Transcript of Anthony Hopkins

Wndri Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcast, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Sheppard, and I'm joined by Mrs. Padman. Hello. Today we have a night time. Our ungar, draw your sword, matey. Sir. Sir, Anthony Hopkins.

Yeah, legend.

Anthony Hopkins, Academy Award-winning actor, The Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal, the Father. Meet Joe Black, Fracture. And he has a new memoir out. Trickiest word in the biz. You did a great job. Thank you. Ding, ding, ding. His book is called We Did Okay, Kid. Oh, yeah. And I mean, again, what a surreal joy to sit down with Sir Anthony Hopkins. And mostly his memory, and we've met a lot of good memories, this one is like Off the charts. Needs to be studied, perhaps. Yes.

Dates, people. You can see him visualizing. He will give details that you're like, What?

And as you pointed out, he remembered the names of two little girls he was auditioning against to get into an acting school as a kid that he certainly never saw again. No. What?

I know. Really amazing.

Please enjoy Tony Hopkins. This episode of Armchair Expert is presented by Apple Pay. You know, a holiday Shopping can be a hassle, but Apple Pay makes it so much easier. Whether you're shopping online or in-store, look for the Apple Pay button or contactless symbol at checkout. No more digging for your wallet or filling out long online checkout forms. It works at millions of places, including stores, websites, and apps. This means you can spend less time at checkout and more time finding the perfect gifts. Pay the Apple way. Terms apply. I'm John Robbins, and on my podcast, I sit down with incredible people to ask the very simple question, How do you cope? From confronting grief and mental health struggles to finding strength in failure. Every episode is a raw and honest exploration of what it means to be human. It's not always easy, but it's always real. Whether you're looking for inspiration, comfort, or just a reminder that you're not alone in life's messier moments, join me on How Do You Cope. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts or listen to episodes early and ad free on WNDRI Plus. How Do You Cope is brought to you by Audible, who make it easy to embark on a wellness journey that fits your life with thousands of audiobooks, guided meditations, and motivational series.

He's an object expert. He's an object expert.

He's an object expert.

He's an object expert.

He's an objectHow are you, sir? Great to meet you. That's-we have a full outfit.

I won't care. No, you stay. You stay. Please stay.

Sing books. What's that? Let them.

Oh, we just had her on.

I could sum up for you what let them is in our vernacular. It's acceptance.

That's it.

It has a lot of parallels.

Yeah, don't fight. Don't fight. It's a wonderful quote by someone, Greek philosopher, and he talks about whatever we can do to avoid making people uncomfortable and all the little problems in daily life. Accept them. Yeah. He said, Because when you look in the mirror, behind you is death.

That's something.

Yeah.

Well, you know what else? Her thing is let them. So yeah, they're doing something that you don't approve of that is uncomfortable for you, People, Places, and Things. I'm powerless over People, Places, and Things. Then let me, it's let them, then let me. And the let me part is the four-step. It's, well, what am I doing in this scenario? You're in the program?

Yes.

Oh, he's a big proponent.

That's why I'm so excited to meet you. I have a lot of friends who have heard you speak over the years, and I've never gotten that opportunity. I've always felt left out of that. I'm very happy to meet you.

Coming up on 50 years.

Christmas? Right after Christmas?

Yeah, December 29th.

Incredible.

Congratulations. That's huge.

Fifty years.

Fifty years. Changed my life. I knew I was in big trouble. I checked in at an intergroup in Westwood.

In Westwood?

Westwood Boulevard. It was a little office up the stairs, and I I thought, maybe I'm making too much of a deal of this, but I knew I was in big trouble. I was about to turn back and the voice in my head said, Just get there. Do something. The voice said, It's all over. Now you can start living in this open for a purpose.

Wow.

Still forget them. I love it. Powerful. Can we start with what prompted you to write the memoir?

My wife, Stella, encouraged me to do it. Many people, some people over the years, I've said, Why don't you write a book? I have one of those weird memories that remembers a lot of details. I said, Oh, I don't want to write a book. Who wants to read about an actor? I started writing bits and pieces of notes and threw them away. I just thought, Oh, this is unnecessary. I said, Just do it. I said, Okay. It suddenly occurred to me a few years ago that my life has been beyond my explanation. I think it was actually Edgar Poe who said that if we think about it, our lives have been written by some other author. Because when I look at my life, I think, how is it?

You couldn't have written it, right?

Yeah.

The reason I asked why you write it is I think the book will be a bit of a shock for people, as it was for me. Did you enjoy the book? Yes, immensely. So opposite of the fantasy I would have filled in for you of your backstory and your charmed life. I think any time someone with a voice people listen to acknowledge how challenging it's been, I think it's very helpful. As you and I would know very well, I don't learn from people's successes. I learn from people's failures, and I learn from mine. And it's very helpful when I find up people I admire had a rough start or they had challenges along the way. I find that more inspiring than you holding a fucking trophy on a stage. I can't really relate to that. But feeling other your whole life, I relate to that so deeply. And I think that would surprise I think people would look at you and go, Well, this guy's head is as good as one can have it, and he must always feel loved and must always feel celebrated and connected. But that wasn't the story, was it?

Not at all. I feel mostly disconnected most of my life. But in a way, it was all good because there's a part in the book where I'd had enough of the game I was playing, the role of being stupid, being a dummy at school and all that. God bless my mother and father. They worked really hard to do something for me. I felt sorry when my school report arrived. I was 17. My school report arrived on Easter 1955, and the dreaded moment, they opened the school report. Beautiful summery evening, spring, late afternoon. We were going off to the cinema, and my father read the report, and it said, Anthony is way below the standard of this school. My father meant well. He didn't mean any harm, but he said, I know what's going to happen to you. It's hopeless. I mean, what's the matter with you? Do you care? I remember it was so clear. It was like I took step back. I said, One day I'll show you. I'll show both of you. My father said, Gosh, well, I hope you do. I'm sure you will. Now, that moment, I think, triggered something deep inside me, which was a power of all of you, I go to the meds and said, Okay, well, fasten your seat belt.

What I was going to show them, I had no idea. But within three months, I got a scholarship as an actor. Never acted before in my life. Except that very evening, we were walking up to see the and we passed the YMCA, and they had the Easter player. Something had shifted just slightly. Everything looked brighter.

I want to put a fine point on it. You were called a dunce. You were made fun of endlessly. Your dad was disappointed quite often. You had been in many different schools. All the schools thought you were terrible. They thought you were dumb. And by the way, I can relate. I had a big chip on my shoulder about it. But you were a real outsider.

That's right.

Yeah. You didn't like sports.

Couldn't stand it. I mean, playing rugby, chasing a ball around the field, I'm not cricket. I mean, what is he doing here? One thing I've learned out of this, I was never a victim. In fact, all my debits inside me were the greatest power I could have had because it made me angry and all that. I went three years of that. But I look back now, I think now I have no room for all that anger.

Yeah, but you were a of a dichotomy, right? Because you were doing pretty terrible in school, overwhelming, yet your father had gotten you this encyclopedia set, and you had read this thing from beginning to end. So you had these moments where people would ask you about something, and then you could just pontificate. You had that memory where you could recall and blow their mind. But for whatever reason, you felt more comfortable playing dumb.

Well, I remember the afternoon I'd been to the dentist. I was seven, just after the war. And there was a bit of a painful operation. I had a needle and all that. I resented being in that dentist chair. I got back. There was a box outside the house. My father came home, he was a baker. He came home, took the box upstairs, unpacked it. And there were 10 volumes of this encyclopedia. And I was so fascinated. They're full of pictures and all that. It was me, children's encyclopedia, simplified versions of biographies like Beethoven and all kinds of subjects, geography, history, history, potted history for kids to pick up. But I learned from that, and I learned odd facts. I knew how tall the Empire State was, no useless information.

Do you remember... It's hard to know, right? You're reflecting back and you know what you know today, but then you try to imagine what you knew then. Do you think it was a conscious decision as some protection? I'm just going to play dumb and they're going to leave me alone and I can isolate and be by myself, which was what I want. Was it conscious? Oh, yes. It was.

It was protective because I had a very bright cousin, Bobby. He's dead now, but Bob was one of those brilliant kids in school. Brilliant. I was in school with kids who were way ahead of me. I just felt like a dodo. I was told I was a dodo. I was told I was hopeless.

Yeah, they said pretty cruel things to you. I mean, I recognize this in 1930, six and seven and eight. But still, by today's standards, I'm reading some of the things that were told to you, and it's pretty hurtful.

Yeah, but life is tough.

Tougher then, yeah.

Oh, it's tough for everyone. I mean, you just come down the street, they're homeless people. You see kids struggling. Kids are bullies. Kids are vicious. That's a form of defense because life is rough for everyone. I've gone past that stage of being resentful or angry about it. But I look around and life was tough and is tough today, this very moment.

What do you think, growing up, you were in Wales for seven years of World War II before it ended. How did that affect you and the people around you?

I was fascinated by it because I remember the bombings and we were going down into the garden shelter. I I think the local dock was bombed because it was a Harbor town. Swamsey was just down the road. That was bombed flat. I remember the strange excited.

