Films To Be Buried With with Brett GoldsteinCally Beaton • Films To Be Buried With with Brett Goldstein #265
*This episode was recorded prior to the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike.*
LOOK OUT! It’s only Films To Be Buried With!
Join your host Brett Goldstein as he talks life, death, love and the universe with the incredible comic, writer, speaker and podcaster CALLY BEATON!
An excellent episode right here, which ranges across so many topics and tangents and one you can just jump (or indeed skydive) into easily from the beginning. Cally's journey is so interesting too, of which you'll hear all about here of course, but every step seems to hint at where she go next and why. On top of all that there's a huge amount of fun to be had obviously, as Cally is a standup so you're in safe hands from the start. Skydiving comes up by the way - that wasn't an irrelevant reference just now... Brilliant stuff for those who know Cally and those yet to become familiar. Enjoy!
Video and extra audio available on Brett's Patreon!
SUPERBOB (Brett's 2015 feature film)
Look here you shown these 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 screenwiper, and I love films. As Loud Too once said to the mind that is still the whole universe surrenders. So do not watch uncut gems straight before bed. Do you know what I mean? Excellent advice, Loud, so thank you. Every week I'm a special guest over. I tell them they've died, then I get them to discuss their life through the films that meant that most of them. Previous guests include Barry Jenkins, Hims Pal, Sharon Stone, and even But this week it's the brilliant comedian, podcaster and speaker Callie Beaton. Head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com forward Slash Brett Golstein, where you get an extra twenty minutes of chat, secrets and videos with Kelly. You get all the other episodes with extra stuff every I'm telling the secret endings. You get all the episodes uncut and ad free and mostly as a video. Check it out over at patreon dot com Forwards Life Brett Goldstein. So Cally beat It. Cally Beatan is a brilliant comedian and podcaster. You've seen her in Live at the Apollo, You've seen her on Cats Done Countdown, You've seen her on all the panel shows and all the radio shows. She's very, very brilliant. We recorded this a while back on Zoom and I really think you're going to love it. So that is it for now. I very much hope you enjoy episode two hundred and sixty five of Films to be Buried With. Hello, and welcome to Films to be Buried With. It is me Brett Goldstein, and I am joined today by an actor, a writer, a TV exec, a podcaster, a panelistor, a hero, a radio show megastar, a TV star, and an incredible stand up comedian. I can't believe she's here, but she is here. Please welcome to the show. It's Kenny be Dead.
What a generous introduction. I think that's the best ever.
Kelly. Nice to see you. How are you.
I'm good, Thank you. I've just landed from Spain, back in my kitchen and I'm not am I I'm not because I'm dead.
Oh shit? Oh you oh you know about that. Oh, that's never happened. That's never happened before. Yeah, well we should probably talk about that, but just as a general hello, before we get to that very nice kitchen. By the way, it looks fake.
It does look fake.
It's clean.
Yeah, so the only kitchen you've ever seen that's so perfect. It looks fake.
It looks totally fake. And I said that with the respect.
It's totally not a virtual background.
Yeah, it is your house normally this clean.
Yes, the kitchen is this bit of the kitchen's clean because I tend to do recordings from such places.
Is if you were to spin your cameraund is everything it's not too bad.
You'd probably think I had a slight issue that things are so immaculate. Yeah, you probably the most comment type. It was lovely, It was really nice. I was there filming some stuff and seeing my daughter who lives over there. We got trashy tattoos.
Ah nice, a beautiful heart tattoo on her rear.
Yeah, so we got those mind slightly infected. Hers is fine, so that's good. Yeah. We shouldn't have gone to some bloke around the back of a tap aspar should we? After a few beers, should have had it done properly.
What's your daughter doing that there?
She is working out there, So she lived out there for a bit. Well, she's she moved. My kids are half Dutch, and she moved to Amsterdam when she was just eighteen to study Spanish, and then moved to Madrid to do a masters in Spanish. And now she's stayed on there to work. So she's moving away from me in increments.
I'm sorry to hear that. There are two things in your Maybe you're sick of talking about them, but they are interesting things in your biography. One is that you were the only girl in it or boys school. Yes, how does that happen? Was there a huge error? Well, I'm sure you've talked about this, loads forgive me for not it.
Was a booking era. No, it was because my parents ran a boarding school in the middle of nowhere in Dorset, and it happened to be a boys' school, and I happened to live in the grounds of the school, and therefore it was the school to which I was sent. I should add I wasn't like sixteen. I was eight when I was sent there around I left when I was thirteen, by which time a couple of girls had joined, but it wasn't the It wasn't a recipe for you know, there's those sort of comedians or misfits and kind a band of rogues. I think you start early if you're in the in a school where you're quite that much of an outsider. I think the land is yeah, the grass is sown.
Do you think it made you think about boys in a certain way that has stuck with you? Do you know what I mean? If you were in this where you it was just boys, you must be seeing sort of a different thing than most people are seeing.
I think I never really thought about being a woman or a girl in a male environment until I was in my forties, and I look back at it, and my entire life has been in environments that were largely male. I think when I first got into the boardrooms that were entirely male apart from me, I didn't really even think about the fact that I was the only woman. I think I was so used to being in those environments and it didn't occur to me to sort of think about it or think if it was a disadvantage or It's taken me about for decades to realize there is sexism and patriarchy. I think I thought I was part of the problem.
That's fantastic. So the other part of your biography that is it fascinating to me is that you were a TV exect. Yes, you left that to be a stand up.
Yes, I'd have had You'd have been wanting to talk to me much more ten years ago than you probably do tonight. So yeah, it was I did make the switch from yea behind the kind of cameras to on front of them. And I wasn't always I was in comedy. I worked I worked with Comedy Central on and off since the South Park days, the origins of South Park days, so right back in the beginning and whatever it was ninety six. So I've worked with kind of comedy and I've done various jobs with people like Tiger Aspect and sort of different production companies. But my whole TV career wasn't all about comedy. But yes, it was all about Telly and it was all about being the other side of the camera.
