Vinnie Jones on getting sober, mediating with Steven Seagal, and the Gazza incident

Louis is back on the road, this time to visit actor, footballer and professional hard man Vinnie Jones at his Sussex farm. The pair discuss Vinnie’s journey to sobriety, a bizarre standoff with Steven Seagal, and the real story behind those photos with Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne. Warnings: Strong language and adult themes. Links/Attachments: TV Show: The Gentlemen, (2024-present) https://www.netflix.com/title/81437051 Book: A Kestrel for a Knave, Barry Hines (1968) https://www.waterstones.com/book/a-kestrel-for-a-knave/barry-hines/9780141184982 Film: Kes, (1969) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064541/ Film: My Cousin Vinny, (1992) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104952/ Film: Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, (1998) https://www.netflix.com/title/16944044 Film: Snatch, (2000) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208092/ Film: Year One, (2009) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1045778/ Film: Swordfish, (2001) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244244/ Producer: Millie Chu Senior Assistant Producer: Maisie Ellen Williams Assistant Producer: Andy Cook Junior Production Manager: Rosie Pender Production Executive: Francesca Bassett Original Music: Miguel D’Oliveira Video Editor: Scott Edwards Audio Editor: Tom Guest Executive Producer: Arron Fellows A Mindhouse Studios Production for Spotify. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Hi there. Am I shouting? Hi there. Welcome to the Louis Theroux.

• 0:11Speaker 00

  He's known for his pauses. Podcast.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  In this episode, I'm joined by a footballer turned actor, whose sheer force of personality has carried him from the pitch to Hollywood. Vinnie Jones. Vinnie Vincent Jones made a name for himself during the 80s as one of the most feared midfielders in English football, most notably at Wimbledon, where he became the beating heart of the legendary Crazy Gang, who scrapped and battled their way to a stunning 1988 FA Cup final win over Liverpool. It was one of the biggest upsets in the tournament's history. Vinnie was also the subject of one of the most iconic football photos, where his rough handling, that's a euphemism, of Paul Gazza Gascoigne, was captured by photographer Monte

• 1:05Speaker 00

  Fresco. He cradled his chestnuts, not too gently.

• 1:11Speaker 00

  At the tail end of his footballing career, Vinnie reinvented himself entirely as a screen presence, appearing in more than 100 film and TV projects. Some of them superb, excellent, some of them not, which Vinnie himself would own up to. He forged a creative partnership with director Guy Ritchie in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, where Vinnie played debt collector Big Chris, famous for the line, "It's been emotional." Remember that, which apparently Vinnie came up with himself, and also Snatch, and most recently, The Gentleman, on Netflix.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  Vinnie's been candid about his years-long battle with alcohol and the loss of his wife, Tanya, who passed away from cancer in 2019. We discussed a couple of incidences on his road to sobriety in the conversation. Incidences is a kind way of saying. Physical altercations, most notably a tussle with then Daily Mirror reporter Ted Oliver, where it was alleged, and it was more than alleged, everyone knows that he did in fact, bite Ted Oliver on the nose. This was an LTP road taping we recorded on Vinnie's country estate in West Sussex, in and out building, a kind of party barn, which may be familiar to you if you've seen Vinnie Jones in the country. Vinnie's reality series.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  A quick warning, this conversation contains strong language, adult themes, a lot of descriptions of physical mayhem, including nose biting and discussion of suicide. All that and much, much more, coming up.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Apple TV. We all love a suspenseful TV show about true crime or serial killers, don't we? Well, Nocturne, the newest crime drama series on Apple TV, is a really, really good one. When a victim of notorious serial killer Eurek Walter unexpectedly turns up alive, Detective Jonah Lynn has to race against time to find the one person still missing, while his protege, Saga Bauer, goes undercover to get answers from the killer himself.

• 3:24Speaker 01

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• 3:39Speaker 00

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• 3:56Speaker 02

  We're here because we have reason to believe there are more victims.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  They're here because I brought you here.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  You're only the third footballer I've had on a podcast, and one was Gary Lineker, with whom you have some previous.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  In a way, you epitomized the two polarities of the game. Would you say?

• 4:31Speaker 03

  Well, he was good and I was crap. Are you trying to be polite, Louis?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  I didn't mean that. I meant really that he was never booked, and you were booked, well, you were sent off 12 times, but also that-

• 4:42Speaker 03

  One of them was overturned, Louis. Did you?

• 4:44Speaker 00

  Was it?

• 4:44Speaker 03

  Yeah. One of, yeah, so it was only officially 11.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  How did they overturn?

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Because there was a big bundle and everything else, and two of us got sent off. And then the kit man Sid came in and he said, "Oh, he's made a mistake." So I went, "Oh, I know he's made a mistake." So I went and go, "No, not you." He said, "Fawny." So Andy Fawne went back on. And then anyway, the Tribune and I got overturned because they couldn't say who actually done the uppercut on Stan Collymore.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  We see, we're laughing and that's, I mean, I have to be careful because sometimes it's serious, right? I mean, sometimes it's part of the game. It's a fine line between-

• 5:23Speaker 03

  Not for me anymore, Louis. Not for me anymore. It was at the time. I look back on it all now. And I do think in life, we were young men. We had a lot of testosterone. You know, a lot of beer. You know, a lot of it was just that pack mentality, especially at Wimbledon. I mean, that's, that's where I sort of started, under Basset, and it was, if you didn't look after the bloke next year, he ain't going to look after you, you know? And it was very much against the establishment we were, you know? And we knew that if we got relegated, that'd be the end of us all. We'd all end up back on the building site or whatever. So that's why we were so, I think, so furious when we went out on the pitch, not to lose

• 6:08Speaker 03

  a game. People didn't realise what was at stake. We did.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  So for people who don't know, we've got a general interest audience. Some of them may not know, may not remember, many will. It was Wimbledon, they'd come up from almost nowhere, from the lowest echelons of the, of the game, to what was then called the First Division, now called the Prem.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  And you'd come from scrapping and, you know, the sense of belonging, the tribalism of what became known as the Crazy Gang at Wimbledon. You weren't coming up through the academies.

• 6:37Speaker 03

  I started off coming up through the ranks at Watford as a schoolboy. So, you know, my first adoration was the headmaster saying, you know, "Vinnie Jones has signed for Watford at 12 years old. Schoolboy forms, that, you know, and stand up in front of the whole school." That was my first ever sort of pat on the back kind of thing. And then-

• 6:59Speaker 00

  And then what, something happened, you went, you went a little bit wayward, would you say?

• 7:03Speaker 03

  The divorce.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, you've talked about-

• 7:05Speaker 03

  Mum and dad's divorce.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. Why was that so painful? Because a divorce is-

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Because we had such a great childhood.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 7:11Speaker 03

  A great childhood. We lived, you know, on the outskirts of Watford, a place called New Ash Crescent, which is a council estate. And then me dad was a small builder, you know, and we would have a labourer, a carpenter and a bricklayer on full time, and then we would subvey all the rest of the work. I went to work with them at 12, 13 years old. I didn't have many summer holidays, you know? Mine was, you know, get in the lorry at half seven in the morning and go to work.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Did your mum work?

• 7:39Speaker 03

  Mum worked, yeah. There was a hospital. One side of the road was for mentally ill patients who lived in, and the other side was a, was a hospital in Leavesden, which was kind of the overflow from Watford Hospital. But yeah, she worked. The way to explain my life at that time was a nice sort of Kes, you know, the book cares with the young lad. That's kind of what I was.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  Barry Hines, also adapted into a Ken Loach film.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  That was kind of what I had. Ponds, streams, woods, climbing trees, fishing, shooting, ferreting.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  Down the canal. I mean, back in the day, you know, we were 10, 11, 12. We'd walk five miles on the canal at night, night fishing and all that. It was a different world then. And yeah, growing up, listen, all I knew was football, of course, because as much as people say, the trouble and the bookings and everything else, that's what I remember. I was a good footballer, you know, I've got the, I have got the medals and everything to prove it, growing up, you know, man of the match here, there and everywhere and everything else. And I sort of changed my style of play, kind of after the divorce. And then I gave up for about three years. I was rebelling. I was a young man.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Talk about, but in the book, the divorce, it's quite vivid, and it comes up a lot in your memoir and then interviews you've done. It was particularly painful. Can you talk about, are you right? Because it's quite a specific incident where a woman comes to the house that seems to catalyse the beginning of the end.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, comes to the house, knocks on the door, and says, "I had an affair. I want to clear my conscience and it's up to you." So it was my mum's friend.

• 9:16Speaker 00

  10 years earlier, right?

• 9:18Speaker 03

  10 years ago, it was, yeah.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  And she was getting married and she wanted to sort of clear the ledger in some-

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Clear her slate. Well, that was the bombshell. And then the arguments, and they, you know, they didn't get on then. And it was the constant arguing and, you know, late into the night. Um, so they separate that the the house, the marital home is sold. That we were sort of growing up in this lovely life and we end up in a little semi detached over in St Albans.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  Um.

• 9:46Speaker 03

  With my dad and then I just had a big row with with my dad, he was working, he was having a bit of a breakdown over it all and everything else and. Me and him just had a blow up and then I got a smack around the head and then and off I went.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  Talk about that. He punched you.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Well, I was being, he he give me a, he give me a right hand, yeah, give me a slap and.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  What what was the situation?

