Hey!
I'm just brushing up on my Spanish for tonight's guests.
Here goes.
Hola, buenas noches, comenzamos el show!
CHEERING
Hello!
Good evening!
You're all so welcome.
Hey, great line-up of guests on tonight's show.
I could not be more surprised if I'd been ambushed by a cake.
LAUGHTER
The latest allegation is that Boris had
a birthday party during lockdown.
Now, they didn't just have cake at the party.
Oh, no.
They had drinks, food, party games.
I think we've even got a picture of a clown arriving.
Meanwhile...
APPLAUSE
Meanwhile, at the time of recording, the Prime Minister is still waiting
for Sue Gray's report into the parties to be delivered
to 10 Downing Street.
There's nobody in!
Take it back to the depot!
Luckily, a neighbour has offered to take it.
Yeah.
If Boris does have to go, there'll be a leadership election.
You know, what the press call a beauty contest.
And, hey, this one could well be judged on good looks.
You know, you'll have Rishi Sunak there.
Mmm, known as Dishy Rishi.
Then there's Priti Patel.
Priti by name, pretty by nature.
And Michael Gove.
Yeah, I mean anyone could win.
Let's meet tonight's guests.
Later we have music from singer-songwriter Ella Henderson!
But first, she is one of our most exciting
new stars, an actor, writer, composer and creator
of the new BBC Three drama Mood, it's Nicole Lecky!
He's the star of Atonement, Last King of Scotland,
Split and X-Men, it's our good friend James McAvoy!
He's the double Oscar-winning Spanish director who's brought
us Women On The Verge of A Nervous Breakdown and Volver,
it's the brilliant Pedro Almodovar!
Almo-DOH-var!
Almodovar.
Yes.
And she's starring in Pedro's movie Parallel Mothers,
it's their seventh film together so they must like one
another, it's the Oscar and Bafta-winning Penelope Cruz!
Hey!
Very good.
Welcome, everybody.
First time, welcome to Nicole, hello!
Hello!
James, Pedro, and Penelope, we begin with bad news,
because you were meant to be here in the studio.
Yeah, I was meant to be there with you and I'm really sad
not to be able to be there today.
Yeah, right!
No, truly, because I love travelling with Pedro
when we are promoting a film.
I love your show, I love London.
It was going to be a nice, fun trip, but it was impossible.
Oh, well.
It's lovely you're here in Zoomland, that's terrific.
But there is disappointment among the guests.
James, I know you were looking forward to meeting Penelope again.
I nearly left.
This is why I was here.
To smell you.
Just to be near you.
Yeah.
But you have met before?
We've met a couple of times, yes.
I remember we met at the Baftas.
Yes, we did.
I was very excited to see you.
I was presenting the Best Actress award and of course you won it,
because you're the best actress.
Yeah, she won.
Don't look so surprised, Pedro.
You probably directed her, because you've done 90% of her films.
And as she came towards me she went, "I am so glad that it is you."
I've seen your imitation of me before, in that show!
I know what you do!
She said, I'm so glad it is you.
I said, I'm so glad it's you.
And as I presented her the Bafta, I kicked her really hard on the toe.
I don't remember that part.
You don't?
No, I promise you next time I see you, I will be able
to do your accent and I will imitate you - I promise.
I love it.
And do it brilliantly, do it badly, I'll love it.
I must say, we've got a picture of you backstage at the Baftas.
Just look at James here.
You look like a cat that got the lipstick.
Do you know what, when I was younger for some reason my lips used
to go incredibly red, and people would always say to me,
are you wearing lipstick?
But you're not wearing lipstick?
Nicole Lecky, you had prepared to meet Penelope Cruz.
Yeah, Penelope, I literally lost my mind when I thought
you were going to be here next to me.
And I learnt some Spanish.
GRAHAM GASPS.
But I'm trying to think of that Spanish, because now I'm
confronted with you and I'm like, what is...
Let me think, OK.
Penelope, eres una gran actriz.
Muchas gracias!
There's more.
There's more!
There's mas, there's mas!
Por favor...
Er, oh...
Se mi mejor amiga.
Por supuesto.
And you have an amazing, clear accent, and of
course I would love to.
Gracias!
What did you ask her, by the way?
If she would...
I just heard the word "whore".
No, no, no.
I would never, I would never.
I asked her if she would be my friend.
Ah!
They're bonding.
