparrow at the
organ or the or the sort of like George.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
With joy for at the end, I think I just
loved Lauren.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Hill's voice so much, and it's so much more exciting
than the first one. And it follows all the proper
trait of those kinds of cheesy films when they take
the ropes off at the end and the dancing and
the mum turning up and all of that and locking
father Creasy or whatever in the cupboard with a salami.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Come on, I won't hear a word against it.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
It's flawless. It's flawless. He gave us Lauren Hill, it's flawless.
You can have that.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Thanks.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
Wait, does that mean I've not been able to have
anything so far?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah? Up to now, now, up to now, none of
them have been allowed through.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
But this I didn't it was a challenge.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
I didn't realize there was a challenge, gentlemen to it.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Nor did I. But until this moment, and we're both late.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Everyone else has got every film they've ever said through,
but you so far?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, that one. This has been quite a strict process
of this episode. I don't know why, but for some reason,
it's a much bigger filter.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
I think it's because I looked at the list of
films that you said I must have talked about and thought,
I need to mention several of these.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I'm your system, and the system is fine. Back. What's
the film you used to love? You loved it, you've
watched it. Reason that you've gone out, No, I don't
like this no more, but for your own reasons.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
So I'm sure there are lots of those, and I
couldn't think of them. But what I could think of
was one of my favorite films of all time. And
I've got a collection in my home of eighties movies.
Original posters of eighties movies that I just loved and
have a connection to, some of which you are on
(30:30):
your list of things and not talking about. But one
of them is The Princess Bride, which I think is
one of the greatest films ever made.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
One of the greatests.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
However, it's one of those films that are pedal to
people and say, this is one of the greatest films
ever made. What do you mean you haven't seen it?
Because my cast, especially of my cast of the show
that I do on Netflix st they're in their early twenties.
Mainly some don't seen it. They watched it and sort
of came back and I plug them came back and said, yeah,
I got about thirty minutes in.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I didn't really to really get it.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
So I went back and watched it again, thinking maybe
maybe it's maybe it's a bit dated, maybe it doesn't
quite hold up. It absolutely fucking does. It's brilliant, and
they're is brilliant.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
They're wrong.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
So there's a film that does hold up, which is
I think what you asked, do you.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Know what I like you flipping the question. I'm going
to let that through. It was cheeky brilliant, but I've
letting it through because I love the Princess Bride.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
I feel it on One oh One, which I did
used to watch as a kid, and I don't think
it's on anymore. I always wanted to go on that
and this is about as place I'm ever going to get.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
And I'm going to enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
For one episode only. This is seeming to take that format. Now,
what is the film that means the most to you,
Ben Burns? Not necessarily the film itself is any good,
but because the experience you had around seeing it, that
will always make it meaningful to you.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
Again, there are a few, but this film is very good,
but it only sort of makes it into the pantheon
of one of my favorites because of what I saw it,
which was the film that I saw on my first
ever date I ever went on. Was and I realized
my mistake after the fact. And I don't know why
there weren't more people in my life to tell me
(32:17):
that this film was setting just setting unreasonable standards. Was
bats Lehman's Romeo and Juliet came out in the cinema,
and the day was released in the cinema, was my
first ever proper date.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I took someone on Wow, how are were you?
Speaker 4 (32:33):
I don't know, probably fourteen.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Or fifteen, okay, And what happened on the date.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
It was actually wonderful. It was actually wonderful. She was
a sweetheart. It's actually quite quite sad, again working against
the comedy of your podcast format. But we dated for
a few months, I think, and just hung out and
watching films at each other's houses.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
And it was so innocent and lovely.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
And I found out that she I think she went
on a gap here and an accident passed away and
I read it in the local paper, and I remember,
and I remember that night watching thinking about it and
watching Room and Juliet again, and I sort of sort
of separate it in my head from that.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
God, that's so fucking tragic. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Yeah, it was so it was a weird thing. I've
actually never told him.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
That you hadn't seen her for like a couple of
years when that happened.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Yeah, it'd been, Yeah, it had been probably it was
probably yeah, four four years or something.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
It was.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
We went touch anything, but yeah, And then a couple
of years ago, one of my best palers took me
to the secret cinema version of it where they do
bits of it live and everything, and yeah, that was
That was quite But that helped reframe it a little bit.
It was raining, it was raining the night we saw it,
and it was it was you know, and I think so,
I think it was.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
It helped it. Yeah, it helped reframe it a little bit.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
But it's definitely has that association in my mind.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Don't get me wrong. It's a fond it's a fond
memory because it was a very.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, I can see that. It seems so a beautiful
thing as well. What what's the film you most relate to?
Speaker 5 (34:08):
Okay, so this is stupid, because I'm sure there are
millions that are. Probably I was thinking, there's got to
be something a bit romantic, cute, grantee or something.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
There's got to be something that I'm.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
Probably the thing that jumped to mind was the opening
scene of Swingers, John Favreau calling the girl about forty
two times and getting increasingly more pathetic with each one.
And for some reason, I find it's incredibly relatable, not
(34:41):
because it's something I particularly done, but just something that
I feel like I understand better than I understand than
the other scene from a film.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
So yeah, I don't know why that. I don't really
know why.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
That's my answerability is and you're just gonna it's they're
my answers.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
So that's that's all happen.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I told you. I fully accept that answer, and I
think it is a very real scene. And I've definitely
I've definitely done that via text. I've definitely sent a
text and I then sent another text and stop sending.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Texts it it.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
And then it reads like a mad, insane novel when
they finally look at it.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
I think it's also more curious to that question.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
I'd be more curious what other people think, what the
film they think is that they've seen that reminds them
of me the most, you know what I mean? I
think as an act, I'm always curious. I'm always curious
to know what people would. You know, people say, what
do you want to do next? I don't know what
do they want me.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
To do next? It's sort of right, you know, because
that's a part of it, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
The truth is the relate what film you most relate to?
It is the question most people struggle with, which is interesting,
and you get many varied answers, but I don't. I'd
say probably five guests that I've had in all the
time have an answer like that. Most people go, I
really struggled with this one.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Yeah, I think I think.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
I think it's because it's one of those ones that
you it's because the one I most want to get right.
And I think I'd need much more time to look
through all films I've ever seen and be like, oh, yeah, that,
but it didn't just come to me.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yes, because maybe if you're taking it as like, what's
the film that defines me as a person, that's too bigger.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the most intimate question in a way.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, anyway, tell me this, Ben Burns. I think this
is why people have tuned in what's the sexiest film
you've ever seen?
Speaker 5 (36:28):
I do enjoy having both my names every question. Is
a lot of people do that with my name because
it's a limit of in it, and I enjoy you
doing it. But I enjoy you doing it, I think
more than anyone ever. Maybe if you have to get
you a.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Badge, you thank.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
You sexiest film.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
So yeah, I think the film I sort of remember
being the sexiest film was Eating Mama Tambien. Correct great
moving on and then and then more recently, I saw
a film called The Handmaiden correct which I don't know
if I'm allowed to find it.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
So it was supposed to be sexy, but it is
very sexy.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
It's very sexy. It's got the sexiest tooth failing scene
in the cinema history. Yeah, yeah, you'd be hardposed to
find a sexier tooth failing seed.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
But just in case you were going to sort of
not agree with me so quickly and readily, which luckily
he did, because those are very sexy films, I had
a more PG answer ready, which was that the film
has the date, the date that I would most like
to go on in it, which is quite sexy, which
(37:39):
is the Karate Kid, preferably with Elizabeth Shoe. Actually still
what happens in the date they go to golf and
stuff in that beautiful yellow retro car that Miss Maggie
has given him, and they go to golf and stuff,
and he's sort of putting his arms around and helping
her put away, and they're having delicious looking at you know,
(38:01):
fast food, and they're just giggling a lot. And it
just was not an experience that I was having when
I was watching that film and I wanted I wanted
it with.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
That's very very sweet. Speaking of sweet, traveling boners worrying,
why don't what's a film you found arousing that you
weren't sure you should.
Speaker 5 (38:23):
I just realized that the Karati Kid was my answer
to that one. Because I was going to say the
Karate Kid and then you were going to go, what no.
I just was just like, go on, yeah, yeah, yeah,
and then I was going to explain that sort of
subverting the question of making it sweet. And now I've
ruined it by offering it too early.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
But what I liked is what we're doing here is
a deconstructed version of that bit. Yeah no, which is
very very la It's like a deconstructed taco or something.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
Yeah, it's stop, body, We do it backwards. It's fine,
it's good work.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, it's better this way. People. What we've done, we've
given you. We've given you all the ingredients. You get
to make the meal yourself in your head.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
I'll give you the answers and you provide the question.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
It's the Jeopardy version of it. I love it. What
is the crime? What is troubling? Bonus?