It was exciting.

The sirens would go off, and you'd hear them over, and my thoughts, Oh, it's Liverpool tonight. And they bombed Liverpool. And you look at all the hardship of warfare, terrible losses, appalling losses of life. And then towards the end of the war, in 1944, we had two American soldiers who came to visit us and they were stationed. They were Captain Dern, Lieutenant Cooney. And I remember they brought us cookies and chewing gum and all that. The Americans, they were all over South Wales waiting for the big day. They didn't know what it was, but it was D-day. Then they came to the house to say goodbye. We got in the Jeep, we stood on the corner of the gate, and we waved. At the top of the street, they turned, and boom. They were both killed in the Arden forest. You saw it? Yeah. It was the Battle of the Bolge, the General von Runestead.

My grandfather was in the Battle of the Bolge.

Yeah, thousands of Americans killed. Appalling loss. It was a surprise attack.

Well, without being melod dramatic, I'm sure you're resistant to that. But I would have been excited as a little boy. Boms are exciting. Airplanes are exciting. But do you think growing up where literally the world was at war shaped your worldview in that, Oh, this is a dangerous place, and who knows what's going to happen? Do you think you had a little insecurity of just about the world you were in?

No. I think it came to a point where as I become an adult, I remember the Cuba crisis. Everyone remembers that. It was a deadly time. You thought, Well, this could be it. Khrushchev and Kennedy facing each other. I remember I was at the Royal Academy, and I had a perspective about that. Well, it's happened before. I visited Wales about a week later, I think. I started close to him. He said, Yeah. He said, But in 1939, he said, We declared war, the biggest military machine in Europe. And he said, And a thousand years, right?

The odds were much worse then.

And he said, Within six years, the guy had blown his brains out in the bunker in Berlin. So much for history. Go through crisis and crisis. But finally, we come through it or we don't. But there's nothing we can do. But it's extraordinary how the human animal is so Why? I mean, to build bombs, to bomb each other. Why do we do it? Who knows?

It's crazy. We can't stop.

I have a strange theory that's probably a useless theory, but maybe some hundred thousand years ago, the Homo sapiens suddenly may have realized that we're pretty savage. Therefore, we must destroy ourselves for the good of the planet. But maybe at some deep level.

You played Hitler in Bunker, and it was a confusing performance for people. Some of the reviews I read where people were like, he's so good that, unfortunately, you do see the logic a bit in him.

Right.

And two questions about that. One is, well, first of all, have you read the book Blitzed by Chance?

No.

Okay, it's great. I read it four years ago, and it details Hitler's drug use, which is incredibly well documented because his doctor that was with him at all times-Puchamaro. Got it. Was writing down meticulous notes of everything he gave him. And towards the last few years, he was on speedballs all day long. He was on methamphetamine and oxycodone direct intravenous. You map his addiction, the walls of the bunker get thicker. It's addiction.

One of the American producers said, Tony, said, Great. We saw the date. It's so fantastic. Could you make him less likable? Yeah. Can you make him less human? I said, He was human.

Which is hard.

I said, He was human. So go figure.

And that's actually scarier. It's scarier that they're human and they're not just evil. Cartoon, architect. I think it's hard.

It's buried in deep in all of us.

Yeah, exactly. And that scares us because what are we capable of?

For goodness knows what reason.

So you had a very challenging start, but then you also have these little glimpses of pretty good fortune, right? And you mentioned one of them, which is you're at the YMCA, you wander to this room, you find out they're putting on this play, the Christmas Angels. Easter. Easter. The director says, just basically, would you like to do a line in this?

My father said to a neighbor, a friend of his, God's sake, think to the YMCA, get him out of this. He's always on his own. Get some friends, I've been playing the piano all day. I went to the YMCA, I remember it all clearly. I went into this room and the kids playing table tennis. I thought, God, I don't want to be part of any of this. I wanted down the stairs and up this hall and heard some voices through double doors. There's a stage. And I crept in and this man turned to me. He said, What do you want? Can I watch? He said, Yes, be quiet. He was very authoritative. He said, What's your name? I said, Anthony Hopkins. You're Dick Hopkins? He was by the Baker. I said, Yeah. Oh, I said, Would you like to have a part in this? And they gave me a part of a saint. I had one line, Blessers are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. It's a good line. I thought, Well, I like the feeling of being on stage, but I didn't take it seriously. Obviously. But being hopeless at school, I thought, Well, maybe there's a chance because my parents-They came every show, though.

This is what's very sweet about them.

Three nights. My father's, Well, you never know, maybe Hollywood next. And he was 17, he was making a joke.

But You did good. That was maybe the first... I mean, you were good at playing piano and stuff, but that was the first time maybe you had some real acceptance of having put yourself out there, and it went as good as it could go. It was very encouraging.

Looking back and have a laugh about it all.

Yeah. Then the other crazy that happens to you is you know a girl who's dating Richard Burton.

Oh, Bernice Evans, yes.

This is so random, right? I mean, not random in that he's also Welsh, but how do you meet Richard Burton?

Bernice was She was 18, much older than me, but she'd been to the Slate Art School, and she lived at the bottom end of the house just over the Garden War with her parents. And my mother took her liking to her. She was a nice young girl. I was on the floor sketching. I said, I can give them some lessons. I And she did a sketch of me, which is in the book. One night, she's like, I can only give you half an hour. And I'd been painting a pirate on poster paint. She said, My boyfriend's taking me to the cinema to see odd man out with James Mason. I sat there. And I heard the doorbell ring, and she came up, and he came up the stairs, and he came into the room. She said, This is Richard. He's an actor. He's Richard Burton. Wow. He looked, he said, Oh, I like the boots on the bottom. Little did I know that many years later, I'd meet him here in the dressing room in New York that I'd occupied in Equus. And he'd taken over from Anthony Perkins took over from me when I left in 1974, '75.

And then Burton took over from Tony Perkins. I was in New York, early '76, doing publicity for a film. I asked the stage director, Can I come and see him? He said, Yeah. So I went up the stairs and in the same dressing room was Richard Burton. And we shook hands and he said, Well, why haven't we worked together? He said, We must do it one day. Thank you very much. And walked down the stairs, coming in to see his performance that night through the stage door because the crowd was Elizabeth Taylor. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. It was looking a bit wobbly.

She did that well.

She was a wonderful actress. Yeah.

I just recently watched for the first time Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf. I cannot believe how funny she is in it. Both of them. Oh, they're incredible. Then I read the book about the director, how he managed those two at that time. Mike Nichols. Yes, Mike Nichols.

I asked him. He said, I didn't direct it at all. He said, They were George and Martha. I think it was Mike's first job.

First film, right? Yes.

He did the graduate after that. He said, They were magnificent because they were George and Martha.

It's incredible.

My favorite line is at the end when they all get up and leave and they've had their fight. This one moment digs deep into me when Sandy Dennis and George Siegel have gone, and she's devastated. It's Sunday tomorrow all day. The depression, the horrifying emptyness of their lives who's afraid of Virginia.

Yeah. Based, though, on this little experience you had at the YMCA, it opens up potentially a new path. You said also meeting Richard when he left, you were like, Okay, I want to be him.

Yeah.

How about the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama? How do you then get into there?

They'd cut out an advert in the Book of Welsh paper, a scholarship auditions for Cardiff College of Music and Drama. My mother sent out an application for me. So I'd been at the YMCA playing now, blessed with the meek foundation and heritage. So I learned a bit of Shakespeare, the Othello speech. And I went up to Cardiff and into the audition, Ed was in the Castle. That's where the College was. And I went to, I met this man called Raymond Edwin. He said, What are you going to do? I said, Shakespeare. I thought, All right, go ahead. And I did that I was having it up. He said, Very good. Well, he said, I'll let you know. You got your address. So two weeks later, got an information in the mail that I was on the shortlist of three people.

Two girls and a boy, yeah.

And I went up to Cardiff, my father to City Hall to final interview. And I went in this big grand room with a table with some head geasers, Dr. Heinz, who was the principal, Raymond Edwards, who was the head of the drama. And they asked me One question they asked me, which I thought, Oh, that's it. She said, You didn't have a very good school report. No. Oh, well, all right. I thought, Well, that's it. Curtains. But now it's time. There are these two young girls out there, Anne Holmes and Sandra Sheffield. And Raymond came out. He said, Well, the scholarship goes to the mail. I thought, Oh, it's in the post, in the mail.

Here's this weird... He's locked into this being... He's a dunce.

Yeah, you can't see outside.

I said, In the mail? My father's, No, the mail. You're the mail. Good God. He said, Yes, in the mail, you've got this scholarship. Oh, I have. That's right. Yes.

Yes, son, you are going to this school now. And you were in the paper for it. This was a real turnaround. Yeah.

Yeah, it was a night in Western Mail. My parents had been to the pub. They came back and my father said, Look at this, you're famous. In the Western Mail, it said, Anthony Hopkins, son of Baker, received this Prince Little's scholarship. My mother says, That's wonderful. She said, Look at this here. It's sad, isn't it? James Dean was You called it? No.

Same day.

On the Friday night, 70 years ago.

