Oh, Mona! In The Clubmobile with Spike White

This week we're taking a trip back to Thorpe Abbots with Masters of The Air's Spike White! Known for his portrayal of Lt. Charles A. Via- Co-Pilot of Blakely's Crew- part of the 100th's original cadre- Spike is a history buff in his own right! From his audition process to boot camp with the legendary Captain Dale Dye, to getting fully outfitted in authentic USAAF flight gear, Spike is sharing the impact that the 100th has left on him. Along with the history of The Bloody Hundredth there's the story of his own family's wartime history, and how he carries that history with him as he walks through life. The Clubmobile is open, the coffee is hot and the sinkers are fresh, so join us for a trip back to East Anglia! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Hey guys, here come the dollars. They got freshest sinkers, hot coffee, and the sweetest smile.

SPEAKER_04 0:16

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Club Mobile. Hey everybody, thanks for joining us. We have another really great episode for you today. Joining us is Spike White, who portrayed Charlie Beer in Masters of the Air. Spike, thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_06 0:29

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Good.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

Us too. Us too.

SPEAKER_06 0:34

Good, good, good, good, good.

SPEAKER_04 0:36

We've been very excited about this one. I have just shared off record how Spike and I indirectly know each other purely because we lived in England. We just knew each other randomly.

SPEAKER_05 0:51

It's a British thing, apparently. It must be.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

It must be.

SPEAKER_05 0:55

I'm learning this as time goes on, yes.

SPEAKER_04 0:58

We all know each other. Um what one of the first things we always ask the guys and girls that have been in the show was what was your audition process like? Were you offered the role of via immediately, or was it like an open call situation where you were put in a group and sort of filtered down?

SPEAKER_06 1:15

So I um this time it was really moving into, you know, it was COVID, so everyone was doing self-tapes for one or Zoom calls. I came into it quite late in the casting. Um, I was a lot younger than the rest of the cast. Everyone was sort of 25, and I was just 20 by the time that this role came along. So um for me it was a self-tape, and I taped for a character called Gunner, not like Gunner, but G-U-N-N-A-R. And um I did two scenes. I did a scene which I was uh in the tailgun position, which was fitting because that's what most of my stuff in the show was, and then we did uh um the interrogation sequence after that. So we did two scenes and a little slate, sent it in, and three days later I found out I was gonna go to boot camp. And I remember thinking I haven't left my house in eight months. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, you haven't gone anywhere. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:08

Holy god. Did they tell you did they tell you the same thing that they told Dara when he went to boot camp was just pack a pair of trainers?

SPEAKER_06 2:16

Yeah, that was that was pretty much it. Uh trainers, and if your phone's on, you're gonna get the shit beaten out of you.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 2:26

Yeah, leave your phone your trailer because Captain Die is terrifying. Um yeah, he's a scary man. He is, he's actually loving it. I really like the guy, but yeah, he is he is scary, and uh, you know, a lot of respect. Actually, a lot of respect for the whole team though. I'm still in touch with something. Uh it was really helpful to have them around the whole time. Really helpful.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

So a lot of a lot of people have said that in comparison to the Band of Brothers boot camp and the Pacific boot camp, this was the softest Captain Die had ever been.

SPEAKER_06 2:53

Yeah, I mean, for one we would still be steady, yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, he'd yell at you, and like if you if you took off your hat at the wrong time, he'd make you drop down, do a bunch of press-ups. I can I I I don't know about the kind of language I can use here. I could quote him.

SPEAKER_04 3:09

Oh, this is fine. Go ahead. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 3:11

We were there was this one time we were practicing on the 50 caliber machine guns here. I've still got the shell from from the day. Oh, and uh my gun jammed, and I couldn't get it to unjam because the feeding tray was upside down, everything was wrong. And uh he turns around and he goes, Now I know what it looks like when a monkey fucks a gun. So it was a lot of stuff like that, you know. So yeah, so funny.

SPEAKER_05 3:39

We continue to bring you the Dale Dye impressions on this podcast, guys.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

I think this was my favorite. This one might be my favorite.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

There's plenty more.

SPEAKER_04 3:47

This might be my favorite. Oh my god. Which um which group are you in for boot camp? Were you in one of the first ones, or were you one of the latest ones?

SPEAKER_06 3:55

You were in the first one, yeah. Yeah, I don't really know what happened across all of them. Look, um, I've got this here. This is the photo that we took at the end of uh boot camp once we'd all got the wheel.

SPEAKER_05 4:05

Oh, that's how cute!

SPEAKER_06 4:07

I'm talking right over here next to John Whitby, who was our master sergeant, and you've got exosnoky right there and Mike Smokey here. My good day is around every every pretty much everyone that it's crazy because I look at this photo, there's more people here than I've known like in ten years. I met them all in sort of one day. Every single one of them, both of their names. I remember everything and everyone's an experience like that. You know, it's um you it never really goes away. If you're wandering around on a film set now and you run into someone and you both figure out you're unmastered, you turn around and go, You're a master's boy. It's you have that sort of that bond together. It's quite funny like that.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

That's adorable. I love that because you were obviously so together during COVID and you couldn't leave, or you couldn't, and you only had each other to hang out with, yeah, for that entire year.

SPEAKER_06 4:56

Well, I mean you know, we were staying at these hotels and stuff, and we were always together, and that there was a there was a bar that we used to go to, which was pretty much just us. Um, so we all got really close really quickly, and uh, you know, uh you know, five years goes by, we've all moved around the country, some of us have changed careers around the world, in fact, and um you know we don't talk as much as we once did, but we still have our group chat.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

So that's adorable! Yeah, so sweet. I love that.

SPEAKER_06 5:22

Going through all the all the memories, and we're I think we're because five years ago today, um, we started filming, I think. Yeah, we fin we finished the book.

SPEAKER_04 5:33

It's so perfect. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 5:36

We're gonna start shooting today, and that will be the chapel crew story, which is so embarrassing. I don't want to tell you about it, but I will.

SPEAKER_04 5:43

You mentioned it now. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 5:45

There was on the first day of the shoot. I came in, I got into my costume early, I got into makeup, and everyone was like, Wow, Spike, you're Sprite, you're ready to go. And I was like, I'm just really excited to be here, man. And um, they uh they they bring everybody out, and it's gonna be a scene in the um in the dance hall, they have a band on and everything's looking great, and they say, Okay, all these people go to the location, you guys, and they call out five of us. There's five of the bigger guys, and then myself, and I was like, Okay, here we go. They say you're part of chapel crew. I'm thinking, oh, this sounds good. What's chapel crew? We sat in a makeshift like fake chapel for the next two days filming nothing. That was it. We were just there in case they needed sick. It took me like four in front of a camera, yeah. But I was in every day the whole time.

SPEAKER_05 6:29

Oh my god, that's really bad.

SPEAKER_06 6:32

It was that was that was my like lowest point of the whole shoot, and then from then it was easy sailing, everything was that was like that was like going up from the going from the highest point to like bad all the way down, right?

SPEAKER_05 6:45

You come in and you're like, Yes, let's go. You're gonna go sit in this room. You're gonna go sit in this room every day for a week and a half. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But um, I don't even think there is a scene in the chapel on the base. No, they just there might be like blip, like blinking miss it.

