JASON SANDERS: Without any
further ado, John Cleese.
JOHN CLEESE: I'm going
to sit on that side.
JASON SANDERS: Yeah.
JOHN CLEESE: The awful
thing about getting old
is that I have to say to Jason
I want to sit on this side
because this is my good ear.
Sad, isn't it?
It's not so bad getting old.
It's not so bad.
JASON SANDERS: Well,
beats the alternative.
JOHN CLEESE: It beats
the alternative.
But also as you get older you
realize that as somebody once
said to me-- it was a
general in the British Army--
he said very little matters
much and most things
don't matter at all.
And I think now
that that's sunk in,
I think it's hard when you're
younger to realize that very
little matters really.
And that's why I can look at
the current political scene here
and in the rest of the world
and have a good giggle about it.
I suppose the alternative
is bursting into tears.
Now, Jason, your name
is an anagram of Sonja.
Did you know that?
JASON SANDERS: I think that's
where my parents got it from.
Yes, that's what they
tell me, I think.
You often get
philosophical about life
and I was going to ask you
what does it all means?
JOHN CLEESE: Oh.
JASON SANDERS:
You made a movie--
JOHN CLEESE: Yeah,
I made a movie--
JASON SANDERS: --if you recall
called "The Meaning of Life."
It sounds maybe like you've
revised some of those theories
since then.
JOHN CLEESE: I remember doing an
interview on Danish television
once live-- course they
speak perfect English.
And one of them
said to me, well,
what's the meaning of life?
And I say it's really
interesting you
should ask that because
I actually realized it
this morning.
And he said, what?
And I said, yes, it was
just after breakfast.
I had this moment of
absolute revelation.
He said, well, can you tell us?
And I said no, I've
forgotten it now.
He really believed me.
I think the main thing is
to understand that happiness
or adjustment is much
more an emotional state
than an intellectual
state, and I
think that any kind
of practice that's
vaguely meditation or even--
not as effective, but still--
therapy.
I think the more that we
have a disrespectful attitude
towards our own egos, I think
the happier life becomes.
And I think the great
problem of growing up
at the moment, particularly
for young people,
is that you're told that if
you're not rich and famous,
your life is not
really worthwhile.
And that is such
pernicious crap.
JASON SANDERS: So I
think it's interesting
that you find introspection
and meditation so important
because you've made your
name and career partly
for performance.
And so how do you think show
business and performance fits
into all of this?
JOHN CLEESE: Well,
I think that you
can be-- somebody
once said to me,
you can be an introverted
exhibitionist.
I think there's truth in that.
But I think on the whole, very
few people are purely extrovert
or purely introvert.
The American society is
much more extroverted
and I don't think Americans
are aware of that.
There is an absolutely
fabulous book called "Quiet,"
completely white cover.
It's written by a woman
called Susan Cain, C-A-I-N,
and it's called "Quiet," and
it's about being an introvert.
And I read that three years ago
and it was very helpful to me
because in an
extroverted society
you can start feeling that
there's something a bit
wrong with you if
you're an introvert.
I don't believe that at all.
I think if you sat down
with Jesus and the Buddha
you'd find that they
were both introverts.
And extroverted values which
are to do with fame and money
and status and positions--
these are all things
you have no control over.
Do you see what I mean?
Whereas you have a certain
amount of control over
your inner life because
you can somehow--
you cannot control
your thoughts,
but you can decide how much
energy to give to a specific
thought.
So that's a bit profound.
JASON SANDERS: This is
exactly how I saw this going.
JOHN CLEESE: Oh dear.
Is that a bad thing?
Sonja, come on.
JASON SANDERS: So
how early can you
trace back this sort
of philosophy on life?
And I know that--
JOHN CLEESE: Which bit?
JASON SANDERS: Well, the quiet
stillness, the introversion.
I know that you did-- I'll say
your experiences in childhood
would not necessarily--
JOHN CLEESE: Oh, no,
I was not gregarious
at all because my parents
were older parents.
Dad was 46 when I was
born and Mum was 40,
and that was a lot
in 1939, you know.
And we moved continuously.
I mean, during the war we
were bombed just a few months
after I was born,
and my father who
had fought the First World War
was out of there like a shot.
Some people say, well, what
are you running away for?
And he said, well, if you're
going to run away then do it
quickly, don't do it--
And we went and I
started life on a farm,
and we moved house 13 times
in 14 years or something
ridiculous, so I
didn't have a chance
to make very close
friendships with friends
because the moment I got
to know someone, we'd move.
And when I went to school I
didn't fit in very well but I'd
spent a lot of my
life amusing myself,
playing little games on my
own with my stuffed animals,
you know?
And Sammy Davis Jr.
once said that he
thought boredom was a
great help to creativity
because when you
start getting bored
without a constant external
stimulation, that's
when stuff starts coming up
from the inside, which is really
what creativity is about.
I'm very interested
in creativity
because no one ever spotted
I had any until I was 22.
And when I think
back, I think, well,
that was a big comment on the
educational system in Britain
at the time because
I remember being told
to write an essay on the time.
And it was quite a long
essay and I wrote it
about how I didn't have
time to write the essay.
You see what you mean?
It's quite neat
for a 17-year-old.
But nobody ever said, oh, you
have ability in is this area,
so when I started to
discover at Cambridge
I could write stuff
that made people laugh,
then I began to
watch the process
and I'm quite
convinced that anything
of importance creatively
comes up from the unconscious.
There's a lot of
very, very bright,
highly intellectual,
immensely smart people,
but they're left-brained.
And they'll never-- I
think-- be very creative.
And Albert Einstein said the
most extraordinary things,
like he said that muscular
feelings were a major part
of his creative process.
I mean, that surprises people.
But when your unconscious
gives you an idea
it doesn't give it
neatly printed out
on a piece of paper.
