Stephen Fry and Sharon Stone on Parkinson (2006)

[Music] how do you picture it doctor oh I know you can't answer me so just think it do you want it straight up you want top me on top do you want to beat me up just a little not too hard oh a little harder than [Music] that I guess we're out of time for [Music] today I'm terminating therapy send me the bill ladies and gentlemen Sharon [Applause] [Music] Stone looking incredibly beautiful well thank you how about for an old bird what's be made of the fact is you're 48 and still as glamorous as ever well thank you and you see in in the film you you made the statement that uh the way you look in the film the way you perform in the film that there a kind of statement about older women can be sexy well you know I think in the the times when I really love movies the best in the' 40s those women really didn't just pet her out they went on you know those great girls that we were talking about Betty Davis and Ava Gardner and Rita Hayworth those girls were glamorous and fabulous and they didn't say oh you know I think it's uh 5:00 I'll just crap out now well let's talk about about your film about the about basic instincts too I suppose given the kind of feror that surrounded the first movie the question was how do you follow that well I hope we followed it well I hope it's good and I hope it's fun I know that um I gave a screening for family and friends and when the movie was over I went to the ladies room and no one would come with me they were scared of me I came back and everyone was just staring at me this kind of appalled look like that's not her you made this in love London of course you've shifted the scene why why was that well we had we were given a series of choices of where we could make the the film for tax purposes uh location purposes what would be plausible for the story and I think we all unanimously chose London because it's so gorgeous because there's so many talented people here and because if we worked here we would be able to use an array of talented people from all over Europe so it was really just everyone's first Choice what's interesting is you haven't gone with the picture postcard oldie worldy England at all youve shot a lot of the new New London yeah because it's gorgeous as the architecture is just fabulous well come to that point actually it's a very sexy movie do you realize you pick the biggest fallace in Britain as as David Morris's office Oh I thought you meant you not me I could get that way I should explain the audience and you've not seen the movie that that that D Morris's office he play a CES it's in the girkin yes yeah yes which is I mean if it's nothing it's a rampant fic symbol isn't it it's wonderful I just wondered if that was in the thinking of the well I'm sure they want to think that my character Katherine trell just makes even the buildings you and also David David morrisy too now you had the love say you who was cast opposite and you chose David Morris yes we did you know we tested Five Guys who were all fantastic every one of them was amazing but David came in the room and he was just so clever and witty and of course I mean you know him here as he's such a super Talent the guy can do anything he sings he dances he plays a 60-year-old a 30-year-old anything he's just the most diverse and interesting guy you can't play a sex scene can you or a romantic scene with some you don't like have you ever done that oh yeah I mean you I try to have a certain you love for everybody that and acceptance for everybody that I work with but you don't like everybody all the time I mean 40 movies later everybody that you go to work with you don't think gee they're just fantastic you know it's life you think some people are the most talented wonderful actors that ever walk the face of the Earth and you think some people yeah it's about that time of day and what about I mean famously in in the in the first Basic Instinct I mean appear new in that film uh and in this film too um the difference is that you're 48 now 48 year old women aren't supposed to take their clothes off in in public not according to Hollywood I'm only I didn't say that I I hasten to add it's just Hollywood view of things well I have to say I we were talking about this this morning I think that you know there's sometimes you see a movie it's supposed to be some big free-spirited movie and then the woman has the sheet taped across here and she gets up from the bed and the sheet kind of comes with her I'm like what you know at home that's not what happens to me the sheet doesn't just come to the thing across the room and I think that that's so bizarre too you know it it just depends on the film and what's really appropriate to the scene and I think we are all really have been taught so much fear and shame about nudity and it I think you can't be obsessed either way you can't be obsessed to drag the sheet around with you and you can't be obsessed like oh my God she's nude oh my God she's nude I think we need to relax a little bit it's like if it's right for the scene great and if it isn't right for the scene then keep your clothes on have you always been very very single-minded about about yourself about your career no I think there were times in my life when I thought I was supposed to do exactly what other people told me and be a really good person and a good girl and follow the rules and try to do just what they said and I was a complete and utter failure and I think many times in our life when we try to be good we absolutely miss the possibility of being great because we're so busy trying to please other people's agendas that we never figure out what's right for us and once I finally got past that I was able to let go and was it was it something that happened that got you past that there were many things that happened but I think the best thing that happened is that I met my teacher who was just a phenomenal person who taught me my craft as an actor and who taught me very much about life and being true to myself and and really being true to my own ethical Spirit but but when you were a child growing up were you did you want to be famous what did you want to be did you dream I mean you came