Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, screen rats, and welcome to another episode of Television Times.

Now today, I'm hoping you can't hear anything in the background, and I've been talking about it a lot lately, but they're literally re-tarmacking the road outside my house.

And I think this is a rare moment of silence, so I'm going to jump in here and talk about today's guest.

Today's guest is Megan Lockhurst.

Now, Megan is a Canadian actor.

I saw her in Escape, Howard J.

Ford's film, and she's also been in I'll Play Mother, the horror movie, and she was recently in Havoc, a huge Netflix film with Tom Hardy.

So after last year's Howard J.

Ford episode, Megan reached out to me and we arranged to record an episode, which we did.

And the only problem was I could hear myself in her recording.

So I tried my best to sort of, you know, make something out of it, but it wasn't really possible.

So I thought, you know what, let's just have a redo, which is why we refer to it.

In fact, I think I'm going to throw a little bit of the original in here and there if it comes up.

I did really consider, which I thought would be fun, which I mentioned, is to like print out the transcript of the original one and then us act out the whole podcast.

But you know, who wants to do that?

Nobody, I guess, right?

So we didn't do that.

We just had a nice chat.

And Megan's really easy to chat to.

I could talk to her again.

And I feel like the first one was a rehearsal.

And this one is like the good one.

So it was kind of laid back and easy.

And we talked about TV and movies and we just had a chat, basically.

It's just a chat about some stuff.

And hopefully we hit TV along the way because she's an actor.

Right.

Before they start digging the road outside my house, I'm going to just say that's it.

So let's get on with it.

This is me talking to the wonderful Megan Lockhurst.

And Megan Lockhurst, make your way to the stage please.

Thank you.

Roll up, roll up and welcome to another edition of Television Times with your host me, Steve Otis Gunn, where I'll be talking to someone you do know or someone you don't.

It might be funny, but it might not be, but it's always worth tuning in for.

So here we go with another episode of Television Times.

So we're coming in hot, hot and angry.

Jesus Christ, I hate technology so it drives me up the wall now.

I'm so sorry.

This is a disaster.

So I'm going to start this by being really honest.

And also I got the time wrong.

So that's embarrassing because that's never happened to me before.

It's literally written on the board.

You know when you get it in your head, I met a mate for coffee this morning.

I was like, yeah, I'm good.

We can walk around, do a little bit of shopping.

I got a pod at 12.

I just had it in my head.

That's cool.

I'm so sorry.

No, no, that's cool.

It's fine.

No, it's bad.

It's bad behavior.

It's very bad.

And I apologize profusely.

So we should also say we've already recorded a podcast before.

We did.

Unfortunately, I could hear my side.

It's been a technical nightmare to do this one.

But I transcribed it and I got AI to basically make it into bullet points.

Oh, wow.

So we can cover some of the same ground.

But I thought what might be funny is to actually print it out as a script and for us to learn it and then do the first five minutes as if we.

I'm all for the ad lib for this one.

Keep it real.

Keep it in the moment.

We have to start at exactly the same way as the last one because it was too funny.

So your line is.

Hey, it's a good conversation when it starts with a pickle.

What?

Yeah, because last time I said, oh, I've just had something really weird.

And you said, what was it?

And I said, I got a hot dog bun and I hollowed it out and I put peanut butter in it and I stuck a gherkin in it.

Oh, oh God.

You didn't try it then?

Well, I find it really hard to get pickles unless I order them off Amazon.

The only pickles I like are the American style ones, dill pickles.

Yeah.

And I can't find a good dill over here.

I never have.

My wife's the same.

You Canadians, seriously.

Is it because it's not salty and they're sweet over here or is it the other way?

They're sweet.

Yeah.

So in Canada, they're called sandwich pickles, the sweet ones.

So, yeah, it's not good.

You have to get the Polish ones.

You go to a Polsky Schlepp.

I have heard.

Yeah.

My sound guy, he said that too.

He's like, you got to go Polish and you'll get the right pickle.

Exactly.

My wife came home with such...

Where did she get them from?

I think it was like TK Maxx or something.

It was like one giant pickle in the proper salty sauce.

You know, in TK Maxx, they have those weird food sections of stuff that you just don't see anywhere else.

She came home with them and she had two of them.

There's one still in the fridge.

They've been there for months.

I'm waiting for the date when we throw them out.

Oh, no.

I think with your poutine and your street hot dogs and stuff, it's street hot dogs.

Toronto street hot dogs in September.

Do you know, I was in London the other day and all I wanted was a slice of pizza.

That's it.

I couldn't get one.

Really?

No slices.

They would give you a whole pizza.

They wouldn't give you a slice of pizza.

Are they all gone?

Well, my partner said he remembered going and getting slices.

Like in New York, you go and you get a slice, like that's all you need.

We were never as good as that.

If you know Piccadilly Circus, there used to be, I don't even know what it is now, is it a Boots?

It used to be a Wimpy or Burger King.

Then around the corner from that, all those little nooks and crannies around Piccadilly were always a pound slice pizza.

That's up to probably early 2000s.

You could just go there, get one giant piece of pizza a quid.

I think it probably went up to two pounds at some point, but they were everywhere.

Yeah, I would pay that.

I walked around for ages because we were around, I think we were going to go see Tim Rice.

And yeah, walked around for ages.

It's all I wanted, slice of pizza, couldn't get it.

I was like, this is disappointing.

Come on, London.

Exactly, it's all fucking Paddingtons and red buses.

Now, circle back there nice and quick.

You went to see Tim Rice, explain.

He was holding his own concert with a lot of the epic songs he wrote.

One Night in Bangkok.

Oh my God, I love that song.

Me too.

He did it.

They did that one.

And yeah, a lot of his classics.

And he was just chatting.

He's on stage chatting about his career, how him and Andrew Lloyd Webber hooked up.

And then-

Was he there?

He was at the end.

Yeah, he-

Glass of red?

Came out.

He's all ready.

Yeah, they had Rob Brydon randomly came out.

Never knew he could sing.

So that was a real nice moment.

Yeah, he's doing a thing, isn't he?

He's doing a little singing sort of boat show.

Yeah, he's incredible.

And then my favorite surprise of the night was David Essex.

Oh my God.

I was just, yeah, I was over the moon.

Okay, Megan, you're gonna love this story then.

I have an ultimate story.

