- You've played a young Patrick Stewart in another franchise
- Don't get me going man. - I am getting you going.
- Don't get me going.
- So you want in on this new Picard TV series
as young Picard.
- I'm jonesin for some Trekkin', man.
- Make your case to Patrick
and the powers that be right now,
give us your engaged - I will take you
where no Star Trek fan has gone before.
(laughs)
I will reveal things about Jean-Luc Picard
that nobody even wanted to see.
- [Josh] I don't know if you're making
your case (laughs)
- I need your abilities to get us all out of here
and show the world, we exist.
(growls)
(high intensity music)
That sounds like the bad guys teaming up.
- Good to see you man, as always.
- Thank you, you too.
- Congratulations on the new film.
- Cheers man, thank you. - This is one of those
where I was one of those in the audience when I saw "Split"
that literally uttered an explicative at the end of the film
I just couldn't believe what I was watching.
(surprised noise)
- Basically, - Yeah, alright.
- That's how I reacted but I was gonna say
I know you, as you were in production on "Split"
you became aware
that this was all connected to "Unbreakable".
- [James] Yeah, yeah.
- You know, you've done a lot of cool roles
you've been a part of a lot cool franchises,
this is added to the list?
- Yeah definitely.
I mean, when I originally made "Split"
I was not aware that we were in a greater Shyamaverse.
There was little clue in the script,
that I completely missed, and he kept making reference to it
and I was like, Jesus,
he talks about "Unbreakable" a lot and...
- This guy really needs to move on.
- I know it was a great film, but you know,
"You had bigger success, let it go man.
"What comes next?
"Look forward."
And then one day he said something a bit clearer
and I went, "I'm sorry, what?"
Cause he said something like,
"You know if this one does really well,
"we could find ourselves back here with Sam and Bruce."
And I was like oh!
And in that moment I said like,
"That's not cleared in the script, it's really."
(laughter)
And what we ended up putting at the end of the script
was so brilliant - Amazing.
and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah it's cool to be part of something that is greater
than that which you think originally, greater than that
which the audience thinks is originally.
And just to be part of something that's got
a 19 year lifespan is really cool.
Your performance obviously was such a crazy tour de force
in the first one, - Thank you.
and in this one, you get to play what, we see
I think 20 different personalities.
- 20 yeah.
- Although you filmed I think all 24, is that correct?
- No we filmed 23, which seems slightly perverse to me.
I was like, when they said in the script it was 23,
I was like, "You're leaving one out?"
(laughs)
Like, you're going all that way?
It's like you go to the peak of the mountain,
and just before you get there you go like,
(click noise)
I'm gonna let the next guy, I'm just gonna go back down.
I'm gonna go back, I'm good, I saw it, I'm good.
So yeah, we did 23
and then by the end of the editing process
we'd cut out three of them.
- Got it.
Do you have any input on any of the personalities?
Or was that all Night?
Were there any of them that you said
it might be cool to do a riff on this?
- I had an idea that it would be cool.
We have a character who sort of like,
thought he was a professional model,
so he was just constantly like,
posing the whole time, and being like.
- So the natural James, the actual James.
- The actual me, be like, it come real naturally.
That didn't appear.
The characters were written by him and then they might
have gotten fleshed out by me,
they might of had things added to them by me,
but it was on the page really.
Hedwig as we know from the last one and this one
is a pretty big fan of hip-hop,
- Yes.
- The dance sequence in the last one was amazing.
Did you want more dancing in this one?
- There was a moment where I sang a little bit of Drake
and there was some proper good moves in that bit.
I was like, this is a really good bit,
this is my dance bit, but I'm singing Drake over it.
I was like, should we do a pass where I don't sing Drake?
- For the rights and credits kind of thing.
- Cause Drake's not gonna give us this song for nothing
he was like, "Nah, Drake will be cool."
