-Stephen Merchant!
One of my faves.
Thanks for coming back to the show.
-I love you, brother. I love being on the show.
-It is Nana Week here at the show
and I was talking to you backstage
and I was saying do you have any fond memory of your grandma?
-My grandmother -- a lovely woman,
a dear, sweet woman, Irene,
but not an optimistic lady.
[ Laughter ] You know how there's like
there's people who are kind of glass half full
and there are some who are glass half empty.
Irene -- there's nothing in the glass.
[ Laughter ] The glass has been knocked
off the table, smashed, and thrown in the trash.
-Interesting.
-Like I remember, when I was like 13,
she said to me, "What would you like for Christmas?
What gift would you like?" I said,
"I would love an overcoat like Granddad."
My granddad had this lovely overcoat with this big,
kind of, sort of sheepskin collar.
I was like, "Can I get one like that?"
And she said, "Well, you can have his."
[ Laughter ] And I said, "Well,
doesn't Granddad need it?" And she said,
"He'll probably be dead soon."
[ Laughter ]
Honestly, she said, "You know, his heart's not what it was."
[ Laughter ] He lived for 20 years
[ Laughter ] after that.
I was freezing!
[ Laughter and applause ]
-Does it feel good to be in front of an audience?
-It's so lovely to be back in front of real people
for the first time after two years.
[ Cheering and applause ] It's great.
It's great to be in front of an audience.
It's great to be back in the audience, you know,
going to shows again, going to theater shows.
-I know you're a big music fan. -Love going to live music.
The last time I went to a concert was before COVID,
was The Boss, was Bruce Springsteen.
I saw him on Broadway.
I saw him in L.A., two shows in L.A.
-Big Springsteen fan? -Love The Boss,
absolutely adore the man.
The only problem is I went to see Bruce
at The Forum in L.A. and I very nearly broke his neck.
[ Laughter ] -Alright, explain this to me now, okay.
-So I love The Boss and I went down there.
I went to show 1
and, during the show, during "Hungry Heart,"
he falls out into the crowd and the crowd kind of carry him
on their hands. -Oh, yeah, crowd surfing.
-Crowd surfing, right?
And so I'm loving it. I'm watching this.
I was videoing it. I did the whole thing.
I just loved it. -He's a god.
-And I thought, "I'm going to go back night 2
because I want a piece of that action.
I want to be one of those people
that gets to touch the great man," right?
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-So I go back. I get a second ticket.
I know where he's going to be, you know, at what time.
I know what he's going to do.
I'm thinking, "I'm going to touch this 70-year-old man!"
[ Laughter ] You know? I'm like a stalker
in a retirement village.
[ Laughter ] Like I'm really --
I'm just waiting for him to come out, right?
-Awful. -So I get into position
and I'm waiting for him and he comes out
and he falls into the crowd.
♪ Everybody had a hungry heart ♪
and he's coming towards me and I'm bracing myself for him.
And The Boss, he gets here and I brace myself.
And I receive The Boss.
But I forget that I'm 6'7".
[ Laughter ]
So he starts going upwards, right?
[ Laughter and applause ] And I'm holding him, and the person behind me
is like regular height and they can't reach him. -No.
[ Laughter ] And so now I'm like --
There's a moment in time where I'm taking the full weight
of Bruce Springsteen. [ Laughter and applause ]
I'm holding The Boss.
And you know what? Like he's a small man,
but he's a lot heavier than you'd think.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah, it's a lot of -- Yes.
-Like, have you ever tried to move like a sofa bed?
[ Laughter ] You know? Like they're heavier than they look, you know?
-He's a sturdy, sturdy man.
-Well, he's dense with talent. -He's dense with talent.
[ Laughter ] -And I'm holding like this.
And I have a vision of my grandmother saying,
"You should never hold rock stars.
[ Laughter and applause ] You haven't got the
upper body strength for that." -You almost killed
Bruce Springsteen, yeah.
[ Cheering and applause ] -Yeah.
So, I just had to like bend at the knees
and like finally hand him off to the other person.
And he was singing the whole time. He didn't know it.
-Saved his life. -Saved his life.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah. Well, Bruce, if you're watching,
that was Stephen who saved your life at The Forum.
