Wow, this got pretty existential.
Yes. - It did, yeah, it got deep.
Speaking of which, so this is for a podcast
called Fiction Predictions.
And basically, we're trying to
figure out all the books, TV shows
or movies of the past that somehow managed to
predict the world that we live in today.
Yeah.
What do you think of the name?
I think it's good.
Yeah.
But I'm glad you clarified what it meant.
I wouldn't have known just from the title
that it was... but now I do.
- [Announcer] Fiction Predictions.
Well, thank you for having me.
My name is Stephen Merchant.
I'm a writer and director of a new motion picture,
called 'Fighting With My Family,'
which follows the true life story
of a young woman called Paige,
who came, in fact,
comes from a real-life Norwich wrestling family.
The family dream was to get their kids into WWE,
which is the big leagues for wrestlers.
But only Paige got signed
and went off to Florida at the age of 18,
4,000 miles from home,
to try and live this family dream for herself
and for the people that she left behind.
Okay, I really, really enjoyed the film, by the way.
Thank you.
One thing that stood out to me is,
obviously you've got some actors
playing fictional characters.
You've got a lot of actors
playing real-life people, essentially.
And then you've also got Dwayne Johnson playing himself
in there as well.
And I was just wondering, from a writing perspective,
how does writing a purely fictional character
compare to writing someone that's based on an actual person?
Well, there are different challenges
and different limitations.
So, one of the benefits of having real people
that you're basing it on,
is obviously, you know how they speak already,
you have a real sense of who they are
because I went to meet the family,
I hung out with them.
I could phone them up and ask them
questions about how they were thinking,
what happened in their life.
So a lot of the questions that you have
when you've got a fictional character,
which we're making that stuff up,
let's take, for instance, David Brent in 'The Office,'
a lot of time was spent deciding
where he's from and what did he do, and what's his life.
Even stuff that didn't make it into the finished clip,
but you want to have answers to those questions,
just so you understand the character.
These people already have a life,
and so a lot of that stuff's already done for you.
And also, of course, you're writing about real people,
so you feel an obligation to them.
You want to do them justice.
Particularly when they're a wrestling family,
who, if they're not happy, could break your legs.
(laughs)
Particularly with the Rock, or Dwayne Johnson...
I never know whether to call him Dwayne Johnson or the Rock.
DJ. - [Sam] DJ, yeah.
You're friends with him, I guess.
Yeah, you call him DJ.
I don't think we could get away with that.
No, probably not.
I'd rather you call him Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson, yeah. (laughs)
When you're writing his part,
'cause he comes across as a mentor figure in the film,
but how does that work?
Do you have to run every line by him?
Or do you work quite closely on how he's gonna be portrayed?
'Cause obviously he's playing himself
so it's a quite a weird dynamic I guess.
Well he was involved in Paige's real-life story
and so the scenes that we dramatize involving him
are based on stories that Paige and he told me
about what had happened for real.
And so, again, you're using the true incidents
as your jumping off point.
I might take a little bit of artistic license
'cause I wasn't in the room,
so I don't know exactly what was said.
But the stories are based on truth,
and so you write a version
of how you think things unfolded,
and then Dwayne, DJ,
(laugh)
Sort of , you know, he called me up and he was like,
"I feel like we should do this or do this,"
and he had notes and thoughts about it 'cause he was there.
And so it becomes a collaboration in that way.
And Dwayne is Dwayne but he's also at times playing
the Rock, which is more of his wrestling persona,
and that stuff I can't write for him
'cause that is him at his own magnificence.
I mean I didn't quite but I may as well
have just written "Dwayne does the Rock here" in brackets
and then he just goes off and he does his own thing,
'cause you can't write that stuff.
That's all coming out of his own noggin.
It's interesting, this concept,
I've always been fascinated by this idea of celebrities
playing themselves in a way.
And obviously, like you said,
it's different in Fighting With My Family
to how it was in Extras.
And it's interesting that you mentioned
them playing exaggerated caricatures of themselves.
And I guess the reason we were interested to bring it up,
particularly on this podcast,
the idea of Fiction Predictions,
is I thought that celebrities,
particularly that concept in 'Extras' you had of them
playing these caricatures of themselves,
I almost thought,
and I don't know what you think about this,
but it felt like it foreshadowed, in a way,
how some people act on social media.
So almost this idea of on Instagram, on Twitter, Snapchat,
the stuff we put out is quite curated,
and it's almost this... some people find success
almost from drilling down into a particular aspect
of their character and maybe dialing it up to 10 almost.
And you're obviously getting instant feedback
in the form of retweets, etc.
