Original subtitles

For me, drawing is definitely a way of saying, "Look at this,

"what do you think of this?

"How does that make you feel?"

"Look at where that tree sits on that hill."

Or, "look at the way that creature fits into the landscape."

"Look at how it all works together, all these lines."

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse... Has been on the best

seller's list for a frankly ridiculous number of weeks.

It's just stunningly beautiful.

I found it really emotional, I burst into tears

when I was reading the book.

This thing sold more than a million copies and readers are feeling

a real special connection.

The way I did the book was in a dip pen, so I'd dip it in ink.

And it's a thin nib, the harder you press, the thicker it becomes.

I like the fact that it often it's really imperfect

and it's permanent.

I like the risk, I think, and the strength of it, the darkness

of it, just feels free and expressive.

This is the story of a book that's touched readers around the world.

One of my new favourite books, it's called The Boy, The Mole,

The Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy.

How did a first time author create a publishing phenomenon?

And how do you turn a book without a story, as such, into a film?

"What do you think success is?" asked the boy.

"To love," said the mole.

Charlie's book started out

as a series of sketches in 2018.

It was a couple of years before the pandemic arrived.

I was doing loads of drawings and putting them on Instagram

and people would emotionally respond.

And I got very stuck on the boy and the mole and then obviously

the horse came along and the fox.

I looked forward to posting daily and it was like measuring the pulse

of where people were, and, you know, because sometimes on your own

it's quite hard.

It was all reciprocal because people said they got so much from them

and I got so much from their comments.

So it was a really lovely thing.

And you could feel their energy.

I could feel their desire for it to become something.

You know, social media can be a really wonderful thing

sometimes, a great community.

The things that people were sharing are potentially things

that they weren't necessarily sharing in their own lives,

but he had created this safe space through the works

that he was posting.

The mission was to start positive conversations

around mental health, around how we were feeling

and I had a real sense of urgency that it was an important thing

that needed to happen.

Charlie's growing social media following played an important part

in the success of the book.

There was a critical point for me with social media because now it's,

you know, like, 1.5 million people is a lot of people.

And, in a way, when it was like, you know, not so many, you recognise

people and I could chat and say, "I've posted a drawing."

And so everyone felt like they were contributing

and were part of the journey towards the book.

I was always worried that I was over-posting or posting

too many of one thing.

I will always be really grateful to everyone

on it because they helped me so much...

..in the development and processing of everything that's in the book.

Everything.

I think the reason why Charlie's work is relatable is because

it contains these universal truths.

Each pairing of words and picture that he creates in the book,

they speak to us quite deeply and they reveal these fundamental

ideas that we have about ourselves.

I think people really related to the book during the pandemic

because we were all looking for something to comfort us.

It was an unprecedented time to live through and the kind of words

and the sentiments in Charlie's book obviously struck a chord with people

and enabled them perhaps to feel better about what was going on.

"The boy is full of questions and the mole is greedy for cake.

"The fox is mainly silent and wary because he's been hurt by life.

"The horse is the biggest thing they've ever encountered

"and also the gentlest."

One of Charlie's friends and collaborators is film-maker

Richard Curtis, who encouraged him to write the book.

How old are you?

59. Nice.

Why is that nice?

You're just a bit younger than me.

Not much.

That is the strange thing about friendship, is it needs

circumstances, doesn't it?

And the characters in your book are thrown by a journey...

Yeah. ..together by chance.

And, as it were, we knew each other for years

and then we ended up in the same village.

And that's, as it were, our journey.

And now we're together forever because we're on that

particular road.

Remind me of the name of the book?

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox And The Horse.

It's just so hard to remember the order.

It is, but if you think of terms of chronology,

it's the first the boy and then the mole appears.

Then the fox and the horse. Everyone gets it wrong, I don't really mind.

Doesn't matter, as long as they're all mentioned.

I don't think they mind. They don't exist.

What do you mean, they mind?

They're all just you.

That's true, that's true.

I do think they exist, though, that's the problem.

But your obsessive iteration of those things must have meant

that you were incredibly interested

in those particular relationships?

That that idea of someone who offers you advice or someone who offers

you protection or someone who stays distant?

I mean, why do you think you landed on those four?

Because there were lots of other characters, there's a penguin

and a polar bear, there are other creatures on the edges.

But I always just came back to those four because I think

they're very particular and they're all very

different from each other.

In a funny way, they are both who you are and what you need.

Very innocent, like the boy, but you'd also love life

to be simpler and less painful. Yes.

