-I want to ask this -- You were in a film, "Doctor Sleep,"
which was an incredible sequel to "The Shining."
and a story about a man haunted by ghosts.
-Yeah. -I am very skeptical of ghosts,
but I do like asking guests on the show.
You have had an encounter.
-I had one. It's a sort of long story that I'll try and shorten.
But when I was -- It was my 20th birthday.
And I was at drama school in London.
And it was at Easter. And Passover happened to be aligned
the same weekend, same day.
And in the morning, my --
It was a student house. And no one was there
'cause everyone had gone away for the holidays, except me.
And I watched this movie.
I stole someone's video recorder from their room
to watch "Blue Velvet." -Yeah.
-And after I had watched "Blue Velvet,"
I was standing, running a bath,
leaning in the doorway in a robe.
And I was at the top of the house.
My bedroom was at the top of a staircase on its own.
And then there was a dark corr-- hallway with other bedrooms,
and then downstairs, a bigger flat downstairs --
Apartment. Sorry.
Now I'm an American. Apartment.
[ Laughter ]
And I was suddenly struck with this pain on my back.
And I ripped off my robe.
And there was a big, black burn mark on the back of my robe.
And I ran around, thinking,
maybe when I got the video out or something,
maybe there was a spark or a fire or something happened.
-That's why we don't have VCRs anymore.
-No, exactly. So I ran around,
thinking maybe I had caught fire on something.
Nothing. Couldn't find anything. I looked at the robe again.
Now I see the whole back of the robe was singed dark brown,
and then this black burn mark on my shoulder blade.
So I freaked out, and I got out of there,
and I went and spent my birthday with my uncle Dennis.
And the next day, I came back,
and the guy who owned the apartment downstairs was back.
And I suddenly went, "Oh, yeah,
this odd thing happened the other night."
And his face went ashen.
And I said, "What is it?"
And he said, "No, I don't want to tell you."
I said, "What is it?"
He said, "Look, the guy who owned my flat downstairs
was an old, reclusive guy,
and he never went out.
He used to walk to the hedge and sit at the hedge and go back in.
And his brother would come 'round two or three times a week
and give him a hot meal. Otherwise, he didn't really eat.
Anyway, his brother got sick one week, didn't come,
and the gentleman was boiling a kettle in his kitchen.
And he was so hungry that he fainted,
the kettle set fire to his kitchen,
and he was burned on his back, dragged out of the house,
and he died of his burns to his back."
And I was like, "Oh, my God."
[ Laughter ]
I said, listen, you've got -- I thought he was --
We were actors, right? So I thought, "He's making it up."
-Yeah. -So he phoned up the landlady.
She told the story so I could hear it.
She said, "But he was a very nice man.
I'm sure he wouldn't wish you any harm."
-Oh, she was like, "He wouldn't be haunting you."
-He wouldn't be doing anything nasty like that.
-And it was very clear on the lease, "No haunting."
-"No burning." [ Laughter ]
So, we went -- So I freaked out.
I said, "I'm not sleeping up there.
I'm not sleeping in my room," because I freaked out.
So we went down to his bedroom.
I brought my bedding down.
And as we were walking into his living room,
I said, "Look, I don't know --" I'll use the man's --
Say it was Mr. Goldblum, for instance.
-Okay. -I said, "Look --"
It was dirty. We were drama students.
We didn't do much cleaning. I said, "It's as dirty as --
It's as dusty as when Mr. Goldblum used to live here."
And I put my bedding in the corner.
And I looked up, and my friend was over there.
And as I looked up, the ceiling fell down like this.
The whole ceiling came down, like, in a wave.
And there was this scream like
[High-pitched screaming]
which I realized was me.
[ Laughter ]
I was going, "It's okay! It's just the ceiling!
It's the ceiling! It's the ceiling!"
But two minutes later, I said, "Lookit, we were just --"
I said, "Remember what I said about Mr. Goldblum?"
-Yeah. -Everything was covered
in two inches of dust, you know, plaster dust.
And then every night after that, my door would open --
-Every night? How many nights did you stay?
-I think it was another -- I --
You know, I didn't have any money to go anywhere else.
I had to stay there. But it was a good month or something.
The phone would ring. Nothing.
The door would squeak open. It was just all really scary.
-I'm now maybe going to buy in on ghosts are real.
-Well, I never saw him, or --
But that was just odd.
-It seems like that's 100 different signs.
[ Laughter ]
I mean, right now, if he was watching,
he's like, "I didn't say anything?! I'm a ghost!"
Hey, thank you so much for being here. Always a pleasure.
Ewan McGregor, everybody.