cover of episode "Hugh Grant"

"Hugh Grant"

2024/11/18
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SmartLess

Key Insights

Why does Hugh Grant consider homes to be hell?

He finds homes depressing and general, especially when working from home, as it feels more enjoyable to get out and about.

How did Hugh Grant start his acting career?

His career began by mistake when he was supposed to do another degree but decided to try acting for a year due to lack of money.

What does Hugh Grant attribute to his improvement as an actor?

He learned late in his career that meaning the role and thinking about the character's thoughts and feelings is crucial, not just landing funny lines.

Why does Hugh Grant enjoy horror films?

He appreciates the cinematic quality, production design, and photography in modern horror films, which he finds daring and beautiful.

What is Hugh Grant's most shameful golf moment?

He once threw his golf club in rage during a game in France, only to realize it landed on the first green of a tournament, causing embarrassment.

What are Hugh Grant's future aspirations?

He dreams of writing a novel or a great script and would like to gently disappear from public recognition to enjoy more privacy.

Chapters

Hugh Grant shares his shopping list and discusses his day, including a solo lunch and bookstore visit.
  • Hugh Grant's shopping list includes various health-related items.
  • He had a solo lunch and visited a bookstore, finding comfort in the quietness of such places.

Shownotes Transcript

Hey, guys, i'm after the supermarket to do some girls for shopping, and I thought you guys would like to know what's on my list. Here you go. ready. Yoga, corona tomatos catch up, dried fruit, baked beans, nut butters, chocolate melt serial bars, red contain sa addressing protein bars, Candy t cricket ers, energy inks, can juice coffee.

I going to work.

I had a great day yesterday here to remember that we are talking about the my heart was said.

you know, yeah, you get a new one more yesterday.

No, I didn't get anyone, but I went to lunch by myself, had really bad sushi. Then I went and got, I thought, two books and had a nice time like this is that as a.

so was a solo.

This is by myself. This is to make your heart Better.

Yeah, IT was a. And then I went to the bookstore. I know I do bookstore. Make you want a couple a bit.

Yeah yeah. You don't mean about just standing on your feet that long. I think gravity takes over.

Nothing is like some the positioning of a bookstore, the coziness of like a pharmacy, you know, no, like like a or like a gift shop.

So causing us, no.

yeah, there was a comparison between a bookstore and pharmacy.

Well, yeah, just a similarity that the coat, like the quietness of IT and the causing ess of IT IT really gets my time.

This hypothetic finds pharmacies comforting and cozy.

So, J, B, A, A bookstore is a place where.

okay, that would seems like a perfect segway to go into something we should talk about just for two seconds. Smartness media is now doing a new show called yes.

I've heard about this. yes.

Um you both were on an episode, actually, first episode yeah and it's out that's not a podcast storing .

at least silver stone right now.

This is that is create stars, the host, the hoses. Elliot chen is the former head writer, the daily shot on start mr. Science tier three thousand bunch of great stuff and he's so funny and permanent contestant you're the clue less part of IT.

He's a clue full part. That's exactly right. It's like ten twelve minute episodes of just puzo podcast and a super fund. You can do little springs yeah you can like try to solve that what you're driving or listening to the show.

And it's only ten minutes and it's super fun. Well, how long do you take playing word each day? Well, yeah. Was IT take for you to get through word pretty quick, pretty quite, because you usually bust real fast, right? Guess, well.

I would .

stack, I would stack my my word in timing and also success right against yours anyday.

No, no, you're definitely smarter than me anyway.

So clues is coming up. It's great. You should listen to IT.

IT takes no longer than that the average person would take to solve world if you super bright like we are net.

it's fun.

Now it's fun. It's a super fund show. It's super fund games. And the premiers monday, november eighteen th and i'm on every episode and I play with family, friends and you guys that were kind .

enough to do the first episode .

and yeah yes I like that a .

lot of all first smart less media .

which is fun and that's a little blood check IT out brows yeah yeah yes and and goals hey listen speaking .

to .

check in out ah you know .

I like to check .

out now he comes are the films of our .

guest today you like well.

I don't think that i'm alone because I read somewhere that I think that our guests films have growed north of four billion dollars worldwide.

That's strong.

That's a very strong number. And it's even stronger about .

hope this person had a nice .

definition is, well, I wonder if they what's .

even stronger about IT is .

a time is the fact that they're so varied in the types of films they are. And some of them are sort of what you would consider sort of indie type films. Some of them you consider to be sort of comedies, some of what you might consider be romantic comedy, some you might consider to be just straight up dramas, some would be period pieces, everything. And in in addition to the financial reward, our guests has also been rewarded with loads of nominations and winds for sags and golden globes and baths in m.

sr.

This person.

he he is.

he has been such a part of the film landscape for so long. I know that I imagine embarrassed by my intro, but he shouldn't be because he has done everything he's taught us about love. Actually, he's thought us about what is being about a boy.

He's on the dollar. now. He has a new horror film called harrity. You guys, it's, it's, you grand.

And only few grand.

Do I take?

Yes, you off. Y.

no.

not the shirt, not the shirt, not the shirt.

