Rob Delaney

This week we have our favourite Bostonian comedy actor joining us for lunch at mine, and what a treat it was! Mum was over the moon to have the ‘dazzlingly handsome’ Rob in front of her, and - over an absolutely delish Nigel Slater peach and poached chicken salad - we heard all of his hilarious and heartwarming stories. He told us about meeting his wife at a summer camp 20 years ago, joining an olive oil club with his next door neighbour, working with Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, the horrendous food poisoning he got from a dodgy oyster, and we’ve found another Table Manners guest with a penchant for a cold water swim! Rob is not only a fabulous actor, but also a great cook apparently - we’re coming round for a chicken noodle soup soon! Rob is currently staring in Bad Monkey which is available to stream now on Apple TV+. 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.

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• 2:34Jessie Ware?

  Hello and welcome to Table manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here with Lenny and we're in New Cross.

• 2:40Speaker 05

  Yes, darling.

• 2:41Jessie Ware?

  I've had two fortieths within the space of two, no, three days. I'm a bit tired.

• 2:47Speaker 05

  Oh, you're doing it.

• 2:48Jessie Ware?

  Then we had a birthday party. Has anyone ever been to the O2 oxygen extreme trampolining?

• 2:55Speaker 05

  No, I haven't.

• 2:56Jessie Ware?

  Avoid it at all costs unless you need to go. It was fabulous for an eight-year-old birthday party.

• 3:00Speaker 05

  And do not believe the parking guy that I spoke to told me it was only a three-minute walk from the car park. At least 10 minutes to get across the courtyard at my pace.

• 3:10Jessie Ware?

  You hobbling along with your horse chocolate cake.

• 3:13Speaker 05

  My chocolate cake with horses on.

• 3:15Jessie Ware?

  I'm on cooking duty today.

• 3:18Speaker 05

  I did share that recipe with you and I kind of regret it. I was kind of regretted it because it was a good recipe.

• 3:24Jessie Ware?

  Why?

• 3:25Speaker 05

  Because I could have used it for someone.

• 3:27Jessie Ware?

  You showed me the Nigel Slater chicken and peach salad. It's meant to be on a really hot summer's day. It is not a hot summer's day. It's quite miserable. However, I do have the most delicious Natura peaches that I bought and.

• 3:45Speaker 05

  It will cheer everyone up and rhyme.

• 3:47Jessie Ware?

  Maybe unless he's one of those people that doesn't like fruit with savoury.

• 3:51Speaker 05

  Well, we'll find out.

• 3:53Jessie Ware?

  And then I've done a Nigella's chocolate olive oil mousse.

• 3:57Speaker 05

  And have you used the special olive oil?

• 3:59Jessie Ware?

  I used the special olive oil.

• 4:00Speaker 05

  Rosie and James's olive oil.

• 4:02Jessie Ware?

  From Scopelos that we bought back. Um, that he, I don't know, strained with his deer hands.

• 4:08Speaker 05

  No, he didn't. He picked the olives from his land.

• 4:11Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Speaker 05

  And they took it up to the olivio, where they press the olives and then you bring it home. And this year.

• 4:17Jessie Ware?

  That sounds so fun.

• 4:17Speaker 05

  He's got, it's such a November, it's going to be a bumper season because there is a, he's got a hundred olive trees at his new place.

• 4:25Jessie Ware?

  It's really nice.

• 4:26Speaker 05

  So he's going to have over a hundred litres of olive oil.

• 4:28Jessie Ware?

  Well, I'm very thrilled to have it in the Nigella Lawson chocolate olive oil mousse. We have a comedian, writer, activist, anglophile, uh, American coming over.

• 4:40Speaker 05

  Very handsome.

• 4:41Jessie Ware?

  Very handsome.

• 4:42Speaker 05

  Very handsome.

• 4:44Jessie Ware?

  But very talented.

• 4:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, I wonder if he's got a moustache.

• 4:48Jessie Ware?

  I saw him, I don't know if it's gonna sound creepy, when I was filming that Mamma Mia show, I think we flew back um, from Corfu at the same time. And he was very, very dashing. Um, we've got Rob Delaney coming over. Now, Rob is an American who lives in London, who created and starred in Catastrophe, which we all loved with Sharon Horgan. He's um, been in Deadpool. He's coming on to talk about his new Apple TV show that he stars in called Bad Monkey.

• 5:17Speaker 05

  Which I've been watching.

• 5:18Jessie Ware?

  And I've watched one episode. It's one of our favourite writers that we used to always read in the summer. It's set in Florida. He'll be telling you more. It's dark comedy.

• 5:27Speaker 05

  But also it's set in the Bahamas and the Florida Keys and I just makes me want to go there straight away.

• 5:34Jessie Ware?

  Um, I've just put the chicken in. It's gonna be one of those things where I will be in the background making a dressing and assembling, so you may have to take over for a bit, Lenny.

• 5:43Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 5:44Jessie Ware?

  Are you willing?

• 5:44Speaker 05

  I'll just look at him, darling.

• 5:46Jessie Ware?

  Okay. Rob Delaney coming up on Tableman.

• 5:59Speaker 05

  Welcome. Thank you. To.

• 6:01Jessie Ware?

  Mum's doing her, uh, her, she's doing the voice where I know she's trying to impress you.

• 6:05Speaker 05

  I am.

• 6:08Jessie Ware?

  She's doing Radio Four voice.

• 6:09Speaker 05

  Oh, I love it.

• 6:10Jessie Ware?

  You really are.

• 6:11Speaker 05

  First of all, watched about five episodes of Bad Monkey. How many episodes are there? Ten. Oh crikey.

• 6:19Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 05

  Because I wondered where you were at the beginning and now you're coming into your own.

• 6:25Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 6:25Speaker 05

  Moustache and all.

• 6:26Speaker 06

  Moustache and all, yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 05

  Did you film it all in in the Bahamas and the Keys?

• 6:30Speaker 06

  We filmed in Miami and the Keys. So any Bahamas that you see is, uh, you know, somewhere in Florida.

• 6:37Speaker 05

  In Bahamas.

• 6:38Speaker 06

  I'm pretty sure, I'm sure there's some like aerial shots and stuff that are legitimately there, but actors. You know what? I could be wrong. They might have gone to Andros. I didn't. I filmed strictly in Miami and primarily Marathon in the Keys.

• 6:54Speaker 05

  It's gorgeous.

• 6:55Speaker 06

  Isn't it?

• 6:56Speaker 05

  God, I couldn't actually go on holiday and move there. It's absolutely beautiful.

• 7:01Jessie Ware?

  Think about a family holiday after filming a Karl Hyacinth.

• 7:04Speaker 06

  Right, so.

• 7:05Jessie Ware?

  Anything could go.

• 7:06Speaker 06

  I brought my then three or four year old. Three, he was three.

• 7:12Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 7:12Speaker 06

  So he was with me for a little bit and that was quite fun, um, because if ever we had a day off, you know, we would go to the Everglades. Um, or go to the beach. We didn't see any crocodiles, but we saw, I'm sure, over four hundred alligators.

• 7:29Jessie Ware?

  Oh, okay, sorry.

• 7:30Speaker 06

  But there are crocodiles there. They're both there. Miami's the only place in the world where they both live. Um, so there's lots of ways to get eaten.

• 7:37Jessie Ware?

  Am I being stupid? But why are the alligators Everglades but not crocodiles?

