EP.285 - HIMESH PATEL

Adam waffles with British actor Himesh Patel about misunderstood films and albums, whether he's as worried as he looks, the weirdness of making a TV show about humanity struggling to begin again after an apocalyptic pandemic (Station 11) just as a real pandemic was taking hold, filming the Odyssey with Christopher Nolan, what Himesh believes happens when you die and how it relates to Star Trek. And cocktails. Conversation recorded face-to-face in London on 6 July, 2026 Thanks to Diggory Waite and Claire Broughton at Hattrick and Séamus Murphy Mitchell for production support. Podcast illustration by Helen Green https://helengreenillustration.com/ Visit the ADAM BUXTON PODCAST PATREON PAGE http://www.patreon.com/AdamBuxton for previously unheard interviews, Q&A episodes, Rosie pics and videos and other odd and sods. SEND IN PATREON JINGLES AND QUESTIONS mailto:[email protected] Guest pics, links, jingles, videos and more on ADAM'S WEBSITE https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/ SUCCESSPOD https://www.audible.co.uk/search?keywords=successpod&k=successpod - 2026 (listen for free with a trial or subscription on Audible) RELATED LINKS MEGADOC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzcxY4fpyh0 (TRAILER) Directed by Mike Figgis about the troubled production of Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis - 2025 (YouTube) GIRL WAKES UP FROM COMA, BELIEVES 7 YEARS HAVE PASSED https://www.reddit.com/r/GotMeHooked/comments/1wscin2/after_19yearold_cl%C3%A9lia_verdier_woke_up_from_an/ - 2026 (Reddit) AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE https://americanliterature.com/author/ambrose-bierce/short-story/an-occurrence-at-owl-creek-bridge by Ambrose Bierce - 1890 (Americanliterature.com) The short story that inspired Jacob's Ladder. JACOB'S LADDER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUHugu1Fhwc (TRAILER) Directed by Adrian Lyne - 1990 (YouTube) STAR TREK'S FINEST HOUR: THE INNER LIGHT https://ekostories.com/2012/07/08/star-trek-inner-light/ by Isaac Yuen - 2012 (Ekostories by Isaac Yuen) Blogger Isaac Yuen writes about the episode of Star Trek TNG Adam talks with Himesh about. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Adam Buxton?

  I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buckston. I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this. That's the plan.

• 0:31Adam Buxton?

  Hey, how are you doing, podcast? It's Adam Buckston here. I am reporting to you from a crunchy Norfolk farm track in East Anglia, UK. The sun has just gone down as I speak to you. Even though it is, what time is it? It's only 5:30. It's ridiculous this time of year. It's a disgrace. How about that? GNT, you can keep it. At least it's not raining and Storm Boulo is, for the time being, a distant memory. I'm happy to say. Trotting beside me is my best dog friend, Rosie Buckston.

• 1:16Adam Buxton?

  How are you doing, Doglegs?

• 1:17Speaker 01

  I'm very well, thank you. I've been positive.

• 1:20Adam Buxton?

  Wow, that's good to hear.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I've been inside too long and it's nice to get out and I love the dusk.

• 1:27Adam Buxton?

  You like the dusk?

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love the dusk. You never know what's going to come out of the dusk.

• 1:32Adam Buxton?

  Wow, you're like a new person.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  I feel energised after last night.

• 1:37Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah, Rosie knocked over my wife's bedside table last night. Regular listeners will know that Rosie sleeps right next to my wife, which was an arrangement that began during a period of post-operation anxiousness for Rosie. And as is often the case with these things, it became a permanent arrangement. My wife has constructed a bed for Rosie right next to her so that she is able to turn one way and look at one of her favourite hairy people and then turn the other way and look at another one. But last night, Rosie managed to kick over the side table, which landed with a crash,

• 2:20Adam Buxton?

  waking me up from a really complicated dream. What do you think this means? In my dream, I found a pile of human hair with glitter on it. This is true. And I said aloud in my dream, so that's where you went to. And in my dream, I understood that the hair had glitter on it because it was going out to have a good time, maybe go clubbing, which is something I no longer do. It's actually something I never did, really. Go clubbing, that is, but I certainly would go out a bit more often than I do now.

• 3:01Adam Buxton?

  Anyway, Rosie seemed quite jazzed by the whole experience and that's carried over throughout the day, which is nice. How are you doing, podcast? I hope you're okay. A reminder that there are still tickets for the Adam and Joe 30th Anniversary Live Show that myself and Cornballs are doing at Hackney Round Chapel next weekend as I speak on the 8th of November. And this is in advance of our sold-out Royal Albert Hall show, but we wanted to do a sort of bells and whistles run-through. So this will be the first opportunity for people to see this show and you'll probably

• 3:42Adam Buxton?

  get to see a few bits and pieces that aren't in the Royal Albert Hall show as well. I don't know, possibly. There's a link in the description for tickets and in the description also, you will find a link to the Adam Buckston Podcast Patreon page. I'm sure you've heard me crap on about the Patreon page before, so I won't belabour it, but there's so many great things waiting for you there. New, full-length interviews and Q and A episodes in which I answer questions sent in by you, the podcast. And if you want to send in any questions, the details are also in the description. I think there is a new Q and A episode coming out this week, in fact.

• 4:27Adam Buxton?

  I know there is because Diggery has told me. Okay, right now, let me tell you a bit about podcast number 285, which features a very enjoyable, properly rambling conversation with British actor Himesh Patel. Himesh, fax. Himesh was born in 1990 in the Cambridgeshire market town of Sawtree to Gujarati parents who'd made their way to Britain from East Africa. Himesh's mum and dad ran the local post office and newsagents, where young Himesh did the paper round until he was 21, long after he'd become a familiar face on primetime television.

• 5:10Adam Buxton?

  But it was when he was just 11 that Himesh succumbed to a serious fever that would afflict him throughout his life after he was bitten by the acting bug. It happened when he was cast as Michael Aspel in a school production of This Is Your Life: Santa Claus, which led to youth theatre in Peterborough. And then in 2007, on the very day he sat his final GCSE exam, an audition for legendary long-running BBC soap, EastEnders. By October that year, Himesh was on screen, playing the part of Tamwar Masood, a studious young man whose parents ran a post office.

• 5:53Adam Buxton?

  It was a part Himesh played for nine years alongside teaching himself guitar and building the musical chops that would come in very handy later. Because after leaving Walford, Himesh did the thing he himself has said you're not supposed to be able to do. He went straight from a part in a TV soap to being leading man in a Danny Boyle film, playing Jack Malik, a man who wakes up after being hit by a bus to find that he is now the only person on earth who remembers The Beatles. In 2019's Yesterday, I mean, talk about a premise. Laser-targeted for a certain type of nerd man. Certainly worked on me.

• 6:38Adam Buxton?

  Since then, Himesh has quietly carved out one of the most enviable careers in the acting world. Landing parts in Christopher Nolan's gloriously baffling time mangler, Tenet, Armando Iannucci's sci-fi sitcom, Avenue 5, Adam McKay's climate crisis denial satire, Don't Look Up, and Charlie Brooker's genre-blending Black Mirror. Himesh also plays Dr. Watson in the Enola Holmes films. He is the lead on HBO's superhero-based movie industry comedy franchise and his part in the 2020 post-apocalyptic saga, Station 11, earned him an Emmy nomination for Best Lead Actor.

• 7:22Adam Buxton?

  This year alone, Himesh appeared as a smug rival for the James Bond role in Riz Ahmed's Bait. He returned to the Nolan sphere to play Odysseus's right-hand man, Eurylicus, in a little film called The Odyssey. And right now, he is heading towards Ryan Coogler's revival of The X-Files. My conversation with Himesh was recorded at the beginning of July this year, 2026, in London. It was, in fact, the day after the England versus Mexico match, which I had not stayed up to watch, but I think was one of the absolutely brilliant ones.

• 8:04Adam Buxton?

  I see here in my notes for Himesh that day when we recorded that I had written down some names of the footballers in case he wanted to talk about it. I've written Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane, Marcus Pickford, and then underneath I've put Santiago Penaltines, Diego Balagola, and then just Rodrigo. I obviously ran out of steam. But anyway, luckily, we didn't talk about that. What we did talk about quite a bit was films. We're both into our films, so it's great to chat with a fellow film fan. We also discussed Himesh's look, which is excellent, obviously, but I felt that he

• 8:48Adam Buxton?

  does look worried and I wanted to know if he is worried. We talked about his experience of making Station 11 and being part of a apocalyptic post-pandemic narrative as a real pandemic was unfolding in the form of COVID. We discussed Himesh's theory of what happens when you die and how it resonates through various bits of entertainment, especially Star Trek: The Next Generation, which feels very poignant, considering that Patrick Stewart died yesterday. Watching some of the clips of him as Jean-Luc Picard today made me very emotional.

• 9:30Adam Buxton?

  I was going to try and say something glib, but I can't when it comes to Jean-Luc Picard. The day that I recorded with Himesh, he was on his way to the London premiere of The Odyssey and he told me about the experience of making the film and working with Christopher Nolan, hanging out with Matt Damon and John Leguizamo. And we also talked cocktails. But we began with me asking Himesh if he is ever chemically enhanced during his press junkets. I'll be back at the end to say goodbye and tell you one more thing about my exciting delivery story from last week, right now with Himesh Patel. Here we go.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  La.

• 10:54Adam Buxton?

  I feel like you're probably gonna have good mic technique. Although I had a broadcaster on recently who was very

• 11:00Speaker 03

  Really bad.

• 11:00Adam Buxton?

  Plosive, heavy.

• 11:01Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 11:02Adam Buxton?

  It was popping all over the fucking place. To go through and pull all the levels down on each pop.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 11:10Adam Buxton?

  Um, but no, you were saying, we were talking about if you have ever

• 11:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, done anything and

• 11:17Adam Buxton?

  Been chemically enhanced either to do PR or indeed to perform.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I haven't. But when I, the few times that I've chemically enhanced myself, which has just been weed gummies in Vancouver or in New York, it's been like, well, this is good. I feel like I've lost some inhibition here, you know, maybe I'll be a better actor. Or maybe I'll, I'll be less bland on a red carpet, but I just can't do it. I'm too worried that I'll be too much of inhibition loss, you know? So, but hey, I've got the premiere for The Odyssey tonight, so let's see what happens.

• 11:52Adam Buxton?

  Yes. Do you actually rehearse any red carpet things to say?

• 11:58Speaker 03

  I never like rehearse, rehearse them, but you get given like the talking points.

• 12:02Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  Especially with a movie like this, exactly what they want to reveal, what they don't want to reveal, that sort of thing. But I've never been someone to stand in a mirror and go, hi, hi, oh, yes, yeah. Cause I think that's slightly psychopathic, is it?

• 12:15Adam Buxton?

  I mean, I guess that's what a stand-up would do, right? And it's not a hundred percent different than doing stand-up. Like if you're doing PR, if you're doing chat shows, you're doing bits.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  True. I guess I just sort of practice it in my head. And then in this situation, I've just done a total of like five days of junketing.

• 12:35Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  So you've kind of got your phraseology down. And I was doing it next to John Leguizamo, amazing actor, but also like it was seeing someone in like who knows how to promote something.