It'll just give you an image
or a feeling or something,
and if you can stay with
that and move around,
eventually it'll make sense.
Like a guy called Kekule
von Stradonitz who
invented-- or discovered,
I mean-- the structure
of the carbon atom.
He had been working
on it for years
and one day he was dosing
and looking into the fire.
And as he was dosing like this
he started watching the flames
and he had this little
image that they were snakes
and that they were biting
their own tales, you see?
Carbon atom.
You see what I mean?
[LAUGHTER]
It's not a direct.
Not it's a carbon atom,
you see what I mean?
You just get an
image of a snake.
So it's very indirect,
the information
you get from your unconscious
because there's so much
information down there.
I mean, there was a very
interesting experiment
and psychologists
showed a group of people
some Chinese
ideograms-- characters--
and they came back next week and
they said to the people, now,
we're going to show you
some more-- some of the ones
you saw last week, some are new.
Will you tell us which
ones you saw last week?
And they were
absolutely hopeless.
Nobody could do it at all.
It was exactly chance.
And then they repeated
the experiment.
The second time they said--
on the second showing-- we're
going to show you
some more ideograms,
will you tell us
which ones you like?
And the ones they
liked were the ones
they'd seen the week before.
So the information was in
there, in the unconscious,
but it couldn't be accessed
in a straightforward way.
JASON SANDERS:
That's-- I think it--
JOHN CLEESE: I want people to
know that because you guys are
in a very creative
business and you
have to learn how to contact
your unconscious and use it.
And what I spend a
lot of time doing
is teaching people that
you've got to be quiet.
You can't have a creative
idea while you're
rushing around, answering
your cell phone,
looking at your watch,
sending off email.
It's not going to happen.
You've got to get quieter.
And Edison-- who I
think has more patience
than any other
American in history--
he had an extraordinary
way of working.
He would sit and he would
hold ball bearings in his hand
and he would have a metal
plate down there, a metal bowl,
because he thought
he got his best
ideas in that sort of
hinterland between being awaken
and actually being asleep.
And, well, reason he did that
is that as he fell asleep
he would drop the ball
bearings into the metal bowl
and they would wake him up again
and he'd pick it up and go.
And he liked to stay in
that very, very dreamy state
because that's when he
got the most of his ideas.
JASON SANDERS: The
reason I hesitated
before is because I find it so
interesting the link you make
between left brain
and right brain,
because I know growing up you
were quite good at mathematics.
JOHN CLEESE: Oh, I
was all left brain.
I was completely left brain.
I was good at maths.
I was good at Latin.
I got into Cambridge on
science and switched to law.
You don't get any more
left brain than that.
JASON SANDERS:
Right, and so what
happened then that suddenly
you started doing this other--
JOHN CLEESE: I just
discovered that I
could write sketches
that made people laugh
and I discovered
that at Cambridge.
I mean, I knew I had
a facility for making
my classmates laugh--
that's when I discovered it.
And then as I went on
and on and on and on--
I was very lucky
because early on I
met a professor of
psychology from Sussex
called Brian [? Bateson. ?]
Brian told me
that the best bit of research
that had ever been done
was done in America at
Berkeley in the late '60s-- no,
yes, the '60s-- by a guy called
MacKinnon who was fascinated
by creativity in-- not
in creative people,
so-called-- but in professions--
journalism, engineers.
But he was particularly
interested in architects
because architects have got
to be good at creativity
but they've also got to be
good at the left brain stuff
so that the buildings actually
stay up after they look nice,
you see what I mean?
And he went around
all the architects
and said who are
the creative ones?
And he got a list of names.
And then he went
and talked to them
and said, what do you do
from the moment you get up
in the morning to the moment
you go to bed at night?
And they told him.
And then he went off and asked
the uncreative architects.
Of course, he didn't
tell them that that
was why he was
asking them-- what
do you do first thing
you get up, going to bed.
And what he discovered, there
were two huge differences
between the creative ones
and the uncreative ones.
And the huge
differences were one,
the creative architects
knew how to play.
And he said the play
was almost childlike.
Because when you see children
really absorbed into something,
thinking, you know, what's
going to happen if I
pull this wing off, you know?
And if I pull this leg, what
would-- see what I mean?
And there's no sense
of time, you know?
It's sort of eternal.
And they're completely
absorbed in it
because they're interested
in it for its own sake,
not because they have to
solve it in order to move on.
And they had this
ability to play.
And the other thing which
will probably surprise you
is that they deferred
taking decisions
as long as they could.
And people are surprised
because the whole idea
of the efficient executive
is someone who's like this.
No.
It's bullshit.
When you have to
have take it or make
a decision-- what do you say?
You say take or make?
JASON SANDERS: Make.
JOHN CLEESE: Make.
When you have to
make a decision,
the first question you've
got to ask yourself
is when does this question
have to be answered?
And then you answer it then.
But you don't answer it
before for two reasons.
One is you may get
new information.
Well, that's obvious.
But the other is the
longer you leave it,
the more chance
your unconscious has
of coming up with some stuff.
You see what I mean?
JASON SANDERS: Yeah.
JOHN CLEESE: So
it's take your time.
But of course it's
the real world.
So if somebody says I
need to know by 3 o'clock,
then you've got to give
them an answer by 3 o'clock.
But if somebody says we
want you to work on this,
then most people want to
sort it out and come up
with an answer, because
being in a state of limbo
leaves you slightly anxious.
You haven't resolved
it, you know?
You'd like to say tick!
Get on with it.
And if you don't
resolve it, if you
stay with that uncertainty,
the lack of resolution,
then you come up with
better answers in the end.
And that's the other
thing MacKinnon
said about the
creative architects is
they could tolerate that
sense of dissatisfaction
when you can't actually
solve something yet.
JASON SANDERS: You talk some
about the creative process,
both here and in the
book, and you mentioned
getting your start
at Cambridge in terms
of performing with
the Footlights,
and that's also
around the time you
started developing a creative
process with Graham Chapman,
right?
