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Jan. 17, 2020 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole
01:14:50
Delingpod 52: Laurence Fox
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I love Denny Pole.
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Unless another time subscribe with me.
I love Denny Pole.
Welcome to The Delling Pod with me, James Delling Pod.
And I know I always say how excited I am about this week's guest, but I am so excited about this week's guest.
He's a very naughty boy.
His name is Loza Lawrence Fox.
Welcome to The Delling Pod, Lawrence.
Thank you for having me.
No, I see you're wearing a rather splendid badge there.
Yes, well, what is that?
It's a special friend badge.
You're also wearing a badge.
Oh, so I am.
Yes, yes, I'd completely forgotten.
They're wonderful.
How much do you value your special friend badge?
Well, I mean, I think it was very good value.
It's extremely well made, and it transfers beautifully between garments.
Did you know that it's actually made of pure gold and Anglo-Saxon-style enamel work?
Yes, I did know that.
Just like the Anglo-Saxons used to do, I think, back in the day.
I mean, it's just amazing that you managed to offer it so affordably.
With such an amazing inlay.
I'm glad you mentioned how affordable it is, because I think lots of people, when they see this badge, will want to apply on the Dellingpole World website.
I would imagine.
Yeah, yeah, I could see.
Now, I'm slightly worried, Lawrence, that we were talking, like, podcast vidcast gold before this started, and it could be that we just, like, run out of material.
There's going to be two kinds of people listening to this show, you know, obviously avatars of the special friend.
And the one avatar is going to say, you've finally bagged Loza, this is brilliant.
And the other part, a minority I'm sure, are going to be going, who is this guy?
So can you explain for the benefit of the avatar of the special friend that doesn't know who Lawrence Fox is?
In fame terms, how kind of famous are you, would you say?
Definitely between D&E, I'd say, on the list.
D&E, right.
Well, you know, maybe sometimes I jump in to see.
Double figures on a table at an awards ceremony.
Never single figures, never one to nine.
Right, okay.
Sometimes ten.
Right.
Is there a hierarchy like that?
I think there is, you know.
I didn't know that.
Right.
I would say that being on a long-running ITV series means you're going to have...
Well, the sort of people who watch long-running ITV series, really.
So you were on Lewis, which was kind of...
Which was the successor to Inspector Morse, which was pretty...
What viewing figures were you getting?
I can't remember.
I think the first year, like nine million on the first ever one, or maybe even more.
And then consistently loads.
So, you know, I think they do an audience share, don't they?
So they're not so keen on...
They don't care so much about millions.
They care more about the share of the audience.
People would phone me up and go...
It's wonderful, you know, it's this.
And I'm like, I don't understand what that means.
Yeah, you just were too cool to care.
It's out of my pay grade, isn't it, really?
Yeah.
But I imagine that there are, you know, once you've got the gig, you can be dismissive of it because you've got it and, hey, it was always meant to be.
But I imagine that there were lots of actors who would love that kind of...
I mean, does it pay?
Yeah.
Yeah, it was good.
It didn't pay very well at the beginning.
Right.
But then I, because, you know, it also wasn't necessarily my dream job to pretend to be a policeman.
Yeah.
You didn't necessarily train as an actor to go.
But you were a posh, you were a Cambridge-educated policeman, weren't you?
Cambridge-educated policeman, yeah.
So I just didn't speak very much in order to look like I was clever, yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Enigmatic, I think, is what I was going to say.
I never do research, as you probably know, for the pod, because I'm a lazy bastard.
And also, no, that's right, the spontaneity.
But I did watch a bit of...
Because it was on the TV of Lewis.
And what struck me was, it's all about...
Posh totty, isn't it?
In agreeable settings, basically.
You go around and...
I mean, you were wearing a neck brace on the episode I saw.
Oh, the neck brace episode.
And...
Gave me a sore neck.
Did it?
From wearing it for fake, gave me a sore neck.
But I was looking at the female talent and I was thinking...
Great.
You can see why the series...
And the person who did it was always white middle class, wasn't it?
I mean, that's part of the deal.
It's usually the third or fourth extra character you meet.
I got pretty good at knowing exactly who did it, just from the structure of the scripts.
Yeah.
They did have huge production values.
They did really spend the money on it.
It looks good.
It looks good.
In fact, that was one of the interesting things you were telling me.
That...
Even though you were relieved to be out.
I mean, nine seasons is a hell of a lot.
But you look at TV now, and it's way more shite than Lewis.
I think Kevin Wakeley insisted on having high production values.
I think he even said he wasn't going to do it unless they spent the same amount of money as they did on Morse.
And, yeah, you think, oh, maybe it's slipping a bit.
But then you leave it a few years and do some telly jobs now, and you're like, oh, wow.
Yeah.
So where do they...
I want to come on to the oppressiveness of woke in a moment, but in what ways is TV not as good as it used to be?
Well, it's interesting, isn't it?
Because TV seems to have a bit of an agenda, a lot of it.
It's trying to tell you something.
And I'm just a bit like, I don't want to be told something.
Thanks.
I'd rather just watch a story.
I don't ever remember that being a conversation in Lewis.
I mean, diversity was obviously a conversation.
But in terms of...
It's just so much that turns you off when you turn on a TV now because you feel like you're being...
This is what you're meant to think, chum.
One of my beefs is United Colours of Benetton casting.
So there was that thing, I keep mentioning this because it's a good example, the bodyguard.
And you look at the sniper teams and the police sniper teams is led by a man of what we call Asians, I mean from the Indian subcontinent.
And the sniper team, the actual snipers, includes black females.
Well, with the best one in the world, there don't exist, black female snipers.
You look at the coppers with guns around the Houses of Parliament.
They're always of a certain age.
They're getting on a bit.
They're all white, all the ones I've seen.
And you're absolutely right.
It makes you conscious of race.
But I think that's probably half the plan, isn't it?
To make everybody extremely conscious of race all the time.
And I think that's...
I don't know.
I've started to have a real problem with it to the point where I go...
The arguments on the...
All arguments from the left-hand side of...
Or whatever it is.
You know, the woke side of things work much better if we assume that everybody's really racist.
So if we accept that we're all racist, then they win.
But if you push back in any way and say, actually, no, there are individuals that are racist, and what is the definition of a racist, and generally the rest of us couldn't give a monkey's about it, then their arguments start to fall apart in front of you.
So having...
It also makes very heightened awareness, you know, of the colour of someone's skin because of the oddness of the casting.
You know, even in 1917 they've done it with their Sikh soldier...
Which is great.
I mean, it's brilliant.
But you're suddenly aware it's like there were Sikhs fighting in this war.
And you're like, okay, you're now diverting me away from the story of what the story is.
Yes.
Yeah, the example I give there is, did you ever see that wonderful film, Days of Glory, about French, Algerian...
I haven't seen Days of Glory.
Um...
Yeah.
It was about conscripts from North Africa, basically.
So Muslim troops fighting in the French army, I think, in the Second World War.
Great film.
There's nothing wrong with depicting these different ethnic contributions to the First World War and the Second World War.
But when you start shoehorning them in just to...
It is kind of racist.
If there is racism, if you're talking about institutional racism, which is what everyone loves to go on about, which I'm not a believer in, that there is something institutionally racist about forcing diversity on people in that way.
Because it's not, you know, you don't want to think about...
Douglas Murray's argument that actually what's really upsetting about this is it forces you to notice things that actually you wouldn't normally notice.
We're a completely multiracial society now, especially anyone who lives in London.
We're completely used to this stuff.
It's not a shock seeing black people or Muslim people or whatever.
But TV wants to force you.
Well, the BBC particularly, doesn't it?
I mean, I haven't watched the BBC in many a year now.
Or listened to it, actually.
Well, you were saying you haven't worked for the BBC. Never, 22.