So great that you did this. You do you have you ever had a gig with someone that you rejected as a TV exec?
Yes, but they wouldn't have known that I had anything to do with the rejection. Explain, But I have had to beg to get into parties in Edinburgh, parties where they'd be begging me to come in if it had been a company years early. I've gone literally from on the list of course you can come into Kelly Who. So it's a pretty big status drop I've managed to wish upon myself.
No, it's it's the opposite, do you. I mean very excited. So how long have you been doing at Day?
About seven years? Nearly eight years, so yes, so a fair while I think, Yeah.
Have you had to go and pitch TV shows to your old gang?
Yes, I've been really I've been really funny about not using my kind of little black book, which I know isn't your question, but I've almost gone the other way, just sort of yeah, to sort of not do that. Also because I know from as you know, you've got to be careful what you wish for. You've got to be ready for the things you then get. So it's all very well hustling your way into a show, but unless you're ready to be doing the show, it would be the last hustle you ever did. So I sort of think there is there is something to be said for you getting the opportunities when you're meant to get them, which isn't when you've been going five minutes. Obviously, I'm still quite new relative to stand up age, so but I have now. Yeah. Now It's funny that the TV channels for whom I've done nothing yet are Comedy Central and Channel five, both of which I used to work for. So when I was at Parent, you know, via conc Best, we owned both of those. And I do think they've just done a little thing for Channel Five, and I think they've just realized that I don't still work there, and they've just started to think of as possible talent. So it's been really weird and I think they literally just couldn't. Yeah, they couldn't make the leap that I changed to doing this.
You went in for a meet with it, and they all sat next to you and say, who are we meeting today? And today?
If you've got the screachsheet and how's the P and L going to?
Look?
Are you going to make enough money off this?
And you are on all the panel shows you done very well, shows.
Lots of them, not all of them, but yes, lots of the nice ones.
Is there a key to it that you think you've learned.
I think there's a key to it which is also a key to life, the universe and everything we asked. Yeah, it's about not waiting until you've got a perfect thing to say, whether you're in a panel show, where you're in life, because it's really easy and women, and this is a gender thing. Sorts of research about this. Women tend to wait until they've got really the right thing to say before they'll say something where blokes will go diving in you know, much sooner than that. And if you're waiting and thinking, I'll just wait until I've got the exact right joger, what it is is, I would call it making the edit. You've got to make the edit. And by make the edit, I mean get stuck in, say some stuff, give them lots to work with. Don't worry about being the funniest voice in the room. Just worry about being your voice in the room. Because everyone's seen all the other voices. You're the one that's the one that they haven't seen. If it's a new experience being on the show. And I think that's such a good thing to know in life as well. That doesn't have to be perfect, you know, just get something out there and then you're in it, and then you've occupied your space and people will listen.
I love it, you know, I'm obsessed with I'm sure I've said there's a number of times on this podcast, but one of my favorite quotes is Lord Michael's about SNL that it doesn't go on because it's ready. It goes on because it's Saturday night.
There you go. Yeah, it's perfect. And that exactly sums it up, doesn't it.
Yeah. I think that's really good. I mean that's not to say you shouldn't put some thought into it, like you shouldn't, but I definitely think perfectionism can ruin you you doing anything.
Yeah, and once you start, once you're in, because then you're in the ring, aren't you. And then, of course the funny bits are the bits that happen with other people and you've made yourself.
Yeah, if you're with good people and you say something vaguely funny, they will yes end it and make it really funny. And then you've you've got something going.
Yeah, and you've got and the bits that you get all the credit for, and rightly so on those panel shows, is the bits that you couldn't have written and you couldn't have rehearsed, and those do come out of diving in and having that sort of interacting with somebody. So I definitely think I do lots of sort of Ted talkie stuff and speeches and stuff like that, and it's that's a map. And I do loads of stuff for kind of removing obstacles to women and kind of work in life and business and stuff, and it's always about that. It's I don't wait to be perfect, don't wait to be like the other voices in the room that are in that case often male. Just just have the confidence and your voice being worth hearing, and don't don't second guess it, get stuck in.
I imagine that you, as a comedian would absolutely fucking smash a Ted talk because no one's expecting it to be funny. Yes, it's a.
Lovely I do say this to comics who hate corporates, and rightly so. So I'm just checking the dogs, not having a I think he's just got the hiccups because I get billed. So I do do sort of awards hosting and actual comedy sets at corporates, which, like everybody else, every other right thinking person finds really difficult. But when I like the first thing tomorrow, I'm off to do a kind of speech somewhere, And yeah, I always ask them not to bill me as a comedian. They can sound like a performer, a writer, whatever. And they say some of my credits for my TV life like South Park and SpongeBob, but they don't sound a comedian. I will always reveal that a story and increasingly, obviously sometimes people will know, but not lots of people don't know. But it's such you know how easy it is when the expectations really low, like don't ever don't ever.
Sound be funny. Yeah, that's the dream audience exactly.
It's exactly that I did get brought into an after dinner speech that was meant to be like a business e one, and he brought me on. He was like, you have seen her a live at the Pollo, and she's going to blow the roof off and she's so funny. And they literally had told me to do a business thing with sort of business take it. And it was the hardest gig of my life. Everyone was like, oh god, this is yeah, make this.
Stock and so how much of your life is circuit gigs versus these things. How much of your percentage of your time is doing regular gigs.
I guess like overall, because I did a few different things as well, So I guess overall I probably spend about forty to fifty percent of my time doing comedy. And I always realized when I actually spend all my time doing comedy. So then they lead up to a pollo. Obviously cleared the diary and just did nothing but stand up for six weeks, and I got so much better in six weeks. I was like, Oh, if I just did this, If I did this, I mean, I'm sure the deadline of that, I'm sure ify comic will say, yeah, I kind of miraculously got a lot better in those six weeks. But I think if I if yeah, I do sometimes think you know, and it goes in phases. You know, I'll have two weeks of nothing but stand up, and then two weeks of nothing but corporates or radio or whatever, and it definitely you know that you get into another world that's quite far away from it's quite different bits of yourself, which sounds really wonky, but it is sort of true.
