Half Man, writer and actor Richard Gadd’s eagerly-anticipated follow-up to the hugely successful Baby Reindeer, begins with a joyous scene. A glorious wedding party is in full flow with revellers dancing merrily in the sunlight. In typical Gadd fashion, however, it doesn’t take long for a more brutal reality to kick in. He plays the hench and brooding Ruben, who viewers meet stripped to the waist and looking like he’s about to step into the UFC Octagon. Opposite him is Niall (Jamie Bell), the kilted groom clearly wishing he was anywhere but in a dimly lit barn with a man whose heavily strapped hands suggest he didn’t come to propose a toast to the happy couple. “You don’t have to speak,” Ruben tells him. “You have to listen.”

• READ MORE: ‘Half Man’ review: more dark and addictive drama from ‘Baby Reindeer’ creator Richard Gadd

It’s a scene that makes the dynamic between the pair clear – a direct and physically imposing alpha male whose mere presence suggests danger and, alongside him, the bookish and lower status Niall, forever in his shadow. The series skips back through three decades of history between the two, slowly piecing together a story of obsession, repulsion, loyalty, betrayal and life-altering violence that leads to the wedding showdown. Like Baby Reindeer, Half Man finds Gadd exploring what draws people together and the voids we fill in each other’s lives.

“Both of them need what the other one has,” Gadd says while speaking in a private room at a Soho hotel, the sleeves of his crisp white T-shirt stretching against the muscular frame he trained six days a week to build. “As a result they form a bond at a young age which is kind of unbreakable.” In a nuanced and richly written story, Gadd explores the ways in which that unbreakable bond feels like a suffocating headlock. “It’s about the thin line between love and hate,” he explains. “No matter how fractured things become, their love still outweighs the hatred.”

Half Man is about two men who display harmful traits but Gadd is keen to stress he did not write the show as a means of tackling the hot button issue of toxic masculinity. “I never want my work to have this kind of overarching moral point,” he says, drawing a line between his complicated characters and the manosphere-led characters shown in Adolescence or Louis Theroux’s recent Netflix documentary. “I don’t write to answer issues. If anything, what it offers is a lot of questions and not many solutions. At the heart of Baby Reindeer and Half Man is a confusion about human existence.”

For Ruben and Niall, that existence begins when their mothers start a relationship and bring their respective sons together in a blended family. “My brother from another lover,” Ruben (played as a teenager in a series of flashbacks by Stuart Campbell) calls Niall (Mitchell Robertson). Niall is being bullied at school until Ruben, freshly released from a young offenders institute, scares them away. Niall is also questioning his sexuality, something he is desperate to hide from the imposing figure he now shares a bedroom with. Both young men have absent fathers and harbour deep-seated resentments. Ruben meets his feelings with anger while Niall might appear innocent on first impression but slowly reveals more insidious character traits as the series progresses. Questions are asked of how responsible we are for our actions and, in Ruben’s case, why violence is so often the solution he reaches for.

Music helps set the scene for these 1980s flashbacks, which are soundtracked by era-perfect needle drops from The Boomtown Rats, Echo & The Bunnymen and Yazoo among others.

“I obsess over every little track [in my shows]”

Proof of Gadd’s obsession with music comes before our interview begins. “I need to show you something,” he says. We ask if it’s the NME cover spotted on the bedroom wall Niall and Ruben share as teenagers. In fact, it’s something better. Gadd has been scouring eBay for vintage covers of the magazine released around the time of huge events in musical history; there’s the deaths of John Lennon and Kurt Cobain sat next to the famous Blur vs Oasis cover of August 1995. Each one is framed and lines the wall of his London flat, meaning visitors move through time as they get closer to the door.

“I obsess over every little track,” Gadd says, returning to the show. “The songs offer such interesting timestamps.” That said, picking the tunes for the show wasn’t as simple as finding what was most likely to be played in a student union in 1989. There’s a scene in the second episode that requires a steely disposition to watch. Without spoiling specific details, a friend of Niall’s gets on the wrong side of Ruben’s temper while ‘Only You’, Yazoo’s shimmering and tender ballad, plays as blood spatters the floor of a university halls kitchen. Gadd explains that the song’s lyrics (“All I ever knew… Only you”) capture the poisoned connection between the pair. “Lyrically, ‘Only You’ couldn’t have been more perfect for Ruben and Niall’s relationship. I put a lot of thought and cerebral explanation into the way Half Man sounds.”

Gadd says he was adamant that every stomp, kick, and punch of Ruben’s blind fury felt as real as possible. “A problem I have with violence on TV is how choreographed and fake it can feel,” he says. “Acts of violence are always sort of awkward so I wanted it to be messy. The second it feels choreographed is the second he loses his power.”

“The battle I had with myself during my twenties was intolerable”

Toxic masculinity is something we often see projected outwards by men in the way they treat others. In Half Man, Gadd suggests its roots may actually be more tied up with how men treat themselves. When we ask if he sees a connection between the bookish and sexually confused Niall and Baby Reindeer’s similarly self-loathing Donny Dunn, the writer pinpoints their shared struggle with self-identity: “They are both going through a crisis of self.”

The struggle to truly accept oneself is something Gadd says he will continue to return to in his work. “I’ve gone through a sort of identity battle in a lot of ways in my life and I’m not done exploring that. I look back at my twenties and I’m in a lot better place now, but the battle I had with myself was intolerable at times. It was like being in a prison. I felt so trapped inside of myself, I almost couldn’t have a conversation without real trickle-down intrusive thoughts that were just crushingly negative. I was so damning about everything I did all the time.”

What surprised Gadd the most after Baby Reindeer is how many people would approach him to share that they, too, felt the same “cosmic” struggle. “Self-hate, more than we would care to admit, is something that people struggle with a lot.” Gadd knows first-hand what that feels like and says his work directly addresses people in the same boat. “I feel like it’s something that should be honoured on screen so people can see it reflected back and know that they’re not alone.”

Isolation and loneliness lay at the heart of Baby Reindeer, too. It was the breakout moment for Gadd who, until that point, had been a relatively unknown stand up comedian. He took two stage shows, ‘Monkey See Monkey Do’ and ‘Baby Reindeer’, and transformed his real life story into an excavating work that chronicled his experiences of being stalked by a female fan, Martha, and sexually assaulted by a TV industry figure he met earlier in his career.

It’s hard to state just how big the 2024 Netflix show became upon its release. It made its way onto the streamer’s list of the most-watched English-language TV series of all-time and won six Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Writing for Gadd and Outstanding Supporting Actress for Jessica Gunning, whose masterful turn as Martha was both terrifying and unflinchingly vulnerable.

In addition to awards and eyeballs, Baby Reindeer also caught fire among a group of true crime-trained viewers keen to take a more active role in the TV they consume and begin working things out for themselves. Martha was established by online sleuths as being based on London-based lawyer Fiona Harvey, something she acknowledged while keenly disputing the depiction of the character in relation to real life events. In June 2024 Harvey brought a $170million defamation lawsuit against Netflix. Prior to speaking with Gadd, it was established that he would be unable to comment on the ongoing legal case.

“I haven’t made any new famous friends and I still drive a 2007 Skoda”

Success, in both positive and negative ways, is no longer something Gadd is a stranger to. Baby Reindeer resulted in a lucrative Netflix deal and newfound recognition, taking him from doing stand-up comedy in London pubs to Paris Fashion Week, having been personally invited to Jonathan Anderson’s spring/summer 2025 presentation for Loewe. Gadd says he doesn’t let the newfound fame alter his life too much. “I haven’t made any new famous friends and I still drive a 2007 Skoda Fabia,” he laughs. “Materialism means nothing to me, I’d rather be connected to life. I don’t want to ever feel like I’m above that, because then I won’t be able to write about it.”

Even so, it must have been hard to adjust to the aftermath of Baby Reindeer – a cathartic but exposing story informed by real life trauma that turned into a global phenomenon. At some point, any writer would lose control of the narrative. “Since Baby Reindeer, I feel like I’ve been walking around naked,” Gadd told the New York Times in a recent interview. It begs the question of whether he is still chasing that same high, or whether he is keen to step out of the limelight with Half Man and his future projects?

“My only hope is that Half Man is received well,” Gadd says diplomatically. “Whatever ‘well’ means, I don’t really know.” We put it more bluntly to him. If there was a button that would guarantee the show would play out on the same scale, rave reviews and awards but with the same intense focus on him personally, would he press it? He deflects once again and argues, fairly, that the fallout from Baby Reindeer still has him feeling windswept. “At the end of the day, I just want to make something that gets people talking,” he says. “I almost can’t speak to the success of Baby Reindeer and whether I want to replicate it or not, because I haven’t even processed it yet.”

If he can’t predict the outcome of his new TV show, what about humanity more generally? Does Gadd, whose work often plumbs the depths that people can push each other to, see any hope in our destabilised and dystopian world right now? “Maybe it’s foolish but I do believe in human beings at the end of the day,” he says. “We’re going through such a crisis right now, not just in terms of masculinity, but in society and even the way we’re interacting as countries, but I still believe in kindred spirits and just basic human decency.”

He concedes, though, that this might just be hopeful naivety speaking. “The news cycle is so extreme and there’s so much shouting and debate and discussion. You can sometimes just feel like you’re in the middle of a whirlpool not knowing which direction to turn or what to do. It leads to this mass alienation of people who just don’t know what to do anymore.”

Gadd is the first to admit he doesn’t have the answers people are looking for. But from the middle of the confusion, he offers a much needed dose of compassion and understanding. It feels like a step in the right direction.

‘Half Man’ episode one is out now via BBC iPlayer and new episodes are released every Friday

The post Richard Gadd survived ‘Baby Reindeer’ – but can he endure his own success? appeared first on NME.

