The Street Stoic podcast is back. We are combining hip hop lyrics and quotes from some of the greatest to ever grace a microphone.

It's a line from Lauryn Hill, and.

She says, don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem, along with ancient wisdom from some of the greatest philosophers of all time.

Seneca, right?

And he says, your mind will take.

Shape of what you frequently hold in thoughts, for the human spirit is colored by such impression.

Listen to season two of the Street Stoic podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple.

Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, host of the hit podcast family Secrets. What happens when the person you idolize turns out to be someone else entirely? And what if you were kidnapped by your own grandparents and left with an endless well of mysteries about yourself and those around you? These are just a few extraordinary puzzles we'll be exploring in our 9th season of family secrets. I hope you'll join me and my astonishing guests for this new season of family secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Step out of a curtain and 400 people will go nuts and you've got to remember the other side of this camera is a sign that says applause.

St. Tony, an Emmy winning actor, is.

On tv screens for eight years.

The man himself, James Corden. I went upstairs and I sat in his room and I just went to him. I need you to know that I haven't changed. I love you more than you'll ever know. And he went.

Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite you to join this community to hear more interviews that will help you become happier, healthier and more healed. All I want you to do is click on the subscribe button. I love your support. It's incredible to see all your comments and we're just getting started. I can't wait to go on this journey with you. Thank you so much for subscribing. It means the world to me.

The number one health and wellness podcast, Jay Shetty.

Jay Shetty.

The one, the only, Jay Shetty.

James, it is truly a honor and privilege to have you here today because I have to be honest with you, I've been a huge fan ever since Smithy and comic relief. And I was at the Grove just a couple of weeks ago and I was remembering how that sketch started there. And you walk into one of the rooms and you're with the English. And so I've been such a huge fan from day one and watching you and admiring your journey, seeing you go crushing it from the UK through to the US. And I moved to the US a few years after you did. But just getting to see the impact you had there, the amazing content that you've created, I'm a big fan of, whether it's spillier guts or carpool karaoke, every single segment you guys produce such a huge fan. And so to be able to sit with you and even the few moments we've just spent together off camera, I've already enjoyed your company, but I wanted to start off by just saying I'm a huge fan and thank you for doing this.

I'm a huge fan.

Very great.

Yours. I think what you've done is really quite extraordinary, actually. I think it's actually deeper than a successful podcast or show or book. I think what you've done really, I think, and I'm sure I'm certainly not the first person to say this to you, is you've created, like, a safe place for people to talk about mental health. Health, everything. You know what I mean? Feelings, a depth that I think is, of course, we're more aware of today than we were a decade ago and certainly a decade before that. And I think you're a real big part of that and I'm a real fan of the show and it's given me a lot over the years, so it's a real thrill to be here and I hope I can be deep enough to fulfill the needs required.

Well, for everyone who doesn't know everything that James was saying to me off camera just now, I was like, james, save it. I need you to say it again because it was perfect. But James, I was thinking about this. I was looking at your journey and I was seeing, like, you went from writing, right? Gavin and Stacey, amazing success. Gone to the West End, amazing success. Broadway, Tony award, amazing success. Then moving off into late night, amazing success. And there was something I was observing about you and I felt that what I saw in you was someone who had the ability to continuously disrupt themselves, take risks and innovate when it seemed like there was a clear path. And I wonder whether. What's the decision you've made right now is almost the same thing that you've said. I don't want the safe option. I'm willing to take the risk. Would you agree with that?

Yes, I think so. I mean, it's really lovely of you to say that. There's also misses in the middle of that. Do you know what I mean? I think it's very important to say that that curve could also be looked. You know what I mean? There's as many misses as there is hits. You just want to keep that ratio as clean as you can. In the sort of last, sort of six months since finishing the show and then the few months before that, after. When we announced that we were ending the show, lots of people would say. They would ask why you're doing this and why would you leave such a thing and such a contract and offer and all those things, which I completely understand. I've always been able to separate work and life and that the two. One shouldn't outweigh the other. Does that make sense, that actually you have to go? Well, I know that for my career, Ruth and I could have Ruth Jones, who I co wrote Gavin and Stacey with, which was a show that became successful in the UK, we could have, of course, have carried on writing that show and making more episodes of that show, but I don't know that that was, at the time, feeding our know, I wasn't feeding mine, it wasn't feeding Ruth's.

It was like, we've done that. It's time to stop. We have to do something then. You know, I love being in plays. I love being in the theater. And when I was in one man, two governors or the history boys, there was a path where you could say, well, I could carry on doing this, and there were moments or opportunities to perhaps go and do another play after that. But it was like, well, I don't know that that's going to feed my life. So I think the key from, or what I'm trying to do is go, well, if my work is feeding my life and my family, then it's of benefit, and if it isn't, then it won't be. And I think some people perhaps often just look at their career as being the primary thing in their life, or the work is the thing, and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that, then I'm going to do this, then I'm going to do that. And you have to go, no, but how is that feeding your life and your soul and who you are as a friend, son, brother, husband, father?

And that's the thing I think I've always thought about. So the decision to end the show had nothing to do with not enjoying it anymore. It had nothing to do with it not being fun financially, of course. It was fantastic. But then it got to a point where it was like, is it feeding me and us as a family? Is this environment what we want now? I don't think it is. Okay, well, then we're just going to turn it over and shake it and see what it is. The other side of that, the thing I keep coming back to all the time in my life a lot recently, is just to constantly say, well, we don't know yet. We don't know. I don't know yet. I can't tell you if it was a good thing or a bad thing to stop the show. I don't know. I will only know in a year or two years or maybe five years time, because you just don't know. You don't know at all. In the same time that you might accept a role over here. And when you get that job, people are going, oh, my God, this is the greatest thing ever.

And you say, well, we don't know. Me and my friend Louis, very dear friend of mine, Louis, who moved to America to come and write on the late, late show, uprooted his family. He didn't have a family at the time, had two kids in the eight and a half years we were there. We wrote a tv show together which got picked up at Hulu. I wasn't going to be in it. We just created this show and then a few months later, we wrote two scripts, and they really loved the first script. We wrote the second script, and they said, look, we're not going to make this show. Happens all the time. And I was really bummed. And my friend Louis said the best thing. He was like, look, if they'd have picked it up, it might have been the worst thing to ever happen to us. We might have fallen out. We might have. Who knows what would have happened? It might have been a disaster. We just don't know.

Yeah, you have no idea.

Don't know anything.

You've reminded me of this beautiful Zen story where a farmer finds a new horse. You know the story? Yeah.

Amazing.

Yeah. The farmer finds a new horse, and everyone's excited, and they're like, wow, this beautiful horse. You just came upon it, like, how lucky are you? And he says, good thing, bad thing. Who knows?

Yeah.

And then his son's riding the horse and he looks incredible, but then all of a sudden, he gets tipped off the horse, and his son falls off and breaks his leg. And everyone's like, oh, no, this is the worst thing ever. If only you didn't bring that horse in. And he says, good thing, bad thing, who knows? And the story continues. And hearing you say that, it's really honest of you to share that, though, because I think sometimes when we make a decision, we often feel like we have to convince ourself it's the best decision in order to make it through. But for you to actually have the vulnerability to say, I actually don't know, that takes a lot of courage.

Well, I do know that ending the show, I do know that the reasons for it are absolutely right, no question. But you don't know how those things will. You just don't know. You don't know any of it. So if you can accept all of it, if you can just say, well, this is it. This is life, what we're doing now, me and you sitting here. This is it. We're doing it. You're alive. And I think sometimes the expectation of stuff is the thing which really ruins stuff. Your expectation of what a holiday might be, your expectation of what Christmas day was going to be like is actually the problem. The thing that happened on holiday or the argument you had on Christmas day, that's not really the issue. I didn't have an argument on Christmas Day. I'm just using it as an example. That's the thing I think is your expectation of, well, when I do this, my life will be like that. And I think I've thought that a lot of my life, when I get my driver's license, my life will be like this. When I get a girlfriend, when I move out of my parents house, my life is going to be like this and it isn't.

It can't be. And what it is will be amazing because you're going to be alive. And I think I just feel very accepting of everything now at the moment.

