Martin Freeman - ‘We should be saying no to our kids’

Martin Freeman is one of the most sought-after actors of his generation. Whether it’s Tim in The Office, John - the mild-mannered porn actor in Love Actually, Watson in Sherlock, Bilbo in The Hobbit, the stressed parent in Breeders, the Liverpudlian cop with personal problems in The Responder and Everett K. Ross in Marvel Cinematic Universe smash hits Captain America and Black Panther - Freeman is a star, and to date has won two Emmys and a BAFTA. In this episode, Martin reflects on his childhood as the youngest of five (comparatively modest when you consider his mother was one of fourteen!) as well as the lasting impact of losing his father at ten years old. We talk about parenting, the people who’ve inspired him (hello, Michael Caine), the future of AI from a technophobe’s perspective, his unease with fame and the quieter failures that sit behind public success. Plus: strap yourself in for much hilarity. I don’t think I can remember a guest who made me laugh QUITE this much. Martin can next be seen as the determined Superintendent Battle in Netflix’s new Agatha Christie adaptation, Seven Dials. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Introduction 02:22 Dealing with Fame and Anxiety 05:12 The Everyman Label 07:35 Exploring Anger and Authenticity 16:28 Academic Struggles and Early Acting 20:33 Personal Reflections and Family 28:08 Comparing to Heroes 32:15 The Office and Sherlock 40:29 Technology Struggles 44:20 AI Concerns 47:47 Meeting Michael Caine 💬 QUOTES TO REMEMBER: You should say no to your kids. You should let them know that life's gonna kick 'em in the ass... that is a manifestation of love for me. There is a great deal of value in making a child bored... How else are you going to paint, or make up a story or learn a trade or learn a skill if you are literally mouth agape looking at a f***ing screen? The people who say it [success] doesn't solve your problems are obviously right... But love is a good start to it - it does more than anything else. 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Seven Dials is available to watch now on Netflix. Join the How To Fail community: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Elizabeth’s Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com/ 📚 WANT MORE? Stephen Merchant - on feeling like an outsider, learning to live with rejection and being banned from High And Mighty. swap.fm/l/Lta5mlFbVnPHyFb8R1n2 Adeel Akhtar - the actor’s actor on the humbling impact of parenthood, cultural expectations and learning to let go of ego in order to grow swap.fm/l/eWxKBXUJZAAkfovquzwi 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod Podcast Instagram: @howtofailpod Website: www.elizabethday.org Elizabeth and Martin answer listener questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Shania Manderson Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Alex Lawless How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Elizabeth Day?

  This month, we are partnering with Pink Lady Apples. Welcome to How to Fail, the podcast that believes you can't truly be successful unless you learn from failure along the way. Before we get started on this conversation, please do remember to follow and subscribe so that you never miss a single episode.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  People don't need to know everything about me, you know. They already know more about me than I wish they did. So I don't know why I'm doing this. Why am I doing this?

• 0:27Elizabeth Day?

  I don't know, but I'm so grateful.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  For me, parenting was, was and is, all of it. It's extreme love, it's extreme laughs, it's extreme affection, and it's extreme frustration and anger. What we're in danger of doing sometimes now is taking away all the grit that makes people vaguely interesting or vaguely resilient.

• 0:52Elizabeth Day?

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• 1:34Elizabeth Day?

  you can order five oversized 12 by 12 samples for just $10 before committing, and Ernesta's design team will help with sizing completely free of charge. Visit ernestacom and order five samples for only $10 and you'll get $50 towards any rug of your choice. That's ernestacom.

• 1:56Speaker 02

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• 2:24Elizabeth Day?

  For the past 25 years, Martin Freeman has starred in a succession of big and small screen hits, quietly becoming one of the most sought after actors of his generation. His roles are notable both for the naturalism of Freeman's performance and for their cultural permanence. There's the put upon Tim in The Office, or John, the mild mannered porn actor in Love Actually, or Watson, the noble sidekick in the hit series Sherlock. But there's also Bilbo in The Hobbit, the stressed parent in Breeders, the Liverpudlian cop with personal problems in The Responder, and Everett K. Ross in Marvel Cinematic Universe smash hits Captain America and Black Panther.

• 3:05Elizabeth Day?

  Now Freeman returns to TV in a new Netflix Agatha Christie adaptation, Seven Dials, as the dogged superintendent battle. The astonishing variety of his roles has made it almost impossible for journalists to find a common thread. But for Freeman, it's quite simple. It comes down to the script and the writing. That's the beginning, middle and end of it, he said in a recent interview. His acting has earned him two Emmys and a BAFTA, and yet, as a child, he was the youngest of five, Freeman originally thought he'd be a squash player. Watching one of his heroes, Michael Caine, in the movie Sleuth, helped change his mind.

• 3:48Elizabeth Day?

  And after a stint in youth theatre, he went on to study at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He hasn't always enjoyed the attention that fame brings him. Asked in 2019 what single thing would improve the quality of his life, he replied, "A really careful lobotomy to switch off bits of my brain." Martin Freeman, welcome to How To Fail. Thank you very much. Thank you. Which bits did you want switched off?

• 4:18Speaker 01

  The inner cop in your head, I suppose, the thing that makes me go, yeah, but what if that's not true? Or do you really mean that? What do you, what do you do? What's your motivation? You know, and I think, to be honest, I think it's good to question your motivations. I guess in both of our adult lifetimes, we've got very keen and comfortable with saying there should be no guilt, there should be no judgment. I fundamentally disagree. I think there should be guilt, there should be judgment, there should be accountability and including for self. So I do that to myself a lot.

• 4:49Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  That doesn't mean that I'm a great person, but it just means that I go in circles of, I don't know, I think I probably have an anxious mind, I think. And so I think there's always this, this little tremor ticking around, I think.

• 5:03Elizabeth Day?

  Has success or recognition helped that anxiety at all?

• 5:09Speaker 01

  At times.

• 5:10Elizabeth Day?

