Television Archive: Parkinson Stephen Fry and Robin Williams 2002

Now it's easier to say what my next guest hasn't done than to list his achievements: he hasn't climbed Everest or Captain England in Cricket had a top 10 record or a dance with Edina Curry as far as we know, neither has anyone. fifth Beatle, but otherwise he's been there and done that, ladies and gentlemen, Steven Fry, oh bless you, bless you, you're not in the curry diaries, are you? Bernie CH, that was the biggest, wasn't it number two? Sorry Sorry. No, it's okay, let's move on. Yes, I think we should. I'm embarrassing you, even though I read here at the back.

Page from your book here where you talk about the sexual habits of the spectacled bear, which, of course, I've written about the sexual habits of Steven Fry, but you say, you will say that they are subject to a lot of speculation among scholars and gossips. The mating ritual, which is notoriously noisy, lasts 14 and a half years and causes a lot of mess. Yeah, so maybe we'll go. He did it, he did it, yeah, he doesn't know how lucky he was. um, well, I think that if you're going to write about bears and their personal, intimate habits, it's only fair that you write about your own too, because it's an extraordinary experience.

The thing about animals is that we belong to the same kingdom as animals, the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom, and we are not animals in many ways, in some cases and in others, you made that same point and, um, send it, send the love, now there is a lot of fuss has been made about how similar we are to animals, we have urges and impulses and I need the only thing we don't do is smell each other's butts to say Hello, how are you?, but that's going to say, I'm going to say for a minute how you've still been a vegetarian.

Absolutely right. He is Christ almighty. Know? Do you know this man? This man in the 80's when it was cool before anyone knew he was dangerous he used to take large amounts of cocaine. He was trying to imagine the speed at which he ran. There must have been a Star Trek episode where everyone lived faster and there were only small noises. It must have been like that. Yes, it was kind of scary and helpless too. that he was a double Bill wow, yes, you know it quickly and Dead assault with a dead gun, yes, it was that you were your cook.

Caine is God's way of making you a lot of money, yes, and he was also my accountant's wet dream. It's okay, Mr. Williams. I can't cancel 50,00,000 for snacks Colombian university fund, yeah, didn't you call him once? The devil's dandruff, the dancing dust, the wonderful joy, the Peruvian marching dust, yes, how are you?, how are you, I'm not bad. I'm not bad I'm not bad I'm not okay, leave me alone, it's okay Mr. Bush, we have to go see the people now okay, okay, I'm okay now Dad, can I call my dad? No, Mr. Bush, we can't call your father, oh, come on, we can't bomb yet, that's why Cheney has the codes, that's why Dick has the codes, it's good, it's very good, it's very good, this, this talk about Peruvian dance um P brings us very clearly to my book that is called Peru a Peruan Di and if you can get closer and see the charming tricks of this bear, look what is at stake right now, bear that wants to hibernate, who is your Alpha, but certainly a couple of fun bags as you say and it is this is this is they are not going to put a collar on you this is a story of your search for spectacled bears in Peru and beyond and it was a successful search because they are becoming extinct are are me Actually, I have never been the kind of person who has been associated, in my own mind or anyone else's, with ecological quests and

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documentaries about animals and, apart from anything else, I am someone who more or less relies on room service and broadband internet access in hotel rooms etc., and this doesn't happen very often in Lio and Points North in the Andes, but I have to say that the producers of this program We want to make a program. about the Paddington bear um who if you remember um he came from the darkest Peru that's true and uh and I got hooked on these extraordinary and endearing creatures um these bears most Peruvians don't know that there are bears in Peru, they are very shy and uh Una One of the things that I had a hard time explaining to him about animals is that we are very interested in them, you know, we chase them to see them and photograph them, but no animal, unless it is hungry, is interested in us and it occurred to me that We were always trying to define what it is about human beings and animals, don't you know?