It's a silver fox. guys. We're got a silfax on today.

Huge ant. Welcome to smart less.

It's very nice of you .

to have good morning. This is really cool. I only met you once on the street of new york city, and I said, you grant, you said hello .

I said in a dismissive.

no.

you are very nice, cold kind of way, you a very nice man, that we're all .

the same.

That's entirely untrue. unsure.

So did shaan yellow too loud? And everyone then stop to want to take a picture.

No, you're you.

I know I was probably a bit hong.

And no, you go. No, no.

Did I have a child with me? I've got millions. And that always. Makes me unpleasant.

Get in line.

How many kids do you have?

Well, we think at five. But I had that much too old in life. You know, I started on, I fifty two and now, you know, I first kid.

you are fifty two, wow.

yeah. Now i'm sixty four, you know and the Youngest is six and I need a long stint in a sanatoria more. I'm abby. I often look at, yeah, the abby that maria lives in, in the same music 呀。 I wish I lived.

What about one of those old, like really old monastery s that they built at tops of mountains that are accessible by just .

like a very narrow path and frightened of monks? Okay, I don't. My nuts. yeah.

Are you in the los Angeles right now?

I've just arrived last night to banging the drum for my film for from london. Yeah, yeah. How was that flying this way?

Is IT harder coming this way, and that is going in.

The other is brutal. Both ways I found I can't, I can't do is anymore. I think that's another age thing.

I woke up hours ago very, very hungry. And I felt like my heart is made of play. do. Do you have play? do. Yeah.

yeah, yeah.

I mean, one got a doctor for you.

I've got some upstairs. You you should know this. That is shown two, three directs ago.

Woke up in the middle night with the heart issue, drove themselves to see her sign. I didn't wake up. His husband drove himself to see sigi.

They, they brought the paddles out. They put him under. They paddled them. He drove home. An hour later, he woke up to use the battles again and drove themselves back to sitters .

and got paddled again.

So you're jet leg by comparison. And i'm not saying this to to make .

you feel .

bad when that you .

are and I it's working here .

but my god, you you look fucking and great.

You've managed to .

keep IT going all you know what i've forgot .

to bring because i'm a bad packet er underwear so i'm talking to you, commander, this morning I feel little, little exciting.

I had a stint with that. I went a couple years with that.

I go down. I .

know.

I was supposed to and I was just like, IT, it's dumb.

I know it's useful.

That's misspent. They don't provide any.

I like to be cupped.

Yeah.

actually you like to be cupped, that's good. Yeah, he like to be cupped. Jay, how do you go now? Do you not wear any?

I bet i'm in to the boxer break now. A semi, semi, semi cup. Yes, say OK. I think .

that's .

the answer.

So hue, we can listen and feel free to say that we can send somebody over and with with a variety, if you'd like.

No, i've already asked to conceal the hotel to provide some. He looked surprised. I go shopping.

Uh, you grant honestly you know, I do feel i'm sorry to say you you're one of those of film stars that I feel like because i've seen you in so many films. I feel like, oh yeah well, it's grand who might know from earlier and and there is that sort of familiarity that we have through roles, and you have done so many different. And now I think i'm safe to say you're doing something that is plebe know. Now you're doing this this sort of horror film, if you will.

for lack of a Better word, right? Yeah, I love IT. Now that is correct. We can call IT horror, or we can call IT psychological thriller. Ah, perhaps for people who are frightened of horror ilm like me.

we can also call one of the last remaining viable genres for theatrical distribution.

Yes, why is that explain that to me?

I I bet you it's because, uh, people like to have the scare be a shared experience because the scare at home might be a little too scary and being, but would think that comedy be the same you you to shared experience of the laugh, but comedy have yet to come back.

I know, and I sort of breck that up actually to a friend, Jason bloom, who makes a lot of refills from the a blum house. And I said, and I said that, jb, I said, well, why don't we make IT a comment and he said, no, there's no money.

Yeah, I don't get IT. Yeah, I don't get a dinner.

I understand wanting .

to be home alone. If you're going to be crying. You don't want to cry next to a stranger.

But I do like laughing with strangers. I like being scared with strangers. Yeah, no, anyway, pee comments.

It's very sad. No one sad than me. My local cinema just closed down after thirty. I mean, i've i've been going for thirty years, has been going for a hundred years. It's just awful yeah to me I I can't understand the instinct someone who says, I think I just at home stream that's so uti sad IT do not .

have to leave the house I mean.

I couldn't disagree with you more. My only object in life is to get out of the house.

You're you've got this kids going around making nice, hang on, J, B.

Q. This is, I want to get into this. I'm so glad you're saying this because you're talking to these two, two people who would and by the way, a lot of Angeles who were sort of in the same our age and who kind of do what we do are equally as boring as no, you you're not a go for but you you have zero ambition in a way too comfortable in your fucking plush lives and you're not interested in anything other than yourselves.

So you it's .

entirely true. You talk to me a little bit about getting out of the house. What is that you like to do so much?

