Tom Hiddleston and Genden Phuntsok

Three of the most quiet, self-effacing monks approach us and one of the monks said, excuse me, Mr. Loki, Mr. Green Goblin, may we have a photograph? Yeah. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, Sad, Confused begins now. Hey guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused coming at you from the Telluride Film Festival with the stars of Tenzing, Endin, Putsak, and of course, one of our favorites, Tom Hiddleston. Hey guys, thanks for joining me on another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. If you're watching this, maybe you're wondering, where the hell is Josh? This is a little bit nicer than his usual apartment or studio setting. Yes, I'm in Telluride, Colorado. This is maybe my favorite weekend of the year at the Telluride Film Festival where I get a chance to see some of the best films of the year world premiering here. And also talking to some great filmmakers and actors like my guests on the podcast today. Of course, Tom Hiddleston, there is no greater friend to Happy, Sad, Confused than Tom. And also a new friend, Endin Putsak, who stars as Tenzing Norgay in this remarkable true story, of course, of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay and their amazing ascent up Everest in 1953. This is a film that comes out in a few weeks. It comes out in October, so consider this an extended kind of sneak preview of this film. As you'll sense from the conversation I have with Tom and Gendon, this was quite an undertaking, quite an adventure. They shot on location in Nepal and New Zealand, I believe. And it's a subject that Tom, who, as you know from past conversations I've had with him, I'm sure, he's passionate about every project, but this one in particular feels like a very special adventure for him. So I'm thrilled to share this with you guys. This was shot right before their big world premiere here in Telluride. I got a chance to see the film. A couple weeks ago back in New York, but a really appropriate, beautiful, idyllic setting for this story about nature and man's bond with nature, I suppose. Before we get to that conversation, a couple of quick reminders, as always, check out our Patreon, patreon.com/happysadconfused for early access, discount codes, live events. We've got a live one coming up with Joe Manganiello, October 13th, and many more to be announced very, very soon. I'll say quickly, just, you know, hopefully you get a sense of the surroundings from this introduction here, but Telluride Film Festival, I can't say enough about it. I've been coming for five years now, and I've seen so many great films here. Wild Horse 9, the debut, if I can get my words out correctly today, off to see Alpha Gang in just a few minutes, starring Chris Pine, who I just ran into. He's petting a dog, of course, like this is the, this is the nature of Telluride. You run into folks all the time. You know, I've seen like Lea Seydoux running around. I've seen Emma Stone twice. I've seen, you know, literally some of the best actors and filmmakers on the planet. And it is such a cool, relaxed vibe, because everybody's is here pretty much for the right reasons. We all love film. We all love celebrating great film and no festival program's better than Telluride. So as long as I'm able to, I'm going to keep coming to this festival and hopefully you guys can get a sense of how special it is from these conversations. OK, I'm going to take you now to this conversation with Tom and Gendon. I'll note quickly that Gendon's first language is not English. So, I mean, props to him. I have no second language skills. So he's great, but he used an interpreter here and there. So there might be like, you know, a little bit of a miscommunication or just, you know, language barrier at times. But he's fantastic, charming, smart and wonderful. So I'm thrilled that I got a chance to talk to him and obviously always thrilled to talk to Tom, who is an amazing advocate for this film. There's also some fun stuff, a little bit of a doomsday in there, a little bit of Mad Max talk, because it was recently revealed to me in a previous conversation that Tom auditioned for Mad Max. Furry Road way back when. So I had to get that story out of him, too, obviously. All of that and more on this episode. I hope you guys enjoy it. Here you go. Gendon, a pleasure to meet you, sir. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Nice to meet you, too. And Tom, our 300th adventure together has taken us to Telluride. For the first time, for the first time, we've had many adventures. That's right. But never in Telluride for me. Never together. Congratulations. I'm very excited to talk to you on a number of levels. This film is about to premiere here in Telluride. Telluride, I can't think of a better, more suitable place for its premiere. Tell me a little bit about, I don't know, just the appropriateness maybe of this festival. Does this feel like a good landing spot for Tenzing? I think so. Here we are in the mountains. Yeah, the the American mountains, many miles from the high mountains of the Himalayas. I've never you've never been to Telluride before, right? Yeah, it is the first time. First time for me. For me, too. We've done many things together for the first time. Yeah, we had to, for instance. We had to. But even just driving up here actually reminded me of, I think most people land in Montrose and driving up. It's a night, what is it, an hour and a half to drive into Telluride. And it reminded me, and I said out aloud, this makes me think of the trek that we did. Yeah, it's really similar. To to base camp. Of course, the topography and the geology is slightly different, but it was that the pine forests and the rushing rivers and the big sky and then the mountains getting larger and larger the deeper you go. Yeah, I mean, we could talk about that for a four or three hours, that trek, right? Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, I mean, any film, hopefully film can feel like an adventure, but the nature of this film, the story you're telling, the way you shot it. It feels like a great adventure. I mean, for you, has any experience compared to this, Gendon? I mean, being front and center, playing this iconic role. Can you encapsulate a little bit about what it feels like to be here about to premiere this film? For us, also the movie, when we filmed this movie, also similar, like the environment like this. Yes. And this movie festival is also like that. Yes. And so we are, I have a feeling like we are very close to our movie and also. Our movie connected with the Colorado movie festival because the location is a really nice and beautiful and also very close to our movie's view. Absolutely. So yeah. This film, I mean, I was privileged enough to see this a couple of weeks back before I got here. You do, you both are excellent in it. It's very impressively well told by the director who previously had done a lot of documentary work that clearly she brought to this. Yeah. I reached out to you as soon as I saw it. Because I was so impressed. It was amazing. I was so, it was so, I didn't know you were watching it. I didn't know there was a screening and it was, I was so touched and, and, and moved by what you said. Yeah. Well, I guess my question for you is because I could tell from your response and our conversations that look, you take on all films and they all hope to aspire to something great. But this does feel like a very unique adventure in your life and career. Entirely, entirely. The, it's been a long time coming as well. I first met Jennifer Pratt. Jennifer Peedham in the spring of 2023 and she sent me the script and, and, and this beautiful letter. And I found the script incredibly moving. Just that the, the statement embedded inside the story, which was to bring Tenzing from the background into the foreground. Yes. And to reframe a familiar story about these two men. Who did an extraordinary thing, an impossible thing, an unimaginable thing, a thing that had never been done before. And, and the fellowship and the friendship between them. And in her letter, she said to me, I can't remember if I've told you this. She said, it was right at the end of the letter where she was outlining her, her kind of mission for the film. And then she said, we've never met before, but I have a sense that you're the kind of person who'd be up for an adventure like this. And my first question was, how did you, how did you know? Yeah. Because I am. I'm down. This sounds like an adventure. But not, yeah. And I, when we met that first time, she said, we're going to go to real mountains. We're going to do this in Nepal. We're going to do this in the foothills of the Himalayas. We'll go to Kathmandu. The British embassy of Kathmandu will be the British embassy of Kathmandu. And then, and then the second half of it was in New Zealand. And Edmund Hillary is among the most famous. Among the most beloved and revered of, of like all New Zealand citizens. He's, he's so, he's held so dear in the minds of, of all New Zealanders. He's still on the $5 note. To be playing Edmund Hillary on the Southern Alps of the South Island of New Zealand, having never been. The whole thing was just climbing in real mountains, hanging off real crevasses. The two of us roped together, real snow, real ice, real crampons, real ice axes. It was, there is no, there's no green screen. There's no, we were never in a studio. This is all real. And you feel it watching the movie. You can, having watched a thousand movies, we all know whether intellectually or emotionally we can feel that you guys were out there. It was, it was so much fun. For you, for Gendon, I mean, like I, as I understand it, there was a bit of, you know, you have to get to know your co-star. What was the process of, of getting to know Tom and vice versa, getting to know Gendon? and you spent some time before filming together? Yeah, yeah. We should tell the story of where we met. Yeah, they said Tom will come there. I'm more early than arrived in Nepal to just train or prepare for the movie. And then I went to Lugla to experience life. And that's also Sherpa. And then Jennifer told me Tom will come. But we have never met before. But from the story of Edmida Hillary and Tenzin, I had really no way about their relationship or something. And then I walked from Lugla or from Kumjung to Lugla, meet Tom. His name is like the airport. So yeah, like Tenzin Hillary Airport. Sure. The name is that. And that's very meaningful for me. Of course. And then I went there and then wait him. They come out of the airport and went and see him just to just like we are very similar before. I just give a hug each other. And then he also like that hug me. And then we talk and talk and talking all the way to maybe almost two days to four days. I think we have four days to do. Yeah. And to take Bushy. Yeah. Timbo chin and all this experience. We have very good time and all the way we practice our dialogue. We discuss about our character, the relationship. With us, and we discuss about where, how we should connect our spirit together, develop our friendship or everything. So this is a really good experience for me. It was amazing. Yeah. How, how familiar were you with, with Tom's work? Have you, have you seen a lot of the, the marble work, the non marble work of Tom? Yeah, of course. I watched many Tom's film before. Of course, Tom have many fans in China and in China, we call them. Um, docent docent is yeah, it's a new name for you in China, but I'm aware of the name. I'm aware. So, you know, that I've been Shanghai, Beijing. Yeah. Yeah. So I hold it very dear. It's, it's a huge honor to have a nickname in China. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm also watched most of his movie. Yeah. Yeah. You're very kind of that. Yeah. Can, can we talk a little bit about, I mean, the physical challenges of this, as you say, you're, you're. You're on mountains, you're in crevices, like you clearly that you're doing as much of this for real as possible. A hundred percent for real. Did you feel in danger at any point? I mean, no, I tell you why. Well, here's the thing. We, we were surrounded by the, the experts. We were surrounded by to go back to this. It was extraordinary, unprecedented, unrepeatable, unforgettable moment. I flew from London to Kathmandu and then within, I think within 59, 15 hours, I was in a helicopter from Kathmandu to Lookla. So Lookla is where you land. If you want to track to base camp, it's where they got to when, in 1953, they would have walked from Kathmandu and there's now a strip of runway inside the mountain. It's, it's quite the landing, in a fixed wing plane or a helicopter, the airport was built by, by Tenzing and Hillary in the sixties, in order to bring in supplies to build schools and to help. Yeah. Yeah. The Sherpa community and, and improve their living conditions and their facilities. And it's called the Tenzing Hillary airport. And there's a huge statue. No pressure. Yeah. And I've been in Nepal for, for 24 hours and suddenly, and it was just the two of us with two Sherpas, um, called Purbatashi and Dr. Nemo, uh, both of them are from the Khumbu valley. Purbatashi has summited Everest 21 times. No, no, 33. 33? Yeah. 33, the last one, he said his mother very worried about him to climb the mountain. Yeah. And the last one is he was on the middle of the way up the Mount Everest and then his mother was passed and after that he stopped to climb the mountain. Wow. It's a legend. And Purbatashi is, is, features very prominently in Jen's, uh, documentary Sherpa. Yeah, yeah. Um, and has dedicated his life to. To the mountain and helping people get to the top and get back down again safely. So you had Purbatashi as your guide in Sherpa culture, in their ways of life, in their, in their techniques, their climbing techniques, but also their spiritual, their spirituality and everything. And we had Dr. Nemo who was born in Kumjung, uh, which is on the way to base camp. And every, as I say, every tracker goes through Kumjung and, uh, Dr. Nemo was educated. At the age of six at a school called the Hillary school, which Hillary built. And Dr. Nemo is now my age and he's a high altitude doctor who's worked in the UK for the NHS. He's worked in the United States. He's worked in China and he's a specialist at high altitude medicine, both of them gifted. And it was just the four of us for four days walking through the same terrain across the same, you know, um, wrought iron, uh, um, high altitude bridges. The same pine forests, the same tea houses walking with the donkeys and the mules and, and, and the silences that we shared and also the conversations we shared. And suddenly the sky on the third or fourth day starts to be filled with what seemed like gods, right? Enormous mountains, the biggest mountains in the world, 8,000 meter plus peaks. And one of them is Everest. And you see it for the first time, um, a gentle reminder of what you're doing. I know. And we were so, we had so many conversations about, it was such a gift from Jen to us to have that time away from any kind of official pre-production away from the cameras, just to get to know each other, to talk about the story we were going to share, the responsibility we both felt to inhabit the lives of these extraordinary men who changed the idea of what's possible. They both. Became the most famous men alive, um, after their summit, but they were very humble and very grounded people. Yeah. But as I said to you, so to go back to your question, we were completely surrounded by experts. We had a, um, a mountain safety, uh, expert called Guy Cotter, who himself has summited Everest six times, um, a New Zealander, the son of Ed Cotter, who was one of Edmund Hillary's best friends. And they cut their teeth as climbers in the late forties. And, um, with George Lowe and Earl Rutherford. So, and we had Barry Blanchard, all these, all these people who love mountaineering, who've dedicated their life to the mountains heard about the film and wanted to help us. We were the only people almost who had never done it before. Um, uh, Would either of you at this point now, have you like, would you want to scale Everest like for real? Like do it for real? I worry for my fingertips. I worry if actors need their fingertips. That's important. I just, I, it's, it's interesting. Also Everest itself is so busy and, and, you know, we know there's so many people up there and there's a wider conversation happening about how busy should the mountain be and, and that you need us, that it should be a requirement that there's a certain level of expertise to even attempt it because mountains like the ocean can, can render great serenity, but they have. So much power that if you don't know what you're doing, um, they can, they can be very dangerous places. Remind you of the power of nature. Power of nature. Yeah. That's different. When you front, stand in front of the snow mountain and the mountain, you feel you are so tiny. Humanity is so tiny in front of the nature. But we saw it before we started filming. We saw Everest together. We got to, we hiked. It took about four or five days. Four days to Tengboche where there's still an old monastery and it's almost the last building that you've, any tracker or any hiker sees before they get to the mountain. And then we didn't have time to go all the way because we had to get back, but there was a helicopter to take us back to Lukla and before going back, we just went through the valley over base camp and we clapped eyes on, on Everest and looked up through the ice fall, the Khumbu ice fall, the Western Khum, the South summit, the neighboring faces of Nupsey. And what was extraordinary was my first site of Everest was with you and we looked at it together. We both saw Mount Everest for the first time, but our viewpoint also was exactly the same as Hillary's first viewpoint, right? He had been on a reconnaissance expedition in 1951 with this great romantic climber called Eric Shipton because Nepal had opened its borders to Western exploration in the late forties. And they went up. They went up a peak that's opposite Everest called Pamori. And suddenly they looked down and they saw this route, a new route that was never