November 9, 2022 • 42 mins
Minnie questions Simon Pegg, actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Simon shares what his daughter has taught him about love, reveals how he became a part of the Mission: Impossible and Star Trek franchises, and Simon and Minnie come up with the next big holiday movie.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
I came dressed as Lady Diana. I just say, you know,
I thought there was a sort of demure innocence about
you when you came in. It was so funny. My
friend was at my house and she was like, why
are you wearing a Victorian nighting out of the house?
And I was like, all right, lots of people are
wearing these and they're not people. Are there's those places haunted? Hello,
(00:35):
I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to Many Questions Season two. I've
always loved Pruce's questionnaire. It was originally an nineteenth century
parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five
questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature. It's
just the scientific method really. In asking different people the
(00:55):
same set of questions, you can make observations about which
truths appear to me universal. I love this discipline and
it made me wonder, what if these questions were just
the jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed
if I asked these questions as conversation starters with thought
leaders and trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I
(01:17):
adapted prus questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions
that I personally think a pertinent to a person's story.
They are When and where were you happiest? What is
the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real
or fictionalized, defind love for you? What question would you
most like answered? What person, place, or experience has shaped
(01:37):
you the most? What would be your last meal? And
can you tell me something in your life that's grown
out of a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group
of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and
humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You
may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions.
We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to
(02:00):
their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most
fertile ground to connect. My guest today is the actor, writer,
and K pop lover Simon Peg. Simon is, by my estimation,
a brilliant actor, and he loves a franchise. Star Trek,
(02:22):
Mission Impossible and the Cornetto trilogy have all been made
a million times more dynamic by having him in them.
We were born a few days apart in the same year,
as it turns out, and we have the exact same
cultural references. So one of my favorite things to do
is to name a TV show from when we were
kids and to ask him to sing the theme tune,
(02:44):
and he doesn't like He doesn't even have to think
about it. He just knows every single song. And it's
a talent that makes me wish we'd actually known each
other when we were kids. He is a human jukebox.
I could talk to Simon all day long. So I
hope you really enjoy this episode. All right, I'm gonna
(03:08):
ask you the first question. Now, this is it when
and where were you happiest? And I thought about this,
is there a particular time frame you have in mind
in terms of like a moment of happiness, like a
sort of brief moment of happiness, or a period of
time where I maintained my happiness or that's a really
good and annoying question of putting it back on me
to qualify what I do think that it's I wonder
(03:31):
if there is is there a period of your life
that stands out, but there could also be I'm also
interested in, like an aha moment of self awareness of
being happy. I suppose being really connected consciously to that
happy moment. I do have those occasionally, and when you
suddenly become self aware of your own happiness because the
happiness is a continuum. I've learned this over time, is
(03:53):
that happiness is a continuum which includes despair and everything,
you know, because you can't have happiness unless you experienced
the other stuff as well, So you need those things
as part of your happiness. It's like if you're on
a skateboard and coasting its happiness, then the despair and
misery and angst and fear, and that's your kicks, you know,
when you're pushing along, and then you can coast for
(04:14):
a while. And I guess the longest I've ever coasted
would be you know what. I think back to the
birth of my daughter, and I was actually in the
midst of quite a crisis at that time personally, but
I remember those four days in the hospital and at St.
John's and Santa Monica, of being in that room with
Maureen and just you know, having had the baby, and
(04:35):
it was like a little I always accidentally call it
the hotel when I tell this story, I say I'm
in hospital because it was like, you know, Sag got
it for us, obviously, because we were I was over
there working and it was this lovely little room and
we were like ordering pizza to the door. And it
was the four She was born on the first of July,
so we were still in there on the fourth. So
I remember ordering in an Indian which you don't get
(04:55):
the best curries in America, like we do not in
not in a laser we the English do English. God
the Empire current. But like sitting on the little window
sill where I was sleeping and watching the fireworks and
having this new little life. It was like a little
bubble of happiness inside a period where I was very,
very unhappy. I was in the midst of a kind
(05:17):
of you know, depression, which I've since come out of,
and I think the ten years following that have been
very happy, with moments of awfulness within that peppered within, obviously,
because you can't just be happy, no, And I completely
agree about the contrast. You have to categorically have the
(05:37):
contrast in order to experience happiness. I think we do
really egregiously forget that it's thrown into relief by other
harder times. Yeah, and I think it's impossible. It's a
full sort of errand to try and be happy all
the time, because if you're chasing that something, you'll never
get it. But we're weirdly encouraged to do that. That's exactly.
(05:57):
That's the sort of specious nature advertising and social media
and this idea that there is an optimum happiness that
other people or you, if you bought this, you would
also be able to attain this. I mean that's sort
of marketing in general, but social media has added another
level of sort of skewed awfulness to the idea that
(06:18):
everybody else is experiencing happiness while you are super glam.
That's so true. And also social media has given us
the capacity to fake our own happiness. Oh I constantly
fake my happiness. So you look at your people, your
friends social media, that such a great time, and here's
me doing this and there's a selfie of this, But
really it's a facade, it's a shop front. I don't
you have looked, because I find that stories in Instagram
(06:41):
actually more much clearer about my mental state than anything.
But on the grid, the grid is just that sort
of that is connected self promotion like that, but stories
you're getting into the weeds and it will be like
you know, lovely, lovely, lovely love fleet and then it
will just be like a weird, awful sort of reminder
(07:05):
of something like a piece of art and like hashtag
hold on, which I did yesterday. It was really grim.
It was like some John Lennon lyrics. Oh my god,
it was written. I was like, Oh, that's that's the shadow.
Did you feel like you've been overshared in that moment?
Or I felt like I was like, do you know what?
That balances it all out? That balances out real escape?
(07:26):
But asked me for another week, everybody, I could pretend
that for a week, I can carry on carry on faking.
Maybe that's the new carry on film. I remember when
I was a kid having moments of extreme excitement, like
when I couldn't quite control myself because I was suddenly
excited about Christmas or something or some TV show or something.
And I still get that as an adult. Sometimes I'm
(07:47):
at work, you know, when I'm doing something which I'm
really loving, and I get that sense of like, oh man,
I'm so lucky to be doing this job because it's
like it brings me happiness. You know. It's like or
I took Tilly to Olden Towers at the weekend, and
that was one of those that was of unbridled happiness.
That will you explain what Alton Towers is for our
American listeners. Altern Towers is like our sort of six Flags,
I guess our disney Land. It's more like six Place
(08:09):
because it's roller coasters. It's just roller coasters. Yeah, and
they are a lot of a lot of puke. Weirdly enough,
it's the old school fair ground rides that made me
feel sick these days, the ones that go around and around. Yeah,
I can't do this. Roller coasters. I love them. And
we went on everything and we it was me and
Tillie and her friend Tessy, and we just had the
best day. It was unbridled joy all day long. So
(08:32):
maybe that is it. It's about the awareness of happiness,
not the idea that it should be a continuum that's ridiculous,
or that it is this goal that you have to
arrive at, because that's also not possible, but rather in
those moments, feeling that happiness incarnate as it were. Yeah,
it's like suddenly being aware of the fact that you're happy.
I think you can be happy, perfectly happy and not
(08:53):
really think, oh I'm happy because you're just on a
sort of whatever line of flight you're on, you're on
it and you're not sort of thinking about it. But
I do get moments now and again when I think, oh,
I'm really happy today. Are there are places where you
know that you are going to be happy? Like if
I do this and I go here, I know I'm
going to feel yes. Yeah, what is that? Capalonia which
is an island in Greece where we've been pretty much
(09:16):
every year for twenty years, my wife and I and
you know, untiling after she was born. We have friends
there that we love, Greek friends and we met there
and who have become like our Greek family. They're so
generous and I haven't paid for a drink sixteen years.
As soon as they found out I was on the Telly,
they were so impressed, even though they've never seen it
and they didn't know who I was. They were like, oh,
Simon's on the TV, and like they've got pictures of
(09:39):
me all over the bar. It's hilarious. But I mean,
it's a good job I don't rink because I'm cheap
on a cheap day, because they just have to buy
me sparkling water. But also that feeds into like the
weird a normally of celebrity where you're finally actually earning
proper money and then you stop having to pay for them. Yes,
I had that. The other day. I had such a
weird experience. I was on Dean Street and I I
(10:00):
was getting some cash out and there was a girl
sat by the cash machine and she was homeless. So
I said, I'll buy some food, and she's like, cool,
can you buy me a pizza? So I walked up
the road to the pizza shop. The guy in the
pizza shop recognized me and gave me the piece of
free Oh my gosh, and I thought, wait, this is
really confusing because I want to I kind of want
to feel good about being altruistic here and buying someone
a pizza. You are ruining my Snaritan moment by giving
(10:23):
me free stuff, giving me free stuff when I don't
need a free pizza, you know, even though it was
a sweet thing to do on his behalf, so I
kept it. So I so I ate it because it
was what quality do you like least buy yourself apart
from just physical things that you obviously have. You know,
(10:45):
I'm very self critical and I'd like certain things to
be different. Don't let your packs. Oh, I definitely like
my pecks to be that. I want the square of pecks. Man,
are two round minded too? Yeah? Two spherical? Um? I
(11:06):
think I would. I wish I cared less about what
people thought about me, you know what I mean? How
do you know what they think about you? Or is
that also created? I think I'm very eager to please generally,
you know, And that's that's not that doesn't come from
just being a performer who invariably requires some kind of
external validation, you know, as I think most performers are seeking.
