ANDY SERKIS Ran Wild Through Baghdad Souks

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It was Ash's first trip to Fenway Park. Mom and dad met us, and it was just exceptional. We took the train. Ash and I took the train up. We stopped. We picked up his best friend, Huck, and then we got to the city. We checked into a hotel room. I got a room with a sofa bed, pull-out couch. And the plan was the boys. The boys would sleep together in this sort of kick-ass queen bed. Right. Good sheets, good blanket. And then I was in a real janky fold-out couch. That was the plan? That was the plan. I was. Because they really wanted to sleep in the same bed. And I was like, all right, I'll let you sleep in the same bed. And you wouldn't put the two, like, 10-year-old kids in the janky fold-out? I don't know. It felt a little. That's where they're supposed to sleep. Who is the Dickens character? I don't know. It felt like Fagin. It felt like, you know, making an Oliver Twist, like, ask for newborn gruel. The good news is they couldn't. They self-policed, and the first night they were in bed together, the friend came out and was like, can I sleep in here? I don't think we can fall asleep in the same room. Because they were too chatty-cathy? Chatty and kicky and just like. And so I ended up with Ash in the bed. In the proper, like, adult bed. Yeah. Yeah, bed. We went to an aquarium. We went to the New England Aquarium. Mm-hmm. I love an aquarium. Yeah. I love that they exist. Are you? With that said, I don't know what the. I'm doing there. You know, at some point, like, what. How long am I. You know what I mean? Like, you see the coolest fish you've ever seen, and, like, how long can you actually look at it? Well, it depends who you are. But I think that aquariums are designed. All museums are designed sort of with a path. Yeah. There was a beautiful path to this one. You follow that path. You sort of wind up. It's really cool. Yeah. So you do that. I do do that. I just always feel like when I think of, like, we're going to go to the aquarium, that feels like we're going to make a day of it. Oh, I see. Yeah. Reality is it's a 45-minute trip. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a crazy aquarium, you could probably do a couple hours, like. Unless there's a show of some kind, I don't think you can stretch it past 45 minutes. We did. They were. Like, they. We watched. We watched them feed some seals. Yeah. Fast and. First time a seal catches a fish, it's the best thing you've ever seen. Yeah. Then you sort of understand they're pretty good at it. Not as much risk as you thought there was. Classic Seth Meyers. It is classic. And by the way. You were, like, amazing, and then every giraffe after that, nothing. You like to see things for the first time, and then never again. Never again. Yeah. Well, I want to make. I want to trick myself into thinking, like, I saw something special. I'm like. And then a dude reached into a bucket. Took out a fish. Threw it. Seal caught it. Yeah. I can't believe I was there on that day. I didn't realize. Then we went to the North End. Famous Italian-American neighborhood in Boston. Went to a restaurant. Mom and dad met us there. It was great. I will say, we had Huck with us for 24 hours, and I would say the restaurant was, like, hour three, and that was the first time I was, like, hour 24. Can't come fast enough. It got better. Did he order everything off the menu? No, they were just, like, he. I kept. Like, I don't like. Kids that aren't yours? Having to talk to them when they're misbehaving. Like, that. It's, like, an awkward thing. So, I kept having to say at this restaurant, Huck, sit down. Because he kept just, like, standing to, like, just, like, mess with Ash. And I'm like, Huck, honey. Sit down. We're at a restaurant. Then they came up with this plan where they kept saying they needed fresh air, and then I would just look out the window, and they were sort of running up and down the street. And whatever. I don't care. I can run up the street all I want. Get their steps in. Yeah. Very nice. Oh, also. So, you'll enjoy this. They also kept, like, the amount. They were, like, knocking over, like, waters and silverware. Just everything. And I'm just. It was so. And this was before Mom and Dad came. And it was just, like, clank, clank, clonk, clank. Oops. I'm like, sit down. Once you sit down, stuff stops not becoming. And then Mom and Dad sat down, and Dad ordered a beer, and what do you think he did immediately? Oh. They either spilled it on his chest or knocked the whole thing over. Knocked it over on the floor. Like, 10x worse than anything the boys had done. Mom was probably cool about it. Mom sighed so loud that the windows to the restaurant blew open. They thought it was. They kept saying it's a Nor'easter, and I had to say it's not, actually. It's just. It's a withering sigh. It's a withering sigh from her mom. But Dad, you know, again, Dad's never met a stranger. He doesn't want to try to turn into his best friend. There was, like, a couple on what looked like a first date across the table from him, because he spilled so much, like. It was an observable amount of beer on the floor. And the Dad was immediately like, I'm going to tell him you did that. Oh, yeah. And they were like, what? I went like, when they got up to leave, he's like, you got to go tell. I'll go apologize for the mess you made. They're like, huh? Oh, yeah. So that was super fun. And then we went to the Children's Museum. By the way, something positive's coming. Because I know. Good. Yeah. Children's Museum, the reality is, I think 10 years old is too old for a Children's Museum. Okay. But I didn't know, and then you show up, and you're like, oh, my son's the oldest. Good to hear. It's a lot of, like, bubbles. You got to go to the Teenagers Museum. Or just a science museum. I think at, like, 10, you go to a science museum, we're good to go. That was fine. Then we went to the Boston Tea Party Museum. And it was a triple plus. I cannot tell you how great the Boston Tea Party Museum was. Oh, by the way. I talked to Mom and Dad about it, and Dad was glowing about it. Great. By the way, I missed something. This is how busy my day. I fully missed the first thing we did on Saturday morning. We did the duck boat tour of Boston. Oh. Uh-huh. Classic. Classic duck boat. You get on a duck boat. It's a car that then can go into the water. Amphibious vehicle. I told Mom she had 10 questions. She could only ask 10 questions about the duck boat. And then every time she asked one, I would go, quack, quack, to let her know she was down. The amount Mom asked what happened to the wheels in the duck boat, I'm like, I don't know. Like, just don't worry about it. We had a real, we had a real old-school Boston tour narrator on our duck boat. He was wearing a Bobby Orr jersey, but the Orr on the back was spelled O-A-R. Uh-huh. He had a lot of duck, a lot of duck boat puns. The best thing about him, though, was he figured out somebody on the boat had gone to Harvard, and then he just called that guy Harvard. He just called that guy Harvard the rest of the trip, and every time there was a fact before he said it, he would ask that guy if he knew what it was, and when the guy didn't, he'd be like, too bad, Harvard. Now you get a little bit more education for your money. It was great. If you went to Harvard at Boston, your nickname is Harvard. That's a thing. Duck boat was great. Also, Ash, like, felt like he wasn't paying any attention, but I realized he gets a real colonial education at school, because, like, he was just, like, looking out the window, slacking off. And then every now and then, he's like, do you remember, does anybody here know who brought the cannons? Who brought the cannons for the Battle of Bunker Hill? And Ash was like, Henry Knox. I'm like, oh, Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of shocking. He would also, he got every kid to come up and drive the duck boat, and then they would drive it for, like, 30 seconds and be like, all right, scram. I like that. I like that vibe. Yeah, me too. Duck boat was great. But anyway, back to the Tea Party Museum, and again, like, if you're going, by the way, I cannot recommend Boston enough as a destination for a family trip. Tea Party Museum, so good. First, you go into a meeting house, and it's one of those museums where you got young actors just bringing their A-game to reenactment stuff. They