No, it's true. I guess we should talk about you what you said at the beginning, which has never happened before. But you have died. You're dead, and you noticed, and that's unusual on this podcast. And I remembered too, How did you die?
I think there's only one way that anyone would have wished to die, and I'm really glad I died that way. And that was the same way as Isadora Duncan. So I had a beautiful scarf flowing at the back of a convertible and it got caught in the wheels, and that's how I died. And Grace Kelly died in exactly the same so not the same way with the scarf, but yes, is a door Duncan died in that way in the in the twenties, and then fifty odd years later on the same date, Grace Kelly died in a similar motoring accident, but without the scarf. But is a Dora Duncan famously died on a jawn with a young man she didn't really know much about, choked on her own beautiful headscarf.
Got hung herself on a headscarf was driving.
Yeah, he was driving. She was in the passenger seat and her beautiful flowing headscarf got caught in the wheels at the back of the convertible of a man she'd only met an hour before. Hell of a way to go, isn't it.
That poor guy? That poor guy. What a night there.
It's a bad first datematic date, that is. Yeah, and that's before tinder and stuff.
Yeah, he probably didn't know her name, what a yeah.
Yeah, and she was young. I went the samewhere. But she had six adopted daughters Isadora Duncan, and they carried on her sort of stuff in her image, and they were called the is Adorables. So this is, you know, this is a good way to die. So Grace Kelly died exactly the same date about five decades.
Later, but not by scarf by scarf.
But I've picked up the scarf again and I've gone like I've gone full is.
A doorra beautiful? I mean, not for the guy. I do worry about the guy. It does seem pretty like horrendous for the guy.
Yeah, But then he was trying to pick up a famous dancer with whatever line he had and whatever car.
So it seems like I don't know that he's I just don't know. It just seems very traumatic for everyone that story. But who are you? Who's driving when you get killed by your heads? Guy?
I'm driving because I'm a very independent, modern woman, So I'm driving. Yeah, No one's implicated, just me. The dog's not even in the car, just me.
How old are you when this happens? How old do you want to be?
I think we'll go forty five?
So forty five very young today, tragic it wasn't. Just to be clear, it was an accident.
It wasn't. It wasn't an elaborate suicide.
Right, Okay, you're forty five years old, Jesus so young. I mean people will talk about you forty five. People will say, what a tragic loss. What do you think happens when you die?
I think your spirit soars around the place, having a lovely connection with the people that you used to be with on this earth.
That's yeah, So the people, the people know that.
Yeah, I think like I think my kids would sort of know I was in orbit. The dog who sadly outlived me would sort of sense my presence. Yeah. I think it's like a sort of feeling, you know, you take the people with you that you loved. It there's still a bit of you know, people think your love are still there with you, and I'd like to think I would be there, not in a haunting way, but in a sweet, sort of reassuring way.
So you're sort of floating around, sort of like the invisible man, sort of flying around, and you check in with your daughter, check in with your dog, what's happening sort of between just watching things.
Yeah, I mean you're making it some more creepy than it is. I wouldn't be like just nosy. I wouldn't be like, what's who's my daughter dating and what's going on? But I would be Yeah, just a sort of reassuring the sense that someone's there, you know, a little breeze across the plant and the garden, someone being like I wonder if that's mum. That sort of thing, you know, gentle a gentle warm presence, which may or may not be how they see me in life. Right.
I guess I'm just trying to work out how you're using your time. You're constantly being a warm presence.
Just being a warm presence.
What's happening in the gaps when they're not in the garden, Yeah, and.
Just trying to trip up like Tory MPs in a sort of like sort of not death, but you know, perhaps not being good to work for a few months, mischief, sort of dropping tapes of illicit gatherings on the mirror's doorstep, you know, things like that, just a little bit of a little bit of political agitation, a little bit of fighting for social justice, and then some general good karma, amaste spirit types of.
You're very busy.
I've always liked to in death as in life.
Yeah, So no rest for you. There's no heaven. There's no place you can just chill out.
Not a big believer in the old heaven.
You've just been a warm breeze in politically, as to take exactly.
I think that's it. Yeah, And I mean, you know you've got your You've got your death ahead of you, haven't. You got to make the best of it.
Love it. Well, I've got news for you. I'm afraid there is a heaven. I'm so sorry, and you're you're going to it, and it's filled with your favorite thing. What's your favorite thing?
My favorite thing is anything to do with the animals, really, so it's filled with lovely little sort of puppyish kittenish animals.
It's an animal sanctuary and it's filled with puppies and kittens and it's fucking great. They're everywhere they are. You come in, they all run at you. There's so many of them you can't see the floor. For puppies and kittens, there's also puppy kittens, which is a half puppy, half kitten, hind legs of a cat in front of a dog. Very sweet. They're all excited to see you. There's also kitten puppies front of a kitten, back of a puppy, all excited to see you. They want to talk to you about your life. They want to talk about it through film, which is weird for kitten puppies. The first thing they ask you is what's the first film you remember seeing?
I love that question coming from a little cuppy. That's what I'm going to call them, little cuppies. Cuby And they probably won't be poohing, will they, because it's heavenly so probably no pooh And yeah, famously amazing. So my first film that I remember seeing, and I should say I'm not as old as this would make me see more. I was not as old. So Whistle Down the Wind, which I'm sure you know. Yeah. So it's actually a film from nineteen sixty one, and I obviously did not watch it in nineteen sixty one because I hadn't been born. But it was a film that I saw in the seventies when I was a little girl, I reckon. I was probably about six or seven, I was quite little, and it was Hailey Mills starred in it. It was actually written by her mum. I think Mary Hailey Beller, I think is Hailey Mills's mum. And do you know that. I'm sure you know about the film.
