ALAN RICKMAN joins StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson

welcome back to star talk radio I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson I'm an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History right here in New York City and I also serve as director of the Hayden Planetarium come check us out sometime I got with me in studio the one the only the inimitable Chuck nice yes welcome back me and Neil love you have to love having it I love being here man and you didn't into all kinds of stuff first your tweeting at Chuck nice comic shot nice comic joke kid other truck noises were taken I'm told yeah then screw the rest of those junk now sir you just slow that's why I put the comic on there also I was checking your bio in progress you doing a show where you're just invading people's homes Oh sounds creepy yes imagine that a black man whole evasions show yeah it's got whole street aw man it's me strange movie going around to some of the weirdest and most unique homes in America calling them out and call them out yeah and and what would network HGTV home and garden television garden tells my sister's favorite Network I love how every speed dial button goes to that no not kind of woman so I'm not gonna tell us you're gonna find you by accident fantasti there I got with me also my friend and colleague Charles Lou great to see you professor Liu thank you so much for having me excellent astrophysicist guy at the City University of New York on Staten Island yeah and I've got you here because we're featuring my interview clips with Alan Rickman yes Alan Rickman Alan Rickman by grabthar's hammer you shall be avenged and I didn't Galaxy Quest I didn't notice in advance an LS is good or bad that's a good reference bad impersonation maybe that's what it is so Alan Rickman you bet you may know him from his role in Harry Potter he was Snape creepies defined the word creepy here he's at he's it and Harry Potter of course he was in die hard when the greatest villain roles ever he was in Galaxy Quest house it can't be a movie as there ever was in Dogma many other films and and he was also in bottles bottle shot oh sure yeah yeah a wine film a big fan of that and you know for folks who are sort of sort of a list guests like that always like knowing what role science might have played in their lives and it's not always good okay so I just like knowing just so I know what I'm dealing with you know in the interviews let's find out with Alan Rickman tells us about his life experience learning science how science flavored in your life in your years in school put it this way when I did my very last physics exam I got 4% uh at all these four marks out of a hundred what was not 96 because you lost four no I got four marks for in your physics and I think they used to give you one mark for getting your name right from the top of the baby and and the teacher wrote a hysterical paper and he didn't mean that it was funny and we're so what's the corresponding year in school in America that that would be is it only when I was about 15 locations another yarn is before you choose which subjects you're going to do what we call a level when you're 17 and 18 and then you go to university so physics was Oh science was never ever gonna be part of much that when you said maybe I should be hacked this diode an option makes me wonder like had you done well in physics we would have never had you as an actor I don't know what these for how these forces operate but actually there was somebody in my ear who was it was a it was a good school in that sense they didn't kind of try to trap your type you and somebody in my yard which is a very UK thing to do right yeah we're about UK it's world over you know get a label on people as quickly as I can this guy in my year did for his 3a level subjects I leading up to University did physics maths and art and he wound up being an art teacher and I'm sure all the better for having on science in his life Wow so yeah if we got four percent on his physics I'm not gonna ask you what percentage physics Chuck I'm turning to you on this one I that's funny he says that because I remember now we had physics in the ninth grade in the school that I went to was a private school it was it was a prep school and it was okay and it was a academically advanced I was not academically advanced and so I failed physics and no no comes out all right but what it does what he said I think I'll be a comedian yes yeah pokes fun on a physics radio show I loved science and I really felt like man I can't believe I'm I failed this class and I blamed the teacher but I had it so right thing to do so in failure blamed the teacher so you're an educator yeah as am i of course but you you you think a lot about this so I'm intrigued that he could fail a class yes but still embrace the meaning of science cuz Alan Alan Rickman said he got 4% he wasn't bad-mouthing science that's right I just got 4% right slowly one thing that he said that was so telling said that most places in the world you get trapped into place oh you must be the science guy oh you must be the art guy yeah but the bottom line is especially in this modern world you can love anything and be anything at the same time the information without the metrics of an exam exactly you