-Come on, pal, you look --
Wow, you look gre-- You're all dressed up.
I think you are the first guest to dress up for me.
-Dude, I always dress like this.
-No, oh, my -- stop. Really?
Every day of your life?
-No, dude, I knew you were coming back and thought
you were all -- and I thought maybe
we would do something special.
So, I was like, "I'll get the suit back on," you know?
-You're a good man. Thank you for doing that, buddy.
Where -- Are you in London?
-Yeah, no, we're in London. And it's all good.
And we're just sort of like -- Sorry for that.
Just a second.
-Oh, my gosh! Are you wearing shorts?
You cheater! -No, no!
-You cheater! -No.
-Busted. -No.
-Busted. -No. I'm just kidding.
-Oh. Hey, I know you just played --
You do this thing every year, "Soccer Aid."
But this year you did, like, an e-sports version of that.
How did you get involved in "Soccer Aid."
Are you a good player?
-Ah, I'm a "good" player. Yes.
I'm a good person, and I'm a player.
-Yes. You definitely are.
-I get my backside handed to me regularly.
But I am a good person, and I try and play for charities.
And we've raised millions and millions and millions
and millions and millions of bucks for UNICEF
and children all over the world, so it's been a really good --
It's been a really good ride over the last 10 years.
-But you also -- You do a lot of stuff.
You also do a thing with, uh, supporting
Give and Go Athletics, which is based in Philadelphia, correct?
-Yeah. Give and Go Athletics is something that we've gotten
involved in just recently
through a very good connection of ours.
And Philly's a -- I regard it as a second home,
and I have a home there.
We try to get there as much as we can.
I love the town. Uh, Give and Go Athletics --
it's formed by two guys, amazing guys, Caleb and Andre.
They grew up on different sides
of the gang line in North Philly.
They both became collegiate athletes.
They both became behavioral health therapists.
They both came back to North Philly,
met each other at the exact time that the state took away
all extracurricular sporting activities
and after-school events and stuff.
So in step these two guys. They're collegiate athletes.
Like, incredible athletes,
but they're also behavioral health therapists.
So what they started to do is provide
extracurricular sporting activities and stuff like that.
But at the same time, providing sort of trauma-informed therapy.
So, they've been doing it for the last 11 years,
and they've been doing it on a shoestring.
And they've been doing it out of the goodness of their own heart.
And so we started to pair up with them and all that.
So, I mean, if you don't mind, can I plug them?
Can I give their website? -Please do.
That's why -- yeah. We let everyone.
-If you want to support a child through the year,
monthly donation is the best thing that you can do.
And what you want to do is, send it to --
You want to go to
giveandgoathletics.org/ get-involved.
That's giveandgoathletics.org/ get-involved.
And get involved with these guys,
because they are fixing the world.
-I think it's so cool that you do that.
I love that.
I was, you know, in quarantine.
You spend a lot of time looking at things on the Internet
and getting creative and all this stuff.
But then I saw you in a thing called "Star Force."
Let me see if I get it right.
"Sci-Fisolation"? Is that correct?
-You're a true friend. You're a true friend.
-I thought it was funny. I love "Sci-Fisolation."
Uh, I want to make sure I got that.
It's like a spoof of "Star Trek" almost.
It's like your own version of "Star Trek."
-It's a spoof homage. It's like a "spomage."
[ Laughter ]
It basically is a kind of spoof of "Star Trek."
But we try to keep it as sci-fisolated as possible.
So, you know sometimes the guys are coming up with
really good ideas for like a good-looking laser gun,
and we're like, "Yeah, that's cool.
That's looks like a really cool laser gun."
And you're like, "You know what?
It was funnier when you were using the remote control."
-[ Laughs ] Yes!
-We had to pull ourselves back from being too good.
-I saw a lot of fans of yours were online talking,
because you were playing, you know, obviously,
there's a connection between you and Patrick Stewart with "X-Men"
and now with -- you're playing kind of a, you know,
captain of a ship, kind of a "Star Trekky,"
they're like, "Is there any world
where you would play a young Jean-Luc Picard?"
-Jimmy, that is the only world --
that is the only world that exists
in which I will play Jean-Luc Picard.
Any other world is just an alternate reality
in a bad episode of "Star Trek."
-Right. So it's already --
It's happened. -It happened already?
-If they don't hire me, I'm gonna make it on my phone,
which pinged. Sorry about that.
-[ Laughs ] Yeah. No. Listen.
I'm calling it right now.
I'm doing the virtual lockdown equivalent of rubbing my scent
all over Patrick's face, and saying this territory is mine.
All the other bald actors can [bleep] off.
It's me. [ Both laugh ]
-Can we talk about "The Sandman"?
-Yes, please. -This is an audible original.
It's a big deal. A great cast.
Did you record this before lockdown?
-No, I -- Weirdly, I was meant to do it
in January or February
when I was doing a play in the West End.
And my voice was, like, tired from the show.
So I kept saying to the director,
"Do you mind if we push this back until after the show?"
And he said "Yeah, of course."
So we pushed it back until after the show.
And it scheduled perfectly with the arrival
of COVID-19 in the U.K.
So I wasn't able to record it.
So around about April, we built
a kind of makeshift studio in my spare bedroom.
We just moved into a nice, slightly bigger house,
but we were in a tiny flat before.
And then, our only spare bedroom,
which was full of moving stuff,
was just rammed and full of this little, like,
James-made recording studio.
It took me a day-and-a-half to build the thing.
It took me a day and a half
to figure out how to work the thing.
And then, it took about a day-and-a-half to calibrate
the computer and the baby face and all that kind of stuff
to make the recording work. -Of course.
-But weirdly, we recorded it in like a day-and-a-half,
because I was so late to the table,
all the other -- all the other, like --
I think it's like a cast of a hundred or something.
-Yeah. -They had all recorded
their stuff, and I got to listen to every single episode
and then lay down my stuff, so it was absolutely fantastic.
-It's what we need know.
It is, I think, over 11 hours of audio, of material.
And it's like, that's what we need.
We need podcasts, we need shows, we need things.
So I thank you for doing that, and I want to let everyone know,
"Sandman" is available on Audible right now.
-Thank you. -James, I love you, bud.
Thank you so much for coming on our show.
I want to see you in person, pal.
-Alright. Maybe next time.
Thank you so much, bud. Thanks for being here.