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July 14, 2022 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole
01:53:31
James Fox
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Welcome to The Deli Poz with me, James Deli Poz.
And I know I always sound like a bit of a special guest, but I really am.
James Fox, I think you are maybe the most famous star I've ever had on my podcast.
No.
And you're probably so modest you don't even think of yourself as a star.
No.
I can't believe that.
I'm not a star anyway.
No, I was a star.
I was a star in the 60s, but that's a long time ago.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
It does... It happens, doesn't it?
You sort of... I mean, I was thinking... I was thinking that in 1968, Which is what?
About your sort of peak period of fame?
Yeah.
You must have been about the most bankable British actor.
I mean, certainly one of the most acclaimed ones in films anyway.
Yeah, I was, as they say, I suppose, bankable.
Yeah.
They would use my name and, you know, things could move forward because of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm just going to try and get this... I can barely hear you, so I'm just going to try and turn up the sound on my thing.
Sorry about not having an extra mic.
Don't worry.
Don't worry.
It's all up.
No, I've done it now.
It's in my hand.
I can hear you now.
It's good.
Yeah.
By the way, since I've known you, and really I'm sort of interviewing you as a friend rather than as a kind of famous person that I'm all excited about, I realise I've been calling you the wrong name all this time, haven't I?
I mean, you're originally called William.
Do people call you William still, or not really?
Everybody who knew me before 1962 calls me William or Willie, because I was christened William.
And because there was an actor called William Fox, and there was a rule in Equity that you couldn't have the same names, I had to change mine.
And so since 1962, I've been known as James.
What happened?
Did William Fox have a career?
I don't think I've seen any of his films.
He had a career.
He wasn't terribly famous.
He was a very good radio actor.
We didn't look anything alike.
I got quite upset because people have been on billboards calling themselves James Fox.
So there's obviously not a big ban on it.
There's also a famous writer called James Fox, of course, but that's different.
But in my profession, they don't seem to have I don't have much regard for it anymore.
I was thinking that back then, that was the era when people with backgrounds like yours, I mean you went to Harrow and all, were being sort of replaced by angry young, well not necessarily angry, I don't think Michael Caine is angry, but sort of young working class men.
Who were sort of taking over from your poshos.
Yeah, exactly.
Yes, that's right.
So did you get on with them or did they sort of resent you as a kind of, you know, sort of upper crust interloper?
That's an interesting question.
I think there was a class struggle, yeah, in the profession, because in a sense they were making their mark.
They were favoured, actually, at the time, because of the writers and directors who were attracted to material that they exemplified.
But professionally, I mean, I had a great admiration for Albie Finney, for example.
I never knew him personally, but you could admire people's skills, but there was Definitely rivalry.
But I was, Michael York and myself, I think we were the only Poshos around.
I can't remember many Poshos.
Simon, who played Churchill, Simon Ward.
Yeah, but that was about it.
Oh, wait a minute, there were a couple of Etonians, weren't there?
Yeah, that's right.
But it wasn't like today, where Benedict Cumberbatch and the Etonians are kind of holding court.
Well, you know why?
They're the only ones who've had a proper old-school training.
They can speak the verse.
I had a girlfriend who was with the RSC, and she used to say, dismissively of somebody, he can't speak a diverse.
They hadn't done their... They speak on Pantameter.
That's right.
They've had the education.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think I look at TV drama now and invariably, when you look at the ones who can act, I'm afraid to say they're invariably the ones who've been privately educated, which wasn't the case back then because you had working class people who did rep and stuff like that.
They had all the grounding.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, Tom Courtney, who could be thought of as working class.
Terry Stamp came straight into it, I think.
Michael Caine did some time, smaller parts and so forth.
Tom Bell, I don't know, but I think there was the discipline of a background where they got training and so forth.
And I think the problem is now they probably don't.
Yeah, it's pretty bad stuff isn't it?
Dirk Bogart.
Dirk Bogart's a bit old.
I don't know how old Dirk Bogart is.
He's a bit older than you but he would count as a kind of... well he sounded posh anyway.
He was posh.
I think his dad was on the Sunday Times stuff and everything and yeah he was an officer in the army so he was poshish, yeah.
Were you being an officer of course?
I wasn't an officer.
Well, it depends.
I mean, you know, your father was a theatrical agent, wasn't he?
Yeah, that's not posh, is it?
No, I'm not saying you're a belted earl.
I'm not accusing you of that, James.
No, no, no, I'm not a belted earl.
You're right.
I was in the Coldstream Guards, so I got posh because I was around very posh people, which was nice.
I really enjoyed it.
So, I want to talk to you about performance because we had this, when you and I first met, was on one of the marches, wasn't it?
Yeah.
With Loza and Robin, two of your sons.
And it was fantastic.
I just loved that day.
The atmosphere was so good, wasn't it?
Oh, it was so good.
And you were carrying a Bible.
Was I?
I was carrying a Bible.
Yeah, you were carrying a Bible.
Was I really?
In my pocket?
Yes.
You had it in front of you.
I thought it was the thing that you did, maybe.
You always do that.
front of you I mean it wasn't a kind of really yeah I carry a book how interesting I remember that yeah I thought it was I thought it was the thing that you did maybe because you know you the Bible inseparable Yeah, I just... It's the first time you meet somebody, they're carrying a Bible, you think, oh, it's obviously... I'm very strange, that's your impression, yeah.
I'm very strange.
Well, maybe, yeah, but maybe you were trying to... Maybe before you turn up on the march, you thought that we were going to encounter terrible people.
It was warfare.
Yeah, it was warfare, wasn't it?
We were very peaceful.
I was really...
It was very peaceful.
I was really excited to meet you.
And I wanted to, as you do, I mean, I'm insatiably curious.
And the thing I wanted to ask you was about when you'd been involved in that late 60s movie scene.
We know, do we not, that the whole of the entertainment industry is absolutely permeated with evil.
That it's designed to kind of, it's designed to deceive people, to lead them in a particular direction.
I mean, in the guise of entertainment, it has other sinister functions, doesn't it?
I think, you know, I think in my later years, I've come to think there is more to it than entertainment.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it wasn't obvious to you at the time.
You just thought it was just a job.
No, not at the time.
I was attracted to interesting writers and directors and the storytelling and whether it would engage.
So perhaps I was very superficial, but I thought of the entertainment primarily was the thing that attracted me.
So, I mean, I suppose in your You've had a career of two halves, haven't you?
You had your late 60s thing, and then you had a James Fox revival, which was with Sexy Beast, which I love.
You were a baddie.
Yeah, absolutely.
I've always been cast as a baddie.
Yeah, but there's a reason for that, isn't there?
And there's definitely a reason for it.
Exactly.
I mean, that's when you start to wake up to the agenda, which is that we want to create in the audience's mind that these people are bad.
Yeah.
But at the same time, that bad is kind of cool and sexy.
Well, yes, yes, you could say that in Sexy Beast, I suppose, and in Performance, well, because I wasn't posh in Performance, but in The Servant, yes, it was cool and sexy, yes.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, tell me, because I suppose The Servant was the film that made your name and got you a BAFTA nomination, BAFTA award for Best Newcomer, rather, and Tell me about that experience, because your dad didn't want you to become an actor, did he?
He thought it was completely unsuitable for a young, well-educated young man.
Well, I mean, he was quite instrumental in me getting the part.
Nepotism, if you like, in some ways.
Although he was part of the group that helped finance the final part of the picture.
But he was my agent at the time.
And he also, I think he represented Joseph Losey, the director.
However, there was...
It was a connection.
I don't think my dad didn't want me to act because I'd been a child actor.
But he knew the risks of the profession.
And I suppose like every parent whose child wants to become an actor, he and my mother were probably saying, you know, watch it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, what are the risks of the profession?
Not only having long periods where you don't earn any money?
Well, the risks of the profession are that only, I suppose, about 2% of people make a really decent living at it.
Maybe less, I don't know.
Then the top 10% may, you know, manage to get by.
But it's terrible how much actors, you know, suffer for wanting to do what they must do, what they really care about.
So it's a very, very tough job.
Very tough job.
I was exceptionally blessed in that I, in my 20s, I was very successful.
After I came back into acting in my 40s, it was a struggle to get started again.