  Asking for a friend.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, probably at times, yeah. I think it, I think it has, but not as much as personal happiness and satisfaction, no. I mean, in, in, you know, that sounds like a pat answer, but it is true, you know, that all the people who say it, it doesn't solve your problems are of course are obviously right. Because nothing solves all your problems, but love is a good, you know, love is a good start to it. And it, that does more than, yeah, it does more than anything else. I mean, I, for the last, you know, as you said, last 25 odd years since I've been sort of, no, you know, from the office times, and I've kind of been a known person, not to everyone, but some people.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  I've been on a sort of mission to try to enjoy those parts of it, you know. And I still, I do struggle with it. I really enjoy work and I really enjoy, because I do for a living what I would do for free. That's an unbelievably fluky game to be in. But yeah, the other stuff, I sometimes, frankly, you can sometimes enjoy it for sure.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  But no, I think it plays havoc with my nervous system. And I genuinely don't think, I haven't found a way to to handle it properly, I don't think.

• 6:33Elizabeth Day?

  Well, thank you for your honesty in saying that.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  No, none of that was true.

• 6:37Elizabeth Day?

  Was it not? Okay. Well, thank you for delivering another excellent performance.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, very natural. Yeah.

• 6:43Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things that struck me when I was doing the research for this interview is what I mentioned in the introduction. I felt that journalists, when they wrote up interviews with you, were struggling to come up with an easy line that would explain your work trajectory.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:00Elizabeth Day?

  And the one that many of them settled on was the idea of you as an everyman.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:05Elizabeth Day?

  As a sort of, as the person who's the conduit for the audience.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:08Elizabeth Day?

  And I, the more I read about it, the more I felt how unfair that was. Because Bilbo's not an everyman. And I, the astonishing variety of your roles would seem to contradict that.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, the everyman tag happened straight away. So like from, you know, The Office and Love Actually and probably Hitchhiker's Guide, where I played Arthur Dent and stuff. And you know what it's like in journalism and just in culture generally, where you say something and you don't even mean it, but you've heard it said four times before. So you're just, you're literally just being an echo.

• 7:46Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Of the last person you heard speak. So I think, I think there was a bit of laziness with that. And it made me, because I am a reasonably angry person, it made me pretty chippy about it, you know. And then, of course, the more chippy you are about something, then you're just, then you've lost. Because if you're the one going, but I'm not an every, you know, like you just look pathetic.

• 8:05Elizabeth Day?

  Then you become defensive, Martin Freeman, everyman.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. So it just becomes pathetic then, you know. I agree with you. I do think, you know, I'm not making a claim for myself as the most, you know, brilliantly versatile actor in the world. But I think it, I don't think it's quite right that, oh, he's just the everyman thing. Because I'm like, if you look at the characters I've played. Um, I don't think they all fit into that, and I don't think they're all versions of Tim from the office, which basically people mean is they're all versions of you, Martin. They're all versions of you, you know, so I think what makes you a little bit chippy sometimes is, well, if you think this is easy, you fucking try it.

• 8:40Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  I'd love to see your go. And I don't mean not everybody can do what I do. I'm not even gonna do what actors, what, what good actors do. Um, because there's a lot of juggling happening and the point is to make it look easy. And the point is, for me anyway, has always religiously been to make it look natural. Don't ever get caught acting, ever.

• 8:58Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  If you can avoid it. And so people, I think, take that and think, oh, you're just, you're not doing anything.

• 9:04Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm doing a bit.

• 9:07Elizabeth Day?

  Tell me more about this anger, because when you co-created Breeders.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:13Elizabeth Day?

  That was an examination of a reality in parenting. And you've spoken very openly about how sometimes you have regretted the anger, but it's totally understandable when you're a parent and you're under an immense amount of pressure.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:29Elizabeth Day?

  Is that one of the places that your anger has come out?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Definitely. Yeah, of course. Absolutely. I think, because I knew I had that in me, but it's never been tested in the same way that it is when you become a parent, I think. Because for me, parenting was, was and is all of it. It's extreme love, it's extreme laughs, it's extreme affection, and it's extreme frustration and anger. You know, it's, it's all of those things. And I think part of the reason that I, I can't, you know, I can't speak for Simon and Chris, my collaborators on Breeders, definitely part of the reason I wanted to make it was to make people not feel so bad.

• 10:05Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  It was just about what do you do as a human being when the rug is pulled from you and you think, I know who I am. And I think I'm, I think I'm a pretty nice bloke. You know, that was my thing is like, for 30 years, I've been told I was a nice guy. I'm a nice guy. I'm a really good guy. And then you suddenly find out, maybe I'm not a really good guy, because I'm, I've got all this other stuff happening as well, that doesn't negate everything else, but it's definitely accompanies it. I think it's honestly, genuinely harmful what we do to ourselves in, in our culture in the last 20 odd years of thinking. We've kind of convinced ourselves, we've tried to convince ourselves that somehow parenting is a postcard or something. It's just mad. It's mad. For me, it's mad because anybody vaguely

• 10:46Speaker 01

  of my generation, even vaguely of my generation, knows that's not true because they know that their mum and dad, if they had a mum and dad, fucking screamed at them at some point. Many of them know that life was as chaotic or more chaotic than it was lovely. Now, I'm very, I never made any bones about it. I'm very lucky. I always knew I was loved and that was my power, really. I was, I was supported and I was loved. That meant everything to me. And I know plenty of people who, whom that was not the case. And I think that's coloured their life a lot. And I think the fact that I knew I was loved coloured my life a lot. But the idea that, well, this is, you know, this is my opinion. The idea that you don't say no to your kids, the idea that you

• 11:30Speaker 01

  don't shout at your kids, it was like, okay, good luck with that. Good luck. Really, fuck it. I wish you luck. In fact, I don't wish you luck because that's fucking mental. I don't wish you luck with that. It's doomed to fail and it should fail. You should say no to your kids. You know, you should let them know that life's going to kick them in the ass, in my opinion, you know. And, and if I can help with that, I'll happily do my bit to, you know, and that is a manifestation of love for me.

• 11:55Elizabeth Day?

  Well, I know so many parents and actually non-parents who felt very seen by breeders. So, thank you for your service. And I kind of agree with you. You know, for so many years, once we got smartphones and social media, we were living under the shadow of curated perfection. And now I think it's pivoted and it's almost like curated imperfection. We're willing to share failures, but only so far.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Right, right, right, right, yeah.

• 12:21Elizabeth Day?