That's gorgeous.
Now, Pedro, can you follow this conversation?
Are you OK?
Yes, yes, yes.
She speaks very well for me because very slow and very nice,
and so she's perfect in English and in Spanish.
Look at that, you're bilingually brilliant.
Gracias.
Silent on the Scottish person.
Nothing to say about me.
I understood.
You understood enough.
Now, Penelope, you're going to be here for the show on Zoom,
and so if there is any confusion, Penelope can explain.
Can help me.
HE SPEAKS SPANISH.
I mean, I didn't understand any of that.
I was telling her that I would ask her something that
I don't know how to tell in English.
Did you listen to me?
Yeah, yeah, I will, of course.
And also you understand me, my accent?
Always.
Jokes in English.
Listen, we're starting tonight with a big film.
Parallel Mothers is the latest work from director Pedro Almodovar and it
stars his leading lady Penelope Cruz.
It is in cinemas from today.
So, I mean, you've worked together a lot.
This is your seventh.
Seventh time.
Do you remember the first time you saw Penelope,
how did you meet Penelope?
I remember that I saw you in La Gloria.
She said she was looking for me in the night in Madrid.
And, you know, it was in the '80s, the late '80s, it was
very easy to find me, because I was everywhere.
And so, of course, I mean at least I remember,
we met each other in La Gloria.
Is that true, Penelope?
Yeah, it's true but I don't know if he knows that I was some kind
of a stalker and when I found out where he lived,
sometimes I would walk around the neighbourhood and look
at his window and wait for him.
Like a psycho.
Like a psycho, but I never approached him,
not even in La Gloria, until someone introduced us.
And I never told him.
But I saw you and I pay attention to you.
'90 something, '92 or '93.
And after we met each other in one set, in 1997 in Live Flesh,
and she was already pregnant in the movie.
Because you are quite pregnant in all my movies, or be a mother
or something like that.
All of them except one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
For one reason that I don't know, and I don't go to any psychologist,
I mean, I always found that Penelope, it was for me,
I mean, the perfect type of mother, physically.
And I gave her all the time except for one character of mothers,
very strong mothers.
So, Parallel Mothers, you play a mother again.
Who is this mother, tell us something of her story.
So, she is a single mother, she is a photographer.
And after doing so many interviews for the film,
I have realised I can't talk about the movie without saying
what happens at the hospital at the beginning of the movie.
Their babies are exchanged.
Will they find out later, will they not find out?
What are they going to do with that information?
I think it's much more interesting for the audience to know that that's
what happens at the beginning.
And there is so much more that happens later.
He gave me once again an incredible character,
the script is a masterpiece.
The movie, I mean, I could not be more happy with it.
I'm very lucky to have his trust.
Listen, let's watch a clip.
This is you, Penelope, breaking the news to the father
of your child to be.
Very good.
So, obviously, there are pregnant people and then there are births.
So, this baby, you're holding the baby here,
is that one of the real babies or is that a prop baby?
Because I know you had both.
That is a real baby.
We really tried to take care of her, all of us.
But I'm sure she was very confused because actually kind
of competing for her attention.
She was one and a half years old and she must have thought
we were totally crazy, Milena and I.
Because you didn't like it when they tried to take the baby off you.
Oh, no, I had a crazy reaction that I was not aware
of until people started to tell me.
Sometimes it was just with the props, with the doll.
They tried to take the props away and I would get crazy with them.
But I think that's a good sign.
When that happens, after four months of rehearsals
and three months of shooting, things start to happen.
Pedro, as a director, these are babies, can you direct babies?
Or is it like wildlife photography?
It's impossible, and dogs neither.
Dogs and babies, do you know what I mean, it's like that.
Because just a few months before shooting, I made
a short with Tilda Swinton.
The Human Voice, and it was a dog.
And I gave a big character to the dog and he was crazy.
I mean, it was very difficult.
And with babies, it's the same.
When they were very, very small, like three months,
I mean, they were very easy because you just take it.
But at the end, the baby has two years, and at that moment,
the baby knew exactly what she wanted.
And then some days she didn't want to shoot and she refused.
So, it was really, really...
Do you remember, Penelope?
It was very difficult.
But, you know, I think I will never shoot with dogs
and babies, if possible.
Have you had any experience of working with children?
Yeah, I've worked with babies a few times and we had a toddler on Mood,
actually, that I agree with Pedro, I think that you should not be
hiring these toddlers.