whether you do either the information that used to have to be forced into you as training for something is no longer that constrained in the classroom you can get it anywhere like all over the world online oh yeah so we live in a time where the teacher is not the sole source exam enlightenment so the teachers role becomes whether or not you learn how to think about things in a positive light whether you understand things in a way that makes sense for you in your life if the teacher fails to do that it is the teachers fault it is liable in students for so I tell all my students I might teach astronomy you know I say look if you don't like math and science by the end of this class don't blame math and science blame me and I'm totally comfortable with that I'm glad to hear it what did it for me though was an effigy recently I that's fine let's happen do I want any sign class oh yeah yeah I do most of them I just really I don't know what it was I don't think we had a communication thing but then another my chemistry teacher gave me a book called introduction to astronomy chemistry teacher my chemistry teacher gave me the good for you because but chemistry the chemistry teacher said there's no way you can be doing this well in chemistry and failing physics and when I started this book was really fast that's a teacher figured something else must be operating right now yes and I found the book so fascinating that it inspired me to continue going that's grand can you became a comedian but astronomy is often a gateway science yeah cuz it's got chemistry in it in biology when you live through marijuana of science oh look up Wow one of the campus funniest movies ever Galaxy Quest air Lazarus yeah I don't know how many people out there saw the film and I don't think it was like a number one in the charts but definitely it's certainly a like a rentable film and it was about a TV characters from a science fiction show that actual aliens came who'd had that to protect their civilization or something want them to help him cuz they they thought it was real cuz they got the television signals right up from they went out into space we have read you a house in your history it was every Trekkies fantasy come true yo means every Star Trek sanhui Star Trek phase you want any aliens thought it was real so Alan Rickman played doctor Lazarus right is that in the Galaxy Quest IV grabthar's hammer you shall be avenged let's go straight to that clip I asked I just asked him what how does this fit into your your your acting repertoire it's find out what he said in Galaxy Quest that was very particularly about a bunch of actors so it was okay who will trapped in a really bad TV show so it's like une or like were portraying an actor on them I just did occur to me that's personally a bad actor who who had a you know aims of having been in Shakespeare and found himself in a sci-fi show which then finished 12 years ago and now these actors just go to conventions right right because so any real alien showed up right real early and showed up unnoticed in the crowd of ugly people wearing my costume the premise is just so crazy I mean it's literally but if fun crazy premise yeah well in fact uh it was too late at the time but I never thought the Galaxy Quest was a very good title for that film to asked a friend of mine to read the script she said brilliant she said but that's a terrible title I said yeah what should it be cool out there so this is in his portfolio of acting roles you know I just remember I'm I know I had to forgive me I have to reference my note the aliens in movie called the thermians mm-hmm and acht the portal creatures right that's what they were humanoids what they had when we were interacting with us but when you saw them doing it they're too far oh they were disgusting yeah so he did it for our benefit yeah even for completely now they're awesome cuz we're a freak out yes so I out Allen made an interesting point that there are actors there who may have trained in Shakespeare and find themselves on a hit TV show that has nothing to do with Shakespeare and Rickman played that part to perfection in a sense because he looked a little grumpy yes that role is supposedly Sir Alexander Dane a distinguished Shakespearean actor who winds up on TV and nonso it looks like a in one scene in the movie he had to go stand in front of a Walmart like box store with friends and say by grabthar's hammer what a saving hahahaha store yeah and so the whole point of it is that you can take a roll and play with it as much as you want or you can disdain it and say that's not part of you right in modern Star Trek lore people are still going around doing exactly the same thing in my one cameo on the Big Bang Theory I chatted with the Raj character right and because he's the astrophysicist on the show and I said oh so what is your background like he's classically trained in in in England any studied studied Shakespeare and then I thought to myself did he ever imagined that he would be best known for like a geeky science kid in a TV sitcom and so I guess surely it all folds in but maybe he's got to go where the footwear that you got to roll with it yeah you do and you hate every minute of it okay until you get a check funny how that just makes everything okay oh I'm just really