SPEAKER_06 7:06

Yeah, some of the buildings were reused as well for other things, and stuff like that. Um because the the the airbase was obviously rebuilt, and you can find aerial photos online from the time, right? Um but I think yeah, a lot of the time you'd see those buildings, like sometimes one of the bunk houses would be turned into a canteen or something like that, yeah, you know, or or or or a storage room or something. So it got shook up all the time. Um yeah, it is always clever tricks of camera works. For instance, the um the trench that they stand in when the air raid happens, I think it's episode at the end of episode two or episode three. That trench was only like two meters long, but it looks like it stretches on a mile at least that time is. Exactly. So um, you know, it's clever little camera tricks, but uh that's that's how you get away from it. They didn't take the planes, that's the important stuff. All the planes that you see on the ground were all real, they were very big, and they were very, very daunting to be around.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Wow, absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:12

Um, tell us a little about your research into Intervia. Was it sort of you were given like a folder or something, or were you given the contact information of the family right off the bat?

SPEAKER_06 8:24

It was pretty difficult at first to be honest. When I got there, I I found a website which is dedicated to the 100, then it had the names of all people on it. I found everything out about Justin Snappen and Blakely's crew. Um and then via the the page had his uh his date of birth, the date he passed away. He said he was seriously wounded in combat and that he was from a town called Clifton Forge, Virginia, and a few other sprinkled things. Um, and that for the longest time was all I could find. I couldn't find any family, I couldn't find anything. I really tried right up until one of my last days on the shoot. I it was the day I'd finished all the volume, which is the stuff inside of the plane. Um, and I came off the set and finished, it was almost 10 o'clock at night. Got in the car and turned on my phone finally, and I I'd had a message from his daughter that day. She'd reached out to me and she she wanted to just say hello and say uh that it was so nice that that this was happening for her father. And uh that's very sweet. Um we spoke the next day, she sent me loads of details on him, loads of stuff to know, everything you'd want to know, um and more. And um then, yeah, so it it was towards the end of the shoot that I found out all the real information. I mean, most of it was about his his life after the war, anyway, um family life and such. But um, you know, he uh he was basically a figment of my imagination. You know, my granddad was a uh Lancaster bomber pilot, so in my head, I actually based him off of my own grandfather just sort of try and make some image of a man in my head that wasn't just a picture of a guy, right? Um, but uh yeah, so that's kind of how it worked for me. It was it was difficult to find out, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:05

Yeah, I I know that we struggled with initially with finding, and this is obviously years after you guys have filmed, this was a year, two years after. Um, we couldn't find anything, and of course we would turn to the same website you did. Um, and when it came to us doing an episode on Bremen for the anniversary, um, we got in touch with our friend from the National Archives and she sent us this plethora of information. Um, and then unfortunately, that's how we found out about how Via did pass away. And she sent us a trigger warning as well, didn't she, Gabby? She said, make sure that you're sat down reading this because he uh he died in a self-inflicted manner, and it's really incredibly sad. Um how was that for you finding that out? You knowing that you have to act out and portray this really harrowing experience and knowing that it ended.

SPEAKER_06 10:58

Well, by the time I I'd found that out, um I had sort of like a false rap. I thought I'd rapped, uh, and then I ended up having some reshoots of uh the Algeria landing, so I did get to touch back base a little bit later on. But um I'd as I said I'd finished the volume uh and I'd come home and she had sent me this uh manuscript that her brother had put together, and on the first page of it, the first line was, I can only imagine what was going through my father's head when he made the plans he did. And as soon as I I found out, you know, again, as I said, I'd sort of base the image on my grandfather a bit, who I had known and been very close with when I was very young. I was burst into tears. I was so upset.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

I've made it.

SPEAKER_06 11:43

I just no, it can't it can't be. I can't, I couldn't, I was it was actually I had that I don't I had no idea I'd have that reaction. I you know, someone who I'd never met, never would meet, you know, said who's uh yeah, I was I've made a hero out of my house, but very disappointed and very upset, and you know, you know, also knowing his daughter, and it was it was it was tough business. Yeah, it's um it was heartbreaking, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:09

I think we had a very similar reaction because obviously it wasn't publicized anywhere, it's not on the 100th website. No. Um so I think you know, when when our friend Cara said, Hey, you gotta, I'm just letting you know before you read it, this is what has happened. Right. And I think I was outside with my kids. So I'm outside with my kids, hand head in hand, crying, over a man I've never met. Right. Um, and I think Gabby had much the same reaction. It's incredibly heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_05 12:36

I think I had to walk away from I was at work, I had to walk away from my desk. I wasn't prepared to read it. I had to get up and walk away. And I think a lot of it boils down to also you get all these different iterations of Bremen, right? You get it from Cross's perspective, and then if you read Lucky's book and Frank Murphy's book, you see it kind of in three different lenses from three different people, and it's all just the same. Charlie Via was severely wounded.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:02

And it never goes past that. It never really goes past oh, Charlie Via was severely wounded. But we you you get the impression, well, Charlie Via survived the war. He went home after he survived the war. Not really expecting, but then again, if you think about it like hindsight is 2020, what really were veterans getting in the 40s? Not really what they're getting now. So it's a complete different, like, you know, he was suffering, but there weren't they didn't have a name for it yet.

SPEAKER_06 13:30

Yeah, yeah. It was um it was just shell shock, right?

SPEAKER_05 13:32

That's what they called it.

SPEAKER_06 13:34

Um flak fatigue, I think they called it. Yes, um, flak happy. Um there were a number of names for it. Um, and it's definitely, I mean, I I now know the specific details of what happened in the back of the plane. Um, he was shot through the right, and it was a flak hit. Some parts of the flak exploded in his body and landed very close to his spine, and then it came out of his uh his left buttock, paralyzed his left leg. He'd go on to have a surgery. Uh sorry, just let me see if I can up written it down here. Uh he was sent to Walter Reed Hospital in DC and operated by Colonel Sperling, I think his name was, who was the same uh same man who'd operate on Patton. Um, and it was one of the first nerve reconnection surgeries ever. So he got some of the feeling back in his leg, but he still had to have a paralysis, I think, below his knee and had to wear a spring-loaded shoe. Um there is a you know uh sort of happy story that came from this. That being said, Blakely told his wife who was in the area, uh, do you know anyone? Charlie's in hospital there and he's on his own. Can you can you send somebody down? Um, and that's how he met his wife and mother of his children in the hospital. Yeah, so that that's what amazing. And look at that. He he went on to become a lawyer. Uh, and he had I believe I I think this is uh reading what was sent to me, he helped uh the JFK campaign. He was one of the managers of the uh uh campaign to get JFK elected. Um and yeah, so that was you know, he he had a full life after the war and he he went on to do plenty. Um, but obviously uh you know those wounds were serious.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah, lifelong, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:25

Yeah, well, you know, nerve pain like that, I think a lot of us have like got a trap nerve or something. You get these pulsing heatings, that goes on your whole life, you know, and every time you feel that ping of that nerve, you're gonna be right back where you started. So sort of again, I can't really fathom it. Uh, the question I've been asking myself is what happens over the course of 22 years to um to to get to that point, yeah, to bring you mentally to that point where mental illness is something that we just don't understand as even now as a human race, we're not there yet.

SPEAKER_04 16:02

Um, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_06 16:04

So, you know, it's it's a it's a it's a terrible thing. It's just there's there's you know, there's not really a word in the English language which can describe it. No, no, it's tragic.

SPEAKER_04 16:14

It's tragic.

SPEAKER_06 16:15

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

It really, really is.

SPEAKER_06 16:17

But yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:18

Um can you tell us a little bit about the did you ever shoot the Bremen sequence and was it cut or was it sort of you're gonna have it and then we'll take it away?