Can you talk a little bit about
what your process was like
and how it changed
over the years?
JOHN CLEESE: Yes, well, when
I first sat down with Gray
I was the engine room.
I was the one who
pushed it forward
and Gray would sit there
puffing on his pipe, staring out
of the window, and
every now and again
he would throw something in
and it was always off the wall
or didn't quite follow from
what had been going before,
so I tended to get too
sucked into a left brain.
I know those terms are very
rough but-- from Sperry
and all that.
But, I mean, basically
it does mean something.
I would get sucked
into that and I'd
become a little bit predictable
because I was so logical.
And Graham is the one who
would say, I don't know,
bananas or something.
He would say, oh, oh
that's interesting.
So it worked very well because
the great thing about a team
is that the members
of the team need
to have completely different
skills, not the same one.
There's no point in
having a team if people
have the same skills.
One of the things that
creativity psychologists have
discovered is that if you put
a lot of middle-aged, white men
together and give them
a creative problem,
then they will report afterwards
what a profitable experience
it was, how much they
enjoyed it, how much they'd
like to do it in the future, and
it was all totally worthwhile,
and they come up with fuck all.
JASON SANDERS: So Congress
is what you're saying?
JOHN CLEESE: Well you-- the
thing is-- that's very good.
[LAUGHS] Fuck all.
Anyway, keep going.
JASON SANDERS: I didn't
mean to steal your--
JOHN CLEESE: No, no, no, no.
I forgot what I
was going to say.
This happens because
I'm very tired.
I've been traveling
for six weeks.
I've done 30 shows in
40 days, and that's just
the stage shows.
I mean, I'm doing
"Stephen Colbert" tonight.
JASON SANDERS: Wow.
JOHN CLEESE: I get to where--
JASON SANDERS: I didn't get this
before when I told them that I
was going to be interviewing--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
JOHN CLEESE: Well,
Colbert has asked me
to do the furry hat with him.
You know about the furry hat?
So I'm being proud-- I'm proud.
I'm the first person
to do the furry hat.
So I'm looking to
him-- which means
you make stupid pronouncements.
JASON SANDERS: OK.
JOHN CLEESE: So where were we?
Can you remind--
JASON SANDERS: Graham Chapman
and the process of writing.
JOHN CLEESE: Yes,
well, he was-- you see
and we worked well
together because we
complemented each other.
But we also-- which
really helped--
had exactly the
same sense of humor.
JASON SANDERS: Right.
JOHN CLEESE: And when
you start writing
comedy you're always wondering
to yourself, is this is funny?
I mean, you laugh and then you
look at it again and think,
well, I'm not sure it is funny.
And what I discovered with
Gray is that if Gray laughed,
it was funny.
The audience would laugh.
And it was extraordinarily
lucky to find someone
like that because it was
like the big solution--
big question.
Is it funny?
He answered it.
JASON SANDERS: Did you
wonder that while you
were writing this book?
Because it is not meant
to be just comedy,
but it's quite funny.
JOHN CLEESE: Oh I'm trying
to be as funny as I can--
JASON SANDERS: Did you worry at
all that it wasn't funny with--
JOHN CLEESE: Well, no, I
thought it's all right provided
it's-- I don't have to make
people laugh all the time
provided I make them
laugh some of the time
because that's
their expectation.
So when I was writing
the book, I kind of
thought sometimes,
well, this has
been a bit serious for a bit,
so I'll now make it lighter.
But it's very interesting being
interviewed about the book.
Nobody says it's funny.
They ask about your
relationship with your mother
and all this kind of
stuff because that's
what journalists write about.
And then I say, yeah,
and what did you think?
They say, oh, they
thought it was hilarious.
I say, well, could you say so?
JASON SANDERS: I thought
it was hilarious.
[LAUGHTER]
JOHN CLEESE: Thank you, Sonja.
JASON SANDERS: And I put down
the card that had the question
about your mother on it so we
won't-- we don't need to get
into that.
JOHN CLEESE: Well, I
don't mind doing it
because there's a lot of
humor in the question.
But what I mean is there's
certain things that journalists
want to write about.
There's a guy called
Sir David Hare
who writes very good plays.
But I never thought they were
as good as everyone else,
although I like the man
immensely and he's very bright.
And I say to someone,
why is he so successful?
And the journalist said,
oh, he writes plays
about all the things
that journalists
want to write about.
You see what I mean?
JASON SANDERS:
You haven't always
gotten on well with journalists,
especially in Britain, right?
JOHN CLEESE: Oh, what a rabble.
They're as stupid as the
Republican candidates
at the present--
[APPLAUSE]
--and a lot more unpleasant.
I mean, it is
extraordinary what's
going on at the
moment, isn't it?
When I came here in
'64, I was so impressed
by everything American.
I was here for 18 months,
and you were more efficient.
You were more thoughtful.
You were better organized.
Everything was better.
"New York Times"
the best newspaper I ever read.
And now it's almost
the opposite,
because what I
admired in '64 was
that the Democrats
and the Republicans,
they had friendships
across the aisle.
They could talk to each other.
They could do business.
And it was so different from
England where the Labour
or socialists and the
conservatives were always
butting.
And now you've got exactly
what we had in the mid '60s
and what do you do about it?
The answer is
democracy has failed.
Some people when I
say that go, [GASPS].
It's clearly failed
because it's predicated
on an intelligent and
well-informed electorate.
Doesn't exist.
It doesn't exist here.
It doesn't exist in England.
So I kind of think, what's next?
A benevolent
dictatorship I hope.
Or even a malevolent
dictatorship.
JASON SANDERS: Are you
putting yourself forward
as a candidate?
JOHN CLEESE: I'm too old.
No, I'm too old, and I
couldn't-- I don't care about
anything anymore,
you-- it's lovely.