Speaker 4 (39:19):
I'll take Troubling Shadow and bonus for five hundred.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
What is objectively the greatest film ever made? Not your favorite, necessarily,
but the greatest.
Speaker 5 (39:32):
It is one of my It is absolutely one of
my favorites. And I know that the answer is not
interesting You've had it so many times before, but is
back to the Future. I've got the original poster there.
I just think it's perfect and I've always it's always
been the answer I have given about my favorite film.
I will say this, this horror show that I just finished.
(39:53):
My coastar was Crispin Glover, who was in the film
obviously is how he's wonderful. Yeah, he's wonderful. He's totally
eccentric and loves films and making films and being you know,
sort of collaborating on it. Loves you know, playing characters.
I think didn't didn't have the gumption to talk to
(40:16):
him about about it, but it was still thrilling to
sort of just just to hear his voice. Actually, it's
just quite It's just probably the film I've seen the most.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
So you can have that, of course, you can have it.
You can have that way and what we'll do go.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
Back and anyone who said it already in one hundred
and fifty.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
I'll delete them out of the podcast on Actually I'm
going to Yeah, Buddy Peace's the producer. When you listen
to this, could you do that? Please? Shouldn't take you long?
Speaker 1 (40:45):
What what is?
Speaker 2 (40:48):
What's the film that you could or have watched the
most over and over again?
Speaker 5 (40:54):
I don't know what the film is I've watched the most,
probably one of the ones I've already mentioned, but I
was My metric is always like that one that like
when you're like in a hotel somewhere and you just
sort of turn on the TV just to have some noise,
and then it's it's twenty five minutes into the film,
but you just sit and watch it anyway. I've got
a lot of those, I think. But you know, there's
something also. I know I completely avoid the question about
(41:17):
how where you see yourself in it? And I'm not
necessarily even sure which character, But there's something about notting
Hill that I can't I find unavoidable. I just love it,
unashamedly love that film. And I don't know if I'm
Hugh goan't On, Julia Roberts or somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yeah, you're the characters, but I do love it.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
And there's something sort of very Londonly about it, which
which I love, and something at the Hollywood coming into London,
which I understand. But it's just I love the structure
of those rom coms. I've been trying to find a
rom com with that kind of simple concept and structure
for literally for fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
I love the format I've seen.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
I watch a lot of kind of films except torra At,
but those sort of rom coms, when they're done well,
sort of Richard Curtis style, are my favorites.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Interesting? Interesting, you haven't found one in fifteen years. As well.
I think they're very, very very hard to get right.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
I think I've seen a lot that have been made
in the last sort of ten years, and a lot
of them are not very good.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
One or two that cut through, but I was not
offer them disgusting. I don't know what they were thinking.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
We don't like to be negative, do we, Ben Burns,
You and me are united on that, Yeah, hope FC.
But what's the worst film I've ever seen?
Speaker 5 (42:30):
So I don't know if it's the worst film I've
ever seen because I haven't seen it since I was small,
but there was a sort of running joke in my
family that we were once traveling somewhere and we watched
a film because I think we were sort of stuck
somewhere or something and that you can only get the TV,
and we watched a film called Basil, which stars Christian Slater,
(42:51):
and it's a sort of a period Victorian esque kind
of a film, and it was completely shit, suffering from
the main crime, main cinema crime of being very very boring.
And I remember my dad saying, I think that's the
worst one I've ever seen it. I said, I agree,
I think that's the worst one I made. And then,
(43:12):
in anticipation of this, I watched the trailer again online
and it looks speciously like a film version that I
did of Dorian Gray, which I think most people would
contend is the worst film I have been in frond with,
or one of one of at least, even though it
looks very, very beautiful and there are good things about it,
(43:33):
and it's often on Telly it Christmas, and people tell
me they love it, but that we didn't quite sort
of hear.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
How do you feel about it? I said, honestly, hand on,
I haven't seen it. I have no skin in the
game of this.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Mixed feelings about it because I loved making it.
Speaker 5 (43:48):
I loved the producers and the director and Colin Firth
starring Colin Firth, who is one of my favorite humans listeners.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
He just held up a mug that said Keep com
and Love Colin Fast.
Speaker 5 (43:59):
Given to me by Colin Base. You see, you're the
only one who will bloody drink out of it. So
and then I found that you can buy I Keep
Calm and Love Ben barnesmug on line. So I sent
it to his his wife, because Shenanigans for the purposes
of shenanigans.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
But he's a.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Wonderful human and we had a brilliant time making and
I think we thought we were making something that was
maybe perhaps a little bit edgier, and I think I
think I think it tried maybe to sort of be
a bit edgy and make some changes and also try
to sort of please lovers of literature and faithful lovers
who were hoping for a sort of faithful adaptation of
(44:39):
the book and everything. And I think that sometimes you
know you can do everything right and put it all
in the right sort of order, but it doesn't quite
capture the sort of zeitgeist of what that adaptation needs
to be for this generation or whatever. It just got
very Also, you know, I was twenty six or something
and that was the last time I read a review.
(45:00):
It was very poorly reviewed, very very mean about me.
And now I'm able to use those criticisms actually, especially
for younger actors, when they say, oh, you know that
so and so wasn't the best thing about this film
or whatever, And I'm thinking, you think that's a bad review,
I'll show you a bad review, mate, and I'll whip
out the Daily Mail's review of Dorian Gray, which the
most scathing review of any acting forms in history, I think.
Speaker 4 (45:22):
But it definitely like knocked me off kilter at the time.
Speaker 5 (45:27):
Maybe think maybe I'm not made of stern enough stuff
to do this, maybe I'm a bit sensitive. But then
actually it just served to sort of embolden me and
make myself actually want to be bolder in my choices
maybe or more it may be double down, maybe more
committed to making a success of this and being the best,
(45:47):
you know, just being the best actor I can be anyway, And.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
Do you avoid all things?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Then?
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Do you avoid all press? Do you avoid social media.
Speaker 5 (45:55):
Yeah, I was working on the third Narnia film in
Australia and to Toronto for the for the for the
film festival, and the reviews came out that that day
and I had to I had one to fly from
Australia to Toronto and back again in a day and
a half or something and night. So I was upside
down and inside out at that point. And I think
that that just the reviews coming out of that time,
(46:15):
it just it really knocked me. It really knocked me,
you know, as I say, I think there are great
things about it, and really I'm still really proud to
have done it. I'm very proud to have been casting
it with those people and you know, to have been
trusted with that story.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
Do I think I'm a better at to now? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:34):
You know, yeah, you're fucking twenty six, is there? Yeah,
it's mad.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
Interestingly, the horror thing that I've just done as a
sort of couple of little elements of it that made
me think, oh maybe this is you know, another go to.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
And I got asked to do the.
Speaker 5 (46:47):
Audio book actually Adoring Great last year or the even before,
and I was like, oh, I get to sort of
have another go here as well.
Speaker 4 (46:53):
But yeah, still very proud to have been involved in it.
Speaker 5 (46:55):
And I think, you know, all all these moves that
we make make us the person me on, I'm proud
of the person that I am.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
So do I watch it often?
Speaker 2 (47:04):
No, really good answer, I'm so. I think it's absolutely
right not to read anything. But I think it's hard.
I'm impressed a hard lesson. I suppose you're just used
to it.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
Yeah, yeah, any way to learn it, of course that
is the only possible way, you think is in the
fire and get burned before you know not to touch it.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Yeah. I definitely definitely experience that, and I should never
look I shouldn't have looked. Okay, what's the film you're
you're funny, ben Burns, You've been funny and stuff. What's
the film that made you laugh the most?
Speaker 5 (47:33):
I think the film that has made me laugh the
most number of times is this is spinal Tap?
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Correct, You've got a few of these, completely right.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
I'll win it.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
Well again, these are the ones that my that my
collection of eighties post is this is this is one
of them. I get probably one of the films I'll
watched the most, certainly the film that if people haven't
seen it, I will. I will immediately pull up something
or start quoting it, or I'll be unsufferable talking about it.
But it's just endlessly close ball. I mean, it's funny.
(48:07):
It's the first second before you've even got any actors
in it. Rob Bryan is introducing it and he does
this thing where he folds his arms and then just
sort of lets them. It is so uncomfortable that he
sort of lets them hang down.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
And it makes it.
Speaker 5 (48:20):
I cannot watch that without laughing. And nothing's happened yet.
The film hasn't even started yet. It's yeah, it's just
it's genius.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Love.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
It really is, Ben Burns. You've been an absolute joy.
