Extended transcript: John Cleese

In this extended interview transcript, recorded following the Tribeca Film Festival's Monty Python tribute this past spring, John Cleese talks about comedy, his mother's anxiety, divorce laws, and why you won't see him doing any more silly walks.

For more info:

• TheJohnCleese.com
• "So Anyway" by John Cleese (Crown Archtype); Also available in Trade Paperback and eBook formats
• montypython.com
• "John Cleese and Eric Idle: Together Again at Last, for the Very First Time" (Through Oct. 31) | Tour Dates and Tickets

Smith: So how are you?

Cleese: Old and tired, but in a good mood. It was quite busy. They just showed all the Python movies in a retrospective at the Tribeca Film Festival. But the thing now is that people are so mindlessly benevolent towards us, that it doesn't really matter what we say.

Smith: Seriously? That's how you feel?

Cleese: Yeah, they're just wonderful. It's like the O2 [their 2014 reunion in London], this extraordinary warmth towards us, so we don't get nervous anymore.

Smith: Did you used to get nervous?

Cleese: Oh, yes. I used to get very nervous, all through Monty Python I remember thinking, "I wish they'd tape the dress rehearsal," because I was always funnier in the dress rehearsal than I was on the actual recording. Always. Because I was relaxed. And then the audience would come in and I would tighten up. I'd be okay, but I wouldn't be as good.

So, nerves are always a big problem for me, which is why I loved doing American sitcoms, like "Cheers" and "Will & Grace." Because you know when you do the take in front of the audience that you're going to do it again afterwards. A minute after you finish, you just go and do it again. So, there's that sort of safety net. And then if you made a little mistake or two, they'll go pick it up, so there's nothing to worry about.

Smith: You're operating with a net.

Cleese: And so you are more relaxed. And people are funnier when they're more relaxed.

Smith: How did you deal with nerves?

Cleese: Suffered. Just suffered. What do you do with 'em, you know? You just tighten up and you try to stay relaxed and you do little breathing exercises and so forth. And then if the audience is really good, a certain joy comes in 'cause you're really making them laugh. And that's a lovely experience when you make an audience laugh. Then the nerves go away for a bit. And sometimes you do things then that you've never done before that are really funny.

Smith: What is that feeling like when you hear that the audience is with you?

Cleese: It's exhilarating and you love it. But you're always thinking, "I musn't lose 'em." (laughs)

Smith: That's in the back of your mind?

Cleese: Oh, yeah, that's always in the back of your mind, yeah. Well, I think so. There are moments when you're just flying, like on a movie. Probably if you shoot a movie for seven weeks, there are three takes when you're absolutely fine and you can do no wrong.

I remember there was a basketball player who used to say that he practiced so hard because twice in a season an angel would sit on his shoulder. And that's what it's about -- just occasionally that happens. But it's very rare.

I remember doing a take on "Holy Grail" with Eric Idle where he was playing Concorde, my trusty servant. And he'd been hit by an arrow. And we were just chatting as though nothing had happened. And at the end of the take, director said, "Cut." And I turned and I said, "How about that," 'cause it was one of the best takes I've ever done. And the director said, "Not enough smoke." (laughs)

Smith: So the one that we end up seeing is not necessarily the best take?

Cleese: Well, it depends. I mean, the cameraman always wants the one that looks the best. But the cameramen tend not to be that interested in whether it's funny or not.

Smith: Going back to the Python reunion that you just had here. You said that the audience is just loving and benevolent. What is it about your work with Python that so resonates with people?

Cleese: I think it's that it is so silly that it gives people a mindset that enables them to realize how silly the whole world is. And one of the loveliest things that people ever said to me at the beginning of Python [was], 'Once we've watched Python, we can't then watch the evening news, 'cause we cannot take it seriously.'

Cleese: I think it takes a long time, as you get older, to realize just how crazy the world is, just how ridiculous it all is. And I think people sometimes get that feeling after they've watched Python. And it's very relaxing. Because when you realize it's hopeless, then you can just have fun losing your mind -- what else are you gonna do before you die?

Smith: When did you realize that Python had that hold on people?

Cleese: Well, there was a tiny dedicated audience at the start. But, I mean, numerically it was really quite small. That was right at the beginning. In England, you see, it's never had the acclaim that it has in other parts of the world, especially in America, because the press in England is just dedicatedly negative about almost everything. They wanna cut everybody down to size, whether they're politicians or businessmen or football coaches.

Smith: Or comedians.

Cleese: Or comedians. Just anybody -- racing car driver, it doesn't matter, they're after them, you know? And yet, extraordinary thing is that that kind of negative criticism is never applied to one group, which is, of course, the journalists! So, they're always chipping away at everyone who's had any kind of success in England, because I think they're basically a very envious bunch. When we go anywhere else in the world, there's a much greater feeling of acceptance and affection.

