Look out. His only films to be buried with. Hello, and welcome to Films to be buried with. My name is Brett Goldstein. I'm a comedian and actor, a writer, a director, a boost bart and I love film. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, for every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness, which is actually what the subtext to the Nick Cage Angeline, the Jolie film Gone in sixty Seconds was about the cars they were stealing, where actually people's joy. It was surprisingly deep that film, when you think about it. That's a good point, Ralph Waldo Emerson. It doesn't get the credit it deserves. Every week I invite a special guest over. I tell them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their life through the films that meant the most of them. Previous guests include Barry Jenkins, Kevin Smith, Jamila Jamil and even Bed Crambeles. But this week it's the amazing actor a musician, Ben Barnes. Head over to the Patreon at patron dot com forwards slash Breck gold Steam, where you geting next to twenty minutes of chat with Ben. We talk about beginnings and endings. He tells me an amazing secret. You get the whole episode ad free and as a video. Check it out over at patreon dot com. Forward Slash Breck Golds Team ted Lasso Season two is now available in full on Apple TV Plus. You can watch the whole thing in one go. Plus you can see Soulmate season one on Amazon Prime watching both. Why not a bit of fun in it? So Ben Barnes, All Ben Barnes, Are you kidding? No, I'm not. He's really here. Ben Barnes is a brilliant actor. You know him as Prince Caspian. You know him from Westward, from The Punisher, you know him from Shadow and Bone. He's also a singer. He's got his own album out Songs for you. You should listen to it. It's fucking great. We recorded this on Zoom about a four week ago, and I've never met him before. Ah. We had so much fun together. He was so brilliant. I really think you're gonna love this one. So that is it for now. I very much hope you enjoy episode one hundred and sixty nine of Films to Be Buried with Hello and welcome to Films to be buried with it is I Brett Goldstein, and I am joined today by an actor. He's a west Welder. He's a shadow and boner. He's the principal of Narnia. I think he is a man from Sutton and he now lives in la He's a hero to many, a legend to most, and also he's fit. Please welcome to the show, the brilliant mister ben Burns. You you you said Bono. Within thirty seconds of this, that's the quickest I've got to it. It's over. I did have a thought that you know, groups of fans of shows often have have names, and I toy died the idea of calling them my shadow and Bonus. But then I I've resisted the urge to even say that until this moment. That's the first time I said it, because you did it. It starts here, the shadow and it was a very nice thing. You've got to be the Shadow and Bonus. I would be loud and proud of that. You're going to get the credit for that. Now. I'll take it on the Twitter. I'll take it. Yeah. You deserve it, no regrets, you deserve it. Thank you man. It's lovely to have you this is the first time we've ever met. Yeah, so far, it's going great, it's going very I appreciate you doing this now. I I've been aware of you sometime, Ben Bars. You worked with friends of the podcast, Will Porter in Prince Caspian. Yeah, and one of my best one of my best pals. He just took me. It took me out actually for a lot of really lovely birthday dinner. Mine not his eyes, and he's about fifteen still, but it was He's a lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely man. That's a lovely man. But then you know what I was what I mean, Look, I've seen you a lot of stuff. You're a very good actor, but you do something that I really really like, and you did it in Westworld, which is I think it's very brave. You play like a bad type, a bit of a bad type in West World, and I think you do it. You're very sort of charming in it, but you also don't at all shy away from the like really unpleasant, sort of sleazy, sort of unattractive parts of that character. And I always think that that's really I don't think a lot of actors do it. I think it's really cool. And really brave because you're not protecting yourself as a You're not sort of like, there are people who play bad guys, but they play them like yeah, but you love them because they're so charismatic and fun and cool, like you allow in the parts that are like no, he's genuinely unpleasant as well, you know what I mean. And I think that's pretty brave. I like it. Thank you, that's really nice. I've sort of found myself as a weird, odd little niche in the last sort of five or six years are playing these people who are slightly reprehensive or either that they're sort of psychotic or evil or villainous or just or just guilty of just general douche baggery. But but and I don't, and you're right, and I never, I never. I've also, I'm fully aware of how incapable I am of making character particularly kind of like cool or anything like that, but I will I do. Whilst whilst I'm not afraid of the like of the like grim, gross parts of it, I am quite protective of the humanity of them, because I'm quite a sort of quite a soft, hopeful, desperate to be happy kind of person. And so I think that that gets a little bit infused into all of those characters. And like you described on Westward, when they asked me to come back for a second season and it was it felt like such a privilege to be asked to sort of scratch away at the character a bit and look at his I know it sounds a bit I was raised by psychiatrist and psychotherapists, but a little bit scratch away his relationship with his with his dad. You see his relationship with his dad, and you peel away the onion a bit and you see why he's so fucked up and why he's behaving like such a knob all the time to everyone, and because there are always reasons, always, and those things really interest me. I love that. Let's look, that's exactly what what we're always trying to do on ted Lasts. It's that thing of it, and it's when you're a bad guy. Almost never thinks they're a bad guy and they think that they're doing so yeah, and you play play all that. I just think it's great, But I also I think I'm trying to think of examples. I don't want to name it. I don't want to name in shame, but I can. I can think of people who play bad guys, and you're you're almost like you're not a bad guy. You're just fucking great, Like you're just so entertaining and like it's you're you're not allowing that character to be ugly. I suppose, whereas I think you do, you do that as well as all the charm and everything. Anyway, that's my open handmail to you, to your face. That is from my section fan mail. Do you not do that? You? You you are playing something