I've loved talking to you. However, when you were one
hundred years old, you had a birthday card from the
Queen who is who was at the time about one
hundred and ninety. When I was first to send the card,
it was very scrawrey writing, but I believe it was
from her herself, and she did the past. You're a
(48:49):
bit tired. You went to bed, and your loved ones,
he said, gather around, gather around, your loved ones, gathered around,
and your your great great great granddaughter took your hand
and in a piece of madness, squeezed your hands so hard.
Speaker 4 (49:04):
So much despair, because you loved me so very much.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah, squeezed it so hard that it snapped in twenty
five places. She screamed. Everyone started screaming around you. Right,
Oh God, why am I done? Were screaming a hate you? No,
I know that's chaos. All your loved ones is just
so what we've done. And there was blood and then
the blood got infected and you had the instant sepsis
(49:29):
and it spread through your body quite quickly, to be fair,
and then and then you were just choking on the
infection and then people screaming. Everyone was screaming, and you died.
It was one of the least peacefulness I've ever seen.
And I hear this, I hear this chaos. I'm like,
(49:49):
what's going on in that house? And Ben bunders has
it sounds like a massacres happened. All your all your
loved ones. They run out of the house, screaming like
they've been in a horror. I've got a coughin on me,
you know what. I'm like, Drag it up, st go
where it's Ben Barns. Oh, detective friend, Ben's Ben Barns.
Where is he? I go up the stairs and there
you are, and your body has exploded from the instants,
(50:11):
fucking everywhere. It's everywhere, on the walls, on the it's disgusting.
And also insects are floating through the winter. They're already
eating on your rotting flesh. I'm like, get out of here,
scram and I scrape off all the bits of you
I can. I put you in the coffin. It's a
(50:33):
fucking I'm having to wear industrial gloves. It's gross. Even
I'm gross stat by it. It's a mess. It's like
I've made a fucking pool of cess in this coffin. Anyway,
it's full. It's full, and there's only really enough room
(50:53):
for me to slide one DVD into the group to
take across to the other side. And on the other
side it's movie night every night, and one night it's
what film were you taking to show everyone in heaven
when it's your movie night? Bed buds, Please, I've poked.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
The bear, there, haven't I At the beginning, I challenged you.
Speaker 5 (51:13):
It's like I sat, I was like I went to
a comedy show and sat in the middle of the
front row, thinking this would be fine.
Speaker 4 (51:20):
I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate you for that.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
How you listen? I'm so sorry that listen.
Speaker 4 (51:29):
It was screaming.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Made my peace, all of them. It was quick, though,
it was quick. Okay, what film are you taking with
you to show to Heaven?
Speaker 4 (51:44):
I am taking with me, arguably.
Speaker 5 (51:46):
And when I was argue, I mean arguing with myself
because it's impossible to answer the film ever is but
the one I would most like to share with, the
one I most like to show people, the one that
I has bought me, probably the most joy.
Speaker 4 (51:58):
When Harry met.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Sally, oh fucking perfect answer. I almost feel bad about
how you died with that answer. But I'm not in
charge of those things.
Speaker 4 (52:08):
I'm up. I'm up in heaven and now I met Sali.
I'm having a lovely time.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah, you're having absolute and.
Speaker 5 (52:15):
Everyone's going andone's going bringing this brilliant, brilliant choice, brilliant,
brilliant choice of film for us to watch. The thing
probably the probably the best choice of all the hundred things.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
You're the best person anyway. Just before we settle down
to watch this lovely film, how did you die? Again, buds.
What a joy. Now, I assume you would like people
to listen to your album. Is that what we have
to look forward to next from you?
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
What's it called.
Speaker 5 (52:50):
It's called Songs for You And it is five songs
that I wrote at that piano and and then had
some brilliant, brilliant producing pop people helped me make more
shiny sounding with exciting, brilliant musicians from around the world
sort of contributing their bits during the pandemic, which is
kind of thrilling and amazing. And now it's this sort
(53:13):
of little it's this little record which is just going
to be everywhere and it's brilliant. Yeah, people have been
The first song came out a few weeks ago, and
people sending me you know, actually, I think one of
the things I love the most is this this this
this girl's dancing in a kitchen, this big smile on
her face to it. And then people have been doing
some of pole dancing corribly, or ice skating routines, or
(53:36):
doing a sing cover of it, or drawing something from
the music video or whatever. Just like just just feeling like,
I think something about me doing it at forty rather
than at nineteen when I first tried. Is making people
go I can well, maybe I can just do my
thing now, and that feels good.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
I love that. I love that. Congratulations, congratulations on your album.
That's fucking huge. Thanks. I hope that more and more
people love it. I have loved talking with you. Thank
you for your time, and good luck with everything, have
a wonderful time in heaven and love to you. Good day,
sir Cherry bye.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
So that was Ben Barnes on a rewind Classic episode.
Be sure to check out the Patreon page at patreon
dot com slash Brett Goldstein, where you'll get extra chat,
video and mixtapes at various tears and otherwise. If you
fancy leaving a note on Apple podcasts, that would be
lovely too, but make it a review of your favorite film.
Much more fun and Brett and more in love nothing
(54:38):
more than reading them. It is gratefully appreciated. Thank you
so much to Ben Barnes for fun times and presents
on the podcast. Thanks to Scrubius, Pip and the Distraction
Pieces Network, thanks too. And this is where Brett thanks
me for editing and producing the podcast, so I say
in return, it is a pleasure. Thanks to iHeartMedia and
Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network for hosting it. Thanks
(54:58):
to Adam Richardson for the graphic and Lisa Lydon for
the photography. We will be back next week with another
rewind classic. But that is it for now. Brett and
I and all of us have films to be buried with.
Hope you're all very well in the meantime, have a
lovely week, and now more than ever, be excellent to
each other.
It reworn h.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
My name is Buddy Peace. I'm a producer and editor,
a d J, a music maker of hieroglyphic and for
intro and outro purposes. I'm temporarily standing in for your
regular host and proud creator of this particular podcast, mister
Brett Goldstein. As Tom Waits once said, I stay a
little outside the glass. I think I'd like to take
a crack at a wider audience. But with that comes responsibility.
(01:18):
If you're too big, you get self conscious. If you're
too obscure, you feel nervous. So it's hard, I tell you.
It's also hard finding Godzilla minus one on any streaming service. Now,
that is hard. Trust me, Tom, I've tried too. I
think we just have to be patient with this one.
Every week Brett invites a guest on. He tells them
they've died, and then talks to them about their life
through the medium of film. But this week we are
(01:40):
revisiting an earlier episode of the podcast while we take
a little break. Yes, indeed, it is that time once
more for films to be buried with rewind Classic. This
rewind is from October the twenty first, twenty twenty one.
Originally episode one six ' nine featuring actor and musician
Ben Barnes. It's a great featuring someone you might not
(02:01):
have necessarily heard doing the podcast. Rounds a huge a
man over the years, but Ben is a pure delight
when it comes to talking to Brett about films, acting,
and the whole life and death thing. There are a
ton of behind the scenes nuggets and goodies and some
interesting insight on some of the films he's been in,
which is always a treat to hear. You'll definitely enjoy
this one. Let me take this opportunity to also remind
(02:22):
you that Brett has a Patreon page for the podcast,
upon which you get a bonus section on every episode
with a secret from each guest, more questions, and a
video of each episode which looks very nice and very fresh.
There are a selection of tears on there too, and
on the uppermost tiers I make you a cinematic soundtrack
mixtape each month with full track list that I reckon
(02:43):
you'll enjoy very much. So if you're of a supporting
nature and feel like some extras from this show, you'll
find them all there. So that is it for now.
Let's get you settled in now for a really fun
look back, a really sweet episode with the excellent Ben Barnes.
Catch you at the end for a quick sign. But
for now, please enjoy episode one six nine via episode
(03:04):
two nine three of Films to be Buried With.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Hello, and welcome to Films to be Buried With. It
is I Brett Goldstein, and I am joined today by
an actor. He's a West Wilder. He's a shadow and Boner.
He's the principal of Narnia. I think he is a
man from Sutton and he now lives in la He's
(03:38):
a hero to many, a legend to most, and also
he's fit. Please welcome to the show, the brilliant mister
Ben Barnes.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
You said bono within thirty seconds of this.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
That's the quickest I've got to it.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Yeah, you've done. It's over. I did ever thought that.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
You know, groups of fans of shows often have names,
and I toy did the idea of calling them my
shadow and Boners. But then I've resisted the urge to
even say that until this moment. That's the first time
I've said it, because you did it.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
It starts here, the shadow of Boners.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
You that was a very nice thing.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You've got to be the shadow of Boners. I've be
loud and proud of that.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
You're going to get the credit for that now.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I'll take it on the Twitter. I'll take it.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You deserve it, no regrets, you deserve it. Thank you man.
