#956 - Guy Ritchie

Joe Rogan (0:05)

Boom, yes, boom, we're live. What's up, brother? How are you, man?

Guy Ritchie (0:10)

How are you, Joe?

Joe Rogan (0:11)

You got a little pocket hanky there? You got the whole deal.

Guy Ritchie (0:16)

Well, I tell you, shall I tell you why I wear a pocket square?

Joe Rogan (0:18)

Please.

Guy Ritchie (0:19)

Because if you don't wear a pocket square, you have the appearance that you've been squeezed into a sports jacket or a suit for conventional reasons, that your mom put you in there, or you're off to church or something, or you go into the office.

As soon as you put a pocket square in there, you own the jacket. It's your idea, not someone else's idea.

Joe Rogan (0:39)

Ooh, dude, you're thinking several steps ahead. I like it.

Guy Ritchie (0:46)

We're gonna get into this, aren't we, Jack?

Joe Rogan (0:47)

We are gonna get into this. Well, we were talking before the podcast about these press junkets and about how you entertain yourself by forcing yourself to use a certain word.

Guy Ritchie (0:57)

Yeah, the danger, the worst thing in the film business is press junkets. And as you were saying, they're rather ineffective, and that's my suspicion, too. They're also inefficient and ineffective because you sit in a chair, someone comes in, and they ask you a question. How good an actor is David Beckham when he's in an underpants or whatever it is? And you answer it in some facile fashion.

And on the fourth time you answer that question, you're starting to swap flies that aren't there. You're starting to go mad. So what happens is you have to play games with yourself. So you get someone on the side to throw different words at you, like valitudinarian or verisimilitude.

And then that keeps you occupied because you're thinking, when someone asked me about Beckham in his underpants, I've somehow got a stick in a verisimilitude. And I'll tell you, it's not easy. And your answers become very creative.

Joe Rogan (1:53)

Well, to ask someone to be sincere and ask the same questions over and over and over again to them, like to have people keep filing in and a new person comes in and asks the same. So tell us about this film and how did this get started? And so whose idea was it?

Guy Ritchie (2:09)

So I saw a film, John Ball made Excalibur in about 1980 And I was an impressionable young man of 10 And it was the first like Knights in Shining Armor film that ever spoke to me. I wasn't particularly interested in Errol Flynn.

Or any incarnation that they did in the 50s in this genre. But John Ballman's one was rather good. It was very aggressive. And no one spoke to one another. They all shouted at one another. So it took some time before you realize that's why it was so intense.

It's quite camp. So it had this sort of weird juxtaposition of being camp, yet simultaneously aggressive.

And, you know, they had a budget of $25. And no visual effects. And lots of very shiny 19th century armor.

And it made a real impression on me, because it was a voice. It was a creative voice. So it made an impression on me. And then somewhere in the attic of my mind, I relegated it into the point where I had enough creative ideas in my reservoir to bring it forward and make a film. And then someone gave me money, and Warner Brothers wanted to make it, and yada, yada, yada. And then it was the challenge, I suppose, of trying to take a sojourn into this world, the fantasy, epic fantasy, Medieval-y, Lord of the Rings-y kind of a world. And it's completely out of my wheelhouse. So I find the challenge provocative and exciting as well.

Joe Rogan (3:42)

It's a fascinating era or a genre, that fascinating world of the fantasy, knights and swords and bows and arrows, and that realm, for whatever reason, has been intoxicating to people for a long time.

Guy Ritchie (3:56)

Yeah, it's an archetype. So you're interested in firemen, you're interested in nurses.

You're interested in the superheroes, obviously. I mean, arguably Arthur was the first superhero because he's the guy that extracts the sword and his galloping can do all sorts of wondrous things. And this myth is 1200 years old, 1400 years old, and it's as relevant today as it was then. But because it's an archetype, that somehow kids either dress up as firemen, policemen, soldiers, or knights. So it's almost like we relived it.

It's like an outfit that we wore 1200 years ago. So you feel familiar in it.