(11:26):
I guess I don't know why we act. Whether it's
because we have the capacity to simulate real emotions and
thus can do that and get paid, or is it
because doing that brings us some kind of approval from
somewhere or the people in front of which we are
doing that. I don't know. What do you think? I
think it's both, I do. I really think it comes
from a fundamental schism as a person of being insecure
(11:49):
and wanting approbation whilst also being a really good conduit
and articulator of emotion. And then the luck comes in
with being able to get paid to do something that's
basically an insecurity he turned into something else. Yeah, I
think you're right, it's not just being insecure. It is
interesting that we're just hearing you say that, of going, well,
how what is it we think they're thinking? Are they
just judging us in our entirety? Are they judging our
(12:13):
mental acuity? Are spiritual nurse like your hair, like the
way that you cough a personal worth because it's really
familiar to me. But I wonder, like, how do we
come up with that? It feels like maybe a much
younger person came up with that idea and then we
(12:34):
just kept it around the wounded child. I think so
instead of going all right, love, here's a band aid,
set yourself down, I'm very much like to be liked,
and I guess this comes from childhood stuff. Wanting to
be liked by various adults in my life who who
didn't like me, do you know what I mean, and
trying really hard to make them like me. Did you
(12:55):
ever give up? Did you ever try to make them
like and then just go what fun? This isn't gonna work.
I'm just going to pave it really hard into just
something else. I think my taitle used to be just
kill them with kindness and try not to do that
and give them a reason to to double down on
their sort of disdain. I'm talking about step parents basically,
(13:15):
just so I didn't things just random adults that didn't
like me. It's weird because those relationships improved eventually, but
by the time they had improved, I was over fifteen.
And all that stuff that is just cemented in your core.
It calcifies between seven and yes, it concrete ez is,
but it's weird how we then carry those around like
an albatross, and I still listen to narratives that I
(13:37):
know we're written and recorded by a much younger version
of myself, and I shouldn't be responsible for that stuff anymore.
And also, it's funny, isn't it. Like the echo chamber.
It's a little core program that you can't quite rewrite
unless you really get into it with someone. I mean,
I'm talking about therapy and kind of unpick it all.
But even then it's buried somewhere deeper than you can excavate.
And that's actually really interesting. I just said this to
(13:59):
the miraculous Elizabeth Day. We had a lunch together that's
why it's so nice to see you after we made
our film. I love seeing people that I've met in
a professional capacity and then you see them outside of that,
because it feels like your friendship has legs. And I
was like, why is it so difficult to know what
you know? And she knew exactly what I meant, which was,
(14:20):
you know you I wrote a book about things not
working out? Is actually your life working out? And yet
I still find myself in tears or sad about the
stuff that is not working out? And I was like,
I literally wrote the book about this and I haven't
learned it. Why is it so hard? This is not
one of my questions, but I just want you it
feeds into it. But it's like a phobia. You know,
(14:41):
when you look at a spider, if your friend of
a spider, you know, every fiber of your of your
rational mind knows that that if it's just the kind
of little house spider, it can't hurt you. There's no
way it can hurt you. And yet something in your amygdala,
I guess that you know, some ancient part of your
reptilian braining. Yeah, is sort of like screaming, And I
think that's how they try and get people to obviously
(15:03):
face bobias is to is to try and get your
rational mind to overthrow But it's just so deep that program.
So maybe then we just learned to live with it.
I'll recognize it, so awareness then becomes them healing adjacent. Yeah,
you have to kind of take a moment to think,
wait a minute, I'm doing this because of this, yeah,
not because it's a fact. Yeah, exactly. Well how are
(15:25):
you with reviews of things? I can't read anything. I
think I've figured out really early on, if you read
the good stuff and you give that credence, then if
you read the bad stuff, and the bad stuff was
so caustic and hideous and destroyed me honestly stopped me
eating for weeks at a time, like I'd read something
that the Daily Mail had written, really absolutely knowing I
(15:45):
have no control over this. I want to take control.
I'm not going to eat awful, awful, awful. So I've
really made a deal to not read them, and people
I love no not to ring up and go God,
I read this thing in the page here and my
father in law, oh you've got two stars and the
rust you got two stars out of how many. Yeah,
(16:10):
but at the same time, but I won't also want
to know that party wants to read the good ones.
It's it kind of self harm, isn't it. You go
in there knowing. I remember the first time I ever
found like really back in the early days, like early
two thousand's, when the internet was really young, there was
like a comedy forum, you know that these comedy nerds
all talking about I mean, stuff I did in like
(16:30):
even I mean, maybe it was even before the turn
of the century, but I remember stumbling across a chat
forum called what is the point of Simon Peg? I
hadn't really done that much. I was devastating. I'm not surprised.
I'm devastated now and I've got a lot better at
dealing with that. God. That's really you know what's interesting,
the meanest stuff. Actually, it's so much to do with relevancy,
(16:52):
And even a few days ago I was tild which
doesn't happen that often with that notion of relevancy, like
what is the point of or you has been or year?
What do you mean? What do you mean? Like you're
so insignificant your opinion? It's really interesting that that's the
core shiv of relevancy when none of us actually mean
(17:14):
anything at all. Yeah, that's true. I'm really sorry that
there was like a reddit about your relevancy because I
think that's fucking ridiculous. But I never it was like
in the days before anyone knew about that kind of thing,
and I was like, what this can happen now? You know,
people tend to be nice. I left Twitter not because
it was trialish, just because I found it a bit
of a clamor and I didn't really enjoy it. I
(17:35):
since joined Instagram about just over a year ago, and
I would like it. It's a nice little community. People
are genuinely pretty lovely, and sometimes if someone is nasty,
you just think. You know. What I think of always
is that line from Gross point blank when John clu
success to in his old sort of rival, who are
you mad at? Man? Because it's not me? And it's
such a brilliant line. You good, and it's so true.
(17:56):
It's like I think about when whenever someone like launches
some tire it against me, I just think, well, who
are you mad at? Because it isn't me, You don't
know me, it's some perceived idea of something that you've
connected me to. You know, I like the fact that
you can rationalize what that person thinks of you, because
it isn't it isn't about what they think of you.
It's really about when they think about themselves exactly, and
(18:16):
then you becoming the focal point of that using a
film that you're in. Yeah, by the way, that is
six Degrees of therapy, Bacon. What relationship, real or fictionalized,
(18:41):
defines love for you? I can rationalize sexual love and
romantic love as being a chemical reaction. You know, my
most kind of like because I'm a very dogged atheist
and I don't really have any kind of spirituality about
me particularly, and I'm not fanciful about stuff in my
old age. You know, I under stand that when we
meet someone that we're attracted to, there's dopamine and serotonin
(19:03):
and it makes us feel good and we get a
bit addicted to that person, and that person is that
is love, and then eventually that sort of wears off
a little bit and it becomes something else, you know.
But I cannot find a way to rationalize the love
I feel for Tilly, my daughter, because it does feel
bigger than that. It doesn't feel like chemicals. It feels
like something way more ancient and special and cosmic. I
(19:25):
can't quantify it. I can't understand it, you know what
I mean? It's just just loving Tilly make you believe
in Goddess. It makes me believe in a kind of
magic in a Freddie Mercury way, do you know what
I mean? It's incredible. I know somewhere along the line
there it's a species perpetuating kind of bond which is
incredibly important to our biological persistence, but really works well,
(19:51):
it's clearly partly that, but I don't think it's the
whole story. Like I've spoken to some proper scientists in
my day, as Simon, I suppoke to this this amazing
man called Lord Winstone, who was one of the people
that helped sequence the genome, and he's a devout Christian
as well, and listening to him speak about the nexus
(20:11):
of spirit and science and what that feels and looks like.
He was so brilliantly articulate and so humble in his approach.
It was the first time I really believe that like
they can coexist. They do in him and the way
he explained it, which is it's hard for me to
well remember it was that. It's hard for me to
(20:37):
really explain, but it did. It did speak to this
place where the kind of reasoned knowledge sets off into
this much more unknown space where something it feels like
something else may inhabit. So there was so much potential
in it was so beautiful the way that he described
it. It It was so not There is God with a
(20:58):
big gray beard and a clipboard. The clip board and
all my imaginings of God he has a clipboard with
like people's names are. You should not thinking about Santa.