• 7:41Speaker 06

  It's alligators that are in the Everglades and then in Miami, there are some saltwater crocodiles. Why is that? I don't know. And I believe it's the only place in the world where they both live and but you'd have to talk to them about why they've chosen to.

• 7:56Speaker 05

  Did your son meet the monkey?

• 7:58Speaker 06

  Uh, I don't think he did. He met a lot of key deer, though, the little tiny deer that run around.

• 8:03Speaker 05

  That run around.

• 8:03Speaker 06

  So that was fun.

• 8:05Speaker 05

  Is he as fun as he seems?

• 8:08Speaker 06

  He really genuinely is. Yeah, he's exactly like he is in movies and TV and stuff, you know, whereas I'm not, you know, I can. People like, do you ever turn it off? I'm like, I turn it off all the time. Whereas Vince Vaughn, like if you were at a restaurant with him, like he would introduce himself to the people at the next tables and stuff. When he talks to you, he asks you a thousand questions. He would know stuff about you that you had forgotten. And and so he's a pretty fascinating guy.

• 8:34Jessie Ware?

  Mum used to always bring a Karl Hyacinth. Is that how you say it?

• 8:38Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 8:38Jessie Ware?

  Is it Hyacinth? I don't know.

• 8:39Speaker 05

  Karl Hyacinth.

• 8:40Jessie Ware?

  We'd always have one in the summer that we'd go through as a family. Did you read any Carl before?

• 8:47Speaker 06

  I I'm ashamed to admit, but I I wanna pursue the policy of truth here. I've only read Bad Monkey. I must read more. How silly of me. Yeah.

• 8:55Jessie Ware?

  But they're usually set in Miami. Usually, yeah, it's usually this, not the same shit that happens, but it's usually very funny in Florida and dark comedy and someone's gonna lose something.

• 9:07Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 9:08Jessie Ware?

  They're great.

• 9:09Speaker 06

  They are great.

• 9:10Jessie Ware?

  It kind of feels like, I don't know whether they've made any more telly of Carl Hyacinth books, but like, it feels like a no brainer that now that you'd be able to like just keep going, like Agatha Christie, sure.

• 9:19Speaker 06

  Right. I think maybe now that they've cracked it because, yeah, it, you know, Bill Lawrence did such a good job because he wasn't just like, let me take this IP and turn it into something like, he's from Florida too. He loves Carl Hyacinth and he, for him, it was a real labor of love to turn a great book into a great TV show. So he worked very hard on it for a long time.

• 9:40Jessie Ware?

  Where do you live now? You live in London?

• 9:42Speaker 06

  I do, yeah, I live in London. Uh, yeah, I've been here ten years. I'm literally British now.

• 9:47Jessie Ware?

  Are you here because of the food?

• 9:48Speaker 06

  Absolutely not. No, although I like the food.

• 9:51Jessie Ware?

  It's not bad.

• 9:52Speaker 06

  Oh, no, no, there's great food.

• 9:53Jessie Ware?

  Where are you from?

• 9:54Speaker 06

  I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts.

• 9:56Jessie Ware?

  Good food.

• 9:57Speaker 06

  It's fine. It's fine, you know.

• 9:58Jessie Ware?

  Good chowder.

• 9:59Speaker 06

  Yeah. But yeah, I moved here ten years ago for the show Catastrophe.

• 10:02Jessie Ware?

  Which we love. We love, yeah. I actually went up to Sharon Horgan once at an awards thing and I said, I just wanna, I don't know why this came out, but you know, you like, you shoot your shot. It's like you're one, you've seen her and I don't know why, I I think I was nervous. I hate award shows anyway. I swear, I just wanna thank you for making me feel like it's okay to not have sex with my husband. And she went, okay, cool. Nice to meet you. You know, that's the shit that came out, like. Why does that come out, darling? I think they were having a hard time in the show at that time.

• 10:31Speaker 06

  That's so funny.

• 10:31Jessie Ware?

  I feel like everyone's had those catastrophe moments when they've had children. That episode where she's trying to make friends with somebody and being really keen and it's so cringe. And I've been that person in like a baby music class. That is brilliant. It's amazing.

• 10:45Speaker 06

  That was a fun episode.

• 10:45Jessie Ware?

  How did you and Sharon meet each other?

• 10:47Speaker 06

  We met on twitter.com, uh, years ago. So I had seen her show Pulling, which I was crazy about. So I noticed that she follows. Followed me on Twitter and I was like, I love your show.

• 10:57Jessie Ware?

  You slid in.

• 10:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, and she said, seen some of my stand up and so we became friends and when either of us were in London or LA respectively, we would visit each other and became friendly. And then we thought, hey, why don't we ride a pilot together, you know?

• 11:11Jessie Ware?

  And the rest is history.

• 11:12Speaker 06

  And the rest now is history since it was, yeah, ten years ago, almost.

• 11:17Jessie Ware?

  Can I ask, in Boston, who was around the dinner table when you were growing up? And what was a memorable dish from your childhood?

• 11:25Speaker 06

  My dad made a great meatloaf, my mom, but I don't know why that came to mind first. I think it's he chopped up apples and put it in it, so it stayed nice and moist. My mom was a very good, like, like her plates, like, definitely always ticked all the food pyramid boxes, you know what I mean? There'd be like a nice piece of fish, some nice vegetables, some nice rice pilaf. So there was no, nobody in our house was like a passionate cook, but they definitely dependably, nutritiously fed you.

• 11:58Jessie Ware?

  Did they work?

• 12:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, they both worked. They were insurance agents. They owned a small insurance agency together. They got divorced when I was fourteen, so, you know, the bulk of my childhood, they were together and we were eating dinner together every night. And then I guess once I got to high school, then it was a little different, but, you know, still tasty dishes and, you know, and family mealtime. Thank goodness, has remained a priority for my wife and I. We make sure to always eat dinner with the kids. And one wonderful thing about us is we don't, if like the kids are like, we don't like this, we're like, all right, starve. We don't make them other stuff, you know, like, oh, Sammy gets his chicken binkies, you know, like, we don't do that. We're like, oh, go to bed, I don't care. Yeah, which is, but it's that love.

• 12:41Jessie Ware?

  But you don't do, you don't do the banana late or the bowl of cereal later. Come on, yeah, of course.

• 12:47Speaker 06

  The banana, yeah.

• 12:49Jessie Ware?

  Nutritious.

• 12:50Speaker 06

  I am mean, yeah.

• 12:51Jessie Ware?

  I think that's mean.

• 12:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, because I love them.

• 12:53Jessie Ware?

  Well, you're a fool, Mum, because you literally might miss this one with the waitress and do what do you want? This is like, yeah.

• 12:59Speaker 05

  I'll do anything.

• 13:00Speaker 06

  Also, Jessie, is she nicer to your kids than she was to you? You know what I mean? Because like. No.

• 13:05Speaker 05

  I was a soft touch with you as well. I mean, there was a lot of shouting, Rob, if we're gonna talk about it. Yeah. You think that's traumatized you?

• 13:13Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, I do.

• 13:14Speaker 06

  Cause I know like my mom, you know, when I was, if I was like, can I didn't eat enough, can I, she'd be like, oh, too bad. But with my kids, she's like, yeah, sure, uh, have a secret bar.

• 13:24Speaker 05

  Or come upstairs, I've got Percy pigs in the bedroom.