Consciousness with self-awareness or whatever one tries to call it, but it's actually in other animals, I mean, essentially, not a bear. I care if kangaroos exist or not. And kangaroos don't care if they're something like a cockroach, but we care about all of them and it's a very remarkable thing and I think what it is, of course, it is. that in a certain sense Genesis is right, we are very guilty because I once went to look at gorillas and the same thing happens with bears and you realize that the magical thing about them is that when they wake up in the morning a bear does not say "Oh God , I was".

I was a very bad bear yesterday. I'm guilty. They don't feel guilty because they have sexual generating organs to begin with. They don't think they should wear clothes. They never ask another bear what you're seeing. another animal not exactly they haven't just spent 100% of every minute of every hour of every day being a bear and a tree frog spends all of its time being a tree frog we spend all of our time trying to be someone else you know , trying to be like the person next door, the person on

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, the person in the cinema, the person of the pop stars, the rivals or whatever, we are trying to be someone else and the animals are supremely themselves and no one is more himself than a bear.

I think that's why Winnie the Pooh, Padington and so on are so endearing, especially to the British spirit, because they're quite portly, dignified, a bit sassy, ​​a bit wrinkled and a bit annoyed with things, that's how you look to yourself. I'm pretty much yeah so I'm not very hairy at all no actually I didn't know bear actually it's kind of a gay thing you know what's good I looked up and I'll be right back it's yeah . I'm sorry, but you know I'm not completely unaware of a lot of the nuances of the gay community, um and puppies, well, that's it, so I see, I and I want to when I first did this, I wanted to look up. um I want to look for bears, I'm not talking about that, obviously, that's just this week on bear ecology G, but I'm on the Internet um and uh, and then something was said about the cave, everything is asked about bears and it was uh to a lot of very hairy men with pink objects protruding from their nether areas, you found it online.

I found what I couldn't find was anything about bears about real bears Earth Sign Bears the deals orus, which is the show bear so cool because it has little marks around its eyes what do they say you said they don't know about uh in Peru from the existence of these bears uh I'm watching the movie you made it seemed to me that they were also indifferent to their fate. I mean, what are they doing with you? This is crazy English. They fight a crusade on behalf of an animal they thought was just a miserable animal. Basically, yes, well, I mean the conflict is not the understanding of sensitivity with human beings. a pretty dark one because the only way to find the bear was that we had a natural history team that for months was tracking the droppings, like these people like to do, they like to chase the droppings and see where they have eaten and they couldn't find one, the only ones we could find are the ones that have been captured and placed in zoos and horribly private, the most horrible restaurant where you found abely two and that's wonderful too, that's in many ways in the movie.

The most tragic side of this Majestic version in a restaurant was in cages larger than our chair. This thing is come talk to a bird. I want to show you the bird and it's in the back and it's like you know there's the line to win. Blakes, a red-breasted Robbin in a cage, infuriates the entire sky, and I think it's beautiful, that wonderful kind of naiveté and perfection that Blake achieved, but a condor is this kind of symbol of the entire South American continent. and you know all the clichés that Majestic rises and it's one of the great creations when you look at it, it's brilliant and there it has 12 wingspans and these horrible things that this sand is tied there and it once flew, it couldn't have done it.

Flown, I couldn't fly at all there, no, why have such a bird? I don't know, maybe and Peru. I'm just going to rave about Peru for a second because it's an amazing country, it has more terrain. It's more than any other country on Earth, you go in the same time it takes you to fly from London to Edinburgh, you go through the Pacific coast, which is like you know California or something, it's a Pacific coast over Highlands and Glens that they are over what looks like Alpine landscape and then over the second highest mountain range in the world and then over these extraordinary high plateaus into the Amazon to this place where you know Peru has 55% of all bird species, it has the largest pig big, what is that?