selling my soul here this is awful there is no artistic integrity to any of this I'm stealing money by the way Startalk is available in three ways we're on the Nerdist network of the youtubes of YouTube channels and so find us there we're also on iTunes downloadable as a podcast and you can do that same thing from our website star talk radio done net and we're in the broadcast universe so our signal is in fact leaving Earth leaving and headed out we've been on the air for two or three years now so we're almost reaching office insuring almost I'm not quite there yet officer is 4.3 light years away is the system the office entry system the nearest star is Proxima Centuri 4.1 light-years away Proxima yes now now you know if you want to show off what's the closest start of the Sun yeah that Proxima thank you there you go Proxima Centuri but Charles the closest star to earth thank you so we're featuring my interview with Alan Rickman what an actor that guy isn't like this boys of it no you guys are lame Alan no no sorry there's your third attempt and you don't get a fourth attempt awful I like knowing what people who are successful in other venues what intrigues them about the natural world about science I'm a scientist so I live it some of which I even take for granted and so we just chatted about what kinds of things intrigued him just as a human being who happens to be an actor let's find out I'm fascinated watching a flock of birds just knowing all to turn and make happen listen what's going on there well okay so it looks like they all are like computer-controlled together - no here's what here's what's interesting you know how do they know here's the other question how do they know they're with more of them anyway well that's a good one I have I've always had that same question like how does a fish know or the same with the bird how does a fish know what other school of fish - hang out at me cuz they know mirrors underground they don't know I look like me yeah yeah how would they know they're just their eyeball so that's that you know the universe brims with mysteries that's a good thing not a bad thing but I can tell you with the birds that our sensory system is limited in in regimes in sensory regime so for example have you ever seen a strobe light effect of a drop droplet of water you surely you've seen this is a stroboscopic effect of a dropped water in an in a puddle the water comes down and it comes up and it makes like a king's crown yeah with little droplet you don't see that it happens too quickly there's things going on in this world that your brain cannot process because they're happening too fast so we do it with a TV screen that fascinates me because that's that's and we're not seeing a whole picture are we missing a load of little dots the TV is exploiting the fact that your brain can't process that's the whole thing it knows you're not going to notice it so it can speak and raster it could do things on a shorter timescale than your brain can process and your brain makes it all look like it's one that's the principle of film you know the old rota scopes that we call the the Nickelodeon so it's still images when combined you have a real go by fast if it looks like it's actually moving because your brain can't figure it out your brain can't do it so if you have birds that are ready to flock all it takes is the moon of one at the front and every next bird responds to that motion but it goes quicker than you can actually process and so there they go it looks like it's one coherent thing it's just not but if you could see that at thousandth of a second increments you'll watch it percolate through the flock and that behavior would then be apparent you say oh they're following the first one and and every one next to them and there wouldn't even be a question but because our sensory system is restricted we're left with questions about the functioning of the world that the methods of tools are science then reveal to us what's light when you hear a piece of music or song you're actually never hearing it as as soon as the sounds made as soon as I'm saying this sentence you're putting these sounds together making sense of them it's just a series of abstract noises and are you're remembering the sentence that will think that you're hearing me talk but it's just a series of noises and as soon as I make them they go on like a song like a piece of piano playing yeah I mean philosophers have distracted themselves for centuries on that very concern so the sound comes out then it vibrates the air so it's no longer even related to you it's just here molecules then they vibrate my eardrum if your drum goes into my brain and then I've I have training on what those sounds mean and then I understand what you said I mean it's it's it's freaky stuff very because it's not happen it's it's not live in front of you soon as you speak it's gone so now we're just working up a memory of what we just heard you say yes and fortunately the memory is long to capture that if we have really short memories I hear your sound and say who are you you know I mean so we live inside these these time limits and spatial limits one of the great challenges of grasping the scale of the universe Wow man trying to get deep on me there right right I thought filosophy