I have always regarded homes as hell. I think homes are. The .

biography .

home, hell home, the guy who dresses me on films wants my autobiography to be called coffee and custody. And I think that is Better actually. Yeah, get at homes.

I don't get IT. That's why I don't understand why one wants to work from home. I cannot imagine anything more general depressing.

Who are you currently married?

Yeah, I married to a terrifying john.

We're going to launch a new a new podcast from smart of the media called telling IT like IT is a great I could hear .

this is absolutely he the but delightful and surprising and absolutely don't. I don't know you tell us a little bit, tell us about this .

catch you're married .

to personally .

in your life and well, actually she's magnificent yeah and as are the .

kids we know you jest yeah.

Now I should point that out. No, she's great. To my great surprise, while I was being pretty drunk for a few years in london, about thirteen years ago, the bar I used to hang out that there was this hot sweat, the other end of the bar and IT was hard.

She's she's an an athlete. He was very nearly a pro tennis player, but she's just too angry. Anyway, we got closer, closer, and then we started breeding, and then now, and now we married.

I love shea's. She's very much the man in the family. SHE comes from the northern part of sweden.

I mean, swedish men, I think are quite masculine anyway, but when they come from the north, yeah where everyone lives among the trees, they're really seriously masculine. And men are not supposed to talk if you talk is a bit girly. No, it's true. Her brothers, i've never heard them say I work for yes, I know they just up their teeth that's northern redish for yes .

or and I look at this, i'll look me .

all the foods coming for .

you yeah I got some coffee and yeah.

yeah, that's right. Yes, yes, that's a yes.

That's an agreeable I ve spent some time in time .

over the years. I i've been there a few times. I I quite like sweet and I would say that sweden is kind like canada with much Better architecture.

And it's the people are really great, but they're also very blunt in that way that I think lot of us for the north people can be. And I was like, good. Every time I went there, I go, i'd see people, relatives of our friends. And i'd say, no, look at you. You look quite .

that and and my .

thing is great to see you too. You are tired. You are very time. And I can tell by your face looks terrible.

That's absolutely correct. I don't allow my wife to go on any of the group chats with the schools because SHE offends everyone instantly with reMarks exactly that.

Wait out here. Did you ever speaking of the the character, how you just describe your wife? Did you find that difficult to give up control as a man, when you matter like you had before, you matter where you like more in control of? Or did you believe you're in control of more than when you met her, what you like? Yeah, I guess I could hear the soft her. This is fine.

I seem to be quite happy in my puzzle role. I. I just can't believe he likes me. I'm in, you know, i'm a bit chat compared to swedish men. And I SHE catches me watching the sound of music in the .

afternoon.

We get along great .

visual .

SHE also has a long list of things that he says are unshakeable in a man. They really tough, like having ten set of coffee, driving an electric car.

And so far, check check for me.

Yeah, exactly. I wish I could remember the other ones that they're good.

So those are things that that that dim. You ineligible for her her pleasure. Yeah ah so you're a coffee man. Full comments.

So all three children are adopted.

So so what does he see? A new man?

I know it's it's a mystery. And he was married before a very buch ski championed instructor or something. There was an ugly moment when I was filming this film, heroic in canada.

When I went for a walk on day, we were filming in vancouver, I went for a walk on westmont nearby tiff, and I told my wife on the phone and was a bit of a silence. And then IT turned out that her right lives on whistle mountain. No, i'm not very good in nature.

And I did get into slight difficult is that day. And I had this nightmare scenario in which x husband rescues me, Carries me down the mountain over his shoulder. That would have been a look.

he rest you because he, because he lives in the trees. Yes, because he's living close to the bone on the land. He hauling logs through whistle deep snow.

Yeah, the world.

And we will be right back.

And now back to the show.

Here, let's go way back. Let's go way back to so I think for a lot of people, certainly in this country and and and in canada as well, i'm going to speak to my my fellow canadians. We sort of came to know you.

I I think through four wedding in a funeral was the thing where we went everybody. And oh, this guy is amazing. But but truth be told, I wasn't your first d you'd make quite a few films before. Yeah.

I had, I had a career before four weddings, but IT was a bit lame. I specialized in really low quality mini series like due death trances to we meet again. I was, I was always, for some reason in as many series.

I was always champagne arrer and evil champagne burano. I did hundreds of those parts. You used to sell our family reserves of the best champagne to the nuts season, then host wiped out of the house by Michael york.

Or that of another .

alternative.

a title for the biography.

have enraged ed my office to court in.

oh my god.

yes.

he is. This is taken a turn .

for the Better and keep going.

I'd love to see there was another one where I was, you know, there there's A A brand of champagne chari zek. Anyway, I was him. And what do you mean what I played him? I played him to partly sponsored by the champagne makers himself.

IT was not a high point in television history of anything. okay. And I made the mistake of doing a french access.

I didn't have great lines. I remember I had to say things like, you must listen to the champagne. There is laughing. The backers lines like that.

God, how long? How long have you been a professional actor earning a paycheck?

Well, forty years.

yeah. Wm, amazing.

And I started. And before you are earning a paycheck, you were you were learning, i'm guessing, was there was much training. Was there how early the bug?

