All language subtitles for BBC The Human Face - 4. Fame

The Human Face - Fame

Hello, I'd like to introduce
some friends of mine

This Norman, and down there's Sarah,
and this is little Bert,

and I can recognise them because I know
their faces and their bodies, of course

But over here are some creatures
that I think you'll be able to recognise

because they are very,
very, famous

Here perhaps one of the most
famous actors in the world,

and here's another equally famous
and I'll give you a hint - female

Here's another, possibly more
famous even than the first two,

and finally a particularly
fine actor or actress,

characteristic little dark mark
there, just above the right hip

Now, did you miss any?

Well, if you did,
here are the answers

Faces help, don't they?

Wherever we go we're
assaulted by famous faces

Cinema, television, magazines,
papers, hoardings

- you just can't escape
the gaze of the famous

And what drives this
mad merry-go-round

is the simple desperate
craving - to be famous

Performers, actors, people who
become actors want the fame

A star is someone and from the moment
they would get up in the morning,

go in, go to bed at night, they are
obsessed with only one thought,

"How can I be a bigger star
tomorrow than I am today?"

That's what consumes them

I don't think it improves
who they are,

because it's gratuitous the kind
of fame that we're talking about

I mean, it's, by chance, it's flukish

You've done very little to
deserve it, normally

Certainly television fame's like that

I mean, if you're - if you're
Winston Churchill well you

- you've done the bit, you know,
but by and large famous people

are not Winston Churchill

Good morning

Good morning Mr. Figus,
we've been expecting you

Do sit down

Now, I understand that you
wish to become an icon

Is it difficult?

Well, that depends

Would you say that your life has been
marked by an unusual amount of suffering?

Oh yeah, definitely

Drugs? Drink? Sexual addiction?
That sort of thing?

Lots

Excellent. And, would you say that
you feel very vulnerable most of the time,

and would you be prepared to talk about
that at inordinate length?

Oh yeah, no problem
Is that it?

Well, there is one other thing

You have to die young, and preferably
in tragic circumstances

Is that a definite requirement?

I'm afraid it is, yes

Phew. Alright then

Oh I forgot to ask,
have you actually done...?

Oh, never mind
Give me the Daily Mail, will you

Some people are just
dying to be famous

A young actor called Ryan
Martin is one of them

I think it would be a wonderful
thing to be famous

To see people, you know,
happy with your work,

and happy to see your face when
you're walking down the street,

say, "Hello. How are you today?"

I say, "Great. I'm doing good."

They say, "I remember you man
You're the one from"

- you know - "the picture on the screen."

I say, "That's me."

The music is
- was an off-shot

I kinda - got a little bit
disgusted with acting for

about two years
- two or three years

A couple of weeks ago
when I came out here,

I mean no one even looked at me,

you know, it's very humbling
very humbling

I'll do whatever it takes
I mean, I don't care

I wanna be famous, you know

That's all - that's what
it's all about

If Ryan wants his face
plastered all over Sunset Boulevard,

he'll have to impress
someone like Mali Finn

She's one of the world's
leading casting directors,

she persuaded James Cameron to cast
Leonardo di Caprio in Titanic

and Curtis Hanson to give Russell Crow
his big break in LA Confidential

I think that anybody
can be famous,

and I don't think you have to have
the face of a Leonardo di Caprio

or of a Mark Damon to
- to be famous,

I think you simply have to have
a face that is distinctive

Not surprisingly, she knows exactly
what kind of faces she likes

See, some of these guys don't
have a distinct enough look

OK. See this is - this is something that
just doesn't do anything for me at all

Again - some of these look like
they are - are - they're so

- there's some
typically contemporary

Rick Edwards is
an ex-Chippendale

He's come out to
Hollywood for one thing

I would like to walk down the
street and have people say,

"Hey, look at -
that's Rick Edwards."