which is entirely lovable from start to finish, even though that's not what it's supposed to be on the page. And you can't help it. You can't help it at all. And now and now suddenly everyone in the world wants to hug you like Teddy Bear, and this makes you uncomfortable. So maybe we've revealed how limited my abilities are. So Ben Burns, you live in la You've lived here ten years, I believe, and yeah, coming up on that, Yeah, and do you feel at home here? Is it still wild? How much of this? Because you how old were you when you did Prince Caspian? I was about twenty five, and that was like the biggest thing that happened. I thought you were good and that was like quite a long time ago to your face. No, no, no, I mean that's yeah, yeah, you were doing maths. Yeah, quite right. I will never tell. Yeah, I'm very comfortable here. I do miss my friends and family, and you know, just in London, I missed that a lot, but also very lucky to have a kind of sort of lifestyle and job which takes me on adventures and takes me, you know, keeps me interesting and and you know, I think at least half of the time I'm not sort of at home. So I think that that's a particular kind of lifestyle which I never imagined for myself and would certainly not curate if I did anything else for a living on purpose. But I do love that it is part of my life. Can I ask you this and we again, if you don't want too, we can cut it. Before we started recording this podcast, you tell me something that was very interesting to me, you said, I said, is there anything you're worried about talking about? And you said something like, I used to worry so much about that stuff, and now I'm very happy to talk about myself. And I wondered what had happened to lead you to that, if I may so, I think I think it was a combination of things, but it was I think, very very early on, I had some quite aggressive interactions with with with press, you know, doing sort of basically nothing, you know, a few plays and bits and pieces, and then and then doing them the Nannia films, and suddenly people I'm interested in you in your life. And I remember having this conversation when I was about twenty five, and the journalist sort of said to me, you have to answer these kinds of questions if you want to do this for a living, and I, at twenty five, full of vim, said no, I don't. I can keep anything I want to for myself. And I still fervently believe that in that sort of freedom of choice, but it sort of it tightened me and closed me off a bit to feel a bit defensive. I think when talking about stuff, and I've I've done so many years of you know, just sort of just by virtue of the way film and TV interviews work. I think as well, like you're being asked about characters and things that you didn't necessarily right. But I think what happened was I think the pandemic sort of kicked in, and we all spent a year in a bit sitting around wondering what kind of people we want to be and where we fit in if we're not allowed to do the things we do on a regular basis and don't have the things that we have to look forward to regularly to keep us on the wheel and facing forwards, and who do we care about? And what do we care about? And I wrote a lot of music in that time, and it was something I'd wanted to do for about twenty years. I'd started to do it about twenty something years ago and it had fallen apart. And I've done it as part of my career all the way through. I've always kind of done that, but always in someone else's voice. I think I've always even when I was a kid at school, I did snarchs attribute concerts and Stevie Wonders, Soul Nights and things like that, and I would love it so much. And then in my films, I've played street buskers, Americana folk street buskers, and I played a crap rock star in in a in a comedy, singing sort of like new Romantic stadium rock crap. But it was never met me, and I think that it's just the clock ticked down on having to make something of my own that was that was sort of me that I haven't played. It's sort of obvious to sort of think, well, if you spend twenty years pretend to be other people, at some point you're going to want to do something that's yours. But I hadn't really thought about it until the pandemic, and then I wrote a sort of collection of songs which show I've just released, and it's sort of it's sort of freed up the style of interview the way I've been talking about it, people asking me about me, not about you know, sort of sordid details of your life or anything, but just interested in me and what it takes to make something from myself and that and that really like just sort of freed me up to be the most to feel sort of the most me I could feel, which I think a lot of us felt a bit, particularly during the pandemic, felt a bit floaty and disconnected and all of that. I think most of the people that I know felt a little bit dis associated for a lot of it. And and so I think I'm just sort of trying to relish feeling like me again a bit that is really interesting, And I've just remembered something which makes this sort of big revelation you've had and this feeling of freedom a sort of a shame, because I forgot that I should have told you. I should have told you before I listen to you. You've died. You've died, so listen. Good that you had that feeling of freedom very very briefly. But in this moment, now, in this very dead I am dead. Well, I've just dis well. Like I said, I actually found out a while back, and I forgot to tell you. You are, in a way the grim Reaper. How did you die? Well? It being the case that I've listened to your podcast before, and I know that in about an hour's time, you're going to make it try and sound as grim and disgusting and foul as possible. I'm gonna challenge you that's not my vibe. I'm gonna challenge you by saying the truth, which is that I hope that I died very peacefully and comfortably and old, surrounded by love loved ones squeezing my hand gently, or do I know you're going to say, I have to have died in this minute now. No, no, no, you you you you can die like this. This is taking place in this sort of timeless zone, so you can be as old as you want you. I would like to be one hundred, because when I was a kid, I thought that's how would you live to Yeah, you get a letter from the queen and then and then loved ones around your bed and one of them squeezes your hand to death. One of them squeezes my hand to death. Yeah, it's they love me so very much that they crush my fingers, which causes I'm not getting called into this lured into your quite I mean quite a horrific death, really squeezing and loving, and I barely noticed it, to be honest, I slipped off into the into the never after, is what I did. Do you worry about death, Ben Bands? I used to worry about death a lot. I