Well, I think I did a documentary, sort of docudrama for them, but only because the director insisted, because we were mates, and it was a few weeks.
And did you get past the BBC board of censors?
I think he probably didn't tell them, because it was back in the days when directors weren't bus drivers, they actually directed stuff.
But no, they've never seen me for anything.
But then I don't tick the BBC boxes, do I? You don't, and yet you ought to, I think.
I mean...
Well, you would have thought that a national broadcaster...
But you're getting...
I mean, I don't do...
I'm not paying my licence fee anymore, and I'm not...
I don't consume the BBC. I think it should be either closed down or turned into a subscription service.
I think it's totally wrong that you're forced by paying a fine or prison to subscribe to something which is shoveling PC rubbish at you every day.
I find it irritating.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm wondering...
I was on a vidcast with our friend Peter Whittle, because you did his...
We love Peter, don't we?
We do.
And we were talking about Whither the BBC. And some people were saying, you know, there's a case for trying to save it.
And there was a kind of high conservative, I don't know what they call themselves, like a high church conservative, who was saying...
I believe in the Reethean values.
I just think that they should be from a kind of conservative perspective.
And I thought, yeah, it's a great theory, but how are you ever going to get that with an organisation which recruits in The Guardian?
I mean, everyone thinks it's the same way, don't they?
I think Rod Liddell's right about it when he says the BBC's not left-wing.
It's just the BBC is just one opinion.
And I think he's right.
But there is this need of lots of people, not just the BBC. I can't remember who was doing it.
Well, you know, Nike and all of these corporations who feel like they need to go on top of the fact that we're offering you something to consume.
We'd also want to tell you how to think.
And I find that in a long and tiring day, once you've dealt with your kids and you've cooked them food and you want to consume something...
Being told what to think is more irritating than it would be, you know, I would never do it out of choice.
Yeah, yeah.
I would never choose to be indoctrinated.
No.
Is that why you're not wearing Nike?
I wouldn't wear Nike.
Actually, I'm wearing Palladiums who are a very funny company because they, here you are, They do a million different styles of these boots, and they'll do LGBT coloured ones, they'll do free speech ones, so they've just covered the whole thing.
Well, that's the way to go.
Let's everyone have an opinion.
Yeah.
So, yeah, you find yourself having to sort of like go, no, sorry, I don't want that, and I don't want my kids to have it, and I'm, you know, especially being a dad, I'm like, I don't want my children being shoveled with rubbish.
I remember a time, I'm sure this time existed, because actually, well, it happened to me.
I used to go out with an actress, and I got to hang out with lots of lovets, you know.
And actors are really good company, I think.
They're funny.
They're funny.
They can perform, they're nice looking, they're nice people to be with.
They're edgy, aren't they?
They're outliers.
Yeah, I remember, for example, going to the RSC and having one evening listening to, what's he called, I mentioned about my...
Brain fog that makes me forget names.
Alan Cox.
Alan Cox, yes.
Do you ever know Alan Cox?
I do know Alan Cox.
How do I know Alan Cox?
Because his dad is that famous, is Brian Cox.
Brian Cox, right, yeah.
And Alan was playing Neil Young songs and Led Zeppelin songs.
And I just thought, this is...
I would have loved to have been an actor if I could act and if I look right, which I don't think I do.
You look perfect.
Do you think I could be a...
I think you...
I could be a character...
It would be character acting at this juncture.
Yeah.
Or could I... Do you think I'd be a baddie or a goodie?
I think you'd be a goodie because you've got honest eyes.
Oh, that's nice.
Okay.
You do.
But...
We've already established that if you have the wrong politics, you are completely fucked.
I don't know if you are.
Okay.
James Woods, you.
James Dreyfuss, who keeps resisting.
He agreed to come on the podcast and then isn't, for various reasons, hasn't come on yet.
Maybe he will.
Thingy from Frasier.
What's he called?
He's a registered libertarian, I think.
Is he?
Yeah.
Which one are we talking about?
Frasier himself.
Frasier himself.
And who else?
William Shatner.
There's a few.
You'd be surprised about my DMs on my Twitter.
Oh, really?
When I say the odd thing.
No.
I think people are just a bit...
The problem with acting, and, you know, it's not a problem, actually.
You know, actors used to be opaque people, didn't they?
Because you obviously want to sort of not subscribe to anything so that when you're hired, you're hired not because the first thing that comes to your mind is, oh, he's voted for Reagan or whatever, you know.
So actors have this need to constantly go, I'm a nice person.
I can be nice in all areas.
And now that we've got so much media, it's very difficult for actors not to fall into wokishness because they feel so virtuous.
Do you think it's partly that the profession is so dependent on casting, no matter how eminent you become, ultimately it's down to whether the casting people want you or not, And that would gel with your, please like me, I'm nice.
And you're constantly being interviewed in a way that most of us aren't being interviewed for jobs.
Yeah, that's not easy, actually.
Professionally, I was just helping a friend's son audition for RADA, and he said, you know, I was going through it for a moment, I said, you have to get used to the fact that you're going to basically audition for your life every time you get a job, and you're going to be rejected nine times out of ten, and that's what you have to learn.
The acting bit of it is the easy bit.
Yeah.
It's the not getting the jobs, or not getting the meeting, or...
It's quite a painful existence, but it's also a very blessed existence, because, you know, when you do get a job, it's great.
The money's good when it works.
It's getting less, the money.
And fame, Fox?
Fame.
I don't want to be famous.
I hate being famous.
I'm not famous, fortunately, so it's fine.
I don't think anyone's ever slept with me because I'm famous.
I bet you they have.
And if they haven't, they will after this.
Oh, OK. Well, my wife doesn't sleep with me because I'm famous.
Why not?
No, I think she finds it rather off-putting.
My mum hates it.
A friend of mine is a female, has a stopwatch, and she has a record book for how long it is before the actor asks her a question.
Oh, really?
14 minutes is the record.
Can you guess the actor?
I can't give the answer.
You can't give the answer.
No, I know, this is the thing.
But it is exactly who you think.
Do you know, one of the problems about...
You said I would play the nice guy, and actually, a bit like the horse that I once tweeted out, and somebody noticed that the horse had kind eyes, and it's true, and I have kind eyes.
One of the reasons I think I haven't progressed as far as I might have done in journalism is that...
I'm, somebody will give me a really good anecdote, and I won't fuck them over.
I won't reveal their names.
And I know that there was, certain of my journalistic colleagues actually think it's a sacred duty to kind of, your duty is to your audience, you know, not to the individual.
Best mate, maybe the best story.
You mentioned your mum, who's not an actor, but your dad is...
Yeah.
Is your dad James?
James, yeah.
Okay.
And your uncle is Edward?
Uncle Edward.
Uncle Edward once sent me...
Would be beautifully on this podcast.
...once sent me a stinker of a letter.
What?
Yeah.
He loves writing letters.
He's got beautiful handwriting.
It was beautiful handwriting.
Oh, he's doing handwriting.
It was very old school.
It was like copperplate almost.
He...
I'd written a piece in The Spectator, which I imagine both your father and uncle read religiously.
And I'd slagged off Prince Charles.
I'd said that, yeah, yeah.
Why would you?
Well, because, obviously.
You're lucky you're still alive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he wrote me this really, really posh, angry letter.
They're like brothers.
Are they?
I think so.
I'll bet Uncle Edward would have voted remain, wouldn't he?
He doesn't strike me as a Remainer.
Oh, really?
Well, I don't know his politics.
I don't understand his politics.
I've not discussed politics.
As a dynasty, do you hang out together?
Mum and Dad have five kids, so there's a lot of us, so we hang out quite a lot, and there's a lot of kids and grandkids, so it's a huge unit, just the immediate family.
So we do see them twice a year, but not religiously, no.