Yeah, there's something really beautiful that came out of what you said, this idea of reasons over results. Like, you know your reasons, you don't know what the result will be, but you're sure about your reasons and that's something we can all practice and take on. Like, I think that's something everyone who's watching can apply, that you never know the result of your decision. You don't know how it's going to pan out. But you can be sure about your reasons without question. And if you feel clear about those.

And to recalibrate, perhaps, what success is, and that's, I think, a big issue in a broader society, what is success? Success is not this amount of money. It's not this amount of gold, statues and trophies. You've got to look at it as a whole. It's really interesting. There are numerous people who talk about the night that they won an Academy Award as being the loneliest night of their life, and yet for us, looking in on that, you look and go, oh, my God, this is incredible, I would give anything.

Why do you think that is?

Because I think it's more. The climb is the thing. The top of a mountain, I think, can be quite an isolating experience, actually. And the climb to the top of it is. And, of course, when you get there, it's amazing because you go, oh, my God, you know what I mean? We did it. It's like someone that takes a helicopter to the top of Everest is not going to have the same experience as a person who's climbed it.

Absolutely.

You're looking at the same view, but it's going to feel very, very different. I also think it's an incredibly. The anxiety of it, the fear of it, I don't know. I can only imagine. And so I think, because I think that what you realize is that the doing of the work and the climb of it is the thing that is the most satisfying. And how can there be such a thing as best? You can be the fastest runner over 100 meters. That's not up for debate. Usain Bolt, you are the fastest runner over 100 meters. You can't be the best film. That's impossible.

It's more subjective.

Of course it is and should be.

Yeah. Where did your drive for success come from? You just said that you've realized now that success is not the bank balance or this or that, these specific things. Where did your initial drive for success come from? Did you always define success in a particular way? Or was it just what you think everyone in our generation was almost chasing?

I don't know. For me, really. I really don't remember a time that I didn't want to perform. I just don't remember a time that I didn't want to just perform.

Did you perform at school and at home?

Everywhere. Everywhere. I would call it performing. I'm sure some people would call it showing off. My mom would oscillate between the two. Stop showing off. Still. You know, like, I just. I just loved. I just loved. I loved performing in. In any shape or form. School play, church, playground. I really, really loved it. I can remember so vividly the first time I was ever sort of on what we'd call a stage. So we grew up in. I was. We were a family that were in the Salvation army, which is a church, but that's also a charity. And like any church you're born into, you think that this is completely normal when you're any church you're born into. And then we would put on a uniform and my dad would occasionally march down the road in a brass band and we would do Christmas caroling and I would play the trumpet. And you just thought, well, this is just completely normal life. And then you get to about 15 and you're like, guys, this is really weird. But it was essentially a church and that's what we'd go to. And a church, from what I can really work out now retrospectively, was perhaps full of the least christian people I've ever met in my know.

Like many know, at its core, good. Infect it with people, becomes something very different. And so we're in High Wickham in Buckhamshire, and my sister was three. No, four. My sister Ruth was four. And it was her christening. And we were on the platform, which it's tall, intensive purposes, looked and felt like a stage to me. And the salvaged army officer, the vicar, the priest, I couldn't see because I was quite small, and he said, let's get James a chair. And I stood on this chair and I could just see. There was maybe, I don't know, 30 people in the congregation. It looked like a thousand. And I just started, like, pulling these faces and turned around and looked back through my legs and people are chuckling and I was like, well, this feels fantastic. And then what I really remember is sitting back down in the congregation and I was sat between my mom and dad and person's back is in front of me. And I remember being like, well, this is boring. This isn't nearly as much fun as being up there. And I was seven at the time. No, I was four and my sister was obviously a newborn, so I was four.

And I remember just thinking, well, that's it. Now life is a quest to be up there as much as possible.

Oh, that's beautiful.

So I think that's what I always thought success was. My absolute ambitions were to be in a West End musical. That was it. That was the peak. And literally, it was a road away from where we are now at the Prince Edward Theater. And I was 17 and in a musical and I honestly, genuinely was like, well, that's it for me. It cannot be greater than this. That's where my absolute ambitions were to be, just on a west End stage.

That's spectacular. I mean, you said there were misses, naturally, in the journey that I laid out in the beginning. I wonder what were some of the most painful or tough misses, whether when you were younger, as you got older, what were the ones that you look to and say, I'd love people to know about this or learn about this, because when you look at it from the outside, it is easy to see hit here. But these are the couple that maybe would surprise us.

Well, there's things that you do that just naturally aren't very good. That's the first. You know what I mean? There's things that you do and they're not very good. Those things. You understand why they didn't connect because they're not very good. And, odly, I don't feel a sort of sense of any disappointment in that, really. Do you know what I mean? Because someone asked me once, because I was in that film cats, right, of the musical cats. I haven't seen it, but by all accounts not good and didn't do very well. And someone said to me, oh, God, you regret that? I said, no, I'd do it again. Had a great time. You have to separate sometimes your own experience and the outcome of a project, because you can do things that do really well, but at that time in your life, it was a disaster. Do you know what I mean?

Such a good point.

And at the same time you can do stuff which isn't good, but actually, you had a really great. You know what? When we were shooting cats, we had an afternoon, and I sat in this weird green suit with dots on your face with Ian McKellen and Judy Dench. And I wouldn't swap that friend to literally sit and talk to Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judy Dench about. I couldn't tell you what we talked about. I couldn't tell you if it was, you know. And I was like, well, how lucky am I? Yeah, this is extraordinary. So I think I did a tv show which came out, I think, about maybe just two years ago now, maybe 18 months ago, which was on Amazon called Mammals, which I was really proud of, and I really hoped that people would find that, and they didn't. That's the only thing that I look at. And I think because it got reviewed well, it's written by, I think, the best living playwright at the know, or certainly young living playwright called Ches Butterworth, who wrote, like, jerusalem and the ferryman and Mojo, but then also wrote Skyfall and Specter and Indiana Jones, and it was me and Sally Hawkins.

And I would say that's the only thing that I go, I wonder what we could have done differently to make people find it. But then we don't know yet.

Yeah, you don't know.

We don't know yet.

You don't know when it's going to take off again. I love hearing about.

But even if it doesn't, you know what I mean?

I love what you just said, mate. I love that perspective of the idea that. And I can relate to that. I've had moments in my life where I'm having one of my biggest external career wins, but I didn't have the right people around me to celebrate it with. And therefore, it's not as gratifying or as celebratory or it's not as meaningful. Whereas you could have had something that externally, like, no one cared, but you had the people around you where you knew what you'd built and you knew what you'd created. And I love that that resonated so strongly, honestly.

Well, also the notion that I don't know, the way I see it is every single day your life can get turned over and flipped on its head in a phone call. Every single day. Like, I used to say that to my wife Julia, all the time when we were in Los Angeles, I would go, every day we live here, and the phone doesn't ring in the middle of the night. To tell us something's happened at home is an absolute win. It's an absolute win. And you just have to be so aware that those things are coming and those things are real. And all the stuff that we're talking about over here, work and all those things, it isn't those things that are just going to just bang. And then you're talking about life before and after, before and after those moments. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and I'm 45, and my friend said to me, and it's quite a dark thought, but actually it's good to. He's 45 also. And he said, we've turned the corner into sniper's alley. And I said, what do you mean? I didn't know what he meant.

And he said, you're now in an alley and suddenly people are going to just. And you're going to go, oh, my God. It's that shift in life of like, oh, this is where I'm very fortunate. Both my parents are still alive. So that's inevitable, that's definite. And then you're in this world of just absolute unknowns. So I think the older I get, just the less I sort of think about work in that way. I just don't. And maybe because I've had six months of real reflection, six months of not really doing anything, I'm started this podcast that I'm really, really enjoying. Outside of that, I'm writing some stuff. Some of it I hope people will see other stuff. I'm certain they never will. You know what I mean? Some of it I hope they never will. That's a terrible idea. And you just don't know. And so I just think less about work and I want to think more about my health and all those things.

Yeah, walk me through what you've had, all these transitions in your life. Walk me through what your reflection process looks like in your head. Just for you personally. It doesn't have to be systematic or perfect. Just what do you go through? Is it looking at going well? Am I helping my family? Am I taking care of them? Is that the number one thing, or are there other things that go through your head? Because I feel like you've had to make some big transitions.