was definitely that that kid who actually probably didn't didn't want to talk about it very much because it was it just feels a bit overwhelming, and I think it still does, even though I think through your life you obviously can't but have more experience with it and be exposed to it more and and and the reality of it your face. With the reality of it, that perspective is brought much closer to your to your face. But I still, you know, I still put it in the category of of sort of infinity and time and all those kinds of things that I will never have a handle on, and so it doesn't really serve me to think about it too much. But yeah, I think I probably a fearful I think of death. That's I'm a very I think hope. It's probably one of my defining characteristics in the one is the one thing you can't be hopeful. I can't find her. I don't seem to be able to find hoping. But I will say that there are things that along the way that have made me feel so much more alive that it sort of becomes and I know people have said this to you before, but it will becomes so much more pressure. It will becomes so much more pressures for the fact that you know it's did it's temporary. Do you do you imagine anything happening after you die? Somebody once I wish I could remember who, But somebody once said to me, what do you remember before you were born? And I said nothing? And they said, that doesn't stand to reason that you probably won't feel or know anything after you're gone, And that's to me so far, is the best argument that's been put forward. And I'm open, I'm open, but but do you know what I've been thinking about that. You know, obviously hate that one. I hate that there was nothing before so there's nothing after, because then I also think, yeah, but when you're born, like humans in particular are the least, you know, born with anything. The only thing they can do is find a nipple, right, that's literally all the babies. Yeah, giraffe is up and walking in fifteen minutes, and horse, Yeah, horses are carrying people raising their own kids by a week, you know what I mean? Like yeah, yeah, so when it was yeah, so when you so when people say like, what did you know before you were born, it's like nothing, You didn't know anything because when you were born, the only thing you knew was find a nipple. So it's like when you died, you know a lot more by that point. So maybe this blank nothing this you're fully it's a lot more going on. That's my new theory I just come up with. Yeah, sorry, I'm still stuck on the on the sort of like the no more more of the sort of like main thrust of human existence to find the nipple, doesn't you know? I know people for whom that doesn't change very much as they go through life. I think absolutely doesn't. That's still. That's still is. Everything else is just sort of gravy around that in it. I've got count sweep and bans. There is a heaven and it's great and it's it's it's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's got all your favorite it's got your favorite thing. And what's your favorite thing? Oh I think it's so yeah, I think it's guys, there's got to be music. Yeah, well then this, this heaven is filled with music. There's music everywhere, except doing screenings when it would be inappropriate. But there's music everywhere. You sit on music, you sleep on music. There's music in the trees, and it's lovely. Everyone's very excited to see you. They're all big fans, but they want to talk to about your life. I want to famous. Yeah. Yeah, it's like comic. It's like welcome to the other after a quick photo. Oh yeah, okay, no one knows who the fuck you are. But so then you turn up you're a stranger. So people are like, who are you? Let's talk about your life through film? Oh yeah, yeah, that you're right as much better. The first thing they ask is what's the first film you remember seeing Ben Barnes? Do you know what? This was one of the ones that I struggled with the most to have one answer, because when people sort of say, oh, yeah, don't you remember your first time you ever ate a banana? Or I remember being born? Now you don't? You don't never remembers anything before they're about six, I reckon. So this was actually one I struggled with. I certainly remember sort of seeing the disneys of Sword in the Stone and Robin Hood and all that very early on, and the Never Any Story and Flight the Navigator and The Labyrinth, those sort of like early quests. Early eighties things were very Those are definitely those, those are the ones that were around, but I couldn't put my finger on what the first one was, Like I remember, well, let's go with flatting and Navigating because you ever talks about that on here for a while. What a what a movie? What? What? I'll say? What an eighties movie? My favorite part of that of that film definitely was when he gets to space Camp and he goes to his room and this and there's all these like sort of NASA things on his bed. He's got the space man ice cub and he's got his jumpsuit and it's all like laid out in this like perfect way on his like perfectly made bed, and it's all he gets. Its basically a welcome pack. That that is the most. That is my most vivid memory from that film. And I haven't seen it since I was a kid, and I can still remember that. I don't know what that says about anything, if it says anything about me, but that is that. That is the frame of the film that I remember the most. That is interesting. You like you like you like free? If you like you like a swagbag, that's what that's what you like? A T shirt? You like some merch? Yeah, how ironic. I've just released my own merch for my music. Now. It's not about much. It's it's about It's not about much. I think it's about it's about it's worried about it, about going there, and I think it's welcoming and it's loving the way it's sort of set out and I think that that it's like it's like doing nice things for people. Do you remember when you saw your early films thinking I want to do this, I want to be an actor. No, that I think that came. That came much much later, mid teens. I think it's because I was sort of quite good at quite a lot of things, but not very good at anything, and I think I felt a bit invisible and a bit sort of like lost, and a bit like I needed to sort of pick something. And I think that obviously, you know, this is this is an industry that you go into and you and then you're you are sort of seen, you're literally on this on a stage, and I think it was something that I could maybe devote myself and maybe maybe trying to get get good at. I think I think, I think I think it was just about trying to sort of focus on one thing, but I was I was never really able to do that because I was sort of too interested in lots of things. But but it started to be it