In the final episode of the podcast series looking at hit comedy drama The Outlaws creator/director Stephen Merchant reflects on series two with hosts Suzi Ruffell and Geoff Norcott. Stephen describes a trip to Stonehenge with Christopher Walken and imagines a travel show with him called ‘Walking with Walken’, compares keeping the cast and crew safe during the pandemic to a real life Squid Game, as well as his thoughts on what the characters might do next.
Below is a taste of the podcast. The full episode is available here.
STEPHEN MERCHANT RECALLS TAKING OSCAR WINNER CHRISTOPHER WALKEN ON A TRIP TO STONEHENGE
STEPHEN: We asked (Christopher Walken) if there was anything in particular he wanted to do while he was in the West Country and he’d always wanted to visit Stonehenge. So we arranged a kind of after hours visit to Stonehenge and like I said he’s quite a quiet man. Quite sort of reflective and he didn’t say anything for about an hour. Then the first thing he said was “apparently the blue stones have healing properties” and was quite sort of mystical. And he said to the lady showing us round “can I touch it” and, it was so British, she went “no, absolutely not”.
I’m like come on, the man’s an Oscar winner. He’s travelled 5000 miles. “Definitely not. We don’t let anybody touch the stones”. I’m like someone must touch the stones! You’re not taking them in at night like garden furniture, And she was like “definitely not”. So Christopher had to leave without touching a stone. But we spoke about it afterwards and we did find it quite... I mean if you’d told my 14 year old self that one day I would visit Stonehenge with the Oscar winning star of Pulp Fiction who stuck a watch up his arse, I wouldn’t have believed you, but there we were...
GEOFF: Did you take him to the Cheddar Gorge?
STEPHEN: I should’ve done really. I mean there’s so many we could’ve done if there hadn’t been so many restrictions. I mean maybe just an open top bus tour of Bath.
GEOFF: You know these travel shows now they’re absolute cat nip for broadcasters, me and Christopher Walken walking...
STEPHEN: It’s doing a ramble it’s called Walking with Walken.
STEPHEN MERCHANT COMPARES LOOKING AFTER THE CAST AND CREW OF THE OUTLAWS DURING COVID AS A REAL LIFE SQUID GAME
GEOFF: Was there hyper vigilance like when you’re looking at the actors to see if they’re displaying any signs?
STEPHEN: Absolutely terrified. Chiefly with Christopher because I just don’t want him to get sick on my watch. I mean every day you go into work and you’re worried one of your main characters might die, it was like being in a real life Squid Game. It was really nerve racking. And one time I looked across and some fan had tracked Christopher down to our location and I looked and this guy had brought, as a gift, a bottle of Jim Beam whiskey for Christopher. No evidence that he drinks Jim Beam whiskey, I think he just thought, what do Americans like.
So I look round and Christopher’s got his arm around him and he’s doing a selfie with this Bristolian, and I’m thinking; he didn’t look like someone who was taking a lot of care with his health, because it was February and he was wearing shorts and sandals. And I rushed over there and I’m like ‘Chris you can’t be hugging members of the public mate’. I felt like a substitute teacher telling Christopher Walken off - “go and wash your hands”.
The full episode of Inside... The Outlaws is available to listen to now on BBC Sounds and all episodes of The Outlaws are available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.