Oh, go on.

So I live in Newcastle and in 2007, I was on tour in Newcastle.

I was the sound number two on Aspects of Love, the tour starring David Essex and who should come to opening night, but Andrew Lloyd Webber.

No way.

And I was handed a bottle of red and two glasses and told to take it to the room.

And Andrew was talking to him.

And then the next day he was to come in and kind of, you know, work on the show, cause the orchestration wasn't quite right or something.

And I thought, fucking hell, I'm gonna get to see Andrew Lloyd Webber do his thing.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So I come in and the band were all striking up or whatever.

And everyone's like to me, why are you coming in?

You don't need to be in.

I'm not gonna miss this.

So I come in, I watch it, and he does nothing.

He wanders in, he has a glass of wine at about midday.

He says, yep, that's all good.

And then he fucks off.

And that was it.

Nothing happened.

I love it.

He's just iconic.

I mean-

You're like David Essex.

That's so funny.

Love, oh my God.

War of the Worlds and ah, ah.

All the fun of the fair.

Jesus, when he walked out and he did his, he actually sang the Christmas song that he did.

And it was great.

And I was like, I would never in a million years think that I would have ever got to see David Essex.

But these are the people I grew up with and have, you know, is so influential in my life as an actress and as a singer.

And, you know, so to see them.

And then you're in a room and you're like, wow.

Isn't that weird when that happens?

Yeah, because it's like they're real.

All of a sudden, these huge, huge people that influenced you growing up are just there telling you about the most random stories and wonderful times.

I guess I haven't really asked you this before, but like, if you stayed in Canada, do you think you'd encounter these people?

Would you bump into them?

Or is it just the fact that you're in London?

Yeah, London, we're so lucky over here that everything is so compact.

You know, everything is just here.

You can get to Scotland within three hours if you take a plane, which costs nothing.

You know, like in Canada, everything is so far apart.

You know, if I was going to go shopping as a kid, I had to rely on my parents to drive me two hours to the nearest mall.

Decent mall.

I mean, we had some little pop-up thing back in the day, but my life growing up was very much like the movie Stand By Me.

There was nothing about it.

We made our entertainment by climbing trees and going on adventures and riding our bikes.

And there's no cell phones.

There was no, you know, no media like we've got today.

So we had to use our imagination.

It was great.

But the world over here is so close to you, you know.

So growing up, people didn't think you could be an actor.

They didn't think you could be in the entertainment industry.

You know, that was Hollywood.

But then you do it and you go and you realize that all these really influential people who came from these areas, they're still here.

They're still around.

My girlfriend who lives in Petersfield, she was just in town and she saw Josh Hartnett at the bank.

He lives here now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's weird.

And she goes, Megan, Josh Hartnett, he's in front of me at the bank.

And I was like, Josh Hartnett, why is Josh Hartnett in front of you at the bank?

But yeah, it's amazing how many of these people are in this wonderful country.

You could have met someone from ABBA.

Is it Bjorn Alváez?

He wrote Chesney.

Or is it Benny?

Oh, that's, I'm not going to say, because now it's like a 50-50 and I'm not sure.

Yeah, I've got good friends who know them.

We should refer back to the AI because it has reminded me somewhere on here.

Where's it say?

It says here.

Megan grew up in Milton, Ontario.

Think Stand By Me with ghost stories, quarries and bikes.

Megan's childhood was the last great analog adventure before phones took over.

It is so true.

But they were.

It was.

And that was my life.

That really was my life growing up.

So when I see films like that, I love it.

And it's funny because sort of younger kids watch films that are still created, that are very sort of Stand By Me-ish.

And they love the nostalgia.

They really link into it.

I'm not saying that, you know, nowhere in the world exists like this anymore.

I'm sure there's loads of places that still exist that have that kind of atmosphere.

But it was a wonderful time to grow up.

As I said, your imagination was just pinging things.

You know, we're in the quarries where we shouldn't be.

No, of course not.

Or like climbing up under the train tracks.

Derelict houses for me when I was a kid.

Derelict houses.

Love that.

So dangerous.

So dangerous.

But it was such an adventure, wasn't it?

There was an article the other day that said the 90s is now considered by just generally across society to be the last great decade because it was the last one that wasn't ruined by the internet.

Simple as that.

Yeah.

Do you know what I was, so I was taking the dog for a walk this morning.

I turned on Ace of Base that I saw the sign song and it totally transformed me back.

Back to 91 or whatever it was.

Yeah.

I was rocking it.

Those things do.

The other day we were in the car driving in North Yorkshire.

We just got a car, so we're going all over the place now.

It's kind of fun.

Every weekend, we just get in the car, go somewhere.

Nice.

Try to keep it cheap.

It's very difficult.

On came stuff I cannot bear.

It was Michael Bolton, which I'm sure you love because you're Canadian, and you're that much, but I can't fucking stand it.

But my wife was singing the hell out of it.

The kids were like, what is this hellish music?

I don't like it either, dude.

I love all those classics.

My jam every summer is the Beach Boys by far, Kokomo.

Yeah, in the kitchen, but I love WKT.

I can't even buy that anymore, can you?

Oh, it's delicious.

It tastes like a blue slushie, which is what I, again, what I grew up on in Canada.

Yeah.

Do you have slush puppies?

Is that a brand name?

That is American, I'm assuming.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, we just call them slushies.

And in America, they have ones called like Big Gulp or something.

Oh, the Big Gulp, 7-Eleven.

Yeah, they're huge.

Yeah, yeah.

And you'd get brain freeze instantly and oh God, yeah.

Well, all of that shows up in a show that my son is watching, we can swerve it to TV just briefly, is the Goldbergs, which my son is now watching, I've seen them all.

And of course, that's all set in the time we're talking about.

And it was a bit earlier, late 80s, I think.

But it goes through the whole blockbuster video thing.

And so I feel like he's getting a bit of a sort of education of what it was like before as well.

Yeah.

And I'm asking him, do you like that?

Do you even get the references?

And he goes, yeah.

You know what I mean?

I tell you what, kids are tuned in to the past.

But then I guess growing up, I really liked the influences of the 50s.

Actually, some of the 20s, I mean, I remember having parties that were catered more towards what they would be like in the 1920s.

So it's interesting how, does anybody really live in the day?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, the way they portray those decades now is really funny and they get things on.