• 12:45Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  He genuinely loved the movie, but he was also just, he knew how to sort of be incredibly charismatic and passionate. Which I very quickly went, oh, I need to up my game here, because I just sound like I'm mildly infuriated or I don't know what, but so.

• 13:02Adam Buxton?

  Does anyone ever go way off script these days and just go on a mad rant? I mean, it does happen from time to time because those clips go viral.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, it hasn't happened, I don't think, on this run.

• 13:13Adam Buxton?

  Have you ever worked with someone who's been like that, a Shia LaBeouf type?

• 13:17Speaker 03

  I haven't, you know, I've actually been really lucky. I haven't ever been on set with anyone. Or yes, depending how you want to look at it. But I've never been on set or been around that kind of crazy energy where like, I don't know what's gonna happen next. I just go, I don't know what I do in that situation. I'd probably just shrink. But if it was like dangerous, I'd probably have to say something about it, you know?

• 13:37Adam Buxton?

  Have you seen any clips of Megalopolis?

• 13:41Speaker 03

  You know, I've not seen it, no. Is it insane?

• 13:45Adam Buxton?

  Well, I haven't seen it. It looks too boring. Everyone I know who's seen it is like, don't worry about it. You don't need to see it. Like the Madder's clips are on YouTube.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:55Adam Buxton?

  And then there is Mike Figgis's documentary, which is called Megadoc, about the making of it, an authorised doc. But it does contain all these confrontations between Shia LaBeouf and Coppola.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 14:09Adam Buxton?

  On set and just a general atmosphere of kind of unhinged excess.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, just like egos, massive egos colliding, I imagine.

• 14:18Adam Buxton?

  With a frail guy. It's sort of sad, the whole thing. The saddest thing is that he waited until this point in his career to like spend all the money that he'd made in his life for all these projects.

• 14:31Speaker 03

  Didn't he sell like a vineyard to make it or something?

• 14:34Adam Buxton?

  He sold everything, sold his family.

• 14:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:37Adam Buxton?

  Sold his children.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  His children have been sold now. Yeah, yeah.

• 14:40Adam Buxton?

  To raise a hundred and forty million to make this folly. And, um, you know, like, no one's got a good word to say about it, really. It doesn't seem to be one of those films that is going to be reassessed at any point.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  I feel like there were like some stray five-star reviews.

• 14:56Adam Buxton?

  Oh, really?

• 14:57Speaker 03

  Unless I'm making that up, but it was like, you sometimes feel like these films that have such extreme sort of vehement, negative responses. That there'll always be someone who goes, actually, no, I'm gonna stand up for this movie and I'm gonna give it five stars. You sort of wonder whether in their heart they actually feel that way. But I, until I see it, I suppose I can't know.

• 15:17Adam Buxton?

  The gunslinger journalists. I mean, fair enough, a lot of things that turn out to be quite great are met with a frosty reception and just not understood when they are released.

• 15:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, The Shining, I think, had a pretty tepid response when it first came out, if I'm not mistaken.

• 15:32Adam Buxton?

  And in music as well, there's loads of albums I love that everyone thought were dogshit when they came out. I remember when Kid A came out and everyone was

• 15:40Speaker 03

  It must have been the shift, though, you know, to go from In My Eyes, probably the greatest rock record of all time.

• 15:47Adam Buxton?

  Okay, Computer.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  To then just, one track is just ambient noise. You know what I mean? It's jarring. But that's also one of the best albums of all time. So it's but you would have experienced that in real time, I suppose, because I was like nine when that came out.

• 16:03Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Did it get overwhelmingly a bad response or were there just like people you would have expected to like it who didn't?

• 16:09Adam Buxton?

  There were a few people who stood up for it and said, oh, this is some interesting stuff here. But I would say overall, people were like, this is not as good as Okay Computer. This is indulgent and this is a bit pretentious and doesn't really work.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  I discovered Radiohead quite late. I was about twenty-four when I first started getting into them. Immediately fell in love, you know, finally saw them live last year, which was like perhaps the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. But I just really admired the boldness of going. And they generally, they've always continued that, all of them, in their individual pursuits as well. They've just sort of gone, we're just always gonna do what we wanna do. Like, we don't feel beholden to anyone to, you know, repeat the same trick. I feel the same way about Arctic Monkeys, you know, in a way that I discovered Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys, I was just like on the journey with as a teenager. And, and it felt the same way after Tranquility Base came out and everyone was like, what is this?

• 17:06Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, that was another one that people were mystified by. Is it good?

• 17:09Speaker 03

  And it has, I love it, yeah. It has that air of like, has he gone off the, the edge here? Like, is he just like stuck in his own pretentious world? I don't know. I don't know Alex Turner, but like, I certainly like the artistry that's coming out of that.

• 17:24Adam Buxton?

  I mean, maybe it can be both.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:28Adam Buxton?

  I remember doing an advert for that, like a voiceover for a radio ad, or maybe it was just an ad for my own podcast. But I remember thinking like, oh, am I doing an ad for like their worst album? And, uh, because I listened to it and I must say I didn't get it.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 17:45Adam Buxton?

  It's like, well, yeah, I admire where it's coming from. It's definitely, you know, different and experimental and not what people would expect. All those things I really like. But do I actually like it? I don't know, not really. But anyway, that's a good one to go back to.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. And also, it's one of those where you, then you listen to the next record, The Car, which I think is overall a better piece of work, but it recontextualises Tranquility Base in a way of sort of like a you see where they were headed sort of thing.

• 18:18Adam Buxton?

  Are you like that as an actor, do you think? Are you gonna take on projects a bit like Steven Berkoff used to do, where it would be like, one for me, one for you kind of thing? Like he would do a big Hollywood movie and then he would do something totally mad?

• 18:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I've always tried to be like Steven Berkoff. Every step of my career. Um, it was very funny. We studied his Metamorphosis in drama at school.

• 18:45Adam Buxton?

  His personal metamorphosis.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  I mean, it may as well have been, but it was his version of Kafka's Metamorphosis. And it was just the most insane thing I'd ever seen. There was a, a recording of it that we were played and I was like, what is this guy doing? He's I mean, it was amazing, but his physicality was just, that was another example of someone who clearly does not give a fuck. It's just like, this is who I am, you know, and I really admired it. I don't know. Yeah, I, I do have a certain, um, stubbornness, I think, of like, not wanting to do anything that's just for money. Or, you know, it has to be something that I actually believe in. And even if it doesn't work out in the end, for whatever reason, you know, if it doesn't quite hit, if it doesn't quite have the impact that one would hope it has, you know, you just kind of,

• 19:32Speaker 03

  at least I know I did it for, for some personal reason that I actually believed in it artistically, rather than going, they're paying me X amount of money, you know? So it's not that I've ever had that offer come my way either. It's not like I've had Marvel knocking on the door going, do you wanna play this terrible role for several million dollars? It's not really happened. But maybe that's also a thing of, you know, you work with your agents so that you kind of go, this is, this is who I am, this is what's important to me. And they know not to even bother pursuing that stuff because it's just gonna be not worth their time and effort to like, you know, because they've got to have conversations with people before it even gets to me.

• 20:11Speaker 03

  So, yeah, I mean, having kids does kind of change the, the outlook a bit. You do have to think about bills that need to get paid.

• 20:20Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 20:21Speaker 03

  But, um, so far, yeah, I've got to be

• 20:24Adam Buxton?

  A bit more attractive.

• 20:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. But so far I've been pretty lucky that there's been a good balance of that.

• 20:30Adam Buxton?

  Oh, you pick good stuff. Like you've been a lot of good stuff. It's hard to be in good stuff. I guess that's Half because you're an actor that directors want to work with and they like the look of you. But also you're making good choices, right? Like you've been lucky with the stuff you've been in.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, I often quote this thing, and I think it was Bryan Cranston who said it about acting being fifty percent hard work and fifty percent luck.

• 20:55Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Because you can put in the work and be a great actor. You know, I've got so many friends who are fantastic actors, probably, you know, better than me, if you can believe it.

• 21:03Adam Buxton?

  No.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  Um, but like, it's just about being in the right place at the right time as well, or having that gap in your schedule. And it can be sometimes be a bit like a sort of perverse bit of luck, like with The Odyssey. I did a TV show called The Franchise and I was waiting to find out if that was going to get picked up or not for a second season. And then I found out that I was getting this offer to do The Odyssey. And had the franchise actually gotten a second season, which I would have loved to do, I wouldn't have been able to do The Odyssey.

• 21:33Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  Now, that's a champagne problem as an actor. I mean, that's what I mean. I'm very, very lucky in that way. But that's a prime example of like, things just timed out. So that I could do, you know, this amazing movie that I'm, that I'm really proud to be a part of, but it also meant I lost something else.

• 21:48Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  I have been very lucky. It's very hard, you know, I, I don't wanna seem disingenuous when I say that, you know, I know that I'm I am very proud of, of the work and as I say, this sort of, I do have a sense of what I like and what I like to do, but sometimes you just, you're in the right place at the right time and, and it works out, so.

• 22:07Adam Buxton?

  Have you seen The Odyssey, the finished film?

• 22:09Speaker 03

  I saw it a week ago. Yeah.

• 22:10Adam Buxton?

  How long is it? That's the main thing.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  Just under three hours.

• 22:13Adam Buxton?

  Jesus.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  You don't feel it though.

• 22:14Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 22:14Speaker 03

  You don't feel it. Honestly, I, I know it sounds like, you know, I'm selling a movie. I, I suppose I am, but it's also genuinely, and I feel that way a lot with Christopher Nolan's movies, really, that he, he finds a way of cutting them that just the pace they move at, you suddenly like, you realise it's been three hours and you, you, I, I personally have never really felt the length of it.

• 22:32Adam Buxton?

  How long was Tenet?

• 22:34Speaker 03

  That was probably two, maybe two and a half.

• 22:37Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:38Adam Buxton?

  I think it was longer than that. I mean, I, I agree with you. They don't outstay their welcome. You are always engaged when you're watching them. I saw Tenet twice, I think, at the movies.

• 22:49Speaker 03

  Do you still not understand it?

• 22:50Adam Buxton?

  No.

• 22:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I, it's, it's, I think it's, it's, I, I do love it.

• 22:56Adam Buxton?

  You know, I understand the story.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's just, there's a, it's.

• 23:00Adam Buxton?

  The logic of certain bits I just don't get. I don't get the, at, at the end, when the, when the big battle starts and the, the different teams with the different colours and.

• 23:09Speaker 03

  I still haven't quite passed that out in my head either. The temporal pincer movement.

• 23:14Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  But I haven't really, I don't feel like I personally know Chris or spend enough time with Chris well enough to go, can you just sit me down?

• 23:23Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  And my part in that movie wasn't relevant to my character to know about any of this, so I didn't need to. But then you hear about like Rob Pattinson, who was very involved in all of that going, I still don't know what was going on. He's got one of those brains, man. I don't know how he pieces it all together.

• 23:41Adam Buxton?

  Well, he did a whole book with his brother for Interstellar, didn't he? About the physics of time travel.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  They worked with a guy on that movie, a physicist, Kip Thorne, that black hole that you see in Interstellar. They didn't know what a black hole looked like at that point, so they used all the relevant data they had and plugged it into some computer that spat that out.

