ENTERTAINMENT / BOOKS John Cleese's most extravagant purchase: "my third wife" Tweet 44 Like 67 2 BY ALICE HOWARTH 09 DECEMBER 14 "Ask me something rude" says John Cleese as I take my seat for the interview, "that's always funniest". For a man famed for iconic roles in Fawlty Towers, Monty Python's Flying Circus and A Fish Called Wanda, who has carved a dazzling career from his blacker-than-black humour, you can't help but feel a little under pressure Page 2 of 14
when he announces such a demand. How funny can one be in front of "the most influential British comic of all time"? We're actually meeting in Pimlico to talk about his eagerly awaited autobiography So, Anyway, part one of three instalments. Documenting his early life, from his childhood in Weston-super-Mare up until the start of the Monty Python days, 75-year-old Cleese reveals it's been in the works for the last 15 years... GQ: You picked So, Anyway as the title of your first memoir - why? John Cleese: It's always been a little observation of mine that people tell stories really badly. They embark on the anecdote but because they're bad story tellers, they lose the point and they get into digressions where they think "what the f*** was I just saying?" and then they say "so, anyway". The original idea was a joke about people telling stories badly but also that I didn't want the autobiography to be like "and then this happened and then that happened". When I started I had this completely stupid idea that I should just write it as an account of what had happened in my life but my editor released me of this saying "just write about what interests you" and don't worry too much about the chronology. So, Anyway meant that I could drift off and talk about humour and go back to something else and then go off again because there's no need to do the thing chronologically. Page 3 of 14
Do you feel a constant pressure to be funny even in the company of friends? No. Not at all. I think at the very beginning when I was first on television people met me and I got the impression they were expecting me to be funny all of the time but never my friends. What I have recently begun to see more than ever before is how subjective a sense of humour is and although I can think of two or three very close friends that I've known for fifty years, they laugh at different things. So we have a lot of laughter when we meet but the kind of joke is different. Page 4 of 14
A Fish Called Wanda Rex Features You've obviously had an incredibly successful career - how much do you think luck has to do with success? Hugely. I read a book called The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and it absolutely riveted me because he started to explain to me how much chance is attributed to cause and effect. Then I read The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow about probability so I've come to the conclusion that luck is much, much more important. People like Bill Gates were in the right place at the right time so that the market was exactly right for his talent at that time but it wouldn't have been before. I do believe in what [Arnold] Parker said in that "the more I prepare, the luckier I get." Page 5 of 14
You talk of the ups and downs that you had with your parents - do you feel your experience infiltrated on the way you brought up your own children? Oh I'm sure it did. I think I reacted a little bit with my oldest daughter and tried to encourage her to be independent too quickly because I didn't want to make the same mistake as my dad did with me. The trouble with parenting is you never really know if you got it right because the fruits of what you're doing manifest themselves 20 or 30 years later and you always think "was that an influence of mine or would that have happened to them anyway?" Why was the time now to release your autobiography? I started to think about it about fifteen years ago actually when Michael Caine told me how much he liked writing his autobiography. After, I talked to an agent who gave me a very low figure for the advance so I decided against it. Then I switched agents here and he said "well, what about doing an autobiography?" and I talked to him about figures and said if you can get me X amount then I can afford to take a lot of time off and write it. So really the first guy gave me bad advice and put me off for ten years. What comedians impress you at the moment? My problem is I don't really watch them. This is because I shall be dead sometime in the next 15 years and my feeling is that there are many more books that I want to read than half hours I want to watch. The thing I do want to do is some binge viewing, I want to see Breaking Bad and House Of Cards for example but when I switch comedy on I sometimes watch for a bit and I think "that's fine", it's fine but it doesn't excite me anymore. It's not a snobbery thing, it's just that there's stuff out there that is more important. Page 6 of 14
Monty Python PA Photos Do you think your career would have differed had there been social media? I'm sure it would have been but I don't understand it. I think my great problem is that I just don't understand why anybody would be on Facebook. But you have a strong social media presence, some three and a half million Twitter followers? I do and that's because Stephen Fry explained to me about three years ago that if you have enough Twitter followers you can avoid the London newspapers. They basically used to do London profiles which were always looking for ways of being snide, the national style now, and so now with three something million followers I can get out my appearances before them, be in control of what's sent Page 7 of 14