Well, that's the number one thing. You're only as happy as your least happy child is a wonderful saying, which is without question true. There is nothing that can happen in your professional life that will matter if one of your children is unhealthy, unwell, either mentally or physically. This is irrelevant. Let's park that as a given. Yes, very clear. In terms of my reflection, mainly. I just think I'm so aware of time and the passage of time and that this is it and you have to go, okay, well, now, how do you really, really want to use your time? Because I think when I was hosting the show, I think I probably knew this at the time, but I recognize it more now that I think I said yes a lot, perhaps to too much, because I, I just loved, I knew I wasn't going to host that show forever. I didn't want it to be the end of the book. I didn't want it to be the last thing I did. So I didn't want it to be a shock when I finished the show and said, I'm going to go back to act again now, because I was very aware that there was a lot of people watching that show who had no idea that I'd ever acted before.

So I really just said, yes, I'll do it. I'll be there, I'll do it. And I think I understand my reasons for it. But now I think mainly the thing I'm really thinking is, forget what you can do, forget what's possible, forget what's in front of you, forget what's offered to you or not offered to you. What do you actually want to do? What is worthy of your time? What is worth not taking your kids to school in the morning or picking them up at 04:00 what are the things? That's really the question you're asking yourself. And I don't have so much money that I don't have to ever work again. I really, really don't. Whatever you might read on the Internet, I cannot stress you untrue. It's that thing of just going, well, what do you want to do? Is there anything that you want to say? And if there isn't, then don't. And it will come. It will come. And it's interesting, since moving back to London and I feel in a different cultural space, I'm trying my absolute best to hit 10,000 steps a day. I'm really trying to do that. And so sometimes I'll just go and once the kids are asleep, I'll look and I'll look at 8000 steps and I'll be like, babe, she's going to go.

And I'll literally walk up and down the road and to come back in. And in that time of walking, I'm starting to feel the notion of like, oh, maybe that's. Is that an interesting idea? But don't leap on it. Yes, don't go that's it. Let's go. Let's book a flight. Let's pitch it is to go. Well, let's see if it almost, just to treat it like a plant, really, and go, we're going to water it for a minute, see if there's something there. And already now I'm like, well, thank God I didn't go and tell someone about that. Have you ever read that thing about doing the thing?

Yes.

I just look at that almost every day. Doing the thing. Just do the thing. Don't talk about doing the thing. Don't tweet about doing the thing. Just do the thing. The doing the thing is the thing. And that's all I'm really trying to do.

Yeah, it's fascinating because I find, like, you've been performing, as you said, you love performing when you're a kid. You've been performing for decades now. And it's almost like an identity shift when you stop yourself from performing. I'm talking about performing in a play or in a movie or on stage. Like, you're not allowing yourself to do something that feels so pure and true. And I can see in your eyes when you were talking about it brings you to life. And almost removing yourself away from that requires you to rethink your identity a little. Who are you today? Or how are you feeling about who you are when you're not performing, when you've been so used to entertaining crowds for so long?

Listen to comeback stories I'm Darren Waller. You may know me best as a tight end for the New York Giants. You may also know me for my story of overcoming addiction and alcoholism. You may have heard a few of my tracks as an artist or a producer. You may have seen the work that I've done through my foundation. And you may know my friend and co host Donnie Starkins as well. He's a mindfulness teacher, a yoga instructor, a life coach, a man fully invested in seeing people reach their fullest potential. And we've come to form this platform of comeback stories to really highlight not only our own adversity, but adversity in the lives of well known guests with amazing stories. Catch us every week on comeback stories on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hola, mijente. This is Wilmer Valderama, executive producer of the new podcast De may Abuelita, first part of iHeartRadio's Michael Tuda podcast network. Each week, hosts Vic Ortiz and Abuelita Liliana Montenegro will play matchmaker for a group of hopeful romantics who are putting their trust in Abuelita to find them a date.

Your job right now is to get on Abuelita's really good site. Our awita definitely knows best on date my awolita first. Three single contestants will vie for a date with one lucky main dater. Except to get their heart, they have to win over awelita. Liliana first. Die, Liliana.

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We are ready for love through speed dating rounds, hilarious games, and Liliana's intuition. One contestant will either be a step closer to getting that bandulse, if you know what I mean, or a step closer to getting that. Let's see if cheesebas will fly or if these singles will be sent back to the dating apps. Listen to date my awolita first on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Overcomfort podcast with Jenna Ka Lopez. Yep, that's me. You may know my late mom, Jenny Rivera, my queen. She's been my guiding light as I bring you a new season of Overcomfort podcast. This season, I'll continue to discover and encourage you and me to get out of our comfort zones and choose our calling. Join me as I dive into conversations that will inspire you, challenge you, and bring you healing. We're on this journey together. I'm opening up about my life and telling my story in my own words. Yes, you'll hear it from me first. Before the cheeseman lands on your social media feed. If you thought you knew everything, guess again. So I took another test with ancestry, and it told me a lot about who I am, and it led me to my biological father.

And everyone here, my friends laugh, but I'm puerto rican. Listen to the Overcomfort podcast with Jennica Lopez as part of Michael Turan podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

But that's ego. I think that's ego. That's what you're talking about, is ego. I lived for eight and a half years what could only be described as a narcissist stream. Do you know what I mean? And I cannot stress how much I think being the host of a late night tv show is one of the greatest jobs in the world. I think it's amazing. I think it is brilliant. Like, my God, how lucky am I to have done that? I think it's amazing. But if you were another way inclined, you drive into a studio lot, you drive past a massive picture of your face. That's the first thing you see when you get to work is a huge picture of your face and your name. You then park in an amazing parking spot with your name on it. You go in. I tell you, the thing I miss most about the show is my, like, I miss seeing there's a great lady called t who's on the front desk of CBS, and I would just, my interaction with her every day. I just grew to love it so much. Morning tea. Morning, James. How's it going?

All good. And as I walked through the door, she'd say, have a good one. And I'd go, have a good one. And it would be a race to who could say it first? You get in a lift. You come out the lift to be greeted by another picture of your face. Do you know what I mean? It's like another picture of your face and your name. You turn a corner, and then you start walking up a corridor, and there is just, your name and face is everywhere, right? Pictures of you with everywhere. Then you get to say, well, what are we going to do tonight? Back up. But then you get to shoot a sketch with Matt Damon or drive around in a car with Stevie Wonder. Then you'll come back into work, get dressed. You work also in a gang of people who are the funniest people you've ever met in your life, ever. And they only want to try and make you seem funnier. And that's amazing. And you chat with them and you're hanging out with them. And then good day, bad day, indifferent day, your day will end with a standing ovation, right?

Amazing. Step out of a curtain and 400 people will go nuts. And you've got to remember. And the thing that I would just remember all the time is the other side of this camera is a sign that says applause. Do you know what I mean? There is people going, you know what I mean? And the walk down from office green room to the studio is an amazing change in your psyche because you're with all your bone. And very slowly, I remember the first show because really, you're in a gang. You're in a team where you make a late night show. It's just a gang. You're all making it together. And then at some point, people tap you on the shoulder and go, have a good one. And then you are surrounded by people. You walk in microphone, makeup, touch at the. You enter a door and you hear the other side of this thing. You hear 400 people screaming. You hear a guy going, okay, that's everybody on your feet. Let's go. This is how we do it. Another look at the jar. All right, here we go. Let's get ready to. Okay, and we're going to have five, four, three.

And you find yourself stood behind a curtain, completely on your own. And suddenly this team effort, you are on your own and the spotlights behind you. So this circle is on the curtain and a shadow of you. And I used to stand there, I'd open my hands, take a breath, I would look, and I would say to him, I always have this feeling that my granddad is getting a real kick out of all this. So he is not with me in any spiritual sense. He's just in for the ride of it. I know that he's a jazz musician. He would be like, this is fun, Joe. And I would open my eyes and I would look up and I'd say, be with me. Just be with me and be here now. And for the next hour, your only job is to enjoy yourself as much as you can. It doesn't matter what's happened all day. It doesn't matter what happens on tomorrow's show. Your only a job is to enjoy this right now. And I did, and we did 1198 shows, I think. And I just loved it. I loved it. So it's a lot to leave behind.