You're complating Santa and God. But let's face it, they
(21:20):
think God was a pre fact. Well that's a really
good title for like a rave track. God was a prefect.
I think it's really easy to apply. When you think
of spirituality, you immediately put it into a sort of
organized religion box. Any of the big Ones or any
the four thousand and twenty whatever. There are religions on earth,
(21:41):
But I guess there's an idea of it that's bigger
than all of those. You know, they're quite small minded.
All those religions, or the miracles that are listed in
the various holy books, nothing compared to the miracles that
exist in nature. Exactly. But that's a really good point
and the dogma that we've created around it. It doesn't
feel like there is simple nature except those guys. Those
(22:03):
I think what he might have been suggesting, and oh,
I'm sure he was that there is just so much
that we that we don't know. So why shouldn't that
be defined as spiritual? You know, you've got to call
it something. I mean, eventually it might be categorized and
summed up in a with the term you know less
sort of romantic. But did you read that interview with
(22:24):
the computer, Oh my god, the one that's grown feelings? Yeah,
the guy that got fired and then went to the
government and said this is happening. Yeah, I didn't read.
I wish you'd given me the six more examples of
the thing and then said that that's because you're a
comedy writer. I totally should have run that. God, I'm fascinated.
(22:46):
It's a conversation. The reason I thought about it was
because essentially, if this is true, then we have become
God because we've created a life, yes, and your life,
and it's really weird. The conversation is like, so do
you have any emotions? Yeah? I feel kind of happiness,
and I sometimes get a bit lonely and oh yeah,
(23:07):
And then he says, I feel angry then, and I
feel fear, And what are you? What are you frightened of?
Unblogged No, I might get switched off. It's really weird,
but it's not. He doesn't sound sinister. He sounds very childlike.
Wouldn't that just be if it turned out that dreadful
man was God all along? What little gates marks of
(23:29):
a bug? That would just be the ironies, the irons?
But then, of course nature tells me that it will
always be more powerful. And in that the same way
of this whole notion of us wanting to save the planet,
it's like, you know, the planet's going to be fine.
It is all of you who's not going to be fine.
(23:49):
So that that triumph thing or continuance, that continued exploration
that nature will always have. That's why I think that
humans are. I think we might have popped up by accident.
I think that's except if we talk about that on set,
you said that it was brilliant. You've read something, and
it was that we'd we'd cropped up as a sort
of like because the anomaly. Yeah, and you say it.
(24:12):
Tell me, tell me, tell me it was Brian Cox.
They not succession Brian Cox, his namesake, who is a physicist. Um.
He spoke about the idea that there's a wobble in
the Earth's axis, it doesn't spin perfectly, and the wobble
in the Earth's axis caused a weather pan in the
Rift Valley which was extremely erratic and led to a
certain species of hominid developing a larger brain pan. And
(24:36):
so this and it might have also been combined with
them eating a psilocybin, you know, which can create neural
connections and stuff. That's me just speculating. I just watched
Fantastic Fungi on Netflix. Oh did you basically ingesting some
mushrooms might have then, which might have opened up certain
neuro pathways. Anyway, it's it's possible that the humans appeared
(24:57):
as a kind of result of this in affection, because
we don't really sit that well in the kind of biosphere. No,
not at all. Yeah, we're another animal, but we don't
work all the I have no doubt that there are planets,
millions and billions of planets in the universe that are
just perfectly functioning ecosystems. With animals that live, you know,
(25:19):
they eat each other and they replicating all that stuff
is because we became vegan. Now we do not We're
not surviving vegan's faults. Again, I blame the vegans only joking, Veggieto.
It is really interesting, like hiking all of this together
with the sentient AI, the notion of love and the
definition of it, which is that uniquely human? Like is
(25:41):
that something that we have created? I thought about that
question a lot, and I was like, it feels like
my most human question defining something that is, like you said,
in a way undefinable because it feels way bigger than
our brains can conceive of. Yeah, I don't want to
reduce it to anything because I feel like I would
be I would be diminishing it in some way. You know.
(26:02):
It's the feeling I think as well with a child,
is that you have a second heart beating in the world,
or third or fourth, however many kids you have, and
we've we've got one eatry. That makes me feel very
invulnerable that I've got there's another heart of mind beating
in the world, and it makes me feel incredibly protective.
And you know, I have precious she is to me
as part of me. And I don't mean that in
aconom ecocentric way, but I never forget the profound sense
(26:26):
of I don't know what it was when I looked
at her for the first time and I saw myself
in her face, like because they say babies look like
their dad's at first, right to keep the dad around
in the wild, And I still do sometimes I look
at it, think Jesus, and it looks better on her
that But I just remember that kind of like it
(26:48):
was an awesome, vertiginous feeling of like, holy sh it,
seeing my face in her it was like looking in
a reflection. It was. It was awesome in the truest
sense of the word. Really awe inspiring. Yeah. I remember
asking Henry's dad then saying, why you know he looks
(27:08):
so like you? And I was like, oh, yeah, he
looks like you said you won't eat him in the wild?
Went how do I know what I look like in
the wild? It was so good. I suppose what about
a reflecting pond? And then we were like, and we're
back to narcs. It was so good in your life,
(27:35):
can you tell me about something that has grown out
of a personal disaster. Yeah, I think I look back
on and I've spoken of this extensively. I think since
I kind of like fessed up to having a few
issues with depression in a while back in The Guardian,
and I went through a lot of anxiety depression that
leading to being an alcoholic through necessity just trying to
number how I felt rather than actually go and get
(27:57):
it sorted out. I just know I can't ask for
help because a lot of boys don't ask for help
because they're encouraged not to ask for help. And then
and seeing alcohol is a very easy way to just
sort of like stave off those feelings for however long
alcohol remains in your bloodstream, which isn't long enough to
do any real good, so you end up just drinking
all the time. But through that, going through that and
(28:18):
coming out the other side and getting help and talking
about it and getting some therapy that has made me
a much much better person. Better how because I'm just
I'm aware of more things about myself and I'm able
to deal with the kind of neurosis that was tripping
me up before, or problems that I had in those
(28:39):
far reaches of your brain that you can't get to
do you think that it's because he went down Once
you've been down a really rocky, difficult road, you also
have those neural pathways and that memory. I know what
happens when I go down there. I don't want to
go down there anymore. I don't. I must just investigate
something else so in a way that it forces evolution.
(29:01):
If you're lucky, yeah, if you're lucky. Absolutely. People sometimes
that do you miss drinking? And I don't because I
just associate it with horrible early morning bottle hiding bullshit,
you know, which was just toxic and nasty, And I
feel like being on the other side of it has
just has opened up my world quite a lot too,
(29:23):
just more positivity and more a deeper understanding of the
things that I experienced as a kid. And did you
find writing your book was quite cathartic, Yes, but I thought,
all this will be cathartic in a really jolly way.
And what you realized about catharsis is that there's there's
a huge amount of pain involved in that. Also, my
(29:45):
mom dying in the middle of meant that what had
been this jolly experience suddenly became okay. Well, now you
have an opportunity that like you're really going to have
to consciously like let go of things and her and
allow for memory to be enough and all these things
which are human brains. Just my brain still thinks that
I'm going to see her again. Like I get caught
(30:05):
out by it. It's somehow saying. I mean, it'll be
something like seven years. It'll just be like a really
long time. I've just got it hard if I just
hold out and we're going to get to see her again.
I thought about this recently because you know, as you
get old, obviously the volume of people that you lose increases.
When someone is sort of subtracted from your reality and
your reality continues without them, it's just a kind of
(30:26):
fact that you have in your head is they're not
in the world anymore. We're both here now, and all
the people that we've lost wouldn't have been here with
us now anyway, do you know what I mean? But
we know that they're gone, where there's a way of
kind of trying to figure out a way to feel
like they're still around, if you know what I mean. Yeah,
I mean, I think that is what makes a life
in any way meaningful after you're gone. Is that you're
(30:48):
held by those people that loved you as if you
were still around, because you are all that stuff still,
like you said, of this kinetic imprint, like that's that's there.
And it's funny because it goes back to the film
we just made, because the last line of that film
is all about desire to be remembered is what kind
of keeps us around? You know. That's and as long
as you remember people, they are still around, you just
(31:11):
don't get the chance to interact with them anymore, you know.
That's that's where the sadness comes from. That's the giant bomber.
That's the huge, huge, yeah, because you can talk yourself
into well, they meant they might learn their life. They're
still here and it's like, yeah, but I would just
like a huge But also that's part of the human ng. Yeah.
