-Jack Whitehall! -Hi!
-It is great to see you and back in the studio.
-Back in the studio, back in New York, this is amazing.
-Thank you so much for being here.
I appreciate it, bud.
I want to first of all congratulate you
on "Jungle Cruise."
It was the biggest hit of the summer.
So congratulations. -Oh, thank you very much.
-I heard they're making a sequel.
-Yes. I think the sequel is in development now.
I absolutely loved making that movie.
It was so much fun.
Dwayne and Emily Blunt are incredible.
-Did you ever work out with The Rock?
-I did once, yes. Can you tell?
-Yes. That's why I was asking. [ Laughter ]
That's what I was asking. -Physical transformation.
A lot of people ask me that when they see me.
They're like, "This guy must spot The Rock."
-Yeah. -"He's built."
As he had obviously seen me and realized that
Dwayne and I have slightly different physiques --
you know, he is obviously quite generously proportioned,
and I have a body that looks like it's been drawn by a child.
[ Laughter ]
So before I arrived at the gym, he had gone round to all
of the machines and he had taken all of the weights
off the machines so it was just the bars.
[ Laughter ]
But as you know, like, even those bars are pretty heavy.
[ Laughter ] -Oh, come on.
-No, 'cause that's my worst nightmare, being in there, like,
trapped underneath a bar in front of one of your heroes.
So I was like, "Do you know what? I think I'm just going to
take the exercise bike in the corner. That one's good for me."
So it was so surreal.
Like, he's down one end of the gym,
like, eating dumbbells for breakfast.
Chain round his neck, listening to gangster rap.
And then I was in the other corner just trundling along
on an exercise bike, listening to an audiobook.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah. Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice."
[ Laughter ]
No Janes, no gains. [ Laughter ]
-You work out to Jane Austen. -Yeah!
-I want to ask you about this, because now you have
"Jungle Cruise," now you have "Clifford the Big Red Dog."
You're becoming like a family superstar,
like family movies for Jack Whitehall.
But do you get excited when you see a poster
or a trailer for your new movies?
-Oh, my God. Amazing. Yeah, I still have
imposter syndrome and feel, like, so lucky to be able
to be doing what I'm doing.
And I think what's good is that my fans, especially in England,
are very good at sort of keeping me in my place.
And they definitely did with the "Clifford" movie
'cause, basically for years when I was a stand-up,
I did lots of jokes about how
I was at school with Robert Pattinson, which is true.
We went to the same school,
and I was very jealous of him for some time
because our careers sort of happened in parallel.
And when he was starring in the "Twilight" films,
I was an open-mike comedian in pubs telling
[bleep] jokes to 30 people. [ Laughter ]
And my mom always used to compare the two of us.
And so I basically just, like, trash-talked him for five years.
-Yeah. -And I was like, you know what?
I just need to like, let that be and just not obs--
not let Robert Pattinson live in my head rent free.
-Yeah, don't worry about Robert Pattinson.
-No, no. Who cares about Robert Pattinson?
I know right now it seems like I care.
-We do, yeah. [ Laughter ]
We actually all really do, yeah.
But yes, good for you. -But I stopped it.
And I stopped talking about him.
And then I think he had the last laugh
because a couple of months ago, my Twitter just exploded
with people pointing out that on the day
that they released the trailer for Robert Pattinson's "Batman,"
Paramount Pictures released a trailer that featured me
being urinated on by a 10-foot CGI red dog.
[ Laughter and applause ]
-See, the world wins.
The world wins eventually, yeah. -We're both killing it.
Batman and the dog man just doing their thing in Hollywood.
-Batman and the dog man.
You were very nice enough to bring us photos
of you filming this film.
And so it is a giant, big, red dog.
-Yes. -So this is...
-Yeah, that's what we acted opposite.
I know, it's terrifying.
-That's not the dog, by the way.
It's not the final CGI. [ Laughter ]
But this is what? These are -- Are these puppeteers?
-Yeah. There was two puppeteers who operated this.
They switched around as well,
so no one had to be Clifford's ass for the whole film.
[ Laughter ] So you never knew who was
going to be in the front and who was going to be
in the back each day.
And, yeah, they were amazing.
Because we didn't just have this as well.
We had other, like, Clifford body parts
for some of the close-ups. That was the weird thing.
So there was, like, some guys that operated Clifford's tail.
Clifford's tongue, which was like someone's arm,
in, like, this big rubber prop
that licked people, which was very disconcerting.
The weirdest one was the head, though, because they had a head
as well, which they used for some of the shots.
And you had to do, like -- The little girl who played
Emily Elizabeth had this really emotional scene
when she's saying goodbye to Clifford the Big Red Dog,
and she's acting opposite this guy from the props department
with his ass hanging out, like, bent over holding
Clifford's severed head on a pike.
It was like no wonder she's in tears. It's terrifying!
It's like something out of "Game of Thrones."
[ Laughter ]
-It's a fun, fun, fun family movie.
-Yeah, I've really not made it sound pretty fun.
[ Laughter ] It's a really sweet...
-That's what goes into making a movie.
And she is just -- -She's amazing.
When you watch the finished version of that scene,
I was going -- I was going.
-Yeah, it's emotional. -Were you? Did you? Did you?
-Yeah, of course I did. -Of course you did.
-I'm an emotional guy. -You're an emotional guy.
We're emotional guys.
-We are. -We are.
-And I don't care about Robert Pattinson.
-No. [ Laughter ]
[ Crying ] Neither do I.
-Do you think -- Does he know I exist?
-Oh, God, when he wins an Oscar, I'm just going to just
hide in a hole for the rest of my life.
[ Laughter ]
He is. He's going to win an Oscar, isn't he?
-He's going to win an Oscar. Yeah, of course he is.
-Maybe I'll win an Oscar for "Clifford."
-That's what I'm -- You think so?
[ Cheers and applause ] Yeah. Look, they like it!
Here's the Oscar clip. Everyone, take a look.
Jack Whitehall in "Clifford the Big Red Dog."
Take a look at this.
-The dishwasher is right there.
-Yeah, but the water cutoff is in the bedroom closet.
-Don't -- Don't come in here. -No.
-Why not?
-It's private. -It's haunted.
Um, I can do it, though.
-Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Uncle Casey.
-Just get in there and give it a little [Clicks tongue]
So, the, um... -So, the dishwasher.
So, it makes, like, this weird crackling noise.
-No, no! Stop!
[ Clifford whining ]
[ Grunts ]
[ Groans ]
Everything's under control
Just shutting off the valve!
Aaaah! Ohh!
-There you go! [ Cheers and applause ]
Remember me at the Oscars. -I'll thank you in my speech.
-Thank you. Jack Whitehall, everybody.
"Clifford the Big Red Dog" is in theaters
and streaming on Paramount+ tomorrow.