John Cleese interview (Parkinson, 2001)

my special guest tonight made his name on Monty Python that alone will guarantee him a place in the history of modern comedy but it wasn't satisfied with that he created Basil Fawlty and Fawlty Towers it was voted the most popular television program of all time in a poll organised by the British Film Institute he's a filmmaker best-selling author of self-help books and a successful businessman his latest venture is a new four-part series on the human face which started this week on BBC one now before we meet him let's be reminded of his wonderful talent to make people laugh I would like you if you would to look closely at this picture he'll is a purely voluntary organisation attention Ang's will maintain a wreck for two weeks it's a stiff restive life it rest in peace if you hadn't nailed her to be pushing up the daisies I love God on him because I am upper-class you pump stock up really really sorry I apologize unreservedly if you're going to grope a girl have the gallantry to stay in the room with her while you are due for what you speak French too [Music] resi gentlemen John please [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I'm old and tired well very old I mean that first clip about hell I have no recollection well us from the the David Foster program that you see all those years ago yeah I'm absolutely forgot yeah I'm gonna say to you when you see those tips you're going to much enjoy metabolize the audience obviously do uh yeah IFIF funny enough I've forgotten but I mean you'd right you had for example one of the things I can't watch now is the German episode because the three terrible bits of business in it and you had one of them than that really the Moose drops on my head if you watch this I mean I shouldn't be saying this but if you watch it you can see I waiting for it and then in the same episode when the fire extinguisher goes in my face I'm waiting for that and then there's another bit of business same episode where dear Manuel straightens up into a frying pan it's terrible nothing will ever cut it no no well I mean you know that's been decided provided by the British film is three votes to one by a long way and deservedly so to looking back at your you're curious very interesting because of this wonderful subversive element runs right the way through much and yet you come from weston-super-mare the subversive in Western Superman oh you have to be in weston-super-mare when I was very good fact my favorite my favorite school report was history he he indulges in subversive activities at the back of the room that was for mr. Whitmarsh who was a history teacher who could not pronounce his with Lars properly and was unfortunately teaching the 17th century so he had the land heads and loyalists respiration liked each other but you didn't you had no notion then no idea you would one day become an entertainer no no it didn't happen in weston-super-mare wasn't an option I mean what what would be open to them what were they or chanson see a chemist yes they were all gonna be a cattle and my dad said to me you know my boy he said he used to get a little bit grande when he was talking so my boy what you don't realize is if you will go into the accountancy office now by the time you're 21 you all have the initials a see a after your name and the world will be your oyster which is why we used to do as poisonously roots catches it and I was kind of getting it out of my shoe did your father disappointed in you then when you the way you turned out no I don't think somebody never quite got it didn't they I mean I'm being quite serious in there 67 when I was doing three Frost programs of week with David Frost and doing I'm sorry read that again on Sunday I got a letter from him saying have you ever thought about going into the personnel department of Marks & Spencer I told this story a few years ago and somebody from Marks & Spencer sent me an application form because mum you've not taught an awful lot about mum because she she she was still alive many when you mean - we should be taught about her you'll be interviewed and she died last year he died an ardent one a hundred and one he died the day after her hundred the first day and she was she was a she was extraordinary in a way she had a wonderful black sense of humor and my dad was witty and an off-the-wall I remember dad I mean if dad couldn't get a meal in a restaurant he'd call the waiter over and he'd say I'm awfully sorry but I've got an operation to perform at 3 o'clock we were driving once down with a windy Somerset Lane and some lunatic came around the corner much too fast we both had the slammer our brakes on and the guy jumped out of the concert camera start abusing my father so what you doing like that [Music] the father said when you finish my father said ah you are a fine old English gentleman oh yeah yeah so that was my dad century my mother sense of humor was extraordinarily black and when for example she was quite a depressed one she had a lot of depression in her life and she would she would start to ring me up and start going through all the things that were you know bad about in life and you know she'd get older there are a lot of things that aren't very nice and you but it's frustrating because you want to make them feel better and you can't sort of say well have a double scotch and shape up you know it took this time so one day when she was when she was saying you know that this was bad and her leg was worse and