It's a lot to walk away from. But I also think this period of silence is so good for me. I'm getting as much or more from this period now. It's so od that. I used to do that every day, that then even speaking to you now I'm like, God, I haven't spoken to anybody in this sense.

Yes.

Since April, I haven't done anything. So it feels od. You're like, oh, man, this is. And the podcast I'm doing, I'm loving because I'm in your chair. But even now this feels unnatural and there is a feeling of, like, I don't know what I've got to say, but then you go, but I'm going to get to meet Jay, so that'll be lovely. What is life without it? It's great. It's great, I think, because I really, really always knew that this wasn't going to be forever. I always knew I wanted to leave before it ebbed away. I just knew that I wanted to do it and then stop doing it and see if there's something else. And if there isn't, okay, great. Who could wish for more? Do you know what I mean? I guess that's the thing. I look now and I think, I don't want any more. Stuff or fame or all those things. Like what I'd really love to do is go, I wonder if I've got one more thing to write. I wonder if there's one more thing to say. I wonder if there's just something else. And I don't know yet what a.

Brilliant way to live. I mean, when you just said that, the idea of I knew that it wasn't going to last forever and I didn't want it to. That's so the opposite of how we're conditioned to think. Most of us are conditioned to believe. When you find something good, hold on to it forever, make sure it lasts forever, because you never know. And I love your perspective because I think not only is it healthier for the mind and the ego, it's actually the reality of life, that everything is ephemeral and transient and it will move anyway. And so you wanting to hold on to something that isn't yours to control is almost a fool's game anyway.

Well, then you're a kid with a balloon, right? And you go and hold. I'm never, ever going to let this balloon go, right? And ignoring for this for a second the environmental impact of letting a balloon go. Let's talk about it just metaphorically. You go, this is my balloon. I'm going to hold this, but I'm never, ever going to let go of this balloon. In fact, I'm going to go, I'm going to tie it to my wrist so it can't disappear because that happened to me once before. And you know what I mean? I'm going to just. That's it. And then slowly that balloon will just wilt and it will run out of the thing that made it great, and it will just then be. Then it's tied to your wrist and you're dragging it behind you, right. And actually something quite beautiful. And again, environmentally, I'm not encouraging this. We didn't know about this when we were kids. When you let go of a balloon, it's magical. Magical. And then you see it and you're like, oh, my God, I used to have that. I used to hold on to that and look at it now.

Look, it's just flying. That's amazing. And then you go, well, now I haven't got a balloon. And then you go, well, maybe I'll get another one. Maybe there'll be another balloon and maybe it'll be a different shape or it'll be shinier or whatever it is. Like, you've got to be able to let go of stuff to make new things come in. You've got to have the space and the time to encounter something new. A friend of mine, a year ago, maybe less, had his heart broken in the most brutal circumstances. It was his first love, first girlfriend, and they broke up and he was just not in a good way. And this was his first real, proper, serious girlfriend, certainly the first time he'd been in love before. I just found myself saying to him, I was like, this is great. This is great. Because you really only understand what love is once your heart's been broken. You understand how tender it is. And I was like, and you understand it now, and you're looking at this all wrong. You get to do it again. You get to do this again. You're going to meet someone else and feel all these feelings and perhaps you'll go into that relationship learning what you've learned from this relationship and that will then feed that relationship in a different way.

And he's just met someone, right?

Yeah.

And he's like, oh, my God, this is amazing.

I'm like, yeah, got that balloon again.

Yeah, that's it. That's it. And so, again, I think it's expectation is the thing that makes us hold on to stuff. If you can just ebb and flow with stuff, you're going to find it so much easier to take the good, the bad and the everything in between as just all being good for you.

I think, James, you're a philosopher. Who knew? We're going to have to add it to the list. We're going to have to add it to the list of the titles. No, genuinely, I mean, that visual you just painted of the balloon, that's going to stay with me for a long time. I've probably never heard it.

I don't know that it's a thing. I think we just might have made.

You made it up.

But it is so Banksy made it up.

Yeah. There we go.

Taken Banksy's image.

It'S such a beautiful way of sharing that lesson. There's a Zen saying that says, what's holding you back is what you're holding on to.

Yeah.

But that visual that you just painted is so powerful and even the visual that you painted of saying that you come out to all this rupturous applause and the hoohah and the idea of you coming out onto the stage, but you're thinking about the fact that the screen says applause on the other side.

Because I think if you don't, it's really dangerous. I think it's really dangerous.

Were you conscious of that. And have you been conscious of that the whole time in your career?

Because. Not the whole time.

When did that become, like a real. Because that's Marcus Aurelius meditations at its best. Marcus Aurelius famously had a. I don't know this. So Marcus Aurelius, when he would walk around the roman town square, he had an assistant that would follow him around. And the role of the assistant was that whenever anyone in the town square would say, marcus Aurelius, you are such an amazing emperor. You are phenomenal. You're incredible. The assistant's only job was to whisper in his ear, you're just a man. You're just a man.

Wow.

And that sort of practice. And so when you said that, that's the first thing I thought of when I didn't know, you said the applause. I was like, wow, you're living that.

I think I've probably fallen into the pitfall of thinking I was more of a dude than I really was quite early ish in my career, I guess, in a way. I don't know. I think I'm sort of entering phase three, right. If phase one was history, boys writing, gavin and Stacey, phase two was moving, was going to Broadway to do one man, two governors, everything that came with that, and then ending up hosting a late night tv show. And phase three will be whatever this is. And I don't know. Look, I've fallen into all those pitfalls of thinking that you're more of a dude than you really are. Thinking any of this is like fame, and it was success. Whatever level of that, I kind of have, in a way, on the whole, a picnic. Right. It's great. It's lovely. People come up, they talk about things that they've liked or enjoyed. And certainly being back here in know, it's amazing hearing people talk about, like, Gavin and Stacey and stuff, which obviously I would never hear in America. And I'm so proud of that show. And I think I've started to think of, like, don't confuse the.

I think for me, I think it's different if you're like Brad Pitt, Harry Styles. Do you know what mean Adele? Like, I think that's a whole. That's an aura and an orb of fame, which I think is not what I'm talking about now. Whereas I think, on the whole, when people are asking for a selfie with me, it isn't really anything to do with me. I think it's just people go, well, this is going to be good on my story, right? I do. No, I do that is not any fovey.

I genuinely believe that.

I think people are going, well, he's there, he's only over there. This is going to be great. In amongst the other four photos of my day, right? And I love taking photos of people. I don't say no. I used to say no when I was with my kids, but now they have a bit better understanding of it and I don't need to hold their hands all the time. My wife was like, you cannot give your attention to someone else when they're that. So if I'm out with my two eldest, it's always a lot easier now. And people are really great and cool and lovely, but I don't ever in my life go, I got all these people, they just want a photo. What can I say? I just. This is. They didn't find me, they haven't been waiting for me. I just happen to be in the same Joe in the juice as them. You know what I mean? And it's like.

I love that. That's amazing. But no, I do love how conscious you were of that. It's so fun because that mindset, that approach to success, that approach to fame makes everything just feel wonderful and beautiful and it makes everything so in the sense of when I don't. I don't mean perfection, I mean in the sense of, it gives you a sense of joy in an interaction, removing the expectation and the weight that can come with it.

Yeah. I also just think you have to just take it all with a bag of salt. All of it. Everything good, bad. If you just can take it with the same bag of salt and distance yourself from it, you can just sort of go, well, that's over there. That's happening over there. But what's really. I'm here, and here are my friends and my family and all those things. And also just being so aware of, like, how lucky you are, how lucky you are. And if you lose sense of that. And I understand when people do, by the way, and I have other points in my career and in my life, and I'm not walking around like this every day, I have all those same things, right? So it's not like I'm sort of floating around. I'm really not. And a lot of this really is predicated on just how much sleep I get.

Yeah, that's true for all of us.

That is it.

You know what, I've been on this supplement recently. I was talking to my. So I'm very into biohacking and health and all the rest of it. So I've been testing this supplement I've been having for the last 30 days and it's like boosted my mitochondria so much that I can't get to sleep. I have so much energy and I was telling my doctor, I was like mate I really want to sleep. Like I enjoy sleep. I'm not someone who sacrifices sleep, I enjoy sleep. Sleep is and I haven't really been able to sleep because of this one supplement.