And the mole is like a really good friend that you need.

But then he's also, in some ways, like you, he's full of wisdom

and he's funny and he pops up all the time.

I mean, I think they both are you and are what you need.

Yeah, I think you're right, I think they are what I need...

Definitely.

I remember talking to a friend about what courage was,

and he was all for climbing mountains.

And I think that's a type of courage.

But I remember thinking, well, the bravest thing I ever did

was when I was really struggling, and I said, "I'm really struggling."

Charlie has been a best friend and a brother since I was a teenager.

We met on a summer camp originally and instantly found a kindred spirit

in Charlie, somebody who I think, bit more of a misfit together.

I think the last few years has been incredibly

tough on everybody.

There's no-one who hasn't been affected by it, and I think

it's been a time of great loneliness and a lot of anxiety

more than ever before and his book has been a book of its time.

Seeing your best friend succeed is a very beautiful thing, you know?

And truth is, it's a, as I say, 25-year overnight success.

You know, he's been inspiring and helping

and being that inspiration to people for decades.

It actually makes me quite emotional to think about it.

People just think he's, you know, he's a writer or they're cartoons.

But actually his... You look at some of

his beautiful, beautiful paintings

over many years and his sculptures, they are stunning and they make

people cry when they see them because they're always rooted

in love and redemption and holding each other and connection.

I do really remember after my dad died, when I was in my mid-20s,

and just really struggling at that time.

And I remember saying to him, I said, "The weird thing is,

"is that people always sort of think I'm strong.

"And the truth is I'm not and I'm really struggling at the moment."

And he would often then, a day or so later, send me little drawings

he would do, just encouraging stuff.

And I remember him doing one along those lines,

saying you need help is brave.

One of the things that struck me about Charlie's work on Instagram

is the instant emotional connection it had with people.

It certainly, for me, I found it a very moving experience.

Looking at his work on Instagram and thinking,

"My gosh, there could be something here, there could be something

"that we could collect these images into these artworks, into a book

"and introduce him to even more people."

The process of making the book began with us, considering how the book

should look and feel in someone's hand.

And it was really important to Charlie that the book reflected

how the original artworks looked.

I don't think any of us at the beginning knew

what it would really entail.

I got a call from Laura from Penguin and she said,

"There's a guy called Charlie, he's produced all of this work.

"He's just had an exhibition, can you go and meet him?"

I popped over one morning.

It's freezing cold, a February morning,

and we sat out in the garden and we had this really

wonderful morning together.

I had meetings for the rest of the day all lined up and ended

up cancelling all of them and just ended up spending time

just talking about everything.

And then Charlie said, "Oh, I'll just go and get

"what I've got for the book."

So he went into the house and he wheeled out this wheelbarrow,

which is full of these drawings, and I thought, "Maybe it's not

"going to be a week's work."

He started talking about the book and his relationship

with his community online and what it was all about.

At that point, Charlie already had a fairly significant

following on social media, so his work was almost being

demanded by that community.

We sat in the garden.

Colm, we kind of agreed we'd try and make a treasure

that was not about selling anything, but was going to help people, right?

Yeah. Colm just said, "Oh, we'll put it together in a day or so."

And then, so began this journey where we just slowly, over time,

arranged the book.

It was a long journey, and because, you know, essentially,

there was hundreds and probably thousands of drawings.

It was a process of elimination more than it was construction.

It was like pulling things out, saying, that's not relevant,

that's not relevant, until eventually we were left with

the bare essentials.

Yeah, we spoke about, like, creating like an object, something

that has this energy to it, no matter how much it's reproduced.

And I think all of that energy comes from, like, putting

all of this work into it, like, you know, it was kind of like

lots and lots of time and patience.

See, all these, these are all, like, all these pads

are full of mistakes.

That's the thing, you're looking at basically a sea of error.

And out of which, if you keep going, you'll find something that's worth

keeping, but it's mainly error.

So what I started with deeply was, out of all these drawings trying

to find, choose them that feel they have meaning,

that they take you on a journey.

"What is that over there?" asked the boy.

"It's the wild," said the mole.

"Don't fear it."

I was brought up in Northumberland and lived in the landscape.

As a boy, I used to stand on a hill and look at the horizon a quarter,

or half a mile away and say, if I get to that wood,

I wouldn't be able to see myself from here, I'd be part of it.

So I'd pick a spot in the distance and then walk to it and then sit

down and think, "I'm now invisible to where I was before."

I love the idea that you can be immersed in something so much

bigger than yourself.

