ANDY SERKIS Ran Wild Through Baghdad Souks

Hey, Baji. Hey, Sufi. How are you? I'm great, how are you? Good, I feel like I'm just gonna run this intro. Yeah, no, I mean, you had a family trip. I had a family trip. I had an actual family trip and it involved members of our family. I took Ash to Boston. Alexi was taken Axel to California. Addy was spending the weekend with her aunt and niece. And it was a big trip. It was Ash's first trip to Fenway Park. Mom and dad met us and it was just exceptional. We took the train. Ash and I took the train up. We stopped, we picked up his best friend, Huck. And then we got to the city. We checked into a hotel room. I got a room with a sofa bed, pull out couch. Pull out couch. And the plan was the boys would sleep together in this sort of kick-ass queen bed. Good sheets, good blanket. And then I was in a real janky fold out couch. That was the plan? That was the plan. I was, cause they really wanted to sleep in the same bed. And I was like, all right, I'll let you sleep in the same bed. And you wouldn't put the two like 10 year old kids in the janky fold out? I don't know, it felt a little... That's what they're supposed to sleep. Who is the Dickens character? I don't know, it felt like Fagan. It felt like, you know, making them, making Oliver Twist like Asperin and Gryll. The good news is they couldn't, they self-policed and the first night they were in bed together, the friend came out and was like, can I sleep in here? I don't think we can fall asleep in the same room. Because they were too chatty, Kathy. Chatty and kicky and just like... And so I ended up with Ash in the bed. So we're good. Proper, like a dull bed. We went to an aquarium. We went to the New England Aquarium. I love an aquarium. Yeah. I love that they exist. Are you? With that said, I don't know what I'm doing there. You know, at some point, like what, how long am I? You know what I mean? Like you see the coolest fish you've ever seen and like how long can you actually look at it? Well, it depends who you are. But I think that aquariums are designed, all museums are designed sort of with a path. Yeah, there was a beautiful path of this one. You sort of wind up, it's really cool. Yeah, so you do that. I do do that. I just always feel like when I think of like, we're gonna go to the aquarium, that feels like we're gonna make a day of it. Oh, I see. Yeah. Reality is it's a 45 minute trip. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a crazy aquarium, you could probably do a couple hours like, unless there's a show of some kind, I don't think you can stretch it past 45 minutes. We did, they were like, they bet we watch them feed some seals. Yeah. Fast and first time of seal catches of fish, it's the best thing you've ever seen. Yeah. Then you sort of understand they're pretty good at it. Not as much risk as you thought there was. Classic Seth Meyers. It is classic. And by the way, you were like amazing and then every giraffe after that. You like to see things for the first time and then never again. Never again, yeah. Well, I wanna trick myself into thinking like I saw something special. I'm like, and then a dude reached into a bucket, took a fish through it. Seal caught it. Yeah. I can't believe I was there on that day. I mean, really. Then we went to the North End, famous Italian American neighborhood in Boston, went to a restaurant. My mom and dad met us there. It was great. I will say we had Huck with us for 24 hours and I would say the restaurant was like hour three and that was the first time I was like, hour 24 can't come fast enough. It got better. Did you order everything off the menu? No, they were just like, I kept, I don't like... Kids that aren't yours? I haven't talked to them when they're misbehaving. You know what I mean? I'd say it's an awkward thing. So I kept having to say at this restaurant, Huck, sit down. Cause he kept just like standing to like just like mess with Ash. And I'm like, Huck, honey, sit down. We're at a restaurant. Then they came up with this plan where they kept saying they needed fresh air and then I would just look out the window and they were sort of running up and down the street and whatever I don't care. They can run up the street all I want. Get their steps in. Very nice. Oh, also, so you'll enjoy this. They also kept like the amount, they were like knocking over like waters and silverware, just everything. And I'm just, it was so, and this is before mom and dad came and it was just like clank clank clank clank. Oops. I'm like, sit down. Once you sit down, stop, stop, stop again. And then mom and dad sat down and dad ordered a beer and what do you think he did immediately? Oh, they spilled it on his chest or knocked the whole thing over? Knocked it over, but on the floor, like 10X worse than anything the boys had done. Mom was probably cool about it. Mom, mom sighed so loud that the windows to the restaurant blew open. They thought it was a, They kept saying it's a nor'easter and I had to say it's not actually, it's just, it's a withering sigh. It's a withering sigh for my mom. But dad, you know, again, dad's never met a stranger. He doesn't want to try to turn into his best friend. There was like a couple on what looked like a first date across the table from him. Cause he spilled so much like, it was a observable amount of beer on the floor. And the dad was immediately like, I'm going to tell him you did that. Oh yeah. And they were like, what? I went like, when they got up to leave, he's like, you got to go tell, I'll go apologize for the mess you made. They're like, huh? Oh yeah. So that was super fun. And then we went to the Children's Museum. By the way, something positive's coming. Cause I know, children's museum, the reality is I think 10 years old is too old for a children's museum. But I didn't know. And then you show up and you're like, oh, my son's the oldest kid here. It's a lot of like, you got to go to the teenagers museum. Or just a science museum. I think at like 10, you go to a science museum, we're good to go. That was fine. Then we went to the Boston Tea Party Museum. And it was a triple plus. I cannot tell you how great the Boston Tea Party Museum was. Oh, by the way. I talked to mom and dad about it. And dad was glowing about it. Great. By the way, I missed something. This is how busy my day, I fully missed the first thing we did on a Saturday morning. We did the duck boat tour of Boston. Oh, classic. Classic duck boat. You get on a duck boat. It's a car that then can go into the water. Fibious vehicle. I told mom she had 10 questions. She could only ask 10 questions about the duck boat. And then every time she asked one, I would go, quack quack. Don't let her know. The amount mom asked what happened to the wheels in the duck boat. I'm like, I don't know. Just don't worry about it. We had a real, we had a real old school Boston tour narrator on our duck boat. He was wearing a Bobby or Jersey, but the or on the back was spelled O-A-R. He had a lot of duck boat puns. The best thing about him though was he figured out somebody on the boat had gone to Harvard. And then he just called that guy Harvard the rest of the trip. And every time there was a fact before he said it, he would ask that guy if he knew what it was. And when the guy didn't, he'd be like, too bad, Harvard. You get a little bit more education for your money. It was great. If you went to Harvard at Boston, your nickname is Harvard. That's a thing. Duck boat was great. Also Ash felt like he wasn't paying any attention, but I realized he gets a real colonial education at school because he was just looking out the window, slack jawed, and then every now and then he's like, do you remember, does anybody here