But there's not a thing that goes on where, like, you know, bastard so-and-so is doing...
Oh, yeah, but we do that to each other's faces at the table.
Right.
But my mum leads that because she hates everyone.
She hates show business full stop.
Yeah.
But she can only justify watching anything by saying that if her children are in it, they're the best things ever.
Right, okay.
So she's like, I hate her.
She's dreadful.
Oh, there you are, darling.
Very good.
While everyone else in the family is like, rubbish, you're terrible.
And are you, of the, setting aside Edward and James at the moment, are you the only one who is politically where you are?
Are all the others a bunch of raging pinkos?
No, I don't think so.
I mean, my eldest brother has a political stood for Parliament in Yeovil at this general election.
As a Lib Dem, I'll bet.
No, as an independent.
Okay.
And I'm still trying to work out what his politics are as well.
It's quite complicated working out what some of his politics are because we all kind of want to go left, right.
But people are left about some things and right about some things, and it's kind of tricky.
I don't know what one brother up is.
I think my sister is probably a little bit more lefty.
Is Amelia your sister?
No, Amelia is my cousin.
I don't know what Amelia's policies are but she's extremely kind and compassionate and that always makes me think you're probably going to be a bit more that way.
Yeah, yeah, probably.
Probably.
And the young one, Freddie.
Freddie, I have no idea.
Is he your cousin?
He's my cousin, yeah.
Again, is he Edward's son?
He's Edward's son, yeah.
Right, OK, yeah.
Go on.
But it must be...
I mean, it's like with writers.
Writers hate meeting other writers because you want to be the only Romanian at the wedding or whatever.
It must be the same with actors.
When you're all together in a room, you're thinking...
Maybe it's because of the fact that our family have been doing it for a while.
Freddy's doing really well.
I'm kind of pleased for him.
My little brother's doing well and I'm pleased for him too.
What's he called?
Jack.
But no, it's more friends.
Like, if a friend gets a job, you're like, I really hope you don't get attacked in the street by a stranger randomly and unable to fulfil your filming commitments.
Well done, by the way.
That's really nasty.
Congratulations.
And do you think that it was different for your dad's generation?
Hang on, what was the most famous film your dad was in?
Performance or The Servant?
Performance.
He must have been...
He was with Mick Jagger.
Mick Jagger.
And in the high...
When was that film made?
68?
69, I think.
69.
That must have been a good time to live.
I think so.
And to be famous.
I wasn't around.
I think it...
I mean, he...
Because Dad became a Christian after...
I think pretty much after that film.
Oh, really?
And it's...
So he's...
Getting anecdotes out of him about life pre...
It must have been bad to make him turn to Christ.
Well, you know, you wonder what was going on in his life and in his head.
But he's quite, you know, he's still very much a dad-dad, my dad.
So he's, you know, I'm your father.
He's a sort of patrician vibe.
So he doesn't, you know, he's more likely to tell a friend of mine some horrific story and I'm going to overhear it than he ever would tell me anything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's quite private like that.
He's very funny.
But he, yeah, I think he probably wants to keep some of those skeletons.
Because you're a bit like me in the sense that you...
I have kind eyes.
You have kind eyes.
And other things we've established as well.
Yeah, you have kind eyes.
You kind of dress like a...
Shabby old.
You want to be down with the kids a bit.
A little bit.
You straddle the divide between posh and not posh.
People think I'm posh.
I'm really not.
I'm very common, but I was privately educated.
I did do the Oxford thing.
In the same way, you went to Harrow.
Yeah.
Posh Boys.
Posh Boys School.
Posh Boys Paradise.
And do you reckon that...
Are you glad that you had that window into that world?
I'm very glad I got to meet Jeremy Lemon, who taught me English and gave me a real, true appreciation of the language by being a brilliant teacher.
And I'm really glad I met a guy called Martin Tyrrell, who got me into acting, got me motivated to act.
And taught me how to act, actually.
Yeah, did you get...
Do you remember the woman at the RSC, Cicely Berry, who was a stickler for speaking the verse and mastering the iambic pentameter and things like that?
Helps you.
Did you have that?
I had that actually weirdly, not weirdly, but from...
Jeremy Lemon who taught also I think taught my dad so he was he was old and I think he's no longer with us but he he would take us through a Shakespeare term and we'd learn everything there was to learn and he'd have anecdotes from you know it was just incredible so now I can break text down a bit like I'm not properly educated because I left and then Turned into an arsehole for a long time.
But I got enough education to be able to break down a text, sort of.
Yeah.
So that's good.
I'm really grateful for that.
But I wasn't so grateful for the...
You know, those sort of, you know, boy, boy, boy, fagging and all that stuff.
Right.
Because I grew up in, our family is essentially quite a liberal family, so we were always encouraged to say, well, you know, say what you think.
Yeah, yeah.
Stand up to authority.
Tell them to go fuck off if you don't want to.
And so transporting me from there, from home, into Harrow came as quite a shock.
I lost four front teeth.
I lost these four front teeth within a couple of weeks of being there.
Are those not real?
No.
How does it work?
It was smashed out on an iron bedstead by a boy.
Well, he was trying to bugger you or something?
He wasn't trying to bugger me that time.
No, he was trying to get me to buy something off his...
Because the school had a school business.
He was trying to get me to buy something off him, and I refused.
I'm like, why should I buy your shitty mug, mate?
And he just went...
Blimey.
I did take the teeth to my housemaster and go, he did it.
And he went, I'll deal with it.
It's a bit of a weird school harrow, I think, isn't it?
I don't know.
It had some great things.
My matron, who's still alive and sharp as a knife, was incredible and brilliant and wonderful woman.
And there were some great people there.
I think now it's become a bit more friendly because they've, you know...
And I'm not sure how many...
It was becoming...
When I went, there was one black guy there.
And I think there was...
There's only two.
It's a diverse answer.
So I think there's a lot of, you know...
They have to because of the mums, basically.
The new generation of mums, particularly the first-time buyers, are very...
They don't want their sons to be in Spartan, horrible, you know, where buggery is rampant and cold showers and stuff.
They want them to have all the wadcons and the nurturingness and caringness that...
I kind of deplore, actually.
What, making it easy for people?
Well, no, obviously I'm not saying that it should be buggery and cold showers every morning.
Just on Wednesdays.
Just on Wednesdays.
But what I am saying is I think they go a bit too far on the other side.
And also, there's a lot of kind of wokeness which has crept into the public school system, which I think is totally...
The new headmaster at Eton, Trendy Hendy, he gives the boys high fives when they go and collect their prizes.
They won't shake their hands.
Do they do the jazz hands instead of clapping?
It'll be jazz hands.
It's not great, though, for people, is it, to learn that life is going to just be roses to you?
It's like you have to endure something, however painful it is.
You endure something, you learn from it, and you realise that you're more in the driving seat than you think you are.
No, they're doing it to my kids.
My kids are full of it.
They come home all the time from school, and it's just like, guys, please stop it.
Stop indoctrinating them.
Let them teach them to read.
Let them work out what they think.
And then they can come with an argument.
But unfortunately, they get indoctrinated, and then I go and pick them up, and I unindoctrinate them on the way back.
And I just say, I'll put the radio on sometimes.
And then it'll be usually because dear old Donald Trump manages to completely dominate the media cycle.
So you'll have a radio on for more than three minutes, and there'll be something about Trump.
And then the kids' eyes will go, I hate Donald Trump.
I'm like, why?
Why?
And then we just go through it, and I ask them to explain why, and then I debunk it.
And then by the end?
By the end, my youngest son said to me the other day, he said, I take it back.
I don't think Boris Johnson's the worst man in the world.
But he comes home with stuff like, Boris Johnson hates single mothers.
And I'm like...
What makes you say that?
And he'll go, I was told by so-and-so.