SPEAKER_06 16:28

Yeah, it was um it was gonna be in episode four, uh, but it ended up being too similar to episode five, and it was scripted out, it was ready to go. Lou Sparks, uh, who trying to remember his character's name, played the left waist gunner. Um, he had done the makeup test, he'd been put in the chair and had you know half his skin ripped off and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:49

Um, so we we were ready to go. And uh it was sort of a last minute we got the call through episode four. It's like, sorry guys, it seems to cut. Um, I think some of the guys were pretty devastated. I I I was just happy, so I I didn't mind too much. That was we were gonna go out to the field and see if we could go find the tree, and we were gonna go park the plane in that tree and uh you know do the whole do the whole business. It would have been fun to do, but um, you know, it it is what it is. We uh we missed out on it. So but I mean because it's one of Justice Nappen's an infamous story. I mean, boy, it's one of the biggest stories of the whole whole um yeah. Well, it deserves the full of its own one day.

SPEAKER_05 17:26

There's a whole section at the hundredth at Thorpe Abbott's if you go into the one of the sheds. I don't know if you've been to no, I haven't.

SPEAKER_06 17:34

I wanted to.

SPEAKER_05 17:35

I was there last year, or just around this time last year. And there's a whole section dedicated just to just a snap and just to Blakely's crew, and it's you know, the pictures of the plane in the tree. You don't realize how forceful that plane came down and just what the front of it looked like.

SPEAKER_06 17:57

I mean, it was smashed pieces.

SPEAKER_05 18:00

If I mean you think about it, like had Douglas and Cross not moved, I think that would have been yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:06

And Douglas had just been knocked out as well because he uh he though no uh he hadn't had any skin broken, he'd um he'd just been hit by flak. Um had just come right through, I think it had hit his bombsite. Um just as he was leaning over the target, so he was delirious anyway. And then they're flying back hours to try and get back to England, but they're pulled to pieces. So take out some. I think they took out eight Meshersmiths.

SPEAKER_05 18:29

Yeah, they had the highest, they had the highest single mission enemy kill rate for the hundredth for like the longest time, or like yeah, in general, yeah, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_06 18:42

The story was that that's why they were um that's why the Luftwaffe went after the 100th so much, was because they were pissed off that one plane could inflict that much damage on them. That's one story. There's also another story that it was because there was a uh B-17 where they lowered their wheels, which was a sign of uh surrendering.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Yes, the friendly surrender.

SPEAKER_06 19:04

Yeah, and as the as the fighters were coming in to guide them into landing, they still shot them out of the sky. So there's a couple that we talk about that with that's gonna bug me.

SPEAKER_04 19:14

Was it Matt Mae we spoke about?

SPEAKER_05 19:15

Might have been with Matt Mabe that we talked about episode.

SPEAKER_04 19:19

Yeah, yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_05 19:22

Matt Maebe knows everything. Matt Mabe knows everything, and he'll just like come out with random stuff, and it's like how do you know all this? How does this happen? Yeah, how does this happen?

SPEAKER_06 19:33

I mean, it's gotta be it must be so difficult as well because uh just imagine you know the um the interrogation after after the combat missions, you know, all these guys are gonna be shaking like mad, they're getting half cut of whiskey and donuts, and you know that these stories are gonna must be pouring out of them. How do you how do you write this all down? How do you get this all accurate? Thank God for the navigators in those logs, but good lord, it must have been real tricky stuff to you know.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Even though the crash scene was cut, was there an interrogation scene planned as well for Blakely's crew post the crash?

SPEAKER_06 20:05

No. Um, so by the time I uh let me think this through. So uh yeah, as as I said, I I joined production just before the boot camp started. So on the third day of boot camp, which was a Wednesday, um last day of uh March, I got three scripts, which they said were the shooting scripts, but they still changed them, and I've got them right there. Um they had like different intros and stuff, and it was just those third first three episodes. Uh boot camp finishes, we then have a day where we're doing movement coaching, learning to walk and you know, uh dance in certain ways. And I took a meeting with Carrie, uh, the director, then, and he said that episode four was gonna be your guys' big one. Um, and that was sort of the end of it. I didn't, you know, I didn't want to read into it too much because again, I didn't know what the hell was gonna happen. The the the whole production, you know, it was it was huge and it was it was messy, as any production is. So, you know, I I I by that time I'd been acting for 15 years, I already knew like this is you knew it was what I'm just happy to be here. So I'm just yeah, I'm a massive history buff anyway, so I love history. I I I didn't know that much about this, but I knew a good bit anyway. So I was just there basically to you know do the reenactments and get paid for it. It was great, right?

SPEAKER_05 21:24

Yeah, I know that I know that's a good idea. Get paid for living history, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:27

Really, exactly. I know that's like in in our educational system, we obviously we get the British side, we get the blitz, we get rationing, we rarely get um anything about the the US and the friendly invasion. Um I grew up literally like 10, 20 minutes from Thor Pavitz, and then I I went on to marry an American airman who was stationed at Mildenhall, so literally on my doorstep. So you would think I would know more, and I didn't know more until I left England.

SPEAKER_06 21:57

It's it's it's nuts, isn't it? I mean, it's you know, because it the Also, the theme in the show, and the theme in the books is that there was a bit of a a fight between who had the most efficient way of killing bombing, yeah. And the RAF thought they were doing it best with their nighttime blanket bombings, and um the the US Air Force thought they were doing it with precision bombing, and still today, people are debating was it even worth it? Personally, I look at the the facts and I go absolutely yes. Um but you know, historians are still going, do they need it? Is this this? And you know, there's a few uh you know, episodes of um of the war, say Operation Thunderclap and Operation Gomorrah, which was the firebombings of Dresden specifically and Hamburg, which are horrid and very unnecessary. And you know, I I generally tell people actually not to look that up because it's a bit too graphic if you don't if you don't if you want you know history can be fun up to a point and then the next thing I'll be looking at pictures.

SPEAKER_05 22:55

Oh, yeah, it's the messes with your brain on the bottom. It does, yeah, it gets to you. There's been instances right where I've said I have to put this book down.

SPEAKER_06 23:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:04

It's like that bit in it's like that bit in Friends where she says to Joey, Do you want to put the book in the freezer? Correct. I sometimes am like, I have to put this down, I have to walk away. It's a lot, it could get to you, it's a lot.

SPEAKER_06 23:16

Yeah, I I I I had no idea about what happened in in Hamburg or Dresden. And the first comment about Hamburg being that the only survivors were people who jumped in the river because if you if you were in an air raid shelter, you exploded because it the heat was too much. Yeah, and uh if if you were in the river, you'd go mad anyway because the whole thing was so full of oil that eventually lit anyway. Um so you know, I I grew up again. So my granddad uh was uh he was flying over Burma, he was in the Burma campaign, and he was a pilot of a Lancaster bomber. And uh he passed away when I was four, so I don't really remember. I know he did tell me stories because I was even interested back then, but I sadly I just I hardly have any memory of it. Meanwhile, my grandmother she was uh quite young during World War II, and she told me everything. She was giving me history lessons throughout the whole thing. I've even got a letter from my great-grandfather, her father, um written to his brother from the front lines at on uh on VE Day. Um my grandma used to walk me around spots about a block from where I grew up here. Um there's uh the first ever V2 rocket landed and it wiped out the neighborhood, you know. So all of this history, I I sort of the only the only blank spot I had was this. So to jump into it and get to know it, I was amazing.