know who brought the cannons? Who brought the cannons for the battle of Bunker Hill? Ash was like, Henry Knox. I'm like, oh, Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, shocking. He would also, he'd got every kid to come up and drive the duck boat. And then they would drive it for like 30 seconds to be like, all right, scram. I like that. I like that vibe. Yeah, me too. Duck boat was great. But anyway, back to the Tea Party Museum. And again, like if you're going, I cannot recommend Boston enough as a destination for a family trip. Tea Party Museum, so good. First you go into a meeting house and it's one of those museums where you got young actors just bringing their A game to reenactment stuff. They hand out little cards so that certain people in the meeting house have to stand up and say something about how mad they are about this tea tax. Then you go out and there's two boats that are parked there. You go, the kids get to pretend to throw tea overboard. Nobody breaks character. Then you go into like a little Tea Party Museum. There's a video, like a 15 minute reenactment video about what is it? The Battle of Lexington, Concord, one of those. It was shot around the world. Obviously not remembered around the world, but the shot fired up, fully teared up. Not the last time I would tear up Pashi. Oh well. Fully teared out, watching this incredible video about our nation's founding, just exceptional. Then we went to Faneuil Hall for lunch. Yep. You've been to Faneuil Hall. Yeah. Often probably often with mom and dad, right? Yeah, we used to go and do like some Christmas shopping or just like it was a good place to go and grab a bite. It was great. It's an incredibly famous food court in Boston. I wanted to check your memory that you had been with mom because I remember being with mom, but mom seemed to have no memory as to how Faneuil Hall worked. Because we walked in and she's like, now are we gonna have seats? I'm like, seats? What are you talking about? And she's like, oh, I go, what do you want? She goes, I want a lobster roll, but not if we can't sit down. And I'm like, huh? Daddy found a seats for what it's worth. Great. I felt like a bus boy because nobody wanted anything from the same place. I thought that like we'd like it. Regina Pete-Saria, it's the best pizza. Yeah. Everyone pizza, right? Ash is like, I want sushi. His friend wanted chicken fingers at a place that had the longest line of anywhere in Faneuil Hall. I mean, you were probably pro chicken fingers. I got my pizza. I had my plan. Mom got a lobster roll. Dad got some weird. Dad too, his credit went up and got himself. Yeah. Also we sit down and mom's like, I'll get a beer. I'm like, what do you think this is? Where are you at food court? You get a beer at Faneuil Hall, but I don't think. I don't think you can have a beer in the main area. I think there's probably a bar there. Yeah. I just, I don't think you get a liquor license for a hall. Yeah, but the times have changed, Sufi. Not enough. And then, oh, also, sorry. This is, I mean, again, you're listening to a fan of trip podcast. We went to the chinsiest mini golf place I've ever been. It was like on two floors inside, but that burned like 30 minutes. We went to the museum of illusions. That was also right by Faneuil Hall. That's like a thing where like kids stand next to it, like halfway out of mirror. And then if they raise both, if they raise one arm and leg, it looks like they're jumping in the air, like illusions. Yeah. Again, you just realize. You just realize on the title, right? I just in general was like, I feel like museums oversell how much time you're gonna be able to burn, Adam. Yeah. You went to a lot of museums. I went to a lot of museums. I mean, these are some of these are, again, Tea Party Museum, I think is 80 minutes and it's chock full and fantastic. And you're walking from one of these places to the next? We did a lot of walking. We did a lot of walking. And then Hux, a family picked him up. And then we went to our first Red Sox game. And Red Sox got Tarik Scoobald, one of the best pitchers, obviously baseball. And so the Red Sox lost 41, but it was really, really special. I mean, I think like a lot of kids who go to their first baseball game, Ash was maybe more interested in what he was gonna eat. But we did stay for the whole game, which was really fun. And yeah, it was just tremendous. The whole thing was tremendous. Right. And then we went to the Science Museum the next morning. The proper, so Sunday morning, that was the day we were leaving. And we got a little bit of a slow start because Ash slept in and I will be honest, I'm gonna take back everything I've said about museums. We could have spent five hours at the Boston Science Museum. I remember that as being very engaging, very sort of hands on. Very engaging. Ash was a little bit like, what? Like the thing that had not happened yet happened right at the Emery. He's like, we gotta leave the museum. We went to the IMAX. We watched a IMAX, like a 50 minute IMAX movie about the James Webb telescope, about the building of it. Yeah, it's a double. That made me cry. Cause it was like just interviews with the people who made this thing and like them talking about the first time they saw the images that were sent back. Fantastic. Really great. So got a little ripped off at the end. I was paying like 250 a pop for Ash to get these little, you know, those penny things where you like, you like do a crank and the penny gets flattened out and they print like a little thing. Yeah. You paid $2.50. Per. And I think Ash wanted three. Ash wanted three under the guise of he was gonna give one to each of his siblings. And then I've noticed it's been a couple of days and he's not been handed over yet. Yeah. Wow. There's still time. Yeah. And then, you know, and again, Amtrak as well, both ways, a hell of a way to travel. Yeah. Yeah. We had, there was someone on our Amtrak. Ash and I were sitting next to each other. We had one of those like table, we had like a four section seating arrangement. And the guy across from us was, he was an interesting cat, very nice, very kind. But a little, I wanna be careful with my language. He was very hard to sort of follow. And it was sort of like talking a blue streak. And I was doing my best to sort of comprehend him and try to have a conversation, but scattered, I would say, is maybe a good way to describe it. And Ash, at one point, was watching something on iPad, took off his headphones and leaned over it because he was talking, this guy was now talking to somebody else. And Ash goes, what's he saying? And I go, you know, I'm having a hard time kind of following what he's saying. And Ash said, okay, well, dry harder. And then just put his headphones back on. It was really great. And I was like, you know what, that's good advice. And then I was glad that we talked to this. He was not the sort of individual you run into all the time. And he made for a very interesting ride. Yeah. Oh, that sounds great, Sufi. It was really good. I think mom and dad were really happy. Yeah. Good hangs with them. No, I mean, I talked to them the next day, they were exhausted. I talked to them later on Sunday and they were just like wiped out. I wanted to FaceTime with them earlier in the day to hear how it was. And they were like, we gotta lay down and take naps. We'll call you later. I ran them ragged. I mean, really ran them ragged. Yeah. Well, sounds like you did a lot. Checked a lot of boxes. And yeah, no, they definitely, mom and dad had a great time. I'm glad to hear. So there you go. That's a family trip. And now we got a great episode for you, Andy Serkis. Yeah, legend. We had to cut him off a little fast. Andy had