Wow. What joy did you allow yourself to experience in that? Did it feel good to have your dad get to read about you in the paper after how pessimistic he was?

There was some hope for me. But then I went in the army. After that, two years, what you called the draft over here, called it National Service, did two years and then came out in 1960.

You were Gunner Hopkins, the Royal Artillery? What was that experience like? Did it feel like school again or did Do you feel more capable there?

I became a clerk. God knows how. Okay. I was useless of that, too. Okay.

I mean, you really hardly made it.

I don't know. I just fell on my feet. I was like a cat with nine lives. And yet I survived, I think, because I isolated in a way, because they don't let them get you. It's called. Don't let the Bastions get you down. Yeah. That's how I played my whole life.

Did you feel lonely or did it not bother you to be so isolated?

No, I didn't feel lonely. I just felt uniquely myself. I didn't need anyone. I never wanted to be part of anything.

No, I'm going to fast forward 55 years. In 2014, you were diagnosed with Asperger's?

My wife is convinced I have Asperger's. I don't know what I believe because too many labels now, ADDH, I don't know what the hell they're talking about.

I was only wondering-Just being human. Yes, you heard that, though, and went back and went like, Oh, that's why I didn't mind being alone.

I don't even know what it is. I just feel like everyone else confused as we all are. We're all sitting here, we're thinking we got answers, got labels for everything, dyslexia, whatever. I don't know.

Just human. But I'm comforted by the fact that you weren't feeling lonely and isolated. You were fine.

Yeah, exactly. I never felt like a victim. I've got that It's you today. Get on with it. Stop complaining.

Yeah, I like it. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare. This message is brought to you by Apple Pay. Moni, I can't believe it's almost the holidays. You know what that means, right?

I sure do. My annual holiday gift guide.

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Pay the Apple way. Terms apply. Mom and dad, mom and mom, dad and dad, whatever, parents. Are you about to spend five hours in the car with your beloved kids this holiday season? Drive an old granny's house? I'm setting the scene, I'm picturing screaming, fighting, back to back hours of the K-pop Demon Hunter soundtrack on repeat. Well, when your ears start to bleed, I have the perfect thing to keep you from rolling out of that moving vehicle, something for the whole family. He's filled with laughs, he's filled with rain, The O. G. Green Gromp. Give it up for me, James Austin Johnson as The Grinch. Like any insufferable influencer these days, I'm bringing my crew of lesser talented friends along for the ride with A-list guests like Gromp, Hamel, and the Jonas Brothers, whoever they are. There's a little bit of something for everyone. Listen to Tis the Grinch holiday podcast wherever you get your podcasts. In 1963, you go to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Now, this is serious. This is big league. If you're going to go to school and you're on that side of the world, that's the spot, yeah?

Yeah, I did an audition. I walked on stage and mother Gruffly voice said, What are you going to do? I said, Yago from Martello. So I did the scene and I had an uncanny understanding of what Yago was. And I finished the scene and the last line was, I shall make a net that shall enmesh them all. So I said, Thank you. And I was about to walk off stage. This woman's voice, Hold on, where are you going? I said, I've finished now. Yeah, well, can we talk a moment?

I'd rather not.

And then out to this gravelly voice came, said, Hello, my name's John Fernand. Very good, very, very good, yes. Never seen it played that way, but it's wonderful. I said, Oh, thank you. And two weeks later, got a message. I was in. Join in September 1961.

When does Laurence Olivier first see you act? Is it while you're a student there?

No, no. That was the National Theater. That was a different story.

After you graduated from there? Yeah. Okay.

I got an invitation to go to the National Theater to audition, and Olivia was running the National Theater. It was then at the Old Vic Theater. This was 1965. I went in and there was a man, he looked like a bank president. He was Lawrence Olivia. So I did the audition. He said, Good. He said, Well, well done. About a week later, got a call to join the National Theater. In his production, of Othello. I had to run on and say, The Ottomite's Reverend and gracious New Course, steering towards the Isle of Roads. So I went on and spoke Yago's lines instead. Oh, Oops. And suddenly changed. And I thought, That's it, I'm fired. And I knocked at his door to apologize. And somebody said, Sir Ernst is very annoying. He was taking his makeup off. I said, I'm sorry about that. Oh, you went on on spoke to the other guy. He said, I thought we were going to stir up the whole bloody play all over again. He said, By the way, that speech is the messenger speech, let me do it. You must really hit it out. I said, Oh, yeah. Like that?

Yes. To counteract this sleeping ghost that was in me that I was incompetent and I was going to be a victim. I thought, no one will ever touch me. If I learn the entire role before we even start, I learned it and it paid because nobody could touch me. I mean, you could have some sadistic director, and if they did, I would warn them. I get up and walk out because I wouldn't put up with it, being bullied. I'm always a bit paranoid. I was a little nuts, and I would walk away. So where are you going? To hell with you. Anyway, so that's what happened. Then he gave me a part in his production of The Three Sisters by Chekow.

Well, you understudied him.

I understood him in Dance of Death.

And he said, A new young actor in the company of exceptional promise named Anthony Hopkins was understudying me and walked away with the part of anger like a cat with a mouse between its teeth.

That's pretty great.

I was told that night that I was going on stage and I thought, My God, couldn't believe it. But for goodness' no, probably fear. I just got through it and probably overacted. But anyway, the audience came in big ovation, and I got a call from him next morning. He'd stuck out of hospital, he'd put a overcoat on. And he said, I saw you last night. You did? Yeah, he said, You was very good. Well done. He was very soft-spoken. He said, Do you have any problems, any fears? I said, No, but I went through two shirts, a sweat. That's called tension. I said, How long does it take to get rid of that? About 20 years.

Oh, wow. Do you agree now?

He said another thing to you, maybe it's apocryphal, but he also said to you, nerves is vanity. You're worried about what the audience will think. Yeah. I think that's incredible advice to hear.

You don't have time to be nervous. Get on then, do it. And he said, You may make a mistake. Who cares? It's not important. It is important, but it's not important. Get on then do it. And if it fails, it fails and so on. Who cares?

Yeah, that takes a while to learn, though, don't you think?

Well, vanity, ego. When you're young, you think everyone's talking about you. Nobody cares.

Right. No, they don't. When you look back, have there been some performances where you're like, I shit the bet on that one. That was not good.

Oh, you have done films and things like that.

But you thought you personally didn't rise to that challenge?

Oh, yeah. It may sound weird, blasphemous, but it's only acting.

I think You have to get there for your survival or you can't do it for a long time. It's a stupid example, but I got asked to come honor my rheumatologist, right? And in the audience is, I don't know, there's a few hundred people, and they're much older than me. And I make a couple jokes, and they do not like them. They don't either get them or they just didn't like them. And I was riding home on my motorcycle. I was like, Yeah, you didn't do well. You'll live, and you'll go to somewhere else, and you might be fine the next time. But I'd have learned to just be able to let that go.

Find Really, nobody gives a damn anyway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's important to hear you say that as the best that's ever done it because so many people do sit with, Oh, I need to do better. I need to do better, or I'm not good enough. So to hear you say it, I think, is helpful.

I do it At the same time as a dichotomy, I do try to be cautious about what I say because people have different values. For some people, things are very important. Some people find their job of acting important. I don't find. I don't want to bring on their parade. Sure. What I say is the degree of caution. I'm dispassionate about it, but I don't want to offend anyone because there's a lot of pain in the world. But what I say is, finally, may it be approaching 88, I have no idea how much longer I've got, but I just think, Oh, don't take it all so seriously. Actually. When I was working 60 years ago, almost, with Peter O'Tull and Catherine Neff, and I was taken them back when they were knocking my door, the theater, and it was Peter O'Tull. So I want you to do an audition, a film test. So anyway, I ended up in Ireland doing the interior scenes with Catherine Netman and O'Tull. I was thinking, I thought, Am I dreaming?

Yeah.

She was great to work with. She knew everyone on the crew. She was that old-style Hollywood actress. My God, how many lucky. We were getting a sun tan in the middle of January in Amal. Beats working for a living. I said, Yeah. She said, Yeah, I always remember this moment. Beats working.

This is the line in winter?

She said this exact same thing as Olivia said. It's just very important, and at the same time, it's not important at all.

You were nominated for a BAFTA for that, which is your first movie. Did it shock you or did you feel like, Okay, this makes sense?

It surprised me. He was a much better actors than me around, much more accomplished. But for some reason, I think it was the burliness. So I was strong. I was tough and arrogant and all that stuff, I guess. But I was sure of myself inside had.

A very big movie that came next was Young Winston. It's the first of five times you and Richard Attenborough collaborated. I'm just curious, what do you think was your guys' unique connection that allowed you guys to keep coming back together?

I think he saw something in me that was rebellious, and I was slightly mad. I've always been that. Something that's not to be trusted in a way. Something that's unpredictable. Maybe that's in our nature. Maybe it's in my nature. I have no idea. I'm not a psychotherapist, but I think there's something unpredictable in my very nature, which comes from the past. Not that I'm crazy in any sense. I don't believe that. But maybe that's a sense. I remember it was something dangerous about you. I remember Jonathan Demme when my agent phoned me one afternoon, 1989. He was in a play in West End. He said, I'm sending a script over called Silence of the Lambs. I said, Was it a kid's story? He said, No.