out. I'll now only do interviews with people who are genuinely interested in what I've got to say. How has being regarded as a British legend affected you? It puzzles me more than anything, I mean it's genuine puzzlement. When I go around, particularly in America, it astonishes me how anxious people are to get a photograph with me. If I work with someone or spend time with someone it's very natural but when they literally come straight up to you in the street and say "can I have a photograph" I sometimes [mimics pointing] say "why don't you ask him." What's the point of a photograph with someone you met three seconds before? It's essentially meaningless but they see it in a completely different way, they think they have a relationship with me but I don't know anything about it. If you don't understand why people are doing things, you don't understand the things themselves. The joke I make is it's like people dressing up in latex rubber to become sexually excited. I know what latex rubber is. I know what dressing up is. I know what sexual excitement is but I don't get it altogether. You highlight your complete inability to engage with the opposite sex when you were younger, now at 75 - what's your advice to men trying to woo a woman? It's very simple, be yourself. They're going to find out who you are anyway so don't waste a few months pretending you're somebody different. It's wasted time, if they then find out who you really are and then dump you, you've wasted time. People find out fairly early on, so be honest early on. We can all be slightly manipulative if we're attracted to someone but within that context be as honest and open as you can. What would you have done differently in your career? I would have done much less performing in the last ten years. I would have written a couple of things, including a movie which I now won't, I'm too old to play the lead now but I think it was a really good plot. I would also like to have Page 8 of 14
enough money to make really good documentaries. I would like, for example, to make a documentary about what religion would have been like if the Church hadn't screwed it up. Also about death, I don't think we talk about death enough. Fawlty Towers Rex Features What's your advice to aspiring comics and actors trying to make it today? Steal. I mean that. If you see somebody who has something that really appeals to you whether it's a writing style or an acting style, if you watch it again and again until you are no longer affected by it emotionally, that's the moment when you see how it's done. While you're being affected, the emotion will interfere with the perception of what the technique is. You have to understand Page 9 of 14
the structure of something you admire. The other piece of advice is I don't think anybody should set out to be an actor. I have a friend in LA who's a drama teacher and the first question they ask when somebody comes in and says "I want to study acting with you", he says "is there anything else you want to do?" [laughs] and they say "well I like " and he says "well, go and do that first" [laughs]. Even when you didn't have a license you bought an "expensive old Bentley with child-bearing hips and a big walnut dashboard". What's been your most extravagant purchase to date? [Laughs] Too easy to say. My third wife. I don't know if there's one extravagant purchase but probably one of the most extravagant things I've ever done was that I took 45 friends down the River Nile for two and a half weeks in 1992 and I don't think I ever did anything more enjoyable or that I got more pleasure back from. I had a lot of money in those days, it was before I got married the third time and I just suddenly thought "what a wonderful thing to do, to go with your friends". My wife at the time and I split the guest list in half with her friends and mine. It was extraordinarily harmonious, just lucky, it was blessed. What do you think the qualities are to be a true gentleman? Kindness. There was once a story about a gentleman who was hosting a lunch party and somebody took their jacket off and put it on the back of a chair and he said "a gentleman would not do that" and I thought a gentleman would not point that out. That illustrates it. You say you bonded with your Interlude co-star Oskar Werner over food - where are your favourite restaurants to eat in London? Jenny [Wade, John's wife] and I are very fond of Colbert's on Sloane Square. Anton Mosimannis is a fabulous restaurant with a wonderful, wonderful atmosphere but we don't have an absolute regular although I do love Panevino up by Harrods. I'm very sad that the very reasonable Indian restaurants that used to be on every third block have disappeared. They've gone all poncey now Page 10 of 14
and everything is marinated in yoghurt but I think The Star Of India is still my favourite. What are you most proud of in your career? I don't think there is a most proud. I don't think there's one that stands out. I think I've been in two very good films, Life Of Brian and A Fish Called Wanda, I think to make a really good, consistently funny comedy is one of the hardest things. If you start trying to think of them you can't come up with them so I would claim those are two very good comedies. I think the first book I wrote with Robert Skynner, Families And How To Survive Them was very good, I made a documentary about Limas which I'm very fond of and the second series of Fawlty Towers was very good. I think that's about it. The memoir ends rather abruptly - when can we expect the next instalment? I would have thought two years, maybe three. I haven't started writing it yet because I think it's important to take a bit of a break and go into something fresh. So, Anyway by John Cleese is out now. Random House Books, 20 Alice Howarth Alice is Digital Writer on GQ.co.uk. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @alicejrhowarth. Page 11 of 14