As theme songs go, The Sopranos‘ use of ‘Woke Up This Morning’ by Alabama 3 might just be the coolest in TV history. The credits themselves are relatively unremarkable; mob boss Tony Soprano makes his way through the New Jersey Turnpike, a cigar clasped between his teeth and the city skyline in his rear view mirror.

• READ MORE: “A definitive work of American popular culture” – why The Sopranos’ legacy lives on

What makes it pop, however, is the use of the London band’s 1997 song. With a raspy Howlin’ Wolf sample and a heart-swelling gospel choir, a story of bloody vengeance is told over a psychedelic blues riff. It’s the perfect introduction to the classic HBO series that pitted violent crime alongside domestic drama and philosophical discussion about the purpose of life. In a show famed for great writing, there is arguably no better summary of Tony’s fate than the lyrics: “Woke up this morning. You got yourself a gun. Your mama always said you’d be the chosen one.”

“We could never get The Beatles. We only tried once because we knew it was impossible”

It was only thanks to an HBO executive, however, that The Sopranos’ opening had a recurring anthem. “Originally what I wanted to do was have no theme song,” explains the show’s creator David Chase. “The idea was that we would start the show every week with a different song but HBO wouldn’t go for that. [Head of original programming] Carolyn Strauss said it has to be something that, when people hear that song from another room, they know their favourite show is on. That made sense to me.”

Chase, in London to help promote the UK launch of HBO Max, considered other songs by Elvis Costello and The Kinks before deciding on Alabama 3. He ultimately picked the song, written about a woman murdering her abusive husband, because “it just felt like Tony.” The original meaning of the lyrics didn’t matter to him because the song is “kind of” simplistic, according to Chase. “‘Woke up this morning, got yourself a gun.’ That was obviously the world for Tony. And ‘Your mama said you’d be the chosen one.’ Well, his mother didn’t think he was chosen for anything.”

Unlike some other showrunners, music lover Chase was heavily involved in the way The Sopranos sounded. Alongside music supervisor Martin Bruestle and editor Kathryn Dayak, he hand-picked many of the show’s most beloved needle-drops. They paid particular attention to the eclectic mix of songs that accompanied the show’s closing credits, including tracks by late ‘90s boundary pushers Aphex Twin and Radiohead, classic rock icons The Rolling Stones as well as Rat Pack idols Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.

“When we were putting the budget for the show together, I asked for an extra $50,000 dollars per episode for music,” Chase recalls. He knew that the sound of the show would play a big part in making things tick. He also knew he needed money to make that happen after being burned making divorce drama Almost Grown in the late ‘80s. “We made it for Universal and these fucking morons didn’t licence the music in perpetuity.”

“Tony never listened to Bruce Springsteen, you know”

The budget went a long way but Chase wanted to make sure he didn’t just license things because he could afford to.”There’s no recipe, you just have to try things,” he says of the art of the needle-drop. “Having the picture, throwing things against it and seeing what works.” It’s also worth noting that money only goes so far. “We could never get The Beatles. We only tried once because we knew it was impossible.”

There are Sopranos characters whose personalities are defined, in part, by their taste in music. Adriana is a rocker who runs a club that hosts an array of grunge bands, Tony’s son AJ, meanwhile, highlights the show’s turn of the millennium setting through his love of nu-metal bands Slipknot and Mudvayne. Tony had far less interest in music. When it came to songs he might play on the car radio, Chase “always tried to make it music that Tony would like.” He listened to Sinatra and liked the ‘Smoke On The Water’ riff but had “middling” knowledge of popular culture. “He never listened to Bruce Springsteen, you know.”

One person who needs no introduction to Springsteen is Steven Van Zandt, the musician who made his acting debut as Bada Bing! strip club owner Silvio Dante. Chase first spotted him as guitarist in The E Street Band and invited him to read for the part of Tony. “He looked a little bit like Pacino to me, he had to be in the show,” Chase says. Van Zandt impressed in his audition, turning up in a suit he had made by the tailor of mob boss John Gotti. However, the musician was reluctant to take the lead role away from an established actor. Instead, Van Zandt suggested he could play a ‘50s nightclub owner. “I said, we can’t do that but we do have a strip club,” Chase laughs.

As for James Gandolfini, whose tender yet brutal portrayal of Tony is an all-time classic, his taste in music is more of a mystery. In 2020 Michael Imperioli (who played fellow mobster Christopher Moltisanti) revealed his co-star’s love of Green Day, with the actor reworking the pop-punk band’s classic songs to reflect his own feelings of frustration while making the show. Chase doesn’t deny Gandolfini was irritable towards the end of shooting (“He called us vampires, because we stole from people’s personal lives and put things into the character”) but claims no knowledge of his alleged Green Day covers. In fact, he only remembers Gandolfini being a fan of one unlikely band: Maroon 5. “He was exhausted, but I guess he liked them,” says Chase, who used their hit ‘She Will Be Loved’ featured in season five episode Rat Pack.

The most divisive use of music in The Sopranos also created the show’s most unforgettable moment. In the final episode, things come to a close with Tony and wife Carmela seated around a diner table. Flicking through the jukebox options, Tony punches in the code for Journey’s uplifting soft rock classic ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ and the song plays until the scene suddenly cuts to black. Nothing more. An iconic series ended in the blink of an eye.

Fans and critics have debated and theorised over the ending for nearly two decades now but Chase admits that even his use of Journey was contentious at the time. Not that he was going to be swayed. “By that time, I’d done the show for long enough that I finally had confidence in my decision making,” he says. He considered using Al Green‘s ‘Love And Happiness’ and reveals that some big name artists offered their music up for that final episode, but he refuses to name names. So why ‘Don’t Stop Believin’? “It wasn’t just to be bullheaded,” he says. “But when I told people [that it was in the scene] they had such a reaction that I knew it was the one. It’s what Tony would have put on.”

And does Chase have a favourite musical moment from Sopranos history? The writer points to the use of Otis Redding’s ‘My Lover’s Prayer’ in the second season as well as squeezing in a song by The Pretenders, whose vocalist Chrissie Hynde he had dinner with the night before our meeting. Ultimately though, Chase just being in control of the music was the ultimate joy. “Truly, it’s the biggest pleasure in filmmaking.”

All episodes of ‘The Sopranos’ are available exclusively on HBO Max in the UK and Ireland now

The post How David Chase used music to make ‘The Sopranos’ a timeless classic appeared first on NME.

Long-time Peaky Blinders collaborators Antony Genn and Martin Slattery have spoken to NME about returning to compose the original score of new film The Immortal Man, and putting together a “dangerous” soundtrack featuring the likes of Fontaines D.C.‘s Grian Chatten, Amyl & The Sniffers‘ Amy Taylor and Lankum alongside songs by Nick Cave and Massive Attack.

Announced last week with the first trailer and the soundtrack’s lead single ‘Puppet’ by Chatten, The Immortal Man sees Cillian Murphy return as Tommy Shelby, the notorious Birmingham gangster who starred in all six series of Peaky Blinders, which ran from 2013-2022.

The new feature-length story written by series creator Steven Knight and directed by Tom Harper (Heart of Stone, Wild Rose) picks up the story of the Birmingham crime family from 1940. “Amidst the chaos of WWII, Tommy Shelby is driven back from a self-imposed exile to face his most destructive reckoning yet,” reads the synopsis. “With the future of the family and the country at stake, Tommy must face his own demons, and choose whether to confront his legacy, or burn it to the ground. By order of the Peaky Blinders…”

The film also stars Barry Keoghan (Saltburn, The Banshees of Inisherin) as Tommy’s son, alongside Rebecca Ferguson (Dune, A House of Dynamite), Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight), Sophie Rundle (After the Flood, Gentleman Jack) and Stephen Graham (Adolescence, A Thousand Blows).

Having previously put together the score for seasons four, five and six, former Pulp and Elastica collaborator Antony Genn and his Mescaleros and The Hours bandmate Martin Slattery are back to pen the music and put together the soundtrack for the movie.

Talking about what sets this work apart from their previous music for Peaky Blinders, Genn told NME: “Ultimately, it’s a different story on a much bigger scale. It’s suddenly bigger than Small Heath and Alfie Solomons. It’s a movie, and it definitely feels like one. It’s so much broader. Tommy’s character is different and there are new characters involved. It’s given us more scope to do different things.”

He continued: “We’re obsessed with sound and the character of sound. A lot of people I know who are film composers, and brilliant ones at that, are at the top of their game and I admire them all – but we are from the school of hitting things.”

Slattery agreed: “Also, we’re both lunatics. Not many people would take on the environment we’ve got to be able to do things the way that we do.”

With 36 tracks including five brand new original recordings, the soundtrack features Amy Taylor of Amyl & the Sniffers, along with Chatten plus Carlos O’Connell and Tom Coll from Fontaines D.C. lending powerful new songs, as well as songs by Lankum, McLusky, and a newly-recorded version of classic Peaky theme ‘Red Right Hand’ by Nick Cave. It also comes with two reimagined Massive Attack covers by Chatten and rising sing-songwriter Girl In The Year Above.

“It was an experiment with Tom [Harper, director],” said Slattery of the process. “We played around with ideas and sometimes went over the line.”

Summing up their mission statement, Genn said: “Ultimately you want to make dirty, gritty music.

“This isn’t meant to sound derogatory to any of the brilliant film composers out there working, but even this isn’t just big, grand Hollywood music. Far from it. It’s got a lot of guts and the feeling of the human hand, brought to you by a lot of brilliant human hearts, minds and souls.”