It's lovely to have you. This is the first time
we've ever met. Yeah, so far, it's going great, it's
going very I appreciate you doing this now. I I've
been aware of you for sometime. Ben Bon's you worked
with friends of the podcast, Will Porter in Prince Caspian.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Yeah, and one of my best one of my best pals.
He just took me out actually for a really lovely
ctieth birthday dinner. Mine not here, hasten to. He's about
fifteen still, but it was. He's a low, lovely, lovely, lovely,
lovely man.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
It's a lovely man. But then you know what I
was what I mean. Look, I've seen you a lot
of stuff. You're a very good actor. But you do
something that I really really like. And you did it
in Westworld, which is I think it's very brave. You
play like a bad type, a bit of a bad
type in Westworld, and I think you do it. You're
(05:22):
very sort of charming in it, but you also don't
at all shy away from the like really unpleasant, sort
of sleazy, sort of unattractive parts of that character. And
I always think that that's really I don't think a
lot of actors do it. I think it's really cool
and really brave because you're not protecting yourself as a
You're not sort of like there are people who play
(05:43):
bad guys, but they play them like yeah, but you
love them because they're so charismatic and fun and cool,
like you allowing the parts that are like no, he's
genuinely unpleasant as well, you know what I mean. And
I think that's pretty brave. I like it.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Thank you, that's really nice.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
I've sort of found myself this we odd little niche
in the last sort of five or six years of
playing these people who are slightly reprehensible or either that
they're psychotic or evil or villainous or just or just
a guilty of general douche baggery.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
But I've also I'm fully aware.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
Of how incapable I am of making character particularly kind
of like cool or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
But I will I.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Do whilst whilst I'm not afraid of the like grim,
gross parts of it. I am quite protective of the
humanity of them because I'm quite a sort of quite
a soft, hopeful, desperate to be happy kind of person.
And so I think that that gets a little bit
infused into all of those characters. And like you described
(06:42):
it on Westward, when they asked me to come back
for the second season, and it was it felt like
such a privilege to be asked to sort of scratch
away at the character a bit and look at his
I know it sounds a bit I was raised by
a psychiatrist and psychotherapists, but a little bit scratch away
his relationship with his with his dad. You see relationship
with his dad, and you peel away the onion a
bit and you see why he's so fucked up and
(07:05):
why he's behaving like such a knob all the time
to everyone, and because there are always reasons, always, and
those things really interest me.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I love that does. Look, that's exactly what we're always
trying to do on ted Lasso is that thing of
and it's when you're a bad guy. Almost never thinks
they're a bad guy. Yeah, So yeah, and you play
all that. I just think it's great. But I also
I think I'm trying to think of example I don't
want to name in shame, but I can. I can
think of people who play bad guys, and you're almost
(07:34):
like you're not a bad guy, You're just fucking great,
Like you're justining, and like it's you're you're not allowing
that character to be ugly, I suppose, whereas I think
you do that as well as all the charm and
the everything. Anyway, that's my open fan mail to you,
to your face, that is from my section fan mail
(07:54):
to not do that.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
You You are playing something which is entirely lovable from
start to finish, even though that's not what it's supposed
to be on the page, and you can't help it.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
You can't help it at all.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
And now and now suddenly everyone in the world who
wants to hug you like Teddy Bear, and this makes
you uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So moving on, Ben Burns, you live in LA You've
lived here ten years I believe.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
And yeah, coming up on that, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And do you feel at home here? Is it still wild?
How much of this? Because you how old were you
when you did Prince Caspian?
Speaker 4 (08:30):
I was about twenty five.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
And that was like the biggest thing that happened, I.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Thought, And that was like quite a long time ago.
See your face.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
No, no, no, I mean that's yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
You're doing massive. Yeah, quite right. I will never I
will never tell. Yeah, I'm very comfortable here.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
I do miss my friends and family and you know,
just in London, I missed that a lot, but also
very lucky to have the kind of lifestyle and job
which takes me on adventures and takes me you know,
keeps me interesting and and you know, I think at
least half of the time I'm not sort of at home.
So I think that that's a particular kind of lifestyle
(09:10):
which I never imagined for myself and would certainly not
curate if I did anything else for a living on purpose.
But I do love that it is part of my life.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Can I ask you this and again, if you don't
want to, we can cut it. Before we started recording
this podcast, you tell me something that was very interesting
to me, you said, I said, is there anything you're
worried about talking about? And you said something like, I
used to worry so much about that stuff, and now
I'm very happy to talk about myself. And I wondered
what had happened to lead you to that?
Speaker 5 (09:40):
If I may so, I think it was a combination
of things, but it was I think, very very early on,
I had some quite aggressive interactions with press, you know,
doing sort of basically nothing, you know, a few plays
and bits and pieces, and then doing the Narnia films,
and suddenly people are interested in you and your life.
(10:00):
I remember having this conversation when I was about twenty five,
and the journalist sort of said to me, you have
to answer these kinds of questions if you want to
do this for a living, and I, at twenty five,
full of vim, said no, I don't. I can keep
anything I want to for myself. And I still fervently
believe that in that sort of freedom of choice, but
(10:21):
it sort of it tightened me and closed me off
a bit to feel a bit defensive. I think when
talk about stuff, and I've done so many years of
you know, just sort of just by virtue of the
way film and TV interviews work, I think as well,
like you're being asked about characters and things that you
didn't necessarily write. But I think what happened was the
pandemic sort of kicked in, and we all spent a
(10:41):
year in a bit sitting around wondering what kind of
people we want to be and where we fit in
if we're not allowed to do the things we do
on a regular basis and don't have the things that
we have to look forward to regularly to keep us
on the wheel and facing forwards, and who do we
care about and what do we care about?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
And I wrote a lot.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Of music in that time, and it was something I'd
wanted to do for about twenty years. I'd started to
do it about twenty something years ago and it had
fallen apart, and I've done it as part of my
career all the way through. I've always kind of done that,
but always in someone else's voice. I think I've always
even when I was a kid at school, I did
some arts or tribute concerts and Stevie Wonders Soul Nights
and things like that.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
I would love it so much.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
And then in my films, I've played street buskers, Americana folks,
street buskers, and I played a crap rock star in
a comedy, singing sort of like new Romantic stadium rock crap,
but it was never me, And I think that it
took just the clock tick down on having to make
something of my own that was sort of me.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
I haven't played.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
It's sort of obvious to sort of think, well, if
you spend twenty years playing to be other people, at
some point you're going to want to do something that's yours.
But I hadn't really thought about it until the pandemic,
and then I wrote a sort of collection of songs
which shown I've just released, and it's sort of it
sort of freed up the style of interview the way
I've been talking about it. People asking me about me,
not about you know, sort of sordid details of your
(12:05):
life or anything, but just interested in me and what
it takes to make something from myself. That and that
really like freed me up to be the most to
feel sort of the most me I could feel, which
I think a lot of us felt a bit, particularly
during the pandemic, felt a bit floaty and disconnected and
all of that.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
I think most of the.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
People that I know felt a little bit disassociated for
a lot of it, And so I think I'm just
sort of trying to relish feeling like me again a bit.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
That is really interesting, and I've just remembered something, which
makes this sort of big revelation you've had and this
feeling of freedom sort of a shame because I forgot
that I should have told you. I should have told
you before.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
I've listened to what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
You've died. You've died, so listen. Good that you had
that feeling of freedom, very very briefly.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
In this moment, in this very dead I am dead.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Well, I've just discussed well, like I said, I actually
found out a while back, and I forgot to tell
you. You are deaf in a way, the grim how did
you die?
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Well?
Speaker 5 (13:21):
It being the case that I've listened to your podcast before,
and I know that in about an hour's time, you're
going to make it try and sound as grim and
disgusting and foul as possible.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
I'm going to challenge you.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's not my vibe.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
I'm going to challenge you by saying the truth, which
is that I hope that I died very peacefully, comfortably
and old, surrounded by loved ones, squeezing my hand gently.
Or do I know you're going to say, I have
to have died in this minute now?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
No, no, no, you you you can die like this
this is taking place in this sort of timeless zone,
so you can be as old as you are.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
I would like to be one hundred because when I
was a kid, I thought that's.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
How you live. Yeah, you get a letter from the
queen and then and then loved ones around your bed
and one of them squeezes your hand to death.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
One of them squeezes my hand to death.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
Yeah, it's they love me so very much that they
crush my fingers, which causes.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
I'm not getting called into this, lured into.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Your quite I mean quite a horrific death, really squeeze.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
And loving, and I barely noticed it, to be honest,
I slipped off into the into the never after, is
what I did.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Do you worry about death, benburs.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I used to worry about death a lot. I was
definitely that kid who actually probably didn't didn't want to
talk about it very much because it was it just
feels a bit overwhelming, and I think it still does,
even though I think through your life you obviously can't
but have more experience with it and be exposed to
it more, and the reality of it you'll face with
(15:08):
the reality of it that that perspective is brought much
closer to your to your face. But I still put
it in the category of infinity and time and all
those kinds of things that I will never have a
handle on, and so it doesn't really serve me to
think about it too much. But yeah, I think I
probably fearful I think of death. I'm a very I
(15:31):
think hope is probably one of my defining characteristics in
the one is the one thing you can't be hopeful.