But again, I got some amazing breaks.
So I was just one of the very lucky ones.
Okay, so you've been in, the Servants come out and got all your awards and you're suddenly the hottest thing in British acting.
Did you have a period where you actually enjoyed all that and enjoyed being famous?
Yes, I enjoyed it massively.
Yeah, I went to America, made three films there.
I had a very, very good 60s in a certain way, very successful.
Tell me, how did you indulge yourself?
How did you celebrate?
Sex, drugs and rock and roll.
I mean, just like everybody.
Just a very, it was a very, it was a very, if you were fortunate enough to be doing well, it was a very, very nice time. - And did you, I mean, did you, did you indulge yourself with fast cars and things like that?
Yes.
Yeah, everything.
What did you have?
A Lotus and a Jag.
An E-Type?
It was an S-Type.
Do you remember the S-Type?
No.
The S-Type had a longer back than the rather dumpy back of the same period Jags.
The S-Type had a bigger boot.
Longer.
It's quite elegant.
Right.
It's beautiful.
It was a Lotus Elan Plus II.
Very nice.
And you were driving that around LA?
No, no, I only had that in the UK.
In the LA I had a Mustang.
Yeah, yeah.
That's great.
I mean, I have to say, when I was growing up, I did look to your generation.
If I could have been a young man in any era, I would have chosen the late 60s to be successful and part of that scene.
Yes.
Oh yeah, definitely.
You just missed it.
You were just too young for that, but it was.
I must be one of the few survivors of that.
period now that can you remember it quite well from the beginning it was a great it was a great time yeah people still talk about it very nostalgic about it of course and um but what a great time it was why do you think why do you think it was to you and and to your generation what what what's the um appeal and the attraction that you wish you had had yourself
That's a really good question, and I think the answer I would give now is very different to the answer I would have given you, say, 20 years ago.
And 20 years ago, I would have focused on things like, well, you had the best music.
You did.
I think the music between about 1968 and 1974, you know, the period of from You know, encompassing Led Zeppelin later on and the West Coast sounds.
I mean, I saw that one of your Desert Island discs you chose was The Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man, cover of Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man.
The music was great.
The drugs were probably as good as they'll ever be.
There was free love.
Everyone was letting their hair down.
The fashions were fantastic.
And you were there and you had all that.
So what's not to like about that?
But that would have been my answer 20 years ago.
My answer now would be that that period in which you were a star Was the period where the subversion of our culture by dark forces designed to break up the family unit and so on, that was where it almost reached its peak.
The music was designed to be incredibly seductive.
The drugs were designed to warp the minds.
The sex was designed to break up the family, to create a war of attention between men and women.
To encourage women to be not mothers, but to be something else.
All this stuff.
But I wouldn't have known that 20 years ago.
Exactly.
Exactly the same.
I feel the same.
And it sounds like you didn't realize it at the time, which is interesting, because this is the question I think a lot of people... What's the word to describe us?
Those of us who are awake, those of us who know, who understand the workings of the world.
We're always looking at people in the acting industry and the music industry and asking ourselves, how aware are these participants of what they're doing?
Are they just innocent Mm-hmm.
Are they innocents or are they culpable?
And it sounds like they're innocents, mainly.
I think mainly they're innocents.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I want to ask you, who were your mates at the time?
Who were your famous mates?
Who are my famous mates?
Well, I tell you, I became very close to Donald Campbell, less close to Mick.
Donald's entourage, I was very close to for a while.
I did a couple of films with him.
So, at my sort of extremely, not hippie, but shall we say decadent phase, and I had an American girlfriend, so that was a very...
Very strong relationship that went on for five years.
And that was the time where I would say that was my close sort of buddy lot.
Marianne, Mick, Robert, Cooper, not the other members of the Stones, Donald, Anita, those people, those were my friends.
Yeah.
Those are the people I get closest to in the business because most of the time in the business we just sort of, we pass.
But sometimes you get close to people and hang out with them and that was the period I did.
Wow, so I mean these are the people I've spent all my life, well up until I became cynical about this scene, a long period of my life reading about and I mean they get sold to you don't they?
The whole idea of the late 60s gets sold to us as the golden era of fun and you've got Anita Pallenberg and Marianne Faithfull who are sort of The iconic beauties of the era.
I mean, what is it?
Marianne Faithfull.
I sort of like the idea of her.
I like her music and I like her looks.
What was she like?
Well, I only knew her when she was Mick's girlfriend.
She was obviously talented independently.
She was a singer-actress.
She was kind of crazy.
But everybody was.
We all were.
But she was smart.
I mean, I think again, I think she had a good background in quotes.
So she was very likable.
Now she's become kind of slightly gossipy about it.
I mean, she's got her career going, I guess, with singing and everything, and created a new life for herself.
Good for her.
I only knew her then.
And Anita Pallenberg?
Well, she was impressive in a different way.
She had all the men completely terrified of her.
Fortunately, because I made performance, I was in a completely different Kind of mode.
I was playing this character, so to me, and I took on the character quite well, people like Anita were just slags, you know?
She may have been a cleverer, smarter slag, but she was a slag, you know?
And so, but everyone, all the guys were terrified of her because she was smart and dominating.
And I think the thing You're rightly pointing out about the men became, you know, dressed in Michael Fish with frilly fronts.
And, you know, thinking that Mick was a role model, all the men lost their kind of masculinity.
There was the androgyny.
There was a whole ambiguity.
So Anita just made mincemeat of these guys.
And it was quite fun to watch, in a way.
Later, she became really into art.
She, you know, became an artist.
Well, I suppose that the ones who went straight, like you did, are the only ones who've got their brains intact or indeed are still alive, aren't they?
I mean, there must have been a lot of your entourage who burned out or died early or whatever.
Yeah, or just remained faithful hippies.
But I think what you're saying is going straight or seeing The other side of things was very important for survival.
Yeah, yeah.
It's really interesting that you didn't know what was going on at the time.
Because, I mean, you've seen on my Telegram group, for example, you've seen some of the... When you go down the rabbit hole, people have the most...
Elaborate theories about how the world works and what's really going on.
And I don't know enough to know whether they're right or wrong.
But there are people who believe that there are no accidents.
That everyone who makes it in the movie industry is essentially what is known as a lifetime actor.
That these people are groomed from a very early age to play their part To become pieces on a chessboard, being manipulated by the sinister forces above, whose names we generally don't know, but they've got the money and the power.
But you saw a lot of that.
I think that's a decent theory.
I do.
I mean, Easy Rider wasn't an accident, was it?
That that happened and that they allowed Dennis and Peter Fonda to make that film?
It wasn't an accident.
I think people are very cynical today.
I think they would say, I can make a star out of whom I want.
In that day, in the day and the day before, the people I admired very much, I kind of felt there was an independence about the John Waynes and the Robert Mitchums and the I think there was something about them that wasn't just being used by the system.
But since the system, I agree with you, is very much about propaganda, I don't know how we weren't being used.
And I certainly think, in terms of my own casting since, I've seen that the people who cast me have wanted to present a certain kind of bad English
I frequently see how I've been used, not that I've played very big parts or anything in my 50s and 60s, but I just see that I became kind of used in a not very big way or meaningful way, so that presumably is how the whole system works.
Yeah, I would say so.
There's definitely something in there.
I would agree with you, except that, for example, I have seen an early photograph, a studio photograph of Jimmy Stewart, who you would think of as a kind of innocent, you know, the guy who's on bombing missions and stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
But I've seen him doing that weird sort of masonic thing with the concealed eye and stuff.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Yeah, dig a little deeper.
And you look at the history of Hollywood.
Oh, yeah.
It's like, um, well, I mean, Walt Disney is Walt Disney.
I mean, he was a he was a wrong.
But you think about things like, was it Errol Flynn, I think had a had a house with lots of places where he could peek through the walls and and observe.
Yeah.
It's fascinating, yeah, about Jimmy Stewart.
Yes, the stuff has come out, hasn't it?
And such a kind of all-American hero.
But then do you think that Frank Capra or people who created those movies that we've all loved were baddens?
Do you think Billy Wilder was a badden?
Well, this is why the rabbit hole is endlessly deep and has endless, endless side tunnels.