Check out the rest of our interview with Slattery and Genn below, where the duo talk to us about what makes these artists “Peaky”, the bold new covers, what to expect from the film, and the “genius” of Grian Chatten.

NME: Hello Martin and Antony. The last two seasons of Peaky Blinders were very much a study of Tommy’s haunted psyche, and the music reflected that. Did you talk to Cillian Murphy about what he was feeling this time or were you just making sounds to what was on screen?

Antony Genn: “You just react to what you see. Cillian is a man who deeply understands music, deeply feels music, and is a real music obsessive. We’ve had a strong bond and friendship over that. He understands the DNA of Peaky Blinders more than anybody as he’s been living it. As directors and composers have come and gone, he’s been the person right in there. He’s always got good ideas, and it’s good to have someone to bounce ideas off.

“We wanted it to have a strong narration musically with a line and a seam that runs through it. We wanted a mix of score, of songs, and those bleeding into one another.”

What can you tell us about where ‘Puppet’ fits in?

Genn: “The song is in the film in its entirety with hardly any dialogue. It’s telling a story right in front of your eyes. Working with Mr Grian Chatten – who I have to say is one of the great genius poets as well as being a ferocious musical force and an incredible voice that sounds like it’s 1000ft tall – has been amazing. This song came together really quickly.”

Martin Slattery: “We didn’t do this to picture. We made this song where it moves here, drops here and has these punctuation points. We did a rough version of it pretty fast and sent it off the editor. They said they’d found a spot for the piece and we didn’t half get the tingles when we saw that.”

Genn: “I could live for 1,000 years and never experience that. Everyone says it: that this scene just sends shivers down your spine. Grian sang this one line, ‘How does it feel to be a freak amongst the freaks?’ We kept looking at each other, ‘What the fuck did he just say?’ Grian got a real hunger for the film and he’s so poetic in the way he tells the story without being too on-the-nose. We live for these moments when you just know something great is happening.”

What’s “Peaky” about Grian?

Genn: “Grian is dangerous, isn’t he? He’s an edgy fucker. There’s a lot more going on behind the eyes.”

Slattery: “He’s an edge with a warm hug.”

Genn: “You know how with Tommy Shelby, there’s a lot more going on behind those big blue mince pies. There’s a lot of layers and he’s always thinking three steps ahead. I’ve got to say, that’s not a bad description of old Grian is it in the way he works?”

Slattery: “Exactly. We’re not saying he’s a raging psychopath…”

Genn: “No. He’s a beautiful human, but he’s got rooms in his castle that he can go to that others can’t. He comes back with treasure.”

And what did Lankum bring? 

Genn: “Oh my god. I love Lankum. My friend Jeannette Lee from Rough Trade who manages Pulp is a legend of the music business introduced me to two artists on this soundtrack. One of them was Lankum who she took me to see in Barcelona and Hackney Empire; it was just transcendental emotion with the sound of land, history, and the fragility of human nature. Again, Radie [Peat, singer] is fucking dangerous – they all are! They’ve got the rebel vibe. With all these artists, you’d want them with you in a bar room brawl.”

Slattery: “They’re all outsiders away from that homogenous centre.”

Genn: “We asked them to re-record ‘Hunting The Wren’ to add some connection to the land and to push it. We wanted to exhaust every possibility to maximise the potential of the story. Lankum are phenomenal musicians and so unique in their character. Radie’s voice is insane.”

Speaking of dangerous, you’ve got Amyl & The Sniffers’ Amy Taylor as well…

Genn: “Another one! That’s what I’m saying. Amy is another artist that Jeanette introduced me to. We had a piece in a scene and this was a track we were doing with Tom Coll from Fontaines D.C. We had some guitar samples and were improvising with those, two drummers, some dirty bass, did one take. Martin said it needed a vocal and I said, ‘You know who we need? Amy fucking Taylor mate!’

“As Jeanette told me, she’s the female Iggy Pop. She’s just the most exciting, vibrant, visceral, punk motherfucker. She came in on a Sunday afternoon and she was awesome. She did it like a rapper. She said, ‘Full disclosure mate, I’ve never seen Peaky Blinders’. I had to explain to her all about the show, the movie, the scene and the character. She went in, without a pen and paper, and just made it all, free-styling like Eminem.”

Slattery: “It’s great watching a true artist. She went through the track once and we were jumping up and down in the studio like kids going, ‘What was that?’ 50 per cent of this song is from the first take of her just free-styling. We’ve had some great casting with these artists.”

And there’s Fontaines’ DNA across it?

Genn: “Carlos [O’Connell] was the first person who came in. I called Cillian, and we go back a long way, and said, ‘I know you’re doing a Peaky movie and me and Martin are interested. I’ve got an idea to get the Fontaines involved’. Carlos was the first person I asked as we’ve done some stuff with him and Tom before and we absolutely fucking love Fontaines.”

Slattery: “Carlos trusted that if he came in and spewed out some ideas that they’d held in safe hands and fleshed out.”

Genn: “He only came in for a today because we had this idea for them to on the film and then they went and became absolutely fucking globally massive. We didn’t have much time and we were lucky. The music gods have got to shine on you and often they don’t. I’m constantly fascinated and mesmerised by the personality of musicians and what they bring to this. Tom plays the drums in Fontaines but he thinks so musically, Carlos is a force of nature in the visceral way he plays, and you just need to let artists like this lead and do their thing.”

“During that time Grian started coming in. He got such a hunger that we just kept going and we did more stuff than what’s in the film.”

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How did newcomer Girl In The Year Above get involved?

Genn: “That’s a funny story. It’s a girl called Jennifer Ball who I met out one night with a friend Emily who’s a tattoo artist. They’re both from Sheffield and she’s a hairdresser who moved to London. She was very charismatic and they were both absolutely out of their minds – fucking crazy. I started following her on Instagram then a year later she starts putting up videos of her playing guitar and singing. Her voice was unbelievable so we sent her a message. She was in a band but they’d never been in the studio so we invited her in. She didn’t remember meeting me at first and said she hoped she’d never see me again because she was out of her mind.

“Her band came in and we worked on some stuff and there was just this moment where we trying to find this track for a scene. As creative music supervisor to find the songs and with the history of Peaky as having a lot of stuff that already exists, we really wanted to push on doing some more original stuff. You’ve got to evolve and be brave. If you’re surrounded by this level of talent then why would you not want to roll the dice?”

And for her to take on ‘Teardrop’ by Massive Attack is no mean feat…

“I sent it to Cillian, he called me the next morning and said, ‘Mate, who the fuck is singing that?’ I was like, ‘You’re not gonna believe this, it’s this fucking hairdresser!’ He said he was almost moved to tears listening to it. She’s got the greatest voice I’ve ever worked with. You realise this as her and her band come out into the world, but she’s an incredible storyteller and lyricist, but some people just have that gravitas to take someone else’s song and turn it into something new.

“This version of ‘Teardrop is absolutely beautiful. She’s destined for very big things. She’s an edgy motherfucker as well. Everyone on this is a real force of nature.”

And there are two Massive Attack covers on the soundtrack… 

Genn: Yes. ‘Teardrop’ and ‘Angel’ – only the two biggest Massive Attack songs! They just fit. Massive Attack are so un-Peaky sonically, but not emotionally.”

Slattery: “The bassline to ‘Angel’ just tells you: ‘This is dark and dangerous’.”

Genn: “When we put it in there we went, ‘If Grian sung this it would be fucking unbelievable’. It’s a very different version to Massive Attack’s version. Both original versions are actual fucking masterpieces and I’m a huge Massive Attack fan. Robert [Del Naja] is a very old friend of mine and I was shitting myself to send it to him. He just said the nicest things. He said that ‘Teardrop’ was the most sublime, beautiful interpretation of that song that anyone has ever done.”

And of course you’ve got the OG Peaky theme, ‘Red Right Hand’ by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – but why did you choose to do a new version?

Genn: “In the script, it said there was one scene where this thing happens and ‘Red Right Hand’ plays. We did it and the original just didn’t work. It was too fast and too up; we needed a slower version. We did a slower version with Laura Marling in season four, which was very beautiful, so we thought we might lean into that.

“We thought if someone else should sing it, but then we did a test and put Nick’s voice on it. We were like, ‘Jesus, there’s only one man who can sing this’. It was so obvious. I called Cillian and said, ‘You’ve got to call Nick and ask for a new version for this scene’. Nick and Warren [Ellis] have done tonnes of films so you couldn’t be in safer hands. They really nailed it and it’s an awesome version. It had to be Nick!”

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man arrives in select cinemas on March 6, before hitting Netflix on March 20. The soundtrack will also be released on March 6. Check out the full tracklist here and pre-order it here.

The post Inside the ‘Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man’ soundtrack: “All the artists are dirty, gritty and dangerous” appeared first on NME.

Jack Whitehall has spoken to NME about returning to host the BRITs for a record-breaking sixth time, as well as the artists on his radar, wanting a “few little hand grenades” in the live show, and what he has planned next.

This year’s instalment will be held on Saturday (February 28) at the Co-op Live in Manchester – the first time that it has been held outside of London in its nearly 50-year history.

Harry Styles, Olivia Dean, HUNTR/X’s EJAE, Audrey Nuna and REI AMI, Wolf Alice, Mark Ronson, Alex Warren, Sombr, RAYE and Rosalía have already been announced as performers, and viewers at home will be able to watch the ceremony live on both ITV and YouTube.

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Among those already named as winners are Jacob Alon (BRITs Critics’ Choice Award), Mark Ronson (Outstanding Contribution to Music), Noel Gallagher (Songwriter Of The Year award), and PinkPantheress. The latter has become the latest Producer Of The Year winner, making her the youngest recipient of the award and the first woman to take home the trophy.