SPEAKER_04 24:36

Oh yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_06 24:39

Yeah, it's so odd picking up these books as well, because when I read it, you know, I I I usually read a book like a script, I picture it in my head and sort of have it all filmed and like a movie. Um and who I end up picturing, say we're reading about any of the guys, I see my friends, the guys from the show, you know. Yeah, I see Warren Colson when I read about Hamburn Hamilton. Um, and I think about stories when he was one wing Colson because he'd he banged up his shoulder uh before doing boot camp, and there was certain PT exercise he couldn't do. So when you read about these terrible things happening to your friends as well, and you're picturing your friends even though you never knew the guy, you're like, Oh, it it makes it makes it too real. It makes it too real, yeah. It makes it too real. I think uh I've got a very lucky perspective to have that, you know, be able to see people that I know and people that I love dearly, and uh you know, yeah, be able to look at the history from that perspective. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

I I I know that we would love to know about you guys still having such a great rapport. Was it like an instant bond that you guys made during boot camp, or was it like a slow burn?

SPEAKER_06 25:46

No, no, it wasn't a slow burn. We all knew we were in the same uh in the same boat, and I think once Captain Dyer started talking, everyone's pants became a little bit heavier and a little bit browner. But um, there was a there were a few few moments throughout the camp as well which uh had sort of lifted spirits. For one, we were all nervous as all hell. We were really, really yeah. I mean, everyone, even Austin Butler was coming into this. He uh finished Elvis.

SPEAKER_04 26:13

He'd just done Elvis, hadn't he? Tom Hanks had given him given him Clevin.

SPEAKER_06 26:17

He still had a haircut, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:20

So you know, I remember having lunch with him one day, and he was um we were sort of just trying to put everyone on the same level, you know. Uh little guys and the big guys, there was no difference between us. While we were here, we were just people hanging out, just guys, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 26:36

And um then, you know, at some points they had us playing baseball games together. Uh, there was one day, it was April Fool's Day, and I did something that's maybe a little cheeky. I decided that I'd put a prank on the whole cast, and um it I uh I I went up to um the director and I I said, Hey, I just had a thought, you know. Why don't you say, look, there's uh there's been some changes, uh, and if I have to call your name, I'm gonna try and find you a new role, but there's a chance that I might not be able to. Um he stood in in the formation at the end of the day. And man, I was so pleased. You had face masks on, I wouldn't have been able to hide this shit eating. I had slapped the face so excited. I remember when he when he got around to it, I said, if I call your name, please step forward. April Fool's Day, April Fool's Day here. Everyone started to charge him. He had to duck and point me because everyone then charged me. And after that, it it was a bit of a of a of a break, though. I think everybody after that turned around and was like, Oh, thank god. I mean, and you know, if you know if everyone was nervous, then we're fine, we're fine. Everyone's in this together, we're all feeling the same things. Nobody's hung out with anyone in ages anyway because of the lockdown. So we're all we're all good. Let's just have a good time now. And I think it took that was the uh the fourth day of boot camp that that had happened. It took a it took a few days for everyone to settle down, and then after that, like that.

SPEAKER_05 28:03

So you were the troublemaker on scent.

SPEAKER_06 28:06

I wouldn't say I was the troublemaker on set, but I did I did like to, you know, I did like to screw around and have a good time.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

So yeah, of course, you have to, like otherwise the fun.

SPEAKER_06 28:16

Especially if you're in chapel crew and doing nothing all day.

SPEAKER_04 28:19

Doing nothing for three days.

SPEAKER_06 28:20

Yeah, nothing for three days. And my role is to leave my phone in my trailer as well. So I mean I was just sat there like you've got stuff, yeah. You've got to think of something in the I just remember sort of going, This leather smells different. This is really the only thing I wish there was a mirror, I could maybe say that I look cool at the moment. Try and make conversation. How's the weather today?

SPEAKER_04 28:42

How how did that costume feel? Was it extremely heavy? Because the the jackets always look heavy, very well, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:51

I've got these aren't the ones I wore on the show, but these are Eastman's. I've got them here. This is the um exact model of the A2 that I wore on the show. I would love to this is horse hide, it's actually quite light and quite comfortable. I um I actually watched watch a lot of clips from you know, like the the original Memphis Bell film, the William Wyatt film. Yeah, how the hell did you fly in that? You must have been freezing up there. Um, but the the it was nice during the beginning of the shoot to stay in your sheepskin because this is lovely, and we did start shooting in the whole um Eastman.

SPEAKER_04 29:25

If you're watching this, she's gorgeous.

SPEAKER_06 29:27

Yeah, it is. That is beautiful. It's my daily beef insane, but you know.

SPEAKER_04 29:32

Um Eastman, I don't want to sell a kidney if you're watching this, Eastman.

SPEAKER_05 29:38

We're right here.

SPEAKER_06 29:40

The costumes were very warm, and you know, you had so you had um your let me try and remember this. You had a jumpsuit on, you had a bunny suit on, you had a t-shirt and some kind of trousers on. When you got under the layers and under the layers that you wouldn't see, it wasn't historically accurate anymore because there was no point we were just uh overheat. Um when we were out about shooting the actual outside stuff, it was okay. It was when we got to the volume that was that was when it got tricky. Um because here we were in in these these kits and it was multiple layers of flying gear. And the play into these little tin cans under these bright lights in these huge studios which are already quite warm, um you got hot quick. And when I did the volume in that time, it got to the point where I was like, I had water with me, but I couldn't drink it because if I did, I was just gonna be sick. It was it was like terrible, yeah, it was too hot. And none of us wanted to like we were all so driven to film the damn thing that nobody would uh say that they weren't feeling well or step out. We were all just like, no, I'm doing it, I'm doing it. Um, maybe at our own personal uh I remember a medic coming up to me at one point going, brother, you need to stop.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

And I was like, No, I'm almost done.

SPEAKER_06 31:01

Yeah, let me adjust. I've got a great picture, my skin's turned purple in in uh on one of the ages because I've gotten so hot and I think something started going wrong in my body. But um specifically the day that I'd shot the tailgun and stuff, that was tough because I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of the inside of a tail. There's like a bike seat in there. That bike was at the lowest setting, and we couldn't get it up, so we just had to stack pillows on top of it. Um, and the pillows after 10 minutes are too soft. I'm just I'm not tall, I'm only 5'8, but I'm too tall to be able to sit all the way up inside of the thing and just be able to sit on my knees, and I'm too short to be able to sit all the way down. So I had to do like this semi-half squat, and after six or seven hours of that, that's crazy. I mean, it felt like I was in there for a century, but I didn't care. I was I was having a lot of fun. You know, you'd have to lean back to stop yourself from cramping, and then you know, you might get a two-minute break while you change your costume. Um you'd uh eventually come out of there. I remember taking off all the flight gear and it was it was heavy and wet. It was soaking. Oh god. I mean the the I I got I couldn't really because I'd been crouched for so long, my knees had all cramped up, and I couldn't, you know, they had to help me down off the platform, I couldn't climb down the ladder. So they're like having upbeat like they were trying to catch you, you know. They walked me over to the um uh to the makeup tent and gave me some more water, and uh I looked at myself in the mirror, I went, Whoa, I didn't know I could look that rough. Yeah, it's like life of an accident. I mean, come on, get over yourself. But yeah, and I walked out and I took off all my gear and I was like, Oh, I feel so bad for for the wardrobe team.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Oh, Jesus.

SPEAKER_06 32:45

And uh I I've got a picture of of the jumpsuit. It is it's you can see a distinct sweat pattern over the material, it was gross. And I came in the next morning to go throw on the flight suit again, and we all had one specific jacket, or you know, maybe a couple, but they were the exact same. I had a I had a uh size 38 Perry Sportswear B3, and when I put it on the next morning, it was still wet.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Oh gag.

SPEAKER_06 33:11

Yeah, so it was it was pretty very similar, yeah. But I mean, hell I didn't have fun. I remember that day. I came home and I sort of tried to lift my legs up while I was making dinner to see if I was I've sat down and they were so shaky. I went and sat on the couch and I put on the great escape because I was in a good mood and I thought I was done. And uh I watched the Great Escape and I just died on the sofa. I think I watched about two minutes of it. I didn't eat my dinner all over my lap and on my couch, and that was it.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

Just to add to the extra mess, you've now got to clean up food all over the couch, all over the floor.