was sort of through music actually in it, and then it was sort of you know, musical than the song part sort of got stripped away and it became about storytelling, and then I found a love of that latterly interesting. What's the film that scared you the most? Do you like being scared? No? I don't. And I said I would never do a horror film, and I've literally just finished work on a horror Gammo doctor is doing an anthology horror series called The Cabinet of Curiosities. It's a bit sort of Black mirrorsh but instead of tech, it's it's all sort of horror tropes, and I've just finished it this week. I was a very creepy, creepy, scary episode of it, with all manner of grizzly things and and a really terrifying and really terrifying ending. Oh great, and I and I purposefully asked the directing a team to mess with me as much as possible and to stop me at doing any acting, because I call him and said, I've been doing this twenty years, but I haven't really played anyone that's sort of scared a lot, and it's not a genre I'm very familiar with. When I was looking down your list, I looked up like the hundred scariest films ever, and I've seen about two of them, so I was like well, it's not on this list. So I was getting into bang bits of wood together and play horrible scream at me during takes if possible, just to sort of just to sort of like mess with me. And I did not like it, and I still won't watch anymore, but I will watch that. But but one of the things that he was asking me about kind of play some sounds, and I suddenly had this memory of the film the Return to Oz, which is the sequel to The Wizard the most ter the Wheelies. These these creatures work sort of they look like sort of human circus clowns, but they've got wheels instead of hands and feet and they squeak. So the director on one of the things because it requires me to be scared of things that I that aren't really there a lot this this this job I've just done, and so he would he he would play on speakers the sounds of the Wheelies during takes, just to fuck with me and mess with me. And it worked, and it was horrible. And then I remember that, you know that that sort of Alice in Wonderland, the thing of her falling down. I think it's Dorothy or Dorothy's or whoever it is falling down this sort of rabbit hole, but there's hands grabbing at her in this horrible sort of gropy way, and it just those two images. Again, I haven't seen it in so many years because why would you put yourself through that again? But those images are really really stuck with me. It's bananas return to us. It's fucking like when you watch it, you're like, I cannot believe this. There's a Disney film that got made for kids. It's so scary. No, someone was on someone was on some drugs. Yeah, yeah, there's heads in fucking in There's a whole cabinet of heads. It's scary. Shit, it's horrible. It's although when I was a kid, I can't tell you what film scared me the most. I mean, obviously I saw that when I was probably quite young, But as a little kid, I remembered this story and maybe I remember it and maybe it's just because my dad has told it to me and about me two various people in front of me many times. Which is that I think on about my sixth, fifth or sixth birthday, I was on a one of those Channel fairies and it was my birthday and there was a little screening room on the on the Fairy and they were playing a role that was the witches. And there is the moment in the middle the film for anyone who hasn't seen it, where the witches removed their wigs and gloves and they cut and skin and they look pretty gruesome. And at that point in the film, I'm apparently, according to myth legend, i waltzed down This is very apparently, this was very out of character. But it waltz down to the front of I hate speaking public, speaking as myself, by the way, you should notice about me. So scared of it, so scared of it, and walked down to the to the screen at the front, turned around and said in the most precocious way possible, well this is a bit too scary, isn't it, and walked out. My dad doesn't run after me, because because even like you've just left, I'm going to make a seek. So I'm jumping overboard. Good day. Yeah. So I have never told anyone that, but my dad had told lots of people. Why do you think you're so scared of talking as yourself? I mean I don't, I mean I sort of understand, but do you know way well, I don't know. I'm in my new found of revelation about about not being so worried about it. Maybe I'm maybe I'm not anymore. I don't know quite what it is. Maybe it's just too long, sort of doing it in front of people as someone else. But I do get even on the wrap of a film or something, when that in the thirty seconds you have to say thank you to a crew that I'm so grateful for my my heart just goes a bit too fast, my palms go a bit sweaty, and I'm not quite sure my words get jumbled up, And I don't know why that is. Because I'm very comfortable doing this with you. I'm very comfortable in any sort of social situation. But when it's suddenly you're sort of when it's there's a pressure on it expected. What expectation is the mother of all fucking horror, isn't it? And I think that you know, whenever you're sort of expected to say something, I can sort of clam up and get a bit tight. I think I've just sort of realized that it's actually not I'm not worried about necessarily being about because you can just go thank you very much, and keep it very short. But I think it's about sort of letting people's perception of who they think I am down. Not being charismatic enough or not not you know, not being eloquent or charming enough. Not being enough, I think is what's fueled a lot of that stuff over the years for me, of which I've now managed to sort of let go of it. You are enough, that's the title of this episode. What's the speaking of? Speaking of crying, what's the film that made you cry the most? Are you a cryer? Yeah? I like a good cry. The film that made me cry the most, and it made me cry for about three days, almost NonStop, because I think I saw it just too young was Spartacus. Oh really, it's a very specific reason, which was when you get to the end of the film, Kadison and Tony Curtis are forced to fight to the death on penalty of death, obviously that they're they're both going to be crucified unless they fight to the death, in which case only the victor will be crucified and the other one will be killed by their best friend and the catharsis of this a word that I didn't know at eight or whenever I saw it, that sort of unbearable pressure and tension, and the fact that they both love the other so much that they can't bear to be the one that would put them through the agony of the cruisefixion, and so they actually fight harder for it. There was something