Comedian Jack Whitehall is back to host the ceremony – returning to the role for a sixth time, having already taken it on in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2025.

“It’s great to be back. I’ve had such an amazing time hosting this award show and it’s wonderful that they keep asking me because it’s one of the highlights of my year, getting to be at the centre of this huge celebration of music,” the comedian, actor and writer told NME. “It feels like being the ring master in this crazy circus.”

As for whether the monumental task gets easier each time around, Whitehall said that he is still cautious to not let his guard down – particularly given the impressive number of unpredictable, viral moments seen over the years.

“There is a little bit of muscle memory, and I don’t think I shit the bed quite as much as I used to. In those early years it was quite terrifying and exhilarating, but I still get a few butterflies now before I step out there,” he explained. “I know my way around it more, and I’m relatively well-prepared going into it, but also, you can only prepare so much. There are always surprises and things that get thrown in your direction that you didn’t see coming, so you have to remain pretty on it.”

Check out the rest of our interview with Whitehall below, where he also revealed the artists he’ll be looking out for, how he feels about reuniting with “kindred spirit” Harry Styles, and what he has next in the pipeline.

NME: Hi Jack. The BRITs are heading to Manchester for the first time this year. Do you think the move will create a different vibe on the night?

Jack Whitehall: “I think so. It’s great that it’s going to be in Manchester. It’s on a Saturday night again, and it’ll hopefully see a slightly different audience coming along too. It’s great to have it in a city which has such a rich heritage and such a strong place within culture and within music. Plus I think they really appreciate having the BRIT Awards there!

“I’ve always had a great time touring in Manchester. It always has brilliant crowds who are really receptive and up for it, so it’s a really good place to have an award show.”

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What would you say is the best way to spend a day in Manchester?

“I love the Northern Quarter. There’s a great vibe there and some really cool bars, funny little shops, vintage places, and record stores… all the stuff like that. There are some very good comedy clubs as well. I’ve never not had a good time in the Northern Quarter. My old stomping ground was Fallowfield… not that I think I would return there as a 37-year-old man, but I had a lot of fun there when I was a student hanging around.

“Manchester is just a great city and it holds a lot of memories for me. It’s where I started doing my standup. It’s where I was at university. It’s where I filmed Fresh Meat. So it’s a really special place for me.”

You’ve often got people talking with your spicy approach to hosting the BRITs, and you’re definitely not afraid to poke fun at the people who are there on the night. Have you already got some material in mind?

“I’ve got a few little barbs and there will be a few stray bullets that people will have to catch on the night, but I always try to blend it in positivity and love and charm as well. But sometimes I can’t help myself! People like having a little edge, so it’s good to have a few little hand grenades in there. It’s also always good to make sure that the ITV lawyers are paying attention, and give them a few moments where their hearts are in their mouths.”

One moment in particular that fans enjoyed was in 2020, when you poked fun at Harry Styles and he then gave a shoutout to your mum. How are you feeling about having him back this time?

“Oh, I’m very much looking forward to seeing him again. I’m very excited to have Harry back and I’m really looking forward to his performance. It’s amazing that the BRITs have got him there doing his first live television performance [since releasing new single ‘Aperture’] .

“He’s back announcing himself onto the world stage again and about to embark on this epic tour of his, so it’s great that we get to see him first! He’s always so game and has such a great energy. I’m very fond of him, and I’m very happy that he’s doing this year’s show.”

Have you checked out his new single?

“Yes, and I really like it. I like LCD Soundsystem, which I think was one of the inspirations behind it, and I love a lot of Harry’s other stuff too. I’m a sort of closeted raver, so I like this new direction that he’s taking his music.”

Looking at those nominated this year, what do you think it tells us about music in 2026?

“Weirdly, a lot of the artists that are nominated and performing this year have a slightly throwback feel as well to them, like Olivia Dean and RAYE. There’s also Rosalía, and I love all of her music. There’s a lot of connective tissue in their music to classic music and soul there and, in Rosalía’s case, there are even some opera elements in there as well. They are artists that are really distinctive, and I already know that their performances are going to be great.”

We also have Noel Gallagher attending and Pulp are nominated. It feels like there is a mini Britpop reunion going on too…

“Yes! And keep an eye out for some special guests that I can’t mention yet, who will be appearing throughout the evening…”

How has the BRITs been an education for you in discovering new music?

“It’s always a learning experience for me. But it’s not great when you are doing the voice-overs for the nominations package and you realise Sombr is a person, not a band.

“But by the night, I know everything. I feel like I’m really knowledgeable at that point and I seem like I know what I’m talking about. Keep in mind, there are a lot of nominees, and while some of them have names like RAYE, which I can remember, with some of them, it’s like when your computer suggests a really strong password. It could just be a jumble of letters, and I’m then like, ‘Yeah, what hope do I have of remembering this one?’”

What have you got coming up after the BRITs?

“I’m going to go on tour at the beginning of next year, so I’ll be back on the road doing stand-up, which I love. I haven’t done it for a while, and doing the BRITs – being up on stage, writing a monologue and getting up in front of an audience – it always makes me pine for being in comedy clubs.

“I love being on a stage in front of an audience, so I’m excited that I get the opportunity to write material for a new tour and get back out on the road with it. We’ll even be coming back to the Co-op Live, which I’ve never played before. I’ve heard great things about the venue, so it’s a nice feeling to be going back there doing my own show in a year’s time… and to know that I won’t have any musical interruptions that time!”

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Next month marks 10 years since Fresh Meat ended. Have you been in touch with any of the cast, or planned something to mark the occasion?

“We had a 10 year anniversary, but I think that was 10 years since the start of the show. For that, we all got together and did a special screening and a Q&A, which was great. I got to see everyone there, but I haven’t seen them for a while, actually. We are all still in a WhatsApp group though, and there are the odd reunion drinks or dinners here and there. But I haven’t had the chance to see them all because I’ve been away quite a lot. I’d love to catch up with them again.

“I bumped into Zawe [Ashton] in an airport the other day and it was really fun to see her and catch up with her. We’re all still so fond of each other and I have such great memories of that show — including winning an NME Award once. I think I was in the lavatory when they called us to go up on stage, so I had to run on and ended up interrupting the speech!”

Funnily enough, that also happened to Harry Styles at the BRITs in 2014, when One Direction won an award…

“Yes! He wasn’t on stage either because he was in the toilet. I remember that. We’re actually very similar. Kindred spirits, even.”

The BRIT Awards 2026 will be broadcast live from 8pm GMT this Saturday (February 28). Leading the way in terms of nominations are Olivia Dean, former NME Cover star Lola Young, Sam Fender, Lily Allen and rapper Jim Legxacy – check out a full list of nominees here.

Jack Whitehall’s ‘Bad Influence’ stand-up tour will kick off in January 2027. Visit here for information and tickets.

The post Jack Whitehall on hosting 2026 BRITs: “It’s always good to give the ITV lawyers a few moments with their hearts in their mouths” appeared first on NME.

The latest episode of Industry is named ‘Eyes Without A Face’ after a Billy Idol ballad that soundtracks its climax, but it could comfortably be titled ‘Sweetpea’s Vindication’. After being slut-shamed and underestimated in season three of the gloriously overwrought banking drama, in which we first glimpsed her making a TikTok on the trading room floor, tenacious Sweetpea Golightly really shows her mettle in season four.

• READ MORE: 20 massive TV shows to look forward to in 2026

“Oh, she fully locks in. This is about agency over her narrative and proving she is capable,” says Miriam Petche, the 24-year-old actress who plays Sweetpea so brilliantly. It’s lunchtime in a buzzy London bar-restaurant and Petche, who is accompanied by her publicist, is talking perceptively and empathetically about the character who’s made her Industry‘s latest breakout star. It’s an enviable club that already includes Marisa Abela, Myha’la and Harry Lawtey, who left at the end of season three. “As we get to know Sweetpea, we see that she isn’t this, like, turbo-charged Gen Z stereotype. She has a lot of depth,” Petche says.

If you’re yet to watch ‘Eyes Without A Face’ after it aired yesterday (February 9), brace yourself for spoilers and some of Industry‘s signature financial jargon. The episode follows Sweetpea and Kwabena Bannerman (Toheeb Jimoh), her co-worker at short-only fund SternTao, as they head to Ghana on a high-stakes reconnaissance mission. Kwabena is laid-back and jovial in the country of his heritage, while Sweetpea is so laser-focused that he likens her to Erin Brockovich, the famous whistleblower played by Julia Roberts.

Launched by hyper-ambitious Harper Stern (Myha’la) and super-toxic Eric Tao (Ken Leung), the fund’s success is predicated on exposing the flaws in Tender, a disruptive banking app spearheaded by wily Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella) and messy Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington). By doggedly following a digital paper trail that Tender has deliberately made chaotic, Sweetpea uncovers a smoking gun: the app has massively inflated the value of its launch deals in Ghana. It’s a triumph of hype built on a house of cards.

The Ghana trip is make-or-break for SternTao and Sweetpea alike. “Harper was one of the few people who was willing to hire her. So if this short doesn’t work, it’s not like she can easily pack up and move on somewhere else,” Petche says. During the episode, we learn that Sweetpea has essentially been blacklisted by the financial industry after her OnlyFans account leaked. One web article misogynistically refers to her as a “city tart”. Midway through the episode, Sweetpea is shockingly physically assaulted, perhaps by someone connected with Tender, but she soldiers on with a broken nose.

“This whole assignment is very much about her sense of self,” Petche says. At this point, we’re interrupted by the manager, who says politely but firmly that we should have ordered food as well as drinks during the lunchtime rush. Petche smooths over this potentially awkward moment by saying she’ll remember this rule in the future, but she doesn’t let it disrupt her train of thought.