Well I can't speak for everybody,
but I would assume or imagine that

- that a little boost on the ego,
when you first get started,

and you first start getting recognised,
it must be great

Three years ago I joined Chippendales
and I was on the US National Tour

That was a - a great time
A different city every day

You're travelling around in a tour bus
Different State every week

Being on stage. Bright lights
Screaming women. It's just the job

He's now working as the Scotch whisky
Ambassador for Los Angeles Orange County,

so of course he wears a kilt

It's not Disneyland where we're
dressing up as a character

What it is is, the kilt
is a very formal wear,

and the Scotch company I work
for is a very formal company,

and so it's no different than
if I was wearing a tuxedo

- doing it, but because
it's Scotland,

and it's Scotch Whisky,
it's the Scottish tuxedo

"Ladies and gentlemen
the next Scotch that

we're gonna sample tonight is
the Johnnie Walker Gold Label

This one specifically just splits my kilt.

"This is my favourite one right here
It's very smooth

You're going to detect
a lot of..."

When I was seventeen years old,
I enlisted in the army

Spent six years in the army
as a paratrooper

My nickname all through
the army was "Hollywood"

That's my drill sergeants called me

That's what everybody
in my unit called me

- "Hollywood" - that was my name

And in 1992, when I got out
of the army I figured

"Do I wanna go back to lowa or Minnesota?
Go to Hollywood."

So as they say in Scotland, our toast of
Slangiva which means Good Health

and Happiness to you everybody. Slangiva
Good Health and Happiness to you."

Unfortunately for Rick,
the Hollywood the competition's tough

There's an estimated
six million actors,

every one of them trying to
get their face noticed

A fair number of them are filed
in Mali Finn's office

This is where everything just
gets spread out all over the place

We have file drawers here

We have African
American men/women here

Actors with tattoos. Bikers
We have speciality men down here

Foreign actors. Martial artists
Musicians. We have teams here

Models and Asian Actors. Boys, girls,
so, this is the work space

How many pancakes
do you want Mary?

How many pancakes?
Yeah

Michael Rix is another young actor
who wants his face to be famous

It's cool, you know going down
the street and seeing head on a big,

giant billboard with -
premiering a movie, and everything

It makes - it does make
a lasting impression,

but it makes more of a lasting
impression that's really good

Did you sleep OK? I live with
my two great-aunts

I actually hadn't seen
'em since I was a child,

and I kinda ended up here because
one of them broke their hip,

so, I'm here and I take
care of them - rent's free

And - it - it keeps me grounded

I - I play basketball regularly

It's something, it's another
form of expression for me

I play with a lot of passion

I'm not Michael Jordan but - you know
- I don't like losing

I came here, because it felt like
I had a void in my life

I worked at the Ford Motor Company
as an assembly man, for four years

I just didn't wanna grow
old doing a repetitious job

Gosh put - the thing - man,
I - I put it all off

It's so simple it sounds dumb
But all Michael,

Ryan and Rick have to have
is a face that Mali Finn likes.

I don't think he's
classically handsome enough

There's a long face with
this jaw that sticks out here

His eyes are most liquid
- of all of these

It looks as though it's going to be
an enlightening meeting for all of them

Film, television, magazines
Faces, Faces, Faces

Why? Actually, the people who
first realised how important

faces are to us were in advertising,
because they discovered,

early on, that faces
sold things,

and that famous faces
sold things even better

But why? What's underlying this obsession
of ours with famous faces?

Well, maybe part of the answer
is to be found here

Faces are virtually all that we draw
when we're first given a pen or a brush

Now, these children aren't painting
pictures of Roberts, Cruise or di Caprio

The most famous people around them,
are their mothers and fathers

They just have some paint,
same colours of paint

Four colours, and they have
- they're each doing in a circle,

but if you look at the circles,
and the noses and the eyes,

each face has their own personality
on them, which is like a footprint,

a fingerprint - the child's style,
and it's imbued with their own emotions,

and their own experience of
their mother looking at them

The mother's face is telling
them how she feels about them

Crucial to live to know
that mother loves you

They're interested
in the pop stars

They're interested in princes,
but I think they draw the person

that's showing experience
that is significant in that face

there is a faces
oh, is me!