They don't know what they've got, really.
They're not professional.
You sort of have to bribe them with juice and biscuits and things.
And that's the only way they do anything.
So, I agree with you, Pedro.
No more babies.
And James, you've worked with children - The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Yes, yes.
I think we've got a picture of you with your little co-star.
Georgie.
She's all grown up now, she's a woman, an actor,
out there making her way in the world, it's crazy.
And did you get her in trouble or did she get you in trouble?
Did I get her in trouble?
There might have been an incident with heroin...no.
She got...
Well, I got myself in trouble because I swear a lot and, you know,
you know, I'm a product of a Glaswegian Catholic family.
Although my grandfather was Protestant.
Interesting.
So, that should have levelled it out.
So, it's sort of like you breathe and you swear.
Anyway, we swore a lot on that film, I swore a lot on that film,
and Georgie presented the swear jar.
At the age of, like, eight years old or something like that.
But eight years old is something, you know.
Two years old is much more difficult.
Eight years, you know that you are an actress, you are an actor.
And you can get fired.
Because, Penelope, your mother, talking of children,
your mother, what did she run?
Was it a hair salon or a beauty salon?
A beauty salon, yeah.
Actually, that was like my first acting school because I would sit
in front of the women and my mother, pretending to be doing my homework
but behind my books I was just spying and observing all these women
confessing to my mother their secrets.
It was fascinating for me, their behaviour.
I don't know, I consider it my first acting school.
But you got skills as well.
I mean, you do hair, don't you?
I tried to cut everybody's hair.
Anyone who lets me, I'll cut their hair.
Penelope can cut my hair.
Have you ever done Pedro's?
No.
No, he doesn't let me.
Why don't you let her cut your hair?
Because the last time she cut it, it looked like this.
But is it true your good friend Salma Hayek, you do her hair?
I am very close to her.
One time she called me and said, the lights are off in my house
and also the make-up artist and hairdresser cannot,
they cannot come here, and I have a premiere in two hours.
So, come and do it in the dark.
So, I put candles, did the hair, the make-up,
she was happy with the result.
But also you do beauty treatments.
Not just haircuts, you do treatments.
That's because you know that I waxed her legs once.
What?!
Is there video evidence of this, or...?
You washed her legs once?
I mean, you know how to do it, you do it to your friend.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
I know how to do it, so I'm going to do it to my friend.
Help a sister out, yeah.
Parallel Mothers is in cinemas now.
Now, Penelope, I'll let you off the screen
for a while so you can relax, relax.
We'll see you later.
Thanks a lot.
Now, great news, London's glittering West End is open for business again
and James McAvoy is taking to the stage as Cyrano De Bergerac.
It's starting at the Harold Pinter Theatre next Thursday and runs
through to the 12th of March, then off to Glasgow
and New York City, baby.
So, this production, it was in the West End.
Did it complete its West End run before Covid?
We completed, we finished, we reached the climax.
Thank you, one person.
And we managed to wrap up right before Covid hit.
But it was sort of whispers of Covid are coming beforehand.
So, two years later, here we are, slinging the same old sh...
No!
Don't you dare.
You're back in the West End.
So, this version of Cyrano de Bergerac, it is Cyrano de Bergerac,
it's just a new translation, is that right?
It is.
I play Peter Dinklage...
That's the other thing that happened.
I play Peter Dinklage without the noise.
I play Peter Dinklage without the nose.
No, there's a new translation, Martin Crimp has done this
incredible translation.
And he is not the guy that you would expect this from,
you wouldn't expect rap or poetry slam or spoken word
from, but he just is.
And he's given this beautiful thing that really feels, we all feel
like it really represents London.
It's often quite hard to talk about plays,
so we're very lucky in that you've got a taster reel
of what to expect, so let's have a look at that.
I desire you.
I write to you.
I write for you.
I tear up everything I ever wrote for you or about you.
All I can say is I want...
I want...
I want you, Roxanne.
It looks so good.
It looks wonderful.
Thank you, Pedro.
Is it a musical?
No, it's not a musical.
Because it's a little bit spoken word and a little
bit of rap involved, people go, you're just trying
to be like Hamilton.
It's not a musical, it's not Hamilton,
but it is better than that.
I'm joking.
Because you're James McAvoy, great actor, but the rapping
and everything, did someone come in to coach you or is it
just a director and the rhythm of the words?