I'll tell you what, I found out, I'm selling this, I'll show you, I'll lean in.

It's so real, this podcast.

You can even hear me grabbing this device.

So I'm selling a few things at the moment.

And I gave my son this camera, this old, it's about 10 years old or more.

Look at those, it's like a nostalgia.

Love it.

Just been sitting in his room getting dusty and I thought, well, let's just sell it.

Maybe it's worth 30 quid.

Guess what?

Go on.

These things are selling for 150, 200 quid.

Never.

Because Gen Zers are sick of camera phones and they want a separate camera.

So now these are selling and they're retro.

So now I can sell this thing for probably more than I paid for it or about the same.

That's going on eBay.

That's amazing.

Yeah, because apparently they're sick of the filters and all that stuff.

Nothing is real, I know.

And that is a big issue, I think, at the minute.

Like I see a lot of AI stuff going out.

And yeah, some of it's funny or twisted or kind of like, oh, I don't want to see that again.

But like, I think AI has its place.

But I think, remember back, you know, 3D films had their place as well back in the day, with the glasses.

When you see like Final Destination, whatever number it is, and the bullet comes out and goes, and we're like, what is that?

And you go, oh, that was for the 3D audience that never was.

That never was.

So I think AI will have its place within our industry, but I don't think it's going to take over.

I think vertical films, yes.

I think we're going to get lower and lower budgets as we go on.

I think all these inflated Hollywood budgets are just going to get smaller, which they need to get smaller.

And then I think the indie films are going to rise and people want real.

Yeah.

And I will stick to that.

The reason Tom Cruise does so well, the reason his films do so well is because people know he's real.

And people say, is he the last true Hollywood actor because he does his stunts, he gets on planes, he, you know, he does do the stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is not AI doing it.

This is Tom Cruise.

And it's the same when you use puppetry as well.

There's a realism.

And that's why for me, Jurassic Park, the original worked so well because there was the use of the computers and the puppetry mixed.

But also it was new and it, I mean, it was new.

It was innovative.

Oh, you take that back.

Well, it is.

Oh, go on.

Have a re-watch.

It's not as good as you remember.

I love it.

I mean, it's good, but we've seen so much of it now because I worked on a walking with dinosaurs thing.

Oh, nice.

A live experience.

And then you sort of see all the videos.

It's like you can, I probably could make Jurassic Park here and out with like AI and 10 minutes on something.

Yeah, it's mad.

I do agree with you because there is like, for me, there was a point in cinema when I completely lost interest.

And it was when we were in America in Arizona with nothing to do.

And me and my wife decided to have like a date night, left the boy, I think we only had one kid at the time, with the in-laws and we went out and we realized there was nothing to do.

Like quite early on, we went to like Chili's and had a drink.

And then we went to the cinema.

It was whenever Batman versus Superman came out.

I don't care about that.

But we went to see it just to be in a room together and whatever.

And we just watched these two pretend superheroes battle the shit out of each other.

And we just looked at each other, what is this shit?

What are we watching this for?

This is just to get out of the house, we're just going to watch some inane.

We know none of this is real, none of this happened.

Why do I care?

You know?

Well, you don't.

You know, with the Tom Cruise thing, I agree.

I mean, I have friends who would like his personal life to be a bit more out there and we can find out some stuff about Scientology.

But he does the thing.

Like you say, he's hanging off that plane, he's going into space.

We all know how he's dying.

He's drifting off into space because it's gone wrong.

That's how Tom Cruise dies.

We watched the Final Reckoning the other day.

It was my first experience doing the 4DX screen, where the chairs move and water gets splashed up on you.

I highly recommend it if anybody's not done it.

I've always gone very, you know, very vanilla movie, where I just sit down nicely, cuddling into my partner and have a nice Starbucks.

That's always been my experience.

Now, oh my God, 4DX, and you are sitting there.

There is no hand holding in this because your butt is off the seat.

Because in the right films, I wouldn't do this in a...

Wouldn't do it on the salt path or something.

No.

So this is, you're up, you're, you know, the water is splashing in your face, there's wind in your hair.

It's an experience.

So even though for me, the storyline just didn't quite work, and I was left, I was left a little confused by certain things.

You could have used that tagline.

But I had a hell of a time.

But what you're describing is a ride, right?

Oh God, yeah, it was, but it was so good.

If I was a teenager now, and 4DX existed, I would absolutely sit behind people with big cups of water and throw them at them at the right points, wouldn't you?

It's just like, wow, that's so realistic.

It was really, really great.

I would definitely do that again.

But we go to the cinema all the time.

We very much support it.

And we get Blu-rays in, right?

We get the actual Blu-rays.

Physical Blu-rays.

Physical, yeah.

Wow, that is old school.

And you get so much more from a Blu-ray, because what happens is you actually get, you know, the behind the scenes stuff, you get commentary, you get how it's made, you get everything.

And that's why we love it.

What I would say is even sitting here, even having knocks behind my head at, you know, with the 4.1 or 5.1 or whatever it is, it's still not the same as going to a cinema, see, you know, fine, big screen, great.

Yeah.

But having that insane sound and the shakiness of the theatre and the ambience, you will never get that sitting in your house.

And the shared experience, right?

Or watching it on your phone.

Oh, who would?

And a shared experience.

If you watch it on your phone, you know, I mean, seriously, you should not be allowed to watch it.

I mean, it's the end of the story.

I mean, I know the making stuff for double screen.

You know, have you heard about the, do we talk about that before?

The double screen thing?

Double screen?

What's that?

So for a watcher like you and me, that would probably not be looking at our phone and be like engaged in the story.

Sometimes you'll notice they're just hammering home these facts and like, they're just, why have they said that again?

We know, I'm not stupid.

You know, the reason they're doing it is because they know people are on their phone.

So they keep having to hammer home these plot points to keep people engaged.

It's for the double screener viewer, which is now about 30%.

I might have just made that number up.

Anyway, it's a certain percentage that is around there.

And a lot of people are just watching films going, well, I'm a bit bored now.

So they get on their phone.

It's like you're watching a sort of, you know, previously on in the middle of fucking things.

That's why like when you watch maths or something, it's like, I get it.

We've seen this a thousand times today.

Yeah.

Could you stop?

I'm not a moron.

Yeah, I can't.

Yeah, no, we have a no phone rule in our house when something is on.