in my eight year old at whatever however I was brain that just had a schism and I could not bear the idea that anyone could come up with this. And I remember this, I do remember. I remember being in tears for days about it. Inconsolable. Yeah, interesting, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry for your less What is the film that you love? It's not critically acclaimed, most people don't like it, but you don't give a fucking shit what anyone says. You will stand by this film. Sister Act two. I love Sister Act two. Thank you back in the habit, Yes please. There are moments of Sister Act two that I will pull up on YouTube at any given opportunity. Tea when when Lauren Hill sings a bit of eyes on the sparrow, the organ or the or the sort of like joweful, joyful at the end, I think I just loved Lauren Hill's voice so much, and it's it's so much more exciting than the first one. And it follows all the all the proper sort of like traits of those kinds of cheesy films when they take the robes off at the end, and the dancing and the mum turning up and all of that, and and locking father Creasy or whatever in the cupboard with the salami. Come on, come on, I won't hear a word against it. Lawless, it's flawless. It gave us Lauren Hill. It's flawless. You can have that. Thanks. Wait, does that mean I've not been able to have anything so far? Yeah? Up to now, up to now, none of them have been allowed through. But this way, I didn't realize it was a challenge. It didn't realize there was a challenge, gentleman to it. Nor did I. But until this moment, and we're bay learning. Everyone else has got every film they've ever said through, but you so far? Yeah, that one. This has been quite a strict process of either way. But some reason it's a most bigger filter. I think it's good. I looked for a list of films that you said I mustn't talked about and thought, I need to mention several of these pooing your system, and the system is fighting back. What's the film you used to love, you loved it, you've watched it reasonably, You've gone now no, I don't like this no more, but for your own reasons. So I'm sure there are lots of those, and I couldn't think of them. But what I could think of was one of my favorite films of all time. And I've got a collection in my home of eighties movies post original posters of eighties movies that I've thought I just loved and have a connection to, some of which are on your list of things and not to talk about. But one of them is The Princess Bride, which I think is one of the greatest films ever made, one of the greatest films. However, it's one of those films that I that I'll peddle to people and say, this is one of the greatest films ever made. You what do you meet? What do you mean you haven't seen it, I'll say, because my cast, especially of my cast of the show that I do when Netflix got they're in their early twenties. Mainly some I haven't seen it. They watched it and sort of came back, and a couple of them came back and said, yeah, I got about thirty minutes and I didn't really somebody get it. So I went back and watched it again, thinking maybe maybe it's date, maybe it's a bit dated, maybe it doesn't quite hold up. It absolutely fucking does. It's brilliant, and they're wrong. Brilliant, they're wrong. So there's a film that does hold up, which is I think what you asked? Do you know what I like? You flipping the question? I'm going to let that through. It was jaky, brilliant, but I'm letting it through because I love the Princess Bride. I feel it one O one, which I did used to watch as a kid in the day. I think it's not anymore. I always wanted to go on that and this is about as close as I'm ever going to get, and I'm going to enjoy it. But whatever say that, only this is seeming to take that format. Now, what is the film that means the most to you, Ben Brans? Not necessarily the film itself is any good, but because the experience you had around seeing it, that will always make it meaningful to you again. There are a few, but this film is is is very good, but it only sort of makes it into the pantheon of my one of my favorites because of what Which was the film that I saw on my first ever date I ever went on? Was and And I realized my mistake after the fact. And I don't know why there weren't more people in my life to tell me that this film was setting well, just setting unreasonable standards. Was bas Lehman's Romeo and Juliet came out in the cinema, and the day it was released in the cinema was my first ever opper date. I took someone on. Wow, how old were you? I don't know, probably probably fifth fourteen or fifteen, Okay, And what happened on the day it was It was actually wonderful. It was actually wonderful. She was a sweetheart and and I it's actually quite quite sad, again working against the comedy of your podcast format. But she we dated for a few months, I think, and just hung out and watching films at each other's houses, and it was so innocent and lovely. And I found out that she I think she went on a gap here and an accident passed away and I read it in the local paper and I remember and I remember that night watching thinking about it and watching M and Juliet again and I sort of sort of separate it in my head from that. But that's so fucking tragic. I'm so sorry. Yeah, it was. It was a weird thing. I've actually never had told him on that, but it just so you hadn't seen it for like a couple of years when that happened. Yeah, it'd been Yeah, it had been probably it was probably yeah, for four years or something. It was. We went touch anything, but yeah, and then then and then a couple of years ago, one of my best pals took me to the secret cinema version of it where they do bits of it lighter and everything, and yeah, that was. That was quite But that helped reframe it a little bit. It was raining, it was raining, and night we saw it and it was it was you know, and I think so, I think it helped it. Yeah, it helped reframe it a little bit. But it's definitely has that association in my mind. Don't get me wrong. It's a fond it's a fond memory because it was a very long Yeah, I can see that. It seems sort a beautiful thing as well. What what's the film you most relate to? Okay, so this is stupid because I'm sure there are millions and that that I probably I was thinking, it's got to be something sort of a a bit romantic, cute grantee or something. There's gotta be something that I've probably Sammy Hannah. I was. The thing that jumped to mind was the opening scene of Swingers, John Favreau calling the girl back forty two times and getting increasingly more pathetic with each one. And for some reason, I've found it incredibly relatable, not because it's something I particularly done, but just something that I feel like I understand better