I'm clearly Glasgow's answer to Stormzy.
No, it's just, it's in, I've spent 20 odd years wrestling
with the rhythm and rhyme of Shakespeare and poetry
and all sorts of stuff.
When Martin Crimp writes it, it's easy and it's better
and you don't even need to try, it just comes out of you.
You've talked about, because you're famous and onstage,
you know, audiences, they come to see.
But sometimes odd audiences.
Wasn't there a Macbeth with the women with the...
The camera?
Yeah.
I've had a few odd people in Macbeth.
I've had a few odd people everywhere, actually.
Some right now.
All right, mate?
Yeah, in Macbeth, you quite often, you'll be doing your bit and you'll
be feeling it and then you'll see, that person's got their
bloody iPhone out.
It's usually fine, because it doesn't bother anybody else
and you just get over it.
But this one person had, in 2013 I think, a camcorder.
I mean, 2013, you should be on your phone by then.
They had a camcorder up, and not only was it a camcorder
but their laser beam flashlight was also on.
So, the entire audience were like, that person's
got their fucking camera out.
And I'm giving it my big old, you know, I can't even remember
a line of Macbeth right now.
Giving it a big old, I want to kill everybody
because they can have babies and I can't.
Which is really the essence of Macbeth.
It is.
And I'm sitting there doing my speech going,
there's a bit coming up in the speech where
I get to go ape shit.
And I thought, instead of stopping the show
and telling her not to film, I'll just use that moment,
I'll direct it right at her, and she'll know.
She'll get it, she'll go, I feel so ashamed,
I will turn my camcorder off and put it down, right?
So I give her my big "raaah" bit, and she's just like...
Like that.
So that enrages me, and for the first time
in my entire stage career, I go, put that camera down!
And she didn't.
And then at the interval, the theatre felt compelled to go
to her and apologise, and gave her a glass of champagne.
And at the end of the show, I then came out...
Look, I get it, if you're just filming something,
I don't think it's appropriate, but don't distract anybody else.
She was distracting everybody, so that's why I did it.
But at the end of the show, I was compelled by the theatre
managers and owners to go on the stage and say,
you may have noticed there were a couple of words that
I said tonight that were not written by Shakespeare.
I would just like to take the opportunity
to apologise for that.
And then my pride got the better of me and I went,
but I still fucking meant them.
Well, if you don't like audiences with cameras you probably don't want
Penelope Cruz in your audience.
Penelope, tell us about...
You went to see, who was it, U2?
You went to see U2 in concert.
Yeah, many times.
I love them, of course.
Did they invite you onstage?
Yes.
I was terrified but Bono is our friend for many, many years,
and we cannot say no to him.
I was more nervous than ever on that stage.
I thought I was going to ruin the whole thing.
I don't know why.
Well, maybe you did.
We've got a picture of you coming up on the stage.
There you are up on stage.
Lovely.
But now, in terms of, I'd like to take a picture
of the performance, let's have a look at this next picture.
I mean, that is Penelope taking a picture of Bono.
I mean...
That's got to be distracting.
You know what happened?
What I was taping was being shown live on the stage.
So that's what Bono asked me to do.
So I was just following his orders.
Yeah, right.
Really, really, and I was trying to be really creative
because everyone was seeing the big screen, the huge screen
where I was filming, and I almost crashed
into The Edge twice.
I really thought I was going to ruin that performance.
Now, Pedro, I read that when you give young directors advice
you give them advice about how to learn the art of storytelling.
A good thing to do is just try to understand the human beings.
I mean, try to pay attention to the others.
I mean, I remember myself, I was listening to everything my
mother said since I was a child.
And, in fact, I mean, that helped me a lot.
I mean, well, in my movies mothers are very similar to my own mother.
Then I repeat some of the lines that they say in the neighbourhood,
and my mother, all of the people that I was around.
So, I mean, I don't dare to give advice to these young directors,
but it's good to listen to every human being around you because you
will learn a lot about many different characters.
Did your mother live to see your films?
Has your mother seen your films?
Not exactly.
I mean not.
She was very happy that I was successful.
But she has the intuition that my films were a little dirty.
She is not an idiot.
She felt that they weren't exactly the type of movies...
She'd seen your bedroom.
You know what I mean?
She was happy.
She was very proud of her boy.