available to Mallory or any of those climbers that was possible through the ice fall. And I had exactly the same view of Everest for the first time. It gave me chills. It still gives me chills to tell the story. He was there 70 years ago looking exactly at this angle and, and then being selected, you know, because they were, it's worth saying as well, Tenzing. Yeah. Tenzing in 1953 on the British expedition, because the, the. Nepal had every year they gave different permits to different nations to have a go to make an attempt so the previous year the permit had been given to the Swiss with a great climber called Raymond Lambert and Tenzing had been with Lambert and they were only something like how many there were 800 feet from the summit or 800 meters they got so close so by the time you get to the spring of 1953 Tenzing already has the distinguished honor of having been the highest ever so he's already broken a world record and he's about to break another one More Happy Say Confused coming up From the parents behind Law & Order comes a mystery the whole family can enjoy Patrick Picklebottom Everyday Mysteries step into the whimsical world of Patrick Picklebottom a precocious 11 year old with a love for reading and an uncanny ability to solve mysteries inspired by the beloved children's book of the same name this podcast vividly brings Patrick's tales of deduction and everyday adventures to life as he 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energy grab your throw blanket and hit subscribe and make sure you turn on notifications so you don't miss any of our new episodes of murder she watched wherever you listen to podcasts and let's solve this thing together it's remarkable because also as I understand it like both families were involved to a degree in this and very deeply in honoring the story I mean for you what was important for you to convey about Tenzing's contributions his spirit what do you hope folks come away with seeing the film about this man from Tenzing's story or Tenzing's character I found that Tenzing and Edmund Hillary also they are very humble and low profile and you know in their mind just thinking about we are humanity we want to help each other forgive each other and respect each other so become peace community so that's really strong spirits warning like this to me because they don't want to say you are from this country you are I'm from this country there's never thing sort of these things I found that's from their story and from their book they said we are all from different countries different place but we are humanity and we just doing one thing just to climb the mountain not others so their mind is a very pure and kind and kind and compassion to all the other people Tenzing always thinking about how it can make the other people happy or comfortable so this is very great great character of Tenzing and he's yeah he's always doing so he said sometimes he's really hard because the Sherpa team think he just depends on the mountaineers yes the Europe the other people and the European people thought you are right yeah he's caught between both worlds yeah and Tenzing really hard between them he always want to think so many why to to manage the problems and yeah he's he told about like this I think it's really hard but he's done very good job I mean there's you kind of alluded to this especially in these times it's really it's beautiful to see a story about two men seemingly very pure of heart who yeah we're good just good men good people trying to accomplish something and knowing that they can't do it alone that they need a partnership a brotherhood every every climber knows that you summit as a pair yeah and you share the risks you say the challenges you share the success nothing else matters yeah and I want you to tell everybody about your connection to Norbu Tenzing oh yeah and that's and the family because before I'm started our work from the movie and I really push to myself forget myself and joined to attendance character and I watched all the documentary about Tenzin and a written many books about Tenzin and even a I just turn off my phone and I delighted all may just amusement app right I don't have anything focus yeah just 100% focus on the script and filling that and after for a while and really feel and yeah I'm turns in like this and we all the first time I met them the Nobu or they are I don't know why I have a very special feeling this they are my family just like I am the soul of Tenzin and looking to them just between us have just a glasses a glass yeah so I just looks I'm younger than them but back of the glass I'm looking at my made my son's I have something like this feeling and I'm gonna cry but of course I stopped I've got no special for me yes good job and also when I was come John I want to speak the Sharpa language and I'm living in purpose home yes I'm and I study my dialogue and every day I speak to them booboo and purpose wife who was a daughter and sometimes I go out and go to the village and I will speak my dialogue to every people I met there and sometimes I will speak my dad up to the yaks she said or was I saw it I saw it it was so sweet to run your lines going to run your lines with the yaks it was so the reactor should have a yak just as they can just run the lines yeah yeah we was it honestly I saw it with my own eyes how is this man put in my cup my screen partner is either really dedicated or crazy it was amazing and I remember also I mean it was four days of days and nights and you know you learnt you learnt new languages you learnt English and Sherpa can be you're also speaking Nepali and you had to learn the Sherpa dialect yeah and the way of life and we went now there's a place called Nam Chu Bizarre and all mountaineers who've been through yeah we will know what I'm talking about it's sort of the last place you can buy supplies it's high but and everybody gets to Nam Chu and I remember when we left Nam Chu that morning you put the bags we were carrying on your forehead like you were a Sherpa porter oh yeah yeah and and we were going up the hill he had the