two of her friends had died and I said well look I said you reached the point when you've had enough mum and I know a little man in Fulham and he'll come down and kill you I think I say that out of a kind of desperation silence from the other end and then she starts howling so from then on if she started to get depressed I would say should I call the little man in foot then one day I said and the little man is full of informants died so I'd have to fight she just went on and on it was a very protective and cosseted atmosphere your parents had you later on in life I was a mistake I mean they didn't Airy thirteen and a half years but that's right and you're the only child as well only trust so you grew up with a lot of sort of love and attention I assumed if your mother never lose that that that feeling that you're also a small child than that no oh no I remember when my last term at Cambridge and I was very nervous about the criminology exam because I switched a criminology very late and they give me this book may say if you know this you should get through but I was still quite scared and I went into the criminology exam I knew I'd got the other four papers okay and I sat down and you know the pate I looked at the paper and you just go oh great oh great I passed I know these and I wrote the answers out and I went and telephone and I said mama got the criminology pay and I passed and that means I got my degree and she said you remember the greeny brown socks that you took back at the so that's you know it was greeny brown sock this was the sort of way in which we related I don't think she ever quite got what I was saying Python was a total mystery to quite liked I'm sorry I read it again but of course she did famously she did the radio advert for love Brian didn't yes do you remember the last time I talked to you in the 70s we talked about is it wonderful oh it was wonderful that's right I wrote these these with everyone did when Michael Palin had his dentist do and I did one with mother say and what did she say she said she said this is John trees his mother and I'm in a home in weston-super-mare and my son's got a movie coming out called life at Briar and if it's not a success you know he won't be able to afford to keep me in the home and I don't and then she laughed at the air which was rubbish and we kept the last and she won you won't believe this she won the EDA the data award and came up to the Dorchester Hotel in winter she received it in front of 800 advertising ever standing reception from Lord snow but what about when and this it on all this grant what did did sex bear part it's all in your life for me and as a young teenager I mean well you have to be joking we're talking about weston-super-mare well I was in the second line of micro I mean was it available I mean was it did you know about I get to this I was about I mean I'm I was such a late starter Saint why's that I'm embarrassed by it I will write down on a piece of paper how old it was anyway it was in the station hotel Auckland New Zealand how old weird I broke my duck I think I'm not only proud of you what happened some newspaper found out and when didn't when didn't took a a photograph of this building you know and it was like the building was very very embarrassing I was trying to catch up it was alright so in spite of mom and dad and and spite of passing examinations at the university yeah in fact you ended up in in in show biz I mean while you're at the university you went to fertilize again nor strange again anybody I mean I'm I think I'm right in saying that that when you got there you're attracted to the notion of these people who do a foot nice but well I wasn't I wasn't you and it's just a bad thing I mean I went up to the footlights tour my first term where this is all the societies we have pot holders you know what I mean and the gliders and the people who want to play cards they all have a little store and I went up and I said I'm sort of interested and they said oh are you good do you sing see I mean I was in a Broadway musical and I had to mine that's how good then they said well doesn't matter do you dance what are you doing I said well I went bright red I started trying to make people love and I just ran away and I didn't go anywhere near the footlights for two terms and then my oldest friend who knew someone in the footlights was invited to go along and the two of us did something together and then it kind of happened and I liked the footlights because they were the most interesting bunch of beers I came across it came to wide variety of all the subjects they were studying variety of class but it would just fun people yes let's move on to the story because you did the frost report you know that and then I was thinking of that today cuz I have to say cuz I know you I I thought why am I not feeling any nerves I thought am i dead you know no I'm not because I remember 35 years ago in this building in 1966 I started doing television with dear Ronnie and Ronnie and David and great bunch but I was so scared we used to do live shows at 8:30 to 14 million people and I remember how scared I used to get I remember I used to go and have a pee about 6 times before the show and I remember standing there once thinking if I was going into the arena with a bull I couldn't be any more frightened than I am was extraordinary you know the fear this and when I got my first sketch done I was so happy that I got through it I totally forgot I was in the next sketch