• 13:27Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:28Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, like mum's got a stash.

• 13:30Speaker 06

  Oh, you can't go to bed without a full swollen belly, you know, you can't go to bed not sweating because you've eaten too much.

• 13:36Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, you completely, and you always undermine me as well, if we're gonna talk about this now, like.

• 13:44Jessie Ware?

  No, but you go, oh, go on, she's been such a good girl, go, just, you let her have a cake.

• 13:51Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 13:51Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, no.

• 13:52Speaker 05

  Why not? She's perfect.

• 13:55Speaker 06

  I can't, I wait, I can't wait to have grandkids, I swear to God. Like if one of my kids, I mean, obviously, if you're listening, kids, don't do this, but. If I was like, if one of my kids was like, I got my girlfriend pregnant. And uh, then we'd, we'd have to like fake being upset, we'd be like, oh, oh gosh, mm, you know, but totally we'd be like, give me the baby, give me.

• 14:14Speaker 06

  Oh my god, I love, I just love babies, yeah.

• 14:18Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, do you think you'll be lenient when?

• 14:20Speaker 06

  With grandkids?

• 14:21Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 14:21Speaker 06

  I'll try not to be, you know, I kinda like observe my parents and my wife's parents and like. Okay, yeah, I'll do that when I'm a grandparent, not gonna do that, yes, do this, do that.

• 14:30Jessie Ware?

  What are you gonna do? One thing that you are gonna do that you've observed and one thing that you're not gonna do.

• 14:35Speaker 06

  Well, get in there, get on those kids, get those kids on your lap, touch them, get in their faces, make eye contact, you know what I mean, be super. Don't be unignorable as their grandparent, you know, cause they love that, they love to have you get right in their face. And play with you and they know, they can just tell that you're related to them and that you share blood and that. You know, just so definitely sit on them, make them sit on you.

• 14:59Jessie Ware?

  Got it.

• 14:59Speaker 06

  Tickle them.

• 15:00Jessie Ware?

  Okay. I heard tickling's not really supposed to be a loud thing now. I tickle my, it's too fun.

• 15:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, we'll be tickling each other. I'm sure everybody under this. It's yeah, tickling's fine. I just, yeah, stop me. Arrest me for tickling.

• 15:13Jessie Ware?

  This can sound a bit stalkery. Um, I think I saw you in a Corfu airport last year.

• 15:18Speaker 06

  Oh, wow.

• 15:18Jessie Ware?

  Would that have been right?

• 15:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, we did go to Corfu last year. Funny thing about Corfu is um, many years ago, my wife and I went to Hawaii. And I was, it was like heaven on earth. And I was like, this is just too nice. I can't handle it. It was Kauai, the like. Rainforest island, rainbows and beautiful sea turtles and waterfalls and can't, and I was like, it's, I don't know, it's too nice. I can't relax.

• 15:43Jessie Ware?

  God, you are like a Brit.

• 15:44Speaker 06

  Yeah. And then I went to Corfu and it was like, it's not as like majestic as Hawaii. And I was like, this is it. Perfect. Like, this is just perfect. Cause like the rocks are old, you know, the trees are like kinda gnarly.

• 16:00Jessie Ware?

  People can be rude and say how they like.

• 16:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, but like you just, every day, I just have two gigantic salads with, you know, tomatoes and feta and everything, and then swim in the ocean and.

• 16:11Jessie Ware?

  There's nowhere like Greece.

• 16:13Speaker 06

  Um, oh.

• 16:13Jessie Ware?

  Do you go every year to Greece or Corfu?

• 16:16Speaker 06

  Not every year, but uh, Corfu, I mean, and then you think it's less than three hours.

• 16:20Jessie Ware?

  Did you eat well in Miami? Cause I hear the food scene's incredible there. Oh, you were foodie?

• 16:25Speaker 06

  Uh, am I a foodie? I would say probably no, like I don't do like destination food seek out things and stuff. But I love good food, but I also love garbage.

• 16:40Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 16:40Speaker 06

  Um, so I eat it all. Like I love fruits and vegetables. I love to eat healthy. And I also love to eat just, just scrape the bin. So. Yeah. And also I did an interesting thing out of vanity about a year ago. I had, you know, my weight would bounce back and forth. And I was always like, I should weigh less. I have weighed less. I could weigh less, you know, whatever. So I stopped eating flour and sugar. Uh, don't worry if there's flour and sugar today, I'll eat it all. But uh. I did that and that's been really interesting and I also did a huge thing. I stopped eating second and third dinners. Cause late night eating, that was my enemy, you know?

• 17:24Speaker 06

  There's a lot to fill, but I figured, you know, like I'm pushing fifty. I like my children. I like my wife. I'd like to be around. Like let, maybe if I could dial down the guarantee of some sort of cardiac event, why not? Anyway, so in Miami, though, we filmed this two years ago, so I was just eating Constance incredible seafood. One time I went fishing in the Gulf of Mexico off of um Marathon. And um the guy who took me fishing was like, if you're not getting a bite like every forty seconds, something's wrong. And it was true, caught so much snapper. And um and then also key lime pie is all over the place. So I had key lime pie at every possible opportunity.

• 18:06Speaker 05

  Be rude not to.

• 18:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, so that was great.

• 18:08Speaker 05

  Bad monkey, when I watch it, because he's a food inspector. Kind of put me, I felt a bit sick. Cause he's inspecting some of the restaurants and he's gone off food. So he stops eating for a while because everywhere he goes, he sees what's going on behind the scenes.

• 18:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, wouldn't that be a terrible job to have food inspector?

• 18:30Speaker 05

  It was awful. It was funny, but then he, when he was, some guy was eating the shrimp and he was saying, that's probably rats have peed on that or something.

• 18:40Speaker 06

  Oh yeah, you know what? I actually got poisoned by oysters last year. And it was honestly, it was awful for a few days, but now there's a relief. Cause now I don't have to eat oysters ever again. Cause I'm never, I'm never like craving oysters. It's always like a thing you do.

• 18:59Speaker 05

  Why did you eat them?

• 19:00Speaker 06

  Experience is fun uh for that reason, cause I don't not like them, but also I don't need them. But now I never ever have to even deal with them again, cause now I know that they can poison me. It was kind of fun actually, because in addition to horrific nausea, there was also cramping from the poison, so I would like. He's up. And that was uh. So that was neat.

• 19:25Speaker 05

  Did you end up in hospital?

• 19:26Speaker 06

  I didn't.

• 19:27Speaker 05

  You see, I I once ended up in hospital with food poisoning from a thirtieth birthday party, uncooked kidney beans and a big vat of chili. Unless you cook kid- kidney beans really thoroughly, there's a poison in them. There were twenty people that were ill, including the man, but I ended up in hospital. And I'd only been married two months to your dad. I felt slightly embarrassed. I've never been sick in front of him before. And I had to stop the car and vomit.

• 19:55Speaker 06

  Oh boy.

• 19:55Speaker 05

  Why would I have been sick?

• 19:57Jessie Ware?

  I don't know. It's this feels very on Chuzzle Beach, doesn't it? Like that you're just getting to know each other.

• 20:04Speaker 05

  I mean, they had to inject me. I couldn't move.