• 10:07Speaker 03

  Me being gobby, you know, me being rebellious, I think I was very angry with him. And then what happened was at at that time, because I was working for him, because the school said. That I was a bit disruptive and they would give me a year's work experience, rather than expel me. They would give me a year's work experience and I think I only done about eleven days out of the six months or something stupid, so they said, look. Why don't you, and I had a big fight, some lad come and faced me up at the tuck shop. I ended up down in Bradfield College, work, I got a job down there in the in the kitchens.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  And the job was washing pots and pans, so you'd live above the kitchens in a little bedsit. And um, so I'd go down about half six. And the boys used to come through, we'd get all the breakfast ready and I was washing all the pots and pans, so the chef used to come in and throw them in, I had two great big. Um, sinks, one was to clean it all and everything else and the other one was like a hot one to like dip it all in sterilise it.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  And you were living on the grounds of the school?

• 11:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, so you lived above the kitchens. So I'd go up into kind of the attic, all the kitchens.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  You were like fifteen, sixteen at this point?

• 11:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, that's probably the scariest, loneliest time of my life, really.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  Playing football?

• 11:25Speaker 03

  No, I gave up for so three years, I don't know, I just thought it would hurt my dad, you know, I went and got a tattoo, I shaved my head and.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  What tattoo did you get?

• 11:34Speaker 03

  Um, a sailor's swallow. With mum on the bottom of it.

• 11:38Speaker 00

  Why is that making? Is that's making you laugh, why?

• 11:42Speaker 03

  Because, and I thought it was all right, geezer, and as as I grew up and got older, the the bloody tattoo was going around my arm. So, so I, then I thought, well, I'm gonna have to have. Then I put a rose round it to sort of level it up and then I got a bit more and a bit more and then I had my back done, so, yeah, they're quite um.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Do you still get tattoos like?

• 12:01Speaker 03

  No, I'm done, I've I've had a whole back piece, I've had all my arms.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  What's the back piece?

• 12:06Speaker 03

  Winston Churchill.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  Is it?

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, yeah.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  The wartime leader.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  Why, why, why Churchill?

• 12:14Speaker 03

  I think he epitomises British people.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  Um, look, I'm quite, I'm, well, I'm I'm a massive royalist, you know, I support the royals massively, um.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  Should have got King Charles then, shouldn't you?

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Um, no, you see, I I I I think he went against the grain.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  Chucky?

• 12:34Speaker 03

  I think he went against the grain, I don't, I I think they moved the goalposts for him with Camilla, you know, and I'm. No, I'm a William and Kate supporter now.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  Really?

• 12:42Speaker 03

  I think they've done it right, it's traditions, I'm I'm a right traditionalist, I love traditions.

• 12:46Speaker 00

  You think they should have barred him from taking the throne because he married um a divorcee?

• 12:52Speaker 03

  Um.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  Really?

• 12:53Speaker 03

  Well, they moved the goalposts, didn't they? They moved the rules, they changed the rules.

• 12:56Speaker 00

  Well, times change, rules change.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  And I am a big example of that, Louis, a bigger, and I'm not gonna knock the rules because I've knocked them all my life, but to be fair. I was hoping that he he would have done the right thing and said, thank you very much, we're gonna step aside. And William Kate are gonna be the king and queen, that to me was my Britain. Why are you laughing?

• 13:20Speaker 00

  I don't know, that's funny, that's, you're more royalist than the royal family.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, I am, probably, my boy was in the uh, in the army, he went in.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  Really?

• 13:29Speaker 03

  Served the Queen, he was, the Queen was his boss.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  The Queen was his boss, funny enough, that's what he used to say, which was hilarious, really, but yeah, a big royalist, big British person, yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  You tried to sign up when the Falklands happened?

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was the kind of thing we were going through at the at the time, so.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  But your mate was turned down and you were supposed to go in together.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's in, bless him.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  Why did they turn him down?

• 13:49Speaker 03

  He'd had a bit of previous, a little bit of previous in Watford, not bad stuff, bit of fighting that, and I ended up at his place. And the Falklands War started.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  And I had nothing else and I thought that would be it, you know, I was, I think I was looking for a family, I was looking for a unit, I was looking for. A tribe, whatever, you know, belonging.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  People round me, you know, pe- being a leader, you know.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, and a mission, you know, a cause to fight for.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Cause, but yeah, I mean, the main reason, I think it was the belonging, you know, it was like. How can I?

• 14:27Speaker 03

  Change this, I was in, I was in a downward spiral, I had nowhere to live, I had no money. That time in my life was when I was couch surfing, that's when I left home. And I was couch surfing around Watford at that time with me black bin liner, um, and that's all it had to me name really, a bag of medals.

• 14:47Speaker 00

  You were homeless?

• 14:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, well and truly, but I didn't do bad on it, I weren't sleeping.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  No, you weren't out in the rough, no.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  In the streets, do you know what I mean? Uh, I had people to go to.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  Did you always like to fight?

• 14:59Speaker 03

  Always overstayed my welcome though, because I always ended up bringing trouble around.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  How do you mean?

• 15:04Speaker 03

  It would find me, somehow it would, it it would find me, although some people think I found it. But I think at that time, you know, I had, I had them two or three years where I was running around and the authority had. Lifted off my shoulders, if you know what I mean.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Um.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  And most of it, I was numb and can't really tell you how I felt because. You're just surviving and I just survived at that time, you know, and the only really thing that I was good at was football.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  And I turned on that as well. How crazy is that? It was, it self harming, that's what it was, it was self harming, I had three years of self harming.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  What, did you, did you like to fight and what was the fighting doing for you? Because you sort of talk about it quite lightly in your book, like, it was a bit of fun, we'd go, weekends, we'd go to the pub, there was usually a scrap, you know, art. And we, you know what I mean, it was almost like this was a hobby.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  You know, it was kind of like you go out and there'd be a few people from somewhere else and you'd be in the bar, what are you looking at, what you?

• 16:05Speaker 00

  So in your view, it was, it was kind of natural, not, nothing too horrific, you weren't bottling and glassing each other?

• 16:12Speaker 03

  No, until later in my life, when I took a few glasses and bottles to me head, um. No, but I didn't have that in me mind, it was, in them old days, it was a bit of a fight and a bit of a holding back and a bit of. Bit of a punch up, there was no knives and stuff like that, I did have one guy. Come at me with a, with a pint glass when I was quite young, which was quite scary, like, whoa, this is all changing, you know what I mean?

• 16:37Speaker 00

  It's not as fun anymore, what did you?

• 16:38Speaker 03

  Well, that, you know, the old saying years ago, you know, I'll go out for a fight and a curry, do you know what I mean, after, after you have a beer on a Friday night, it's.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  Kind of.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I remember that saying.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  What did you say, what did you do Friday nights?

• 16:51Speaker 00

  That's what we, that's what we always, that's what we always used to say, wasn't it, go out for a fight and a curry. Uh, we would say, stay in for a spliff and a video, probably.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  See, I went, I I thought you was a fucking weirdo, spliffs, why, why would you fog your brain up on that shit?

• 17:08Speaker 00

  Steady on.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  I'm very anti drugs, I am, really.

• 17:13Speaker 00

  Fair enough, yeah, fair enough.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, did you share it with the next geezer?

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  All wet and all gooey?

• 17:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, they call that bogarting.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  Oh, oh.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Don't they? Odd weirdos.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  Somebody else's saliva.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  Some male saliva.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  Male.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Or female, didn't matter, does it really, unless you fancy that, but. You never know, but you were still in the, every, so there's five of you doing this little spliff, so you've all gone round and you're all.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Oh, that ain't for me, that's like, oh.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  Really, are you still a bit OCD?

• 17:49Speaker 03

  Oh, massively, yeah.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  You can kiss your significant other?

• 17:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, Blondie.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  Blondie?

• 17:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course, yeah, and the dogs.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  There's saliva involved there, I'm guessing.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  You'd have to ask her that one, come on, bloody.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  I wouldn't kiss a dog.

• 18:03Speaker 03

  I'm old school, I'm old school, Louis.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  Uh, the crazy gang moniker was invented in the press, I think, and there was a phrase after the famous FA Cup nineteen eighty eight. Probably your highest footballing professional, not eb, like, highest tide was, um.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  There's not much that can beat that.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  Beating Liverpool, so Dave Bassett obviously encouraged a kind of.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  He's gone by then.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  But he earlier, he'd encourage a kind of boys will be boys attitude, this is all part of bonding, in the trenches spirit. John Fashion, who your friend and and teammate at Wimbledon, said, I told Jonesy, when you arrived presumably, we're hooligans, thugs. If the ball wasn't there, you kicked whatever's there, this is what your job is, the hatchet man.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  No, what happened with me and Fash is a good story actually, because I I'm I'm very much against racism.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  Um, and when I joined Wimbledon, Fash had just come from Millwall.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 19:01Speaker 03

  And we would go to grounds and he would get. Hassled by the away supporters and I felt it was my duty to stand in front of them.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  Because they were white people having a go at him, you know, so me and him bonded, I've always kind of. Understood, I think a lot of people look at me and go, I bet he hates gays and queers and this and that, and he hates. Black people and all this, I'm not, I'm the opposite, Louis.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  Um.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  Gay people and black people, me growing up with the underdogs, if you know what I mean, and I was, I was there to sort of stand in the way to to to stand up. And say this, this is wrong, if you know what I mean, so, um, yeah, we built this massive bond between us, I think from me. Being this homeless kid, floating around, couch surfers and everything else, to find this family of of the football club. And I think Fash done the same with football, you know, it bonded us, and then me and him became.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  You know, very tight.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. We should talk about, so staying with the crazy gang for a second. Um, it became a brand, there were obviously positives and negatives. I suppose the first thing is, you know, we talked about 11 bookings at one time, not booking, 11 sendings off. The kind of stereotype became, oh, well, Vinny is a hard man and he intimidates people. Uh, the, the, the Fash quote is, we won so many games because we just scared people. You've talked about tactics where you would get, you put a marker down, as you put it. Maybe that's the wrong phrase, but you do a hard tackle, maybe a late tackle early on. Was that part of the?

