Fay Ripley On Giving Acting Notes to Robert De Niro

hi everybody welcome thanks for coming back today's guest i'm very excited to speak to you because i've only ever really spoken to her for a few minutes at a time at parties or she's come on would i lie to you so we met then we run into each other around town but this will be our first proper conversation and she is a marvelous conversationalist she does so many things i'm not going to insult her by listing them it's faye ripley there she is i can see you i was painting my nails were you part of the chances that i was doing the same i bet you having someone do yours though yes and they're still down there now how lovely look at you in in your boudoir this is undoubtedly going unless something terrible happens is going to be the longest conversation we've ever had correct do you remember any of our conversations not with any detail which is why i'm so looking forward well let's start by observing your rather professional setup rather like mine because like me you're no stranger to the voice-over booth let's take this blooming shield off guys yeah i mean you're too much of a pro to need that did you do voice work before you made it big or did you do voice work as a result of making it big first of all i'm not sure i've made it big i knew you were gonna come on now i knew you're gonna come in with some self-deprecation there i thought here we go there's no need others do this for me okay i was on a set last week it's a small independent film when i arrived i'm sitting on in the allotment that we were filming in i also had to get undressed in the allotment and go to the toilet in the allotment because there wasn't any facilities but anyway um and the lady that chose to chat to me she started the conversation with so are you semi-retired now so she she knew who you were she knew that you were faye ripley from all the things that she knows you for and she thought you were semi-retired i mean i'm not sure what semi-retired means oh wait to me it says struggling for work that's how i interpret it that's very much how i interpreted it actually anyway rob are you i'm sorry that i don't know this are you a sir [Laughter] that's a genuine question faye i'm going to give you a very genuine answer no i'm not ah at some point you may be because frankly most of you lot are so um hang on a minute who's you like who are you lumping me in with here seems like everyone seems like everyone i'm quite open about wanting an ob frankly um but um anyway i'm sure it will come to you my question to you is when not if rob you are will you expect that on a set will you want to be called that well look faye i've i've not given too much thought to this but i think on my headed note paper it would say sir robert and i'd go robert because i think that sounds better than sir rob it would be sir robert bryden and on set no please just call me rob but if i arrived and my and you know on those directors chairs we sit on with our names on them if it wasn't on that i would kick off sure i tell you what we have in common um is the the whole drama school thing you went to drama school but you tried you had to audition is this true three times to get into guild hall i did and actually when i finally got in i i couldn't believe i'd finally got in because yes three years when you're 18 and you know 1920s right around it's a long time that feels like a lifetime you're just focused on one thing getting into drama school and eventually i got into guild hall and i turned up on the first day and what happened was that each of the main tutors would sort of congratulate the somebody when they walked and go uh you you got my vote you're the one that i got in it was a sort of ego boost for the teachers and everybody somebody some teacher other would say oh you know i backed you you're like who got him and the head of the school tony church and he's long passed away but he was an elderly gentleman and he marched towards me and said i got you in and i'm so glad that i did alan he thought i was a boy i had very very short hair and used to wear suits it was my thing that is a horrific occurrence how did you recover from that i grew my hair to be honest what did you do in between so it took you three years what were you doing uh while you're still trying to get in i did every awful job that was available to anyone i was a clown for a start um so i was a kids entertainer for a long time um but i also sold shirts door to door cold cold door to door door-to-door the bag how the hell does that work well what you used to have to do is pick up your stock of shirts men's shirts and then they send you to a high street because you just go into the shops and say does anybody want to buy a shirt and you so you're saying to the shopkeepers as it were you were able to walk in cold yeah they haven't asked to see you no and you you must have been good then i mean i was pretty good i'm i'm good retail is is my i'd say i'm not even semi-retired in retail i'm just i'm like at my peak something i wasn't aware of until i did extensive research i saw in in your notes frankenstein kenneth branagh now i've done a play with ken and he's been on this series i i think of him as a friend and i thought well we can have a lovely chat about ken and of course frankenstein's star de niro then i read a little deeper and and it wasn't an entirely agreeable experience for you you're bringing up this because of course i did film i was cast i did spend some time with kenneth so you've got the job and that's the best part of any gig is not doing it is getting it so you experienced that yeah i did i mean it was not a large role rob because it was prostitute three prostitute three right because frankenstein took a few of the ladies of the night and strangled them and killed them that's part of the story um so i suppose i could always have guessed that prostitute 3 may not have made the final cut which is of course what happened so i bought my dress for the premiere and kenneth branagh is a very nice man to work for and so he stayed in contact with me and was sort of well done for your work it's great can't wait to see at the premiere unfortunately two days before the premiere or whatever it was he sent me a little handwritten note which i still have i have to say saying please do come but if you do don't expect to see yourself in it oh bless him he's a good man he didn't have to do that he didn't have to do that he was so kind that i was never bitter about it and also i think i might have been on the poster wow on the poster but not in the film and de niro wasn't on the poster because it was the shadow of