Very often people come to interview me in America or Canada and they say, 'I asked the editor if I could interview 'cause I enjoy your work. You make me laugh.' And I think in England, that would be the reason that he would not be asked to interview you.

Smith: Oh, because he has to be critical of you?

Cleese: 'Cause he has to do spiky interviews. They decided to do spiky interviews about 25 years ago, Sunday Times. Of course they didn't tell anyone.

Smith: Having said that, though, when you had the reunion last year, those shows sold out how quickly?

Cleese: Oh, amazing. The first shows sold out 16,000 seats in 43 seconds.

Smith: In less than a minute!

Cleese: And then there was a confusion, 'cause people thought all the tickets are gone, so the tickets for the next five shows didn't go so fast. But that was marvelous. I think the audience likes us.

And then after the O2, there were several articles in the paper about, "Well, is Monty Python really funny?" And the answer is, it is for some people, and it isn't for others. I mean, it's fairly boring to discuss it past that point! But they will try and dismiss it. Do you see what I mean? And I'd never ever been under the illusion that I can make everybody laugh. Everything I've done, some people like it, some don't.

Smith: And that's okay.

Cleese: That's okay.

Smith: And in a way, that's kind of what makes it funny, that not everybody does like it and maybe it's a little offensive to some people.

Cleese: We've done things in the past where it's almost funny because the audience gets so uncomfortable. I hadn't seen that when I was young, but I saw it later on.

The first stage show that I ever was in ["Cambridge Circus" in 1963], there was a guy called Anthony Buffery. And he was kind of a genius, but he was actually a research psychologist and he went back to that and did that for the rest of his life. But he was in our show very briefly. We used to push him out at one point, and he would pretend that something had gone wrong and that he was supposed to fill in.

So, he'd come out. And he had these wonderful wide eyes as though he was terrified and very pale complexion. And he would do things like tell a couple of bad jokes, deliberately. And the audience would kind of get a little uncomfortable. And then he'd tell a slightly better joke, and everybody would laugh. And he would jump around saying, "They laughed! They laughed!!" (laughs) And repeat the joke and be utterly astounded because they didn't laugh the second time. And then he would walk to the edge of the stage and he'd say, "Please laugh -- my mother's in the circle. Please laugh!"

Smith: Oh dear!

Cleese: And the audience died with the embarrassment. Then he'd look at the circle and say, "Oh, it's all right. She's gone." (laughs) And you got more laughter always watching the audience. But it's dangerous.

Smith: It is, to make them that uncomfortable.

Cleese: It's -- oh, yeah, it's dangerous.

Smith: Do you care if people get uncomfortable?

Smith: Was "Fawlty Towers" an immediate hit?

Cleese: Not at the beginning, no. At least not among the press. There were quite negative interviews.

Smith: You framed one of those negative reviews.

Cleese: Oh, no, it wasn't a review, it was the guy at the BBC whose job was to assess comedy scripts. And he said, "I cannot see this as being anything other than a complete disaster. Cliché situations and stereotypical characters." I love the fact that it was his job to assess comedy scripts. (laughs)

Smith: What happened to him? Any idea?

Cleese: No. But I'd love to find out. His name was Muir, I think. I'll put it in the second book.

Smith: You left Python after three seasons. Why'd you quit?

Cleese: Because I was an awful purist in those days. I took it all too seriously. And whereas the other Pythons were just having a good time or thinking it was fun, I was genuinely bothered that by the third series we weren't really doing original material. We were doing permutations and combinations of sketches from the first two series.

And I don't think the other Pythons minded. They were having fun. And to me, with this sort of puritanical streak of me, professionally, in those days, I just thought, "We're not getting anywhere. We're not doing new stuff. So, we should stop." And, of course, when I did that with "Fawlty Towers," I was almost universally praised, because very seldom do people stop when the thing's successful. I got lots of points for stopping. But when I left Python, the other Pythons (or two of them, the two who I think were most insecure about life after Python) were really, really very angry with me that I went. And my attitude was, "Well, I said I'd do some TV shows with you. I didn't say I'd marry you."

Smith: Was it hard to walk away?

Cleese: Yes. Because I felt very guilty. But a lot of pressure was put on me. When I didn't really want to do the third series [of Python], the BBC said to my agent, "If Cleese doesn't do the third series, we're not doing the third series." It was a lot of pressure. So, I said, "Okay, I'll do it." But after three series I remember just thinking, "I just don't want to do this anymore." Now, of course, I'm grateful that we did do three series. But that was how I felt at the time.

Smith: Looking back, if you had to do it over again, you think you would've stuck around?

Cleese: I don't know. But I felt desperately trapped because we were doing Python work of one kind or another -- scripts or records or stage shows, books. It was occupying about ten months every year. And there were so many other things that I wanted to do, but you can't be in for records and not in for books. So, I just felt completely trapped.