than I understand and the other scene from a film. So yeah, I don't know why that. I don't really know why that's my answer, but it is. And you're just gonna it's they're my answers. So that's that's all I tell you. I fully accept that answer, and I think it is a very relatable scene, and I'm definitely I've definitely done that via text. I've definitely sent a text into I fucking then sent another text. Stop sending texting it. Yeah, and then it reads like a mad, insane novel when they finally look at it. I think it's also more curious to that question. I'd be more curious what other people think, what the film they think is that they've seen that reminds them of me the most, You know what I mean. I think as an act, I'm always curious. I'm always curious to know what people would you know, people say, what do you want to do next? I don't know what do they want me to do next? It's sort of right, because you know, because that's a part of it, isn't it. The truth is the relate what film you mayst relate to. It is the question most people struggle with, which is interesting, and you get many varied answers, but I don't. I'd say probably five guests that I've had in all the time have an answer like that. Most people go, I really struggled with this one. Yeah, I think I think. I think it's because it's one of those ones that you it's because the one i'd most want to get right. And I think I'd need much more time to look through all films I've ever seen and be like, oh yeah, that, But it didn't just come to me. Yeah, it's yeah, it's because yeah, maybe if you're taking it as like, what's the film that defines me as a and that's too bigger? Yeah yeah, yeah, the most intimate question in a way. Yeah, anyway, tell me this, Ben Barnes. I think this is why people were tuned in what's the sexiest film you've ever seen? I do enjoy having both my names every question. It's a lot of people do that with my name because it's alliterative in it, and I enjoy you doing it. But I enjoy you doing it, I think more than anyone ever. Maybe I thought I have to get if you have to get your badge, thank you, thank you. Sexiest film? So yeah, I think the film I sort of remember being the sexiest film was each of Mama Tambien correct, great, moving on and then and then more recently I saw a film called The Handmaiden correct, which is I don't know, I don't know if I'm allowed to find it. So it was supposed to be sexy, but it is very sexy. It's very sexy. It's got the sexiest tooth failing scene in the cinema history in cinema. Yeah, yeah, you'd be hards to find a sexy, a tooth failing scene, but in in, just in case you were going to sort of not agree with me so quickly and readily, which luckily he did, because those are very sexy films. I had a more peg answer ready, which was that the film that has the date the date that I would most like to go on in it, which is quite sexy, which is the Karate Kid, preferably with Elizabeth Shoe. Actually still what happens in the date, they go to golf and stuff in that beautiful yellow retro car that Miss Maggie has given him, and they go to golf and stuff, and he's sort of putting his arms around and helping her put away, and they're having delicious looking at you know, fast food, and they're just giggling a lot, and it's it's it's it's just it just was not an experience that I was having when I was watching that film, and I wanted I wanted it. That's very very sweet. Speaking of sweet, traveling, Bone is worrying what I dones what it's a film you found arousing that you weren't sure you should, And Bones, I just realized that the karate Kid was my answer to that one, because I was going to say the karate kid and then you were going to go, what No, I just this is like going yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I was going to explain that sort of subverting the question of making it sweet, and now I've ruined it by offering it too early. But what I like is what we're doing here is a deconstructed version of that bit yeah no, which is very very la It's like a deconstructed taco or something. Yeah, it's stop at it. We do it backwards. It's fine, it's good to work. Yeah, it's better this way. People. What we've done is we've given you. We've given you all the ingredients. You get to make the meal yourself in your head. I'll give you the answers, and you provide the question. It is the Jeopardy version of it. I love it. What is the Christ is troubling boner. I'll take Troubling Shadow and bonus for five hundred. What is objectively the greatest film ever made? Not your favorite, necessarily, but the greatest. It is one of my It is absolutely one of my favorites. And I know that the answer is not interesting to have had it so many times before, but is back to the future. I've got the original poster there. I just think it's perfect. And I've always it's always been the answer that I have given about my favorite film. I will say this, this horror show that I just finished my Coast was Crisp and Glover, who was in the film. Obviously, how is it? How he's wonderful. Yeah, he's wonderful. He's totally eccentric and loves films and making films and being you know, sort of collaborating on it. That loves, you know, playing characters. I think didn't didn't have the gumption to talk to him about about it, but it was still thrilling to sort of just just to hear his voice actually just quite it. It's just probably the film I've seen the most. So ah, you can have that. Of course you can have it. You can have that way. And what we'll do go back and anyone who said it already in one hundred and fifty I'll delete them out of the podcast. The only actually I'm gonna yeah, Buddy Peace is the producer. When when you listen to this, could you do that? Please? Shouldn't get you long? What what is um? What's the film that you could or have? What's the most? Over and over again, Ben Burnes. I always think of one of them. I don't know what. I don't know what the film is. I've watched the most, probably one of the ones I've already mentioned, but I was My metric is always like that one that like when you're like in a hotel somewhere only just sort of turn on the TV just to have some noise, and then it's it's twenty five minutes into the film, but you just sit and watch it anyway. I've got a lot of those, I think. But you know, there's something also. I know I completely avoid the aren't the question about how you where you see yourself in it? And I'm not necessarily even sure which character, But there's something about notting Hill that I can't I find unavoidable. I just love it, unashamedly love that film. And I don't know if I'm hug on on Julia Roberts or somewhere in the middle, but I do love it. And there's something sort of very londonly about it, which I which I love, and something