I can't find I don't seem to be able to
find hoping. But I will say that there are things
that along the way that have made me feel so
much more alive that it sort of becomes And I
know people have said this to you before, but it
all becomes so much more pressure, it will becomes so
much more precious for the fact that you know it
(15:52):
did its temporary.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Do you imagine anything happening after your die?
Speaker 5 (15:57):
Somebody once and I wish I could remember who, But
some you once said to me, what do you remember
before you were born? And I said nothing, And they
said that it doesn't stand to reason that you probably
won't feel or know anything after you're gone. And that's
to me so far, is the best argument that's been
put forward and I'm open.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I'm open, But do you know what I've been thinking
about that. I you know, obviously hate that one. I
hate that there was nothing before so there's nothing after.
Because then I also think, yeah, but when you're born,
like humans in particular are the least, you know, born
with anything. The only thing they can do is find
a nipple. Right, that's literally all the babies.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Yeah, No, giraffe is up and walking in fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
And horse, yeah, horses are carrying people raising their own
kids by a week. You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So you so when people say, like, what did you
know before you were born, it's like nothing, you didn't
know anything because when you were born, the only thing
you knew was find a nipple. So it's like when
you died, you know a lot more by that. So
maybe this blank nothing this you're it's a lot more
going on. That's my new theory I just come up with.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Yeah. Sorry, I'm still stuck on the on the sort of.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Like the main no more more of the sort of
like main thrust of human existence to find the nipple.
Just you know, I know, I know people for whom
that doesn't change very much as they go through life.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I think absolutely doesn't. That's still. That's still it is.
Everything else is just sort of gravy around that, isn't it.
I've got yous. There is a heaven and it's great.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Right, and it's it's it's brilliant.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's got all your favorite it's
got your favorite thing. And what's your favorite thing?
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Oh, I think it's so yeah, I think it's guys,
there's got to be music.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, well then this, this heaven is filled with music.
There's music everywhere, except doing screenings when it would be inappropriate.
But there's music everywhere. You sit on music, you sleep music,
there's music in the trees, and it's lovely. Everyone's very
excited to see you. They're all big fans, but they
want to talk to you about your life.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Famous.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like comic on. It's like with nice music.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Welcome to the ever After quick photo.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah, okay, no one knows who the fuck you are.
But so then you turn up. You're a stranger, So
people are like, who are you? Let's talk about your
life through film? Oh yeah, You're idea is much better.
The first thing they ask is, what's the first film
you remember seeing Ben Burns?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Do you know what?
Speaker 5 (18:36):
This was one of the ones that I struggled with
the most to have one answer, because when people sort
of say, oh, yeah, don't you remember your first time
you ever ate a banana? Or I remember being born?
No you don't, you don't. No one remembers anything before
they about six, I reckon. So this was actually one
I struggled with. I certainly remember sort of seeing the
Disney of Sword in the Stone and Robin Hood and
(18:58):
all that very on and the Never Any Story and
flight the Navigator and The Labyrinth, those sort of like
early quest early eighties things. Those are the ones that
were around, but I couldn't put my finger on what
the first one was.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Like I remember, well, let's go with Flighting and Navigate
because I haven't talked about that on here for a while.
What a movie, Olso, what an eighties movie.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
My favorite part of that film definitely was when he
gets to space camp and he goes to his room
and there's all these like sort of NASA things on
his bed. He's got the spaceman Ice Creabe, and he's
got his jumpsuit and it's all like laid out in
this like perfect way on his like perfectly made bed,
and it's all he gets, basically a welcome pack. That
(19:44):
is the most. That is my most vivid memory from
that film. And I haven't seen it since I was
a kid, and I can still remember that. I don't
know what that says about anything, if it says anything
about me, but that is the frame of the film
that I remember the most.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
That is interesting. You like you like free gifts, You
like you like a swag bag, That's what That's what
it is. You like a T shirt? You like some merch.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
Yeah, how ironic. I've just released my own merch for
my music.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Now.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
It's not about merch. It's about It's not about much.
I think it's about It's about he's worried about it,
about going there, and I think it's welcoming and it's
loving either way. It's sort of set out and I
think that that it's like it's like doing nice things
for people.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Do you remember when you saw your early films thinking
I want to do this, I want to be an actor.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
No, that, I think that came much later, mid teens.
I think it's because I was sort of quite good
at quite a lot of things, but not very good
at anything. And I think I felt a bit invisible
and a bit sort of like lost, and a bit
like I needed to sort of pick something. And I
think that obviously, you know, this is this is an
industry that you go into and you are sort of seen,
(20:52):
You're literally on a stage, and I think it was
something that I could maybe devote myself and maybe trying
to get good at. I think I think, I think,
I think it was just about trying to sort of
focus on one thing. But I was never really able
to do that because I was too interested in lots
of things. But it started to it was sort of
through music actually, and then it was sort of, you know,
musical than the song part sort of got stripped away
(21:13):
and it became about storytelling and then I found a
love of that latterly interesting.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
What's the film that scared you the most? Do you
like being scared? No? I don't.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
And I said I would never do a horror film,
And I've literally just finished work on a horror Gamo
Dog Tores doing an anthology horror series called The Cabinet
of Curiosities. It's a bit sort of black mirrors, but
instead of tech, it's all sort of horror tropes.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
And I've just finished it.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
This week was a very creepy, creepy, scary episode of it,
with all manner of grizzly things and a really terrifying
and really terrifying ending. Great and I purposefully asked the
director and the team to mess with me as much
as possible and to stop me at doing it the acting,
(22:00):
because I call him and said, lot, I've been doing
this twenty years, but I haven't really played anyone that
that's sort of scared a lot, and it's not a
genre I'm very familiar with. When I was looking down
your list, I looked up like the one hundred scariest
films ever, and I've seen about two of them, so
I was like, well, it's not on this list. So
I was getting them to bang bits of wood together
and play horrible scream at me during takes if possible,
(22:23):
just to sort of just to sort of like mess
with me. And I did not like it, and I
still won't watch anymore, but I will watch that. But
but one of the things that he was asking me about,
can I play some sounds?
Speaker 4 (22:34):
And I suddenly had this.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Memory of the film The Return to Oz, which is
a sequel to the Wizard.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
The most the Wheelies, the Wheelies.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
These these creeps were they look like sort of human
circus clowns, but they've got wheels instead of hands and feet,
and they squeaked. So the director, because it requires me
to be scared of things that that aren't really there.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Lot this this this job I've just done, and.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
So he would he would play on speakers the sounds
of the Wheelies during takes, just.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
To fuck with me, in mess with me, and it
worked and it was horrible.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
And then I remember that, you know that that sort
of Alice in Wonderland, the thing of her falling down
I think it's Dorothy or Dorothy's or or whoever it is,
falling down this sort of rabbit hole, but there's hands
grabbing at her in this horrible sort of gropy way,
and it just those two images are again, I haven't
seen it in so many years, because why would you
(23:32):
put yourself through that again? But those images are really
really stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It's Banana's return to Us. It's fucking like when you
watch it, you're like, I cannot believe this was a
Disney film that got made for kids. It's so scary.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
No, someone was on someone was on drugs.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, yeah, there's heads in fucking in There's a whole
cabinet of heads. It's scary. Ship, It's horrible.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
It's horrible. Although when I was I can tell you
what films scared me the most.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
I mean, obviously I saw that when I was probably
quite young, but as a little kid, I remembered this
story and maybe I remember it, and maybe it's just
because my dad has told it to me about me,
to various people in front of me many times, which
is that I think on about my sixth, fifth or
sixth birthday, I was on one of those Channel fairies
(24:24):
and it was my birthday and there was a little
screening room on the ferry and they were playing role
do was the witches, And there is the moment in
the middle of the film for anyone who hasn't seen it,
where the witches removed their wigs and gloves and they
be cut and skin and they look pretty gruesome. And
(24:46):
at that point in the film, apparently, according to myth legend,
I waltzed down. This is very apparently this was very
out of character, but I waltzed down to the front
of I hate speaking public, speaking as myself, by the
way you should. It's about me, absolutely so scared of it,
so scared of it, and walked down to the to
the screen at the front, turned around and said in
(25:09):
the most precocious way possible, well this is a bit
too scary, isn't it, and walked out.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
My dad has not.