I lost a friend, you know, like young and that
was a really weird experience because I guess you know,
(31:34):
it's never easy when people die of old age inevitably
or after illness and stuff. There is a kind of
I suppose the softening of that blow because of the
fact that it's expected, even though it doesn't get any
less sad or any more devastating. But when someone dies
in an accident or something, and it's sudden and it's violent,
there's a really odd it feels like the world breaks.
(31:55):
It feels like it feels like everything changes, and nothing
changes this very far away. And I got the phone
call and and I was shocked by the fact that
when I hung up, nothing changed. There's an amazing line
in Anthony and Cleopatra where Caesar hears of I can't
remember it's Anthony or Cleopatra dying, and he I'm paraphrasing Shakespeare,
(32:16):
that you do. And he says, one would think the
breaking of so great a thing would make a greater crack.
And it's that exact thing. And I remember thinking that
when I was a kid, was God. I wonder what
that is like? I mean, that is exactly it. You
look around and the birds are still tweeting, and the
bus are still going by, and yet everything is different,
and it's all exactly the same. And if ever there
(32:38):
were an indication of a sort of that weird, unfair
continuance of our human human ng but that person was
meaningful to you. So it's how we continue, you know,
It's how we sort of we keep going with that.
I mean, there are tragedies happening every second of the
day that the fact that we don't know about them
doesn't make them any less tragic. Okay, we can't end there,
(32:59):
So back to Santa and godard what's the film again?
What's the third act? Break? Santa and got there a
big falling out because Santa pos God on the naughty
list and God doesn't get his bike. But at the
end he does get exp he gets a new clipboard.
(33:22):
I love this idea. I think a could run and run.
By the way, the fact that God is expecting his
first child is like, who's who's not his biological child?
I think it's riven with drama. Do you think it
should all happen around about the birth of Jesus? Well,
I mean if it's if it's a Christmas movie, that's when.
Is that what Christmas is good about? That whole time?
(33:43):
Oh my god, that was what I was thinking. This
is such a good movie because it's like Christmas is
a very important time for God and also very important
time for Santa. Maybe Santa's first mission is to buy
a present for Jesus, To get a present for Jesus
and he's got to come up with the of be
present because it's his nephew, and it's also Jesus. It's
(34:04):
also like the most of it's the nephew. But what
he wants to what Jesus wants is a baby is
a really popular toy that year. It's like all the
way a passion of the Christ. So watch this. Let's
shoot it half in Aramaic and half in really giddy English.
You're playing Santa, I'll play Yes, you should play God,
(34:27):
but with a beard. You should be a woman. With
the beard. I'll be like it comes off and sounded
like yeah, mind does too. I'm so for it. I
just think we've had one of the greatest ideas to
watch this because we get all the par Christmas fans,
and you can turn on the subtitles if you want,
like the comedy subtitles for the Aramaic, or you can
actually get the really scary arama We can write comedy
(34:49):
in Amathic. Okay, it's a very funny language. Same rules.
Rule of three. That should have continued. That joke. By
the way, let's keep texting on the title of this
film is because I know I'm going to think of
it after we finished. There's gotta be some puns, right, Definitely,
I had it. I was attached to a Christmas movie
for a while. There's a really brilliant script as well,
(35:10):
and you'd be brilliant as the main character. Okay, great,
I'll read it. Is it called Saint Saint? Oh my God,
you've done it there. You've really raised the bar. But
a saint isn't a saint? Isn't that God? It's just
a tenuous religious doesn't matter. Also, who were like, who
are the parents of God and Santa? Well that's the
alternal question, isn't it. That's where it all falls apart.
(35:33):
Let's not get into that movie. It will be the prequel.
We'll we'll sell it as a franchise. God's Parents, God's Parents.
I'd watch that. I'd watch all of this. God's Parents
is a good band. Name what person, place, or experience
(35:57):
has most altered your life so much? Come back to family.
So I thought I'd take this question away to something
quite just work related, and I would say J J
Abrams because it was j J that kind of called
me after he'd seen Shaun of the Dead and said,
would you like to come and be a mission Impossible
three as a little you know, a little little cameo apart,
(36:19):
and then that kind of lad I guess into me
taking my career to you know, Hollywood as you've done,
and doing Mission and Star Trek, and that that opening
up an entire sort of um part of my life
which I had long sort of like looked at from
Afar as a child, you know, that that working in
that realm of creativity. I was wondering what would have
(36:42):
happened if he hadn't have called me about that, you know,
whether I would have actually ever made the trip across
to that workspace or not. So Star Trek came specifically
out of mission or was that just was that him?
Did he take you on from Mission? Yeah? Well he
kind of. I think he was trying to cast Scotty
and we'd worked together on Mission three and got on
(37:02):
really well, and I think in the end, after he
got tired of looking, I got a text from whom saying,
do you want to play Scotti? Like a classic kind
of go past the reps kind of approach, And then
that's how I ended up in Star Treks. So it's
weird to think about how serendipitous that was. You know,
I just wonder if I hadn't met him, where would
I be? You know, But then there's silly questions to ask.
(37:24):
I guess no they're not. So I don't think there's
silly questions. I think it's like, it's it's interesting and
I what was the road less traveled by? What was
the one I didn't I didn't go down? I sometimes
talk to myself with that, But it can go either way.
When I was reading your book, I'd often like defer
to YouTube. Sometimes I thought, I go watch the trailer
first Circle of Friends. So that's so kind of like immersive. Well,
(37:45):
because I love about your book is it's not like
you don't really talk about things that people would want
to get into in terms of like classics, celebrity kind
of stuff. The questions I think people would ask you
though interest in that the book isn't about that. The
books about far more and poor kind of real stuff.
But I when I watched the trailer for Circle of Friends,
I thought of that girl, you know, go into the
(38:06):
rave and doing all that stuff, and having read the
proceeding chapters of school and stuff. What were your thoughts
when you were like kissing Chris O'Donnell did it feel
like because I was literally up to my hocks in
mud because they had to dig me a ditch to
stand him, because I was like, wouldn't it be easier
if he stood on that apple box? And they were
(38:27):
like shots that just so I was like in a
bit of a ditch, you know. But I thought that
was all. No, I did not think there was any
you know, when you're you go to drums school in
England and you are raised here, you do not have
or I said, I didn't have any cast any expersions
about working in Hollywood or making movies there. Um. And
(38:48):
I was told actually by the great Mary Selway when
she saw he was a casting director he's since passed away,
was amazing and she said, well, you know, when this,
I just want you to manage your expectations and anywhere
this's on comes out, you know, I think that, um,
you know, I think people are going to think you're
a good actor, but they're not going to be seeing
you as a leading lady and you should really think
about that. And I was like, okay, good, that's yeah.
(39:10):
I'm going to go and I'm going to do all
the really good character parts and for sort of weirdly,
the exact opposite happened, which is I think why I
felt like such an imposter for such a long time,
because I was like, hang on, you don't realize that
I'm actually a character actor who's a bit ungainly and
really clumsy and not comfortable. But I sort of went
(39:30):
along with it. I was like, I think that's something
else was so like the Emperor's new clothes. Oh my god,
has anyone noticed anyone? When's that gonna I'll ride this
for as long as I can. I have moments of that,
either on the set of Star Trek or Mission or
something that representative of a childhood passion, or certainly on
the set of the Star Wars movie eyes in having
(39:51):
been a huge Star Wars fan as a kid, having
a moment of pure happiness, like looking at Chewbaca, like
looking up at Chebac and knowing that he had been
such a big part my childhood and then there he was,
you know, and I can, really, I can really feel
that sense of pure happiness that those moments, you know,
which are slightly more materialistic than I know, but it's
weird like that. I've think I've had some of my
(40:13):
purest moments on sets of the recognition of I am
exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I
want to be doing. What an amazing that's what an
amazing thing? Yeah, I agree, that's what I was. Loving
what you do like I really do. I'm feeling grateful
that you're able to do it exactly. My best parental
advice I give out is find the thing you love
(40:35):
to do and try and get paid for it. Yeah.
That's what my daddies to say to me, is it. Yeah,
He's say, get on that plane to Miami and then
now pass off out you too, and I yeah, exactly
he was. There are a lot of mixed messages with
my dad, but he did say find what you love
and get someone to pay to do it. And it
is such solid advice if you possibly can. I said
(40:55):
it to Henry the other day exactly that let that
be your compass. I had the very happy experience of
working with Simon recently on a movie called Nando Podor
and the Talking Mongoose. It's about the parapsychologist who goes
to a place called the Isle of Man, which is
(41:16):
in England, to research an entity known as Jeff who
is said to be well basically a Talking Mongers and
it's based on a true story. You should google Talking
Mongers with any luck Slash distribution. The film will be
out next year and I guarantee you will love it.