is it there is it real is it well it's fun certainly the flocking stuff is we're going off flocking what do I know about yeah well here's the basic point if you use a very simple computer program you just enter three simple parameters for every single particle they don't even have to be furnish a particle you imagine that each bird is a particle and you just ask it to do one of three different things at once once the separation in other words can't get any further apart than any particular so I hold my distance hold your distance one is alignment you got to follow the person's tail head tail your back we can't fly backwards and and cohesion which means that everyone around you got to keep the same distance as well so not just you but everybody else when you just told that it was more efficient you don't mean glue in this case but it's kind of a visual glue exactly because if we all know to keep this distance it looks like we're that's better and you put all those throws we get a separation alignment line and cohesion but our sphere that alignment doesn't matter right okay put a simple computer program and boom you can get flocking stuff you can see stuff it look like bait balls in the ocean like huge flocks of starlings in the sky just on your computer screen the next time you look at a simple screensaver that does those cool dancing it may well be following one of those three or all three of those at once so these are the flocking varium those are flocking barrels yes okay isn't that flocking interesting Charles didn't know you had it in you ah so uh so I'm this issue oh it's no longer there that that's he's you know I don't it's long transients right well the thing about old philosophers is they didn't realize that brains are a recording mechanism we literally record that sound but in our own way in an attempt to try to reproduce it in our own heads the thing is that recording is not permanent nowadays we have things like DVDs or something which supposedly long as you take good care of them it never degrades and you can always go back to it and reproduce it exactly but our brains are designed to record stuff quickly so that we could use it in our survival so it doesn't matter that whatever made the sound doesn't exist or that the sound doesn't exist your brain has the full memory that's right the recording of the wasp philosophers devoting so much ink to this well they don't anymore okay yeah okay you fixed him is which Wow let's just say that early on like Descartes you know I think therefore I am a thinking being that kind of idea if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it didn't make a sound the answer is yes it made a sound but no one was there to record it and the recording is the thing that we're talking about now that's a lot of philosophers out of business well I think so but they've got plenty other things to worry you know that as well as I do they're always thinking bad new things hey Charles you like you're good and so when I'm looking at your shirt here Oh work shirt under your turn actually I well let me just say that do you guys ever slip up and say it come on dude it's not like it's rocket science oh wait actually yes this is actually a gift from my brother-in-law who is definitely not a scientist but he always got a kick out of the fact that you could say oh yeah we don't need a rocket scientist oh I guess you can leave the room so I was like well okay fine it's a fun thing to do so the interesting point about the brain being a place to store a memory of what had just happened and it gives reality to it essentially so what it means is you could create a whole new reality by changing how memory lives in the brain in principle absolute if the brain has this kind of malleability you can create whatever world you want I guess that's what's the movie that's that's Total Recall total you know put in a memory take one out that's right or it could be any argument that you ever have with your wife which would be nice to erase now that that's all part of it it's built into the whole system and that's the issue of causality as well you know Neil well it's building system now but the more North scientists figure out the neurosynaptic causes and effects why not just go in and we and rewrite the disk well it's not a bad idea and here's something that philosophy nice memories I'm keeping back well there's a Doctor Who episode it describes that the measure of a man is the sum of his memories and had to do with that and nowadays there's some philosophers are talking about freewill in terms of timing too because if something happens before you can think about it did you actually do it because you want to or to somebody or something else force you to do it so Alan Rickman has done many films at with completely memorable roles as the villain and die hard as the the wine merchant British wine merchant in bottle shock but perhaps of recent years he's best remembered for being Severus Snape a real creepy character in the Harry Potter series that's right Harry I am the half-blood Prince no I'm sorry just like don't even go there again it just is not I'm a scientist I must continue to strong no no I I have notes here that say that that Snape character was reportedly based on JK Rowling the authors of the series on her