from a very ordinary background in Pennsylvania didn't you I mean there was nothing special about the background the tool well it was ordinary and extraordinary in the fact that I had very extraordinarily um um supportive and ethical parents well that's the best out of all and I think that that's is extraordinary and I think that when you have this kind of um background of people who allow you to be who you are uniquely and teach you that the best thing that you can do is tell the truth in any circumstance and that you won't get in trouble if you tell the truth and that you have to follow who you really are and be an individual that that really is extraordinary again I mean looking at your life you had this extraordinary thing um happened to you where you had a stroke yeah this was what 3 years ago now two years ago it's been uh almost four years ago four years now is it and again I mean that in a young woman like I mean to anybody it's awful very rare um I mean how did you get through that I mean what happened well I was at home um and I'd been having a very stressful uh time I was in a stressful period I was having a stressful day I remember walking across the hall into my television room and I suddenly just felt very uh strange and then and I felt kind of dizzy and as I started to turn around to to move towards the sofa I had this strange feeling in the side of my head almost like I'd been shot the impact was so intense and it just hit me like this and I it hit me so hard that it knocked me over and I fell over as I was starting to try to sit down on the sofa and I just it I fell over completely over on my side and I don't know if I lost Consciousness at all or or not but the next thing I remember I was laying there and I realized that I thought that I'd had a stroke and I um I I pulled the phone towards me and I tried to call someone for help and um I just laid there and I didn't know what to do and I laid there throughout the night you think you're dying oh yeah oh yeah I really thought that I was going to die and then by the next day I felt a little bit better I was in an extraordinary amount of pain but i' lost reasonable thought and behavior but was about a week after we had the 9/11 event of the Plains into the Twin Towers and so everybody was kind of Looney and loopy and so my behavior wasn't nobody was really noticing me and and I was just feeling terrible and this went on for for several days until um I was just in agony and and I was upstairs and I was on the floor and I was I called my best friend and I was just in Scream screaming in pain I was just in terrible pain and my husband walked into the room and my I was trying to talk to my best friend on the phone and my best friend said you have got to take her to the hospital and he looked at me on the floor and realized I was just a mess and um he called the hospital and how long did it take you to recover from that fully I would say to full full where I felt pretty much really okay again it took a year and that would pull you up short that would make you reassess things would yeah it really really was unbelievable it was a horrifying experience Yeah silic question maybe but does it made you less or more frightened of dying oh much less frightened of dying really yeah because I really when I was in the hospital I I had an MRI and I came out of the tube and the doctor came over and told me that I was having a brain hemorrhage and I I made a couple calls to my mom and stuff so they could come and then I had this very strange experience where I kind of I kind of took off and um I had this very very intense experience and I lost Consciousness for a period of time I was transferred to another hospital but during that time I had a very deep spiritual experience that lets me know that it's okay I feel very close in my faith now I feel very close to God and I feel that I got to live for a reason for purpose and you know I have these amazing children I feel incredibly blessed but I don't feel afraid and I don't know if it's because I feel that I walk very close close in my faith or if it's because I feel that I became so walk so close to death and felt so peaceful with it puts making movies into perspective doesn't it oh it does it really does well good that you're back good that you're you're fitting well again you all success with might you make Basic Instinct three you think men me probably only if we make it in a retirement home sh still thank you very much indeed after a break talk from Steven fry we'll see you guest ladies and gentlemen Steven fry CH oh I'm nice to be here I'd lovely to see you well you know it's extraordinary because I am also 48y old I'm also glamorous fabulous sexy and I'll be not to take his clothes off in public and de and I have slightly bigger breasts than sh you pretty thank you my nipp my nipples are traveling an inch South every year down here now they used to be up there anyway can someday we have a look maybe not today but but later on maybe maybe yeah all right now listen let me talk to you about this talk show H you were a cheek haven't you did you any research on it did you I did a lot of research yes by watching tape after tape after tape of you naturally um and uh your body language which is very important it is isn't it somewhere between uh a long-haired uncouth London talk show host yes and a 300y old Barnsley Chat Show there is there is the space in which to create another character which is what I did which what you did took bits of both did you enjoy the part I loved it actually most of the parts I play with a few lucky exceptions are well let's imagine you get a script from your agent and it says look at the part of snuggin the Butler and and you look at the script and snuggin had some very amusing lines can I press Madam to a cream slice or something yes your grace and no Your Grace but he's the same all the way through there's no change he just is snuggin the butler or snuggin even whatever his name maybe sometimes snigg but it's very little leeway the great thing about this character I play is that he's utterly different at the end of the film from the character who was at the beginning and that's that's always enjoyable