By here you can .

tell IT .

was not great training. No, you're finally. I never.

I never trained IT was the whole thing started by mistake. I had left university. I was heading off to do another degree in a different subject, which I didn't really want to do.

which, well, I was .

highly pretentious. I just done a degree, literally. Thank you. I was off to do a history of art masters, and anyway, as I in the summer when when that was about to happen, someone said, Cameron, watch this amateur ilm that I had played a small part in wild, a student at oxford, and I thought I might as well.

I was showing off and pick daily that night, and I went there on my best call, and I watched as IT was not a good film. I was not good in IT. But at that time in england, IT was very much the vogue for actors to be heighty ninety push IT was the time of characters of fire.

And, bright said, revisited things like that. So agents said to me, would you like to be an actor? Would would like to represent you? And I said, no. Thank you very much.

I went back to prepare for a IT world in the history of our and and then I suddenly thought, actually, I got no money, so maybe I should do that for a year. And then I go and do my other degrees. So I rang them back.

I say, yeah, look, I do this for a bit and I got jobs. But I was so bad, I thought I can't leave IT at that. I'll do one more and trying to be Better and .

that has gone on for forty years yeah because you're english like we all reviewer and you it's just you just assume that you've had all this training as most well I was going to say.

yeah and there are so many of course, there are so many english actors who who work over here and who as english man or oppose as americans but there is always that thing about, you know, having gone to drama school, having gone to um you know rada or whatever.

I wonder if growing up in that environment now of course you are coming out of our servant, but growing up a lot of your peers who are coming out of these schools, was there kind of A M, I don't know. Was there a thing about that? Was that something that those people are not asking you to speak you of your friends? But was was there kind of a thing about that where they were, they lauded that over .

the ones we've been to drama school? Well, when I did this acting, I was nervous of them because I thought they must know stuff I don't know. And I did read books about, you know, the voice, the body.

And I did tragic drills in the park by myself. Not really awful of for I, where you have to say you must run backwards with your arms, spread out shopping home from your diet, friend. And I was in the theater up and noting them in north of england at the time.

And I went to the local park and I did these things, and then I never been looking over at from local kids who was saying, lucky doing IT again. What a ranker. There he goes again. Yeah, in many ways rise.

Do you remember what the what the big switch and change was when you went back to do IT again and do IT Better and and not be quite as as bad and actor you say you are. Do you remember what what did you do anything on purpose that push you more towards the higher quality performance? What was there? One thing.

you know, this is so only about parts assist, about how good the party is. Really, in the end, this scrip for wedding in the funeral came across my desk. And addition, they really didn't want me. The guy who rose IT Richard kurt is really didn't want me thought I was all wrong, but the man who directed IT did and that seemed to help although I must say, I never really felt I got that part.

Know you get that feeling, don't you? When you think i'm being rather good, i'm actually in, can I? I never felt that with, how do you mean? How do you mean I couldn't hear him? I have to hear them, and I couldn't hear him.

Well, I couldn't. Anyway, off the page, IT helped after I finally met Richard d. Kurt is who rote IT, who is that guy? And so in some ways, i'm just doing an immortal human in that film.

Do you ever sit back and because, I mean, we've all seen so much of your work, do you absorb how do you get a moment of how about being proud of yourself and like taking in all then and being like, I mean, you don't seem the type, but like my wish for you is that is that you accept IT know, accept all the great work you've .

done well is nice of you. I've got Better and that that is a mystery is, again, I think it's partly part. So when I got too old and ugly to do romantic comedies and started being offered, these wide pots excused me best. Now now .

you're killing people.

will earn them on the street.

And and you know, I have another, I have two, three years about IT. One is I learned really much too late in my career that you have to mean IT, that you have to think IT. There's a whole other script behind the script, which is all about thoughts and feelings.

And prior to that, I always just thought, I just need to land this funny line, right timing. And that's that's not the way to be good. So meaning IT was one thing, but the other thing was I haven't weird theory that IT was having children. I think I I was a dried up midale gulf addicted englishman. Then I had children and suddenly I had hot, and I could have more laws or something.

Wait a second. Now you're speaking our language, Jason. And when two hours we're looking up and if you ever are around and you want to play with us huge.

I .

just, okay, I can't you will be cloth .

if you can play anymore .

so you talk a little bit about, know you say jokingly y said you know too well, too ugly to do the ROM come parts anymore but um you know talk a bit about because of the have serious part of that where you know your looks still are incredible but that that was a um A A large part of of of what we knew and loved about you was this incredibly handsome, dashing man providing the lead in all of these films which i'd like to still see you do um considering your incredible looks maintaining here but like was that something that got in your way like some sort of you know famous, famously beautiful actresses of our time have have often mention that you they won't taken and seriously because they were so gorgeous I mean, you know, was that ever something that you thought, you know, I want to be taken serious, is an actor, but people are hiring me for my looks so that ever something .

that was a problem? When I entirely lost faith that I could do anything else, I believed my crisis s really, but I see now, maybe I was wrong, because at the very beginning, if I had any, and that was for doing strange characters and silly voices and things, outlandish things, that nothing like me, and that I had this comedy group that was actually quite successful, the london and edinburgh of fringe circuit, which was all character stuff.

you know.

silk acts that would be mida OK, and you will used to perform in purpose with people like mike miles. He was next on the world, and that was fun. And and actually, just after I made four weddings, I shot another film with the same director before four wedding was actually released, which was that I was a negative, stained, predatory, evil, twisted, unpleasant theater director.