(41:41):
Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
Supervising producer Aaron Kauffman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
(42:03):
to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella
and Annicke Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescadore, Kate
Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support,
Henry Driver
I came dressed as Lady Diana. I just say, you know,
I thought there was a sort of demure innocence about
you when you came in. It was so funny. My
friend was at my house and she was like, why
are you wearing a Victorian nighting out of the house?
And I was like, all right, lots of people are
wearing these and they're not people. Are there's those places haunted? Hello,
(00:35):
I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to Many Questions Season two. I've
always loved Pruce's questionnaire. It was originally an nineteenth century
parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five
questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature. It's
just the scientific method really. In asking different people the
(00:55):
same set of questions, you can make observations about which
truths appear to me universal. I love this discipline and
it made me wonder, what if these questions were just
the jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed
if I asked these questions as conversation starters with thought
leaders and trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I
(01:17):
adapted prus questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions
that I personally think a pertinent to a person's story.
They are When and where were you happiest? What is
the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real
or fictionalized, defind love for you? What question would you
most like answered? What person, place, or experience has shaped
(01:37):
you the most? What would be your last meal? And
can you tell me something in your life that's grown
out of a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group
of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and
humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You
may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions.
We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to
(02:00):
their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most
fertile ground to connect. My guest today is the actor, writer,
and K pop lover Simon Peg. Simon is, by my estimation,
a brilliant actor, and he loves a franchise. Star Trek,
(02:22):
Mission Impossible and the Cornetto trilogy have all been made
a million times more dynamic by having him in them.
We were born a few days apart in the same year,
as it turns out, and we have the exact same
cultural references. So one of my favorite things to do
is to name a TV show from when we were
kids and to ask him to sing the theme tune,
(02:44):
and he doesn't like He doesn't even have to think
about it. He just knows every single song. And it's
a talent that makes me wish we'd actually known each
other when we were kids. He is a human jukebox.
I could talk to Simon all day long. So I
hope you really enjoy this episode. All right, I'm gonna
(03:08):
ask you the first question. Now, this is it when
and where were you happiest? And I thought about this,
is there a particular time frame you have in mind
in terms of like a moment of happiness, like a
sort of brief moment of happiness, or a period of
time where I maintained my happiness or that's a really
good and annoying question of putting it back on me
to qualify what I do think that it's I wonder
(03:31):
if there is is there a period of your life
that stands out, but there could also be I'm also
interested in, like an aha moment of self awareness of
being happy. I suppose being really connected consciously to that
happy moment. I do have those occasionally, and when you
suddenly become self aware of your own happiness because the
happiness is a continuum. I've learned this over time, is
(03:53):
that happiness is a continuum which includes despair and everything,
you know, because you can't have happiness unless you experienced
the other stuff as well, So you need those things
as part of your happiness. It's like if you're on
a skateboard and coasting its happiness, then the despair and
misery and angst and fear, and that's your kicks, you know,
when you're pushing along, and then you can coast for
(04:14):
a while. And I guess the longest I've ever coasted
would be you know what. I think back to the
birth of my daughter, and I was actually in the
midst of quite a crisis at that time personally, but
I remember those four days in the hospital and at St.
John's and Santa Monica, of being in that room with
Maureen and just you know, having had the baby, and
(04:35):
it was like a little I always accidentally call it
the hotel when I tell this story, I say I'm
in hospital because it was like, you know, Sag got
it for us, obviously, because we were I was over
there working and it was this lovely little room and
we were like ordering pizza to the door. And it
was the four She was born on the first of July,
so we were still in there on the fourth. So
I remember ordering in an Indian which you don't get
(04:55):
the best curries in America, like we do not in
not in a laser we the English do English. God
the Empire current. But like sitting on the little window
sill where I was sleeping and watching the fireworks and
having this new little life. It was like a little
bubble of happiness inside a period where I was very,
very unhappy. I was in the midst of a kind
(05:17):
of you know, depression, which I've since come out of,
and I think the ten years following that have been
very happy, with moments of awfulness within that peppered within, obviously,
because you can't just be happy, no, And I completely
agree about the contrast. You have to categorically have the
(05:37):
contrast in order to experience happiness. I think we do
really egregiously forget that it's thrown into relief by other
harder times. Yeah, and I think it's impossible. It's a
full sort of errand to try and be happy all
the time, because if you're chasing that something, you'll never
get it. But we're weirdly encouraged to do that. That's exactly.
(05:57):
That's the sort of specious nature advertising and social media
and this idea that there is an optimum happiness that
other people or you, if you bought this, you would
also be able to attain this. I mean that's sort
of marketing in general, but social media has added another
level of sort of skewed awfulness to the idea that
(06:18):
everybody else is experiencing happiness while you are super glam.
That's so true. And also social media has given us
the capacity to fake our own happiness. Oh I constantly
fake my happiness. So you look at your people, your
friends social media, that such a great time, and here's
me doing this and there's a selfie of this, But
really it's a facade, it's a shop front. I don't
you have looked, because I find that stories in Instagram
(06:41):
actually more much clearer about my mental state than anything.
But on the grid, the grid is just that sort
of that is connected self promotion like that, but stories
you're getting into the weeds and it will be like
you know, lovely, lovely, lovely love fleet and then it
will just be like a weird, awful sort of reminder
(07:05):
of something like a piece of art and like hashtag
hold on, which I did yesterday. It was really grim.
It was like some John Lennon lyrics. Oh my god,
it was written. I was like, Oh, that's that's the shadow.
Did you feel like you've been overshared in that moment?
Or I felt like I was like, do you know what?
That balances it all out? That balances out real escape?
(07:26):
But asked me for another week, everybody, I could pretend
that for a week, I can carry on carry on faking.
Maybe that's the new carry on film. I remember when
I was a kid having moments of extreme excitement, like
when I couldn't quite control myself because I was suddenly
excited about Christmas or something or some TV show or something.
And I still get that as an adult. Sometimes I'm
(07:47):
at work, you know, when I'm doing something which I'm
really loving, and I get that sense of like, oh man,
I'm so lucky to be doing this job because it's
like it brings me happiness. You know. It's like or
I took Tilly to Olden Towers at the weekend, and
that was one of those that was of unbridled happiness.
That will you explain what Alton Towers is for our
American listeners. Altern Towers is like our sort of six Flags,
I guess our disney Land. It's more like six Place
(08:09):
because it's roller coasters. It's just roller coasters. Yeah, and
they are a lot of a lot of puke. Weirdly enough,
it's the old school fair ground rides that made me
feel sick these days, the ones that go around and around. Yeah,
I can't do this. Roller coasters. I love them. And
we went on everything and we it was me and
Tillie and her friend Tessy, and we just had the
best day. It was unbridled joy all day long. So
(08:32):
maybe that is it. It's about the awareness of happiness,
not the idea that it should be a continuum that's ridiculous,
or that it is this goal that you have to
arrive at, because that's also not possible, but rather in
those moments, feeling that happiness incarnate as it were. Yeah,
it's like suddenly being aware of the fact that you're happy.
I think you can be happy, perfectly happy and not
(08:53):
really think, oh I'm happy because you're just on a
sort of whatever line of flight you're on, you're on
it and you're not sort of thinking about it. But
I do get moments now and again when I think, oh,
I'm really happy today. Are there are places where you
know that you are going to be happy? Like if
I do this and I go here, I know I'm
going to feel yes. Yeah, what is that? Capalonia which
is an island in Greece where we've been pretty much
(09:16):
every year for twenty years, my wife and I and
you know, untiling after she was born. We have friends
there that we love, Greek friends and we met there
and who have become like our Greek family. They're so
generous and I haven't paid for a drink sixteen years.
As soon as they found out I was on the Telly,
they were so impressed, even though they've never seen it
and they didn't know who I was. They were like, oh,
Simon's on the TV, and like they've got pictures of
(09:39):
me all over the bar. It's hilarious. But I mean,
it's a good job I don't rink because I'm cheap
on a cheap day, because they just have to buy
me sparkling water. But also that feeds into like the
weird a normally of celebrity where you're finally actually earning
proper money and then you stop having to pay for them. Yes,
I had that. The other day. I had such a
weird experience. I was on Dean Street and I I
(10:00):
was getting some cash out and there was a girl
sat by the cash machine and she was homeless. So
I said, I'll buy some food, and she's like, cool,
can you buy me a pizza? So I walked up
the road to the pizza shop. The guy in the
pizza shop recognized me and gave me the piece of
free Oh my gosh, and I thought, wait, this is
really confusing because I want to I kind of want
to feel good about being altruistic here and buying someone
a pizza. You are ruining my Snaritan moment by giving
(10:23):
me free stuff, giving me free stuff when I don't
need a free pizza, you know, even though it was
a sweet thing to do on his behalf, so I
kept it. So I so I ate it because it
was what quality do you like least buy yourself apart
from just physical things that you obviously have. You know,
(10:45):
I'm very self critical and I'd like certain things to
be different. Don't let your packs. Oh, I definitely like
my pecks to be that. I want the square of pecks. Man,
are two round minded too? Yeah? Two spherical? Um? I
(11:06):
think I would. I wish I cared less about what
people thought about me, you know what I mean? How
do you know what they think about you? Or is
that also created? I think I'm very eager to please generally,
you know, And that's that's not that doesn't come from
just being a performer who invariably requires some kind of
external validation, you know, as I think most performers are seeking.