You know you're going
to be dead in 10 years--
JASON SANDERS: Maybe
that's exactly who we need.
JOHN CLEESE: Well, Reagan
was a bit like that.
People have forgotten
this, but I'm
so old I can remember that
when Reagan started his press
conferences, the American
press corps were astonished
at his ignorance and they
were scandalized by it.
They started to write about
it, and the readership
did not want to hear this.
So after a time they
stopped writing about it
because it was a
time after-- you'd
had a series of very
ineffectual presidents or maybe
unlucky presidents,
and they wanted
to have someone in there that
made them feel comfortable.
You know, somebody who's nice
and in charge, and it's fine,
we can forget about it.
And so the fact that
he was so ignorant
was hushed up eventually by the
presses as a matter of policy.
But in England, I mean, we
had ourself the worst press
I've ever come across.
I mean, "The Daily
Mail" is the very worst.
But when you consider that a
woman called Rebekah Brooks was
on trial for all
sorts of illegal acts
but mostly to do with hacking,
that she was on trial--
but she'd been editor of
the "News of the World"
after Andy Coulson.
She was on trial
with Andy Coulson.
Andy Coulson was found
guilty of hacking
and being aware of all the
malignant practices that
were going on at the time.
She was his lover over
quite a long course of time.
She had ordered her staff to
delete three million emails.
And at the end of it all
she was found innocent.
She's guilty as hell.
And there was such an outcry
she was withdrawn from Britain.
She's now been put back in there
by Rupert Murdoch in charge
of his four main titles.
And the woman is
certainly a sociopath.
I mean, addresses her employees
as cunts and fucking cunts,
threw telephones at people,
and completely unscrupulous.
Saying to people things like,
if you don't get this story,
you're fired.
Well, of course they're going
to go off and break the law,
you know?
It's like Hitler
or Himmler saying,
[GERMAN ACCENT] oh, we had no
idea about the SS, you know.
We knew they didn't
really like some people,
but we had no idea they were
doing nasty things to them.
All this going on
behind our back.
Anyway, moving forward, because
we've got enough of this Monday
night quarterbacking, you know?
JASON SANDERS: Who hasn't
made a few mistakes?
JOHN CLEESE: Exactly.
Exactly.
Mistakes were made.
JASON SANDERS: Yes.
JOHN CLEESE: There's
a book called that.
I've just bought it.
JASON SANDERS:
Yes, I've read it.
It's quite good actually.
JOHN CLEESE: Have you?
JASON SANDERS: Yes.
JOHN CLEESE: We'll
talk about that later.
So what else can
I say that won't
bore these people to death?
JASON SANDERS: Well, you
mentioned Ronald Reagan.
His counterpart in
Britain, Margaret Thatcher,
I've read-- and is
it true-- that she
put on a performance
of the parrot sketch?
JOHN CLEESE: [LAUGHS]
You're right.
JASON SANDERS: Was that
a good segue back into--
JOHN CLEESE: It was
very good because that's
exactly what she did.
She was advised
by her colleagues
that it would be nice to have
a little humor in her speech
and she wanted to say
the Liberal Democrat
party-- which incidentally
I support-- was dead
and finished.
And she did the parrot sketch.
And I knew her foreign affairs
adviser, Charles Powell,
very well, and he said, the
hours we spent rehearsing.
She still just couldn't do it.
And that's fascinating, isn't
it, that somebody that bright--
because she was very bright.
I mean, she was mad,
but she was bright.
That somebody that bright
just had no idea how to do it.
Funny.
But I'll tell you something
else about the sketch
because I told
this this morning.
Absolutely true, this story.
I'd done the sketch
on tour-- Monty Python
tour with Michael Palin--
and we came off just
before the end of the show
doing that as the finale.
And I saw an anxious and
earnest young man standing
in the wings.
And he said-- and I said yeah?
And he said, Mr. Cleese,
can I ask you something?
I said, yes.
He said, the parrot sketch.
He said, it is about the
Vietnam War, isn't it?
Is that what-- [LAUGHS]
JASON SANDERS: We all
know it's about Korea.
JOHN CLEESE: Well, actually,
it's Boer War, but still.
JASON SANDERS: So the parrot
sketch-- everyone knows this.
It's one of the most
well-known and hilarious bits
from Monty Python.
And you've mentioned
in the process
of creating these things, you're
always wondering is this funny,
are people going to like it.
When you look back at
your career, which you've
done through the process
of writing this book,
what are the pieces
that you'd say, gosh,
the answer to that
question was no?
Like, that really
wasn't that funny
and I wish I could go back.
JOHN CLEESE: Well, I think
sometimes you just make
things that aren't any good
and particularly with movies,
it's not that surprising
because you assemble
a team of 30 people
like that who may not
know each other very well.
And whether there's
good chemistry,
as there was on "A Fish
Called Wanda," or not,
it's really just a toss up.
You can't control
that kind of thing.
And also there's so many of
the people in charge of movies
have no idea what they're doing.
There's a fellow-- I'm a
phony professor at Cornell
and I sometimes do
psychology stuff
with a lovely professor
there called David Dunning.
And David has discovered
something that's very relevant.
He's discovered that in
order to know how good you
are at something requires
almost exactly the same skills
and aptitude as it
does to actually
be good at it, which means
that if you're absolutely no
good at something, you
lack exactly the skills
and aptitudes that you need to
know that you're no good at it.
Now that's tremendously
funny, I think.
The worse you are, the
less chance you have
of knowing how good
you are at something.
And that explains a lot of life,
but particularly the Hollywood
studios, because these people
have no idea what they're
doing, but they have
absolutely no idea
that they have no idea what--
and that just fills them
with confidence.
And that's the dangerous thing.
JASON SANDERS: It's confidence
mixed with the anxiety
over not feeling--
JOHN CLEESE: Oh,
and the anxiety.