• 20:06Speaker 06

  Well, here, I've got a better foodborne illness story. This one's great. I won't go into graphic detail. I'll let you use your imagination, but I got hepatitis A. Twenty year, nineteen years ago? No, fourteen years ago. Well, this was the most amazing part is I got hepatitis. And the way that my wife noticed something that was wrong, she's like, um, honey, your eyes are yellow. And uh, ooh, so is your skin. And I was like, well, that's strange color for me to be. And uh, so went to the hospital. They were like.

• 20:36Speaker 05

  How long ago was this?

• 20:38Speaker 06

  This would be fourteen years ago. So you go to the doctor, right? When they find out you have hepatitis, they don't, they don't be like, well, here's what you do. The first thing they do is they call the government and they're like, we've got hepatitis.

• 20:48Speaker 05

  Public health.

• 20:49Speaker 06

  So, yeah, so, so then noticed a few other people at my work had it. They're still, they're trying to figure out what it was. And so they interview you, health and safety people, and they're really good at it. They're like FBI profilers. So that, you know, if I ask you like, hey, what'd you have for breakfast last Tuesday? If you ask me, I'd be like, I have no idea. They can put you in the mind space, like they ask you different questions, similar ways. Many times they do face to face for a while. Then they call you on the phone and they just like get inside of you. By the end, you're like, can rattle off what you ate and where and who you were with. Anyway, they narrowed it down. There was um, a cake shop, a really nice one in Santa Monica, California, that had strawberries on this.

• 21:31Speaker 06

  One cake and the water that they had been irrigated with had been contaminated. So a bunch of people got hepatitis. Yeah.

• 21:39Speaker 05

  That is shocking.

• 21:40Speaker 06

  I know, it was wild. And hepatitis is a fascinating illness because your liver kind of takes a break. So.

• 21:47Speaker 05

  So what did you have to do to treat it?

• 21:49Speaker 06

  Hang out. It just takes a while to go away.

• 21:52Speaker 05

  Months, isn't it?

• 21:53Speaker 06

  Uh, it was about, I was sick for about three weeks.

• 21:56Speaker 05

  Three weeks.

• 21:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, but hepatitis A you get rid of. B and C can kill you. A, A is sort of a Cadillac of um, or Jaguar.

• 22:05Speaker 05

  Do you have to put that down if you've ever had it?

• 22:07Speaker 06

  No, because once.

• 22:08Speaker 05

  No, it's gone.

• 22:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, so like I can give blood.

• 22:11Speaker 05

  And could you have given it to your family?

• 22:14Speaker 06

  Yes, my wife was pregnant with our first child at that time, so it was really scary. We were very worried.

• 22:20Speaker 05

  If you kissed her, she might have bought it.

• 22:23Speaker 06

  Well, we don't kiss, so we were safe with that. But no, um, she had to get a shot to give her immunity. And so a bunch of the loved ones of the people who got sick, and some of us, I was not, but some people were hospitalized. Um, yeah, it was heavy duty.

• 22:38Speaker 05

  Would you ever live back in Los Angeles?

• 22:41Speaker 06

  I don't know what would bring me there, you know, my kids are ultra plugged in here.

• 22:47Speaker 05

  Are they British children, really?

• 22:48Speaker 06

  Well, yeah, they, I mean, the older two have totally grown up here. The youngest one was born here. So. They don't want to leave and now they're old enough where we have to like factor in how they like feel and what they care about, you know, so. Lately I've been lamenting that my career didn't take me to New York, which is halfway between North Carolina and Boston, where my wife and my family are. But it didn't. So we're here and I don't know what could take us away from here.

• 23:16Speaker 05

  Movie roles.

• 23:17Speaker 06

  I do my best to do most of stuff that I film here. Anything I write is always like. Exterior, North London, very close to my house. You know what I mean? So I do that. I say no to stuff that shoots far away sometimes. I didn't, it's a bad monkey, but um, I really try to stick around. And that's not impossible because a lot of great stuff shoots here. I mean, I just did Deadpool and Wolverine. That filmed here, you know, and. More and more big stuff is filming here, which is so awesome.

• 23:46Speaker 05

  So you love London?

• 23:48Speaker 06

  Uh, mostly.

• 23:49Speaker 05

  Or not?

• 23:49Speaker 06

  Mostly.

• 23:50Speaker 05

  Tell me what you love about it?

• 23:52Speaker 06

  People. We've made wonderful friends. I love the NHS. Even in its underfunded state, it is better to fall down and break your leg here than it is in America because all you have to worry about is whatever injury or illness you have, not, you know, am I going to be able to afford it? Am I going to go broke, you know, trying to pay for it? And because even if you have private health insurance in America, it doesn't cover it all. So people go into medical debt, people commit suicide from medical debt in America. So that's horrific. So the NHS, uh, even as it is now, is, is amazing, especially having a family, you know? And boys, I mean, we're at the A and E all the time.

• 24:30Speaker 05

  How many, um, broken limbs have you had?

• 24:33Speaker 06

  Broken limbs?

• 24:34Speaker 05

  Like with boys, uh, I'm, I'm just preparing for this.

• 24:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, cuts, burns, breaks, but not too many big, bad ones.

• 24:42Speaker 05

  Breaks, yeah, okay.

• 24:43Speaker 06

  So there's that. And then there's no guns here. That's incredible, you know?

• 24:47Speaker 05

  Plus, yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 06

  Uh, cause there sure are guns in America. And so those are two things, like we've had occasion in my family to lean on the NHS quite a bit and it's been wonderful for us. And then also there was a shooting near where my son was in nursery when we lived in California. So that's not just stuff that's on TV, like a couple of people were killed about fifty feet from where he was in a cot. So that's terrible. There's plenty that's terrible about the UK, to be sure, but those are two big ones that, you know, mean a lot, so.

• 25:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think the NHS can be wonderful for all the things you, you say.

• 25:27Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 25:28Speaker 05

  And I know that they treated your son and it was, you felt that they did their very best.

• 25:34Speaker 06

  They were incredible. They were incredible.

• 25:35Speaker 05

  Was that Great Ormond Street?

• 25:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was. My son, Henry, if anybody is watching this who doesn't know, um, I have a son who died of a brain tumor when he was two. That was in twenty eighteen. And he lived for seven months at Great Ormond Street Hospital. And then for seven months at the Whittington Hospital in North London. And both of those places just were just magnificent. And yeah, the care that we received there, the nurses and the doctors and everything was just incredible. So.

• 26:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, very, very dear to my heart, the NHS.

• 26:12Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 06

  Also coming here well into adulthood after, you know, decades of having American healthcare and then, you know, being like, what? It can be like this? It's just sadly, most people don't know how good they've got it here because it's easy to complain, you know, you're not going to the doctor to kill time or for fun. You're going because you have a pancreas or whatever, but it's amazing.

• 26:36Jessie Ware?

  Rob, can I ask you, you say that, you know, what your kids get is what they get.

• 26:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 26:40Jessie Ware?

  Are you and your wife good cooks?

• 26:43Speaker 06

  My wife is a very good cook. No, I'm not a very good cook. I'm a serviceable cook. Like you would sit down and be like, I recognize what this is, see what he was going for. It's not disgusting. I have eaten a meal. You would finish it and be like, I did. In fact, I did just eat is what you would say.

• 26:59Jessie Ware?

  Do you ever cook?

• 26:59Speaker 06

  Yes, yeah, totally.

• 27:00Jessie Ware?

  What's your strong point?

• 27:02Speaker 06

  You know what I have loved doing lately is making chicken noodle soup from scratch. That's really fun and it's surprisingly easy.