chemistry teacher do you have any evidence to back this up I particularly don't but yes there are various fandom type fans where they where they make these connections they try they're trying to account for what came out of this woman's head that's got unison rapidly dig where you got to go yeah cuz it's a serious trip and and the potions teacher you know as much at of all the magicians and the Wizards there he's the most scientific of them all there's it was analogous that's right the alchemy stuff it was the potions but I didn't figure all that out cuz I just I do is too much Harry Potter I just I had to I you had to I understand I understand I understand so I talked with alan riemann about making the harry potter series just just to tell me about just what had what gives and so here here's here we go so much of that magic is computer graphics and that is magic and you know and we watched over the 10 years of filming we started out going on locations by the end we were just on a pile of grass at the back of the sounds so it advanced even in the in that period huge didn't have to go anywhere so just put it all in just stand there and and the day will come with Ellen you need you it's just oh digitize you and we've got you good latest films like 300 or work for you and the other one bale wolf I think that was yeah that was that was an interesting transition there we've had quite a lot of those scenes where it's all green screamed and there are orange dots for focus staggering work and you know I'm just want to compare fan bases now fan base for the sci-fi group and then there's sort of a Harry Potter fan base is there did you feel some allegiance more to one or the other or do was it all just sort of I think another day on the silver screen well no I children grew up with Harry Potter and Galaxy Quest pulls in a wider age range i should think because of people who are devoted to Star Trek or sci-fi generate um and so you've got that saying Star Trek was produced over many you know with thirty years yeah yeah the movies you've got a generation of children who's and now it's all starting again now there are kids reading the books from from the beginning who weren't even born when we started doing the films and when we started doing the films there were only three of them written I think that the thing that pulls it all together is our good storytelling and and that's what I'm part of and that's a kind of magic in itself of course because you watch a a child as I often did as these books came out during about ten years and they go to a bookshop this sort of ancient thing yeah what's that just appear butcher by actual book and then you watch somebody's imagination disappear into that book and that's magical yeah so so true so it's all about how to make magic yeah right and so I was wondering you're a fan of the series if not osmotically through your daughter but I want to know you you know well it tries to be reading passages from this later you have your mother's oh yes so so Charles so uh is there any magic in Harry Potter that you see yeah we can do that scientifically yeah sure nothing further than any you can fly Jahna broom yeah no no you got that dude that's going in a hundred and forty miles an hour flying with jets right that's just all jetpacks thing going on this is just a broom pack it's just so sweet without the exhaust that's right you can fly and do some light housekeeping at the same time I don't think there's a anything that cannot be imagined by humans they cannot eventually be done through light turning someone to a frog well already people do that on TV right you've got David Copperfield or other magicians making you think that you turn to Pearson to a frog but that's an illusionist no no he does it for real David Kyle others are illusion yeah well I understand what you're saying but isn't it always true that things that we thought let's let's take Star Trek for example because after all Alan Rickman was on that Galaxy Quest movie which was the perish solitary soul yes exactly communicators used to be that you could just flip the phone open and go Spock to enterprise exactly and you could be are thousands of miles away from the ship in orbit and you'd actually talk to the person just go flip like that Charles yes I brought you on the show you're an astrophysicist yes but you also like a total expert in so many other things including the analysis of Harry Potter look Harry Potter is most important relative in this series is named Sirius Black Sirius of course the brightest star in the night sky hey serious as a brother named Regulus black who was also not a very bright star another relative a feverish isn't canis major it is the eye of the dog ah Regulus is one of the stars in the constellation Leo it's in the paw of Leo the Lion Pablo and they have another relative named Bellatrix Bellatrix let me guess dog anus no no no no she's probably stars in constellations or not don't identify the anus yeah okay I try to use it the bright safe it's a bright choice the I just belt no that's right no no no Bellatrix is one of the stars in the constellation Orion the Hunter and it's means Amazon or woman warrior but of course Bellatrix is a sister named narcissus which has no star name in just a hour Cistus is of course a based on a