Our obsession with famous
faces isn't a new phenomenon

It began a hundred and
forty thousand years ago,

when our modern minds
were being formed

Most of the important things
that happened to human beings

happened during our remote history

The history of civilised
human beings is so brief

that it's not had any time
to affect our minds,

so we still have stone-age minds
living in silicon-age bodies

Lots of animals live in social
groups, with a social structure,

including us, and if you do that
you have to know the boss guy,

you have to know one another, but
particularly you have to know the boss guy

You have to have someone
that you want to look up to,

that you actually enjoy
looking up to because

he kind of takes responsibilities,
and you have to recognise him

So, fame is one way in which
you recognise somebody

in a crowd who isn't just one of those
sitting around there just like you,

but he's the guy up there, and that
is nice for the guys up there,

but actually the rest
of people down there,

are also glad that there
is someone up there

So, as your tribe got larger,
so large that

now you couldn't know everybody
in it, it became possible,

for the very first time,
for someone whose face

you've never seen before to have
a major influence over your life

So, how could you know what this
very important person looked like?

Well, the only place you could
see their face was here - on money

Another famous JC

Good day

Good day

I'd like to have my
head on a coin

Well - who are you?

I'm a peasant but an
outstanding one

Alright. Well, there's three
things you've gotta do

You've gotta pay me twenty groats,
and then, you've gotta fill out this form

Thank you

Thank you

What's the third thing?

Well, then you have
to become King

Have you got a pamphlet
on how to become King?

Yeah, there's a box at the back

Oh

The other way that you could have
your face in a public place

for people to see what you looked
like was to put up one of these

And the great advantage was that
you'd be surrounded by other statues

- most of them of Gods - which made
it clear how special you were

But you see no dress designers

No footballers
No - restaurant critics

And let's not forget,
no chat show hosts

Ladies and gentlemen
It's the Julius Caesar Show

And on tonight's show the King
of the Senate, Mark Antony,

the King of the Coliseum, Maxius Lucius
And here's Julius

Thank you, thank you so much

Until recently, if you were famous,
you were powerful - seriously powerful

Life and death powerful
In fact, in medieval Europe,

the only thing that really
mattered was your power,

not what you actually
looked like

In those days, if they
wanted an image of the king,

they took anybody's face,
and I mean anybody's,

stuck a crown on it, and wrote
the name of the king underneath

It seems extraordinary to us,
but they didn't expect

a portrait of the king
to look like him,

and we have to wait until 1500 for
the first portrait of an English king,

and this is Henry the seventh,
it was Henry the eighth there,

that was actually painted from life,
and looked like him

His left eye looks a bit odd
- was that the painter or His Majesty?

Take the greatest ever
- William Shakespeare,

here at the National
Portrait Gallery

Did he actually look like this?

Well, we don't know, cos there's
academic squabbling about

whether this was painted from life
or painted after he died from memory

And here's the point
- it's Shakespeare,

and we've got one dodgy
picture of him - one!

And the reason why famous
faces weren't well known?

Well, they just didn't
have the technology.

Thank you Alfonso, excellent

Thank you Sir
Excuse me Sir, the paparazzi are outside

Do you want me to - shall we give
them a couple of minutes?

If we must

That's it. That's enough for tonight
Thank you

If you wanna be famous today you
start out with a photograph,

a simple eight-by-ten photo
called a head shot is the fuel

which powers the whole fame machine

Head shots - actors send out
to casting directors

On the back of the
head shot it'll say,

"Went to college. He can fence
He can ride horseback. Speaks a little..."

All these are lies

"Speaks a lot of languages
Is a great story flair"

blah, blah, blah
On the front is the head shot,

and you're hoping
someone will say,

"Wait a minute. That's kinda
- let me see that guy."

Head shots are important in Hollywood
because looks are important in Hollywood

The look is the only thing
that anyone remembers

People often forget
what somebody's been in

What someone's name is

What someone's resume says,
but they see the face,

they suddenly get terribly excited

You know, if you have a Ferrari you want
to show it off to people and say,

"Hey look, I've got a great
Ferrari here you know,

and look at the brochure
This is beautiful."