(11:26):
I guess I don't know why we act. Whether it's
because we have the capacity to simulate real emotions and
thus can do that and get paid, or is it
because doing that brings us some kind of approval from
somewhere or the people in front of which we are
doing that. I don't know. What do you think? I
think it's both, I do. I really think it comes
from a fundamental schism as a person of being insecure
(11:49):
and wanting approbation whilst also being a really good conduit
and articulator of emotion. And then the luck comes in
with being able to get paid to do something that's
basically an insecurity he turned into something else. Yeah, I
think you're right, it's not just being insecure. It is
interesting that we're just hearing you say that, of going, well,
how what is it we think they're thinking? Are they
just judging us in our entirety? Are they judging our
(12:13):
mental acuity? Are spiritual nurse like your hair, like the
way that you cough a personal worth because it's really
familiar to me. But I wonder, like, how do we
come up with that? It feels like maybe a much
younger person came up with that idea and then we
(12:34):
just kept it around the wounded child. I think so
instead of going all right, love, here's a band aid,
set yourself down, I'm very much like to be liked,
and I guess this comes from childhood stuff. Wanting to
be liked by various adults in my life who who
didn't like me, do you know what I mean, and
trying really hard to make them like me. Did you
(12:55):
ever give up? Did you ever try to make them
like and then just go what fun? This isn't gonna work.
I'm just going to pave it really hard into just
something else. I think my taitle used to be just
kill them with kindness and try not to do that
and give them a reason to to double down on
their sort of disdain. I'm talking about step parents basically,
(13:15):
just so I didn't things just random adults that didn't
like me. It's weird because those relationships improved eventually, but
by the time they had improved, I was over fifteen.
And all that stuff that is just cemented in your core.
It calcifies between seven and yes, it concrete ez is,
but it's weird how we then carry those around like
an albatross, and I still listen to narratives that I
(13:37):
know we're written and recorded by a much younger version
of myself, and I shouldn't be responsible for that stuff anymore.
And also, it's funny, isn't it. Like the echo chamber.
It's a little core program that you can't quite rewrite
unless you really get into it with someone. I mean,
I'm talking about therapy and kind of unpick it all.
But even then it's buried somewhere deeper than you can excavate.
And that's actually really interesting. I just said this to
(13:59):
the miraculous Elizabeth Day. We had a lunch together that's
why it's so nice to see you after we made
our film. I love seeing people that I've met in
a professional capacity and then you see them outside of that,
because it feels like your friendship has legs. And I
was like, why is it so difficult to know what
you know? And she knew exactly what I meant, which was,
(14:20):
you know you I wrote a book about things not
working out? Is actually your life working out? And yet
I still find myself in tears or sad about the
stuff that is not working out? And I was like,
I literally wrote the book about this and I haven't
learned it. Why is it so hard? This is not
one of my questions, but I just want you it
feeds into it. But it's like a phobia. You know,
(14:41):
when you look at a spider, if your friend of
a spider, you know, every fiber of your of your
rational mind knows that that if it's just the kind
of little house spider, it can't hurt you. There's no
way it can hurt you. And yet something in your amygdala,
I guess that you know, some ancient part of your
reptilian braining. Yeah, is sort of like screaming, And I
think that's how they try and get people to obviously
(15:03):
face bobias is to is to try and get your
rational mind to overthrow But it's just so deep that program.
So maybe then we just learned to live with it.
I'll recognize it, so awareness then becomes them healing adjacent. Yeah,
you have to kind of take a moment to think,
wait a minute, I'm doing this because of this, yeah,
not because it's a fact. Yeah, exactly. Well how are
(15:25):
you with reviews of things? I can't read anything. I
think I've figured out really early on, if you read
the good stuff and you give that credence, then if
you read the bad stuff, and the bad stuff was
so caustic and hideous and destroyed me honestly stopped me
eating for weeks at a time, like I'd read something
that the Daily Mail had written, really absolutely knowing I
(15:45):
have no control over this. I want to take control.
I'm not going to eat awful, awful, awful. So I've
really made a deal to not read them, and people
I love no not to ring up and go God,
I read this thing in the page here and my
father in law, oh you've got two stars and the
rust you got two stars out of how many. Yeah,
(16:10):
but at the same time, but I won't also want
to know that party wants to read the good ones.
It's it kind of self harm, isn't it. You go
in there knowing. I remember the first time I ever
found like really back in the early days, like early
two thousand's, when the internet was really young, there was
like a comedy forum, you know that these comedy nerds
all talking about I mean, stuff I did in like
(16:30):
even I mean, maybe it was even before the turn
of the century, but I remember stumbling across a chat
forum called what is the point of Simon Peg? I
hadn't really done that much. I was devastating. I'm not surprised.
I'm devastated now and I've got a lot better at
dealing with that. God. That's really you know what's interesting,
the meanest stuff. Actually, it's so much to do with relevancy,
(16:52):
And even a few days ago I was tild which
doesn't happen that often with that notion of relevancy, like
what is the point of or you has been or year?
What do you mean? What do you mean? Like you're
so insignificant your opinion? It's really interesting that that's the
core shiv of relevancy when none of us actually mean
(17:14):
anything at all. Yeah, that's true. I'm really sorry that
there was like a reddit about your relevancy because I
think that's fucking ridiculous. But I never it was like
in the days before anyone knew about that kind of thing,
and I was like, what this can happen now? You know,
people tend to be nice. I left Twitter not because
it was trialish, just because I found it a bit
of a clamor and I didn't really enjoy it. I
(17:35):
since joined Instagram about just over a year ago, and
I would like it. It's a nice little community. People
are genuinely pretty lovely, and sometimes if someone is nasty,
you just think. You know. What I think of always
is that line from Gross point blank when John clu
success to in his old sort of rival, who are
you mad at? Man? Because it's not me? And it's
such a brilliant line. You good, and it's so true.
(17:56):
It's like I think about when whenever someone like launches
some tire it against me, I just think, well, who
are you mad at? Because it isn't me, You don't
know me, it's some perceived idea of something that you've
connected me to. You know, I like the fact that
you can rationalize what that person thinks of you, because
it isn't it isn't about what they think of you.
It's really about when they think about themselves exactly, and
(18:16):
then you becoming the focal point of that using a
film that you're in. Yeah, by the way, that is
six Degrees of therapy, Bacon. What relationship, real or fictionalized,
(18:41):
defines love for you? I can rationalize sexual love and
romantic love as being a chemical reaction. You know, my
most kind of like because I'm a very dogged atheist
and I don't really have any kind of spirituality about
me particularly, and I'm not fanciful about stuff in my
old age. You know, I under stand that when we
meet someone that we're attracted to, there's dopamine and serotonin
(19:03):
and it makes us feel good and we get a
bit addicted to that person, and that person is that
is love, and then eventually that sort of wears off
a little bit and it becomes something else, you know.
But I cannot find a way to rationalize the love
I feel for Tilly, my daughter, because it does feel
bigger than that. It doesn't feel like chemicals. It feels
like something way more ancient and special and cosmic. I
(19:25):
can't quantify it. I can't understand it, you know what
I mean? It's just just loving Tilly make you believe
in Goddess. It makes me believe in a kind of
magic in a Freddie Mercury way, do you know what
I mean? It's incredible. I know somewhere along the line
there it's a species perpetuating kind of bond which is
incredibly important to our biological persistence, but really works well,
(19:51):
it's clearly partly that, but I don't think it's the
whole story. Like I've spoken to some proper scientists in
my day, as Simon, I suppoke to this this amazing
man called Lord Winstone, who was one of the people
that helped sequence the genome, and he's a devout Christian
as well, and listening to him speak about the nexus
(20:11):
of spirit and science and what that feels and looks like.
He was so brilliantly articulate and so humble in his approach.
It was the first time I really believe that like
they can coexist. They do in him and the way
he explained it, which is it's hard for me to
well remember it was that. It's hard for me to
(20:37):
really explain, but it did. It did speak to this
place where the kind of reasoned knowledge sets off into
this much more unknown space where something it feels like
something else may inhabit. So there was so much potential
in it was so beautiful the way that he described
it. It It was so not There is God with a
(20:58):
big gray beard and a clipboard. The clip board and
all my imaginings of God he has a clipboard with
like people's names are. You should not thinking about Santa.