He'll be like,
I was like, "Drake's gonna want half a million,
"and you're not gonna wanna pay it or Universal, or Disney
"or all three of you aren't gonna want to pay it.
"And that's cool bit's gonna get cut."
And that's what happened.
- Do you share Hedwig's sensibilities
in terms of musical taste?
- Yeah I can appreciate it,
but I'm, do you know what?
I'm just not big on music at all.
- Really?
- Yeah I'm really not, I know it's like failing.
It's like - You just don't
listen to music?
- The only time I ever really feel like I rely on music is
when I'm tidying in the house, and I generally play
the same playlist by Jamiroquai.
(laughter)
Which is pretty great for tidying.
- There's no segue so I'm just gonna jump in.
- There is no segue from that.
- There is no segue from Jamiroquai,
but Star Trek we've talked at length
about how much we both love this franchise.
You've played a young Patrick Stewart in another franchise.
- Don't get me going man.
- I am getting you going. - Don't get me going.
- So you want in,
on this new Picard TV series as young Picard.
- I'm jonesin for some Trekkin' man.
- Make your case to Patrick
and the powers that be right now, give us your make it so,
give us your engaged. - I will take you
where no Star Trek fan has gone before.
I will reveal things about Jean-Luc Picard
that nobody even wanted to see.
(both laugh)
- I don't know if you're making your case.
- I will rip this cabin to shreds.
- Oh no!
Do you have a make it so in you?
Do you have an engage?
- Make it so, number one.
(laughter)
Engage D L grade hot.
It's good, I know it's good, it's good.
(laughs)
He told me a really good story once about
how he was also the captain of the actors on set
quite often, some of the other cast members
of next gen would be like, "What, I was the boss."
When they had to do like torpedo hits,
or photon torpedo hits on the enterprise or whatever,
they all had to, they'd have to, whoa!
Do the classic thing of like, whoa!
And then he would be in charge of setting the tone
so that everybody was on the same level.
And they'd be like,
what'd you think Patrick, and he'd be like,
"Oh that's a number three."
And the whole cast knew what a number one was.
So a number one would be like, mm.
and a number two would be like.
And all the way up to number 10 where they're like
(warbling whoa) (laughs)
it's really, really cool,
no I'm not expecting to get a call to play,
the young Jean-Luc unfortunately.
- I am.
- I will be tuning in and I can't wait to see what he does.
Cause he's a brilliant actor and he's amazing in that role
and it's just nice that Star Trek are
looking further than just a spaceship and a crew,
do you know what I mean? - Totally.
- Doing something different, that's awesome.
- It's gonna be him on the winery, on earth
in retirement or something.
- Maybe, yeah he's just like,
"Hmm this is a good vintage."
And then Sylvia Buchanan comes in,
and he's like, "Hello dear.
"Wouldn't you know it, it's nice to see you.
"I've come to you now at the turn of the tide."
That's not, that's different.
- I know.
I wanna play the young him as well,
and the young Dumbledore.
- You're so greedy.
- Yeah, I know I want them all.
- Jude has that by the way. - I'm gonna kill him.
(James laughs) - Okay.
- "X-Men" we're gonna see Dark Phoenix" here,
I think fourth go around, is that, do I have that right?
Something like that?
- Yes, it's my fourth time playing.
- Everybody loves Simon Kinburg,
you guys have done some additional photography
does it feel like a different kind of a thing
than the last three you've done?
A different kind of vibe?
- It's interesting, coming off the back of "Glass"
'cause one of the things that's been said about it
is it's a more, I don't know, grounded
super hero movie or something.
I feel like "Dark Phoenix" a little bit of that too.
- Yeah.
- I think it's gone back to what I've always loved
about the X-Men, which is the bad guys aren't bad guys
the bad guys are your family.
The bad guys are your best friend,
the bad guys are your brothers,
the bad guys are somebody who you completely understand
and empathize with, and so it makes their conflict
a lot more interesting.
