Hello.
Hi, Simon. How are you?
I'm okay. I'm Simon Pegg. I play Sidney Young in this movie.
Who the hell are you?
I'm Robert Weide. I play the director in this movie.
You only played it, you didn't actually do it.
Film4.
That's one better than Film3.
A lovely logo there of Film4.
Hey, now, we first met, like, in June of 2006,
when you had read the script, and then we met soon after that
at an Emmy after-party in LA. And what did I say to you that night
about my whole reason for doing this film?
You just wanted to do the commentary on the DVD.
Yeah, and here we are.
I had just played audio commentary for Spaced and Shaun of the Dead,
and I said, "I want to do audio commentary with Simon.
"I think I'll do this movie."
And here we are in the booth. This is it.
Now, here we go. Now, we shot this about 30 years ago.
- When you were a young boy. - When I was little.
And then we had to wait until now until we could shoot the movie.
There's Janette Scott. It's not Kirsten Dunst.
We actually thought we were going to shoot our own footage
and sort of make it look retro,
and then Stephen Woolley, the producer,
actually found this clip from Now and Forever.
Okay. Oh, yeah. I bet you said that on the director's commentary.
There may be a bit of overlap.
Tell me, why did you... I remember you e-mailed me and said,
"Send me a picture of your eyes."
And then they never did anything to that kid's eyes.
They actually did change it.
That was sort of as much as they could do
without really getting into a big special effect,
but we altered his eye colour a bit.
And what was your answer when I said, "What's your eye colour?"
I can't remember. Bluey, grey, green?
You said, "It's complicated."
Yeah, it is, my eyes are odd colours.
They're like... They're sort of blue, with a bit of orange in there.
With specks in them.
There he is. Tennis-ball head.
What did I say?
You said it should say Spalding on the back of your head.
- No, I said... We were shooting that... - That's right.
Kirsten would think she was back doing Wimbledon again.
It was a shot of Kirsten and this big, round, fuzzy head.
It looked like a scene from Wimbledon.
There's Me-Fo. Look at her.
She is one tall drink of water.
And the mighty Gillian Anderson.
That was fake slo-mo we were doing there.
That's right, yeah. We were trying to figure out how to carry off that effect.
We thought, "We'll just have the people clap in slow motion."
I've always prided myself on my fake slow motion.
Doors don't open exactly equally there. That always bugs me.
- There's me. - And it's slightly the focus...
Yeah, everybody thinks that's you. It looks like you in Hot Fuzz.
- There's a nice red rope. - The thin, red line.
Now, you had a little theme going here, didn't you, Bob?
I remember you saying about this when we were making it
that you wanted this...
Yeah, the theme of the red rope,
where Sidney was always trying to get on the other side,
and then finally, he gets on the other side and...
Well, we'll save the little postscript for later.
It's that simple.
That's Katherine Parkinson there, of The IT Crowd.
I said that on the director's commentary.
- Sorry. - That's all right.
It's bound to happen.
She's a very talented actress, comedy actress,
and I'm sure, serious actress.
And the lovely Felicity Montagu, of course,
who we all recognise from I'm Alan Partridge, right, Bob?
That's right.
What was her character's name? She was Partridge's assistant.
- Lynn. - Lynn. Thank you very much. Thank you.
You remember the conversation we had when we were all having lunch that day?
There was a mouse...
Oh, yeah, there was that mouse running round on the floor.
And I told the girls that the theory I'd heard,
the reason why women, you know...
The cliché of them standing up on the chair and screaming...
Oh, God, Bob, are you going to start on this again?
Don't bring that up? Okay, no...
Is it about their running up their vagina?
Yeah, thank you, I'm glad you said it.
- Bob's theory is... - It's not my theory!
It's one that I heard.
It's one that you propagate.
Let me look up "propagate." Hold on.
That's Nutmeg, the pig.
You sure it's not Cinnamon? We had two pigs.
Oh, yeah, we did. We had Nutmeg and Cinnamon.
Annie. Annie Hardinge, there. I've worked with Annie since Spaced.
She's an amazing costume designer.
By the way, this is true, when we first worked with the pig,
and I realised that pigs wag their tails like dogs when they're happy,
I thought, "That's it, I'm off pork,"
and remained off pork for about three weeks,
and then I had some bacon and remembered why I like to eat pigs.
Screw the wagging. We love pork.
Said Bob, Jewish.
Speaking of delicious...
How did you know I was Jewish? I've never mentioned that, have I?
Speaking of delicious...
There's the Newton-ator.
The delicious Thandie Newton.
- Trouble. - With a silent "H."
Trouble from start to finish.
I think for years I said "Thandie."
And I hear a lot of other people saying "Thandie" and now I mock them.
She kind of like just lets it go. I think she's tired of it, really.
She's tired of ignorant people calling her "Thandie."
Why doesn't she just drop the "H"?
Are those little pig plops, or are they Maltesers?
Eat one, and find out.
This is actually fake pig poo.
And this is at the Haymarket, right?
Incidentally, as a postscript to what we were just saying,
you know that day when we were shooting the BAFTA sequence?
That building is gone now.
- Has it gone? - It's been entirely demolished, yeah.
It was what? The Middlesex Hospital?
That mouse is probably dead.
Yeah, poor mouse.
Now, that girl between us there in the red, talking very animatedly,
was a young South African lady...
- Gillian. - She was only 17.
Yeah, she was, yeah, 17.
And she was plecked... Plecked? Plucked.
She was plucked from this scene to play the girl that guides me
through Sharps magazine, because she was very pretty.
There's a fact for you, not the best one in the world.
But there is continuity, because this being the Sharps party,
- it makes sense that Sharps... - Gillian, her name is.
I think I just said that.
Sharps employees would be at the Sharps after-party,
so we justified it that way.
Yeah, and it works.
Here's the notorious pig piss sequence.
Pig piss sequence, which was an afterthought, shot by second unit.
To give the pig...
We didn't ever quite get everything we needed in this location.
It was a tough location to shoot in, and we ended up having to kind of...
Well, you had to sort of cobble it together from what we had.
Yeah, there were scheduling issues. We had to drop a lot of shots,
and even drop little mini-scenes within the scene, and then...
The pig was supposed to get all bat-shit crazy and then chase me.
And we couldn't get the pig to chase me.
We had to put a fence around the pool, so the pig didn't drown.
And then the fence was in the shot, and then that made no sense.
That was a good stunt.
Look, I'm going to land right on a glass of wine.
I fancy a glass of wine.
Yeah, what happened to the wine we ordered?
I've got that framed in my study.
That's really the only souvenir I kept from the film
was a copy of the fake London Life.
That happened.
They were so nice to do that, those guys.
Yeah, they showed up on the set to take that photo.
In the background there, there's a photograph board.
There's a picture of me, Mini, my wife,
Amanda Abbington, who's Martin Freeman's girlfriend,
my dog, me as a kid and my mum's cat.
Now they're all going to sue for not having signed releases,
- especially your dog and your cat. - Shut up.
This was a group of actors who were overqualified for these small roles.
I know. Fenella Woolgar, brilliant. James Corden there,
who's recently shot to fame with his warm-hearted sitcom Gavin & Stacey.
The lovely Chris O'Dowd, very funny man.
"You don't pay me!"
That was the... I can't even explain what that was,
but it was a joke between Chris O'Dowd and Nick Frost,
which is pointless even going into.
There he is. He's also in The IT Crowd, which Katherine Parkinson is in.
I missed a bet when I shot this scene. It was the next day,
I regretted that I didn't have everybody smoking in the scene
because Brits still smoke, and, of course, in LA and New York,
nobody smokes any more, at least not in offices. You're smoking.
People smoked about 10 years ago in the UK, but not really any more.
They don't smoke any more here than they do in America.
God, you've got such an antiquated view of...
How would you know about what they do in America?
Because I live there.
Here comes the wine.
Oh, my God, there's actually a bottle in an ice bucket that's coming in here.
- Two straws, please. - Now, this guy, there's Hugh there.
That's my friend Hugh, yeah, that I put in the movie. It made his life.
- And that is not an overstatement. - No.
Now, that is the back of Professor Jeffrey Bridges.
Yeah. I did sort of the Vond billain. The Bond villain?
The Bond villain approach here, of not seeing his face until the big reveal.
And that was a wig, wasn't it? Because he had his Iron Man hair.
Yeah, his hair had been shaved for Iron Man,
soon before we started shooting, so we wigged him.
Didn't Chris say something like, "Right in the knapsack"?
Yeah. And then it was, "That's not coming out."
Here we are, NYC. I'm going there tomorrow.
I remember being nauseous in the helicopter when we were shooting that.
Well, it was spinning around a lot. You would be.
Now, this was... We shot that at 4:00 in the morning.
It was just after Kirsten had left.
It was our last night of production.
It was our last night of production,
and we were about to go to Times Square
and shoot some footage of me arriving in New York.
And I'd just been in my trailer boo-hooing,
'cause all my friends were going home.
Hey, I was still there.
- I said "friends," Bob. - Ah, friends.
I'm glad I made that expression 'cause it enabled us to make that little thing...
Yeah, we had an entirely different gag at one time,
which should be on the deleted scenes, but...
Probably didn't have enough money.
- Gentlemen... - By the way...
- I'm red, I'm the red. - You're the red.
- Thanks. Cheers. - Bottle for you.
Now I have wine envy. I wish I ordered red.
Wenvy.
Now here's one of my favourite women in the entire universe,
Miriam Margolyes, who's just the sweetest,
funniest, most brilliant actress.
But swears like a sailor.
And farts like a trouper.
She's amazing. She's such good company.
And star of many, many things.
I remember when she was in Black Adder
doing a great sort of... I guess she's Polish, isn't she, Mrs. Kowalski?
And she's well over 4 feet tall.
She belted me so many times on this film.
Yeah, you were mad at me that day 'cause I did a lot of slapping takes,
both outside in the corridor and inside.
I mean, Miriam's just doing her job, you know.
You should have directed her not to slap me in the face so much.
You know, we didn't have a stunt coordinator,
who taught anyone how to fake a slap, so you had to actually get slapped.
She did belt me. I think she kind of liked it.
At one point, she grabbed my balls.
- Yeah. I think that's in the gag reel. - Is it?
- Or the ball reel. - I think she's a minx, Miriam, I can tell.
She's a saucy... She's a saucepot.
Did you... I nailed her.
In her trailer, too. She said that you had come around.
- Yeah, I tried to knock. - Of course, I had been away from...
The trailer was rocking, so I didn't bother knocking.
I had been away from home for a long time.
You got to go home to your wife, so it might be a different deal.
Here I am dancing it up with some hot chicks in a disco.
I don't actually dance like this. "Oh, yeah, give it to me."
You danced at the premiere party last night with Electrovamp.
I did dance with Electrovamp.
You did your limpy pig dance.
The delightful Electrovamp, who are two lovely ladies who...
I mentioned them the next day, afterwards.
I jokingly said to my wife, "I'm going to give Electrovamp a call
"and see if they want to come out for a drink."
And my wife said, "You got away with it last night, don't push it."
I've got pictures of you doing your dance with them,
that when I get back to LA, I'll send them to you.
Good.
Now, here's the lovely Nathalie Cox here, who plays...
Who was actually in the game The Force Unleashed.
She plays a very large part in the amazing new Star Wars videogame,
that I've just been playing.
So I've just had this weird thing of interacting with a digital Nathalie,
and here I am with the real thing.
You, on the other hand, in this film, are completely computer-generated.
I'm a CGI character.
I'm the best CGI character since Gollum.
This was the first day, wasn't it?
This was, yeah, the first scene of the first day.
Can you tell us the date? 'Cause I can.
It was June the 1th, 41 -7.
June 4th, 2007.
And there is my little Kiko.
There she is.
Sitting at the bar. This is the first day we ever worked together.
And we kicked into it like that. Bang!
We actually had a bit of a luxury on this film.
We got a little bit of rehearsal time.
I remember the first day was at the Groucho Club on Dean Street,
not far from where we are right now.