• 27:09Jessie Ware?

  Chicken noodle soup? From scratch?

• 27:12Speaker 06

  So my kids like what I cook because I cook like simple stuff like that or like chili. You know what I mean?

• 27:17Jessie Ware?

  You can make chili?

• 27:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, in fact, I usually make vegetarian chili. Sometimes I'll make it with meat.

• 27:22Jessie Ware?

  What do you, corn or do you use that?

• 27:24Speaker 06

  I'll use corn sometimes.

• 27:25Jessie Ware?

  Or that, that what is it? Vivera or something?

• 27:30Speaker 06

  If I make vegetarian chili, I don't typically put a fake meat in it. I'll have beans in it for protein. But yeah, I make basics. Children think my cooking is quite good. Adults are like, it's fine. Like an adult would be like, you know, probably I bet it would be right, very endearing, like on an early date, like early in a relationship. She'd be like, oh my God, he tried.

• 27:51Jessie Ware?

  He tried, okay. So tell me, hold on, I'm now ready. Okay, Rob. Thank God for that. Sorry, it's, you know, it's like a bit fatty because it's Nigel Slater, so.

• 28:02Speaker 06

  Oh my God, that's gorgeous.

• 28:04Jessie Ware?

  I haven't done this recipe before, but I believe in Nigel Slater and it smells kind of good. It's like chicken and peach salad with mint and basil and a kind of warm dressing. Please help yourself, Rob.

• 28:16Speaker 06

  May I take a picture of it?

• 28:17Jessie Ware?

  Oh, you're a person that takes photos of food.

• 28:19Speaker 06

  Not typically, but I want to show this to my wife. I want to even try to do a bad job of it at my own house.

• 28:25Jessie Ware?

  It's on the Guardian, it's on the Guardian app. I'll send it to you.

• 28:28Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 28:28Jessie Ware?

  But yeah, dig in and, and.

• 28:31Speaker 06

  Oh Lord, look at that.

• 28:38Jessie Ware?

  We are thrilled to announce that we are doing a very special live recording of Table Manners for Choose Love the charity.

• 28:46Speaker 05

  It's going to be at the Union Chapel in Islington on December the 2nd. We've got such special guests, I wish we could tell you who they are, but you're going to be so excited.

• 28:56Jessie Ware?

  What a way to kick off the festive period by giving some money to a wonderful charity, but also joining Lenny and I and some fabulous guests for a big old hoo-ha at Union Chapel in London. Get your tickets.

• 29:07Speaker 05

  They're on sale now. Go to the Choose Love Instagram or to Table Manners Instagram. The link is in our bio.

• 29:20Speaker 00

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• 30:19Speaker 02

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• 31:53Speaker 05

  What does your wife cook that's your favorite thing that she cooks?

• 31:56Speaker 06

  Oh, that's a good question. She makes incredible salads, and that's really a skill, you know?

• 32:03Speaker 05

  So you're a salad person?

• 32:04Speaker 06

  I love salad.

• 32:05Speaker 05

  God, we did all right then. Fine, great, perfect. Did do well, darling.

• 32:09Speaker 06

  So good.

• 32:10Jessie Ware?

  Is that chili? Thank you. But it's very mild chili. Please have more. And then I've got a pod. I know that you are on the sugar. It's less sugar. It's a chocolate mousse, and you don't have to have...

• 32:22Speaker 06

  I will.

• 32:23Jessie Ware?

  Okay, fine. Okay, great. Okay, good. Thank you.

• 32:27Speaker 06

  No. So, do you want to hear the story about like why I changed the way that I eat?

• 32:30Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 32:31Speaker 06

  So there was a big strike between SAG and the Writers Guild, which shut down Deadpool and Wolverine.

• 32:37Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 06

  And everything being made in the world. When we returned, they could legally edit what they had shot, so we had the rare opportunity to have about an hour of a big Hollywood film totally done, and then they could kind of adapt and take it in and make changes if they wanted to. So they had a rare and really special opportunity to do that. Anyway, so I saw a shirtless scene of mine. Um, a little, yeah, about a year ago, uh, that had been shot some months before. And when I saw it, I was like, okay, so that's gonna be on screens in China, uh, Argentina. Um, and people are gonna associate, uh, that body with me, cause it's attached to my face. It's very visibly me.

• 33:20Jessie Ware?

  And was it gorgeous?

• 33:22Speaker 06

  I weighed quite a bit more at the time. So I'm not gonna say it wasn't gorgeous. That may be, you know, your thing. But, uh, for me, I was like, that is, he's a larger fellow than I would like to personally be. Um, so I was like, okay, but there's still about six months until the movie comes out. I can lose weight in that time theoretically. God knows how it'll be done. And then when the movie comes out, I can be like, yeah, it was an acting choice. I just thought he should be my dedication to my craft. And so here's what I did. I knew I would never count calories. I was never gonna send away and have my meals come to the house in a packet. I was never not gonna sit down with my family.

• 34:04Speaker 06

  So I was like, you know, hey, I've heard that if you cut out flour and sugar, that that can lead to losing weight. So I did that. I cut out flour and sugar. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't impossible. The very difficult thing that I did was stopping eating after dinner. Because like, you know, you have dinner, great, but what do you do when nine thirty rolls around? You, you have to have at that point, a couple of bowls of children's cereal. And then at eleven fifteen, you wanna tuck yourself in with about three quarters of a thing of Ben and Jerry's, right?

• 34:34Jessie Ware?

  What flavor was, was your?

• 34:36Speaker 06

  I hate to say it, cause I don't like their, like, the way they corporate brand with stuff, but the flavor Netflix and chilled, ugh. It's so good. It's, it's so good. There's a lot of peanut butter in it. It's just pornographic.

• 34:50Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 34:50Speaker 06

  And, um, so that was hard at first, but taking away flour and sugar and second and third dinners, no bread.

• 34:58Jessie Ware?

  So like, no version of bread? Like, would you have like, did you find like a seedy something substitute?

• 35:05Speaker 06

  I could, but it was easier. And I'm not, like, for example, this amazing nutritious, rich for, look at the number of things that are on this plate. Is high, colorful, beautiful, flavorful. Like this totally meets my thing, you know?

• 35:21Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 35:21Speaker 06

  But anyway, doing all that made losing weight kind of easy.

• 35:26Jessie Ware?

  You know what? Fuck you though, Rob, because like, I swear, it's fucking, you go. I think I'm gonna lose weight. I'm gonna, I I'm not saying sugar and flour. I swear if I took took out sugar and flour, I'd be like, I'd just get big. I'd be like, why? Oh, well, it's because it's so annoying. Men just can lose weight. I know, it's true.

• 35:44Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 35:45Jessie Ware?

  But I'm thrilled for you.

• 35:46Speaker 06

  First of all, I accept that and take it in. Yes, fuck me. Of course, I agree completely. Here's the thing, what it took, because there's no sure thing in this world, but Deadpool three is kind of a sure thing. And I knew that Marvel's marketing, Ryan Reynolds' marketing, they weren't, people weren't gonna have a choice as to whether they saw it or not. So the idea that a beautiful woman in Mongolia or or Saskatchewan was gonna see this movie, which they are and did, and then it would cut from Hugh Jackman being like, and then cut to me and have an awful audience be like,

• 36:31Speaker 06

  knowing that that was gonna happen around the world is what it took. Because for me, I used to be like, the only thing that could make me lose weight would be a man with a bloody hammer standing next to me going, if you eat that, I'm, this hammer will get bloodier with your blood, right?