What I said was, "I don't want to be doing Python ten months of the year. I don't want to do the television series, which takes seven months. But I would still like to do movies, because that's a limited commitment." You write for a month and then you go off and do things. And then you get all back together and you write for another month. And then eventually you get a script you like. You put three months aside and you shoot it. That's all right, because you're controlling the amount of time.

Smith: It seems like it worked out, because you left and then you were able to come back for all the movies.

Cleese: That's right. And I was able to do "Fawlty Towers," which otherwise I wouldn't have done. And there's another element which always gets forgotten, which is that between the second and third series, dear old Graham Chapman really did become an alcoholic.

Now there was no sign of that the first two series. But the third series, the guy couldn't learn his lines, and he got scared he was going to forget. And then he didn't bother to learn his lines, so that he wasn't a failure. It was very complicated what was going on out there.

Smith: You were his writing partner, you were probably closest to him.

Cleese: He got to the point where in the afternoon he couldn't remember what we'd written in the morning. And no one else was prepared to share the weight, to shoulder the part of the responsibility. So, I was writing with him full time, which was not a very satisfactory experience. And a lot of the sketches were getting messed up, because he didn't get the timing right 'cause he couldn't do the lines. So, that was a major factor in my discontent.

Smith: When you write now or when you've written since, do you miss him?

Cleese: There were moments when we were writing together when we thought of a funny idea. And we used to get absolutely hysterical -- the joy, the energy from suddenly seeing the comic possibilities of a situation. And the fact that we were now going to explore that and write it was absolutely wonderful. It was like watching the winning goal in a game, you know what I mean? It was just extraordinary. And I managed to induce it in John Oliver the other night. 'Cause he was interviewing us, at the Beacon Theatre. And we started, the sound was terrible -- so bad that three of us on the end couldn't hear what was going on. So, I thought, "I gotta do something about this," 'cause you can't sit there for an hour if you can't hear what's going on. So I went off and got a chair. And then we went into a complete routine of moving chairs around. And people started changing. One point we all moved our chairs up around John Oliver, right? And then they all went away again and then I sat very close to John Oliver. And he was about to ask a question and I said to him, "I love you." He was [stomping his feet], laughing so much. And that's exactly what Chapman and I used to do. It's wonderful when you laugh like that.

That's what I've always tried to do, is to make people really laugh. That's what I'm trying to do most of the time, laugh as much as possible, which is much harder than making 'em go, "Hmmmmmmm." You know what I mean? I realized very early on it's much easier to be clever than to be funny, much easier. It's much harder to make them laugh to the point they're almost physically out of control.

I remember doing a show in London once, and there was a scene at the end, I'd written it 'cause it was the only thing I ever claim my law degree helped me with, 'cause it was a 20-minute legal sketch set in a courtroom. And there was a moment where Bill Oddie was appearing in the dark. And it had been established that he was a dwarf or a midget or whatever one's supposed to say these days -- you know, "person of restricted growth," I think is the usual expression! -- and the audience is sorta thinking, "Well, where is he?" And then they suddenly realize he's in the witness box. But you can't see him because he's too short. And it was a moment when the audience absolutely split a gut.

And there was a 14-year-old sitting in about the second row with a rather posh lot of people who happened to be in evening dress. God knows they were going on to some dinner. And I remember I was watching him with delight, 'cause he was just thrashing about. And his father, who was upper class, just leaned across, tapped him and said, "We don't do that." We don't do that in the upper class -- we don't have those explosions of joy, the happiness. Vulgar! And I remember this sense of disappointment I had that this kid was not allowed to really laugh, because that's what I like better than anything.

Smith: What does that do for you when you see that?

Cleese: Makes me sad.

Smith: But when you can achieve that laughter, when you get 'em to laugh?

Cleese: Then I'm totally happy. And I love it best of all when somebody does it to me. I went to the National Theatre once, and they were doing a farce by Alan Ayckbourn. And there was a bit at the end of the play where one of the main characters had been building something from a do-it-yourself set. And right at the end of the play it just falls apart, bit by bit, just crumbles. And it's the funniest thing I'd ever seen. And I was laughing. And I couldn't stop. And the next (laughs) thing was that I looked at the stage and they were looking (laughs) down at me and they were all breaking up, too. Then what happened, the audience started laughing at the fact that they were laughing at me. And this wonderful kind of connection went on and on, because then they were laughing at the audience laughing at me. And then I thought, (laughs) "This is absurd. I've got the entire theatre laughing because I'm laughing."

And it just went on and on for about a minute. And Maria Aitken (who directed "39 Steps"), she remembered that first thing when we met in "Fish Called Wanda," where she played my wife. She said, "I remember that moment when you broke everyone up on stage by laughing in the audience. And no one else has ever done that."

Smith: What a wonderful feeling that is.

Cleese: Wonderful feeling!

Smith: You know, you mentioned that you were headed toward a career in law.