Yeah, we did some rehearsals.
Did some read-throughs.
And I could tell that it would be magic.
We had a laugh, didn't we? The whole thing was...
The two of you got on so well that occasionally I had to separate you,
like a schoolteacher, 'cause you'd be giggling and passing notes
when we had work to do. It was like, "Come on, kids. Let's go to work now."
We were messing on those computers in the office
that they used to speak. You could programme in words
into the computers in the Sharps office, and they'd say things.
It's like you were saying about that first time
you went round your friend's house, and they had a speech box.
Yeah, it was like McTalk or something.
So you just, "Yeah, yeah, fuck you."
Yeah, it was exciting enough when that stuff first came out
that it warranted having all your friends come over,
just to make your computer say filthy things.
Yeah, I know.
And you can make prank phone calls and...
There's Charlotte Devaney there.
All woman, despite what the film might suggest.
That was a fun... That studio was so f-ing hot, man.
Yeah.
There's one scene later on, when you can see the sweat beading on my chest,
when I'm trying to cook breakfast for Kirsten.
You cook it off your chest. You just put the egg on your chest.
I just put a fried egg on my pectoral muscles.
It wasn't fried when you put it on, but it became fried.
Charlotte's part of a dance group called the Narni Shakers,
who you can find on the web, I'm sure,
who are a troupe of burlesque exotic dancers.
And very sexy they are, too.
She gave us all a calendar when we were working, do you remember?
Yeah.
Old Motörhead.
Ace of Spades.
Nick Frost hates anyone doing air guitar,
so I did this just for him 'cause I know he doesn't like it.
Somebody asked me, said, there were so many references
to The Big Lebowski in this film, and with Jeff like...
'Cause someone brought up the White Russians as well.
Yeah, well, of course.
And of course, I say "Lebowski." I mean, was that...
No, no, Lebowski, he might've been thinking about the movie,
but the White Russians was just because
he needed a very distinctive drink,
'cause if it were something generic, like a gin and tonic,
we wouldn't make that connection that we need to...
Right, of course. Oh, yeah. I know how it works.
- Well, I'm not talking to you. - I've written films.
I'm talking to the fans, the people.
The people that are listening to this.
Did you just say, "I've written films"?
I have written films.
It was actually 7:00. That was lucky.
Verisimilitude, we call it.
- That's gotta hurt. - That was me.
Lovely little bit of makeup there, to make me look like I'm just waking up.
See...
I don't know if the Americans are going to take to my strange face.
I think they're too...
Brits look at this and say, "Why are you drinking, you know, scotch?"
Right.
But anyone who's been to New York understands
the whole rusty pipe syndrome.
The brown water thing.
Charlotte's gonna have a scratch of her pretend... There you go.
She's not scratching, she's adjusting.
Right.
There's a difference.
Now, that T-shirt was...
It was actually the front page of the very first issue of...
By the way, I'm sorry, final shot of principal photography, right there.
- Yes, it was. - It's all I'm saying.
And a sort of slightly bathetic one for me
because there was nobody around when you called "Cut,"
so I just stood there, and that was the end
of three months of really hard work,
and I didn't get my hurray from everyone.
All actors need a little round of applause when they wrap principal.
I was, like, on the 30th floor of a hotel...
- I waved to you. - Yeah, we waved.
You were a tiny speck, and I was waving my arms
and you caught me and waved up and that was our congratulations.
There's the young Gillian from the party.
- Seventeen years old. - From South Africa.
Okay, why do you keep bringing up her age?
- Actually, by now she'd be... - Because she's underage.
- She's 18 by now, you know. - That's true.
You could take a shot.
- Oh, Christ! - What?
- You've done it again. - What did I do?
You've just taken it a step too far.
Yeah, this was the...
The "young, dumb and full of come," obviously a quote from Point Break,
which seems to be thematic throughout my film career.
It was the front page of the first Modern Review,
which featured a picture of Keanu Reeves.
Was it... Did it say "come" with C-O-M-E?
- Yeah, that's how it was spelled. - It was.
Yeah, it's funny because trailers for this film that have that shirt in it,
- they sort of fuzz it out. - Yeah.
Even though we spelled it properly.
It's because of the concept.
Some of the T-shirts they've given away as part of the film,
I signed the other day, actually say C-U-M.
- Oh, really? - And for some reason, it doesn't...
It feels like it works slightly less. I don't know why.
And Toby, his first day at work at Vanity Fair,
did wear a T-shirt that said that with a picture of Keanu on it.
And he was told that dress was casual, meaning, you know, like,
polo shirts and khakis, not T-shirts, so...
Like, Gap.
Yeah, I think Graydon Carter said, "That's not going to fly around here."
Now, here we are beginning a number of scenes I have with Jeff Bridges.
Yeah, can I point out that you're acting with The Dude?
- I know, it's quite... - You ever think you'd see the day?
I do. It never really left my head when I was...
It was difficult not to just watch him sometimes
because he does almost nothing, and yet...
- Everything. - Everything. It's brilliant, brilliant.
He's so brilliant, and he would always...
Often after a take, we'd all go around to the monitor and watch it,
so he could check out what he'd done and evaluate it,
and then come back and sort of work on it.
I think because I've always done movies up against the clock,
and up against the wallet,
I've kind of always had to eschew that luxury
and just believed in cracking on and cracking on,
and then when you get the...
When you get the shot and you move round,
then you maybe have a look at the playback to see how it went,
whereas, you know, Jeff obviously has the luxury of being able to just...
And I think that's good in a way.
I think actors should have that room, that space to do that.
Yeah, it's not like we weren't up against the clock.
- No, I know, I know... - It's Jeff Bridges, so...
- Exactly. - Whatever it takes.
I don't think I'm really... I don't really deserve that yet.
Here's Danny Huston.
Danny Hu, the man that smiles more than anyone else in the world.
Yeah, he always plays bad guys,
and yet is the most cheerful, upbeat guy you could ever hope to meet.
He speaks like this.
Well, he's sounding more and more like his dad.
There's that one line in this film, "So, what does it feel like to be a star?"
Sounds like his father.
"You go up the ladder, I go down."
Danny always used to speak really quietly. It was kind of like,
you'd always have to really concentrate on what he was saying,
which I think is quite clever 'cause it made you listen to him.
Where was this? This was East London.
Yeah, well, the thing about the Sharps office was that it was all over the place
because we were in the IVACs complex...
- That's right, yeah. - ...for most of the office,
and then Clayton's office was actually at 3 Mills Studios.
I just let my chair go down.
It's all right, I'm back up.
Ay-up, look who it is, Alison Olsen, AKA Kirsten Dunst.
You realise the great significance of the apple, don't you?
You know what the apple represents?
- Fruit? - Exactly.
- That really is what I was going to say. - Really?
Yeah, I was going to say fruit.
She sent me... I remember one of the first days we were shooting,
she passed this note saying... It was like a school note,
it said, "Do you like me?" And then a box saying yes or no.
And I wrote on the back, "Fuck off."
That wasn't one of the choices.
It's funny.
- Oh, yeah. - Now, when we shot this scene,
I was actually on the other end of the phone, doing the...
You were, yeah. Like, larking about.
You'd often be more inclined just to lark about
than direct the film, really, I think, sometimes you'd...
You treated it more like a sort of game, more than anything.
What are you saying? I'm not professional?
Yes.
Who is this on the other end of the phone?
Just a voice-over person that we found. I never met her.
She just basically did this in a booth and I said, "Let's put it in."
She's very good.
There was actually talk at one time of taking my voice
that was actually on the soundtrack and just synthesising it to be a female voice.
- Oh, really? - Yeah.
Go ahead, make the joke. "It wouldn't have taken that much."
You said it.
Now, we just missed, obviously, the introduction of Ms. Margo Stilley,
who plays Ingrid the fashionista in this, lovely Margo.
- Who... - Go ahead, say it.
What, whose body you looked at in that flat scene?
There's a great picture of you standing with her in her underwear.
That's right, in her knickers, as we say in England.
I thought you were going to reference her big credit prior to this film.
- No, I wasn't. - The sequel to 8 Songs.
Do you remember when I did that psychically?
Yeah, that's right.
By the way, that button 33 will be very significant to Joni Mitchell aficionados.
Was that an absolutely meant thing on your part?
I can't remember now, but I'll take credit for it.
"You could have been more than a name on the door on the 33rd floor."
I see.
This building is probably about 4 miles high,
the amount of time it takes for us to get up in the elevator.
There's at least two minutes.
I was actually kind of annoyed that the button
that they got to light up was 33, 'cause I would have...
It got very complicated, though, because the...
- Clayton's office was only so high. - Right.
A lot of logistical things that you don't think about.
So now, here's a conundrum.
A sandwich has arrived for me, and I'm really hungry,
but I can't eat while we're doing this, can I?
Looks like Bob is gonna have to go hungry.
Can I also say, for the record, that my left shoulder is really killing me?
Well, let's talk about how sick you were when we shot this.
Nobody cares.
It was late at night, you were very ill, and the next morning
you flew off to Paris for your friend Michael Smiley's wedding.
That's correct. Yeah, I had a really bad cold and we did a night shoot.
I got back to where I was going at 5:00,
and I had to get up and fly to the south of France for a wedding.
But I made a miraculous recovery during the day,
because it was so beautiful and sunny down there,
and the wedding, the love that was in the room...
But it was only this sort of master shot from the front that was that night,
and all the coverage we got later. That's...
That was amazing, wasn't it? I think that was Simon off set...
- A different Simon, yeah. - One of our art department...
Yeah, a very high-tech special effect.
We basically had that gunk in a plastic spoon,
which he flicked onto Hannah's coat when you coughed.
And the tricky thing was getting the timing right,
getting the trajectory right and then getting it to stick.
- "Are you insane?" - Not so easy.
Kirsten Dunst has been acting since she was three years old.
And I went to see Interview with the Vampire
when I lived in Bristol, I think, when she was 12.
Little did I know that several years later, I would be...
You would actually snog her in a movie.
...acting alongside her.
She said, actually, one day, we were laughing about it,
that it's actually okay, for some reason.
It doesn't even need to be commented on,
that someone, a man 12 years older than a girl, can successfully woo her,
whereas if it was a girl 12 years older than a man,
there would have to be some comment about that.
There would have to be something about, "She's a bit older than him."
Whereas we got it easy. Yeah!
She had such trouble with this speech, didn't she?
- Yeah. - It was so funny.
Well, there was a lot of dialogue that had to be really fast.
I know. She was so funny, though. She kept...
It was one of those things, everyone was just, "Come on, come on, K."
And then finally, she nailed it.
She got the whole speech right, and everybody cheered,
and then she realised there was some continuity issue,
like her jacket was wrong or something.
That's right, yeah.
Now, here's the first little audio appearance by Bill Paterson,
who is a fabulous actor, and who I was lucky enough to have play my father.
We really had to...
I talked about this on the director commentary, for all of you who are...
Oh, God.
...familiar with my earlier, funnier work.
There is another less interesting commentary on this DVD,
- if you want to give it a listen. - Now, wait a minute.
It's just Bob on his own chattering on about his bloody shots...
Which, by the way, I'm only halfway through and then Mr. Pegg showed up,
and everything has to stop for Mr. Pegg.
...and his f-stops and bullshit like that. I mean, who cares?
I don't talk about f-stops. I don't even understand f-stops.
I've got people that do that for me.
People say, "What kind of lens did you use for this?"
And I say, "A glass one."
A film one.
We just sat in the back of this car, didn't we, and did a lot of improvising?
Yes.
Actually, people ask me about if you improvise much on this film,
and the stock answer is, "Not much, maybe a little."
But as I watch the film, I realise there were
a few opportunities where you got to...
Peter Straughan turned to me after the premiere and said,
"My two favourite lines in the film are, 'Elephants, '
"and, 'I've got cock on my hand."'
Those were both ad-libs.
Both improvised.
But, I mean, that's Peter just being generous,
'cause, you know, there was so little of that needed to be done.