So I know the story in the script, but I don't know facts about the film if you're going to tell me.
Yeah, So, well, the thing that to me a couple of things. One was it was I didn't think about this at the time, but all the main characters are children, so they're all so the protagonists that all children, and that's I don't think I mean like things like I guess like the railway children, and I suppose that's also children protagonists, but I saw that kind of later. But it was the fact it was children and loads of children, and all the big scenes all little children. But it was also I didn't realize it. The whole thing's like an allegory for them thinking they think they found Jesus Christ. That's what they found. This kind of guy that's actually I think, a murderer, and he's hiding in a barn. He's a criminal anywhere, wanted criminal, and they think he's Jesus and they all come to the barn and he tells them stories and they all think they are more and more children from the little village kind of come to the barn and meet this guy. And I should say, he's not in any way sinister towards the children, but he is a wanted man. And then at the end he gets found by the police and he comes out with his arms outstretched like the sort of crucifixion. And I remember once he was I didn't know you could cry about al or a book or I just as a little child. I don't know if you. I don't think I realized that was a thing. And I found myself just absolutely sobbing, but being really embarrassed that I was crying in front of my parents and my brother, and it really moved me an age when I didn't know film had the power to move you like that.
Yeah, so he gets arrested at the end.
Yeah, he gets taken away, Like I don't think you know what's I don't think you know what's where he's I'm pretty sure he's obviously gonna end up in prison, I guess, and all the children are there, like there's this big end scene and the I mean, this is my plastic memory as one has, so maybe if you watched it, you'd be like, no, that isn't how. It definitely ends with him getting taken away, But my memory of it is all the different children, more and more had come along, and there's this massive sort of scene where he goes away, and then all these children like they've lost this massive part of their lives and this guy that they thought was their sort of idol and he's gone. Very moving.
First, I mean, great first film, and it's never never come up on this, so great shout. What is the film that scared you the most? Like being scared?
I really hate being scared. I'm quite brave in life, like I don't I live on my own and I don't worry about anyone breaking in, and I'll walk down the dodgiest street if it's a shortcut. So I feel sort of oddly invincible what I did, until I realize no one's invincible. But I don't like being scared in films. I grew up as a teenager in the eighties hanging out with mainly boys. Still I don't know why I was still hanging out with boys, because by then I was at a mixed school, but I still was hanging out. I guess with other reasons. You would be hanging out with boys as a teenager. And we used to watch like Damon om and three and Nightmare on Elm Street and Poltergeist and those kind of well I now and The Shining We watched all that kind of stuff, which I now think those are all quite scary things to watch. And I absolutely have always hated anything like that. I hate and I'm a BAFT voter, so it's kind of awkward. If there's a whole load of what you mean, you do have to watch them, there's a whole load of them. I don't really want to watch that. It's not my genre, so I'm pathetic. I get so easily scared. I don't like dark things interesting. I like fluffy lambs and puppies and kittens.
As you know, you like you like Pittons, you'd be amazed or not how many comedians on here. I hate horror so many more than like it, far more. I think it's to do with control. I think it's because we're all control freaks.
What do you think about horror?
I love horror, but I get why people don't like it, as in I completely understand.
I like jumping off cliffs. I've done all the kind of extreme. I like extreme things to experience.
So you don't mind things that could kill you, but you don't like the idea of things that could kill you.
There you go, Yeah, yeah, exactly it. Yeah, I just want to go straight in for the kill. I don't want to just piss around.
I'd rather be chased by Freddy Krueger. That was your film about Freddy Krueger.
Yeah, because then you've got a chance you could control what you've got to it's in your hands that he respond Yeah. Is that also a first for you on the podcast?
Yeah, the first person is actively wished for Freddie.
Yeah, listen, I'm unusual.
What's the So, what's the film that scared you the most?
Well, aside from those sort of teenage ones which did already scare me, and I did think about The Shining because I've watched that a couple of times and it scared the shit out of me, obviously, But I'm going to go for Cape Fear, but the remake of the nineteen ninety one Cape Fear with Robert de Niro.
I love that film. Yeah, it's a great film, underrated.
So I went to see this without knowing what I was going to see, and I didn't really know. I just knew it was Robert de Niro, and I went with my mate Jill, who I worked with back then. This would have been when we were in our kind of early twenties, and I just didn't really know what it was. I knew it had Robert Dannier, and I knew I had Nick Nolty and who I really liked, and I just had no idea what was about to befall me. And I remember watching it in a cinema in notting Hill and just absolutely shitting myself the bit when he's under the car and at the end when he's I mean, even when it gets beyond ridiculous at the end and he's talking in tongues and wearing a frock and everything else. I just found the hot I just gripped my friend Jill and the arm of my seat and screamed about seven times. And I still remember the adrenaline surge I got watching that. Cape Fear.
It's great. Cape Fear. It's really great. It's very exciting and fast. But I also it's one of my favorite portraits of a marriage. Cape Fear is one of my favorite married couple films. I think they're really interesting married couple that you don't see the very deep like for a film that's like a mainstream thriller. It's got a really interesting subplot about their marriage, which is quite dark and difficult and complicated. And it's great, great field, but yeah, it is also scary.
It's also dark. I think that's the other what you said just captured it perfectly. There's so many sort of dark, weird nuances to everything. There's no port in a storm. It's not like, oh, here's a sweet little family and now this thing is going to happen. Yeah, it's just everything is dark and weird and nuanced, and nothing. You don't feel like the ground is safe anywhere emotionally or physically. And the whole thing I found extremely impactful.
It's great. What is the film that made you cry the most?
Now you're a crier, A massive crier, I mean, such a crier. Yeah, I never was a public crier until my sort of thirties and forties. A massive crier. You probably won't meet many women in their mid life who didn't learn to cry. A lot of hormones, a lot of crying. I think it's a big cry.