never turned out for it it was like dear Bernard Thompson excuse me and then then Python of course and that was the start of it all wasn't it I mean yeah music store never know you look back at the I mean had you any idea when you started out on that that you're good to change comedy oh we knew we wanted to do something different but I always remember excuse me saying to Michael when we were in the changing rooms I was kind of changing like a minute dressed to get my complaint I said I remember saying to him just before we recorded the first show do you realize we could be the first people in history to do a whole comedy show to complete silence and he said I was thinking exactly the same and then we went out we heard Jonesy and Chapman doing a the first sketch and ever so slowly people started to giggle yeah and I saw looked at marquetry thought well maybe we were all right I became a monster and in a sense I mean the spin-offs from it the cult surrounding it and to this to this very dear as well it existed yeah I kind of understand it because we all felt the same about The Goon Show I mean I used to listen to the gun show in the 50s as a 16 year old I used to listen the first program in two days later I'd listen to the repeat with my head against the radio so that I could pick up the four jokes that the audience last had drowned out yes so I understood the enthusiasm and I think it's something to do with the fact we were saying to a lot of younger people don't take it all so seriously you know what I mean it's all fairly crazy and you know that when you're a teenager and they kind of forget it as you get into your 20s then as you get older you remember oh yes the whole place is a madhouse many sir and we often notice that the people who like Tyson best we're either people who are sort of under 22 or 23 or people who are actually over 65 it was necessarily let's have a look goodness me reminded IC of thee of the team at work there and this is a clip not from PI through supper from the movie you made the the life of oh you like the life of brandy that's my favorite why is it your favorite I think it's the best and also we were making jokes about kind of important subjects you know I mean it's best when jokes are usually about something important some of the matters something matters yeah okay well let's this this Emma look it to be romantic [Applause] the lies the lies that get me now the little ones I've forgotten like when they first throw us a stone at Dear John young and he says what we haven't started it's very funny and very silly made people terribly cross and you know they were all protesting outside the New York cinema oh and they're all the established churches are the Lutheran's the the Catholics - lots of the Jewish faith and so my Calvinists I think we're all condemned and Eric Idle said well at least we brought them together for the first time if you abandon boxing and it's interesting watching that and what are your reaction to it I mean I'm great enjoy the but I know the things that you don't like being reminded of from that time for instance one of the great standout sketches of all time was it was a minister facili walks and I know you didn't know I really didn't and when it when I did for the television I spent a lot of time you know my little flat in Basel Street you know I lived in bath well there's a girl with and I was working out all the steps and then we did it it went quite well and then suddenly everyone was raving on about it that we it's a good piece of material well it's not bad for Mike and Terry anyways let's put it like that and I quite I quite was puzzled by it but then when we were doing the stage show which was god knows what I mean there 30 years ago we they wanted to put it in I said I thought is that good and when we did it in Southampton the first night of the tour the British art it laid a total egg and then I was doing all this stuff might they say how embarrassing does it get I mean there wasn't a snigger and I came off into the wings and I said right that's out I've not been good and it's all give it one more so it didn't work didn't it work well no but give it one one so I did it the next night at Brighton and it was a riot what about the dead parents case another one that people can call a word for well then we were it was funny when we had to do them wouldn't have to with me they chose to ask us to do the dead parrot show again and you sketch again in New York when Michael and I were doing publicity for fierce creatures were on Saturday Night Live so we went out to dinner nights before we're sitting in this steak house and we couldn't remember their lines and I said to Mike I wish we just go out and stop someone on they all know yes because when we were doing it I remember when we were doing it a Drury Lane Michaels very naughty onstage and unfortunately always breaks me up you see so he said something silly I think I said something like he says I don't know I don't have a replacement parrot I've got a slug you know and I say does it talk and he's supposed to say not much and he said it matters a bit and I broke up and by the time I got back I got my laughs under control straightened up sort of turned back to the audience again I totally forgotten where we were in the sketch I had no idea and I was very relaxed that night and I said to the audience what's the next line that's it and 40 of them shouted it out what is the point of telling surrounding people quoting huge chunks chunks of