For the book, part of why I've loved doing drawings of landscape

is just to share the love of it, really.

And animals and nature generally.

Because I think, you know, there's part of us deeply trusts it.

Animals are such a great medium, really, for storytelling.

Children can relate to them.

You know, I think children are natural animal lovers.

There's a special relationship between children and animals.

They have this very direct connection, very responsive

connection to animals and the natural world.

I think all books that contain words and pictures are relatable

to a wide audience.

Even very young children can look at pictures

and understand them.

I really like the expressiveness of Charlie's drawing.

It makes us sort of feel that it's effortless,

and actually, there's a whole lifetime of draughtsmanship

has gone into the way those drawings unfold and the many times

that he's drawn those characters and, you know, this sort

of fluidity to them.

Books like Charlie's are really rare because he has the ability

to cross over genres.

He has the ability to speak to adults and children,

people of all ages.

The book might bring to mind AA Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh

or Raymond Briggs' Snowman.

Winnie-the-Pooh came at a very similar time

in that it was post-war and it was a very hard

time for everybody.

And Winnie-the-Pooh brought the similar kind of comfort and joy.

Our home is full of so many little drawings of Charlie's

from over the years.

You know, we struggle with anxiety or stress or frustration or anger

or whatever it is, I think Charlie's drawings hit straight

to the heart of actually saying, "It's OK, that's OK."

You know, "Just... Just be honest, it's OK."

And as soon as you kind of let that guard down, of course,

you create connections with people, whether it's around

you or your readers or whatever, and where there's connections,

there's always strength.

"Always remember, you matter.

"You're important and you're loved, and you bring to this world,

"things no-one else can."

The wisdom in Charlie's book has its roots

in his own life experiences.

My parents were both so lovely and really wanted me to get

the best education.

I think at boarding school it was tougher.

You competed far harder and it was an all boys school, a monoculture.

And more Darwinian, you tended to bury your thoughts in yourself.

When you're away from home, it's harder to process stuff

and you get used to internalising things.

At some point I thought I'd really love to just be at home and go

to the state school.

When I was at the state school, there was some lads

who were just openly vulnerable and didn't need to compete so much.

Marie, who was in biology next to me,

I remember her loving the vulnerability of Mark.

I was like, "He's not showing off", and she was like,

"Oh, that's lovely, isn't it? He's so honest.

"He's lovely, isn't he?"

I thought...

..wow.

She liked the fact that he said that he struggled.

I think, for me, I just discovered a whole world of honesty

and communicating emotion.

You know, there's one drawing that's not in the book, where the boy

says, you know, "I haven't really achieved anything, have I?

"What have I actually done?"

The horse says, "Well, you've been a friend,

"and that's a spectacular thing."

Jamie, I met at school, he was hilarious.

And we sort of got each other.

You know, we're kind of semi-feral, rural types.

We just used to muck about on the farm and just eat a lot

of toast and get covered in mud.

Talk about girls and...

..fail at having girlfriends and we just understood each other

and we made each other laugh and he thought I was ridiculous.

And you know how boys are, you know, friends are, you just share

the same connections.

We were just really good friends, you know?

I always remember he had this wreck of a car and I didn't drive

and he was always giving me lifts and we used to listen

to Tom Petty loudly.

Yeah, and just go to the local pub and it was a really good

rural farming community there.

And Jamie and I were sort of part of it, really.

We didn't have big dreams.

We just enjoyed existing.

So, one day, I just got a call from a mutual friend saying...

I was away at the time, actually, I was up north seeing my family.

And he just said, "I just got some news."

I said, "Oh, yeah?"

"Jamie was killed today."

Yeah, came off the road and the car burst into flames.

The funeral was this tiny little church on a hill with loads

of people standing outside.

And I remember one of the guys saying, "Big boys don't cry."

And still hadn't connected with my emotion.

There was a man that Jamie and I had worked with.

He was a big, strong...

..man.

And he came up to me.

He saw me, he walked straight over to me.

He had tears hanging in the bottom of the eyelids.

He looked straight in my eyes and pressed his head against...

He leant and he goes...

"What a bloody waste, Charlie."

"What a bloody waste."

And it was like someone...

..had...

..pulled the ripcord or something in my inner being.

It was an extraordinary experience to suddenly feel...

..everything.

Like, they are red lines in life, but nothing's ever the same again

and that was one of my red lines, Jamie dying,

and wondering why and how and...

I remember it was like a tumble dryer spinning, spinning, spinning.

I went mad for months.

One day you feel nothing and feel bad for not feeling anything.