Speaker 5 (25:17):
Run after me because even like you just met, I'm
going to make a.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
See so I'm jumping overboard. Good day.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Yeah. So I have never told anyone that, but my
dad has told lots of people.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Why do you think you're so scared of talking as yourself?
I mean I don't. I mean I sort of understand,
But do you know why?
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Well, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
In my new found of revelation about about not being
so worried about it, maybe I'm maybe I'm not anymore.
I don't know quite what it is. Maybe it's just
too long sort of doing it in front of people
as someone else. But I do get even on the
wrap of a film or something, when that in the
thirty seconds you have to say thank you to a
crew that I'm so grateful for, my heart just goes
(25:59):
a bit fast, my palms go a bit sweaty, and
I'm not quite sure. My words get jumpled up, And
I don't know why that is, because I'm very comfortable
doing this with you. I'm very comfortable in any sort
of social situation. But when it's suddenly your sort of
when there's a pressure on it, expectator. Expectation is the
mother of all fucking horror, isn't it. And I think that,
(26:21):
you know, whenever you're sort of expected to say something,
I can sort of climb up and get a bit tight.
I think I've just sort of realized that it's actually
not I'm not worried about necessarily being embarrassed, because you
can just go thank you very much and keep it
very short.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
But I think it's about.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
Sort of letting people's perception of who they think I
am down not being charismatic enough, or not not being
eloquent or charming enough. Not being enough, I think, is
what's fueled a lot of that stuff over the years
for me, of which I've now managed to sort of
let go of it. You are enough, that's the title
of this episode. Enough No Ben Buns Colon.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Speaking of speaking of crying what's the film that made
you cry the most? Are you a crier?
Speaker 5 (27:05):
Yeah, I like a good cry. The film that made
me cry the most, and it made me cry for
about three days, almost NonStop, because I think I saw
it just too.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Young was Spartacus.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Oh really, it's a very specific reason, which was when
you get to the end of the film, Kirk Dodson
and Tony Curtis are forced to fight to the death
on penalty of death. Obviously they're both going to be
crucified unless they fight to the death, in which case
only the victor will be crucified and the other one
will be killed by their best friend. And the catharsis
(27:40):
of this a word that I didn't know at eight
or whenever I saw it, but that sort of unbearable
pressure and tension, and the fact that they both love
the other so much that they can't bear to be
the one that would put them through the agony of
the crucifixion, and so they actually fight harder for it.
There was something in my eight year old and at
(28:02):
whatever however I was brain that just had a schism,
and I could not bear the idea that anyone could
come up with this and this I do remember. I
remember being in tears for days about it. Inconsolable.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Interesting, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry for your lost.
What is the film that you love? It's not critically acclaimed,
most people don't like it, but you don't give a
fucking shit what anyone says. You will stand by this film.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Sister Act too.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
I love Sister Tract too. Thank you back in the habit,
yes please.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
There are moments of Sister BacT two that I will
pull up on YouTube at any given opportunity. When Lauryn
Hill sings bit of Eyes on the sparrow at the
organ or the or the sort of like George.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
With joy for at the end, I think I just
loved Lauren.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Hill's voice so much, and it's so much more exciting
than the first one. And it follows all the proper
trait of those kinds of cheesy films when they take
the ropes off at the end and the dancing and
the mum turning up and all of that and locking
father Creasy or whatever in the cupboard with a salami.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Come on, I won't hear a word against it.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
It's flawless. It's flawless. He gave us Lauren Hill, it's flawless.
You can have that.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Thanks.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
Wait, does that mean I've not been able to have
anything so far?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah? Up to now, now, up to now, none of
them have been allowed through.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
But this I didn't it was a challenge.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
I didn't realize there was a challenge, gentlemen to it.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Nor did I. But until this moment, and we're both late.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Everyone else has got every film they've ever said through,
but you so far?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, that one. This has been quite a strict process
of this episode. I don't know why, but for some reason,
it's a much bigger filter.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
I think it's because I looked at the list of
films that you said I must have talked about and thought,
I need to mention several of these.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I'm your system, and the system is fine. Back. What's
the film you used to love? You loved it, you've
watched it. Reason that you've gone out, No, I don't
like this no more, but for your own reasons.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
So I'm sure there are lots of those, and I
couldn't think of them. But what I could think of
was one of my favorite films of all time. And
I've got a collection in my home of eighties movies.
Original posters of eighties movies that I just loved and
have a connection to, some of which you are on
(30:30):
your list of things and not talking about. But one
of them is The Princess Bride, which I think is
one of the greatest films ever made.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
One of the greatests.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
However, it's one of those films that are pedal to
people and say, this is one of the greatest films
ever made. What do you mean you haven't seen it?
Because my cast, especially of my cast of the show
that I do on Netflix st they're in their early twenties.
Mainly some don't seen it. They watched it and sort
of came back and I plug them came back and said, yeah,
I got about thirty minutes in.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I didn't really to really get it.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
So I went back and watched it again, thinking maybe
maybe it's maybe it's a bit dated, maybe it doesn't
quite hold up. It absolutely fucking does. It's brilliant, and
they're is brilliant.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
They're wrong.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
So there's a film that does hold up, which is
I think what you asked, do you.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Know what I like you flipping the question. I'm going
to let that through. It was cheeky brilliant, but I've
letting it through because I love the Princess Bride.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
I feel it on One oh One, which I did
used to watch as a kid, and I don't think
it's on anymore. I always wanted to go on that
and this is about as place I'm ever going to get.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
And I'm going to enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
For one episode only. This is seeming to take that format. Now,
what is the film that means the most to you,
Ben Burns? Not necessarily the film itself is any good,
but because the experience you had around seeing it, that
will always make it meaningful to you.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
Again, there are a few, but this film is very good,
but it only sort of makes it into the pantheon
of one of my favorites because of what I saw it,
which was the film that I saw on my first
ever date I ever went on. Was and I realized
my mistake after the fact. And I don't know why
there weren't more people in my life to tell me
(32:17):
that this film was setting just setting unreasonable standards. Was
bats Lehman's Romeo and Juliet came out in the cinema,
and the day was released in the cinema, was my
first ever proper date.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I took someone on Wow, how are were you?
Speaker 4 (32:33):
I don't know, probably fourteen.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Or fifteen, okay, And what happened on the date.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
It was actually wonderful. It was actually wonderful. She was
a sweetheart. It's actually quite quite sad, again working against
the comedy of your podcast format. But we dated for
a few months, I think, and just hung out and
watching films at each other's houses.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
And it was so innocent and lovely.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
And I found out that she I think she went
on a gap here and an accident passed away and
I read it in the local paper, and I remember,
and I remember that night watching thinking about it and
watching Room and Juliet again, and I sort of sort
of separate it in my head from that.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
God, that's so fucking tragic. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Yeah, it was so it was a weird thing. I've
actually never told him.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
That you hadn't seen her for like a couple of
years when that happened.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Yeah, it'd been, Yeah, it had been probably it was
probably yeah, four four years or something.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
It was.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
We went touch anything, but yeah, And then a couple
of years ago, one of my best palers took me
to the secret cinema version of it where they do
bits of it live and everything, and yeah, that was
That was quite But that helped reframe it a little bit.
It was raining, it was raining the night we saw it,
and it was it was you know, and I think so,
I think it was.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
It helped it. Yeah, it helped reframe it a little bit.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
But it's definitely has that association in my mind.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Don't get me wrong. It's a fond it's a fond
memory because it was a very.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, I can see that. It seems so a beautiful
thing as well. What what's the film you most relate to?
Speaker 5 (34:08):
Okay, so this is stupid, because I'm sure there are
millions that are. Probably I was thinking, there's got to
be something a bit romantic, cute, grantee or something.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
There's got to be something that I'm.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
Probably the thing that jumped to mind was the opening
scene of Swingers, John Favreau calling the girl about forty
two times and getting increasingly more pathetic with each one.
And for some reason, I find it's incredibly relatable, not
(34:41):
because it's something I particularly done, but just something that
I feel like I understand better than I understand than
the other scene from a film.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
So yeah, I don't know why that. I don't really
know why.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
That's my answerability is and you're just gonna it's they're
my answers.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
So that's that's all happen.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I told you. I fully accept that answer, and I
think it is a very real scene. And I've definitely
I've definitely done that via text. I've definitely sent a
text and I then sent another text and stop sending.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Texts it it.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
And then it reads like a mad, insane novel when
they finally look at it.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
I think it's also more curious to that question.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
I'd be more curious what other people think, what the
film they think is that they've seen that reminds them
of me the most, you know what I mean? I
think as an act, I'm always curious. I'm always curious
to know what people would. You know, people say, what
do you want to do next? I don't know what
do they want me.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
To do next? It's sort of right, you know, because
that's a part of it, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
The truth is the relate what film you most relate to?