And I think at a deep
level, they actually
know they don't know, but
they can never say that.
I remember sitting in the office
of an executive at Disney.
And I'd written
a script to which
she'd said we don't get
first drafts like this.
This is 75% of the way there.
And then she started telling
me what we wanted to do with
the script, and I said
to her, let me explain,
I cannot do that because I don't
know how to sit down at my desk
to make the script worse.
You see what I mean?
I don't know how you do that.
I suppose you have
lots of ideas and then
you say that's the worst
one so let's do that.
So I walked away from the movie.
But they have no idea
what they're doing.
JASON SANDERS: You ever
have another project
like that I'm sure I
could help make it worse.
JOHN CLEESE: Right.
JASON SANDERS: You mentioned
"A Fish Called Wanda."
It's one of your biggest
successes, especially in films.
You're working on a musical?
JOHN CLEESE: Well, I'm
working on a musical.
I wrote the first
draft of the book--
the story, the dialogue--
with my lovely daughter.
And we'll have
to-- the trouble is
we're trying to do a deal
with MGM because they
own the rights.
And of course they
want 99% of everything.
So I don't know
if that will work.
But I'd love to do a musical.
I mean, I'm actually terrible.
I mean, I'm so bad at
singing and anything musical
that when I actually got into
a Broadway musical by accident
I was told by the musical
director not to sing.
He said just learn
the lines and mime.
I'm that bad at music.
But I would like to do a
musical because that's not
an experience I've ever had.
And I've actually just been
offered a possible sitcom here
in America.
Very offbeat.
A sort of Larry
David type of thing.
So that's around.
And I've also recently adapted
a wonderful French farce.
Americans, I think
you don't know
so much about French farces.
It's not so much of your
culture as it is in England.
But the one I've adapted
was written in 1890
by a guy called Georges
Feydeau and it's
better constructed
than any comedy
I've seen in the last 20 years.
They understood
in those days how
to create these wonderfully
complex plots that were always
like bits of clockwork,
you know what I mean?
And they're just
superbly created.
So I pinched that because
it's out of copyright.
And I've turned that
into a stage play.
So I've got various
things going.
JASON SANDERS: OK, you've
got some things going.
Do you find yourself watching
television these days?
JOHN CLEESE: No, I don't.
And I'll tell you why,
because I've realized
I think I have become extremely
wise because-- no, seriously--
because Socrates said
that wisdom was really
knowing how little you know.
And I sincerely believe now
that I know almost nothing.
And I think that I'm
sitting in a room
with people who do
think they know things.
Well, you know, and I'm
very skeptical about it all.
I think we don't know
anything important.
And if you follow the
history of science,
it's terribly funny
that scientists
keep announcing either that
they've discovered something
or they're very, very close
to discovering something
except it never happens.
There was a professor
of philosophy-- sorry,
a guy called Karl
Popper who is the best,
I think, the best philosopher
of science in the last century.
And he called it promissory
materialism, which
is it's going to be there
any moment but just--
and then I remember the AI
stuff coming 15 years ago.
Oh, we're just on the edge of
cracking-- what is that noise?
[METALLIC NOISE]
JASON SANDERS: Must
be construction.
JOHN CLEESE: Oh, really?
Oh.
I thought it was a micro--
And he said, and you see-- he
said that scientific progress
is all about falsification.
That if you can't
falsify something then
you can't prove it either.
See what I mean?
You have a theory.
That theory has got to be
tested and is falsifiable.
And I think people
don't understand that
and they constantly think that
scientists are cracking it
and they're never cracking it.
They're just improving
things bit by bit.
But often they go down an
absolutely, completely wrong
road.
I mean, there was a physicist
called Lord Kelvin who,
I think it was about 1898-- yes,
I think it was 1898-- announced
that all the problems in physics
have now been solved that were
important and that all
they were doing now
is arguing about the
fourth decimal point.
All right?
That was seven years before
Einstein discovered relativity.
And that world-- the
predictable, materialist
world-- fell apart, but they
were absolutely convinced
that they were there.
And I think that's
the question now.
I was talking to a very clever
man called Rupert Sheldrake
recently, and he
said they're now
trying to replicate a lot of
experiments that have been
done that are not replicating.
That 60% of the experiments
in social science
that have been part of the
knowledge of social science,
they're not able
to replicate them.
And a smaller
percentage, like 45,
is true of medical research.
So everything's
beginning to change.
There are all sorts of
odd theories out there.
Maybe the physical laws
of the universe evolve.
And I think we
don't know, you see.
What I notice
about scientists is
they don't want to know about
the philosophy of science.
They want to just do science.
Well, I say, well, you
don't want to examine
your own assumptions?
This is an extraordinary
arrogance there.
I once had dinner with
Stephen Jay Gould, right?
You know him?
Famous, famous biologist.
And I was chatting to him-- a
bit arrogant, but I liked him.
And I said to him,
what are you doing?
And he told me about four books
that he was about to write
and he knew exactly
what was in the book.
And I said, now, if God called
you into his office, Stephen,
and he sat you down
and said you can
ask me one question about
something that's been puzzling
you all your life and you
would love to understand,
what would it be?
And Gould said, I
can't think of one.
This is a scientist.
You're obviously unimpressed.
To me that is
absolutely appalling.
And so I'm kind of
deliberately needling you guys
because I think you've got to
understand that we don't know
as much as we think we know.
I'm waiting for a moment
when somebody in a white coat
one day stands up and
says, we scientists
now know that we know
less than we thought.
JASON SANDERS: Results show--
JOHN CLEESE: Yes, well, Rupert
Murdoch-- Rupert Murdoch,
what am I saying!
Rupert Sheldrake and I
are working on something
to tease scientists
to be a little less
sure about what they're doing.