another interview after this. And it was, you know, our fault. We did not get to the speed round. Yeah. Yeah. He answers the last question. He answers the most important one. But he answers it badly. Has he been to the grandkid? He answers it badly. But we're not gonna tell you. So did you just tell him what he said? No, I just said he answers it badly. Anybody, nobody knows what that means coming from me. Yeah, he's got his film Animal Farm. Yeah. Is out May 1st in theaters. And yeah, I mean, he's been, Caesar and Planet of the Apes, King Kong, most notably Gollum. Gollum and Smeagol. Yeah. So. I'm more of a Smeagol guy. You always, you like Gollum. You think Gollum has some interesting ideas. Yeah. This is. He's a very pro Gollum. Yeah, that's true. All right, enjoy. Listen, have fun. Family trips with a mouse. Brothers, family chips with a mouse. Brothers, here we go. Hello, Andy. Hello, how are you? I'm wonderful. It's so nice to see you again. Yeah, you too. You too, gosh. I'm trying to think when we last met each other. It was a while ago. And it's very nice to, sometimes you read someone's biography and you realize for the purposes of this podcast, I'm certainly hopeful that we're gonna hear stories on like any we've ever heard before. Oh, totally. So, yeah. You know what I mean? I'm like, oh, Andy. It's exciting. There's something about the British Empire. I feel like lends itself to places, to parts unknown for many of us. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's part of our makeup. We're good at that kind of stuff. Cause you're not just classically, obviously you're British, but your background is incredibly, a great deal more diverse than just that. It is. In fact, so my dad was Iraqi and he was of Armenian descent. So they came through kind of two generations before he did to Iraq, settled in Baghdad and from Armenia. And then my mom, who was recovering from tuberculosis in the night, in the, you know, sort of, sort of around the time of the war, went over to recover. Her father was working in Kuwait on the oil refineries and she met my dad, who was an aspiring doctor and they got married and had three daughters and then myself and my younger brother. And so we used to spend all our childhoods sort of going backwards and forwards between Baghdad in Iraq and then the suburb of rice lip, which is a little bit rather boring suburban place. Nah, actually it's not boring at all. It's home, just outside of West London. That's unbelievable. So my first question is, did she meet him while recovering from tuberculosis in a hospital? Was he there as a medical professional? I believe that's the case. Yeah, I mean, you know, this is going back into sort of, Sure. The annals of history, but I guess so, yeah. I think that must have been how they did, yeah. I don't imagine you're at your best when you're recovering from tuberculosis. She must have really been something else. I think, yeah, I think she, well, she certainly turned his eye. I think he was going to be a Jesuit priest before that. So I think she must have done something. Now, when you were a kid and, you know, it's obviously, you know, due to the incredibly unfortunate events of like the Middle East and the last, you know, 25, 30, 40 years, you don't think about like vacation to Baghdad, but was that something you looked forward to as a kid? Because obviously it's an incredible culture. Oh, we, I mean, I used to go there for six weeks to, you know, or eight weeks of the summer. And it was an amazing place. I mean, it was a magical place. And we used to go and visit, you know, we traveled all over the Middle East. We went to Syria, we went to Babylon, we went to, you know, to Beirut and, yeah, Lebanon. And it was a remarkable kind of opposite, polar opposite of where I was growing up. And so it really did hold a sense of magic. And we would camp in the desert, we'd eat grilled fish by the river Tigris and all that kind of stuff. It was amazing. It was amazing. So, but consequently, I've never really felt, you know, I've always felt like a slight sort of outside or between, you know? Sure. You know? Because I have to imagine of the kids in Russ Slip, am I saying that right? Rice Slip. Rice Slip. You were the only ones who were summering in Baghdad. I would imagine so, yeah. Were the circus kids, were you all collectively excited about the annual trip back to Iraq? Oh, yeah, yeah, we still, I mean, that was our norm actually. So it wasn't, and it was kind of not exceptional in the sense that that was what we did every summer. It was, you know, like that was just, yeah, we flew out. We stayed there and had all these, I mean, looking back, sort of quite magical experiences, but also my grandparents, my mom's mom was also party Iraqi and French Armenian. So she was an amazing cook. So we used to go over, she lived in Wembley in London, just in the west of London. And so we were sort of, the culture was sort of present with us as well. Would you, did you have a family home in Baghdad that you would go to? Or would you? Oh, yeah, my dad's house. I mean, so he was a, Okay. He was a doctor and he founded a hospital in Baghdad for, at that time, you know, there was a huge, well, there still is a huge disparity between the wealthy and the poor there. And these four doctors set out to build a hospital that would really give good service to everyone. And that was why he stayed. He didn't, you know, he'd built this thing. And so he couldn't, he used to come home at Christmas for a couple of weeks and then my mom would go out and visit him at Easter. What was the travel time back then to Iraq? Like, It was about, I guess it was about six or seven hours on the plane. It's actually not that bad. Yeah. Yeah. On BOAC at the time it was called. BOAC, what is that? What was that? The British Overseas Air Corporation, I think. I mean, it obviously made sense that at some point the marketing people were like, we gotta change that. Yeah, we'll change it to be A. How, what was the age gap between you and your siblings? So my eldest sister, Carol, it was like eight years older than me and then five years older and then Anita, my second sister and then Kath, my the youngest sister was four years older than me. Then there was me and then my younger brother was four years younger than me. So really, I mean, pretty spread out group. Oh yeah. Yeah. Did you, when you think of, think back to those trips were the five of you spending a lot of time together or was the age gap such that you all sort of split off to do your own thing? Yeah. I mean, I used to hang out with my youngest sister the most who was four years older than me because we had similar interests, but as an older brother, when we were growing up, he was like my younger brother so I didn't hang out with him. But, and then my older sisters were getting into boyfriends and doing their own thing. I always have this vision, anytime I hear of about a city like Baghdad or just a city that I've never been to, I feel like, if there's gonna be a movie scene, there's gonna be kids running through the streets of the city, sort of no parents around. Was it like that? Did you sort of have free reign? Very much so. It was so exciting and so culturally different and you'd go to the markets, the sooks, and just sort of find your way running through there and finding interesting, wonderful things, all these exotic smells and spices and all the things that you find in a market, but seem so different. And yeah, it was a great time. It was a great, I mean, I loved it. I used to really look forward to it. Would you, was it something where you would buy things to bring home, like were there souvenirs and the light that you'd bring back to England to sort of