Cleese: Yeah.

Smith: Do you think that you have a different--

Cleese: Lahw? Law! (laughs) Law. Law.

Smith: Law. I'm sorry. It sounds --

Cleese: Lah.

Smith: -- much ... I'm from Ohio!

Cleese: John Lahr has just written a wonderful book about Tennessee Williams. And he's married to my ex-wife [Connie Booth]. Sorry. Where were we? Law!

Smith: You were going to be a lawyer.

Cleese: A lawyer.

Smith: And practice law.

Cleese: A liar.

Smith: Do you think you have a different take on show business, because it wasn't a childhood dream of yours?

Cleese: My whole attitude towards show business has changed in the last two years. This is absolutely true. I always thought of show business as essentially trivial.

Smith: Trivial?

Cleese: Didn't matter. There were serious things going on, like countries being run and national health services working or not working or armies fighting. As I've got older, I realize the whole place is a madhouse and that there's no way that we will ever, ever make it sensible or intelligent or rational. It's a complete write-off. And then I did a talk show, it was Graham Norton, and Neil Diamond came on and sang. And the whole audience sang "Sweet Caroline." And I looked at this audience and I thought, "They're really happy. They looked warm and were having a good time." And I suddenly thought, "My God, show business is important." With so much misery in the world and all these news reports every day, always about people getting killed, 155 people died in a ferry in Indonesia, and a coach drove off a high road on the Neapolitan Peninsula where 62 people have been killed, or there was an earthquake over here and a train crash here. Actually got the figures wrong -- it was 126 was the coach and the ferry was only 58. Sorry, we muddle the numbers! Yes, there are accidents. It's terrible. There's suffering everywhere, as the Buddhists say. You know, it's an awful mess. We're never going to stop them. The news media will always talk about people dying 'cause it's a story. Fifty-six people killed in this town you've never heard of, you know? So, it's not a cheerful prospect out there. And if show business people can go out and make people happy, send them home thinking, 'Well, life's okay,' I suddenly realized that's really (laughs) important!

Smith: Yeah.

Cleese: Yeah. It's not trivial anymore. I always thought it was.

Smith: That must make you feel better about your life's work then.

Cleese: I think it does. (laughs) Yeah. 'Cause I know people used to come out and say, "Oh, you're so wonderful." What are they talking about? I didn't invent a cure for cancer, you know? I'm not Jonas Salk or something. But now I see it more. I see that it's a way of introducing happiness.

Smith: Maybe you are pretty wonderful.

Cleese: (laughs) Well, I think I am. And my wife does, which is the only important thing that matters. She thinks I'm terrific. Isn't that nice?

Smith: That is nice.

Cleese: Took me a long time to find one who thought that! (laughs)

Smith: Fourth time around, right?

Cleese: And I love it. Hope for everyone. If I can do that at the age of 75 -- you may be in terrible relationships now, but you keep going, keep going.

Cleese: July, final payment.

Smith: That's it?

Cleese: Yes.

Smith: You're free.

Cleese: Money is set aside. I'm through. Twenty million dollars.

Smith: Twenty million dollars!

Cleese: Twenty million dollars. No children. She brought no assets to the relationship. She never contributed to the income. But Californian law decrees -- it's not sexist legislation. They penalize the breadwinner, whether it's a man or a woman. And the one who's really brought the money in, that's the one who's got to pay.

Smith: And you actually had to go on tour to pay off the alimony?

Cleese: Oh, yeah. $20 million. I didn't say, "Oh hang on, I've got that in a drawer."

Smith: Well, people think you're a big-time movie star. Maybe you would have that in a drawer.

Cleese: They forget I spent my life working for charity. I mean, the BBC (laughs), which is a form of charity. Do you know what I got for the first series of "Fawlty Towers," writing and performing? I got £6,000.

Smith: The whole first series?

Cleese: The whole first series of Monty Python, £4,000. I mean, these are not huge sums. Six here, four there, oooh, four over there. That's 14! Well, that's some way towards $20 million, but not a very long one. (laughs) It's all crazy. (laughs) It's so completely crazy. I mean, why would you ever -- if you wanna get rich, what do you do? You go to California. You find someone who has a lot of money, and you marry them. And then fairly soon after that, you leave them. But, of course, first you stop work, so you say, "Well, I can't support myself."

Smith: This is what happened with your third wife.

Cleese: Oh yes, oh yes.

Smith: She was a therapist, right? You believe in therapy?

Cleese: I believe that if you're lucky enough to get the right therapist it can have a wonderful effect. But I think that there's a lot of nonsense talked about it.

Smith: Did it help you, therapy?

Cleese: I think it did eventually. But somebody said about therapy once, that all the talk about the analysis of emotions and discussion of relationship is just a way of passing the time until the bond of trust is formed. And I think if you've had a difficult relationship -- in my case it happened to be with my mother -- with the result there wasn't the trust there in that early relationship, it's wonderful if you can find a relationship with a professional therapist that later gives you the experience of trust.