And I'm like, oh, okay.
Where did he say that?
In which bit?
Do you remember?
And so I just gently prod them until they...
Right.
Like a kind of Socratic dialogue.
You're educating them.
I'm trying to educate them to not...
Because I was very guilty of it when I was young.
Someone would tell me something was true and I'd just believe it.
And the Donald Orange Man bad is...
I'm bored of it, actually.
Yeah.
So I want to know why you hate him, what it is you hate about him.
Because I totally think you're entirely justified to not like Donald Trump if you don't want to.
But I just need you to explain why, rather than call everyone a bigoted, fascist, racist, homophobe if they don't agree with you.
Yeah.
Which is what people do when they don't have an argument, don't they?
They just shut you down by attacking your identity, which is ironic based on the fact that they're all identitarians.
Absolutely.
Do you think of the generation of, well, generations of posh boy actors, I can't think of one apart from you that isn't woke.
I got hugged by one the other day.
You what?
I got hugged by one the other day as I was walking through London.
You didn't?
Yeah.
I got hugged by an actor.
You would be surprised.
We've got posh boys.
We've got, okay, Damien Lewis Eaton.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Harrow.
Harrow.
Harrow.
We've got, who else?
There's loads on there.
I forget.
There's quite a few Etonians.
Too many.
Well, you say that.
Tony Stevens.
Isn't it ironic?
as Alanis Morissette would say, isn't it ironic that as acting has supposedly headed in a more demotic direction, and since the 60s there's been this movement towards recruiting working class because they're obviously more authentic and they're and since the 60s there's been this movement towards recruiting working class because
But actually, the decline of our culture has meant that the only people who can actually speak the verse, who can project and do all these things, are people who've been to posho boarding schools where they've been given the training that used to be provided by rep.
Discuss.
Yeah, I certainly think...
I certainly think it was really helpful to be taught the verse.
But I think that also people love all of the posh stories, don't they?
Downton Abbey flies off the shelves.
So there's a lot of posh parts.
Out there.
But no, I don't know.
I'm not sure how education comes into it.
You have agency in your own education, don't you?
I've worked with lots of what would be called working-class actors who are right on top of the verse and brilliant at it, I have to say.
Right.
But I think it is...
I don't know, maybe there's just a sort of slight compunction for...
Also, posh boys are a little bit weedy in a way.
And, you know, there's a real appetite for weedy leading men in this country as well that we like.
You're saying Henry Cavill is weedy?
Never.
I mean, he's the Witcher.
Yeah, I've not managed to get onto that yet.
No, it's all right.
And if you play the video game...
I imagine it's great.
Right.
Because it's like a video game.
Right.
Extended into, what, eight parts.
Yes.
And also, I think if you're young, my son, who is young, and he doesn't play video games, but he found it perfectly acceptable because...
I don't know why.
They seem to be able to turn off their taste function and just accept it for what it is.
I put my kids on to South Park as much as possible.
That's a good education.
From early days.
I'm like, don't tell your mum.
But, you know, you've got to teach them a sense of humour and irony.
You know, because irony is lack is gone.
Only to be replaced with hypocrisy, which is what a horrible substitute that is.
It's like...
Goodbye, irony.
If this were an article, that would be the pull-out quote, actually, because you're absolutely right.
I think you've put your finger on one of the great tragedies of our lifetime.
It's that we're English, for God's sake.
We are the masters of irony, self-deprecation, lightness of touch, of not taking things too seriously.
And every one of those things has been stolen away from us by woke culture.
Well, you know, they're also...
Those things, you know, our only likeness of touch, all of that, those are, you know, those are symptoms of white supremacy, aren't they?
Good point, yeah.
They do need dismantling because, you know, everything that we've done in making this amazing world that the West is, is awful and we need to tear it down and replace it with a bunch of people being really racially aware and polite to each other and totally unaware of hypocrisy.
Because who wants to, you know, I mean, it's the carrots being chucked out of the Australian helicopter.
I just couldn't cope with it.
It's the ultimate peak 2020, that.
Tell me the story about the carrots.
I miss this one.
So they got, I woke up to it yesterday morning.
I swear to God, it kills me.
And they obviously have had their horrible wildfires, of which, again, nothing gets reported correctly.
It's just global warming, global warming, global warming.
A, wildfires happen.
They just do, don't they?
And it's a way of renourishing the land.
B, I think there's an element of some of the policies around how they manage their woodland has affected the wildfires.
There's a lot of arson involved as well.
And there's a climate change element to it.
Of course there is.
And, you know, what do we need to do?
We do need to reduce our carbon emissions.
So, getting in a helicopter with some bags of carrots and flying it up over the poor old wallabies going, Oh, what have you done?
Oh, Lord, you've forsaken me!
And then they just chuck out a few bags of carrots onto the wallabies, who either, you know, if they avoid the shower of deadly orange projectiles and survive...
That would be sad, wouldn't it?
You know, done by a terminal velocity carrot would be great.
Hopefully none of them were bending over.
Then they finally got their bit of carrot, and then, you know, the carbon neutral...
Maybe the helicopter company went and landed and planted some fields of carrots to offset...
The carbon released into the atmosphere.
It's just like, what the fuck are you doing, guys?
And then it's like...
And then, you know, poor old people you really respect, really respected actors like Joaquin Phoenix, saying, you know...
I don't know why the hypocrisy...
The hypocrisy bothers me so much, and I don't know why it is.
So this is why I kind of talk about it, because I feel like I cannot...
I can't be the actor that sits there and goes, right on, man.
That's what I wanted to come around to.
I got lost. - We all are.
- Well, I was talking about the Posh Boy actors. - Mm. - And anyone, anyone can be woken.
It's really, really easy.
But it's really, it's quite courageous, or in your case, suicidally stupid, to take the positions that you're taking.
And yet, look, as a, obviously I'm biased, this reflects my political bias, but if, when I see, whenever I see an actor interviewed, It basically kills their entire oeuvre for me, because I'm thinking, every time I see them on screen, I'm thinking, you are a woke wanker, and if you met me, you'd hate me, and I don't like that at full on.
You know, I want to think Robert De Niro or whatever would like me, not that he'd think I was a wanker for being a supporter of Trump.
Yeah.
And I want my actors to be...
Bad boys, like you.
Or just at least say, you know, just allow a diversity of opinion, you know.
And don't try and police me into doing it.
I mean, I say these things to people out, actors, and they'll agree with you.
A lot of people, they're not enemies.
And I often think that someone like Robert De Niro, I'd be really interested to see what he really, really thinks the minute you start throwing those opinions around.
I'm glad that that is the case, but in my experience, for example, I got on very well with Neil Pearson, who I think is a very fine actor, and we've got lots in common, like collecting old books and other things I'm not going to mention.
But he can't forgive me.
He can't be friends with me because of my politics.
It's so weird, isn't it?
The role would never be reversed.
I've never rejected anyone for being a lefty.
I just think, well...
But this is the thing I'm starting to really suspect that this is true.
That the whole world is, that we're coming to the point where with all the modern media, people have nowhere to hide anymore.
You are either one or you're the other.
You are the projector of your own sin onto somebody else, or you are someone who takes accountability for their own sin, which is what I would call the right and left divide.
Do you know what I mean?
The more virtuous someone is, the less I trust them inherently.
The more woke someone is, the less I trust them.
The more someone gives to charity, the more someone writes Sunday Times articles about what they've learned this year.
And the more I just go, by seeking out your virtue and exposing it to me, you're hiding something.
And I know you are.
So that's why...
They can't relate to you because they know you're on to their game.
That's what I think.
They know you know.
Okay, so how fucked is your career?
Don't know.
We'll have to see.
I've just done a big thing for Netflix.
Have you?
Yeah.
Can you talk about that?