But she knew that during the 80s basically, the beginning of the 90s,
I was a very dirty storyteller.
You listened to her!
It seems like you started making films when you were very young,
and yet, at the same time, and I don't how this is possible,
you spent 12 years working for a Spanish telephone company.
Is it Telefonica?
Telefonica, yes.
So, what did you do at Telefonica for 12 years?
I worked in very different places.
Because my idea was just to be working in a small
place that I could go, I mean come in the way that
place that I could go, I mean, in the way that I wanted,
without a suit, and a tie.
I take advantage of that.
I finish the work very soon.
And then I wrote my own stuff.
And the two first movies, I wrote during that telephone company hours.
I must say, we have a picture, it doesn't look like you would have
fitted in in the Telefonica company.
Sometimes I had my hair even longer than that.
New look great.
You look great.
No, it's very good.
It's got a whiff of 70s porn.
We can see why your mother was worried.
Yes, very 70s.
Hey, but listen, while people are young, people do things,
Nicole Lecky, you win the prize for the most productive child.
You brought out your own newspaper as a child.
Yes, I did.
So, I am a writer, Pedro, as well, so I wrote from an early age
and I created my own newspaper called Lecky of the World,
and I distributed it to people, and I wrote some very strange
stories now looking back, as an eight-year-old.
I think we've got a picture of one of the front pages
of Lecky of the World.
I'm really hoping this was quite a long time ago, Nicole.
Just last week.
I'm trying to improve my writing, yeah, last week.
You've gone big on the National Lottery.
That's one of your big stories.
I see there an Edmund Flyman, aged 47, I like...
And you've put age beside her, which they do.
And that's just like a newspaper.
I mean...
He's talking about his wife.
Julie, aged 41, wants me to buy a big house and hire a housemaid
because she's fed up of cleaning.
Rightly so.
And then the other story is a little darker.
Do you remember what that story was?
No, I actually don't.
Well, it's a lady and she is getting menacing phone calls and faxes.
And what age were you?
I think I would have been about seven or eight.
Really?
Yeah.
I want to know because I can't quite make it out, it says on page seven
read about something rage and how he got so angry.
Who's that, is it Mr Charles?
That is McCharles.
So, there was a story I wrote which was about Prince Charles
enraged because Prince William and Harry took him to McDonald's.
So it is McCharles' rage.
Which is quite clever for a child.
And I think he called them stupid dogs because he thought
that he was going somewhere fancy for his birthday, and instead
he was taken to McDonald's, and, yes, he didn't speak to them
for a week or something.
He called them stupid dogs?
He called them stupid dogs.
Which for Pedro is the same thing as children.
All dogs.
That is so sweet that he went to all of that...
That is so sweet that you went to all of that...
That's work.
That's work right there.
Well done you.
Listen, Nicole Lecky brings us a six part TV drama.
It's called Mood and it's coming to the relaunched
BBC Three channel very soon.
So, Nicole, this, I mean, this is a huge amount of work for you.
It's all you.
Me.
And it started as a 1-person show Superhoe at the Royal Court.
So, one, what is it about?
And two, how did you develop that show into a six part drama?
Three, where did you get that carpet?
That's amazing.
That is the Royal Court, lovely Royal Court.
So, I created Superhoe first, and that was on at the Royal Court,
and then we had the idea, it got commissioned into a TV
series called Mood now, and the story is about a girl called
Sasha, I play Sasha, and she is a wannabe singer rapper,
and there is music in the series, as well, and she's quite troubled.
She ends up kicked out of the family home where she is then sofa
surfing with a drug dealer, and she meets a party girl
who leads her into this world of social media,
online sex work, kind of like OnlyFans and it's got,
like, loads of heart, loads of humour, and it's just this
kind of high octane ride.
And it's one of those things, because you can understand how
attractive that stuff would be to a young person because it seems
so easy to do all of those things, yet in your research you discovered
lots of darkness and it's really grim.
Yeah, well, how I kind of came up with it, I did loads of research,
I talked to loads of women, and, yeah, I felt like there wasn't
really anything on television or that I'd seen that was a modern
day tale about what was happening, why young women were getting into,
you know, sex work, and how you could do it digitally,
sort of have this big ambition, as well, because a lot of them
wanted to be an actress or a singer and yet sort of ended up doing that,
and that's why I kind of put music in it.
Absolutely a story I haven't seen told before.
You tell it in a really surprising, unusual way.