Do you think it was it was hormones that changed in yours?
I think almost make you even the non crying women become crying women. I think when the hormones start to go all over the place. But yeah, I'm a I'm a you know, I was a big crier, big crier.
What's the film that made you cry?
I was torn between Kramer versus Kramer, which was another one that made me cry, long before I thought you would cry that much about those things, and long before I became a parent, but instead, so that would have been my close second. But I'm going to go for Eternal Sunshine Have the Spotless Mind.
Ah what a movie.
And I mean you and anyone listening or know why that would be. But it so beautifully done. And to watch a love affair through the eyes of it being erased. What an incredible idea and then that helpless, hopeless, this is a massive mistake. We don't want it to raise. I want it still to exist. Just such an incredible concept and so beautifully done, and the music, and it just felt to me. I don't know when it was like early two thousands, I guess, and it felt to me. And even though some of the music we obviously knew really well, like Mister Bluesky, it just felt like something I'd never seen before and a whole different way to make a film. And I just I watched it twice in fairly quick succession. I just loved it. And it's still makes I just think it's the most breaking premise, isn't it.
It's also one of those films that I realize now I'm like what it was like twenty years ago, and people still reference it like it the concept of it is so now used to describe other things, you know what I mean, Like people go, well, it's kind of like you know, in internal Sunshine, like that's the barometer in the same way that the matrix. I don't think anything ever topped the matrix, Like the matrix is still a reference that you say, well, it's the matrix, do you know what I mean? And I think it c Sunshine is the same. Nothing has replaced it.
And it was sort of way ahead of itself as well. When you think about the idea of us, you know, memory being plastic and AI and how we can sort of relay the tracks of our life digitally and everything, it's sort of even though it wasn't obviously a digital thing. It was a kind of you know, chemical based thing that happened. But it's really it was massively ahead of itself, wasn't it Well, Because at the time, I think even neuroscience we sort of thought memories and like it was kind of laid down. I don't think neuro plasticity was even much of a thing. So it just was so yeah, just really powerful and so heartbreaking. And it makes me think, every time you fall in love and you think about throwing it away, give it the Eternal Sunshine test and see if you really want to throw it away.
It's really beautiful. And the fact that they're going to do it all again exactly.
What a lovely, hopeful ending.
Yeah, excellent answer. What is the film that you love? People don't like it? The critics hate it, but you love it unconditionally.
Again, there's a couple that came to mind, but I'm going to go with point break.
Hey, I suppose it probably wasn't adored at the time.
It was probably It's probably one of those ones where people have retro fitted it now to go it with a shit, when at the time it definitely got It definitely got slated. I think it was seen as a sort of bit of a knaff. I don't think anyone was holding it up as a sort of work of enormous art. It was obviously pre rotten tomatoes, so how will we ever know? But I remember loving it. I basically that my holding it up against the light And was it critically acclaimed or not? Was everyone took the piss out of me for liking it so much? You were I was the focus group, so everyone I knew was like, you're an absolute dick for liking this film so much. So I think that means it wasn't well received.
I think you're right. I think it was misunderstood. It seemed like trash when it was in fact art.
It was art. It had I mean, I was a skydiver at the time and really. Yes. So when I say I like to jump off things an out of things, I mean it. And I'm sure you know this, But Patrick Swayzey was a skydiver and he did his own I'm sure you know he always used to his own stunts, and he did his own. That amazing culmination sort of skydiving scene. That's Patrick swayzee no stunt double, and he did fifty five jumps to get that right, fifty five So I think that alone. What other film did you say that about, Probably not a one, whether or not it was Patrick Swayzey.
Probably Mission Impossible, one of the Mission impustles. Tell me this, how many times have you jumped out of a plane?
Well over two hundred.
Yeah, you could now do the wingsuit.
Yeah. The wingsuit depends on how fast you're trying to fall, as you probably know, so depending As a woman, you tend to need a slick suit, so you need to meet without much by way of wings You always have to bits people can hold on to, so you can meet other skydivers. But you need to cut through the air quickly because everyone obviously falls at terminal velocity. But you reach terminal velocity marginally more slowly as a slightly smaller build woman than a big built guy. So and that that second or two seconds is a hell of a lot to lose when you're when you've only got a minute or whatever it is before you're hit in the ground.
So you have to have more you.
Need to put to cut through the air more quickly on the exit from the aircraft so that you all are you need less? Yes, so you need so, you need less resistance, So you need so as a woman, you have what's called a slick suit, which is very tight to your body and made of a fabric that and is very much to cut to be aerodynamic.
But doesn't that mean if you had a wingsuit you'd fly better.
Yes, so yeah, but it would take you a long Yes, but it would take you a long time, yes, exactly. So if you're doing something on your own, you do what you like, but if you're trying to do formation stuff, you need to you need to be keeping with the pack, which when I used to do I haven't done one for god fifteen years, and when I was doing it it was still wasn't completely male, but in keeping with the theme of the podcast, it was quite male. They used to call you a Doris. If you were a female skydiver, that's what they called you a Doris. That was all right. I stopped when I had kids. Yeah, and it became not so much that I was scared I was going to die, because it's actually quite a safe sport. It's massively regulated. You much more dangerous to play rugby or whatever than to skydive. But it was just the time. You have to. If you skydive in the UK, you're spending many hours at drop zones waiting for the weather, and when you've got small children, it doesn't tend to go down well if you sounds going to fuck off forty eight hours and see if I get one skydive in. Everyone seems to think that's quite selfish.
Wow, absolutely fascinating. What is the film that you used to love but you've watched too recently and so I don't like this anymore or whatever?