• 36:49Jessie Ware?

  It was essentially you being in competition with Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. And that is, that's what I need to find. I need to find my version of Hugh Jackman and.

• 36:58Speaker 06

  It took a negative thing. Now, all of this is stupid and vanity.

• 37:03Jessie Ware?

  No.

• 37:03Speaker 06

  Until after having lost a bunch of weight and not having flour and sugar regularly coursing through my veins, a crazy thing happened, which is my immune system got like turbocharged. So a side effect to my vanity was that I get sick so much less, so much milder. And it, that's like weird. It's like spooky how different it is. So apparently flour and sugar, you don't need to be shoveling them into your body like I had been.

• 37:35Jessie Ware?

  As well.

• 37:36Speaker 06

  No, my wife, uh, you know how you said fuck you to me? My wife is a triathlete. My wife, my, we did a duathlon a week and a half ago, which is a bunch of swimming and running. Uh, she beat me by twelve minutes, I think, right? And like I'm running for twelve minutes, you've ran pretty far, right? That's how much she beat me in the thing. We did a half marathon once, she beat me by over half an hour. She just naturally prefers to eat healthy. She's not even in the business, she's just, it just makes me happy to just do this stuff and yeah, she's quite something.

• 38:12Jessie Ware?

  I, I hear that you maybe that what helps with your immune system as well, you, you're a cold water swimmer, I hear. There's a gang of you that.

• 38:20Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 38:21Jessie Ware?

  Go to.

• 38:22Speaker 05

  Why do you do this?

• 38:23Speaker 06

  So I started swimming in the summer. If you'd said, you, one day you'll swim in cold water, I'd be like, mm, you're mistaken, cold water is cold. But found this beautiful body of water, started swimming in the warmer weather and then as the temperature went down, just kept going. And so that made it easier. And frankly, the group of people that I swim with is just magnificent. I mean, some truly wonderful people. So there's a social aspect where I've met some great people.

• 38:48Jessie Ware?

  How much can you talk when your teeth are chattering?

• 38:51Speaker 06

  It has to be pretty horrifically cold to not really be able to talk. Because often we'll talk to just distract ourselves, you know? But the fact is, is now swimming in cold water gives you a buzz. And like I'm sober, I've been sober for twenty two years. And uh, which, and I got sober because I liked to get loaded. And so now I can by swimming in cold water and nobody gets hurt. You're buzzing when you get out, it's a very special feeling, so I get it. I don't know how you, I would never say like, oh, you've got to try this. I would say, if you enjoy swimming in the summer, just don't stop.

• 39:28Jessie Ware?

  Do you do cold showers every morning then?

• 39:30Speaker 06

  I do, um, I took a cold bath this morning.

• 39:33Jessie Ware?

  Why?

• 39:34Speaker 06

  Well, it's like an additional cup of coffee, it just gets me going. I don't know, it makes me happy.

• 39:40Jessie Ware?

  How long did you stay in your bath for?

• 39:41Speaker 06

  Not just long enough to shampoo and condition.

• 39:44Jessie Ware?

  Wow. There is good gloss on your hair, maybe that's from the cold water.

• 39:51Jessie Ware?

  Jonathan Van Ness said to do a cold rinse at the end. So maybe you're on to something. Do your children swim?

• 39:59Speaker 06

  Yes, they love the water. They're not old enough to swim in any of London's. I think the only place they'd be allowed would be like Parliament Hill Lido, but yeah, they swim. They'll get in cold water. Yeah, they're great.

• 40:09Jessie Ware?

  And your wife, does she swim?

• 40:10Speaker 06

  She's a swamaholic. She was.

• 40:12Jessie Ware?

  A cold water swimaholic. Oh my goodness. How did you two meet?

• 40:16Speaker 06

  We met at a camp for people with disabilities. We were camp counselors twenty years ago.

• 40:21Jessie Ware?

  Sweet.

• 40:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, at a camp in Massachusetts where I grew up and we were both counselors, taking care of people with cerebral palsy and helping them surf and swim and all this stuff.

• 40:33Jessie Ware?

  So did you see her and you just thought, that's the girl that I need to be with? Or was it a summer of love?

• 40:39Speaker 06

  Well, it was such a great way to meet somebody because you kind of have to have some altruistic tendencies to be there because you're working for free, you know, volunteering.

• 40:48Jessie Ware?

  Oh, you don't get paid?

• 40:49Speaker 06

  No, you don't get paid. And then also it's the summer, so she was in a bikini often. So I can tell she's a good person and I can tell that I like what I see.

• 40:56Jessie Ware?

  Gorgeous, yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 06

  So, so yeah, I very quickly fell irretrievably in love with her. And thank God she felt some version of the same way. Yeah, we've been together for twenty years.

• 41:08Jessie Ware?

  Is there a song from that summer that can bring you back to that camp?

• 41:12Speaker 06

  Yeah, there are a few. I would say probably the song of us meeting is a song called Hey by the Pixies.

• 41:19Jessie Ware?

  Okay, that's cool.

• 41:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, because it was twenty years ago, so I had like one of the earlier iPods. So it's not like today where you've got, you know, streaming and you're like, what do you want to listen? What, anything you want to listen to? Do you want to listen to that Italian version of Let It Be played by the Brazilian guy on a marimba? Like you just had, we were like twelve songs. And so we had our, you know, twelve or so songs.

• 41:41Jessie Ware?

  Had you finished university? Had you gone to university?

• 41:43Speaker 06

  Yes, I was twenty seven when we met and she was twenty four. So I just took a leave of absence for my job because I heard about this volunteer opportunity because a friend of mine had worked there. And she was in the process of moving from Mississippi to Washington DC. From one teaching job to another because she's a teacher. So we just kind of were there totally by chance.

• 42:06Jessie Ware?

  Were you acting by then?

• 42:07Speaker 06

  No, at that point I am working in internet advertising. I have a day job that I loathe and I'm very bad at. Thinking like, I want to be doing more comedy. In fact, we spoke about American health insurance earlier. I had to get a day job. That provided health insurance as a benefit. So like a lot of Americans, I was kind of shackled to a job. That I did not like. But then after a couple of years of marriage, I had the courage to be like, I'm gonna do it.

• 42:35Jessie Ware?

  Did you try and be really funny at the beginning of your relationship?

• 42:39Speaker 06

  Definitely.

• 42:39Jessie Ware?

  I mean, you are funny, obviously, but like, this is what I'm, this is what's gonna get the girl or were you like, no, I'm a stud, like, that's gonna work.

• 42:48Speaker 06

  I was trying to, I think I, I think I was employing humor as one of the tools to try to ensnare her. And so she, she's super, super funny. No, she is not a professional comedian, but she could be. She's. She makes me laugh very hard all the time. And plus, we all know somebody who makes us laugh harder than, you know. A famous comedian, you know, be like, oh, my friend Dave is insane, you know, or Lucy. Yeah, she's like that. She's so funny and makes me laugh all the time.

• 43:18Jessie Ware?

  She sounds amazing. She does. Do you think you could ever write anything with your wife?