And to be honest with you, if I'm with people, I don't want to see their phone out anyways, unless they're taking a cheeky pic with everybody as a self-memory, fine.

But put your phones away, live life a little, enjoy it.

You'll be surprised what conversations and people you meet if you're actually engaged.

But maybe I'm not trendy these days.

No, I don't.

I think you're right.

I think they're going to become NAF.

This is what people don't realize.

All this technology becomes NAF.

They're going to be looked like pages in movies.

But when they keep putting into film and TV now, every TV show I watch, some fucker is texting and they're showing you them texting and what the message is.

Can we do this another way?

Firstly, it's annoying.

I don't want to see a phone right now.

Secondly, are you trying to date this even harder?

Because I mean, imagine that was a Nokia whatever from 2003.

You know, this is going to look bad.

You're making television that's like, Oh my God, do you remember when they used to put texts in films?

You know what I mean?

It looks so fucking stupid.

It irritates me, you know, because to me, phones, yes, they're good and they're devices for me.

They're just a walk when I listen to podcast music and I go on it.

But if I do anything real, I open the laptop.

But to me, these are just outside noisemakers in cafes for other people with less decorum than me, blasting out their shit at me all day long.

Oh, gosh.

This is like a vape.

It's this and the vapes, man.

Both of them need to get out of my life.

Do you remember back in the day, they would have the boom boxes on the shoulder?

Yeah.

A boom box here, a woman here, and they would just be walking down with MC Hammer.

But at least you had good sound.

I know.

At least it was like...

I know.

I had a single...

This is bad.

I had one speaker job here, I called it.

It wasn't even stereo with a cassette deck.

And I used to put it in the front of my bike like ET and drive around.

Oh, I love that.

I love that.

As if I was cool.

Hey, it was cool.

It was cool.

I don't think it was ever cool, Megan.

I mean, there's that bit in it.

There's a really early Star Trek movie from the 80s.

And there's this guy with a boom box on.

They have him like...

Oh, that's the whale one.

Yeah.

The whale one.

Yeah.

And then he's making the noise and Spock just goes up and squeezes his neck.

Yeah.

I think he was the producer of the show.

Really?

Yeah.

I'd have to find out.

But yeah.

And they wrote that just for...

But yeah.

I always want Spock in like naked deli where I live to get these fucking people with their phones.

There was a woman the other day on the bus and she was just like screaming down her phone.

And I'm like, have you no shame?

That's the problem.

No one has any shame anymore.

This is the issue.

No, everything's out there.

Yeah.

This is my life and I want everyone to hear about it while I will pronounce it.

I sound like an old man.

But anyway, it annoys me.

Hey, I'm with you.

You've had a long day in London.

Last thing you want to do is be on the tube, smooshed in with a bunch of people and having everybody thinking they're so cool with their like going on and you're like, I can't, I just, I can't anymore.

The whole scene, the smell of Gross Burger King, mixed with the sound of tinniness, pushed in to people.

And let's keep moaning.

But I can put my in-ear headphones in with noise canceling, and yet I can still fucking hear you.

How loud are you being at that point?

You know what I mean?

I left London in 2013 before the tube had Wi-Fi down there, so it was a bit quieter.

I wish they'd have toilets down there, honestly.

Honestly, they have their Wi-Fi, they don't have toilets, so yeah.

My wife said the other day, it made me really laugh.

We were watching your mate Tom Hardy in Modland, right?

And they fly from the Cotswolds to Antwerp in Belgium, and he gets in a helicopter, and I'm thinking, what, the helicopter's going to go all the way to Belgium?

And she just turns and goes, but what if he needs a toilet?

There's no toilet on a helicopter.

That's such a big mouth.

That's so true, honestly.

I'm like, where's the closest toilet if I need one?

Just in case, you never know.

It's a Belgium on a helicopter without a P.

Talking about Tom.

No, no, no, you cannot.

So that swerves us nicely into a havoc.

Now I watched Havoc.

I saw you on the telly there.

Very similar to a friend of mine who was in something called Suspect, who was on the television, and I just think they don't use you enough.

They're cut away too quickly.

I could hear you.

It was interesting, because they had a whole different thing as well.

They weren't sure how they were going to dot it around.

So I was actually shot by the second unit.

Amazing director, amazing team.

You know, I was all ready for it, you know, so they get me in, you know, do you need somebody rehearsal time?

I hate rehearsal time.

No, let's just go for it.

And he kept getting me to do it faster and faster and faster and faster and faster to the point I was tripping over my words, but it was just about getting them.

Yeah, they did different sort of takes via green screen, sat down, and I wasn't sure how it was all going to play out.

But I was pleased, you know, with the end result and actually seeing myself and being smooshed in between Tom Hardy and Forrest Whitaker.

I was like, yeah, I'm loving that.

I'm loving that.

It's pretty cool.

My IMDB went through the roof.

I think I went down to 300 and something for the searches.

It was great.

It was shot in Wales.

Was it shot in Wales?

Yes.

Somebody has had that experience that you were talking about earlier, wandering around some Welsh village, Forrest Whitaker, Poplarston, got a can of beans.

Yeah.

I don't fully know where they were shooting because as I said, I was second unit, so I was those pickups.

I mean, the studio was beautiful and what had actually happened on the day.

So I was driving down from Essex, a good probably four and a half hour drive.

Yeah.

And I was supposed to be there for two days and do my thing.

I got halfway there and I got a call and they were like, hey, you couldn't film today, could you?

And I was like, yeah, yeah, I can film today.

That's fine.

Apparently, what had happened is the big sort of arm that holds the camera for the clubbing scene broke.

It actually broke.

So they had something like a thousand extras on set or something like that.

Couldn't film a thing.

And we're like, what can we do?

And it was really lovely because it was like, yeah, let's do it.

Got straight in.

They treated me like royalty.

Bless them.

You know, latte in hand, quickly go to the costume, make up, fish bass boss in the chair and done.

And they're like, we didn't think that we could save today.

They thought they were going to be filming way late into the night.

But because I was able to do that, yeah, they, oh my God, yeah, I got a big hug and they're like-

So is it one day?

One day.

One day.

All in one day.

Right, well I can reveal, the action thriller Havoc featuring Tom Hardy was filmed entirely in Wales.

There we go.

So it's a Welsh movie.