And you wanna say
"Well I've got a good face

This is what I look like
Put me in something."

This is again your call

So, if you want to have a famous face,
Mali Finn has to like it

We're looking for one thing only

We're looking for warriors,
and that somebody who has very strong,

frightening facial features that
just jump off the page at you

A lot of handsome guys here,
that look a - ooh! There we are

It's very easy when you look at head
shots to say "OK this person's it."

You can see it in the face

And other faces it's like you
see the mischievous eyes,

or you see the dimples,
or you see some distinctive feature,

but something's happening
there that says,

"Ho ho, I wanna - I wanna
get to know this person

I - you know
- I like what I see here."

So how long have you got
to get your face noticed?

On average, nearly half a second

These are mine, so of course
they're all brilliant.

Actually I've never put him here

So for Michael, Ryan and Rick,
that means a trip to see the king

of the Hollywood head shot,
Kevin Major Howard,

who makes a virtue out of working
at the back of his garage with no lights

I don't pursue the lighting schedule of
a studio photograph. It's portraiture

Here Ryan I want you
just doing this

Look straight ahead like this

I think because of the style that
I shot in I have enabled the industry

- the actor within the industry

- to really get authenticity
about whom he is,

or she is, to the performance
level that when people

look at my work they actually feel
that they're meeting that person

How's the career going?
It's going good

Yes?
It's going very good yeah

Tell me what's been going on?

Well I - I - I - I - well just
- just kinda moving along, you know

What I try to do with
available light is just

that's the light that's
God given us

It's what we look like
everyday of our lives

Every minute we walk somewhere
Let's use that light

Rick, what I want you to do here
You're gonna start off this way

Like - like this
Butt back in the chair, just hang out

Really nice. You know who you
remind me of a little bit?

Eric Robert

No, Ray Leota

I hear that

It would be smart for you to actually
to take your eight-by-ten,

find - send it to Ray Leota, send it to
Ray Leota's manager, and his agent

Well, Ray Leota...

Photo double

We - not - no...

You could be cast simply as
his brother, or twin

I like to recreate in the camera
what I physically see in life

When you and I both meet
we look into each other's eyes

When we do such things, our ears are
not in focus, Our shirt is not in focus,

this background is not in focus,
so I really try to record

that authenticity
within the photograph

For instance, when you look in my eyes,
you see that relationship

but that's not being in focus

It's the same thing I'm trying
to create in this photograph

You can see her eyes
They really come off the page

But it's because of I've
shown you within the camera

that illusion of our ears are
not in focus, like hers are not

The clothing is not in focus,

and so all you get is her representation
of who she is authentically

OK, Michael. Kevin Major Howard,
nice to meet you

My favourite...

Nice to meet you. Right, what I want
you to do is sit up with

Pan down just a little
Oh yeah

Good Michael. Good. Right there
Where are you from, Michael?

Eh, Detroit, Michigan

Detroit?
Yeah

How long you been out here?
Eh, three years

You're a baby out here?
Yes I am

And how's it going?
Eh, it's steady

Photography gave birth to me more
the concept of a famous face,

but the people having their picture
taken a century and a half ago,

when the camera was first invented,
had actually done something significant

Well, the Victorian era
was one of rapid change,

of technological developments,
not only in things like photography,

but the development of the railways,
the canal systems,

and people looked after the sort
of makers and shapers of that era,

and wanted to record their
impact on that world

and the best way to do it was
through that idea of eminence,

that portrayal of biography

and the promotion of the image
through the photograph

Local clerics were
incredibly popular

So they had - they were sort of local
celebrities in their own right

There were writers, scientists,

the sort of leading figures
of the new technologies

You're on my toe

Sorry

The next development, which led to
the democratisation of fame,

was the revolution in publishing

Now, one of the things
that emerged was

a whole genre of
celebrity publications,

and they were called things
like "Men of Mark"