it what was the dynamic of that team working together because I know that young particular form is for Michael Payne you said that oh yeah Michael I've always got on we're kind of sort of natural pals when you did Desert Island Discs you up for your luxury you chose Michael Palin hmm to take to it and Sue Louis - Louis said stuffed and you said if necessary what about what about the get go Matt the dynamic of it what about the the problem there must have been two of working with Grant Chapman I mean no I liked him a nice man who didn't like where they except there's an alcoholic of course yes it did it affect the process yes because the first series he wasn't he wasn't a drinker and it all happened very very very fast indeed I can still remember we were shooting the first Python movie and we couldn't find a script and Graham wasn't in the caravan and Michael said Oh Graham's got a spirit an open up this little suitcase that the Graham carried with him everywhere opened it up and I saw my Coco you like that I said what and he looked as look at this bottle of vodka which was half-empty and he said that was full this morning and this was about hoppers 10 so that's when we knew Graham was was in trouble but we were awful cowards we never confronted each other on anything yes and I mean michael has a wonderful story which he told it to grams memorial service which was a glorious event full of people crying and then Roy was laughing cry he was just like those things should be and he told this wonderful story but he would go and pick Graham up every morning take him from Houston it's rehearsal but Graham was always late and you know he was gay yes and I had a grand stable of companions so um Michael would come and impress the bird and the nothing would happen for a bit and then window would go up upstairs and a nice-looking Chinese boy would a nice-looking Nigerian nice-looking Indonesian boy we look at finally Graham would appear Zulu Mikey all be doing the movement and then Michael would sit there and read the paper and 25 minutes later Graham would come down and get in the car never a word of apology Michael would never say why and drive off again another memorial service Michael said and I like to feel that that Graham who died four weeks ago today is actually with us here this afternoon or rather he will be at about well he was a sweet guy and he be drinking eventually he fell over and gashed his head on a Fender just the Christmas of 87 just before we made life of brian if I got my years wrong at 77 before he made life abroad and he totally snapped out of it a little help and he was amazing and what was so extraordinary is a fter that he was fitter than we were he was unbelievably sick because he was a doctor and he knew what to eat and what not to eat he once came to a BBC Christmas party here lighted his team in fire and Bill cotton was in charge and Bill was looking over my shoulder and he froze and I thought what's happened and I turn around the grammar come in wearing high-heels a frock kanga hamburger smoking his part Mama's little dough [ __ ] with its total shop about five days great there would captive parties cocktail parties like that and would crawl around on all fours nibbling people's ankles when he when he went to receive an award want some bar for the team I can't remember I think there's a Sun newspaper games no walk and and grandmother Reginald Lord Lee who is charged Luke's checker was God knows what she bought that was doing presenting of awards anyway Graham got quite near Reggie bought and then just started to screaming and just screamed and screamed and it's backing away from it up and just grabbed it and ran off and he went to speak at the Oxford Union on some very serious subject he went dressed as a carrot he just wore this carrot costume which was totally orange and went all the way up to the top and then the resist until spring and food when it was his turn speed he got up and all right when you were there with these people and was there was there a sense then he watched the branch out by yourself was that the reason that you wanted out it you thought no I wasn't go to go solo it's it's better that way no it was I I I felt we weren't moving on right and when we go to the third series I wasn't crazy about doing the third series because I felt we were already repeating ourselves and when people wrote sketches I would think to myself well that's this from the first series and a bit of that from the second and then a bit from that from the second and in the whole of the third series I think gray and I only wrote two things which were the highwayman and the cheese shop which were actually original and everything else was riveted and I was a bit of me almost a purist bit that felt what's the point of doing this comedy if you're now repeating it so and I kept saying it to the others and in my own defense I say they didn't really hear me I don't think they wanted to hear me and they thought I was not meaning it or I was striking some attitude so when I eventually said to them I didn't want to do it they were kind of really quite surprised yes and then of course you would discover Buzzle I was awful - yes I had a lunch with Jimmy Gilbert and he said what do you want to do and I said I'd like to write something with Connie and he said fine write a pilot this man have been lurking in your the back of the oven yeah but I didn't know it because I sat that with Connie and we said well what are we going to do we can't do