Forrest Whitaker was it?

I know.

Tom Hardy doesn't want to get on a plane if he doesn't have to, does he?

Well, from what I understand, he's an absolute gem.

He was supposed to be the day I was filming, but because of all the setbacks, he wasn't there.

That's fine, but I got to meet some of them and honestly, everybody was so lovely.

To the point, it was just like I had a driver from my trailer to the studio, which was about less than a minute walk.

And I was like, no, no, I'll walk.

I can see the building.

I can touch the building if I put my arm out.

I'll walk.

They're like, are you sure?

Are you sure?

I was like, yeah.

I got legs.

I can do this.

I'm Canadian, that's American.

I can actually use my legs.

I'm intrepid.

These bad boys.

Come on.

Now, have you seen the film entirely?

Your whole thing?

What do you think?

Actually, I was really lucky.

My mom was over from Canada and she got to see it with me and was just ecstatic and started texting everybody she knew.

It was a mad film, wasn't it?

It was mad.

The opening car chase is like, I was thinking, how the fuck did they film that?

That's crazy.

Yeah.

But I love it when they have those kind of, how can I say this in a nice way?

These clubs that clearly don't exist in real life.

When they go in a club, there's people having sex in one room.

Oh God, yeah.

There's a burnt barrel in the other.

I mean, I've been on tour, I've been around the world.

I've never seen that.

That's not real.

I've never been.

Not in Wales, anyway.

Well, maybe that's the key.

Maybe it's a Welsh thing.

I don't know.

I'm part Welsh, so I feel like I can.

You should say it was set in America, right?

The whole thing.

Now I'll have to re-watch it.

It was, yeah.

I enjoyed it.

I thought it was a fast, fun movie.

I mean, I'm a huge fan of Forrest Whitaker anyways.

Timothy Oliphant?

Is it Oliphant?

Oh, Timothy Oliphant playing a bad guy, yeah.

I love his, yeah, he's got such a good look.

I forget he can play a bad guy.

So good.

So talented.

So I was really lucky and I feel very lucky.

And then that film got me into the newspapers as well in my little town.

Oh yeah, I saw that.

That was great.

The funniest comment I had though, because it was online as well, is somebody commented on the state of my fingernails.

And then somebody else was like, well, that's what happens when you have to do your own dishes.

And I was just like, I love this guy.

That's funny you should say that because I always think when I do look at people's hands because I used to bite my fingers all the time.

I couldn't stop it for years.

And it only happened quite recently that I've managed to completely stop.

And it was because I was aware of it.

And I saw someone biting the nails.

It looked absolutely disgusting.

And a switch was pulled ever since.

And now I've got to maintain them, which I didn't even know was a thing.

And that's hard.

And then you think, well, when people are acting and they have their hands out, that's their actual hands.

I mean, I would know they'd probably do our hand doubles.

But you think you'd be really conscious of it, wouldn't you?

Like, I used to do this with my hands.

I hide my nails in my hands because I want people to see it.

Because it was embarrassing, you know.

But now I've got nails.

I'm thinking, well, what do I do with them now?

Hands model.

Go get a manicure.

Manny Petty.

Don't know what that is, but yeah.

Enjoy yourself.

Enjoy.

You know, I'm always working in the garden or I'm taking the dogs for a walk or, you know, I'm very active.

I like adventure.

I like, you know, I'm an outdoorsy person.

And I've really wanted that lovely French nail look where women just look so put together and pretty.

I can't do it.

It drives me nuts.

I don't like the stick on things.

It makes my fingers.

I can't type.

I can't garden.

I can't do stuff.

And so you just have to take me as I am.

I think that's probably a Canadian thing as well, because my wife is very similar.

She doesn't really do a lot of that stuff.

And when you do see, I'm not going to say negative things about women, because that's not fair.

But when I do see a very, very heavily made up long nails, everything, all I think is, well, she takes way too long to leave the house for my family.

So I wouldn't be able to handle it.

I wouldn't be able to be with someone who took like two hours to get out of the house.

You got five minutes.

Let's go.

Yeah.

Get out of here.

No, I'm with you on that.

Sometimes I'll wear sunglasses just so I don't have to show my eyes.

I don't have time.

I got a life to do.

I got to get stuff done.

You know, I've got a little favor to ask you.

Could you please follow us on social media?

And if you've got time, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get them.

It all helps drive traffic back to the podcast.

But for now, let's get back to the current episode of Television Times.

It's interesting that you said you're outdoorsy like that because I do feel that when you have a career or work in sort of media or theater or anything, it's a lot of dark rooms, a lot of digital stuff like what we're doing right now.

Yeah.

And I've started to talk about like, I really do feel like even to run a podcast, what I should also be doing is like, I don't know, shoveling shit in a farm.

So something complete opposite.

Something different.

That is real world where I feel like my fingers are actually in the earth and I connect.

Cause I have a feeling that I'm gonna look up from my laptop.

It's gonna be 20 years later.

I tell you what I just got into.

You'll love this.

You'll love this.

Old school roller skating.

Us too.

We go on Sundays to an old roller bike.

I love it.

So that's my new thing.

It's so back.

There was a lady on the train.

I was going in for a meeting the other day.

She had a roller skates.

I'm like, yeah, I instantly want to talk to you.

I won't because that's, you know, you've got your headphones.

You're vibing that.

It's fine.

But that's literally where I'm going to go after this podcast because I'm making myself Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

I'm going to go to the coast, whatever.

And I'm just going to skate for an hour.

I'm going to get some fresh air, get some exercise in me and come back and be set up, be reset.

And we're talking roller skates, not roller blades, aren't we?

Not blades.

Blades are out, skates are in.

Skates are in.

And I got these amazing pink retro ones with rainbows on them.

Of course you have.

Of course I do.

Straight out of Fresh Prince.

I'm expecting the colors to match.

I love it.

I went to the, it's called Roller City or Rula City.

And it is more of a disco, there's lights and stuff like that.

And it was 13 pounds.

And I was like, that is a price that I, you can't even go to the cinema for 13 pounds.

So to-

You can't even get lunch for 13 pounds.

No!

God, McDonald's is shut up.

So I mean-

What are they doing with their prices?

We went on the way to one of our trips and we went for breakfast.

I kid you not, I just had a McMuffin, hash brown and a coffee.

My wife had something similar.