Yeah, it's called White Lines and it's about, can you guess?
Are you a gangster boss?
I'm a Mancunian Buddhist drug dealer.
How's your Manchester accent?
It's alright, brother.
Namaste.
I like that.
I want to see this.
It's alright.
Not bad.
And Netflix, is that a good thing to do?
I think Netflix are alright, aren't they?
I did say to the head person at Netflix, or whoever it was that came to us, I was like, I just read in the paper that you make a billion dollars a week.
Is that true?
And she's like, yeah.
And then I'm like, so if you get that much money, are you going to make, like, niche dramas for every form of opinion?
Because surely you've got so much money that you will have to make content.
So would you make a drama that's, like, really popular in Charlottesville?
Yeah.
You know, about some kind of noble knight, white supremacist in Charlottesville.
Have you got the audience that will watch it?
And she was like, never.
But Netflix...
I think they're pretty good, actually, when it comes to...
They're not trying to shovel you with their version of what the world is.
They don't have a diversity policy?
I think they do have a diversity policy.
Everyone has a diversity policy.
You have to have a diversity policy.
It's good, but the problem with diversity is it's inherently racist.
either you believe in racism and you want to eradicate it, or you don't, and there's not a problem.
Also, I've got nine nephews and nieces, and none of them are white, so it's not like we're dealing with a world where the white man is going to be around for that many more generations.
So you only have to read Hedden Macdonald to know what happens when you try and positively discriminate, and what damage that does, both to white students, Asian students, and black students.
You know, the minute you start bringing colour and colour of skin into anything, it causes a lot of problems.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's, you know, either we committed as a society to get rid of, you know, to eradicate racism as much as possible.
It's hilarious that people think that we can eradicate racism entirely because there are going to be hateful, horrible people that hate people based on the colour of their skin.
You can't get rid of it.
Some of them will be on football terraces as well.
It cannot be eradicated.
It's authoritarian to try and eradicate it as well.
You're just not going to get rid of it.
But we should focus and stand by the assault on those people and say these are disgusting and call them out for what they are.
But what we can't do is say that society as a whole is racist because it's not.
And I'm done with that.
I'm really done with it.
And if someone says, you know, you say that because you're a white, privileged, posh boy, I'm like, stop being racist.
What they're doing is they're projecting their own stuff onto you.
It's the Michael Moore problem.
It's the...
And I don't think it's fair.
And I don't want my children growing up in a world where they're accused of being racist without even having a single thought yet because they've got blonde hair.
And, you know, Winston, my other son, says, you know, I'm sorry if this is sexist, but...
No, he said to me, I'm sorry if this is racist, but mum's better cooked than you.
That is so racist, actually.
And he says, is this...
But often they'll preempt things with, is this sexist or is this racist?
And I'm like, you're not sexist or racist, darling.
That's not what you are.
So let's get that out of this house as a conversation that we want to have.
And whenever anyone has a conversation with me, I shut it down.
Because I'm not a racist.
I am colorblind.
All of these things.
Well, I'm obviously not colorblind.
I can tell that you have different color skin to me.
But it affects nothing about how I view you.
And I don't want to live in a world where that's there.
Because it makes people ripe for conflict.
Now, while I've got you, the other thing, of course, we've got to talk about.
That was a rant.
Well, the rants are good.
Is the whole Me Too thing.
Yeah.
Which, I mean, I think we can agree it's gone too far.
It's interesting, isn't it, that show business decided to be the place where we were going to highlight the Me Too thing.
I mean, it's fascinating.
Look, we want less sexual harassment.
We do.
You want less sexual harassment.
I think it's really important.
But, you know, I'm not going to start at a position where I want to sexually harass you.
I have to do sex scenes with an actress.
I will say to her, what's comfortable for you?
And I'll just talk them through it.
I'm not using it as an opportunity to hop on and have a go.
That's not what I'm there for.
They're really awkward to film sex scenes.
And again, there is a small minority of really horrible, vicious men who want to dominate women.
But if you, you know, don't make an enemy out of men.
And chivalry's cool, actually.
And I'm going to stick by that as well.
Yeah.
So, and also none of the cool, none of the real, beautiful, wonderful women out there really give a shit about the length that it's gone to.
And they're slightly ashamed of how far.
You know, the ones that I respect.
Yes.
It's just gone too far.
You know, Matt Damon was saying there are levels of sexual harassment.
You bigot racist, you rapist.
It's like, no, go away.
I'm not going to...
It's not true.
Not all men are rapists.
I've got a lot of male friends and none of them have been jailed for rape or been accused of sexual harassment.
Yeah, and also, I mean, back in the day, certainly, acting...
I mean, you're like alley cats, aren't you, really?
I mean, it's the kind of profession.
You're physical, you're attractive, you're away from home.
Yeah.
All the ingredients for loads of affairs.
And it's full of it.
So why showbiz?
Why has showbiz been the forefront of it?
I think it's because people have...
Now, again, as we've lost our...
You know, I was always...
My dad always said to me things like...
There's no business...
The two rules of acting he taught me were...
Always remember your audience is more intelligent than you think.
And there's no business like show business.
We smile when we're low.
Like, keep it light.
Play.
The whole thing is very playful.
And obviously, if you've got a bunch of adults, like you say, that are away, there's going to be a lot of that going on.
Why did it...
Yeah, actors are rally cats.
You know, we're in immediates.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Let's go, this is amazing, no consequences.
Yeah.
But, no, it's too far.
Again, like racism, find someone, show me someone who's done it, great for you for standing up and saying it, and then let's make an example of that person.
But at the same time, let's make an example of the person who's lied about it.
And as much as there are awful, horrible men who do awful, horrible things to women, there are awful, horrible women who do horrible things to men.
And I know some of them, and I don't like them.
So let's not make it a gender thing, because that's boring as hell.
You know?
I think weaponised womanhood is one of the more deplorable aspects, deplorable in the genuine sense of the word, of our culture.
I mean, look, girls have always had it within them to be absolute bitches.
I watched my daughter and her friends, her school friends, practising to be bitches.
But the difference is that there was a time when this...
Kind of behavior was discouraged because it's counterproductive.
Because, you know, who wants to bitch?
Okay, it might do you well in certain circumstances.
But now they feel that this is a sign that they're empowered.
Behaving badly towards men and really fucking men over.
And our culture is supporting it.
Well, it's really sad to think that being a mum is so disregarded nowadays.
It's like, oh, why would you want to be a mum?
You can be a pretend man, you know, and start swinging dicks up against some bloke.
It's like we have it good.
It's like, also, let's be individuals.
If you're a woman who wants to be a CEO of a company, go and be a CEO of a company.
Get the dad to stay at home and raise the children.
That's fine.
But I don't think that a lot of girls, certainly girls I meet, are thrilled and they're happy because biology plays a part in this as well if you want to be a mum.
And how many men do you know that are running companies at 38, 39?
Not huge numbers.
No.
So to try and get it all done and then have a baby.
Yeah.
It's like, that's fine if that's what you want to do.
You have my 100% support.
I would never want to tell you what to do with your life.
But we don't need to applaud a generation of people that are being told, you know, that it's weak to want to be a mum.
No.
That my mum was a mum.
She was sad that she didn't go to university, and she should have probably gone to university.
But she's also an amazing woman who raised five children really with love and care, and we're all much more stable and have more to offer society as a result of her brilliant, nurturing love.
But you are sounding...
This is the kind of thing that the late Sir Roger Scruton would have argued, and look at what happened to his life.
He's just kind of...
Well, he's so nice and so thoughtful.
Do you know him?
I didn't know him, no, but I watched so much and read so much of what he did.
I think he was just so nice, he didn't want to retaliate.
But because I've been on the butt end of a few pieces of nasty toxicity from people, I don't apologise and I do retaliate.