SPEAKER_06 33:44

I woke up the next morning, I was just like, I don't care, I'm done, I'm checked out. I'm done. I'm tired.

SPEAKER_04 33:50

Did everyone else sort of fare the same? Was everyone else suffering alongside each other?

SPEAKER_06 33:55

I I don't know about other sections of the plane, I think they were cooler, the bigger the space was. Um I imagine the top fit stuff and the the um you know the uh nose wasn't maybe too comfortable, but I I'd I wonder if maybe you know where the radio room was and uh and the waist. Yeah, space to stand and move about and there, big windows and such. There was a door behind me, and then there was a plexiglass screen in front of me, and then there was tin all around me. And it was maybe the space was maybe four feet tall at top, so you could only call through it. You you had no move room to move your shoulders. Um so it was it was pretty uncomfortable. I went in after Dean Rich, um, and he was he was unzipping everything and having to like put cold water on parts of his body because he was cramping up so bad. You know, you can hydrate like one and eat as much potassium as you want, you're not gonna stop cramping like that.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

It's not gonna do that, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:47

Yeah, but can you imagine what it must have been? I mean, I I sat there doing that for a few days thinking, wow, this is tough, man. I'm a real tough guy. I'm I'm feeling real cool right now. And then I thought, shit, imagine doing that, getting shot at and nowhere else to go the whole time. Yeah, you're in the city. And you're just stuck in there in the air. I mean, imagine the mission to Algeria. What? No. Yeah. Sorry, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing it. That's absolutely no, thank you.

SPEAKER_05 35:15

And for somebody, I guess, like Via, who was technically the co-pilot.

SPEAKER_06 35:19

He was, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:20

Getting booted, getting booted to the tail because you know, the command pilot was flying with your crew. You're like, you're you're prepared to sit in the front and at least like you know, you're in the front, you've got some some space around you. Now you're booted to the tail. And what who was it, Lucky who did it once? Yeah, we read Lucky.

SPEAKER_04 35:38

John Luckled did it.

SPEAKER_05 35:39

John Luckle did it once. He got booted to the tail once, and he said, I don't care if it takes me longer to finish my 25 missions, I'm never flying on the tail again. I'll I'll stand down. So the report.

SPEAKER_04 35:49

He was a big dude too.

SPEAKER_05 35:50

He was he was tall. Lucky was tall. He was a tall guy. Yeah, yeah, Lucky was tall.

SPEAKER_06 35:55

The tail usually was one of the most lethal spots for um the for the Luftwaffe. The tail had a high rate of success, so they'd go after it big time. And from the side, obviously, you know, you've only got so much room that you can shoot back there. Yeah, um, they were quite vulnerable, and so a lot of stories of the back tail just being sheared clean off the back of the plane, and you know, you don't have space for your parachute back there, so you're in free fall in the back of the plane, and that's it. Um, it must have been absolutely terrifying. And I did take that into account. I remember quite a few briefing missions going, oh, Major Kid or Major Eagan will be flying alongside Blakely on this one and just going acting that out, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:38

So I did that how did that feel for for you to be given a role and research and say, oh, he's Blakely's co-pilot, and then you find out that you're pushed to the back every time.

SPEAKER_05 36:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:53

I um I again I was just happy to be there, I didn't care, but I um I I I uh I didn't mind. I remember in boot camp, I didn't know yet. I didn't know what the um I learned the clock system twice. I know it back to front, and I still do. I I did do a lot of work in the cockpit as well. I still learnt to fly the damn thing. Um loose words there, learnt to fly it. I could get it off the ground, I could also get it back into the ground, but not in one piece.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

That's it.

SPEAKER_06 37:23

Um yeah, I'd crash it before takeoff, that's for sure. Um yeah, so you know, it was um it was a lot of nerve is building up to filming that day. I'd seen the state of everybody else coming out of the volume going, are you all right, man? And they're like, Yeah, I was like, Whoa. All right, I'm I'm excited to uh oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 37:48

So geez, I'm excited to overheat and yeah, I can't wait to cramp up and overheat in this four foot space.

SPEAKER_06 37:54

Yeah, the adrenaline is so high, you know. You sat there going, right? And my oxygen mask, um, the clip broke as I as I got in there. Uh, but you couldn't see it on camera, so they were like, oh hell, let's just leave it. But it was slightly loose on my face, and the whole time in between shooting at something and just trying to catch my breath, just naturally, I kept on plugging it onto my face, just trying to get trying to suck air. Oh god, yeah. A hose pipe which isn't connected to anything. Um, yeah, I was that was pretty intense. And every time I was speaking, I remember having to grab the uh the throat mic and do this and that. There was a lot going on, you had to think a lot back there, you know. Um, for sure. Yeah, you overthink a lot as well. It's it kind of felt like a driving test, you know what I mean. You're you're back there thinking so much, gotta get this right, gotta get this right. And then we had an earpiece in, so they're barking directions at us as we're going. Um, and we have, you know, we were allowed to improvise and stuff, and that was a fun one. Uh, we had a copy of uh Wing of the Prayer on set, and um I had the I've got the pages here still folded for everything which references Charlie. Um and there was one bit in there. I don't know how far this went, but um Crosby had mentioned that he had weird phrases. He he'd say omona. Um I wondered, oh I guess he might have probably was a religious man. Maybe you didn't like to shout, oh my god, or Jesus, or you know, swear a lot. Um and I remember turning around going, Yeah, I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna shout, oh shit, I killed a Jerry or whatever, like that. I'm gonna have to I'm gonna go, oh Mona. Yeah, like some other funny phrases. Oh what on God's green earth's going on down here, or something like that, you know.

SPEAKER_05 39:33

But that's really cute. I love that. Were you guys close as a crew? Like, did they keep you guys, the ten of you, together?

SPEAKER_06 39:43

Yeah, well, we had gotten to know each other from boot camp. Um, we we weren't there weren't actually ten of us. I don't think we had our own bull turret gunner. Um yeah, and right I'm not sure if we had a top turret gunner. Um, so I think there was only eight of us. But because of the way that the boot camp had worked and that we were, you know, we all did have barracks, so we didn't stay in them because of COVID. Um, we did tend to sort of not stick to our own our own groups, but we did get to know each other first before getting to know everyone else. Right. Um, and we were directly under under Callum Turner as Major Regan, and he was, you know, saying, let's do the real names first, get to meet each other, and then we'll sink into the uh the characters. Right, right. Um, so he sort of really helped uh because there weren't many of us in the 418 or any of the groups really. Again, it wasn't the full crews, and the cast wasn't fully fleshed out by the time that we were doing that. So other our flight was finished, but um I the other forts I don't I don't know about. Um yeah, we we were close. I don't know if that was the case with everyone, but we we were pretty close. Yeah, um that's really nice.

SPEAKER_04 40:55

Yeah, to reading Cross's book and sort of getting to know more in-depth about Via, even though you had already portrayed him.