The kids shared a pancake and one drink and it was like 20 something pounds.

I missed, again, Megan's that old, 10 years ago also in London, you get your ticket and on the back it'd be 99p Filet-O-Fish, 99p Egg McMuffin and now let's stick a four on there.

What the fuck are you doing?

It's not worth that money.

It's rubbish.

The pound store?

Pounds and pound stores don't exist.

You go into a pound store, two, five, 10, 20 pounds.

Yeah, it's fine because we still have the pound symbol.

It's Brexit, man.

It's all Brexit's fault.

Come on.

Oh man, we live in a fast world.

Anyway, should we pick another one of these?

So normally I'd be like, hey, let's pick a format question, but we can ask AI what we talked about before.

All right.

So we've got dream roles and childhood icons.

We could do that one.

Or aliens are real.

Aliens are real.

The X-Files is actually a government, you know, no.

Now, since we spoke, you brought up the X-Files, right?

I love the X-Files.

I'm still watching it.

Have you heard the news?

Coming back, baby.

Reboot.

Reboot, it was announced last month.

With proper, you know, Gillian Anderson.

Well, we don't know about that bit.

They better.

Otherwise, I'm not watching that trash.

Because you can't.

You cannot.

If you're not going to bring the originals back, don't do it at all.

Great concept.

But you know.

Well, they tried that, didn't they, before with Have You Seen This Boy?

And the other one.

Oh, really?

You know, the last few seasons of the X-Files with different people.

You don't know that?

Yeah, I never.

Yeah, I didn't get that far.

So we're not there yet.

We're only season four.

But I know it's coming because my partner was saying, Oh, no, no, like David Tacombe goes off for a while and I read about it.

And yeah, he just wanted to have a bit of a normal life, have a family, that kind of stuff.

I get it.

But you can't, you just can't.

I'll skip those.

Those can be skipped and I'll come back in when he's back.

Because I don't like change.

I'm not a change kind of person.

It's going to be a rough five years for you.

There's AI takes over.

I don't like changes.

Literally every other week, something changes completely.

And I read something else that's like, oh, by the way, you don't need that anymore and all those jobs are gone.

Oh, okay.

Cool.

Yeah.

Did you see that?

Who was it who said it?

It was, I won't say the company because I don't know who is, but there was a film company who announced last week that they're using AI to proofread scripts and to help with dialogue.

And instead of certain locations and CGI, they're going to use AI to make these scenes.

And I thought, oh, well, that's the death of everything then.

Well, yeah, like we're talking about how we want to support the industry.

We want to have great tax breaks and all that kind of stuff.

And we have all these really lovely kids growing up.

And even people my age just sort of finding themselves now wanting to do it or being like, actually, I've always wanted to be a writer.

I always wanted to do that.

Now, the AI has got the job.

And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Get back in the room.

Have that brainstorm.

You know, I saw something the other day, which was like, AI is taking over romantic relationships.

And it's got these real people with this, like this glowy image being like Google chat bot or whatever knows me inside and out.

And it's just something's weird.

It's what they got like AI girlfriends and stuff.

Just, I think it was started for quite a nice reason.

I want to say it was in Japan for lonely men.

And I think it was all about male suicide or something.

And they wanted to create a sort of text thing where a nice woman in their mind, I guess if it's straight, texts them and says, how are you doing?

And then they could answer back.

And that somehow turned into some kind of disgusting, dystopian robot girlfriend.

It's very black mirror.

It is?

It's very black mirror.

I don't like it.

The thing, going back to the TV thing, the thing that I read that the worst part was, it said something like, what AI is able to do is work out what people want, and then we can make that by what people are watching.

And I always think, but it's human innovation that comes up with the original idea.

You would have come up with The Office or Hacks or any good shows that are on right now without someone thinking of it.

And AI can't think of it in the first place.

It can only analyze what we've already made and come up with suggestions, but it can't.

I did it last week for ideas for a secondary podcast.

I was like, give me an original podcast idea.

I knew it couldn't do it.

Tested them all.

They already exist.

Everything it came up with.

And I do use it for show notes now and to take my words and just rephrase it because I'm terrible at grammar.

And stuff like that.

But I wouldn't let it like edit the podcast or, you know, tell me what to say or anything like that because a meandering chat is a human thing.

It couldn't do what we're doing.

It couldn't bounce around and end up at the end like we do.

That's the difference is the human mind is unpredictable.

You know, everybody's own life experience is going to be very different.

Exactly.

I don't believe technology is ever really going to be able to capture that properly.

And that is something.

See, AI would not do that.

It wouldn't know to just randomly make you jump by blowing a horn.

Sorry, I apologize.

As I say, I think there's amazing elements to AI that you can use.

I'm not great with my words.

I've never been huge with like emails and stuff, but I still write my own emails.

I just get AI, I get Grammarly basically.

That's what I do, yeah, Grammarly.

Okay, actually, yeah, that should be that.

Yeah, so that's how I use it, but I don't want to see it replacing the jobs that people need.

To feel something like, that's just it.

It's like, yeah, okay, you can send all of these kids to university.

They can learn how to use the programming, learn how to use the AI.

But how much of that individual is going to actually be able to get out there in the end if they're not being able to think for themselves.

They're only typing something into a computer.

So I think they've got to be careful.

And there's a lot of people that are already on the train, who are already like, no, no, this is the future.

This is the future.

All right, but it's not going to be my future.

I'm going to step up and I'm going to knock your bloody future down.

So I think we are Victorians about to encounter Industrial Revolution now.

It's probably going to be like a Victorian waking up in the 90s.

We're just going to be like, what's with all the robots?

It's like Encino Man, isn't it?

Is it Encino Man?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know what this is.

I don't want to be a Luddite who is not connected and doesn't know what ChapGPT is or what it all does.

I want to stay with the technology.

100%.

And use it the right way.

I don't want to be that guy.

But I also, like I say, I want to maybe wipe down a goat or something.

Have some life.

Have some life experience.

Yeah, yeah.

Something tangible and real.

And I think that's why Gen Z is a grab in these cameras because they want to touch something and squeeze a button.

They've been denied button pressing.

They have.

They haven't had it.

They've got, but they've never had the physical bloody button on a Walkman.

They haven't had that, the pressure to make the gears work.

Love a good button.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There was those laptops that came out a little while ago, some Apple ones, weren't there?