What if you had switched them?
What if you had taken the book off the shelf and said...
And said, "I've got cock on my hand."
Or wiped your hand and said, "Elephants."
See, that's why you're a professional.
Exactly.
Now, should we reveal that all the dialogue...
- There's Toby. - There's Toby.
Every line of dialogue in this rooftop scene is ADR'd.
Which means "automatic dialogue replacement."
Basically, it means it's dubbed,
that this is not the actual dialogue that was recorded that night on location,
but recorded later in a sound booth.
Much like the one we're in now.
'Cause it was windy, and there was also just too much background noise,
and that happens sometimes.
But it really is... You and Kirsten... I mean...
All of you are very good at ADR, but you and Kirsten are especially good.
Well, you know, we're pros.
Yeah, well...
We are professionals, and that is a fact.
Diana Kent here.
I love that... I love the skyline in the background.
'Cause we were thinking about maybe shooting this in London,
and then somehow faking the skyline,
but the fact that we actually got to be in New York,
despite the noise and the traffic and everything else,
you can't beat that skyline.
You can't. That was on top of Soho House,
in the Meatpacking District of New York City.
I love how crushed Diana is here.
I know.
Now, we had to... Obviously, I'm sure you spoke about this
in your director's commentary,
but Rachel Petkoff was a character that actually returns later on.
- We'll talk about that later, I guess. - Yeah, well, and definitely that...
- Sore point for you, Bob. - Yes.
Slightly stuck in my craw.
Sore point.
It's the one... I mean, you know, there are a lot of things that you have to cut,
and things that you have mixed feelings about,
and you just have to get over it, but I have to say,
that is the one thing that sticks in my craw, was losing that scene, it was...
I drew a line in the sand, and then somebody crossed it.
You also wanted to cut me out of the film, didn't you?
But you realised the film would only last four minutes if you did.
Yeah, but it would have been four great minutes.
You got that right.
I also said on my director's commentary, it bears repeating.
This is, in some ways, one of my favourite films...
One of my favourite scenes in the film.
I just love that it's the first look we get at Sidney being something other than
just a sycophantic jerk.
It's sweet, and I love Diana's reaction,
'cause when I first come up, she's like, "You're playing a joke on me."
Yeah, she's suspicious. She thinks that you're...
She looks daggers at me.
And then she really softens as soon as she knows that Sidney's talking about...
He knows what he's talking about.
Yeah, once you get into the details of her résumé, she knows you're for real.
It's weird to think that two minutes after you called, "Cut,"
I threw her over the balcony.
Yeah, it is sad.
It was like a gag, but...
'Cause I thought there were lots of awnings all the way down,
I thought she'd probably just go through them, like in Temple of Doom.
But sadly, she broke her leg.
Well, I knocked down a very pregnant woman the other night.
You pulled Gillian Anderson over...
- I didn't pull her, she fell. - You fucking did, Bob.
She took a swing at me, I ducked out of the way, and...
I believe there should be a sitcom called Why, Oh, Weide?
It's just about Bob's life.
And it's probably been done because Curb Your Enthusiasm is pretty similar,
about a man who just constantly fucks up.
At the premiere of our film, just two nights ago,
a very pregnant Gillian Anderson and I were goofing around on stage
before the movie started, and she took a playful swing at me.
I ducked out of the way, fell over on my ass,
and she came down with me and...
- The whole crowd just went... - Gasps.
She's, like, two weeks away from having a baby, and she fell.
And then the next morning, me and Gillian conspired against Bob
to try and convince him that she'd had the baby in the middle of the night
because he brought on the labour.
So me and Gillian were texting Bob, saying, "You'll never guess what.
- "The baby arrived." - "The baby's been born."
And I bought it. And then it started to smell a little fishy.
But she did it to me first, 'cause I texted her in the morning,
and said, "Are you all right?" And she sent me one back saying,
"Mother and baby doing fine.
"Baby was 7 pounds, 3 ounces," or something.
Plus, I love the specifics that the baby was born at 6:18 a.m.
- Who comes up with the time of 6:18? - I know, she's brilliant.
There she is. Now, here is Gillian Anderson, the apple of my eye.
This is before she was pregnant.
By the time you hear this, it'll be after she's delivered,
but in the middle there somewhere...
She's always a favourite of mine, way back from The X Files.
I remember a time when I literally had photographs of her
on the wall of my bedroom.
I sent her a picture recently of a party at my house,
and there's a poster of her in the background on the wall.
And here's another poster girl, the mighty Megan Fox.
With her real-life boyfriend, Brian Austin Green.
Yeah, Brian Austin Green in the background.
Fab, fab, fab fellow, who came on set quite a few times.
Really nice guy. They're a lovely couple, actually. Makes you sick.
They sort of have to stay together
because she's got his name tattooed on her body in a very prominent...
Well, not prominent, very private place.
Let's just talk about really personal things for a bit.
Well, she's talked about it, it's been photographed.
Here's our La Dolce Vita moment.
Look, Kirsten hated it.
She wanted to walk through the pool.
How many movies have gags with pig piss
and references to La Dolce Vita?
It runs the gamut, doesn't it, of high culture and low theory?
Look at her, doing her beautiful face.
I told her, before this scene, I said,
"Look, you've just got to totally play up the sexuality walking through the pool."
She's doing a sort of ditzy kind of...
She looked at me and she said, "Oh, yeah, just watch this shit."
And she did it.
She's very funny in this film.
They're just nodding at everything.
Yeah, I like the nodding.
She's not even talking to you, she can't even see you, but you're nodding.
That used to make me laugh, doing that, I was laughing inside.
We had a good time.
I think it was after this night that we opened up
the Lucky Strike across the road on Grand Street.
At 5:00 a.m., Stephen Woolley, our esteemed producer,
had Lucky Strike opened up and we went in and sat in it,
and me and Megan sat in the corner and just gassed for about two hours
and got really, really pissed.
And I walked out of there just thinking, "She's had a remarkable life."
And she's quite sort of... She's quite the paradox, really.
'Cause she's not exactly what you'd expect.
And she really is like a comic-book loving surfer nerd.
Yeah, she likes the comic books
and she's into the sort of conspiracy theories and all sorts.
She's... There's more than meets the eye with Me-Fo.
I remember Gillian gave a fantastic finger to the press that night.
We had a lot of problems with the paps in New York.
It wound up on YouTube.
You can still see the video of her flipping off the camera guys.
The paparazzi in America, I think, are probably more tenacious
than the paparazzi in the UK,
although the press in the UK are slightly more cutting than the press in the US.
So it kind of balances out.
That's not Cuba, that's a fucking lookalike.
It's not even a lookalike. It looks nothing like her.
It might as well have been an Alsatian.
That would have been interesting.
No, what was funny was we needed Cuba in this scene in New York
because all of the other Cuba stuff is in London,
and here we had a New York scene,
and I said, "We need another Chihuahua."
And on the day of the shoot, they brought me, like, four Chihuahuas,
and none of them looked like Cuba, so I went with one that looked...
That least looked... That least didn't look like...
You know what I'm trying to say.
It's worth pointing out that while Kirsten and I are doing this,
there was a man who has gone up in the service elevator of the hotel
into our suite at the top of the hotel, and is now stealing my camera,
my phone, Kirsten's handbag, Liat's handbag, as this is happening.
That man is now serving a four-year jail sentence, so there you go.
So let that be a lesson to all of you, who...
- Try to steal when we're filming. - That's right.
But I lost a camera with 300 photographs on,
and I'll never get them back.
Yeah, you were furious. It wasn't that they stole your camera,
but you said, "If they'd only leave the memory card..."
Yeah, just leave the fucking memory card.
You'd have so much more respect for them.
I know, what a scum rocket.
That still bugs me.
There were two people, right? And one of them got put away.
I don't know what happened to the other, if they ever got him.
But it was all caught on the security cameras.
"Venus Envy." My joke, just want to point that out.
- That's great, Bob. It's a good one. - Thank you very much.
- You know, basic wordplay. - What?
- Come on, a little credit. - Page 1. Come on, what is that?
Hardly Shakespeare, is it?
I think Shakespeare did make a Venus envy joke.
Yeah, it's in Much Ado About Nothing. Great quote.
By the way, the other thing, there's a picture of my cat on the wall
next to Kirsten, the black-and-white cat is my cat Butch.
And that picture of Kirsten holding up an apple right by her head, next to...
That's me next to her, but it's actually...
We put somebody else's face on it.
That was us. We made a little apple man in rehearsal.
I think we bonded over an apple with a face on it.
It was your child, your little, deformed apple child.
That's right, yeah, we said it was our baby.
I think my dog is on there, too, my dog Jake.
Butch, my cat Butch, now only has three legs, he lost a leg to cancer,
but he's doing great, thanks for asking.
He lost the leg during, when you were doing the dub, wasn't it?
Yeah, it was terrible. I was in London, and my poor kitty had to have surgery,
and I couldn't be there to be supportive.
This got a big laugh, this sequence, at the premiere.
Well, why shouldn't it? It's very funny.
I was never sure about it, to be honest.
I think I mugged it too much.
Big eyes, big mouth.
Actually, continuity gaffe here, the venetian blind shadow on your face,
which has now disappeared, and now it's back.
Well done. Good for you.
I love that little look back,
just at the last second as you're rounding the corner.
I just try and milk everything I can from a scene.
Here we are in New York again, in the office we shot in.
Hey, don't lie to the people. You know we're not in New York.
I already pointed out it's a translight on the wonderful director's commentary.
I think... You know what? I think commentaries are bullshit.
I think... What's happened to interpretation? What's happened...
People aren't allowed to just...
I suppose they... It's an elective thing, I suppose.
They've seen the film, they've already enjoyed it,
the commentary comes later, you can give away spoilers...
You know what? Quentin Tarantino never does commentaries.
- Let me say something right now... - Nor does Woody Allen.
In fact, here's a spoiler right now.
You get the girl at the end of the film. What do you think of that?
You get Kirsten Dunst at the end of the film, you...
That's fine, because that's in the film.
What I'm talking about is people's right to interpret on their own terms,
rather than just be prescribed everything by the makers of the film,
who are desperate to give everything away,
whereas in the old days, you...
It's like there was a scene in, I think it was Election,
the film, Thomas Paine's Election, and...
Any relation to Alexander Payne, who directed Election?
Sorry, Thomas Paine? Alexander Payne.
Thomas Paine was a writer, wasn't he?
Yeah, in the 18th century.
I'm sorry, I've had a glass of wine.
And Edgar Wright always said that he thought it was a kind of
unofficial sequel to Ferris Bueller's Day Off,
and kind of liked that idea. And then when he listened to the commentary,
Alexander Payne said he'd never seen Ferris Bueller,
which is kind of disappointing.
So in a way, it was a sort of... It was a negative thing.
Are you happy? You've wasted a good 45 seconds.
We could be talking about, you know, lenses and...
Or we could be talking about the fantastic...
- This guy. - Jefferson Mays.
Now this scene, which we loved...
I always thought this would be like, if you wanted to go on a chat show,
as we say in England, and promote this film,
this would be a great scene to really give the flavour of the film.
And yet it got cut, for a while. For a long time, it was not in the cut.
And then sort of at the last minute, it got a reprieve from the governor,
and we spliced it back in.
It was supposed to be Nathan Lane, wasn't it?
Yeah, well, and this is based on something that actually
is very close to something that...
An actual Toby Young interview with Nathan Lane,
where he did ask him those very inappropriate questions.
He did.
You asked for that laugh to be put back in, didn't you?
Yeah, somebody other than myself cut it out, behind my back,
when I was in the States, and I said, "Put it back."
It's terrible that people can do that.
It's just not right.
I bet they wouldn't do that to Thomas Paine.
Thomas Paine is a great director. Thomas Paine!
I think I'm embarrassed by forgetting that director,
'cause I would like to work with him.
He's actually a friend of mine, and he will listen to...
Don't say that. Sorry, Alexander.
That's all right. He has no idea who you are.
Like most people.