at the Hollywood coming into London, which I understand. But it's just I love the structure those rom coms. I've been trying to find a rom com with that kind of just simple concepts and structure for literally for fifteen years, you know, I just I just I love I love the format I've seen. I watched a lot of kinds of films except Torah app but I think those sort of wrong comes when they're done well, sort of Richard Curtis style. Are my favorites? Interesting? Interesting? You haven't found one in fifteen years? As well? I think they're very, very very hard to get right. I think I think I've seen a lot that have been made in the last sort of ten years, and a lot of them are not very good. One or two that cut through, but I was not offered them disgusting. I don't know what they were thinking. We don't like to be negative, do we, Ben Burns, you and me are united on that, Yeah, I hope FC. But what's the worst film you've ever seen? So? I don't know if it's the worst film I've ever seen because I haven't seen it since our small But there was a sort of running joke in my family that we were once traveling somewhere and we watched a film, because I think we were sort of stuck somewhere or something and that you can only get the TV. And it's a film called Basil, which stars Christy and Slater, and it's a sort of a period Victorian esque kind of a film. And it was completely shit, suffering from the main crime, main cinema crime of being very very boring. And I remember my dad saying, I think that's the worst one I've ever seen, and I said, I agree, I think that's the worst one. And then and then, in anticipation of this, I watched the trailer again online and it looks suspiciously like a film version that I did of Dorian Gray, which I think most people would contend is the worst film I have been involved with, or one of one of at least even that looks very very beautiful, and there are good things about it, and it's often on telling it Christmas and people tell me that they love it, but we didn't quite sort of hit. How do you feel about it? I said, honestly, handem, I haven't seen it. I have no skin in the game of this feeling about because I loved making it. I loved that the producers and the director and Colin Firth starring Colin Firth, who is one of my favorite humans listeners. He just held up a mug that said Keep Calm and Love Colin Firth, given to me by Colin Firth, because you see, you're the only one who would bloody drink out of it. So and then I found that you can buy a keep Calm and Love Bam Barnes mug online, so I sent it to his wife because Shananigan's for the purposes of shnanigans. But he's a wonderful human And we had a brilliant time making it, and I think we thought we were making something that was maybe perhaps a little bit edgier, and I think I think I think it tried maybe to sort of be a bit edgy and make some changes and also tried to sort of please lovers of literature and faithful lovers who who were hoping for a sort of faithful adaptation of of of the book and everything. And I think that sometimes you know, you can do everything right, it all in the right sort of order, but it doesn't quite capture the sort of zeitgeist of what that adaptation needs to be for this generation or whatever. It just got very also you know, I was twenty six or something and that was the last time I read a review because it was very poorly reviewed, very mean, very very mean about me. And now I'm able to use those criticisms actually, especially for younger actors, when they say, oh, you know that so and so wasn't the best thing about this film or whatever, and I think you think that's a bad review, I'll show you a bad review, mate, and I'll whip out the Daily Mail's review of Dora and Gray, which the most scathing review of any acting forms in history, I think. But it definitely like knocked me off kilter at the time, maybe think maybe I'm not made of sterne enough stuff to do this, maybe I'm a bit sensitive. But then actually it just served to sort of emboldened me and make mysel and actually want to be bolder in my choices maybe or more it may be double down, maybe more committed to to to to making a success of this and being the best, you know, just being the best actor I can be anyway, And do you avoid all things? Then? Do you avoid avoid? Oh press, do you avoid social media? Yeah? It was I just had I was working on the third Narnia film, in Australia and I flew to Toronto for the for the for the film Festival, and the earned reviews came out that that day and I had I had wanted. I had to fly from Australia to Toronto and back again in in a day and a half or something, and so I was upside down and inside out at that point. And I think that that just a reviews coming at that time, it just it really knocked me. It really knocked me. But it's but it's um, you know, as I say, I think there are great things about it, and really I'm still really proud to have done it. I'm very proud to have been cast in it with those people and you know, to have been trusted with that story. Do I think I'm a better actor now? Yeah? That you know you're fucking twenty six ers. Yeah, yeah, it's mad. Yeah. Interestingly, the horror thing that I've just had has a salt couple of little elements of it that made me think maybe this is, you know, another go to And I got asked to do the audiobook actually Adoring Great last year or the even before, and I was like, oh, I get to sort of have another go here. As well, but yeah, still very proud to have been involved in it. And and and I think, you know, all all these moves that we make, you know, make us the person that we are. And I'm I'm proud of the person I am so so I think, um, I watch it? Do I have? I do? I watch it often? No really good answer, I'm so. I think it's absolutely right not to read anything. But I think it's hard. I'm impressed hard lesson Yeah, yeah, yeah, any way to learn it? Of course, that's the only possible way, you think is in the fire and get before you know, not to touch it. Yeah, I definitely definitely experienced that in God, I should never look and I shouldn't have looked. Okay, what's the film you're You're funny, ben Burns, You've been funny and stuff. What's the film that made you laugh the most? I think the film that has made me laugh the most number of times is this is spinal Tap? Correct? You've got a few of these completely right? Oh brilliant. Well again, these are the ones that my my, my, my, my collection of eighties posters. This is this is one of them. I get. Probably one of the films I've watched the most, certainly the film that if people haven't seen it, I will. I will immediately put up something or start quoting it, or I'll be unsufferable talking about it. But it's just endlessly quotable. I mean, it's funny. It's