hand out little cards so that certain people in the meeting house have to stand up and say something about how mad they are about this tea tax. Then you go out, and there's two boats that are parked there. You go, the kids get to pretend to throw tea overboard. Nobody breaks character. Then you go in to like a little tea party museum. There's a video, like a 15-minute reenactment video about, what is it, the Battle of Lexington conquered? One of those. It was shot around the world. Obviously not remembered around the world, but the shot fired up. Fully teared up. Not the last time I would tear up, Poshy. Fully teared up watching this incredible video about our nation's founding. Just, just exceptional. Then we went to Faneuil Hall for lunch. Yep. You've been to Faneuil Hall. Yeah. Often, probably, often with mom and dad, right? Yeah, we used to go and do like some Christmas shopping or just like it was a good place to go and grab a bite. It was great. It's an incredibly famous food court in Boston. I wanted to check your memory that you had been with mom because I remember being with mom, but mom seemed to have no memory as to how Faneuil Hall worked because we walked in and she's like, are we, now, are we going to have seats? I'm like, seats? What are you talking about? And she's like, oh, I go, what do you want? She goes, a lobster roll, but not if I can't, if we can't sit down. And I'm like, huh? Daddy found us seats for what it's worth. Great. I felt like a bus boy because everybody, nobody wanted anything from the same place. I thought that like, we'd like it, Regina Pizzeria, it's the best pizza. I'm like, everyone pizza, right? She's like, I want sushi. His friend wanted chicken fingers at a place that had the longest line of anywhere in Faneuil Hall. Oh, I mean, you were probably pro chicken fingers. I got my pizza. I stood, I had my plan. Mom got a lobster roll. Dad got something weird. Dad, to his credit, went up and got himself. Yeah. Also, we sit down and mom's like, I'll get a beer. I'm like, what are you, what do you think this is? I would think you could get a beer at Faneuil Hall, but I don't. I don't think you can have a beer. in the main area. I think there's probably a bar there. Yeah. I just, I don't think you get a liquor license for a hall. Yeah, but the times have changed, Sufi. Not enough. And then, oh, also, sorry, this is, I mean, again, you're listening to a Faneuil Trip podcast. We went to the chintziest mini golf place I've ever been. It was like on two floors inside, but that burned like 30 minutes. We went to the Museum of Illusions. That was also right by Faneuil Hall. That's like a thing where like kids stand next to it, like halfway out a mirror. And then if they, if they raise both, if they raise one arm and leg, it looks like they're jumping in the air. Like illusions. Yeah. Again, you just realize. on the title. I just in general was like, I feel like museums oversell how much time you're going to be able to burn at them. Yeah. You went to a lot of museums. I went to a lot of museums. I mean, these are, these are, some of these are, again, Tea Party Museum, I think is 80 minutes and it's, chock full and fantastic. And you're walking from one of these places to the next? We did a lot of walking. We did do a lot of walking. And then, and then Huck's family picked him up and then we went to our first Red Sox game and Red Sox got Tarek Skubald, one of the best pitchers, obviously in baseball. And so the Red Sox lost four to one. But it was really, really special. I mean, I think like a lot of kids go to their first baseball game, Ash was maybe more interested in what he was going to eat. But we did stay, we did stay for the whole game, which was really fun. And yeah, it was just tremendous. The whole thing was tremendous. That's great. And then we went to the Science Museum the next morning. The proper, so Sunday morning, that was the day we were leaving and we got a little bit of a slow start because Ash slept in and I will be honest, I'm going to take back everything I've said about museums. We could have spent five hours at the Boston Science Museum. I remember that as being very engaging, very sort of hands-on. Very engaging. Ash was a little bit like, what? Like, the thing that had not happened yet happened right at the end where he's like, we got to leave the museum. We went to the IMAX. We watched a IMAX, like a 50-minute IMAX movie about the James Webb telescope, about the building of it. Yeah, so humble. That made me cry because it's like, it was like just interviews with the people who made this thing and like them talking about the first time they saw the images that were sent back. So, fantastic. Really great. So, got a little ripped off at the end. I was paying like $2.50 a pop for Ash to get these little, you know, those penny things where you like do a crank and the penny gets flattened out and they print like a little thing. You paid $2.50. Per. And I think Ash wanted three. Ash wanted three under the guise of he was going to give one to each of his siblings and then I've noticed it's been a couple days and it has not been handed over yet. Yeah. Wow. There's still time. Yeah. And then, you know, and again, Amtrak as well, both ways, a hell of a way to travel. Yeah. Yeah. We had, there was someone on our Amtrak. Ash and I were sitting next to each other. We had one of those, like table, we had like a four section seating arrangement and the guy across from us was, he was, interesting cat. Very, very nice, very kind. But a little, I want to be careful with my language. He was very hard to sort of follow and it was sort of like talking a blue streak. And I was doing my best to sort of comprehend him and try to have a conversation. But scattered, I would say, is maybe a good way to describe it. And Ash at one point was watching something on iPad, took off his headphones and leaned over it because he was talking, this guy was now talking to somebody else. And Ash goes, what's he saying? And I go, you know, I'm, I'm having a hard time kind of following what he's saying. And Ash said, okay, well, try harder. And then just put his headphones back on. It was really great. And I was like, you know what? That's good advice. And then I was glad, I was glad that we talked to this. He was, he was a, not the sort of individual you run into all the time. And he made for a very interesting ride. - Yeah. Well, that sounds great, Tufey. - It was really good. I think mom and dad were really happy. - Yeah. - It hangs with them. - No, I mean, I talked to them the next day, they were exhausted. Or I talked to them later on Sunday and they were just like wiped out. I wanted to FaceTime with them earlier in the day to hear how it was. And they were like, we gotta lay down and take naps. We'll call you later. - I ran 'em ragged. I mean, really ran 'em ragged. - Yeah. Well, sounds like you did a lot. Checked a lot of boxes. And yeah, no, they definitely, mom and dad had a great time. - I'm glad to hear it. So, - There you go. That's a family trip. And now we got a great episode for you. Andy Serkis. - Yeah, legend. - We had to cut him off a little fast. Andy had another interview after this and it was, you know, our fault. We did not get to the speed round. - Yeah. Yeah. He answers the last question. - He answers the most important one. But he answers it badly. - Has he been to the Grand Canyon? - He answers it badly. - But we're not gonna tell you. Did you just tell him what he said? - No, I just said he answers it badly. - Oh. - Anybody, nobody knows what that means coming from me. Yeah, he's got his film Animal Farm. - Yeah. - Is out May 1st in theaters. And yeah, I mean, he's been with Caesar and Planet of the Apes, King Kong, most notably Gollum. - Gollum and Smeagol. - Yeah. - I'm more of a Smeagol guy. - You always, you like Gollum. You think Gollum has some interesting ideas. - Yeah. - Gollum's always been very pro-Gollum. - Yeah, that's true. - All right, enjoy, listen, have fun. ♪ Family trips with the Myers brothers ♪ ♪ Family trips with the Myers brothers ♪ ♪ Here we go ♪ - Hello, Andy. - Oh, hi, hello, how are you? - I'm wonderful, it's so nice to see you again. - Yeah, you too, you too, gosh. I'm trying to think when we last met each other. - It was a while ago, and it's very nice, sometimes you read someone's biography and you realize for the purposes of this podcast, I'm certainly hopeful that we're gonna hear