And you don't know until you look into it.
I mean, superficially, I'd say no.
These were artists just doing their art thing.
People look at me and say, how can you have been a mainstream media journalist for 30 years and not realize that it's just a lie machine on the part of the elites?
I'm sure that there are some people on newspapers who know what their role is.
For example, the defense correspondents who tend to be being paid by the CIA or MI6 to promote a particular agenda.
But no one ever approached me.
And I never felt that I was being steered in a particular direction to write an article.
But maybe, like you, I was an innocent abroad.
Maybe our industries were rife with corruption and we just were sort of bimbling along without knowing it.
So what was their agenda then in using us?
Well, I suppose that they need people like us who are acting in good faith to, I don't know, I mean, I suppose the more sort of people behaving in good faith there are, it gives a credibility to the business that it otherwise lacked.
I mean, if everyone was just a kind of fake, Maybe people would see through that.
I don't know.
I mean, you put me on the spot there.
I don't know.
Well, I mean, off the top, you were, and still are, very good at what you do.
That's one thing.
They wanted good people who could entertain and write well and research well and do that.
In my case, You know, I looked the part, you know, I represented something that communicated strongly with them.
We, you know, so, you know, we were useful in that sense that we were, you know, we were good public examples of it.
Or whatever it is.
Have you read a book?
Have you read the book that I keep, I keep mentioning, Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon by Dave Goldman?
No.
Is that Laurel Canyon?
Yeah, Laurel Canyon.
So, you feature in this book.
There's a chapter on you and on performance.
And one thing that interested me was that in order to get you into your role, you spent time living with South London gangsters?
Yes, I did.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Well, tell me about that.
That must have been weird for an old Nairobian.
Yeah, that's right, because I had a range as an actor, but it wasn't very acknowledged in the UK.
But Donald Campbell, The director-writer saw a side of me that, after Marlon Brando dropped out of the picture, he was thinking who to cast in it.
And again, as I said, I was in his circle.
And he knew things about me.
And he could see that I could play someone quite dark.
And powerful and threatening.
And I knew it as well, because I just responded to the script.
But in order to make the transition, I had to go and hang out with people.
Well, they had the most wonderful team of, well, experts, really.
A very famous man called David Litvinoff, who's a London character that everybody from that period knows, became our kind of advisor.
on the picture and he took me to the Thomas Beckett pub down in the in the Kent Road and I met Tommy Gibbons in that crowd and I hung out with them and they taught me.
I mean, Tommy wasn't, you know, he wasn't a gangster, but he ran a pub where where all the boys went and he was a boxing promoter.
And there was just a really great place to hang out and pick up what it was that I wanted the character or Donald wanted the character to be.
So it was total immersion, which after all, you know, Daniel Day-Lewis has taken to new levels, you know, of immersion.
And so it was just exposure to that world.
But then, you know, it had a terrific effect on the way I saw the part, the way I was able to do the part.
Yeah, well, so, I mean, was there any tension?
I mean, When you went into the pub to hang out with these people that you'd never met before, was there an initial kind of foideur?
Well, find out there wasn't, you know, because they and I mean, the Krays were the most famous gangsters of the time.
They all had a big thing about showbiz.
They absolutely loved to be connected with showbiz.
So, you know, the very fact that you'd go there, hang out, And just enjoy them.
And they are really great company.
I mean, they're just funny as hell.
And so there's a tremendous reciprocity of you're a showbiz type, and we're just down here trying to make it.
And, you know, the only way that we know how to make it is a bent way.
And, you know, there's just a feeling of acceptance and appreciation.
It was just very nice.
I liked it.
Okay, so tell me what tricks you learned about how to be a gangster.
What were the tricks?
No, that was my imagination.
The script gave me all that I had to do as a gangster.
But the main thing about being a gangster, I think, was just to be a sharp dresser.
And to be macho, to be super intolerant of hippies and anybody not of your class.
You know, anybody who didn't belong to that brotherhood was just a dick.
You know what I mean?
And that absolute superiority of the gangster, because of fear, was just something that I I picked up and just tried to use.
Yeah, right, right.
Yeah, I once interviewed a guy called Nicholas Pileggi who wrote the script for Goodfellas.
Have you seen Goodfellas?
The Scorsese film about gangsters?
And it makes being a made man seem very seductive and there's that tremendous panning shot at the beginning where they go into the restaurant and all this and you think, yeah, I'd like to be a made man.
And I mentioned this to him and he said, Yeah.
You could live like this too.
It's actually not that complicated.
He said you've just got to know who to give, you know, when you habituate a restaurant, you know who to tip, you tip them well and you will be treated like royalty next time you go into that restaurant.
That's all you need to do.
Yeah.
But I was thinking when you were talking about how much fun it was hanging With the gangsters.
And I was thinking, this is how I feel now.
I feel like a complete gangster.
Because I don't, all the people I used to respect, I look at them now like, a bit like those gangsters looked at hippies.
I just think, you're just, you're second rate.
You don't get it.
No, exactly.
Yeah, they're trash.
I mean, it's been very weird.
I mean, I don't know when your journey began to Awakeners, probably a lot earlier than mine.
But when you realised that most of the people that you previously thought something of because they had I don't know, expensive jobs in the city or because they'd risen to eminent levels in academe or they'd become, you know, feisty barristers or whatever.
And once you realize that they are mere tools of the system, they are dupes, if you like.
Suddenly it's very hard to respect people who don't understand how the world works.
Have I lost you there?
Can you hear me?
Hello?
It's my terrible internet!
Hello?
Yes, I think that's... I would just add to that, that it's not as if by seeing clearly that one can't
see that they're just as much slaves as we could be or perhaps still are in some ways and that we're all you know we're all being we're all being duped in some way so that you know I mean I wouldn't like to put myself as in a kind of a A superior position.
Because, you know, a lot's talked about mass formation and the psychosis that's gripped everybody today with COVID or lockdowns or not realizing that we're all being taken over.
And I fully agree that that's what is happening.
But in a sense, If I see somebody who's still believing it, I can't change them.
And I can't do anything.
I can pray.
Because I do hope and pray that more people will wake up.
Because if we don't wake up, it's so terrible what will happen, not only to them, but to us, to us all.
The people who want to do this, they don't want anyone to win, except themselves.
And they don't even realize that they aren't going to win in the end, because they're going to be taken out.
So there's a terrible ambiguity about my feeling.
On the one hand, I'm terribly glad I've woken up.
On the other hand, I feel we're all in it.
Totally, yeah.
Can I sort of add a bit of nuance to my point about feeling like a gangster?
I don't look at the people who aren't awake and think that I am better than them because if there's one thing that's happened to me No.
If there's one good thing to emerge in the last two years, it's that it's made me love the human race, if you like, more than I've ever loved before.
You know, I've seen such qualities in the people that I've been with on the marches.
I say it's like returning to the Garden of Eden in a way.
People seem good, untainted by sin, almost.
They seem to be on a different level.
But I don't mean that we are better people.
We just know more what's going on.
There's a fellowship in it, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I want to come on to that in a bit.
But first of all, I want to delve a bit more into performance because Donald Camel, for example, the director of the film, you say you knew him very well.
I mean, he was he was clearly dabbling in Satanism.
Yeah, yeah, he was.
I mean, were you aware of that at the time?
Well, no, but you know, since after the film, I kind of, I was rejected by them.
And in a sense, I was pushing away from them.
You know, I found about Donald was a bit of a pedo as well.
He's definitely into the occult.
And you see, you know, there was a darkness about the guy.
And in the end, of course, He shot himself in a really very, very dark and sinister way.
And so it's almost as if, you know, he was maybe taken over.
He was incredibly promiscuous and, you know, sexually very, very active.
But, you know, that was on a very superficial level.
Beneath there was something quite horrible.
But since he had such massive charm and talent, these are very attractive qualities.
I think that probably, you've just gone to describe that whole Laurel Canyon scene.
I mean, that Donald Camel, you say is a bit of a pedo.
I think it was a lot, it was rife with pedophilia and satanic ritual and stuff like that.
And lots of people got killed.
Yeah, yeah, I can imagine.
I mean, was there a man called Kenny Thangor who made a film?
Was he called Kenny Fabian?