That chair squeak, by the way, going back 15 seconds,
when you got up off the chair, that was real.
I like that. That happens, like, twice, doesn't it?
It got a laugh the second time at the premiere.
Was this a day when Kik had a terrible sore throat?
Yeah, there were a couple days in there where...
I think this was the day she came back to work,
after having the sore throat.
That's right, she had such a bad sore throat,
she had to have an injection in her bum.
Yeah.
And took antibiotics to get it to clear up.
And it happened again in New York. She's got a susceptible tonsil area.
And the director kept coming... The director... Freudian slip!
The doctor kept coming back to give her her injections in the bum
for, you know, every day for the next two weeks.
It winds up it was just a placebo.
- Oh, Bob! - What?
Don't talk about Kirsten's bum like that.
I'm not, I'm talking about the doctor.
You're terrible.
This is true, isn't it? He tried to get that.
And this actually ends up being a thing that we cut.
Yeah, this whole MasterCard thing, with the Lord...
Hon Sidney Young.
Hon Sidney Young actually was a sort of little story point later on
that just got cut.
But I believe it will be among the deleted scenes.
So after you listen to the director's commentary,
be sure to watch the deleted scenes and the gag reel.
All for one low price.
This was the first time Megan was ever on set,
and I remember she walked in and everyone just fainted.
And she was doing publicity for Transformers
and had just flown in from either Korea or Australia.
- Something crazy. - Oh, yeah, she was knackered.
Yeah, and I tried to sort of rearrange the schedule so she could get in a nap,
and it didn't quite work, so I said,
"Just shoot this one scene, and then you can nap."
And she was a trouper, she did it. She was totally wiped out.
She's got a slow blink, anyway, at the best of times,
let alone when she's knackered.
A slow blink?
You know, she's got a real sleepy blink.
It's part of her appeal, I think.
Sleepy blink sounds like the name of a band.
That's my first band. There's the real Cuba.
She actually ripped the skin off my ear then.
Gillian and me, I suppose, had a crazy history of...
Well, I mean, I made her faint one day 'cause I stood on her toe really hard.
And I broke the skin on the bridge of her foot.
And I'm a bad guy for knocking her down when she's pregnant?
At least she wasn't pregnant when I did it, Bob.
It was only one life I endangered.
She didn't go unconscious after I dealt with her.
It was only because I think...
She actually blacked out from your injury.
It was the proximity. She got a whiff of my musk,
and just kind of was overpowered by my masculinity.
I know I've passed out a few times after sniffing you.
My masculine power.
I remember, me and her just gassed about The X Files all day, this day.
I finally got up the courage to start talking about it,
and she was pretty amenable, so I was like, "Right, okay..."
And I was grilling her about, "All right, what's your favourite episode?
"And what happened in Season 3, my favourite season?
"'Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, ' that's a great episode, isn't it, Gillian?"
And she would say, "Yes, it is, Simon," and we had a big chat.
I'm just getting over the fact that you said "me and her" instead of "she and I."
Listen, don't start lecturing me on English. You're American.
Actually, you're very literate and very... It's shocking when you get sloppy.
I think you're just trying to sound like one of the people.
Me and her?
Sometimes, you know what? Language is mine. It's not...
I don't have to adhere to some sort of rulebook.
It belongs to us. It's our thing. It's our way of communicating.
If we want to subvert it or use it badly, we should be able to, with impunity.
Let me look up "impunity." Hold on.
Oh, okay. Well, you're right.
There's Alison listening in on...
And maybe thinking, "Maybe he's not all bad."
Shot on an entirely different day. That's movie magic.
That was when she had a sore throat, I think, 'cause it was like the only...
Actually, when we shot this scene, that's right, she wasn't there,
because she was really sick and then we sort of shot angles
that didn't reveal her.
Or I think we actually put somebody in her chair.
Yeah, we did, we actually had somebody in her chair,
in case a little piece of her wound up on camera.
And she came back and we shot those two little...
Biggest mistake Sophie Maes ever made.
That, by the way, is the wrong kind of doorknob to be in New York.
We don't have those kinds of door handles.
- Oh, really? - Yeah.
Maybe Sharps made a stylistic choice and had them imported.
Yeah, I'm sure that was it.
Look at that little baby.
Now, these dogs, there were two of them,
were the first dogs my dog, Mini, ever met outside her own breed.
And so it's fitting for Mini that the first dogs she ever met were celebrities.
'Cause she's such a little star.
Look at that gorgeous little hound.
Sweet dog. Stank. Absolutely stank.
Smelt like a giant, wet Alsatian, just condensed into that tiny little package.
Those hands, by the way, weren't yours.
No, you can tell. They've got stubby fingers.
It's gonna be...
It's that advert from the '80s with Michael J. Fox in it.
Oh, no.
Or is it?
No, subverted. It's not what you think.
- The dog is gonna be just fine. - I love this bit.
That's so clearly a puppet.
So clearly a puppet?
What if someone said that about you?
Well, it's true. No, I'm CG.
- Oh, heck. - Oh, no.
This was a sore throat day, I remember,
'cause I went and bought her a big tub of sorbet.
'Cause it soothes it.
That little paw was so fucking realistic, it was weird.
Even when you touched it, the pads on the bottom, it felt real.
I can still feel it.
Yeah, it took a while.
There was a lot of trying to figure out how to get the paw to pop out,
and at one point, we tied a little fishing line to it.
Yeah, I love her little run around the corner.
This was a day I got...
I just remember being busted for doing the same gags
with Kirsten and Megan on separate occasions, I think.
We were talking about, I don't know what it was,
but Megan mentioned something that was kind of like a joke
that me and Kirsten had between us, and...
You got busted. Kirsten realised you were using
your private jokes with her on Megan.
It was like... Yeah, no, it was just a little...
It was like an impression I was doing from something on the Internet,
and Kirsten kind of realised that I'd also sort of done it with Megan,
which made it, like...
I don't know, it was like I'd cheated on Kirsten. It was really funny.
Sharing a joke with another girl.
I blushed so... I ran out of the room, and tried to jump out that window.
Forty storeys up.
You realised you were on the first floor and it was a translight, so...
At most, you would have sprained an ankle.
I was relieved.
Here's Jeffrey, having a drink.
This is one of the reasons I wanted to disassociate the film
from the actual real-life counterparts, like Graydon Carter,
is I wouldn't want Graydon Carter to look at this and say,
"I would never drink in my office in the middle of the day."
Right.
Although I'm sure he does.
I think Graydon Carter saw the film and didn't mind it, did he?
No, I did hear that finally, officially.
I read him saying that he saw the film and liked it.
Who wouldn't want to be played by Jeff Bridges?
Unless you're, like, you know...
I have no good joke ending.
I can't think of anyone. I was wracking my brains, but...
Don't hit me.
Yeah, I love that little...
Linda, my wife, always laughs at that little back up thing.
That was the funny thing about Sharps magazine, though,
is that they have all those people on the front.
There was never anybody famous on the front.
Fake celebrities.
Ridiculous.
Very well put together, though.
The art department did a fantastic job on the...
You know, there's a lot of detail that is very much in the background,
but it was really intricate, like, those magazine covers were fantastic.
And they all... If you were to actually look at those magazine covers,
they all have text on them that relate to stories that are inside,
which was all made up.
What's that poster behind Jeff, Bob?
Le Mépris, it's a Jean-Luc Godard film, with Brigitte Bardot and Jack Palance,
and it bears...
Actually, let the viewers try to figure out what the significance of it is.
No, there is no significance. It was...
We were sort of in a last-minute, desperate...
I don't know, we sort of got squeezed to put something on the wall behind him
because the plan that we had for the art direction of the office
sort of fell apart at the last minute.
And Stephen said, "I'll get an old movie poster,"
and happened to grab that one and he put it on the wall.
I figure people are going to try and figure out...
It is actually a film about filmmaking, so...
I just really tuned out then, Bob, to be honest.
Yeah, me, too. I just put myself to sleep.
This was a re-shoot, wasn't it? This was like later...
Not a re-shoot, but this was a pickup we did months later.
Months later.
This was the day before I went off to film Star Trek.
You're in Star Trek?
Soho Grand, the scene of the crime.
When in fact, here, we're in London.
- That isn't the Soho Grand. - No.
Now, can we talk about the ass-crack contention?
What nearly happened? What...
Go to it, my friend, it's all yours.
We were messing around doing... This little bit of physical comedy
just sort of came up before...
You can see the very top of my bicycle...
What would you call it? You know, where you park your bike?
I don't park my bike in your bum, I can tell you that much.
My bum.
- And I think, on the... - Although I could.
We didn't fully commit... Well, it was not that...
I didn't realise that my ass wasn't as exposed as it could have been.
And I think we were looking for a little builder's crack there,
and because it wasn't quite there, there was some suggestion
in post-production to re-shoot that moment
so I would have more of my bum showing, and...
They actually did shoot someone else's and dropped it in,
like a real, awful drop-in close-up, which I actually vetoed.
Full-frame.
I asked if it could not be put in. That wasn't you, I hasten to add, Bob.
They look like real dead fish in there.
Those were.
But they weren't killed for the film, they were already dead.
Where do you get dead... I mean, those ones there in that shot...
The back of a pet shop. Go into the back of a pet shop,
and they'll have thousands of dead animals.
"Can I get two dead cats, a dead dog and a dead fish, please?
"I'm a taxidermist. Thank you very much."
"Sorry, the dead dogs are 86'd."
Again, I think this is the second day of shooting.
By the way, may I say, on the director's commentary,
I sing the praises of actress Lisa McAllister,
who you did that scene with, who I think was terrific.
Lisa Lee? Lisa La Lula?
She was lovely, Lisa.
She came, and she was at the Apollo Awards, as well, wasn't she?
I saw her recently. She came and...
I saw her at an event, quite by chance.
Yeah, where did I see her?
And then she came to your drinks do.
Right, my drinks do.
Lisa McAllister, of course.
Drinks do.
Now here we are with Sidney and Alison starting to at least tolerate...
She's warming to you. She's starting to go for the old Sidney charm.
Or is it the Simon charm? It's a fine line.
It's the Sidney charm.
- The White Russian, there it is. - White Russian insert shot.
Another art department triumph was Alison's book,
'cause it was actually full of text, and a lot of it was...
You could sit and read it, it was amazing.
Yeah, I kind of like this story arc of Peter...
Well, the character arc of Peter Straughan's,
that it's so contentious between the two of you,
and then we see you start to warm to each other.
And this scene is kind of a turn-around scene.
In fact, when you do the, "Two straws, please," joke,
she actually laughs at it, whereas,
normally, she would have rolled her eyes.
Did that nearly get cut, that "two straws"?
Yeah, that was one of the things that people kept trying to cut,
and I said, "No, no, no."
Every day a struggle. Fight off the bad ideas.
That's filmmaking. That's filmmaking, buddy.
- Ay-up. - Eye contact.
They're starting to like each other, now look what spoils the moment.
Sophie F-ing Maes gets in on the action.
Tod Rivera.
There's a character in Garth Marenghi's Dark Place played by Matt Berry,
he's called Todd Riviera, I think.
That's interesting.
Look, she's thinking, "Oh, shit, no, he's into..."
He's into the actress.
The vacuous, young fillies.
So much going on with just a look.
That's a great line.
How did that come about, that trailer?
Wasn't it supposed to be, like, something else?
It was supposed to be...
I think there was like just a placeholder in the script for the longest time,
suggesting that there would be a funny trailer, but it hadn't been written.
And then late in the game, I said to Peter,
"You know, we're going to have to shoot this thing, so come up with something."
And he gave me two choices.
I think I suggested the Madame Curie story.
That's it, Madame Curie.
Yeah, and then he did Mother Teresa, and that sort of...
Everyone thought that was funnier.
I love...
Again, I mention this on the director's commentary.
But I love Kirsten's face here.
Your reaction is obvious, but Kirsten is like realising that he ripped off your idea
and she's not happy about it.