bag so there's a leather strap but you put on your forehead oh yeah and it's really steep I mean it was a lot of it was a high climb to come Joan and I remember we you start to see the axe and and and we were running lines and doing bits of scenes and he would just do all his Sherpa dialogue to the axe and then pubertash it would say no no it's a slightly different Bell sound and he goes sorry sorry you do it again always but also there was this the fact that we had this experience of doing it together was just you know and you were looking out for me because you've been an altitude for a while and we were going quite high I remember we were staying overnight at a tea house and I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom remember this yeah it's really cold up there you sleep in your you know down jacket I got up to go to the bathroom and I went back in and there was a knock on the wall and it was again and saying Tom are you okay you are you feeling okay I'm like I'm okay I'm okay Hemsworth never did that but in the middle of the night never knocking on the wall just to check on me in case I had altitude sickness question do you ever practice lines with your dog does Bobby always always seriously yeah do I really not really know but I do he will have heard them all right because I take my lines on dog walks because I need to be running to learn my lines on the move right and so I'm like okay let's go out and he starts wagging his tail they go for a walk the ears prick up and I'll have my lines recorded sometimes and I'll be doing them out aloud hey look back at me and go forget he's running his lines I'll go find some rabbits or whatever you know this is the best way to get doomsday spoilers just to follow you on a walk just talk to Bobby or talk to Bobby Bobby Bobby's got them all can briefly we started by talking about tell your ride um i don't know if you've run into folks here i was just talking to ken brana at the brunch which must be so wonderful for you to be so lovely to see him in this environment have you so you've run into ken have you met anybody yet at the brunch any actors last night i introduced you to my old friend rebecca hall oh so uh the dinner last night yeah yeah yeah um my friend from university rebecca yeah she's a really amazing extraordinary actor and artist and she's the guest director of the festival she's programmed some of the films um but she's i've known her since we were 18 oh yeah she's great yeah so we met rebecca and you met rami malik oh yeah rami jumbo you wanted to ask him for a photo oh yeah yeah but freddie mercury himself really busy and in that he was busy maybe tomorrow after he sees the film you and you should brush him off and say you're busy um where we sit it's so much to talk about this so can i briefly say anything we've talked about norbu and i met norbu too who's one of tenzing's sons and jamling tenzing um three years ago and sort of just wanted to hear their father's story from them but i um was really fortunate and grateful for the experience of meeting alexander hillary right as soon as i landed in kathmandu he was actually he's hugely responsible for the himalayan trust which is what was set up by edmund hillary in his lifetime and actually after the summit of 1953 edmund hillary dedicated his whole life to improving the lives of the sherpas um and i think i viewed he viewed the kumbu valley as his second home right um obviously he lived in new zealand still and had a home there but spent a great um you know a great many chapters of his life in the kumbu where he just wanted to give back i think and um as i say he built schools and he built um medical facilities and helped build the airport and he set up the thing called the himalayan trust which is which is still about trying to give back and and and serve the community and he alexander edmund's grandson happened to be in kathmandu so i met him on the evening that i landed and it was so extraordinary to shake his hand and sit with him for an hour or two in a way and also reassure him that i was committed to this with total sincerity that i was aware of the enormous privilege of playing his grandfather and you know was there anything he wanted me to know um and actually that his response was just how much he loved this part of the world yeah um and that actually towards the end of his life the things he was most proud of were his connections to the people of those mountains it wasn't necessarily the summit although he loved climbing very deeply and then i spoke to peter edmund's son and alexander's father and peter told me some amazing stories about his dad um and i got this sense of of the the spirit of mischief and playfulness and sense of humor that i got from all the books i watched i read the books i watched the documentaries um i read all the different accounts john hunt's account john hunt is played in our film by the great william defoe um george lowe who was his best friend also a kiwi wrote a book called conquest of everest with a photo essay um and but to hear it from his son there was one story he said they were they were tracking together much later um uh when peter was a uh a grown man somewhere in india and it was a very very difficult uh the weather was extremely difficult and the rain was coming down and the wind was building up and they were climbing this rock face and there was gale force winds and they climbed they scaled the rock face and found a plateau where they could pitch their tents and they were struggling to get canvases were being blown away and things were falling off the mountain rain was horizontal it was it was the fine art of suffering as all high altitude mountaineering is and it was grim and they finally got the tents up and they finally crawled in you know absolutely drenched and and soaked to the skin and in complete silence and they made a brew and they all sat down and settled in and and his dad ed hillary was the first to say anything and he said he just piped up you know folks some people wouldn't think this was much fun and everybody laughed and suddenly it was a