Oh, he's died.

And the next day, you feel angry or very, very low.

I think the whole idea of grief is unexplored

or under-explored, generally.

That loss, even though it's agony, can awaken in you

something beautiful.

It was a big thing for me, both deep grief and loss

and also this kind of liberation from a certain way of thinking.

His death definitely catalysed me into daring to make

a living from drawing.

Because what have you got to lose, you know?

Really?

I began drawing when I was about 19.

I went to London because my sister had a flat there and she said,

"Oh, just come and sleep on the floor."

So I did.

London in the '80s was very different to how it is now.

It was lighter and sillier and more playful

and I was fascinated by it.

I liked the energy - you could see in Technicolor.

The colours were turned up or it was intense and you could feel so much.

And I liked the massive variation in cultures

and, coming from Northumberland, I'd never seen that before.

I was quite drawn to that.

London for me was so much opportunity.

I did loads of jobs - I was a waiter,

I worked on building sites, I was a hospital porter.

I did anything.

I remember the day I started drawing, I got The Standard

newspaper and I'd been looking in the back pages because there

were jobs there and I couldn't really see anything.

And there was a messy table.

And on that table was a pen.

It was russety red, like a maroon colour.

And I looked at it and I remember just being a bit intrigued by it.

So I picked it up and unscrewed the lid and there's a very thin nib.

And I remember doing a few dots of ink on an envelope with it,

thinking, "Wow, this is a very fine nib, bet you could get some

"detail with this."

And it was a kind of miracle to me the ink could even get down

such a thin nib.

So I took the pen and the paper and wandered across the road and went

into the park and sat under a tree.

I started drawing.

The freedom I felt when I started making the marks

was like a tiny spark to a flame.

There was something here that was intriguing and intoxicating.

I remember drawing some houses with trees in front and loving

the shapes of the trees with the architecture.

I could think when I did it.

Like the process of making art helps you feel and think

and get things in order.

We have these moments in our lives, don't we?

We have these little things

that they come and they grow like mustard seed,

like tiny and then grow.

And that just happened to be it.

It was an amazing journey, but I couldn't... I couldn't seem...

..to stop drawing.

And, you know, I remember someone coming up to me saying,

you know, "Is that for sale?"

And I was like, "Are you...?"

I didn't think they were sellable at the time.

I started selling them, started sitting on streets.

And for four years, I sat on the streets of London, drawing it

and selling straight to strangers.

Even in February, I remember freezing,

I kept doing the drawings and that's how I made a living.

Then, of course, a gallery guy walks past eventually,

stops and he looked at the drawings and said,

"Do you want to come and talk to us?"

I was amazed that a gallery would be interested in me.

I said, "OK". Before I knew it, I was with a gallery.

The gallery took me to New York.

When I was there I went to New Orleans and stayed there

and ended up drawing so much in those clubs.

I liked their energy and they felt very free.

How long did you spend there?

A few months.

It's so hot.

Just sit there and just drip sweat onto the paper, you know,

sit at the back of these clubs.

This Preservation Hall, I remember, in New Orleans was amazing.

The line is a bit of a blur, but just generally splodging

along, renting studios, doing shows with galleries.

I've always loved making people laugh, so that was always...

..like part of me was...

You know, for my mum, my family, my mother's room is just

wall-to-wall ridiculous cartoons.

When I was little, I remember someone saying, "Oh, I can't get

"over your new house, Jane," or whatever.

And I'm thinking, "Are you trying to climb it?

"What do you mean, you can't get over it?"

And so I had this kind of literal, literal brain where people said

to me, and actually, you know,

"Jeffrey's watching the cricket," and I see Jeffrey on his hands

and he's looking at this little insect in the grass.

And so the cartoons have always been in the back of my head,

and largely just to make people smile.

Never done anything with them, really.

"How do they look so together and perfect?" asked the boy.

"There's a lot of frantic paddling going on beneath,"

said the horse.

People see the book or the finished drawings, but they don't see

the thousands, actually tens of thousands of drawings

that didn't work.

Basically, all we're trying to do is create something that makes,

that completely makes visual sense and the words

work with the image.

This one here, "The great illusion," said the mole,

"is that life should be perfect."

I had that, I drew that and I put it... It was behind me.

The ink takes, like, 25 minutes to dry.

And so you can't just put a drawing on top of a drawing

because it just smudges.

So I would arrange more around here.

And then I heard Barney and he just walked right

across it and taken the ink straight across, right across those words.

Those are his paw marks there.