SPEAKER_06 41:04

So I'd I'd picked up um Crosby's book about uh it was not long after we'd finished boot camp. Um and yeah, uh I'd picked it up and there were little things in there. I'd started filming already. At the beginning of that, I was chain smoking. Not in real life, I don't smoke, but I had these fake cigarettes, they just kept giving them to me. So I was like, okay, I'll keep smoking them. Only to find out, he apparently hated cigarettes, so I was just sort of like, oh, we just take that away. And there is one there is one shot of me in the show lighting up the cigarette in the back of a Jeep, and uh, just like uh ignore that. Yes, there is ignore it, ignore it on the next three watches, it's not there, but um, everything else other than that, and I after that it was pretty easy to get the accurate stuff down, but um you know there weren't too many, too many things which I could bring to it given the scenes that I had. A lot of it was background work and stuff like that, but um when it came to all the dialogue, it was very helpful. Um, and again, it was this thing as I was saying, I'm picturing my friends while I'm reading this. You know, it was very it was a very odd, a very odd thing to to read at that point. Um starting corruption, yeah. So that was fun.

SPEAKER_04 42:13

I know that we we do the same. I think we've read a w a wing and a prayer for three, four, five times at this point, and every single time where we go back and we see a name that we know we're picturing the man that betrayed him, and it's quite it's quite jarring because especially when you get to the to the parts of the book where um obviously Bremen and they're seeing their friends be shot down, and you can see a real guy who is alive now, yeah, in dis in distress, and it's quite yeah, like especially during especially during the description of Bremen in Croz's book, because I can see you and I can see Dave Shields and I can see Ed Ashley, I can see Anthony Boyle, and seeing these very real people to me in distress, especially now seeing you, yeah, and now we have like a friendship and a rapport, it's even more jarring because I'm picturing you.

SPEAKER_06 43:09

Yeah, it's on when I read the book, I actually picture Charlie. I I've seen it myself, but everyone else is is my body. Yeah, so I I I don't know what that's about. Maybe some weird psychology there. I don't put myself into it too much, you know.

SPEAKER_04 43:23

Um right, but yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:26

Yeah, yeah, it's a pretty it's a yeah, a degree of separation, yeah. You know, um it's it's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:36

Like delving into all the information, how did you feel at first? What was your first impression of um like going through William Wiler's Memphis Bell and reading Master Zoom and getting to read Cross's book? What were your first impressions of these men?

SPEAKER_06 43:51

Well, the the first thing that uh we saw was a few on one of the days at boot camp, we we watched a few uh trainingslash propaganda. Videos from the time. And they were all kind of you know acted up. They did have Hollywood stars in them and stuff like that. Memphis Bell I didn't watch till much later. In fact, I only watched it two months ago. So I I rewatched it. I'm sorry, rewatched it, watched it the first time first time I'll rereading Masters of the Air. And that was really interesting to see. But I'd seen quite a bit of archival footage. Most of my work came from most sorry, most of the work came from pictures. And uh like I've got some great pictures of of the guys in Algeria. Um I've got some really fun stuff there, and yeah, you know, it was it was um sort of coming in from there. Um, but again, as I said, I also based a lot of the my thought of these men off my own grandfather because I was just thinking the whole time. Like when I was a kid, as I said, I don't really remember him, but I remember how he made me feel. He was a man who wanted everyone to feel safe, happy, and loved all the time. That was it. He walked into a room, and that was the feeling that was in the room, despite the fact that he was 83. He was about six foot two or six foot three, he could kick his own height, and he was in great shape. I mean, he was he was a real great man. His name was Harold Jeffrey Wilkin. Um and he made such an impact on me throughout my childhood. And as I grew up, you know, my brother and sister, who are both older, knew him a lot better, and they were always saying how great he was, and I kind of feel you know, I felt like I missed out. Um, so I put that directly into Masters. That's where my passion for that came from and for trying to bring it to life. I was sort of trying to, you know, touch the face of my grandfather who I was never gonna meet. And I was also at the time doing it for my grandmother as well because she was desperate to see it, and sadly she passed away about two or three weeks before the show came out. She's devastating. One of the last conversations she had with me was those boys in Hollywood better, bloody hurry up, otherwise, I'm gonna miss it.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Oh god.

SPEAKER_06 45:57

But she had a great sense of humor about it. I might I have to say, I wonder if she would have been a bit frightened by it anyway. So I you know, I I didn't mind.

SPEAKER_04 46:05

She may have been, but I think seeing you, she would have been so proud. She would have loved it.

SPEAKER_06 46:09

I'd hope so. She got to see all the pictures and uh hold on. Where's um where'd I put my notebook? It's somewhere over here. Sorry, just give me a second. Do you find this this folder here from this is the the paper bag that they first delivered my scripts in? Uh amazing.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

It's original.

SPEAKER_06 46:28

Yeah, it certainly is. And here I've got call sheets, I've got documents about anatomies and missions, I've got you kept everything. Absolutely everything. I've got my audition script here, the sheet of paper they gave us when uh we when the show came out, along with the McAllion. Here's um diagrams of the uh of the planes that I drew so that I knew where my eyeline was.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 46:55

I had all of that. Um, but of all oh, that's why I couldn't see it, it's because it was right bloody in front of me. I had this notebook here, uh, which is what we had in boot camp. And everyone in boot camp used to take the piss out of me because they said I've never seen someone write so much. Um, but this is everything that we had learned in the in the two weeks of boot camp written down. Uh at the end of each week, I'd uh I'd run down to uh down to my grandma's house and I'd sit down on a sofa and I'd read it the whole thing so that she knew what was going on.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 47:29

She'd get her Philip history as well.

SPEAKER_04 47:31

That's so great. I love this. I really, really love that. Oh my god. I love that you've kept everything. I feel like a lot of people don't do that. I feel like so a lot of people it could have just been a job, yeah, and that was it.

SPEAKER_06 47:46

That was the thing, it was a job, and when I got the phone call that I was gonna do it from my agent, it was one of these things where I was like, right, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, you know, not quite full of words, yeah. I was like, I don't care what the show turns out to be, I don't care whether or not I'm in it, I might not be in it. And at first I didn't, you know, that was the my initial reaction to the uh phone call. I didn't even know that I was gonna be playing a guy called Charles Ashton of Beer. Um so I was just like, I'm gonna go there, I'm gonna enjoy it as much as I can. And I took everything home with me because this is just this is one of the things that I can always say that I did, you know, tell my kids about Last of the Air one day, and that was um, you know, it was a it was a real treasure of an experience for me. You know, I've had other jobs along the way as well, which I've enjoyed, but this one was more than that. I mean, I could tell you about my favourite day was um we were we were at Abingd Airfield, and um we'd been there all day, and it was one of those dog days we just knew we weren't gonna shoot anything. Uh, we were filming some of the landing in Algeria, and it was towards the end of the day, some was starting to go down. I was sat on this oil drum out on the out in the runway, and further down, um, Austin was shooting his landing, uh, and they were carton a wounded man out of the plane, throwing him on a Jeep, and driving him away. And Darrow came up to me and he asked me, Spike, are you okay? You've been sat here on your own for a long time. He thought maybe I was upset about something, maybe someone said something. And I just I said to him, Dude, look at where we are. And in complete silence, one at a time, one of the guys would come up and join us, and they'd tell the next person, dude, look at where we are, dude, look at where we are. And uh it was like his birthday, and you can the pictures on my Instagram. Um, we we'd all ended up sitting down on these on these oil drums, and uh, we took a photo all together that day with the sunset behind us. And I I often think about that moment. I remember looking to my right and seeing Jonas Moore. He was only in his bunny suit and capturing every single detail because I was like, I'll never forget this. This is this is so much. I'm like here on it doesn't matter what the hell happens tomorrow. I do not give a damn today. Uh it was just all about doing the shoot at the time. That's all I cared about. And it was uh so so sweet. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 49:59

Beautiful. It is that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_06 50:03

I don't know if it was like that for everyone, so I just knew I was trying to just lock in and enjoy it at the time.

SPEAKER_04 50:08

Yeah, you I you had a really, really special time, and I love that.