  And I think that your honesty goes a long way in attacking that.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, for me, I, I try not to make any bones about it. I, I don't want to make myself impressive or special with the idea that, again, even when I say, I know I've got anger in me, I don't think that is interesting. It's not romantic. It doesn't mean I was a bad boy. It doesn't mean any of that shit. It just means that I know that I have a ticking away, some sort Rage that is often an impotent rage, but is fucking there. And certain things unlock it. But but that's the other thing is that I'm not trying to sound interesting. It's just it's just true. And there are, you know, there are many things I wouldn't talk to you about in front of a camera and a microphone because I'm also really private.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Or I do, do I believe in, I don't know if I believe in it, but I agree with it when people in a sort of public position try to demystify.

• 13:18Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  I also

• 13:21Speaker 01

  understand when the old, the conversation where people say, stars used to be stars, you know, you didn't know shit about Cary Grant. And on the one hand, I think, well, yeah, that's, but that but that was a lie because we didn't, you know, we were thinking they were amazing. And of course they were. And on the other hand, I think, yeah, fine. People don't need to know everything about me, you know. They already know more about me than I wish they did. So I don't know why I'm doing this. Why am I doing this?

• 13:49Elizabeth Day?

  I don't know, but I'm so grateful. Maybe it's that impotent rage has just pushed you to the edge.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I do, but you know, because obviously I believe in talking and I believe in being honest, but that doesn't mean I have to splurge it all out.

• 14:04Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  You know, I don't believe in splurging, but I believe in where it's appropriate and where the time and place is appropriate, we may as well have direct conversations. That's what Breeders was about. It wasn't even about just about screaming at your kids. Because if anyone who watches that show, there's as much love as there is swearing. You know, and the point is there is swearing and in the 2020s.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  That for some people is unbelievably brave or bold or wrong or something. Because it's going against the complete wave of culture, which is in, okay, in our sort of showbiz world, in nice arty, you know, liberal, left leaning world where I know people who don't disagree with their kids. I'm like, mate, okay. What do you think made you the person you are because your mum and dad were chaotic? Or you had a chaotic, i.e. real, i.e. being alive. It's called being alive, right? I think what we're doing. What we're in danger of doing sometimes now is taking away all the sort of the grit

• 15:13Speaker 01

  that makes people vaguely interesting or vaguely resilient. And that is lethal, man.

• 15:20Elizabeth Day?

  I think what you're identifying is the difference between privacy and secrecy. So there are things that you understandably, and I completely respect it, want to keep private because that's to do with you and your personal life and other people.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Once it's out, it's out.

• 15:34Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. And then there's secrecy or dishonesty, which is about not naming emotions or feelings that we all have.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:43Elizabeth Day?

  And that's what you do through your work. And actually, for you to act sufficiently well for us to recognise that, or for you to create sufficiently well for us to recognise that in ourselves, you also need to be private because people need to believe

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 15:56Elizabeth Day?

  in your roles.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  One hundred percent. That's what I like. When I see really, really, when I see good pieces of work, just as a viewer and as a fan of them, I'm seeing humans do stuff to other humans or things being done to people emotionally or physically, or whatever it is. And I don't like being lied to. And I think most of the time we are lying to the audience and about whether being more heroic than we would be, or about being smarter than we would be, or sexier than we would be, or not being as scared as we would, all of that shit. The vulnerability side of it that I think is not attended to a lot of the time. Because things are just, and I get it, because, you know, the business I'm in is I'm not a documentarian.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  It's artifice, right? It is, you know, but within that, please God, hopefully we're getting to some truth.

• 16:48Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  And I think you can get to a really great truth through fiction, obviously. Otherwise, people wouldn't read novels or go to the theatre or whatever. I think you can get to a great truth when it's done well, that you can't get anywhere else. Maybe even a documentary, you know?

• 17:05Elizabeth Day?

  I realise that I've gone off on a tangent for many minutes already and could carry on like this quite happily, but I have to ask you a question about Seven Dials.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:15Elizabeth Day?

  Otherwise, I'll get into trouble.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:17Elizabeth Day?

  So you play Inspector Battle. Now, was that enjoyable?

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Battle was very enjoyable. I didn't know of battle before.

• 17:24Elizabeth Day?

  Me neither.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Cause I'm, I'm not a, an Agatha Christie expert at all. And I read the script and I thought it's a really, really good, smart adaptation. Modern without being too anachronistic, which I think is always the trade off. I think that you have when you have period stuff. How do we make this appeal to 2025? Oh, by ruining everything that made it good about a hundred years ago. You, you think a few things, I suppose, as an actor. Can I do it? Is it something I've done before? Am I going to enjoy it? Who's in it? You know, like, who am I going to be playing with?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  And all the parts felt right.

• 17:58Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, let's get on to your failures. Your first failure is doing badly in your GCSEs.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was a surprise to me at the time. Cause I'm, I've never been academic. It will amaze you to hear.

• 18:09Elizabeth Day?

  Well, it does surprise me.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Hmm, nah, I'm not an academic person at all, at all. I'm interested in stuff and I'm not thick, but I'm in, I'm curious about things, but I'm. No, that wasn't my strength at all. Cause I was a smart ass and I was lazy. I was a smart ass and lazy and easily distracted. So that was not going to point to it's Oxbridge for Martin. It just wasn't going to happen, you know? Not only was it not Oxbridge, it wasn't even history, a good market history GCSE. Now, I love history. I'm fascinated by history. I thought, cause my, my, you know, I left school in 88, right? So C and above was a good pass, you know? I didn't even pass art and I was good at art, I thought. I mean, I can draw pretty well.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  So yeah, anything above a C, C and above is what counts. I got a C in, a C and a B in English Language and English Literature.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Or my mum would have told me about it. And I've said the same thing to my, I said the same thing to my kids. You don't pass English, I've got nothing to say. You are English, you live in England, right? There are people.

• 19:18Elizabeth Day?

  You haven't actually said that to your kids, have you?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course I have, of course I have. There is no excuse. You live in two houses full of books, right? You have two parents who talk to you a lot, right? We engage in conversation. If you can't pass English, that's really, it's just lazy. That's bad news. It is bad news.