that sort of clever man woman's stuff that Mike Nichols and Elaine May used to do because John Bird and John fortune-teller Anna Branagh done it so what should we do we looked at each other and said well the hotel we stayed at and talkie yeah okay let me just start it we knew it was there the man you immortalized there was a real did he ever live to see what you did - yes she did it because I'm afraid the Daily Mail I once mentioned his name and they tracked the poor so-and-so down in Miami and they showed him his family the program and the daughter said yes that's better did you have to alter it much from from the original yes it was all there buzzer was there he was he was the rudest man I've ever come across in my life and it was all it was as though you know this hotel would run really well if we weren't constantly bothered by these guests we get rid of the guests the whole hotel business and I I don't know there were so many stories but I just remember that we were having dinner early on because the hall the Pythons were staying there and then they decided to leave because they couldn't put up with it for some reason I stayed on and Connie came and joined me which is how we actually kind of observed them but at dinner terry gilliam being cleaning of the american persuasion was doing what Americans do he cuts up meat like that and then they put the knife there take the fork in the right hand and they spear the meat and mr. Sinclair I was walking walking by trying to avoid people's eye and look lofty and he's doing he said we don't eat like that in this country so astounding you know and then what everything was too much trouble you know I came down the stairs and he was one of those people who stare into space the nobody saw a guest coming he's busy and so you come up to the desk and just stand there for a bit and eventually you'd say excuse me sir Oh what did you call me a taxi individual battle in this wonderful sequence from my mother they they show you they called psychiatrist this is one of my favorite sequences that's the less focus there was anything wrong with that was now that was good that was energy if they've had they had a lot of it it's very funny script to start with it was a situation but that the team was yeah and they were wonderful I mean Bella Barkley who was not with us anymore there's a wonderful wonderful act yes it's perfect it stands the test of time you see I think he does at the moment they all they all date eventually do you think so oh yeah I do what about the the plot lines for fuller Fawlty Towers I mean the kid burn the corpse and that sort of thing where do you get that kind of inspiration from we used to ask people and I had a friend called Andrew Lehman who who'd worked in the restaurant business and I knew he'd worked at the Savoy and I said Andrew what was the what was the worst problem you you had at the Savoy and he said getting rid of the stiffs and your heart leaps with joy because he's just given you a 30-minute episode with one comment and I said well what happened he said well the trouble was you know trying to get them into the service lift before any of the guests absolutely and I'm afraid they buddy told me was a lot of elderly folks who didn't have any relations left would go into the Savoy Hotel and take a few pills and not wake up in the morning because they knew that the Savoy would handle it beautiful no you I mean after after you did Fawlty Towers I suppose you looked around for a different branch of different change of direction well I thought I can't spend the next 25 years entirely doing interviews about it so you made a blockbuster movie I mean they eventually but a long time seven years later or something yeah fiscal wonderful one yeah I mean then and that of course that again in that you perfected this this repressed Englishman into this this guy who comes up against the the American culture if you watch is still very different there's something that's interested you isn't it for a long time I'll tell you what it was it was a very strange thing and I've been you know I'm not believing all this you know early experienced of or at least I believe it was some extent I think you'd get wildly exaggerated but I had an odd experience when I was at Clifton I was in the cricket team when we were playing at Lord's right at the end of the year when we were all saying goodbye in the dressing room at the end of the match there was an American there a store owner is named Jim Wickenden and I'd liked you and always got on well with him and I said well I said I said you might know something we may not ever see each other again and he just gave me a hug it's funny I feel touched by it and at that moment I thought this is a better way this is a better way than all that English distance and inhibition is that because I mean the word was the no physical contact in your family oh no my fat mice a little my father had a little but my mother didn't want me to kiss her because it spread germs that was and you know it Kristin if you put your arm around someone he was obviously you were homosexual you were taken off to be flogged yes so there was the thing about homosexuality it was worse than anything you know you could burn down a building with 30 people and it was kind of high spirits but you know homosexuality I mean forget I mean this is the end of the world this is a ninth circle of hell this is the all it counts that line in the fish go wander about we're embarrassed all the time that's