They didn't have the depressing button as much as the old ones.

And then they put them back.

They have.

Yeah.

My new laptop, it's Apple, it's a MacBook Pro, and it has its buttons back and it's got the proper ports back in it.

And I'm like, good.

I'm glad I need this.

Love your chargers for it though, don't they?

They charge us for it.

Yes, they do.

Do you want a laptop or a car?

They're both the same price.

One thing I love about this industry is it's not like anything else.

There will always be a role for any age group, right?

There just will because films, TV, whatever you're doing, focuses on life.

So for me, when I think of my acting, it is a journey.

So if I need to take a step away from my own mental health or because maybe I'm interested in something else for a moment and I don't feel like I have the time to dedicate, which has never been the case, but I know I have the freedom to do that.

I know I have the freedom to just be like, actually, I want to be a ghost hunter for 24 hours.

Why not?

And then the wonderful thing that happens is you've given yourself a break, you've tried something different, and then a rule comes that's like, we need a ghost hunter.

And you're like, ha, I've got nothing, but I've got the experience.

And why did you catch nothing exactly?

Because ghosts don't exist.

No, because we're using these bloody things instead of proper flashy cameras.

I know.

Oh, is that why we don't have photos?

Because everyone's using the wrong device.

They're using the wrong...

I think we'd have a lot of...

The only photos of ghosts we have, they're all Victorians.

Come on, back to Victorians.

No one else has ever been a ghost.

Just that one group of people who are allowed to be ghosts.

I love it.

It's never like the guy from the post office who died in 2006.

It's never that guy.

Well, no, he's gone away.

He's like, I've done my job.

I'm off to better planes.

I mean, surely we'd have like, you know, Iraqi war vets and stuff wandering around by now.

We probably do.

Apparently, up in York, there's like, because I did one of the-

Those guys constantly think they're seeing ghosts.

I love York.

It's just hipsters.

There's this amazing tour.

It's called the Bloody Murder Tour, a bloody ghost tour of York or something like that.

So you already planted it in the head that they're going to see something.

Oh, you don't see anything, but this woman, crazy Alice, I think is her name.

But she tells you about these iconic ghost stories throughout.

And there's these soldiers that are just like, you're not.

With no legs.

I'm not.

I'm serious.

It's rubbish.

And they're like marching and, you know.

I mean, I don't know.

Maybe all we are is an imprint in time, and that's what we come back as.

I would love it to be true more than many people.

I've had ghostly encounters.

I talked to Danny Robbins about it, but like I worked with magicians that I've never seen.

A bloody thing.

I've worked in every theater in the country, and I've had people say they saw things around me and near me and no, but I don't know.

But then again, I'm completely open because I wouldn't be surprised if we're all living in a cardboard box in someone's house.

I don't know what's happening.

I don't know.

Do you know, I was watching Men in Black, the original Will Smith, right?

That was on TV a couple of nights ago, and I thought, I'll watch this.

Actually, it was quite a novelty because there was commercials, so it's like, oh, there's commercials.

I can get up, I can get a drink, like you used to do back in the day.

But anyways, at the end of that, what's happening?

All we are is a marble in a bag.

Yeah, well, isn't it, that's the Horton, Here's a Who thing as well.

But I mean, I sort of had that thought as a child.

Like, I used to have these two things.

I used to think that we're just like a rain droplet in some other universe and all this is in there.

And I used to also think that, that I think this is quite a common thing for kids as well, because, you know, all humans have a God complex of some description when they're young.

And some of them, unfortunately, when they're older, is that, is this all for me?

Maybe I'm imagining all of this, and none of these people are real, this is all for me.

Obviously, if you're out of that, but, you know, some people don't know, do they?

I have a feeling there's a few wandering around who think it's all for them.

I love it.

Right, we're going to have to, I mean, we're not talking much about it, but it doesn't matter.

It's just a chat.

You'll be back.

I'll be back.

You've been back already.

OK, it's not a food podcast, but it says here, still chasing a real New York bagel.

Megan went to New York City.

She tried, but the machine broke.

One day she'll get the real deal.

I will get the real deal.

I haven't been back yet.

I want to go back, because in Broadway, there's a lot of shows playing that I'd like to see, like Little Shop of Horrors and stuff.

So I'm desperate to go back.

But what I do, I'm telling you, I'm going to get my slice, my pizza slice.

Go get the pizza slice.

I'm going to get my bagel.

I'm going to get my bagel.

In the beginning of, you know, Louis C.K.'s show that he used to have before, he was controversial.

At the beginning of the show, he used to walk out of the cellar, the Comedy Cellar in New York, and go and get a piece of pie, as they call it, whatever.

And I went to the Comedy Cellar and went to that exact one and had a piece of pizza from there and then went into that.

And I thought, oh wow, I'm living such a New York life right now.

Love it.

And then I found $20 on the floor.

There you go.

There you go.

Okay, we'll speed up now.

We'll do a couple of these.

These are good.

Dream rolls and childhood icons.

Electra, Xenia, Red Witch.

Megan is drawn to fierce, complex female characters, but could live without the strong, independent woman cliché.

Oh my god, yeah.

Must have talked about that.

She's a strong, independent woman.

How many times can you say that cliched line?

110%.

I can't deal.

I can't see a look.

Yes, I'm all for women, having rights, doing awesome things.

There's nothing we can't do that a man can do and vice versa.

Yeah, of course I'm there, but being a strong woman or whatever does not mean you have to go kick somebody's ass or be all girl boss.

Actually, sometimes being strong means carrying a lot of weight on your shoulders and not Facebooking it to the world.

I love representation and I love seeing new ideas and everything come together, but not in a box ticking exercise, not in the like, we need more strong independent women.

Women are strong.

And you know it's from A White Guy in a Boardroom, all of this stuff.

Yeah, don't even get me started on music choices these days from these investors.

Oh, it's just, you see independent films, right?

And they could have the best score, which would tell the story, it would move things along, it would enhance it, it would make it cinematic.

And you have the people to do it, you have the software to do it, but what do these investors, distributors want?

Something that is Gen Z.

And this is actually a quote, oh, they want Gen Z.

And I kid you not, I'm not going to go into the actual-

What does that mean?

What does that mean, Gen Z?

What does that mean?