Second night, number 2, at The Forum.
I want to talk about "The Outlaws."
Congratulations on this. -Thank you.
You write this. It's a comedy-drama series,
which I think you're great at, too, because I think you're
also a very good, dramatic actor.
How did you come up with this idea?
-My parents used to work,
when I was growing up, for community service.
You know, if you get like a DUI or some other crime,
they don't send you to prison, necessarily.
They make you pick up garbage or, you know,
or renovate a building as a punishment
and my parents were involved with that when I was growing up.
And I always thought that was an interesting area
for a comedy or a drama
because you'd have very unlikely people sort of coming through.
Like my mother, there was a kid who I went to school with, Dave,
who, he was always coming through
and he was the world's laziest thief.
[ Laughter ] At one time, Dave got caught in a house stealing the TV
and the homeowners came in.
They're like, "Dave, what are you doing?!"
And he's like, "I'm not Dave."
And they're like, "Yeah, you are!
You live next door!"
[ Laughter ] He didn't even go a block over.
He was stealing from his own neighbors.
[ Laughter ] So there were people like that come through
and I always thought, "What an interesting idea."
Like who are these people, why are they doing
community service? And let's make that into a show.
-And they have to come together.
And you have a great cast and one of my favorites,
Christopher Walken, is in this show.
And, gosh, he's a treasure, man.
-He's amazing. He's brilliant guy.
Amazing in the show. Fantastic.
An honor to have him. -He's one of the greatest.
And you got to film in your hometown.
-I filmed in my hometown in the UK and we said to him,
"Is there anything you want to do in England?"
He said, "I'd love to go to Stonehenge."
So we went. I took Christopher Walken
to Stonehenge. -This is real.
-This is the real thing. -Talk about goals.
-Right? -Here's you
[ Laughter ] and Christopher Walken at Stonehenge.
[ Awws and applause ]
That's amazing! -Isn't that lovely?
-Yeah, I love that.
[ Cheering and applause ]
Did he enjoy it?
-And, again, he didn't say much and then, at one point,
like we'd been there for an hour and he just said,
Apparently, the blue stones have healing properties."
[ Laughter ] Okay. Wow.
Is that how he would say that? How would he say that?
-Yeah. Yeah.
[ As Walken ] And, apparently,
the blue stones
have healing properties.
[ Laughter ] -Exactly.
[ Applause ] [ Rimshot ]
So, he said, "May I touch the stone?" to the guide.
And it's such a British thing, she said,
"No." No way.
[ Laughter ] I'm like, "Really?
You can't let Christopher Walken touch one of the stones?
They've been here 5,000 years.
-He's a legend, yeah. -Come on. What do you do,
take them in at night? Of course people touch the stones."
[ Laughter ] -Yeah, of course they do. -They're not like
lawn furniture. You don't cover them up.
[ Laughter ] But she wouldn't let him.
That's a bucket list thing
that, probably, you never thought would be
-Oh, my goodness. -in your bucket, yeah.
You're like, "Wow, I'm at Stonehenge
with Christopher Walken. Life is good."
-Really, that was a surreal moment.
-I want to show everyone a clip.
Here's Stephen Merchant in "The Outlaws."
Take a look at this.
-Greg, what's your secret?
-I'm a lawyer.
-Keep that quiet. Shameful.
-A lawyer who's badly organized, can't remember case precedents.
I use Wikipedia to conduct most of my legal research.
I've missed court deadlines. I've forged signatures.
-We've all done that. -In my office, I have this cupboard.
I call it the cupboard of chaos.
I've stuffed every letter, witness statement, affidavit,
that's proof of my incompetence in there
and I can't destroy them, I can't file them,
so I live in constant fear that someone will open the cupboard
and I'll never work in law again,
even though I'm probably going to get fired, anyway,
unless I bring in some new clients, so.
Actually, does anyone need a lawyer?
[ Laughter ] I've got some business cards here.
-Oh, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Hey, are you any good?
[ Laughter ] -What do you think? Yeah.
[ Cheering and applause ] Stephen Merchant, everybody.
Season 1 of "The Outlaws"
is available this Friday on Prime Video.