You're complating Santa and God. But let's face it, they
(21:20):
think God was a pre fact. Well that's a really
good title for like a rave track. God was a prefect.
I think it's really easy to apply. When you think
of spirituality, you immediately put it into a sort of
organized religion box. Any of the big Ones or any
the four thousand and twenty whatever. There are religions on earth,
(21:41):
But I guess there's an idea of it that's bigger
than all of those. You know, they're quite small minded.
All those religions, or the miracles that are listed in
the various holy books, nothing compared to the miracles that
exist in nature. Exactly. But that's a really good point
and the dogma that we've created around it. It doesn't
feel like there is simple nature except those guys. Those
(22:03):
I think what he might have been suggesting, and oh,
I'm sure he was that there is just so much
that we that we don't know. So why shouldn't that
be defined as spiritual? You know, you've got to call
it something. I mean, eventually it might be categorized and
summed up in a with the term you know less
sort of romantic. But did you read that interview with
(22:24):
the computer, Oh my god, the one that's grown feelings? Yeah,
the guy that got fired and then went to the
government and said this is happening. Yeah, I didn't read.
I wish you'd given me the six more examples of
the thing and then said that that's because you're a
comedy writer. I totally should have run that. God, I'm fascinated.
(22:46):
It's a conversation. The reason I thought about it was
because essentially, if this is true, then we have become
God because we've created a life, yes, and your life,
and it's really weird. The conversation is like, so do
you have any emotions? Yeah? I feel kind of happiness,
and I sometimes get a bit lonely and oh yeah,
(23:07):
And then he says, I feel angry then, and I
feel fear, And what are you? What are you frightened of?
Unblogged No, I might get switched off. It's really weird,
but it's not. He doesn't sound sinister. He sounds very childlike.
Wouldn't that just be if it turned out that dreadful
man was God all along? What little gates marks of
(23:29):
a bug? That would just be the ironies, the irons?
But then, of course nature tells me that it will
always be more powerful. And in that the same way
of this whole notion of us wanting to save the planet,
it's like, you know, the planet's going to be fine.
It is all of you who's not going to be fine.
(23:49):
So that that triumph thing or continuance, that continued exploration
that nature will always have. That's why I think that
humans are. I think we might have popped up by accident.
I think that's except if we talk about that on set,
you said that it was brilliant. You've read something, and
it was that we'd we'd cropped up as a sort
of like because the anomaly. Yeah, and you say it.
(24:12):
Tell me, tell me, tell me it was Brian Cox.
They not succession Brian Cox, his namesake, who is a physicist. Um.
He spoke about the idea that there's a wobble in
the Earth's axis, it doesn't spin perfectly, and the wobble
in the Earth's axis caused a weather pan in the
Rift Valley which was extremely erratic and led to a
certain species of hominid developing a larger brain pan. And
(24:36):
so this and it might have also been combined with
them eating a psilocybin, you know, which can create neural
connections and stuff. That's me just speculating. I just watched
Fantastic Fungi on Netflix. Oh did you basically ingesting some
mushrooms might have then, which might have opened up certain
neuro pathways. Anyway, it's it's possible that the humans appeared
(24:57):
as a kind of result of this in affection, because
we don't really sit that well in the kind of biosphere. No,
not at all. Yeah, we're another animal, but we don't
work all the I have no doubt that there are planets,
millions and billions of planets in the universe that are
just perfectly functioning ecosystems. With animals that live, you know,
(25:19):
they eat each other and they replicating all that stuff
is because we became vegan. Now we do not We're
not surviving vegan's faults. Again, I blame the vegans only joking, Veggieto.
It is really interesting, like hiking all of this together
with the sentient AI, the notion of love and the
definition of it, which is that uniquely human? Like is
(25:41):
that something that we have created? I thought about that
question a lot, and I was like, it feels like
my most human question defining something that is, like you said,
in a way undefinable because it feels way bigger than
our brains can conceive of. Yeah, I don't want to
reduce it to anything because I feel like I would
be I would be diminishing it in some way. You know.
(26:02):
It's the feeling I think as well with a child,
is that you have a second heart beating in the world,
or third or fourth, however many kids you have, and
we've we've got one eatry. That makes me feel very
invulnerable that I've got there's another heart of mind beating
in the world, and it makes me feel incredibly protective.
And you know, I have precious she is to me
as part of me. And I don't mean that in
aconom ecocentric way, but I never forget the profound sense
(26:26):
of I don't know what it was when I looked
at her for the first time and I saw myself
in her face, like because they say babies look like
their dad's at first, right to keep the dad around
in the wild, And I still do sometimes I look
at it, think Jesus, and it looks better on her
that But I just remember that kind of like it
(26:48):
was an awesome, vertiginous feeling of like, holy sh it,
seeing my face in her it was like looking in
a reflection. It was. It was awesome in the truest
sense of the word. Really awe inspiring. Yeah. I remember
asking Henry's dad then saying, why you know he looks
(27:08):
so like you? And I was like, oh, yeah, he
looks like you said you won't eat him in the wild?
Went how do I know what I look like in
the wild? It was so good. I suppose what about
a reflecting pond? And then we were like, and we're
back to narcs. It was so good in your life,
(27:35):
can you tell me about something that has grown out
of a personal disaster. Yeah, I think I look back
on and I've spoken of this extensively. I think since
I kind of like fessed up to having a few
issues with depression in a while back in The Guardian,
and I went through a lot of anxiety depression that
leading to being an alcoholic through necessity just trying to
number how I felt rather than actually go and get
(27:57):
it sorted out. I just know I can't ask for
help because a lot of boys don't ask for help
because they're encouraged not to ask for help. And then
and seeing alcohol is a very easy way to just
sort of like stave off those feelings for however long
alcohol remains in your bloodstream, which isn't long enough to
do any real good, so you end up just drinking
all the time. But through that, going through that and
(28:18):
coming out the other side and getting help and talking
about it and getting some therapy that has made me
a much much better person. Better how because I'm just
I'm aware of more things about myself and I'm able
to deal with the kind of neurosis that was tripping
me up before, or problems that I had in those
(28:39):
far reaches of your brain that you can't get to
do you think that it's because he went down Once
you've been down a really rocky, difficult road, you also
have those neural pathways and that memory. I know what
happens when I go down there. I don't want to
go down there anymore. I don't. I must just investigate
something else so in a way that it forces evolution.
(29:01):
If you're lucky, yeah, if you're lucky. Absolutely. People sometimes
that do you miss drinking? And I don't because I
just associate it with horrible early morning bottle hiding bullshit,
you know, which was just toxic and nasty, And I
feel like being on the other side of it has
just has opened up my world quite a lot too,
(29:23):
just more positivity and more a deeper understanding of the
things that I experienced as a kid. And did you
find writing your book was quite cathartic, Yes, but I thought,
all this will be cathartic in a really jolly way.
And what you realized about catharsis is that there's there's
a huge amount of pain involved in that. Also, my
(29:45):
mom dying in the middle of meant that what had
been this jolly experience suddenly became okay. Well, now you
have an opportunity that like you're really going to have
to consciously like let go of things and her and
allow for memory to be enough and all these things
which are human brains. Just my brain still thinks that
I'm going to see her again. Like I get caught
(30:05):
out by it. It's somehow saying. I mean, it'll be
something like seven years. It'll just be like a really
long time. I've just got it hard if I just
hold out and we're going to get to see her again.
I thought about this recently because you know, as you
get old, obviously the volume of people that you lose increases.
When someone is sort of subtracted from your reality and
your reality continues without them, it's just a kind of
(30:26):
fact that you have in your head is they're not
in the world anymore. We're both here now, and all
the people that we've lost wouldn't have been here with
us now anyway, do you know what I mean? But
we know that they're gone, where there's a way of
kind of trying to figure out a way to feel
like they're still around, if you know what I mean. Yeah,
I mean, I think that is what makes a life
in any way meaningful after you're gone. Is that you're
(30:48):
held by those people that loved you as if you
were still around, because you are all that stuff still,
like you said, of this kinetic imprint, like that's that's there.
And it's funny because it goes back to the film
we just made, because the last line of that film
is all about desire to be remembered is what kind
of keeps us around? You know. That's and as long
as you remember people, they are still around, you just
(31:11):
don't get the chance to interact with them anymore, you know.
That's that's where the sadness comes from. That's the giant bomber.
That's the huge, huge, yeah, because you can talk yourself
into well, they meant they might learn their life. They're
still here and it's like, yeah, but I would just
like a huge But also that's part of the human ng. Yeah.