And I was pretty good. And I wish, ed, that at least i'd kept that other strand of my career going through all those years years of room comes. Not that I I hate to add, not that I hate the romantic comedies proud of them.

It's nice to have made films that actually entertain people and they're much harder than people think and in some cases, is much Better, I think, than this. Near is, think my wife's good on this. He was watching, I think, love actually, the other day, because we like to watch one of my films every night.

I make all the children much. If they don't watch them, they don't get. Fred SHE said quite correctly, SHE said, what's good about this film is that it's about pain and those the good romantic comedy I did, we're really about paying ets, about humor, dealing with pain, pain being and requires ve and so do .

you feel that perhaps uh, but for the massive success of of the more sort of commercial efforts that you made, the wrong comes up that you would have maybe had a Better chance at being received as as a as as a thasian. Um you know sometimes you know are great directors get stuck in that too know there they're incredibly sophisticated but then they direct some big popcorn success and now .

they're that right they're shared by .

financial success. exactly. Greed plays a big part of this greed and laziness and they've played those to play a huge part of my career well.

But I eat you're being falsely modest here. Um but do you think that um would you have made different decision earlier on to baLance out more of the output? Like to chosen some yeah weird characters alongside .

the yes well, I still had some confidence coming off these other weird film I did before four weddings and then another one called restoration, which was not a very successful film with Robert down IT. But I played a kind of freeh camel in that. And I was pretty good, I thought. And I I should have at least kept that well.

Are you looking forward to now this this stage of maybe like saying we'll check out what's been under at this all this time? Um and here comes some more interesting parts. And well.

I suppose that's that's what i've been doing for the last seven or eight years.

Yeah yeah I was going to say that IT seems like you've have been on that track a little bit. Yeah, and you've been sort of mixing IT up.

Yeah, I have mixed to p yeah.

just i'm so late to the party but the undoing is a perfect example that you were so great in that with nickle kinmen. And I loved that series because i'm a big fan of thrillers and stuff that so that was incredible. I love that series.

Oh, that's nice of you. Yeah, not easy, but very well directed that thing very well versus on a beer danish, you know, that whole scanning thing SHE brought SHE made that what I was, I think really I think so. Yeah, I mean, just I don't point IT, but it's ancient history.

Now, to be that charming guy. The ideal husband is a cancer doctor for kids, loving to his child, loving to his wife. Marvelous and IT turns out he's an absolute savage psychopath.

Yeah, yeah, you you know, it's fun if you seem to have like this this this very sort of, I going to say, kind of refreshing and very, I don't need to know to say sort of honest the sort of for self appraise al, that you're doing that and maybe it's because and and I will say I do share with you as now that i'm north of fifty, fifty four, I spend a lot of time.

I don't take as many things as seriously as I used to when I was a Young man, certainly when I was a Young actor, certainly my career, I didn't have the crew that you did in film. In fact, I always joked that if IT IT wasn't for bad films, I would. I had made one, but you seem to have this very sort of healthy self application thing and it's not even self deprecating.

I think it's quite it's obviously very funny, but it's also I I wonder how much of IT for you is cathartic. C to just kind of let IT all go and not be serious about IT. Is that a conscious decision? I quite like IT and you're encouraging me to do and more about myself.

Well, like, I mean, I feel actors can sometimes get a little pie or reverence about what they're doing. And i've never i've never been able to go down that ally. I do in the end think we're in the entertainment business. And if you not entertaining people what you are, what are you doing? It's a bit of a bit master bassy 怎么样?

I agree agree be to yeah thank you. No, I totally agree. I always thought that like, if you exactly what you just said, like there's a lane to pick where you make great things that speak to your heart and that are true for you and that you want to make, and that called art, and in some formats, all art. But if nobody y's watching you make that art, it's like a bit three falls in the forest, then what do you know?

But that's not right either. I take back everything I just said. People, okay, because if you don't have the people trying new stuff, no.

I know this is a balancing act.

It's a balancing. And the problem is I think under the urea, a of art comes an awful of pretentious draws, deserves to die in the forest, but also some absolute gems and artist tree that actually genuinely gets me going on the plane. Last night I watched zone of interest and you cannot get, yeah, that's a more incredible film making in every amazing than that film and actually is not made for you masses what you might call entertainment or money. But it's incredible shot.

And Scott, you guys is don't because it's not part of the MC u as we'd call that right, the marcela universe. So a SHE in his husband can often be found with of children's light.