show off? Yeah, my mom used to collect all that stuff. She loved kind of Middle Eastern pottery and artifacts and paintings. So the house was kind of full of that stuff, but I used to just go for cheap toys really. I'd find, I'd look, I'd seek out basically cheap toys. That was what I used to do at the Sook. And so you mentioned going to like Syria and Babylon, were those trips that your father would come along? Was it? Yeah, he would take time out and, and whilst he was still, he still had to work at the hospital, but we'd have these side trips and we'd go off a week or so to visit these other countries. And yeah, I mean, it was an extraordinary, looking back, it is kind of an, it was an extraordinary education. I feel very lucky to have had it. So you didn't see him much during the year. What was it like when you would, what was it like for you when you would see him, for those six weeks? And what do you think it was like for him to all of a sudden have his like five British children to send on back to back? Yeah, no, I think, well, he was, he was very much a man of routine, obviously with the hospital he had, but they traditionally in Iraq, you have a siesta. So he used to sleep in the afternoons for an hour after lunch, that's what everybody does. And so I think he used to feel a little invaded when we all pitched up and, and or equally when he came home to the UK, it was sort of odd and strange to have a man about the house who, his position was very unclear. You know, it was, it was like he had, he was definitely a man who had authority in his workplace and in his home in Iraq, but he sort of had to fit in with, with a predominantly female oriented family when he got back. And so, and they were all had boyfriends and were doing their own thing. And suddenly he just would try and come in and be this, you know, put his foot down and be a bit authoritarian and it never really worked out. Yeah, now I wouldn't imagine so. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors. Support comes from Yahoo Mail now with Planner. Hey, Bashe. Hey, Sufi. Oh man, I need to get my life organized. You know, you host a podcast or in my case, two podcasts or in your case, two podcasts and it's easy to get them all mixed up. Yeah, well, Planner brings your tasks, reminders and events into one simple view so you don't have to jump between apps or piece your day together. All your tasks and events are in one place. You can get a clear organized view of what matters most. You can quickly understand your day without digging through emails. Planner pulls key details from your emails like reservations, school events and bill reminders and turns them into actionable plans saving you time and effort. 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If you're traveling, you're like, I don't have my gear, I don't have my weights, I don't have my bands. They can get something for you to keep you moving forward. And one of the things I like about obviously when I've had a trainer is they can show you how to do it and if you're worried about, oh, I'm never gonna be able to figure it out based on descriptions, they have over 1,000 demonstration videos for different workouts. So you don't have to worry about that at all. Level up your workout, join Fitbot today to get your personalized workout plan. Get 25% off your subscription or try the app free for seven days at fitbot.me slash trip that's F-I-T-B-O-D dot M-E slash trip. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card is designed with your iPhone in mind making it easy to get started and even easier to use. Apple Card is a no fee credit card you can apply for right from the wallet app on your iPhone. Apple Card has no annual fee, no late fees and no foreign transaction fees, no fees period. Every credit card should be this easy. Get started in the wallet app today. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 17.49% to 27.74% based on credit worthiness. Rates as of January 1, 2026. Existing customers can view their variable APR in the wallet app or at card.apple.com. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. Here we go. Talk about this camping trip by the Frades. Does that mean that your parents were sort of- The Tigris, Seth. The Tigris, sorry, my God. Obviously I haven't been. Did, were your parents sort of rugged people? Were they good at that sort of thing? My mom, I think was quite intrepid and my sisters certainly were as well. They went on in their lives to go off and do lots of adventures all over the place. My dad was, I think he liked calm and peace and order and being in a hospital environment. I mean, he liked a bit of a party. He was a good holding cocktail parties and things like that. But he wasn't, I wouldn't say an outdoorsy guy in order to talk, in fact. Yeah, I'm in that situation. I'm him and my wife is your- Intrepid is a very good word for it, by the way. I need to start using intrepid more for outdoorsy. So if you're camping by a river, are you at a campground? And what's a day like? Are you cooking out for your food or- We went to, I remember one trip which was to Lake Habania, which is just north of Baghdad. And it was just like, it was just in the desert, you know, you're camping under the stars. You know, it was for a seven year old, it was kind of like extraordinary to have. I've never seen the stars like it. You know, so it seemed very magical. It seemed very magical. And we would cook food and, but we would just on camp beds under the stars. There were no tents or anything, you know. So I remember one time there was a desert rat climbed into my bag, which I didn't realize. A little desert rat climbed into my bag. And when I got back to my dad's house, I opened this bag and it just kind of jumped out. And I was like, hello. But, you know, so it was adventurous. Yeah, it was adventurous. Well, how when you, what is the travel, you know, part of my ignorance, but how do you get from Iraq to Syria when you go to visit there? Was that, would you drive? What am I thinking? Yeah, yeah, I think it was probably, yeah, we drove, yeah, we did. It was a long sort of driving trip, yeah, a road trip. And what sort of car would you pack in seven circuses? He had an old Pontiac, which was quite, I just have this, I just remember the sensation of sitting on the seats, plastic seats, and burning the back of my legs every time we got into the car. Cause it was so hot in Iraq. And as a child wearing shorts, it was not a good thing, you know, getting into that car. I just remember vividly every time it was just like, wow. You know, how can it get that hot in a car, you know? But it was quite, I remember it had little, it had fins on the back, it was quite a start. Looking back, it was a proper, you know, it was a Pontiac. So it was quite exotic really, you know, not suburban rice lip, just outside of London. I bet probably not downtown Baghdad either, right? Like a Pontiac scene. Yeah, yeah, because there was a bit of American influence as well with vehicles and stuff. But my dad was a rather a bit of a narcolect. So he would fall asleep at the wheel constantly, which was not good. And we all inherited that. We all inherited. Really? Yeah, I mean, if I fall asleep, by the way, do not be offended. No, we won't. I will be thrilled. But I have been known on many occasions and people, you know, they rip it out of me. Because I have literally been in studio meetings in LA and sort of started to go, you know, sort of just, and I've sat opposite my brother and having dinner with him and he'll, you know, he'll just kind of start nodding off. You know, so it is a circus trait for sure. I mean, that is so, the idea of just driving from Baghdad to Syria in an old Pontiac with hot