Even well, the test for this was with the kids, really so well, when I try and anyone who has kind of slightly older kids, so I'm sure it's told you this and will tell you this, so you sort of watch. You want to show them something you absolutely love. You're like, wait, till you see this. It's amazing. And it happens with music. You're like, listen to this. You know, I grew up loving this, and it just sounds so shit when you play it to them through their ears and they're like, huh, loyal kana it ate. And that happens with with movies as well. And Wayne's World was one where I told my daughter she would love it, and we were on holiday together and I said, now that's what we always watched, you know, movies in bed together. At the end of the lie, if we've gone out or whatever, we'll curl up and watch a movie. And I was like, you all love it. It's so funny, and within about half an hour was like, this is like one of the least PC fail the Bechdel Test, kind of bit part women with people laying at their asses, you know. It was just I was like, this is and she was she just and also even the bits that were still funny to her as gen Zen, she was like, this is just so the comedy didn't translate. Some of it's still translated to me, but not enough actually, And I loved I just loved that film. So I was quite shocked that it so badly failed the test of time.
Well, probably rarely does age well sadly, But I think someone explained it on this and I was like, that's a very good theory. And it's because comedy is usually transgressive when it happens, but then society catches up to the thing it's transgressed, and so then it becomes dated.
Ah, so it goes from transgressive to retrograde.
In one sweep.
Yeah, is when the zeitgeist catches up.
Yeah, it's suddenly like, oh my god. Yeah, Like it was outrageous one way and then it becomes outrageous the other way.
Jesus, that's true. Yeah. And I think, particularly because it was such a parody on that sort of boy's bedroom nerdy, there was something there was something so sort of nineties about what that was trying to say it was. And at the time I was working, I don't think I'm was quite working for MTV. I was about to start working for MTV. So that whole world was a world we inhabited in Babs and Button and Telly and if people, if you were into that kind of culture. And however, we used to watch Saturday Night Live. I can't remember how we got it because it wasn't really league wasn't easy to watch here, but all of that stuff, if you were into it, which was sort of underground culture over here, then that meant so much. That film and all of that was irrelevant now to kids, I guess my daughter's age, Well.
They were very sweet when in go and nowadays they'd probably be in cells. If that's it.
It's gone cool to in cell and that's a bad transition by anything.
Yeah, that's bad. What's the film that means the most to you? Not necessarily the film itself is good, but the experience you had around seeing it will always make it special to you.
Kelly Peter, this will sound like a weird choice because so it's the film that was kind of the soundtrack to me falling in love with my kid's dad, which will sound like a beautiful story were it not for the fact I split up with my kid's dad twenty years ago. So this most sound like a really weird choice. But we're really really close still, So we're really a very sort of blended family, and he's always been a big part of my life and of course my kid's life, and so it does sound weird when we're talking about a broken up relationship. But I just remember meeting him when we both were working in Telly in the early nineties, and he's Dutch and he'd come over from Holland to sort of do a bit of summer cover for the Dutch guy that did the voiceovers because we used to have a feed that went into Holland and the Beneluxe. So I got to know him and we loved, like we loved the soundtrack to that movie, Like we were both really into musics, and Harry Connick Junior at the time was really cool and everybody was just finding out who he was. And I'd always loved Nora Efron's writing and watching when Harry met Sally and falling in love with somebody with a film that was such an even the sort of vignettes of the kind of older couples and all of those things just hadn't been done before, as you know, and the fact they were a sort of unlikely couple and it was a sort of messy love story felt so act. So I think the Nora Efron, Harry Connock Junr. And the film itself, the sort of combination was a kind of vendiagram that led to me. Yeah, falling in love and having two kids with a lovely man.
That's baking nice. That's very nice. All right, No, no, full up question perfect. What's the film you most relate to?
This is going to sound like a weird one, but it's probably Gloria Bell, which was did you see there was about I don't know, three or four years ago, and it's Julia. Yeah, and it this sounds like one that should go in the kind of naff basket when you hear kind of the what it is, and for anyone who hasn't seen it, it's it's her sort of in La and she's a divorcee and she always does she dance. She always used to dance, go to clubs and stuff, even within her unhappy marriage, and then she ends up having this whole sort of It does sound really enough when you describe it, this whole kind of new lease of life. I guess in her fifties probably, and it all cut. The reason it's called Gloria is because it ends with her doing this amazing kind of dance to Laura Brannegan's Gloria. But it is more subtle than it sounds, and I do like the fact I'm in the process that I would like this because I'm writing a book about this, that we sort of think, we think that women in midlife might just about be able to hang on to what they had, Like maybe I think that's the kind of narrative we think that's quite a forward thinking narrative. You might not lose everything in midlife, but we're at our absolute peak in midlife, and we might only just be starting with what we're capable of, and we might be having the first of many massive, powerful reinventions. And so I love the ambition in it and the way she portrays it. So it's not a sort of nath midlife crisis. It's like I've only just started as the message, and I think that's a brilliant message to see a woman in her fifties portraying.
On screen incredible. I love her.
She can do no wrong. Even yes, I watched what was that film with her and Steve Carell Is It Crazy Stupid Love? Which I didn't watch at the time, and because I thought it looks enough, I ended up watching that as a sort of like, you know, kind of like shitty, Like I watched a thing and I was like, oh God, this is what I like her and everything I thought it was good.
She's never never been bad.
Never been bad, very beautiful, beautiful.
Speaking of which, what's the sexiest film we've ever seen?
I think it's got to be for my sort of age group. This is probably not that unusual. It's got to be Thelma and Louise because that's when we discovered Brad Pitt. And it was sexy anyway, because Gena Davis and Susan Sarandon was so sexy. And at the time, it hadn't occurred to me that I would ever go on to date women and that I fancied women. It wasn't sort of on. I wasn't really thinking that I did, but I guess look back at it, I did. So it was then and it was him and it was the whole. But that, yeah, there's sort of him and Geena Davis sort of sex scene. I mean, you know, once you've seen that, who can undersow that and who would wish to?
It's a heck of a first film for Brad Pitt. The heck of an entrance, you.
Know, naked in a stepson. What other entrance do you want?
Is the biggest films there, incredible there's a sub category to this question troubling. Boneer is worrying, why don't film you found a rousing that you weren't sure you should?