It's all there in her face in a very subtle Kirsten Dunst sort of way.
This is the only scene that Kirsten and Jeff had together.
That's right.
Because I remember Jeff sort of said about how he'd be feeling
about what Alison was thinking, and Kirsten was really pleased.
Yeah, Jeff and I had those discussions,
which was how much did Clayton know about your attraction to Alison,
and that Alison was involved with Maddox.
Right, right, right.
That's what makes him Jeff Bridges, the fact that he thinks about these things.
Yeah, that's what makes him...
That's what makes you you,
is you just want to run off and play when you hear, "Cut."
Where are my glasses? I must have taken them off in the interim.
You would have had time. This is not a continuity gaffe.
This is... Sidney said, "I don't have to read any more.
"I have to talk to someone. I'll take off my glasses."
- They're reading glasses. - I see.
They're in your coat pocket. They're in your breast pocket.
"When I do it, it's flirting. When you do it, it's sexual harassment."
That's very John Huston. He really is becoming his father here.
It's the way he does it, he turns around and gives me a little,
"I'm better than you," look afterwards.
- Have you seen 30 Days of Night? -Yeah, I have.
- He's incredible in that. - Yeah.
He speaks in a funny language, got really sharp teeth.
Do you figure he just...
I guess they learn that stuff phonetically when they have to do that.
I wish we had commentary entirely in 30 Days of Night vampire speak.
That sounds like Klingon.
Here we go. And this was my least favourite scene to film, ever.
You weren't happy about it.
But actually, by the time we sort of
cobbled it all together, it came out just fine,
but you weren't a happy camper that day.
"Are you Lawrence Maddox?"
I like saying that bit.
Now, this, some people don't know that this is still Bobbie.
- I know. - Why does she have a blonde wig on?
Well, because there was a scene at the end of the film
where she had a blonde wig, and I was going to match that.
And then the scene at the end of the film got cut, so now suddenly...
I think the assumption just has to be that Bobbie,
when she does this for a living, wears a blonde wig.
But there are people who've seen this film who didn't realise that
this is the same tranny that you brought home that night, which is a shame.
And by the way, if you look very carefully, you'll see...
And I did this for this reason, but nobody notices it,
is that she has a tattoo on her left cheek,
which we see in your flat and then we see here,
so that was supposed to be the connecting link there.
Nobody pays attention.
You're grossly overestimating everybody.
Yeah, I guess so.
I remember, we were lining up the shot...
There it is.
We were lining up that shot and you leant over
and took a picture of Charlotte's ass.
And I was saying, "Bob, you can't do that.
"You can't just photograph someone's anus."
It wasn't her anus, technically.
It wasn't that close up.
There's me grabbing at the wand.
Finally, someone else's.
Here's your big ad-lib.
When we were shooting that day, and you sat there,
you actually said to me, "I'm going to ad-lib something here,
"so just go with it."
And you said it and the entire crew had to cover their mouths with their hands,
because everyone was laughing.
Gillian's slightly frightened of me.
I love that little hand movement she does.
Angry. He's annoyed at me now.
I actually wanted to play this whole scene, or virtually the whole scene,
most of the scene, without ever cutting to this shot of Clayton.
I wanted it to all be him pacing behind you,
but we had to make some cuts in the dialogue,
and it involved changing his body position.
That's weird, 'cause I remember doing this scene with Jeff.
When he really berates me,
it was really difficult not to sort of well up.
- 'Cause Jeff Bridges was mad at you. - He was really yelling at me.
And when I had to say that thing about,
"Won't you have to run something like that past Eleanor first,"
it was always like...
I could feel myself getting all...
'Cause he's got laser vision, Jeff.
Remember we used to do a thing,
we used to, like, do takes where we just talked over each other?
We'd do a take when it was clean for sound,
so there were no overlaps.
But then we did a couple of takes and we just literally...
Like, when he's going, "What did I say?"
Yeah, that bit's actually been cut,
but the scene where he lectures you about,
"Assume they're all Jewish and all gay,"
actually started off with a bunch of overlap.
"What did I tell you? What did I tell you?"
"What did I tell you?"
Seemed to be.
I like the fact that the swearing has remained intact in this film.
You know, so often films are just cut for language,
just to crowbar in a few more people into the seats.
It's such a sort of compromise.
Here we are at the Hamptons, in New York, upstate New York.
- No, we're not. - Shut up, Bob!
E-P-S-O-M.
Don't ruin it. People got to believe it's America.
I've got news for you. On the video blogs,
you're going on and on about,
"Here we are in Epsom, substituting for..."
In fact, you refer to Hamptons as upstate New York.
Hamptons isn't upstate New York. It's on Long Island.
Is it? That's a big one. I don't know.
Don't go on like you know the geography of the Eastern Seaboard.
I know the Lower East Side better than you do.
That's true.
Where all your drug connections are.
- That's where I go and get my crack. - Just kidding.
Now, Alison and Sidney here are friends, really.
They've become friends. They're enjoying each other's company.
You make her laugh. Her secret boyfriend doesn't make her laugh.
- No, he makes her miserable. - Exactly.
I seem to remember carrying Kirsten across this field that day.
For shits and giggles.
Good times.
Your shits and her giggles.
- This was Mini's first ever day out. - That's right.
- Do we know who Mini is? - Mini is my dog.
And she was just a puppy at the time, and she'd never been outside,
other than in the back garden, because she hadn't had her shots.
And then she got her shots, and it just so happened on the day
that we filmed this was the first time that she was eligible for outside fun.
There's a good shot.
That was like your idea for the poster, wasn't it?
Yeah, that's right.
- A bunch of elegant shoes and... - Yeah, yeah.
...heels and then your argyle socks.
I'm so glad we got that one with all the airbrushing and the big red letters.
Wait, wait, quiet, quiet, look...
- Look who it is. - Yeah.
Nice.
I smell Oscar!
There's Bob, proving that acting isn't easy.
"I understand you had some problems."
Is that me?
Now, Megan kind of... There is a shot put back in
where Megan's kind of feeling a bit sorry for me there, as Sophie.
Yeah, right, here she comes.
That's it. She likes you.
She doesn't like to see you being picked on.
She doesn't.
My hope is that in our deleted scenes, we were able to somewhat restore this
as it was originally meant to be, before it got all sort of...
- I want the Honourable Sidney. - ...reassigned, yeah.
So the credit card thing should be in there.
We've also got Maddox's wife crying in the bathroom.
And then, of course, the Rachel Petkoff scene.
I love that.
The line was, "Han Young, you sound like a Korean medical student."
There's Andy Lucas.
Now, what part... He was in an episode of Spaced.
Andy was in Spaced. He was in Episode 6, Series 2 of Spaced,
playing a waiter in a restaurant where we have a big food fight.
I like that joke of saying, "Jesus,"
'cause he does look kind of like Jesus might have looked.
That always gets a laugh.
Always works.
Do you believe in Jesus, Bob?
Who's Jesus Bob?
I thought his last name was Christ.
That's right. Is that actually a surname, Christ?
If you looked it up in a phone book, and they're like, "There's Dave Christ."
They're still named Christ.
"Dave and Mary Christ would like to announce the birth of their son, Eric."
Actually, the Jews don't say Christ because I think Christ means "the Lord,"
so the Jews all call him Jesus, but they'll never say Christ.
We tried to get... There's Angelique.
- That's right. - There's Margo and Megan.
We tried to get Orlando Bloom to do a little cameo here, and...
And then once we didn't get him, the question was,
"Could we still justify the gag of shouting out to Orlando?"
But it always got such a laugh.
I think that, you know, 'cause it's not a common name.
The guy behind just then, looked a bit like Orlando Bloom.
He's a very sweet guy, by the way, Orlando.
He's very friendly and sort of amiable.
I think he just was a bit worried about playing himself a few too many times,
which is fair enough.
- You know who looks like Orlando... - Git.
...enough that from a distance
we could have gotten away with it is Danny's nephew Jack Huston.
The one that was in... Oh, yeah, Jack Huston, yeah.
By the time I thought of that, the train had already left the station.
- Now my chair sank. - Bye, Bob.
What's going on here?
I'm all little now.
I liked doing this scene.
This was...
If you don't hear from me in 30 minutes, it's because I'm...
For God's sake, man, we're in the middle of a commentary.
You've got to push the little button up with the lever.
You say that to all the boys. Where is it?
I'll just do the commentary.
And here, this was in Epsom. It was about...
I guess night was just falling.
When she kicks me in the back of the leg here, my leg bends the wrong way.
She kicks me so hard. Watch.
- Christ! - That's gotta hurt.
That really hurt.
I didn't mean to do that for comic effect. Or that.
Yeah, that was painful.
Okay, I'm just going to
- be in a little chair. - She drew blood.
- It's this. Look. Stand up. Stand up. - Which one? Which one?
This. This here.
- Look at that. - God.
Why didn't you say that in the first place?
That was a special effect, seeing Megan in the...
I've got news for you. Any shot of Megan is a special effect.
You said it, boss.
You said it, Big Bob.
This was the beginning, I think, of when I had the cold
that ended up in the lift because...
Because you were laying on cold concrete during a very cold night?
We were both laying on cold concrete, yeah.
And it was raining that night.
And remember we had to keep drying the ground?
Yeah, we had these big heaters, these big blowers to dry the concrete.
This is that night when everyone kind of went, "She's good."
She can act. She's not just beautiful.
There was one scene that she did when she's talking about Cuba
when she actually... Little tears are streaming down her face, as well.
Which is quite good, considering it was just a...
You know, that business, where she's talking to you
about being like an injured animal and limpy pig and all that,
and you're looking at her, that always gets laughs that I never expect it to.
And I try to figure it out, I think it's just your reaction to what she's saying,
or something, but I never thought of it as that comic a scene,
but people do laugh.
Yeah, it's funny, it's funny,
the whole notion of me being a limpy pig.
I think it's difficult being in a scene with Megan,
'cause she really throws your own inadequacies into sharp relief.
She's such an incredibly beautiful person.
And I am a podgy, tennis-ball-headed freak.
And I've come to terms with that, you know. It's not something I'm...
Bob, pour me more wine.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Late at night, lying on the concrete floor.
This actually wound up being...
The sun was coming up and I remember...
Do you remember the birds started singing?
The birds were chirping through all this.
We had to ADR. some of this just to get rid of the bird chirping.
That's one thing people don't ever really consider about night shoots.
They always worry about the light coming up,
but the birds start about half an hour before the light comes up,
so you have a sound issue before you have a light issue.
Holy balls, she is whispering in my ear for coke!
Now, is this or is this not, your favourite comedy reaction?
Here it comes.
He is spotting the wizard dentist.
There you go.
I said, after that take I walked up to you and I said, "Did you just say..."
- Yeah. - And you said, "Yeah."
This was the last thing we shot in England, wasn't it?
- That's right. - This very bit.
With the little streamlined crew, after we let most of the crew go.
I'd lay on my Jeff Bridges chair, and have a cigar...
And now we're back in Epsom.
And this was as dawn rose. We just managed to nail this.
Kirsten's dad was there that night.
Dawn Rose had a small part in this film, but then we had to let her go.
Dawn Rose? I love Dawn Rose.
Did I mention my left shoulder's really killing me?
Yeah, you keep going on about it.
When this video comes out, it'll be better and no one will care, anyway.
- Let's hope so. - So shut up about it.
Poor Kiko. Look at her, crying.
"I hate rental cars."
What would you do?
Here's a dilemma. Press "A" or "B."
Go to the horny actress with coke or take home the drunk girl?
- You did the right thing, look at you. - Yes, I did.
Although, you figure if she's really drunk, you know...
Well, you know what?
I like the way she goes, "A."
This is... We're back in the studio here,
if we're really going to pull the curtain back.
That's right, that's right.
I can't say that the Hamptons are Epsom...
You've already done it, Bob. The genie is out of the bottle.
...but you can say we're in a studio here?
How can you be...
The thing is it's a very huge studio, and we're driving around in it.
The genie is well and truly out of the bottle.