It is the question most people struggle with, which is interesting,
and you get many varied answers, but I don't. I'd
say probably five guests that I've had in all the
time have an answer like that. Most people go, I
really struggled with this one.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Yeah, I think I think.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
I think it's because it's one of those ones that
you it's because the one I most want to get right.
And I think I'd need much more time to look
through all films I've ever seen and be like, oh, yeah, that,
but it didn't just come to me.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yes, because maybe if you're taking it as like, what's
the film that defines me as a person, that's too bigger.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the most intimate question in a way.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, anyway, tell me this, Ben Burns. I think this
is why people have tuned in what's the sexiest film
you've ever seen?
Speaker 5 (36:28):
I do enjoy having both my names every question. Is
a lot of people do that with my name because
it's a limit of in it, and I enjoy you
doing it. But I enjoy you doing it, I think
more than anyone ever. Maybe if you have to get
you a.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Badge, you thank.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
You sexiest film.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
So yeah, I think the film I sort of remember
being the sexiest film was Eating Mama Tambien. Correct great
moving on and then and then more recently, I saw
a film called The Handmaiden correct which I don't know
if I'm allowed to find it.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
So it was supposed to be sexy, but it is
very sexy.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
It's very sexy. It's got the sexiest tooth failing scene
in the cinema history. Yeah, yeah, you'd be hardposed to
find a sexier tooth failing seed.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
But just in case you were going to sort of
not agree with me so quickly and readily, which luckily
he did, because those are very sexy films, I had
a more PG answer ready, which was that the film
has the date, the date that I would most like
to go on in it, which is quite sexy, which
(37:39):
is the Karate Kid, preferably with Elizabeth Shoe. Actually still
what happens in the date they go to golf and
stuff in that beautiful yellow retro car that Miss Maggie
has given him, and they go to golf and stuff,
and he's sort of putting his arms around and helping
her put away, and they're having delicious looking at you know,
(38:01):
fast food, and they're just giggling a lot. And it
just was not an experience that I was having when
I was watching that film and I wanted I wanted
it with.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
That's very very sweet. Speaking of sweet, traveling boners worrying,
why don't what's a film you found arousing that you
weren't sure you should.
Speaker 5 (38:23):
I just realized that the Karati Kid was my answer
to that one. Because I was going to say the
Karate Kid and then you were going to go, what no.
I just was just like, go on, yeah, yeah, yeah,
and then I was going to explain that sort of
subverting the question of making it sweet. And now I've
ruined it by offering it too early.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
But what I liked is what we're doing here is
a deconstructed version of that bit. Yeah no, which is
very very la It's like a deconstructed taco or something.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
Yeah, it's stop, body, We do it backwards. It's fine,
it's good work.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, it's better this way. People. What we've done, we've
given you. We've given you all the ingredients. You get
to make the meal yourself in your head.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
I'll give you the answers and you provide the question.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
It's the Jeopardy version of it. I love it. What
is the crime? What is troubling? Bonus?
Speaker 4 (39:19):
I'll take Troubling Shadow and bonus for five hundred.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
What is objectively the greatest film ever made? Not your favorite, necessarily,
but the greatest.
Speaker 5 (39:32):
It is one of my It is absolutely one of
my favorites. And I know that the answer is not
interesting You've had it so many times before, but is
back to the Future. I've got the original poster there.
I just think it's perfect and I've always it's always
been the answer I have given about my favorite film.
I will say this, this horror show that I just finished.
(39:53):
My coastar was Crispin Glover, who was in the film
obviously is how he's wonderful. Yeah, he's wonderful. He's totally
eccentric and loves films and making films and being you know,
sort of collaborating on it. Loves you know, playing characters.
I think didn't didn't have the gumption to talk to
(40:16):
him about about it, but it was still thrilling to
sort of just just to hear his voice. Actually, it's
just quite It's just probably the film I've seen the most.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
So you can have that, of course, you can have it.
You can have that way and what we'll do go.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
Back and anyone who said it already in one hundred
and fifty.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
I'll delete them out of the podcast on Actually I'm
going to Yeah, Buddy Peace's the producer. When you listen
to this, could you do that? Please? Shouldn't take you long?
Speaker 1 (40:45):
What what is?
Speaker 2 (40:48):
What's the film that you could or have watched the
most over and over again?
Speaker 5 (40:54):
I don't know what the film is I've watched the most,
probably one of the ones I've already mentioned, but I
was My metric is always like that one that like
when you're like in a hotel somewhere and you just
sort of turn on the TV just to have some noise,
and then it's it's twenty five minutes into the film,
but you just sit and watch it anyway. I've got
a lot of those, I think. But you know, there's
something also. I know I completely avoid the question about
(41:17):
how where you see yourself in it? And I'm not
necessarily even sure which character, But there's something about notting
Hill that I can't I find unavoidable. I just love it,
unashamedly love that film. And I don't know if I'm
Hugh goan't On, Julia Roberts or somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yeah, you're the characters, but I do love it.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
And there's something sort of very Londonly about it, which
which I love, and something at the Hollywood coming into London,
which I understand. But it's just I love the structure
of those rom coms. I've been trying to find a
rom com with that kind of simple concept and structure
for literally for fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
I love the format I've seen.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
I watch a lot of kind of films except torra At,
but those sort of rom coms, when they're done well,
sort of Richard Curtis style, are my favorites.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Interesting? Interesting, you haven't found one in fifteen years. As well.
I think they're very, very very hard to get right.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
I think I've seen a lot that have been made
in the last sort of ten years, and a lot
of them are not very good.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
One or two that cut through, but I was not
offer them disgusting. I don't know what they were thinking.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
We don't like to be negative, do we, Ben Burns,
You and me are united on that, Yeah, hope FC.
But what's the worst film I've ever seen?
Speaker 5 (42:30):
So I don't know if it's the worst film I've
ever seen because I haven't seen it since I was small,
but there was a sort of running joke in my
family that we were once traveling somewhere and we watched
a film because I think we were sort of stuck
somewhere or something and that you can only get the TV,
and we watched a film called Basil, which stars Christian Slater,
(42:51):
and it's a sort of a period Victorian esque kind
of a film, and it was completely shit, suffering from
the main crime, main cinema crime of being very very boring.
And I remember my dad saying, I think that's the
worst one I've ever seen it. I said, I agree,
I think that's the worst one I made. And then,
(43:12):
in anticipation of this, I watched the trailer again online
and it looks speciously like a film version that I
did of Dorian Gray, which I think most people would
contend is the worst film I have been in frond with,
or one of one of at least, even though it
looks very, very beautiful and there are good things about it,
(43:33):
and it's often on Telly it Christmas, and people tell
me they love it, but that we didn't quite sort
of hear.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
How do you feel about it? I said, honestly, hand on,
I haven't seen it. I have no skin in the
game of this.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Mixed feelings about it because I loved making it.
Speaker 5 (43:48):
I loved the producers and the director and Colin Firth
starring Colin Firth, who is one of my favorite humans listeners.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
He just held up a mug that said Keep com
and Love Colin Fast.
Speaker 5 (43:59):
Given to me by Colin Base. You see, you're the
only one who will bloody drink out of it. So
and then I found that you can buy I Keep
Calm and Love Ben barnesmug on line. So I sent
it to his his wife, because Shenanigans for the purposes
of shenanigans.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
But he's a.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Wonderful human and we had a brilliant time making and
I think we thought we were making something that was
maybe perhaps a little bit edgier, and I think I
think I think it tried maybe to sort of be
a bit edgy and make some changes and also try
to sort of please lovers of literature and faithful lovers
who were hoping for a sort of faithful adaptation of
(44:39):
the book and everything. And I think that sometimes you
know you can do everything right and put it all
in the right sort of order, but it doesn't quite
capture the sort of zeitgeist of what that adaptation needs
to be for this generation or whatever. It just got
very Also, you know, I was twenty six or something
and that was the last time I read a review.
(45:00):
It was very poorly reviewed, very very mean about me.
And now I'm able to use those criticisms actually, especially
for younger actors, when they say, oh, you know that
so and so wasn't the best thing about this film
or whatever, And I'm thinking, you think that's a bad review,
I'll show you a bad review, mate, and I'll whip
out the Daily Mail's review of Dorian Gray, which the
most scathing review of any acting forms in history, I think.
Speaker 4 (45:22):
But it definitely like knocked me off kilter at the time.