Erm, "The great illusion is that life should be perfect."

And Barney was making the point really that this drawing therefore

should not be perfect.

Most of the time, it was like taking lots of different versions

of this drawing and putting it together.

So we'd say, "Oh, the mole looks big in this,

"or the mole looks better in this drawing."

So we might take three or four different drawings... Yeah.

..and put them together.

That's trying to kind of get a balance of how do you perfect

a messy drawing, essentially? Yeah, exactly.

The reason why I think the ink was important

is because it's very simple.

So we made complex things both visually simple,

and the words as bare as possible, as naked as possible.

I think we're like sponges, you know, and I think we absorb

everything around us and everything is telling us stuff.

And, in the end, you know, you then produce something

in response to all of that information.

All the empathy and anger and frustration and loss and grief

all went into making a cake...

..that we cooked... Yeah.

Erm, which is wholly inadequate and only scratches

the flipping surface of everything.

But it was enough of a little scratch, I think, to help

some people somewhere.

I think if art can repeat something to someone over and over again

by being in a permanent place where it can permanently speak

to you over and over again, say, "You are loved, you are held,

"you are known," I think as symbols, they can feed your...

..your existence.

One of our greatest freedoms is how we react to things.

I think we all liberate each other.

The more vulnerable we can be, the more we set each other free.

And the characters, each one sets the other free, really,

by being fragile.

On one level, nothing's really changed because

I'm in the same place as I've been for a long time

and see, you know, four old ladies, I mean, I see my family every

day, my lovely mum, my brilliant family who look

after her and they know me really well.

And whether you're doing well or not, it doesn't

really make any difference, you know?

They just sort of love you wherever you are.

And I think that's probably more successful.

That's success to me.

Charlie created the book using a dip pen and ink.

Adapting his work into an animated short film presents new challenges.

If someone, when I was 19, said to me, "You're going to do a book

"about a boy, a mole a fox and a horse,"

I'd have found that bizarre.

If the same person had said, "Yeah, you going to make a film of it",

I would have been a little bit sceptical.

Obviously, I'm not a film-maker, so I learned on the hoof.

I just did a book, you know, we were all clueless to begin with,

how are we going to do this?

Making a film out of some drawings I made.

So I think, when you started to put it together, I think I helped

a little bit just moving some sections around in terms

of beginning, middle and end.

You'd created a book and now it had to have an even stronger narrative.

Is that what you felt at the start with working on the film?

Yeah, I mean, doing all the storyboards,

I remember having big boards and you came in and saw them all

and it was a sea of things.

And I, as usual, was quite defensive about things.

About making changes.

Yeah, because, with the book, a lot of people have said, "It needs

"more of a story." I said, "No, it doesn't, the story

"is in the conversation, it doesn't need to have this

"over developed narrative."

I just want them to be chatting and honest.

And you said, "Yeah, but the film is different.

"You can't just have them wandering around chatting.

"They need... They need purpose and..."

"Oh, yeah, yeah, you've made films, haven't you?"

I seem to remember my major contribution was by suggesting

that the first sentence of the film, did I say,

"So what's the motivation?"

No, you said, "What's the boy's issue?

Like, "What, what's the problem here?"

And the problem was, the main problem was that he was lost.

Yeah, so I think we put that in right at the top. Yeah.

And then, of course, if he's lost, then their journey

is more directional. Yeah, exactly.

Because they've got to head for home.

And then, the end is more decisive in this now, isn't it?

They get somewhere and then...

They all have their own arcs in the film, you know,

and they all arrive... They move from one place to another internally

and as creatures, as personalities.

And then, I think you worked quite hard on the end, didn't you?

I think the end is basically they were all realising that...

That the home they're looking for is them,

that they are home.

I think that's fairly simple.

It's a classic structure, the idea that you're changed by the journey.

The journey, yeah. You know, that you set off thinking

you're aiming for one thing and then you get to the end. Yeah.

We began in October 2020.

So that's when the production really kicked off and no-one

could meet or, you know,

actually do anything normal.

And we were in the throes

of our second lockdown.

It was clear right from the start

that to do justice to Charlie's

work, we needed to find the finest

artists we could find

all around the world.

Everyone was working from home,

but through the course of making the film over the last two years

we've had over 130 artists working on it from over 15 different

countries, all working on different time zones.

We spent a lot of time talking about the personalities of each

character, how they would react in certain situations,

how they would react to each other and what kind of mannerisms

they might have, depending on their personality.

For example, the boy, you know, never just sits still,

because little boys rarely do sit still.