We've got a clip.
This is you as Sasha talking to your parents played
by Paul Kaye and Jessica Hynes.
The things you do affect other people.
I don't want to affect other people, I am just trying to live my truth.
What truth?
Grow up!
Your whole generation is self obsessed.
Social media has convinced you that you're all going to be
the next Lisa Stansfield.
I don't even know who that is, bruv!
I'm not getting involved.
You are involved, Laura.
I can't take this any more.
The police...
Sasha, we are moving.
No we're not.
No, no, we are moving.
Megan and us, we are selling up and moving, and you,
you are not coming.
Kevin.
I wanted to talk to you.
You're an adult.
You keep telling us you're an adult.
Well, it's time to bloody act like one.
You'd let him kick me out?
Honestly, it's terrific.
Congratulations to you.
Thank you.
And good luck with it, Nicole.
Mood will be on BBC Three before too long.
Hey, listen, we must mention, James, your latest film, this is My Son.
It's available to stream now on Prime Video.
So, you play a father.
I play a dad.
Tell us who he is and the situation he finds himself in.
God.
He is a very bad dad.
He's somebody who's neglected his children, and or his child,
and his ex partner...
Sounds like a winning film, right?
He's disappeared, he's gone off to the Middle East, he's just gone,
I don't want to be a part of that, and he's basically ostracised
himself from his family.
He gets a phone call from his ex-wife, played
by the incredible Claire Foy, who I did Macbeth with, actually.
Oh, yeah.
And she says, our child has gone missing.
So he flies back to Scotland and the minute he touches down
the characters' journey begins, but also my journey as an actor
begins because the entire film, for me anyway, not for the rest
of the cast and crew, but for me was improvised
and done in sequence.
So, every scene I started to learn what was happening next.
But how does that work?
So, the rest of the cast have a script, they know what's happening.
The rest of the cast have a script.
The crew have a script.
They've all been there for three or four weeks in the Highlands
of Scotland preparing, rehearsing with, excuse
me, I just burped...
You'll totally cut that out, right?
Yeah, that's right.
Great, thanks.
And they've all been rehearsing with another
actor playing my part, like, it's crazy.
Then I show up on the first day of actual shooting,
and it's four o'clock in the morning, I'm in this hotel,
I get given some coordinates, I drive to the coordinates
in my costume in my car, and I end up at a ferry terminal
going over Loch Long in Scotland and I go, OK, I'll
drive onto the ferry.
I drive onto the ferry and the cameras are there
and they're rolling.
I'm, like, this is the movie starting.
It's dark, the moon is out, we are crossing the loch,
and we get to the other side, and we arrive at a campsite.
The campsite is full of police.
It's crawling with police.
There's frogmen in the water.
And Claire Foy's standing over there and I'm, like, Claire, my pal!
I'll tell you what, let's watch a clip from My Son.
This is you reuniting with your ex-wife at the scene
of your son's disappearance.
Joan?
Joan!
What are they doing out there?
They're looking for him.
They think he's in the water?
I don't know.
What the fuck happened?
I don't know.
So, did you not know Claire Foy was playing your wife?
I did know Claire was playing my wife.
Ex-wife.
But I did know Claire was playing that part,
but it was weird because there was a part of me that's going, like,
it's Claire, but at the same time it was also, there's Claire
missing her fake son that doesn't exist.
That somehow gets you, and it just ended up making me
you know, inspire something.
And can you change the script?
Like, can you, because, if you don't, you could start doing
stuff that they haven't rehearsed.
You just get a phone call, he is alive, we found him.
I know where he is, actually.
I know.
He's in the car!
I know, we just left him in the back room, he's fine.
Yeah, well, that was the whole point.
The rest of the cast, they all had a script,
but they had to roll with whatever I provided, and they were
amazing, man, they were absolutely incredible.
Wow.
But there was one moment.
Generally, the entire thing was set up, amazing director, a French
director called Christian Carrion, who, he designed this whole thing
to kind of preserve the first take.
So, the first take would happen and whatever I did it was all
designed about making that as real and as natural and as
truthful as possible.
Generally, we would get the first take and he would go,
it is beautiful, it is absolutely...
He was clearly from Wales.
Nine times out of ten we do the first take and move on,
and I would just organically know where I had to go
for the next scene.
I would need to drive somewhere, and the camera would be in the car
driving me the entire way.