• 24:01Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  And then some years later, they got their first sort of blurry image of a black hole from one of those telescopes up there and, and it looked like that.

• 24:08Adam Buxton?

  Oh, wow.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  So they actually sort of accurately predicted what a black hole would look like, which.

• 24:13Adam Buxton?

  With Matthew McConaughey circling the edge of it.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  Yes, and attempting to not, or wanting to get sucked into it or something.

• 24:20Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, he wants to get, he wants to get sucked in.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  He wants to get sucked.

• 24:23Adam Buxton?

  Into the, uh, tesseract.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  Yes, that's what it's called, that thing at the end.

• 24:28Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  With all the strings.

• 24:29Adam Buxton?

  I really like that.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  I loved, I, I remember going to see that cinema, the IMAX. And I got really annoyed because he, you know, this amazing journey they go on and then he, you know, he falls into this black hole.

• 24:42Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  And then he ends up in that, yeah, with the tesseract. And it's this emotional thing and he's trying to like get back to his, he's going through all this. And there were like just some people who were just like, this is like laughing.

• 24:54Adam Buxton?

  Oh, really?

• 24:54Speaker 03

  Hilarious. And I was like, sorry, have you been into a black hole? Like, do you know? Do, do any of us know? Well, even if you, it's probably not that, but like, at, at least he went, let's see, let's make, make this the thing.

• 25:08Adam Buxton?

  This is nothing like a tesseract.

• 25:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:11Adam Buxton?

  Just that mirror effect, that's so cheap. Tesseract that I was in was much more abstract in four dimensions.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. I found it so, just pompous really, that people were like, thought it was really funny that he went there. I think that movie is amazing and, and I actually haven't rewatched it since having children of my own. I feel like it would absolutely destroy me if I watched it.

• 25:32Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, man.

• 25:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:33Adam Buxton?

  How many kids have you got?

• 25:34Speaker 03

  Two, two daughters.

• 25:36Adam Buxton?

  Oh, wow.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:37Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I watched it with my daughter about five years ago.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:43Adam Buxton?

  For, you know, about the sixth time probably. And my daughter, I hope she won't mind me saying, I don't think she's like a big cineast. You know, movies are not a central part of her life, in a way that they are a bit more for my sons. But she loved it and it was so wonderful and it was a memory that we will both always have of watching this movie, which is a lot about

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:06Adam Buxton?

  fathers and daughters.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:08Adam Buxton?

  And time and the meaning of life. And it's sort of everything, you know, like those big Christopher Nolan themes. And there's that mad scene, which I've talked about so many times with McConaughey, you know, watching all the messages that have accumulated over a period of like twenty or thirty years from his daughter back on earth because of relativity. And it's just absolutely devastating.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:32Adam Buxton?

  And that, I, that's gonna be a, a big mad evening when you watch that with your daughters.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  It's gonna be, yeah.

• 26:37Adam Buxton?

  Unless they think it's a load of shit.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, that could happen. You know, when I first got together with my partner and, and I was like, doing that thing that so many, I guess especially a lot of blokes who like movies do is like, we've got to watch this one, we've got to watch this one, we've got, you know. And it's just a horrible position to put someone in, isn't it?

• 26:56Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, and you're staring.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  I love this movie. It means the world to me. I want to sit you down and I'm gonna stare at you while you watch this thing. And we tried to start watching There Will Be Blood and she was like, I can't deal with this tension. She's like, it's something, is he about to die? Is something about to happen? And I'm like, just watch the film. But I didn't appreciate the fact that this is just really, this is really tense and she's the kind of person who needs to know what's gonna happen, you know, in the horror movie, for example, if, you know. It was also just a lot of pressure to put someone under, you know, and I'm gonna try not to do it anymore. Also, that thing of when you say you haven't seen something and people go, you haven't seen that? And I, I was maybe guilty of it for a bit, but now I'm very, I'm quite sensitive to it myself, so I'm like,

• 27:42Speaker 03

  I just don't, I'm like, that's fine, you haven't seen, if you haven't seen Jurassic Park, whatever, you haven't seen it, I don't know. It's maybe a bit statistically odd, but I, because it just makes people feel like shit, doesn't it? I mean, it's kind of them going, you, you idiot, you haven't seen that movie.

• 27:58Adam Buxton?

  I mean, I've probably said that to people. If someone said that to me, I wouldn't mind. I'd be up for seeing it.

• 28:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:04Adam Buxton?

  I'd be like, oh, cool, I'll see it.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:06Adam Buxton?

  If you're so excited about it.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  If you're gonna be such a dick about it, yeah.

• 28:11Adam Buxton?

  I think I've definitely been a, a movie dick in my time.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 28:15Adam Buxton?

  I noticed that people were saying stuff a little bit like that or expressing surprise about the director of Backrooms. You know that film?

• 28:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I loved it.

• 28:26Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, so did I.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:27Adam Buxton?

  Anyway, the director's like barely in his twenties.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  He's like about three years old, I think. Yeah, yeah.

• 28:33Adam Buxton?

  And all, and he doesn't.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  Born during the production.

• 28:36Adam Buxton?

  That's right. He got given a camera for his fifth birthday.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  And that's what came out.

• 28:42Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:43Adam Buxton?

  But he, um, is not like some big, you know, movie head in the same way that like, you know, people like Tarantino and Edgar Wright and people, that, that was their whole

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:55Adam Buxton?

  MO was they love movies so much and that's how they got into making films themselves and everything. And for a long time, I think that was the model of what a young director should be, really, someone steeped in cinema. In all different genres. And this guy was like, yeah, I've seen a couple of films, but I'm not, not that fast.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  There was something so original about it though. I remember seeing Chouattel at some silly party.

• 29:17Adam Buxton?

  This is Chouattel Edgelford, who's in the movie.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  The lead of Backrooms, iconic actor and one of the greats.

• 29:24Adam Buxton?

  He's really good, isn't he?

• 29:25Speaker 03

  And I'm, I met him at a thing and he was lovely and I said, what are you, what are you up to? And he was telling me about this movie and I, I didn't know anything about the concept of Backrooms or whatever it was. And then I saw the trailer a month before the movie came out and I thought this looks incredible.

• 29:39Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, great trailer.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  And I, I went and watched all the YouTube series that Kane Parsons had done before the movie. It's so, it's terrifying.

• 29:49Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 29:49Speaker 03

  It's so creepy.

• 29:50Adam Buxton?

  I did exactly that.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  It's the kind of horror that I love, that sort of creepy, unsettling, you know, and he's captured that. I guess in a completely original way, like you say, he's not beholden to anything before, so it's really unsettling in a really original way.

• 30:07Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I did exactly that. I watched the trailer and then sat up all night with my son watching the YouTube shorts. And then I was like, we're gonna go and see this film next week. Come on, this is gonna be fun. And we've been to the movies quite a bit this year, or at least way more than we have done over the last few years. What did we see? Oh yeah, we saw Hail Mary, Project Hail Mary.

• 30:32Speaker 03

  That was really good.

• 30:32Adam Buxton?

  That was fun.

• 30:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:33Adam Buxton?

  It was slightly, I, I got quite annoyed with the alien in the movie.

• 30:37Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 30:37Adam Buxton?

  Saying things like amazeballs and doing dances. I wanted to hurt the alien by the end.

• 30:44Speaker 03

  You wanted to hurt him, did you?

• 30:46Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, a little bit.

• 30:46Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 30:47Adam Buxton?

  Like not kill it, but just slow it down by maybe kicking it in the.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  And what, and how is that linked to your childhood, Adam?

• 30:55Adam Buxton?

  We'll get on to that later.

• 31:37Speaker 03

  Attention.

• 31:40Adam Buxton?

  Excuse me, I'm having some wind issues.

• 31:41Speaker 03

  That's great.

• 31:45Adam Buxton?

  I drank some water recklessly, which you can't do really if you're fifty seven. How old are you, do you mind me asking?

• 31:52Speaker 03

  I'm thirty five.

• 31:53Adam Buxton?

  Thirty five?

• 31:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:55Adam Buxton?

  Good effort.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  Thanks.

• 31:56Adam Buxton?

  How's that?

• 31:57Speaker 03

  Thanks.

• 31:57Adam Buxton?

  How's that going?

• 31:59Speaker 03

  It's actually the one thing I put the least effort into is is growing old.

• 32:04Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 32:04Speaker 03

  It's like when people say, and I don't know if you've had this, like, people go, no, that's a nice beard. And you go, it just happened. I didn't, you know, it just comes out of my face.

• 32:14Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  I don't know what to tell you.

• 32:16Adam Buxton?

  I grew my beard really massive. The first time I grew a beard was for an Edinburgh show I did, and I was playing a kind of East European poet animator character called Pavel. And it was the first time I'd done kind of more acting-y stuff, I suppose, playing a character. And so I thought, oh, I better disguise myself, otherwise people go, that's just Adam Buxton from the Adam and Joe show. I'm not going to believe him. So I grew a giant beard and I was living in South London at the time and I went into a shop in Buxton and the guy, Muslim guy said, that is a good beard. Are you Muslim? And I was really pleased about that. I was like, yeah, no, I'm not, but thank you. I've got Muslim beard props.

• 33:01Adam Buxton?

  And I really liked having that beard. It was good fun and it was lovely and soft.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:07Adam Buxton?

  Like, people don't realise.

• 33:08Speaker 03

  It's a nice thing to just touch every now and then and.

• 33:11Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, and play with and.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:13Adam Buxton?

  Gives you a bit of gravity. I mean, it was a mad beard. Also then, soon thereafter, I went into a toilet at some sort of event, premiere event thing. And James Nesbitt came up next to me and took, I'd never met him before, and he looked over and went, Jesus, that's a horrible fucking beard.

• 33:34Adam Buxton?

  That's not a good impression of James.

• 33:36Speaker 03

  That was pretty good, actually.

• 33:37Adam Buxton?

  I apologise for my offensive accents.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  That was a good James Nesbitt, I think, in that he was very irate about your beard.

• 33:43Adam Buxton?

  It was.

• 33:44Speaker 03

  And I can, I can imagine that.

• 33:45Adam Buxton?

  It was a big response. I was like, I didn't really know what to say.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  I don't think there's anything you can say when someone sort of is a kind of unnecessary, isn't it?

• 33:53Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:54Adam Buxton?

  I was just like, um, I was a bit hurt.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I'm sorry that you'd, that you'd upset him, I suppose, yeah. And that's one of those moments that I look back on and I go, why was I apologetic?

• 34:06Adam Buxton?

  Exactly.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  I don't need to be apologetic about that. You're having a go at my beard. What have I done to you?

• 34:10Adam Buxton?

  Is that your default mode as well? Are you?

• 34:12Speaker 03

  It is, yeah. Yeah, just sort of like, I guess, I'm the problem. I absolutely, yeah.

• 34:17Adam Buxton?

  Where does that come from?

• 34:18Speaker 03

  I'm figuring that out. I'm in, into several years into figuring that out, but it's a, it is an affliction. It's kind of interesting. I remember when you were speaking to Richard Iwadi about like, sort of, that it is a very sort of British habit of just sort of assuming we're not unable to accept any sense of compliment or, or accept that maybe we're actually maybe good at something or whatever. You just can't just have to sort of dumb it down or put yourself down, you know, and it's, I was so used to doing it. That's just the way I was.

• 34:54Adam Buxton?