So I notice some actors and some regular people
just doing this on social media.
Almost caricaturing themselves.
And I guess what I wanted to ask you,
what you thought about that,
and I guess to what extent you think social media
means we're always playing some version of ourselves.
Well I've always been a big fan of movies and TV
and entertainment from a young age.
And I was a fan before I was ever in the business.
And if you look back in the 30s, 40s, 50s,
Hollywood stars were very inaccessible.
You saw them in movies and you saw them in magazines
and that was it.
I mean there wasn't really any TV talk shows
until the 50s and 60s.
And so someone like Errol Flynn or one of those
movie stars from the 50s, they were very remote.
Gary Cooper.
And so you'd occasionally get these pictorials
and it would be them in their Hollywood mansion
and it would be them diving in the pool
and them having a cocktail.
But it was all very staged and very manufactured.
And their true lives and their decadent behavior
or their sexuality,
all that stuff was kept from the public, right?
And then what happened is over time,
celebrities became more and more accessible.
And in the 80s, they were being hounded by the paparazzi
and you had Tom Cruise coming out of every building he left.
There was camera crews outside of it.
And it feels in a way, now, we've almost come full circle
where the audience demands access to their favorite stars
and so they have to be on social media
or seen to be connecting and being honest
and being themselves,
and breaking down the walls between them and us.
But actually, they're curating their version
of themselves, just like those old 50s stars did.
They're not really presenting themselves
because who wants to do that?
Who wants to just let you see every nook and cranny,
every wart of someone, right?
So now on social media, in a way,
it feels like it's those old 1950's magazine cover spreads
where it's Errol Flynn in his Hollywood mansion.
And now, it's celebrities in their Hollywood mansion.
And then it's non-celebrities trying to look like they also
live the life of celebrities, right?
I was reading a story the other day about someone in Russia
you can pay to have an hour sitting in a private jet
with your friends.
So you can just take photos of you drinking champagne
in a private jet.
Now, presumably, the people that you're posting that to,
your 14 followers, know you don't have the money
to fly round in a private jet.
So I don't know who you're fooling.
It reminds me of when I was at school,
this kid came into school.
I did not go to a fancy school
and I did not have fancy, wealthy friends.
This kid came to school
and he had what appeared to be a Rolex.
He was like, "Yeah, got a Rolex, no big deal,"
and we're like, "wow."
And then it very quickly became clear
it was a knockoff, fake Rolex,
because he couldn't afford a Rolex.
So it's like well, you've got a fake Rolex
and we all know it's a fake Rolex,
so again, who are you fooling?
And so it feels like a slightly strange time
where celebrities and non-celebrities are presenting
this idealized version of themselves on social media, right?
And I don't quite know where that will lead us but...
Well what's your idealized version like?
What part do you create when you go on Twitter
or on Instagram?
It's slightly different for me
because I...
You're just ideal in real life?
Well no, I was gonna say
because I'm from the comedy world,
I guess you use it in slightly different ways.
I actually like,
you know,
I like showing my own hopelessness
in so many different ways,
in the ways that can be funny.
Like I did a post recently, which is true,
about how hard it is for me to write in hotel rooms
because I can never get a desk that's high enough.
Like your desk here is too low for me.
And so I have to construct writing desks
when I'm working from a hotel room
with ironing boards or drawers and cushions
and I have to build these things.
And that's true.
So it's a playful, little insight into my life.
But of course, again, it's just a segmented version
of part of my life.
It's not like I'm on there and I'm giving you every moment
of my day and every thought I'm having.
So I think you still curate it, you're still policing it,
even if you're being funny, even if you're...
I don't know.
I mean maybe you feel like that's a mischaracterization.
Maybe you feel like people are much more honest
and truthful in their social media.
Maybe they are, I don't know.
Do you feel that's true? - I'm not, no.
Do you feel like you're presenting
a version of yourself in a way?
Yeah, to my 14 followers, yeah, sure.
But I think everybody has to, right?
You can't show it all.
But otherwise, you're just living your life
like an open wound.
I mean everyone's got their demons and their issues.
- [Nikolay] Desperate times.
No one wants everyone to know their true self, do they?
- [Nikolay] No.
- Wow, this got pretty existential.
- It did, yeah, it got deep. Speaking of which,
so this is for a podcast called Fiction Predictions,
and basically, we're trying to figure out
all the books, TV shows or movies of the past
that somehow managed to predict the world
that we live in today.
What do you think of the name?
We think it's a brilliant name.
Fiction Prediction?
- [Nikolay] Yeah.
How many editions of the podcast have you done?
This is gonna be the first season.
Okay.