• 20:40Speaker 03

  What, what the mentality was, was we're playing Man United away. And, and Bassett used to tell us, they don't give a shit that we have to feed our families. If they beat us on Saturday at Man United, they're not going to worry about us driving home for four or five hours on the coach and having to feed our kids on, on, at the weekend. They were Man United and living that dream. And in them days, 10 and 20 grand a week, we were on 100 to 200 pound a week. So that was the mentality.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  And the way we dealt with that, we turned up, we stood up tall, we stood, we put our chests out. And we said, we're not frightened of the 50,000. There's 11 of you and there's 11 of us, this lot ain't gonna help you today. And we, we showed them from the minute we got off the coach to the minute we walked out in the tunnel. We ain't bothered. We're not gonna shrink. The thing they underestimated was, they looked at our chests and our biceps and our angry faces and they forgot we could play a bit.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  And they forgot that when great men send people to war and they win it, it's, it's strategic. And it's planned. And we bring the right flank in and when they face them, we'll bring the left flank in and we'll bring the boys in. Just like all the old wars. And that's what, that's what we done. And we trained and trained and trained to get it right on Saturday. And that's what people underestimated. Yes, we gave the facade that we were up the pub drunk every minute of the day. And we even went up the pub the night of the cup final. We didn't stay up there getting smashed and all the bollocks, but we gave that. That story got out.

• 22:34Speaker 00

  Really?

• 22:35Speaker 03

  Fash.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  Why did you put the story out there? Just.

• 22:39Speaker 03

  The press put the story out.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  Really?

• 22:41Speaker 03

  What does he say in Snatch? He says, we were something to a pig in Snatch, he says, uh, do you know what it is? Brick top says, yeah. So anyway. Curry to a piss head. It'd be like feeding curry to a piss head. And that's what we did, Louis.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  We fed curry to the piss heads, because they were all piss heads, the journalists in them days as well. We fed curry to the piss heads and they fucking took it at Lionel Sinker.

• 23:07Speaker 00

  In many people's minds, perhaps you're most closely associated with an iconic photo. One of the most famous footballing photos of all times.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  And that happened just before the cup final.

• 23:17Speaker 00

  It's you and Paul Gazza Gascoigne. Um, yeah. It's not just one photo, it's a, it's a series in which you squeeze the testicles or appear to of, of the rising star. You did.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  I did.

• 23:29Speaker 00

  And then he makes almost comical pantomime expression.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  Embarrassed him, hadn't I? So he was trying.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  Maybe even hurt him.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  A little bit, a little bit. But there's, I mean, as everything, there is a backstory.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  Go on.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  The true story of that was, the boys had played at Newcastle, I was suspended and I was back in London. They came back on the Monday and all the lads were talking about this young lad, Gazza. And they were like, oh my God, they've got this lad in midfield, he's unbelievable. Anyway, forward wind to our home game against Newcastle. Manager Bobby Gould, me and him never got on, the only manager I never got on with. Bobby Gould called me and he said, you've got to do a job on Gascoigne, a man to man job. I don't want you to touch the ball, I don't want you to do it, I want you to run after him, shadow him and stop him getting the ball. So if he's gonna pass to him, get in front, intercept. If he's got the ball, hold him up, hold him up.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  So we'd done, we'd done a couple of practice games, preparing for the game. And the reserve team player was running rings around me, that's the truth of it. And I was getting more and more angrier. And now the lads are starting to laugh and taking the piss and everything else. And then I, I give them a boot and all that. So Gouldy pulls me off, what's going on? I said, I ain't doing it. We have this great big row, I ain't doing it. And I walk off the training pitch. Don Howe, who was very respected at the time, was the England coach, he comes in, we have a talk, I go home. Bollocks, I'm not doing it. Sam Hamam, the owner.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  This is why the club was so different.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  He's a legend in his own right, quite controversial character.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  Very controversial, but just loved the club, you know, um. Anyway, he rang me that night and he said, John'sy bye. He said, um.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  He didn't sound like that.

• 25:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, so he talked, John'sy bye.

• 25:28Speaker 00

  Sounds a bit Welsh.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  Well, that's the Welsh in me coming out, Louis. We'll get on to that later. But he said, yeah, he said, I want you to play Saturday, do what Bobby says. So I'm like, okay. So we come back in on Thursday. We go out onto the pitch and Gazza, there's girls running onto the pitch with roses, this is in the warm up and everything. So now my insight on all this is, this bloke's gonna take the absolute piss out of me. I'm gonna be a laughing stock here now in front of the crowd, it was a home crowd and everybody else, you know? And I was terrified I was gonna be the laughing stock. So I said, right, I'm gonna do this properly. And I just man to man marked him wherever he went.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  As the game goes on, I know I'm winning the contest, he's out of the game, we're 0-0, we're 0-0. He hasn't scored everywhere he went. And he started gobbing back at me, Gazza, because he now knows that I'm winning this battle. And he's the one basically getting a little bit embarrassed.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 26:32Speaker 03

  So anyway, he's, he's starting to chat and give me all the old, how much you on a week and this, that and the other and that. So I went to say to Fran, I said, you wait there, you fat bastard, I'll be back for you in a minute.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  You said that to Gaz?

• 26:42Speaker 03

  I said that to him, because now the, the adrenaline is pumping.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  It's off the charts. You know, I, I, you know, we're like brothers now. But at that time I said that and Monty Fresco, the photographer, in them days, used to be right on the touchline. And I said to him after, how did you get the picture? And he said, I heard you say that to him and I put the camera on you. And then all of a sudden he said, I couldn't believe it. He said, no, I never really knew what I had until later on. He said, I just went, shh, shh, shh. He said, you grabbed him by the bollocks. I said, yeah. Gazza was right in the back of me, pushing me. He, and I thought, I, he wants me to elbow him or something, do you know what I mean? He wanted something off the ball. I've never asked him actually. I think he was trying to wind me to, to lash out or something and get sent off, you know? And it wasn't premeditated, it.

• 27:32Speaker 00

  Had you done it before? It wasn't like a regular thing that you did?

• 27:35Speaker 03

  No, no, and I've never done it since, never done it before. I cannot, for the life of me, tell you that I even thought about it a split second before it just happened. Now, I never knew, Louis, until I went to the pub the next morning. Never knew nothing about it, played the game. Don Howe, who was the England coach at the time, one of the most respected men in British football, came up to me privately. Took me in the room and he said, that's the best perfor, man to man performance I've ever seen since Tardelli in the, in the World Cups. That was a massive compliment to me. I'm buzzing, I'm on a high, go down the pub, we have a great time.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Wake up in the morning, normal thing, 11, half 11, I go up our local pub. I walk into the newsagent's and he went, what's up? He went, Vinny mate, because he was used to seeing me on the back pages, you know what I mean? And he went, I need a back page, now the front page. And it was on the front. And I'm sure that was one of the first football pictures that was ever on front and back page of the, of the newspaper. Like every one, Sunday People, News of the World, Sunday Mail, all of them. I went.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  I went into the pub, got a round of applause when I walked in the pub, I've got to say.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  Did you watch the World Cup final? Not the final, the semi-final, England versus Argentina. Did you watch that game?

• 29:01Speaker 03

  Here.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  Because it made me think about, because the Argentine's got a lot of criticism for their tactics and they were seen as playing, I don't know if it's accurate or not.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Well, I think people want.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  A bit dirty. But what do you think, is it part of the game or not? Do you think it's like all's fair on the pitch, kind of like?

• 29:19Speaker 03

  I can remember a game, we played Manchester United, we went 1-0 up and we just put everybody behind the ball. To us, it was about the results for us.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Do billions of people want to watch that on, in the World Cup semi-final? It's better than that, isn't it?

• 29:37Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 29:37Speaker 03

  It's a bit better than that, the World Cup. You want to see flamboyant football, you want to see backills, you want to see tricks, don't you? And goals, anything else. You don't really want to see a, a team shut up shop like that. And I think that's what all the trouble was and I think.

• 29:54Speaker 00

  But when England went, uh, were 1-0 up and then they just seemed to think, oh, we've had enough now. It was odd, do you support England?

• 30:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I support all the British teams.

• 30:02Speaker 00

  All the British, so if it was England versus Wales, is that a dilemma? Because you played obviously for Wales, not for England.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it's, it's, I was born here and, you know, my grandfather was there, I've got family there and all that. So, you know, it's just a cheeky, yeah, all right, see who wins, do you know what I mean? Best man on day. Look at the fights, look at Chris Eubanks and.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  And Ben, may the best man win. Don't hear that very often, do you, Louis?