“Her competence is her currency in this world and I think this season – and particularly this episode – really explores what she relies on for external validation,” Petche says. When she joined Industry in season three, the actress created her own backstory for Sweetpea. “I don’t see her as having a financial net to fall back on. I don’t see her having a family that could support her in this lifestyle,” she says. Helpfully, the show’s co-creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay confirmed that Sweetpea Golightly is the actual name on her birth certificate, not just a quirky moniker invented for TikTok.

“Sweetpea is always giving this performance of being fine and competent and strong,” Petche adds. “But just because someone is strong, it doesn’t mean they’re not deeply affected by what happens to them.” At the end of the episode, Sweetpea spurns a display of kindness from Harper, then returns alone to her swanky London flat where she bursts into tears. “I suppose, objectively, it looks quite sad, but I feel like it’s quite transformative for her,” Petche says. “It’s a purging, a shedding of a skin that has previously worked for her. From this moment on, she’s extremely direct with what she wants and what she’s worth. I think she reaches a different level of how she feels about herself.”

 “I’d like to see Sweetpea go on a date. she deserves to meet someone nice”

Petche, who grew up in Brighton on England’s south coast but is now planning a move to London, says conveying Sweetpea’s maelstrom of emotions was also “transformative” for her as an actress. When she first read the script, her instant reaction was: “Wow. This is the most words I’ve ever said. It was extremely exciting.”

One of Industry‘s great strengths is the way it ricochets from a snakey character to a slightly more sympathetic one and back again, but this is the first time Petche has taken centre stage. “Watching the other actors steer the ship with so much grace and clarity and creativity, you do have these sort of silent moments to yourself where you think: ‘How would I drive the car if I was given that permission for a little while?'” she says. “It was deeply, deeply exciting and challenging for me as an actor. But I felt very ready to take it.”

Industry was Petche’s first job after graduating from London’s Guildhall School Of Music and Drama in 2023. When she began auditioning during her final year, Down and Kay asked if she was certain she wanted the part because it would involve leaving acting school a little early. “I was like, ‘If you guys want me, my bags are packed. I’m [mentally] on the trading floor already,'” she recalls bullishly.

However, she’s been acting professionally since she was 10, when she appeared in an episode of the BBC crime drama Vexed. At primary school in Brighton, Petche found it “very difficult” to focus on academic subjects but concentration wasn’t an issue when it came to creative arts. Performing with a local theatre group became Petche’s “respite” from school, which led to paid assignments. “It was fun. I would never have done acting if it didn’t feel like an enjoyable adventure,” she says.

Petche learned early on that near misses are part and parcel of an actor’s life. “I was auditioning pretty consistently as a child. I did some commercials, I did some pilot episodes that never went anywhere,” she says. In 2016, she acted with her future Industry co-star Marisa Abela in Runts, a play about “the sort of psychological warfare that girls can experience in high school”. When she and Abela reconnected seven years later on the Industry set, it felt like a “crazy” full-circle moment.

A year later, when she was 15, Petche landed her first substantial TV role in children’s fantasy drama The Worst Witch. Petche portrayed straight-A student Esmerelda Hallow in two seasons of the show, which was filmed during her school summer holidays, and says it crystallised her decision to pursue acting as an adult. “I had these moments on set, and I’ve had them multiple times on Industry, where I was like, ‘I can’t believe I get to do this as a job,'” she says.

Though The Worst Witch gave her solid experience, Petche saw an acting degree as a way of enriching her skill set and proving her commitment to an unpredictable career. “When I finished sixth form, I had a conversation with my family where I said: ‘I’m going to audition for the UK’s top drama schools, and if I get in, I’ll take that as a sign and go in all guns blazing,'” she says. Happily, she was accepted on her first attempt by Guildhall, whose alumni include Michaela Coel, Paapa Essiedu and Ewan McGregor.

They’re blazing even brighter now. Petche has recently filmed another TV series, ITV’s Believe Me, a true crime drama in which Daniel Mays portrays John Worboys, the serial sex offender known as the “Black Cab Rapist”. Unlike Sweetpea, who’s prone to what Petche affectionately describes as “word vomit”, the actress says she’s under such “strict no-speak [orders]” that she can’t even reveal who her character is.

So, what would she like to do next? “I’d love the physical and emotional challenge of doing stage work again. It’s something I haven’t put my body through since drama school,” she says. “You know, screen acting requires a different set of skills but stage is very, very intense in the best way. And I’m always drawn to characters who are complicated and have contradictions within themselves.”

Speaking of which, she has some ideas for Sweetpea if she returns for season five of Industry, which hasn’t been officially commissioned yet. “I would love to see her in a position of power and how she grapples with that,” Petche says. “Does she become the thing she dislikes in other people? Does she become similar to her learned behaviour?” Then Petche lightens the mood a little. “I mean, I’d also like to see Sweetpea go on a date. At this point, I think she deserves to meet someone nice.”

‘Industry’ series four continues on BBC One and BBC iPlayer

CREDITS:
Photographer: Craig Gibson
Styling: Sarah Harrison
Hair: Sophie Sugarman
Makeup: Sara Hill

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Jamie Demetriou is juggling. A lot. Never mind that he’s got a major new movie on the way, The Moment – a mock-documentary starring the irrepressible Charli XCX. He’s also become a father for the first time. His baby daughter is just seven weeks old, but somehow he’s looking good on it. “It’s a Mediterranean thing,” he assures NME (his mother is English, his father Greek-Cypriot), when we join him over Zoom. “It’s olive oil. It’s the sun that shone on my ancestors. But, no, touch wood, she’s pretty good and gorgeous, which also helps.”

• Read more: Charli XCX says she’s “really wanting ‘Brat’ to stop” ahead of The Moment premiere

For years, the north London-raised Demetriou has been quietly working his way through every great TV comedy this past decade. A quick glance at his CV features appearances in Friday Night Dinner, Toast Of London, Sally4Ever and the recent iterations of Alan Partridge, This Time With… and How Are You? It started, he says, when Friday Night Dinner creator Robert Popper hired him to perform various voices at a table-read for one of the episodes. Word spread, and he spent the next two years speaking from the sidelines. “I think people were like, ‘He will do a lot of work for £25.’”

Once in a while, he’d get thrown a bit-part as a ‘thank you’. Then, in 2016, he landed a memorable role in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s phenomenon Fleabag, as the dentally-challenged bad date, known affectionately in the credits as Bus Rodent. The fake teeth, he says, did “a lot of the work” – today, sporting a red jumper and baseball cap, he looks a world away from that character – but it flicked a switch. “I think that it just gave me a taste for how good it can be.”

Not content with being a voice in other people’s comedies, Demetriou created his own: Channel 4’s Stath Lets Flats, in which he played the awkward-but-loveable English-Cypriot lettings agent Stath. Spanning three seasons, the show won Demetriou a hat-trick of BAFTAs in 2020 – including Best Male Performance In A Comedy Programme. Ever since, he’s been plagued by the notion of whether to bring Stath back. “To be completely honest, I do have ideas for future iterations of Stath that really excite me… but there is a world in which, maybe, it is correct for me to just leave it where it is,” he reveals. “It’s really just holding my nerve and making sure that the decisions I make, I make because they’re exciting decisions.”

The last season came in 2021, and Demetriou admits he had “a pretty full-on breakdown” trying to write it, to ensure it wasn’t a repeat of season two. “I realised that [season three] just had to live in a new tonal gear… the set pieces were a bit more surreal, the scenarios were occasionally a bit more heightened, that was my justification for a new show. But then you go, ‘Why is series four going to be worth making?’ And I think I’m still trying to answer that question while raising a baby and trying to work on other things so that I’m not forever known as the guy from the letting agencies sitcom.”

The chances of that are receding rapidly. Just premiered in Sundance last week, The Moment is set to be one of the most talked-about movies of the spring. With Charli playing herself, it’s a satirical swipe at the music industry – a mock-doc set during the lead up to her ultra-successful, zeitgeist-defining ‘Brat’ tour. “It’s a warped reflection on a very specific experience that she’s had,” says Demetriou. “The grotty corners of it, the highs of it, and how there are some shitty ironies to be explored. Things that are totally imperfect, and as a result, are funny.”

“The Moment is a warped reflection on a very specific experience that Charli’s had”

Demetriou plays Tim, her nice but slightly ineffectual manager. “I think that he’s someone who’s just about sufficient at his job. People who are medium-good at what they do is an area that I quite enjoy, comedically. I suppose there’s something quite mundane about someone being a six out of 10 at their job.” He promises Tim is nothing like Charli’s real long-term managers, Twiggy Rowley and Sam Pringle, who are responsible for steering the pop pioneer to global phenomenon these past years.

While Charli is currently scratching the acting itch (she’s also in two other Sundance titles, The Gallerist and I Want Your Sex), Demetriou admires the fact that she’s decided to deconstruct her own success in The Moment. “I, personally, really struggle to make a call as to the direction to turn when things are going well for me. And I think that the decisive nature of going, ‘I’m going to make a film like this’ [is great]. As opposed to going down the avenue that a lot of people in her position do – i.e. putting out a live tour show, a live album, or doubling down and doing the same thing again.”

Being courageous when everyone simply wants you to deliver the same formula is exactly what he’s faced with Stath Lets Flats. “I really think that the era we live in now, you’re so much more aware of what it is people want from you, because they’re telling you every day (if you’re on social media) – and you do start to question whether the things that you want to do are what you should be doing, because everybody’s asking you for another series of Stath. Should I give it to them even though I don’t really know what to do? And the answer is: ‘No, because I don’t think they’d enjoy it anyway.’”

