Russell Brand (2012)
Interview Background
While I enjoy getting a laugh as much as anyone, the life of a real comedian must be a tough one. Once you’ve reached celebrity status, there’s an onus to constantly be ‘on’, otherwise you’ll be damned to whispers “he’s not as funny in person” or, worse, “she’s just a total prick in real life”. I fear I went into this interview with grand expectations of Russell Brand being a loquacious laugh-a-minute. Instead, the mannered gent on the end of the phone sounded like he’d be more comfortable hiding under his doona rather than orating in front of 10,000 fans. I’d found Brand’s autobiographies My Booky Wook and My Booky Wook II to be fantastic memoirs, with the author able to weave literary gold out of even the most depraved moments. As I mention in the interview, the final passages of 2010’s My Booky Wook II were also incredibly touching, with Brand renouncing his womanising for his then-wife Katy Perry. Brand can be a loveable fop, roguish cavalier and noble scamp when he’s performing, but during this conversation he sounded like he’d just completed an exhaustive hot yoga session and was too weary to offer up snort-inducing repartee. Nevermind: if you ever see Russell starring in a Hollywood remake of ‘70s UK TV show Worzel Gummidge, this interview will have served its purpose.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, November 2012.
Russell Brand - You Handsome Devil
by Scott McLennan
The Kings Arms, Poland St, Soho, 2002: smack addict Russell Brand is masturbating a gay man in a toilet cubicle for his shock doc series Re:Brand. Olympic Stadium, London, August 2012: a colourful highlight of the Olympics Closing Ceremony, Russell Brand sings The Beatles’ I Am The Walrus to an estimated global audience of 750 million. How on earth did this former junkie become England’s most endearing scamp?
Since kicking his heroin habit almost a decade ago, the 37-year-old comic rogue from Essex has proven a charming and witty superstar. After incisive and controversial hosting roles in his homeland, Hollywood sat up and took notice of this lanky Dickensian rascal following his appearance in Hollywood film Forgetting Sarah Marshall. American pop stars and film-goers alike have since fallen for his waggish magnetism, with even critically derided flicks such as last year’s Hop (where Brand voiced a CGI Easter Bunny) proving wildly popular. When this writer was travelling between Samoan islands via ferry last month, Hop was shown on the TV screen as onboard entertainment. After an 80-minute journey the ferry docked, but 150 Samoans transfixed by the broadcast refused to disembark until they’d seen the ending.
“This is a story I’ve heard many times,” Brand suggests. “People all over the world are transfixed to the movie Hop. Babies are going unfed, graves untended, jobs undone, all so that people can watch Hop. It’s not just Samoa – it’s the whole planet. Hop is our moon landing.
“It’s extraordinary to hear that though, such is the incessant wonder of doing this for a living – you exist in all sorts of places. Being watched on a ferry between Samoan islands is something I never thought I’d say. That’s good for my self-confidence – thank you.”
Far from the effervescent lothario who lights up television, radio and film studios with his energetic tumble of thoughts, an interview with Brand away from the fanfare finds him oddly meek and introspective. Perhaps it’s the fatigue of answering incessant questions about his sex life or dealing with the media speculation in the wake of his divorce from Katy Perry? Either way, Brand’s reserved personality is at odds with the character who’s chronicled incestuous escapades, accidental bestiality and sex with tearfully reticent Turkish prostitutes in his autobiographies My Booky Wook and My Booky Wook 2: This Time It’s Personal.
Released in 2010, My Booky Wook 2 finishes with a strikingly-penned last paragraph devoted to Brand’s new wife. After hundreds of pages of unnervingly revealing revelations, what is left unsaid in the final lines proves more poignant than all his other admissions put together. It’s hard to consolidate that this uncompromising love for his Californian girl was snuffed out within 12 months, with the final days of the partnership exposed in this year’s documentary Katy Perry: Part Of Me. Despite Perry’s emotionally turbulent film implicating Brand as the bad guy in the matrimonial implosion, the comedian has held his tongue with honour and civility since the split. After the raw emotions presented in Part Of Me, will My Booky Wook 3 finally see Brand unleash vengeance and venom?
“No, there ain’t none. I don’t read the papers no more and it don’t make no difference to me - I’m really happy. For me, everything is perfect and as it will be.”
At the same time Katy Perry: Part Of Me was opening in cinemas across the globe, Brand was part of the top secret preparations for the London Olympics Closing Ceremony. Despite his musical credentials barely extending beyond his Hollywood appearance as imaginary rock star Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and its spin-off Get Him To The Greek, Brand was tasked to perform The Beatles’ I Am The Walrus. Given Oasis released a cover of I Am The Walrus in 1994, did Brand’s mate Noel Gallagher offer him any tips prior to the international spectacle?