seats and not knowing if the guy at the wheel is gonna doze off. Occasionally, you'd all wake up and... I also like, you said he liked calm and I'm like, well, that's going a little too far. Yeah. He likes that. I guess it could be worse. You could be the person he's currently operating on. Yeah. That is, that would... Dr. Circus, Dr. Circus, please. You know what, I'll tell you, I had an arcolectic experience at the Museum of Monart in New York here and I was, I went to see a photographic exhibition with Lorraine, my wife and we were standing there and we, I was jet lagged admittedly, but I remember standing, looking at this picture, thinking, God, that's an amazing picture. It was Ouija, you know, the photographer Ouija. Yeah, of course, yeah. So I was looking at these pictures and then suddenly I felt this wave of tiredness and then I just fell over the security line and set off the alarms and head butted one of the pictures. You know, it was... It's the one thing they don't, like when you feel like how they build those lines, they never think somebody might just doze off. No, exactly. Exactly. Well, did your father, were there ever any accidents, any notable accidents where you were driving on these trips with your father falling asleep? No, just geocasional kind of driving. The desert roads, you know, so luckily if you go off the road, you're not gonna hit anything, you know? There's an interesting thing where I've got three kids and I, you know, sometimes just on a long drive, you know, I wouldn't say it's a narcolepsy, but just getting tired and it is that weird balance of like, I know my wife will be so mad if I say, hey, I need to pull over and have you drive. But it's funny that what you're weighing that against is, you know what, or I just drive into oncoming traffic and our whole family just... Like that's, I'm more afraid of her than actually like going into the traffic. Did, obviously, you know, you have three kids, you know, they're at the age where they're born, late 90s, early 2000s. I imagine you've never had any chance to bring them back to the Middle East or have you? No, and I really want to. And in fact, in recent years, I've been trying to write a film based on the hospital that my dad built because, and I really wanna go back there. And I think it was getting to a point where it was getting safe and clearly not right now, but it was getting to a point where it was getting safer. But because the hospital covered an interesting period, it was, he built it in 1964, which was the year I was born with these founding other founding doctors. And then very quickly, of course, there was the Barthas party under Saddam Hussein was beginning to ascend. And there was not a good feeling towards the West at that time. And so he used to, my dad was a doctor for the British Council and for BOAC operatives. And everyone started to leave. And he gave a speech at a party in his house. He had a cocktail party, invited lots of people over. And then his speech was recorded. And he said some rather unflattering things about Saddam Hussein and he was arrested and disappeared. And so we were obviously incredibly worried. And we didn't hear from him for a couple of months. So it was a very difficult time. And this was going on. People were beginning to be disappeared and the other doctors faced threats as well. And then it got taken over by the party and was only, the Barthas party took the hospital over. So it was only able to be used by Saddam Hussein's family and high ranking officials. And then, so there's that period. So there was a sort of pre-Barthas party period. Then there's sort of Saddam Hussein. And then when the American intervention in Iraq happened, the US intervention in Iraq happened, it was taken over and it was part of the green zone. So it's gone through this huge journey as a place. So I'm putting together a project which is sort of based on the transitions really, seen through the eyes of people who were around in that hospital throughout that period. So I do wanna go back. I'm desperate to go back. I really, really wanna go back. Yeah. Is it still there? The hospital? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, still exists. I think it's amazing how a physical space can show how the passage of history, like just, you think like, oh, a hospital is gonna be a hospital for all this time. But yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's really something. It's also like, there's many bummers to this story, but it's such a bummer that your dad started a hospital and it might not be a cool thing to tell people there. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, we don't like people who start hospitals. Do you still have family there? Not. Any extended family? I mean, there's like some distant family there now. Most people got out, started to get out where there was a big diaspora and some of them went to Canada, some of them to New Zealand and some of them to France and the UK. So most of them got out, got into the troubles. Wow, that's crazy. What do you remember about Babylon? Just the line of Babylon, the sculpture, this huge sculpture of the, you know, the, yeah, that was, that's my main memory. And just, just lots of architectural, you know, artifacts and ancient buildings. And I mean, amazing place, amazing place. Yeah. No hanging gardens though. I was quite disappointed. Yeah. You wrote, you left a very angry Yelp review about the lack of hanging gardens. If they're not there, stop talking about them. Yeah. Yeah. And would you ever, if you weren't going so far, a field is going to Baghdad or to Syria, would you travel in the UK ever for smaller trips? In the UK? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we used to, as a family, like when my dad was away, my mum used to take us to caravan sites kind of on the south coast of Boghna and what was it called? I can't remember the name of the place now. Boghna Regis was where we used to go. And then, and then sort of up to the Lake District and travel around, we did lots of traveling around the UK. So at caravan holidays, which I hear a lot about from British people, is that basically that's just, those are campsites? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's what we used to do. We didn't have our own caravan by the way. Right. We didn't have our own stretch. We used to go to a caravan site and they had a social centre and, do you know what I mean? It was sort of like, it was really good. I mean, really happy memories. So do you look back? Are you like just in awe of the fact that you're, it basically seems like for most of the year, you had a single mom who was managing five kids. Yeah, a full of admiration for what she did. And she was also a teacher. She taught at what was then called a disabled school. But people who were physically impaired and or physically challenged. And so she had a lot on. She had a lot on. We had, we did have, oh pairs who came to stay, you know, from time to time, but my elder sisters really kind of ran the house. Right. Were they benevolent leaders? Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally, yeah, totally. I just worry about two younger boys that could break either way. Yeah. Were you ultimately, do you feel like you were, there's that thing of like when you have, you know, you have a working mother who obviously is doing an incredible job raising the five of you. It seems like maybe you all understood to behave. Well, I wouldn't say that. I mean, I was quite, I suppose I was, we were all kind of rebellious in our own ways, put it that way. But we all, you know, we all got up to stuff that we shouldn't have done perhaps. Right, right. When you got to these caravan holidays, was it sort of policy of your mother that it was just like, go leave me for a bit? Or would you stick close and stick together? No, we'd pretty much stick together. We sort of, you know, yeah, yeah, we kind of hung out and you could rent these kind of, well, they were called social cycles at the time, but you know, like four-wheeled bikes that you, the four-wheeled sort of that you could all sit on. Oh, fun. I mean, it's like two bicycles tied together basically. And so on a social cycle, is everyone responsible for some amount of peddling or some people just getting a free ride? The two front people. Two front people, got it. And then the others at the back just kind of, social cycles. I've not remembered that word for a long time. Yeah, that's a new one for me. Would you go to the same sort of places year on year? We tended to. Would you make holiday friends that you might encounter? I don't remember that. Again and again. I don't remember that so much. I don't remember, no, I don't remember. No, no, I don't think so, no. Were there people in Iraq, kids your age, that you would go back every summer and reconnect with? Well, we had lots of cousins at the time, you know? Cause my dad's sisters lived out there. So we had a lot of cousins that we used to go and play with and hang out with. Were you sort of like this interesting foreign visitor when you showed up where the cousins like enamored with your Britishness? I don't think so. I think they just thought of us as, you know, and it was just family, you know, it was just family. We did used to go, there was a club called the Alwea Club, which was a sort of a lot of expats used to hang out. And that had an amazing outdoor cinema. So we used to just, it wasn't an amazing, it was a wall painted white with a few deck chairs in front of it. But that was great. I remember watching films, you know, and hanging out there and that was cool. I think it's a lost delight, the outdoor cinema. Totally. Especially like that thing of like, there's no, also the absence of choice is actually feels like such a freedom. Like we're just gonna go see what the movie is. You know, when I think about how much time I spend paralyzed by the options, like I love the idea of just walking to an outdoor cinema. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've always, I was always so enamored with the idea of driving movies, which we never had in the UK, but of course this was huge here. I'd bring back the driving movie as well. That's, shouldn't we? I mean, wouldn't that be cool? I live in Los Angeles and there's this film series at a cemetery and it's just one of my favorite things. It's about 3,000 to 5,000 people on a lawn in front of a mausoleum, which is a big white wall. And they just project an eclectic mix of stuff on the side of it throughout the summer. And it's fabulous. It's just so nice to be around all those people and be outside and it's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just something, I love, cinema outdoors is the best. You know, if you've got nice weather, obviously. You know, it's just nothing like it. It's beautiful, I love it. We went to, my wife and I were in, on like a Greek island, I wanna say like Mekanos, where we were just like walking after dinner and there was just like in this little like sort of, this cops of trees, there was this little cinema, outdoor cinema and I'm like, oh my God, we have to go and see a movie. And it was just so romantic. And then I think it was like the second Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. And I just, we got like, you know, we got like beers and we sat down and like half an hour in, my wife was like, I'm sorry, are we staying for the whole movie? I was like, all right, that's fair, that's fair. I go in my head, I'm a 13 year old kid and I can't believe my luck, but you're right. This is not, this does not match with everything our evening has been up to this point. My funniest experience of watching cinema abroad was, I was filming in Russia actually about, just after the war had come down in the early 90s and I went to a cinema that was showing the bodyguard. Oh wow. And, but it was all simultaneously translated by one person behind the screen with a mic into Russian. So they had the volume kind of half termed down, so it turned down to Kevin Costner and, you know, and so it was, I mean, bad rubbish Russian impersonation, but it was just like, what's this? Good old school school, what's this? What's this? What's this? What's this? You know, it was just, you know. I really hope he didn't try to hit that note and I will always love you. Exactly, it was quite brilliant and I watched the whole film just mesmerized. Oh, that's really, that is fantastic. Why did you film in Russia that early? It was a TV series called Grushko, which starred Brian Cox as a, it was based on a Philip Kerr novel and Brian Cox was playing this cop, this cop, and it was all about irradiated meat. And it was all, it was kind of, it was, you know, because obviously the war, you know, did not come down long before. And so it was going through, I've never been in a country sort of, that was going through such change, sort of, and actively sort of seeing it happen in front of you. Yeah, it was crazy. It was a crazy place and a crazy time. That is like, that's the worst case scenario. The wall finally comes down in the first show they make is about irradiated meat. Yeah, yeah. They don't even hire local actors. I am always delighted. By the way, I love Philip Kerr. I'm very excited to try to find Grishko. I mean, the fact that it's got you and Brian Cox and it's a Philip Kerr adaptation shot in Russia. I mean, sign me up. Oh, wow. Yeah, oh, cool, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know. Didn't I buy you a Philip Kerr, like three? Three, like two, like two. Yeah, you did? Yeah, yeah, the Berlin trilogy. Wow. Yeah, okay. That's right on my alley. I love that stuff. Oh, amazing, cool. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors. Support comes from AuraFrames. Hey, Bashee. Hey, Sufi. AuraFrame, pretty great Mother's Day gift. Would not just say. Yeah, I mean, really, really good. If you take pictures on your phone, you get a good one, a good shot of your kids or a good shot of you and mom. You know, you could send it to her, but what's she gonna do with it? Yeah. The much better move is to send it to her AuraFrame and then that picture will pop up from time to time and remind her of a great time that you guys had together. We just took a trip together. We were just talking about it. I went to Boston and dad was like, send me all the pictures and I was sort of like, I'll do you one better. I'll just send them straight to the AuraFrame and you can see them pop up as they come. Yeah, you texted me a picture of you and mom at Fenway Park and right away, I posted it to their Aura and my Aura. So it'll just be there. It's such a good way to see the best pictures in your camera roll that you're never gonna see otherwise. And we do a fun thing with our mom, which is we upload individual pictures of ourselves and then individual pictures of our dad so that she will cheer and boo based on them. Yeah. Based on which one comes up. Great thing about these AuraFrame, Sufi, is they have free unlimited storage. So you can add as many photos and videos as you want. You can also pre-upload photos before it ships. You can keep adding from anywhere at any time. It's a really cool product. Make Mother's Day special with the AuraFrame's name number one by Wirecutter. You can save on the gifts moms love by visiting AuraFrames.com for a limited time. Listeners can get $25 off their best-selling Carver Mat frame with code TRIPS. That's A-U-R-A-F-RAMES.com