If you’re getting the sense that Demetriou is at a crossroads, he probably is – perhaps slightly dazed trying to navigate success. “For a long time I would talk about wanting to be an actor… I think largely because it was one of the only things I was any good at school,” he says. “Before that, I just always enjoyed doing stupid sketches at home with my sister. But I think that deep down, I thought that it wasn’t something that actually happened to people. If you’d nestled into my brain as a teenager, I would have been like, ‘No one’s actually an actor. That’s just an illusion.’ So I never stop pinching myself about that.”

For years, the closest he got to stardom was the fact his father once hired a young George Michael to work in his restaurant (“he washed pots in my dad’s kitchen”). After taking shows to the Edinburgh Fringe out of uni, Demetriou did stand-up for a decade, only dropping it during COVID. “I never went back to it. And as a result, I think my virginity has kind of grown back. Now I watch stand-ups… how do they do it? Despite the fact that I literally did it. I did it for so long, but it really feels too scary to me now, for some reason… I don’t why.”

Instead, like Charli, he’s flexing his acting muscles. A role as a Mattel exec in mega-hit Barbie was followed, last summer, with a part alongside Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman in The Roses, the remake of the 1980s blackly comic tale of martial discord, The War Of The Roses. Then, in the autumn, he popped up in Jay Kelly, the George Clooney-led comedy about a movie star in full-blown mid-life crisis, appearing as a tourist in the film’s key scene, all set on a moving train racing through the French countryside.

Typical of the Hollywood experience, Demetriou was on the shoot for nine weeks, during which there was a lot of downtime – watching others pass their time playing basketball. “I’m not a sportsman,” says Demetriou, who reveals he’d sit in his trailer, spying through a crack in his blinds as he saw the likes of co-star Adam Sandler shooting hoops. “One day, I plucked up the courage to go and do it. And I did something I don’t even think I’ve seen in basketball outtakes, which is that I went to take a free throw, and I shot, I mean, double the height of the basketball net. I just literally launched it into space and just walked back into my trailer!”

Sports may not be his thing, but in what feels like another smart move, he’s just nailed down a part in the forthcoming Netflix-backed miniseries of Pride And Prejudice, written by author and podcaster Dolly Alderton. He’s playing Mr Collins, the clergyman said to be “violently in love” with Jane Austen’s heroine Elizabeth Bennet. “There’s so many ways to skin that character. And that challenge freaked me out. I was really, really, genuinely surprised when I got the part.” Nevertheless, he’s delighted by what unfolded. “I really do feel like I’ve taken part in something that doesn’t resemble anything I’ve done before.”

In the end, that’s what it’s all about – reinventing, refreshing. His partner’s father is Steve Coogan, a master of exactly that, and more than once Demetriou’s work has drawn comparisons with the Alan Partridge creator. But comedy can be a minefield career these days, at a time when jokes are often picked over and analysed for political correctness. Does he recognise that? “I don’t think it’s a difficult time for comedy. I think it’s a difficult time for comedy, TV and film, because comedy exists in a way more digestible form on social media.” There was a time, he says, when TV and social media content “could just happily live side by side”. These days, as attention spans get shorter, he feels like a 10-part comedy series is “a less enticing prospect for a channel to invest in.” And then there’s the fact too many of those in positions of power just want to play it safe. “I really think that there is room for comedy to exist if commissioners are willing to take risks on backing shows that they genuinely enjoy themselves.” It’s a sentiment worth listening to – and worth backing.

‘The Moment’ is in UK cinemas from February 20

IMAGES:
Photographer: Pip
Grooming: Sven Bayerbach

The post Jamie Demetriou on joining Charli XCX’s Brat Pack and if ‘Stath Lets Flats’ will return appeared first on NME.

One of the most surprising moments of Stranger Things’ fifth and final season was the shock return of Kali (AKA Eight), the self-assured elder sister of Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven. Last seen way back in 2017’s season two, Kali’s journey offers one of the most emotional arcs in Netflix’s sci-fi megahit which came to a spectacular conclusion on New Year’s Day.

• READ MORE: Gaten Matarazzo and the long, slow goodbye to ‘Stranger Things’

Danish actor Linnea Berthelsen has been keeping Kali’s comeback secret for more than three years but, with The Demogorgon finally out the bag, she’s now free to tell us all about the character’s fate, her emotional reunion with the defenders of Hawkins and what comes next.

Were you completely shocked when Matt and Ross Duffer contacted you about bringing Kali back?

“Yeah! I was just really surprised to see how they wanted to do it. It’s a very special thing on such a big show to get that sort of closure. They didn’t have to do it, but I’m very grateful they did. I feel like it’s a really big moment.”

Was it strange to reunite with the cast after six years?

“It was just lovely, really. They didn’t know [I was coming back]. The first time they saw me was at the first table read we did in December 2023. I flew in and The Duffers kept me hidden in a room while [the rest of the cast] were reading episodes one, two and three. Then I came in for episode four.”

Was it hard to keep your return a secret?

“It’s been three years since I signed the contract and I wasn’t allowed to say anything. Some of my best friends and my parents knew but the majority of my friends had no idea. Even when I was in Atlanta [shooting], they had no clue what I was doing.”

You had to wear wigs off set to keep everything a surprise, right?

“We didn’t want to give anything away so Netflix and the incredible hair department gave me six different wigs. They weren’t as good as the wigs the cast wore onset because they really were amazing, but they were good enough to fool my friends.”

That brutal head shaving sequence in episode four – was that for real?

“That was definitely my real hair.”

How was that whole experience?

“It was a very beautiful thing. I knew Matt and Ross wanted me to have a shaved head for those scenes, so I suggested doing it on camera. It was actually really helpful because I got to experience that loss of control. I did it with [episode director] Frank Darabont, who’s done The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. He’s a master of those very emotionally intense scenes.”

How was your final day on set?

“My last day was a group scene, so I had Winona Ryder next to me for three hours. It was a very emotional moment, ending everything alongside Millie [Bobby Brown] and Finn [Wolfhard].”

Some fans have speculated that Kali isn’t really dead at the end of season five. What are your thoughts?

“I think she definitely dies… and for a very specific reason. If you’re following Mike’s ‘Believe’ theory, she died to save Eleven. Kali finally trusted that Eleven would be supported and protected by a community. She believed she could live on, which only happened before her final speech. She definitely sacrificed herself.”

How have you found coping with fame?

“I’m quite shy as a person, so I can get a little overwhelmed. But at the end of the day, it’s just extraordinary that this show connected with so many people.”

Before you started Stranger Things, were you a big sci-fi fan?

“The projects that people have seen me in, they’re dramas that just happen to be in a sci-fi universe. But I love Star Wars. I love the references that Matt and Ross have through the series. I grew up with Steven Spielberg and Stephen King but my main thing is comedy. I love Succession, I’m a huge fan of that dry comedy.”

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received while working in TV?

“When I worked with Alex Garland years ago [on Devs], on one of the first days he said: ‘We do two takes, Linnea. We do the real one and then we do the second one for variation.’ So no fuck-ups, basically! And I think that discipline has always just stayed with me.”

Who do you admire that’s working in the industry now?

“I love Cillian Murphy. He’s so amazing. I’m always waiting for something he’s doing. Andrew Garfield, I mean, he’s still young, but the emotional depth and connection is just brilliant. Gary Oldman is somebody I admire. When you look at the greats, there are so many. Andrea Riseborough, the way she’s transforming and doing character work.”

What is next for you?

“I am looking at different projects at the moment, which is really, really nice. I’ve been wanting to do more European-based work and more theatre. I come from the theatre, so I’ve missed that way of working and it’s something I’ve been looking into.”

‘Stranger Things’ is streaming on Netflix now

The post What is Kali’s fate? ‘Stranger Things’ Linnea Berthelsen breaks down her shock return appeared first on NME.

The first song I remember hearing

Brotherhood Of Man – ‘Save Your Kisses For Me’

“I remember it with the smell of roast chicken because I heard it in our flat and my mum was cooking a Sunday roast. I bet I was, like, four years old. I remember bright sunshine on a wall and my mum singing along to the radio. My mum was very musical – she was a singer. My grandmother sang operetta and my grandfather was [Broadway songwriter] Frank Loesser’s pianist.”

The first album I owned

The Cure – ‘Three Imaginary Boys’

“I’m so glad this question came up because it’s gonna make me sound so cool. I was thinking, ‘Does this make me sound too cool and should I pick something else?’ I thought Brotherhood Of Man might help me out here! I was a huge Cure fan and then segued into being a massive Smiths fan. And then a disappointed lover of Morrissey – it’s awful. It’s like a divorce. I still listen to him with a tinge of: ‘There were good things about the relationship…’ ‘The Queen Is Dead’ and ‘Hatful of Hollow’ are flawless.”

The first gig I went to

The Boomtown Rats, London (date and venue unknown)

“It must have been just before they broke up, which was ’86. My family knew the CEO of their record label [Mercury Records] and snuck me and my sister into the back of the gig. I would have been 13 or something like that. It was amazing. I’d never been to a gig. Probably more than anything, it led to me picking up a guitar and wanting to be a guitar player. Wanting to be an actor came much later. I wanted to be a rock star.”

The song that reminds me of home

The Jam – ‘The Eton Rifles’ 

“I grew up in the ‘70s in London. There’s so much anger in how every instrument is being played and there is a brutality to the song. The ‘70s felt like a powder keg. It feels like a fight about to start, ‘Eton Rifles’. The ‘70s felt like that to me, growing in Willesden and Harlesden [north-west London] before Willesden became the gentrified, lovely place that it is now.”