• 30:28Speaker 00

  No.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  Used to in my day, let the best man win, you know? And I went, I went to every Ben Eubank fight, the old.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  Did you?

• 30:36Speaker 03

  The old, yeah, oh yeah, me and Fash went to all of them.

• 30:40Speaker 00

  Do you keep up with Chris Eubank?

• 30:42Speaker 03

  I saw old Chris, it was funny. I saw old Chris, I'm very good mates, very, very good pals with Stevie Collins. So anyway, me and Steve, he'd done a little job in Lockstock, he was the doorman in Lockstock, where's your tickets? So anyway, I don't know what we was doing, we go into a bar, the Grosvenor or something. Who's at the bar, Chris Eubanks, and Chris is from down here, Brighton, he's quite extrovert, Chris, he's quite.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  He's a flamboyant character.

• 31:08Speaker 03

  He is, a very flamboyant guy. We walked up, he turns, hello, Chris. Hello, Vinnie. And then he, and he sees Chris and goes, hello, Chris.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  That's not.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  Hello, hello, Steve and all that. And now Chris wants to tell Steve that he didn't really beat him and all the rest of it. And Steve's a lovely Irish boy, down to earth as you'll ever meet. And he went, well, let's go in the car park now.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  Really?

• 31:37Speaker 03

  And he said, and Chris was like, wow, we don't have to be like this and it was.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  It's not civilized.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  In the fucking bar in the Grosvenor, the three of us, and I'm like.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  He was going a bit Nelson Mandela for a second.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, I'm not the best in, I'm not the, I'm not the best at that, but.

• 31:54Speaker 00

  It's not civilized to be a.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Because I was stood in between the two middleweight champions of the world and I thought, could get a good hiding here.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  Uh, we were in the, like, just to get these out of the way, should we quickly deal with Ted Oliver? Should we quickly deal with?

• 32:09Speaker 03

  Ted, yeah, you can, yeah.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  You were in Dublin, you'd been sent by Piers Morgan because you decided to cover the match from the hotel bar for reasons known best to yourself. It was on TV?

• 32:20Speaker 03

  We booked into the hotel and it was near the ground. You know, we came downstairs, it was the biggest fucking party you've ever seen because the ground was around the corner and you couldn't move.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  You should have got lifted into the party atmosphere of the bar and you thought, you know, I can watch the game.

• 32:34Speaker 03

  And I had a couple of mates came out, oh, we're all going, all that, we all met there. So I was a fucking animal that night and, and there's no excuse for it.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  And the next morning, on the cover of the Mirror, is a full picture of the Mirror journalist Ted Oliver.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Which was horrendous because the game.

• 32:52Speaker 00

  Saying, saying Vinnie Jones tried to bite my nose off.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. Look, I'm not putting nothing on Ted, God, God rest his soul, but there wasn't one person that had a drink that night.

• 33:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  There was two or three other journalists who were horsing around and Ted was one of them. That side of the story never came out, I'm quite happy for that, let sleeping dogs lie. What did the press have? There was no story if they said two or three of the journalists were hammered as well, was there?

• 33:23Speaker 00

  Was it, was it done in anger though or was it was done as a?

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Fucking horseplay, fucking teenage stupid fucking thing.

• 33:32Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  It's very hard to explain it without, without me being sincere. Because I take full responsibility for it.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:43Speaker 03

  Do you see what I mean? I'm not saying, oh, it was a bit of this and it was a bit of that, oh, it was, I don't want to sound like a, you know, some, it, I take the full responsibility. The, the, the thing about it was, was he lying around on the ground with his nose hanging off and asked to have stitches and plastic surgery? No. Did somebody say, oh, you've hurt him and you went to apologise? Yes.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  Was he with four other journalists on a balcony, drinking champagne, laughing and joking? Yes. Did he have a white tanker chief pressing against his nose? Yes. But I'm the animal in it and I take full responsibility. He wasn't rolling around on the ground, molding his nose, but at the end of the day.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  Nor did any part of his nose get bitten off.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  No.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  Because Piers Morgan in the documentary is like, oh, he bit a bit of his nose off. And I'm like, not to be like a skidler, but that is a.

• 34:38Speaker 03

  Well, thanks journalist, thanks Louis, you're a bit of a different journalist to Piers. Piers liked dramatizing a lot. And then Piers let me down. Piers can say what he wants, we've had a love-hate relationship, me and Piers for many, many, many years. And I've kind of put it to bed, you know, we'll have a game of golf and that now, me and Piers and. But, you know, Piers is his own man, as we all know, and that's how he's led his life, which is fine. But Piers rung me and said, look, we're going to do the right thing, I'm going to send a journalist up. This was the next day and I'm like, fuck, I flew home that day, journalists everywhere and I was so ashamed.

• 35:13Speaker 03

  And then he rung me that afternoon, he said, I'm sending a journalist now, take some photos and everything, give your side of the story. And then Piers sent the bloke round, we'd done a picture, he said, yeah, just, you know, just give us a bit of remorse and all the rest of it. Well, I fucking didn't have to act that I was in remorse.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  And then that was that, right, okay. And the next morning I woke up and the headline was sacked right across the front page.

• 35:40Speaker 03

  Which then catapulted it again to another atmosphere.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  Hmm. So you feel Piers did you dirty? Did you, I mean, do you?

• 35:48Speaker 03

  No, he just, no, Piers's version of it is, you know, he had to do something. Piers's version is, that is, he was being truthful until.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  There was a bit of a time lapse between the journalist coming to my house and actually printing the next day, saying, Piers said all the other editors were ringing him, said you better hammer this bastard.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:11Speaker 03

  So Piers got.

• 36:12Speaker 00

  Tribal loyalties kicked in, right? They were backing Ted, weren't they?

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Of course they were.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  And I don't blame that and, you know, look, if it was a younger lad, 10 years, 20 years younger, would it have? You know, he was an older bloke, we were all horsing around, I just take full responsibility for it, you know? And I just fucking have a tick for the booze for the dog, the dog won that night.

• 36:35Speaker 00

  That's the metaphorical dog.

• 36:38Speaker 00

  There's a dog.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  Your ego, you put, you mix your ego with alcohol, it's not, you know, as Guy says, I've got this one big fucking dog in me and I have to control him.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  Is it still there?

• 36:50Speaker 03

  I'm trying to turn the tables and, and be friends with him now. Because I don't think you can be enemies forever. We've had a few good fights, you know, and, and.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  You and the dog?

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  With each other or with other people?

• 37:04Speaker 03

  No, just me and him. And you've got to smash him in the back of the kennel every time he puts his head out. And when you, because, look, I'm in my 14th year of sobriety and.

• 37:15Speaker 03

  He's really had a lonely life.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  The last 14 years.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, he don't like it, he don't like it.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  He's right at the back of the kennel now.

• 37:24Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I don't want to be enemies with him all my life, I want to be friends.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  You want to integrate, it's quite Jungian in a way, it's like you've got to reconcile these archetypes. You can't completely ignore the shadow self.

• 37:38Speaker 03

  Well, you can turn around and look each other in the eye and say, some of it's me and some of it's you, son.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:46Speaker 03

  And if we're going to get on, this is how it's going to be.

• 37:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  You've got to keep him in his kennel. But yeah, I don't think you can spend, I can't spend the rest of my life fighting him, Louis. I've got to, I've got to try and talk him into.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  Some sort of.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  Truce.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  Truce terms, yeah. Is it worth saying that at that time you had a suicidal moment or, I mean?

• 38:09Speaker 03

  I did at that top, when I knew the hit was, was getting home off the plane, all the press were at the house and all that. And Piers saying, I'm with you, mate. You know, so like, oh, I got a bit of protection. The next day.

• 38:27Speaker 03

  When, when we got the papers and he'd kind of thrown me under the bus.

• 38:33Speaker 03

  I went upstairs and I just curled up into the fetal position. And I'd just fucking given in the, um, Louis, I'd given in. I was like, fuck. And that's not me. I'm, I'm, as I, you know, my saying is keep swinging. You know what I mean? Keep fucking swinging, keep swinging. I had none left. I never had a swing in me.

• 38:53Speaker 03

  And I lied there and I was like, fuck this. Um, and I used to smoke the Hamlet cigars at the time and I, and, and I, and I said to Tanya, I went, ah, fuck this. So I said to Tanya, can you go down and get me some cigars? I got my gun, went up, went up to the woods and I, you know, I think I was more trying to talk myself into it more than I'd decided.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 39:16Speaker 03

  So I'm sort of sitting there in the, up the wood.

• 39:21Speaker 03

  Because I was so embarrassed now. You know, the shame and everything that I'd brought on everybody and the family and everything else, do you know what I mean? Cause it comes with, it don't just come with you. The police and all that didn't bother me and the consequences of, you know, when I've been in trouble with the police, it was always going home. You know, like then it was, you know, with Tanya and all that. Like now it's with Emma, you know, to, you know, to face that, letting them down. It was that, it was the, it, and I can't keep doing it to people and I can't, you know, I'm, I'm, it's out, the dog's out of control. Spoiled out of control. And every time I did sort of get him in control after a big incident, it would only last six weeks. He'd go and hide in the kennel for six weeks and he can have a drink now, he can this.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  So yeah, it was the shame of it, Louis, more than anything, you know, and, and, and then the dog, my little dog came over, like mine do now, and jumped up on me and this, that and that. And it's, it's kind of what I say now, the difference now, what's the difference between coming off the wagon and having a lovely cold beer now and not? Well, the lemon and lime next to it. It's the choice you make. And I went, no, fuck this. I, I will start swinging. But all through my drinking days, as I say, I call it this, the dog would go back there, laugh his head off. And then he'd wait his moment. Now he'd come, like the fight in South Dakota. Now would, why haven't I had a fight since I've been sober? I see it coming a mile off.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  I see the geezer that wants to have a pop and I can just go, see you later.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Hang on, did you say the fight in South Dakota?