But this one time, I'm running down this, like,
this alley, not an alley, it was like a pathway on a mountain
in the highlands of Scotland, and this car comes out of nowhere,
and I absolutely cack my pants, right?
And I decided that because there was potentially malevolent
forces at work here, I should hide, so I decided that
what I would do is I jumped into the bushes and I climbed
up a tree.
I mean, I climbed up a tree, right?
I went high, right?
I'm at the top of this tree thinking, I actually did this,
I'm 42 and I did this, and I just hear "cut."
It's our French director, come down, James.
And I come back down and he goes, I need you to do it again,
I need you to go down this way and I go, like, I thought maybe
you know the bad guys are coming, I need to go up the tree.
He goes, how do I say in English, it's just a bit...
Fucking stupid.
All right, all right.
I like that you go run this way.
I go, all right.
Actually, Penelope.
Are you a fan of improvisation as an actor?
I like it, I'm scared of it, but I also like having
the opportunity sometimes to try things.
Pedro, for example, he doesn't do it very often,
but once in a while when we don't expect it he would come in the room
and he would say, OK, now we are going to improvise this
long scene, you say this, you do that, and you girls have
five minutes to learn it.
It is terrifying but I loved that challenge.
Mostly when he gives us something like that it has to do with comedy,
and he is brilliant, and he's just in that moment,
and then we look at him completely terrified and he says,
what, you have to do it, so.
What's the thing that...
You direct Penelope obviously on screen but you try
to director in her life.
Is this true?
Sometimes.
In Spanish we say, we call it a professional deformation.
A director in a regular situation.
So sometimes I remember telling her, no, you didn't,
that kind of laughing, that was not good.
She would say, why not good, I mean I was laughing...
No, but it's not good for your character.
I treat her personally as a character.
It sounds like crazy.
At the beginning that would make me so self-conscious with him,
and then I got used to it, and it depends on what mood he's in.
Sometimes it doesn't happen, and sometimes he is very hardcore,
like we are at dinner at a restaurant and he goes, that
was the wrong tone for that line.
I'm, like, no, but that's the way I felt that line.
Yes, but it's the wrong tone.
Or about the way you're dressed.
But, he's only half kidding.
There is something he really means about it.
But I'm used to it by now.
Listen, Penelope, thank you so much for spending time with us.
Good luck with Parallel Mothers.
Congratulations on it, and come to see us in the flesh next time.
Penelope Cruz, everybody!
Thank you very much.
APPLAUSE
Right, it's time for music.
This singer-songwriter shot to number one in 2014 and now
she returns with album number two.
Here performing her hit single Brave, it is Ella Henderson!
# Oh, darling, dry your eyes
# It'll be alright, just look to the sky now
# Come and lay here in my arms
# I can feel your heart
# I'm by your side now
# Now I'll handle your fears for you
# Cry your tears for you
# When the rain keeps falling down
# I'm standing right here for you when the rain keeps falling
# When trouble wrecks your heart
# And the world's gone dark
# And your soul is black and blue
# We still got love to give
# Got a lot to live for, we'll pull through
# Brave, I'll be brave
# Whoa, you can pray for me, I'm gon' pray for you
# And even when it hurts, baby, I'll be brave for you
# Brave
# So, baby, I'll be brave for you
# No, no, no, no
# Oh, darling, just hold my hand
# Even when the lights are blinding
# Now take on the bitter pain
# I'll do what it takes to see you smiling
# No mountain that I wouldn't climb for you
# I will rise for you 'til your heart's desire
# And I'll open the sky for you, set the rain on fire
# Fire
# When trouble wrecks your heart
# And the world's gone dark
# And your soul is black and blue
# We still got love to give
# Got a lot to live for, we'll pull through
# Brave, I'll be brave
# Whoa, you can pray for me, I'm gon' pray for you
# And even when it hurts, baby, I'll be brave for you
# Brave
# So, baby, I'll be brave for you
# Brave
# I'm gon' be brave
# No mountain that I wouldn't climb for you
# I'll open the sky for you, oh
# When trouble wrecks your heart
# And the world's gone dark
# And your soul is black and blue
# We still got love to give
# Got a lot to live for, we'll pull through
# Brave, I'll be brave
# Whoa, you can pray for me, I'm gon' pray for you
# And even when it hurts, baby, I'll be brave for you
# Brave
# So, baby, I'll be brave for you
# I'll be brave, I'll be brave
# So, baby, I'll be brave for you #.
APPLAUSE
Oh!