well we're dead let's try associate you say I don't know if I say this in in the film but I've often said that a nice middle-class person their main ambition in life is to get safely into their grave without ever having been embarrassed you know and if you get it through life if you've never been embarrassed got accomplished that's right and really a compass no physical wonder which we talked about that this this film it made a lot of money I mean it may be as huge successful and and you you did a new teen in it yes well the easiest way to get people into the cinema that's right cynical ploy all right well let's have a look at the cynical ploy then we got a physical one talk look old Archie yeah are you rich no no I'm afraid not what about the house well that's windows she's the rich one you see low bowlegged acne a solution she's lovable you do [ __ ] me pan yeah yeah spare tire priests over there they do she cut bulimia scutage so mainly italico monitor people watch it sir talk [Laughter] what the hell are you doing I might ask you the same question who are you what get your clothes off will you leave immediately please what you're in the wrong flat this flat belongs to Patrick Balfour he's in Hong Kong and he lent me the key now get out who we leased it from the agents last weekend yes well obviously that changes things bit aren't you Archie leach you bought our house in listen to darkness hazel and angels what a coincidence how nice to see you [Music] it's funny sometimes tracing where that came from but my oldest friend told me a story that I base that on he'd know to family who had a flat in London and they very seldom used it they lived down in Surrey on some when they gave him a key and they sit down at any time you want to use the flat you know I did do and he some of us really nice the six months later he was getting some black icing on Park Lane and he thought I used their flat so he went in and he you had got an evening dress and then went to the event that he came back afterwards poured himself a drink having a bath and he heard somebody come in and he shouted it's only me and then there was a pause and somebody said who is it and he said it's Alan and they said Alan who Alan Hutchison and there was this pause and it turned out that the people who've given him the kids over flat so much so much of the funny stuff is based on Milly a totally it is yes is there banana skin joke I mean that's that's the humiliation of the guy walking to us in the suit on and Opie goes in the end all dignity Connie and I were writing forty times and we think what we do to basil next and then we would laugh and then we would ache thought it you see oh poor man I mean as comedy have you found it fulfilling in the sense as you go through life of me have you found it a proper job in the sense oh yes though the wonderful moment is on stage when people are laughing because the trouble about television you make a television show and you kind of think it goes out you go mmm and then nothing friend calls and you say did you did you see the pipes and us oh and I forgot you know yes and then about four days later someone in the capsule oh yeah I saw it well yeah it was alright last week yeah it was quite good news and there's this strange you sending messages out of the universe and littles coming back the wonderful thing obviously about doing something live is when you see them laugh it's it's a tremendous feeling but I ask you the question because you know several people have observed and you must be aware of it that the since you got involved in all the silver science a cartoon Robin Skinner and your deed your wife and the books that you wrote the best-selling books about self-help books but but that somehow you've you've seemed to try to deny that that comedy that you become in a sense when you when you are that person boring rather than it's just a funny man I've my best quality is my curiousness I've always been very curious about the world and the fact is that when you're doing comedy you don't learn anything how do you mean you learn anything you just do it it's a skill I think it's like dear old Steve Davis you know you're a wonderful snooker player and every day you go out and you know you do your art you do your skill but the end of it what have you learn that's new that you didn't know that morning if I learned something new I actually go to bed happy that's kind of my my criteria for days if I've learned something I didn't know I understood something I didn't know and the trouble with with with comedy and with the Python I felt you it was a sausage machine into one show and next week we do another show next weekend so it there wasn't enough variety to us therefore would this latest project that you're doing the human face that would satisfy your curiosity would oh yes I mean that's been the research side of that was fascinating the great thing is I met I met the world expert on lying who's becoming a friend a guy no the guy knows more about beauty and the sort of scientific measurement of beauty which sounds astounding but he's actually shown that it all goes back to a proportion that the ancient Greeks knew about Pythagoras knew about and a Florentine mathematician called Leonardo but not the Leonardo we know as Fibonacci worked out what it is numerically 1/2 1.618 and the extraordinary thing is for example that if you are beautifully proportioned then the distance at the top of your head to your navel is 1.618 if you multiply that by