And I think that's what really changes you. I mean, I think all the insights sometimes help. But I think an awful lot of people who do therapy don't really want to change. And I think there's an awful lot of therapists operating who really don't know what they're talking about. I wrote two books with a therapist, a famous psychiatrist in London called Robin Skynner. And I said to him once, "Robin, what percentage of therapists do you think are really able to help people?" And he said, "About 10%."

Smith: What was your mother like?

Cleese: Frightened, angry, needed to have everything her own way because she felt she couldn't cope otherwise. You see what I mean? So, she ruled from weakness.

Smith: How did that affect you?

Cleese: I think I was frightened of her, 'cause when she got angry she got really angry. As I say in my book, when she got angry it was as though anger just filled her up and there wasn't any room for a personality anymore. She was just a sort of ball of anger.

Smith: And as a young boy growing up, that must have been terrifying.

Cleese: Well, I think I picked it up from my Dad. I mean, Dad always tried to pretend he was above it all. But I think deep down, he was deeply scared, 'cause no person likes to be with a spouse who's really, really angry. It's frightening. 'Cause it means they're not themselves, you see what I mean?

So I think it took me a very long time to be able totally to relax with women. And I think after watching James Bond movies in the late '60s, I thought there was some kind of button that you could press it yourself and suddenly you've become debonair.

Smith: Suave.

Cleese: And suave (laughs)!

Smith: But there was no magic button?

Cleese: There was no magic button! But it took me about 20 years to discover that if you were just yourself, it was kind of all right.

Smith: Were you uncomfortable with women for 20 years?

Cleese: Suave. I love that word! (laughs) Yes, I think I was in my mid-30s before I began to get comfortable with talking to women, really.

Smith: And that all stems back to Mom.

Cleese: I think so. 'Cause I never had much difficulty with my relationships with other chaps. Because I was hugely fond of my Dad. He was very kind. And he gave me a sense of security. So, I mean, I'm not blaming her, which is what the British papers say because psychologically those British journalists are so illiterate.

What I'm actually saying is, it's cause-and-effect. It's not a question of blame. But if you have a mother like that, it's likely that things will be more difficult than if you have a mother who's instinctively empathetic. 'Cause Mom was so anxious the whole time, that she didn't have any energy over to be empathetic. 'Cause if you're empathetic with someone, you're listening to them. You can't listen to them if you've got all these fears running in your head and worries about what's gonna happen next. You see?

Smith: Sure.

Cleese: You're distracted all the time.

Smith: You remained -- I mean, for lack of a better word, you remained the good son throughout her life, though.

Cleese: Dutiful. That's right.

Smith: Did you feel like you --

Cleese: Well, I knew if I killed her, the police would immediately finger me (laughs)! There was no chance! It was just like my third ex-wife, you know? (laughs) It would've cost nothing to have had her killed. But I knew police would immediately say, "Hell-o, Mr. Cleese." (laughs)

Smith: Were you able to make peace with your Mom, before she died?

Cleese: Yes! Yes, I was. Well, as she ran out of energy, she became less mean. That was the case. She didn't have any energy (laughs) to be unpleasant anymore. And she actually became very sweet. And she died, eventually, at the age of 101. She was fine until 100. And the last year she got a little bit confused. But I had a genuine affection for her. But when I used to go back to see her after Dad died, she would -- I mention this in the book -- she used to greet me at the door. And she'd have this little piece of paper in her hands. And that was a list of her worries. And she'd be writing them down, literally so that she wouldn't forget any.

And then we'd sit down. She'd give me a cup of coffee and we would just discuss her worries and go through them for maybe an hour, two hours -- make me another cup of coffee. If we didn't finish 'em, we'd finish 'em at breakfast. And she'd work her way through this long list of 15 or 20 things that she got in her mind, and just the fact that I was listening to her and being in contact with her calmed her. It didn't last long.

Smith: But you were able to have that effect on her at least.

Cleese: I was able to have that effect. And the great thing about it was that she had a wonderful black sense of humor. So, on one telephone conversation when she was really telling me all the reasons why she didn't want to go on living -- when your mother does that, you wanna do something, but what are you supposed to do? I mean, the woman has been depressed since she was born. There's not much you can do to change that. But I said to her, "I have an idea." And she said, "Oh, what is it?" I said, "Well, I know a little man in Fulham. And if you're still feeling this way next week, I could give him a call if you like, but only if you'd like. And he could come down and kill you." (laughs) And it was just a long pause, and she shrieked with laughter.

Smith: She laughed!

Cleese: She really laughed at it. And it changed her mood. And I spotted that. So when she started telling me the future, that she was sad about this or that, I would say after a time, "So should I call the little man in Fulham? Do you want him next Friday or something?" (laughs) And she'd say things like, "Oh, no, I've got a party on Friday."