• 19:37Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  There are kids you go to school with from the other side of the world, whose parents got here 15 minutes ago, who speak a completely different language, who have just passed English. You can pass English. What, do you think that's out of order?

• 19:51Elizabeth Day?

  I mean, it's not for me to say, Martin.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  No, it's just for me. Yeah, again, and anyone who does think it's out of order, that's your problem. No, you don't have to pass English, darling, just because it's the only language you.

• 20:04Elizabeth Day?

  How old are your kids now?

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Twenty and seventeen.

• 20:06Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, so they passed English?

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, they did, yeah.

• 20:08Elizabeth Day?

  That's a giant relief.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  And RE, that's the only other one I got.

• 20:12Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  I passed RE because I was interested in that.

• 20:15Elizabeth Day?

  And you were raised Catholic?

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:16Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. So yeah, I found all that interesting. So the things I, you know, the things that I passed, I found in, I was interested in. I liked English and I liked RE. But the things I liked history, I liked art, didn't pass them. Sort of thought I'd pass geography, didn't pass that. I knew I wasn't going to pass physics or chemi-, I knew I wasn't going to pass that.

• 20:38Elizabeth Day?

  And how did you feel when you got the results?

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Disappointed because I thought, that's a swizz. Surely I've done better than that. And I hadn't, I hadn't. And I knew, it's part of it you can account for because you think, well, I'm lazy. I knew that about myself and I knew I was unmotivated about some things. I knew I wasn't academically a striver. But I suppose I just thought, yeah, but I'm good at that. So shouldn't that just sort of happen? Shouldn't they just give me a GCSE? Because look at that picture of Margaret Thatcher I did.

• 21:10Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Next to a picture of Hitler with the dates.

• 21:15Elizabeth Day?

  Did you do that for your art GCSE?

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I did, yeah.

• 21:17Elizabeth Day?

  Edgy.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Very edgy.

• 21:19Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  And my, my art teacher said, Mr. Lemke, he, he said, because I remember that picture, Margaret Thatcher, Adolf Hitler. I don't think, 1987? 1937.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  That was, I don't know if it was for my exam, but that was part of my course. I'm just, that's the sort of shit I like to do.

• 21:41Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Like, so, you know, did the dates, you decide.

• 21:45Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  You just, you be the judge.

• 21:47Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  So I did that and, and Mr. Lem came in, that's not, that's not, because he saw me drawing Hitler. He was like, that's not very nice, isn't it? It's not meant to be nice.

• 21:56Elizabeth Day?

  It's meant to interrogate.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:58Elizabeth Day?

  I'm interrogating the viewer.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  The viewer, all of the viewers who came to my exhibition, yeah.

• 22:04Elizabeth Day?

  I'm really interested by your childhood. It will, I'm not surprised you to hear. So youngest of five.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was raised first by my dad and then by my mum and stepdad and not in, I was born in Hampshire.

• 22:17Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  I grew up mainly, I left Hampshire fairly quickly and was then sort of suburbs.

• 22:25Elizabeth Day?

  Tell me about your mum.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  My mum was, I think, a really fascinating, wonderful person. She's called Philomena, Philomena Rita Norris was her maiden name. And she was one of 14.

• 22:41Elizabeth Day?

  Wow.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  She was a massive influence on my life. I really, really loved my mum a lot. Like, and I think being the youngest as well, I was the youngest by six years. So I definitely had a lot of, I was, so I was the last one at home for a while.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Everyone else left home, you know, reasonably like, like earlier than people do nowadays. So I, I had a real bond with my mum, fantastic bond with my mum. My dad, my dad died when I was 10.

• 23:06Elizabeth Day?

  I'm sorry.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Uh, thank you. Um, so I never, you know, I wish I had got to more time, obviously you wish you had more time with everybody. But I'm looking back now, I was a baby when he died, you know, like it was nothing. But I'd remember him very well and it was like we had a relationship, but like, no, that didn't mean I was able to be close to my mum. I was just, I just was close to my mum, yeah. Uh, she was a very, uh, Very loving, very um, uh, adored our kids. And again, going back to what we're saying earlier on about the, the breeders side of things. Um, I don't, I'm pretty sure I was, no one ever laid a hand on me as a kid. No one ever laid a finger on me and they didn't need to.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Because if that cup went down like that, I'd be like, okay.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Let's pay attention now, you know. We definitely weren't coddled. We were demonstrably loved. Um, and demonstrably fucking bollocked when the need arose. Yeah, yeah.

• 24:11Elizabeth Day?

  I read somewhere that, as you mentioned, your dad died when you were ten. But it took you a few years to process it.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it did. I remember going to the cinema to see Shirley Valentine with my first girlfriend, Michaela, in Teddington. Went to see the cinema probably in Kingston and um.

• 24:30Elizabeth Day?

  Bentall Centre.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know it.

• 24:33Elizabeth Day?

  I used to waitress there.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 24:34Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  That's so funny. Yeah, cause I, I was near there. We, yeah, we went to see it and, and you know, Shirley Valentine, which I loved. R I P Pauline Collins. And, and in, and in the credits, there was, I can't remember, a crew member named Jeffrey Freeman, which was my dad's name. And, and something just slightly clicked in me. It was like, oh yeah, I've not really, and I was like seventeen, eighteen then. And, and I think I hadn't really, uh, dealt with it is the cliche, I guess, but. Cause I think when I was ten, I didn't wanna be pitied.

• 25:06Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Do you know, I didn't, cause I was already, I was in and out of hospital for various things as well. Dodgy hip, asthma, you know, I was a kind of sickly kid.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  And, and I was little, right, so you know, I'm, I'm not a big person. So I was little Martin, whose dad just died, whose parents were divorced, and that was relatively rare at that time. And about in other schools, in Catholic schools, it was pretty rare for your parents not to be together.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  And his dad's dad, I didn't want to be anyone's mascot or token. So I think I would probably just, yes, go, let's kick a ball about and get on with it, you know. Um, and so it probably wasn't a few years, until a few years later, I was like, that's actually quite a big deal. And I'm allowed to, I'm allowed to think it's a big deal, yeah.

• 25:52Elizabeth Day?

  Do you think all of that had any impact on your GCSEs and how much or not?