one point six one day it's the same as the distance for your navel to you feet which is very weird and that's the same for the proportions of the joints two fingers and it's also for example than that distance your mouth one point six one and one point six money multiply that by it's that way it's extraordinary you can faster it's in the it's in the shells of snails and I was telling this to an editor and the editor said well don't you realize that it's the proportions of a frame of film I said what he said it's 121.6 so this proportion is out there and this guy has constructed a kind of grid based on triangles and Pentagon's that are all 1.618 and you put that on a beautiful face like Elizabeth Hurley we do it and it fits it perfectly and the face can be very very different and from different cultures and yet these proportions seem to be somehow in all cultures yeah in author I see it's extraordinary and this guy's become a friend so that's exciting but what about all those observation that that by the age of 40 we all get the face we deserve yeah I mean I'm afraid of trees too well for the obvious question to fall out that of course is is and therefore can you tell personality from a face yes with all the people I think okay what I what I learned from this series is that you really can't tell anything like as much about a person from their face as you think when they young for example if you find a guy and you put up his face and you and it's a face with the eyes close together people will all agree that you can't trust it there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that people whose eyes are close together or untrust with yet we all agree they are you see what I mean is this sort of massive delusion but as you get older and this is how we finish the beauty program we look at faces and we say you know if you're a miserable sob you go you're gonna finish up looking like that and yet if you got the laugh lines and the you know then you can say it's that somebody who's getting their life right I kind of like them so I think from from forty on you can begin to get real evidence about and do beautiful people have a better time than me and you the beginning they were at the beginning but I asked Candice Bergen she said her dad had told her when she was very young she said careful about being beautiful beautiful people kill themselves much more than people who argue and she said well thanks for the warning dead but there's a lot of downsides to beauty and my wife's terribly good on this is she says if you're very good looking so much stuff comes to you without you ever having to work for it that you don't learn to develop the other parts of your personality and the danger then is of course when you start looking at losing your looks you really panic because there's nothing to fall back there whereas people you know who've developed other parts themselves we get getting old business isn't secure such as something yeah alright now the fourth program are the last in the series we had one so far this week that's Fame it's a it's a very interesting program yeah yeah because what all problems involve you but but you you you approach it from the mom part your oh that's you toward toward face yes this is very interesting similarly touched upon in our talk but now let's look at this trip from from it's a lovely clip this they did kind of sums have all been talking about let's a look this is the clip from Fame fourth in the series seriously what do you think of a black church they're nice the berries are nice yeah we know you live my no no the hands are working just you see that's the kind of recognition I enlarge and I think everyone does because it makes you feel part of the community you know to those guys I'm just the manners live around the corner four years new apparently is sometimes on the television which is great because it feels natural and they they know me a bit so it's real whereas this business are getting recognized from the television I mean they don't so oh yeah honey a bit [Applause] wanted to do that a long time tempted yes it's a terrible thing because I am sort of well mannered but there are times where people come up and start talking about their favourite Python sketch or something and I just think I could just pick that blood wash up first but I mean it's it's something you're not gonna get rid of is it oh no not in this case but in America it's it's quite different it slightly slightly liberating because for some reason the Americans just see me as a guy has done these various things and Fawlty Towers is amongst them but I'm not particularly identified with it in fact I'm probably more identified with Pythian and oddly enough even possibly with the books I wrote with Robin so so it's like they accept me you know for the various things I do rather than just seeing me there's one facet you made the point in that in that program that's the problem with fame is you can't get rid of it you can't give it away no you can't switch it off you guys that's the problem what would why would you want to because at the beginning is terrific yes you know at the beginning you get recognized you feel wonderful your little ego swells up and you feel all warm and happy look at New Zealand then then you kind of begin to get used to it and then there's a certain point when you begin to find that the negative I mean you know it's not nice to wake up in the morning and have your secretary Cory week be care for the paparazzi sitting