SPEAKER_05 50:11

And I think that you and Dara, especially, like you had such a great time doing it that it's so me and him were all you you walked away from it like fulfilled and appreciative, and it's so nice to see.

SPEAKER_06 50:31

Um and you know, we you know, I'd done the big prank in boot camp. He'd uh gotten the gift for the the drill sergeants to say thank you for all your work that you've done. He set up the parties, you know, between the two of us, we kind of you know made a big stink.

SPEAKER_04 50:48

You were in charge of you're in charge of the party committee, right?

SPEAKER_05 50:51

But you keep it, you keep it moving, like you keep on each other together, like which is yeah, you don't do you guys get to do you guys get to do it a lot?

SPEAKER_04 51:02

I know everyone's so busy and doing their own thing.

SPEAKER_06 51:05

No, the last time we all saw each other was in uh well it was the it was the premiere, um and we all went out. I remember trying to get into a nightclub. Well, I I I remember, I don't remember much, um, but I remember trying to get into a nightclub underneath Soho with everyone going, let the Masters boys in. Complain to everyone. At some point I I wake up and I'm I'm in a I'm in I'm I think I was in a drug bar. I was like, where the hell am I? It's five in the morning.

SPEAKER_04 51:29

How did I get here?

SPEAKER_06 51:30

I need to get out of here. I don't know what else has been going on. One or two many martinis, I don't know what happened, but oh yeah. It was it was one hell of a one hell of an evening. And before that, we'd um we'd gone to a bar in Batsy and we'd all met up there and stuff like that. You know, we I'm gonna see if I can try to set another one up this year because I think it's about time we all saw each other again. But again, everyone's spread out all over the world now. I don't know what the hell where the hell everyone might be.

SPEAKER_04 51:55

Where everyone is, what everyone's doing, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 51:58

Hey Paula, let's sort this out, let's do this again. So please do. That'd be nice. I I really do often count myself going, damn, I miss those guys.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_06 52:13

And um, you know, just briefly hanging out and chatting, you know, it's one of these things where it's a special friendship, though we're not the closest people on the planet. We pick up where we left off. You know, there's no, you know, it could be 10-15 years before I see someone, I'll be like, so remember that, and that'll be it, you know, right uh right where we right where we were, which is really nice. I really like that.

SPEAKER_05 52:36

Yeah, I think it's a I I think it's a testament to a the boot camp and just the nature of these shows. Because if you look at people like you look at the Band of Brothers cast, look at the guys from the Pacific, and now I look at you guys, you guys are all all across the board, you guys are family, and yeah, you all talk about each other uh like this is my family. And I it doesn't have to be that I saw them yesterday, I can see them in 10 years if they call in there, type of thing.

SPEAKER_06 53:01

Yeah, yeah, you know, you can't we just call message each other all the time, and you know, some of us knew each other beforehand as well, because it's a small one. Um say Ben Rad Radcliffe, I've gone to school with him.

SPEAKER_04 53:14

So we we we actually I went to college with um, you know, Tom Francis who did Sunset Boulevard?

SPEAKER_06 53:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:24

I went to college with him, and he has been friends with Ben since forever. And I didn't know this until about a year ago that Tom and Ben were friends. So again, it's a case of everyone knows everyone.

SPEAKER_06 53:36

I mean haunts me. Yeah, being yeah, it's no no secrets in this world. Um on the third third morning of boot camp, everyone's groggy as all hell. We're getting a pre a pure protein diet. You guys need to put some muscle on, you look like you've been in COVID for years, you know. And um, and we we would uh I overheard someone saying, Yeah, yeah, I went to this school. And I was like, wait a minute. I don't recognize you. I was trying to figure out, and all of a sudden it clicked. I was like, Oh my god, you're Ben Radcliffe, you son of a gun, you look a lot better than you did back then. It's like the dream again. He was like, Wow, Spike, you're still just as annoying and just as a pain in my ass. But yeah, he was um, yeah, so it's it was nice to have it beautiful though.

SPEAKER_05 54:20

Yeah, we're gonna it's always Ben. It's always Ben. We had a cut, and I'm gonna have to cut this out too, but we had a cut out. We'll cut this out. We'll cut this out because Darrow was like, please don't don't throw me under the bus. I'll tell you, but you have to cut it out. That there was they had run a whole scene, there was planes coming in, and they were okay, cut, and then somebody looked back at the frame and said, That kid's wearing a mask, and it was Ben. It was Ben.

SPEAKER_04 54:49

Yeah, it was so he like Darrow went to tell us the story, and he was like, I can't tell you, I won't tell you. And I'm like, Please, please, you can't like put me in. Yeah, you've pulled us in. And he said, Okay, but you you have to cut it out. And we were like, We promise, we promise.

SPEAKER_06 55:03

Um that was that was the day that um we were shooting when we arrived in the base in um Greenland, I think. And um wow bursts through the door and he starts walking through. And Ben has a pipe in his hand, and he goes to and he bangs it against his mask, and he's like, Oh shit.

SPEAKER_02 55:23

Oh no, that's really good. And then they rewatch it, that kid's got his mask on!

SPEAKER_04 55:32

Even funnier when there's more context, it's funnier now. I know the point of that he was trying to smoke his pipe, and he just really funny, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:43

Cause I I was with I was shooting with Nathan Solly at that point, and uh sort of we'd all scattered all across the room. That was so funny. I I think he got away with it. I don't think he got caught that it was him, he put it off and tucked it in the pocket.

SPEAKER_05 55:54

And um because the pipe doesn't give away that it's him, right?

SPEAKER_06 55:58

Well, apparently not, yeah. The one character who smokes a pipe, but the one guy, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He got away with it.

SPEAKER_05 56:05

You um were you on the Jeeps driving out for that first you were?

SPEAKER_06 56:11

Yeah. Oh man, now that was that was I think my second favourite day. I was just thinking about that today as well. Um, because with Ben, I was in the back seat um next to Ed Ashley and David Shields, and um I sort of turned to uh to Ed and said, Can you hold on to my legs? I'm gonna lean out halfway through and just like lean out of the out of the Jeep. And I was literally hanging off the back of it.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

Um waving my hat.

SPEAKER_06 56:37

And Ben had said to me after one of the takes he turned around and went, Spike, it was bizarre. For a second there, I was actually transported through time. I was like, Whoa, what am I seeing here?

SPEAKER_01 56:47

This is bizarre, and it was connected to me because of that.

SPEAKER_06 56:50

It was really a sweet moment. Um, and that day as well was uh hay fever gate. We all got very sick because we drove through this cool box, picked up all the hay fever. I remember uh Elliot Warren and Jonas Moore's eyes swollen shut. So we just we ended up all just having to lie down on the blacktop and just sort of wait to calm down. I think we all popped a shit six or seven anti-histamies trying to feel a bit better, and then just carried on. And by the end of it, we'd all screamed so loud that me and uh me and Ed Ashley were doing Bruce Springsteen impressions.

SPEAKER_04 57:21

Oh god, please. Is there video of that?

SPEAKER_06 57:24

No, there's no video. That was that was the thing I realized I by leaving my phone and my trainer for the whole shoot, I missed out on a massive thing being able to tape all of this. But there were absolutely you did. Oh yeah, for sure. It's still up here, so I still remember it all, but um gosh. That was fun, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:41

One one of the the last things I we wanted to ask was how has the experience changed you as an actor or changed you as a person, or even both?