  Is it a worse problem than being someone who's just always tooting your own trumpet?

• 35:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. It's finding that balance. I think that's the thing is that it's always a fear for me of going, I don't want to become someone who's blathering on about how like, you know.

• 35:11Adam Buxton?

  Or not even blathering, but like when they come into contact with people telling them they're a genius or whatever.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:17Adam Buxton?

  They just nod or they just kind of go with it, you know, rather, I don't know. I always find that very uncomfortable.

• 35:22Speaker 03

  I've just found a way of, so I just sort of say thank you, you know, because it is genuinely, someone says something nice about your work that you've done it or, you know, that I just, I appreciate it. I do genuinely appreciate it. So I just try and remind myself of that rather than worrying that it's like adding to some well of ego that I have, you know.

• 35:42Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, that we'll have to beat out of you.

• 35:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:45Adam Buxton?

  That will be beaten out of you at some point. That's the worry, isn't it? It's like, well, at some point I'll have to pay.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:50Adam Buxton?

  I'll have to pay for thinking I'm great.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  I had an interview come out the other day and I wasn't particularly thrilled with it, largely because there was one, for some reason, the journalist decided to ask a critic who has remained anonymous what they thought of me. And the critic said something like, I'm afraid his work hasn't really made much of an impression on me.

• 36:11Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 36:13Speaker 03

  I was like.

• 36:14Adam Buxton?

  And they thought that was worth including in the piece.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Why is that in there then?

• 36:20Adam Buxton?

  And it was anonymous?

• 36:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was an anonymous critic and I just thought, why, uh, okay, right then, I guess.

• 36:29Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, well, that's just to add a bit of spice.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 36:31Adam Buxton?

  Make it a bit more spiky.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Which is fine. It's absolutely fine for someone to feel that way, but I also realised it was definitely a reflection of my own insecurity.

• 36:40Adam Buxton?

  Do you think it would be preferable, because I think that the PR machine these days has probably gone too far in the direction of everything just being totally lovey and nice and everyone's a genius and they're so wonderful. I suppose it used to be a lot more vicious. It was pretty vicious in the nineties, I remember.

• 37:04Adam Buxton?

  And then it was just more kind of crazy and unhinged in the seventies, right? Like, people going on chat shows in the seventies, you could get in a row and everyone would be slagging everyone off and.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 37:15Adam Buxton?

  I guess that's because there was no internet, so people didn't immediately, like their opinions weren't immediately telegraphed.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  And they weren't immortal.

• 37:22Adam Buxton?

  It would just vanish. Like, if it was on TV one night, no one would ever see it again. There was no way they could. So you could be far more indiscreet. Do you think that's a preferable way to, to be? Or would you, do you think that would have been nice to be an actor in that time?

• 37:38Speaker 03

  I mean, personally, it would not have been a good time for me to be an actor because I would not have got much work, but um, I, I, I think.

• 37:45Adam Buxton?

  Oh, what you mean is?

• 37:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, but, but overall, I know what you're saying, but like, I guess maybe we are a lot more mannered in that way, but that's why this sort of thing is great. And I, I think why podcasts are so popular now, because you're just a bit more at ease. You don't have to, you know, worry too much about how you're, you know, presenting yourself. I mean, I mean, you know, especially if it's not being filmed or whatever, but like, I, I just think that's maybe where good conversation lives now. I hope. Someone's probably listening to this going, really, mate? But um, I think we're a lot more mannered. I think we worry about that, that thing of like, you can say one thing wrong and do one thing wrong and it'll live forever. Maybe that has added something, but in a way, it's all I've ever known. I've never known a time where it would just be left and disappear forever.

• 38:31Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, okay.

• 38:32Speaker 03

  The entire time that I've been in the public eye, over half my life now, it's, it's always been that thing of like, it'll always live, you know. Someone will have a video of it. Someone will have something, you know.

• 38:41Adam Buxton?

  So think about what you say.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 38:44Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm. Especially if I ask you about the big culture wars topics.

• 38:49Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 38:50Adam Buxton?

  We'll do that later.

• 38:53Adam Buxton?

  However,

• 38:55Adam Buxton?

  you have a worried look.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  I do.

• 38:58Adam Buxton?

  It must have been said to you before.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  A worried look?

• 39:00Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Has that not been said to you? You look worried.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 39:05Adam Buxton?

  I mean.

• 39:05Speaker 03

  Maybe I just am worried.

• 39:06Adam Buxton?

  It's sexy worry. It's very hot.

• 39:12Adam Buxton?

  And.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  Sexy worry, that's what I'm going for, yeah.

• 39:15Adam Buxton?

  You know, you look intense. You look like you're preoccupied. You look like.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  I think I might be, you know, I think it's, I, I, as I say, I'm doing a lot of work on myself and sort of going, is there just something that's sort of living in my brain that's always just living, that's therefore just constantly on my, in my eyes and on my face? But I, I think there is an element of me that's maybe a bit worried about how I'm coming across at all times and I try to park it. There's a very funny thing of, um, I, I do tend to get a lot of roles where I end up having a panic attack.

• 39:44Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 39:45Speaker 03

  So I did Don't Look Up, in which I had a panic attack.

• 39:48Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  Station Eleven, which I had a panic attack. I think I have some form of panic attack in the assessment. I just shot something where there might have been something a bit like a panic attack. Maybe we're getting to the crux of who I am as a person and therefore an actor.

• 40:03Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Panic guy.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  Panic attack man.

• 40:08Adam Buxton?

  Do you?

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Someone call Marvel.

• 40:09Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. When was Station Eleven filmed?

• 40:13Speaker 03

  Oh, so we shot the pilot and episode three. Um, those two episodes were shot in January of twenty twenty.

• 40:20Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  Oddly enough.

• 40:22Adam Buxton?

  So that series is based on a novel that came out in twenty fourteen?

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

• 40:28Adam Buxton?

  Right. And for. People who haven't seen it, will you remind?

• 40:33Speaker 03

  It's about um the world after a pandemic has ravaged the entire globe.

• 40:40Adam Buxton?

  And it's even a flu pandemic.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  It's a flu pandemic that has killed ninety percent of the population. And it's about a band of travellers and some other characters around rebuilding society, specifically around the Great Lakes area of the US through art, through theatre. And sort of rebuilding community and finding the best in each other.

• 41:05Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. And what was your character again?

• 41:07Speaker 03

  Jiven is the name of my character, Jiven Chowdhury.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  And the whole story begins with him in Chicago on the day that the pandemic unfolds, where he meets this young girl called Kirsten. And winds up being her guardian, basically, as the world collapses around them. And yeah, it was a really surreal thing. Basically, we shot this episode where the pandemic starts to unfold. As they basically traipse across Chicago to try and get home. And then two months later, I was back at home in London. And it just sort of started coming to life around me. It was very, very odd.

• 41:44Adam Buxton?

  Did it freak you out?

• 41:44Speaker 03

  It did. I mean, I, you know, I said to my partner, I was like, we need to get, we need to get a big shop in. Cause she'd been on set with me the day that, there's a scene where we're at the supermarket, just filling two trolleys full of whatever. And she goes, um, you know, that's not what you'd buy, right? And I was like, yeah, okay, it's a TV show. And then two months later, we're sort of furiously going through the aisles at Sainsbury's, just filling up whatever we can. About a week before everyone else started going crazy about it because of that conversation, because of what I just shot. So. Thankfully, it didn't go anywhere near as bad as what it is in the TV show, but it certainly. Was a coincidence that I'll just never really get over. It's so strange.

• 42:28Adam Buxton?

  Were you preoccupied by that kind of thing anyway, like um apocalyptic scenarios?

• 42:33Speaker 03

  I don't think I've ever worried about it too much. Every now and then I think about the sort of the knife sedge that we're all living on. Or, you know, if someone does something with the internet or whatever, and the internet goes down around the world, we'd be absolutely screwed now.

• 42:48Adam Buxton?

  There'd be no Netflix.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  There wouldn't be any Netflix, you know, and I don't know what you'd do without that.

• 42:52Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know.

• 42:53Adam Buxton?

  Where would you see Anthony Jeselnik's new special?

• 42:56Speaker 03

  That's the thing. Where would you see Ricky Gervais's new special?

• 42:59Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  Cause those things are essential.

• 43:00Adam Buxton?

  People would just have to describe it to each other.

• 43:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, through poems, through, like, like they used to back in antiquity.

• 43:07Adam Buxton?

  A travelling band of Ricky Gervais explainers.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  You'd just be like, give me the virus now, actually. I'll take it.

• 43:15Adam Buxton?

  Journeying from town to town, describing. And then Ricky would come out on stage and he would have a sip of his beer.

• 43:25Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 43:25Adam Buxton?

  And talk about fat people.

• 43:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 43:29Adam Buxton?

  And then he would shrug and make a face as if to say, I'm just doing a joke.

• 43:33Speaker 03

  Yes, just a joke.

• 43:35Adam Buxton?

  It's just a joke. Chill, have a chill pill. I really loved Station Eleven, which eventually saw the light of day towards the end of twenty twenty one, I think.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, so well, actually, so we, obviously through the pandemic, we had to shut down. So we didn't go back to Chicago in the end. We went back to Toronto at the beginning of twenty one and shot the rest of it. And then it came out later that year, yeah.

• 43:57Adam Buxton?

  Cause it wasn't totally bleak. That was the thing I was a bit worried about. Like, I don't.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  But I think people expected it to be, and so maybe it didn't get that same. Initial sort of love that I think it deserved, frankly.

• 44:10Adam Buxton?

  Alright.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  Especially over here. I think over here it wound up on a streamer that no one really has.

• 44:14Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:15Speaker 03

  And then I went to the US at the beginning of twenty twenty two, and there were so many people coming up to me saying they loved the show. And I was like, oh. Did people watch it here? And people going, it was big in the US, which was really heartening. But. I do understand that thing of people not wanting to go near it because they thought that it was going to be some bleak drama about.

• 44:34Adam Buxton?

  They're like, I'm fine.

• 44:35Speaker 03

  Dying.

• 44:35Adam Buxton?

  I don't really need more pandemic now.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it is so hopeful. It goes to very dark places, especially my character goes in very dark places, but.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  The conclusion is just so uplifting and hopeful and life affirming, you know.

• 44:49Adam Buxton?

  One of the episodes is called Survival is Insufficient.

• 44:52Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 44:53Adam Buxton?

  What's that a reference to?

• 44:54Speaker 03

  Are you asking me some specific quiz question?

• 44:56Adam Buxton?

  I was asking you a nerd question.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  Oh, no. Is it um?

• 44:59Adam Buxton?

  Giving you a nerd test.

• 45:02Speaker 03

  It's not two thousand and one, is it?

• 45:03Adam Buxton?

  No.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  No.

• 45:04Adam Buxton?

  Failed. You failed the nerd test.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 45:06Adam Buxton?

  Star Trek Voyager.

• 45:08Speaker 03

  And that's the one of Star Trek that I watched a bit of when I was a kid.

• 45:12Adam Buxton?

  Did you?

• 45:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was the one that was like big when I was a kid in the nineties.

• 45:15Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, I watched it with my sister a bit, yeah.

• 45:17Adam Buxton?

  It's a bit in Star Trek Voyager where Seven of Nine, the beautiful Borg lady.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 45:22Adam Buxton?

