Top Gear - Series 18 Episode 4 - Audio Transcript

A Star in a Reasonible Priced Car

[Starting around 28:50]
Jeremy Clarkson (Show Host): Anyway it’s now time to put a star in a reasonably-priced car. Now, my guest tonight has appeared in Inglourious Basterds, Shame, X-Men, Haywire, in fact, pretty well every film that’s come out in the last six months. He is half-German and half-Irish, so, ladies and gentlemen, please say, “top of the morgen”, to Michael Fassbender.
[Applause, cheering. Michael Fassbender enters and shakes hand with Jeremy Clarkson]

Welcome Michael Fassbender

JC: How are you? Have a seat. Have a seat.[More applause and cheering] Now, in the olden days, and I know children watching won’t believe this; it was possible to go to the cinema and see a film that didn’t have Michael Fassbender in it. [Michael laughs] But I mean, obviously, you first came to my attention, at least, in Inglourious Basterds...

MF: Ja.
JC: ...with you... [Shows three fingers, relating how Germans or British sign the number three] Does everyone actually do that to you in the street?
MF: [repeats the same two signs] Yeah, exactly, and it still takes me, “What’s he doing?”
JC: “I’ve done 18 films since then!” But Shame is the one people are talking about. Now, you had to do, let’s be honestly, a full frontal nude scene. Was it hard?
MF: No.
[Audience laughs]
JC: I mean, this is an impressive sausage. [More laughter]
MF [embarrassed laughing]: I don’t know what I can say to that now! Yes!
JC: So, can you say to your mum, “Would you like to see my new movie?”
MF: Ja, exactly, ja. She was actually going to come and see it in Venice and I said to my mum, I was like “Sure, come over and we all will watch it together.” You know, enough months had passed for me to think it wouldn’t be that bad. Luckily, you know, her back played, up. She’s sort of got a bad lower back, you know, and whether that was psychosomatic or not, I don’t know. But, thankfully, she didn’t make it, so, because the first thing my dad said, because he was behind me, he leaned over my shoulder and was like, [lowers his voice] “Thank God your mother isn’t here.” [laughter in the audience]

"Thank God your mother isn't here."

JC: What has been interesting; since I have been doing this show what ten years and I think in all of that time, only three or four or my friends have ever said: “Can I have tickets for the show?” In this week, when people discovered you were coming on, I’ve had to get a minibus, and they’re all girls. “Can we come and look at his...”
MF:” ...Lap Time”. [laughter from the audience]
JC: Yes, Exactly. So any way, you have just done Shame, obviously, where you spend the entire time naked. And now you are in a film where you get to spank Keira Knightley.
MF [answers in a serious tone]: Yes. [laughter from the audience]
JC: That’s what’s Dangerous Method?
MF: Dangerous Method.
JC: And what’s that all about?
MF: It’s, ehm, it’s sort of focuses around Freud and Jung, and one of their sort of mutual patients, Sabina Spielrein, played by Keira, and ehm basically, that sort of relationship, the sort of the meetings of minds between Freud and Jung, and then the sort of, you know, the fracturing of that relationship, and she is kind of in the centre of it all.
JC: I think we have got a clip of the trailer, we can have look at it now, let’s have a look.

[31:49 Trailer for A Dangerous Method starts on a TV screen, both watch it. 32:17]

[audience cheers]
JC: I’ll have some of that. I like a bit of psychoanalysis. Ehm – when you were reading the script for that and you got to the bit where you spank Keira Knightley, [MF: Yeah] how much more did you read before you rang your agent to say,” yeah I’ll do it”? [laughter]
MF: It wasn’t in the script. I sort of insisted. “Then I’ll do it!”
JC: But you began, I think I am right in saying, on Holby City. And then you were in a Guinness advert.
MF: Ja.
JC: Which must have been, well I mean, that’s really perfect for you.
MF: Well, yeah, I mean, you know I actually said to them, “Is there anyway you could give me a Guinness credit card, “with sort of a white line along the top, “which meant I could have free Guinness for the rest of my life in the whole world?”