• 40:57Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  What was that?

• 41:00Speaker 03

  I had a bar fight in South Dakota.

• 41:01Speaker 00

  I didn't know about that.

• 41:03Speaker 03

  With, um, three or four lads and I had sixty eight stitches in my face and head and had plastic surgery. Didn't know nothing about it.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  When was that?

• 41:14Speaker 03

  Two thousand and something. I don't remember much about the two thousands.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  In the Hollywood years.

• 41:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'd been, I'd gone out there and we were, we was with the lads and we'd had a game of cards and I weren't, and they said, oh, we're going to watch this band and all the rest of it. And the next thing, I woke up like that and I was like, what's going on here? And I went to get up and there was all chains on me. I'd been handcuffed to the bed. And I went to get up and there was a copper there like that. And I went, oof. This don't look good. And the nurse come over and she said, so Kate, you've been in a bar fight, you've had so and so plastic surgery and all. They stitched all my nose back on and all my eye socket and all the rest of it. I was like, okay. And said, the sheriff, uh, is here to escort you. And I thought escort me home or something like that. He escorted me straight to the police station and booked me.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  You don't really remember what the fight was about?

• 42:03Speaker 03

  I went up on the pool table and tried that, yeah, this, that and the other. Yeah, I'll have a game of pool. Probably one of the lads said you wouldn't. Fuck, and I'll stay away from them. It was probably that, you know, and the dog saying, you can have a game of pool. They're not going to bother you, are they? Go on, go and put your money down. And that's it. And then it was this, that. All I remember was I looked like that. And as I looked like that,

• 42:23Speaker 03

  big pint jug like that, he just hit me full, full on this geezer, gosh. And then, uh.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  What, with a, a glass?

• 42:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, one of them big Hofmeister pint glasses.

• 42:32Speaker 00

  In your face, really?

• 42:34Speaker 03

  And I went down and I always remember the girl saying, no, not the knife. So I fucking rolled back up and sort of went in and then I went into a corridor and it's on CCTV. I went in the corridor. And there was this big Mexican lad that was with him. He had gone into the corridor and he was stood there with his glass and I, and I just fucked that. And I didn't know at the time, you can see it on the grainy, all me, me nose hair was down here and all me hair was down there. It was right. And it was snowing outside. Anyway, I then attacked him in the, I went for him in the corridor. Cause it, you know, I.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  With your nose dangling off.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  And then you see the outside of it and I come out and I got a great big load of snow like that and I just held it on my face. And you just see me go bang. And that's all I remember.

• 43:20Speaker 00

  Did you get a conviction off it?

• 43:23Speaker 03

  I got a not guilty on all four counts from a, from a jury. Which again changed my life because I'd have been out of America and everything else. So that was it. That's how it all worked out. Yeah.

• 43:49Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Experian, the UK's most trusted credit score. Throughout my career, I've interviewed people from all walks of life, from everyday folk to Hollywood stars. And each one of them has their own unique story and goals, just like you and me. And that's no different to our financial stories. And with the expenses of summer behind us, now is the perfect time to take stock of your story by checking your Experian credit score. I know it's something that's easy to put off, but just in a few minutes, you could better understand your score, learn how to improve it and feel confident for your next financial move.

• 44:28Speaker 00

  That means you can start getting set and feeling confident for what's next, be it a new car, a new home, or maybe a copy of Got to Get Through This. That's my memoir, available at all good bookshops. Download the free Experian app and better your story today. For most trusted, visit experian.co.uk/claims.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  We should talk Hollywood. I mean, just for people to understand how you go from, I mean, I, I.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  Been through a lot, haven't I, Louis?

• 45:08Speaker 00

  Yes, a lot. A lot of fighting. It should reflect the fact that you're also a professional actor of some distinction.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  And not a bad footballer.

• 45:16Speaker 00

  And at the time.

• 45:17Speaker 03

  No, there was that. These, these are massively publicized incidents. What you can't take away from is I played six or seven hundred league games.

• 45:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:27Speaker 03

  At the top level. Did you watch them highlights?

• 45:29Speaker 00

  Yes, I did.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  Well done, mate. Well done. Well done.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  You, you, you become, um, you, you get headhunted. How is it? Like Guy Ritchie, then an unknown director?

• 45:39Speaker 03

  No, he wasn't a director, really. He done, he messed around.

• 45:43Speaker 00

  Aspiring director, wants to make his first feature, which becomes Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. A, um, a huge hit out of the gate. Here's the quote, film is like football. You join a team, get close to one or two people. Then never hear from them again.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  That's life, isn't it?

• 45:59Speaker 00

  I don't get emotionally involved. Do one, move on. But you actually, you have created a family and they do, you do get involved.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  I join a lot of families though, Louis.

• 46:09Speaker 00

  You're still in the family of Guy Ritchie, Matthew Vaughan, his producer, and now a director. And all of that.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  Stayed loyal to me.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  Who've stayed very loyal.

• 46:18Speaker 00

  Is loyalty important to you?

• 46:20Speaker 03

  It's part of the British flag, isn't it?

• 46:23Speaker 00

  Go on.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  Well, that's what we were based on. Ask Churchill. If you have them fundamentals, I don't think you can go far wrong. Look, I've had people be loyal to me when I'm absolutely totally in the wrong. That's when you need an arm around you. Behind the wall, you fucking idiot. That'll fuck. It's not when things are going well. Yes, there's all these families and there's all these families on a film set. The actors, the crew, the directors, the this, that and the other. There's not a lot of loyalty there. They're all out, they're all out for loyalty for their own backs and their own families. So that's why I think, you know, you kind of sway through life.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  The ups and downs. All of a sudden you come over a boat in the middle of the ocean and you save someone or you do something and that imprint's on your life. And then, yeah, you become Guy Ritchie or Matthew Vaughan or Jason Statham, lived with me, imprinted my life. So there you stay. And then along that

• 47:24Speaker 03

  lifeline, they will be loyal to you somewhere or not.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  Or not.

• 47:29Speaker 03

  And if they're not, they're not still here.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  How long were you in Hollywood?

• 47:35Speaker 03

  About seventeen years, I think, fifteen, sixteen, and I'm telling you. I don't care what people say, it's fucking hard out there, Louis, you've been there.

• 47:44Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  You know what it's like. And a friend of mine said to me, he said, Hollywood ain't a theatre of dreams, it's the theatre of shattered dreams. And that's what I've got. The only reason I survived, two reasons, it's a great place when you've got a bit of money. And you don't rely on the system.

• 48:03Speaker 03

  And it's a great place where you've got family. For me, otherwise it's a grind, it's a lonely place. I mean, you can go to the premiere of Snatch and you are on this massive pedestal and you've got people like Tarantino and. John Travolta and Anthony Johnson, and they're all going, ah, brilliant, and you, you know, you're at the art department, it's weird, this, that and the other. You wake up the next day and you go down to the Starbucks. And it starts again there, mate. That's over. They've moved on. And if you get stuck in that, you come home with your tail between your legs. And I learnt very quickly how brutal it is out there and how ruthless. Very lonely, very lonely.

• 48:46Speaker 00

  Did you have your tribe? Was there like a, is there an expat community? Who was in your tribe?

• 48:51Speaker 03

  When I gave. Joe Pesci.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  Really?

• 48:54Speaker 03

  Andy Garcia. Tom Welling, who was Superman, uh, the Smallsville.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 49:00Speaker 03

  Um.

• 49:01Speaker 00

  Is Pesci a good guy?

• 49:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's very old now, Joe.

• 49:04Speaker 00

  See him as, you know, am I a clown to you? This is funny to you? I've got the words, I haven't really got the voice.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  Same as me, we're not good on.

• 49:11Speaker 00

  I'm doing Pesci.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  We're not, no, don't do that, he hates it.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  Really? If you do that line?

• 49:16Speaker 03

  No, if you try and do Pesci.

• 49:18Speaker 00

  Really?

• 49:18Speaker 03

  You try and do Pesci, I've seen.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  My cousin Vinny?

• 49:21Speaker 03

  Oof, I've seen him go off at a few people at the golf club.

• 49:24Speaker 00

  For what reason?

• 49:25Speaker 03

  You know the most surreal moment?

• 49:26Speaker 00

  People go up to him saying like, what, this is, am I funny to you? Does this amuse you?

• 49:31Speaker 03

  Very, very.

• 49:32Speaker 00

  Does this amuse you? That's what he says, isn't it?

• 49:35Speaker 03

  I swear to God, if he sees this, he'll go, oh, your friend thinks he's very funny, does he?

• 49:41Speaker 00

  Fucking hell.

• 49:41Speaker 03

  I swear to God he will. I fucking swear to God.

• 49:44Speaker 00

  He's pretty old, you said, though.

• 49:46Speaker 03

  You're lucky.