Anything but.

Played the part of... He said, It's not a very big part, but it's with Joni Foster. I said, Oh, she just won an Oscar. He said, Yeah. But you read it? I said, Yeah. So I started reading the script and I phoned him. I said, This is the best part. He said, It's a very small part. I said, I know how to play it. He phoned back. He said, Jonathan Demi is coming to see you tomorrow on Saturday from New York. It's an offer. I said, Okay, so Jonathan arrived on the Saturday, came backstage, and we went off around to a local restaurant. I was curious. Why me? He said, Don't you want to play the voice? Yes, but why did you choose me? He said, I saw you in the Elephant Man playing Dr. Treves. I thought, What's that got to do with the lecture? He said, Well, there's something in you that I think you can do it. I said, Well, okay. He said, Do you have any idea? I said, I know exactly what I'm going to do. He said, What? I said, How the computer in 2001. A few months later, I was in Pittsburgh, we'll be filming the cell scene.

Jonathan was very nice. I met Jodie, and she was very nice. There's a quote of him that Jodie never spoke to him. That's not true. We were quite friendly. There's nothing spooky about it. That's publicity crap. But we did the first reading, and I knew how to play it. It was the first reading around the table in New York, of all places. So we finished the script, and Kenny, out of the producer, said, Holy Moses, Tony, what is that? I said, No. And Jodie said, You're scary. But the scene when she comes down the corridor to meet Lector, he was very flexible, easy director. He said, How do you want Jody to see? He said, We'll have a camera. It'll be her point of view. Would you be sitting down or lying down or asleep or reading a book? He said, No, I'd like to stand. Stand in the middle of the cell, I see I can smell her coming down the corridor. He said, Yo, he is.

We got the right guy for this role.

They did the scene and the camera, the crew were up there. As the camera came, I heard John think, Oh, he moves. Yeah. I said, Good morning, you're not real FBI, are you? All the way to the FBI.

Is it the most fun you've ever had playing a character?

Oh, it's wonderful. You know what you look like to me with your good bag in your cheap shoes. You look like a rub. Well, it's a crapped hustling rub with a little taste. He knows how to needle her and all her vulnerability.

But it's the right mix of charming, too.

Terrifying devil. I I met a couple of people like that who are vicious and cruel, subtle.

Horrible.

Interesting as well.

All the way to the FBI.

When you're in character like that, when you come out of it, are you like, wow, I really went somewhere. You're not.

You learn your line shop, hit the mark, open the catering is good.

Yeah. You're honest about being sober or no? You don't like talking about being sober?

It can be pretty boring. I was drunk. I drank a lot.

What was it like? It was fun.

I mean, booze works very quickly and it changes your relationship to space around you. It relaxes everything and it's a false courage. Drinking is a very common thing. It's die nice, I suppose. But I remember being insecure and all that stuff. Going to have a couple of jars and a couple of drinks, and things suddenly look relaxed, and you think, Oh, this is good. And it is. You're going to have some fun. Whether you're a lone drinker or a public drinker, you're going to have some fun. All actors drink because we're rebels. But finally, I was just lucky to have I have brain cells left to say, You're going to die. Because I was doing stupid things like driving my car and doing dumb things.

We do dumb stuff when we're drunk. It's part of the fun.

I get into fights with people, and it's horrible. A change of personalities to induce schizophrenia.

But what I'm curious about is once you got sober and you started, I'm assuming has happened to me, is I'm learning why I am the way I am to some degree. If I'm working these steps and I do the four-step and all of a sudden I go, Oh, wow, this is illuminating. My whole life is being controlled by three fears. That's interesting. I now know what I have to work on as a person if I want to be in harmony. Did that exploration start impacting your work in an interesting way? No.

What I'm told by an old guy who had been around for many years, his name is Jack Bailey, and he's a comedian and well-known personality. He took an interest in me and he was in a wonderful sense of humor. He was smoking a cigarette. He said, How are you doing, kid? And I said, I'm all right. Yeah, I'm fine. You're happy? I said, Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah, you dummy. So he came here to be happy. He said, How long you got now? A few months. Good for you. Don't take the first drink. That's all you have to remember. He said, Another thing. Don't listen to the gurus. He said, It's not a mathematical formula, this. Live your life. Sure, you can do the steps, but live your life. Enjoy it. Because there were some people, Richard, where he got to. And he said, avoid them because nuts. He said, They may have to do it that way, but you don't have to fall into their trap. Because he knew one of the guys was trying to take control of me. He said, No, just walk away. Enjoy your life. He said, This is what it's for.

I mean, 50 years is so long. It's changed so much. My father went to treatment in '87, and it was still shameful. Now, I have no shame saying I'm an addict. Most people I interview that are addicts have no problem saying it. It's really changed in the last 50 years, right?

Yeah.

Was it hard participating while being famous?

No, don't take that into consideration at all. I mean, I go to meetings and people recognize me. I'm fine with that. That doesn't bother me. I'm just a drunk like all the rest of you. Yeah. And accessible and all that and will be helpful. But I will never preach, lay down the law or talk it all the time because it becomes boring for people. So I'm very easygoing about it.

Have you had any scary situations in the last 50 years? Have you been close at any point in those 50 years of going like, I was so young, what the fuck? No.

The craving left immediately. I'm not that sociable, but we had a bunch of people over and I was in England recently for dinner or lunch. We've got some wine. I said, As long as people don't drive, get us a car to pick them up. If they want a drink, then fine. But no, no. If we have another drink, I'll even overpour their glasses.

I'd prefer people drink around me than not to appease me. You had a moment that, as you said, I don't belong anywhere. I'm a loner. But in the dresser, when Ian Mckellen said it was wonderful, you said, We got on so well, and I suddenly felt at home as though the lack of belonging was all in my imagination and all in my vanity. I think this is a very profound moment. When is the dresser?

2015. We had a ball. We had a wonderful time. That's when He's got. He's got charisma, muscle, he's powerful, he's daring, he's courageous. We had a lot of laughs. Yeah. He could make you laugh.

But when you have this realization, and I know you're not one to feel bad for yourself, but when you realize, I'm not alone, do you go, Oh, why did I spend so much time?

Yeah, that's all paranoia. I don't know.

Do you have any sadness or regret that it took you that long to realize?

She can't regret things like that. I think I felt insecure because I was so lucky, really. I just I'm lucky all the way through my life. I think I shouldn't have been so lucky because people have tough time struggling to. I've just been given this good fortune.

You feel guilty about it?

Well, no, not anymore. But I do look back and with curiosity, I think, how extraordinary that this happened to me and all these opportunities came to me. So I never complain. I'm talking about the acting business and all that. I've known actors who have struggled for years and never quite made it. I just don't know what it's about.

Like, why you?

Yeah, why things happened to me the way they did. So I've got no ounce of complaint to me or regret. But working with him was great.

Yeah, I have one curiosity about your acting, and it's about you being a composer. So you were also a very active musician your whole life, and you even paused acting for a while to tour with some of your compositions.

For some odd reason, it comes naturally to me, improvise on the piano, and I improvise, and then I got a friend, Stephen Barton, who was a student at the... Where the Beatles?

Abbey Road. Abbey Road.

He was a student then. He's got a sound equipment. And all the samples of every instrument there is, pure samples. It was real cellos, real cell. So I pick and choose. Let me start with an oboe or something like that.

Yeah, cello.

Yeah. The sound that's produced is so accurate. Even on the cello, you can hear the grind of a string. They're so perfect. They're all done by German engineers, I believe. They're real samples. So you're listening to a cello, but electronically manipulated. I don't know how the hell it works. But I'd use that because it's useful. Then it flows. I mean, I was listening to something, I thought, How the hell did I write that? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, there's one that's called fanfare. Then it goes into march. Now, I remember the day working it out, sitting there, keyboard. I just wanted to do this as a fanfare. Okay, everything. Tom Jones, trumpets. I said, I want to put a brass in there and another horn. And then suddenly turned into a march. He's got the scores, really. Stella is behind my life. Extraordinary. She said, Let's talk to a conductor. Me got a conductor of the London Philharmonic, and he came to the studio just to say hello. Lovely man. Can I hear something? I see. You just did that? I see, yeah. Well, we're in the middle of it now. I went to rehearsals at the London Philharmonic.

I couldn't believe I'm sitting there. This is impossible.

Yeah. Are you afraid to even try to figure out you can do it? Are you superstitious?

No, I just know that there's a way of doing it. Just let the music come to you.

Which are you more proud of, the acting work or the music stuff? Both. Not one more than the other?

No. But again, don't take myself too seriously.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm just lucky. Yeah. I paint and I draw and all that.

You're just artistic. Yeah.