great adventure yeah and that he had this gift of transforming hardship adversity into aren't we lucky we get to do this we get to do this and i really think that's what i can translate to everything you do that's we've had that conversation about acting that's what you do yeah aren't we lucky but i kept feeling that and as you say like he was such a good man and tenzing was such a good man and we met do you remember we met it's also worth saying because we've never talked about it in um in namche we met uh kanza sherpa no of course uh and kanza who's very sadly no longer with us um yeah he died late last year we met him in and we at his house and he's the la he was then the last surviving member of the expedition he was the youngest yeah and we sat with him for an hour or two and just sat at his feet and listened to his stories he told him many stories many stories very helpful to us and to believe myself I can perform tenzin well and I said do you think I can perform tenzin well? I'm going to act tenzin. And he said okay you don't worry about that. You can do that. You are just very looks like tenzin right now. You are here. He turned to his children and said he looks just like him. Don't need a better endorsement than that. Yeah that gives me many encouragement to okay maybe I can do that. It sounds like there were so many signs along the way whether it's seeing Everest meeting these people that were connected part of it. Yeah yeah that's really good. And also one time you remember we went to the school that's school. We watched our room there's all the pen or something and we watched a shorter video about you remember that? Yeah. And he said not humanity conquered the Mount Everest. The Mount Everest didn't really accept humanity. I really love that speech. It was revealed something to us. Yeah. Yeah I think so. Hillary really did many good things in the value of the Himalaya. Yeah. And even I thought if there is heaven maybe Hillary is there. If he's not in the heaven I think there is not existing. If he didn't make the cut then who would be? Who would? Right? I really thought that. He did very good job to give back to the Himalaya value and the Sherpas. He also said that's all my fame or everything is come from Himalaya. I want to this give back to Himalaya. So he just build many school hospital to the Sherpa people. So he's in my mind he's also like a God. Yeah. Like a Buddha like this. Yeah really. But and also they loved they loved the wilderness. And I think that was where their their bond was formed that they loved mountains. Yeah. They love the freedom of being folded into nature and actually forgetting that I think they really loved that. And it was it struck me that everything I learned about both of them is that they felt completely themselves when they were out in the elements. And to find again a compatriot a brother in arms out there. Right. It was amazing. More Happy, Sad, Confused coming up. I'm Anne Foster and I have never watched the show Blood and Sand. And I'm Gina Berry and I've watched this show numerous times. On our new podcast, Net for TV, we discuss TV shows and movies set in ancient history. This season we are discussing Blood and Sand. Follow Net for TV. That's N-E-F-E-R TV, wherever you get your podcasts. There are vampires out there. They're beside you in the darkness. But what people don't understand is that they're not monsters. They're just going to work, living their un-lives. But we are a dying breed. Those who came before me, they are fearful and are not content to sit back and just disappear. And they'll do anything to fix that. From the creators of Parkdale Haunt comes Woodbine, a podcast about monsters, dreams, and changes, those you want and those you never saw coming. The final season begins this fall. Distributed by Realm. I'm going to let you go because I'm taking up a lot of your time. Can I ask you two off-topic things quickly? Of course. Can I ask about the Mad Max thing? We corresponded about this recently. Yes. So as you saw from my reaction when I was talking to Gal Gadot. It was a great reaction. I did not know that my buddy Tom Hiddleston auditioned for Mad Max. I've actually nearly told you that many times. But then I thought, well. It's time. Can you tell me your perspective on what it was like to audition? It was an extraordinary day. It was a whole day. I remember we had been well initially we've been given speeches from iconic movies right have you heard this bit so we've heard that bad to pick you got yeah i i was i did this speech from network yes um the meltdown yeah yeah and because actually i it was such a great piece of writing i don't remember how i did it but i remember just that was my speech and then the next round was around there were these pairings they're a pairing of a man and a woman together um and it was i i remember it being a day it probably wasn't a day it was probably like five hours or six hours but that's it was unusual um with gal um gal gadot and uh we'd never met before and it was i felt at the end of the day like we had played every single scene that was possible to play right um she was extraordinary she was so available and so committed and i remember there was this i don't think anyone else has told this story but there was a c uh we were asked by george miller's acting coach yes acting dramaturg insert michael fast bender's look to the camera there yeah um and it was i was given she was given a line she was given the line i love you and i was given the line i'm sorry and that was all you're allowed to say and i was like i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry say so and then we had to play the scene i had to invent a scene out of nothing with those two lines going back and forth you could say your line as many times as you like right and it all she all she could say was i love you all i could say was i'm sorry and we went on a journey that's all i would say we went it was how long was that scene you think about 25 minutes 25 minutes of just i love you i love you i'm sorry yeah you thought your job on this was hard 