• 43:23Speaker 06

  You could. Do you know what? I'll be honest. I have a little, I'm a little scared of that. Now, she's super funny. So could she write something amazing on her own? Yes. Have I written stuff that has been well received? Yes. My parents did that and then they got divorced. So obviously there are people who work together all the time and are happy. So I know that that's possible. But I have a slight phobia of that. And then also it is kind of nice to separate church and state, you know what I mean? So I don't know. I, we should try it though, for sure. We should. And just even for fun.

• 43:54Jessie Ware?

  Can we ask you what your last supper would be before you're going off to a desert island? Starter, main, pud, drink of choice.

• 44:04Speaker 06

  Oh, wow. I mean, there was a thing for a few anniversaries early in our marriage. My wife and I would go to Mastro's Steakhouse in Beverly Hills, California. And it is classic Hollywood. You know, there's like a piano bar. You can make requests from the guy.

• 44:23Jessie Ware?

  Gorgeous.

• 44:24Speaker 06

  We would always get their ribeye, which was outrageous. It for sure the best cut of meat I've ever had. So I would start with something like a simple Greek or Caesar salad. And without any meat on it typically, because I want to see how you do it. And maybe we can add, maybe we can introduce meat later on subsequent visits, but let's see what, how you're doing with the basics first.

• 44:48Jessie Ware?

  With the anchovy in the dressing, yeah. Okay.

• 44:51Speaker 06

  That would be a candidate. There's also a pizza place in Boston called Regina's. And their pizzas outrageous. That would be a candidate.

• 44:58Jessie Ware?

  Would be your, um, topping? Are you a purist on that? Would you just go mark?

• 45:02Speaker 06

  In fact, if I were, if it were Regina's, I'd get the whole kitchen sink on it. I would get pepperoni, sausage, tomatoes, onions, peppers. And then for dessert, I mean, probably a key lime pie, which we mentioned earlier. That's just a good key lime pie. Cause it's cold, you know?

• 45:18Jessie Ware?

  And limey. Was the best key lime pie you had in Florida?

• 45:23Speaker 06

  Definitely for sure.

• 45:24Jessie Ware?

  Is it everywhere on every menu? Okay.

• 45:27Speaker 06

  And it's usually amazing.

• 45:28Jessie Ware?

  And do they differ? Really? And drink of choice?

• 45:33Speaker 06

  All I drink these days is water, sparkling water and, uh, coffee, black coffee.

• 45:39Jessie Ware?

  So you just have straight black coffee, espresso or?

• 45:43Speaker 06

  Usually I have an Americano and then I drink hot coffee in the morning and then iced coffee in the afternoon.

• 45:51Jessie Ware?

  Because I'm forcing you, I just grated an extra bit of chocolate on the top, just because it's completely...

• 45:56Speaker 06

  So exciting.

• 45:56Jessie Ware?

  And I know what you're gonna say, I didn't clean, I gave him the cleanest rimmed one.

• 46:01Speaker 05

  Good, darling.

• 46:02Jessie Ware?

  The presentation isn't fabulous, mom.

• 46:04Speaker 06

  It's gorgeous.

• 46:04Speaker 05

  I think it looks fab, darling. This is made with olive oil, and the olive oil comes from Skopulos.

• 46:10Speaker 06

  Amazing. Oh, here's a foodie thing we do. We have a Greek neighbor who, um, her dad makes olive oil in Greece. So she takes orders every year and everybody gets a big, I don't know what you call it, small barrel.

• 46:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 06

  That's big, of olive oil. And I remember the first time she asked if I wanted to join the olive oil club. I said yes, to be polite. I am British now. And, but I was like, what the hell am I gonna do? Anyway, having unlimited great olive oil has been such an improvement to our life. Because you know how some, like, before that, we'd be like, oh, I don't know if I have enough left. Or, I don't want to have to go out, so I'll just use a little. And now I'm just bathing in it. Huge improvement in my life.

• 46:51Speaker 05

  I want to be part of an olive oil club. I think Greek olive oil is amazing. It's very light. It's not strong flavor, I think.

• 46:59Jessie Ware?

  You have children and you are in Marvel, like Deadpool, right?

• 47:05Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 47:06Jessie Ware?

  When is the right time to introduce Marvel or Deadpool? Because I must be one of the only people that hasn't, because I've been holding it back to watch it with my kids. But she's probably quite stupid, because I could just watch the film twice. But have your kids seen it?

• 47:21Speaker 06

  My older two have seen Deadpool. Now, I don't think an 11 and 13 year old necessarily should see Deadpool and Wolverine. Because like, people explode in it, you know? And, you know, they say the C word and stuff like that. So 11s and 13s.

• 47:38Jessie Ware?

  The C word? I thought Americans didn't use that word.

• 47:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, maybe because they filmed it here and Ryan's Canadian.

• 47:43Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, right.

• 47:44Speaker 06

  Or Hugh Jackman, as Australian, must probably insisted they use it, or he wouldn't do the film.

• 47:48Jessie Ware?

  Okay, fine.

• 47:49Speaker 05

  Why do they use it?

• 47:51Jessie Ware?

  Great word.

• 47:52Speaker 05

  I hate it. It's my worst word.

• 47:54Jessie Ware?

  How do you feel about the word?

• 47:55Speaker 06

  Um, I quite like it because it's just so percussive.

• 47:59Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 47:59Speaker 06

  And it's like.

• 48:02Speaker 06

  You know, you're like getting something out. So it helped. I find it helpful and soothing. The thing is, is my kids kind of had to see it because I knew their peers would. And so I needed them to know why their friends were making fun of them, you know, about their dad.

• 48:15Jessie Ware?

  What's your character in it then?

• 48:17Speaker 06

  I play a guy named Peter, who is a human friend of Deadpool's. So he's one of the few people, you know, prominently featured in the film who does not have any superpowers. And.

• 48:27Jessie Ware?

  Were you a bit gutted about that?

• 48:28Speaker 06

  No, I love not having, because that makes you special in the world.

• 48:31Jessie Ware?

  Yes, fair enough, fair.

• 48:33Speaker 06

  So I came into the, the movies in Deadpool two.

• 48:37Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 48:37Speaker 06

  Uh, when, when Deadpool, played by Ryan Reynolds, was forming a team called the X-Force. And, uh, he just admired my character's chutzpah when I showed up and was like, yeah, I don't have any powers. I just thought it'd be fun. He's like, great, come on in. And so. So then they brought my character back for this one. So incredible, incredible fun. Yeah.

• 48:57Jessie Ware?

  Is he a lovely man?

• 48:58Speaker 06

  He really genuinely is. He's a kind, Canadian guy. And funny and fun and so hardworking. So yeah, a really wonderful sort of heart and engine to the whole thing. Yeah.

• 49:11Speaker 05

  I love soccer.

• 49:12Speaker 06

  He does.

• 49:13Jessie Ware?

  Have you been there?

• 49:15Speaker 06

  I haven't. I should go.

• 49:16Speaker 05

  Do you like football?

• 49:17Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 49:18Speaker 05

  Are you proper British now?

• 49:19Speaker 06

  I mean, here's the thing. I moved here too old. This is how I feel about when I go to a football match. I look down on the pitch and I go like, oh, everybody having fun? Great. Like, I care about the Boston Red Sox baseball team. You know, and like try explaining that sport to somebody, you know, over thirty. That sport's crazy, but since I grew up with it, this is what I know. And so, yeah, I'm probably more involved.

• 49:41Speaker 05

  What about your children there? They must.