Huge, yeah there's one that's used as a food source, but it's like it's giant, literally look at other guinea pigs, like what are you looking at? Yeah, it's like it's like the guinea pig on steroids, but pink dolphins, yeah, pink, pink river dolphins, who, who. The locals think it's convenient to dress in evening dress at night, uh, and top hats, and rape women, so when there's a famous drag Dolphins, when there's a UNL SL, they go with the flow and look for the pearl necklace, there they are. the creeping dolphin attacking women slowly but surely finding the evening dress you're right Edith Head dolphin you're right you're angry but you're right and it's a it's me no no no um sorry I was no if there's an unexpected pregnancy in in the middle of the Amazon they say it was he who came in the night how is the baby is pink is pink and holds well but you rescued a B I say that you are worth every cent of that 80 million that Emi is going to pay you, that is every cent, okay, watch out, Mariah Carey, but you had it, I mean, the end of the story is good because you found out that you made it, they procreated, well, um, what do we have. it's this webcam we found this little bear um in a cage but no bigger than this he's really been there all his life there he was called by the villagers who are hundreds of miles from civilization his name was Yogi which shows to what extent the cancer of your harmful the culture spread even in could Boo Boo don't be mad could boo booo come booo Scooby come on Scooby hello come here the dog's name was Scooby I it's all shocking but anyway um this Yogi um we take to this wonderful reservation in agas centes in the foothills of the wonderful Indian city of Machu Picchu I am an Indian city and um uh and then we found this woman and introduced her to each other and they fell in love surprisingly, it was quite lucky because sometimes, like when they had the panda hugging the panda, they brought her a companion and she looked like oh please and he looked at her like you're the ugliest panda I've ever seen, it's like you know you have to find a panda and they are very particular, you know, and they're also pretty medicated, but hey, they probably don't know that their pandas are, they're probably going to leave.

I don't know, yeah, sure, there's something that they're zookeepers, that's all they see, so where exactly is your food, but they We just smell each other and we totally fall in love and then we have a webcam that's permanent, which is what the internet is for to see live, um Shaggy and then that's what we want, shagg, yeah, exactly, talking to a naked bear, yeah. so you can 976 Cub so it's and and this book is the old procedure is for your basic Foundation now they are, in fact, we founded founded this charity to help keep these Little Darlings alive and um and it's working very well.

The jungle, huh, for the man who was born, absolutely, can't you see it in me? Can't you see it? Well wait, there are a couple of pictures in the book, let's take a look at one, that's totally lame. Pride really is let's see the next one please, now this is more like Rob Robin. If you didn't know who Steven was and someone told you what nationality that man was, you'd say English, right? No, New Zealand, no. New Zealand, don't you see, New Zealand, he's got that look, you know he's out there, don't worry, come on, I'm a wild animal, you know you've done these natural things, oh yeah, pipa is pipa, it's not just a quiet and contemplative moment. after breakfast, when you know, rub your flake and smoke, but it's all to keep the mosquitoes away and, uh, the local people respect you and when you smoke a local leaf, when you have the local leaf, Herbal Life The representative comes to help yourself and you smoke and you can see the bear at any time of the day, that's a good thing, that's why you know people said how you built Macho pachu.

I said take a coconut leaf. You have a store up and running. You know it's fast. That way, you know, a lot of people don't know that you come to Peru, they have, they drink tea, they drink Coco, even though it's pretty legal to drink it as tea and I've really been up for a long time. 4 daysit doesn't really do that to you Michael not Michael at allMichael and if you want some, we have them in the back and if there are young people watching, for the love of God, go into an improvised comedy, whatever it is, look at the result, look how ugly it can be become.

I've unleashed, unleashed a beast, too late, actually, it's okay. Now you're directing your first film, aren't you just another thread in your book? Yes, very ex, it's kind of a frantic chase to do as many things as you can before you fall short because I'm dying. of death yes, to be completely honest, it absolutely is. Some people are not aware of death. I am constantly aware of death or at least constantly aware of a moment right before death when I say to myself, well, B, why didn't I do it? Do that, why did I say no to what, anything?