Yes.
Was that right?
Yes.
Was it something rising?
Lucifer Rising was it?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I got the intimations of this afterwards on the films about Donald.
They were into the Egyptian cults and things like that.
And dark stuff.
You go there.
If you don't go to the other place, that's where you go.
Yeah, yeah.
Exactly, exactly.
Did you ever... I mean, I don't know Laurel Canyon.
Did you go to some of those houses?
Well, I didn't.
It was the music scene, was it, probably, that was up in Laurel Canyon.
Yes.
It goes off the strip and up there, somewhere near there.
But Mulholland, no, I didn't.
I didn't go into that music scene.
I was probably more down Malibu.
So Laurel Canyon, where all that dark stuff was going on, probably Marlon lived up there and played people like that.
I didn't go. - Yeah.
And, okay, so, yeah, but there was a crossover, obviously, because there you are in a film with Mick Jagger, who was probably, must have been the hottest rockstar in the world at the time.
What's he like?
What was he like?
It's very difficult to know, Mick.
I think he's like what you imagine him to be on the stage.
Then, as a person, he has a kind of homely, domestic side, because mum and dad, I think, came from quite a good background, East London.
So Mick's got that ambiguity there.
But mainly, when you meet him, he's just like the rock star that he is.
And that's, you know, that's his enormous attraction and appeal.
You know, you project onto him, I suppose, all the highs and the feelings that you have when you're a spectator at a Stones concert.
Yeah.
I didn't get to know him.
He giggles a lot.
You know, he's good company.
He's fun to be with.
He didn't take acting very seriously, which I thought was a mistake.
But, you know, he's good fun.
In a dangerous sort of way.
When you're making a film, I don't know how many days shooting would it have been on performance.
You're living cheek by jowl for quite a long time.
Yeah, but I was in my role, so I just thought they were a bunch of pansies.
See, I just thought they were lovable, you know.
And sort of rock and roll drug addicts.
So that was my role.
So I had a certain protection.
I think it was God's protection, actually, because I was not part of it.
I just looked upon it with a certain kind of disdain, really.
Because that's what Chaz, the character I played, would have done.
I mean, he wouldn't have gone to a Mick Jagger concert.
None of those boys would have gone to a Mick Jagger concert.
Their girlfriends might have tried to drag them, but they'd have sat there.
They wouldn't have done that, I don't think.
So you spent the whole time in character when you were shooting, so you didn't go and go and sort of party with Mick of an evening?
No, that was all before.
It was before the film began.
And then when the film began and I made I'd done my preparation.
We were in a different relationship.
Also, he was playing Turner as well.
He was in his role, you know.
So, we were just actors.
So, the period before you went into character, what would a typical evening be?
What was the drug of choice in those days?
Was it LSD?
I wasn't a big druggie person.
It was just people got stoned, people smoked some marijuana.
There was LSD.
There was stronger stuff like LSD.
There were uppers and downers, amphetamine things.
It seemed to me that some people got caught up in heroin like Brian.
Yeah.
And Anita and Keith.
I mean, so heroin was obviously there.
But you know, they used to like to go to Tangier and hang out in Morocco, where they could just smoke very strong weed and stuff.
So it was mainly that drug, as far as I remember.
Not coke.
I don't remember coke.
Yeah, they changed the drug according to what effect they're trying to achieve.
Yeah.
I mean, when I was at your age, when you were in performance, the market was flooded with ecstasy.
So we had our own sort of peace and love simulacrum of the 90s.
So I did get it in a way, in a different, slightly edited form.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, they can change it as they get darker.
Yeah, but yeah, my theory now, which I'd never have never have advanced until the last couple of years, is that we've seen, well, since the beginning of at least the 20th century, we've seen stages in
A sort of organized assault on the values that I think you and I would believe are what holds a society together.
The family, the institutions, the relationship between the sexes, what else?
I mean, so for example, you had the different waves of feminism.
Designed to drive women away from men, to make them enemies rather than people who should, you know, pair up for life and produce children and live happily ever after.
And then you had the promotion of homosexuality first and then most recently the transgender thing.
These things aren't accidental.
No, they're not at all.
But when you're living through them, I mean, you know, I think of my youth.
I enjoyed taking lots of ecstasy and dancing to dance music.
And you had your brilliant, fun time.
When did it turn sour?
Presumably, it was the performance which changed your view of the world.
No.
What happened was that I had a kind of period of what you might call reforming.
It wasn't that I was repenting of my behavior, because I frankly enjoyed the 60s, as I say, but I'd become very, very sort of empty.
I mean, to say at age 29, I responded to that verse of Jesus, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
So amazingly, age 29, I'm, I'm, I'm open to that.
I'm all in for that.
What is this?
Who is, who's saying this?
This is incredible.
This is, and he's meant to be the big guy, you know?
So I felt it was, it was A disillusionment with myself, yes.
My ability to have relationships, I couldn't.
I think that's partly being a public school guy and having two brothers, not growing up with girls.
I was probably really clueless about women, absolutely.
So I was disillusioned, maybe dissatisfied with myself.
But I was looking for some better worldview that was...
Yeah, that was cool.
It was authentic.
Problem was the church didn't provide it in any way.
And so the fact that the person who talked to me about Christ kind of made it more accessible, real, just read yourself, access the scriptures, you know, tell me what you think, you know, what do you think and was a Christian.
These things were Very eye-opening.
Very eye-opening to me.
And of course, then, because I became a Christian, I decided to take it very seriously.
So, I burned my bridges.
Not I decided to take it seriously.
I think God probably said, you need some help.
You need to spend some time understanding what's going on here.
And so, my awakening, I think, Yes, it must have begun then, because as you know, James, our eyes do get open to stuff that we didn't know before.
We have this pair of spectacles that are seeing two different realities when we turn to Christ.
We have two different realities.
We have the unseen world as well as the seen world.
And this is hugely influential as to how you then form your worldview.
Well, of course, it takes a long time to work that through.
I made quite a few mistakes as I did that with relationships and so forth.
But at the end of the day, it seems to me that's the best place to be because, you know, there's not a single area that God hasn't Got his hand on in one way or another.
Look, James, I'm totally with you.
As you know, we've talked about this, and you've been very helpful on my journey.
I mean, you know, you're definitely one of the... I do think that people are sent by God to help you on your journey.
You're definitely one of those, way more.
Maybe you're an angel.
But I'm also conscious, as it sounds like you are, that one doesn't want to frighten the horses.
One has to be very... I want people to come over to our team because I think it's the only way.
Because I think that the alternative is essentially that the world, we can talk about this in a moment, that the world is the realm of the devil and there are many temptations.
But it's What one doesn't want is to people go, oh no, I was just getting interested in this really fascinating interview chat about the 60s and about Nick Jagger and Marion Faithfull and then suddenly, suddenly it's gone and brought... So that switches off.
Yeah, but but at the same time, it's like one can't not talk about it.
Because it's a really important dimension.
I mean, whether people choose to believe it or not, God does actually exist.
He is real.
And Once you know, you can't go about pretending that, yeah right, like Darwin was right and we just, you know, there was a big bang and you know, then the dinosaurs came along and then the Titanic sank and then there was 9-11 and here we are.
You can't go back, can you?
No, I mean, yeah, what you're nervous about is that in an interview with someone who, you know, in my life, you know, I've had, like you, I've had both sides of it.
You don't want people to lose interest if you're not being, you know, Meaningful, if you like, when you're talking about these other things, which some people haven't yet even thought of as having meaning for them.
But anybody who's interested in meaning should hang in there, because meaning is for all of us.
Yeah, I think so.
Well, I was interested in what you were saying about how you didn't feel that the established church was offering you any kind of answer.
I mean, who was this chap that approached you and sort of, like, tempted you?
He was the Jewish guy, actually.
He was at Manchester Art School, I think, and he was with a group called The Navigators, and that was an interdenominational American group.
who were mainly evangelizing among students in the UK, having started amongst the military in America in the Second World War.
And they're a typical international, interdenominational Christian organization.
The Navigators, they're quite well known.
They probably were at Oxford University in Cambridge, along with the Christian Union.
They were called the God Squad.
And so they were those sort of people.
They were door knockers.
I became a door knocker too.