Because you've got to stand up for yourself, especially in this world.
But so...
Was there a moment where you came out as...
Yeah, I was sat on set in filming Victoria and all the actresses were outside having a discussion about Brett Kavanaugh hearings.
Oh, yeah.
And they were going on about how you had to believe the victim.
And I was like, just inside of me, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You don't believe the victim because that's not how it works.
you listen to the victim, the victim's evidence is examined, and then a jury of their peers makes a decision about whether that was true.
And also I was suspicious because their report was made to a congresswoman, wasn't it, rather than a police person.
And you've been vindicated by subsequent discoveries, haven't you?
Well, I broke up with a girlfriend over it.
Did you?
I did, yeah.
I broke up with the her over that and over the Gillette advert.
I just went, bye.
Toxic masculinity.
Yeah, I was like, bye, sorry.
but she's been primed You see, this is the problem.
If you're priming women to believe that they are victims and that this is a tyrannical patriarchy and everything, but I can't remember who said it, but it's not like they've got a solution to that, other than they want to swap it to be a matriarchy.
They just want exactly the same thing, but women to be in charge.
And it's like, no, sorry.
And, you know, also there are a lot of things that men do and a lot of sacrifices men do.
We're having to adjust.
So I'm a single father now.
So I'm having to learn how to raise two children, which is something my dad never did.
Right.
Because he had my mum there.
So we're all adjusting.
And I don't see myself as a victim of my divorce or anything like that.
I just see myself as a situation where I've got to now Look at my world and my universe in a way which I can give something to.
And no one in my family is saying, poor you, Loz.
Poor you.
So the set of Victoria, because you're playing Lord Palmerston.
So you got to shag somebody on the billiard table.
I didn't get to shag someone on the billiard table, but I did get to...
Well, it's telly, you see.
They're not going to...
But that's the single fact everyone knows about Lord Palmerston, isn't it?
Did he die inside?
He did, didn't he?
I think he might have done.
I mean, there's some pretty...
I started reading a bit about Palmerston and I was like, ooh.
Pam?
Pam.
Yeah.
But, okay, so you didn't...
But I remember slagging...
I can't remember why I slagged it off, but I did slag it off for some reason.
I think probably because it was unhistorically accurate.
Yeah, well, I mean, I don't think it's aimed at that audience, is it?
It's aimed at...
No, it's not.
It's sort of...
It's...
It's soap with brains.
Feisty Doctor Who woman assistant type.
Yeah.
It becomes Victorian.
She's very good.
Good actress.
I think that sometimes telly can be guilty of not applying my dad's rule of remembering that your audience is very intelligent.
Yeah.
And you see by whether these shows live or die or get cancelled or not.
It did alright, didn't it?
It's finished, yeah.
Yeah, but I mean, what I'm hoping, I'm really hoping for a massive outbreak of get woke, go broke.
It's happened to Doctor Who, hasn't it?
Anything else?
I think we're right on the edge of it all falling apart.
I think the Beeb, especially, and it'd be interesting to go...
Because you can't help yourself.
But, you know, great heroic stories, you know, are like High Noon and stuff like that.
You need some of these back, not...
So, okay, so we need to restore men being manly men rather than stupid, feckless idiots like they have been since at least men behaving badly.
Yeah, well, maybe.
And it's interesting if you look at some of the casting that alpha males are not often cast as anything other than alpha males, you know, whereas leading men used to be quite...
You know, quite smoulderingly, you thought, oh, you could beat the shit out of someone.
And now some of the leading men you look at, you go, oh, you're sweet.
Right.
That's what I find.
Okay.
I'm old school in terms of that.
I want stories.
I don't want political opinions.
I want, you know, 1917 is brilliant for that.
Is it?
Yeah.
I haven't seen it yet.
It's so good.
So apart from the gratuitous Sikhs?
Well, no, he's great in it as well.
It's great.
It didn't bother me particularly, but it did sort of flick me out of what is essentially being done as a one-shot film.
And there is an argument, I suppose, for saying that you want to know that this is incongruous with the story.
It's like, why do I need to know that at this point of the film?
Going back, I would be more than happy to go and watch a film about Sikhs in World War I. In fact, and I probably would watch it.
I mean, if the war stuff was good, I'd definitely go and watch it.
It wouldn't bother me at all.
I just don't like historical inaccuracy.
I'll tell you what really annoyed me.
I went to a friend's 90th birthday party, and on my table, this wonderful couple, who I think had been involved in the production of Les Miserables.
And Andrew Davies' adaptation, the thing that the BBC is really, really shithot out traditionally.
But the guy who plays Inspector Javert was a black actor of West African heritage.
Danny Spani, I know him, I think.
No, no, David Oluwe.
Oh, David Oluwe, yeah.
Who's a great actor.
I thought he was a bit shit as Javert, actually, but he wasn't very enticing.
But, mind you, he was better than that Australian Kiwi actor, what's he called, the one who's in Les Miserables, the movie.
Oh.
You know...
Russell.
Yeah, Russell.
Russell actually...
I went to see that film, Les Miserables, the musical, with my family.
And Russell was so bad that I walked out of the cinema and went to Sainsbury's nearby and did the shopping while my family sat through the rest.
He was so bad.
But the Les Miserables thing...
I've wondered about this before, but I think it's worth mentioning.
The book is set in 1830s France.
There's no way an inspector of police in 1830s France would have been black.
So why go to the trouble of recreating the period, getting the cobbles in the street, right, and making sure there are no wind turbines in the background?
Why go to all that if you're going to have this...
The intention is good, isn't it?
Of course it is.
The intention is really positive, and the intention is to go, look, let's all be colourblind.
Yeah.
But the problem with it is it makes you really not colourblind.
The opposite.
Because, you know, I don't know the history, so I didn't know whether you'd have a black Inspector of Police.
I didn't watch it, to be fair, because it apparently...
Well, it's on the BBC. You never watched the BBC. Didn't have the songs in it, either.
So, yes, in an effort to make us colourblind, you're making us really...
Like, the contrast is strong.
But having said that, should a black actor be able to play what would have been a traditionally white role?
Yeah.
But again, what you're saying is if they've done all the cobbles, then why not be authentic with the casting?
My dividing line would be...
Theatre, fine, because we accept, we suspend our disbelief with the theatre.
I think with TV, the whole point about film is you are trying, is verisimilitude.
Opera, doesn't matter at all.
I mean, often the best singers are black anyway, so, you know, obviously you have that.
That would be my rule.
But were you ever in the RSE? No.
No.
Okay.
So I've now given up my RSC membership.
It's just absolutely shit.
And a lot of it is to do, a significant proportion of the problem is to do with woke casting.
You've just got actors and you look at them and you think, you're shit.
You can't speak the verse.
You've got no personality.
You've got no charisma.
You've got the job because you fit in the BAME category.
Yeah.
That's sad.
But what do we do?
I think the problem, again, is if you assume that everyone is racist, which is what the woke argument is, if you make that assumption that society, this society, of all the societies on earth, the freest and most prosperous society in the world, with the most liberty around, if you make the assumption, which they're desperate to make us, just, no, you have to take it as red.
You're all racist.
Then all of the arguments of weakness work.
So you would go, well, no, we must have a black actor play that part because that's how we prove our virtue.
But actually, if you think about it longer term, audiences are getting pissed off and are turning off.
I'd like to go up against a black actor for anything.
Well, I bet there were loads of black actors in your Netflix series.
But also the most annoying thing is the minute a black actor...
It's the same with working-class actors.
The minute they've got five million quid in the bank, every interview they do is about how racism is rampant and rife in the industry.
And in working-class actors, there's not enough working-class actors initially.
You weren't saying that when you didn't have a fucking pot to piss in, were you?
You weren't standing up for the working-class actors until you're now no longer materially working-class.