stories unlike any we've ever heard before. - Oh, totally. - So, yeah. - You know, in my head, I'm like, oh, Andy. - It's exciting, there's something about the British Empire that I feel like lends itself to, to places, to parts unknown for many of us. - Yeah, absolutely, yeah, it's part of our makeup, we're good at that kind of stuff. - 'Cause you're not just classically, obviously you're British, but your background is incredibly, a great deal more diverse than just that. - It is, in fact, so my dad was Iraqi, and he was of Armenian descent, so they came through kind of two generations before he did to Iraq, settled in Baghdad, and, from Armenia, and then my mom, who was recovering from tuberculosis in the, you know, sort of around the time of the war, went over to recover, her father was working in Kuwait on the oil refineries, and she met my dad, who was an aspiring doctor, and they got married and had three daughters, and then myself and my younger brother. And so, we used to spend all our childhood sort of going backwards and forwards between Baghdad in Iraq, and then the suburbs, of rice lip, which is a little. rather boring suburban place. No, actually, it's not boring at all. It's home. It's just outside of West London. That's unbelievable. So my first question is, did she meet him while recovering from tuberculosis in a hospital? Was he there as a medical professional? I believe that's the case. Yeah, I mean, you know, this is going back into sort of the annals of history, but I guess so, yeah. I think that must have been how they did. Yeah, yeah. I don't imagine you're at your best when you're recovering from tuberculosis. She must have really been something else. Well, I think, yeah, I think she, well, she certainly turned his eye. I think he was going to be a Jesuit priest before that. So I think she must have done something. Now, when you were a kid and, you know, it's obviously, you know, due to the incredibly unfortunate events of, like, the Middle East in the last, you know, 25, 30, 40 years, you don't think about, like, vacation to Baghdad. But. Was that something you looked forward to as a kid? Because obviously it's an incredible culture. Oh, we, I mean, I used to go there for six weeks to, you know, or eight weeks of the summer. And it was an amazing place. I mean, it was a magical place. And we used to go and visit, you know, we traveled all over the Middle East. We went to Syria. We went to Babylon. We went to, you know, Beirut and, yeah, Lebanon. And it was a remarkable kind of opposite, polar opposite of, of where I was growing up. And so it was, it really did hold a sense of magic. And we would camp in the desert. We'd eat grilled fish by the River Tigris and all that kind of stuff. It was amazing. It was amazing. And so, but consequently, I've never, I've never really felt, you know, I've always felt like a slight sort of outsider or betweener, you know? Sure. You know, because I have to imagine of the, of the kids in a rust slip. Am I saying that right? Rice, rice, rice slip. Yeah. But yeah, you were the only ones who were summering in Baghdad. I would, I would imagine so. Yeah. Yeah. Were the circus kids, were you all collectively excited about the annual trip back to Iraq? Oh yeah. Yeah. We, yeah, we used to, but that was our norm actually. So it wasn't, and it was kind of not exceptional in the sense that that was what we did every, every summer. And it was, it was, you know, like that was just like, yeah, we, we flew out, we stayed, we stayed there and had all these, I mean, looking back sort of quite magical experiences. But, but also my grandparents, my mom's mom was also part Iraqi and French Armenian. So, so she, she was, and she was an amazing cook. So we used to go over, she lived in Wembley in London, just in the west of London. And so, so we, we've sort of, the culture was, was sort of present with us as well. Would you, did you have a family home in Baghdad that you would go to, or would you? Oh yeah. My dad, my dad's house. I mean, so he was, he was a doctor and he founded a hospital in Baghdad for, for, you know, at, at that time, you know, there was a huge, well, there still is a huge disparity between the wealthy and the, and the poor there and he, they, these four doctors set out to build a hospital that would really give good service to everyone. And, and, and that, that was, that, that was why he stayed. He didn't, you know, he'd built this thing and, and so he couldn't really, he used to come home at Christmas for, for a couple of weeks and then my mom would go out and visit him at Easter. But, um. What was the travel time back then to Iraq? Like. It was about, I guess it was about six or seven hours on the plane. It's actually not that bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or BOAC at the time it was called. BOAC. What is that? What was that? The British overseas air corporation. I think it was. I mean, it obviously made sense that at some point the marketing people were like, we got to change that. Yeah. We'll change it to BA. How, what was the age gap between, uh, you and your siblings? Uh, so my eldest sister, Carol, it was, uh, like eight years older than me. Then five years older. And then Anita, my sister, and then Kath, my, the youngest sister was four years older than me. Then there was me. And then my younger brother was four years younger than me. So really, I mean, pretty spread out group. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, when you think of, uh, think back to those trips, were the five of you spending a lot of time together or was the age gap such that you all sort of split off to do your own thing? Yeah. You know, my, I mean, I, I used to hang out with my youngest sister the most, who was four years older than me because we had similar interests. Um, you know, as an older brother, my, uh, you know, I was, when we were growing up, it was, he was like my younger brother, so I didn't hang out with him. Um, but, but, and then my older sisters were, were, were, were getting into boyfriends and, you know, doing their own thing. I always have this vision anytime I hear of about a city like Baghdad or just a city that I've never been to, I feel like, you know, if there's going to be a movie scene, there's going to be kids running through the streets of the city, sort of no parents around. Was it like that? Did you sort of have free reign? Very much so. It was, you know, it just, it was so exciting and so culturally different and, you know, you'd go to the markets, the souks, you know, and just sort of find your way running through there and, and finding interesting, wonderful things, all these exotic smells and spices and, uh, you know, all the things that you find in a market, but, but seem so different and, uh, uh, yeah, yeah, it was, it was, it was a great time. It was a great, I mean, I, I loved it. I really look forward to it. Would you, was it, uh, was it something where you would, um, buy things to bring home? Like were there, uh, you know, souvenirs and the like that you'd bring back to England to sort of show off? Yeah. My, my, my mom used to collect all that stuff. She loved kind of Middle Eastern pottery and, you know, artifacts and paintings and, uh, you know, she, so the house was kind of full of that stuff, but I used to just go for cheap toys really. I, I'd find, you know, I'd look, I'd seek out toys. Really cheap toys. That, that was, that was what I used to do at the souk. And so you mentioned going to like Syria and Babylon, were those trips that your father would come along? Was it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He would take time out and, and, uh, you know, and, and what, whilst he was still well, you know, he still had to work at the hospital, but we'd have these side trips and we'd go off, uh, you know, a week or so or, um, to, to, to visit these other countries. And yeah, I mean, I, it was a, it was an extraordinary looking back. It was kind of an ex, it was an extraordinary education and I was feel very lucky to have had it. So you didn't see him much during the year. What was it like when you would, um, uh, what was it like for you when you would see him, uh, you know, for those six weeks and what do you think it was like for him to all of a sudden have his like five British children to send on back? Yeah, no, I think, well, he was, he was very much a man of routine, obviously with the hospital he had, but they