I, you, there is a famous Arnold backr in this life, you should try everything but incest and come dance. Somewhere is in Arkansas. You can have both. No, no, let me, Paul. I'm squashing my smoke to redirect that exact thing, um, reshoot, yeah, I'm just thinking about you getting the chance and, um, and take it, I mean, uh, one more vile bodies adaptation of vile bodies, yeah, It's called Bright Young Things. uh uh uh, what was it originally called, it was an original idea for a title, but it quickly became a kind of journalistic cliché more like it girl or something, suddenly it became the phrase that everyone used and I think it felt which was a little beneath his dignity to call a literary novel uh, Bright Young thing, so he changed it to V bolies and I think bright things, you better, it's a generation of luxurious living, fast living, inhalation of cocaine, uh, just sucking on cocktails, um, dancing, you know, to incredibly fast music, it's very exciting to make a movie that, while it's a literary adaptation, which I don't know, is also fast and extraordinary, you know. rhythm.

Most of the time when people make period films, they tend to slow everything down, as if people lived at a much slower pace and this is the generation that invented everything we consider modern. What the story focuses on is photojournalism. What we would now call paparazzi. um gossip columnists. Fame. uh. In fact, it was the first novel in which people use the telephone. You see these parents. The parent generation uses the phone to say, "I want some of that fish." You know, from their fishmonger and then they hung up the phone, but these people were lying. in bed, you know, proposing and stuff, and it was shocking to some, you know, the way young people text now is shocking, so, and the drugs, the drinking, the accidents, the burns and nightclubs in particular, they were all invented in This Crazy Decade, uh, and it was done like all the Pioneers do, it was done with more enthusiasm, more madness, more suicidal tendencies and, above all, with more style, I suspect it is now, the style that we can only judge in the future.

I see people saying, "Oh UK, Geral toep hip hop, what a classy hero that was and they may very well do it. Is there a role for Mr Williams in your well?" I have elected a statutory American. I don't know Dan Arroy. who is very much in your camp, is playing a character loosely based on N Beaverbrook and of course Dan Acro is Canadian so it's quite appropriate but if he gets into a fight for some reason or asks for too much money I'll be the first to do it. Ask Robin if he knows anyone who works on a large scale, my friend exactly, but do you enjoy it?

Do you enjoy the business of directing? Although I mean it's a daunting prospect, isn't it? I mean, you're the quarterback. I mean, you're not just one. of the troops right now we are in pre-production we start with the actual main photographs, it will be known in about 3 weeks, it is the fact that every day I get up around 6 a.m. to get to our production office and it's nice. and early and I get really nervous and excited and I write notes about things and then people start arriving at seven, everyone is crazy and enthusiastic and fantastically talented, design departments and production departments and everything, and they show me things all time. here are seven cigarette cases which one for this character which one for that character here are cigarette holders here are shooting sticks and suddenly, while my mind is spinning about which cigarette case was working which character suddenly someone comes in and talks about music how much do you know, do you want a live band in this scene, how many in the operating room, then suddenly your whole life revolves around the music of the movie and suddenly the cameraman and the operator come in and start talking about takes and then you They take them to a Wy to see a location and so each day has divided these extraordinarily intense portions and uh, I love it, I just despair when I hear about something really good. film like yours that is open and there is a good director out there because I don't want anyone to do it.

I want every movie made from now on for next year to be awful, I mean, so terrible that they could be seen, but I keep hearing about these wonderful movies and it's a little maddening, but I'm really looking forward to the year that's coming, at some point, yes, the next one, yes, well, you have two movies coming out, you also have insomnia, you too, I'm going to swing your bag on any street. we'll quickly go to the opening of an envelope yeah, there's insomnia 1 Hour Photo and the aftermath of insomnia on continents that's just when you thought it was safe you said you said um you mentioned in passing uh uh goodwill fucking and and and it's there, oh, every time which I thought there never would be, you know the reference was the fact that every hit movie ever made there's a porn equivalent Clay about shaving Ryan's private parts, that's one I love, oh they had it, I thought when they made Crouching Tiger.

They never could make a porn version of that like hung Fu, no, but they actually made a crotchless tiger, kind of like a Dragon, oh, it's like you said, oh no, every movie, every movie, Romancing The Bone, They have them all, every movie that comes out, they make a porn version. of that, which is also cool, they never make a classic porn movie, so that's how you like it, you know, a really tough Shakespearean actor, I'll part you like the Red Sea Elizabeth until I do, you'll know my name It's not knowing about this, Uncle Fey doesn't touch and pull that soft thing and call my wand and look at you like a Dane, don't you know me like a Bab and we run over everything I see until the oldest turns into miner?