"Men and Women in the Women
in the Day", "Our Celebrities",

"Living Celebrities" and their titles
give away really people's responses,

and attitudes to - to what was
in those - those albums

So now we've got photographs
and the popular press

Well, the third invention to transform
the human face is the movies,

because you try and think of all
the famous faces that you can

- I bet about half of them are movie
stars, and yet, here's the odd thing

When movies first started, from the point
of view of the actors' faces,

it wasn't that different
from going to the theatre

To prove the point, here's an
old piece of film from 1909

showing one of my acting ancestors,
Sir Stilton Cleese, playing the Dane

To be, or not to be?
That is the question

When movies first started,
they looked a bit like theatre,

because they were filmed in a wide shot
But that didn't last very long

Movie-makers soon came up
with the close up,

and fame and the face were
never the same again

The close up I think changed everything
because suddenly you were

looking at a different head than
you'd ever seen before

You were looking at a giant head
I see your head

You're what? Six five? Six six?
You have the head of a man that height

That's all I ever see. I don't see
a head like this. That is Godlike

That brings it kind of importance

"My God, he's fifty feet high

He must be able to be
champion of the world

He must be better than
anybody else

And the first person to experience what
that was like was Charlie Chaplin

He was for a period of time the most
famous man in history because in Africa,

they would run his one-
and two-reelers on sheets,

so the natives in Africa could see him,
and so there was no place on earth

where he could go where
his face wasn't famous,

and I don't think that
had happened before

Chaplin had just happened
and he was beautiful in a way

That famous shot at the
end of City Lights,

and that face, that smile
that he makes,

that ends and irises
out of the movie

It's an amazing shot. It's - but it
only works because of his face

And its power only became
evident when he came back

to Britain for the
first time, in 1921

And remember, England's
a little country

When he left, he was an unknown guy who
went and he toured America for a while,

and suddenly this thing
happened in that prop room,

when he discovered the
character of a tramp

I mean, it's a very, you can't
fabricate - you can't repeat it

And suddenly he was coming home, and it
was, you know, to their little place,

and my God they went nuts,
didn't they?

Because, he was returning to us
It was like the prodigal's son coming back

Where Chaplin went, everyone else followed
But now it's all much quicker

There's this insatiable appetite
for famous faces,

driven by the inexorable
expansion of modern media

The media has changed the
concept of fame

There's just so much more media
than there ever was before

Not just because of television
and radio, but because of the Internet,

because of this vast proliferation
of magazine publishing, and they need faces

They need - they need to have something,
an image, to put on their cover,

and inside it's gonna make you,
the reader, stop and pause and look

So this desire to be famous
is matched by this machinery

that says we need famous faces

We need famous faces or faces
that we can make famous

because that's somehow the
- the fuel on which all of this operates

The magazine cover that everybody
wants their face on is Vanity Fair,

the ultimate barometer of how
famous your mush really is

In terms of celebrity - in terms of
Hollywood is a very important cover to get

To get yourself on that cover it kind
of signifies that you've arrived

It's Jude Laws' turn to be
officially declared famous

on this cover of Vanity Fair

But how much of this great British
actor did they really want?

...all great covers, they are all great
covers, I think we need to come in...

On a beautiful face

On a beautiful face

There you get the eye contact,
which is nice

This one's the best one that
shows intensity on the face,

and the different kind
of character he could do

I love these large
- these larger scale...

I think they always look
so much better on news-stand

It's whether they can
sell magazines

Whether there's something instantly
appealing about their face

that's going to get them
on the magazine cover

Not that they're particularly
good at what they do

I mean, how often do you
see Woody Allen

on the cover of a magazine,
for example?

How often do you see any of
the really powerful directors?

When's the last Martin Scorsese
cover you saw in Vanity Fair?

Well, you didn't see one
because why would they?