The song I wish I’d written

Mariah Carey – ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ 

“This is easy because I could give up acting. I could hang up my acting tights, lie in a hammock and drink daiquiris. I love Christmas and it’s a must at that time, but by the end of Christmas, I’ve kind of had enough. But it fucking slaps!”

The song I can’t get out of my head

Mariah Carey – ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’

“I’m not joking. My 14-year-old daughter is in an a capella group – of course she is! – at school. They’re called the B Naturals – geddit? She has a solo moment on Mariah’s ‘All I Want For Fucking Christmas Is You’. I listen to that song driving my daughter to school every day and can’t get the fucking thing out of my head.”

The song I can no longer listen to

John Lennon – ‘Imagine’

“The song I can no longer listen to is Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’. No, I’m joking. It is, if I’m honest, ‘Imagine’ – and I love that fucking song. I’ve just heard it too many times. I’m a big Lennon fan. But you know what? The last Beatles movie, Get Back, really turned me around on Paul McCartney. It blew me away. I thought, actually, Lennon came across as a bit of an asshole.

“I had always been dyed-in-the-wool ‘I’m Team Lennon’. I found it hard to listen to Lennon in that film. He sounded like a pontificating twat to me. Now, being a grown-up is all about embracing contradictions, so I have to hold that in one hand and hold in the other that “Mother, you had me/But I never had you” [from 1970’s ‘Mother’] is perhaps the most powerful line ever written in a pop song.”

The song that makes me want to dance

Stevie Wonder – ‘As’

“It’s just got a great groove to it. I once saw a documentary, which I can’t find, where they’re recording ‘As’ and it just goes on forever. I mean, it goes on for 10 or 15 minutes. They are all so in it. For me, ‘Songs In The Key Of Life’ is probably the greatest album of all time. It’s a masterpiece. With ‘As’, you really believe in love when that choir kicks in. It feels like church, but not like the sort of church that I grew up in. It feels like joy and love and happiness. I love that song so much.”

The song that makes me cry

Tom Waits – ‘Martha’ 

“The thing that really speaks to me about that song is understanding that Tom Waits wrote it as a young fan and he is imagining himself as an old man, calling up somebody he just broke up with. She’s lived her life and had kids and he’s lived his life and had kids, and he has always loved her. It’s fucking heartbreaking.”

The song I do at karaoke

U2 – ‘Bad’ 

“I don’t do karaoke, but I have a band room in my place in Vermont and we do a gig every New Year’s Eve. Last year, I did this song. My kids are great musicians, my wife’s cousin is a great drummer and the other cousin is a really good guitarist. Everybody plans a song and gets up and the band plays it. Last year, we had 40 people staying with us for a week. It was like running a hotel. It was bonkers! Everywhere you walked, there were people on air mattresses.”

The song I want played at my funeral

 Wham! – ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’

“In my head, my children are the pallbearers and bringing the coffin in and have no idea what’s going to play. I think that ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ will take the sting out of what I’m sure will be a miserable day for them – because I’m so marvellous and they’ll miss me so much!”

‘Amadeus’ premieres on Sky and streaming service NOW on December 21

The post Soundtrack of My Life: Paul Bettany appeared first on NME.

“I seem to be typecast as ‘dirty’,” says Freya Allan with a grin. She starred as seemingly feral human survivor Mae in 2024’s Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes and for the past eight years, has played plucky Princess Ciri in Netflix’s The Witcher. As well as being the rightful heir to a throne that’s at the centre of a civil war, the “Lion Cub Of Cintra” possesses the sort of incredible magic powers that have inspired an ancient prophecy or two. It all sounds very impressive but it’s mostly meant Allan’s been covered in mud, blood and monster guts.

Take the recently released season four. After accidently teleporting away from her adoptive parents – the brooding bounty hunter Geralt (previously Henry Cavill, now hulking Aussie Liam Hemsworth) and badass sorcerer Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) – and surviving a gruelling desert trip, Ciri teams up with a band of murderous outlaws known as The Rats. As well as dispatching the occasional hellspawn, she gets involved with brutal bar brawls and daylight robbery. “Ciri’s no longer that innocent child we first met [in season one],” says Allan, holed up in a bougie central London hotel restaurant. “She’s trying to figure out who she is and that unfortunately involves making some mistakes along the way. It’s basically a heightened version of a typical coming of age.”

In the new episodes, which dropped on Netflix at the end of October, Ciri continues to kill after taking a human life for the first time at the end of season three, and she has her first sexual relationship with fellow Rat Mistle (Christelle Elwin). These two events have long been criticised by readers of Andrzej Sapkowski’s original The Witcher novels and caused similar levels of outrage with Netflix viewers. “There’s a lot of anger around Ciri behaving so differently, but there’s a war going on. Everyone’s just trying to survive however they can,” says Allan. “For me, it was just nice to not feel like the child of the show anymore.”

“I never expected young girls to watch The Witcher”

The season ended (spoiler alert) with Ciri rushing back to save her new chosen family from the clutches of professional Witcher slayer Leo Bonhart (Sharlto Copley). Rather than rescuing them in the nick of time, she fails miserably – Ciri gets captured and every Rat is butchered in surprisingly grisly fashion. “I’m so glad they went there,” says Allan, despite finding the scenes unpleasant to film. “There are sometimes certain things that Netflix is afraid to bring to life but I’m glad they stuck to the books for that. It’s such a pivotal part of Ciri’s journey. Unfortunately, she just doesn’t seem to get a break.”

Despite Ciri coming into her own across season four, Allan made sure she was out of the country when it aired, hoping to avoid the brunt of the feedback. “It was a scary one for everyone,” she explains. “There were a lot of big, terrifying changes so I removed myself from it as much as I could.

See, shortly before the third season of The Witcher premiered in 2023, Cavill announced he wouldn’t be returning. No reason for his departure was ever given, but it’s rumoured The Witcher fanboy clashed with showrunner Lauren Schmidt-Hissrich over how she was adapting the source material. Hemsworth was asked to step into Geralt’s tight leather trousers instead.

“Season three was a really difficult season for everyone,” says Allan. She didn’t get a heads up about Cavill quitting and only found out the day before the news went public, while on the set of Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes. “I cried because I wanted to finish the show with the guy that played my adoptive father.” It got her thinking about her own future. “For the first time, I was seeing what life away from The Witcher could look like and then the lead moves on…” She spent a “solid amount of time” battling about whether she’d follow in Cavill’s footsteps but ultimately decided to complete Ciri’s journey. “Once I’d made that choice, I made the most of every moment.”

To make the switch-up even more challenging, Ciri and Geralt barely cross paths in season four, beyond a couple of nightmarish visions. “It was very weird,” says Allan. In every scene where Ciri’s thinking about her sword-wielding father figure, Allan was picturing Cavill’s face. “He’s the Geralt I grew up with.”

Still, she and the rest of the cast made Hemsworth feel part of the family. After their first group readthrough in London, they went out for some drinks before an afterparty at Hemsworth’s. As well as talking about the show and the expectations around it, Allan admitted that she’d been a huge fan of The Hunger Games – even though she was Team Peeta (played by Josh Hutcherson) rather than Team Gale (Hemsworth) when it came to who should end up with Jennifer Lawrence’s iconic heroine Katniss. “Maybe that would be different now.”

Unlike a lot of streaming adaptations, The Witcher will get a proper conclusion with a fifth and final season. Filming has already wrapped and it’s expected to launch at some point in 2026. “I cried a lot [on the last day], but not as much as I expected to.”

Ever since she got the role, Allan’s used The Witcher novels for guidance but she really leaned on them for seasons four and five because Ciri’s story amps up in a major way. There were a couple of moments that she knew just needed to be included in the Netflix adaptation – and Allan wasn’t afraid to let Schmidt-Hissrich know. “I really want to give fans what they want,” she explains. “I’d also seen Henry, who was so knowledgeable and loyal to the books, push for certain lines to be included. When he left, I was inspired to take on that role.”

“That final season took everything out of me, but I feel so incredibly satisfied”

After being back in the UK for a couple of weeks, Allan’s seen the wide range of opinions that typically come with any high-profile adaptation. “The thing that’s surprised me most about season four is how many people have criticised things that are straight from the books.” She’s sometimes tempted to make a burner account and point this out on Reddit, but other fans have beaten her to it.

She’s also been surprised by the different types of people that have come up to her about The Witcher, especially after the launch of season four. “I never expected young girls to watch it. It’s reaching a wider group of people than I first imagined it would.” The secret, she believes, is the “strong, complicated female characters” that populate the world of The Witcher. “Ciri might be someone with powers and knows her way around a sword, but she’s also someone who’s experienced loss, heartbreak and trauma.”

Allan has spent a third of her life as Ciri and the set of The Witcher has been her drama school. She got the acting bug after making a room full of people laugh with her vegetarian wolf impression in a school nativity and by the time she was 14, was auditioning for Stranger Things. At 16, she was cast as Ciri and was thrown headfirst into the fantasy drama. The first couple of episodes see her entire family killed and her childhood castle burnt to the ground. “There was no easing into it.”

To help her prepare for all that loss, she spent hours listening to depressing music (The soundtracks for Snow White And The Huntsman, Testament Of Youth, One Day and ‘Deep In The Meadow’ from The Hunger Games) to help her cry on cue, a trick she learned from YouTube. “I don’t do that now,” she says. “After a while, playing Ciri just felt so easy because I really lived inside that character.”

Still, she’s happy with how Ciri’s story ends. “That final season took everything out of me, but I feel so incredibly satisfied.” Now, she’s excited about whatever comes next. “I want to be very intentional with my next move,” she says. “I’d quite like a role where I’m clean.”