The artifice has been exposed.
This was a scene that was well played, but just too long that got cut way back.
There's a lot of exposition, a lot of information in this scene.
And we just had to trim.
And there was actually some additional information about Lawrence,
where she talks about, "He's not really what you think he is.
"He's disappointed in himself
"because he didn't stick with the poetry," or whatever.
And it was kind of a nice insight into Danny's character,
but it was just one extra piece of information that had to be jettisoned.
It's the first time I've used the word "jettisoned" today, by the way.
Is it? Are you sure?
That happens a lot of the time, you know, nuances get lost
or they don't communicate and they have to go by the wayside.
You never think of it on the day,
you do everything just in full assumption that it's going to appear in the film,
but it's always the case that things get deleted.
I think, when you read a script, you think, "What could possibly go?"
But the edit is such a...
Another very, very huge and important part of the process,
and things can be shaped and changed in the edit.
Usually, you edit just because you're trying to cut time out of it.
In your case, we edit because of bad performance.
Thanks, man.
That is actually Kirsten I'm carrying up.
She weighs over 200 pounds.
She might look tiny, but she's... And here he is.
Lucky me, I got to carry Miriam up the stairs.
Whereas Miriam, weirdly, only weighs 140 pounds.
I had lots of fun doing this scene.
Kirsten was very good in this sequence.
I had a lot of fun watching her just mess about,
and be cheeky drunk.
By the way, how much do you weigh in pounds?
I have no idea.
Really? Well, what about stone? I don't even know...
Twelve and a half, 13 stone?
'Cause the other night, when I was joking around,
and I introduced you on stage, I said, "In the black Armani suit,
"weighing 167 pounds," and that was just a number off the top of my head...
No, I'm probably more like 180, 190 pounds.
Really?
I don't know. I don't understand pounds.
- What about sterling? - I get that.
That's two to a dollar. That's easy.
No, it's two dollars to a pound.
I think it's like $5 to the pound at the moment, what with the crash going on.
"Is this cocaine, right?"
I love his nonchalance about it.
I know, he's so laid-back and lovely.
That didn't come out right.
That's not what I meant to say.
Now, is that the dress that she wears in the last scene as well?
Is that the dress... No, I don't think it is.
No, it's not, that's a very bad continuity gaffe, and thanks for pointing it out.
Well, I think it's often silly that people...
It's assumed they're supposed to wear the same thing,
or different things on every single day.
It's like in Friends, the sitcom Friends, they never have the same clothes on.
And they're always terrible clothes, as well.
I don't know why I'm talking about it.
Why are you knocking David Schwimmer's show?
- I'm not knocking him. - He's a lovely guy.
- I like Friends. - He's a friend of yours.
He's worked with you, he's directed you.
I like Friends. I'm saying about the fact that you often...
You never see people wearing the same clothes.
All right, you already said that. Get off it. You're obsessing now.
Okay.
Gulp.
I like the way that Mrs. Kowalski is so maternal in this scene,
and also, "Lord Young."
She really respects him.
"Yeah, it's true. My dad's a Lord."
"I'm an Hon."
Do you remember... I really like this scene.
It's always a pleasure to
have the opportunity to act with great actors,
and I think Bill is one of my favourite actors.
But do you remember the problem?
We had to make a special pocket in his coat
so he could get the book out.
Get the book out, yeah.
The other thing I remember about this scene
is I really wanted to do this piece of business
where he's consoling you,
and he sort of puts his hand over your shoulder,
but can't quite bring himself to actually touch your shoulder.
And you felt, performance-wise, that you needed the contact
to sort of do the reveal about...
That you're actually not having a good time of it and all that.
So I thought, "All right, he can touch your shoulder, let it hover.
"Touch your shoulder, and then we can cut it out in editing."
Which is what we did.
You cut out the touch?
Yeah, we cut out the touch, because I like just his inability to quite...
Yeah, I agree. I like that, as well. I'm sorry I made it...
No, no, it was a legitimate point of view for you
to need that as an actor, but I thought, you know, easy enough to...
It's good in a way, because I kind of sense that he's, you know...
It's a nice moment of father-son synchronicity.
See, this right here is the nice thing about being in a studio,
where you can move walls.
When we did Curb Your Enthusiasm, and everything was on location,
you couldn't move walls, so you couldn't get shots like this.
So there's really a wall there. See, he can't touch you.
That's clever. That's well done.
When your mom watched this, when your mom was on the set,
we had already shot this scene and cut it.
And the two of you were in my trailer, and I showed this scene to your mom,
- and she cried. - That's right.
And she cried at the premiere the other night again when she saw it.
Yes, she did.
She doesn't like to see her boy unhappy,
even if he's playing a fictional character.
I think it's also the sweetness of the moment, you know,
the kind of inability...
It shows something a lot about Sidney, in that he's, you know...
There are motivations for the way he is, you know what I mean?
There's a kind of a...
His tenacity comes out of a desperate sort of need to succeed,
and to prove himself, do you know what I mean?
But on his own terms.
Right.
Well, yeah. I mean, that's something I love about Peter Straughan's writing,
is that a lot of these characters you assume they're one thing upfront,
and then, as time goes on,
you realise there's more going on than you saw at first.
And Sidney's more complicated than we thought.
Yeah, he's not just a 2D sort of lummox, as my nan would say.
This snoring thing was actually the suggestion
of a friend of mine, Audrey Wells,
because in the script, it just has you looking at her.
And she said, "Have her drool or something."
I thought, "No, drooling's not right, but I can have her snore and snort."
That got a good laugh the other night.
Yeah, people like that.
It's funny.
Here we are in the hottest studio on Earth.
This was like an oven.
It didn't help that we were, actually, really were cooking beans on the stove.
It was a practical stove.
"Cooking beans" sounds like a euphemism for something.
Hey, man. I swear to God, I was cooking beans.
"You were cooking beans last night, man."
"We was cooking beans."
- What does that mean? - It means I was...
- It means I was cooking beans. - Really cooking beans.
- Janette Scott. - The lovely Janette Scott.
Fortunately, an actual photo from the movie Now and Forever,
which is the one we used.
I'd love to meet Janette Scott. It's such a brilliant thing that she did
in letting us use those clips,
and also with such good grace and enthusiasm, as well,
and I have a certain yearning to thank her in person.
Now, you can't say this because it would be immodest,
but when she was asked about letting us use the clip,
she said she would be delighted to play Simon Pegg's mother.
Bless her.
- She did. - Now I want to meet her even more.
And then we said, "Do you know who Simon Pegg is?"
And she said, "No."
He's the guy from the Buttercup cough syrup commercial.
Am I right? Yes.
She's always loved that commercial.
I love this cutaway of Kirsten,
when it just cuts to her just looking at me reading her stuff.
She looks so demure.
That's the other thing I had to justify, was allowing the shot to really play
as long as it is before we cut to her because there's always that mentality
of, "Come on, moving on, moving on."
Yeah, it works so nicely, the timing is great.
You need it.
Caught.
This line I love, the way you deliver this right here.
That's a favourite.
She doesn't care. She's too hung-over to give a shit about anything.
Well, you know what? Her real boyfriend couldn't care less about her book.
In fact, he mocks her about the book,
so the fact that you're taking an interest...
Larry Maddox, that two-faced, brown-nosing hack.
Gosh darn it.
This is one of my favourite scenes, with regard to Kirsten's performance, this...
Yeah, this was one of my favourite scenes to shoot, anyway,
'cause I used to like doing the dancing, 'cause, you know,
that kind of awkward affection...
By the way, that swivel chair came in real handy for blocking.
The fact that she could face one way
and then turn around and face the other way
without having to get up off the chair.
- Oh, yeah. - It just so happened.
I don't think anyone thought of that when they picked out the chair,
but it worked.
Look, you can see there on the... If you look...
I don't mean to undermine my own sort of personal credibility,
but you can see the sweat beading on my shirt
because it's so damn hot.
But you made a decision to play a hot, sweaty character and this is...
Sidney is supposed to be a sort of hot, sweaty pasty of a man.
Not very alluring.
Would you take my hand if you were that pretty?
Answer, no.
There we go, have a little dance.
I used to think that as a kid when I would see Woody Allen movies,
when he'd be kissing Diane Keaton,
I thought, "Well, he's writing the script and he's casting her,
"so he gets to kiss her. That's not fair.
"In real life, that guy couldn't kiss that girl."
But the thing is, you know what?
A sense of humour, funniness, it's so, so attractive.
It really, really is. And it never goes.
Looks fade, man. Funny is forever.
A friend of mine, a comedian, Rick Reynolds, says that
women always say that the first thing they want is a sense of humour,
above being handsome, and he says,
"So you would rather be stranded on a desert island with Carrot Top
"instead of Brad Pitt? Is that correct?"
That depends on how funny you find Carrot Top.
If Rick heard this, he'd say, "That's not the phrasing.
"That's not how I said it." And I did actually screw it all up,
so I apologise to...
You deserve to be flogged for ruining that joke.
See, now here we feel bad for Sidney
'cause they're mocking him behind his back,
and he can hear what's going on.
I know. Conveniently just walking past. Didn't just barge in.
The first time in your life you didn't barge into a room,
- and they're talking about you. - Lingered at the door now
and listened.
I love this line.
It's so funny, when I first met Kirsten, she was 13.
I couldn't swear in front of her, and now these words come out of her mouth.
She was probably swearing then, anyway.
Just you weren't allowed to...
I think I did about...
I did lots of different variations on...
Yeah, you did. This was a place where you got to ad-lib.
This is...
There we go.
That just happened to be a book that the clearance people said
we could put on camera and it was on the shelf.
And you pulled it out and said that and it's a very, very memorable moment.
That is actually my real face, isn't it? It's that distorted.
You know, I could not figure out in the first few preview screenings we did,
why people were laughing at this scene,
'cause I wasn't thinking of the line as a means of distorting your face
and making you look funny.
It just happened to be in the mirror, and yet people really chuckle at that.
Then I realised, "It's 'cause his face is distorted."
Distorted all to heck.
Here we are in the party. I went to the loo.
- At the premiere... - Those aren't the lyrics.
You did get up during the film.
I had to get up and...
But you and Maureen both got up. Did you both have to go?
Yeah, we both needed to go, but I'd seen this clip recently,
and I thought, "Right, I'll go now 'cause I've seen this clip recently."
As much as I like... I love... Can I just...
We haven't said anything about Dr. Max Minghella, the...
I talk all about him on the director's commentary.
The skinniest handsome man in the world.
He's such a sweetheart.
He is such a funny guy. I think Max is gonna go a long, long way.
He's a brilliant actor. He makes so much of Vincent.
And there were so many little things that he does
that I really picked up on watching him work
that I just thought were great.
So I say all power to M&M.
A friend of mine, Terry Zwigoff, directed him in Art School Confidential.
When I was considering Max for the film, I wrote to Terry and said,
"What's your take on him? How was he?"
And Terry says, "He is great. You'll love him."
- Sweet, sweet kid. - He is such a nice guy.
In the best possible way. What?
He kissed her on the cheek.
Do you remember how I...
Well, I'd always wanted to block this with the two of you side by side like this,
and I forgot that I was going to do that, and we initially set this up
for the two of you facing each other.
I thought, "Oh, shit, no good."
And it took about a half hour to sort of reset everything.
'Cause I wanted you guys to be able to talk and not make eye contact.
This moment I love, when you both sip simultaneously,
which was not planned choreography, it just worked out that way.
I'm sorry, I just said a lot of stuff very quickly.
No, it's good. It's interesting stuff.
Now everyone is asleep.
Now, here's a little cut now...
By the way, when we shot this scene, that always choked me up,
you walking away and her looking...
She knows she's not done the right thing.
Yeah, there's a lovely scene here, which will be on the deleted scenes.
Which compounds my decision to sell out.
I really had the audio guys really pump up the volume
and just hit a really loud thud when you hit the window,
'cause I wanted people in the theatre to jump, and it seems to work.
I don't know if the DVD will...