• 49:43Speaker 06

  They're football madmen.

• 49:44Speaker 05

  Are you Arsenal?

• 49:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 49:45Speaker 05

  Of course they are, because they, yeah.

• 49:47Jessie Ware?

  Are you writing anything at the moment?

• 49:49Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 49:50Speaker 05

  Will we be able to see it soon?

• 49:52Speaker 06

  I hope so. I have one show I'm about to try and sell that I've just finished writing with a partner. And then I have another one. There's a network that has said, we like this pilot you've written. So I'm writing that actively right now.

• 50:05Jessie Ware?

  Will they be Lon- London based?

• 50:07Speaker 06

  Hell, I would never do anything else.

• 50:09Jessie Ware?

  Great. Will you star in them?

• 50:11Speaker 06

  Yeah, anything I write, I put myself in, cause you need the like juice. People don't care if you write or direct something in the real world that people, everybody believes that actors make it up as they go and they don't know what a director or writer is. So since I'm not famous enough to not, I like have to put myself in it so that I get more juice so that one day I can write something and not have to be in it. So I always put myself.

• 50:35Jessie Ware?

  Is that the ambition to?

• 50:37Speaker 06

  Not necessarily.

• 50:38Jessie Ware?

  To have the option.

• 50:38Speaker 06

  I guess I would like to not have to be in it, you know, but as it stands now, sadly, I have to act in my own stuff.

• 50:44Jessie Ware?

  We're okay with that. And before we let you go.

• 50:47Speaker 05

  Oh, I've got to ask two more questions.

• 50:48Jessie Ware?

  Well, I've, yeah, okay, go on, you go first.

• 50:50Speaker 05

  Which is your favorite restaurant in London? What sort of food do you like to eat? I know you like Caesar salad and steak.

• 50:57Speaker 06

  A restaurant that I like a lot, that I will sometimes eat lunch out with my wife is called Cod on Upper Street. And what I like about it is it's, it's on the same street as Otto Langi, but it's cheaper and, and less crowded. And so there's like no pretension, not that Otto Langi is pretentious, just the people who eat there are. I mean, it's great that he exists and does that. But when you go in there and look at the clientele, you're like, no, thanks. So you go down to Cod, costs less money, absolutely just as good. And so you'll just have big bowls of beautiful uh meat and vegetables, very lovingly prepared. And you could take a few and sit down and eat it.

• 51:32Jessie Ware?

  Oh, that sounds great.

• 51:33Speaker 06

  Yeah. So that's, that's my type of thing. Something that's like really nutritious, but also lovingly prepared. Yeah, I like that a lot.

• 51:39Jessie Ware?

  And if we were coming over to you, you'd be making us chicken noodle soup?

• 51:42Speaker 06

  Uh, very likely.

• 51:43Speaker 05

  Do you have dinner parties?

• 51:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, we had um, we had some friends over a couple nights ago. We were gonna make pizza in our little pizza oven in the back garden, but the like hose from the tank to the thing broke, so we couldn't. So my wife just whipped together an amazing salad. And my eleven year old son loves to make fried chicken. So he made some fried chicken salad.

• 52:07Speaker 05

  How does he do it?

• 52:09Speaker 06

  How does he do it? He grind, he does breadcrumbs and cornflakes.

• 52:14Jessie Ware?

  Oh, yeah. Wow.

• 52:15Speaker 06

  Uses a little Bojangles spice. That's from a, that's a North Carolina fried chicken restaurant, uh, chain that we go to when we're there. So yeah, so wound up having a lovely meal, uh, despite the fact that our pizza oven didn't work.

• 52:29Jessie Ware?

  Great. Can I ask you, before we let you go, what is a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere happy or sad?

• 52:38Speaker 06

  I would say a grapefruit, like sliced in half and eaten, or some blueberries. Those are like snacks my mom would give me when I was a kid and they make me very happy. So those are quite.

• 52:50Speaker 05

  Grapefruit?

• 52:51Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 52:52Speaker 05

  That's sophisticated for a child.

• 52:54Speaker 06

  It is a little weird.

• 52:55Speaker 05

  My kids like it too though.

• 52:56Speaker 06

  I loved it.

• 52:57Speaker 05

  Was it a pink one or a ruby, what like?

• 52:59Speaker 06

  Usually, not always. I like them both.

• 53:02Speaker 05

  Sprinkle sugar on it as well?

• 53:03Speaker 06

  She wouldn't. I only found out about that later in life. Um, so now I find that's too decadent. I mean, come on, so.

• 53:10Jessie Ware?

  Rob, thank you so much for coming on.

• 53:12Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 53:12Jessie Ware?

  It's really lovely to meet you.

• 53:14Speaker 06

  Great to meet you. Thank you so much for having me.

• 53:16Jessie Ware?

  Can't wait to watch the rest of Bad Monkey.

• 53:17Speaker 05

  Me too, I love it.

• 53:19Jessie Ware?

  Just wanna see more of your stuff too.

• 53:21Speaker 06

  Aw, thank you.

• 53:22Jessie Ware?

  Cause honestly, cata- eh, yeah, it was just.

• 53:25Speaker 05

  Fabulous.

• 53:26Jessie Ware?

  You are brilliant and it's um.

• 53:27Speaker 06

  You guys are, thank you.

• 53:28Jessie Ware?

  And, um, so yeah, thank you so much for being here.

• 53:31Speaker 06

  My sincere pleasure, thank you.

• 53:47Jessie Ware?

  Rob Delaney, potentially one of the most dishy men I've ever had lunch with.

• 53:52Speaker 05

  And he's shockingly handsome, like leading man handsome, definitely.

• 53:58Jessie Ware?

  The salad was a crowd pleaser.

• 54:01Speaker 05

  Fabulous.

• 54:02Jessie Ware?

  Thank you Nigel Slater.

• 54:04Speaker 05

  Gorgeous.

• 54:05Jessie Ware?

  That was really good.

• 54:06Speaker 05

  He likes salads as well, that's his favourite thing.

• 54:09Jessie Ware?

  Honestly, that was.

• 54:10Speaker 05

  We struck gold.

• 54:10Jessie Ware?

  Struck gold. And he ate all the chocolate mousse, cause he had to.

• 54:15Speaker 05

  That was also delicious.

• 54:16Jessie Ware?

  And. Nigella.

• 54:17Speaker 05

  And the olive oil from Scopelos, you see, we bought Scopelos into.

• 54:21Jessie Ware?

  You know what, I couldn't, I couldn't taste the olive oil in it though.

• 54:24Speaker 05

  Course you can't.

• 54:25Jessie Ware?

  No, but sometimes I quite, maybe I would have liked.

• 54:27Speaker 05

  No.

• 54:28Jessie Ware?

  Maybe I should have drizzled a bit on the top. Anyway, um, thank you to Rob Delaney for coming on. Bad Monkey is out now on Apple TV.

• 54:35Speaker 05

  And it's fabulous.

• 54:36Jessie Ware?

  It's really fun, it's dark, it's twisted, it's punchy. Um, so go and watch it. And whilst you're at it, I mean, you could just go onto Amazon or four on demand and go and watch Catastrophe again.

• 54:47Speaker 05

  Yep, wonderful.

• 54:49Jessie Ware?

  I, I'm, I think I'm just gonna do the Deadpool's now, just so I can watch Rob Delaney. Thank you for listening, we'll be back next week.

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