Smith: Oh, that's great. (laughs)

Cleese: And I could move her into a different part of her mind through humor.

Smith: Did you struggle with depression?

Cleese: I did early on, yes. I don't know why. I think it was 'cause I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and I was doing Python obsessively [without] feeling I had any space. And I used to get quite, quite depressed. So on Sunday I'd do a reading of books that I was fascinated by. And I'd read and love it.

And then roundabout 6:00, you know, "God, I've got to start work again tomorrow." And it was just like a horse, I had to put my blinders on. I had to do that because there was so much going on in the world I was interested about, and I had to do that in order to get my work done. And it was a feeling of sadness.

Smith: How'd you come outta that?

Cleese: I don't know. A lot of things resolve if you live long enough. (laughs)

Smith: (laughs) They just resolve themselves?

Cleese: Yeah, they do. I do believe that. I really do. I mean, the only thing about getting old is your body doesn't work anymore. The only small detail!

Smith: Is that frustrating for you, 'cause you were very into sport.

Cleese: My knee collapsed in the middle of a movie once and was never able to play games again. That was the single most significant thing that I think ever happened in my life, except having children, which is hugely significant.

Smith: But the knee blowing out was a blow.

Cleese: It was a terrible blow, 'cause I'd always thought of myself as a games player. And I loved playing games. I like squash, because the rallies were long and you'd get completely lost in it. It was just wonderful, a complete obsession of 40 minutes on the court. Whereas tennis was always, you know, "So, where did the other one go?"

Smith: No more silly walks?

Cleese: No more silly walks. The year Boris Becker won Wimbledon, I remember.

Smith: Nineteen eighty-five.

Cleese: Nineteen eighty-five, yeah.

Smith: We haven't talked about "Wanda" yet. How long did it take you to write "A Fish Called Wanda"?

Cleese: Well, I started writing it with a marvelous old English film director called Charlie Crichton, who'd made his first feature in 1944. When he directed "Wanda" he was 77.

And he was a wonderful director. So, I settled down to write with him, and we made a bit of progress. And then he got a very bad back, and he was in pain. He couldn't work at all. So I thought, "Well, I'll have to find something else to do." And then he started acupuncture. And it was miraculous. And he recovered again and then we restarted writing it.

And I wrote all together 13 drafts. I wrote five major drafts and eight minor ones where I was polishing. 'Cause I often found it hard in a draft to carry both the plot and the characters at the same time. So, sometimes I'd do a draft that was about the plot, and then I'd reread it or rewrite it in terms of the characters and the believability of their motivations. But I eventually got there, and I think it's really good. You know, I think I've done two really good comedies -- "Life of Brian" and "Fish Called Wanda."

Smith: Those are the two that you'd hold up?

Cleese: Those are the two that I would hold up at the Pearly Gates and say, "Look, can I come in, please?" (laughs)

Smith: You mentioned that your other great joy is your children. What kind of Dad were you?

Cleese: I think I was okay. Probably too protective.

Smith: Are you the Dad on the playground following the girls around, making sure they're okay?

Cleese: Well, I was a little bit. It was a little bit like the relationship I had with my parents, where I was providing a lot of the nurture in the early stages.

Smith: So you were on them.

Cleese: I was on them. And I'm rather pleased, 'cause my daughter, who is tall and rather beautiful, is now a standup comedian. She's producing or helping to produce a TV series. And she has a wonderful understanding of comedy. It's not just that she's funny, but she understands that she should really be a director.

Smith: Are you two making "A Fish Called Wanda" into a musical?

Cleese: Yes, we've written a draft together. But we wrote it, and I think it's very good. And it's completely different from the film. But we got a nice little device at the beginning so that the audience doesn't know what's gonna happen, actually.

Smith: But if you're "A Fish Called Wanda" fan, you'll still --

Cleese: Well, I don't know. I think it may work. You see, there's a lot in "Fish Called Wanda" you can't put on stage. You do stuff in an airplane at one point. So, we got a much, much better, more interesting ending, I think.

But the problem is, when you're writing a musical, you have to sit down for four or five months. And there's no money coming in. It's all done on spec. And that was about the time that I suddenly realized I really had to work for money all the time, [to] pay the alimony off, so we sort of put it on one side. But we'll come back to it next year. But the first draft, the book -- no music, the book -- I think is very, very good. Be fun to do 'cause I've never done a musical. It's nice to do completely new things. The trouble is, you always get paid the most money for doing what you'd done before. Nobody wants you to change. People want you to go on doing what you do.

Smith: So, how do you resolve that?