I joined them, seriously, for eight or nine years.
And I still have very strong friends in the Navigator or ex-Navigator community.
All of that must seem very strange and peculiar, but that was my story.
Well, actually, it does.
This is why I want to find out more about it, because there are all kinds of manifestations of Christianity and Christian outreach and stuff.
I mean, there's an outfit around where I live called, I think they're called the Jesus Army and they wear combat sort of fatigues with crosses.
I think you occasionally see them in sort of beaten up vehicles and they seem to live a very ascetic life, you know, in a kind of commune style place.
That would freak me, you know, I'm very happy living my Christian life without the need to So how hardcore were the Navigators?
How rigorous was it?
Well to my parents they were very hardcore, very scary, culty, American.
I didn't think of them as like that because I really got to know the people, and I really felt their lives were genuine and authentic, and a lot of them had jobs, and a lot of them were going to church as well, both Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, and so it wasn't that weird.
So my experience was strange to others, but to me it kind of made sense.
Although the students were, of course, ten years younger than me, the actual full-time people were about my age.
It was a culture that was very different from the culture I'd come from that we've been talking about earlier in our chat.
So, in other words, what was difficult for me to adjust to was that it was mainly, well, they were university students.
A lot of them were in the sciences or in civil engineering and things like that.
So, I mean, I was in a totally different milieu.
And most of the staff or people who were senior on it, they'd come from, well, half of them had come from America, there were a good half who were from the UK, but they often came from business backgrounds or certainly not showbiz.
And what has happened, I think, has been that show business up until Well, no, quite recently.
I think now there are many, many more believers in show business, but it seemed then that there was Cliff Richard, the Arts Centre Group, and that was about it in terms of the so-called Christian witness amongst the arts.
Of course, I'd lived this completely different life.
By the way, was it on Cliff Richard?
Yeah.
I'm convinced Cliff Richard is part of the PSYOP designed to put people off Christianity.
I'm not even sure that he is actually a Christian.
Oh no.
Oh dear.
Oh no.
Why would... Cliff got busted by the BBC, come on!
He got busted!
They hate him!
Well, it's one of the... Yeah, I know, the BBC is... We agree, the BBC is the belly of the beast.
Well, let's not get on the question of the Cliff Richard rabbit hole.
But did you give away all your worldly goods or any of that?
No, not at all.
I was encouraged not to do it.
I didn't and I survived the 70s when I got married and had four kids on what I had been fortunate enough to earn and my advisors had helpfully put away so that I could use it to buy a house and to And to live for eight or nine years.
No, I didn't give it away.
I was, you know, and I wasn't advised to give it away.
I naturally changed my giving habits, you know, because, you know, you do have a new outlook and things, but not at all, no.
That's good.
I feel very much the same way.
I think that it is very important for Christianity that some of us live in the world.
I mean, I'm certainly not going to give up smoking weed just because I'm a Christian.
No, no.
No, no.
And so you lived a normal middle-class life, except that you didn't have an income anymore.
You were just sort of living on well-invested proceeds from performance and stuff.
Primarily, a little bit of income from, because I became one of the workers in The Navigators when I married, and I had about five years at the University of Leeds.
Was it five years?
Six years, I think.
Two whole university student groups going through.
Six years, I was student work in Leeds, yeah.
Why Leeds?
Well, because there was no work at Leeds before.
Manchester and Sheffield had works.
And my wife and I wanted to stay in the North and we went to Leeds.
There was no navigator group in Leeds.
Also, I imagine, not that you needed to be kept away from temptation, but I imagine that it's easier to live in Leeds than it is to London.
Yeah, that's really funny.
I'm sure Leeds is really nice.
It's really nice.
I like towns of 250,000 in those days.
It's the right size of a town.
Really good size.
Nice.
So you've got how many children?
Is it five?
Five.
And who's the eldest?
Tom.
I haven't met Tom.
So I've met Robin, and I obviously, I know Loz.
Are they all very different?
Yes, they're all very different.
Beautifully different.
All the boys are different.
And my daughter is, of course, different.
She's a girl.
And how many of them became actors?
Well, Jack's an actor.
Loz is a well-known actor.
And the rest are not actors.
Right.
I think that's right.
No, Lydia was an actress.
Lydia was an actress and she still acts.
Yeah.
And do they all, are they all on side with you?
I mean, or do some of them think you've gone completely mad?
Lots of things I've gone completely mad and that I screwed my career and everything.
Yeah, probably the others thought I was a bit nutty.
And of course, my wife and I brought certain Christian values into their lives and you about being yourself and what needs to change and what doesn't need to change in your Christian life.
And so they probably thought, Oh, dad, you could have really had a good life.
You know, why are you living like this?
But, you know, they're pretty tolerant about it now.
And the more time goes on, of course, we realize now that the battle is between good and evil, between Christ and the devil.
You know, those are the big players in this battle.
And so they're beginning to see, not beginning to see, they've always seen it.
But they're thinking, well, the old man wasn't quite as crazy as we thought, probably.
Do you know what I mean?
But they're having to work it out themselves.
They're not living my life.
They're trying to cope with being in their 30s and 40s.
Yeah, tell me about it.
It's a nightmare having children because you want to give them the benefit of your wisdom and steer them in the paths of righteousness and they just don't give a toss.
They think you're a complete prat and they have no respect.
I imagine when Loza started making it in acting, danger signs started flashing, didn't they?
Well, when he started making it as an actor, Yeah.
You just thought, well, there's going to be a lot of temptations there.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
Especially knowing Lozza.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, he, he, he, he was, he's going to play it fast and, and, uh, you know, he's going to play high stakes.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, he's, he's actually, he's probably more Mick Jagger than you are.
He is probably.
Yeah.
I mean, I see it in him.
I mean, I love him very much, but I can see that he's still got that kind of cock-of-the-walk swagger that he must have had when he was, you know, a household name and everyone, you know, loved him on TV and stuff.
I mean, it must be quite spoiling, I would say.
I imagine you lack for nothing.
Well, yeah, I think, you know, he's done very well in his job.
And now, of course, for the last two or three years, he's been in the public eye as an activist or something.
I don't know what we call them.
I wouldn't call him a politician, because he's much more authentic than that.
I think he does what we all do.
He's found his own way of exposing, of revealing to the world what's happening and he's chosen the medium of political career.
It seems speaking up is really important and he speaks up very loudly.
Yeah.
He does.
He does.
We need people like that.
We really are so few, aren't we?
You can pick any profession you like, or trade, as I'm a journalist.
Journalism is a trade, not a profession.
I don't know what acting is.
That's a trade, isn't it?
It's kind of a trade, yeah.
It's meant to be called a vocation.
A vocation.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's it.
But whether you name the church or acting or the law, you really can probably count on the fingers of one hand, the people who are speaking out and are willing to sacrifice their career to speak the truth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I also reckon, just on the subject of Loza, that if it hadn't been for the Christian upbringing you gave him, I'm not sure that he wouldn't have gone badly off the rails.
I think that you gave him the structure that enabled him to not go to the dark side.
Great.
I'm really glad to hear it.
So when the kids were growing up, you were being a kind of Christian evangelist.
What did the kids think of that?
Were they a bit freaked out by it?
Well, they've got a great sense of humor.
So they took the piss, you know, they took the piss out of me.
They took the piss out of Sunday School.
It was merciless.
You know, it was just merciless.
All our friends got mimicked and imitated.
And I mean, just nonstop hilarity about About us, you know.
Any kind of language they thought was jargony, you get that taken, ripped about.
Anything, just non-stop.
That's probably a good thing.
So you met your wife in your sort of post-Navigator phase?
Yeah.
Did you meet her through that?
No, during Navigator phase.
She was a nursing sister.
She was in the operating theatre at St Thomas' and she came to Uchi Bridge near Sheffield, where I was, and we met there.
So she was a nursing sister.
She continued to have her career as a nurse until we got married.
Yeah.
But she was already a Christian herself?
Yeah, she'd been a Christian longer than me.
Yeah, she had, yeah.
She was probably a Christian when she was young, yeah.
And so how far did you push it?
Because I always wonder, did you sort of say grace before meals?
Did you not swear?
Yeah, well, I didn't consciously not swear.