traditionally in, in Iraq, you have a siesta. So he used to sleep in the afternoons for an hour after lunch. That's what everybody does. Um, uh, and so I think he used to feel a little invaded when we pitched up and, and all equally when he came home to the UK, it was sort of odd and strange to have a man about the house who, who, his position was very unclear. You know, it was, it was like he had, he was definitely a man who had authority in his workplace and in his home in Iraq, but he sort of had to fit in with, with, with a predominantly female oriented family when he got back. And, and so, and they were all had boyfriends and were doing their own thing. And suddenly he, he just would try and come in and be this, you know, put his foot down and be a bit authoritarian and it never really worked out, you know? Yeah. No, I wouldn't imagine so. Hey, we're going to take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors. Support comes from Yahoo Mail. Now with Planner. Hey Bajie. Hey Sufi. Oh man. I need to get my life organized. You know, you host a podcast. We're in my case, two podcasts. We're in your case, two podcasts, and it's easy to get them all mixed up. Yeah. Well, Planner brings your tasks, reminders, and events into one simple view. So you don't have to jump between apps or piece your day together. All your tasks and events are in one place. You can get a clear, organized view of what matters most. You can quickly understand your day without digging through emails. Planner pulls key details from your emails like reservations, school events, and bill reminders and turns them into actionable plans. It saves you time and effort. By surfacing important tasks and events at the right time, Planner helps you stay organized, reduce mental load, and keep life moving without things slipping through the cracks. Don't miss important tasks or events in your inbox. Stress less with Planner from Yahoo Mail. Support comes from FitBod. Hey Bajie. Hey Sufi. I really wanted to get back into exercising this year, and FitBod has helped level up my workout. Routine. You don't need a personal trainer to get the results you want. All you need is a personalized workout from FitBod. I just like that I can enter in my own fitness goals, unique to me, and I've already noticed that my endurance has improved, my strength has improved, I can lift up all three of my children at once. Throw them in the garbage. Just kidding. You can also tell FitBod what kind of equipment you have, and so they will tailor workouts to what it is you've got on hand. If you're traveling and you're like, "I don't have my gear, I don't have my weights, I don't have my bands," they can get something for you to keep you moving forward. And one of the things I like about, obviously, when I've had a trainer is they can show you how to do it, and if you're worried about, "Oh, I'm never going to be able to figure it out based on descriptions," they have over 1,000 demonstration videos for different workouts, so you don't have to worry about that at all. Level up your workout. Join FitBod today to get your personalized workout plan, get 25% off your subscription, and you'll have a lot of fun. Have a great day. or try the app free for seven days at fitbod.me/trip. That's F-I-T-B-O-D. In partnership with Airbnb, I'd like to share a travel story. Hey, Bajie. Hey, Sufi. It's here, our big trip to Pittsburgh. Yeah, very excited. Three generations of football fan going to Pittsburgh to see the football team in Pittsburgh play. And my wife is coming. Yeah, she's your generation. Yeah, but it's going to be her first time in Pittsburgh. I like that she's going to be able to enjoy it like a local because we're going to be in a neighborhood that our father was very familiar with as a child and that we've been staying in for years now. I like the neighborhood. I like the bakeries. I like the restaurants that are right near there. And I also like that Mackenzie and I and mom and dad are going to get there a day before you. But it's not like we're going to score the best bedrooms because we've got a five-bedroom house. That's really good. And I've seen the pictures. It looks gorgeous, comfortable. The living room's got a nice wraparound couch. We've got some college football to watch on Saturday. So we're going to be able to cozy up in there and play games. And we're going to have our snacks and we're going to have our drinks. And we're going to have all the things we want to have because we have a nice little kitchen. And I hope Mackenzie is ready to play dad's favorite game when he gets back to Pittsburgh, which is what did that bank used to be? It is such a great way to travel and it's such a great way to be with a group of friends. Or your family. I'm so excited for it. I would be less excited if we were not staying at a house that we booked through Airbnb. Support comes from Boar's Head. The holidays are here and they're about bringing people together. And one of my family's favorite things about hosting is having everyone gathered around the table. And when we're entertaining, I want to serve really delicious food. But I also want to be able to enjoy the party. That's why I love Boar's Head for the holidays. Their how-to charcuterie solution makes creating a premium charcuterie spread so easy. You can mix and match from so many Boar's Head favorites. Just pick two meats, two cheeses and two. Accoutrement. It's a great way to give everyone something to snack on while you catch up and get the festivities started. Then for the main event, there's Boar's Head, a sweet-slice uncured ham. It's the savory centerpiece for your holiday meal. Slowly oven-roasted and delicately smoked for a subtly smoky flavor with the traditional taste of a bone-in ham and a boneless cut. Made with premium ingredients and no fillers or byproducts, it's a delicious, effortless way to bring everyone together around the table. Boar's Head has been family-owned for more than 120 years. With a commitment to exceptional taste, premium quality and trusted craftsmanship so you can serve something special for the people who matter most without making hosting more complicated than it needs to be, find sweet-slice uncured ham as well as their full lineup of charcuterie items at your nearest Boar's Head deli. And for holiday entertaining, inspiration, recipes and more, visit boar'shead.com. Talk about this camping trip by the Euphrates. Does that mean that your parents were… The Tigress. The Tigress. Sorry, my God. Obviously, I haven't been. Were your parents sort of rugged people? Were they good at that sort of thing? My mom, I think, was quite intrepid and my sisters certainly were as well. They went on in their lives to go off and do lots of adventures all over the place. But my dad was, I think he liked calm and peace and order and being in a hospital environment. I mean, he liked a bit of a party. He was a good holding cocktail parties and things like that. But he wasn't, I wouldn't say an outdoorsy guy, not at all, in fact. Yeah. I'm in that situation. I'm him and my wife is your mom. Intrepid is a very good word for it, by the way. I need to start using intrepid more for outdoorsy. So if you're camping by a river, are you at a campground? And what's a day like? Are you are you cooking out for your food or we went to? I remember one trip, which was to Lake Habania, which is just north of Baghdad. And it was just like it was just in the desert, you know, you're camping under the stars. And, you know, it was it was for a seven year old. It was kind of like extraordinary to have. I've never I've never seen the stars like it, you know, so it was it seemed very magical. It seemed very magical. And and we would, you know, we'd cook food. And but we were just on camp beds under the stars. There were no tents or anything, you know. So I remember one time there was a desert rat climbed into my bag, which I didn't realize. A little desert rat climbed into my bag. And when I got back to my dad's house, I opened this bag and it just kind of jumped out. But it was adventurous. Yeah, it was adventurous. Well, how when you what is the travel of, you know, pardon my ignorance, but how do you get from Iraq to Syria? When you go to visit there, was that would you would you drive? What am I thinking? Yeah. Yeah. I think it was probably. Yeah, we drove. Yeah, we did. It was a long sort of driving trip. Yeah. A road trip. And and what sort of car would