Stella told me, she said, She found some old scripts before we got married, some old scripts I kept in the cupboard. I doodled in the drawings. And she wanted to paint. I saw it in her come in. She, of course, she can. Do it. I thought, she, well, you can do anything. Go on, just do it. So I got some canvases. This is always the start out little boy from Portroul, but get some canvases. And I say, I can't be doing with oil paints because it takes too long to dry. So I want to paint fast. So we've got acrylics. And suddenly I produce these paintings and I had a show of them and told them. I'm not supposed to say this, but I'm fast. I work fast. I like to work fast because It means that you cut down your choices. Too many choices, you get fat and lazy. Just do it fast. If you make a mistake, okay, go over it. Who cares? Brush it out, paint over it, write music over it, whatever.

Anyone who's listening who has a young son who is seemingly directionless in getting kicked out, I hope this is so hopeful for them that you just don't know what the future, you don't know.

You don't know. Believe in yourself totally, even though you may it's a lie. Believe in yourself. Never give in to what other people say you are. Never give them the chance to put you down because you'll do that yourself anyway. Put yourself down. But don't let other people put you down. You get out there and you do it. You may fail, you may run into a wall, so on. You get up and you do it, especially when you're young. You've got the guts and the strength to do it.

And the stupidity. Yeah, and the stupidity.

Be stupid. Just have a go at it. Be bold and mighty force will come to your aid. Yeah.

Well, Mr. Hopkins, we're so flattered that you were willing to come on the show. Yeah, we've both obviously just loved watching so many wonderful performances. Your book is wonderful, and it's very, like I said, unexpected, which I think is delightful.

Well, I'm really grateful for that. I'm really grateful that you liked it.

Yeah, it's wonderful. We're going to play some of it for our listening audience, too. They're going to get a little clip of it.

Oh, good. We'll have audio? Yeah. I had to go old-fashioned and read with my eyeballs. I know.

But thank you.

Yes, it's delightful to meet you. And thanks for making the big trip out here. And I hope everyone checks out the book. It is called Appropriately, We Did Okay, Kid.

That photograph on the back of the book, that photograph of my father. I was three and a half in Abravan on the beach because during the war, he didn't go into the army. He was lucky, but he had to do some national service. He was in the Observer Corps, that's the RF, which was plotting aircraft, German, American, British, reporting movements of aircraft, warning the center in Cardiff. It was a network of observation. Anyway, I was there, lost a little kid like we all are, feeling hopeless or lost. When I look at that, I think, we did okay, kid. Yeah, that's beautiful. For whatever it is.

It worked out just fine. Thank you so much. I hope everyone checks out the book and it's been a delight for me.

Thank you both.

Now, before we go to the fact check, we're going to play an excerpt from We Did Okay, Kid.

I'm an alcoholic, and I need help, I told my agent. He got me the time off I needed to focus on getting treatment. The tradition I belong to suggests that it's much better to change lives one person at a time by helping them one on one rather than by crowing to the world about having found a cure for one's affliction. This is known in the rooms as attraction rather than promotion. And so I will say only that if you are starting to wake to the ways in which alcohol is ruining your life, as I did to the ways it was ruining mine, there are people out there who will take you out for coffee. You can find them in every city and town at every hour of the day. I still go to meetings now myself, almost 50 years after getting sober. The day after my revelation, I went out for lunch with my friend Bob Palmer, who brought along his friend George. They were going to take me to my first twelve-step meeting. I was in a state of shock because the urge to drink had gone. I saw a waiter carrying a tray with a glass of red wine across the room.

How strange that I used to drink that, I thought. How are you feeling, Bob? Asked. Inadequate, he said. You are.

That floored me.

He explained that I had so little power. I was unable to predict what would happen in the next three minutes. Therein lay terror error, but also freedom, if we accepted it. At the first AA meeting I attended, I was moved by the speaker's story. He's just like me, I thought. He was a truck driver, not an actor, but we were the same. I had something in common with everyone in that room. We were drunks, and we didn't want to drink anymore. I thought, They're all misfits like me, like all of us. We feel we never belong. We feel self-hatred. All of us are the same. I I'm not alone.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare. He is an armchair expert, but he makes a mistake. All the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's got to let them have the facts.

Do I have lipstick all over my face? No, you don't at all. Okay.

Because you touched it up for him eating dad's oatmeal. I did. You want to tell people about dad's oatmeal? Because this could be the first unbiased review. Yes.

Okay, so you eat the same breakfast every day.

Yeah, 365.

And I got to try it today.

Before you give the review, what was your guess at what it was. It tasted like. Like, blah, blah, blah. What's this, mom? Oh, I made you something. Let me try it. Like, that would be the commercial.

Yeah, that's the commercial.

Why do we have lucky Charms? It's like a lucky Charms. It's like a lucky Charms.

It's 100% a cereal commercial. So I just thought it would be bland because it's healthy. Yeah, right.

Can I do the commercial again? Okay, sure. You be the mom. Give it to me. Here, honey. Enjoy your breakfast. Okay. I'll try it. Tastes good for me. Why do you think that would be a good commercial? I was lucky charged.

With your hand falling out like that. That was a really sad boy.

Tastes good for me.

I think you booked it. That was good. They are going to ask, Can you shave out your tooth?

Shave my beard, too.

Yeah, exactly. Can we age you down a little bit?

Well, of course, I went in my tooth in because when I eat, I have to take my tooth out.

Or it's like, lucky Charms causes your teeth to fall out. That's allegedly.

Mom would say, she'd Well, hon, what happened the last time you ate lucky Charms?

Your tooth fell out. Anyway, so I thought it was going to be blah. I tried it, and it is really good. It's really good.

I'm I had that you tried it, and it doesn't even look that appealing. Other than I dressed it up with fresh strawberries, that part probably made it look a little exciting.

A little bit, but it's a mush.

It's a big bowl of mush, and it's a big, big bowl. As I was telling you, this is my big reward.

Yeah, You said it's time for my reward, and I was like, oh, what's your reward? And then it was the same thing you do every day. How many days do you think you've had it? How many months have you been eating this concoction?

Over two years.

This exact one? No.

Okay, yeah. The flesh. And that works. The fresh strawberries, the fleshy fresh strawberries. I got into about probably nine months ago, and now that's my real obsession. Crucial. I put They're good. I buy so many strawberries. It's crazy because I'll eat half of the tray per bowl of porridge.

Oh, my gosh. They have great antioxidants. Oh, yeah.

I'm going to argue, if you could only have one meal that be perfectly healthy? Yeah. I think this is it.

I'm going to poke a hole.

Okay, but can I hit you with the macros first?

Yeah.

Okay, so it has... This bowl of milk has upwards of 60 grams of protein.

Yeah, it's a lot.

It's a big boy's serving of protein. Big bowl.

Baby like big bowl.

That's what Eric says. It has a very good amount of fiber, which is elusive. Fiber is hard to get.

Fiber is hard. So yes, I like that.

And then probably more antioxidants than any other frigging meal you could put together with that amount of strawberries, half a rack.

Okay. Okay. Time to poke a hole. And wait, what was that? Fiber. Oh, also people have predicted that fiber is the new protein. Oh. As far as everyone's into fiber, and you got to have it, and you got to get the amount you need to get. So that's ahead.

Okay, right. And by the way, guys, Lane Norton has been saying this for years. Protein and fiber. You look at all these different studies. Huge. The big thing they all have in common for longevity is you got to have a lot of fiber and you got to have a lot of protein.

Yeah, and you got to have a lot of chocolate chips.

You got to have a lot of wine. A lot of martini. But you gave it a passing grade.

I loved it.

Okay, you give it an eight?

I was shocked because you Your concoction is Oats, Bob's Red Milf. Swear by it. And Justin's Honey Almond butter.

Yeah.

And I don't remember the brand, Strawberry Protein.

Oh, Lane Norton's Strawberry Protein. Oh, wow. It's because it's isolate, which I need. If for people who are lactose and taller or get upset stomach from way, if you get isolate or isolate. It's better. There's none of the... I assume there's no lactose in it, which is what I think gives you the upset stomach. Okay, well, so- See, I said I think a lot, and I think. So I don't want anyone to quote me. It's okay, you think. I think and I think.

And normally, I'm pretty turned off. I can be turned off by protein powders because it does give you the bad... To me, there's a taste that lingers that I really am not a fan of. I like it when I'm eating it, but then there's an aftertaste.

Okay, and can you tell me the brands you've tried?

I can't remember. Okay.

Because there's a huge difference in the different brands. I always say that. I've had tons of protein, but I'm like, it's chalk. That's disgusting. Yeah. But I have two I'm in love with.

Well, this strawberry one that goes in your breakfast is really good.

Again, it's It's all counterintuitive. Why would strawberry protein powder work in blueberry oatmeal?

Fruits.

I guess.

Fruit medley.

I guess. It just doesn't seem like that would be good, but somehow that comes together, especially with the almond butter.

Yeah, it's really nice.

That's the other big secret sauce in there.

Yeah. Okay, now my hole that I'm poking.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think in order for it to be the healthiest meal on planet Earth, I would like a green vegetable in there.

You don't think the Blueberries handles that?

No. It's good. I'm glad it's there.

Monty, how are we adding any green vegetables?

That's my problem. I don't think We can call it that because I don't think you can add any green vegetables to that. You could put mint. No, that doesn't count.

I mean, that's the least terrible option.