“No, he didn’t give me any tips before it, but he gave me plenty of abuse after it,” Brand admits. “It was quite aggressive abuse, actually – I’ve kept the answerphone message he left me after the Olympics and it forms part of my show.”
In the celebratory aftermath of the Closing Ceremony, Brand partied with the reunited Spice Girls. An ensuing romantic interlude with Geri Halliwell became the butt of another Gallagher jibe, with the Manchester guitarist decrying his mate’s choice of Spice: “Fucking hell – out of all the Spice Girls, not Ginger!”.
“He’s got a nerve, the way he’s carried on,” Brand laughs.
Long before the Olympics gave the UK a reinvigorated pride in dear old Blighty, both Gallagher and Halliwell put the Union Jack to iconic use. Gallagher famously wielded an Epiphone featuring the design, while the 1997 Brit Awards saw Halliwell squeezed into a Union Jack dress that had her looking as hot and spicy as a rack of fresh fruit buns straight out of the oven. Only Brand’s iconic pal Morrissey, who earned infamy for a misinterpreted use of the flag in 1992, came close to drawing as much attention to the Union Jack in the 1990s.
“Yeah, I’d like to get my hands on all three of those icons,” Brand absent-mindedly suggests, as if still visualising Halliwell in her Union Jack dress. “It’s really very peculiar being friends with Morrissey, various West Ham footballers and even Noel - it’s odd to revise people you once feted to being simply human.”
But is Morrissey human? Brand has previously suggested the former Smiths frontman still has a Wildean aura to him even behind closed doors.
“No you’re right, Morrissey does actually remain elusive or mysterious. With Noel though you sometimes forget and think he’s a normal bloke, but then you do a gig with him and it’s like, ‘Oh my God! It’s the bloke from Oasis!’ With Morrissey, every utterance is somewhat magical.”
Brand says a rumoured starring role in a remake of the old British television series Rent-A-Ghost is no longer happening, but he’s not averse to resurrecting another bizarre UK character from the 1980s. Brand’s spirits lift when talk turns to weird scarecrow Worzel Gummidge – even if a dirty old protagonist who hangs out in children’s yards now has a rather worrying paedo hue.
“Worzel Gummidge! Yes, that’s a good one! I don’t think he was a paedophile, but he was definitely freaky. I’m working on a few things at the moment, actually – my own screenplays and stuff like that. All those things take so bloody long though.”
They do indeed Mr Brand, but it’s surely an easier way to make a living than wanking off strangers, yes?
Hop (Universal Sony Pictures)
Unpublished Interview Material
What ever happened to the doco you were going to put together with Morrissey to draw back the curtain on his life?
“Hmmm… Where is that at? I’ve interviewed him a couple of times and that’s hard enough. Documentaries are so time-consuming, but I’d do anything with him. I’ve just started emailing him again and communicating with him again so I hope to see him soon.”
Morrissey suggested on Speedway, “All of the rumours keeping me grounded, I never said that they were completely unfounded”. Do any Brand rumours stick in your mind?
“None of them. I don’t read the papers no more and I can’t remember the ones from ages ago. Rumours? I don’t know if there are any rumours, are there? I’m happy in my burrow.”
I think you probably address the craziest stories in your own books. You’ve already talked about bestiality and incest, so there’s not much to top that.
“Yeah, what stick is left to beat me with. You’re in Adelaide, aren’t you? I’ve been there before. I saw Port Power play. I enjoyed it.”
Was that with Teresa Palmer?
“That’s right, yeah. I don’t remember Adelaide much since I was only there for a couple of days. We saw Port Power play and I enjoyed it, but they lost. As soon as I’ve found an Australian team to support they’re also shit, so I can’t get a break. What else do I know about Adelaide… Todd and Katie on Neighbours were from there. Did you watch Neighbours in the old days? They were in Neighbours when Jim Robinson was still in it. They moved in from Adelaide and I remember thinking, ‘Adelaide! Ooh, that sounds interesting!’ I’m really excited about coming back.”
A few days after you wrap up your tour you’ll celebrate 10 years of sobriety. Will you be celebrating, or perhaps taking some downtime in Australia?
“(sighs) I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but I probably will have a holiday. I really like Australia and I get on well with Australian people. I like the culture. I’m from Essex, so I’m well prepared.”
Do you have your own private getaway you turn to when the media becomes a bit too much for you?
“My house – I just go home! It’s not really that much of an issue since I ignore most of it – all of it, really. I don’t read the newspapers and only watch TV programs I want to watch. That’s it. Other than paparazzi being places, it don’t make no difference to me.”