• 49:48Speaker 03

  No, but I'll tell you what, if he sees this, I swear on my grandchildren's lives, he will have a dig back at you, at me at the club.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  Oh, I don't want to make trouble for you.

• 49:58Speaker 03

  You're making it for yourself, son, because I'm nothing to do with this. I'm just warning you. I'm gonna get it in the neck, but you're gonna get it when he sees you. No, he takes it very personal, Joe.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 50:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:10Speaker 00

  So you'd done Lock, Stock and had success with it. It goes on to be your founding, you know, your first step on a road to a successful film career. At the time, I think it. Might even have seemed laughable to a lot of people. What, Billy, Billy Jones, the soccer hard man?

• 50:23Speaker 03

  Well, that's why I never said anything. And I actually went to Guy and Matthew afterwards and I said, before it come out, I said, listen, boys.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  If in any way, my part in this movie is gonna embarrass you, or bring the movie down. Please edit me out. I'll carry on with my football and I won't be offended and we'll still be mates and everything else. And they went, Vin, we've done all the tests. They fucking love you, mate. I was like, really?

• 50:52Speaker 00

  Did you think you might be shit?

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was, I was worried, I was worried that the football journalism. Would be the same as film, TV, whatever journalism, until you've been on The Wrath of It. Which you haven't that much, a little bit, you've had one or two little squirms, but I've, I've been behind it. I've got more notes than you, Louis. Don't worry, son. I've got more notes about you than you have on me, mate. And that's always the thing to bear in mind, if you're gonna bring a, don't bring a knife to a gunfight, Louis, okay? And so, so yeah, the, the, it was me saying, I don't want to fuck this up for these lads, this is their big break.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  But they said, no, you're in, you're with us. And the truth of it was, my first day on set, I was in jail and I didn't get out of. Nick until about four o'clock that day, but the boys stayed with me, Guy and Matthew said, don't worry, we'll shoot it. Another time, another day. So I sort of come out of that thinking, well, that's fucking gone. But at the time, I just thought it was a cameo, it was a cameo role.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  Originally?

• 52:03Speaker 03

  Originally, I'd done three scenes. I went in after training, didn't tell nobody. And then I was saying to Guy, I said, Guy, this, I don't, I don't get Big Chris.

• 52:19Speaker 03

  You're making out he's this big tough guy and he's a heavy and everything, but he hasn't done anything. And he goes, no, he said, but when. His boy gets challenged in the car, that's when you see Big Chris come to life and we don't want to give it away too early. So this was my big scene. The other three little scenes. So anyway, we'd done this scene one day and they put the block of wood in there. And I had a son at the time, Aaron. And he said, when, when you turn around, he's got that knife to his throat, he's got that knife to Aaron's throat. And I want you to take it out on that fucking door and that lump of wood. So that's what it was. And I absolutely, I did, I, it was like.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  Method or whatever you call it, method acting, anything, it just overtook me. It was like. Running across the white line at three o'clock. It was the, it was a fucking adrenaline rush. And. We finished doing it. And I was knackered and I, and I leant up against the car like that and the whole crew were like. Staring at me like dead quiet. And then all of a sudden Guy shrieks out, fucking hell, and he come running, give me this cuddle. And he went, that's it. And now all the crew come running over, you know, it's like just one fucking FA Cup.

• 53:42Speaker 03

  And I went, fucking hell. Anyway, that was that. And the sound man, who's won an Oscar, Perpalais, Simon Hayes. We heard this little thing, Guy. Can I have another one? There was an aeroplane in like, so we fucking beat the shit out of him. We had a bundle and had a good laugh. So I did another take, but he used the first take. And that, that, that's what brought Chris, Big Chris to life. And then we went to the premiere.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  You were able to tap into rage quite easily.

• 54:10Speaker 03

  I did, yeah, I did. But he gave me the reason, you know, he said if.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  That was what helped.

• 54:18Speaker 03

  Aaron's throat, you know. And then, yeah, and then, look, we then went to the, we went to the premiere and. Done a screening and people liked it. And then I'll never forget, I came out dusting off, grabbed my arm in front of the press like that, just no way, went like that, grabbed my arm and went. This kid's gonna be a big star, you mark my words. And I look over there and I'm like, hanging there like, you know, you're like a rabbit in the headlights. Oh, uh, this, that and the other. And you go, um, well, I've got to go training in the morning. I was at Wimbledon by this time. When I'd done the filming, I'd gone back to Wimbledon, I weren't at QPR, I was at Wimbledon. So I've got to go training in the morning. I looked around like that and my old man was there, I'll never forget it. And the tears were pouring down his face. Hmm.

• 54:59Speaker 03

  I'll never forget that, yeah. Me, Guy and Matthew Vaughan, when it came out then in the cinemas, we were doing all the cinema, I was running around, going in. And I went in, we're creeping the back and there was a few people watching it and to start with. I'll never forget, there was this big fella, he was right at the back and there was like two seats there and we come around in and he had his feet up on the chair, it's like this. And he was going, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, right, watching. So I crept up to him like that. Because Guy's like, come on, we've got to go. We just wanted to see how many people were in the cinema. And I went, oh, he's pretty good, isn't he?

• 55:35Speaker 03

  And he looked like that and he went, fucking hell. And he'd done that. And has he done that? I legged it. And he's never, if he's watching this, that bloke, he'll remember it, but, um. I never seen, I never saw the bloke after, but yeah, that was, that was, that's how we done it then. Another time, when Snatch came out, me and Stave were. Was in LA and Guy rang me up and said, go, go up, you know, up by, um, Kowenga and Sunset, the little, um, Star Five cinema there. He said, go down and see if anyone's there, it's opening day. So we've hit Sunset, nothing, nothing, no one about, fucking hell, fucking hell. Parked up, walked down, walked around the corner.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  Hundreds and hundreds of people queuing up like for the football, going into the cinema. And I remember ringing him and screaming saying, we've done it, we've done it. I knew my life had changed then.

• 56:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. Did you make most of your money after football?

• 56:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:30Speaker 00

  In Hollywood?

• 56:32Speaker 03

  Just on movies. But, but I will say, I was spending it as quick as I was earning it. So I had, I was, I was the hamster on the wheel.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 56:40Speaker 03

  People say a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty movies, I had to fucking pay bills.

• 56:44Speaker 00

  How much does someone get paid for a movie like that? I don't want to be overly.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  What movie?

• 56:48Speaker 00

  It doesn't really matter, like a big Hollywood film where you're.

• 56:51Speaker 03

  It all depends where you are in the pecking order. If you're, you know, if you're fifteen, twenty mil, you're one of the leads or the lead, you're the, you're the one who's putting bums on seats. And then it just drifts right the way down. You know, you could be on a big franchise, a hundred grand for the movie. You've got the prestige of being in it and is it gonna help your career and this, that and the other? Who knows? This is the thing, Louis. Manager, ten percent. Agent, ten percent. Lawyer, five percent. Business manager, five percent. There's thirty. Taxman. I think this is why so many actors get into trouble. You go and do something, let's say for three hundred grand. Fucking hell, I won the lottery. You got three hundred grand for that? Fucking hell, you said.

• 57:33Speaker 03

  But when you got fucking flash cars and houses and, I had five houses at one point. And fucking Bentleys and Rolls Royces and fucking BMWs and they all need paying for, you've got to keep going, you know, the bags get heavy. And, and the wheel gets faster. You know what I mean? So there ain't no real rhyme or reason what you get. The more. I swear to God, I turned, I turned down two million dollars last year for I'm a Celebrity. Because, yeah.

• 58:04Speaker 00

  Two million?

• 58:05Speaker 03

  And whereas before, fucking hell, no way, I'd have, I'd have jumped at it. I'd have jumped at it, yeah. I did Big Brother for a million dollars, but I needed it, I had a tax bill.

• 58:15Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 58:15Speaker 03

  Hmm. So we'd done that. After everyone carved it up, I actually did it for nothing. Taxman, this, you owe that.

• 58:22Speaker 00

  Really?

• 58:23Speaker 03

  I ended up with. Zero.

• 58:26Speaker 00

  Did you? We should talk about The Gentleman. You stayed, you know, you've, you've done a ton of films, right, and TV?

• 58:32Speaker 03

  A hundred and twenty odd movies.

• 58:36Speaker 00

  You did one for research, I watched one called Year One. Do you remember that one?

• 58:40Speaker 03

  Jack Black.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  Michael Cera.

• 58:43Speaker 03

  Michael Cera, he was big noise then.

• 58:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, also it's got-

• 58:45Speaker 03

  Had some good jams with him, and him and Jack Black and um, Cera used to play the guitar.

• 58:51Speaker 00

  Did they?

• 58:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:53Speaker 00

  Jack Black was a musician almost first in a group called Tenacious D, a comedy-

• 58:57Speaker 03

  Was he?

• 58:57Speaker 00

  -rock group, yeah. Travolta.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  Wonderful man.

• 59:02Speaker 00

  Did he talk to you about Scientology?