Gillian looks like she was laughing there.
Yeah, I think she was.
Know what it was? When you shook your hands,
- you were spraying water on her... - Right, I see.
...and she's kind of wincing from the water.
That was the first night I ever tasted a Tootsie Roll.
What is that? A metaphor?
Gillian told me about it.
She said, "Have you ever had a Tootsie Roll?"
and I went, "A what?" And it was some sort of sweet.
You thought she was coming on to you.
- I did, actually. - You were hoping.
But she... So we went and got one. It was like a really chocolate toffee thing
that was hard and difficult to eat. But I tried it.
I only look about 4 foot there. I'm kneeling down.
You're on your knees.
"We represent the Lollipop..."
This is about the world's most obnoxious dwarf. Pardon?
You don't have Tootsie Rolls in England, then?
Not any more. And certainly not with Gillian A.
Wasn't that supposed to be Chopard or something?
Yes, it was. She's dripping in diamonds, and it's supposed to be Chopard.
She's not got a cardie on.
And then the deal fell through.
She's wrapped up in a big sweater.
And then I was trying to make a deal with Gucci,
and Gucci would have done it,
but they said, "She's wearing a Versace dress."
"We're not going to give you money."
And then it wound up being Woolmark.
We shouldn't make fun of them. God bless them, they gave...
Okay, listen, it's one of the most reliable marks.
Of any of the marks, the wool one is the best.
Well, we know that Sophie Maes trusts Woolmark,
but then she's a fictional character.
In a big woolly dress.
Oh, dear Lord.
Look, I've just found out that Alison's gone, haven't I?
You know how to work those eyebrows. You could do a whole class on...
That's one of my best features, eyebrows.
Best features.
Now, when we did this take,
'cause we knew this would all be under music,
we wouldn't hear dialogue,
do you remember that Max was saying many rude things about me?
That's right.
What he was actually telling you was about Bob Weide
and his history with young boys.
That's right, yeah.
The legal trouble he had gotten into.
I like to call this the smarmy montage.
This is me just looking really knowing and laughing and...
You have sold your soul, my friend.
"I see the way the world works, and I know."
Getting rid of Max's zit.
There we go. "Yeah. I don't care any more."
Look at that Machiavellian, kind of...
That is Machiavellian. Look at that Machiavellian zit.
All gone.
This is the last morning.
- Yes, this was again... - This is the... Was this the...
No, this is prior to the stuff at the...
Yeah, 'cause the last thing is me walking across the road.
Yeah, all this New York street stuff was on our last day of principal photography.
We started work in the East Village at like 8:00 in the evening or something,
and that was like 9:30 in the morning or something like that, wasn't it?
Yeah, we'd done a very... We'd done an overly...
- We did more than 12 hours, didn't we? - Yeah, definitely.
Those three office shots you just saw were also on a pickup day
- that was done months after. - That's right.
We did the airport stuff, we did that stuff,
your writing the Lepak piece.
That flat, the apartment, looking for the apartment,
that was in the same apartment as...
I actually do answer the door, obviously, when Alison turns up.
Here's Oscar Wright's name, right there.
Oh, yeah, who else is there?
I don't know. We'd have to freeze-frame.
There are some odd names there. Suzanne Somers, I just saw.
Somers. That was Jeff's last day.
That was Jeff's last shot, right there, yeah.
And that was the last shot in the studio, I think.
That's right, and then we did the Andy Lucas scene in the car,
and then we were through with London until pickup day.
Smoke.
Should have been a little more white-out before it cut to the article,
but it's too late now.
Now, there was some contention about the inclusion of this scene.
Well, this scene was out for the longest time,
and then somebody who got involved in production
toward the very end liked the scene, which is fine with me
'cause I think it's all right, but...
Every time you add something, if you want to stick to a certain length,
if you add something, something else comes out.
So that was my problem with adding this, was it meant taking out stuff
that I didn't want to take out.
Which are things you'll be able to see
if you go to the deleted scenes feature on this DVD.
In some cases, that's true.
On this digital video disc. Is it "video" or "versatile"? Video. Yes.
Versatile, I heard.
Although this might be a Blu-ray. You might be watching it on Blu-ray.
Crystal clear. Beautiful Blu-ray.
I'm not advertising the format. Just... It's an opinion.
Yeah, your machine is in the mail.
Those dogs are CG. Oh, look.
Hey, it's little Kiko.
And stripy me.
This was quite early on in the shoot, I seem to remember.
Yes. Yeah, I think this was, like, maybe day four or something.
I love that Ralph Lauren joke.
Sometimes it gets a huge laugh and sometimes it doesn't.
It's not consistent.
I do. I think that's a great example of Peter Straughan's...
- That joke was mine. - Was it?
Yeah, there are a few things of mine in here
that I don't go on and on about, but...
So that's why you just talked it up.
Well, you just credited Peter. I mean, otherwise, I would keep my mouth shut,
but if you credit Peter for something of mine, I'm going to speak up.
Well, I think there are lots of other examples
elsewhere of Peter's great writing,
but kudos to you for that...
No, those are all mine. All the ones that work.
I've just tried it on my own self.
I've tried to do that, but I'm not quite limber enough.
I don't even know what that means.
This is your favourite scene, isn't it, between me and Kirsten?
Yes, I really love this scene.
This was another scene that I actually find myself getting choked up on.
That look that she does, right there when you step away,
I said to her, "You know, I have an idea
"for something you can do when he steps away."
She says, "I've got an idea. Let me do mine, then we'll discuss yours."
And then she did hers, it was exactly what I had in mind.
You guys, talk about simpatico.
Let me tell you.
- Blown it. - That can't be good.
We're just going off for our 10th song.
Here's a line that...
I got it. I got the 10th song thing. I just didn't want to talk over your line.
That, "Where did it all go so wrong?"
Now, that line actually carries a little more resonance in England
than it does in the States, because who actually said that?
- There was a story... - George Best.
Well, actually, it wasn't George Best that said it.
It was a hotel porter who brought up some room service, I think,
to George Best's hotel room. And he was lying on the bed,
a bed covered in money with two Page 3 models or something,
or Miss World or something, and the guy said,
"Where did it all go wrong?"
The line works, even if you don't know that little anecdote, but it's...
It does, it does. It's a joke. Same joke the porter made.
- I like this scene. - Yeah, me, too.
I think Megan's great in this scene.
And also, Gillian's sort of...
Gillian's sort of, you know, puppeteer.
What?
Everybody was very upset with me
because I was having Gillian pour the champagne,
and they said, "There'd be a waiter there pouring champagne,"
and I said, "I don't want a waiter in this shot.
"I want Gillian to do it. Shut up and leave me alone."
But I said it nicely.
Did you say, "Shut up and let me go" like The Ting Tings?
How hot was it when we did this? It was 90 degrees.
Yeah, look closely, people.
It's snowing, but it's raining.
It was actually really hot and raining.
The snow was fake, but the rain was real,
and so it's kind of a mishmash of weather.
And people have umbrellas, which you really wouldn't have in the snow.
Well, if it was wet snow, Bob,
I think you'd be forgiven for having an umbrella.
- Shut up with your theories. - It's like sleet.
I'm just trying to be meteorologically correct.
Well, I haven't gotten to this on my director's commentary.
That girl there with the boobs was really giving me the eye.
She's an actress.
- Was she? - Yes.
I don't think she knew there was a camera there.
She was being paid. I told her, "Stare at him.
"That's the price you have to pay to be in show business."
There's Ali Aitken.
Alexandra Aitken, who has a wonderful scene with you
that'll be in the deleted scenes.
Yeah. Which, kind of, I guess, just arrested the pace a little bit,
even though it's a good scene, as is often the case when you...
Yeah.
I love the way Megan just appears here. She comes in like she's magic.
Yeah, well, it's not an accident, my friend.
You know, there is a director on the set.
I know, I know. I'm saying I'm complimenting you.
But you didn't compliment me, you said, "I love the way she comes on."
You didn't say, "That was very clever of you,
"the way you made that happen."
It's all right, the moment's gone now. Let's move on, like nothing happened.
I remember thinking that I didn't like the way that you were directing this,
'cause I didn't think it would work, but it really did.
I had you guys going clockwise and everyone else going counter-clockwise.
I thought it would look too stylised, but in fact it didn't.
So I stand corrected.
You can see the...
All right, I've said it, all right?
Drop it.
Leonard Maltin quote there, Leonard's a friend of mine.
I shouldn't say that in case he gives our film a good review.
People will think the fix is in, but...
I wanted to put a critic's quote on there,
so I got a release from him in about 15 seconds.
That's true. Is that supposed to be the Hyatt?
That's not supposed to be any...
- No, 'cause we're by the ocean. - Oh, yeah.
Didn't you see the establishing shot? Jesus Christ, pay attention.
So it might be Shutters or the Casa Del Mar.
Doesn't look like Casa Del Mar.
Looks like... It's a fictional hotel.
I'm just trying to give it some geographical specificity, Bob.
Actually, we were trying to get some hotels to give us permission to shoot,
but the fact that the scene involved you standing on the balcony,
they thought, "That might not be the best image."
Speaking about best images, there you go.
There's your money's worth, right there.
- Yeah, and Megan, as well. - What?
There's Lisa, as well. Lisa McAllister's back.
That's right. I don't think anybody... There she is in the blue dress.
I don't think anybody connects that character
with being Sophie's assistant, 'cause...
But it's there for detail, you know.
I mean, I know she's incredibly beautiful, as well, but...
Sophie would, of course, have a beautiful assistant.
Nobody's listening to us right now.
Well, that's their loss.
All the lads have their thumb hovering over the pause button.
They just paused there.
Yeah, and there.
I don't cut at the fine figure of a stripped man.
Megan was very self-conscious
about stripping down to her underwear that day.
And you were in your underwear,
and she was very unhappy about having to do this,
so I offered to put things on a level playing field
by directing in my underwear, and she said, "No, that's okay."
And there was no more complaining.
The funny thing is she was so shy about this,
and then I open up these magazines, GQ and FHM,
and she's half naked and showing everything,
and I'm thinking, "Why was she so upset that day?"
I think it's different, though, 'cause I think, in a photo shoot,
you've got a photographer that you probably trust, and that's it.
Whereas in those scenes, you've got lots of people and...
A room full of strangers.
You know, Megan's still self-conscious and stuff and...
It's understandable. I kind of get it.
If there's lots and lots of people, you're going to feel a little bit...
I think it was because you were in the room.
She didn't mind being in her underwear in front of me, and vice versa.
We're just... We're actors, we're getting on with it, mate.
Yeah, yeah.
We're getting on with our job.
Here's Janette Scott again.
By the way, I should say that this film, Now and Forever,
was actually shot in colour.
But we took the colour out just to make it look more...
She must have had me when she was...
That shot, by the way, that insert shot of the ring on the finger,
I had to shoot. That's not in the actual film. That was a cheat.
You were talking about when she...
She must have had me when she was, like, 45 or something,
because... 'Cause...
Well, no, I guess, 40. When was that film made?
She could have been like a teenager there.
I mean, that's what 18-year-olds looked like back then.
Yes, of course. Just to say when she had me.
You know, it's funny, we tried to get permission
from the Golden Globes people to let us
refer to this as the Golden Globe awards,
and they said no.
So we fictionalised an awards show called the Apollo Awards.
And now I'm glad we did because we never could have really created
the look of the Golden Globes, which is very specific,
and it takes place in the same place every year,
so by fictionalising it, we could do what we wanted
and not have to worry about...
Making it up again.
Here comes Lawrence Maddox down on his luck.
- Sidalee. - Little Sidalee.
Here he comes.
He's genuinely looking a bit... He's got like a mack on and stuff.
No, he's not, but he looks a bit unshaven and...
Yeah, that was on purpose. He's unshaven,
and we sort of highlight bags under his eyes, and all that.
He's not in top form.
He's just some red-carpet hack now.
You're on the other side of the red rope.
He's on the wrong side, you're on the business side.
How the mighty have fallen.
My mum was there that day.