• 25:59Speaker 01

  No, I don't. I don't think so. I mean, other than, I suppose it's impossible to say whether, no, no, I'm, I'm pretty sure it didn't. My mum and dad had split up when I was very young. Um, so I'd had a stepdad for a long time. We had a stable, you know, we had a family life. And even though I never called my stepdad, my dad, you know, he was always James, but he was a parental figure. Secondary to my mum, because she was the one who was doing the main stuff. But, you know, James was a good step parent. I think that was the thing. It was not for me like the thing of academic excellence. The, the, the thing was, is like, not even excellence, just not good. That was a surprise to me. And that's why I can count that as a bit of a failure.

• 26:44Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Because if someone said, but Martin, you're not an astronaut. It's like, well, no, of course I'm not an astronaut. But I did think I would do better at that stage. I guess it, well, I suppose it colored things in. Then I went to Brooklands College in Waybridge, right? To resit GCS, to get enough GCSEs to do drama A level. So for a year, I resat GCSEs to get enough to, because I, I, by that time I thought I want to be an actor.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  In the interim, I'd found out that I don't really want to do a drama A level because that's also academic. It's also, I like reading plays and I like, I can write about them, but I'd rather be doing it. So in the interim, I found out I wanted to be a, or to do a B, a BTEC in performing arts. You get to devise, you get to, you know. Act, you get to write, learn how to do the lighting board, the soundboard, your choreographs. It was a much more doing thing than a than a sort of observing thing.

• 27:40Elizabeth Day?

  What was the first part that you played that you really felt this is going to be me now? Like, this is my life?

• 27:49Speaker 01

  It, well, I can, I know it absolutely. It was in the autumn of nineteen eighty eight. I was in a youth theatre group in Teddington and we used to perform at Hampton Court Theatre, which was a tiny little theatre right by, near Hampton Court Palace. It was a weird sort of, like an almost fairy tale theatre that existed there that you'd get a hundred people in. It was a play called The Roses of Iam, which was about a true event that happened at a Derbyshire village called Iam, where during the plague of sixteen sixty five, in order to stop the plague from spreading, because obviously it was spreading like wildfire, it's spreading like the plague.

• 28:32Elizabeth Day?

  It was, it was. And then there was a fire the year after.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Exactly. So everything was fine. They made a selfless decision to kind of lock themselves in, to sort of, well, to do a lockdown really, quarantine themselves so that it wouldn't spread anywhere else, and which meant that an awful lot of people died in Iam. I'm going to heroic tale, but I played a character called The Bedlam, a young lad who wasn't quite right, let's say, I suppose. So physically and emotionally, I was able to tap into something that for some reason I found, I don't want to say I found it easy, but I found, but it felt comfortable.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Because I'd had a sort of, you know, I'd had a dodgy leg as a kid, so I sort of used that. My sister Laura had just had a baby and I sort of, my niece Abby, and she, and so I kind of used that as well. But it's not like I'm going to give a De Niro-like process to my youth theatre. But in my head, that's what I was doing. And I was good. I was good in it.

• 29:39Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD, because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialised treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's Exposure and Response Prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable, so you can live more of the life you want to

• 30:24Elizabeth Day?

  live. If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15-minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail. Your second failure, I'm so glad that you're going to talk about this, is comparing yourself when you were younger to where your heroes were at that stage.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:47Elizabeth Day?

  And I just think it's such a human sensation that we are not doing as well as in any walk of life.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Totally, yeah, yeah.

• 30:55Elizabeth Day?

  So what stage are we talking about here? In your twenties or thirties?

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Oh, definitely. I mean, teens and twenties. Because, again, my first and still favourite art form is music, right? And records. So that's my favourite thing, and has been since I was five. The problem being that if you're comparing yourself to your favourite sort of record makers, you're fucked. Because everybody post 1955 anyway, and probably even if you're including Mozart, pretty young, you know, that stuff happens when people are young a lot of the time, most of the time. There's not many rock and rollers who come out, "I'm 50 and I've just made my first..." It's a young man's or woman's game, right? So by the time I left drama school at 23, that is the age George Harrison was

• 31:41Speaker 01

  when they were recording Sergeant Pepper. So I was like, "Fuck, I've got to get a move on." You know, and as it's counting down to my late twenties and thirties, I'm like, Marvin Gaye was like 32 when he made What's Going On. He'd already been a star for, you know, eight or nine years. But it's like, there's always this countdown, this clock. And I sort of enjoyed it, because I knew I couldn't compete with it.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  But it was definitely there, like I should be get, I should get a move on. I mean, Michael Caine is a case in point because I think he did Zulu at thirty. So that was like, and again, but in, in acting terms, thirty is still sort of young. It's not rock and roll.

• 32:16Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Acting and rock and roll, whatever people say is the new rock and roll, it isn't the new rock. Rock and roll is it, that's the only thing. Other stuff, you can be a little bit older and still be considered young, especially if you look young. So The Office came out when I was twenty nine, so I just made the, I just made the cut. It doesn't mean anything cosmically at all, but to me, in my little stupid head, meant something.

• 32:37Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. And did you compare yourself to actors, the contemporaneous actors?

• 32:42Speaker 01

  I think I'm sure, I'm sure I did, and I'm sure I do, if I'm being honest.

• 32:46Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, please be honest.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna name names.

• 32:48Elizabeth Day?

  You don't have to name them, but do you have a person who's like, oh, him again?

• 32:52Speaker 01

  No, I have people, it's plural. I do know that comparing stuff i- in, in a, in a field which is only opinion, it's not football. It's not, we scored more goals than you, so we won. It's only opinion and taste, right?

• 33:08Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  So, you know, like at the moment, you know, I'm sort of voting for BAFTA films, then you vote for the Academy films. This is, we know this is not quantifiable. It's only what I like or what I don't like, you know? It's a fool's game, but you can't help play it, I think, if you are alive.

• 33:25Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Do you know what I mean? I think if you're being truly honest.

• 33:28Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Viscerally, somewhere in you is going, hmm. At the same time, I, I know, I can honestly say th- there's a list of, there's a long list of people. Let's, let's say, because I, you know, I'm not going to get, you know, Olivia Colman's part.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Because she'd piss me off if I, if I was, she'd annoy me a lot, because she'd be getting all of them.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  But there's a long list, you know, of, say, blokes.