you pack in seven circuses? He had an old Pontiac, which was quite. I just have this room. I just remember the sensation of sitting on the seats, plastic seats and burning the back of my legs. Every time we got into the car, because it was it was so hot in Iraq and as a child wearing shorts, it was not a good thing, you know, getting into that car. I just remember vividly every time it's just like, wow, you know, how can it get that hot in a car? You know, but it was it was it was quite I remember it had little it had fins on the back. It was quite started looking back. It was a proper, you know, it's a Pontiac. So it was quite exotic, really, you know, not suburban rice slip in just outside. Yeah. And I bet probably not downtown Baghdad either. Right. Like a Pontiac. Yeah, yeah, because it was a bit of an American influence as well with them, with with vehicles and stuff. But but my dad. Is it was a rather a bit of a narcolep, so he would he would he would fall asleep at the wheel constantly, which was not good. And and we all inherited that we all inherited. Really? Yeah. I mean, if I fall asleep, by the way. Do not be offended, but no, we won't. But I have been known I have been known on many occasions and people, you know, they rip it out of me because I've been I have literally been in studio meetings in L.A. and sort of start to go, you know, and I've sat opposite my brother and, you know, having dinner with him and he'll, you know, he'll he'll just kind of start nodding off, you know, so so it is a circus trait for sure. I mean, that is so the idea of just driving from Baghdad to Syria. In a old Pontiac where with hot seats and not knowing if the guy at the wheel is going to doze off, occasionally, you know, wake up and I also like that you said he liked calm and I'm like, well, now that's going a little too far. Yeah, I guess it could be worse. You could be the person he's currently operating on. Yeah, that is that would Dr. Circus, Dr. Circus, please. But you know what? I'll tell you, I had a narcoleptic experience at the Museum of Modern Art. I was in New York here and I was I was went to see a photographic exhibition with Lorraine, my wife, and we were standing there and we I was jet lagged admittedly, but but I remember standing looking at this picture thinking, God, that's that's an amazing picture. It was Ouija. You know, the photographer. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. So I was looking at these pictures and then suddenly I felt this wave of tiredness and then I just fell over the security line, set off, set off the alarms and headbutted one of the pictures. You know, it was it's the one thing they don't like you when you feel like how they build those lines, they never think somebody might just doze off. Yeah, I know. Exactly. Exactly. Well, did your father were there ever any accidents, any notable accidents where you're driving on these trips with your father falling asleep? No, just just the occasional kind of, you know, drive the desert roads, you know, so luckily, if you go around, you're not going to hit anything. You know, there's an interesting thing where I've I've got three kids and I, you know, sometimes just on a long drive, you know, I wouldn't say it's a narcolepsy, but just getting tired. And it is that weird balance of like, I know my wife will be so mad if I say, hey, I need to pull over and have you drive. But it's funny that what you're weighing that against is, you know what? Or I just drive into oncoming traffic and our whole family like that's I'm more afraid of her than actually like going into the traffic. Yeah. Obviously, you know, you have three kids, you know, you know, they're at the age where they're born late 90s, early 2000s. I imagine you've never had a chance, any chance to bring them back to the Middle East or have you? I really want to. And in fact, in recent years, I've been trying to write a project, a film based on the hospital that my dad built because and I really want to go back there. And I think it was getting to a point where it was getting safe. Yeah. And clearly not right now, but it was it was getting to a point where it was getting safer. But because the hospital covered an interesting period, it was he built it in 1964, which was the year I was born with these founding other founding doctors. And then and then very quickly, of course, there was the Ba'athist party under Saddam Hussein was beginning to ascend. And and there was a not a good feeling towards the West at that time. And so he used to. My dad was a doctor for the British Council and for for BOC, you know, operatives and that everyone started to like him. leave and he gave a he gave a speech at a party in in his house he had a cocktail party invited lots of people over and then his speech was recorded and he said some rather unflattering things about uh saddam hussein and he was arrested and disappeared and so we were we were obviously incredibly worried and for we didn't hear from him for a couple of months so it was it was a it was a very difficult time um and and this was going on you know people were beginning to be disappeared and and and and the other doctors faced threats as well and then it got taken over by the party and was only the the bathist party took the hospital over so it was only able to be used by saddam hussein's family and and high-ranking officials and then so there's there's that period so there was a sort of pre-bathist party period then the the sort of um saddam hussein and then and then it and then in when the the the american intervention intervention in iraq happened uh the u.s intervention in iraq happened um it was taken over and it was part of the green zone so it's gone through this huge journey as a as a place so i'm i'm putting together a project which is sort of based on on on the on the transitions really seen seen through the eyes of people who were around in that hospital throughout that period um so i do want to go back i'm desperate to go back you know i really really want to go back yeah um is it still there the hospital yeah yeah yeah it still exists i think it's amazing how a physical space can show how the passage of history like just you know you think like oh a hospital is going to be a hospital for all this time but uh yeah yeah yeah it is uh it's really something it's it's also like you know there's a there's many bummers to this story but it's such a bummer that your dad started a hospital and it might not be a cool thing to tell people there you know what i mean they're like oh we we don't like people who start hospitals you know what i mean they're like oh we we don't like people who start hospitals um do you still have family there not any extended family i mean there's like some distant family there now most most people got out um started to get out where there was a big diaspora and who and some of them went to canada some of them to new zealand and some of them to france and the uk so most of them got out troubles you know um wow that's crazy uh what do you remember about babylon the culture that this this huge sculpture of the you know yeah that was that's my main memory and just just just lots of architectural you know artifacts and ancient buildings and i mean amazing place amazing place yeah no hanging gardens though i was quite disappointed i was looking forward to seeing yeah you know you wrote you left a very angry yelp review about the lack of hanging garden if they're not there stop talking about them yeah yeah yeah and we're would you ever uh if you weren't going so far afield as going to uh to baghdad or to syria um would you travel in the uk ever for smaller trips oh yeah yeah i mean we used to as a family like when my dad was away my mom used to take us to caravan sites kind of on the south coast of bogner and and uh what was it called uh i can't remember the place now but bogner regis was where we used to go and then and then and then sort of up to the lake district and then and then and then and then and uh travel around we did lots of traveling around the uk yeah so at caravan holidays which i hear a lot about uh from british people is that basically that's just those are campsites yeah yeah yeah yeah well that's what we used to do we didn't have our own caravan by right right stretch you know we used to be used to go to to a caravan site and uh you know they had a social center and and you know what i mean it was sort of like it was