Gen Z listens to stuff that to me sounds like 80s songs that have been made by other people.

Yeah, well, that's not what I heard.

What I actually ended up hearing in one of them, there's a woman who sounded like she was in labor, in high refurb.

I just, I can't reference who and what and why, but what I will say is so many people are destroying the cinematic feel because they're not using the right music.

And the reason for that is it's because people are in boardrooms or half-ly dressed on a Zoom thinking that this is what younger generations want.

And it's not.

Yeah, but they don't, they don't know what they want because what they want is old things, vinyl and old f*****g digital content.

Oh, vinyl's coming out?

They don't want any of this s**t.

They're listening to cassettes.

They don't want what they're being fed because it's 50 year old guys who are deciding what Gen Z like.

That's always been that way.

It's so stupid.

It's not right and it needs to change.

Yeah, well, maybe they could ask them what they want.

How about that?

Maybe they don't need to be force-fed this artificial bullshit.

It's amazing.

I mean, I do have friends that are Gen Z and even younger.

Yeah, we do.

Well, in this industry, you just work with such a range of people.

I can tell you right now, you're right.

They want stuff from the 80s.

They want John Williams.

They want Jerry Goldsmith.

They want the big cinematic sound.

They're old school.

Yeah, they don't want this weird, no, no, take it away.

It's complicated, but they don't want what you feed them.

I mean, I didn't want what they gave me, what they were sending down the pipe when I was a kid.

Well, exactly.

Anyway, like you say, this is the problem with that thing about AI, like deciding what people want.

We want something like that instead of how about you let something completely original pop up.

Do you think Bill was thinking I should sound like that?

She just went in a room and came out whatever she is, and everyone loved it.

But AI couldn't have guessed that one, could it?

Wouldn't have gone, oh yeah, what everyone needs is an Icelandic woman screaming, essentially, which was what it was like at first.

It was different.

We weren't different.

It was great.

Yeah, exactly.

So what you're basically saying is you want it to go back to the 90s when all the characters on television were white and all the new stuff is no good.

And I just want to make sure we get the summarizing for this episode correct.

Absolutely, absolutely not.

We'll be cutting around all of that.

Don't you worry.

I'm going to have to remove a lot of what I said too.

No, and I think the thing is, I get it.

I get exactly where you're coming from and you get where I'm coming from.

Yeah, totally.

You know, so yeah.

Yeah, right.

We're going to have to end on something fun.

All right.

Okay.

So I don't know if I asked you before.

What's your favorite jingle?

My favorite jingle?

Oh, my God.

Okay.

So my favorite jingle.

I don't think I have one, but there is an old school commercial from McDonald's when they came out with bacon cheddar curly fries.

Sounds disgusting.

And it went bacon cheddar curly fries, bacon cheddar curly fries, bacon cheddar curly fries, and only £4.99.

Still there.

Still there.

Well, I don't think we need to worry about copyright because they did not write that tune.

No, they did not.

We used to have that tune in high school.

They would play it over the announcements to say you got to get to class now.

It's so weird.

That's what they play.

See, that's what I mean.

Now, say they made a film set in your high school.

In what year we're talking there?

Give me a rough idea of that ageing self.

1999, 2000.

Start at 1999.

1999.

If you made a drama set in a high school in Canada, and you had to put some music through the tannoy to get everyone to class, they wouldn't pick that.

They pick some kind of dance track.

They play Ace of Base is what they do.

I love Ace of Base.

They wouldn't believe that.

I love it.

I love it.

Now I get you.

Because the Mikeys was really, really old-fashioned.

Different.

Well, Megan, it's been a joy.

Sorry about the technical things at the beginning.

Hey, that's fine.

That's what they're doing.

It's weird.

I will say goodbye now.

Thank you for coming on Television Times.

Thank you for having me.

It's been fun.

That was me talking to the Canadian actress, Megan Lockhurst.

Check her out now in the films Havoc, I'll Play Mother.

She's also in Howard Joe Ford's Escape, and loads of other stuff.

Check her out on IMDB.

She's also a singer.

You can hear her songs if you go to her website.

Links at the bottom of this episode.

And you know, that was a good chat, right?

I enjoyed that one.

Right, let's get to today's really cool outro track.

Today's outro track is a bit weird, okay?

It's a bit of a weird one.

Because me and Megan had a conversation about musicals and David Essex and all of this stuff, I dug out a remix I made in 2007 in Japan, of all places.

So I was on tour with a show called Aspects of Love, which is written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and starring David Essex.

And I was on tour with all these people and I thought it would be really funny for the end of the tour to give everyone a sort of dance version of a megamix of the songs from the show.

Now, I couldn't use any of the recordings from the actual show because of copyright infringement.

So, I had to work out all the music myself and sort of come up with all of that.

But I did go into every single actor's dressing room and get them to shout into a microphone various lines from the show and sing little bits.

Some of them sang perfectly in tune like Poppy Tierney in Wine and the Dice.

Brilliant.

I own the recording of this.

Obviously, I don't have the copyright for the songs.

So it's a bit of a gray area, but I'm hoping this will be fine to put out.

So yeah, I went around the rooms.

I recorded all the bits.

I put it all together.

I turned it into a dance song.

I gave them all a CD.

A CD.

Do you remember CDs?

At the end of the tour.

So yeah, I thought I'd pop it on here.

It's not for everybody.

It's a bit weird.

There's good bits where, you know, I went into...

Oh yeah, a little bit of fun.

I went into David Essex's room to record his bits, and it was like something little dirty bastard or whatever.

And he would do these echoes on bastard.

He'd go, bastard, bastard, bastard, bastard.

I said, David, you don't need to do that.

I can do that myself.

He was doing like in the room echoes, which I thought was really cute and really fun.

Anyway, so this is it.

This is the...

I don't know what to call it.

What do we call it?

Aspects of Love Megamix, okay, from 2007.

Here we go.

Well, you're not going to hear an outro track like that very often, are you?

I hope you liked it.

It was weird.

I know it was weird.

I'm aware of that.

I hope you liked my chat with Megan, and I hope you enjoyed, if you could, that bizarre song.

So thank you for listening, and I'll see you again next time.

Until then, as David Essex would say, bye for now, now, now, now.

That's a bit more bowy, wasn't it, really?

Anyway, bye for now.

Look into my eyes.

Tell your friends about this podcast.