It's uncharted territory.

But that's incredibly, you know, that's incredibly exciting.

One of the producers of Charlie's film is JJ Abrams, the film-maker

behind Super 8, Star Wars and Mission Impossible III.

It's amazing reading the script.

It immediately translates,

even in an animated script form,

to that feeling you have

when you read the book.

And it just, it was so alive, so quickly.

One of the things that I thought was wonderful and it was the idea

that the boy declares up front, "I'm lost."

Right, right. I just think it is a brilliant brushstroke.

I just think that, by doing that, that little thing of, "I'm lost,"

it gives you purchase as a viewer to say, "I know why I'm here."

But my biggest fear, and I know we'll avoid this, but I just want

to say it so I know I will have said it,

is to have something that is a beautiful object

to look at and to experience

and yet, somehow, not allow the audience

to be inside of it and to be a character.

The difference in the film and the book is that the book

can be taken at a pace the reader wants it to be taken at.

And the film is for us to decide the pace.

And I think that's a really big thing, is working out,

you know, how it's paced and where we allow space just to... Yes.

..absorb or allow things to land emotionally before we move on.

Yeah, exactly right.

Those are big decisions.

The book is the characters meandering through the landscape...

..and they're just chatting.

People say, "There's no story."

Well, the story is their conversation.

So I've never felt anything dramatic should happen,

or if they even needed a real purpose except for to communicate.

And I think that's the central issue of the human being,

is we have to find ways of communicating

who we are and how we feel.

You're basically the mole, aren't you, Barney?

You are the mole.

Did it make you very happy when you would think

of another bit of wisdom?

It's just like me thinking of a joke, did you think,

"Oh, yes, that's a bit of wisdom?"

I don't think I ever really saw it as wisdom.

I think I... What I really loved was if I felt something

was working, posted it on Instagram, you know,

you will get people writing to you, telling you a lot of stories,

some of which are really hard to read. Yeah.

And I've, I have read a lot now and I've kept a lot of the emails

that were the most moving.

But some of them are very hard to read about loss and death.

And out of the blue, I just suddenly started...

..crying and then really weeping.

I think, "Why am... Why am I...? Where is this coming from?"

And I sort of realised later that it was probably stored

up emotion of reading so many people's lives.

You are offering consolation.

The book has an enormous, is, in a way, kind.

You know, it has a consolation in there and you would expect people

to take that consolation at its word.

The book is popular with people of all ages and children

in particular feel a special connection to the four friends.

Sometimes a school has sent me drawings and pictures and a play

they'd written or whatever it is, or they send videos of plays

they've made or... And that just breaks my heart.

The character of the book, I just...

Because obviously they see things in the four that I don't.

They've taken the characters, and, you know, put their own

emotions into them.

And what more can you ask for than that?

You've started, you've licensed other people to feel or say or speak

or have a voice or draw or make something together or alone.

To have had the privilege of being that kind of catalyst...

..to people saying how they really feel.

If at first you don't succeed, have some cake.

LAUGHTER

I see... Watch this, watch this.

I see.

"Does it work?" the boy asked.

"Every time."

This book is just filled with such whimsy and magic and wonder.

"Sometimes," said the horse.

"Sometimes what?" asked the boy.

"Sometimes just getting up and carrying on

"is brave and magnificent."

Oh, the emails I get from people saying "Thank you, but can we

"have this or can you do that?

"Can you write to my son who's dying?" or all those things,

an incredible privilege, but they, you know,

the reservoir empties a little bit.

And I was very bad initially at knowing how to manage

that, really bad, and got worn out very fast and then got grumpy...

..and overwhelmed.

I mean, you know, I'm completely and utterly out of my depth with it.

For me, it's not just a drawing, it's what the drawing can do.

Don't stop making your messy drawings.

Just keep your mind alive to, you know, everything that you...

I... Anyway.

And, you know, I've struggled a little in my life with things,

like, I get anxious a lot, I get low quite a lot.

Well, I think we're worshipful creatures, I think we like idols.

When we do it to a person and put them on a plinth,

I think, particularly in this country, we were very good

at putting someone on the plinth and then, and then once

they're on the plinth, we kind of shoot them down.

The year we were making it, it was a very difficult time.

Making the book was extremely hard.

I used to have terrible panic attacks.

There have been times when, you know, I've been interviewed

and I remember hiding in the loo.

My heart was racing, I was very panicked.

It makes my head blur and I think, "What am I going to say

"and why am I here?

"What happens if I say something terrible or don't say

"the right thing, or don't do what they want me to do, or...?"