For example, the professor of
psychology emeritus at Cornell
has done an experiment
and it has been replicated
and it's very
similar to one done
by a guy called
Dean Raving-- Dean
Radin at the Institute
of Noetic Sciences
across the bridge
in San Francisco.
And what Dean did, which
is a very simple version
of the experiment,
is he sat people down
in front of a television
screen and he showed them
three categories of pictures.
He showed them
pictures that were
of everyday objects
like a telephone
or a glass of water or a boot.
Then showed them
nice, very slightly
pornographic things, but
nothing hard or shocking.
Just rather sort of sexy,
nice, warm, makes you feel hm,
you know, sort of pictures.
And then he had a series
of pictures of things
like accidents and operations
that make people go [SQUEAK].
And he would send these
pictures into the room
where the subject was
sitting looking up
at them on the screen,
and what we discovered,
because the subjects
were wired up
with that sort of lie
detection so if you
know how they-- what is it?
When you sweat, the resistance
of the-- what's it called?
AUDIENCE: Polygraph.
JOHN CLEESE: Oh?
AUDIENCE: Polygraph--
AUDIENCE: Skin resistance.
JOHN CLEESE: Yes, that's right.
And what he discovered
was that about two seconds
before they saw
the nasty pictures,
they started to sweat.
There was no way that
they could have known
what picture was coming up.
They didn't sweat if they were
going to get a nice picture.
Well, they were
generated randomly.
Now, you can't explain that.
And this is a professor
who carries it out
and other people
have replicated it.
So there's an awful
lot going on for--
Oh, somebody's leaving.
Bye.
Have a nice lunch.
[LAUGHTER]
There's an awful lot going on
that I think we think we know
about and we don't.
And you guys are
particularly prone to it
because you do highly, highly
intellectual work, you know?
Don't forget the right brain.
Don't forget that
instinctive thing,
because if you read what
Nobel Prize winning scientists
say about the moment
of inspiration,
you'll discover that
it's not logical.
It's nothing to do with logic.
It's to do with some idea
that sometimes comes in
from left field, and
they've become very famous
and some of them actually
feel they don't deserve it
because they don't really
feel it was their idea.
It just seemed to come to
them from somewhere else.
JASON SANDERS: So--
JOHN CLEESE: Let's
take some questions--
JASON SANDERS: I was
just going to say,
speaking of how little everyone
here knows about everything,
if you make your way to one of
the two microphones, you'll--
JOHN CLEESE: Hello.
AUDIENCE: Thank
you for being here.
So, given that the way that
people can produce and create
and share comedy,
creativity in general,
I would love to hear your take
on the new-- having YouTube,
et cetera, to produce
comedy and produce content,
and where you see that going.
JOHN CLEESE: Well, I
don't know because I
don't think anywhere sees it.
It's impossible to see what's
happening technologically
at the moment.
And I was thinking just recently
how lucky the Monty Pythons
were that our two best films
were set in historical periods
and can't date.
And it was an
extraordinary piece of luck
because we didn't know that.
It wasn't intentional.
So, let me think, let
me think, let me think.
I just don't know
what's going on
and I don't understand
what's going on.
By which I mean I sometimes
understand the words.
You know, like when
there's some people who
dress up in latex
rubber in order
to become sexually excited.
Now, I know what all
those words mean--
[LAUGHTER]
I mean, the idea that
anybody seriously
is interested in
the Kardashians,
I'm utterly mystified.
You see, that's how I feel
about most of technology.
I'm reading a lot of stuff
at the moment about how
is it affecting us all.
I've certainly come
to the conclusion
that all this stuff
about multitasking
has been shown by
research it doesn't work.
You get less done and
it takes you longer,
but people run around
talking about the fact they
can multitask.
So I think we have to look.
There's a great book.
If you haven't read this
book, please read it.
Written by a New Yorker.
He was a professor
of communications,
but he liked anonymity so
he'd never say where he was,
but his name was Neil
Postman, as in mailman.
Neil Postman.
It's called "Technopoly."
And I honestly suggest
you run out and read it
because you'll be
absolutely fascinated
because it's about the
skepticism that I feel
about technology because
people always invent
a bit of great technology
and they see all
the positive benefits
but because we're
such flawed creatures
then everyone comes along
as a second stage and
there's a whole lot
of negative benefits--
or negative whatever.
You see what I mean.
And people never see that.
Sir, ask your question.
AUDIENCE: I was
wondering if you would
tell the story of how the
Ministry of Funny Walks
sketch came about.
JOHN CLEESE: Oh, yes,
well I can't because I
didn't write it.
It was presented to me by
Michael Palin and Terry Jones.
They had written it and
they said will you do it
and I said yeah, I will.
I wasn't very keen on the piece.
I never thought it was
anything like as funny
as everyone else did.
Seriously.
And I remember my disappointment
on the theatrical tour
of Python when they
pleaded with me to do it
at the beginning of the tour.
We opened in--
where did we open?
Southampton.
And to my great
delight as I capered
around the stage throwing
my legs in all directions
to complete silence.
Utterly humiliating.
When I got off stage, I said,
there, see, it's no good.
I'm never doing the
fucking thing again.
And they say, one more
night, do it one more night.
And I did it in
Brighton the next night.
And the buggers laughed.
And I was stuck with
it from then on.
It's quite an energetic sketch
that Mike and Terry came up
with.
AUDIENCE: Graham
Chapman told a story
that there was a person walking
by the hedge at your house
and his head was
aligned strangely
and you came up with
the walk that way.
JOHN CLEESE: No, I
don't remember that.
AUDIENCE: You don't remember.
JOHN CLEESE: Graham had
a very tenuous connection
with reality.
But he was wonderful.
I mean, the funniest thing-- I
mean, this is absolutely true,
what he did.
The Oxford Union at
Oxford University
was a place where all the
British prime ministers came
through the Oxford
system and they all
did these speeches
in the great chamber
and they all pretend
to be politicians.