‘The Witcher’ season four is out now via Netflix

Freya Allan photography:
Photographer: Bruno McGuffie
Styling: Davey Sutton
Hair: Bjorn Krischker
Makeup: Salome Osk Jonsdottir

The post Freya Allan is ready to say goodbye to ‘The Witcher’ appeared first on NME.

Giles Martin has spoken to NME about giving new life to The Beatles‘ iconic ‘Anthology’, ahead of the new episode of the TV series and extra disc of music on the compilation.

• Read More: Inside ‘Now And Then’: With a little help from AI, The Beatles live again
  

The original TV series, Anthology 1, arrived in November 1995, around the same time as an eight-part documentary, and some of the first new music from the band since the death of John Lennon, with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr working with Jeff Lynne on ‘Real Love’ and ‘Free As A Bird’.

It was followed up by two more albums, aptly named ‘Anthology 2’ and ‘Anthology 3’, which both arrived in 1996. Now, this month sees the release of a new instalment, with the documentary series restored, remastered and set to include a brand new Episode Nine. The re-released series has been remastered and restored by Apple Corps’ production team, along with technicians at Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post in Wellington, New Zealand.

‘The Anthology Music Collection’ – originally curated by the late and legendary George Martin – has also been re-released as three double albums today (Friday November 21), remastered by his son and longtime Beatles collaborator Giles Martin. This will include a new ‘Anthology 4’, with 13 previously-unreleased demos and session recordings, as well as new mixes of ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’.

Asked what to expect from the restored episodes, Martin told NME that the audio-visual quality has vastly improved, and you get a real sense of togetherness from The Beatles.

“The episodes first came out in the ‘90s in the days of things being shot on video,” explained. “Peter Jackson’s team can restore everything. It’s amazing with the benefit of hindsight. In the years before ‘Anthology’ first came out, no one was talking about The Beatles in that whole chasm of time. Since then, that triggered a plethora of stuff.

“My dad brought me in on it, but even he was telling me back then that he hadn’t worked on anything to do with The Beatles since 1970.”

Martin explained how using the new technology in making the epic 2021 docu-series Get Back, he’d been able to restore and remix a wealth of Beatles live material.

“It sounds great,” he said. “The difference with Shea Stadium and the Washington concert is incredible. People heard a bit of that in The Beatles ‘64, that Scorsese film I did. I was doing mixes, but I wasn’t sure what they were for. Now it’s certainly listenable. It’s funny how if you listen to Shea Stadium, what was released was really rough. There were no drums, and now we can restore that.

“I always believe that you can bring people back to the place they were, or the place they never were. You can get people close to the action using technology, and that’s the whole point. All of what we do is about revealing the humanity.”

Check out our full interview with Martin below, where he also told NME about recreating the feeling of being in the room with the Fab Four, the true power and limits of AI, his work on Sam Mendes’ hotly-anticipated Beatles biopics, and how much is really left in the vault.

NME: Hello Giles. What can you tell us about what we learn about The Beatles from this new run at ‘Anthology’?

Giles Martin: “I was just listening to the ‘Anthology’ takes before this interview to do some revision. What’s great about this whole process – the album, the TV series, the music – is that it reveals how human it was and they were. It was four mates. More so now, you realise in this world of process that we live in with marketing, TikTok, re-imagination, teams of songwriters and the music industry being this behemoth of mediocre repetition of things to try and burst through this waterfall that was once a stream – The Beatles just basically came up with stuff, sang it, recorded it and released it. There was so much scale around it, but that’s all it was essentially.

“The stuff I curated and mixed made me realise that: it’s just four of them in a room. That’s what the ‘Anthology’ is all about.”

The new Episode Nine features a lot of unseen footage from the surviving members getting back together to record in the ’90s. What struck you about it when you first saw it?

“What’s changed is the editorial viewpoint of The Beatles since then. I noticed this with my dad. When I was growing up, ‘Beatles’ was like a really rude word in our house. It was what he did then, not now, and he didn’t want to talk about it a lot. Of course, when he got older, he obviously did talk about it a lot.

“With Paul and Ringo and the estates, they do realise it’s probably the best thing they’ve ever done in their lives. Paul McCartney, the most ambitious man and probably one of the most talented men I’ve ever met – well, one of the most talented men on the planet – even he would admit that the best songs he’s written were with The Beatles, and the best band he was ever in was The Beatles. In those days [the ‘90s], they perhaps weren’t at that stage yet.

“I think George would have got there. Now, all of this unseen footage has come out through the difference of opinion. It’s always fascinating for Beatles fans to see unseen footage.”

What comes across in Episode Nine more than the others?

“You’d have to talk to Peter Jackson, but it just rounds things up. In working on this project, I’ve seen different Beatles to the ones I know now – especially with Paul and Ringo. They’re very nervous to talk about things, but ‘Anthology 9’ is warmer in that respect. They were so competitive, and they’re so much more generous now. You get more of a glimpse of what it was really like to be in The Beatles in the late ‘90s.”

Does it maintain that strange sense of brotherhood, that they’re all still together?

“Of course, because all of the families are involved. Sean [Ono Lennon, producer] is really bright and does a really good job without being too biased. My dad used to say, ‘When you look at a wedding photograph, the first person you look for is yourself’. It’s true, we all do that and you have to be aware of that. It’s harder with John and George because they’re not around. But at the same time, now Paul and Ringo are more eloquent in speaking about them than they used to be. It’s more representative.

“Even doing the string arrangement for ‘Now And Then’, I remember being in LA and Paul was like, ‘Can we hear more of George’s guitar part because this is the kind of thing he wanted?’ It’s changed, and what really comes across in ‘Anthology 9’ is that they just really miss their mates. There’s a lot more heart.”

And to the new disc of music, ‘Anthology 4’. What holds these 13 tracks together and what drew you to them?

“I’m not really a ‘Beatles nut’ – I try and look at it more as a music fan. What I try and do provide people with a sense of what it would have been like to be there on the day, to be in the sessions. Personally, I like hearing the conversations and going between that and singing. That’s really important to see the process and raw talent. The closer we get to that talent, the more we appreciate it.

“Even when they’re bad, they’re good – they’re laughing about it. You hear the relationships and the fragility. I just listened to take one of ‘In My Life’ and it’s so beautiful. There’s something about the immediacy of a demo or a live performance. I don’t try to mix it too posh – I just want it to sound as immediate as possible.”

Is there anything you’d like to see done with The Beatles’ catalogue that hasn’t been done yet?

“I always get requests to mix ‘Rubber Soul’. People always want to get closer and closer to things that they can’t get close to. I try to get people as close as I can. I’m always very wary of just dishing stuff out. I listened to ‘Anthology 4’ and I really enjoyed it. I’m not a salesperson, I’m an artist. I thought ‘Now And Then’ was very poignant. I played the video to my sister and she started crying. That’s the point. How much heart can you put into it, rather than just making ashtrays out of The Beatles?

“There are things people want. People want all 27 minutes of ‘Helter Skelter’. I remember looking at mixing the Hollywood Bowl performance when my dad was still alive and he said, ‘My god, why would you do that?’”

Speaking of ‘Now And Then’, it seems as if the role of AI in bringing that song to the surface was greatly misunderstood…

“That’s because Paul said, ‘We’ve done an AI Beatles track’. No we didn’t! We laughed about it afterwards. In the case of that, I did a video of me eating a piece of cake to demonstrate the difference between restorative AI and constructive AI. Get Back and ‘Revolver’ used the same process. It was purely about removing elements and cleaning up others. I’m not mis-synthesizing anything, but I’m amazed what we can do. There are times when at first you can hardly hear Ringo’s drums, then I can get a kick drum out of it. It sounds more like someone banging on a wall next door, but you’re just raking the surface soil over to find what’s underneath.

“You have to be careful with stuff like this. All that digital restoration stuff that happened in the ‘80s and ‘90s sounded terrible to me. Hiss is good, noise is good.”

Is there anything else from The Beatles’ past you’d like to unlock with AI?

“It’s weird when things get found by people. There will be experiences in the future where you take their live performances and make them multidimensional. I’m not talking about doing an ABBA [Voyage, hologram] show, but you could take things on tape and make them sound ‘in your face’. That’s what I was trying to do in the Ron Howard film, but I didn’t have the technology. Ultimately, I would like to know what it was like to be at a Beatles concert – but of course a Beatles concert probably would have sounded terrible anyway.

“When I was doing ‘Anthology’ and the Washington Coliseum, I can isolate his voice. That’s weird, because no one could solo his voice. I think that’s quite clear.

“Yoko once said to me, ‘The thing about John is he’s just a voice now’. I remember when my dad died and then he was just a voice. If you can get people to live through that, that’s what they would have wanted – to be able to touch people.”

Beyond this, is there much left in the vault for fans?

“Very little. I think we’ve done most of it; that’s the answer. Reissuing ‘Anthology’ is probably a good sign. It’s been 50-60 years, and yet still people want more. I tell them, ‘Go and listen to the albums’.”

And to Sam Mendes’ upcoming Beatles biopics. Having studied the band in as much depth as you have, what advice would you give to the actors to help capture their true essence?

“I’m working with the actors and they’re doing a really good job, that’s all I can say. The scripts are really good and brave, as opposed to being anodyne. I’m on day two of shooting right now. They’re all really good actors so I wouldn’t advise them, but I give them nuances and share things I’ve heard.”

We asked Zak Starkey the same question about Barry Keoghan playing his dad Ringo. He told him to buy a big rubber nose…

“That sounds like a Starkey comment! A snarcy Starkey.”

‘The Anthology Music Collection’ 2025 edition is out now. The new cut of The Anthology TV series with the extra episode will be available to stream exclusively on Disney+ from Wednesday November 26.

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