This film. This film looks pretty intense.
This film is, you take a bunch of kids in what?
It's a town in Northern London. Is that right?
Or Northern England?
It's in Middle England, it's the Midlands.
And it's in Nottingham around the project housing,
[Conan] Right.
which has got the highest crime rate in Europe.
And there's, I think there's more murders per month in,
around this area than there is in even Buenos Aires.
This is in an intense area and you take these kids
and you teach them how to box.
Yeah.
And I was watching a clip from the movie and it looks like
some of these fight scenes are real.
Like people are really getting hurt.
Well, they are real. There's no,
there's not many actors in it. They're all the real thing.
They are the kid. What you see on screen is them.
You hired people that really
beat the crap out of each other
and shot them beating the crap out of each other.
Yeah, that's yeah.
And did you get hurt? Did you, were you fighting too.
Well, yeah, there was a fight on it
that Bruce Jones and myself had to have,
and it couldn't, we didn't want it to look heroic.
You know, it had to look ugly
and we tried choreographing it
and it went up looking like something out of John Wayne.
[Conan] Right.
So Bruce, which was extraordinary,
said, "Go for it, do it."
Well, I said, "Bruce, someone's going to get hurt.
And it's probably going to be you."
[Conan] Uh huh.
And he said, "Well, okay. Go for it." And we did.
And I think we came out, I had a broken hand.
He had a broken hand.
He had a fractured collar collarbone and two cracked ribs.
You think the minute one thing broke.
I mean, the minute anything broke on me,
I'd be like, "Okay, stop it. It's not funny. Stop."
You know? But you guys kept going,
even though you knew you were hurt.
Yeah and setting up for other shots, as well,
with broken limbs.
You're but you're famous for this.
You, you've got a reputation for getting hurt.
Didn't you once, was it on stage?
You once with a starter pistol,
Oh yeah.
Tell 'em, tell them what happened with the starter pistol.
is is amazing.
No, there was a party on the, on the set
and there was this starting pistol kicking around the floor
and I picked it up and it blew up in my face.
Did you pull it? Did you point at yourself and pull the?
No, I just looked at it like bang
and it went off in my face and they thought I was blind.
They tried to rush me to the hospital.
And so I'm laying in bed.
So it's all bandages on my eyes
and I'm trying to, I can't see a thing
and I've got this bottle and I'm trying to have a wee,
you know, and um.
Oh, the bedpan.
The pan, but not the pan, the bottle, you know,
and I'm, I'm trying to do the business
and I fell out of bed.
A bottle?
[Bob Hoskins] Yeah. Sure.
I would think if your eyes are bandaged,
don't give you a bottle with a narrow neck.
That seems cruel. Almost.
Here, piss in this. Come on, have a go.
They don't give 'em 2 liters. You know what I mean?
It's a special shape.
Okay. All right.
And so, and so you had to use this thing.
Yeah, and well I fell out of bed
and the bottle went up in the air
and I could hear this guy next to me.
It was obvious, he's on a drip,
but, he's screaming,
"Nurse! There's piss in me drip! Nurse!"
(laughter and applause)
And it's, you know.
(laughter and applause)
That's the three Stooges episode. They wouldn't air.
Yeah.
I heard that you've played so many great roles, but,
but you almost were cast in the role of Al Capone
in The Untouchables movie.
Oh yeah.
Which, which would have been a great,
I mean, DeNiro played the part,
but you'd have been great doing that.
Yeah, I got a phone call from,
I got sent the script for The Untouchables
and DePalma said, "Take a look at, you know, Al Capone
and meet me in the bar."
So I went to the, wherever, you know, it was this bar.
And he said, the first thing he said was,
"Well, really I want DeNiro to play this part."
And I said, "Oh great, I'm glad I came."
And he said, "But he's a bit difficult
to get an answer out of and if he won't do it,
would you do it?"
I said, "Yeah, if I'm free. Yeah."
I'm leaving myself open, you know.
[Conan] Yeah.
So, he said, "Okay."
And next thing I know DeNiro's playing the part,
I read it in the paper, oh well, you know, he got it.
Linda and me are sitting out at breakfast one morning
and Linda's opening the post. She said, "Oh, what's this?"
And it was a check for 2,000 dollars, 200,000 dollars.
[Conan] To you?
To me. Yeah.
[Conan] They send you a letter with 200,000,
Who sent it?
It said, "Thanks for your time. Love Brian."
I phoned him up and said, "Brian, listen, you got any films
you don't want me to be in babe, I'm there for you! Any day.
It's good work if you can get it!
Yeah.
(audience applause)
Before we go, I got to mention,
I got to talk about your accent, your, your Cockney accent.
You're famous for having an amazing Cockney accent.
Michael Caine has a great one too.
Yeah.
Do you guys, have you guys worked...
Yeah.
together? What's it like when the two of you
are in a room talking to each other?
No one else in the room could understand
what we're talking about.
[Conan] Uh huh.
It's pretty good. You know what I mean?
Cause you say all sorts of things about all sorts of people
and nobody knows, nobody knows what's going on.
You know, it's funny I, in film, I know when I was a kid,
I thought a Cockney accent was what Dick Van Dyke was doing
in Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang. When he's the,
you know, is it the? No! No! Mary Poppins!
[Bob Hoskins] Mary Poppins.
I'm sorry, Mary Poppins
Yeah.
Yeah. It's, you know, it's all that kind of 'ello gov'na!
Yeah.
You know, have a good day, mate!
[Bob Hoskins] Yeah.
And I thought, oh, that's a Cockney accent.
Now, a guy like-
You should've seen all the Cockney kids watching it like,
"Jeez. Who is this?"
And they go out and
they beat the crap out of Dick Van Dyke!
TwentyFourSeven, it's supposed to be
a very powerful movie opens tomorrow.
And so best of luck with that. And come on back,
we love having you on the show.
Thanks man. Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much. Bob Hoskins everybody!
Mono, great band, coming up. We'll be right back.