My swearing's got worse now.
I swear a lot.
But, no, we did say grace and do sometimes now, yeah.
But, you know, that was never kind of a legalistic thing.
It was never like a rule.
But gradually over the years, I've just tried to be more natural just to myself.
Yeah, but also, yeah, Yeah, I'm with you.
I think that it's... I think one of one's jobs, well to repeat that phrase, is not to frighten the horses.
You've got to show people that you can be a Christian and For example, I've heard loads of stories of people talking about when they became a Christian, and they say that as far as their families were concerned, it was like the worst thing they could do.
It was just like... Because our culture has so stigmatized Christianity.
Yeah, it has.
I mean, my kids went to Bible camp, or we used to call it God camp.
It was a thing called Ewan.
And it was really good because it was like for next to no money because it was heavily subsidized by this sort of Christian organization.
They would go off to these camps in really nice places, you know, sort of school, you know, prep schools in the holidays when the dorms were vacant or whatever.
And they would have an amazing time.
They'd go to fun fairs, and they'd do crazy golf, and they'd go swimming, and all sorts of that.
It was an absolute dream, except that they had to bring Bibles with them, and there was a section where they, you know, learned the scriptures or whatever.
And I remember when they came back from these camps, Feeling like they'd been indoctrinated and feeling like, you know, terrified that my children were going to become Christians.
And I mean, looking back, you know, I realize now that I was a product of a culture which has anathematized Christianity, that has made it seem like almost worse than death.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's frightening.
Obviously you had a similar education to me.
You'd have had chapel every day.
And what did you think about Christianity then?
well very formal very establishment this is part of the whole Boring.
It's part of the system.
There were never any interesting ideas.
The interpretation, I never heard any very interesting sermons or anything.
I'm sure the hymns and prayers were important foundations so that I'm not completely, I wasn't completely ignorant.
But Christianity had become, the English had made it into a kind of Just a part of being middle class.
I guess this was not true of the free or non-conformist churches, but certainly in the environment I was in, it was just, it was really sad, wasn't it?
But anyway, it doesn't matter because the thing we bought into, or that we became a part of, was centuries of people giving their lives for this stuff.
You know, of getting the Bible into the English language, of the crazy reformation which we suddenly, you know, found ourselves in after 1,500 years of papal hegemony.
You know, I mean, it's just crazy, our history, it's just so interesting.
But by the time in the 50s I was at school, none of that excitement and story were meaningful to us young people.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm sure you and I are probably now both in the position where we can say that this was by design, that the churches have been infiltrated by the other side.
Yeah, sure.
Definitely.
I definitely think that.
Have you ever seen The Vicar of Dibley?
Oh, yes.
I did see quite a few.
Was it by Richard Curtis?
Yeah, yeah.
I think Richard Curtis is in the Slim House that's made at Harrow.
He was like a head boy type.
But he obviously went to the country and observed the English Anglican Church.
Did he do this or what?
No, I think this is part of the subversion.
I think if you look at Dawn French, for example, she wears an inverted cross.
And when this is pointed out, so-called conspiracy theorists, the excuse comes forth that one of the saints was crucified upside down and that this is merely a reference to that, which of course is utterly implausible.
Why would a Church of England vicar, rural vicar, wear an inverted cross?
But there are similar, I mean, Christianity is actually one of my favorite rabbit holes, or rather, you know, the history of the of the churches.
I mean, I was listening to a fascinating podcast the other day, which, this is going to upset a lot of Catholics, but it does rather suggest that Roman Catholicism isn't really Christianity.
It is itself a heresy.
And that the Marian cult, which, you know, all the Hail Marys and stuff.
I mean, I like the Virgin and I like seeing her banners fluttering at the marches and stuff.
But at the same time, I am alive to the possibility that in about the I forget which century it was, but the Catholic Church adopted the trappings of the pagan churches, of the Babylonian cults, and that Mary is a sort of rebadged version of one of the goddesses that used to be worshipped.
Do you not find that?
It's quite hard to know what is true Christianity and what is not.
That's very true.
There are a lot of real believers who are Catholics, no question.
Yeah, exactly.
But that system, with all its wealth and stuff, is prone to corruption, like every system is.
And there seems to be very poor leadership at the moment amongst the Catholic hierarchy.
I don't know about the Mary cult, but I do think that It had a meaning in that there was a woman who became very much central, and after all, she was the mother of Jesus.
But to make her into a kind of culty figure, which I think the Catholics did, is manipulative and takes you away from the gospel.
Because the Gospel doesn't in any way play down Mary.
Mary is very featured in Luke's Gospel before the birth of her child.
She's very featured at the crucifixion.
She's there in the beginning of Acts of the Apostles.
She's in that famous story where your mother's waiting outside because they thought Jesus must be crazy and wants to talk to you.
So it's not as if she doesn't have a good role in the New Testament.
But she just wasn't starring.
And the thing is, the Catholics have made her into this kind of starring role.
And I do agree with you that it's distraction.
I think it's distraction.
Yeah, I think so.
She gets the Magnificat, which is... Well, yeah, exactly.
She gets some great lines.
Marvellous.
Exactly.
She's hugely important.
I mean, he was born of a virgin.
Come on, you can't get a bigger story than that.
Yes, exactly.
You helped me when you came around to have lunch with me.
You very kindly gave me the NIV translation to go with my King James.
You like your King James don't you?
I like the King James although you know since this is why I find the rabbit hole so endlessly fascinating.
King James has got to be King James.
It's the only Bible.
It's God's English.
And then I read the Adam Nicholson book about the making of the King James Bible.
It doesn't detract from the poetry of it but you realize that it is a political text.
Yes, very much so.
They really got their hands on it, didn't they?
Tell me anything from that book, because I haven't read it, but I have a particular interest in how politicized the word church was by the translators at the behest of King James himself.
But do tell me if you have any rabbit hole readings on the King James, because I'm fascinated by translation at the moment.
To me, translation is a big, big subject.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I suppose the most obvious example is that it's very big on the divine right of kings and on the church hierarchy.
Funnily enough, it doesn't want to do away with bishops or No.
No, no, that hierarchy, yeah.
I can't think of any other sort of particularly egregious examples.
And look, some of the stuff they haven't corrupted.
I mean, you know, the Psalms, which, as you know, I learn.
I tend to learn in the King James version or the Miles Coverdale version from the Book of Common Prayer, depending on which has got the coolest lines.
But I think that the sort of Christianity that you follow and that I follow is actually the sort of the recent converts that I've met on the marches and things.
and there are lots of them, lots of people are waking up to Christianity.
They've been on a similar journey to ourselves in that they've looked at the churches and they go, well, yeah, you know, I was brought up C of E and it was always a bit, it was like, God was missing, I think, largely from, you know, the idea that God was actually real.
It all seemed like, you know, as you said, part of the trappings of being sort of a middle-class Englishman and nothing more than that.
And we've been on a journey, I think, to try and find out what is the truth of the Bible.
Because there's all sorts of complications, aren't there?
Like, for example, we know that the Bible is edited.
We know that certain books have been omitted.
Now why?
This curation of Christianity, the people doing the curation were maybe not necessarily the most trustworthy people.
Because we know how the church has been corrupted.
Yeah, I learned the question because it was written and edited by men, wasn't it?
Yeah.
So, you know, it has all those potentials.
Fascinating, yeah.
And then you get the sort of counter-argument, which is, well, the reason that this happened was that God meant it to happen, and that therefore the Bible that exists is kind of God's Bible, because just there it is.
I don't know what to think.
I mean, I'm on a journey.
We're all on a journey.
That's what we are.
But do you know what?
I'm writing a book about this at the moment, about my journey.
I'm taking, because the demons and the devil keep finding ways of ensnaring me and distracting me with other things, like visits from my granddaughter, my three-year-old granddaughter.
They like to take me away from my keyboard and doing podcasts and stuff.
There was a fantastic moment on the march where I first met you and I said, you know, so what was it like when you were a famous movie star?
And did you, you know, were you, actually I haven't asked you this, were you approached to join the Freemasons?
No, I'm so glad I wasn't.
They are a spooky, spooky group.
You say that, but it's not as simple as that, is it?
Because every male member of my family, apart from me, was a Freemason.