now U to try make sense of a convoluted plot for me just briefly brief synopsis so I can show this clip well it said in a future Britain it's from a comic strip it's from a famous I think that rather you said graphic novel graphic no graphic novel by great Alan Moore uh British uh graphic novel and it set in the future post viral Apocalypse of some kind uh in which an authoritarian tyrannical government uh comes to power and very little freedom and I play this as you say talk show host who kind of toes the party line or appears to government sponsor yeah government sponsored that's really the point that's right and you meet up with Natalie Portman who has met up with the hero hero goes on the guy Fox mask on all the time that's the chap spouting Shakespeare see if your audience can guess who plays the Mask hero just by looking shall we do that look we haven't got him on oh well in that case forget everything I just said a scene between you and Natalie B bour Melle what is that you're making we call it eggy in the basket my mom used to make them this is weird what the first morning I was with him he made me eggs just like this really I swear that is a strange coincidence although there's an obvious explanation there is yes I I am V at last you know the truth you're stunned I know it's hard to believe isn't it that beneath this wrinkled wellfed exterior there lies a dangerous killing machine with a fetish for foxan masks VI re that is not funny Gordon yeah I know I'm useless without a studio [Applause] audience it's a spectacular conclusion of this film to you brought the House of Commons it was remarkable um we had we had tanks in Parliament Square we had thousands of extras in whiteall uh huge cranes it was it was an extraordinary thing to be right in the center of government how we got permission I don't know and I was puzzling over this with the first assistant director I said how did you get you usually can't get permission to do anything near anywhere near seats of government you know the Secret Service and various other people just don't like it plus civil servants don't like it they're working busily at night ho ho and um and they don't like film Crews there and I said who's that boy is familiar there was a boy in a sort of daylow coat who was one of the assistant assistant assistant Runners I said I'm sure I've seen him before he said yes that's that's you and Blair so that's how we got Daddy Daddy can you please let them have permission to film another Scandal no I'm sure I'm sure I mean London is trying very hard now to actually to to to embrace people isar said it's a great City to film because it really is uh it's like a great sort of layer cake of of of different periods you can shoot Elizabethan things you can shoot the most modern things imaginable how demanding are you as an actor in a movie now well as you know being an actor the most important thing you have to sort out is not what part you're big Wier yeah a big wi or a Wier it's I have simple taste uh my trailer must be larger than anybody else's have Broadband uh two separate Broadband one for television one for computer yeah that's right is extraordinary isn't it absolutely amazing now the the kind of obsession actors have I I did a film with John Travolta he had three trailers it was known as JT Ville JT and and one was huge huge one for him I mean really had I think it had a tennis court I'm not sure but it it was very big and and there was another one for his people his stuff uh and it had all lined up little sort of golf buggies and motorcycles According to which way John wanted to go to actually to the set that day alth I mean it was near the set anyway but it was you know like 400 yards maybe to the actual AC and there was another one which was a sushi kitchen his own Sushi kitchen it's pretty good you ever you you no once you you got a a big pull out one you I really barely get like a I get like a pup tent yeah so I don't believe that at all they how bet you all sorts of things well I I like a sedan chair to the set sedan chair I do with naked men but you know me it's just a nude thing if I get naked things I don't really need big trailers everything with me is naked in sex there's a very sad story about about Alec Guinness who did a film with well he did many of course he what a film he did with Peter cers and I realized that Peter had finally got over the edge when he found Peter cers measuring Alex trailer see just in case his was bigger in which case he would have had a you know boys in the measuring well oh dear this talk about something else that you're doing which is absolutely fascinating which is a documentary you're doing on manic depression yes and if anyone can make that entertaining it's going to be you sir I have some free time do you do you think you are romantic depressive just at the moment you're just I spoke to a well-known producer in Hollywood we filmed in in in Los Angeles and he said contrary to um rumor you don't have to be gay you don't have to be Jewish to get on in Hollywood but by God you've got to be manic depressive it is certainly true an enormous number of Hollywood people are why I don't know why I mean it's whether it's cause or effect I mean whether it turns you into a manic depressive or whether manic depressives are to be serious for a moment well they are attracted to creative jobs and jobs Indeed where you don't necessarily have to go 5 to n it's almost impossible if you're seriously bipolar as the current phrase for manic depression is manic yeah because people think of manic depression uh they hear the word depress and they immediately think it's someone who gets depressed and certainly depression is very serious I mean uh about uh 20% of of uh untreated uh man depressives who who've been hospitalized will commit suicide um and many more will attempt now you you speak from personal experience Ian you start you start off your documentary I think in the theater where you had your your breakdown in a sense I I I I do and I that's right and really when I was 17 I tried to take my life and uh I've been diagnosed with what doctors called cycy which Americans rather splendidly call bipolar light which is not the