him on me if you see what i mean it's just a weird old thing did you work with him did you get to film with him i did i i filmed two scenes and one was with kenneth branagh and de niro and i was dead on the slab because i'd been killed okay he'd killed me but the stunt man had killed me it was just the stuntman's hand oh no but then i got to be with them and they did their scene over my body and de niro i swear to god i wasn't dreaming this turned to me the end as they cut and said hey faye what do you think of that how was that and he asked me for a note now possibly the reason i was cut because i gave him a note you're not serious i think i i have some memory of saying something about perhaps he should speak up a bit you're not no this is a joke surely this isn't a joke i did i didn't say nothing which is what i should have said or just that was really great if that'd be me i'd have just gone oh for you really good yeah i mean i think i should definitely have done that i thought you're great in goodfellas as well and i think in the future you'll be really good and meet the and another thing i notice another thing where you and i almost overlap was in we were both in towards the end of his life dennis potter's last pieces of work he did he did a thing called cold lazarus which i am in ever so briefly and you were in karaoke were you not ever so briefly ever so briefly what did you play in karaoke because it was a thrill to be cast in a dennis potter piece again i was a prostitute was the 20s that was my 20s i wasn't a prostitute but i was a pretend prostitute for many things i think at that time all the sort of lead parts were very english rose blonde hair freckly face i had dark hair i'm now dying my hair blonde in an attempt to get work frankly um and i had dark hair um and big knockers are you talking about your critics faye i mean they they oh i do hate it when they criticize us and what were they saying about knock me down oh i i don't know i always had to be the the one that broke up a marriage [Laughter] anyway on that dennis potter thing this was a slightly scarring for me because i went on it and i was it was a big deal to be in one of those absolutely amazing and i remember we were filming in my bordello i think i was the head of the in the bar it was i had my girls what do you call that the madame there we are it was the madam i had a scene with albert finney oh i was really really nervous and i sort of had sort of made some acting choices that were quite big and i thought rather good and um albert finney perhaps didn't think they were so good because as we went on as they said action and so we had to walk through a door into my bar thing um he just said to me less is more faith less is more and we were on the walk into the scene and in that moment i had to make a decision do i go with albert finney the most amazing actors note or do i just go bigger still now rob what do you think i went for i have a horrible feeling you went bigger still that's right rob why faye why please tell me you didn't give him notes as well like you did with de niro i didn't all right i think i did that thing of going i know what i'm doing and it's too late to change and i'm going to do it anyway and then went to the latest toilet and cried i think that's what i did because that's what actors you know what i mean we're all putting on a front so i pretended to big it up and be like come on i know what i'm doing don't you find the the the whole business as you get older the thing that becomes strange and stranger is the arriving on location early in the morning being bustled into your trailer your clothes are all there waiting for you and if you want anything they'll bring it to you i mean very lovely in many ways but also quite infantilizing in other ways that that's the thing i find as a father of five i've often found it's a big adjustment when i go back to that world the sitting around and you when you're sitting around on set i end up having the most facile conversations and the most nonsense nonsense yeah absolute nonsense i agree some people so really love it and they i find it too passive that's why i like doing other jobs one of the reasons i write is because i'm in charge of my own destiny at that point and if it's rubbish it's rubbish that's fine so i think the passiveness of acting i can do it and i yeah that's fine but i can only do so much of it until i oh my bossy boots essentially and i like would like control over things and that's why i like staying home with my children until now because i could control them now not so much so now now you must be actively looking for things to get you out of the house then it must it must have changed what what is it that you want to do now do you have any you know particular things areas you want to move into or is it as it is for so many more of the same please uh well one of the things i wanted to do was a podcast well i'm now doing it not yours my own no no okay and tell us about yours then so that you can you can take my listeners away my podcast is coming out in january but that was something i really wanted to do so we just sort of made that happen that's um a podcast with david bedeau and myself we're doing a a consumer comedy podcast my friend well if you are you don't like the passivity of acting one of the things i've enjoyed about this is is just that is that you feel even hosting what i like you feels not as passive as being an actor because you rock up it all happens a bit quicker and i like that it makes you feel as if you have a bit more control over your life this certainly does that so i think you'll enjoy that aspect of it i agree i'm liking that i am my own editor faye ripley this has been rather delightful thank you for doing it we've gone from zero to 100 in terms of our conversations because this has been almost an hour has it yeah oh it felt like two do you see my fate when you watch this bite you see my face forms ready to receive a compliment and then comes crashing down all right really nice to talk to you thank you faye thanks for having me all the very very best with everything that you do i'll see you on the voiceover circuit my friend you will see in store for details bye bye bye [Music] you

Channel: Rob Brydon

Views: 38,738

Keywords: Rob Brydon, British Comedy, Rob Brydon Impressions, Celebrity Interview, Rob Brydon Interview, Rob Brydon Stand Up, Rob Brydon Podcast, Rob Brydon Spotify, Comedy Interview, David Baddiel, David Baddiel Podcast, Fay Ripley, Robert De Niro, Fay Ripley Podcast

Id: Vw89yCIEEg8

Length: 15min 52sec (952 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 21 2021