  Uh, is talking.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  Crush for me, I think. Early days, yeah.

• 45:26Adam Buxton?

  Hard not to be impressed by Seven of Nine. Uh, she's talking to Chakotay. About um having transitioned out of the Borg collective.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:37Adam Buxton?

  Talking about the difference between merely existing.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 45:40Adam Buxton?

  And surviving and actually living and being a more of an individual.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:45Adam Buxton?

  Having got out of the collective. But um, yeah, so it was a lot of those themes of. What is it to be human? What are the things worth maintaining and retaining? After a devastating event like a pandemic that's wiped out most of the planet's population? How do we reconnect?

• 46:05Speaker 03

  And sort of recontextualise, like, there's no, you have got nothing really to hang anything off anymore. The entire sort of structure that we lived with is, is gone. But that's what I find so hopeful about that story. It's that art will survive anything. It will survive any, anything, you know?

• 46:22Adam Buxton?

  Some of it.

• 46:23Speaker 03

  Some of it needn't survive.

• 46:25Adam Buxton?

  Quite a lot of my art is not going to survive, I don't.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't know, Adam. It's very beloved, I think.

• 46:31Adam Buxton?

  Art song, obviously, that's gonna be.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Can you imagine though, like, so much of the stuff that you've put out into the world would actually be really uplifting for a lot of people?

• 46:37Adam Buxton?

  That's true.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  End of the world.

• 46:39Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 46:39Speaker 03

  If they could just find some electricity to plug in something to play it, or maybe they've learnt it.

• 46:45Adam Buxton?

  Yes, they'll be reciting my.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  There must be people who've learned some of your songs.

• 46:50Adam Buxton?

  Occasionally, people will send in covers of some of the songs. Like from Adam and Joe days and things like that, like Robert De Niro, Calypso and. And um, it's pretty weird.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  Do you find it weird?

• 47:05Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  You're like, no, don't do that.

• 47:09Adam Buxton?

  I can't help feeling like there's better songs to cover.

• 47:16Adam Buxton?

  You should do what?

• 47:16Speaker 03

  This was a waste of your time.

• 47:19Adam Buxton?

  You've totally wasted your time.

• 48:02Adam Buxton?

  I listened to you talking to Brett Goldstein on his podcast.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  I like Brett.

• 48:07Adam Buxton?

  Hmm.

• 48:07Speaker 03

  He's great.

• 48:08Adam Buxton?

  He snogged J Lo.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  I've heard he has, yeah, snogged J Lo in a movie.

• 48:13Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 48:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:14Adam Buxton?

  Maybe, I mean.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  I haven't seen the movie yet, but.

• 48:16Adam Buxton?

  Maybe like everywhere.

• 48:18Speaker 03

  He, he snogged her everywhere. Is that what you're trying to say?

• 48:20Adam Buxton?

  I don't know what I'm gonna say. I regret it.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  A lot of J Lo snogging going on between.

• 48:25Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  J Lo and Brett there.

• 48:26Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't seen the movie yet.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  Brett Lo.

• 48:30Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, uh, J Steen.

• 48:34Speaker 03

  J Steen.

• 48:35Adam Buxton?

  Whatever. You were talking to him though about death, about death.

• 48:39Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 48:41Adam Buxton?

  And you shared with him a theory that you have. Do you remember what I'm talking about?

• 48:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do. Yeah, my, my theory of what heaven is.

• 48:48Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 48:48Speaker 03

  Basically, yeah.

• 48:49Adam Buxton?

  I was really beguiled.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  Did you like it? Yeah. I have a very scientific brain in a lot of ways.

• 48:54Adam Buxton?

  Hmm.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  Which I think comes a bit from my dad, but then my sister is, got a PhD in biochemistry. So she's. She's not a scientist anymore, like as a profession, but that's the kind of mindset that I grew up around. But we're also very emotional people, very, you know, so there's a, there's a nice marriage of those two things. And so my, my theory was like, I, I. We have this ability, I think. We perceive time. I mean, that's what we're doing. It was, we're living through time, we're perceiving it. And you hear stories about how people go that, I felt like, you know. A lot longer than it was, or, you know, time slowed down. These stories you hear when people are like in very extreme situations or whatever. And part of me wonders if we can do something where as you're passing away physically.

• 49:36Speaker 03

  You manage to like just capture some moment in time and so you perceive it as an eternity perhaps. But in, in reality, to everyone else, you're watching them and they've just, they've died in a split second, they're gone. But like, maybe in that. In that dying moment, you're experiencing it as, as some forever heaven in your head. I don't know, that's kind of my theory.

• 50:01Adam Buxton?

  Well, it's an idea that has popped up in literature and movies and things like that.

• 50:06Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 50:07Adam Buxton?

  I mean, there's Jacob's Ladder.

• 50:08Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:09Adam Buxton?

  Which is a lot like that. Have you seen that?

• 50:11Speaker 03

  No.

• 50:12Adam Buxton?

  Oh, really?

• 50:13Speaker 03

  I should.

• 50:13Adam Buxton?

  You've never seen Jacob's Ladder?

• 50:15Speaker 03

  Oh, my god.

• 50:16Adam Buxton?

  Fucking hell.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  Such an idiot.

• 50:18Adam Buxton?

  You've wasted your life, mate. Come on.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  I knew it.

• 50:21Adam Buxton?

  I can't believe it. You call yourself an actor, you've never seen Jacob's Ladder?

• 50:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm a failure.

• 50:27Adam Buxton?

  I don't think you are an actor.

• 50:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:29Adam Buxton?

  I think you're pretending to be an actor.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that's true.

• 50:32Adam Buxton?

  If you've never seen Jacob's Ladder.

• 50:34Speaker 03

  Listen, I'm gonna go. I gotta leave.

• 50:36Adam Buxton?

  This is a callback to what we were talking about earlier, but I'm laying it on very thick.

• 50:39Speaker 03

  I like it.

• 50:40Adam Buxton?

  Okay. Um, it's really good. And you would especially. Like it because it's kind of all about your thing, except it is a nightmarish. Version of your.

• 50:51Speaker 03

  So it's not not, it's not.

• 50:53Adam Buxton?

  Because the other thing is that some of what you're describing is a bit like the Bardo, right? In Tibetan Buddhism.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:00Adam Buxton?

  The sort of near death phase where you.

• 51:05Speaker 03

  Like a purgatory.

• 51:06Adam Buxton?

  Well, it's you're getting a series of visions that may or may not prepare you for what's next. Or for like liberation or rebirth or whatever. It's either your mind replaying things or. But but it's a zone near death where time doesn't make the same sense.

• 51:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, my my earliest memory is my granddad's funeral in India.

• 51:29Adam Buxton?

  Right, when you were three?

• 51:30Speaker 03

  I was three. I hadn't met him yet, so my mum took me over there and, you know, a few days later he passed. And so then they had the funeral and it was such a visceral experience that it's just like, I realized. Many years later in therapy that it was my earliest memory. And so I think this idea of death has just been rattling around my brain. I mean. It hasn't dogged me necessarily death of, you know, but I think um I'm obsessed with space. And what the hell that is like, probably why I loved Interstellar so much, you know, that idea of. What what is this? What are we doing?

• 52:06Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, you mean outer space rather than just like. More more square footage in your living room.

• 52:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, not that, not that. Um, you know, just like, we don't know what any of this is. So what, that's what I mean, I guess, when I'm talking about people sniggering at like. Him falling into the black hole and it being a thing. I'm like, you don't know, we don't know what any of this is.

• 52:28Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  You're gonna die. You don't know what any of this is. We just have no idea. So any, when you, when you start thinking about these sort of mortality in that way. It's um, anything's possible, I think.

• 52:38Adam Buxton?

  Hmm.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  It's like a thing that we just can't even perceive of right now.

• 52:42Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. You've got to see Jacob's Ladder.

• 52:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay, I'm gonna see it.

• 52:46Adam Buxton?

  I think I'm right in saying that that film is also. Based or maybe partly inspired by a short story by a guy called Ambrose Bierce.

• 52:55Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 52:56Adam Buxton?

  And it's called uh, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. And it's set in the American Civil War. And it's a guy who is being hung, a soldier, I think. And um, I read it ages ago after seeing Jacob's Ladder. And um, in the moment before he's dropped through the trapdoor and the noose snaps his neck. He has a kind of fantasy, spoiler alert for Ambrose Bierce explorers. He believes that he escapes the noose, returns to his home and his wife.

• 53:40Adam Buxton?

  And lives the whole rest of his life happily. And then at the end of that, suddenly. He gets hung and it's all over. And I think there's a Star Trek episode, speaking of Star Trek. There's a good one of those with Star Trek, The Next Generation, where. Picard suddenly lives a whole life.

• 54:04Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 54:06Adam Buxton?

  He gets trapped on a planet somewhere and he thinks he's been abandoned and he just gets married and. Lives out his whole life and becomes an old man and then he dies and then he wakes up and it's the moment.

• 54:17Speaker 03

  I feel like I read something recently about that happened to someone.

• 54:21Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  She fell into a coma.

• 54:26Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't know, this could be completely made up and something I just saw when I was scrolling through Reddit. Which I have since deleted off my phone because it was another black hole of social media, but it knows you so well, it throws stories like this at you, but you can. Someone look this up. I feel like this happened to someone. She fell into a coma, lived an entire life where she had like children.

• 54:45Adam Buxton?

  Whoa.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  And then woke up and it was so horrific.

• 54:48Adam Buxton?

  Oh my god.

• 54:50Speaker 03

  Because it must have been so vivid and real. But I can barely remember my dreams, so I'm like, what? I can't imagine that, you know, like being.

• 54:59Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Well, in in Star Trek.

• 55:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, sorry, back to back to Star Trek.

• 55:04Adam Buxton?

  John Luke Picard is traumatized by the experience.

• 55:06Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 55:06Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, because it would be absolutely traumatic. You'd suddenly, if it felt real, then you would have lost all those people. And in the episode, like he remembers the whole span of this existence as like a whole.

• 55:19Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 55:20Adam Buxton?

  Real life with a whole set of alternate memories and everything. It's mad. I think there is a book as well by Julian Barnes, The History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters.

• 55:29Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 55:29Adam Buxton?

  Which also has some of these same elements of, I mean. Traditionally, I think the idea is all rooted in preparing for death, right? Rehearsing. Or being able to make peace with life and being able to say goodbye to it.

• 55:46Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 55:47Adam Buxton?

  And just get to the point where you're like, that's fine, I've had enough now, bye.

• 55:51Speaker 03

  I I think I just want to, I I want to know that I'll be able to say goodbye.

• 55:57Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 55:58Speaker 03

  That's why I've, especially since having kids, I, flying is really. Quite scary for me unless we're all flying together, which is very rare. I'm usually flying on my own for work. Because I just go, I, A, I'm gonna leave you without a dad and B, I don't get to say goodbye to anyone. And that terrifies me more than anything, really. Death is coming, you know, whatever happens to all of us, but. It's so heartbreaking when people don't get to say goodbye, you know?

• 56:28Adam Buxton?

  I used to be a nervous flyer and I'd always think about recording messages to people.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 56:35Adam Buxton?

  I had that fantasy that would go around.

• 56:39Speaker 03

  But like the fastest voice notes you've ever sent in your life.