Mint is an herb, Rob.

It's green.

It's green as hell. It's a green herb, and I'm looking for a green vegetable. I'm looking for spinach. I know. But it can't go.

It doesn't. That'll have to be lunch. Okay. Yeah. You got to work in a spinach in your lunch.

That's fine. Okay. And ideally, you'd want a little omegas in there. So you want some fish. I think you should smash up some fish in there.

Well, I do my fish oil. What's our sponsor? Because that is actually what I use.

Yeah. Nordic Nordic Natural.

Nordic Natural. That's great. Every night before bed, it's three Nordic Naturals.

Yeah. But I'm just saying, if you're saying this meal on its own, we need a little green vegetable.

Okay. Counter to your counter.

Okay.

You have to propose a different dish that would be better because I think you might find your way over to a spinach ditch that would be great. But then I think it would really drop the ball on a lot of other categories, the fiber and the protein and the antioxidants. So I might have the antioxidants, and I think it's maybe fibrous, but regardless. So this is like, there's never going to be a perfect meal. Right. Unless you're just making a smoothie, which I used to do. It's too much of a clean up. I don't like it.

That's my issue. Yeah. It's also too cold for my mouth.

I think it is ironic that I've been making fun of Wilfer Bremley for 40 years now in those oatmeal commercials, and lo and behold, that's my most consistent meal.

Same as you made fun of Catherer Cowboy, and then you had to get one.

And then I had Cath, and I don't like pain when a Cath, just like him.

Exactly.

Have we not spoken since Halloween? I guess not. Yeah, no fact check.

Wow. We have a lot to catch up on.

That feels so long for a catch up. Yeah. For the audience, for the cherries.

I guess the Halloween was Friday, and today is Wednesday.

Yeah.

Yeah. Let's talk about Halloween. Okay, but hold on. We can't go on without addressing your tooth. Oh. People have been wondering.

I thought it'd be cool if we didn't address my tooth, but I'm happy to.

Okay, yeah. There's no way.

I've been wanting a gold tooth for, I don't know, seven years. I think even when we interviewed Kirby.

Oh, yeah.

Didn't we discuss it? I think we did. Do you know somebody? I think we did. And then our good friend Eric found for me this dentist that we both go to. Who would have known that this very normal, classy dentist that also does gold teeth and shit. Yes. So I had a grill made.

Yeah.

That was first. I mean, I used to wear that in one of these fact checks. That one's not very attractive. It's intentionally not.

Okay. Yeah.

Because it's for a character I'm going to play. Oh, thank you. Okay. Oh, yeah. I guess I assumed you knew that somehow.

No, I didn't.

Okay. So the grill is for a character I'm playing. Got it. That they did not ask for.

But Great. Okay, fun.

And it came at some expense for me to have this thing made.

Sure. Well, acting is expensive in the heart.

It takes a toll. You pay a price. I sent a photo to the showrunner, and I was like, look, use them, don't use them. I don't care. I did have these made. Yeah. And God bless, he said, Use them for sure. Great.

Yes. Oh, fun.

And I don't think that's a topic I can tackle. I'll tackle it. I am having And again, and I think in the effort of being honest or in the pursuit of honesty, I don't need to make money for the acting, right? So I said to them, I don't... Just pay me the minimum. Please pay me minimum. Give it to another actor you want to hire for the budget, right?

That's really nice.

It's not even that nice of me, but for me, it was so- That's a huge growth. It was an emotional thing where it's like, I used to be so panicked all the time. Like, please, you got to pay me the most because I'll probably never work again. That the whole thing. And this is like, I just want to come play, and you guys don't have to pay me. I know legally you have to, but whatever the minimum of that is.

Wow, that's huge. That's really awesome.

Yeah, it feels great. Actually, it's how I should have been started acting.

But you can't, though.

But also- It's a reality.

Yeah. Money, we need it. We need it. And so you are lucky enough to not- I don't need it now.

Yeah.

And now I can I can accept that.

Solely to go play with people I think would be fun to play with. And I love it.

That's great. Okay, now the tooth.

Okay, the tooth. So then the tooth I just always wanted. So the tooth is for me.

Sure. Okay. So it's nothing to do with the jobs?

No, no, no.

And how do you feel with the tooth in? How do you feel?

I'm largely unaware of it, other than I like to play with the backing with my tongue. Yesterday was day one with it. I went to the movies, and you got to take it out to eat. But then I was like, Man, get away with some popcorn. Oh, God. Because I can throw it past the gold tooth and just get it on the molars. You're going to choke.

Oh, my gosh.

So I did mess around with some popcorn with it still in. Okay. And then I went to... Now, this is a big thing I learned yesterday. I went out to lunch with a friend, and I took it out. And I'm like, I have nowhere to put it. So I put it in a tiny little pocket in my jeans. So I won't lose it there. And then when the meal was over and I wanted to put my tooth back in, the backside... It's like the back of earings, the back. So it had poked through the denim, and I could not get it out. It was like, embedded in my jeans.

It has a post?

Yeah, on the backside, there's two, what do they call them, vampire clips like you'd have on a mic to snap into your tooth. And so not only did those puncture the denim and were caught in there. I was like trying to get fishing hook out of my pocket. And then it was all miscalibrated.

Oh, shit.

I had bent up the fucking... But day one. Oh, no. Yeah. So then I recalibrated them. And then a lot of the movie, I was like, I didn't do that right. That feels really tight, like an orthodontia, remind me.

Now, did they do anything to your actual tooth? Oh, no. Okay.

Well, they took a mold, which is how they make it. Right.

But then they didn't have to shave anything down or anything, right?

Oh, man, you're really getting all the secrets out of me. So he's like, close your mouth. Okay, it's hitting here. You know what we ended up doing, which feels insane?

Veneers?

No. We ended up grinding my real tooth down a little bit so it fit with my fake tooth. And I was like, is this a... What am I... This is like a fad I'm going through, and I've already altered my bottoms to match this fad. I wasn't going to tell anyone that part.

Yeah. You told me, and now you told everyone. Which one did they So this one's now a little...

He's like, That one's too big anyway. He sold me on it like that.

The one that's now small?

The baby tooth? I got the one that goes backwards, the jacked one. And then next to that is this one. You think it's small now? Oh, my God, you do know the look on your face was like, it looks small.

It's shorter than... It's shorter.

It's shorter.

Why do you do that?

So it fit my fake tooth.

Okay. All right, it's fine. It's great.

I knew I shouldn't tell you that detail.

No, it's great.

It looks great. But I did go, this is nuts. I'm grinding my real teeth down. And then I'm like, I don't know. Who cares? I also think who cares a lot.

Oh my God.

Mom, this tastes good for me. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

Oh, boy. Okay. Now- Halloween. Okay, Halloween.

It was spectacular.

So fun. Per usual, Hey, Ride by You.

Hey, Ride was louder and brighter.

It was so... It's so great.

He sent me a very nice text a couple of days later.

Yeah, and I meant it. It's a very, very special thing you do for the neighborhood. Everyone in the neighborhood neighborhood hops on and is in such a good mood, and it's such a community builder, and we just don't have things like that anymore. And it's a really special thing.

It's small towny, which I like. You're like in LA, but it's very small towny.

Really, it's just everyone coming together and cheering and being excited. And it's very special.

It is very special. You did it. It is very special. And my brother was there for the first time. He rode me the whole night and he did some filming, which was lovely. That's his new hobby. And it was a great getting to spend three hours with my brother driving around. It's just funny because siblings is funny, right? So sometimes when I would make the turn into the alley, people would cheer.

Yeah, I cheered.

Thank you. You probably let it cheer because you know I like that.

And I'm a cheerleader.

And you're cheer. Yes, you have the credentials. And then other times, crickets. Oh, okay. So my brother would be like, oh, crickets. He was making fun of me a little bit, which was very good natured.

Yeah.

And then if If they would cheer, he would be like, oh, well, God damn, I should have been recording. But then a couple of times I would yell out the window when we go through things. And he's like, it's a cheat because you're initiating the channel. I was like, you're right, that is a little...

Okay, it doesn't count. Yeah, that's true.

And then, yeah, we had the in-and-out truck.

You guys went all out. It's so fun. Yeah, you guys got an in-and-out truck for the neighborhood. It's for so many people to enjoy, and it's really lovely.

Halloween is a special holiday because everyone shows up eventized. They've put together a costume. So everyone's arrival is fun for them. It's fun for you. Everyone feels special because you're getting the attention. They're trying to figure out your costume. So it's just very heightened.

In some ways, it's a very vulnerable holiday.

Tell me more. If you go sexy?

If you do anything, you're just deciding to put yourself out there, participate, and look silly, perhaps. I always feel it because I normally park a street down. I remember when we did Harry Potter Halloween, and I was Rita Skeeter, and I had a wig and it was bright green outfit.

You look like a little schoolgirl, as I remember, didn't you?

No, I mean, she did have a quill, but no, she was a lady. She's a lady. Okay. Last year, I was a little married Kate and Ashley. Maybe that's what you're thinking. Oh, that's the overalls. Yeah, that was the overalls. We did look like children.