promo code TRIPS. Support the show by mentioning us a check out, terms and conditions, apply. This is your latest project. It's heavy with information, data and exactly 36 pages of waffle. But with Acrobat Studio, you can create a PDF space, an AI-powered workspace that turns documents into summaries and insights and even generates reports or presentations out of it. So you can cut through the waffle, work smarter and save time. Do that with Acrobat. Learn more and try it out on adobe.com. Your kids, did you raise your kids in England? Yeah. And did, has your professional life led to unique travel opportunities for them or are the two been separate? Oh yeah, no, no. I mean, they've just lived and breathed growing up. Lorraine, my wife, is an actress and she's very, you know, she's a very quite prolific British TV actress and all our kids have ended up being actors because they were literally born into it. You know, Lorraine was filming a TV series, Rushed Home, gave birth, went back onto the TV show and I was, I was, you know, she was expressing milk and I was feeding Ruby, our daughter, and then she'd come off set and for, you know, it was just like, that's how it started and it's never been any different. They've just been an integral part. When I went to New Zealand, they all came down when they were very, very young to do Lord of the Rings and then, you know, and then at various stages, they've been back when we were shooting King Kong and they went to school in New Zealand. Then when we went back to do the Hobbit, they actually started doing school in the UK so they couldn't, so that was the worst period actually because I was away for a long period of time because I was directing the second unit on that and it was, it was like, I was away for a year basically so I didn't get to see him and that's, that's my, that's the biggest thing, the biggest, biggest downer of, you know, in terms of having great opportunities and things happen to you and then being away from your family, that's a tricky one. Right. And because my dad had been away, all his, you know, I sort of, I thought this is just repeating itself a little. Yeah. And you didn't even open a hospital, you know. No, exactly. Exactly. Hey, I noticed that in your, in your bio. So had you directed anything before the second unit of the Hobbit because obviously you, and I want to talk about it, you, you just directed Animal Farm. So obviously, was, but was that the beginning of your transition into doing behind the camera stuff? I'd always wanted to, you know, whilst, you know, I'd been acting for many years and started in theater and as soon as I started acting on screen, I mean, I studied visual arts before I became an actor. So I wanted to, I'd always been interested in telling stories visually and made short films and was always doing things like that. And I knew that acting, I loved acting, but I also knew that I wanted to direct. And so, so it sort of, it sort of transitioned actually when we were making Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson became aware that I was very interested in directing. And so when it came around to the Hobbit and it was going to be like a huge cast of actors that would go between the main unit and the second unit. They asked me if I'd direct the second unit. And so I shot, we shot for 200 days on the second unit. And it was, and I was getting ready to make my first sort of feature, independent feature film with like three actors in four locations. And suddenly I found myself in front of, you know, a crew of 200 people shooting native stereo at 48 frames a second with, you know, going across New Zealand. And I mean, it was, it was a phenomenal education. It is so funny. Cause like second unit, that part sounds right for a first job. And then the Hobbit is like massively wrong. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It was just like, I had to learn very quickly. And I, and yeah, just the responsibility was so enormous. But I know Pete, Pete just trusted me. And we'd been through a whole journey of course with the, with the kind of creation of the character of Gollum and the whole visual effects side of things and the tying together of performance and technology. And I guess we, and then I'd work with him on King Kong and these are my people really, you know, the family in New Zealand, they're such an incredible team and a phenomenal sort of, you know, the same people that I'm working on, you know, with now, we're going back to do the film now, The Hunt for Gollum. It's like, it's a lot of the same people 25 years on regrouping and I keep going back there because they just, it's just such a great creative atmosphere where everyone is treated shoulder with respect and is valued and it's the sort of perfect working scenario. You know, it's like a big family and we've all got kids that have grown up now and everyone knows each other. It's pretty cool. It just happens to be on the other side of the world from where I live. That's the only problem. Yeah. And The Hunt for Gollum, I didn't know it was happening but you're directing that and obviously starring in it. That'll be the next in the series? That will be, yes indeed. And that's, we're in pre-production right now and so, you know, I've been down there for months and months. We just, we were talking with Vincent D'Onofrio, who's a wonderful actor and he was talking about how he's been in the Marvel universe playing this character, Kingpin, for 10 years and he was talking about how rare it is for an actor to play a character for 10 years. And I mean, when you think about your relationship with Gollum, I mean, it is truly something. Just kind of get really into it. And I mean, by the way, it would have been truly something if it had stopped, you know, after the first trilogy, after, you know, like, so all these moments it would have been the most complete body of work and so it really is something and it's so exciting that there's gonna be more of it. It is, I mean, and there's a lot to investigate with the characters still. So it's a really interesting exploration. Yeah. What about, so you did, I mean, I will say, Animal Farm 1 does not naturally adapt itself to an animated film or a film at all, really. And the undertaking of this, you know, I was talking, I had Kate and Madarazzo on the show and he was talking on my show about how there was an interesting approach. You had to sort of add different characters. How long has this process been going on for you, like from the... Just about 15 years, I suppose. So that's fine. That's not it. That's a good easy time. It's a quick one I knocked out, you know. Great. And it's under two hours, right? So I can watch it in under two hours, but it took you 15 years. Yeah, exactly. I know. I mean, that's the thing. Look, that was the first film actually, when we formed our company, Jonathan Cavendish is my producing partner. We set up the Imaginarium, which was a performance capture studio in the UK and a production company. And the first film that we thought, and it was actually when we were doing the Planet of the Apes movies and there's a scene in the first Planet of the Apes movie, I was playing Caesar, you know, the central kind of ape character. And he's incarcerated in this facility, which is obviously experimenting on apes. And he leads the apes to freedom and there's a sort of rebellion. And I suddenly, I'd always loved Animal Farm as a book as a kid growing up. And I suddenly thought there hasn't been an adaptation of Animal Farm for a long time. There was a 1954 animation and then there was a 1990 kind of animatronic Jim Henson style hallmark film version of it. But I just thought performance captures the perfect