I find that difficult, I find being exposed difficult.

My brain just spins with the idea of sitting in front of a camera.

And I'm doing it because I think it, you know, it's important

to try to say things that you think are important, whoever you are,

however scary it is.

I think people have been brave with me, you know.

They've been really courageous in what they've told me

of their lives, like heart...

I can....

Being human and being able to put yourself in someone else's

shoes, whether it's for five minutes or an hour or whatever it is,

is an incredible thing.

And if someone communicates a story to you in a way

that helps you do that, it's gold dust.

I think stories are crucial.

"We have a long way to go," sighed the boy.

"Yes, but look how far we've come," said the horse.

I think about, often, the last two years of what we've all

been through and the emails I've got from people and just how much

weaker they've felt, how much they've struggled.

And I thought, "I really want to make a film that...

"..that identifies with that, that meets people in that somehow."

So much beauty we need to look after.

Yes, so much.

Ooh!

My little book is quite suggestive.

It's not complete in its study of the faces.

You suggest what the boy looks like.

And, similarly, with the fox and the horse and the mole.

And I was really scared of changing them or making them, adapting them

in a way that wasn't true to them.

The journey of the film really has been discovering

more about them and how they move.

Because how you move shows a bit more of your character.

We studied foxes and the horse, we had a live reference

and studied him.

And the boy, we often used references of children

of the people I work with.

The animated film is slowly coming to life.

Morning. Hi, Charlie.

Good morning. Morning, Charlie.

Hello.

How are you doing?

All right, how are you?

What's happening, what have you got today?

Kick off.

I think you believe in me more than I do.

You'll catch up.

The horse's eye there, Charlie.

That's floored me, that has floored me.

The timing of the hymn of the robin is just too much for me.

It's just...

Hang on, guys.

There's a robin wrapped up over there.

It died when I hit it in the car.

I got out of the car and put it on my lap that night talking

to some friends, one of whom is writing music for the film.

And I started humming this tune.

It was just all my emotion came out.

I know it sounds ridiculous, really, but I just, I can't

bear killing songbirds.

And, erm...

..the music you just heard there is the...

We wrote the... We based the soundtrack really on...

..the hymn for the robin, which is the tune we came up with

and the phone call straight after.

Can we play that one more time, the hymn for the robin there?

Yeah... Oops.

I think you believe in me

more than I do.

You'll catch up.

Life is difficult.

But you are loved.

The mole was always a tricky one because the mole

is a derivation of a mole, I think, it's my own mole.

So we haven't got any... There was no, like,

"Oh, that's how they move."

Because a real mole doesn't look like the mole so much.

If he's standing up and he's got these big, round Oreo

biscuit-like hands, you know...

Does he...? Does he use his feet? Does he...?

How's it going to happen?

I watched a lot of David Attenborough stuff and I was

watching really late one night and there was this penguin

just shuffling and it was moving like it...

..45 degree turns so the body sways and I was like...

"..Oh, that's the mole."

What are you doing here?

I'm lost.

Oh, dear, well, that's no good.

So, how...?

How did you get here?

Well, hello.

Hello, who?

Hello, cake.

Tom Holland is the mole.

He's so hilarious, he's such a brilliant actor.

He's a legend, really, and he's the perfect mole.

"What do you think is the biggest

"waste of time?"

"Comparing yourself to others," said the mole.

That leapt out at me as an idea when I read it, because...

..I personally have found it to be a chronic problem

in my life.

People have tried to persuade me to stop doing that myself.

Because it's the source of a lot of pointless unhappiness.

Anyway, so we must stop.

And that was on, yes, page ten or something,

so I was immediately sucked in.

I always, in my head, wanted the boy to have a soft Scottish accent.

You know, I'm lost, that long lost.

Ah, man.

And when I heard his voice in the audition...

His voice...

I knew instantly that it should be him.

How fast can you run?

Well, I wouldn't say I was a natural athlete.

I think my favourite character is the mole, I think,

because he's quite playful and he kind of brings

the whole group to life.

The fox is quite an outsider, but he's been welcomed into the group

and he feels at home there.

The horse is very, erm...

He's very wise, but he also has some insecurities

that the group help him kind

of express his real feelings.

And I think the boy's quite adventurous, but he still needs

the rest of the group to help him with his confidence

to finish his journey that he's been on.

It just seemed like one of those very special opportunities

to do, to be part of some magical little film that might

be eternally on at Christmas-time.

And then Idris Elba, well, I mean, you know, legend, really.