Anything to do with also jet lag and the time difference.

I think there's a bit of that but I've been here for like 30 days now so I'm like it should have gone in after a week or two. But I agree with you. Coming from LA to London is the harshest jet lag, right. Because I go from sleeping at night.

Really get used to it.

Oh it's really rough. And so it could be that but.

I feel like yeah sleep is so rarely I think I'm saying rarely talk about. We probably talk about it more now than we ever have in the last 40 years. But sleep is this extraordinary gift and I think I'm probably more aware of it now because I've got a twelve year old who seems to think that sleep is some sort of punishment. Do you know what I mean? He sleep as like why would you do this to me? And like dude I don't want to be awake. Right in Alan Debotten's new book. Yes please which I bought for you as a gift. I think it's called a therapeutic journey. A therapeutic journey which I bought for you is I don't know if you want to plug other people's books.

No please no.

Not as good as how to live.

Like a button and the school of life. I'm a big fan.

Genius.

Fantastic genius. Very big fan.

And he's got a section in that book where he talks about sleep and he says when you've got a newborn baby when you've got a newborn baby your only intention is to put this child into a routine and make sure that they sleep at the right time for the right amount of time. So therefore you feed it the right food to make sure it's the, you know to make the right. We have to because if you don't get the right sleep they are going to be awful tomorrow. And then at some point we just decide well I don't need to do that. That's only for a baby. I can sit with my phone at midnight just looking a stream of 32nd videos to then character to not sleep. And imagine that I'm going to be okay tomorrow. And I find that sleep is just like this gift.

Tell me about it.

And the better sleep I have, without question, in every facet of my, in every facet of my life, I'm better. Yeah. Like, I'm really thinking about. You don't drink, right?

No, I haven't.

How long have you not drunk?

I would say, how old am I? Like maybe 18 years or something.

Right. But did you ever, were you right, okay.

I was never an alcoholic. I drank socially, enjoyed it, had fun, loved drinking games. Used to hang out with the lads and go down.

You're about where I am. So I very rarely drink at home. I never really get in and go, I'm going to have a glass of wine or a gin and tonic. But if I go out, yes. And if I'm out, I'm like, I love the feeling of being three and a half drinks in between three and six. I am. Look at Raj's face. He knows what I'm talking am. I can feel it in my knees and I love it. Right? Yeah. And now, as I've got older, I'm just really, I'm going to really try to just stop doing that with no great declaration. I just am really, really going to try not to do that. Because a good friend of mine, my friend Jez, I spoke to him about it and I was like, how did you just manage to just, did you just stop doing this? And he said something to me and I think you'll really like this. He said, I started asking myself, and I do think this changes post probably like 37, 38, it starts to change in your body. And he said, I started to ask myself, how much of tomorrow do I want to borrow?

All I'm doing now by drinking is borrowing from tomorrow.

Wow.

Right? It's like, you're going to a cash point, you're going to a cash point and you're going, I'm going to withdraw 3 hours from tomorrow, that I will be useless. And then probably if I just borrow 3 hours around about noon or one, I'll start to feel okay, so I'm borrowing from tomorrow. And how many hours do you want to borrow? And sometimes you borrow a day, and then the only way you think you can rescue that day is to go, let's have another one. And I thought that was a really amazing way of looking at it. And so my intention is to really try and not do that. I just want to try and just be healthier. I don't even sort of think about weight loss anymore. I've done that so many times in my life, just made so many decisions of just right. This is it. Why don't you change that? Because that isn't working. Why don't you just only try and do what is healthy and see how that impacts your frame?

I like that approach. I think it's natural. When we're recording this, it's like New Year's resolutions and start of the year and all that kind of stuff. And I think all of us know that about 80% of us drop off by the end of January. By February, we're not practicing this new year's resolution, this massive commitment we made. And it's almost because we go from this huge extreme, from being indulgent in December to trying to be hyper intentional in January and trying to go from one extreme to the other, and none of us can hack that. It doesn't work.

Well, a friend of mine said a really good thing to me. My friend Simon said to me, he said, you need to stop going on a diet because my weight has gone up and down. I can see it in too many videos on YouTube. Where I was up, where I was down. I used to have, like, three sets of suits. Lauren Shapiro, who was our wardrobe designer on the show, who I am now saying because I said it out loud, would have hated hearing her name on your podcast. And my time with her, I used to just love so much because, like I said, so much of the day would be a lot of people, and then it would just be me and her choosing suits and choosing what I'm going to wear. And we'd chat about the day, and we've had moments where we cracking up laughing. We have other days where one of us is really down. And it would just be this little precious moment in this very small walk in closet that was off my office where all the suits were and my time with. Those are the things I really miss.

Yeah, that's the stuff I really, really miss. And she very, very subtly. And we never talked about it. We never, ever talked about it. But I knew what she did, and I was grateful, was she basically started organizing my suits into, like, really fat. Fat and always looking good. You could see, and she would just.

You always look good.

She know. But she would just very. And I would go. And then we just became a thing where I'd be know, particularly if we came off a hiatus or a go away and just go, I think we're going to be. And she'd be. Mm hmm. And we'd never really speak about friend. Said, my friend Simon said, you need to stop going on a diet. I said, what do you mean? Said, you've got to stop. You've got to stop going on a diet. He said, because going on a diet is like going on a holiday. You are going to return. You're going to come back.

Wow.

He said, if you go on a diet, what you're saying is this is short term. He said, you need to just go, this is how I live now.

That's good.

And this is it. That's not going. I don't eat any bread. In moderation, it's probably good for you to eat certain types of bread, but that's it. And don't just stop this thing of being like, oh, guys, I'm on a diet. And he was like, and stop broadcasting. Yeah, saying it. Just stop saying it. Just go, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to try and exercise like this. I'm going to try and walk like I'm trying to do and just be like, no, I'm going to eat this. And don't be like, well, I want to be down 20 pounds in 35 days because you've done that and you know how that plays out. Don't go on something that should change something.

That's good. I like that. Yeah. On a diet, on a holiday. That's good. That's strong. You've got some wise friends, James.

I do.

There's a lot of great advice. Are these friends for, like, life? Are these friends recently?

Simon? I've known probably about nine years, and then I have. Yeah, and I have friends who I've known for 35 years. You know what I mean?

What's it taking to keep those? Because I find, like, I've been talking to a lot of my male friends about this recently and this idea of, do you have a friend that you could call in the middle of the night and, you know, they would pick up, they would turn up, they would be there. Because if you have one of those friends, that's pretty rare and pretty incredible, especially as men, I find sometimes it's almost harder to have those vulnerable relationships. But you seem to be having a lot of open, vulnerable, healthy conversations with men in your life.

But I think it's easier now. I think it's easier now than it used to be. I think, I hope we're going to move into a generation of men, and I think you and your show is responsible for that. I think just the ability to just be like, I'm struggling is a thing which I think for a very long time men were conditioned to that. That was weak. And actually it's almost certainly the bravest thing you can do. It is a tremendous act of bravery to say, I'm not doing too great at the minute. And as soon as those words leave your mouth, I reckon 20% of those things have gone. And I'm very, very fortunate. I just have a lot of. I love a lot of friends that I've known for a very long time. And I love them and I tell them I love them and I enjoy the company of people. So know, it's interesting you talk about who would call, like my friend Louis that I was just telling you about, who we wrote that script together. Louis had a previous life where he would go out sometimes for three days. I don't think he'd mind me saying this.

He'd go out for days on end. And I always, always, I said to Jules, when we met, I said, just so you know, I've got this friend Louis and he goes out for a long time. Like, you know what London was like in those times, in these very streets.

Yes.

And I said, if he calls me, I have to pick up. I always pick up because I always used to think he might be in trouble. This resulted in some of the funniest things I've ever heard. Him calling me at 2345 in the morning resulted in some of the funniest things I've ever heard. And so that's why I'd say to anybody who doesn't pick up the phone to a friend in the night, it might not always be bad, it might be. He called me once, I think it's okay to tell you this. He called me once and I sat for half three in the morning. Hey, man, are you okay? And he went, and he's drunk. And he went, I'm going to tell you something now, and it's a fact. I went, what? He went, it's a fact. I went, sorry. He went, what I am about to tell you is a fact. It is a fact of life and I would like to share it with you.