worst kind of bipolarity by any means I mean I really can't complain I'm not on medication as some are I went to see the great Carrie fiser um who did an interview with her which was extraordinary because I've known her for many years and she's mostly the most bouncy extraordinary maned person it just so happened that she was in a very down phase the point about calling it bipolar is there's the the manic polar when your mood is very elevated you're immensely energ itic you can go for days without sleep you you really feel you're king of the world you often feel very good you feel magnificent uh and the the other pole as it were of bipolar is is the terrible black depression and we caught Carrie on a day when she was really down it was an awful sight I've never seen her like that she was almost physically transformed and it was terribly sad and you realize this is a really an appalling illness mhm but it's also a spectrum because most people will say well look I mean I have up days and I have down days does that make manic depressive am I buy Polar can I get health insurance and days off work by claiming well no you know there is an obvious moment when someone is sick um for instance I saw a wonderful man um who served on the Royal y brania for many years and had a very senior Naval um uh position and he developed the most appalling conditions pretty terrible psychosis of of in his Mania and terrible depression and and he was hospitalized and and his depression got got so bad that he went out in the street and and threw in front of a lorry and um he smashed his legs to Pieces amazingly survived I mean the bones sticking out everywhere I said to him the pain must have been unbelievable he said God it was that's why I tried to kill myself I said no I mean the the pain of your legs he said the pain of my legs was nothing compared to the pain inside that gives you some idea of what that depression can mean but the other extraordinary thing is that to almost all of them I've given this question I've said here's a button if you press the button you can take away your bipolarity your manic depression and you would never have had it do you want to press the button and only two of I think about 30 people I spoke to said they would want to press the button why would they not want to get into because there's something about the elevation of mania which is like a your your your body giving you its own drugs which is so exciting you feel such a king of the world or queen of the world you're so excited by it and you feel creative that somehow it's a part of you and and some are prepared to put up with the depression I think you also discovered too did you not that an awful lot of military men of leaders actually um suffer from man I mean Churchill famously of course the black dog that absolutely and there's been the recent story of the Statue with him in a straight jacket which has upset some people for I suppose obvious reasons yes he he um he had do you know how he how he would often sort out his black dog his black dog was what he called his depression it was like black dog he would go and talk to pigs he would go to J jwell and just sit for a while in the company of a pig and someone said to him said why pigs he said well he said cats look down on you dogs look up at you but a pig a pig regards you as an equal just really pleasing very pleasing I anyway a military man too yes Alexander the Great and people like that Alexander the Great certainly General Patton Windgate the the great you know chindit leader he used to address his men in the nude sometimes has it been a journey with nude brackets copyright Sharon St everybody has something indeed that's true has it been in in doing this documentary has it been a kind of a um therapeutic Journey for yourself to some extent I'm rather glad to have been able to talk a little about my own um as they say struggles with mental health which always sounds but also to address essentially what is a very serious matter of stigma it's much easier for me rather as it was 20 years ago to talk quite happily about being gay for me in a in a in a profession where being gay is is pretty easy let's be honest not everyone feels confident about coming out in the same way it's much easier for me to talk about the fact that I have days where I'm really peculiarly Manic and odd and go spending spree and I'm sort of weird and and uncontrollable and when I remember when I first started in television in way back in Granada land and the director used to direct he used to direct Coronation Street he took H Lori aside and said is Steven on drugs you said no that's just how he is I'm afraid you know 600 in the morning I like this and occasionally very bad downsides anyway I can talk about this to some extent because I I feel I'm not going to get fired I'm not going to have people looking at me too oddly um but there are really hundreds of thousands of people out there millions of people in fact who who whose lives are really blighted by the fact that their mood swings are so great um that if they felt a and if they're diagnosed they feel they tell someone they're bipolar and they're on medication some of them that they may lose their job they may have just a lifetime of people looking at them oddly sounds a fascinating subject and that's documented coming out in the Autumn right coming out in the Autumn two program on on the on the gay thing I mean Elton got married and it seems to be all the raage now are you going to get married well I I I I you see oh I'm an oldfashioned sort of fellow at heart but not in that regard some I'd just be so embarrassed I mean at the end of it I despite you know um just as I recently discovered by doing that genealogy show and my Jewish roots and everything I'm still very English and I would just feel I don't know I just feel an ass to be honest well obviously whoops that's not quite what I h

Channel: ticktack1

Views: 76,299

Keywords: Stephen Fry (Author), Sharon Stone (Activist), Michael Parkinson, BBC One (TV Network), Bipolar Disorder (Disease Or Medical Condition), Stroke (Disease Or Medical Condition)

Id: lbW5LspBj78

Length: 28min 28sec (1708 seconds)

Published: Fri May 09 2014