really good i mean really happy memories so do you look back are you like just in awe of the fact that you're uh it basically seems like you know for most of the year you had a single mom who was managing five kids yeah i'm full of admiration for what she did and she was also a teacher she taught at what was then called a disabled school you know but um uh people who are physically impaired and and or physically challenged and um so she had a lot on she had a lot on we had um we did have uh au pairs who came to stay you know from time to time but my elder sisters really kind of ran the right were they benevolent leaders oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah totally i just worry about two younger boys it could break either way were you ultimately do you feel like you were i i there's that thing of like when you have um you know you have a working mother who obviously is doing an incredible job raising the five of you uh it seems like maybe you all understood to behave well i wouldn't say that i mean i was quite i i suppose i was we were all kind of rebellious in our own ways put it that way yeah we all you know we all got up to stuff that we shouldn't have done perhaps but right right but you know when you got to these caravan holidays was it sort of policy of your mother that it was just like go leave me for a bit or would you stick stick close and stick together no we don't no we'd pretty much stick together we've sort of holiday you know uh yeah yeah we we kind of hung out and you could get where you could you could rent these kind of well they were they were called social cycles at the time but you know like four-wheeled bikes that you that four-wheeled sort of that you could all sit on uh oh fine i mean it's like two bicycles tied together basically and so on a social cycle is everyone responsible for some uh amount of pedaling or some people just getting a free ride to the two front people two front people got it and then the others at the back just kind of social cycles i've not remembered that word for a long time yeah that's a new one for me would you go to the same sort of places year on year we we tended to would you make holiday friends that you might encounter uh i don't remember again and again i don't remember that so much i don't remember no i don't okay i don't remember no no i don't think so no were there people in uh iraq kids your age that you would go back every summer and reconnect with well i we had lots of cousins at the time you know because my my dad's sisters lived out there so we had we had a lot of cousins that we used to go and play with and hang out with and uh were you sort of like uh this interesting uh foreign visitor when you showed up were the cousins like enamored with your britishness um i don't think so i think they just thought of us as you know right right it was just family you know it's just family we did used to go there was a there was a club called the alwia club which was a sort of uh a lot of expats used to hang out and that's that had a um an all painted white um yeah with with a few deck chairs in front of it but but um but but that was great i remember watching films you know and hanging out there and that was cool i think uh it's a lost uh delight the outdoor cinema oh totally especially like that thing of like there's no also uh the absence of choice is actually feels like such a freedom like we're you know when i think about how much uh time i'm i i spend paralyzed by the options like i love the idea of just walking to an outdoor cinema yeah yeah absolutely i mean i mean i've always i was always so enamored with with the idea of driving movies which we never had in the uk but of course this was right it's huge here i'd bring back the driving movie as well that's what's yeah yeah shouldn't we i mean wouldn't that be cool we i i live in los angeles and there's there's this film terry and it's just one of my favorite things it's about three to five thousand people on a lawn in front of a mausoleum which is a big white wall and they just project a eclectic mix of stuff on the side of it throughout the summer and it's fabulous it's just so nice to be around all those people and be outside and it's great yeah yeah yeah it's just something i love cinema outdoors is the best you know if you've got no smell obviously um uh you know it's it's it there's just nothing like it it's it's beautiful i love it we went to uh my wife and i were in on like a greek island i want to say like mykonos who were just like walking after dinner and there was just like in this little like sort of uh this copse of trees there was this little cinema outdoor cinema and i'm like oh my god we have to go and see a movie and it was just so romantic and then i think it was like the second uh sherlock holmes movie with robert downey jr and jude law oh yeah and i just we got we got like you know we got like beers and we sat down and like half an hour in my wife was like i'm sorry are we staying for the whole movie i was like all right that's fair that's fair i i go in my head i'm a 13 year old kid and i can't believe my luck but you're right this is not this does not match with everything our evening has been up to this point oh yeah my fun my funniest experience of watching cinema abroad was um i was filming in russia actually about just after the wall had come down in the early 90s and i went to a cinema that was showing the bodyguard oh wow and but it was all simultaneously translated by one person behind the screen with a mic into russian so they had the volume kind of half turned down turned down so kevin costner and you know you know and so it was i mean bad rubbish russian impersonation but it was just like what's this was good you know there's just no you know you know i really hope he didn't try to hit that note and i - I will always love you. - Exactly, exactly. It was quite brilliant. And I watched the whole film just mesmerized. Oh, that's really, that is fantastic. What did you film in Russia that early? It was a TV series called Grushko, which starred Brian Cox. Oh, wow. It was based on a Philip Kerr novel. And Brian Cox was playing this cop, and it was all about irradiated meat. And it was all, it was kind of, it was, you know, because obviously the war had, you know, not come down long before. And so it was going through, I've never been in a country sort of that was going through such change, sort of, and actively sort of seeing it happen in front of you. Yeah, it was crazy. It was a crazy place and a crazy time. That is like, that's the worst case scenario. The wall finally comes down and the first show they make is about irradiated meat. Yeah, yeah. They don't even hire local actors. I am always delighted. By the way, I love Philip Kerr. I'm very excited to try to find Grishko. I mean, the fact that it's got you and Brian Cox in it, it's a Philip Kerr adaptation shot in Russia. I mean, sign me up. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, cool. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Didn't I buy you a Philip Kerr, like three series last year? Yeah, you did. Yeah. The Berlin trilogy. Wow. Yeah. Okay. That's right up my alley. I love that stuff. Oh, amazing. Cool. Support comes from Aura Frames. Hey, Bashi. Hey, Sufi. Aura Frames. A pretty great Mother's Day gift. Wouldn't I just say. Yeah. I mean, really, really good. If you take pictures on your phone, you get a good one, a good shot of your kids or a good shot of you and mom. You know, you could send it to her, but what's she going to do with it? Yeah. A much better move is to send it to her Aura Frame and then that picture will pop up from time to time and remind her of a great time that you guys had together. We just took a trip together. We were just talking about it. I went to Boston and dad was like, send me all the pictures. And I was sort of like, I'll do you one better. I'll just send them straight to the Aura Frame. And you can see them pop up as they come. Yeah. You texted me a picture of you and mom at Fenway Park and right away I posted it to their Aura and my Aura. So it'll just be there. It's such a good way to see the best pictures in your camera roll that you're never going to see otherwise. And we do a fun thing with our mom, which is we upload pictures, individual pictures of ourselves and then individual pictures of our dad so that she will cheer and boo based on which one comes up. Great thing about these Aura Frames, Sufi, is they have free unlimited storage. So you can add as many photos and videos as you want. You can also pre-upload photos before it ships. You can keep adding from anywhere at any time. It's a really cool product. Make Mother's Day special with Aura Frames. Name number one by Wirecutter. 