You did not know? talk to me and run, gentle moose, don't say your name, go, oh, pinch face, oh giant rat, and don't call me until Tony Blair says the word and George doesn't go to the bush, oh, what me, oh de me, classic porn. Classic porn sounds like a c. Classic porn, well it's been fun, great talk, oh well we're back on the planet. I do, it's good to be The Silent One. It must have been a long time since you've been The Silent One in any kind of way. I'm usually a man of few words, as you know, but Mr.

Leria, you're fantastic, please help Leria get us away. I'm Sam, yeah, it's absolutely fantastic, I mean, my goodness, well how many are born to you? I mean, it's a Jean Pool, you got, you got kids, when Jee puts together a hot tub, this is what you get, you got kids, yeah, you got spawns, yeah, there must be a

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lamb somewhere where there's more of you where they can , You know? There are others who speak this language who shuffle the rhythm of your drama Fant God bless you. The theory is that I've followed you long enough to know that it's so fast that people assume it has to be learned or that, oh, I said this earlier at dinner.

So I'm going to say it again, but I swear that if this stuff comes out, it's some kind of work of art and, like many artists, it's deeply disturbing and often a little fantastical too. Dear Mrs. Picasso. Pablo still doesn't want to play. with the others, well, there's a line of PA Clays, actually, you know, when they asked him how he built them, he said: I take a line to walk and that's exactly what you do. Take a walking line. Take a joke to walk. Abuse it and bring it home like it's jazz, it's riffs, he does the same thing, he does exactly the same thing, yeah, riff off just tonight, he couldn't understand a word, he did it, he did it, he did it, but of Anyway, back to this, then. all profits from his book go to that cause and we hope for good news, yes, the future, absolutely, you make an announcement that the problem has been fixed, we will do it, you will be able to see it. the birth and the bloody membranous sac on the internet if you choose to watch it ex ww bar-rescue dotv slm I just want to say I heard this the other day it's a pretty sweet story, it's not funny but it's pretty sweet You know there's this domain called dotv that we have at Bear Rescue.

TV is from Taloo Island, which is a small little island, why did I say small like that? It's a small little island. Tin Tin, a tiny little island, one of the ones near the Cook Islands and, uh, it was STP like some. They are, you know, a kind of blow, you know, a kind of bags of fertilizer and horrible signs that modern man has come and taken away its minerals and fruits and then just ripped it up again, leaving quite a few people discontented, but now it has hospitals and Highways and libraries and it is shining with wealth because right through this Rous accident, its domain uh uh initials are TV and all the media around the world have paid a lot of money, as they say, to be able let you know if you want it. could be ww.

parkinson

.com or whatever, I'm really thinking, you know why we went, why can't we call Island, come on, yeah thanks, our island is www, we had www a long time before that with the island of stuttering people , the people, the people and the island of Comm and the island of w dale period what island of point every time you use a DOT you could pay us money ww come SL what is it called on the island of where you are at at.com thank you me too I love you you remind me of There was a comic version, there was a famous, there was a famous Don in Cambridge who was sent to know everything and people get very angry because there was no topic they could raise without which he couldn't participate and and and he couldn't You're the comic version, so they got together one night and when he was sitting near them they said, "Well, that's surprising news in the Danish football league, isn't it?" and he said yes.

Who would have believed that Elso would have been beaten by Copenhagen United like that? It's quite extraordinary, it's not, but of course they just did the TR and he knew everything about the Danish football league, so they, so to speak, destroyed all the ideas and I gave it away and I dare say that if we could have a competition if someone in the audience could shout out a topic that Robin couldn't talk about until you peed or had a baby or threw up laughing, can you think? from an obvious well, the producer goes to how much money do we have the Laria Foundation network and his that fish good boy good boy Steven FR thank you very much indeed St thank you very much my thanks to my guest and Robin Williams next week my guests in Paul White House Jillian Anderson Paula Grady and Madness