Ella Henderson, everybody!
And her band.
Come on over.
Ella!
Ella Henderson, everybody!
Grab a seat.
Congratulations.
That was gorgeous.
Ella, Nicole, James, Pedro, Ella Henderson.
That was phenomenal.
That is a big old sing.
Oh, thank you.
That single is out now and it's also going to be on the upcoming album
Everything I Didn't Say, which is out on the 11th of March,
available to preorder now.
So, this is the thing.
Your first album, number one, went platinum, that was 2014.
Yeah!
CHUCKLES
Presumably there was a lot of pressure on you to come up
with album number two.
There was, there was, and I was so young, I think
I signed my first deal when I was 16, released my first
single and the whole album at 18.
So, you know, I had amazing success, an amazing ride with it,
but when I came back from all of that after three,
four years of promoting it, I realised I have nothing relatable
to write about.
Because everything I do is off my own experience,
and everything I write is from me, so, I just wanted to live a bit,
get a flat, get a sofa, all my mates were at Uni.
Like, I just didn't feel normal.
I mean, it must have been a weird experience, yeah, to come back.
It was really strange.
Amazing!
I don't want to sound ungrateful, it was amazing, but, like, yeah, no,
it was an incredible ride, yeah I just needed the time to grow.
I mean, the transition of being a teenager into a young
woman is crazy out of the limelight, so I didn't want to do it in.
Also, two of those years you didn't miss much.
No, exactly, to be fair, lockdown did give me
a kick up the bum to be, like, right, here
we go, let's do it.
So, in May and June you are touring with The Script, but then
you've got your own tour.
I am, yes, and we've literally announced the tour today and I'm
super excited because I've not been on tour, not done my own headline
tour for seven years, so I'm super excited to see
all the fans and tickets go on sale next Friday,
so, yeah, very excited.
She's so good.
I was going to say that about the tickets, but she did it.
Normally...
Do you know how much I've been drilled into saying that?
Normally people don't know.
They are, like, I don't know when tickets are going on sale,
I know, they are next Friday, that's the thing.
She is on it, ladies and gentlemen, she's been away,
but she hasn't lost it, she is on it.
APPLAUSE
Good luck with the tour and the album, and thank
you for that great performance.
Ella Henderson, everyone!
Seriously, so good.
Thank you.
OK.
That's nearly it.
Before we go, time to visit the big red chair.
Now, you haven't been here for, I think, nine years,
do you remember the red chair?
Yes, yes, yes.
So, they come on, they tell their best
story, and then we see if it was.
OK?
OK, I'm prepared.
Hello you?
Hello.
What's your name?
Claire.
Claire, lovely, OK, and where do you live, Claire?
I live in London but I'm originally from Cumbria.
Lovely.
What do you do?
I'm an assistant psychologist in an adolescent hospital.
Wow.
The cleverest audience member we've ever had.
Claire, off you go with your story.
OK, so, this happened many moons ago when I was a PhD
student in Milan, Italy.
And my research project was to make transgenic mice,
which in the mid-90s was kind of like a new technology.
So, I worked really hard...
Now it's just like, whatever.
So, I worked really, really hard for three years,
and finally I had my transgenic mice, and I just had to analyse
them, a couple of months work and then I was done.
But the company I worked for was having some problems,
and they'd made some people redundant.
Anyway, I go into work, looking for my mice,
and they are not there.
I said, where are they?
They told me that one of the technicians that had been
made redundant had stolen them and fed them to his pet snake.
So, my PhD was eaten by a snake.
I mean, that's an amazing story.
You can walk.
Thank you!
I just want to know after having eaten transgenic mice,
did the snake get superpowers?
Very good.
OK, that really is all we have time for.
If you'd like to have a go on the red chair yourself
and tell your story you can.
Just contact us via our website to this very address.
Please say a huge thank you to all of my guests tonight.
Ella Henderson!
Nicole Lecky!
James McAvoy!
Pedro Almodovar!
Penelope Cruz!
Join me next week with singer Lola Young, West Side
Story's Arianna Debose, Rocketman Taron Egerton,
Hollywood star Minnie Driver, the great Uma Thurman,
and famous Friend Courteney Cox!
I'll see you then.
Good night, everybody.
Goodbye!