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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Ira Glass. On This American Life, one thing we like is a good mystery. Sometimes about really big things, but most times, the little mysteries are the best.
Our lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know, I've never seen this happen.
Wait, this is true?
This is true. Mysteries of every size, each week. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is actor Josh O'Connor. Many of us first came to know O'Connor as a young Prince Charles in the Netflix series The Crown, as a charming washed-up tennis player in Challengers, and the young priest in the latest Knives Out film.
But for a significant portion of his career, he's also worked in independent film, including the British drama God's Own Country. This summer, he turns up somewhere different as the lead in Steven Spielberg's latest blockbuster, Disclosure Day. It's Spielberg's return to the question. that gave us close encounters of the third kind and E.T., Are We Alone?
O'Connor plays a cybersecurity expert who gets hold of the government's proof that aliens are among us and decides the rest of the world has a right to see the evidence. In this scene we're about to hear, O'Connor's character Daniel has just shown the woman he's seeing, played by Eve Hewson, video proof.
There's more. 79 years more. There have been retrieval programs of exotic craft, interrogation of non-human biologics, reverse engineering and technology exploitation, all of it run by Wardex, the Department of Defense, and the defense industry. It has the highest level of military and private sector classification in American history.
They've run us since the early 70s without government funding, too many tax dollars to try and hide, and off-world artifacts are too profitable to leave in the hands of appointed officials, especially after the Nixon thing. Presidents are civilians again after eight years, so there's no longer a reason to read them in on any of this. I was a part of all that until I saw what you just saw.
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Chapter 2: What is the premise of Josh O'Connor's role in 'Disclosure Day'?
This all stops. What are you going to do? Full disclosure to the whole world all at once.
Disclosure Day, which also stars Emily Blunt, Coleman Domingo, and Colin Firth, builds on the very real folklore of a government cover-up. Roswell, crop circles, and people who say they've recovered memories of UFO encounters. Josh O'Connor, welcome to Fresh Air.
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
The details of this film, as I mentioned, kind of like cloak and dagger even for you when you receive the script. There's this funny story that you tell. What's the story?
Well, yeah, I mean, I suppose, you know, I imagine this happens an awful lot in kind of big blockbuster movies, certainly with the likes of Spielberg and George Lucas and those greats. But for me, it was the first time I'd experienced this level of secrecy. And I mean, I met Stephen. Stephen and I met sort of three or four months prior to me actually receiving the script.
But when it came, it was like I was shooting knives out. And I just remember there was a kind of a motorbike turned up. There was an envelope. I had to read the script and then hand the envelope back to the guy on the motorbike. Thankfully for the motorcyclist, I read it really quickly. Normally I'm a very slow reader. I have dyslexia. But I managed to get through it pretty speedily.
And that's down to David Koepp's brilliant writing, Stephen's great storytelling. But it was terrific. And yeah, the secrecy around it is bizarre. Not being able to tell anyone that you're doing a Steven Spielberg film is difficult.
You mentioned maybe this happens for all blockbuster films, but this is your first real blockbuster film. You've spent most of your career in these kind of small, quiet films. What was it like to walk on a set, a Spielberg set of this size?
Well, you know, the strange thing is that I suppose the trappings of a movie like this, and again, you know, this is from limited experience, obviously, but the trappings are different. But the reality is the actual, the day-to-day making of a movie, the collaborative nature of making a movie is pretty much exactly the same. And I think that's, I don't know if that's solely a Steven thing.
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Chapter 3: How did O'Connor prepare for the secrecy surrounding his role?
It was great.
Okay, let's talk about The Crown for a moment because for many Americans, the first time we really saw you was as a young Prince Charles. And this man is petulant. He is self-pitying. He is awful to Diana. And you played this role so well, Josh, that I kind of hated you for a minute.
Sure. Fair enough. I'm sure you've heard that. Yeah, you've heard that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you have said that you kept returning to this one idea that Charles underneath everything was basically just a lost boy. And I want to play a scene that gives us that sense. So in this scene, he has just been made the Prince of Wales. He gives a speech in Welsh about how no one wants to be overlooked or ignored. And he's referring to the Welsh people's relationship with Britain.
And the Queen reads this translation and she has a few words for him in a private conversation. She challenges him about it. And Olivia Colman plays Queen Elizabeth. Let's listen. People will always want us to smile or agree or frown or speak. And the minute that we do, we will have declared a position, a point of view. And that is the one thing, as the royal family, we are not entitled to do.
Which is why we have to hide those feelings, keep them to ourselves.
Because the less we do, the less we say, or speak, or agree, or think, or breathe, or feel, or exist.
The better.
But doing that is perhaps not as easy for me as it is for you. Why? Because I have a beating heart. A character. A mind and a will of my own. I am not just a symbol. I can lead not just by wearing a uniform or by cutting a ribbon, but by showing people who I am. I have a voice.
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