25 minutes yeah and then here's the kicker we finished we we'd you know we've wept and we had you know struggled and she'd left the room and come back and you know i'd wept and and then the exercise was stopped and um george miller's acting dramaturg said okay now tom and gal switch lines we go again so i had i love you and she had i'm sorry yeah i mean um this is my new podcast devoted just to mad max i've i could live on these stories for so i what's interesting having having seen now the discourse there's obviously a great there's an extended discourse yeah michael fast bender story cap denning's i mean i don't think anyone can top tom hardy at mom's house at mom's house until 11 o'clock at night just shooting the breeze um but yeah it sounds like every audition was slightly different but i do remember feeling that was a workout yeah that was an acting workout okay and last thing yeah nothing you can tell me obviously about doom state but we'll hopefully be talking more about that and much ado in new york i can't wait it strikes me that you and patrick stewart have both died three times is that right throughout the marvel films is somebody going to come out ahead do you think you or patrick is gonna take the mantle of most deaths on screen about is it three three each for you is that the count three i believe me hang on is are you counting the end of thor one yeah that's the death wait now i am now wait just letting go of letting go of the spear let's go i could i could have done it infinity wars one we know infinity wars one that's a death that's a death dark world is two that's definitely two yeah i guess that's my third then thor is three yeah is it not yeah not counted you're lowkey okay yeah yeah i counted so that's three i'm i'm not as well versed in the patrick stewart law um um i look if i keep going down the path of the end of this sentence i will find myself revealing things that uh it depends what you you know i'm not i'm gonna stop i have to stop are you happy that i mean loki seems integral to the film yes would you say that yes that's a major certainly certainly well come on i'm holding the timelines together okay i respect it i'm just saying don't all right i'll let you go on that it's a you know it's a we live in a multiverse now i think and um and loki has is is the god of stories so there it is yeah do you remember do you remember we were in a monastery in this in lower mustang this is an extraordinary moment it was you and me and william and so there's actually just not just of northeast of the kumbu valley because the kumbu is still an extraordinary destination and everybody should go by the way it's it's a completely life-changing thing to do today just to take your best friend or your partner or your children or your you know dear friends and do the do the trek to base camp it's a it's a pilgrimage that i recommend with every fiber of my being but it's still busy it's busy with it's busy with the modern world you know at namche you can go to yak buck yeah uh and get and get a yak buck coffee sounds great it's my favorite mug at home better than starbucks look i don't want to get into a whole like i didn't mean i'm sorry sorry i have i have the cup is my i drink in my morning coffee in the morning at home is out of my yak buck i love that cup so much yeah anyway um we were then so we couldn't there were certain things we couldn't do in the kumbu valley because it has all of the you know it comes with the 21st century it's got right and people are there and they should be there so we couldn't film there with all of our period costumes and our period details so we actually went further east to a place called lower mustang and jomsom which is very remote near the border with china and um i loved it there because it was so quiet we did lots of climbing do you remember we went up yeah yeah um but we were in we had been um for a day or two a a real active monastery with you know which houses uh monks who've been there for many many years in jomsom became the location for where we have our um puja yeah yeah yeah yeah where where they stop where the the expedition stops and asks for a blessing right um from the llama right is that yeah yeah yeah yeah um and uh we had all the western climbers participate in this extraordinary religious ceremony long story short we're in this monastery and the monks have generously given us this location for a day and they're very curious because we have all the kuchumar sure filmmaking and cameras and microphones and we do things again and again and again and retake and um at the end of the day we go onto the rooftop and we take some stills photographs remember yeah and uh three of the of the most quiet self-effacing monks approach and one of the monks said excuse me mr loki mr green goblin may we have a photograph the power and willem and i looked at each other and it was like of course you can and yeah so they had these photographs of of um you were the monks yeah loki and the green goblin just up in in the high the high hills of of uh yeah up at lower mustang great storytelling transcends go it goes everywhere that's it but i also it was the the respect of mr that the mr loki mr mr green goblin maybe goblin maybe have a photo yeah yeah that's the way to we didn't want you to feel excluded from that i think you're in the photo too yeah yeah we'll get him in the mc don't work i'm the photographer that's right you are the mean actor that's right you're tensing we don't do this without this yeah exactly exactly but it was an amazing here we are we're here we're in one of the most remote places in the world and we're in one of the most remote places in the world and we're in one of the most remote places i've ever been which is a you know a remote buddhist monastery in the in the himalayas in the foothills and um reminded mr loki and mr green goblin well look film at its best should feel like an adventure for you guys and for an audience and this seems to satisfy both um i'm so thrilled that you're this is like the beginning it's like the first interviews you've really given we've