While I enjoy getting a laugh as much as anyone, the life of a real comedian must be a tough one. Once you’ve reached celebrity status, there’s an onus to constantly be ‘on’, otherwise you’ll be damned to whispers “he’s not as funny in person” or, worse, “she’s just a total prick in real life”. I fear I went into this interview with grand expectations of Russell Brand being a loquacious laugh-a-minute. Instead, the mannered gent on the end of the phone sounded like he’d be more comfortable hiding under his doona rather than orating in front of 10,000 fans. I’d found Brand’s autobiographies My Booky Wook and My Booky Wook II to be fantastic memoirs, with the author able to weave literary gold out of even the most depraved moments. As I mention in the interview, the final passages of 2010’s My Booky Wook II were also incredibly touching, with Brand renouncing his womanising for his then-wife Katy Perry. Brand can be a loveable fop, roguish cavalier and noble scamp when he’s performing, but during this conversation he sounded like he’d just completed an exhaustive hot yoga session and was too weary to offer up snort-inducing repartee. Nevermind: if you ever see Russell starring in a Hollywood remake of ‘70s UK TV show Worzel Gummidge, this interview will have served its purpose.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, November 2012.
Russell Brand - You Handsome Devil
by Scott McLennan
The Kings Arms, Poland St, Soho, 2002: smack addict Russell Brand is masturbating a gay man in a toilet cubicle for his shock doc series Re:Brand. Olympic Stadium, London, August 2012: a colourful highlight of the Olympics Closing Ceremony, Russell Brand sings The Beatles’ I Am The Walrus to an estimated global audience of 750 million. How on earth did this former junkie become England’s most endearing scamp?
Since kicking his heroin habit almost a decade ago, the 37-year-old comic rogue from Essex has proven a charming and witty superstar. After incisive and controversial hosting roles in his homeland, Hollywood sat up and took notice of this lanky Dickensian rascal following his appearance in Hollywood film Forgetting Sarah Marshall. American pop stars and film-goers alike have since fallen for his waggish magnetism, with even critically derided flicks such as last year’s Hop (where Brand voiced a CGI Easter Bunny) proving wildly popular. When this writer was travelling between Samoan islands via ferry last month, Hop was shown on the TV screen as onboard entertainment. After an 80-minute journey the ferry docked, but 150 Samoans transfixed by the broadcast refused to disembark until they’d seen the ending.
“This is a story I’ve heard many times,” Brand suggests. “People all over the world are transfixed to the movie Hop. Babies are going unfed, graves untended, jobs undone, all so that people can watch Hop. It’s not just Samoa – it’s the whole planet. Hop is our moon landing.
“It’s extraordinary to hear that though, such is the incessant wonder of doing this for a living – you exist in all sorts of places. Being watched on a ferry between Samoan islands is something I never thought I’d say. That’s good for my self-confidence – thank you.”
Far from the effervescent lothario who lights up television, radio and film studios with his energetic tumble of thoughts, an interview with Brand away from the fanfare finds him oddly meek and introspective. Perhaps it’s the fatigue of answering incessant questions about his sex life or dealing with the media speculation in the wake of his divorce from Katy Perry? Either way, Brand’s reserved personality is at odds with the character who’s chronicled incestuous escapades, accidental bestiality and sex with tearfully reticent Turkish prostitutes in his autobiographies My Booky Wook and My Booky Wook 2: This Time It’s Personal.
Released in 2010, My Booky Wook 2 finishes with a strikingly-penned last paragraph devoted to Brand’s new wife. After hundreds of pages of unnervingly revealing revelations, what is left unsaid in the final lines proves more poignant than all his other admissions put together. It’s hard to consolidate that this uncompromising love for his Californian girl was snuffed out within 12 months, with the final days of the partnership exposed in this year’s documentary Katy Perry: Part Of Me. Despite Perry’s emotionally turbulent film implicating Brand as the bad guy in the matrimonial implosion, the comedian has held his tongue with honour and civility since the split. After the raw emotions presented in Part Of Me, will My Booky Wook 3 finally see Brand unleash vengeance and venom?
“No, there ain’t none. I don’t read the papers no more and it don’t make no difference to me - I’m really happy. For me, everything is perfect and as it will be.”
At the same time Katy Perry: Part Of Me was opening in cinemas across the globe, Brand was part of the top secret preparations for the London Olympics Closing Ceremony. Despite his musical credentials barely extending beyond his Hollywood appearance as imaginary rock star Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and its spin-off Get Him To The Greek, Brand was tasked to perform The Beatles’ I Am The Walrus. Given Oasis released a cover of I Am The Walrus in 1994, did Brand’s mate Noel Gallagher offer him any tips prior to the international spectacle?
