When you get to chat to two comedy geniuses at once, it doesnt feel much like an interview.
Julian Barratt:Yeah, its like The Fortress Of Solitude.
Simon Farnaby:Its like that place where Superman lives.
JB:The Fortress Of Solitude, yeah.
SF:Is that what that is?
JB:Fortress Of Solitude.
SF:Is that what its called?
It is, yeah.
JB:He knows!
SF:When does he say that?
JB:Its just what its known as.
SF:Yeah, well
SF:When is that information imparted in the film?
JB:Its in the screenplay, I dont know.
SF:He shall go to The Fortress Of Solitude… does Marlon Brando say it?
JB:Maybe Marlon Brando says it.
I dont know when its mentioned.
SF:He only had about five lines, but he had them fed in.
You could see his earpiece.
[Laughter from everyone] He shall rise again.
SF:I think it is.
JB:It could be.
I just made that up now, but it sort of works.
JB:Ohhhh, okay… spoiler alert.
[Lots of laughter]
Big scoop.
JB:You gonna lead with that?
Oh yeah, of course.
Is he getting some sweet royalties from this?
A character called Bruno Mindhorn, and he was sort of a surrealist poet.
But yeah, he [Ralfe] knows about it.
JB:We bought him a few pints.
Its never going to happen.
SF:Hell have to wait.
How far did you get with working out the bionic nose version?
SF:It didnt actually last that long.
JB:That was a ten-minute idea.
The show, it could be anything.
It could be superhero.
He could have a metal head.
SF:Or an arm.
JB:One arm.
But we wanted it to believable as a show that could have been made.
OrSix Million Dollar ManandBergerac.Combing two.
And American England as well.
A small, underfunded, island, TV version ofThe Six Million Dollar Man.
And angry atBergeracfor the attention the Channel Islands were getting.
So trying to do something that was a bit like that.
Well do one better thanBergerac!
Well give him a metal eye!
No one can turn away from that idea…
SF:Bergerac had a limp.
JB:Were gonna blow Bergerac off!
SF:He had a bad knee.
JB:He did have a bad knee.
SF:Hes crocked.
JB:Thats no use.
His knee didnt sense crime, though, did it?
SF:It sensed rheumatoid arthritis.
JB:Did it sense when there was a damp spell coming?
I can sense damp, with my knee!
Thatll be the knee talking.
SF:Bergerac and his blumming knee.
Theres no low pressure coming in!
JB:He solved crime that way.
What, by telling what the weather is?
JB:Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Because once it was outside the realms of believability, you sort of detach from it a little bit.
I mean, I loveAirplaneand I loveNaked Gunand all those films, where youre parodying.
Sending up the genre a bit.
And you do jokes that wouldnt exist at that time at all.
We tried to…
We did film stuff that was too much.
Um, but we took it out in the end.
So we took some of that out.
To keep more in the realm of believability, I suppose.
Because the conceit is quite not fantastical but its quite extreme isnt it, the idea.
So we wanted to root it a bit, throughout.
Because, the actual story is possible.
You spoke to a police chief about whether that would happen.
JB:They said theyd ask an impersonator to do it first.
SF:Yeah, but not Rob Brydon.
JB:As long as it wasnt Rob Brydon, theyd go straight to whatever actor.
SF:They would get like a Bobby Davro style, you know, old school comic.
How much am I getting for this?
JB:What if you went there, talked to them, and they died?
How you gonna get out of that?
SF:Maybe they release themselves from the iron grip of the coma because theyve made peace.
JB:Because of you.
Right, because theyd heard your voice.
JB:[Laughs] you could go now!
[Laughs some more] Oh, I though you wanted them to let go?
SF:I thought you wanted them to find peace?
Sorry, dont go!
Do I still get me fee?
Maybe thats the next film: we need you to go and speak to a coma patient.
JB:So is this a voiceover, or… what are we talking here?
SF:it’s possible for you to go now…. What have you done!!
Anyway, so yes, its all sort of within the realms of possibility.
But you have Melly [Russell ToveysMindhornsuper fan character].
Hes our sort of wildcard in a way.
Because hes slightly unhinged.
So its about perceived madness as well.
Its about perceived madness.
Ill just leave it at that.
And when did it come into the plan that Richard would have a music career as well?
JB:I think we always knew he wouldve touched in on that.
SF:Like Dennis Waterman.
JB:He wouldve dabbled.
He likes to straddle the genres, you know?
Hes got a wide stance.
One of the widest stances in showbiz.
But he would, yeah, he wouldve done something.
And hopefully it wouldve been like what weve just created.
Which is a song and a video of a very deluded man, who thinks a lot of himself.
We looked through the videos and thought, ooh, well have a bit of that, and that.
Just videos of themselves making love.
Its such a weird thing to do.
He wanted people to see how he did it.
SF:Theyll be pretty impressed withthis.
Ill show the sensitivity and also the manly control that I have in that situation.
But it has coincided nicely, hopefully, with the release of the film.
People will get to hear it.
Do you think that was his one hit, or are there whole EPs?
JB:Theres an album.
Theres a concept album.
Theres a whole load of stuff he did thats yet to be unearthed.
Its all there, in a garage, in Leytonstone.
SF:Theyre still going through it.
JB:It was owned by the producer thats now dead.