And tricky for the audience
and the characters to negotiate.
That's what I love about it, Simon's just a great,
he's a really good guy, really good writer,
but a really good director of actors too.
And that's something that I think Bryan Singer
had always recognized in him as well.
Well Simon was in no way sort of
undermining what Bryan was doing.
Bryan was in no way scared of letting him go like,
"If you've got something to say,
"get in there and say it."
And totally and helped his actors out.
God we needed some help.
(laughs)
It was a natural progression as well.
- What do you think about the notion of
X-Men joining the MCU?
Would you want to reprise your character
in that kind of mish-mash?
Or do you wanna
keep going with somebody else?
I love playing Charles.
But you've got to write something interesting
for you to do as an actor.
You can't just keep doing the same thing
again and again and again.
So it may be time for somebody else to come in.
Marvel and Disney are very smart
and they've done this excellently.
They seem to be on the verge of doing something new
with just regards to the X-Men anyway, which is exciting
I'm excited to see that.
Can the X-Men fold into the Avengers world?
Essentially it's the Avengers world we're talking about.
I don't know, one of the beautiful things about the X-Men
one of the things that always strikes me
when the fans talk to you about it,
is the reason that they love it,
is because it has a parallel with disenfranchised,
with people that have been ghettoized,
with ethnic minorities, sexual minorities,
with any kind of person
that mainstream society is scared of.
And there are large amounts of, they get pushed down,
pushed off to the sides of society
and that's what the mutants represent.
They're not the same necessarily as the handful of heroes
that are regarded as demi gods in the,
at times of course, they're not,
they're fallen from that demi god position as well.
So if you fold them in,
does that get rid of that social commentary
and that thing where people who are immigrants
into your country and are vilified for it
can identify with mutants, people who have,
a different sexual preference are vilified and scared,
and hide away because of it.
They can identify with the people who are a different ethnic
minority, and they're vilified because mainstream society
is scared of anything that's different.
They can identify with mutants.
Do you get rid of that parallel?
Or are Marvel and Disney just so smart
they've figured out a way to do it, and keep it all.
- Right.
- Because they seem to be really clever at,
Do we come back?
I don't know,
we're all out of contract so we don't have to
and I don't know they might not ask us to.
But if they did and there was something interesting to do
I'm sure we would, and if they don't,
it's been a good 10 years.
- Last thing for you,
I saw our buddy Chastain and recently,
we talked a little "IT" Chapter two.
- Yeah?
- I can't wait to see this,
I love what they did with the first one,
but I'm curious cause Bill Skarsgård
creates such an amazing character in that first film.
- I think what he does, is pretty exceptional.
I thought he was great in the first one
but when you see it on set, it's the commitment
and the effort that he puts into...
It's crazy freaky makeup.
And it might be easy you just go,
"Oh it's crazy freaky makeup and a funny voice."
But it's truly disturbing, what he's doing on set.
- Yeah.
- I'm told not to say even too much about it,
about him, specifically I've had press notes,
saying like, "Don't talk too much about Bill
"and like this that and the next thing."
- That's all you want to talk about because he's so amazing.
- I'll say that,
it's pretty disturbing being on set with him
and I do remember at times, after he was doing stuff
all of his adult actors playing the losers
just going like, this is not comfortable.
(laughs)
and we are full of respect for this guy right now.
Well the kids on the first one, they kept away from him
like purposefully.
- So they should.
(laughs)
Cause it's well freaky.
- You're like, keep me away, it's too much.
It's always good to catch up with you man.
- Thank you, cheers man.
- I look forward to your spin-off film
with just the model character we never saw
in this one right?
- Yeah, it's called "The Poser"
(laughs)
I'm really, I'm really excited--
- It works on a number of levels.
- Yeah it's probably the Shamaverse.
Yeah it's gonna be really, really cool.
- See you on the next one bud.
- Thank you. - Thanks buddy, appreciated.