They're about 19.
You know, they put waistcoats
on and they stand like that
and they pontificate.
It was ridiculous.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Anyway, they decided to have
a big debate, high profile,
on nuclear disarmament,
and they invited Graham
because he was a bright
and very educated guy.
And they invited-- there
was a general there
and there were a couple
of politicians there
and a couple of top
television pundits.
And Graham turned up for this
extremely important debate
dressed as a carrot.
[LAUGHTER]
So you have a general
sitting next to a guy dressed
as a carrot.
And when it was
his turn to speak,
he got up and refused
to say anything.
He just stood there
for 12 minutes.
Of course, the Oxford
people got very upset
because they felt they
were losing dignity
and they sort of shouting
rude stuff at him
and he just stood
there for 12 minutes
and then sat down really
proud he ruined the debate.
He was an extraordinary chap.
Yes, sir?
AUDIENCE: I was wondering
if you could comment
on the differences of senses of
humor between British audiences
and American audiences.
JOHN CLEESE: Yes, I don't
think it's that great, you see,
but then you immediately
get into sense of humor.
One of the things you realize
is that people's sense of humor
is much more subjective
and much more individual.
When I do my stage show I
show these clips on the screen
and from the light
of the screen I
can watch the first four rows.
And what's extraordinary is how
different their reactions are.
One guy over here
would be falling about.
One will look as though he's
just been told he's got cancer.
Two or three people
will be smiling
quite in an amused away.
Somebody over there's laughing
OK, but not falling around.
And then as you go on
watching the stuff,
suddenly the silent guy
starts to laugh at something
that the guy who was falling
about doesn't laugh at.
So the sense of humor's much
more subjective than you think.
And the question is it
funny is meaningless,
because what it really says
is do you think it's funny?
And when I was doing
Python with the other guys,
I used to say if we
laugh then we just hope
that there's enough
people out there who
also think it's funny.
But we're not going to try
and work out, you know,
what the demographic is.
We're just going to do
what we think is funny.
Does that answer your question?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
JOHN CLEESE: Yes?
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
JOHN CLEESE: Hello.
AUDIENCE: Hello.
This quietness
that you discuss--
there is this pressure in
whatever we do to produce very,
very quickly, and I think
we see that a lot in comedy.
There's so much pressure
to create very frequently.
Some people are very
gifted improvisers
whereas others succeed more
with more long term projects.
But how can we
balance that quietness
with still pushing ourselves
to improvise quickly
to just produce better overall?
JOHN CLEESE: Well, I once asked
a very famous screenwriter
and I'm trying to think of his
name, but he wrote "Chinatown."
Hm?
AUDIENCE: Robert Towne.
JOHN CLEESE: Robert Towne.
Thank you.
I was presenting
an award to him,
as I was asked if I would
present an award to him
at a big writers get-together,
writers award ceremony, which
I accepted immediately
because I knew
there would be no journalists
or photographers there.
And I talked to
Towne and I said--
and he was talking
about a particular time
when they realized
a scene didn't work
and the pressure
was on, and I said,
but, Robert, how did you manage
to produce that brilliant idea
under that pressure?
And he said, I seem to be able
to forget that there's a time
pressure, because normally
time pressure makes you anxious
and anything that
makes you anxious
creatively pushes you back
in a stereotypical direction.
See what I mean?
Because we don't
like anxiety so we
do what we can to get rid of it.
And if we go back to what's
familiar, we feel less anxious,
do you see what I mean?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
JOHN CLEESE: So I
think the only thing
is if you've got a boss who
doesn't understand this,
you're fucked.
You know?
But if the boss
understands it then
they'll understand why
Einstein at Princeton
was famous for sitting in
his study with his feet
on the desk staring
out the window.
And it was all
right for Einstein,
you know, because
people always thought,
oh, he's having
profound thoughts.
But if you did that,
people would think,
lazy person, let's fire her.
You see what I mean?
See, it's essential
in organizations
that you have people who
understand the process,
and I think because of
this constant pressure
that the people in
charge frequently
don't understand anxiety
makes people go along
more conventional lines.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
JOHN CLEESE: OK.
So you have to find a
way of cutting yourself
off and creating what I call
a space by creating boundaries
of time and boundaries of space.
I will now be in this-- might
be in the middle of a park,
you know?
I had a friend at
Cambridge used to go--
he had four brothers-- he
used to go into the toilet
when he wanted to think.
You've got to create a
space where you're not
going to be interrupted because
interruptions are absolutely
fatal for creativity.
And you've got to give yourself
a certain space of time.
And the first thing that
happens when you sit down
is you start having all
these thoughts about things
you should have been doing--
should've called Frank,
got to remember to buy that.
You see what I mean?
It's like meditation.
You have to do it
for a time and then
as the thoughts settle, then
slowly you get into a calmer,
rather nice, relaxed
meditative state which I like,
and that's where the
ideas start to come.
But you can't do that.
That's why I think reading Susan
Cain's book about introversion,
you can't do that in
one of those offices
where there's someone
every four feet.
But then, who would know that?
Because the people in
charge have no idea
what they're doing, remember?
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
I'd love to hear about
your writing process
and how you think
about, you know,
when you're a creating
character, just
sort of like the elements.
JOHN CLEESE: Well, in
creating the character, what
happens after a time if
you've got a character in mind
is that you start thinking would
he do this, would he do that?
And you think, yes,
he would do that.
Yes, yes, yes.
And you think, no,
he wouldn't do that.
No, that doesn't feel right.
And it's like points on a graph.
You begin to find points--
but, ah, he would do that.
And you begin--
that he becomes more
of a character in
your own mind and then
I began to understand that some
novelists say sometimes they're
writing a character
and he-- it's
almost as though the character
they're writing becomes alive
and takes the novel over.
They sort of have to
follow the character.
And I think that's
what happened.