Cleese: You manage to get things like commercials that give you money so that you can stop doing what you usually do and do something else. I was able to do that. I used to do commercials in England, 'cause the pay in England was hilarious. As I said, you know, the BBC was basically charitable work. And so if you could possibly pick up a commercial, then you could -- well, Connie [Booth] and I, when we wrote "Fawlty Towers," we spent six weeks on each episode. Nobody in history has spent six weeks writing a TV episode. And that's why they're so good, 'cause I do believe they are really good. But it takes that sort of time. And no one will pay you during that time.

Smith: So you are doing charity work, essentially. (laughs) You're volunteering.

Cleese: Essentially, yeah. But then if you're lucky, if you get something like "Wanda," "Wanda" took $200 million worldwide, so there's a payoff if you get it right. But when we did "Fierce Creatures," which is not that bad -- it's mixed, like most movies, there's some very funny stuff and two or three quite bad scenes in it, I'm sorry to say -- but that's like most movies, you know?

Smith: Sure!

Cleese: Very mixed.

Smith: It's interesting that you can look at it objectively.

Cleese: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it was a big disappointment at the time, as I can see what we got wrong. And it's a shame. It's a shame, because I think I was trying to write a movie for the whole family. "Wanda" was very black and cynical. It was something for young couples to go and see or old couples to go and see. It was not for mum to take the kids to, which is what I was trying to do in "Fierce Creatures."

Smith: So, what did you learn coming out of "Fierce Creatures"?

Cleese: Hmmm. That's a good question. I think it -- well, there's something to do with energy. I mean, it took so long, nearly three years, you know. And I thought at the end, I don't love movies enough to go through this process again. You see, dear old Terry Gilliam, if he's making a movie and you ring him up, he always tells you how miserable he is and how awful it is. But he still goes on doing it, 'cause that's what he wants to do. And because of that, he has the energy to do it.

Now as you get older, what you notice is that you don't have energy for things you don't really want to do. When you're young you can fake it, 'cause you got lots of energy. But as you get older you think, "No, it just doesn't interest me. I won't be able to do it." You can't do good work when you feel that. So you gotta feel you're excited or interested. And what I'd like to do in television now, rather than comedy, is there's a couple of documentaries I would love to make.

Smith: On?

Cleese: I'd like to make one why some people want to be so rich. I'm fascinated by people who have a billion dollars, want two billion. You know? I'm really fascinated by it. And I'd like to do a documentary about religion, which is really basically, "What would religion be if the churches hadn't messed it up?"

Because the basis of all the religions that I've ever studied is trying to get greater control over your own ego. And yet, all the religions are trying to have more followers, make more money, be more influential, have greater control, which is egotistical. So, how do you have an egotistical organization trying to teach people to be less egotistical? (laughs) I mean, nobody's ever been able to answer me that. And I'd like to find out, "How do they do it?"

Oh, and I'm translating, or rather I'm adapting a wonderful French farce by a writer called Georges Feydeau. Brilliant piece of plot, you know. It's like a clockwork. And I read a very bad translation of it, but I thought, "There's a great plot in here," so I got a French-speaking lady to do a literal translation for me. And that's what I'm gonna start on Thursday morning. Unless I have to do an interview. (laughs) Five today.

Smith: You have five today?

Cleese: (laughs) Five interviews. This is the fourth.

Smith: You're so very engaged. I would've never guessed that.

Cleese: Well, I like talking with you. Seriously.

Smith: Thank you.

Cleese: We don't gossip, do we? (laughs) You know what I mean? We're not sort of saying, "Oh, I love working with him. It was my life's ambition to work with him and he's a wonderful man. We're all very excited about our -- [snores]"

Smith: So, I'm crossing off that question...

Cleese: Saw Kevin Kline the other day. I do love him.

Smith: Did you?

Cleese: Oh, he's such a lovely man.

Smith: But here we go -- stop, stop, stop!!

Cleese: No, no, I wanna tell you about Kevin. (laughs) I have a good joke about Kevin. You know he can't make his mind up about anything. They send him scripts, and he usually finishes up declining them, which is why he's known as "Kevin Decline." But what I love about him is that, as I say, he can't make up his mind about anything. And when he did "Hamlet," which was superb -- I saw it twice in three days and both times he made me laugh and cry -- I said to him afterwards, "Well, you played Hamlet on Broadway. Got great notices. What do you think about it?" He said, "I think I got away with it." And I love the modesty of that. (laughs)

• Kevin Klein: An actor's actor ("Sunday Morning," 11/03/13)

Smith: You're arguably the most famous of the Python members --

Cleese: Oh, much more famous, especially more famous than Michael Palin. (laughs) Mike Palin is a charming guy, just, there's not much talent. Oh, no, no, no, he doesn't have the fame, but that's because he doesn't have the talent. (laughs)

Smith: What's your relationship with fame?

Cleese: It's beyond ridiculous.

Smith: You find it ridiculous?

Cleese: Oh, please!

Smith: Does it make you uncomfortable when people approach you?