plant it's a flower that grows over the side so I once tweeted all the names in in Harry Potter that derived from cosmic sources or its star names and there's quite a few so JK Rowling must have had a stroke 101 or knew her mythology there's something so that's good when people know their science and this forms their art yes and enriches storytelling absolutely let's go to my next clip with Alan Rickman about how science literacy can enrich storytelling particularly in the sci-fi genre check it out I think it's not an accident that some of the most popular movies of all time have had a science fiction foundation to them you look at the movie with Pandora and an avatar you look at et you look at look at these stories it enables you to reach for places and to tell a story that you couldn't maybe tell convincingly you're just ordinary people but they made great writers and they need great stories it's very easy to just kind of sling the ingredients together and call it a film um a nothing there's a danger of that when I when I think back to a film like alien which I think was a extraordinary experience to see that when that first came out just sitting at a movie theater and be genuinely terrified is there some role science fiction role that you think you could or should play or want to play as we go forward I'm here ready willing and able to play anything anybody in any story as long as it's well written and what does that mean as long as it uses language well as long it's got ideas long it's got a point of view as long as it's not insulting the audience as long as it's taking them somewhere and and as I say that's a mysterious process I'm I'm a good editor of a script but I have no idea what it means to sit down with a blank piece of paper and come up with a story but I'm I'm the servant of it when it arrives so sure it absolutely would be something that would fascinate me that's Alan Rickman gettin that's pretty noble of it so what I liked about what he said is he doesn't want the script to insult the audience but he didn't that for a moment say that the script couldn't insult him as an actor he'll play any role that's right as I did that it served the audience and that was good take anything anyway it's really important and science fiction is a tremendous way to science in general because there's so much unknown it's the frontier and yet there's enough reality in it that we can relate to this unusual environment so what you're saying is there's enough on there's enough a palette that has been undrawn upon that's for you to go places that where otherwise you'd be constricted here on earth that's right that's why you are putting words in your mouth but I think that you're exactly right you explore the human condition in other worldly environments and it allows you to distill the story that you really want we can't be the only ones thinking this chalk you look at the eight out of the top ten grossing films of all time I've been side by Jurassic Park et avatar Star Wars you just go on down the list it's all sci-fi because well because it also it excites the imagination but I thought I was biased because I'm a scientist and of course I like sci-fi but like other folk are into this - no because I mean it's it's the ultimate fantasy think about it to be able how many people will have left this atmosphere and yet you get to go to another galaxy or or beyond I mean and then praying 14 people have left the atmosphere 14 people have left that's all yeah that's all that's crazy yeah what left - to another destination that's what you say yeah yeah yeah not just pinup envy another circle around driving around the ball around the block right right actually have left yeah I'm not a got their GPS and went somewhere else right 14 people saw me and I mean of course people look at sci-fi and go wow I mean this would be cool if this could happen isn't there incredible comedy and humor in science fiction - well without a doubt my able to just laugh about things that you otherwise couldn't cuz it's too close to home like Kirk getting alien tail where you go together or whatever what whatever my named a crewman goes down with them is going to die we can read through the red shirt we got to start wrapping this up my gosh oh that's such a good time Jacques and Charles Charles and Chuck thanks for being on start you've been on start to talk before yes this will not be your last time I'm so much in circle edge I'm gonna find you on Friday night so it might my sister who loves home and garden television she's gonna find you by accident that's right she's gonna call me in panic will it be creepy when you fell it won't be creepy only if I actually came in your home oh you've been listening to star talk radio brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation give it up for the NSF yes I'm your host astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and as always I bid you to keep looking up

Channel: Nerdist

Views: 644,259

Keywords: Nerdist, Nerdist Channel, Chris Hardwick, Hardwick, Alan Rickman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics, science, Galaxy Quest, Harry Potter, Snape, Severus Snape, JK Rowling, StarTalk, Star Talk

Id: hDCfI-lKl4E

Length: 33min 47sec (2027 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 29 2012