Saab's.

yeah, I like to call the front lines, but yeah, you know, we were big size. I hence but I know you mean I think the goals then you know if you're making the thing something like one of interest and IT does find an audience that as IT has, I believe that's the real win is when you're making because .

it's illuminating. It's illuminating, right? I am not only a great art that there's also message, but it's illuminating and exposing people to to are sometimes, Jason, as you say, making the medicine go down earlier. I hate events calling in medicine because that is but but also getting into conversations about what is art and what is not art is a very sloppy slope into dush backers.

And I think sometimes has got lost. Or that has got lost is that IT was possible to make big, successful box office films that were smart. I used to have a deal with castle rock pictures, and rob bina, who was the kind of boss of that, always said, there are two hundred million dollar movies in this country, one of them moronic and the other is very bright.

And and you can make big, successful films that are intelligent, smart and, you know crown breaking and he did lots of them, you know and I think it's sad that that got lost. That doesn't seem to exist so much anymore. Or maybe it's it's moved over to netflix or something.

We'll be .

right back and .

now back to the show. Now what .

about jackets?

Now you like the older you get for my sister Tracy, who doesn't junk IT is a press tour for any project you working on and .

you said you, that's what he is in town for. He is in town to answer a bunch of questions about this new movie coming out and .

it's part of so yeah you know is the first part which the back bec days when you sit in room and .

then they try go down and you .

and they say, okay, so today thirty five and tomorrow forty one in a row and I know you're listings at home and you're saying, hey, fuck you I said the wall all day and then I drive home but this is equally as my naming.

I assure you. Yeah, we had to that point. My question is just like the what we are talking about before the older you get, you can have and you have the power to say, guys, i'm going to do like three today and that's IT or I don't know yes you .

do I suppose but you feel a bit of an household if you do that is yeah ah because you become to love the filming because that you love you know everyone's put themselves out there and it's a terrifying moment you're about to present something to the public and just walk away and I am too grand to media is a bit thank you yeah yeah .

sure .

but what what happens in the scenario where you've seen the film and you're like, old boy, i've been them together this did not work yet. You still have to go out and yeah and champion IT is is that difficult which traditionally .

at that point I like to get arrested? Really, you kind of out of the loop.

you very smart plan your N A.

Check not a vail.

L A, but this one I imagine this one you're excited to to talk about you and one of those really cool new i'd love this news. It's not a new genre, but it's it's a tilt on the genre of of horror films where they've really over the last what five or ten years become much more cinematic like these are really, really well made films are beautiful um and they're chAllenging. Um and I would imagine this is this is one of those did you did you have a great time doing IT? Are you happy with the end product?

I am very happy with the end product. And you're right. What part of the reason I did IT was because IT was eight, twenty four. And yes, it's not often in life that you get something as surprising and up lifting as what they've done for cinema with just share balls and courage in good taste, creating film after film as that fresh and new and often actually fucking terrifying. I am still getting .

over midd summer.

You see.

I want to I haven't seen rob renner said why something that is artistically sound, but also so enjoyable and so satisfying and delivers so thoroughly that IT makes a whole lot of money.

sells a bunch of popcorn at the .

same time that ha has got that well.

It's definitely very smart. I mean, it's, it's, it's fascinating. I am am a character who makes a lot of quite long speeches in IT about religion.

And they were genuinely the fascinating to me. These two weirdos who wrote and directed IT got brian, who also rope print into a quiet place. They're interesting guys.

They did years of research to come up with the arguments I make in this film, and I think they are really quite startling and fascinating. And so yeah, enjoyed all that part of me and it's filled me. I am obsessed with films being filmed me and not just like a big format TV.

So it's got incredible production design, incredible photography and it's daring because traditionally, as you know, films tend to try and keep their dialogue quite pithy and short. This is very dialogue heavy. And how are .

you learning your lines?

Was and was, you know, the older I get, the more I drink, but I know start weeks and weeks early, and I know that walks every day going through every single line over and over again. Because I think that I have a theory that they are like dance steps, and that the more you repeat your dance steps, the more you can't forget them on the day, and then then on the day you can have other thoughts and other feelings. And yeah, do what actors are supposed to do, what you do in, yeah, it's in your skin. And I hate seeing in my eyes, or any other actions.

Think .

opposite. He can look at something and memorized IT in five seconds. He's very good. I don't understand that .

I ah IT is not that great, but I do. It's sort of a self preservation thing. I I find if I, if I I wish I could do what you do here, but I find if the more I do that, the more I sort of nail in a way i'm gona do that line, the more and more I talk about IT and rehearsed, then i'm less flexible on the day when I see what the other actors doing, and I actually have to change a little bit. Yes, it's harder for me if i'm really nailed down with the lines.

All right. I worked in the fears of once with a very good director who used to say, don't nest. You're nesting your lanes in rehearsal and that was brilliant.

You don't anna nest. But at the same time, i've worked with actors, as I say, where they're just struggling for their lines the whole time. That's all going on.

We use of twenty years ago when j Jason, I were doing a television show called a rest of development, and we used to constantly be getting rewrite to the last second. And so we'd have our sides with us on set. We will be looking at them.

And we've come to germany in germany, and there may be like rolling, okay, rolling. Here we go, guys, everybody's for at them. We're just looking, looking, looking. And there one of the sets with this, this, this living room of this house, and we jam our sides between the cushions.