• 56:41Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  Well, mine. Before the wifi craps out.

• 56:44Adam Buxton?

  If it's anything like my real voice notes, it would go on and on and on.

• 56:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, me too. Yeah, just the most indulgent.

• 56:52Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another thing, uh, I never really said, but they'd be like, oh, Jesus. How much more of this is there?

• 57:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:02Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, that used to be one of the things that would go around in my head. And then also I would think about. If the plane crashed and there were survivors, who would I marry?

• 57:13Speaker 03

  Just looking around.

• 57:14Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 57:18Adam Buxton?

  Didn't you ever have that one?

• 57:19Speaker 03

  No.

• 57:20Adam Buxton?

  Thinking about, you know, how you'd get on with the rest of the survivors.

• 57:24Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, you'd probably get on with her over there.

• 57:25Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 57:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:26Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, she seems marriageable.

• 57:28Speaker 03

  Oh, I hope he dies.

• 57:30Adam Buxton?

  Exactly.

• 57:31Speaker 03

  Judged by what they're watching.

• 57:33Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 57:33Speaker 03

  You see what they're watching as you go to the loo and that's how you decide who's gonna be your mate and who isn't. Yeah.

• 57:39Adam Buxton?

  Which is often got like these, these things.

• 57:41Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 57:42Adam Buxton?

  People can watch some pretty spicy stuff.

• 57:47Speaker 03

  On a plane, yeah, yeah.

• 57:48Adam Buxton?

  I mean, it used to be that they would censor everything within an inch of its life, like all the swears would be replaced in movies.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 57:55Adam Buxton?

  When I was a lad, right, on plate, like you'd only get one movie, let me tell you, Himesh.

• 57:59Speaker 03

  I have a vague memory of that when I went to LA when I was seven.

• 58:02Adam Buxton?

  Hmm.

• 58:03Speaker 03

  And everyone was just, I've, I've remembered Jackie Brown being on the.

• 58:06Adam Buxton?

  Oh, really?

• 58:07Speaker 03

  On the screen, yeah.

• 58:08Adam Buxton?

  Jackie Brown, blimey, that's kind of.

• 58:10Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 58:10Adam Buxton?

  Raunchy choice, but that would.

• 58:12Speaker 03

  But I imagine it was heavily edited because everyone's watching it, yeah.

• 58:15Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, and famously the swears like, motherfucker would be melon farmer. And it was just stuff that would match with the lip sync, you know?

• 58:26Speaker 03

  My wife just sent me a uh, an Instagram post about people trying to bring back Victorian phrases.

• 58:32Adam Buxton?

  Uh huh.

• 58:33Speaker 03

  That are really amazing, like the evening wheezes or something is like the evening news.

• 58:38Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 58:39Speaker 03

  A old Victorian phraseology that we should bring back into the, but we kind of realized that we're using half of it anyway.

• 58:46Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 58:47Speaker 03

  Blimey, O'Reilly, I say that way too often.

• 58:50Adam Buxton?

  Really, you're the, Joe Cornish used to say that a lot, probably still does, and I got that off him, I think. But I've never met anyone else who says it.

• 58:57Speaker 03

  Blimey, O'Reilly, yeah, we're saying it all the time.

• 58:59Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 58:59Speaker 03

  Flipping heck, Tucker.

• 59:00Adam Buxton?

  Well, I say that, yes. That's a great chill.

• 59:03Speaker 03

  Now I'm realizing maybe I got it from you. Maybe I got it from listening to your show.

• 59:07Adam Buxton?

  Possible.

• 59:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:35Adam Buxton?

  So, what are you gonna wear tonight at the premiere? That's the big question.

• 59:42Speaker 03

  Finally, finally, we get via existential death chat. I'm wearing a black suit by a brand called Amiri. Because that's what my stylist got me.

• 59:53Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 59:54Speaker 03

  And she always does well by me, so, um, yeah. I'm excited to wear it, so that's a good thing, isn't it? But it's a funny old thing, this sort of fashion plus actors thing has sort of become a lot more of a thing. The most important thing to me is that do I feel good in it?

• 1:00:11Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Speaker 03

  I don't want to be wearing Prada but feeling like an Incan poop, you know?

• 1:00:15Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, you don't want to have to rearrange your scrotum like more than every 10 minutes.

• 1:00:21Speaker 03

  No, exactly, exactly. I don't want to be doing that. I don't like rearranging my scrotum.

• 1:00:27Adam Buxton?

  At least not in public.

• 1:00:28Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:00:29Adam Buxton?

  Will you have to go up on the stage and stand next to the whole cast tonight?

• 1:00:33Speaker 03

  I think so, yeah. But also oddly twice, because we're doing the carpet in Leicester Square. But because this movie was shot all on IMAX film, they're doing a screening at Leicester Square, like the Odeon where everyone, you know, and then they're also, we're all watching it with our loved ones and whatever, and maybe some other guests at the IMAX.

• 1:00:51Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  So we're going on stage at Leicester Square. Hello, enjoy the movie. And then we go over to the IMAX and do the same thing again.

• 1:00:58Adam Buxton?

  And actually watch it that time?

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  And then actually watch it, yeah.

• 1:01:00Adam Buxton?

  Right. Where did you shoot it? Where were your scenes done?

• 1:01:05Speaker 03

  I was lucky enough to go to every single location that we were at, so.

• 1:01:08Adam Buxton?

  Who do you play, by the way?

• 1:01:09Speaker 03

  I play a character called Eurylicus, who is like Odysseus' right-hand man, leader of the soldiers on their way back home. So I got to do all the fun set piece sequences that everyone who knows The Odyssey will know what we all go through as we try to get home. And, um, we started in Morocco and then went to Greece. And then we shot on a couple of islands around Sicily. Beautiful islands, Faviniana and Lipary, which I had never heard of. And I highly recommend people visit them, they're both stunning. And then, um, Scotland and Iceland. And then LA at the end. Which was a real full circle moment for me shooting in LA at Universal Studios. Because I did that tour with my mum when I was seven.

• 1:01:55Speaker 03

  And every day, we were there for about a week shooting, and every day I'd drive in and see the tour bus going around and I'd be like, you know. It's a crazy thing to reconcile in my head, really, that was like that. I don't know what the odds of this were happening, but I'm very grateful for it. But it was, I had a little emotional moment to myself.

• 1:02:13Adam Buxton?

  So is that, are there working sets then?

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:17Adam Buxton?

  That are part of the tour?

• 1:02:19Speaker 03

  They, I think if you go on the bus tour, you can like be driven around where they might be shooting through all the sound stages and whatever. And then obviously the, the theme park itself is like right next door.

• 1:02:29Adam Buxton?

  Wow.

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:30Adam Buxton?

  So you're on a giant soundstage in there with a?

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  It was outdoors, yeah.

• 1:02:34Adam Buxton?

  Oh, was it?

• 1:02:35Speaker 03

  Basically, the only things that we could not achieve safely on location, we shot on that soundstage.

• 1:02:42Adam Buxton?

  And what were those things?

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  There's a, there's a big sequence towards the end with the ship, uh, gets caught in some very nasty weather and it doesn't, doesn't go well. Uh, spoiler alert, but I mean, the book's been out for a while, so some people might know. But, um, we did actually spend a lot of time on this actual boat, the Draken, it's called from Norway.

• 1:03:01Adam Buxton?

  On the actual sea?

• 1:03:02Speaker 03

  On the actual Mediterranean Sea and then up in Scotland as well.

• 1:03:05Adam Buxton?

  Wow.

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  It was amazing. So the, the, as everyone knows about Chris Nolan, he likes to shoot on location for real. But the amount that we did in this movie actually really shocked me, because I thought The Odyssey, we're gonna have to do a vast amount of it on the soundstage, but no, we achieved almost all of our section of it.

• 1:03:20Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 1:03:21Speaker 03

  Um, on the soundstage. And yeah, it was a really amazing experience.

• 1:03:24Adam Buxton?

  Where was the Cyclops Cave?

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  In Greece.

• 1:03:26Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 1:03:27Speaker 03

  A famous cave called Nestor's Cave. Apparently it's like the birthplace of Zeus. And they went there and they decided, yeah, we're gonna shoot inside the actual cave. We're not gonna do this in a soundstage. And again, it's like a tiny little quirk of nature, but there's a little crack at the top of the cave. So that meant that they could run cabling down and harness an entire lighting rig to the top of the cave and turn it into a soundstage, basically. But it meant that we were inside this actual place and, again, you just can't really replicate that feeling as an actor to go, I'm feeling this sense of place while we're doing this absolutely absurd thing.

• 1:04:03Adam Buxton?

  What did they do about the creature, though? Like, do you?

• 1:04:06Speaker 03

  There's some trickery.

• 1:04:07Adam Buxton?

  Is there anything for you to react to while you're filming?

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  There is. But eventually people, I imagine, see that in the making of, but it involves sort of some incredible puppetry.

• 1:04:17Adam Buxton?

  Uh huh.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  Married with Bill Irwin, this amazing, uh, veteran American actor who plays the Cyclops.

• 1:04:25Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 1:04:26Speaker 03

  And then the way that they put it together, I'm still not entirely clear on how they put it all together in post, but it doesn't really involve CGI. It's sort of a marriage of two different filming setups, basically.

• 1:04:38Adam Buxton?

  Okay, that's cool.

• 1:04:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, these locations, like Nestor's Cave was that you, you walk 10 minutes across a beach and then 10 minutes basically up a mountain to get to this cave every day.

• 1:04:49Adam Buxton?

  Uh huh.

• 1:04:50Speaker 03

  For like five, six days in a row. And it was challenging in those circumstances, but you just go, that's the price we pay to shoot in these locations, have that sort of visceral quality that he tends to capture in his movies.

• 1:05:00Adam Buxton?

  Did you ever watch all those Ray Harryhausen movies?

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I remember seeing them a bit when I was a kid. And that's basically some of that trickery is what Chris has employed in this movie, rather than leaning on CGI, which he hates doing. I think it's basically him going like, how did Harryhausen do it?

• 1:05:17Adam Buxton?

  Models, stop motion?

• 1:05:18Speaker 03

  Exactly, you know, how did, how did they do American Werewolf in London?

• 1:05:21Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:22Speaker 03

  That sort of stuff, like all that trickery. Like, there's a whole sequence in with Cersei, played by Samantha Morton. And again, fans of the story will know what happens in there, but there's no CGI in that entire sequence, which I've been telling some people who've seen the movie, that there's been no CGI and they're just like, what do you mean? Because it looks impossible, what we're achieving. But the thing is, it's always been possible, it's just people stopped using those tech.

• 1:05:46Adam Buxton?

  Remind me what happens in the Cersei bit?

• 1:05:48Speaker 03

  We all get turned into pigs.

• 1:05:49Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:05:51Speaker 03

  And the way they, that we did it, you know, with the use of just, as I say, these old school techniques of animatronics and prosthetics and just using the camera in clever ways and using all the other techniques of sound and lens choice and all this sort of stuff to make it really disturbing and visceral and you don't need to use CGI at all, if maybe just a very, a little. But not in any way that's gonna be the identity of it, you know? I think CGI can get in the way and become like the spectacle, whereas it, I think it sits in a really real place in this movie and I think in a lot of his work, yeah.

• 1:06:30Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm. Oh, that's cool. I'm excited to see it.