“No, he didn’t give me any tips before it, but he gave me plenty of abuse after it,” Brand admits. “It was quite aggressive abuse, actually – I’ve kept the answerphone message he left me after the Olympics and it forms part of my show.”
In the celebratory aftermath of the Closing Ceremony, Brand partied with the reunited Spice Girls. An ensuing romantic interlude with Geri Halliwell became the butt of another Gallagher jibe, with the Manchester guitarist decrying his mate’s choice of Spice: “Fucking hell – out of all the Spice Girls, not Ginger!”.
“He’s got a nerve, the way he’s carried on,” Brand laughs.
Long before the Olympics gave the UK a reinvigorated pride in dear old Blighty, both Gallagher and Halliwell put the Union Jack to iconic use. Gallagher famously wielded an Epiphone featuring the design, while the 1997 Brit Awards saw Halliwell squeezed into a Union Jack dress that had her looking as hot and spicy as a rack of fresh fruit buns straight out of the oven. Only Brand’s iconic pal Morrissey, who earned infamy for a misinterpreted use of the flag in 1992, came close to drawing as much attention to the Union Jack in the 1990s.
“Yeah, I’d like to get my hands on all three of those icons,” Brand absent-mindedly suggests, as if still visualising Halliwell in her Union Jack dress. “It’s really very peculiar being friends with Morrissey, various West Ham footballers and even Noel - it’s odd to revise people you once feted to being simply human.”
But is Morrissey human? Brand has previously suggested the former Smiths frontman still has a Wildean aura to him even behind closed doors.
“No you’re right, Morrissey does actually remain elusive or mysterious. With Noel though you sometimes forget and think he’s a normal bloke, but then you do a gig with him and it’s like, ‘Oh my God! It’s the bloke from Oasis!’ With Morrissey, every utterance is somewhat magical.”
Brand says a rumoured starring role in a remake of the old British television series Rent-A-Ghost is no longer happening, but he’s not averse to resurrecting another bizarre UK character from the 1980s. Brand’s spirits lift when talk turns to weird scarecrow Worzel Gummidge – even if a dirty old protagonist who hangs out in children’s yards now has a rather worrying paedo hue.
“Worzel Gummidge! Yes, that’s a good one! I don’t think he was a paedophile, but he was definitely freaky. I’m working on a few things at the moment, actually – my own screenplays and stuff like that. All those things take so bloody long though.”
They do indeed Mr Brand, but it’s surely an easier way to make a living than wanking off strangers, yes?
Hop (Universal Sony Pictures)
Unpublished Interview Material
What ever happened to the doco you were going to put together with Morrissey to draw back the curtain on his life?
“Hmmm… Where is that at? I’ve interviewed him a couple of times and that’s hard enough. Documentaries are so time-consuming, but I’d do anything with him. I’ve just started emailing him again and communicating with him again so I hope to see him soon.”
Morrissey suggested on Speedway, “All of the rumours keeping me grounded, I never said that they were completely unfounded”. Do any Brand rumours stick in your mind?
“None of them. I don’t read the papers no more and I can’t remember the ones from ages ago. Rumours? I don’t know if there are any rumours, are there? I’m happy in my burrow.”
I think you probably address the craziest stories in your own books. You’ve already talked about bestiality and incest, so there’s not much to top that.
“Yeah, what stick is left to beat me with. You’re in Adelaide, aren’t you? I’ve been there before. I saw Port Power play. I enjoyed it.”
Was that with Teresa Palmer?
“That’s right, yeah. I don’t remember Adelaide much since I was only there for a couple of days. We saw Port Power play and I enjoyed it, but they lost. As soon as I’ve found an Australian team to support they’re also shit, so I can’t get a break. What else do I know about Adelaide… Todd and Katie on Neighbours were from there. Did you watch Neighbours in the old days? They were in Neighbours when Jim Robinson was still in it. They moved in from Adelaide and I remember thinking, ‘Adelaide! Ooh, that sounds interesting!’ I’m really excited about coming back.”
A few days after you wrap up your tour you’ll celebrate 10 years of sobriety. Will you be celebrating, or perhaps taking some downtime in Australia?
“(sighs) I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but I probably will have a holiday. I really like Australia and I get on well with Australian people. I like the culture. I’m from Essex, so I’m well prepared.”
Do you have your own private getaway you turn to when the media becomes a bit too much for you?
“My house – I just go home! It’s not really that much of an issue since I ignore most of it – all of it, really. I don’t read the newspapers and only watch TV programs I want to watch. That’s it. Other than paparazzi being places, it don’t make no difference to me.”
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