Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
British film legend with two Oscars and over a hundred films in a four-decade career.
On the island
Eight records
I've always been a big um disco fan, and so anything I choose is liable to have a bit of a beat to it, and I love uh cold play. This is a sort of bit of a disco one for me, but I know it's not disco, it's much better than that, but it reminds me because of the beep.
This is Elbo, I was watching Glastonbury last year. As you do when you're an old guy. And on they came. And I thought, who de hell is this? And it became my favorite song because I loved to build on it and I loved not just a group, you know, a rock and roll group, but suddenly to add a great big orchestra to it, I thought that was fabulous. It's my favorite song.
Nimrod (from Enigma Variations)
This is me as a very patriotic Englishman. I'm I'm very English, very patriotic about the whole country. And uh i if I'm on a a record show and I want to put across music that represents how I feel about my country, it would be Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations.
It's by a group called Chicane, and it's No Ordinary Morning. And this is the first of two Chill records that I played. Chill music was started by Claude Schei in the Buddha by Paris.
Oh, my next piece of music is I always get very, very confused when I tell people it is, because I I'm not quite sure myself. It's either called Swollen by Bent, Or bent by swollen. Well, I suddenly thought if they ever went and did a record with elbow, it would be a swollen bent elbow, you know?
that they always did in discetic. When it came to the end At the evening. They sort of gave everyone a little romantic chance before they went off into the night. And they always played Phyllis Nelson move closer.
anyway, it's John Lennon, and his Christmas Carol is called Happy Christmas. And There is a little brackets after it,'cause it's the other line is War is over. Unfortunately it isn't. But we all wish it was.
In conversation
Presenter asks
6:16Did that [winning an Oscar at fifty-four] seem like an important moment even though you had all those films behind you?
Uh yeah, very important. It was for Hannah and her sisters. Yeah, it was Hannah and her sisters, yeah.
Presenter asks
11:22Had you been prepared, as little boys, for the fact that your father would be gone [to war]?
Yeah. He was going off to fight for his country and save us all. I was probably six and a half seven, my brother was three. My mother said a thing which defined the two of us for the rest of our lives. She said to us Your father has gone now you two have got to look after me. And we went right, mum. We became little men... and we've been like that ever since I I'm still responsible for everybody.
Presenter asks
12:18Tell me about your mother's working life.
Well, my mother was a cleaning lady. Eventually I became a movie actor, you know, sort of wealthy. And I said, You're cleaning? Do you know what the press'll do if they get hold of this? You're cleaning floors while I'm... Living in a high life... And she said a funny thing to me. She said, Well, how much do you earn for a film? I said, Ma'am, I earn a million pounds for a film. And she thought for a while, and she said, How much is that? And I said, You never have to work again, you never have to worry, you never have to do anything except enjoy your life. So will you please do that, and stop trying to get me in the papers for not supporting my mother.
The keepsakes
The book
Ayn Rand
The character was an architect who built sort of modern buildings. He had a girlfriend called Dominique Francon, my oldest daughter is called Dominique, after Dominique Francon. If I hadn't been an actor, I would have wanted to be an architect.
The luxury
I would take a great bed. When we furnished our homes at first, we lived in luxury hotels, you know, and they always make a study of... And any mattress we have anywhere is based on a a name of a mattress we found in a hotel. And the pillows would be fifty percent goose down and fifty percent feathers, 'cause that's the right thing for me.
Presenter asks
16:09You've said of that period in Korea that it defined much of the rest of your life.
Yeah, there are moments in your life. There is a moment In Korea, when I thought I was going to die... And you always wonder if you're a young man, am I a coward or not? And I proved to myself I wasn't a coward, and that was it, that was done.
Presenter asks
28:58What did it make you feel [to learn that your mother had a secret son she visited every week]?
I was very proud of her. inasmuch as she had taken care of everybody. ... She took the responsibility for everybody.
“If you're going through hell, keep going.”
“I think my wife saved my life, you know.”
“I am the world's ultimate optimist. I think everything is going to be all right.”