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It's the savory centerpiece for your holiday meal, slowly oven roasted and delicately smoked for a subtly smoky flavor with the traditional taste of a bone-in ham and a boneless cut. Made with premium ingredients and no fillers or bindings, it's a delicious, effortless way to bring everyone together around the table. Boar's Head has been family-owned for more than 120 years with a commitment to exceptional taste, premium quality, and trusted craftsmanship so you can serve something special for the people who matter most without making hosting more complicated than it needs to be. Find sweet slice uncured ham as well as their full lineup of charcuterie items at your nearest Boar's Head deli. And for holiday entertaining, inspiration, recipes, and more, visit boar'shead.com. A discount that helps you save pops up. It makes your day, sometimes even your week. Want that feeling month after month? Well, new customers who save by switching their home and auto insurance to Progressive save hundreds. Cue your happy dance. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states. Your kids, did you raise your kids? In England? Yeah. Great. And did, what was your, has your professional life led to unique travel opportunities for them or have the two been separate? Oh, yeah. No, no, I mean, they've just lived and breathed growing up. Lorraine, my wife, is an actress and she's, you know, she's a very quite prolific British TV actress and all our kids have ended up being actors because they were literally born into it. You know, Lorraine was filming a TV series, rushed home, gave birth, went back onto the TV show and I was, I was, you know, she was expressing milk and I was feeding Ruby, our daughter, and then she'd come off set and, you know, it was just like, that's how it started and it's never been any different. They've just been an integral part. When I went to New Zealand, they all came down when they were very, very young to do Lord of the Rings and then, you know, and then at various stages, they've been back when we were shooting King Kong and they went to school in New Zealand. Then when we went back to do The Hobbit, they actually started doing school in the UK so they could do, you know, they couldn't. So that was the worst period actually because I was away for a long period of time because I was directing the second unit on that and it was, it was like I was away for a year basically so I didn't get to see them. That's, that's my, that's the biggest thing, the biggest, biggest downer of, you know, in terms of having great opportunities and things happen to you and then being away from your family. That's a tricky one. Right. And because my dad had been away all his, you know, I'd sort of, I thought this is history repeating itself a little. Yeah. And you didn't, you didn't even open a hospital, you know. No, exactly. Exactly. Hey, I, I noticed that in your, in your bio. So had you directed anything before the second unit of The Hobbit? Because obviously you, and I want to talk about it, you, you just directed Animal Farm. So obviously it was, but was that the beginning of your transition into doing behind the camera stuff? I'd always wanted to, you know, whilst, you know, I'd been acting for many years and started in theater and as soon as, started acting on screen, I, I mean, I studied visual arts before I became an actor. So I wanted to, I'd always been interested in telling stories visually and made short films and was always doing that or was doing things like that. And I knew that, that acting, I loved acting, but I also knew that I wanted to direct. And so, so it's sort of, it's sort of transitioned actually when we were making Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson became aware that I was very interested in directing. And, and so when it came around to The Hobbit and it was going to be like a huge cast of, of actors that would go between the main unit and the second unit, they asked me if I would direct the second unit. And so I shot, we shot for 200 days on the second unit. And it was, but, and I was getting ready to make my first sort of feature, independent feature film with like three actors in four locations. And suddenly I found myself in front of, you know, a crew of 200 people shooting, shooting native stereo at 48 frames a second with, you know, going across New Zealand. And I mean, it was, it was a phenomenal education. It is so funny because like second unit, that part sounds right for a first job. And then The Hobbit is like massively wrong. Exactly. Exactly. It was just like, I had to learn very quickly and I, and yeah, just the, the responsibility was so enormous. But I know, Pete just trusted me and we'd been through a whole journey, of course, with the kind of creation of the character of Gollum and the whole visual effects side of things and the tying together of performance and technology. And I guess we, and then I'd work with him on King Kong and these are my people, really. Right, right. The family in New Zealand, they're such an incredible team and a phenomenal, sort of, you know, they're the same people that I'm working on, you know, with now. We're going back to do the film now, The Hunt for Gollum. It's like, it's a lot of the same people 25 years on, regrouping. And I keep going back there because they just, it's just such a great creative atmosphere where everyone is treating each other with respect and is valued and it's the sort of perfect working scenario. You know, it's like a big family and we've all got kids that have grown up now and everyone knows each other. It's pretty cool. It just happens to be, on the other side of the world from where I live. Right. That's the only problem. Yeah. And The Hunt for Gollum, I didn't know it was happening, but you're directing that and obviously starring in it. That's, that'll be the next in the series? That will be, yes, indeed. And that's, that's, we're in pre-production right now and so, you know, I've been down there for months and months. Well, it's funny, we just, we were talking with Vincent D'Onofrio who's a wonderful actor and he was talking about how he's been in the Marvel Universe playing, this character Kingpin for 10 years and he was talking about how rare it is for an actor to play a character for 10 years. And, I mean, when you think about your relationship with Gollum, I mean, it is truly something. And, I mean, by the way, it would have been truly something if it had stopped, you know, after the first trilogy, after, you know, like, so all these moments, it would have been the most complete body of work. And so it really is something, and it's so exciting that there's going to be more of it. It is. I mean, and there's a lot to investigate with the character still. So it's a really interesting exploration. Yeah. What about, so you did, I mean, I will say Animal Farm 1 does not naturally adapt itself to an animated film or a film at all, really. And the undertaking of this, you know, I was talking, I had Caden Matarazzo on the show, and he was, you know, talking on my show about how there was an interesting approach. You had to sort of add different characters. How long has this process been going on? How long has this been going on for you? Like, from the. Just about 15 years, I suppose. So that's fine. That's not a biggie sometimes. It's a quick one I knocked out, you know. And it's under two hours, right? So I can watch it in under two hours, but it took you 15 years? Yeah, exactly. I know. I mean, that's the thing. Look, that was the first film, actually. When we formed our company, Jonathan Cavendish is my producing partner. We set up The Imaginarium, which is a performance capture studio in the UK, and a production company. And the first. It was the first film that we thought. And it was actually when we were doing the Planet of the Apes movies, and there's a scene in the first Planet of the Apes movie. I was playing Caesar, you know, the central kind of ape character. And he's in a facility. He's incarcerated in this facility, which is obviously experimenting on