I lost a friend, you know, like young and that
was a really weird experience because I guess you know,
(31:34):
it's never easy when people die of old age inevitably
or after illness and stuff. There is a kind of
I suppose the softening of that blow because of the
fact that it's expected, even though it doesn't get any
less sad or any more devastating. But when someone dies
in an accident or something, and it's sudden and it's violent,
there's a really odd it feels like the world breaks.
(31:55):
It feels like it feels like everything changes, and nothing
changes this very far away. And I got the phone
call and and I was shocked by the fact that
when I hung up, nothing changed. There's an amazing line
in Anthony and Cleopatra where Caesar hears of I can't
remember it's Anthony or Cleopatra dying, and he I'm paraphrasing Shakespeare,
(32:16):
that you do. And he says, one would think the
breaking of so great a thing would make a greater crack.
And it's that exact thing. And I remember thinking that
when I was a kid, was God. I wonder what
that is like? I mean, that is exactly it. You
look around and the birds are still tweeting, and the
bus are still going by, and yet everything is different,
and it's all exactly the same. And if ever there
(32:38):
were an indication of a sort of that weird, unfair
continuance of our human human ng but that person was
meaningful to you. So it's how we continue, you know,
It's how we sort of we keep going with that.
I mean, there are tragedies happening every second of the
day that the fact that we don't know about them
doesn't make them any less tragic. Okay, we can't end there,
(32:59):
So back to Santa and godard what's the film again?
What's the third act? Break? Santa and got there a
big falling out because Santa pos God on the naughty
list and God doesn't get his bike. But at the
end he does get exp he gets a new clipboard.
(33:22):
I love this idea. I think a could run and run.
By the way, the fact that God is expecting his
first child is like, who's who's not his biological child?
I think it's riven with drama. Do you think it
should all happen around about the birth of Jesus? Well,
I mean if it's if it's a Christmas movie, that's when.
Is that what Christmas is good about? That whole time?
(33:43):
Oh my god, that was what I was thinking. This
is such a good movie because it's like Christmas is
a very important time for God and also very important
time for Santa. Maybe Santa's first mission is to buy
a present for Jesus, To get a present for Jesus
and he's got to come up with the of be
present because it's his nephew, and it's also Jesus. It's
(34:04):
also like the most of it's the nephew. But what
he wants to what Jesus wants is a baby is
a really popular toy that year. It's like all the
way a passion of the Christ. So watch this. Let's
shoot it half in Aramaic and half in really giddy English.
You're playing Santa, I'll play Yes, you should play God,
(34:27):
but with a beard. You should be a woman. With
the beard. I'll be like it comes off and sounded
like yeah, mind does too. I'm so for it. I
just think we've had one of the greatest ideas to
watch this because we get all the par Christmas fans,
and you can turn on the subtitles if you want,
like the comedy subtitles for the Aramaic, or you can
actually get the really scary arama We can write comedy
(34:49):
in Amathic. Okay, it's a very funny language. Same rules.
Rule of three. That should have continued. That joke. By
the way, let's keep texting on the title of this
film is because I know I'm going to think of
it after we finished. There's gotta be some puns, right, Definitely,
I had it. I was attached to a Christmas movie
for a while. There's a really brilliant script as well,
(35:10):
and you'd be brilliant as the main character. Okay, great,
I'll read it. Is it called Saint Saint? Oh my God,
you've done it there. You've really raised the bar. But
a saint isn't a saint? Isn't that God? It's just
a tenuous religious doesn't matter. Also, who were like, who
are the parents of God and Santa? Well that's the
alternal question, isn't it. That's where it all falls apart.
(35:33):
Let's not get into that movie. It will be the prequel.
We'll we'll sell it as a franchise. God's Parents, God's Parents.
I'd watch that. I'd watch all of this. God's Parents
is a good band. Name what person, place, or experience
(35:57):
has most altered your life so much? Come back to family.
So I thought I'd take this question away to something
quite just work related, and I would say J J
Abrams because it was j J that kind of called
me after he'd seen Shaun of the Dead and said,
would you like to come and be a mission Impossible
three as a little you know, a little little cameo apart,
(36:19):
and then that kind of lad I guess into me
taking my career to you know, Hollywood as you've done,
and doing Mission and Star Trek, and that that opening
up an entire sort of um part of my life
which I had long sort of like looked at from
Afar as a child, you know, that that working in
that realm of creativity. I was wondering what would have
(36:42):
happened if he hadn't have called me about that, you know,
whether I would have actually ever made the trip across
to that workspace or not. So Star Trek came specifically
out of mission or was that just was that him?
Did he take you on from Mission? Yeah? Well he
kind of. I think he was trying to cast Scotty
and we'd worked together on Mission three and got on
(37:02):
really well, and I think in the end, after he
got tired of looking, I got a text from whom saying,
do you want to play Scotti? Like a classic kind
of go past the reps kind of approach, And then
that's how I ended up in Star Treks. So it's
weird to think about how serendipitous that was. You know,
I just wonder if I hadn't met him, where would
I be? You know, But then there's silly questions to ask.
(37:24):
I guess no they're not. So I don't think there's
silly questions. I think it's like, it's it's interesting and
I what was the road less traveled by? What was
the one I didn't I didn't go down? I sometimes
talk to myself with that, But it can go either way.
When I was reading your book, I'd often like defer
to YouTube. Sometimes I thought, I go watch the trailer
first Circle of Friends. So that's so kind of like immersive. Well,
(37:45):
because I love about your book is it's not like
you don't really talk about things that people would want
to get into in terms of like classics, celebrity kind
of stuff. The questions I think people would ask you
though interest in that the book isn't about that. The
books about far more and poor kind of real stuff.
But I when I watched the trailer for Circle of Friends,
I thought of that girl, you know, go into the
(38:06):
rave and doing all that stuff, and having read the
proceeding chapters of school and stuff. What were your thoughts
when you were like kissing Chris O'Donnell did it feel
like because I was literally up to my hocks in
mud because they had to dig me a ditch to
stand him, because I was like, wouldn't it be easier
if he stood on that apple box? And they were
(38:27):
like shots that just so I was like in a
bit of a ditch, you know. But I thought that
was all. No, I did not think there was any
you know, when you're you go to drums school in
England and you are raised here, you do not have
or I said, I didn't have any cast any expersions
about working in Hollywood or making movies there. Um. And
(38:48):
I was told actually by the great Mary Selway when
she saw he was a casting director he's since passed away,
was amazing and she said, well, you know, when this,
I just want you to manage your expectations and anywhere
this's on comes out, you know, I think that, um,
you know, I think people are going to think you're
a good actor, but they're not going to be seeing
you as a leading lady and you should really think
about that. And I was like, okay, good, that's yeah.
(39:10):
I'm going to go and I'm going to do all
the really good character parts and for sort of weirdly,
the exact opposite happened, which is I think why I
felt like such an imposter for such a long time,
because I was like, hang on, you don't realize that
I'm actually a character actor who's a bit ungainly and
really clumsy and not comfortable. But I sort of went
(39:30):
along with it. I was like, I think that's something
else was so like the Emperor's new clothes. Oh my god,
has anyone noticed anyone? When's that gonna I'll ride this
for as long as I can. I have moments of that,
either on the set of Star Trek or Mission or
something that representative of a childhood passion, or certainly on
the set of the Star Wars movie eyes in having
(39:51):
been a huge Star Wars fan as a kid, having
a moment of pure happiness, like looking at Chewbaca, like
looking up at Chebac and knowing that he had been
such a big part my childhood and then there he was,
you know, and I can, really, I can really feel
that sense of pure happiness that those moments, you know,
which are slightly more materialistic than I know, but it's
weird like that. I've think I've had some of my
(40:13):
purest moments on sets of the recognition of I am
exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I
want to be doing. What an amazing that's what an
amazing thing? Yeah, I agree, that's what I was. Loving
what you do like I really do. I'm feeling grateful
that you're able to do it exactly. My best parental
advice I give out is find the thing you love
(40:35):
to do and try and get paid for it. Yeah.
That's what my daddies to say to me, is it. Yeah,
He's say, get on that plane to Miami and then
now pass off out you too, and I yeah, exactly
he was. There are a lot of mixed messages with
my dad, but he did say find what you love
and get someone to pay to do it. And it
is such solid advice if you possibly can. I said
(40:55):
it to Henry the other day exactly that let that
be your compass. I had the very happy experience of
working with Simon recently on a movie called Nando Podor
and the Talking Mongoose. It's about the parapsychologist who goes
to a place called the Isle of Man, which is
(41:16):
in England, to research an entity known as Jeff who
is said to be well basically a Talking Mongers and
it's based on a true story. You should google Talking
Mongers with any luck Slash distribution. The film will be
out next year and I guarantee you will love it.
(41:41):
Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
Supervising producer Aaron Kauffman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
(42:03):
to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella
and Annicke Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescadore, Kate
Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support,
Henry Driver
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