SPEAKER_06 57:52

I this is an odd one, right? When production finished, uh for me it was in November. I went home that night, and my friend, one of my closest friends, said, Hey, I know you've just rapped, come down to the river, we'll grab a drink. And uh, we went down to the river and we just wanted to, you know, hang out. And he was like, I mean, like, you're about to be very unhappy. I was like, What? Why? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the thing was, is what I realized is that we had had a very unique experience in the middle of another very unique experience. So the COVID and then the masters stacking up on top of each other. By the time we'd rapped, everything was over, you know, people were back out in the open world, things were normal again. And um I think after that, there was kind of this. I understood the the after part of it, you know, sort of trying to just get back to normal, but having lost a massive sense of purpose. Um, so after that, and that's not something I realize that's not something I can recapture with any other job. That was a specific master's thing. But for me, it it made me kick my history stuff into overdrive. And I went nuts. I mean, I went digging through my family's history of everything, World War II. And I mean, I've got something here. Um, this is a picture of my grandfather here.

SPEAKER_05 59:12

Oh, look at him, look at that over here.

SPEAKER_06 59:18

This is uh a really crazy one. Uh, I have a letter from my great-grandfather to his brother. Um, that's the VE day letter that I was talking about. Yeah, I mean, I can hardly read it, but that's it there.

SPEAKER_04 59:32

Wow, wow, that is amazing.

SPEAKER_06 59:35

If you want me to read that out to you, I certainly can. I've got the whole thing of yes, please. Yeah, you want to hear it? Wow, yeah, so I've got underneath his war medals as well. I got everything out for you guys. Um incredible. Yeah, so again, some of it was a little bit hard to make sense of. Um, but I'll just go ahead, I'll give you some context as we go. Um, so he was part of the British Liberation Army. Uh cynically, they called it the Burma looms ahead group in uh 1944 because they thought they were gonna go to the Pacific. So I'll just yeah, I'll just go ahead. So, dear Fred, his older brother, it's over at last. What a relief it must be for them all at home. I've been on a two-day jag and I'm suffering a little from alcoholic remorse at the moment. Nellie, who was his wife, my great grandmother, uh Nelly tells me that she can hardly believe it and she's still waiting for the odd bang or two. What a life they've had all these years, and how well have they stood up to it. It can never happen again, could it, mate? It it will. Sorry to tell you, Gramps. Um, but uh there were many wild scenes in this little part of Belgium, on top of trams, so many on jeeps that you couldn't see the car, fireworks, bonfires, neon lighting, fall blaze, very stirring old son, and you couldn't walk along without catching the spirit of war. Now the quieter side, and we are sorry, uh is that a typo? Sorry. Now the quiet side, and we are holding a Thanksgiving service on Sunday. I broke my specs on V uh V Day, uh, but don't know how. He was blind as a bat. Um founded issue glasses of pressing my eyeballs in and pulling my ears off at the same time, quite apart from the holes which they dig in either side of my nose. I'm looking forward to getting some snaps from you. That sounds like a good uh good camera that you've bought. Camera, sorry, camera. Uh that sounds like a good camera you've bought. That makes sense. Of course, like all my boys, I want to know when the WO uh is going to let us go. Let me just see. Uh the War Office, of course, yeah, the WO is gonna let us go. I hear today that the 1 to 30 are off. Um my number on the get out list is 19, so you won't be long after me, old cock. Uh, I think it would be good uh for everyone if a maximum time for different numbers was given and that we had something to look forward for. Uh however, we mustn't forget our commitments in the east. There is another bastard there to knock out, although I don't think our services will be required on the spot. Here's hoping anyway. I want to see what sort of family I have got. Now, he'd met my grandmother, but he hadn't met my great uncle. Um so that's what I mean, that's just the craziest thing I've ever read. I want to see what kind of family I've got. Can you imagine leaving? And when you come back, you've got a four-year-old at home. I can't wrap my head around that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

Something crazy, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:12

I have very little news for you, old boy, until the censorship is lifted. Anyway, um, I didn't intend to be a longer letter, just one for VE Day. So I'll sign off now. All the very best boy, you're loving bro, Burn. Love to V. VI. I'm not sure who that is. We don't have much information on Fred. But there you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:27

Um Wow, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:30

Yeah, but that was a that was a fun one to find. And my grandmother's attic, and it's just this scrappy old little piece of paper right here, but it's the original one. So this one. And they kept it. Yeah, and it's still it's still got the glue holding the pages together, thank god. But yeah. 11th of May 1945.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:47

Yeah, that's incredible. That's amazing. It gets shaky when I hold it because I'm so worried about accidentally ripping it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:52

Yeah, you're like, what if I rip it? What if I increase it?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:54

What if yeah, you look at that paper one, it just explodes in the hand.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:58

Yeah, for sure. Do you do you feel like investigating like your own family history? Did that give you the sense of purpose post Masters? Was that something that like really spurred you on to not sort of go to the come down of it?

SPEAKER_06 1:03:12

It made me manage to sort of spread out the the impression that would hit, I think. It was it was a definitely not uh uh fun. No, that's a lie. I did so much stuff that next year. My my brother and sister's band went on tour with kids, so I was you know, running around, yeah. I was running around doing whatever I wanted to. I was backstage at all these great arenas and stadiums, they went on tour with the Who as well, and you know, it was great. Um but at the same time, uh you know, I was not a part of something anymore. I I don't know, it just it was it was an odd thing to to get around, and I also wondered if that was one of the things that made me so upset about Charlie's passing, because I there's like you know, as we said, 22 years goes by, how do you figure this out? Um that lack of of brotherhood eventually would split you up and sort of change the way you think. Now, obviously it's a microcosm of anything that those guys experienced, but came out of it and it was just over, and just as it was over, you know, we weren't really allowed to talk about it. Um and it had all happened so it had taken place over such a long time and then had ended so quickly.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

I was just like, oh shit, right now.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:24

Yeah, so that that's where my yeah, that was where my headspace was that night, and uh I was moving on the river and he was like, I'm gonna be here for you every day you need me, just give me a call. And I was like, I appreciate you, man. Yeah, so it was important to have people around you, but um, yeah, so we'd reach out to the guys every now and then. I think the the last uh proper reunion we did, um, I can't remember who it was, but one of the guys came up to me and he went, Spike, what happened to you? You disappeared, and apparently I just vanished off the face of the earth. I didn't want to see or talk to anyone. I was so so gutted about it. I just disappeared. I didn't even know I'd done it. They they turned around and they were like, Spike, you've sort of gone up two chest sizes and vanished. What happened? And uh it was like nothing had changed as two years had gone by, and uh yeah, that was it. So crazy, crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:12

I love that they they noticed as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:17

You know, you you take a step away from it and you overthink things, and you think that people probably didn't want you around or something. I was worried because I was so much younger than everyone, but it just wasn't the case. And um it was it was an odd odd thing to move through, and then once once you get your head around it, you're fine. But at the time I was just like, what is going on? What is my life?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:35

Yeah, absolutely. Um, before we go, what are you up to? What's next in the acting game? What's going on?

SPEAKER_06 1:05:46

Those are my favorite answers. Yeah, love that. No, not a hint as well. Um studio work, I'll I'll leave it at that. There's not much work.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:57

Okay, wonderful. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:58

Yeah, so that's it. I'll let you know as soon as I'm allowed to talk about it. My mouth is shut. So I'm so excited for you. Yes, I love kids.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:14

Those answers are our favorite, especially for you guys, because you all did such an excellent job and you deserve every job in the world. And you can't do it.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:22

We're also all incredibly talented and incredibly humble. We are the best, incredibly humble people.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:27

So and then you've got us to sort of feed you more and more of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, Spike. Sorry, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

We had a great time. We had so much fun. That was fun. Of course.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:44

Of course. Um, thank you guys for joining us, and we will see you all real soon. Thank you. Bye.