• 33:54Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Who, who I think, no problem with you at all. I'm delighted for you, because I, I love seeing good things. I love seeing good people, I love watching. People be brilliant. And I like it when you're made not jealous, but envious in that way of, oh, you fucker. Well done.

• 34:13Elizabeth Day?

  I know. The annoying thing is if someone isn't very good, but gets all the recognition. So does that drive you mad?

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it bemuses me, I think. But you know what? As I'm saying that, in the same way that people watching this will go, yeah, Martin, you bemuse me. You know, it's only taste. It's meat and poison. You know, some people will think I'm great. Some people will think I'm rubbish. You know, and that's just the way, the way it is. So when I see other people, I think, but how did that? Well, yeah, there's someone else behind me going, I think they're brilliant. Okay, the end.

• 34:43Elizabeth Day?

  Are you more sick of talking about The Office or Sherlock?

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Neither, to be honest. No, to be honest, neither, because there was a period, a few years after The Office, where I wanted to get away from that everyman thing, and I wanted to not be Tim from The Office for the rest of my life, even though I was amazingly proud of The Office, and I was proud of what I did in it. And I think it was one of my favorite things I've ever done. Now I'm completely at peace with it. Sherlock, I'm completely at peace with, because I think it's a fantastic piece of work.

• 35:12Elizabeth Day?

  Well, they were both revolutionary. I remember the first time I watched them, and I'd never seen anything like that particular thing.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  No, true, yeah.

• 35:20Elizabeth Day?

  The Office, I absolutely adore.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  So do I.

• 35:24Elizabeth Day?

  And I just wanted to say that. There's sort of no question, but I don't think anything's ever been quite as good as the original season of The Office.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  I know what you mean, which is a dangerous thing for me to say, because I was in it. But I know, I do know what you mean, but I didn't, you know, I didn't write or direct it. So that's, the credit always goes to the people who did. Yeah, the David Brent's dance, the Comet Relief dance, brilliant, absolutely brilliant. But that's not my favorite bit. My favorite bits all are of myself and only myself.

• 35:55Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, fair enough.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Now, my favourite bits are just those bits of just truth. I mean, this sounds really, really pompous. So please go with me. It's not, it's not meant to. I really respond to truth. I really do. When people aren't lying to me, whether I'm in a theatre or watching a film or TV, I just don't, I know that's not true. You know, that's not true. Stop lying. And I don't just mean act. That's every stage of every sort of department of whatever is making this thing. It's like, it's like every time someone plays an actor, it's like, well, okay, I'll be in my trailer. It's like, fine, but we know that's not true. It's true this much of the time, this much. And even the people who do that aren't saying it like that. So have, who

• 36:38Speaker 01

  are we mocking? Because that person doesn't fucking exist. What I loved about what Ricky did in The Office was he had genuine vulnerability and made it really, really real, really real. I mean, it's heightened at times. At times it's heightened what we do, but I think our main, you know, what we were all trying to do was to not, you don't see the join. And a lot of people didn't see the join, you know, because we weren't famous. So, and it was in a time of a lot of, you know, those kind of workplace documentaries. So I know that some people thought it was a real thing. And who's, God, who's this guy? David, you know, that's kind of the, the mission I've been on even before The Office, even when I was a younger actor in theatre. I just, I want to be

• 37:22Speaker 01

  absolutely as real as possible, or what's the point?

• 37:26Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Unless you, if you're doing something heightened and stylized, I get that and I can love that. I really love that. But even within that, you've, you know, if I'm not connecting to you as a human being, I don't care. I literally don't care. So why would I want to give the audience that?

• 37:41Elizabeth Day?

  Do you ever watch The Office back? And if so, what's, what's it like seeing yourself as a 29 year old?

• 37:46Speaker 01

  I like the show so much. It's not, I don't watch it all the time, but my, for instance, my son and my son's generation really love it. I like the show so much, I'm able to, to not go, oh, God. Do you know what I mean?

• 37:58Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  I just think, no, it's a good, it's a good show and I'm in it. Brilliant. I'm in a good show and that's all I've ever wanted to be in. That's worth its weight in gold, you know, to be part of something that you and other people will say, I really loved that show you did 25 years. Like, brilliant. That's fantastic. You know, like if you can do, if you told me when I was 19, that, you know, a 10th of the things.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  That have happened, would have happened, I would have been, you know, I would have thought you were probably making it up.

• 38:29Elizabeth Day?

  It is amazing, actually, because sometimes I ask people when they're recognizing the street, what do, what do strangers say? But you've got so many different elements to your career that people, I imagine, talk to you about. What is the most common thing that comes up? Is it The Office? Is it Sherlock? Is it The Hobbit?

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Hmm. It, it does vary. I mean, The Office still, a lot of the time, which is, again, I really like it. I really like that. And I, and I will definitely admit, for a little while, I was like, no, I want to shake this off.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Because you don't want to be pinned, no one wants to be boxed in, you know? You don't want, I like that thing you do, now do it forever and don't do anything else, you know? You don't want that. But I love that now. I, I love when people talk about Sherlock. I love it when people talk about nativ-, you know, nativity is one of the things that is genuinely most quoted to me, and I am cool with that. That's one of my favorite films that I've done. It's a great family film, brilliant music, truly heartwarming, without being too schmaltzy, but actually life-affirming. When Black Panther came out, jeez, I mean, I was stopped all the time by people who've said, you know, I went to see that film six times. To be, so to be part of that as well was an immense joy.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Now it's just more like, I'm just a person, as in Martin Freeman, as opposed to Martin Freeman from the whatever.

• 39:47Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  But when you are Martin Freeman from the whatever, when it first happens, like, wow, brilliant. And then it starts, if, if you are in my body, it starts to feel a bit weird. I always, I really wish I could be better at that, to this day.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  But then I wonder if that would make me a sociopath, I don't know. You know, when, if, if I'm on the way to a, you know, a red carpet, say, and as you get closer, you can start to hear the noise and the flashlight, you know, and the, the sort of mania that it is, that it can be, you know, not everything I do is greeted with mania, that's true. But the things that you're part of that are, you know, big in any way. I would love to be able to go, oh, this is amazing. But I, before I can even think that, my body is telling me something different. Which is, this is not natural. This is not, what's the equivalent of this in early homo sapien terms? You know what I mean?