This is so bad, I'm not sure I shouldn't disclose it because it's a really dark one to have found sexy, because it was a film that was meant question, It was meant to make you think that sort of sleazy sex was disgusting, and it was shame it was Michael Fassbender depicted as a horrible, disgusting I just thought I couldn't I couldn't stop thinking. But it's Mike. Look, you know, it's Michael Fassbender, who is so sexy. And everybody my friendship group were like, what is I was like, but you must have fancied him a bit in it, and they were like, no, same way. We didn't fancy him in Twelve Years a Swave.
And I was like, did you find that one challenging?
That one? I did not. I drew the line of fancying him in that one. But this one, I think because it was in the general arena of sex and it was him and it was and that I don't know if you know where they filmed the scene, you know, against them with that floor to scene and glass in the hotel. That's the standard in New York. And you can walk along the high Line and see that room. I've walked along the high Line and seen that room many times.
That's such a great answer. And now I'm thinking about that film. I'm like, I liked that film, but I don't remember thinking, oh god, sex is bad. I don't think it if that was the message, maybe didn't get it. You and I watched it and thought, this is an aspiration, yea, having all that sex.
And being hot and being able to afford to do it in a five star hotel with random people. That's so cool.
You and I thought the title meant what a shame we can't afford? Exactly?
Yeah, so yeah, it did not bring out any shame in me, apart from a shame I wasn't there.
Yeah, no, that's a good answer. I don't what's objectively might not be your favorite, but objectively, objectively, objectively the greatest film of all time.
Kelly Beat such a tough one, but I think it's got to be one flu over the Cuckoo's Nest for me.
Fantastic And I think.
It's well, and I'm going to maybe retrofitting well, I think it's my son ended up playing Billy Bibbitt in a school production, and that if ever I hadn't found the you know, the kind of dialogue powerful bloody did after watching my son doing it. But that everything about that film and the kind of end scene and the kind of pillow over the face and the breaking through the window and nurse and all the characters. I mean, there isn't really a character in that film that isn't outstanding in terms of writing and the portrayal. I don't think there's a weak link. And it's so beautifully sort of filmed and again just not just very subtle as one in lots of ways for something at that time about that subject. And I think if the test is and I always think about this one. I'm voting for films, and I try and remember, I try and always think what's the footprint afterwards? How do they resonate or not? And that one just has always resonated with me, and every time I see it, Yeah, it just sort of blows me away. So I mean, it's so hard to pick the film, but I'd say if I was forced to pick it, it would be that I love it.
It's a great answer, and it should come up here more and it doesn't. So you get ten points for that. Wow, you finally started scoring points.
Amazing.
What is the film you could or have watched the most over and over again?
Again? This comes back to I've mentioned my daughter a lot, but we watch a lot of films together. It's going to be Bridesmaids with her, specifically, she and I and we sort of have to tell ourselves how long we have to ration Bridesmaids. So we have to go when do we last watch it? And if it's too reason we go, we have to wait a bit. So we have to sort of make ourselves watch a couple in between sort of things. And we don't see each other, you know that often because she lives away. So yeah, Bridesmaids. I'd say she and I have watched that a lot, and I've probably watched it a good couple of times without her as well.
We also have talked about this is Bridesmaids hasn't been topped. There hasn't been a bridesmaid since bridesmaid No, And I.
Think that's going to be a hell of an ask for there to be one, because every time I watch it, another bit comes in and I'm like, that's so, that's so well written, it's that and everything just comes together. And people who think it's like a knaf kind of shitty sort of comedy thing on you know that you might watch kind of late night because nothing else it's not.
It's so and they're so like the last exceptionally great Hollywood mainstream cinema comedy. I can't think what's been as good, and.
With female protagonists who are so good and so varied.
Yeah, it's just a fucking funny, well made great It's great. What is at the other end of the scale. Wouldn't like to be too negative? What's the worst film you ever seen?
That's the other thing about voting for things is you see a lot, and you see things that you think are going to be shit, and then you're going to see them. You still have to go sit and you're like, I was right, that was shit and you wouldn't have the pain to go see it, but you obviously need to see stuff. So I've seen some shit because of getting you having to see some shit and amidst all of the shit, Mother did you watch Mother?
I did watch Mother. I love it, but I absolutely understand it.
It's a lot bit why you love it, because I'd love to hear the counterpoint to my dismissal of.
It, because there's nothing like it. I like anything where I'm like, well, I've never seen anything like that.
That's very true. I agree with you on that, nothing like it's wild.
I definitely wasn't bored. I was sort of really stressed by it, like it was like having a panic attack for ages. Yes, I kind of the last half hour was like Jesus Christ, and it kept getting wilder. You sort of thought, well, we must have peaked, but then it kept going and I just thought I never see anything like this. This was fucking wild. Whatever just happened. I certainly wasn't bored, and I was fully engaged for the two hours.
I was just a wild, engaged nightmare.
Right.
Yeah, well you think and surely now they've reached the peak. That was me thinking, I surely now it should have ended. So I was at that point for the last I was like, Okay, now now it's got to end. And I think it was also whenever I go to see those films that haven't come out yet, you'll know this like you don't because you haven't seen the films and the marketing campaign. It's really funny how different your opinion is. I saw La La Land not even knowing what it was about, and even read the blurb, and I just knew Ryan Gosling was going to be at A Q and A, so I was like, and then I so the whole of that opening sequence of La La Land, I didn't know what to expect. I had no idea that's what the movie. And I think it must have double the impact at least because I didn't know. And similarly with Mother, I had no idea what I was going to see. It sounds like even when you did, it was surprising. I just thought it had this incredible cast and I just couldn't stand it.
I don't think as in I know, it's so many people who really hated it, and it's incredibly disturbing and weird. I just don't ever want to be bored, and I definitely don't think it's boring.