• 59:04Speaker 03

  No, he didn't, he, he, he didn't, I tell you what he did, he came, so the first day on set, I'd, we'd done something the day before and Hugh Jackman, we got on very well, really well, me and Hugh, and we were stood there waiting, and he was about five or 10 minutes late, and he came on, you know, the Entourage, I mean, we was already on set like this, and you could kind of hear,

• 59:29Speaker 03

  everybody tensed up and like, fuck, here he is, and he came on and he swanned on, and the director went over to him and all that, and he went, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. He said, first and foremost, everybody, I wanna thank all of you for being here and doing my movie with me. And everyone went, and I thought, you classy bastard. I did, and the other thing I thought about it was at the end, he gave us all, well, the actors, the main actors, he gave us a Montblanc pen with thanks, Swordfish, JT. And whenever I was a lead in a movie, I always used to buy the crew and the cast a present from the lead actor then, so I got, I nicked that idea from him.

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  Swordfish was the movie?

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was the movie, yeah.

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  Brad Pitt.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  Fant- yeah, became a good mate of Brad's.

• 1:00:18Speaker 00

  He's good in it, isn't he, he's good-

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  He went to my friends in Watford, the Frankums, to learn it, he asked to go for a day, and Matthew Vaughan phoned me, he said, you know the travellers, don't you? I said, yeah. And he said, Brad wants to go for a day to a travellers, a real travellers site. You know, do a bit of research.

• 1:00:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  And so I said, right, I said, I phoned Bobby Frankum, anyway, he set it all up, they're in Watford, and I was playing in some celebrity golf thing that day. So I said, go down there, have an hour or two, this, that and the other, so they all took him down there, and this, that and the other, and I'd finished golf, and I'd rung Matthew, must have been about three or four o'clock, how did it go and everything else, he said, he's still here, he's now having dinner in one of the fucking trailers. You know, it's kind of moments like this where you could bottle it and say, oh Louis, look at that. And I've had many, many, many, many of those instances in my life, you know, that, that you just go, I'm just this fucking lad from Watford, how has this happened?

• 1:01:20Speaker 03

  You know, so although there are the Ted Oliver stories that you can be ashamed of, there are other stories that I'm very proud of and what I've achieved, you know what I mean? It's not all doom and gloom, you know, and the sobriety as well, you know, and, and that was, that was the defining moment, when a bloke said to me, drinking is a young man's sport.

• 1:01:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:43Speaker 03

  That was, yeah, curry to a pisshead, that was, I was done.

• 1:01:47Speaker 00

  It was after, after you got sober, you heard that?

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, at the golf club, that cemented it for me, yeah. Do you agree? You're not a big drinker, you're a wine drinker.

• 1:01:56Speaker 00

  I have been a big dri- say, big drinker, I mean, you know, they say, what is it, 14 units a week? I'd, I'd sometimes think, like, 14 units sounds like a nice evening, you know what I mean?

• 1:02:06Speaker 03

  It's a warm up.

• 1:02:07Speaker 00

  That's a warm up.

• 1:02:08Speaker 03

  A warm up, because I drank socially, I never drank all through the day and all that.

• 1:02:13Speaker 00

  You were like, if you said you're party alcoholic-

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  We drank to cause a bit of bollocks.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Did you have a drink of choice?

• 1:02:21Speaker 03

  I didn't like the beer too much, could get all bloated, so I was on, on the red wine, but then I'd done about, I can pigeonhole them now, because red wine, I'd done about 280 hours community service. So then I thought, no, that's not good, so I went on to the white wine. White wine, I think I've got 400 hours community service, so then I decided to go on to champagne.

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  And then the balloon went up, I don't, I can't keep count of how many hours of community service on champagne, Lauren Perrier, rosé, so, yeah, that was the end of it.

• 1:02:51Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:02:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I weren't a beer drinker, and no, never shorts.

• 1:02:54Speaker 00

  Well, I was gonna say, you did well-

• 1:02:55Speaker 03

  No shorts, no drugs, no beer.

• 1:02:57Speaker 00

  You did well to avoid the spirits. I stopped drinking more or less about a month ago.

• 1:03:03Speaker 03

  Did you?

• 1:03:03Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:03:04Speaker 03

  For what reason?

• 1:03:05Speaker 00

  It's a long story, which, but basically, it makes it-

• 1:03:08Speaker 03

  Anyway.

• 1:03:08Speaker 00

  I was going through something, and I thought I need clarity, and, and then I just-

• 1:03:13Speaker 03

  But isn't it strange that we, we think we have to be sober to get real clarity?

• 1:03:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:19Speaker 03

  So when I was partying, you know, it would take me, so I'd have a drink, say Friday or Saturday, Sunday afternoon, Sunday at the pub was great, it would take me Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, to kind of sober up and then it's back on it on a Friday, you know, that's kind of how I lived my life, and as you say, it was cloudy, there was no clarity, so isn't it strange that even a man of your intelligence can turn around and say, I had to give up drinking to get some clarity? It just shows how fucking powerful it is.

• 1:03:46Speaker 00

  It is.

• 1:03:47Speaker 03

  Do you know what I mean? When I actually made my mind up, I decided to go to an AA meeting. I, I never, I went in there, I never sat there and put me arm up, I just sat there and observed and listened and listened and listened. And this one guy came out, we went outside, and I, you know, you have a cigarette into the bucket and that, I had a little cigar and all that, and he said, I know you are, so I said, all right, how are you? And he said, Jay, he said, you know, if you want someone, I'm here, and this, that and the other, but, and he's, I haven't had a sponsor, but he's kind of been a, a guy that I could ever ring if I was like, you know, like, woo, but I, I, I kind of haven't had that wobbly, even when Tanya died, I didn't have that wobbly, and

• 1:04:30Speaker 03

  it spurred me on even more, thinking, everyone going, he'll, he'll, he'll use that as the excuse. He'll be back on it, do you know what I mean? To be fair, you know, that night at the funeral, yeah, I could have got fucking smashed, but then, you know, you'd have been right back to square one, wouldn't I, and, and I, I went to see a psychologist, when I actually made my mind up, we talked about the childhood. I said, where's this fucking anger coming from?

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Because I had no control over it, and it was like, why don't I drink? Because it brings that fucking violence out of me. So the only way I can be in charge of it is not to drink, and it gives me a power over it. I've got to have that power over it, do you know what I mean? But really, I had enough fucking wounds, you know what I mean? I had enough fucking war wounds to go, mate, one more of them bar fights, you ain't coming out of it. People say to you, life would be better, life would be better, and it gets better and all that. And while you're counting the days, oh, fucking, I'm two days sober, I'm free, they're the hardest fucking days, that next weekend,

• 1:05:39Speaker 03

  the next weekend not having a drink for me was the hardest, and then the next, and then that week, you know? Um, I've been there, it does get better, because you're in charge. And then you take it a step further, and you go, actually, me and the dog, probably, and I'm going to where we started this, actually, we could be mates, you know, because I'm in charge, I'm walking him, he ain't walking me no more. So that's what I'm working on at the moment, um, Guy's very good at it, me and Guy have many talks about it, and he's the one that said to me about the dog, he said-

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  Is he sober? Is he, as in-

• 1:06:15Speaker 03

  No, he'll have a glass of wine, no.

• 1:06:16Speaker 00

  We should talk about Guy, I know that one of the pegs for this interview is the gentleman, very much in this sort of richie cinematic universe, that's a term I've just come up with, quite happy with that. With you've got Lock, Stock, Snatch, it's a world where criminal gangsters consort with the upper crust, and it's a celebration of Britishness, among other things, would you say?

• 1:06:37Speaker 03

  You're a nail on the head there, I think he's gone back to kind of his roots a little bit.

• 1:06:40Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:06:41Speaker 03

  The biggest thing I get, when, are you doing Snatch 2, are you doing Snatch 2, you're doing Lock, Stock 2? That's what everybody, for the last 20 odd years, I don't know what it is, 30 years, 20 years, 30 years, keep asking me, so I think the gentleman gives them a bit of that back.

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  I was literally 500 metres from here and got a call out of the blue, what are you doing? Nothing, he said, I might have something for you. Oh yeah, what's that, talk to you later, and put the phone down, so then I'm looking, what's he doing, what's he doing? Because we drifted apart through the booze, you know, he, he wanted me to do Rock and Roller, and I was doing a film with fucking Segal.

• 1:07:23Speaker 00

  Steven Segal, really?

• 1:07:25Speaker 03

  Steven Segal, I was going through that period of my life.

• 1:07:29Speaker 00

  Currently resident in Russia, I believe.

• 1:07:32Speaker 03

  Oh, he's a maniac, a lunatic man.

• 1:07:34Speaker 00

  Is he?

• 1:07:34Speaker 03

  Oh, hilarious.

• 1:07:36Speaker 00

  In a good way?

• 1:07:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I suppose, he never done me no harm, Louis, and I-

• 1:07:41Speaker 00

  He looks quite odd at the moment.

• 1:07:43Speaker 03

  He's a funny, he's, he's a, we went out, we went out to Bulgaria to do this movie. First time I'd met him and I, you know, all the rest of it, there was a Buddhist monk outside his trailer and everything. And he, he was staying at Sheraton in Bulgaria, and he, he asked me up, so I went up there and he had two TVs on in his room, massive fucking suite, and he had Lock, Stock on one and he had Snatch on the other, both playing. Come in, come in.

