Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
This is James Acaster. I'm on tour with my show, James Acaster. We've added some extra London dates on the, I want to say, 1st and 2nd of August at the Royal Festival Hall. And also the Blackpool dates, which are pretty soon, actually. What? They're not sold out. Come, please buy tickets to the Blackpool one. And there's some others as well that still aren't sold. Glasgow springs to mind.
Newcastle springs to mind also. So come and see the show. I'm very proud of it. Ed's yawning.
Welcome to the Off Menu Podcast, taking the alphabetic spaghetti of conversation, pouring it into the pan of podcasting, heating it up with the flame of friendship, ladling that alphabetic spaghetti onto the plate, and it spells one thing, O-F-F-M-E-N-U.
The Off Menu Podcast. That went from just being the shittest one you've done to the best one you've ever done. Thank you very much. I knew what point I was hitting at the end. That is Ed Gamble. My name is James Acaster.
Together we own a dream restaurant, and every single week we invite in a guest and ask them their favourite ever start, a main course dessert, side dish and drink, not in that order. And this week our guest is... Regé-Jean Page! A wonderful actor, James.
I first became aware of Regé-Jean Page in Bridgerton, of course, where a lot of the world became aware of him for the first time, I believe.
Yeah, I remember seeing him in The Grey Man. That was the first time I saw him. Was that post-Bridgerton then? Yeah, but I haven't seen Bridgerton. It's crazy that I've not seen Bridgerton. And it's for no good reason. I've got no excuse. And I should watch it.
We've had a lot of Bridgerton people on this very pod.
Yeah, I should save it up and watch all of it. But yeah, I've seen Regé elsewhere. So very excited. And very excited to watch You, Me and Tuscany.
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Chapter 2: What are the highlights of Regé-Jean Page's career?
We can't help ourselves. When I know this is going on April Fool's Day, I've got the imp in me.
But that means I'll let you have the imp in you because we're recording for April 1st, but when it is April 1st for you in real life, no pranks.
You don't make the rules, man. You squares don't get to dictate how the imps behave.
Okay, the rules are you can't do an April Fool's in March, so then no April Fool's. But I'm happy to change the rules slightly, but there's no April Fool's for you on April Fool's Day.
You seem to be under the impression that you make the rules.
I do make the rules. I think I make the rules on this pod.
You're not an imp. Benito, back me up here.
Benito makes the rules. So on actual April Fool's Day, James, no, April Fool's for James, if he chooses to nominate this as his April Fool's Day because this is going on April Fool's Day.
James, he doesn't care. He says he doesn't care. Okay. I mean, we must have known that was going to be the response. Mad if he cared about anything. Yeah. On the pod. On the pod, yeah. He cares about some stuff. He cares about syncing up the audio. Yeah, toast. He cares about his dog toast, yeah, but that's not pod related. Roller coasters. He cares about the roller coasters.
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Chapter 3: How does Regé-Jean Page describe his experience filming in Tuscany?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is the Off Menu Menu of Reggae John Page. Welcome, Reggae, to the Dream Restaurant. Hey, thanks for having us.
Welcome. It was like, I actually scared you there.
It's not so much, a little overwhelmed. Sorry.
It's not generally how restaurants... Welcome to the dream restaurant, but it's been here for some time.
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Chapter 4: What is the secret ingredient in the Dream Restaurant?
Flashback's been blown up in a restaurant before.
Yeah? Yeah, first film job I ever did. I had like five lines and then we got blown up in a restaurant in Bulgaria. Wow. Man, gutted. Yeah, so, you know, thanks for bringing that back up.
Appreciate it.
What was the film? Well, literally gutted. Just bits everywhere. Carpaccio alla reggae. I thought that was the name of the film. That is the first time I've referred to myself in the third person today. Really? Me? Today? Today. You've done it before. We tried to slip one in every day. Just got a third person reference. What was the film though? It was called Survivor.
It was Mila Jovovich and Pierce Brosnan running out with guns, I think. Yeah. And you didn't survive Survivor. I did not survive Survivor. You were not the titular Survivor. I was the example of how not to be. You know what I mean? Sometimes you've got a dead girlfriend or something. And I was just dead, kind of expendable. I was an expendable at Survivor.
Were you sort of like a dead girlfriend flashback? You know when it's always under the covers? No, it was more like the rookie cop, the ingenue. They're just like, oh, that kid's got moxie. Oh, he's dead.
It was that kind of situation. But did your death drive the main character?
Yeah, it was a great motivation. That's good, that is good. Look at me, look at this face, it says motivation. Yeah, yeah. Motivation and death. That's what's on my CV. Horse riding, sword fighting, motivation and death. Did you do the classic thing you hear from a lot of actors where you put things like horse riding and sword fighting on the CV before you even do them? Yes, absolutely.
And then you just learn if you have to do them.
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Chapter 5: What unconventional methods can enhance a performance?
You're like, eh, not interested in that. Get rid of it, do it a different way. Cut it up, do something utterly nonsensical with your performance. Which is great if you trust and unnerve the audience. If you don't, it's like, what did I think about this so deeply for? Why? Wouldn't that be nice, going to see the film, not knowing which one they've used? Kind of. Kind of.