I've got to stop ranting.
Yeah, no, no, that's good.
And it's why no interviews with actors are worth reading.
I mean, poor old...
Mine are good.
I bet yours are fucking awesome.
I have no filter.
No, no, no.
You must be the only one.
Who else is there?
Name another name.
In the UK? I don't know.
I don't read them generally because I don't want to be lectured to by someone about how wonderful that they've learned about various things.
I just can't cope.
I just want to read someone telling me exactly what they think that day.
Because also you can have a diversity of opinion that changes every day, I think.
Yeah, depending on what drugs you've taken.
Or whatever.
What drugs you've taken and whether it's...
But I felt so sorry for...
I don't know how I know this.
Daisy Ridley.
I mean, I hate those Star Wars films.
I can't buy to watch them.
She was in GQ, and she said something that didn't tick the right boxes about...
Race or diversity or something.
Thought crime.
Thought crime.
And she got a strip torn off her.
I thought, you're just a nice girl, probably.
Never met her.
Trying to promote your career, get on the cover of GQ, and you're being torn to shreds for just having an opinion.
Which is why one has the only option one has, which is to turn around and go, come on then.
Which is what I do when people try and tear me to shreds.
I just go, hello, let's talk.
But no, people don't have that opinion.
Also, this horrible virtue, I can't bear it.
It's this horrible desire to go, look how wonderfully virtuous I am.
And it's infecting everybody.
And then you do need, that's why I have to say stuff in response, because I'm going, it's not me.
I'm not that.
But what have you got lined up your sleeve if...
Because your music career pays squat, doesn't it?
It pays me.
You were saying that it's a hobby.
It makes me money.
Does it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It makes me money.
Do you tour?
I do.
I am touring.
About to tour in February, yeah.
Are you?
Yeah.
So it makes me money, but I wouldn't have two children in private school and live in a nice house where I live with a music career.
If it all went tits up, what would you do?
Well, everything.
Yeah.
I've had a situation in my life where I was down to my last 2,000 quid.
How are we?
It wasn't too long ago.
Oh, really?
And I just thought, I woke up one day and I was like, oh, I'm still alive.
You know, it's all right, isn't it?
You're kind of stuck, though.
I mean, you haven't got any legal skills or accountancy skills, or you're dependent on your...
Yeah, but, you know, I think there's room for everybody.
You know, and if the world wants to not hire you because you think like I think, which I think is fairly reasonable, I don't think I'm particularly...
In fact, I know what I am.
What I say is what I am.
I think it's reasonable.
If the world doesn't want to hire me for those binnions, then I don't want to work for you guys.
Right.
For the world.
I mean, what's the point?
Right.
You don't want to go into a work environment and have someone thought police you at work, do you?
But do you think...
You might have got more, better roles if you'd, you know, come up with the right parties.
Yeah.
You do?
Yeah, of course.
But I'm not...
The problem is, when I was a child, I was like, why...
And they were teaching us about the Holocaust.
I was like, why didn't the Jewish people just say, no, no, I'm not Jew, it's fine.
Please, I'll convert to whatever religion you want me to.
And I couldn't work that out as a child.
And as an adult, I can work out why they would...
That their faith was more important to them than...
Because what are you if you're not yourself?
I'm totally with you.
I can see why people do things, why they stand up for principles that get them into shit.
Yeah.
And I think these principles, to be fair, I don't think I'm doing anything other than saying something which is vaguely rational.
It feels rational.
It doesn't feel like...
I don't feel like...
I do feel like...
I do.
I'm slightly concerned that I am as...
Not angry, but as dismissive of the wokists as I am.
So I have to check my why, my motivation a lot.
I have to go, why do you find them so unutterably hellish?
And then I go, well, someone's got to find them unutterably hellish, because we seem to just be accepting.
So you have to question your motivation, and I do.
But I can't be a hypocrite.
I can't pretend.
There's no point.
Life's too short.
I'm suddenly distracted by the thought about you on tour.
You've got a band and everything.
I'm just trying to work out how to do it now.
I'm taking my mate Sam, who's a beautiful, wonderful bass player, complete Corbanista, climate change vegan.
Female or male?
Male.
Because I quite like girly bass players.
You like girly bass players?
Yeah, I do.
I'm taking a girly keys player.
Oh, that's all right.
Like Gillian from New Order.
That's fine, yeah.
Yeah.
But so I'm taking him and we'll do it.
I'm thinking of doing it more intimate and actually I'm starting to think, you know, because my album is quite, it has a slight political twinge to it.
Who comes to see you?
It depends.
You know, there's usually quite a lot of girls from Japan who fly in.
There are always girls from Japan.
You know what I mean?
So, okay.
And then, I don't know, like, folk?
People who share your politics, do you think?
I doubt it.
Then no one knew what my politics were until...
I mean, I didn't say any of these things until recently.
Because is it obvious...
I don't listen to lyrics, generally.
But is it obvious in your lyrics what you think?
Certainly in the main single from the album, yeah, it's pretty obvious.
It goes, they have put something in the water.
They seek to, they have put something in the water.
Oh my God, I can't remember.
Something in the water.
They stole a march.
I can't remember.
It just goes, they put something in the water.
They stole a march on your indecision.
They try and murder your opinion.
The first of all is laughter, just to quell the unoffended.
You know, just going on a bit like that.
So you and Muse, I think.
Muse have got a sort of libertarian streak in them.
Unlike my favourite band, sadly, Radiohead, which are just like so oppressively woke.
Yeah, but I think he kind of...
I think it's very genuine with Tom York, so I don't mind.
Also, I think it's great if people want to be woke, be woke, but just allow me not to be.
But with Tom York, I sense that he's genuinely like, have the music for free, pay what you want for it.
I think he's like that.
But it's the impersonators and the people that jump on board.
It's also a really easy way of disguising lack of talent, being woke, I think.
Do you think in the hierarchy of cool things to be...
Being the rock star.
Acting is good, but rock star is.
Is that what draws you to that?
No, I just always love music, and you spend quite a lot of time not acting when you're an actor, even if you're a successful one.
So I quite like the process of being in charge start to finish.
So as an actor, you're a cog in a wheel.
You learn that over the years of experience.
You turn up on your first day, I mean, I've watched them come traipsing through Lewis for nine years, these kids straight out of drama school, like, this is my stepping stone to greatness!
And I'm like, or it's your stepping stone to Midsomer Murders, one or the other.
And more often than not, it was their stepping stone to Midsomer Murders, and then it was their stepping stone to Corrie, and that's all fine.
But what was I saying?
I liked making it from the beginning to the conclusion and being in charge, writing it, producing it.
Whereas as an actor, yeah, you just turn up and your job is to serve the script.
And if you're a good actor, you serve the script well.
And if you're a bad actor, you make it all about you.
And then it's hell to work with those actors.
But so when you go on tour, you're going to be playing what size venues?
What, 200 maybe?
250, 300, yeah.
And so are the economics of that, you can...
They're pretty good, the economics of it.
If you do...
10 or a ticket maybe?
1750, I think.
Okay, so nearly 20 quid.
Yeah.
So 20 times 20 is so...
Four?
Yeah, but it's the way they do it is they offer you a guarantee and then they offer you an overage.
So, yeah, I mean, touring, you can make all right money.
And do you get a share of the bar takings as well or is that the venues?
No, no, that's part of the vibe.
I don't know, to be fair.
I've got spreadsheets from the guy that's organising the tour.
You take things like merchandise and sell it, like badges.
Have you got t-shirts?
I do.
For Fox's sake, it says on my t-shirts.
Oh, that's good.
Well done.
Was that you?
That was me.
Yeah, so it's definitely...
I mean, look, at the end of the day, music is...
I do it because I love it.
I'm not going to stop doing it.
But you can monetise it.