It definitely wasn't boring. I didn't want to leave because it was boring. Yeah, and it was definitely uncomfortable watch and distressing. Yeah, and did not get my vote, did not get my votes.
That's fair, but it's also technically, and maybe you don't. It's technically very impressive.
I did give it a technical yes, because you do vote on those things as well. I completely think in terms of production, and I think there was a hell of a lot about it that stood up the technicalities of making a film. But as a punter watching a film like no thank.
You, yeah, totally fair. You're in comedy, you're very funny. What's the film that made you laugh the most?
Going for a oldie but a goodie Life of Brian.
It's great.
It's the first film I remember absolutely, and I probably wouldn't have watched it. It came out in the seventy I'd have been when it came out. I'd have probably been nine or ten, So I very much doubt I would have watched it at nine or ten. I can't imagine who'd have taken me to watch it, but I would have watched it not long after that. So it was my first kind of exposure to I guess probably to the pythons. It was. I think at the time things like not the nine o'clock News were on Telly and I was starting to think about that sort of type of stuff that was going on, which felt very different. It was obviously pre things like the Young Ones, and it just laid the ground. And when I looked back at it, I mean, I pissed myself, without knowing why I was pissing myself, but I just found it. And I don't think i'd seen anything so absurd. I don't think obviously I wouldn't have used the word irreverent, but obviously that's exactly what it was. I was brought up in a sort of quite a traditional family. You went to church on Sundays. I just absolutely loved it. I thought it was and I still think it's brilliant.
Yeah, it's brilliant. It's their best.
Film, definitely their best film.
It's moving, the ending is amazing, actually makes sense as a story. I love it, really well made, seems real. It's great.
And now Michael palin is A is a nearby neighbor, and I spent my whole life hoping I'll bump into him getting a coffee, which very occasionally happens. Yeah, he lives between me and lou Saunders. That's imagine that. Imagine how happy he is living between me and Lou. Imagine every day hoping he bumps into one of us.
Probably what a treat? Have you? Said it later him?
I have seen him a couple of times around and about. Yeah, but I don't want to be you know, I don't want to fangirl him.
So that's a difficult person to meet, Like I sort of he would be on my list of people I don't I wouldn't really want to meet him because I like him so much. A I wouldn't know what to say in a brief period of time and be if I had a bad interaction, it would ruin my life. You know, I'd just rather not.
You have to yourself on a long scarf and a convertible if it didn't go.
Yeah, that's probably what happened with Kelly Beaten. You have been an absolute delight. However, when you reached forty five years out, you went on your own for a drive. You just bought a convertible. You were like, I made some money. We don't treat myself. My daughter's in Spain, my son somewhere else, the father somewhere else. I'm going for a drive. You went out, sun was out. Let me put the roof down. Still a bit of a chilli wind, so I will wear this long, long scarf that I've bought. You put the scarf on, you went for a drive, You went on the A four. You're on the A four and you're heading towards bit. But so beginning would be that's on the A four Brockington or something. You're heading to Brockington and have a lovely time. And as the wind catches your scarf and you're singing along to range, rugs keep falling from the scarf gets caught in the back tire and within an instant, your head is popped off and rolls across the motorway. It gets run over by five different cars and a truck and then squashed like a watermelon. You your body is still holding the wheel, foot still on the accelerator. Keep driving for ages. It's a long straight road, the A four. At some point there's a turn. Thankfully it turns to the right because you veer straight off into a bush. The car falls down a ditch, bang explodes, as all cars do in films when they fall off side of sticks. So there's a big fire ball over here and a watermelon squashed head. I'm walking along the A four with a coffin. You know what I'm like, I says, anyone seen Kelly eating I had? There was an explosion up ahead. They go, yeah, there's no evidence that she's been in either of these places. But what about this big splat over ears? We stop the cars and go down the oil. I'd recognize. I'd recognize that strand of hair anyway, that's got to be hair. I get a digger. I have to dig up the tarmac because you're properly in messed into the ground. We dig up bits of road stick as much as you as there is, which isn't much. It's just the remains of your head, bits of brain stuff. It all in a coffin. But there's more tarmac that I was expecting, so it's ramped. There's only enough room in this coffin now for me to slip one DVD into the side of the coffin for you to take across to the other side. On the other side, it's movie night every night. What film are you taking to show the cuppies and pittons in Heaven?
Only one possible choice, little miss.
Sunshine beautiful and the cubbies and Pittons are going to love it and you're going to sit with them, have a candle and watch it. Kelly beat In, what a lovely time. Is there anything you would like to tell people to listen to or watch? Coming up?
My podcast now, Mass Day Motherfucker's weekly podcast. So that is very much worth checking out. So and my Yah book coming out, but not soon enough. It's worth plugging that, but stay tuned for that and all my live stuff. Yeah, you can see on my website all the other stuff I'm up to. But it's a Tellyan radio and you know all kinds of stuff.
Do you have a title for the book?
I do, but I'm not gonna say it yet.
It's catchy.
It is catchy, but if I said, I'd have to explain it and then we'd lose all the beautiful crescendo experience. It would turn into an elevator pitch for Penguin.
Kelly Bet, thank you so much for your time and for doing this. Good day to you.
Thank you for having me.
So that was episode JO hundred and sixty five. Head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com forward slash Bret Goldstein for the extra secrets and video with Kelly goes out on podcasts give us a five star rating, but don't talk about the shot it. Talk about the film that means the most to you and why everyone loves reading that makes them all great. We really appreciate it. Thank you very much for listening. I hope you're all well. Thanks so much to Carry for doing it. Thanks to Discribu's Pip and the distraction pieces of network. Thanks to Buddy Peace for producing it. Thanks to iHeartMedia and Welfare was Big Money Player Network hosting it. Thanks Adam Michieson for the graphics and Learning for the photography. Come and join me next week for a fucking smasher of a guest. You are going to really like that one. So that is it for now. In the meantime, have a lovely week, and please, now more than ever, be excellent to each other.