Speaker 5 (45:27):
Maybe think maybe I'm not made of stern enough stuff
to do this, maybe I'm a bit sensitive. But then
actually it just served to sort of embolden me and
make myself actually want to be bolder in my choices
maybe or more it may be double down, maybe more
committed to making a success of this and being the best,
(45:47):
you know, just being the best actor I can be anyway, And.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
Do you avoid all things?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Then?
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Do you avoid all press? Do you avoid social media.
Speaker 5 (45:55):
Yeah, I was working on the third Narnia film in
Australia and to Toronto for the for the for the
film festival, and the reviews came out that that day
and I had to I had one to fly from
Australia to Toronto and back again in a day and
a half or something and night. So I was upside
down and inside out at that point. And I think
that that just the reviews coming out of that time,
(46:15):
it just it really knocked me. It really knocked me,
you know, as I say, I think there are great
things about it, and really I'm still really proud to
have done it. I'm very proud to have been casting
it with those people and you know, to have been
trusted with that story.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
Do I think I'm a better at to now? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:34):
You know, yeah, you're fucking twenty six, is there? Yeah,
it's mad.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
Interestingly, the horror thing that I've just done as a
sort of couple of little elements of it that made
me think, oh maybe this is you know, another go to.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
And I got asked to do the.
Speaker 5 (46:47):
Audio book actually Adoring Great last year or the even before,
and I was like, oh, I get to sort of
have another go here as well.
Speaker 4 (46:53):
But yeah, still very proud to have been involved in it.
Speaker 5 (46:55):
And I think, you know, all all these moves that
we make make us the person me on, I'm proud
of the person that I am.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
So do I watch it often?
Speaker 2 (47:04):
No, really good answer, I'm so. I think it's absolutely
right not to read anything. But I think it's hard.
I'm impressed a hard lesson. I suppose you're just used
to it.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
Yeah, yeah, any way to learn it, of course that
is the only possible way, you think is in the
fire and get burned before you know not to touch it.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Yeah. I definitely definitely experience that, and I should never
look I shouldn't have looked. Okay, what's the film you're
you're funny, ben Burns, You've been funny and stuff. What's
the film that made you laugh the most?
Speaker 5 (47:33):
I think the film that has made me laugh the
most number of times is this is spinal Tap?
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Correct, You've got a few of these, completely right.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
I'll win it.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
Well again, these are the ones that my that my
collection of eighties post is this is this is one
of them. I get probably one of the films I'll
watched the most, certainly the film that if people haven't
seen it, I will. I will immediately pull up something
or start quoting it, or I'll be unsufferable talking about it.
But it's just endlessly close ball. I mean, it's funny.
(48:07):
It's the first second before you've even got any actors
in it. Rob Bryan is introducing it and he does
this thing where he folds his arms and then just
sort of lets them. It is so uncomfortable that he
sort of lets them hang down.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
And it makes it.
Speaker 5 (48:20):
I cannot watch that without laughing. And nothing's happened yet.
The film hasn't even started yet. It's yeah, it's just
it's genius.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Love.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
It really is, Ben Burns. You've been an absolute joy.
I've loved talking to you. However, when you were one
hundred years old, you had a birthday card from the
Queen who is who was at the time about one
hundred and ninety. When I was first to send the card,
it was very scrawrey writing, but I believe it was
from her herself, and she did the past. You're a
(48:49):
bit tired. You went to bed, and your loved ones,
he said, gather around, gather around, your loved ones, gathered around,
and your your great great great granddaughter took your hand
and in a piece of madness, squeezed your hands so hard.
Speaker 4 (49:04):
So much despair, because you loved me so very much.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah, squeezed it so hard that it snapped in twenty
five places. She screamed. Everyone started screaming around you. Right,
Oh God, why am I done? Were screaming a hate you? No,
I know that's chaos. All your loved ones is just
so what we've done. And there was blood and then
the blood got infected and you had the instant sepsis
(49:29):
and it spread through your body quite quickly, to be fair,
and then and then you were just choking on the
infection and then people screaming. Everyone was screaming, and you died.
It was one of the least peacefulness I've ever seen.
And I hear this, I hear this chaos. I'm like,
(49:49):
what's going on in that house? And Ben bunders has
it sounds like a massacres happened. All your all your
loved ones. They run out of the house, screaming like
they've been in a horror. I've got a coughin on me,
you know what. I'm like, Drag it up, st go
where it's Ben Barns. Oh, detective friend, Ben's Ben Barns.
Where is he? I go up the stairs and there
you are, and your body has exploded from the instants,
(50:11):
fucking everywhere. It's everywhere, on the walls, on the it's disgusting.
And also insects are floating through the winter. They're already
eating on your rotting flesh. I'm like, get out of here,
scram and I scrape off all the bits of you
I can. I put you in the coffin. It's a
(50:33):
fucking I'm having to wear industrial gloves. It's gross. Even
I'm gross stat by it. It's a mess. It's like
I've made a fucking pool of cess in this coffin. Anyway,
it's full. It's full, and there's only really enough room
(50:53):
for me to slide one DVD into the group to
take across to the other side. And on the other
side it's movie night every night, and one night it's
what film were you taking to show everyone in heaven
when it's your movie night? Bed buds, Please, I've poked.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
The bear, there, haven't I At the beginning, I challenged you.
Speaker 5 (51:13):
It's like I sat, I was like I went to
a comedy show and sat in the middle of the
front row, thinking this would be fine.
Speaker 4 (51:20):
I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate you for that.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
How you listen? I'm so sorry that listen.
Speaker 4 (51:29):
It was screaming.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Made my peace, all of them. It was quick, though,
it was quick. Okay, what film are you taking with
you to show to Heaven?
Speaker 4 (51:44):
I am taking with me, arguably.
Speaker 5 (51:46):
And when I was argue, I mean arguing with myself
because it's impossible to answer the film ever is but
the one I would most like to share with, the
one I most like to show people, the one that
I has bought me, probably the most joy.
Speaker 4 (51:58):
When Harry met.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Sally, oh fucking perfect answer. I almost feel bad about
how you died with that answer. But I'm not in
charge of those things.
Speaker 4 (52:08):
I'm up. I'm up in heaven and now I met Sali.
I'm having a lovely time.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah, you're having absolute and.
Speaker 5 (52:15):
Everyone's going andone's going bringing this brilliant, brilliant choice, brilliant,
brilliant choice of film for us to watch. The thing
probably the probably the best choice of all the hundred things.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
You're the best person anyway. Just before we settle down
to watch this lovely film, how did you die? Again, buds.
What a joy. Now, I assume you would like people
to listen to your album. Is that what we have
to look forward to next from you?
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
What's it called.
Speaker 5 (52:50):
It's called Songs for You And it is five songs
that I wrote at that piano and and then had
some brilliant, brilliant producing pop people helped me make more
shiny sounding with exciting, brilliant musicians from around the world
sort of contributing their bits during the pandemic, which is
kind of thrilling and amazing. And now it's this sort
(53:13):
of little it's this little record which is just going
to be everywhere and it's brilliant. Yeah, people have been
The first song came out a few weeks ago, and
people sending me you know, actually, I think one of
the things I love the most is this this this
this girl's dancing in a kitchen, this big smile on
her face to it. And then people have been doing
some of pole dancing corribly, or ice skating routines, or
(53:36):
doing a sing cover of it, or drawing something from
the music video or whatever. Just like just just feeling like,
I think something about me doing it at forty rather
than at nineteen when I first tried. Is making people
go I can well, maybe I can just do my
thing now, and that feels good.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
I love that. I love that. Congratulations, congratulations on your album.
That's fucking huge. Thanks. I hope that more and more
people love it. I have loved talking with you. Thank
you for your time, and good luck with everything, have
a wonderful time in heaven and love to you. Good day,
sir Cherry bye.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
So that was Ben Barnes on a rewind Classic episode.
Be sure to check out the Patreon page at patreon
dot com slash Brett Goldstein, where you'll get extra chat,
video and mixtapes at various tears and otherwise. If you
fancy leaving a note on Apple podcasts, that would be
lovely too, but make it a review of your favorite film.
Much more fun and Brett and more in love nothing
(54:38):
more than reading them. It is gratefully appreciated. Thank you
so much to Ben Barnes for fun times and presents
on the podcast. Thanks to Scrubius, Pip and the Distraction
Pieces Network, thanks too. And this is where Brett thanks
me for editing and producing the podcast, so I say
in return, it is a pleasure. Thanks to iHeartMedia and
Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network for hosting it. Thanks
(54:58):
to Adam Richardson for the graphic and Lisa Lydon for
the photography. We will be back next week with another
rewind classic. But that is it for now. Brett and
I and all of us have films to be buried with.
Hope you're all very well in the meantime, have a
lovely week, and now more than ever, be excellent to
each other.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.