I almost did take away one of your special friend points.
Why?
Because you kind of said climate change is contributing to the...
No, there must be.
There must be, for the fact that there are 7 billion people on this earth, we must be having an effect on this earth.
I'm not saying we're the cause of all of it.
We must be having an effect on our planet.
I think humans will make it better.
I will give you...
Can I have it back?
Yeah, of course you can.
I was only lightly...
Light whipping of the...
I was taking one of your orange smarties, because orange are the best, and now I'm giving you back.
I was only doing it teasingly.
I wasn't really going to steal your orange smarties.
Maybe I've become a wokest, serious wokest.
I'm like, how dare you?
I can't take a criticism.
I think what it is, it's a bit like Damien in The Omen, and I'm the church.
And you've come into the church, and I'm so pure in my right-wing evil.
Yeah.
Does this analogy work?
Not really.
It might do.
Let's keep going.
You can't quite cope.
You thought you were sound or anti-woke, but actually you've come to the...
It's Damien and...
That does work as an analogy.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, my God.
I've realised I'm king woke.
I mean, I haven't gone so far as to praise Harvey Weinstein as an enlightened man, but...
That's going to be very interesting to see how that one plays out, I think.
Yeah.
Because what, I mean, it's just going to be, I've no idea I wasn't there and I don't, I have no idea.
I assume when over 20 people or how many people accuse you of that sort of thing, I think absolutely right.
He's obviously, he was obviously a complete dick and he was famously horrible and not safe in taxes and all that stuff.
And yet at the same time, the casting couch.
I mean, lots of, lots of women particularly.
Men, unfortunately, I think, you know, boys particularly, I think there was that...
Who was the guy who was in that vampire film, The Lost...
Pattinson, Robert Pattinson.
No, no, no, no, a generation back.
Kiefer Sutherland, oh.
No, the one, yeah, not Kiefer Sutherland, the other one who got...
Got very upset.
Got sexually abused by...
Well, you can see, I mean, it's just horrific.
But I have to say, and I may be being controversial here...
But if I were a woman in acting, knowing what I knew how it was back in the day, I think I would be perfectly happy to shag a producer in order to get to fast track.
I'd be perfectly happy to shag a producer to get a job.
No, be shagged, would you?
I'm not so much be shagged, I don't know.
No, but you see, that's the thing.
But what if someone said, you know, if some 80-year-old Cruella de Vil was wheeled in and they said, the job's yours, if you...
Give Mama the sausage.
I'd be like, alright.
And then you're guaranteed a sort of, you know.
And then it's like, why have they cast Lawrence Fox as Batman?
I'm sorry I haven't done any weights, but I've got the voice.
I did bone old Mrs.
That was a tough afternoon.
Comedy is also the answer to all of this shit.
Well, I suppose, actually, Barbara Boccoli.
I know Barbara.
I know Barbara rather well.
Do you?
Not publicly, obviously.
But if you wanted to be James Bond, I mean...
I know, I think, but I don't know about that.
But I think that, you know, I mean, it does go to show the difference between a male mind and a female mind.
Maybe men and women would both shag, but women wouldn't tell anyone.
Whereas I think men would probably go...
In fact, it's 100% true that quite a lot of those Hollywood stars have boned the shit out of a load of people to get where they want to get.
Men and women.
But maybe the difference is that men go...
Guess who I boned?
You are so making me realise I've made the wrong career choice.
You could.
With those kind eyes, can you imagine?
Yeah, my fucking teeth, I think, are the problem.
There's nothing we can't fix with a bit of Hollywood dentistry.
Cosmetic...
That's what I need.
Invisalign?
This could be the beginning, actually.
It's the right time.
We need...
One of my DellingPod listeners actually is a dentist and has offered me free Invisalign, which I could...
I just haven't got my shit together to go for it, so maybe this is the...
It's tight, especially if we're going to get you to crack Hollywood this year.
Because, you know, the backnash might have begun.
They might be like...
With Ricky Gervais, who are the other turning point things?
I think there have been other turning points where there's you, so you need one more to make a three.
Imagine Prince Harry in a pretty short period of time.
Well, that's certainly...
The woke going broke thing is helping us tremendously.
But I think there is...
Oh, yeah, of course, Dave Chappelle.
Oh, my God, Dave Chappelle.
Thank you for Dave Chappelle.
We love Dave Chappelle.
Also, just sensible shit and comedy.
Funny.
It's like now comedy's a dangerous one.
But he was absolutely right about if you were a paedophile and you had to sleep with any child, it would be Macaulay Culkin.
I know the guy that directed that.
I know Dan Reid quite well.
Who directed the Dave Chappelle show?
No, who directed Leaving Neverland.
Oh, right.
And, yeah, we've had a falling out.
Oh, how?
Because I think Dave Chappelle is hilarious.
And he thinks Dave Chappelle was way over the line.
Oh!
And he's a, you know, he's a Guardian man.
That's a shame, because I gave a nice review to Finding Neverland.
What was it called?
Finding Neverland.
Leaving Neverland.
Yeah.
Well, anyway, I've dribbled enough, and actually, I think, leave them wanting more, because we should have you back, you know, like, when your career's really hit the skids.
Yeah, yeah.
We can talk about how this was the podcast that ruined it.
Oh, no, I'm bad enough in auditions, you know, someone will say to me...
What do you think of the script?
In fact, someone quite famous auditioned me for...
I can't tell the story without incriminating the wokest person in the world.
When they said, what did you think of the script?
And I was like...
Well, it's exactly like the last one you did, isn't it?
It's the same thing.
No difference at all.
Less funny, possibly.
I bet they loved that.
They didn't.
I didn't see a Hollywood casting director for about five or six years after that particular audition.
I'm just not very good at not saying what I think.
People don't, and I can speak personally here, people don't like not having smoke blown up their arse.
Yeah, I know, I love having smoke blown up my arse, but I want to feel like it was warranted.
Yes.
Like, I want to feel proud of someone to support me, not go, I hate it when people say, oh, I thought you were marvellous in that, and you're like, you know I was only vaguely on top of it, holding it together, trying not to be, trying not to, you know...
I don't know.
Respect where credit's due.
You know, meritocratic values.
Oh, fuck, no, the meritocracy.
You know, it matters.
Some things are good, some things aren't.
It's okay.
Just promote, just tell me the name of your Netflix thing.
Is that the next thing?
It's called White Lines, and I did a little cross my name.
It's about, yeah, it's good.
It's going to be bad drugs.
Is it good?
Is it going to be like, is it like Top Boy?
It's done by the guy who did Casa de Papel, or what's it called in...
Money Heist.
Oh, the Spanish thing?
Yeah, so he's...
And it's insane.
And actually, I really respected the Spanish for the way that they go about making stuff.
They're like, yeah, more, brilliant, wonderful, let's make it more crazy.
Whereas in England, it's like...
Actually, just briefly...
I've almost reached the point where I will only watch things with subtitles because it seems to me that the foreigners, the non-English speaking world, look at Gomorrah in Italy.
Look at Fowder.
Yeah, Fowder was great.
They don't take any prisoners.
They're not woke.
Even the Germans.
Babylon, Berlin.
Yeah, yeah.
There's no wokeness in there, I don't think.
My girlfriend won't turn anything on that doesn't have subtitles, so you and her are the same.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay, I'd like to meet your girlfriend.
That can be another of my...
No, I'm not going to shag her.
No, you can meet her as she dumps me from, like, you haven't worked in 12 years.
I'm like, it's coming, babe!
I promised the tide is going to change.
I'm so sorry.
Good.
Well, I'm listening to the Darling Pod with me, James Darling Pod, and I'm so excited.
I mean, still, I'm really excited, even now.
Even after the disappointment of the interview, I'm still excited.
Lawrence Fox, thank you.
Thank you.
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