Cleese: When they gush at me and tell me how wonderful I am, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. Do you see what I mean? So I usually say, "I know." (laughs) "But you have excellent taste to recognize it." (laughs) But I don't know what to do. There's great things about fame. And the great thing is, you can usually get a ticket for a show that's sold out if you're in show business and you're well-known, you know?

Smith: So, if getting tickets or getting a good table at a restaurant is the best thing about fame --

Cleese: Yes, and also, funnily enough, I can get to people because there's so many people now who are important who sort of run companies and this kinda thing, or producers who tell me that they passed their exams at college because they watched Monty Python to sorta cheer them up. They say, "Monty Python got me through my exam." So, there's an affection and a little bit of respect there, so if I wanna meet somebody, I can get to meet them. The rest of it is okay. If you get recognized a lot, it's fine if it's five times in a day. It's not fine if it's 40 times in a day, 'cause you can't get on with your life, you know?

Smith: You can't move around.

Smith: Is that why you're on Twitter?

Cleese: To avoid the British press. Stephen Fry said to me, "If you get on Twitter, you don't have to do interviews." 'Cause in the old days, if you wanted to let people know you'd done a movie or a play or television or something, you had to do a profile -- they demanded a profile, and they would say, "He's not very nice and he's a bit grumpy and he behaves badly, and there's lots of nasty stories about him." And then four paragraphs at the end they'd say, "Oh, by the way, he's got a film coming out." (laughs) Wasn't a very good deal, you know? So, I don't talk to them anymore.

Smith: You can bypass them.

Cleese: You can bypass them, go straight to Twitter and say, "If you wanna see a film on me, here's the details." It's wonderful!

Smith: How long did it take you to write the book?

Cleese: On and off, a year and a half?

Smith: Is that easier -- I don't know whether that's even the right word -- than writing comedy?

Cleese: No, but it was all fun.

Smith: Was it more fun?

Cleese: Well, it was more fun 'cause I'd never done it before. Michael Caine had said to me when he'd done his, he said, "You recapture bits of your life that you'd forgotten about." And that was really interesting, suddenly remembering a little incident or something, so, "Oh, you think that explains that?" You see what I mean?

So you begin to sort of get that part of your life into proportion and sort of connect it up. And it's great fun, 'cause I was making myself laugh. And I love that. And people say, "Well, you make yourself laugh." And I said, "Well, of course. If I think of a joke, it's the first time I've heard it." Right?

Smith: Right. (laughs)

Cleese: So, I was laughing quite a lot, particularly the story of the rabbit. (laughs) I almost fell off my chair at one point, my favorite story in the-- so, there's that, making yourself laugh, recapturing your old life. And also, as a writer, there's a dignity to being a writer 'cause you can turn up when you want.

Provided you do the work, you can turn up and make yourself a cup of coffee, sharpen pencils, sort the socks -- all those things you do at the beginning before you get down to work. Whereas if you're an actor, some wretched assistant director who's about 17 years of age said, "Mr. Cleese, we'll need you in the morning at quarter to six." And you can't say, "No." (laughs) You're back at school, you see what I mean?

Smith: Sure. But there are more reasons that you prefer writing to performing.

Cleese: It's more creative. Yeah. I think that's the real creation. I think that the creativity of actors is interpretive. It's not uncreative. But it's not on the same scale. Just like a great instrumentalist doesn't compare in creativity with the composer, the best actor in the world doesn't compare with the writer, for me.

Smith: So, could you take or leave performing?

Cleese: If I could afford to, yeah.

Smith: If you could afford to.

Cleese: Yeah. I would like to do [documentaries] because I'd like to do the interviews in them. But if I never did comedy again, it wouldn't worry me terribly, because there are so few great scripts around. Almost everything I've done, I wrote myself, except for "Clockwise," which Michael Frayn ("Noises Off!") wrote.

That's the problem, is when you see a really beautifully crafted comedy, something in me ignites. And I sort of think, "Oooh, I want to be part of this. I'd like to make this happen." But that happens very, very seldom. There's a huge proportion of the scripts out there just aren't very good. Huge proportion.

Smith: Why do you think that is?

Cleese: It's difficult. It's amazing how bad they are. (sighs)

Smith: So it's easier in the end to just write it for yourself?

Cleese: Yeah, yeah, it is easier. Because I suppose there's only three or four people in the world like Michael Frayn where if they said, "I've got an idea," I'd say, "I'm on board." 'Cause most of 'em can't do it. As I say, making people really laugh is very difficult.

Smith: So, I know you're a cricket fan. What do you think of American sports?

Cleese: American sports were basically constructed by very clever people who understood that what Americans wanted to do more than anything else was talk.

Smith: Talk! (laughs)

Then, if it's required, if some kicking is required, a very specially trained man is allowed onto the field, and he kicks the ball just once, and then he's sent away again. (laughs) Football's so silly isn't it?

For more info:

• TheJohnCleese.com

In:
• John Cleese
• Monty Python