That's right, she was. That was the first day I met her.
- Yeah, that's right, she... - Now we're engaged.
I know, Dad, it's incredible.
Weird.
I would like to be your stepfather just so I could boss you around.
I didn't let my stepfather boss me around,
so I'm not gonna let you do it.
Hey, you boss me around enough when you're the director, you bossy boots.
Bossy boots, that's what you always called me.
Now, here we are, we come full circle.
Here we are again, with the old...
I know the kind of... The mentioning of the brand names
of the things is kind of necessary. I've got that watch on now.
But I always blanch slightly when I have to say what exactly it is,
'cause it feels like it's product placement,
which essentially it is.
You didn't say it this time. You said, "I've got the watch."
That was your change, 'cause, yeah, we went back to the original voice-over
and you said, "Let's change it up a bit."
'Cause it felt like you needed to have a recap.
He's thinking about it. What's he gonna do?
"I need to, perhaps, not allow this to happen."
He chooses a hell of a time to grow a conscience, doesn't he?
This was fun, shooting this.
Megan and I had a great laugh doing this, rolling around...
This was after Gillian recovered from you knocking her unconscious.
Yeah, I didn't knock her unconscious, Bob, I stepped on her foot.
You stepped on her foot...
I didn't pull a pregnant woman to the floor...
Hey, hey, I didn't pull her down, she took a swing at me, and she fell.
How many times do I... See, she's re-enacting it right there.
That's what she looked like pregnant the other night.
Watch this. Her foot actually kicks you in the...
There it goes. Did you see that?
"You fucking fucker."
"This is live." That always makes my wife laugh.
There are, like, four places in this film... I mean, she laughs a lot,
but there are four places that she can see it 3,000 times and always laugh.
- Really? - Yeah.
None of them have to do with you.
Look at Miriam, showing off a bit of knee there.
Showing off a bit of knee.
She knows what she's doing.
Did you cut that line about the dress?
Didn't they say, "The Versace," or something?
Yeah, that's a long story.
Look at little Alison having a laugh.
Yeah, I brought you on set to make her laugh,
'cause she was kind of down that day.
I said, "I need Kirsten to laugh. Come on set."
And you were saying silly things behind her.
I love the way that Max kind of...
It's almost as if he's never had his sunglasses off before.
- Yeah, I know. - It's like he's blinded.
He's blinded, yeah.
- "The light!" - "The light! The light!"
"It's too much."
And he... It's the old Clayton.
No, it's the new Clayton.
Brilliant.
That was head and shoulders above anything I do in the film.
This was sort of something I figured out that night,
the idea of you crossing back onto the other side of the rope.
And I auditioned all these people for this part, that this guy won.
Don't know his name.
It's not credited, 'cause technically, he's an extra.
But now you're back on the side of the rope where you belong,
with your people.
Heading to the LAX.
This was a pickup. Where's Woolley? Behind me, isn't he?
There he is, there he comes.
Long-haired guy is our producer, Stephen Woolley.
Where's Woolley?
And the tall fellow that he's talking to is our writer Peter Straughan.
Stephen looking at his phone, like always.
Yeah, there's a funny Stephen Woolley outtake in the gag reel.
Oh, yes, 'cause he dropped his bag, didn't he, and ruined the shot,
and basically cost the film £10,000.
Ironic. Very ironic.
This scene was really needed, because people were confused
about how you got to New York, and when was it? Was it the next day?
Why were you wearing the same clothes and all that, so...
There's a lot of exposition in this scene, which I think is handled very nicely.
Well, the whole fact that she mentions where she's going to be
on her answering machine message, and, you know.
- Shall we go back? - We're fine.
I just got a note to take my hand out of my mouth because I sound muffled,
so thank you, Paul.
- You sound muffled anyway, Bob. - Hey, hey, hey.
This was a joke of mine, "Can I get your autograph?"
And I thought you played it very well, and then somebody said,
"You know, there's a joke much like this in Hot Fuzz,"
which I hadn't thought of.
- Yes. - Yes.
It's actually a reference to Hot Fuzz, Bob, isn't it?
Yeah, it's an homage.
That was my line. "Plenty." Baggage.
Well, we did variations. "Do you have any baggage?"
- "Some." - "Don't ask," I think was one.
- "Don't ask." - "Plenty."
And I think the best one, wasn't it, "Plenty," which was my idea.
Well, it's in the film so...
Well, I think you should just say it, then.
Yeah, you wrote the whole script.
Now, here's a lovely song by the lovely, lovely Duffy.
Which we were lucky enough to get an exclusive on.
This is not on her album, this is just on our film,
and on our soundtrack, now available on...
- Compact disc. - Compact disc.
Back in the old... And this is the same night as we did the stuff...
I changed in the back of the car, I seem to remember.
I had all my clothes for arriving in...
That's right.
Arriving in...
By the way, the way we shot this...
I guess the camera was in the car with you,
but we were driving alongside parallel,
and Oliver Stapleton, our DP, was holding a light, shining it into your car.
- Is that right? - Yeah.
Again, it's all sort of stolen shots and unpermitted.
Now, I always thought...
Now, you might be able to tell me why you didn't do it this way,
but I always thought that you shouldn't have seen the ring
until he pulled it out of his pocket and put it...
You know what? We tried to cut it that way,
and that would have been the proper way to cut it, but it gave...
We needed some kind of little button at the end of the scene,
and the drama of pushing in to your face and being contemplative was so nice,
and that sort of came off of looking at the ring.
We tried it without the ring, it didn't work as well, so...
It's a trade-off.
There she... Wait.
There's Liat Baruch.
She's with a guy.
The girl on the left there is Liat, who's Kirsten's...
Kirsten's best pal.
And was a genuinely vital and lovely presence
to have on set during the making of this film.
See, believe it or not, this is where the Bobbie tranny character
was gonna come back, but...
That's right.
- It's a long story. - You couldn't take her to New York.
"What the dickens? What are you doing here?
"You're all covered in cream, and got a bruise on your face."
I wanted to do a little bit of dialogue here.
A little sort of... Before I kiss her, to have a little kind of something.
I think it works well without it, 'cause it's very unspoken.
I wanted her to point to a little piece of cake on you and say,
"You've got bread on you."
And in one moment of self-indulgence, destroy the entire film.
Do you remember, there was one scene,
I think we were doing this bit, and we went in,
and just when we got like there, you went, "Cut!"
Yeah, I said, "Cut!" That's right.
You'd been snogging for, like, the past 45 minutes, though.
I know.
And I just needed the lead-in to it, and so I did, "Cut!"
It was like post-snogerruptus.
- Snogus interruptus. - Snogus interruptus.
That was the penultimate day of shooting down under Brooklyn Bridge,
and Oliver Stapleton, the DP, had just rather...
You can see my tattoo.
That's right, yeah. Thanks for pointing that out.
Just rather beautifully lit the whole of the Brooklyn Bridge.
You know, all this time, I've been saying Brooklyn Bridge,
but now I think that's the Manhattan Bridge,
because DUMBO, D-U-M-B-O, which is what this area is called,
stands for "Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass,"
which must make this the Manhattan Bridge, not the Brooklyn Bridge.
New Yorkers will know. In fact...
Yeah, 'cause the one on 59th is the...
- That's the Queensboro. - The Roosevelt. Oh, no...
- The Queensboro is 59th. - So, what, is Roosevelt...
Where's... Williamsburg's downtown.
Is this really how we want to go out on this DVD,
is discussing the bridges of Manhattan?
Let's go.
There we go. So that was How to Lose Friends & Alienate People.
These are the credits. What I love here is that
the first credit is Young Sidney, and then two credits later
it's Sidney Young.
- We have the... - I'm easily amused.
The titles. Hannah, of course. We didn't mention Hannah Waddingham,
- who played Mrs. Maddox. - Didn't we mention her?
She was also wonderful in Monty Python's Spamalot,
as the Lady of the Lake.
Yeah, she slightly stole the show in Spamalot, actually,
as Lady of the Lake, did an amazing performance.
And we were lucky enough to have her in this movie.
Well, this is it. When I first met you, I said that
what I really looked forward to was being in a booth with you
and doing the audio commentary for the DVD,
and now that I've done it, I gotta say it wasn't that big a deal.
Did you not enjoy it?
I enjoyed it. I didn't hate it. It was better than a kick in the head,
but it didn't change my life.
I think you're disappointed 'cause you just didn't step up to the plate.
You know, you've heard Nick and Edgar and the kind of stuff we get up to,
and it's so dazzlingly entertaining,
and essentially, what you brought to the table was lacklustre and grim.
Paul, can you put in a foley effect of a door slamming?
And me just going, "Bob? Bob? Where you going?"
- Now, here we go. - Here's our trailer.
This is actually me doing the voice-over here.
That's right.
Which I did my best...
Who's the famous trailer guy who recently passed away?
LaFontaine? Jack LaFontaine? Something like that?
- Don LaFontaine. - Don Fontaine.
Very, very famous trailer voice-over guy, sadly lost recently.
Yeah, he's sort of the father of, "In a world..."
Yeah, and so we did our own, "In a world..."
And also the voice of...
"And stop it!" Which is the...
- You did all the voices. - Yeah, I did.
"Oi, stop it!"
What does that mean? He hands her an egg and says, "You left this."
- I don't know. - What the hell was going on that night?
She got up off the chair, and there was an egg there.
Maybe she laid it. You know, some nuns do lay eggs.
Birds, platypuses and nuns.
You are so going to Hell.
What? For saying a nun laid an egg?
- No, for saying "platypuses." - There's worse stuff out there.
Platypuses.
"Sometimes, when a nun lays an egg, you've got to crack it."
Oh, dear, a nun's egg.
I'm sure Nick and I have spoken about nuns' eggs before.
"I'd like a nun's egg on toast, please. Sunny-side up."
- You're freaking me out. - Sorry.
Megan is just impossibly gorgeous, isn't she?
"Rated NC-17."
That's my favourite part. A Mel Cohen film.
First of all, a Jew directed the film, Mel Cohen,
and then rated NC-17.
I know.
Which for those of you in England, is sort of like our soft-core porn rating.
This is the Guillemots, who were kind enough
to play our premiere the other night.
And do you know anybody who played drums with them?
Maybe I played percussion with the G's, sure.
And did they sing Happy Birthday to anybody's sister?
They sung Happy Birthday to my sister, yes. Yes, they did.
And I, being the old man, said, "It's too loud in here,"
and I had to leave the room.
I know, Bob thought the music was too loud.
I've actually joined that generation,
the one who complains about your damn loud music.
He does. He's the 49-ers.
What is that? Hey, come on.
And we're back into Duffballs.
- We love a bit of Duffy. Beautiful voice. - Duffy again.
I saw her... Is it the Pigally or the Pigalle?
Pigalle. What's the name of the theatre in London?
- Mini Pegg, look. - There's your doggy.
Mini gets a thank-you.
My wife, Linda Weide, is in there, too,
'cause she put up with me being away from home for a year,
- not that she... - That's sweet.
...wasn't out partying every night, but...
I think that it's affected Mini enormously, having essentially grown up
on a film set.
She spent the first, sort of, two, three months of her life
hanging out on a film set, and I think just the level
of camaraderie and good will has just rubbed off on her,
'cause she's a fantastic little dog.
You have really... 'Cause I've been such a dog and cat person for a long time,
but I actually watched you be stricken with puppy love.
You got that dog, and that was the hardest thing about being...
It's the hardest thing about being away from home
is being away from your animals.
I know.
'Cause you can talk to your wife and you're on the phone and you can iChat,
but you can't tell your dog...
I try and iChat with Mini, but it just freaks her out.
You whistled to my dog, 6,000 miles away and...
And he turned round.
Yeah, he perked his head.
- Did we win the lottery? - Yeah.
This film won the lottery.
I should have got a cut of that. I was in the syndicate.
Can we just keep going over black for another 10 minutes?
I don't know that we're finished.
Film4, knocked down from Film5 1/2. That's kind of a Jewish joke.