A nice surprise for you.
I think the answer's no. Kind of. If you make me better, sure. If you make me worse, I'm furious. Do you know what I mean? It's like, people ask what the difference between stage and screen is a lot of the time, and I'm sure that you actually probably have opinions on that. But the biggest difference to me is like, on screen, it feels a little bit more like being a sous chef.
Like, you chop the vegetables very nicely, then you hand them over to the chef in the editing room. And they make whatever dish it is they're going to make out of those takes. And so there's a release of control. Like your job is to provide really high quality ingredients and then trust your director and editor to cut your performance willy-nilly however they feel like it.
And then on stage, the difference is you spend months with your director rehearsing, which you don't necessarily do on screen. And you kind of work out every detail and think everything through and talk through all the meanings. And then once you hear opening night, I'm driving. You know what I mean?
And so I'm actually putting the dish together and you're in very real time adjusting to what the room is like that night, like what the audience is like, what you're getting back from them. And so it does change, but you're at the controls, you're flicking the switches, you're kind of going, okay, this will work here, this won't work there.
you absolutely carry the through line from thought and motivation through to the conclusion and what that journey looks like each night, which is the polar opposite of screen where your hands are off the wheel. You know what I mean? Do you have a preference? No, my preference is to mix that up, because I think one feeds the other.
If you get too into the driver's seat, you kind of forget how to let go. And if you get too used to letting go, you don't know how to drive the thing the whole way through. And I think you need both. You need to be able to see the whole character arc.
on screen, and likewise on stage, you need to have those muscles of release to make sure that, for instance, everyone else on stage is doing the same thing.
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Chapter 6: How does Regé-Jean Page compare stage and screen acting?
And you need to take that info and you need to be able to kind of keep it limber. So my answer to all things is always both. Always both. That's what I'm doing the closest thing to that kind of psychopathic space, because he's an absolute maniac, the Count. By the way, have you read Count Monte Cristo?
No. I saw the Jim Caviezel one years ago. It's good.
When I was a kid. It's good, that one. Yeah, Caviezel, man. In terms of compressing that story. Yeah, yeah. Caviezel. Have you said that to his face?
Caviezel.
Caviezel, man.
He wouldn't come on this.
He might. He might. Say nicer things about him.
He'd choose bread, that's for sure. Okay, we're judging bread. We're judging bread. Jesus loves bread. Monte Cristo sandwiches. Oh yeah, Monte Cristo. Oh no, Caviezel's gone. Caviezel straight on the blower immediately.
He's got a team. He's got a team everywhere. They've got eyes everywhere.
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Chapter 7: What makes a dream restaurant experience?
Let's just enjoy that concept. We should get one of those on off-menu. Yeah, we should get one of the cities on off-menu.
Yeah, see what it would choose. What's your favourite hamlet? Bristol. Start at Bristol.
Yeah, just a small city to start.
Yeah, just Bristol to start with, please.
Tokyo for me. Bristol apart! Bristol apart! Bristol apart! Who directed that film? Christian Rivers. It was his first large film, because he was a pro today with Peter Jackson. Peter Jackson had the rights to the movie, and Christian had been storyboarding for him for like 15 years. I think he sent him fan art. I don't even think it was Lord of the Rings.
I think it was a film that he'd done before Lord of the Rings. And Peter brought him on from this fan art. Because Christian had just written to him going, I want to work with you. And they worked together for years and years and years. And I think Peter had just finished the Hobbit trilogy. And was basically like, I've got these rights. I am... making a Beatles doc, you do this film.
And so we're on this massive, massive set, green screens everywhere, like massive, there's got to be 200 people on set, green screens everywhere, huge built set, it's my first shot of the day, I'm being introduced in an extremely Legolas fashion, like there's a huge crane, it's doing like a panning shot up from the legs into the face as a fan blowing my dreadlocks in the wind.
He's like, right, so this is your romantic introduction. She's going to come off the airship, and she's just got to see you and see her life. And so, like, we do the first take, and the camera pans up, and my hair's blowing in the wind, fans, and I'm like, hmm. And then cut. And so he's maybe 50 metres away, maybe more. I'm up on a platform. 200 people just milling about doing their work.
Bell goes, brr, everyone's, like, hammering and stuff. He goes, right, could you do that again, but maybe do it sexier? Right, let's go.
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Chapter 8: What are the highlights of Regé-Jean Page's menu choices?
You know what I mean? The lemons are like 50 metres that way. The potatoes possibly slightly further away because you need a field for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you don't want the breeze too much on the potato field because there is manure involved. Yeah, exactly. We're keeping the potatoes. Why did you bring up the potato field? Well, you brought up the potato field. No, I didn't.
I brought up the body of water and the lemons. Yeah, we recorded this. And you decided to bring manure into this situation. Well, I brought the manure in, I will admit that.
You did. April Fool.
You did.
That was the April Fool, was that you brought manure into it?
Yeah.
I don't want it to be pranked by you. Greg, I was saying his dream main course, and your April Fool is that you said, and the potato field, so there's manure in it.
What about a side? You got murked.
You got murked. He murked you. Sorry, Greg.
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