• 40:49Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Who was, who was I in the village 3000 years ago? You know, this didn't, I don't think it's supposed to exist, sort of thing, you know?

• 40:57Elizabeth Day?

  Do you think it's because it feels untruthful? Or do you think it feels scary?

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Both, I think. I think sometimes it's just disingenuous. Cause I, I, I'm not an idiot. I, I know when people are not actually interested, but they're just performing a function. But it's just as scary to know that some people do mean it. Cause obviously some people mean it too much. And that's also a bit alarming. Cause you think, I don't think you should, I mean, God bless you, but I don't think you should be putting this much store by something that someone else you don't know is doing. You know, I get it. Cause I, I do get being a fan of people. I'm a fan of people. But, um, but yeah, it doesn't make it any easier, I think.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  And, and I see other people, I see other people looking like they're handling it quite well. And I think that must be nice. That must be nice to be able to just to wear it lightly. And I think I wear it lightly in some, in some situations. But when it's a wall of noise, light and kind of a mini mania.

• 42:07Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  That's not healthy. Mania in any form is not healthy. I mean, like, that's not, oh, it's a good mania. It's not, it's not, it's bad. You know, as soon as you said mania, that's, um, you know, and I, I'm not comparing myself. It's not like I'm the biggest star in the world. But like, as soon as you have anything that's like that, the first couple of times is really fascinating. And you do think, this is lovely. Red carpet, people wanting my autograph. You know, that's how old I am. Very quickly for me, it was like, yeah. And I don't, you know, it's either because it's, that's just objectively true. Or the way my brain, my brain is never going to accept an easy ride for anything for more than 10 minutes before it starts to sabotage.

• 42:54Elizabeth Day?

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• 43:38Elizabeth Day?

  stress, and some rogue design choices. If you're ready to hear the

• 43:44Elizabeth Day?

  of your first sale today, head over to Shopify.co.uk/fail to start your free trial today. That's right, start your free trial at Shopify.co.uk/fail. Two Girls, One Ghost.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  Two Girls, One Ghost is the most haunted podcast in America. Where each week we dive into all things strange, spooky, and supernatural, and share stories of paranormal encounters from our community of listeners. Satisfy that spooky itch and entertain your inner witch with Two Girls, One Ghost. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts and check us out on YouTube at Two Girls, One Ghost. But be warned, side effects might include a haunting or two. Listen at your own risk.

• 44:26Elizabeth Day?

  Well, talking about autographs brings us on to your final failure, I think, which is being pretty useless at technology.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, not great with that.

• 44:34Elizabeth Day?

  And the old smartphone. Well, you and I are similar ages, and so we

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Twenty-eight.

• 44:41Elizabeth Day?

  We grew up analog, but then transitioned to digital.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:46Elizabeth Day?

  And it is a unique perspective, and I'm so glad I had the childhood that I did, where I was bored and therefore I had to rely on my imagination.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  I don't get why, I don't, I don't get why you ever have to explain that to anybody. Like, the things that we cherish and love, whether it's punk, rock and roll, cinema, jazz, all came out of people going, "What shall I do now?" You know, they couldn't be passengers in something. They, they weren't just going along on a travelator because somewhere was taken with...

• 45:16Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  That shit.

• 45:17Elizabeth Day?

  He's swiping, he's doing it for listeners.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Sorry, I'm swiping, yeah, for listeners, I'm swiping. Uh, I haven't just had a seizure. Um, but I don't think e- even Stephen Fry, uh, or people who are early adopters of things, I think, would not be able to argue that there is a great deal of value in making a child bored. Seriously, man. How, why, how else are you gonna paint or make up a story or learn a trade or learn a skill? If you're literally mouth agape, looking at a fucking script like. No, and I, uh, yeah, and I'm totally, uh, uh, cause of course, yeah, is it partly because I'm getting older? Of course it is, of course it is. I'd love someone to say I'm wrong. Obje- uh, am I objectively wrong? Nope.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Um, and when I come to power, I will, you know, make sure everyone knows it.

• 46:07Elizabeth Day?

  But is it okay if a child is watching, um, a classic movie on a screen?

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Of course it is. Here's why, here's, because of course it is. And, and, and I realised that my granddad would have thought that was moronic as well. You know, like, turn the telly off was the thing that we all heard, you know? And I get that as well.

• 46:24Elizabeth Day?

  You get square eyes.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 46:25Elizabeth Day?

  You're not anymore, are you?

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do, yeah. But I, I get that, uh, y- you don't wanna be looking at a screen of it for, for anything all the time. But you know what? You don't wanna be doing anything all, I love reading. If I didn't do anything but read, I'd be a hermit with no social skills and nothing would get done and you couldn't pay the rent, right? You, nothing is something you should be doing all the time. My worry about the phones is that they're so ubiquitous for, for people of our age who should know better. And for kids who, of course, their, their brains aren't finished, they don't fucking know better. So it is incumbent on us to go to, to do something about it, you know? Or at least to say, you do realise that, uh, you will be thicker. And I, I, I one hundred percent believe that.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  One hundred percent. And you probably can't say thick, but I'm saying, yeah.

• 47:15Elizabeth Day?

  What's the most useless you've ever been with technology? Give us an example. You, you've got a smartphone, cause it's been buzzing.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Of course I have, of course I have. And, and I'm never gonna, like, I'm not anti-technology.

• 47:26Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, no, that wasn't accusatory.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm, I'm really glad clever people did it and carry on doing it. I just don't want to be a slave to it. When someone says, uh, yeah, if you just cut and paste that, I'm like, nah. I don't know. And and the thing is, people have said to me, and they're probably right. Martin, you can do it. You're just not interested in it. And so that's probably their web going. Sort yourself out. You can do it. You're not a moron. But I remember my school did computer studies and I really thought this is not going to catch on. I thought this is not going to, why would I be doing this? This is not as fun as football, records, girls, any like what?

• 48:06Speaker 01

  What nerd would fucking spend all and then I'm in the world of, I'm in nerd world and I'm now behind.

• 48:14Elizabeth Day?

  Have you have you ever used chat G P T?