I think it's good, yeah.
But I'm glad you clarified what it meant.
I wouldn't have known just from the title
that it was... but now I do and I'm intrigued.
- [Nikolay] It's not too late to change it.
And so what have you identified?
What are some great examples of some fiction
doing some predicting? - Well before we let you know,
do you wanna give us your fiction prediction?
Anything that pops into your head?
Let me think.
- [Sam] Sorry, we're putting you
on the spot a bit here, aren't we?
Yeah, well I guess
I'm immediately thinking about movies,
like '2001: A Space Odyssey,'
which has a very sentient computer, essentially AI,
that is interacting, both with the pilots of the spacecraft
and is in control of the spacecraft.
And then of course, famously, spoiler alert,
begins to take over the spacecraft
and begins to bump off the pilots, the astronauts,
which is one of those very real concerns
people have now about the power of AI, right?
That, you know, what limitations do you put on
this, on AI.
We're only years away from computers being able
to seemingly think,
and they will have processing power way beyond any human
and they can presumably figure out
every possible eventuality.
And so it's a very real concern, right?
About what limits do we put on computers
and their capabilities?
Yeah.
Speaking about the rise of...
I keep going to very dark places in your podcast.
I'm sorry about that.
I should have just said oh, I hope there's hover boards
like in 'Back To The Future 2.'
(laugh)
No, it's interesting you talk about...
Because again, it taps into that idea
of the rise of technology, and obviously,
we were talking about social media earlier
and how people curate themselves.
And I just wanted to quickly come back to one thing
and talking about celebrities and that idea of curation,
now that everyone's got a phone
and they're asking you for selfies all the time,
someone might be videoing any interaction you have
on the streets,
do you think,
rather than even just say for paparazzi and on social media,
is there a pressure now, do you think,
for celebrities to be constantly wearing a mask,
wherever they go almost?
I think so, to some degree.
I mean I'm gonna do a massive namedrop right now.
I don't know, maybe you wanna throw in some jingle.
♪ N-n-namedrop. ♪
Because this is a pretty heavy-handed namedrop,
but I was talking to Tom Cruise once (clears throat).
- [Sam] Nice.
And I was asking him about how his experience
of being a celebrity had changed over the years,
and he pointed to a moment.
He said he used to have,
they were paparazzi that would wait outside hotels
and stuff for him, and studios,
and he would come out and there was a certain acknowledgment
that you'd leave the building and they would take pictures
and then off you'd go with your day.
And then he says he remembers coming out once
and a woman came up to him with a phone
and took a picture of him with her phone.
And he said, "What's that?"
and she went, "I've got a camera on my phone."
And it was the first time he'd seen it
and he said he remembered thinking
wow, everything's gonna change.
He could sense it even at that moment.
And so I guess that was probably a huge turning point
where for someone like him,
you're suddenly much more mindful of the fact
that the traditional days of the paparazzi with cameras
and the gentleman's agreement,
I'll take some pictures of you coming out the hotel,
getting in your car, then I leave you alone,
had suddenly changed, and now, obviously,
everyone has a camera
and everyone's a paparazzi to some degree.
And anyone who's in the public eye is conscious
that they never quite know when they're being filmed.
I've got friends who've been filmed or photographed
when they're asleep on a plane.
Or you often sense it if I'm on the tube,
and their camera will rise up,
and they'll have forgotten
to take the little click noise off.
And it's pretty obvious what you're up to.
And so of course, you have to be very aware of that.
You can't be yourself
because you want to be able to control
what people know of you.
How do you react in those situations?
Are you tempted to go over and say,
"Sorry, do you mind actually not taking a picture?"
Well of course...
Do you just scoop in and grab the phone from above?
No, but it's very intrusive, isn't it?
No, it is, yeah.
Yes, you've made an exchange in some ways
that you get the privileges of being in the public eye
and make movies and do all these amazing things,
and that's great.
And you understand there's a certain exchange that happens.
But nevertheless, you're going about your day.
It's a little bit creepy if someone takes a picture.
The other thing you notice is that
if you're walking down the street
and someone knows who you are and they are with a friend
and they walk past you,
they will often wait till they've walked past you
to say, "Oh you know who that was?"
but they never walk far enough.
You can always hear them saying it.
And it's a warning to everyone,
you have to walk further than you think
if you're gonna talk about someone
behind their back, alright?
And that's good advice for office life, your friends.
It doesn't matter if they're a famous person or not.
Just walk further than you think before you start gossiping
about someone, alright?
Little word to the wise. (laughs)
Thanks very much.
That was brilliant, thank you.
- [Announcer] Fiction Predictions.