I think when you're
an actor doing a part
and you're not just playing
a stereotypical role
you've done before, you
try different things.
You think, no, no.
Ah, that feels right.
And you slowly build
the picture up,
and as the picture becomes
more comprehensive,
you feel more and more
strongly that this
is right for this
character and this is not
right for the character.
As far as my process is, what's
really different from anyone
else-- because I've talked
a bit about the creativity
with that young
lady we just spoke
to-- what I think is so
important to do is the plot.
The story is everything.
I can't remember if I
mentioned William Goldman
but he was a great
friend of mine
and he won two Oscars
from "Butch Cassidy"
and "All the President's Men."
And he says if the story's
right then everything follows.
And if the story
isn't quite right,
then it doesn't matter how
brilliant everyone else is,
it will never quite work.
So I say if you're
writing a comedy--
and this is
specifically comedy--
get a funny story
with funny situations.
Most people create
a story that's
not really funny at all, only
very, very slightly funny,
and then they have to
put lots of jokes in.
But if you can create a story
that has funny scenes then
all you have to do
is write the scenes
in a reasonably authentic
way and you've got a comedy.
So never-- people sit
down at their typewriter
and they do scene one.
You know, forget it.
Connie and I, when we were
writing "Fawlty Towers,"
we never started to write
dialogue until about two
and a half weeks into the
process, by which time
we had a big pad of
that sketch paper
that you can get at artist's
materials shops and a plot
because you think of an idea
and you think, where would that
come?
That would come about there and
then you write that in there
and you get an
idea for the ending
and over two and a half weeks
you've actually got a plot.
And then you clean
it up a little bit
and then you start writing it.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
JOHN CLEESE: OK.
Yes, sir?
AUDIENCE: I think in the
beginning few chapters
of your book, you
mentioned getting bit
by a bunny as a
child in a garden.
JOHN CLEESE: Oh, yes, I
thought it was very funny.
My first experience
of being on a farm
was that a rabbit bit me.
AUDIENCE: So, I didn't finish
the book yet so I'm wondering--
maybe you answered this-- but
does this have any inspiration
for--
JOHN CLEESE: I know what
you're going to ask.
Did the--
AUDIENCE: --for
the killer bunny?
JOHN CLEESE: --when I was
writing "The Holy Grail."
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Let's have another
one from there.
AUDIENCE: My question
would be about
whether you think there
should be any limits to what
is considered comedy and
what the role, if any,
political correctness
should play in comedy?
JOHN CLEESE: I think political
correctness started out
as a very good
idea which is let's
not make mean
jokes, particularly
about groups that can't
look after themselves so
well yet because
of their position
in the socioeconomic scale.
I thought it was a good idea.
Then it got extended
and absurdum.
And I now think it's become
quite pernicious, which
is what happens with good
ideas if they're taken too far.
And I think what
we've reached now
is a point where
anything that seems
to be the slightest bit critical
of any group or individual
is out of bounds.
And what people don't
understand is all humor
is essentially critical.
Every joke that's ever been made
is about stupidity or prejudice
or something like that.
You see what I mean?
It's always critical.
Now, this isn't harmful.
I was with a
wonderful psychiatrist
who said that the moment that
he knew someone in the group
was getting more
healthy was they started
laughing at their own behavior.
It was a little daylight between
themselves and their ego.
So if we can laugh
at ourselves, that
can't be a particularly
cruel thing to do, can it?
So to laugh at other people
when there's affection around
is fine.
That's what good, humorous,
affectionate teasing is about.
It's about teasing people
gently and pointing things
out to them.
Now, when it gets nasty,
not only is it nasty,
but they'll never listen to you.
But if teasing is done
in an affectionate way
then people can hear
the implicit criticism
that's in there.
And it's at an acceptable level.
Is that a--
AUDIENCE: Absolutely, thank you.
JOHN CLEESE: Yeah?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
I mean, I guess the
question would be like,
is it a distance thing?
Is it a time thing?
JOHN CLEESE: Oh,
there is a time thing.
That's a very good point.
You're absolutely right.
I mean, absolutely
right, because time
ameliorates everything.
I remember at
school people said,
oh god, it was like the
Black Hole of Calcutta.
Now, I don't suppose you've
ever heard of the Black
Hole of Calcutta,
but it happened
during the Indian mutiny--
the British call it
and the Indians call it the
first War of Liberation.
And so the Indians--
I mean, Asian Indians
put some British people
into a very, very small room
and there was so little space
or air that many of them
suffocated.
Now, that's not something
we can laugh at,
but 100 years later,
people were saying
it was like the Black Hole of
Calcutta, you see what I mean?
So that as time goes
away, as time passes,
we feel more distant so we
can make things-- rather,
make things--
I don't think-- well, an example
which I thought was terribly
funny, was-- did I
tell them about--
JASON SANDERS: I
wasn't listening.
JOHN CLEESE: Yeah, well,
I've done four interviews
this morning.
It reminds me of my favorite
psychiatrist joke, you know?
Guy says to a psychiatrist,
but how do you do it?
How do you manage to sit
there all day with people
moaning about their problems
and being miserable and unhappy
and telling you how they
want to kill themselves,
and the psychiatrist
says, who listens?
[LAUGHTER]
Thank you.
Thank you very
much for laughing.
I thought it was funny.
This is a slightly
weird audience.
[LAUGHTER]
I never ever quite know what
you're going to laugh at.
JASON SANDERS: Well,
unfortunately I
think that's all
the time we have.
JOHN CLEESE: Oh, all right.
Nevermind.
One more question.
Oh, no, there's no more--
JASON SANDERS: Come
up with a question.
JOHN CLEESE: All I'd say
is get Neil Postman's book,
"Technology," and read
something of Rupert Sheldrake
because the people who
think they know everything
scientifically they don't.
All right.
JASON SANDERS: Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