apes. And he leads the apes to freedom, and there's a sort of rebellion. And I suddenly. I'd always loved Animal Farm as a book as a kid growing up. And I suddenly thought, there hasn't been an adaptation of Animal Farm for a long time. There was a 1954 animation, and then there was a 1990 kind of animatronic Jim Henson-style Hallmark film version of it. But I just thought, performance captures the perfect way of doing it. And then. And then. So Jonathan Cavendish and I, who was a big film producer, he'd done the Bridget Jones films, and we'd become, you know, sort of linked for life. And we still are with our company. And we thought we'd get this off the ground. We got the rights. We went to the Orwell estate. They gave us the rights. And we said, if Orwell were writing this now, who would his. You know, we wanted to update it. We always wanted to update it, make it more contemporary, not talk about totalitarian Russia in the 1940s, but transpose exactly the same themes about power, the corruption of power, and, you know, fake news and, you know, the dissemination, you know, misinformation and the utopia gone wrong. But it was like, how do we make this applicable to a young audience? And this was in. So this was back in 2011, where I first had the idea. And it's taken ages to. Because we thought it immediately, it would be like, oh, Animal Farmer. Everyone would want to see Animal Farmer. Every studio would want to make Animal Farmer. Wrong. Nobody wanted to make Animal Farmer. It took forever. Everyone thought it is a very spinachy kind of, you know, sort of beating at the audience over the head politically. Orwell's too dark, et cetera. And. I do love that you thought, like, you know, kids love animated films and they love George Orwell. Well, I just remember being so knocked out by the book. Did you read the book? I did read the book. I was knocked out by the book too. And, you know, by the way, it is, you know, look, Lord of the Rings is a challenging, challenging book that kids love and then made a great movie. So I would understand the, you know, the impulse. Yeah. So we started work on it and went and approached a whole bunch of actors, most of whom have ended up in the film sort of 12 years later when we were actually making it. I mean, like Seth Rogen and Jim Parsons and Glenn Close were all people we approached immediately who all loved the book. And everyone who's in it, and it is an exceptional cast, you know, we've got Woody Harrelson and Kieran Culkin and Steve Buscemi and Iman Valani. And it just goes on, you know, that every single, Laverne Cox, it's just a fantastic cast. Everyone we approached was just like, I'm in, definitely. I love the book. So, but we had to find a way of telling the story, which I wanted to make it for a young audience. I really crucially wanted to have a debate between young kids. Their parents and their grandparents all watching the film together in the same room. And nobody, no studio could understand that concept that this could possibly be a family film. And my argument was, you know, that yes, it's dark. There are dark things in it. But if you present it in such a way as an animated version where you use that animation, the bucolic kind of the feel, the, you know, the innocence of the animals. 'Cause it is. And, you know, the whole point of Orwell writing about totalitarianism using farm animals is that he wants to communicate ideas to a younger inquiring mind. So that fits in with our version. But the book doesn't have any protagonist or central character where you can follow the story through, you know, and emotionally engage with. 'Cause it's quite an objective book. And so that was why we, as mentioned in the book of sort of in the last part of the book of these young piglets who are elite pigs, 'cause obviously the pigs ascend, take over control and power, and the rest of the animals are treated like dirt. And I thought, well, what happens if you take those, you know, the pigs in the book are very offstage characters. And you hear what's going on and the corruption of power and how they're becoming more interested in trading with humans after saying that we will never ever communicate or, you know, trade with humans. So, so it's, so, so these, so I thought, well, what if, if what if we actually make the central character, a young piglet who we then follow and go on the moral journey with, and he's, he's an innocent, he just sees himself as an animal, like all the other animals, but gradually gets corrupted by this powerful, charismatic, narcissistic, funny, you know, leader, and, and, and then gets pulled away from the sort of slightly more community orientated leader, Snowball, played a lot by Laverne Cox and, and gets sucked in by this very funny guy who, who eventually takes over and a good entertainer. And so, so he gets corrupted and then, and then at a certain point he realizes what, what's happened and, and as their utopia falls apart and it becomes another version of the greed and cruelty that was, that they'd faced with humans, he has to make amends. So, so there, then we, we've got a sort of an interesting story and, and, and it's still, I mean, thematically, it's still entirely the book, but it's just the only other thing that we changed really, I suppose, was, was not ending in such a bleak place because when kids sit down, hopefully, after having watched this movie, you know, you didn't want them to kind of go, well, oh my gosh, the world is hopeless. We're never, what can we do? - Right, right. - So, so we, we've got an ending, which is an open-ended question, which is, you know, in the book, it ends with all the animals standing outside the window, looking in through it and seeing pigs and men and looking from one, from pig to man and man to pig and not being able to tell the difference. And it's a very, very bleak ending. But whereas we end with, with a much more sort of open-ended, as I say, open-ended question, which is history repeats itself. This has gone horribly wrong. It'll probably go wrong again, but we have to keep trying. And we, and, and it's in the trying that, hopefully you'll find a solution. So it's, it's not a sort of a Hollywood ending or a wrapped up neatly in a bow ending. It's very much a kind of, okay, this is going to be down to you kids when we're gone. And, you know, it's, it's like, you know, you've got to start thinking about this. And parents, you know. - That's fantastic. - So, so that's, that was the, that's the idea behind this. When we released the first trailer. - Congratulations, by the way. 15 years, it's really something. I mean, it's truly, really something. And, and, and we're glad that as soon as you wrap up, the press for this, you can start doing a new "Lord of the Rings" movie. Just so that you can rest. - Hey, before- - We know you have to run. - Yeah. - We know you have to run, Andy, but we do have a speed round of questions. Let us know if you have time for this. If you don't, we, we understand, but we can try to be quick. You let us know. - Maybe one. - Yeah, one. - Okay. All right, one. Have you been to the Grand Canyon? - No, I really want to go to the Grand Canyon. - Great, perfect answer. Thank you so much, Andy. - Just couldn't get another one in quick, quick. - You did it. - All right, thank you so much, Andy. - Okay, thank you. It's been lovely speaking with you, yeah. - Bye, great to see you again. ♪ Family trips with the Myers brothers ♪ ♪ Family trips with the Myers brothers ♪ ♪ Here we go ♪ ♪ Family trips with the Myers brothers ♪ ♪ Family trips with the Myers brothers ♪ When Andy was growing up He would travel to Baghdad Every summer with his mom And siblings to see his dad They'd take trips to Syria Or maybe check out Babylon Taken in the Middle East See Beirut and Lebanon But his dad Was noclectic at the wheel Watch out, you will end up in a field He would just not often fall asleep Come to, as he was driving off the street Our Alawiya club was great Movies showed up on the wall Social cycle all the way Daddy built a hospital Cheap toys bought in the bazaars And camping underneath the stars Hot seats in the Pontiac Stow away, caught a ride back Got home Opened up his sleeping bag So gross Inside there was a desert rat Jumped out Desert rat just ran away No doubt he had had his own vacay. And he's an actor And a director And he was Slingle And also Caesar And he was Tingle And also Gumball The reason he came on was animal fun.