And they rose to quite high levels.
Well, what were your experiences?
Well, their experiences.
Yours.
Your impression of it as you were surrounded by them.
Oh, I just know what I will.
My grandfather, for example, he was a he was a grandmaster, whatever of his Lord.
He was a lovely, God fearing man.
He was a you know, he was he was I was the apple of his eyes as his first grandchild.
He didn't, you know, he was quite, I was quite young when he died.
So I didn't get to know him that well.
But they were all sort of decent sort of Midlands blokes, you know, my dad who I don't believe met, but my brothers, they're all...
They're not baddies.
No.
Because they're just social evenings where you learn lots of arcane rituals, as far as they're concerned, and that's as far as it goes.
But there is the next level, which I asked you about this on the march, because I'd just seen that weird um youtube video lasting five hours made by an australian pop star called altian childs and he was talking about all the masonic imagery in the the music industry you know how pop stars appear with their one eye covered
you know the all-seeing eye and with the the the finger over their lips to indicate that um the ometta that goes with freemasonry and and all this all this stuff um and it seemed to me to be almost de rigueur to become a mason if you want to advance in in the entertainment industry Interesting, I didn't realise they were so big in the entertainment industry.
I knew they were very big in Madison and Wimbledon and places like that, but I didn't realize the entertainment industry.
But there, what you're saying is that they are everywhere.
They must, you know, they must want control behind the scenes of some kind.
The thing I don't like about them is that there's secrecy.
They're a kind of secret cult, you know.
I think secrecy is a very dangerous thing.
It's like Gnosticism.
If you had secret knowledge then you could know God.
I don't like that.
I'm totally with you and of course it's probably what got John F. Kennedy assassinated when he decided to use his presidency to rail against secret societies.
He made a speech about it and said that they were real menace.
Yeah, and that got him killed, probably.
Yeah.
Well, you think, for example, of all these organizations whose agenda we know not.
I mean, the very phrase, the Chatham House rule, that you can't report on what people say in these meetings.
Chatham House is, in itself, part of the problem.
It's one of those Shadowy, sort of think-tanky organizations which promotes agendas without putting names or faces to them.
You've got Bilderberg, where Michael Gove went recently, and Tom Tugendhat and David Lammy.
They all went out there.
We don't know what was said in this meeting.
How can that be healthy?
Absolutely.
I agree with you.
The entertainment industry thing.
I didn't mean to insult your family.
I just felt I don't like secrecy.
And that's why I use the word spooky.
Because if there wasn't something wrong, they'd be open about it.
Come into the light.
Let's see what you're about.
You know, that's all.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So, yeah, I got very taken with this video because I learned all sorts of things that I just didn't know about.
I mean, you're sort of, you're the wrong generation to have seen, to be aware of what's going on now in the pop industry.
It's got really, really bad.
It's like you've got videos where Essentially promoting child sacrifice, promoting all manner of satanic ritual and they're so in your face now.
The iconography is ubiquitous and it seems to me that it's like a form of What they're trying to show us is that they have won.
That they have conquered the world.
That their imagery is everywhere.
Their symbolism is rampant.
It's the equivalent of the church building churches everywhere to show that Christianity is across the land.
And now we've got the reverse of that.
That everywhere you look there are... For example, I went to London yesterday and On the back of a bus was one of those infuriating Mayor of London propaganda adverts.
And this one was... I can't remember what the slogan was.
It was something about if you speed, your son will see you doing it.
Anyway, the point about this was that there was a single eye on this advert.
Well, okay, if you didn't know about this stuff, you'd think this is a single eye, but whenever you see a single eye, as opposed to two eyes, that is a danger sign.
That is the all-seeing eye of the Babylonian mystery cults.
Exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Anyway, I was winding up to the story that appears in my book that I'm writing.
So you and I are on this march, and you've got this Bible.
I say, you know, what was it like living in the 60s?
And I asked you about the acting profession, and you said, it's not just the entertainment industry, it is the world.
So can you just tell me about that?
Because you're better versed in Christianity than I am.
The world is the realm of Satan, is that right?
Well, if we hadn't lost half the audience already, we definitely will lose them now.
But here's what we spoke about, James.
You said, you know, the entertainment industry, that must be the devil's area and all that.
And I said, well, no, not only, I said, and I was quoting actually from the first letter of John, Where it says, the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
But before that, in the same verse, it says, we know that we are God's children, but the whole world lies under the control of the evil one.
And you were very struck.
I said, it's not just show business, it's everywhere.
It's everything.
That's what I was saying.
And this is, you know, basic Christian theology.
The whole world lies under the control of the evil one.
That's why Jesus has to rescue the whole world.
He doesn't rescue the bad people.
He's got to rescue the good people, or the ones who think they're good.
In fact, they're the hardest ones to reach.
And that's why he's got the different words for them.
That's why he really lays it on those ones who think that they have got it made.
But he came for them too, because they lie under the control of the evil one.
That's what you were.
You were very arrested by that thought.
Well, do you know what?
It was as if the scales had fallen from my eyes.
Because one of the things that excites me about Christianity When I was at school, we used to sort of play around with Ouija boards or we used to sort of read books about astral projection or, you know, is magic real or is it not?
Are ghosts, do they exist or not?
And what kind of, you know, you're on a You're on a journey of experimentation, aren't you?
And you're looking for experience.
I mean, I would sniff dry cleaning fluid at school because obviously I couldn't get hold of real drugs.
I do all sorts of things.
I do dangerous things.
I like doing exciting things.
I like stimulus.
So yeah, inevitably, Investigating the occult would have been part of that.
But then you go to chapel and you see the boring, you listen to the boring sermon from the boring chaplain.
And there doesn't seem to be any connection with these rituals you perform and these hymns you sing.
And with the actual, the reality of this This force which is ineffable and all-knowing and knows all our thoughts and created the world and that there is a world of, not just, God isn't just real, but also the devil is real and there is spirits and devils and angels.
All this stuff is going on just out of our, most of us can't see it.
That's what really excites me about this stuff, because you suddenly think, hang on a second, I understand the world for the first time!
Exactly, yeah.
I mean, how else can you explain, I mean, particularly what's going on in the United States at the moment, if you think of what's happening there?
It's only explicable in terms of what you've just said.
That's it.
I mean, up to and including, I think, demonic possession of key figures.
Yeah.
But also, when you realize, and this, of course, by nature, the occult is hidden and secret, but when you realize that the people who run the world Apart from Cliff Richard, if you believe Cliff Richard.
The people in charge are not Christians.
They're butting for the other team, and quite seriously butting for the other team in their rituals, in their consumption of adrenochrome harvested from murdered children and so on.
That's so scary.
Yeah, but it's also real.
It's actually happening.
Yeah, it is.
Mel Gibson almost destroyed his career when he started talking about this stuff.
A very brave man, I think.
Yeah, I think he was.
He was a very brave man.
Yeah, it did.
It was a real eye-opening moment when you said that to me, because I started looking at my own career.
And although I never did anything Bad.
I mean, particularly, you know, I never took on money from MI6 to go and promote jingoistic propaganda designed to take us into the next war or anything like that.
Although there are some people, I mean, I'm now convinced that a lot of my colleagues are pursuing an agenda which is not to do with the honest depiction of reality or truth.
Yes, and you knew those people as your friends at Oxford.
I mean, they're the leaders of today.
Well, that's it.
And I wonder why it is that they chose the path that they did, and I chose the path that I have.
And I think it's just actually, it's really, really seductive, following the path of evil.
Yeah, exactly.
Very seductive.
Very seductive.
And you know what I would say about you is that you are a lover of truth more than that you are a lover of your reputation.
As simple as that.
Yeah, but you see, James, this is the thing that puzzles me, is why people, why everyone doesn't make I mean, OK, OK, setting aside the sex and drugs and rock and roll, I can see those are really tempting and they're kind of cool and stuff and fun.
But at the same time, to sacrifice truth for those things, I wouldn't, because the truth is everything, isn't it?
If you're going to stand and have to give a count, you know, and one day we're all going to be judged, it certainly matters.
Or some of us feel, no, we've been pardoned right now.
That's tremendous truth.
But all of us are going to have to face it.
Yeah.
