We’re seconds into our interview, and I’m already getting the full Jeff Goldblum charm offensive. “I haven’t seen you for six years, but you look six years younger!” he beams, as if we’re old friends. “I want to know all your secrets,” he adds, conspiratorially. “Is that a guitar behind you? I’d love to hearContinue reading “Jeff Goldblum: ‘I’m in my platinum years, but I feel younger than springtime’”
Category Archives: Interviews
Phil and Kirstie: ‘Because you’re privileged, it doesn’t mean you don’t have empathy’
Eric and Ernie, Wallace and Gromit, Ant and Dec: some double acts are so famous, they don’t need surnames. And to that list we can surely add Phil and Kirstie, whose reign as the undisputed king and queen of TV property shows has now lasted a quarter of a century. It’s 25 years this week,Continue reading “Phil and Kirstie: ‘Because you’re privileged, it doesn’t mean you don’t have empathy’”
Joanna Lumley: “They asked me to be the voice of the four-minute warning”
To call Joanna Lumley a ‘national treasure’ feels somehow inadequate. In truth, she is closer to a sacred monument – one of that rarefied group of people, like David Attenborough and Michael Palin, who are as essential to Britain’s idea of itself as Shakespeare and spotted dick. From her early days as a 60s cover girlContinue reading “Joanna Lumley: “They asked me to be the voice of the four-minute warning””
Steve Coogan: “I half agree with a lot of what Alan Partridge says”
“I never really wanted to be an entertainer,” says Steve Coogan. “I mean, I love entertaining people. But I always wanted to do work that had substance – that had some meat on the bones. I went to drama school, but got sidetracked into comedy, and I just went where the work was. My attitudeContinue reading “Steve Coogan: “I half agree with a lot of what Alan Partridge says””
Rob Brydon: “Saying goodbye to Gavin & Stacey was emotional. We all love each other.”
For Rob Brydon, saying goodbye to his Gavin & Stacey family was always going to be a wrench. But even he was surprised how emotional filming the sitcom’s last ever episode – to be shown on Christmas Day – turned out to be. “I thought it would be emotional at the end, and indeed itContinue reading “Rob Brydon: “Saying goodbye to Gavin & Stacey was emotional. We all love each other.””
Richard Osman: “If you’re worried I don’t have enough failure in my life, I can assuage those worries”
When I last spoke to Richard Osman, in the strange, uneasy summer of 2020, the genial TV exec-turned-Pointless host was still waiting, slightly anxiously, to see how his debut novel would be received. “I’m very proud of it,” he told me. “But as to what happens next… I don’t know.” Flash forward to today, andContinue reading “Richard Osman: “If you’re worried I don’t have enough failure in my life, I can assuage those worries””
Rod Stewart and Jools Holland on music, model railways and a lifetime of good luck
It’s not unusual for Jools Holland to pick up the phone to rock royalty. Or, indeed, actual royalty (this is a man whose friends and acquaintances include everyone from Sir Paul McCartney to the King). But when the musician and TV presenter took a call from Sir Rod Stewart a couple of Christmases ago, neitherContinue reading “Rod Stewart and Jools Holland on music, model railways and a lifetime of good luck”
David Nicholls: ‘I don’t know if authors should think too much about where they come on the brow scale.’
The year is 2009. Gordon Brown is Prime Minister, Slumdog Millionaire sweeps the board at the Oscars, and Susan Boyle outsells Beyoncé and Taylor Swift to become the UK’s unlikely new queen of pop. In publishing, meanwhile, the year marks the arrival of two very different, but equally cherished, literary sensations: Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winningContinue reading “David Nicholls: ‘I don’t know if authors should think too much about where they come on the brow scale.’”
Jack Thorne: “My autism seemed to be an open secret to everyone but me”
Jack Thorne squirms slightly whenever someone describes him as ‘prolific’. “I always feel it talks to a lack of care,” says the man The Guardian once dubbed ‘the hardest-working writer in Britain’. “I don’t want to be the guy who, when someone asks for six bananas, says ‘I can give you 12 bananas.’ So that’s why I’mContinue reading “Jack Thorne: “My autism seemed to be an open secret to everyone but me””
Ken Bruce: “I was grateful to Gary Lineker for coming along and taking the heat off me…”
Ken Bruce never wanted to be famous. And in some ways (as he’d be the first to contend) he sort of still isn’t. Which sounds like an extraordinary claim to make about Britain’s most popular broadcaster – but, through some strange act of quantum trickery, the 72-year-old has somehow managed to become a fully-fledged nationalContinue reading “Ken Bruce: “I was grateful to Gary Lineker for coming along and taking the heat off me…””
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