-Thank you for being on the show.
-Thanks for having me, man. -I appreciate it.
-This is exciting, no, really exciting.
-Uh, I know you're from England,
but do you spend much time in New York City?
-I spend quite a lot of time here, yeah.
-You do? -I've been coming here
since probably, like, 10 years ago.
I shot a movie called "Across the Universe,"
and that was my first time coming here.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Yeah.
-That was my first time in America,
so it kind of blew my mind to turn up in New York City.
-What did you think about the city?
-Yeah, it was kind of -- It's one of those things.
When you grow up in the U.K., you see it so much as a kid,
you know, on cartoons and films.
-Yeah. -And then you get here,
and you're -- the sight of seeing a yellow taxi
just kind of sends your brain sideways, you know?
-Yeah, it's fantastic.
-I was like, "There's a fat man eating a hot dog."
That's incredible.
-Yes. Yeah, that is incredible.
-Steam -- Steam really does come out from under the streets.
-Yeah, it really does. Yes.
-The glorious things that you imagine.
-Where did you hang out? Where were you staying?
-When we were doing that, we were in Times Square,
'cause we were rehearsing in Times Square,
and they kind of had us around the corner.
And I think I stayed in Times Square for probably --
for about two weeks before I realized
there was more to New York than Times Square.
-That's why you were looking at a guy eating a hot dog.
-Yeah. -There's much more to New York.
-Yeah, friends of mine would call me,
and they're like, "How's New York?"
And I'm like, "It's good. It's cool. It's...
It's pretty intense."
-Yeah. "I just got in a fight with Elmo."
Exactly, though.
-No, and then -- Honestly, it was about two or three weeks.
I just didn't even leave that sort of vicinity.
And then I started to wander
and sort of explore a little bit.
And then I came across the kind of East Village
and the Lower East Side,
and I was like, "That's the New York I've been looking for."
-Yes, cool. Where in the East Village
did you go? -I was all over.
Every time I come to New York, I always stay around
sort of Tompkins Square Park. -Oh, yeah.
-I had a place on 10th when I was last here,
right opposite the Russian bath house.
You know that place? -I-I -- No.
-You've never been in them? [ Laughter ]
-No, no, I've never been there. Yeah. The Russian bath house?
-The Russian bath house on 10th street. Yeah.
-Oh, yeah.
-I've always given it a wide berth.
Like, I've always walked past it thinking,
"I don't want to know what goes on
inside of a Russian bathhouse." -Yeah, what does go on?
-I've always -- You know, you always imagine
it's just a kind of hot, steamy room
full of big sweaty men covered in tattoos.
But people kept saying to me, "Oh, you live on 10th street.
You've got to go to the Russian bath house."
And like, "Oh, you're in the East Village?
You've got to go to the Russian bath house."
So, like, I was really hungover one morning after a weekend --
I mean dying hungover
where you don't know where to put yourself in any position,
and then I was like,
"I might try out the Russian bath house."
[ Laughter ]
-You know what? That's the only time you do go.
-Now might be a good time, and it might clear my head.
I might sweat out the alcohol that's kind of in my system.
-The booze, yeah. Did it?
-So I went over there, yeah. I went over there,
and it was exactly how I imagined.
It was a big... [ Laughs ]
...hot, steamy room full of very large sweaty tattooed men.
-Really? -So, I was like, "Oh, [bleep]"
-Yeah, no, that's exactly what it is.
Did it work?
-Well, I kind of cautiously sort of placed myself
between two very large tattooed gentlemen.
-And are you wearing a towel?
-Yeah, you all have a towel, but you kind of
adopt the position where you
sort of spread your legs and kind of lean.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man spreading, yeah, of course.
That's what you do.
-And I was filming at the time,
so I also had these kind of like semi-permanent tattoos
kind of all over my body and arm, and all this,
which is now -- -You had fake -- fake tattoos?
-Yeah, which now look like children's transfers...
-Yeah, of course. -...in comparison to these --
-To the real tattoos. -To these real guys.
And I'm staring there, and I'm looking down like this,
and I notice then they're sliding down my arm --
[ Laughter ]
And they're kind of dribbling off my body, you know?
Like, all over my skin, I've just got tattoos
sliding everywhere, and --
-The Russian guys are like, "This guy is weird, man.
-Yeah, these big dudes are looking at me like...
and, like, how do you explain that, you know what I mean?
-Yeah.
-To someone outside of a film set in the real world,
how do you kind of even start with that?
-No, you can't.
-So then I was -- "Okay, I'm so hot, I'm dying.
I'm going to start it out, but I'm dying,"
and you know that feeling you get when the blood
starts to kind of drain from your head
and your ears start to go funny...
-Oh, no. -...and you think,
"If I don't get up now, I'm going to pass out.
I'm not going to make it."
-Because it's hot, yeah absolutely.
and I could just kind of see the door
sort of faded in the background.
Everything was getting pretty kind of "Fear and Loathing"
in a Russian spa kind of way. [ Laughter ]
And I thought, "Right, I've got to go.
Honestly, if I don't leave in the next 30 seconds,
I'm going to hit the deck."
-You didn't. -So, I went to get up,
and I kind of stood up,
and my legs just kind of buckled underneath me,
and I landed in the lap... [ Laughter ]
...of a very large Russian sweaty gentleman,
and we kind of rolled around a little bit before we --
[ Laughter ] -Did you come to eventually?
-Yeah, yeah. I came around,
and we've been best friends ever since.
No, no. [ Laughter ]
I was lucky to get out of there alive.
-Yeah.
-I was lucky to get out of their alive.