Um, I've sort of...
It's a really hot day and I've probably sort of exhausted you.
I don't know about you, I definitely need a cup of tea.
But just tell me, I was hoping my boy would poke his head around the door so I could get him to make it, but he hasn't done it, the useless sod.
I mean this is the problem about having children, they just turn out useless.
But on my readings of the New Testament, Jesus is a, I mean, he's the greatest rock star ever.
He's incredibly cool.
And I'd love to have met him.
But his message is really pretty terrifyingly uncompromising, isn't it?
It's like, not many of us make it.
And I worry about... You've got to balance that.
Where are you going?
Well, no, tell me, I wish you'd interrupt.
I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make.
I agree with you.
It appears that he's uncompromising, very tough, and spells it out clearly.
Who's saved, who's not, this kind of thing.
God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
And that, I think, one mustn't get trapped into thinking that everybody isn't going to hear, everybody isn't going to have a chance to, you know, say, why wouldn't that be the way I want to live?
And I want to be remembered.
And so, He's uncutting, but it was one of the big stumbling blocks to me that the Sermon on the Mount was so uncompromising.
I thought, how the hell does anyone get there?
Let alone me, who loves sex, drugs and rock and roll.
And it really, the light went on for me when I saw, you don't get there.
He has to get there.
You know, he takes you there and that's what it's all about.
You don't have to get there.
The reason he says that the bar is so high is to get people's attention.
You think you can get there by being a great person or giving all your money or having a great reputation or owning this, that and the other or bossing people around or controlling the world?
F off!
You don't know anything.
You have to, you know, it's just like, what does it profit you?
And so his words are only uncompromising to get our attention, that he means it.
He wants to get our attention.
I'm really glad you said that, James, because I had been worrying, because I had exactly that reaction when I read the Sermon on the Mount.
Yeah, it's impossible.
You can't do that.
Well, you're not even allowed to look at pretty girls anymore.
You know, it's as bad as having sex with them, according to... Yeah, well, yeah, if you read it just like that, yeah.
No, we've just got to talk about it.
That's all.
We've got to talk about these things and listen to one another and each generation is going to have a different take.
we just have to have conversations instead of this crazy world we're living in now yeah yeah they're shutting conversations down but what why do you think so few people have spoken out or even recognized what what's happening in the world Maybe ignorance.
You know, like you and I were blissfully ignorant.
Yeah.
I think maybe the devil wants to keep everybody pretty ignorant.
Yeah.
I don't know.
What do you think?
I think we're under a spell.
I think that the world is an illusion.
And it's like, you know what, looking back on my life, not as long as yours, but there were little moments where there was a sort of questioning voice in my head going, well, that doesn't really make sense.
It's never really been explained to me why that is so, this is presented to me.
But then quickly one sort of brushes the thought away, because everything about our culture and our upbringing and the message promoted by our institutions, it's designed to enhance the lie, isn't it?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, for example... That's good.
Give me an example, yeah.
Well, okay.
So, as I mentioned, I've got my three-year-old granddaughter at the moment, and what she got on... what are the first toys that they get children into when they're about three?
It's the dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs get promoted ad nauseum.
And when you go down the dinosaur rabbit hole, you realize that dinosaurs were the invention of Victorian paleontologists.
And that, you know, they sort of get a couple of spine bones, and then they recreate the rest.
And you've got these creatures which, as I understand it, could not physically have existed because of the, you know, the blood supply and how would they operate?
They just never could be.
And if you think, well, if the dinosaurs probably didn't exist as they've been portrayed, and if that's the first lie you get told, well, where does it end?
I mean, everything is an illusion.
Yes, you're so right.
The little three-year-olds in pajamas with dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs, dinosaurs everywhere.
And there you are.
It starts very, very early.
Distractions.
And they get taught.
Not only do they know about dinosaurs, but they then get taught all the names.
Because all these imaginary creatures get given names.
And they're expert on the names.
Yeah.
And then...
But then, get this, James, later on in life, you have this thing called general knowledge and you have quizzes.
And what do quizzes do?
They test your knowledge of stuff that probably isn't true.
Like, you know, who was the first man to land on the moon?
Well, we all know it's Neil Armstrong.
LOL.
I mean, you know, meanwhile, sitting away, I think he's dead now, Neil Armstrong.
Neil Armstrong had to spend the entire latter part of his career pretending he'd been somewhere that he hadn't, for the sake of what?
For the sake of the military?
I don't know.
That is a roguelite.
It's all lies.
That hasn't gone down yet.
Have you not gone down that one?
Nearly good.
Oh, it's sad.
The key on the moon landings is apparently the Van Allen belt.
Apparently the Van Allen belt is impenetrable and certainly impenetrable by a 1969 era flimsy shelled thing with a computer less computing power than your your iPad, you know That's brilliant Once you've seen this stuff, you can't unsee it.
It's the same with... No.
And that's why... Sorry.
No, go on.
Carry on.
It's designed to distract.
It's designed to distract.
But this is why, you know, to those sort of Non-Christians who've made it this far and are thinking, well, that was a bloody boring chat with a couple of God-bothering loons.
of god-bothering yeah god-bothering loons is that what could be more exciting and not boring than the fact that there is this creator that when you ask him for stuff you sincerely ask him for stuff and you ask him for advice
So there was a sticky situation the other day where, I won't go into details, but it was somebody's funeral.
And I wasn't sure whether I'd be welcome at this funeral or not.
And I sort of said, well, I'm going to let God, you know, I'll ask God's help and I won't make the decision.
It'll just happen.
Anyway, I asked for God's help and he made the decision for me and I went to the funeral.
And I was welcome because of something that happened that God had made happen and it worked out really well.
That if you put your trust in God, you know, and lean not into thine own understanding, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, it works.
It's like magic, but it's good magic.
And I can't see how anyone could not be inspired by that.
No.
Good point.
Yeah.
Great.
Have you ever had that in your life?
Have you had kind of miraculous things or stuff that told you that?
Loads and loads.
Just loads and loads and loads.
So many.
So many.
What's your favourite?
Well, I just don't know where to start really.
I mean, Surviving, I guess, must be a big one.
- Everyone. - Favour.
You know, just that one doesn't have so many enemies as one might have.
Blessing.
Just the feeling of blessing, of knowing God, of being loved.
Miracle.
Of practical things, you know, just that you never lack, you don't go without.
Amazing.
Yeah, I quite like the practical, I mean I think apparently this happens when you're a new Christian, you sort of, you're looking for signs and wonders to reinforce your... and you do, you get these little treats now and again, it's like... You're my wife!
It's like having a sugar daddy!
Well, of course that's exciting, too, the little treats, the things that open up, the experiences you had.
Oh, that couldn't have been… God had to be in that funeral, you know.
Of course that's huge.
But, you know, what about The person you marry, your children.
I mean, it's all miraculous.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I totally think that.
And it's actually something I'm very happy with, that God doesn't want you to shag around.
I mean, not that I ever have, but I definitely wouldn't now.
wouldn't wouldn't now it's yeah no no no no i'm i'm i'm i feel i feel blessed and i'm So anyway, I apologize to all you viewers and listeners who've been bored rigid by the Christian stuff, but you know, I can't help it.
No.
It's James's fault, partly, because James encouraged me Yeah, you ensnared me, James.
I could have been Mick Jagger and instead I'm, you know, Saint Francis of Assisi.
There you go, James.
You lost them!
James, it's been really, or Willie, as I must learn to call you, it's been really good chatting to you.
And I hope there haven't been any questions that I should have asked that I forgot to ask.
But I've really enjoyed it.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
No, it's been really good fun.
So, it only remains for me to say, dear viewers and listeners, I apologise about the video quality, which is the fault of my internet, and I can't do much about it.
Maybe I'd get a better camera, but apart from that I'm not sure that it would make much difference, because I live in the country and the internet is rubbish.
Do, if you like my stuff, subscribe.
Support me on Patreon and Subscribestar and Locals and Substack and come to my events and yeah.
Thanks again, James.
James Fox.
It's been real.
Been lovely.
And thank you for making your lovely children as well.
Some of whom are my very good friends.
Thank you, James.
Great.
Okay, tea time.
Bye.
Tea time.
Bye-bye.
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