That's not the nature of fame

Michael, Ryan and Rick are still some
way from the cover of Vanity Fair,

but today they have a once
in a lifetime chance

to get a bit closer,
by meeting Mali Finn

I'm very excited about it

It reminds me of a Shakespearean
quote from Taming of the Shrew,

Petruchio, goes Such wind as scatters
young men through the world

to seek their fortunes further than
at home where small experience grows

Ryan is definitely a character actor

He would never play a leading man
role for me at the get go

I have thrust myself into this maze
happily to arrive and thrive as best I may

He has almost hawk-like
round nose here

Crowns in my purse I have,
and goods at home

Very tight, little thin lips

And so I'm come abroad
to see the world

Very squinty eyes

I'm very excited. I hope that she'll
call me in for an interview

His face is so ill proportioned

And cast me in a major motion picture
That's my ultimate goal

His face is a very
closed face to me

What impression do you
think your features get?

Well, my nose is the
first one to the door

So that's an interesting
impression I suppose

You have a very
- very prominent nose...

Yes it...

...a very hawk-like nose
There are other noses like that

It is a very big nose,
and it's - and - and it's

- it's one of those features
that stands out immediately, and

- and it's going to - it could either
limit you in terms of what you apply,

which naturally will - to a great extent,
but there - also because

- because it is so prominent,
actors have had prominent, you know,

features that have - that have
really made them stand out, so

You have crooked teeth
Crooked teeth yeah

I love crooked teeth
Oh really

Yeah - yeah - yeah - yeah
They're very good teeth

Very crooked. That works fine
OK

They work for you
That's good

And very big ears
Yeah

That you're hiding right now
And probably a smart thing to do

No, so I imagine the comedy,
you know, the comedic characters and

- and every once in a while,
the nasty side kick

Yeah

I feel a little humbled

It was very shocking and I felt
a bit uncomfortable at first

because I'd never had anyone done
it before you know, but it was

- it was - refreshing to
have someone so honest

and so professional to
really confront you with

what you need to do to
be successful or unsuccessful

I think it's a great opportunity

Rick's face is more
beautifully proportioned

I'm just looking forward to it

It's a stronger, fuller,
wider jaw line

I think I can get a lot
of direction from her

This eye looks like it's
a little bit smaller

She'll kind of give me
a - her opinion

Both of them have quite
- large foreheads

Her ideas. A recommendation maybe

There's an openness about his face

If you were the casting director,
how would you cast yourself?

What kind of roles?

Probably a kind of soap opera type
- maybe leading man

Soap opera leading man

Sure

Why do you say that?
Be specific about that

Um?

In terms of your eyes,
your lips, your nose...

Shape of the face

I've been told I have
striking features

Ahum

You know, so

Well, everything is
- very well proportioned

You have these beautiful
eyebrows here

You have this - you know,
you have this strong jaw line, and

- and you have - you have
- looks like you know your ears and your

- your cheek bones, everything
seems very well proportioned

Your face is too pretty for me
And I would put you in a soap opera

You would?
Yes, I would

So you kinda agree with me, then?

Yes I do. I do. And I think that's
a good place to start

We could start it in soap operas, Meg Ryan
A lot of people started in soap operas

They do...

...But don't come to me until you
get a few bruises and you know,

until you have a scar on your

And until, you know, your teeth
are a little crooked...

A little chip in the tooth?

Exactly. I want all of those things
Right

Because I really like real faces,
and that's what I try to populate

my films with, are faces that have
blemishes, and have a reality to them

It's terrible to look at
somebody's face and say,

"Your face doesn't look real."
You know...

I felt a connection just talking
to her, and felt a lot of honesty

It's just a vibe. It was a great
vibe sitting in there

For my special play it's gonna go
real well, I'm gonna make sure of that

I don't know whether he
has any of the stupid features

that are going to really
mark him as a film

It's very important, you know,
being an up and coming actor

to meet as many casting
directors as you can

His face is more perfectly
proportioned than Ryan's

The more casting directors
you meet, of course, the better

His eyes are the most
liquid of - of all of these

This is like - like a piece
of pie like golden

He would definitely play the
supporting, the best friend of in films

It could really skyrocket your career
almost over night if - if they like you

There's a - a sweetness
and an openness about his face

Talk to me a little bit
about - how

- what kind of roles you
think you'll play?

Leading man. I've got
a very domineering presence

And how do you see your face?
Tell me about your face

Talk to me about...