I'm thinking more the bookworm, but I guess you were a teacher. But it came across as a- I was a journalist. Okay.

Anywho, it was really a look. I remember when I parked and I got out of my car, I was like, Oh my... I got it. I can't do this. Get me to the party. Yeah. I don't think this walk, I'm going to make it. I'm so embarrassed. Oh, wow. But then as soon as I enter with all these people doing the same thing, it was gone and happy. So I think it's vulnerable. Do you know the story about Charlie?

Getting in the fight? Yeah. Yeah, please tell it.

It's so good. Okay. Again, for people, I know everyone knows we did mashups. That was our theme. Okay, great. And quickly, to explain a mashup, they're going to share one mutual word.

Yes. So what was Kerry, bread, Shaw, shank, redemption was Kristen.

Yes, that was Kristen.

You were row, row.

The row, row, row, your bow. The row, row, your bow. It has to be the row because it was the row.

Yes, right. I was for Ariana Grande.

You were for Ariana Grande. People were upset because in the picture I posted, you had left, so you weren't in the adult picture, which was a bummer. There was one with you with the kids, but I didn't post that, obviously. Okay. Anyway, okay, Charlie Erica and their two children were on their way, and they were close to the house, and Erica was Edward Scissor Handmaid's tail. Really? It was great. She was fantastic. It was so good. Charlie was Hot Dog, the Bounty Hunter.

And he crushed it.

It was so good. But he's in this huge hot dog costume.

He's in a huge hot dog, and he has the huge blonde wig on with the braids in the side. And as we know, Perfect Ten Charlie is enormous, a human. Yeah. And they're on their way to the party, and he somehow pissed off a motorcyclist. Yes.

They got in a tiff.

He like, and he waved and apologized, and that wasn't enough. So when Charlie turned into our driveway, the motorcycle decided to come back and get in front of his car in our driveway and let him have it.

Yes. And he did this.

Yeah, he made that cutting your throat side.

Yes. Which is so weird.

It's funny. Charlie and I were bonding over this because this happened to me more than once, which is like, I'm nice. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And if you're now indulgent, then I go, okay, motherfucker. Then I snap.

Well, also, it wasn't just like you owe me an apology. He was being so aggressive and threatening. Yes.

So ultimately, it got to the point where Charlie- He got out. So fucked us and got out of the car.

Yeah.

And this motorcyclist, what could he have thought? First of all, he's a hot dog. And he's Dog, the Bounty Hunter. And he's huge.

And he's screaming at this guy as a huge hot dog.

Hot dog, the Bounty Hunter. I wish there was videos of that.

Me It was so badly. It was so sitcom-esque, this idea of a Halloween fight and these people looking absolutely ridiculous.

A hot dog gets out.

Oh, my God. And like, so serious.

Yes. And if you got beat up by a hot dog, that would be so humiliating.

Anyway, the hayride was fantastic, and the neighborhood took it to another level.

Oh, my God. Yes.

I believe we can credit a friend of the pod for this.

Yeah, I wonder.

I'm not sure, but I do think- I do, too. Yes. Ellen Pompeo. Yes. A friend of the pod.

She was like, Oh, you want to do a hay ride? I got Trix, too. Yes. And she hired six professional actors to be zombies going around the neighborhood like you were at Not Scary Farm or Universal Horror Night.

Yes.

So we worked in perfect concert with the Hayride because people be on the Hayride and all of a sudden, zombies were chasing them and stuff. Yes. It became the Haunted Hayride.

It was so amazing. And it really, again, just the commitment. Yeah. I did get a little... I mean, I was personally extremely scared.

Yeah, there is a very funny husband-wife story that came out of this, right? Which is like, I pull up into the same spot in the neighborhood every time for people to unload and load. Yes. And people know that's where you get on or off the hayride. So I pull up and Kristin is there and she's like, You got to go find these zombies. And I go, What? She's like, You have to talk to the zombies. You got to tell them. Tell them they They got to stop scaring kids.

Oh, I was nervous about that.

And I go, Oh, hon, I can't deliver that. Sure. That's just what this day is. And she's like, Three little kids have already left. I was like, Oh, fuck.

I know.

We don't want that. We don't want kids leaving the Halloween. I know. So I'm like, Oh, me, I want to be cool. Of course. So I'm like, Fuck. And I'm the one that's going to see Ellen next because I'll be at the top of the hill.

And it's such a cool the cool thing she's doing.

It's so cool.

Yeah.

So I get to the top of the hill and she's out in front of her house and I go, Hey, I really hate delivering this note. I think it goes against the spirit of the holiday. But if the zombies can maybe not scare the little kids. Okay, great. And she's like, Yeah, yeah, zombies, don't scare. She didn't care at all. I don't think the zombies cared at all. Okay. But I did have to clamp down on the zombies, which felt really compromising. God, that sucks. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, but probably was the right thing to do.

I did think, Uh-oh. Like, these are scary. Oh, yeah. And what about these little kids? If I'm scared- Well, some left, Monica, is what I was told.

You walked- Yeah, Rob, what were the boys? We walked up there first, and Vinnie was leading the charge, just walking. They laid off him. They were just like, Oh, good. They were just like, One feet tall.

But even just seeing them is a little scary. Yeah.

Did they give Calvin hell? Yeah, they chased Calvin a little bit. Did he like it or hate it? Yeah, he loved it. Oh, good. Yeah, that's the thing.

You don't know who's going to love it and who's not. One of the zombies knew my name, which was flattering, but also scary. I didn't like it.

Right. I'm a cow. That's what she did. It was a girl.

Yeah, I think.

Because what if it was one of the boys zombies? She called you Prilly? Oh, This is all very flattering.

But it was too scary. I wanted to date you. Maybe it was Groff. What's his name?

Groot?

No, not Groot, the grandson, the scary singer.

Oh, Guar.

Guar.

The Horned Pigface Goblin?

Yeah, maybe it was actually Guar.

What's his name? Blothar the Berserker. Blothar the… We should have invited Guar to the... Fuck, should we have Guar? Oh, my God. Because I'm like this whole night, I'm like, We've peaked. I really don't even know if we should host next year.

Well, you have to, yeah.

But fuck, if you got to the top of the turnaround and Guar was on a stage up there shooting blood out of their penises and stuff, you think kids were leaving with the zombies? Wait to bluff the Blosaster gets his penises out. We got to get gwar performing in the neighborhood. Okay. This may be I was going to wear pants over all those penises. Yeah, we got to... Yeah. He's going to desexualize it a little bit.

Just a little bit on Halloween. I guess that's it for Halloween. It was just really fun.

Yeah, it was so much fun.

It was really, really fun.

What a holiday.

One thing we need to talk about.

Oh, God, yes. And we're adorned in it right now, so not a problem.

Not a problem.

Our new merch is the best we've had ever.

Absolutely ever. It's so high quality. This is actual embroidery.

Embroidered.

And yeah, so for the listener, you might want to go to YouTube to see it. I'm wearing a sweatshirt, black. Gorgeous sweatshirt. Gorgeous sweatshirt. Says, Armchair Expert has a crow on it. It has a little mouse on the sleeve.

A tiny mouse. A very cute little mouse.

And I really can't get around over the quality.

The quality is off the charts. And I've been wearing this nonstop. I wear it like four days in a row. It just got off the wash, though, for today. Finally, a really great station shirt. And then I'm going to turn around and look at the back.

Yeah, it's great.

Hey, all. Really great station.

So this is going to be available...

In time for Christmas.

In time for the holidays, but it's coming out...

November 14th for pre-order.

November 14th for pre-order. And there's other stuff, too. There's a lot of stuff.

Oh, I got a hoodie here, too. A new gorgeous hoodie. Show the hoodie. I'm going to show off the hoodie. It has a cute crow, embroidery.

Gosh, yeah. Oh, my God. It also has a mouse on the sleeve. Anna It's just cherries on the hood. But it's all very minimal and chic.

It's very discreet.

It's a really good-looking collection, guys.

I applaud you, Monica. You really spearheaded and steam rolled. What is it? What are the Will you? Here's the must. You're really micromanaged. You made people's life hell to get here. Yeah, well, you know. You really did all this, and it turned out great. I'm so into it.

It's a really nice classic collection, and we're excited to put it out.

I think it I was wearing one the other day, too. There's a super cute heart-shaped cherry.

I love that one. Yeah.

What does it say on that one? Just arm's cherry? Nothing. Okay. Have a good time.

Have a great time. We love it here.

Guar. We vote for Guar.

Yeah. So go check that out and pre-order. For domestic, it'll be for domestic. It'll be ready by the holidays.

Buy yourself something for Christmas.

Yeah, do it.

You deserve it.

Okay, so I started watching a show, an old show.

Me, too. Oh, my God. Well, it's in the air.

What did you watch? No, I don't want to Trump your thing. Defending Jacob. It's a show on Apple, and it's older- Older than Apple?

2020.

2020. Okay. It has Chris Evans and is adapted from a book, and it's a little bit of a who done it. It's like a broad church who done it, presumed innocence.

Sure. Murder mystery.