Okay.

There's quarter four in the way. He's like, it is a fact, james, that I have never and will never see the Jersey boys. Goodbye. And hung up. The friendship is, I think it's sort of everything, isn't it? I cherish it so much. I also think with kids, it's really important for them to see you with friends.

Yes.

To not separate those things, to involve your friends with your children and your children with your friends, because I'm really aware that my son's twelve right now. We just get on great. We get on so well. We get on so well. It's beautiful. And I'm so aware that that is about to change because that is just nature. I took, about a year ago, before we moved back, I took my son. I can't even remember what happened. He was kind of stroppy and he stomped upstairs. He's really not that kind of boy, but he did. And I went upstairs and I sat in his room and I just went to him. I said, can I ask you some questions? And he was quite taken aback because he thought I was going to go, what was that about? And I went, can I ask you some questions? And he went, yeah. I said, do you think I love you? And he went, yeah. I said, do you think I would ever do anything to intentionally hurt or upset you? He said, no. I said, and do you think in the eleven years that you've been on earth, do you think I've changed dramatically?

He went, no. I went, well done. You scored 100%. They are all the right answers. I said, and I'm telling you this because over the next few years, there are going to be points. You are going to think I don't love you. You are going to think I am intentionally trying to hurt or upset you and you're going to think that I've changed. And I need you to remember this, that I haven't changed. We haven't changed. You've changed and you need to, and you have to, and you are going to go through immeasurable changes in your life and body. And all we are trying to do, me, your mom, your sisters, and it's going to happen to them, too, are just trying to help you navigate these bumps that are going to come your way and these changes, both mental and physical, that are happening for you. But I need you to know that I haven't changed. I'm never trying to intentionally hurt you or upset you. And I love you. I love you more than you'll ever know. And he went, I think we should have some sort of code word. So I remember this.

And so we came up with some silly code word that I would just say to him, like, do you remember? And he'd be like. And he'd be like, yeah, you haven't changed. I was like, my hair hasn't changed, dude. I got the same hairstyle that I had when I was 18 years old and I refill that with friendship. I'm so painfully aware that there's going to come a point where the influences that aren't me are going to become bigger on my children for a moment. And so if I can make sure that those other people that they look to are people who are aligned with how I feel, then it's going to be great.

Craig Ferguson, the grandmaster, the architect of wisdom, Maharishi of mirth, goes in search of joy.

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And sometimes they're going to take advice from dad's friend more than they are from dad.

They are going to seek it. Yeah, they're going to absolutely seek. Take those other role models, particularly boys. I think that's right. Is that right? Yeah. I don't know if that's completely right, but I do think that there is perhaps more of a thing between boys and dads. And it's such a strange thing.

Yeah, I remember. So you wouldn't know this because we didn't know each other then, but became friendly with James Longman on your team years ago.

Yeah.

And so long as it invited me to come and watch the show. This is when I first moved to LA. When I first moved this, this was like five years ago. Yeah. And I got to come and he's wonderful. Obviously, he's the greatest. So he showed me around. I got to see all the rooms and the green rooms and everything. He just gave me the best tour ever.

He's great.

Took me to the photo wall. I got to put up a fake photo of myself on the wall as if I've been on the show, all of it. It was really sweet. And we didn't know each other at all then, of course, and I didn't know anyone else apart from him. And I was just really excited to be there because I was such a fan of the show. And I remember you were so wonderful. Even in between the show where you're in between segments, like it's not live, and you would come and chat to the audience, you'd shake people's hands. And then I remember you'd go and call your kids and you'd literally sit at the desk in between and just like, get them because. And you'd tell us. You'd be like, guys, I'm just going to call my family because I'm going to say goodnight to my kids. And it was so amazing to see someone who's in the middle of everything you described so phenomenally earlier, but then be like, I just want to say goodnight to my kids because it's that late. Right? However late it was at that time, I think kids were going back to bed at seven or whatever.

Yeah, it's about 07:00, seven or whatever it may have been. And I remember you facetiming them and then we got to wave it. And I just remember how special that was. And I just think I've heard you say day before that for so many years, your family was marching to the beat of your drum. They were there for you. They were just holding it together for you so that you could build and create. And I just think about moments like.

That that you were having with them immediately. I'm so worried that the show you came to was terrible. All I can think Ruffalo is great. He's great.

He's great.

But that's really what really resulted in us moving back is the truth. My wife just walks to the beat of my drum. My family, we're going to New York, we're going to LA. I'm going here. I'm going there, babe. I'm going to do this thing in Australia. You're good here with the kids. Do you know what I mean? Honestly, I genuinely feel, and I get the feeling that you might be like this. I feel like I could live anywhere. Yeah, anywhere. I could live anywhere. Because we're very fortunate that you're here now in London. You're going to go back, you're going to go to India, you're going to go to New York, you're going to go to LA. What a privilege. I'm so aware that that hasn't been my wife's life for the last twelve years, 1314 years. And so really, our decision to move back was I was going to stop the show regardless. There was a moment where I was going to stop it a bit earlier and then it was done so beautifully, my leaving of the show. Like, me and my boss, George, just sat in my office and literally talked it out like this.

No agents, no lawyers, no nothing. Like I said, I'd like to leave at this date. He said, is there any way I can get you to stay to this date? I was like, I can't stay to that date because we've got to resettle. The kids have got, like, they have to start school in September. And then at one point it was going to be May, and then there was like, I think there's golf and masters and all these things. And we literally just were like, okay, we'll end it then, and that'll give us the right gap. And all of that came from me just saying to Jules, I'll live anyway. Where do you want to be? Where do you think it's best for us to be? Because I know she would never make a decision that isn't best for the kids. Forget me. And she was just like, I think it's time to go home.

Yeah.

I was like, okay, that's it. And I'm so grateful that we did. Just in my family, before Christmas, my mom sings in a choir. It's not a church choir, it's just a choir with some of her friends. And we all went out to high Wickham to watch her sing in this choir. I sat in this room in John Hamden sports Hall or their theater, just a school hall that we were in. I cried my eyes out. I cried. I couldn't stop crying because my mom was in this choir with, like, 40 other people singing Christmas songs. And it was so pure. It was so pure. It was so the antithesis of what our life had been in Los Angeles. And my mom was in the corner of this question and she couldn't stop smiling. And I just thought, oh, my God, this purity that's here. These are a group of women and men in their. I guess they range between 30 to 60 people. And I just was like, this is everything. I don't want to be anywhere else. I only want to be here. And it was so weird. It's so weird, the effect it has on me even now saying it.

I can't understand it. I can't tell you why. I think it just felt in that minute like, oh, this is the sacrifice. This is why we made what you would perceive to be a great sacrifice. This is the reason. Something here that I would never see, I would never come back for, I would never be part of. And then my dad joined them for a few numbers, playing the saxophone, and I just was like, oh, my God, this is worth everything. This is everything I need to feed me and my kids, watching their grandma sing this song. I was like, how lucky are we to appreciate and have this experience, to have come back and everyone be healthy?

Yeah, for sure. What does it take in the marriage for that communication? Even the fact that you're both asking each other questions, you're both checking in with each other? That's not easy. It's challenging. Yet what has that taken from both of you to really be able to make those big decisions together?

It's taken me learning from my wife. That's it. That's it. She, I think, has always known and always figured out how to communicate, how to do this. And I think I've been terrible at it. I think I've been rubbish at it because I think I lived for a very long time. An existence of just nothing will move me from this train I am on. This is it. Oh, you're hopping on. Great. But this is the thing. And actually you've then realized that that isn't the case. I mean, we don't argue very much. We really, really try to talk in the day, right? To not make it the last thing we do, even if you are going to bed with like, and it's more her than me and she's like, well, I'm going to talk to you about that tomorrow. You know what I mean? But it's so much better than going to bed, going to sleep. Just don't go to sleep on an argument.

Yeah.

That's the first thing. And I think I learned quite probably halfway through our marriage that actually, if all you're doing, and this is an almost impossible thing to do, but if you're at least trying to, you're pretty much there. As if you're going, well, if all you're trying to do is meet your partner's needs, then all yours in turn will be met. They just will. Like, how many times do we hear, it's funny? We had a friend of ours, or a friend of my wife's. They're friends of ours. But if we ever broke up, she'd get her.