So years later, remember this day, years later, we went, we did a few more seasons of the show for netlik, like whatever was eight, ten years later. And they, they had all the old sets. They preserve them somewhere out to know in the desert where they keep sets of old teleme shows. And they brought the originals up. And we sit, we go to reverse the first day we're sitting on the couch and I reach, I think there's no chance I reached .

between .

the country there, all these sides that had been jumping there years .

early .

from the last second.

Ming a, well, here, you know, you sound like you are you, you, you really your big film fan as far as the way things are shot designed and what not, have you, with all your set experience, have you ever floored with directing? Is that an interest to you?

IT is of interest. There's lots of bit, which is of interest, the bit that would get me down a year or two years on the same story. And you know when you are in a fully session about which footsteps for the postman coming up the yeah.

But Jason, you love that kind of intricate acy stuff.

Love the people I do. I actually coming up with the sound of, what does this sound? What is the sound of a body hitting the ground? I did that on ozark once, was from forty stories, and now we've got this other one in this new one. Where is just three stories? It's to be a different sound.

And I try .

find that exactly how did .

you get the fort story? Well, did you actually know someone that .

wouldn't that that was something that we thought about doing actually like throwing a big bag of something out um but yet not anyway, that was just louder than the three story one. Um but I do I do anticipate that process being becoming a bit tiresome. M, at some point i'm going to gas and i'm going to be like, yeah you know it's just just the acting part from here a while now yeah you think so.

Perhaps it's also very, very hard to see the story I find after a year or a .

year and ha objectivity yeah .

to produce one of the ones we used to call, you know, the cleaning lady in the editing room and just say, come and watch this .

film. Did any writing, or any film writing in .

the other kind of writing a, well, increasingly, I ginger up my dialogue, not on every film, but on some of them. A lot, lot IT may be up to eighty percent ent.

Is is me I really ah there's another and how .

do you navigate that tRicky process of of no ending? Ask, yeah like you gotta kind of pitch that to the director and or the writer, the other actors and then what if they say, yeah, no, I like IT the other way and then you're like, yeah and i'm the one talking and I don't want to sell like an so here's feel Better dialogue.

I agree, it's little window very i'm a moster of that particular laboring so and I also am fully aware that nine times at ten, when an actor says I got some ideas, it's gonna be shit yeah I don't want to hear IT and you'd read this and then, you know, sometimes the director or will have to say, now let's do one of yours just which you know is going to end up on the cutting room floor just to keep them happy.

I imagine, I don't know you, but I imagine that diplomacy is is one of your strong suits. I flat .

out genius, 哎呀哎呀 呀。

That comes .

across good directing IT.

Do you help you with directing because that's all that is isn't IT.

It's a lot of IT here when you come to when you come to L A, one of the things you look forward to doing or as you say when you just quote, get out of the house, one of the things you look forward to.

Well, I I was a golf dic for twelve. Yes, so I I used to get the guys together in going golf in a very old days in the Judith grants to we meet again days. I used to go to run show park that you never played .

that course.

They used to .

announce your name through a loud speaker. Do they still do? And you team up with three guys you never met.

Yeah, more rounds played on that, of course.

And anywhere in the country. And you like a seven hour around rancho is your place.

So you kicked, you kick the habit. Having having kids is yeah counter to yeah that .

that killed everything. And also, I got, I got the shank.

did you? Yeah, I got the shanks .

or the tom hanks as we call them in rim's playing worse than yeah anybodies ever add them to what are the shanks?

That's when the ball goes far right instead of straight or it's almost .

impossible to achieve if you try to do IT. But it's where the head of the club meets to the shaft of the club so the ball goes humiliating .

me the hazle you know there's a very quite famously in big of you who won the open ah and he's now a broadcasters here in amErica golf broadcaster and by the way, very good goal broadcaster and he's still plays we actually saw last year play. I mean, not professional. He did by profession because he won the open. He was was sort of at the top of and he got the shakes. He and he couldn't hit a fairway and he and IT.

So thanks .

for nothing.

Well done.

I once lost, I lost a ball chipping from off the Green on live television. I was in a big pro, and all I had was the tiniest chip up onto this Green. One of those courses in scotland checked IT, went into a one of those little streams and taken out to see lost that are probably when I gave up .

Jason Jason one time at a proem at pebble beach two years two three years ago playing couple groups had to my I was in a bucker on the third hole and um and he thin one he had a thin out of the bucker and .

IT was straight into the wind .

of the car that and I just I just in ker and walk away and went to the .

next tall that shameful .

I know would you like to know my most shameful moment took my dad and my brother to play golf in northern france. And there was one course we wanted to play on. IT wasn't open, but they said we, because we got a big tournament today.

But we will open especially for you, mr. grant. mr. Grant, in fact, come up early, will cook you a special breakfast, will take you to the first tea.

As long as you get off before the tournament, everything's fine. So we turn up. They cook as a lovely breakfast.