in the car outside with long lenses you know it's not nice it really isn't nice at all and people often think oh you could shrug that off but I promise you I don't know anyone who can it's an uncomfortable feeling and it also means that you get stared at a lot and and after time after time the good side of that begins to fade away and it just becomes something that interferes with this is going to sound pompous but interferes with living a sort of authentic life you see what I mean yes because to some extent we're always putting on some kind of face I mean you and I'm more relaxed in front of camera right now but we're always projecting some kind of face when were in public and that face can become kind of permanent as I think it sometimes becomes with politicians and to the point where you don't really believe there's anything much left behind the face yes and I think it's terribly terribly important I mean if I go out and do a publicity tour I genuinely feel after four weeks that I'm a bit more fake than I usually am because I'm kind of projecting an image and selling something and trying to manipulate the conversation in a positive direction so what about the bit behind you that's more authentic well if you don't get away and get rid of the public face and go back into the authentic bit now and again I think you can lose it yes I think public figures do and it leads of course to this exploitation doesn't it - is there something you define in that program has being celebrity pond life I mean then knows enough of celebrities quite extraordinary saying that program is if somebody was famous in let's say 1850 was the Duke of Wellington because he'd actually commanded the armies for a bit Florence Nightingale that those are the people who are famous or Brunel that have been built it for a few bridges but now if you play third lead in a sitcom me of famous I mean and the trouble is people I think we do look for guidance from heroes and and and the trouble now is that the heroes don't know anything if you're gonna sat down with the Duke of Wellington you could learn something really quite interesting from that guy Oh Florence Nightingale but you sit down with an actor from a sitcom we expect to learn and yet because people are staring at them we think that they have to know something that we don't know and it isn't true now when you look back on that that journey you made from from Western super Mare this fifth columnist from the middle class of this subversive performer from western super I mean is it true they all saying that you can take the bar to Western but you can't take Western out the boy is it still true oh yes it is oh yeah I'm just a little small-town guy doesn't like having debts and doesn't like wasting food and I think we most of us are just waiting to be found out you know particularly for artists because you never know if you can do it tomorrow the wonderful story about money money when he was 8 he was going out to paint his hand used to shake every day and somebody said why is your hand shake in the morning and not later on wondering if it was to do with booze and he said well I don't know if I can do it each morning you know if somebody like Claude Monet doesn't know if you can do it none of us ever know if we can do it so what kind of what kind of we don't really believe with that good because we know it can fall apart at any time and and are you going to grow old disgracefully yes as fan I decided when we get to 85 as to hell with it it's gonna be drugs a lot of cream yeah I mean just perhaps you might go to New Zealand again ah I celebrate station I'm gonna go there make a pilgrimage it goes here but and finally what what of the future what you're looking at what's the next step are we gonna make more movies or no I love doing movies when they're short and sweet I mean because they do work 12 14 hour days now and that's not grind you do three weeks of that and they want you to do a close-up a dated clock you're not doing work that you're very proud of I find but I'm just kind of always been curious about my best quality I've always been curious about why why we're here and I actually think there may be some lovely something you know some reason we're here and that's what really interests me now so I'm just going to hang around and probably become very disillusioned but then I have a little ranch with 50 animals on it horses Birds chinchillas rats alpacas goats and that's a pretty nice place to spend my time and they don't know you as Basil Fawlty doing no no although I tell you something you won't believe this you really won't believe this I have a Mexican working for me promise Manuel don't please thank you very chatty judge me [Music] [Music] Oh [Music] by thanks to John please on next week's show my guests are Hollywood superstar Kevin Costner and tomb a renowned for their ability to make us laugh Lee Evans and Martin Clunes plus music from the splendid Texas that's next week join us then until then from all of us here a very good night good night [Applause] [Applause] but off to the Big Brother house next hour on BBC one all in the name of comic relief [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause]

Channel: ppotter

Views: 598,494

Rating: 4.8015447 out of 5

Keywords: john cleese, parkinson, michael parkinson, interview, comedy, 2001, monty python, life of brian, holy grail, fawlty towers

Id: e7LFQpHKgpI

Length: 50min 49sec (3049 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 10 2017