Now you've got me thinking about all our friends.

Divide it up. Yeah.

I think my wife's going to take.

Quite a fun game. And she was saying this a few years ago now. She was like, he just never does anything for me. He never surprises me and takes me out for dinner. He never says, buys a theater ticket. He never says, oh, Friday night, me and you, let's do this. And I just went, well, when do you do it? How often do you do that? She went, well, I don't. And I was like, right, you have to see that. That might be a thing. For all we know. He sat somewhere now going, she never takes me out. She never goes, let's go to the cinema. And she was like, oh. And I was. And that's it in its most base level. I think that's probably the thing I've learned the most.

Yeah. I love hearing about your relationships and the way you talk about your relationships. Obviously, this whole shift in your life is because of your relationships. And so it's so wonderful to hear about it. And you were giving me credit earlier, know, hopefully changing conversations around masculinity, but I think you did that very much so as well with your bromance comic relief videos with David Beckham. And I'd always appreciate those when they came out. And I know you guys have a real bromance, but seeing it on screen was always a real treat, whether you were doing the Calvin Klein ads together or whether, or doing each other's nails or whatever. It was, it was so funny. And you went to the premiere recently of his documentary, which I thought was just brilliant, phenomenal. I read Bex's biography, autobiography when I was like 15 or something, and it was life changing. I loved it. And getting to watch the doc was honestly reliving it again.

What a story.

What a story, right?

Just the whole thing. When I watched it, it really really reminded me. Have you ever watched Aaron Sawkins commencement speech at Syracuse University?

I have not.

No, I'm not actually me saying, when I get my driver's license, my life will be like this. He actually says that in that speech. He talks about that. That was the first time I realized that, like, oh, that's what I have always done. His commencement speech at Syracuse University is brilliant, as you can imagine. It's just so brilliantly written, and he delivers it. It's exceptional. It's my favorite thing to watch on YouTube is people's commencement addresses, and his is particularly good. And I would urge anybody to go and look at it. I use it, I quote it. It's fed into me. And he says a brilliant line. And it really came to the forefront of my mind, watching the Beckham documentary, where he says, the world doesn't care how many times you get knocked down, so long as it's one less than the amount of times you get back up again. And that's what I think the Beckham dock is. It is a story of a man who just doesn't stop. He just gets back up and he carries on. And that's what it's about. You could say it's about the first sportsman to become a global brand and icon.

You could talk about it's the first family to have become, perhaps in Britain, outside of the royal family, a family of intrigue and interest. You could say it's a story about fame and sport. It's not. I think it's a story of someone who just kept going through adversity, through challenges, just got up and carried on. And that's why I think it's resonated so much with people, because it's interesting. I don't know if you found this, but it's interesting being british and watching then, because people in America, like, I had no idea.

No idea.

Oh, my God, those football, those soccer fans, the way they were with him, and you're like, yeah, no, I know.

I remember the effigy.

And then Greece. That's where sport, though, can transcend everything. It's why I think sport and music, I think sports stars and musicians are. I think their fame is so different to actors and performers and hosts and writers, and I think their fame is something different because they give you moments. They give you moments in, like. And I'm really. What I put those moments down to is they made you feel less alone. That's actually what it is. It's why our relationship with singers and recording artists is so personal, because I was in this play called the History Boys, and it's written by Alan Bennett, and there was a speech that Richard Griffiths used to deliver every night, and he'd say, the best moments in poetry are when you think a thought or a feeling is particular to you, and then suddenly someone who is long dead, you will never meet. No, he says, someone who you will never meet, perhaps even long dead, has written down the very thing you're feeling. And it's like a hand has reached out and taken yours, and it says to you, you're not on your own. You're not on your own.

That's a great bit in a John Lennon documentary where there's a guy saying to Lennon, my. That song you wrote. But that was about me. It's about me. That's how I am. And then John Lennon's going, they're just songs. They're just songs. It isn't that. And he's going, no, but it is. You wrote that about me because you can't know how I felt. And so I think suddenly you feel very alone. You hear something and you realize you're not. And then I think, sport, when David Beckham curled that free kick in the top corner, which we qualified for the World cup, it did not matter. Tory, conservative, Republican, Democrat, left, right, all the stuff, the divisions, everything, suddenly.

Yeah.

And you're hugging people you don't know you've never met, and you're brought together and you're not alone anymore. And that's where I think sport and music is such a powerful thing in our lives, which you don't feel when you watch a film. You can watch a film or a tv show and go, oh, yeah, that was amazing. Even if it moved you hugely, that connection isn't the same.

I don't think that's why you gave him an ugly statue of himself for all of that. Oh, my God, I've watched that a million times that day.

Man, that was so much fun. That was just. Because pranks, they're the worst thing to film. They're awful because they could just go wrong. At any point, they could go wrong. One notice of a camera and hundreds of thousands of dollars gone, and, my God, that day just worked out in the best way. It was.

It's so good if anyone's not seen it. It's so good if you watch the doc and you love David Beckham and you love what James does, you have to go and see it. It's just, you made the ugliest statue, one of the best looking men.

Well, I had the idea because. Do you remember the real.

Yeah.

Do you remember that? So then it was like, I remember going into Ben's office and going. Because I think if they hadn't done that with Ronaldo in real life, I don't think David would have believed.

Right? Yeah.

But it was because it happened in real life with Cristiano Ronaldo, that we were like, oh, hang on, we could do this. I never thought it would work as well as it did. And credit, I have to say, to the actors in that sketch, I mean, just brilliant.

Pitch perfect. Yeah, Manchester City, that was brilliant. Walk me through that, what you just said. Now that you're in that space six months, you're reflecting, figuring it out. We're waiting for that next balloon. We've let the other balloon go. What does James Corden's creative process? Stillness. Waiting for the idea, building an idea look like? What does that look like? Where does inspiration strike? Where does it come from? Where do you seek it when you've let go of something without knowing what's next?

What I'm really trying to do now is not rush anything. I spent a long time squeezing so many things in that actually now I just sort of think, well, don't force an idea to be whatever it is that you might write or do. But then, at the same time, I think what I have to really be conscious of now is to not be too afraid to not be too scared to do anything, because I think I've been so enjoying this feeling of not being on tv every day and putting out content on, whether it's YouTube or social. I'm so aware of how much was just being pushed out all the time. And that can come with so much stuff.

Totally.

It's good to sit and wait, but then don't be scared to do it. Don't be scared of the failure of it. I've only took a screen grab. I think it's the guy who's the new CEO of Vans shoes. I think we used to work at Logitech. And it says here, I've just got the screen grab. Which ran for a decade. Which he ran for a decade. And he penned a Dr. Seuss like poem titled the Secret of Success. Oh, sorry, the secret to success. Avoid it. It reads in part, success makes you fearful of losing your place, of gambling with stature, of losing your face. And there is an element of that I feel of, like, well, there's a very real chance that you do something and it's shit.

And all the greats have had that they've all done that.

Oh, my God. But I think that's why I was so keen to, even in this period, to make this podcast, this life of mine, to go well, no, I know what this is like. This idea of this podcast is an idea I had when I was 16 and I wrote it out.

Wow.

I wrote it out and it was called Planet Lovely. Called Planet were lovely. Because do you remember there used to be a tv show on tv on BBC two when we were growing up called room 101?

Yeah, of course.

Room 101 was a show where people would take things they hated in life and they would put them into room 101 and they'd be gone forever. It was a really funny show, a brilliant show and premise. And I was, like, 16. I was like, well, this is great. Wouldn't it be brilliant to make a show which is just people talking about things that they love and things that are really significant in their life? And I wrote this thing, this planet lovely. It's not called Planet lovely anymore. Came to the decision that that's a not great title, but I was like, why don't we just have people talk about things that are significant in their life, whether it's a film, a place, a person, a memory, a possession, a song. I really, really wanted to do it, so I was like, can I create something in a completely different medium that feels almost the antithesis of what the Late Late show was? It's completely different. It's calm and it's quiet and it's soft, and it's people talking about things that they love or that were moments in their life. And some of the stuff that we've heard has just been great.