My eyes are piercing
My - my smile is enticing

You have beautiful teeth

Yes, I have very beautiful teeth
Never had any cavities

And you have very full lips

Yes... Carry on,
you'll make me blush

Good

I can be just as kind-looking on the wing
and too can I say Lucifer himself

I perhaps would never cast
you in a mean-spirited

or villainous or bad guy
role initially.

Well, that's good

I would - yeah - I've been
quite blunt with you

I don't know if you're gonna play
the leading man. You may.

Right

Usually I - I think of leading men
has having something that is

- that is - that has - of someone who
has something very facially distinctive

the minute they walk in, that just
really holds my attention

She told me that she didn't really
see me in a leading man type,

and that deflated me, because I
- I always thought me as that, but,

then I thought about it, you know,
most really, really,

great actors are supporting,
they help and I'm good so

I'm - I'm inflated now about the
- you know - the interview but yes,

initially I was a little
- I guess inside myself

- a little disappointed
to what she said

Not that she said anything wrong,
it was just different

from the way I viewed myself

But, I'm a very optimistic person,
and I can work with what I get

So, which face will Mali choose?
Would she go for number one,

Ryan who has a nose for Shakespeare?
Or what about number two, Rick?

Would she go all soapy about his
pretty-boy looks? Or is it number three,

Michael, who thinks
he's a bit of a devil,

but does he have the
face of an angel?

Michael has a face that
invites me in immediately

There are - his eyes as
he says - and he said

"I have piercing eyes"
and he's absolutely right

And his wonderful warm smile. I would
use Michael more than the other two

I remember one last thing about fame
It's luck. It's luck

Almost every movie star that
we could mention got famous

because they had a good part in a hit
movie that someone else turned down

So they didn't, basically,
except for a man like Stallone

who wrote his own part,
or Ben and Matt Damon,

who wrote their own parts in Goodwill
Hunting, stars become stars by accident,

and they know that, and that
insecurity goes with them for ever

And what's waiting for Michael
if his face does become famous?

I mean, when I came here to
America eighteen years ago,

and I did Remington Steele, I remember
when Remington started coming out

on TV going through the shopping
mall with the - the family,

and you know somebody would recognise
me and my kids, my children,

would say, "Dad, someone
recognised you."

And I'd say, "Where, where..."
And it makes you swell doesn't it

It makes you feel good, you know

I think the biggest emotional effect
was when my Estee Lauder campaign

started kicking in, and I was
in South Africa making a movie,

and I went into a mall, and suddenly
there were enormous posters

of myself selling the perfume
Pleasures, mascaras and stuff,

and they were massive,
I was completely freaked out,

it was so weird that I felt
embarrassed to be standing there

and looking at myself in case someone
saw me, and to this day I still feel,

you know, in the front of the
magazines where all the ads are?

And so if I'm sitting
on an aeroplane,

I, of course I want
to look at the ads,

number one I love
other people's ads

and number two I want to
have a look at my own,

but I could never dare to open
the beginning of a magazine

in case an air hostess walks
past just as I'm looking at myself

I've found that the greatest
single advantage of it is

that it gets me to meet people
I wouldn't otherwise meet

Oh yes, much of them, sure, oh,

you can think of lots of advantages,
I mean like money

Oh yes!

I think it's part of
a business deal

You know, I think it's very
similar to you know,

if I give you, you know,
a book - from my bookshelf,

it doesn't mean you can come and
take as many books you want any time,

and that if I go to a premier,
to publicise my film,

you'll take some photographs,
sell them and make some money,

my film will be publicised, and that's
- that seems like a fair deal to me

I don't see why, that suddenly
means you can put a lens

through my bathroom window

I think once - once people identify
certain characteristics in you,

and fame sort of inflates
all that, you know

You have to be famous
for something

- I'm famous possibly
for being nice

- being agreeable,
for being genial

So a lot of people
project onto me,

"Oh he'd be very sympathetic
about this, that, and the other."