He did the fox so well and the fox's arc, you know,

being dangerous, then coming through to having the killer lines.

You are loved.

And important.

And you bring to this world things that no-one else can.

So hold on.

We went through a few different people

who were going to do the horse and I'd always loved Gabriel Byrne.

And I wrote him a letter and we had a phone conversation.

He said, "Charlie, I am the horse."

"I have the book."

I was like, "What?!"

Yeah, so that was them, you know, we had our four.

It took us just under two years to complete the film,

from the day that we started developing the script

to the day we were able to send it off.

Without a doubt, this has been the most challenging production

that I think any of us have worked on.

And most of that was driven by the fact that our collective

ambitions for the film were so incredibly high.

One of the challenges was just getting used to the idea of seeing

the characters up close and seeing some different angles

or having camera moves.

We did lots of kind of storyboarding and shifting around and changing

angles and just getting something that feels right.

In key moments, key lines from the book, we actually do mirror

the same viewpoint.

The mole asks the boy, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

And the boy kind of thinks about it and answers, "Kind."

And then you kind of move through them.

And that was shot just from the same view behind the characters,

sat on that branch so that anyone who feels connected to the book

also connects to those moments in the film.

Thank you.

"I've discovered something better than cake," said the mole.

"No, you haven't," said the boy.

"I have."

"What is it?"

"A hug... It lasts longer."

Where do the hugs come from?

I've always loved the idea of redemption.

I've loved the idea of forgiveness, I've loved the idea of coming home.

I love the feeling of being held.

I think humans, I think everybody really wants to feel

like they're loved and known and held and understood and accepted.

So I was very drawn to making images that make people

feel that viscerally.

Like, I think, "Oh, it can heal you."

You can feel something and see something and it can have

a physical effect on you.

And to make images that help people feel hope or understood,

or not alone or held or loved or... I don't know.

It's just this whole thing that we thirst for,

but can't put our fingers on.

"Just take this step."

"The horizon will look after itself."

The film's coming to an end, which is quite strange.

We're just finishing the music.

The BBC Orchestra are recording it and...

I just feel it's quite surreal.

All this sound and beauty that's being recorded has come

from tiny places.

Tiny conversations, events.

I will die...

..relieved we've done it, and pleased.

But I still know that I'm scruffy Charlie, who wanders round

and doesn't wash his clothes properly, and when I get the chance

to feel and really think about what's gone on with it,

I just feel this deep sense of gratitude and pleasure.

This is Charlie Mackesy, who's the author and illustrator.

Thank you so much.

That's lovely.

That's... What do you think?

No, no, that's wrong.

A normal three, and...

Whoa-ho-ho!

I think when the boy says, "I'm lost," in the film,

I think that's definitely how I felt, a bit.

I think I've always felt slightly lost.

I think maybe all of us do, I think, you know,

we're all looking for home in some way

and the journey, you know,

so the whole idea of the film is, that is their journey.

Charlie is a master communicator and his success was never

just going to be quite good.

It was always going to be off the scale and out of this world.

And, you know, his book now has been three years in the top ten.

It's broken all the records.

It's just amazing seeing it now, seeing millions and millions

of people around the world kind of get it and be able to share

a little bit of that.

I remember saying to them, "I don't care if this is a good

"or a bad film, I don't give a damn.

"I just want it, to someone, to feel something that makes them feel...

"..hopeful or better or..."

So, ultimately, if someone sees it and is moved and it changes

how they see themselves for good or their existence,

to me, that's a good film.

APPLAUSE

I love the idea of the natural landscape being

a metaphor for something.

Pain being a glacier

moving through you, carving out deep valleys.

If the characters have an arc...

..I have an arc and I think it takes a lifetime to work out

what you really want to say, at least it has for me.

I think tiny things can lead to big things.

The tiniest act of kindness can save a life.

It was never in my sights that we were awarded an Oscar for the film.

It's very surreal.

At the actual ceremony I hid in the loo a couple of times!

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by things

and it is easier to recoup and regroup

and collect myself just in a little bit of space in the loo

just for a minute.

I actually remember going in and just writing

"We just won an Oscar" and posted it.

I didn't prepare a speech because I was so sure we wouldn't win

and after I'd made the speech I regretted not mentioning

so many people -

Peter and Cara and all the team and 120 animators, my family,

friends, people on Instagram, everybody who contributed

to the thinking and the direction of the characters in the film.

I'm just so elated for everyone

and the Oscar is for all of us, so thank you.

Thanks for being part of it.