So I've really loved creativity. I love the creativity of just. We're going to put this on SiriusXM, and hopefully people find it, and hopefully it will be just a piece of joy. It'll be a warm hug on a Sunday afternoon, and that would be a lovely thing to put out into the world. But that's a sort of gestation period of 30 years. I don't think I should do that again. But I do think what I'd really love to do is try and write one more thing. Yeah, I'd love to try and write one more thing. I'd love to write again with Ruth Jones, who I wrote Gavin and Stacey with. I love her so much. She is and has been a constant in my life as a friend, and you want to talk about a long friendship, and so I'd love to try and write something else with her. I don't know what that'll be. I don't even know if we'll ever before do it. I don't know. But we do have chats about maybe this is a thing. So that's what I'd really love to do. Have you listened to Bradley Cooper talk about making Maestro Maestro?

Yeah, I did.

Where he really just made a decision to give himself over entirely for three years to that project to just go, well, what does it feel like, actually, to not move from one thing to the next, to be here, there, doing this, doing that? What does it feel like to just give myself over in every way to the point where I imagine a lot of people around him on that set were earning more financially, but as a challenge to give himself over to it in the most beautiful way, I think is so inspiring to watch. And I don't know if I've ever done that. I know I haven't done that. I'm never like that on that level. But I don't think I've ever completely just given myself over to something and seen it through from inception to pushing it on the water and letting other people decide whether it's good or not and seeing who I am the other side of it, I think that would be a really good thing to do. I just found this, like, seven weekend course at the film school in Beckonsfield. Or seven, I don't know how many days I might be wrong, but I think, oh, maybe I'll do that.

I wouldn't mind doing some acting classes. I just wouldn't mind just going, well, can I wonder if there's one more thing? And if there isn't, how lucky was I? But I really feel like I might be getting to a spot where I might have something to say.

Yeah. James, you're very unique and extremely thoughtful and conscious and so honest and genuine. It's been such a treat talking to you. Honestly, genuinely just sitting with you. And I know that I'm listening to an actual stream of consciousness more than curated answers. And it's really powerful. It's been really special. And I want to thank you for giving me this space, holding this space and trusting me with it.

It's a real thrill to sit and chat with you. It's great. It's a lovely thing you've created here. It's brilliant. It's really brilliant. What? You're strange. I don't know if you feel this, but I feel like there's a strange thing with brits that go to America because there's only a handful of us who know how hard it is and how vast that is. So when I look at your stuff and I see the things that you're putting out, and I think I walked past, like, a huge billboard of you the other week and I was like. And I didn't know we'd never met, but we have friends in common. And I was like. Yeah. I was like, gone, boy. Yeah.

Not when I get to work yet.

This is Woodgreen. Yeah. You're from Woodgreen. Look at him. I'm very proud of you with no reason to be.

No, mate. I appreciate, you know, offline today and online, you've given me a lot of mentorship and coaching that I'll take on and I'll practice in my life. Honestly, you've left me with some really thoughtful pieces of insight. But we end every show with a final five. And these are the fast five, which are answered in one word to one sentence maximum, of course. And I'll ruin that rule every time because you give such wonderful answers. But we'll try.

We'll try.

So, James, these are your fast five. First question is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received to.

Ask yourself, is this of my concern? Right, I'm going to break it already, but I really think that phrase is one of the most important things you can hang on to, is to just go, there's a great power in being able to say, that's none of my concern. It's more polite than saying, I don't care. It's more truthful than saying, it's nothing to do with me because sometimes it will be to do with you. But is it of your concern? Do you need to engage with it? You just go, sorry, what was that? Someone say something. Think about it. Oh, that's none of my concern. And carry on.

I love that. Super powerful. Okay, question number two. What is the worst piece of advice you've ever heard or received?

Oh, geez. Oh, God. It's weird. You know, I think, just do it. Right? The Nike if you're in America, and the Nike if you're in England, Britain. I think just do it is a brilliant slogan, right? I think it's one of the most powerful slogans in the world. And what makes it so powerful is the full stop is the period. Just do it. Right? Just do it. Great. But that can really have other connotations. So I would say, don't just do it, ask whether you want to do it and do you really want to do it? And then do it.

I love how you just went up against the greatest slogan of all time.

I do think it's a masterpiece. Yeah. I just sometimes think. Yeah. Because I would say, like, crystal meth. Don't just do it. Don't just do it. Really, don't just do it. Yeah.

I love it. Now, the new one when we go walking past the night store in England is going to be, do you really want to do it?

Ask yourself, seriously, do you really want to do it? And if the answer is yes, just do.

I'm looking forward to seeing that billboard with you on it.

Not as snappy. I don't know if it'll really take off.

Question number three. How would you define your current purpose?

I think my current purpose is to let it be and accept whatever it is. And that's not work, that's life. Accept all of it. Don't get caught up in what you thought something should be. Just accept what it is and realize how incredibly amazing it is to just be alive.

Brilliant. Question number four. What does it feel like when Tom Cruise says to you, your life is more valuable than his?

Feels like a lie, Jay. Yeah, it feels like a lie. And I think I knew that at the time.

But you believed it.

Man. He could say anything, and I'll believe him. Anything at all. The guy is just exceptional. Oh, my God. Amazing. Yeah.

Special fifth and final question, which we asked to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

I think the law should be for every minute you spend on social media that when you come off the app, you're not allowed back on for that many minutes. So if you go on for an hour, you're locked out for an hour. If you're on for two minutes, you're locked out for two minutes. And I believe that should be the absolute law. I don't prescribe this notion that these things should be banned. I think it's insane to think that. I just think that actually, we regulate the speed on the road. We regulate what age you are, when you can vote, what age you are, when you can get married, have a child, drink, do a degree, drink alcohol, all these things. And actually, I think one regulation would be that if you need to spend 7 hours on it, the second it's dormant for a minute, you're locked out for 7 hours. And I think it would be great. I think it would be brilliant.

That is genius.

That's my genius.

We've never had anything like that on the show.

I pitched it once. I was at some conference thing, interviewing quite a prominent sort of Silicon Valley type CEO. And I pitched this as an idea in the room, and it did not go down. They did not respond as well as you.

I am in love with all.

They were like, why would we ever do that? We are monetizing all of their time. We want all of their time, james. We don't want some of their time. We want to steal it all.

I'm the opposite. I'm thinking, how do we make that happen? That's brilliant.

I think it's a really interesting thing.

To play with, because, again, I'm on a diet. I'm on a detox. It's not going back to, this is awful. I'm going to be on it for seven days.

All of these things, social media, the way that the new thing where we talk about AI, and it's like, of course it's terrifying. It's also going to be miraculous and brilliant. So nothing is all bad. Nothing is all good. No one is all bad. No one is all good. It's impossible. But what you can do is regulate these things, in a sense. And if that was just the. We would all accept it. We'd all accept it. And I'm sure someone somewhere will find a hack. That means you can't. But on the whole, people would just go along with it, and they'd be like, I can't open it. I'll open it in a minute. And then they would stop and look up and realize that actually, maybe out here can nourish me more than it does in there. It's very hard to leave in there when it's always there.

James, you're world class. This life of mine is available right now wherever you listen to podcasts. Sirius, right?

Sirius XM.

Yeah, Sirius XM. And so I hope you guys subscribe, follow, and look out for an episode. I'm going to get to jump on the podcast, too.

I can't wait for you to be on.

Really, really looking forward to that.

Great.

And again, thank you so much, James.

This is.

If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with Will Smith on owning your truth and unlocking the power of manifestation.

Anybody who hasn't spoken to their parents or their brother, call them right now. Don't think you're going to have a.

Chance to call them tomorrow or next week. That opportunity with my father changed every relationship in my life. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast and founder of the center for Human Potential. If you like on purpose with Jay Shetty. I think you'll enjoy the psychology podcast where we explore the depths of human potential. In each episode, I talk with inspiring scientists, thinkers, and other self actualized individuals who give you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Our aim is to help you live a fuller, more meaningful life. Listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Craig Ferguson goes in search of joy in talks with actors, doctors, stand ups, and scientists. Everyone is at love, religion, drugs, money. Where do you find it? Craig Ferguson in search of joy the celebrations, the dances, science, poetry, laughter, and music of joy. Don't miss it. Joy with Craig Ferguson. Hear it now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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