...They see a kind of completely
simplified version of what you really are

The trouble with fame is that
you can't ever switch it off,

which is why I like spending time
in Santa Barbara,

a small town in California well
clear of Los Angeles

I like the relative anonymity I have
here, I can walk down the street

and nobody really
takes any notice

Back in London, well, I enjoy being
recognised by the people

who live and work in
my local community,

like the Greek Cypriot fellows
who run the local greengrocers

What are these Turkish
cherries then?

What?

Turkish stuff you've got here?
Does your mother know?

Is my mum here?

No. Flash of alarm there

Seriously, what do you think
of the black cherries?

They're nice
The black cherries are nice, yeah

Oh well give me about
a half a pound

Give me about half a pound?

Hold on, you haven't paid for those
Unfortunately we know where you live, mate

So, you can't get away

If you're as slow as that,
you don't deserve to get paid

Oooh

Right, out we go
Do you wanna bag?

No - no the hands
are working just...

You see, that's the kind of recognition
I like, and I think everyone does,

because it makes you feel part of
the community, you know,

to those guys I'm just the man who
lived round the corner for years

and who apparently is sometimes on
the television, which is - is great,

cos it feels natural, and they
know me a bit, so it's real,

whereas this business of getting
recognised from the television

- to be totally honest, I've never been
a hundred per cent comfortable with it,

because it feels, well, artificial
I mean, they don't know who I actually am

You shot him!

Only a bit

In this frenetic, crowded,
yet socially isolated modern world,

the ability to quickly spot
a famous face is essential

If you lived in a - in a village
of three hundred people you knew

who the squire was, and the doctor
was, and all that,

and so everybody had a role, and everybody
recognised who they were,

even if you were the
ploughman's boy, you know,

people knew who you were and what
you did, and why you were there

When you live in this enormous
anonymous aggregation of,

I don't know how many million people
there are in Greater London,

but it's a heck of a lot, and nobody,
you don't know when you get on

the tube unless you've been travelling
on it with three other people

for the past fifteen years, you don't
know who you're sitting next to

You don't know what they do
They are anonymous

So by and large you avert your eyes,
you don't want to recognise them

They are - and so you listen
to your Walkman

You do actually need to - to have
somebody who you recognise

It's as well as your friends,
or - or and so a famous person is

- is useful to you because you
orientate yourself towards him, and

- and see yourself within the
social structure, with him up there

Here's my take on it

I think most of us today aren't
quite sure what our life means

or what the purpose of it is

And then we see someone over there,
and everyone's looking at them,

and we think to ourselves,
"They must know something that I don't"

Well, unfortunately they don't

Whereas back when Florence
Nightingale, Duke of Wellington,

Abraham Lincoln were famous,
well, they had something to say,

they were seriously interesting

Which is perhaps why we now put
them on our bank notes,

but I can't help wondering who
are we gonna be putting on

our bank notes in
a hundred years' time?

How about Posh and
Beck's on a fiver?

Or maybe George Clooney
on a dollar bill?

We still have the same notions
of fame in a modern society

as we did in ancestral
hunter-gatherer societies

but the whole thing has been
hugely amplified

and detached from the reality
of our own everyday lives

What seems to be happening is
that we're - our brains our wired up

so that fame is assumed to be a
result of high achievement

In the modern world that's not the
case but our brains are still

operating on the basis of a world
where fame was something you earned

So all the trivia on these racks,
all this obsession with air-brushed

show business pond life, clear example
of evolutionary wiring gone wrong,

because all these very famous people

don't have a single idea between them
that will help your lives

So my advice is - ignore 'em
Don't listen to a single word they say

Ryan Martin is still playing
his guitar in Santa Monica

and stacking shelves in a
supermarket to make ends meet

He's just finished playing Hamlet
in the Redonda Beach Players Winter Season

Rick Edwards has auditioned for a
number of roles in daytime soap operas

He's not been cast yet,
but he continues to represent

Scotland's main interest on
the west coast of America

Michael Rix has been
cast by Mali Finn

as a warrior in a sequel
smash hit movie

The Matrix.

Action
No, no, no, no, no

They're wrong?

They're wrong,
they're wrong. Oh