way of doing it. And then, so Jonathan Cavendish and I, who was a big film producer, he'd done the Bridget Jones films and we'd become sort of linked for life as it was. And we still are with our company. And we thought we'd get this off the ground. We got the rights. We went to the Orwell estate, they gave us the rights. And we said, we want, if all well we're writing this now, who would his, you know, we wanted to update it. We always wanted to update it, make it more contemporary, not talk about totalitarian Russia in the 1940s, but transpose the exactly the same themes as about power, the corruption of power, and, you know, fake news and, or, you know, the disseminate, you know, misinformation and the utopia gone wrong. But it was like, how do we make this applicable to a young audience? And this was in, so this was back in 2011, where we first, I first had the idea. And it's taken ages to, because we thought we'd immediately, it would be like, oh, Animal Farmer, everyone would want to see Animal Farmer. Every studio would want to make Animal Farm wrong. Nobody wanted to make Animal Farm. It took forever. Everyone thought it is a very spinachy kind of, you know, sort of beating it at the audience over the head politically, all wheels too dark, et cetera. And I do love that you thought like, you know kids love animated films and they love George Orwell. Well, I just remember being so knocked out by the book. Did you read the book? You must have read the book. I was knocked out by the book too. And, you know, by the way, it is, you know, look, Lord of the Rings is a challenging book that kids love and then made a great movie. So I would understand the, you know, the impulse. Yeah. So we started work on it and went and approached a whole bunch of actors, most of whom have ended up in the film, sort of 12 years later when we were actually making it. I mean, like Seth Rogen and Jim Parsons and Glenn Close, were all people we approached immediately who all loved the book. And everyone who's in it. And it is an exceptional cast. You know, we've got Willie Harrison and Keirah Culkin and Steve Buscemi and Iman Valani. And it just goes on, you know, that every single Laverne Cox is just a fantastic cast. Everyone we approached was just like, I mean, definitely. I love the book. So, but we had to find a way of telling the story, which I wanted to make it for a young audience. I really, crucially wanted to have a debate between young kids, their parents and their grandparents, all watching the film together in the same room. And nobody, no studio could understand that concept. That this could possibly be a family film. And my argument was, you know, yes, it's dark. There are dark things in it. But if you present it in such a way as an animated version where you use that animation, the bucolic kind of the feel, the, you know, the innocence of the animals. Because it is, you know, the whole point of all well writing about totalitarianism using farm animals is that he wanted to communicate ideas to a younger, inquiring mind. So that fits in with our version. But the book doesn't have any protagonist or a central character where you can follow the story through, you know, an emotionally engaged with. Because it's quite an objective book. And so that was why we, there's mention in the book of sort of in the last part of the book of these young piglets who are elite pigs, because obviously the pigs ascend, take over control and the power and the rest of the animals are treated like dirt. And I thought, well, what happens if you take those, you know, the pigs in the book are very off stage characters. And you hear what's going on in the corruption of power and how they're becoming more interested in trading with humans after saying that we will never ever communicate or trade with humans. So these, so I thought, well, what if we actually make the central character a young piglet who we then follow and go on the moral journey with. And he's an innocent, he just sees himself as an animal like all the other animals, but gradually gets corrupted by this powerful charismatic narcissistic funny, you know, leader and gets pulled away from the sort of slightly more community-orientated leader snowballed playblock by Laverne Cox and gets sucked in by this very funny guy who eventually takes over and a good entertainer. And so he gets corrupted and then at a certain point he realizes what's happened. And as they utopia falls apart and it becomes another version of the greed and cruelty that they'd faced with humans, he has to make amends. So then we've got a sort of an interesting story. And it's still, I mean, thematically, it's still entirely the book, but it's just the only other thing that we changed really, I suppose, was not ending in such a bleak place. Because when kids sit down hopefully after having watched this movie, you know, you didn't want them to kind of go, well, oh my gosh, the world is hopeless. We're never, what can we do? Right, right. So we've got an ending which is an open-ended question, which is, you know, in the book it ends with all the animals standing outside the window looking in through it and seeing pigs and men and looking from one pig to man and man to pig and not being able to tell the difference. And it's a very, very bleak ending. But whereas we end with a much more sort of open-ended, as I say, open-ended question, which is, history repeats itself, this has gone horribly wrong. It'll probably go wrong again, but we have to keep trying. And we, and it's in the trying that hopefully you'll find a solution. So it's not a sort of a Hollywood ending or a wrapped up neatly in a bow ending. It's very much a kind of, okay, this is gonna be down to you kids when we're gone. And you know, it's like, you know, you've got to start thinking about this. And parents, you know. So that's the idea behind this. When we release the first trailer. Congratulations, by the way. 15 years, it's really something. I mean, it's truly really something. And we're glad that as soon as you wrap up the press for this, you can start doing a new Lord of the Rings. Just so that you can rest. Hey, before we know you have to run, we know you have to run, Andy, but we do have a speed round of questions. Let us know if you have time for this. If you don't, we understand, but we can try to be quick. You let us know. Maybe one. Okay. All right, one. Have you been to the Grand Canyon? No, I really want to go to the Grand Canyon. Great, perfect answer. Thank you so much, Andy. Just quick, get another one in quick, quick. You did it. All right, thank you so much, Andy. Okay, thank you. It's been lovely speaking with you, yeah. Bye, great to see you again. Family chips with the Midas brothers. Family chips with the Midas brothers. Here we go. Family chips with the Midas brothers. When Andy was growing up, he would travel to Baghdad every summer with his mom and siblings to see his dad. They'd take chips to Syria or maybe check out Babylon. Taking in the Middle East, see Beirut and Lebanon. But his dad was not galactic at the wheel. Watch out. You will end up in the field. He would just not often fall asleep. Come to as he was driving off the street. Our aloe vera club was great. Movies showed up on the wall. Social cycle all the way. Dad had built a hospital. Cheap toys bought in the bizzars and camping underneath the stars. Hot seats in the Pontiac. Stowe away, caught a ride back. Got home. Opened up his sleeping bag. So gross. Inside there was a desert rat. Jumped out. Desert rat just ran away. No doubt. He had had his own vacay. And he's an actor and a director. And he was single and also seasoned. And he was king dog and also gala. Reason he did not was in a mobile.