Exactly. And obviously, I watch the whole thing in two days because that's how I operate. Yeah. And there was something really interesting. So you used to, you haven't brought this up in a long time. But you used to bring up something you read about a gene that you called...

Oh, M-A-L?

You called it M-A. Mao.

Yeah, this is the watching the grass grow gene.

Right. So yeah, you talk about it and you say- It's not a gene.

It's just a chemical in your brain. People have high levels of it and low levels of it.

Okay. And then what happened? Tell people about it.

Well, if you have a lot of MAO, you're very content to watch the grass grow. And if you have very low MAO, you need a lot to stimulate you. So these are like adventure seekers and adrenaline junkies. Right.

Now, you used to talk about that all the time. Yeah, I did. And I think I probably looked it up at some point. I don't I remember. But on this show, they talk about something called the murder gene or the warrior gene.

Oh, warrior gene.

And it is the MAOA gene.

Oh, I know. So maybe that's the gene that makes MAO.

I think it's connected to this. Yeah, it's Monoamine oxidasis, M-A-O-A, enzyme, which breaks down transmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and noraepinephrin. Low levels of this enzyme are linked to a predisposition for aggressive behavior, especially when combined with environmental factors like childhood trauma. The MAOA gene is located on the X chromosome, leading to differences in how it affects males and females. But Yeah.

So it's passed by mom? Oh.

Isn't that interesting? They talk about that in the show. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so in the show, I don't know how... I don't know if this is used in real life, but in the show, they test- Boy. Yeah, this boy Jacob for it, and they test the family. Jacob doesn't have it.

He doesn't have it.

Yes. Okay. He doesn't have it, but also because it's passed through the mom, and the dad and the grandpa have it.

Okay, the maternal grandpa.

No. Okay. You just got to watch it. This is confusing. Okay. In the show. Yeah. This is a spoiler.

Well, it's five years old. Yeah.

Chris Evans has the son, and then he also has a dad, but he's been lying about the dad. He says he didn't know his dad, and he never knew his dad. But it turns out he did know his dad. When he was about six, the dad went to jail for rape and murder.

I wish it were just murder.

Yeah, everyone wishes that. It's played by J. K. Simmons.

Oh, we love J. K. Simmons. Love. Yes.

Jacob is in a little bit of a pickle, okay? A legal issue. Yeah. The legal team is trying to see if they can say that he has this gene in case he's found guilty, they can say it's not his fault.

Okay.

I just thought this was a full circle moment.

Yeah, that really is.

Murder Jean.

No, I want to watch it. I've decided to start Boardwalk Empire.

Oh, I never watched that. It's great.

Of course, it was a hit. Within two episodes, Yeah, this is phenomenal. This is like Sopranos.

It's fun to find shows.

It is.

If anyone else wants to recommend more whodunits, I'm in the mood for Whodunits.

I'll try to keep my thinking cap on. Okay.

All right, now we can talk about facts. Facts. It was so cool that he did Silence of the Lambs.

Then we got him to...

That was scary.

You know what's funny is I would never have the goal to say, Could you give me a little Clarice? Yeah. But he just did it on his own. I thought, Get out of the way. Yeah. Hopefully, he'll do this for the next 30 minutes. I got to watch his entire role.

Exactly.

We should invite someone on to do their whole role from something.

What would you pick?

Nicolas Cage from Vampire's Kiss. I know. Because I need you to see him count or do the alphabet.

Yeah, I want to see that. Also, though, that's tricky because we also want to talk to him. Who are you willing to not talk to, but just have them do their role?

Tom Cruise as well would be a good one. Oh. Because as I've said on here many times, and this is another pledge to anyone in his world or sphere, I won't ask a single hard-hitting question. I just want to talk about his career. I don't care if he killed someone on the way over. I won't mention it.

For anyone listening, I have not agreed to that pledge.

That's not your thing. Yeah. People have already yelled at me, and it hasn't even happened. People are like, You can't have them on and not. And I said, No, I can just worship somebody because you I got a lot of the other version. It's okay if I just fellate someone once in a while.

You can. I won't be doing that. Okay. What are you going to ask?

Because you might have just rolled us out.

Who would you kill on the way home? And how'd you do it? And who would you call?

We both know he saved somebody on the way over. Yeah, that's probably right. Because that's his thing.

That's probably right. Yeah. Okay, let's see. He said, he thought Edgar Allan Poe said, If we think about it, our lives have been written by some other author. Now, that quote, it seems, is a misattribution and a popular misunderstanding of a philosophy expressed by Will Durant. Says Durant did not say this, but he wrote about how other people's opinions and actions can influence our lives.

Who's Will Durant?

Historian and philosopher. He's a philosopher.

What era? 1885. He was born. You know, my kids have grown fond of saying to me, You were born in the 1900s. It sounds so funny.

Because it's true. It's true. I know.

But it sounds ridiculous.

It does.

She's like, Oh, you were born in the 1900s.

How tall is the Empire State Building? He knew that because of his books. Yeah. Do you want to guess?

Okay. I think it's probably 70 stories. I'm going to say 680 feet.

More.

More. Is it like 100 stories?

It doesn't say stories on here. Okay.

I'm sure it's- 860 feet.

It's 1,250 feet.

Almost a quarter of a mile.

That's a lot.

Almost a quarter mile.

Oh, my God.

Do you ever get toothpaste?

Yeah, it's really tall.

Yeah, that's much taller than I would have expected. Say it again, 1,200 So it's got to be like 110 stories or 108 stories.

And it's actually 1,454 feet to the tip.

1,400, so more than a quarter of mine. Wow. 102 stories. 102 stories.

I don't want to go to that 100. Actually, I've been. I forgot. Yeah, with Kristen, we went to the top.

For a press thing?

Yeah.

It's so funny all the places you end up going on a press thing. And you can't, because you didn't frame it right, you don't really experience it.

Yeah, it's a different thing.

I have to go to the Empire State Building today. Right. At 10: 00, and then we got to be blank at what? Yes. And then you're leaving, you're like, oh, fuck, I was up there, and I didn't even really- I know.

And you do go up some creepy stairs.

To get to the tippities? Yeah.

Oh, I thought it was interesting because he knew Hitler's... I mean, just his memory was so amazing, and he knew Hitler's doctor's name immediately. You were telling a story, and you said Hitler's doctor, and he said Dr. Morrell. Yeah. And he just knew it.

Yeah. Wow. We were discussing this, you and I, off mic. And I was saying we have found this with a lot of people that were born in the '30s, '40s, '50s. My mom. Yeah. I do think there's something to be said with there was no stimuli. There was like, you watch TV for an hour at night.

Yeah.

That there was just way less info hitting you. I guess. And so everyone of that age seems to have a much higher retention of names of kids and teachers from their youth.

I think that's a good theory. I mean, there is something.

What else? Something is different.

Yeah, something is different.

Or maybe it's that we're juggling a much huger pool of people because we're online and that opens you up to thousands of people or whatever. Something has to be the explanation.

But he knew lines from movies and stuff he wasn't in.

But that is, I think, unique to him. That's why he can do Shakespeare.

Right.

He has that memory, remembering sonnets and poems and stuff. I can't do that. I have some rap songs from the '90s, I know, Inside Now. One.

Would you like to- No, you never enjoy when I do colors.

When you do colors? That's always the one I'll do. That's the one Aaron and I all do together. I am a nightmare walking, cycle past talking, king of a jungle, just a gangster stalking, living life like a firecracker, quick as my views, then that is the death, that's the colors I choose, red or blue because of blood. It just don't matter, so I could die for your life on my shotgun scatter. We come to LA, we never die. We just multiply colors. That's just the first verse.

Nice.

We could go on.

You can go on. We will. You want? Was Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, Mike Nichols' first film? Yes.

Highly recommend. Yeah.

An Edward Albie play. It was one of my theater professors' favorite plays. It was. She would talk about it all the time.

You know stuff that we don't know?

I don't I think so.

You don't remember.

Yeah, I don't have the memory that he has, so no.

What do you remember? You remember Friends episodes in great detail?

Not in as much detail as I used to. It's actually very sad. I don't like to be put to the test because it makes me sad. I used to be able to name all the episodes and stuff like that. I don't think I could do that anymore.

I used to know every single word in Smoky and the Bandit, from beginning to end. Every single world, Word, and Raising Arizona beginning to end. There were movies I knew inside now.

Goodwill hunting, obviously. Yeah, I did someone's podcast, and they put this to the test. They had me finish lines of Goodwill hunting, and I couldn't do it. I did a couple, but I missed a lot, and it was really upsetting.

I'm sorry they did that to you. Me too. I would never do that to you.

Thank you. Is that a commitment? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Out loud.

A verbal pledge.

A verbal commitment. Well, that's it.

That was all the facts. Yeah. That he knew Hitler's- Well, I just thought that was interesting. Sure was. It's more like a- It is a fact.

He got it right.

Instead of a fact check, we named the things we thought were interesting about it.

I mean, that is a lot of what I do. That's true.

So I guess it's in keeping.

It's a fact- That you found it interesting. I checked it and it was correct.

The name was right. Yeah. Yeah. It's impressive.

It really is. That's it. All right. Love you. Love you.

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