• 1:06:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. I hope you enjoy it when you do.

• 1:06:36Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Three hours.

• 1:06:39Speaker 03

  Three hours of me looking worried.

• 1:06:42Speaker 03

  But I have reason in this movie.

• 1:06:45Adam Buxton?

  Well, you don't want to get turned into a pig.

• 1:06:46Speaker 03

  Pretty worrying circumstances.

• 1:07:20Adam Buxton?

  I read about the fact that when you were at school, you did a play.

• 1:07:23Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:07:24Adam Buxton?

  And it was This Is Your Life with Santa.

• 1:07:28Speaker 03

  Yes, This Is Your Life, Santa Claus, yeah.

• 1:07:30Adam Buxton?

  And you were Michael Aspel?

• 1:07:31Speaker 03

  I was, yeah. In, in incredibly diverse piece of casting for the time.

• 1:07:36Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Adam Buxton?

  Colorblind casting.

• 1:07:39Adam Buxton?

  Were the parents outraged?

• 1:07:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Adam Buxton?

  What? Michael Aspel is a notoriously white chat show host.

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  Notoriously white, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:51Speaker 03

  Thankfully, I didn't. As far as I'm aware, no one really hated on that at the time, but, um.

• 1:07:56Adam Buxton?

  I really liked that idea, that made me laugh and I thought, that's a cool teacher. Who was the cool teacher that came up with that idea?

• 1:08:04Speaker 03

  Gosh, I wish I could, well, no, it was a curriculum thing, it turns out. Because I mentioned it and then there were a couple of people who said, oh yeah, I did that as well. It seemed to be some sort of, but it is a genius idea, isn't it? And I'm kind of like, how has it not been adapted for like some Christmas special? But I guess now This Is Your Life has sort of passed out of the sort of common knowledge, hasn't it?

• 1:08:22Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, why has it though? That's a good format.

• 1:08:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Adam Buxton?

  Why do we not need This Is Your Life anymore?

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  I don't know. I tell you what, Adam, you could bring it back.

• 1:08:33Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:08:35Speaker 03

  This Is Your Life with Adam Buxton.

• 1:08:37Adam Buxton?

  I actually was a guest on the real This Is Your Life when they did it to Jonathan Ross.

• 1:08:43Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:08:44Adam Buxton?

  And I was in the audience and he didn't realise what was happening. It was really boring.

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  Cool story, yeah.

• 1:08:56Adam Buxton?

  That's the way most of my stories go.

• 1:08:59Speaker 03

  Me too. I, I meet people who are really great at telling anecdotes.

• 1:09:04Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  I mean, but especially on The Odyssey, you know, you've got like Matt Damon's amazing, he's got all these, of course, he's lived an amazing life, so he's got lots of anecdotes, but he's great at telling these stories. I just spent the junket days with John Leguizamo.

• 1:09:16Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:17Speaker 03

  Again, just like, great, he's like, you know, anecdotes, just great stories. I'm just like, I can't remember a fucking thing. And even if I did, I don't know how to relay it in a way that's interesting to anyone.

• 1:09:27Adam Buxton?

  I think American actors, that's part of, um, what you do at drama school, isn't it? They, you do, you do, uh, six months of anecdote work.

• 1:09:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:09:38Adam Buxton?

  To prepare you.

• 1:09:39Speaker 03

  In Leo of Shakespeare.

• 1:09:40Adam Buxton?

  Exactly.

• 1:09:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. They just sort of go, learn how to tell a story.

• 1:09:44Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:44Speaker 03

  Literally, learn how to tell a story.

• 1:09:46Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, because they're so good at it that you don't notice sometimes that the actual story is totally boring bollocks.

• 1:09:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:54Adam Buxton?

  It just has the form of a brilliant anecdote. Hey, I'll give you a, um, recommendation. Do you tend to listen to audiobooks or read with your eyes or a bit of both?

• 1:10:05Speaker 03

  A bit of both now, yeah.

• 1:10:07Adam Buxton?

  What's your favourite kind of stuff to read slash listen to?

• 1:10:12Speaker 03

  All sorts, really, I don't, I, yeah. I have, I have wide ranging interests.

• 1:10:17Adam Buxton?

  Um, I am enjoying a book that was recommended to me by Cameron Crowe.

• 1:10:23Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:24Adam Buxton?

  The director of Almost Famous.

• 1:10:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:26Adam Buxton?

  And music journalist. And it's his memoir and it's called The Uncool. And it's really good. Like, he, it's got, he's, like, he met absolutely everyone in the sort of seventies rock world.

• 1:10:39Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:10:40Adam Buxton?

  When he was becoming a journalist, aged 16.

• 1:10:43Speaker 03

  Gosh.

• 1:10:43Adam Buxton?

  Out in Los Angeles. And, uh, yeah, he's got some next level, mad.

• 1:10:51Adam Buxton?

  Anecdotes about, you know, he hung out with David Bowie in the mid seventies when Bowie was

• 1:10:57Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:10:57Adam Buxton?

  At his lowest and most drug addled.

• 1:11:00Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:01Adam Buxton?

  But, you know, just never ending supply of anecdotes. And I was thinking the other day, like, all my celebrity anecdotes, like my Bowie anecdote is, we were in the same corridor as him backstage at Made of Veil and then we never met him because he went off and talked to Ricky Gervais instead. And that is more or less my biggest celebrity anecdote.

• 1:11:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. It reminded me, you telling me that about like the, what you asked about earlier, being an actor in the seventies. I mean, just being in LA.

• 1:11:33Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:33Speaker 03

  Or even New York, just that in the seventies, the sort of, the hedonism of it.

• 1:11:39Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:39Speaker 03

  I don't know if I would have done well with that. I think I probably would have gone off the rails pretty quickly, but just around the sort of abandon of like, let's just create whatever we want. And it's all going to be like new groundbreaking stuff is just, you know, how exciting is that?

• 1:11:58Adam Buxton?

  Well, I met someone the other day, I probably shouldn't say their name, but it was the daughter of someone who was quite a pivotal figure in the music industry. And she was telling me that um, her dad had worked with David Bowie early on in his career when he was still very hippie-ish. And um, Bowie had said to her dad, like, do you want to come and hang out? Me and Angie are meeting some people and we're gonna, you know, smoke some doobies or whatever. And her dad was like, nah, you're fine. Thanks. Bye. Because he thought that he was too creepy. And he, he thought that he would get into some kind of swinging sex party.

• 1:12:41Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:12:42Adam Buxton?

  Which probably was a strong possibility.

• 1:12:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:45Adam Buxton?

  But he, he just said, no, thanks. Bye.

• 1:12:47Speaker 03

  No, thanks.

• 1:12:49Adam Buxton?

  I was thinking, I bet I would have been like that. You know what I mean? Like, even if I had been able to travel back to where it was all happening and.

• 1:12:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:58Adam Buxton?

  You know, I would have been like, oh, no, thank you.

• 1:13:00Speaker 03

  I can't do that, I'm afraid. Yeah.

• 1:13:01Adam Buxton?

  No, no.

• 1:13:02Speaker 03

  That doesn't look healthy.

• 1:13:03Adam Buxton?

  No, I won't. Thank you very much. Bye. I've got to get home. It's nine.

• 1:13:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. I was like that for a long time, from sixteen to twenty five. Basically, the whole time I was on EastEnders.

• 1:13:13Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 1:13:14Speaker 03

  Because I was so young and in the public eye. And it was the beginning of that era of, if you make a mistake, it will live forever.

• 1:13:22Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 1:13:23Speaker 03

  I just couldn't give myself over to drinking or anything like that because it just felt, you know, and I, I mean, it was a good baseline, you know. I, I really, I haven't gone off the rails or anything since, but I allowed myself to just have a little bit more fun because, you know, I felt safer or I felt like I could control it more. But there is a thing to the idea that you just can't necessarily make those mistakes anymore.

• 1:13:44Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Well, it's not sustainable, is it?

• 1:13:47Speaker 03

  Like, I was thinking about tonight, the Odyssey premiere. I'm like, you know, I don't, I certainly am not going to drink much, if anything, before the carpet, obviously.

• 1:13:54Adam Buxton?

  Well, you're gonna be on gummies.

• 1:13:55Speaker 03

  I'm gonna be on gummies. I'm gonna be absolutely just like.

• 1:13:57Adam Buxton?

  Do load a Charlie with Matt Damon and then.

• 1:13:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. I don't know if Matt Damon has ever done or does any, any of that, just to be clear.

• 1:14:04Adam Buxton?

  But um. He just sells it.

• 1:14:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:11Speaker 03

  You think he's rich because he's a film star. No, no, no, no.

• 1:14:17Adam Buxton?

  He's the Charlie King of Hollywood.

• 1:14:20Speaker 03

  Keeping the culture alive. Oh, wow.

• 1:14:23Adam Buxton?

  You're allowed one drink then. What are you gonna have?

• 1:14:28Speaker 03

  Beforehand, probably

• 1:14:31Speaker 03

  dirty martini.

• 1:14:32Adam Buxton?

  Oh.

• 1:14:33Speaker 03

  Vodka. Yeah.

• 1:14:34Adam Buxton?

  What's dirty about it?

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  The olive juice.

• 1:14:36Adam Buxton?

  Oh, the olive juice.

• 1:14:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:40Adam Buxton?

  I would call that not a dirty martini, but a disgusting martini.

• 1:14:44Speaker 03

  Disgusting waste of alcohol.

• 1:14:45Adam Buxton?

  I don't like olives.

• 1:14:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a, that's a big.

• 1:14:48Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, that's a minus.

• 1:14:49Speaker 03

  That really precludes you from, from enjoying.

• 1:14:52Adam Buxton?

  The only thing worse than a dirty martini for me would be a cheesy martini.

• 1:14:56Speaker 03

  Cheesy martini, I don't want one of those. No.

• 1:14:59Adam Buxton?

  Fuck that. What's wrong with a Negroni?

• 1:15:01Speaker 03

  I like a Negroni, yeah. But it feels like the ingredients of a Negroni are alcohol plus alcohol plus more alcohol.

• 1:15:07Adam Buxton?

  But isn't that the case with the martini?

• 1:15:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I suppose it is, yeah. But I, I just, in my head, a Negroni is just a lot of different. But it's, you know, I'm probably very misguided in that opinion. I like a Negroni. I'm probably also at some point to have a Negroni.

• 1:15:21Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 1:15:22Speaker 03

  Is that okay?

• 1:15:23Adam Buxton?

  Sure, sure. Who's gonna be your go to person to chat with? Like, from the cast?

• 1:15:28Speaker 03

  Oh. I would say Matt, because I spent the most time with him. He's gonna be quite busy. Uh, so probably John Leguizamo if he's around, because we've been getting on really well the last few days.

• 1:15:38Adam Buxton?

  Good one.

• 1:15:39Speaker 03

  He's a legend, isn't he?

• 1:15:40Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:40Speaker 03

  He's so good in this film. A lot of people who've seen the movies didn't really recognise him. He's really fantastic in The Odyssey, gotta say. Yeah.

• 1:15:49Adam Buxton?

  Nice.

• 1:15:50Speaker 03

  So it probably be him.

• 1:15:51Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 1:15:52Speaker 03

  If he wants to. No pressure. If he wants to.