And he died, and they found all this stuff.
SF:They found it in a caravan.
Although youve known each other for years, this is your first time co-writing a script together.
SF:The first and the last.
How did you find it working together in that co-writery way?
Simons a really good writer, and very diligent.
And Im quite neurotic.
So we sort of work quite well together.
[Laughs]
SF:Often Julian will have like the brilliant ideas, but then go off them.
Thats true, yeah.
SF:And I sort of have to remind him.
I remember the [spoiler-y cameo redacted] audition.
I remember that one, me having to fight for it, despite having been Julians idea.
And then Julian, at the next stage, going nah, that doesnt work, take it out.
[Laughter] And then having to remind you.
JB:It is hard, though, that, because you do lose the sense.
Sometimes I do that quite a lot, go back and forth a lot between ideas.
SF:You do have to do that.
Why did we take that out?
But you sort of live with stuff and see if it sustains.
SF:Its difficult, um, I do think its hard.
The comedy film is hard.
I mean, films are hard.
Well, certainly if its not to do with the character or the story.
SF:[Laughs] That was our rule.
We were very, very diligent on that.
SF:We were a hundred per cent on that.
Zero tolerance on anything that was outside of that Venn diagram.
Simon, were there other accents you experimented with before making Clive Dutch?
SF:Maybe German.
Im fond of German.
I quite like doing voices.
I sort of forget about everything else.
JB:No, its good.
I think thats good.
JB:You dont have to think about what Im doing with my hands.
SF:Yeah, you’re free to just stand there if Im doing an accent.
Whereas, if Im doing my normal voice, Im like, Its not enough!
JB:Its like a mask, isnt it, I suppose.
SF:It is, yes.
Like a clowns nose.
Thats doing it for me, so…
JB:So you dont have to do as much.
SF:Its a bit like that.
JB:Whereas I doproperacting.
SF:You do real acting from your soul, dont you?
JB:I do.
I go in deep, and I spent the last ten years just researching bad auditions.
SF:Drinking too much.
JB:Drinking too much.
Going where Richard would have gone.
Being what Richard would have been, you know?
Doing stuff that I hoped was going to work but it didnt, just to get thefeelof failure.
SF:Lots of walking in the park, sort of crying, going to lakes.
JB:A lot of that, yeah.
People would often mistake it for reality, but it was research, all of it.
SF:A waterfront.
And hed get out, and hed stare into the water.
You did a lot of that.
[Lots of laughter] And the music would be playing.
Hed have his hands in his pockets and hed well up a bit.
And then theyd turn up and go, there you are, man!
Weve had a breakthrough!
And then hed go.
It was a lot of that, wasnt it?
Staring into…
JB:Lakes, yeah.
SF:So, yes… um… how did we get onto that?
JB:The accent, your Dutch accent.
JB:Its good, though.
I did one of those, well, my sister did.
JB:Where are you from?
You must be Scandinavian.
SF:Scandi, yeah, sort of Viking really.
JB:So you came over with the Viking invasions of Yorkshire.
JB:So you and the Viking pillager rapists.
SF:Thats why my eyes are small, because of the wind.
Apparently the brow comes from going, [squints a lot] where is it?.
Youre probably the same.
Ive got French ancestry in the name, 1066, which was, I suppose, after the Vikings.
SF:[Looks at me] You probably didnt want to go that far back.
The accent, really… the opposite of Richard is what we were after.
Sort of louche and laidback, and Dutch is very laidback.
Youve got Ridley Scott as an executive producer, which I wouldnt have guessed in a million years.
How did that end up happening?
JB:Well this company produced it.
And then he went, can we go there with it, as a production company?
And so, yeah, thats how that happened.
Weve never met Ridley Scott.
He exec produced another comedy which I like,Cyrus,which is great.
JB:John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill, wasnt it?
JB:It is quite pixelated that sign, isnt it?
[To Farnaby] Have you noticed?
SF:You mean when it comes up, the logo?
SF:Yeah, people laugh at that.
Thats started to get a laugh.
People sort of think its a joke.
SF:Its so easy to park here!
JB:Thats how the murderer got in.
SF:I dont believe you… why?
Because there was [slams fist on the table]acresof room to park!
[More laughs]
Youve shown the film over there now, havent you?
How did it go?
It was great, actually, we didnt have any problems.
We sort of anticipated some.
Just these weird titles.
Im the head dragon.
Im the doctor of chambers.
SF:Im the shadow master.
JB:Im in charge of the black knife of Manannan.
SF:The Manannan league.
The league of keys.
JB:Yeah, and it all sounds quite shadowy and subterranean.
But it wasnt like that at all.
Oh thats good to know.
They werent offended that Richard called it a shithole, then.
JB:They seemed to enjoy the joke of it.
SF:The Isle of Man comes out really well, I think.
JB:Its a character of its own.
Its a character in the film.
SF:The best character in the film.
JB:It always stayedincharacter as well.
Longer than Daniel Day Lewis.
SF:Its been doing it for a long, long time.
JB:Thats right.
Always the first on set, always last to leave.
[Lots of laughs]
SF:Never complained.
JB:Had its own trailer.
Never in it, though, always on set.
Julian Barratt and Simon Farnaby, thank you very much!
Mindhornreaches cinemas on Friday 5th May, and its really ruddy good.