• 1:08:10Speaker 03

  So I'm like, this is fucking surreal, so I'm going, fucking, I'm sitting there, he goes, I love this man, I love this man, can we get this man in this movie of ours? Fucking movie of ours, you're joking? So who's this guy, I love this guy, no, that's Jason Statham, no, no, no, no. Who's this guy, that's Brad Pitt, no, no, no, no, you know? So in the end, I phoned my mate, Mouse, we called him Mouse, the, you know, the big fella in statue fights him, stay down, stay down, Adam Fogget, his name is, so I phoned Mouse, Mouse, it's Vin. Hello, son, how you doing, son? I said, I'm all right, I said, a bit funny one, this one, I said, I'm sitting here with Steven Segal,

• 1:08:54Speaker 03

  and he went, come on, son, stop fucking about, and I said, no, I am, I said, then, I said, you know, in my bizarre world, I said, he wants to talk to you about this movie we're doing. Hello, Mouse, it's Steven, I want you to come and do my movie, then, anyway, two days later, they flew him out. He was in the movie, I don't know what he was doing, but-

• 1:09:14Speaker 00

  What was the movie called?

• 1:09:17Speaker 03

  I fuck knows, can't remember.

• 1:09:20Speaker 00

  Was it good?

• 1:09:21Speaker 03

  No, it was fucking awful, anyway, then he was playing up and got his bodyguard, George, to start rewriting the script. So now the movie's going shitways. And the director is a lad called Tony Icocks, who's an English lad, Segal hates him, now Segal brings his team in, so-

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  The bodyguard becomes the writer, director, when he's on set. And his first A D, our A D goes and sits down while his A D walks in with him and they're holding the boards up to do the dialogue. And so, we're in the trailer, we're sitting in the trailer, Hickox, the director comes in, he goes, "He's fired me, he's fired me." "What do you mean, he's fired you?" "He said he's just fired me, he said I couldn't direct a porno." And I went, "Oh my god." I said, "Wha- what are we gonna do?" So he goes, "What are we gonna do, this is the director to me." I'm going, "I fucking know." So, so I went over to him, knocked on the door, the old British monk was sitting there. And he was playing on the guitar, "Baam, baam, bam," on this fucking guitar and all that.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  I went in, said, "Come in, come in," and all this. "This is my life, Louis, I'm telling you, it's fucking bizarre, mate." So I sat and I said, "Stephen, we've got a problem." "Oh yeah, what's up, man?" So I said, "You've just fired the fucking director." "Yeah, he couldn't, he couldn't direct a fucking porno." I said, "Well, listen, where I come from, British man, it's one out, all out, and you're gonna have a lot of trouble doing this movie on your own, Stephen. How's it gonna be?" And the reason I did it, they were English. And he went, "Oh, you can tell him I was fucking around," and all that. I said, "You tell him." So we walk across, he's got the fucking robe on and all the rest of it, and they all follow

• 1:11:08Speaker 03

  in, the entourage, the monk and all that, they're in my trailer, "Give me a hug," and all that, and Tony Hickox is like that, lovely fellow, brilliant geezer, I've done a couple of movies with him. And, uh, yeah, but that was, that was a, that was my Steven Seagal moment. And he wanted me to fly back to LA from Bulgaria on the private plane to his seven-year-old's birthday party. And I draw the line, I drew the line there, I said, "No, I don't think I'm gonna do that, Steve." But anyway, while we're out there, we're drinking, we're having a drink, and Guy rang me about Rock and Roller, and I was fucking drunk, and I went, "Nah, I want this and want that." And Guy said, "Really?" Very calmly. I went, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." You know, and I, and then I didn't hear from Guy for quite a long time.

• 1:11:51Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:11:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I got sent to Coventry.

• 1:11:55Speaker 03

  Quite rightly.

• 1:11:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:56Speaker 03

  Quite rightly. So, you know-

• 1:11:58Speaker 00

  So I think you'd say you'd got a bit big for your boots at that point.

• 1:12:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Missed out on a lot, and then he held out an olive branch. Maybe I was about ten years sober, and maybe that's when he may have called me and went, "Okay, I'm gonna give you another chance," sort of thing. I don't know, we've never discussed that, I don't know. But he was nice enough to hand out the arm of brotherhood, because we are brothers. Um, and yeah, and that was, that was the, that was a remarkable meeting. We were, we were, funny enough, doing a, the first scene on The Gentleman. I was a bit apprehensive, and I'd gone in the trailer, and I didn't wanna go over to his trailer and all the things, so I thought I'd be professional, do you know what I mean?

• 1:12:45Speaker 03

  Keep it professional. I hadn't seen him for a long time. Um, he'd come up the house now and then, but it was this and boom and gone, you know, wasn't completely banished, but we were on, on set, first scene, first day, and it was the funeral scene in The Gentleman.

• 1:13:03Speaker 00

  His dad's died, Theo James is sort of one of the male leads, he's called back from military service, he's officer class aristocratic, his dad's on his deathbed and then dies, so there's this amazing-

• 1:13:14Speaker 03

  Opening scene.

• 1:13:15Speaker 00

  Opening scene, yeah.

• 1:13:16Speaker 03

  And we film it as the opening scene, first day on set. Right, Guy's coming on set, Guy's coming on set, da, da, da, so we're all stood round and I'm like, I had fucking butterflies, I was like a teenager. I'm like, "Fucking hell." And I'm trying to look cool, and I'm trying to stand it, you know, and anyway, he comes up, boom, boom, boom, comes walking up, everyone's just there, and he just straight at me, walks straight up, and just went, bang.

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  Fucking hell, both of us in tears. Hold it back, boom. Right, what we're doing then, bang, bang, and it was, and every, all the crew and everywhere was like, "Fucking hell." That was a moment. Never got mentioned, we got on with it, and away we go. And, you know, that was like, he was sort of saying, "You've controlled your dog long enough, well done." You know, I haven't spoken about that, but I, I sort of, I know him well enough. You know, some things you don't, some things don't need fucking talking about all the time, it's hard telling you that, fucking else, all you wanna do, but talk to people about their lives, but, yeah, quite fascinating, really.

• 1:14:22Speaker 00

  We've been talking for quite a while, I appreciate it, I know that we've run over a bit, um, I wanna say it's been emotional.

• 1:14:32Speaker 03

  Do you?

• 1:14:34Speaker 00

  It would be better if I-

• 1:14:34Speaker 03

  I don't really believe it coming from you.

• 1:14:36Speaker 00

  If we, if we'd set that up earlier in the conversation, for those who don't know, that's, uh, Vinnie's probably most famous catchphrase, which I'm told you wrote yourself on set, that was your improv or, or just a line?

• 1:14:47Speaker 03

  No, Guy, Guy, it was late at night, it's three o'clock in the morning, and we're just going out, and he said, "What's that thing you say when you go?" Because like, if I said that, "Right, Louis, see you later," and it'd been emotional, I'd go, he said, "What'd you say, like, if you walked out now?" And we, cameras are rolling, he went, I went, "Oh." And I think Jay or someone said, "It's been emotional." "Oh, yeah." He said, "Give me one of them." And as I walked away, I go, "Come, wave the white flag high and clear so I can see it, da, da, da." Going out, and goes, "There is one more thing." "What?" "It's been emotional." And walk out, when he'd done one take, and that, that was it. Da-da.

• 1:15:21Speaker 00

  Da-da, and, uh, and it has been emotional, you said, uh, I don't believe that, but, you know, you've bring your best self to, to everything you do.

• 1:15:29Speaker 03

  I'm saying, if you was doing it in a movie, I'd have to give you a bit of coaching, because the audience wouldn't believe it the way you say it.

• 1:15:34Speaker 00

  Right, I'm not much of a-

• 1:15:35Speaker 03

  There is one more thing, and you have to wait and pause, what the fuck is he gonna come out with?

• 1:15:39Speaker 00

  Oh, so I didn't say it right.

• 1:15:40Speaker 03

  You didn't pause.

• 1:15:41Speaker 00

  Vinnie, there is one more thing.

• 1:15:44Speaker 00

  It's been emotional.

• 1:15:46Speaker 03

  Very good, now that's it. Didn't you believe that? There you go, you old sound man, you. Because he rolled his eyes on the first one, be honest, he was like, "Fuck."

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  I don't know, that, how, we got, you gave us loads of time, thanks for that, Vinnie, appreciate you.

• 1:16:15Speaker 00

  And we're back.

• 1:16:17Speaker 00

  Thank you for watching, thank you for listening. Check out The Gentleman on Netflix, that's the peg for the interview. Also check out, if you want, Submerged, Vinnie's, uh, first movie with Steven Seagal, the one he was talking about, it came out in 2005.

• 1:16:34Speaker 00

  Um, what's it about? I'm not sure, I haven't seen it, but one reviewer called it "one of the worst and least entertaining of Seagal's films." Some footnotes, Vinnie gave me a flat cap at the end of the recording, uh, which I wore very proudly on the way home. Millie said that I looked like an extra from Oliver, which I think is a compliment, if I was young enough to be one of Fagin's boys. Wow.

• 1:17:06Speaker 00

  Check out the socials for an image of me in the cap.

• 1:17:11Speaker 00

  So you've got that to look forward to. Vinnie had a, a fullback tattoo of Winston Churchill. Millie's wondering, what would I get a fullback tattoo of? Churchill's a solid, uh, choice. Uh, I think, you may know, Millie, you might know this, uh, there are people out there who've got tattoos of me, and I think I'd like to do the same. I feel like it's the least I could do in a way, is, uh, back myself, quite literally.

• 1:17:42Speaker 00

  Right? If you've been affected by the topics discussed in this episode, Spotify do have a website for information and resources, visit spotify.com/resources. That's it for now, thanks for listening and all watching, see you next week.