• 1:15:55Adam Buxton?

  And then are there people in the cast that you would like to chat with, but you don't know them because you didn't share any scenes?

• 1:16:03Speaker 03

  Good question.

• 1:16:04Adam Buxton?

  Thank you.

• 1:16:05Speaker 03

  I suppose, you know, I crossed paths with Anne Hathaway a couple of times, where we didn't really chat.

• 1:16:09Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 1:16:09Speaker 03

  I don't really know her.

• 1:16:10Adam Buxton?

  He's got his car, he's got his sort of troupe now, doesn't he, Nolan?

• 1:16:14Speaker 03

  He does have a troupe, yeah.

• 1:16:15Adam Buxton?

  And you're in the fucking troupe.

• 1:16:18Speaker 03

  I am now. Let's see, let's see if, if he's like, nah, actually, this guy can do one.

• 1:16:25Adam Buxton?

  How exciting.

• 1:16:25Speaker 03

  Not it is. Look, it's a thrill. As I say, I've been a fan of his work for a long time. So to, to, you know, to even be in this position is insane to me.

• 1:16:32Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:33Adam Buxton?

  What's he doing next? I think, here's what I think he should do next.

• 1:16:35Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:16:36Adam Buxton?

  I think he should do a musical. I was thinking he could do a sort of soapy musical.

• 1:16:42Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:16:43Adam Buxton?

  You know, like, get you back to your EastEnders roots.

• 1:16:47Speaker 03

  He did tell me that he watched EastEnders when he was in school.

• 1:16:50Adam Buxton?

  Oh, right.

• 1:16:51Speaker 03

  He was at boarding school. And they would watch The Omnibus every Sunday.

• 1:16:54Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:55Speaker 03

  I found myself in this surreal thing of like, being on this boat in Scotland, you know, and it was a particularly rough day on the sea. And so half the guys are throwing up over one side of the boat. On the other side of the boat, dolphins start popping up out of the water, which you see in the movie, actually, we got it on film. And then eventually, like, we, we had just stopped rolling because we were just heading back to the port. And um, I got chatting to Chris and I was like, ended up talking to him about how he watched EastEnders when he was at school. And I thought this is one of the most surreal moments of my entire life, of a shoot that's already surreal every day. But what am I doing chatting to him about EastEnders?

• 1:17:34Adam Buxton?

  How old is he?

• 1:17:35Speaker 03

  On a boat. Chris, I think he's mid fifties.

• 1:17:38Adam Buxton?

  Right. He, he would have been watching it around the same time that I was watching it.

• 1:17:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:42Adam Buxton?

  It was golden days.

• 1:17:43Speaker 03

  Yes, it was.

• 1:17:44Adam Buxton?

  No disrespect to your golden days in the.

• 1:17:46Speaker 03

  No, but the viewership.

• 1:17:47Adam Buxton?

  Mighty EastEnders.

• 1:17:48Speaker 03

  Did someone told me that when, it was like thirty million people watched Den Hand Angie the Divorce Papers?

• 1:17:54Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, it was dirty.

• 1:17:56Speaker 03

  Which is insane.

• 1:17:57Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  Thirty million people. But what always got me about that, because I was in that era of like, you know, buildings blowing up and things being set on fire and people dying, was that you'd built a storyline to the point where you had thirty million people watching someone just hand over some divorce papers.

• 1:18:10Adam Buxton?

  Yes.

• 1:18:11Speaker 03

  That's pretty amazing storytelling.

• 1:18:12Adam Buxton?

  Human drama.

• 1:18:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:13Adam Buxton?

  Beats everything else. I know, I think I was first aware of everything moving up a notch to something way more dramatic and cinematic with the Emmerdale Farm episode where they had a Lockerbie type.

• 1:18:26Speaker 03

  Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:28Adam Buxton?

  And uh, that was

• 1:18:31Adam Buxton?

  quite extreme. But yeah, EastEnders is all nonstop human drama.

• 1:18:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. Until eventually, you know, we, there was also a lot of, my, my, my character got set on fire at one point.

• 1:18:42Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 1:18:42Speaker 03

  And that's why when he left, I was like, can he just leave and be happy?

• 1:18:47Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:48Speaker 03

  Please. Because a lot of people said that my character on EastEnders was like, sort of,

• 1:18:53Speaker 03

  he felt like he was sort of standing on the outside of the show, observing the whole thing.

• 1:18:57Adam Buxton?

  Uh huh.

• 1:18:57Speaker 03

  I was just to pitch them an idea. I was like, what, what if like, there's a scene where he's like, he's about to leave and he goes, what is this place? I've been living here for eight years. Five people have died. Three buildings have exploded. What is going on?

• 1:19:11Adam Buxton?

  This place is cursed.

• 1:19:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:21Adam Buxton?

  This is an ad for Squarespace. Okay, we'll return to the AI apocalypse in just a wee wee moment. But first, I wanted to talk about Squarespace. Do you know about Squarespace, Steve? Uh, yes, Monty. I think I might even be a little bit more tuned into modern tech, websites, et cetera, than you. I don't know, just guessing. No, Steve, I love this dynamic. I'm old and conservative and you're young and progressive and that's what makes the Newswind podcast such great listening. But yes, you're right. I must admit, I didn't know much about Squarespace. But because my new grumble book, Hell in a Handcart, is out this month and I look forward to getting enraged by that, so I should hope.

• 1:19:55Adam Buxton?

  Anyway, the publishers, Bluestar and Dogwhistle, made a beautiful website for the book using Squarespace. I know, I got the newsletter that you sent out using Squarespace and the website does look great. Videos of you airing your views, members' areas for your mad fans. You've even got a merch store, I see. That's right. The Union Jack top hat is a big seller. But they constructed it all so fast with Squarespace. They did most of it over one lunchtime, Steve. Well, you wouldn't want to spend much longer on it, would you? Shut up, Steve. But here's the thing. Anyone listening to this can start a free trial right now at Squarespace dot com slash Buxton and see how easy and versatile Squarespace is. And when they're ready to launch a new website or domain, they can save ten percent off their first purchase by using the offer code BUXTON at checkout. Right. Well, maybe I'll visit Squarespace dot com slash Buxton and start a new website just to refute all the nonsense in your new book.

• 1:20:40Adam Buxton?

  Oh, don't do that, Steve. I will. Oh, shut up, Steve. Uh, shut up. Now, back to more depressing matters on Newswind.

• 1:20:49Adam Buxton?

  Continue.

• 1:21:00Adam Buxton?

  Hey, welcome back, podcasters. Before the jingle break, I was talking to Himesh Patel, of course. And what a pleasure it was to spend some time with him. He has a kind of thoughtful intensity, but with warmth. That makes him very fun to talk to and also, I think, informs what he's like on screen. And it's a great combo to watch. I think he's going to carry on doing well.

• 1:21:33Adam Buxton?

  And I'm very grateful to him for making time in his busy schedule to come and chat with me.

• 1:21:41Adam Buxton?

  It is the morning after I recorded my intro. It's a beautiful autumnal morning out here in Norfolk. The air is lovely and fresh and cold. There's dew on the grass.

• 1:21:58Adam Buxton?

  Rosie is in fine fettle and has already enjoyed what my father would have referred to as a couple of very satisfying movements on this walk so far.

• 1:22:13Adam Buxton?

  Last night, myself and my wife watched the Celebrity Traitors final. After Celebrity Traitors, we watched another episode of This City Is Ours.

• 1:22:26Adam Buxton?

  Do you watch that show? It's good. If I was to be reductive, which I am just about to be, I would call it a kind of Scouse Sopranos. Drug dealing criminal family based in Liverpool, wheeling and dealing over Lemo. Lemo's cocaine, by the way, guys. And apparently, according to my research, it's called Lemo because

• 1:22:55Adam Buxton?

  it's a reference to the word coke in Bacardi and Coke. But instead of saying Coke, you say Bacardi and lemonade, i.e. Lemo. Does that make sense? That's how I understood it. All the Scouse coke dealers are shouting at their podcast devices now going, no, that's not what it is. Anyway, it's really an excellent programme.

• 1:23:21Adam Buxton?

  So well acted and beautifully directed. It looks great. It's British telly at its brilliant best. That's what Buckle says. So last week I was moaning about the delivery guy refusing to follow the instructions that I had painstakingly left with my account for the particular delivery service to find like the track that leads down to our house.

• 1:23:50Adam Buxton?

  It's not that hard to find. I complained about the fact that he had sent a photograph of a closed gate as proof of him not being able to access the property. I mean, it was the wrong gate, like it's like a farm gate.

• 1:24:06Adam Buxton?

  You know, we live in amongst farm fields. And he'd gone to the wrong farm gate. Anyway, about an hour, literally after I had uploaded last week's episode with Maxine Peake, a van turned up and out climbed a lovely man in his early 30s, I would say. And he was the delivery guy in question, the guy who had sent that photo.

• 1:24:37Adam Buxton?

  And he apologised for not having been able to find the property before. This is an interesting story, isn't it? And I said, was my description on the website not helpful and all the what three words and all that? He said, oh, no, they don't show us that. I mean, I don't know exactly why that's the case, that he can't see those things. But still, he was extremely charming. Chatted to me about his frustrations with the delivery company in question, about his former employment as an aerospace engineer. And the fact that he actually gets paid more to do these delivery rounds than he did as an engineer.

• 1:25:23Adam Buxton?

  And that it's in some ways quite nice for him because even though he has to work long hours, he's able to ride with his son sometimes in the van, four-year-old son. And he appreciates getting to spend a little bit more time with him. It was all very heartwarming and face-to-face human contact, which made me feel at all for having done a 1% moan about not getting my deliveries. And our interaction concluded with him saying cheerily, well, I know where you are now, so you can order more things. So I have ordered more things.

• 1:26:05Adam Buxton?

  And they haven't turned up. Although those ones have actually been assigned to a different delivery company, one that rhymes with every. All right, I'm going to head back now. I'm probably going to have to take a little break from the podcast

• 1:26:24Adam Buxton?

  for this Adam and Joe 30th Anniversary Live show.

• 1:26:30Adam Buxton?

  This time next week, I will be doing the first of those shows at the Hackney Round Chapel. Hope you can come along to that.

• 1:26:42Adam Buxton?

  But then the podcast will return after that two-week hiatus. And in the meantime, there will be a new Patreon Q and A episode out this week. Links for that and the address where you can send questions and contributions for those Q and As is also in the description. Thank you very much indeed to Digory Wait and Claire Broughton from Hat Trick for all their production support, editing, et cetera, on the podcast and on the Patreon page.

• 1:27:16Adam Buxton?

  Whoa.

• 1:27:19Adam Buxton?

  Lots of hidden pheasants. Thank you very much as well to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his continued production support. Thanks to Helen Green for her beautiful artwork. Thanks to everybody at Acast who worked so hard liaising with me and my sponsors. But thank you most of all to you

• 1:27:39Adam Buxton?

  for staying with me on my journey.

• 1:27:43Adam Buxton?

  And Doglegs as well. Hey, come here.

• 1:27:48Adam Buxton?

  Great to see you. Hope you have a good time following the midterms this week. Of course, there'll be in-depth analysis when I return. And until that moment, when we once again share the same sonic space. Please go carefully out there, it's ludicrous. And for what it's worth, I love you.