never talked about it yeah so i appreciate you guys it's great to achieve and a really important thing to honor and you did an amazing job can i say you just should have seen how hard this guy worked there's a scene in the film where um and i could i could honestly you know i could go on all day but the most difficult pubertashi and all the all the great summoners of everest will tell you the most dangerous part of everest is not the summit it's the kumbu ice fall and the kumbu ice hall is just after base camp and an ice fall is exactly what it's says on the tin it's a waterfall that's frozen which means it's moving all the time and the Sherpas would go up ahead of the climbers and try to basically plot a route through the ice fall crevasses everywhere seracs that are as high as high-rise buildings and if they fall on top of you that's it yeah it's russian roulette you do not know when the waterfall is going to change oh yeah and um there's a moment in the story where they're trying to to plot a route through the ice form and they come across a crevasse which seems completely unpassable it's too deep and it's too wide and the expedition can't get around they can't get through they can't they can't get across it they have to go back and find another way so everybody retreats to base camp beds down for the night and the next morning and Hillary gets up thinking I'm just gonna go and check it out and see if I can find a way and on the way there he hears a strange unnatural sound of metal against methyl and he realized Tenzing has got up an hour before him and he's already down there he hasn't fallen down there he's climbed down the crevasse he's climbed into the crevasse and then traversed the base of it and then it's climbed up it and the way you do that in high-altitude mountaineering is you because it's a sheer wall of ice you have to as the mountaineers would tell you you cut steps so you cut with your eyes on your own path your own ladder you each foothold and handhold becomes the ladder that you build and and and and and most mountaineers and Hillary would certainly say it's a routine mountaineering issue but it it took you it took and we would have taken half an hour and when we did it for real the extraordinary stunt department led by Augie Davis put Gendon at the bottom of the crevasse and then Gendon climbed out of it there was no let's just cut some steps for you no and the camera was on a jib yeah There were a couple of cameras shooting at the same time. And Jen just said, okay, Gendon, climb. That's a real climb. And we all watched him climb out of a crevasse. I climbed three or four times. You've earned a romantic comedy. You've earned a very nice, easy movie next. Don't do this again. You did it. He's incredibly tough. Yeah, that's really tiring. I tried it three times. I climbed it three or four times. And of that, I'm really exhausted. I'm just lying on the edge of the crevasse. And remember, there's the other moment where, and this really happened, and Hillary writes about it, where they were high up on the Western Combe or the Lhotse Face, which is the sort of, it's the most exhausting part of climbing Everest. And you just have to cut steps so that everyone can get supplies because it's a pyramid of effort. You have to carry the loads. It's of your food and your oxygen cylinders and your tents. So you're climbing high and then sleeping low and then getting up your sugar and your coffee and your oxygen and your cheese and your dried apricots and tinned peaches and your sardines. You climb down, go back up again. It is such painstaking work. But there was a moment where Tenzing and Hillary had decided they recognized in each other a kind of mutual talent. They were very strong. They were very determined. They worked very fast. They were probably the fittest of the group. And they had, a bit like scuba diving. You do it as a pair. And they had paired up and they were out there cutting steps on the Lhotse Face. And they were quite confident. They were running back down at the end of the day. And Hillary writes about jumping across this very narrow crevasse and he was feeling the wind in his sails and looking forward to getting home for dinner and a cup of tea. And the other side of the ledge gave way under his feet and he was falling. And he said Tenzing saved his life because he did what's called a self-arrest. You jam the ice axe into the snow. It could be a rope together. Wrap the rope around the ice axe and then it locks. But Hillary is now suspended in a crevasse basically being held by Tenzing's weight and the ice axe. And then Hillary has to climb out. But I remember when we did it they gave you my full weight. I was in the crevasse for real. This is a tall man. This is a lot. This tall man is really heavy. And essentially Gendon has to then pull me out of the crevasse as I'm cutting steps and trying to take some of the weight. That's a really, really, really good push. You don't want to perform that. You are really doing that thing. Best days. Honestly, best days. I'm glad I got to enjoy it in my comfy seat. In the theater. I enjoyed it in the best possible way. The whole thing was unprecedented and unrepeatable. Don't you think? Yeah. Unforgettable. I've never made a film like this. I may never make another one like this again. Every part of this is really, yeah, removable. It's all on the screen. You should feel, both of you should feel very proud of it. Thank you, Josh. We're hours away from the big premiere. Enjoy the moment. This is a special one. Congratulations. Great to meet you, Gendon. Thank you. Tom, I don't know where we're going next, but we'll find another city, another, best of all, we'll do, well, the act continues. Yeah. Toronto? Let's do it. I'll see you in Toronto. All right. Good to see you guys. Thank you both. Appreciate you. And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressured to do this by Josh. See you next time on Happy, Sad, Confused. Because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you. Wait, what? 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