They drive us to the first tea wrought about the third hole. I'm already in a rage. I had terrible golf rage. I got the shanks with some chip, and through my wedge, as far as I could, over a kind of hill, by the side of the third Green into the bushes, thought, right, I never want to see that fucker thing again. Then realized over that hill was not the bushes, but was in fact, the first Green. And I go over the top of the hill, and there is my wedge embedded like a tomahawk in the mode of the Green right next to the whole. And the competition is now started with their best players coming up the Green and the guy who'd cut his breath for sitting in a buggy right by the Green.

hello. Yeah.

some crazy men.

S, and through over the year, glad I found IT.

And did .

you ever .

get to? Did you ever get to be a single digit?

I did. I got to six point seven, my IT. S, yes, but I lower than that.

I can tell from me your face. No, no, no, no, no.

no, no, not at all. I can play that. I, who are you with your family?

Travel with god. yeah. Actually, my wife, my wife is coming up tomorrow.

Oh, that's fun. yes. What you, what you guys go to eat, guys go .

to like we meter, yeah no, not contest will go we'll go up for sandie drinking dinners. And I still have friends here, remarkably, especially gold caster rob friends are doing golf with them doing OK. yes.

Last thing when I asked you here and you're going to let you go, no, you're busy, you're exhausted and this is a drag. But where do you see the next five? Because you're making all these changes and doing all these if you had IT your way, what what are the next .

five years for?

Well, in the fantasy, yeah, the same fantasy i've had for forty years is that i've finally locked on the head and write by novel, or possibly a wonderful script. But I can't seem to get over that heard. I sit down and I terrified of failure, but I have pages and pages and pages of ideas and notes.

And that would be really nice because also, I think right in the last few years, it's become less enjoyable to be recognizable in the street. Then what is, is hard. And now I am, is tough, particularly with children.

Yeah, yeah. So I would be nice to gently disappear. I would.

I would be first in line to readable, and I think would imagine be quite good.

So and I would be second line to listen to IT.

Yes, you can.

We can listen to do IT.

But please do, please do write that. But I think you would I imagine that you have a lot to say. So you've been .

very nice to me. Thank you.

Well, and massive fan man, massive an for a long time. Well, I looked at your three names .

and saw i'm frightened of all three of you because .

they were brilliant .

I right here very sweet .

you and you then I google this this podcast yeah I don't know much about podcast granic you the riches st people .

I ve I mean yeah I do .

do you to .

concert we didn't didn't .

ah ah ah and we went .

to ever actually we were going to come to london last this time last year we yeah we may end up in european .

version of one of these days. But yeah we love going out there on the road .

if we land and we even if would, would you agree now and and we won't hold you .

to IT to jump on stage and .

say hello .

if we do on .

be great. We just said and I D said, we have talked about the london trip in the tour and we said, what we can have two dates in london and they will bring our clubs. And we're also into a data dublin so well, playing ireland as well. We had planned at all.

I played in my my golf stories. I've told a long, long time of here, really fast. I played in, done with my brother Kevin, and I just say, true, true story.

I hit IT. I don't know what's change or what's shaked again, goes bad. yeah.

So I hate that. I shanked and IT hit, and I hit really hard. Hit a tree, bounce off and smash. Hit me in the neck, my own ball neck. I swear .

he was horrible. He was the university.

Get the fuck out here. yeah. And we didn't have exactly, and I did. We didn't have a little card. We just had to walk everywhere is a good.

never a walk.

It's a nice walk. Walk a garden and .

you get to play a game at the same time.

Yes, thank you, continued.

I hope you do exactly what you want to do. You deserve IT, and we deserve to hear about IT.

And thank you for .

your time and get some time.

I can't wait for good luck to you. thanks.

Here you pass.

wow. Is he funny?

I love how dry and candid and on refreshing reminds me what, what's that brian cocks quote? I'm too old, too rich and too famous to give a fuck. Isn't that said? Yeah, IT was very, very refreshing.

What I i've always been a funny, has never met him, never really heard or seen an extended interview with them. So that that was really nice. Yeah.

yeah. Mean neither, right? yeah. It's one of those. I don't feel like I know a lot of about him.

but I I love his his career dictor ies too.

Like, yeah, I love how ly made is made like a hundred movies too.

Yeah.

he made so many movies and is made and he's made kids movie identity make I even got there, should looked this up and terrible. He made that the film a there was A T padding ton.

Yeah, adding ton was a great movie. Great there .

a long time ago. God, I wondered.

Red, like, you know, all the Jones films, fucking nothing. Hehe, made all those, all those movies with Richard curtis that Richard kurtis wrote talking about the fact that which occurred s did not want him for four weddings who had written in and then they went on to work together and have like a wonderful working relationship .

ah and I wanted to get into that but he was being too self deprecating and funny .

but his life yeah but .

i've always been to find of throwers and subject that he's he's got was called a hr yeah I can't wait .

to get a ticket for that or or not get a ticket but fine thank so honestly here's something here's .

no too easy just up and .

it's not clever. It's not clever. It's just lazy.

Smart less is one hundred percent organic and artisan, handcrafted by then a barbecue. Michael grant Terry in, rob .

ARM, jeff. Smart .

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