• 48:17Speaker 01

  To to literally just on my phone to be horrified by. Yeah.

• 48:20Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. But no, I no, and I. It's hard because I don't have a, I don't have a hot take on it on A I. Because I'm not Steven Pinker and I'm not someone else who's, I haven't read loads about it. I haven't studied it a great deal. My instinct is, oh, let's watch this. Let's be very, very mindful of it. Because I don't want anything to replace humans.

• 48:45Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, let's watch this.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Let's watch this. Yeah, yeah.

• 48:48Elizabeth Day?

  Martin Freeman on air. Yeah.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  And I think in twenty five years, that'll be the quote.

• 48:52Elizabeth Day?

  There you go.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  See, Freeman told us, we should have watched this.

• 48:55Elizabeth Day?

  The voice in the coal mine.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  I don't want to be, because the thing is, I'm not an early adopter of technology. And that doesn't, and I think I know people who are and they're all the smarter for it.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  But I'm not massively anti or massively pro is the truth of it. I don't feel well informed enough. I do feel well informed enough to go, I know it's making people lazier because I see it. And I know it because people are using that chat G P T in order, instead of writing their essay or instead of coming with an informed opinion. It's just, or doing a drawing or spending time doing something, which is part of the reason for being a human on earth. Is to apply yourself to a project.

• 49:34Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  When you don't have to do that, again, really good luck with where this is going to take. Let me know how it goes. Let me know how it goes. Because of course, of course, there will be good things about it. But but there's no, nothing is without a trade off, is it? There's no advance without someone losing out.

• 49:55Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, and the thing that makes us unique as humans is the feeling and the emotion and the yearning and the disappointment and the discomfort. These are all things that AI doesn't have.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Presumably, yeah.

• 50:09Elizabeth Day?

  One hopes.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  I don't know in 20 years, I don't, I don't know. Because the way people I hear people talk about it is that it will be able to do literally everything we can do. And that doesn't fill me with glee, it just doesn't.

• 50:20Elizabeth Day?

  No.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  You know, because I don't, I think there's a difference between the invention of the spinning Jenny, where, you know, less people have to have their arms cut off in, you know, in factories or whatever. Great, okay. But that is also, there's always a trade off, you know, because someone else has lost something from that, you know, like labour or work or income. And that's been the story of human beings. But this, but no one ever said, you know, and, and the printing press is going to be able to do every single thing we can do and replace all our job. No one ever said that.

• 50:50Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  And now with AI, I'm like, Christ, all right. I just, I, I don't want to be really doom laden about it, but I also don't see why some people are just throwing parties about it. Like, yeah, just giving themselves over to our new overlords.

• 51:06Elizabeth Day?

  Listen, hopefully we'll be dead. Let us end on that note, though.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I don't know, people are saying it's coming really quickly. I don't know.

• 51:12Elizabeth Day?

  I know it's coming so quickly. I don't know what to do about it. That's why I'm in a state of.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  I'm staying out of it.

• 51:16Elizabeth Day?

  All right.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  I've already said too much.

• 51:18Elizabeth Day?

  Why?

• 51:19Speaker 01

  I've already said too much because I, I can't say this enough. I don't know what I'm talking about. So, yeah.

• 51:25Elizabeth Day?

  I, before we get off on another tangent, because I've, I've really loved speaking to you. And I hope you can feel that I'm being truthful.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  No, I've really, I haven't liked it, but, but I can tolerate it.

• 51:34Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you so much. What a compliment.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  No, me too.

• 51:38Elizabeth Day?

  And I would love to end on an anecdote about Michael Caine, because you have mentioned how much of a hero he's been for you, and you got to meet him. And what happened when you met him?

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Well, I've met him twice. The first time I met him was at an event and Edgar Wright, the film director, and someone I've worked with a few times, lovely man Edgar. He was sitting, I was sitting over here with, with some lovely people. I was very, very aware that over there was Michael Caine and Edgar nicely said, Martin, come, come meet Michael. And I kind of came and sat down and, you know. I said, hello, um, I put my hand out, said, I'm Michael. And he went, no, I'm Michael. You're my, I was like, that's, I blew it. I got, I felt quite emotional.

• 52:21Elizabeth Day?

  I bet.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  I did. Yeah, I did. And I've, and I've said this to him, I, I, I met him a few years later and I was able to talk to him for five or 10 minutes and it was really, it was really nice. But, um, but you know, he, he is one of the reasons I'm doing it. For, so for people who don't like me, blame Michael Caine. But, but for better or worse, he's definitely one of the reasons I'm doing it. Before I knew I wanted to be an actor, I think he planted a seed in a very young Martin. Just something about his presence was very important to me. Yeah.

• 52:52Elizabeth Day?

  What do you think it was about his presence?

• 52:54Speaker 01

  I, I, I don't know whether it might have been ordinariness. I don't know. Cause all obvious, the thing is, he's extraordinary. In his street, there weren't 50 Michael, there just weren't 50 Michael Caines. With that presence and that emotional intelligence and the light, light in the eyes and all that, they, they just weren't. But what I didn't, I, I think when I was nine, maybe when I first saw him, or I was told, oh, you know, that's Michael Caine. There was something about him that I thought, all right, you, cause in sleuth, in sleuth, which was the film that I first got to know him in, he's with Laurence Olivier, who is also a different animal to Michael Caine, a brilliant and different animal. Maybe I just, I probably would have said, I didn't know you that you could be an actor like that, you know, cause he just looks like,

• 53:36Speaker 01

  he looks and sounds like weed. It's just sort of, he's a normal bloke. As a, he wasn't, he wasn't.

• 53:41Elizabeth Day?

  An actor.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  He wasn't an actor.

• 53:43Elizabeth Day?

  It was believability.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  And, and you know, Laurence Olivier is obviously a fantastic beast, but Michael Caine just was cut from a different cloth.

• 53:52Elizabeth Day?

  Well, I'm grateful to Michael Caine for the presence of Martin Freeman.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Thank you very much.

• 53:58Elizabeth Day?

  On our screens and in this podcast studio. Thank you so much for coming on.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 54:02Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you so much for listening and watching. All episodes in January are brought to you by Pink Lady Apples.

• 54:10Elizabeth Day?

  Please do follow How To Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.