WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.405 --> 00:00:01.812 - Oh, my god. 2 00:00:01.812 --> 00:00:05.033 - Our general secretary is lying in a puddle of indignity. 3 00:00:05.033 --> 00:00:07.318 - Yeah, he's feeling unwell, clearly. 4 00:00:07.318 --> 00:00:09.382 - You know, the first thing I decided 5 00:00:09.382 --> 00:00:11.229 in the Stalin production was we were not gonna 6 00:00:11.229 --> 00:00:13.082 try and hide what really happened. 7 00:00:13.082 --> 00:00:17.196 And we were gonna be respectful and honest about it. 8 00:00:17.196 --> 00:00:18.685 Not be very upfront about it, 9 00:00:18.685 --> 00:00:22.254 but not try and pretend it was next door and... 10 00:00:22.254 --> 00:00:24.263 You know, so it is present in the film. 11 00:00:24.263 --> 00:00:26.162 The comedy is really a comedy of 12 00:00:26.162 --> 00:00:28.329 nervous hysteria and panic... - [Jason] Terror 13 00:00:28.329 --> 00:00:30.056 - [Armando] Terror. 14 00:00:30.056 --> 00:00:33.044 The behavior of all the people inside is the comedy, 15 00:00:33.044 --> 00:00:36.287 but the decisions they come up with 16 00:00:36.287 --> 00:00:38.797 have terrible effects outside. 17 00:00:38.797 --> 00:00:41.021 It's about trying to marry those two 18 00:00:41.021 --> 00:00:43.539 so they exist alongside each other. 19 00:00:43.539 --> 00:00:45.412 I went back and looked at The Great Dictator 20 00:00:45.412 --> 00:00:48.014 with Charlie Chaplin, which he made in 1941. 21 00:00:48.014 --> 00:00:48.847 - [Andrea] Mhmm. 22 00:00:48.847 --> 00:00:49.680 - [Jason] Right. 23 00:00:49.680 --> 00:00:51.407 - At the height of Hitler, about Hitler. 24 00:00:51.407 --> 00:00:53.628 And it is full of some of the funniest scenes 25 00:00:53.628 --> 00:00:55.344 ever committed to film. 26 00:00:55.344 --> 00:00:59.058 And yet, scenes from the Jewish ghetto alongside each other. 27 00:00:59.058 --> 00:01:03.391 You know, it's a precarious path to try and balance. 28 00:01:05.331 --> 00:01:07.136 So you have to work really hard at it. 29 00:01:07.136 --> 00:01:10.427 I've never thought to take a subject 30 00:01:10.427 --> 00:01:13.315 and make a comedy about it is not to demean that subject. 31 00:01:13.315 --> 00:01:15.274 It's just to allow you another way 32 00:01:15.274 --> 00:01:17.265 of exploring that subject. 33 00:01:17.265 --> 00:01:20.287 - And that's how we explore life. 34 00:01:20.287 --> 00:01:23.353 I can remember some of the largest laughs I've had 35 00:01:23.353 --> 00:01:26.552 are some of the most desperate times in my life. 36 00:01:26.552 --> 00:01:27.510 - Oh yeah. 37 00:01:27.510 --> 00:01:29.362 Those professions that work with the highest stakes, 38 00:01:29.362 --> 00:01:31.803 doctors, soldiers, and policemen, 39 00:01:31.803 --> 00:01:33.382 they are the people who laugh the biggest. 40 00:01:33.382 --> 00:01:36.395 Sometimes, as an actor, you get to shadow people like that. 41 00:01:36.395 --> 00:01:38.875 It seems, initially, quite disrespectful 42 00:01:38.875 --> 00:01:39.708 how much they're laughing, 43 00:01:39.708 --> 00:01:42.125 but it's because they're dealing with such weighty subjects. 44 00:01:42.125 --> 00:01:43.503 It's that or weep all the time. 45 00:01:43.503 --> 00:01:44.848 - That's right. It's a way of preserving sanity. 46 00:01:44.848 --> 00:01:45.681 - Yeah. 47 00:01:45.681 --> 00:01:48.045 - You know, under The Great Terror in Stalin's Russia, 48 00:01:48.045 --> 00:01:49.013 which went on for 20 years, 49 00:01:49.013 --> 00:01:51.869 people started making lots of jokes about Stalin 50 00:01:51.869 --> 00:01:55.236 and writing them down and circulating them in joke books. 51 00:01:55.236 --> 00:01:58.065 You could be shot if you were found with one. 52 00:01:58.065 --> 00:02:00.336 - It's how important it was... - Yeah, laughing... 53 00:02:00.336 --> 00:02:03.017 - To process it through... - It means you're still alive. 54 00:02:03.017 --> 00:02:04.545 They haven't got your mind. - Yeah. 55 00:02:04.545 --> 00:02:05.433 - You can still... 56 00:02:05.433 --> 00:02:07.850 - You see the ridiculousness of the whole situation. 57 00:02:07.850 --> 00:02:10.281 - It's almost like the one last bit of power 58 00:02:10.281 --> 00:02:14.078 you have over someone is to make a joke about them. 59 00:02:14.078 --> 00:02:15.342 - I really need your help. 60 00:02:15.342 --> 00:02:17.498 - I'm gonna have to report this conversation. 61 00:02:17.498 --> 00:02:19.882 Threatening to do harm or obstruct any member 62 00:02:19.882 --> 00:02:21.474 of the Presidium in the process of... 63 00:02:21.474 --> 00:02:24.539 Look at your fucking face... (laughs) 64 00:02:24.539 --> 00:02:26.010 I took Germany, I think I could 65 00:02:26.010 --> 00:02:28.843 take a flesh lump in a waistcoat.