the first second before you've even got any actors in it. Rob Bryan is introducing it and he does this thing where he folds his arms and then just sort of lets them. It's so uncomfortable that he sort of lets them hang down, and it makes it. I cannot watch that without laughing. And nothing's happened yet, a film wasn't even started yet, and it's yeah, it's just it's genius. It really is, Ben Burns, You've been an absolute joy. I've loved talking to you. However, when you were one hundred years old, you had a birthday card from the Queen who is who was at the time about one hundred and ninety. For a nice bird to send a card. It was very scrawly writing, but I believe it was from her herself and she did the post. You're a bit tired. You went to bed and your loved ones you said, gather around, gather around your loved ones gathered around and your your great great great granddaughter, took your hand and in a peak of madness, squeezed your hands so hard, using so much despair because you loved me so very much. Yeah, squeezed it so hard that it snapped in twenty five places. She screamed. Everyone started screaming around you. Right, Oh, God, what am I done? We were screaming, no, I okay, us, oh your loved ones. It is just so distroy, God, what we've done. And there was blood and then the blood got infected and you had set the instant sepsis and it spread through your body quite quickly, to be fair, and then and then you were just choking on the infection. And then people are screaming. Everyone was screaming, and you died. It was one of the least peaceful debts I've ever seen. And I hear this, I hear this chaos. I'm like, what's going on in that house in ben Bounds? Has it sounds like a massacres happened. All your loved ones. They run out of the house, screaming like they've been in a horror. I've got a coffee on me, you know what I'm like, drag it upstairs and go where it's Ben Barns. Well, detective friend, Ben's Ben Barns. Where is he? Now? Go up the stairs and there you are and your body has exploded. It from the instant de fucking everywhere. It's everywhere, on the walls, on the it's disgusting, and also in a floating through the winter, they're already eating on your rutting flesh. I'm like, get out of here, scram and I scrape off all the bits of you I can. I put you in the coffin. It's a fucking it's I'm having to wear industrial gloves. It's gross. Even I'm guing to stout by it. It's a mess. It's like I've made a fucking pool of cess in this coffin. Anyway, it's full full and there's only really enough room for me to slide one DVD into the gloop across to the other side. And on the other side. It's a movie night every night, and one night it's your movie night. What film are you taking to show everyone in heaven when it's your movie night? Ben Burns, Please, I've piked the bear. There have a night. At the beginning, I challenged you. It's like I sat. I was like I went to a comedy show and sat in the middle of the front row, thinking this would be fine. I hate I hate I hate you for that hate. How you died. Listen, I'm so sorry. Listen. It was. It was screaming. Made my peace, all of them. It was quick, though, it was quick. Okay, what film are you taking with you? I am taking with me arguably, And when I argue me, I mean arguing with myself because it's impossible to answer what the favorite film ever is, but the one I would most like to share with, the one I most like, show People, the one that has brought me probably the most joy. When Harry met Sally, Oh fucking perfect answer. I almost feel bad about how you died with that answer. But I'm not in charge of those things. So I'm up. I'm up in, I'm up in in heaven. I met Sally. I'm having a lovely time. Yeah, you're having anyone's going, anyone's goings, bringing this brilliant, brilliant choice, brilliant, brilliant choice of film for us to all watch. The Thing probably the probably the best choice all the hundred. You're the best person if anyway, just before we settle down to watch this lovely film, how did You Die Again? Ben Birds? What a joy? Now I assume you would like people to listen to your album. Is that what we have to look forward to next from you? Yes? What's it called. It's called Songs for You and it is five songs that I wrote at that piano and then had some brilliant, brilliant producing people help me make a more shiny sounding with exciting, brilliant musicians from around the world sort of contributing their bits during the pandemic, which is kind of thrilling and amazing. And now it's this sort of little it's this little record which is just going to be everywhere and it's it's brilliant. Yeah, people have been The first one came out a few weeks ago, and people sending me you know, just actually, I think one of the things I love the most just this this this this girl's dancing in a kitchen and this big smile on her face to it. And then people have been doing sort of pole dancing or ice skating routines, or doing a sing cover of it, or drawing something from the music video or whatever, just like just just feeling like I think something about me doing it at forty rather than at nineteen when I first tried, is making people go I can, well, maybe I can just do my thing now, and that feels good that I love that. Congratulations, congratulations on your album. That's fucking huge. I hope that more and more people love it. I have loved talking with you. Thank you for your time, and good luck with everything, Have a wonderful time in heaven and love to you. Good day, sir cherrybody. So that was episode one hundred and sixty nine. Head over to patreon dot com forwards Las Brett Goldstein for the extra twenty minutes of chat, secrets and video with Ben. Go to Apple Podcast. Give us a five star rating, but don't talk about the show. I don't care about that. Talk about the film that means the most to you and why it's a lovely thing to read, helps with numbers, something like that. I don't really know why I keep saying this bit, but apparently I should. So there you go. You don't have to do it. If you want to do it, do it. Do you know what I mean? I don't, honestly, honestly, if it's in don't bother, but you can anyway. Thank you so much to Ben for doing the show, Thanks to Scrupious Pip and the Distraction Pieces Network. Thanks to Buddy Piece for producing it, Thanks to ACAS for hosting it. Thanks to Adam Richardson for the graphics and needs to lead them for the photography. Come and join me next week where my special guest will be someone else amazing. You know it will be everyone's amazing. They're all good. I don't I don't bookshit guests. I hope you're all well. Thank you so much for listening. So that is it for now. In the meantime, have a lovely week, and please, now more than ever, be excellent to each other.