"Could you give me Guinness credit card?"

JC: And, yes, did you get it?
MF: Negative. [laughter in the audience]
JC: That’s annoying.
MF: Yeah, I know, it was.
JC: Because you are not wholly Irish. You are...
MF: ...half-German.
JC: Half-German, [MF: Ja] half-Irish. [MF: Ja.] That’s quite an odd combination. Like, “This must be done absolutely perfectly... tomorrow.” [MF laughs] It is that a slightly different...
MF: Yeah, One part of me wants to sort of, you know, be very efficient and then the other side is a little bit reckless.
JC: And you’re a Formula 1 fan?
MF: Yes.
JC: So, is it Irvine or Schumacher?
MF: Schumacher.
JC: Schumacher?
MF: Ja.
JC: So the German side comes out?
MF: Yes, exactly.
JC: Still Schumacher or have you switched now to Vettel.
MF: You know, I am still, you know, I got to say, a Schumacher man. I mean, I’d still I like to see him, sort of you know, get the car that he wants underneath him and really, sort of you know... I don’t know if you know it’ll be possible to get up to Vettel’s level or you know....
JC: He has got it in him. He is seven time world champion. I am with you. I think he is just brilliant. [MF: I know...] Have you met him?
MF: I was really lucky to sort of get invited to Silverstone last year and he did come out of the Mercedes garage and I was running behind him [makes funny movements and audience laughs], like a stalker. And I was like, “Schumacher, Schumacher?” And he kept walking. I was like, “Michael!” he turned around. “I still think you’re the best”. And he was kind of looking at me with a bit of a smile and there was a lot of fear in his eyes. [laughter] So, I did get a chance.
JC: Did he do that...? [makes the signs with his three fingers]
MF: No, he didn’t know who the hell I was. [laughter]
JC: Now it’s interesting, obviously, you are a big Formula 1 fan. But as far as I can work out, you have only ever had one car?
MF: Yeah. It was a Peugeot 306 turbo diesel Spinnaker special edition. [laughter]
JC: What is this Spin..? Can you remember what it was? Was that just a local dealer putting “Spinnaker” on it and charging an extra 500 quid?
MF: That was pretty much it. I think it had different coloured seats.
JC: Wow! Has it gone now?
MF: Travelling in style. Ja, I crashed it. I totally did it in.
JC: And that’s that?
MF: Yeah. And I said to the guy when I was bringing the car up, “These damn Peugeots”. He was like, “Well, the fellow at the Peugeot said they’re not designed to go over flying the kerb at 50 miles an hour.” [laughter]

"They're not dessigned to go over flying the kerb."

JC: So, what do you get around on then if your Peugeot has been crashed?
MF: I ehm I use motorcycle. I had a – [JC pulls a face] I know - I knew you would be happy about this! – I started with a Speed Triple, and then I got the GS 1200 BMW Adventure.
JC: May’s got one of those.
MF: Ja. It’s an amazing piece of equipment. It’s a – you know – for the weight of it, when it is moving, it is so well-balanced.
JC: Are you allowed to ride bikes if you are involved in films all the time? Cos I would say, “No, you can’t. They’re too dangerous.”
MF: Sometimes. I drove the Speed Triple I drove it out to Berlin for Inglourious Basterds. They were like, “So we have the ticket... you know for Michael to fly over.” And it was, “No, no he will make his own way there.” And they were like, “OK.” And I turned up on the bike, and they went, “What the...(BLEEP)! So, I couldn’t ride when I was filming that.
JC: No, I just wouldn’t allow anybody I knew and liked to ride a motorcycle. That’s why I encourage May and Hammond to ride theirs as much as possible. [laughter]. So obviously you came here to do your lap. How was The Stig out there?
MF: Ja. He is amazing. I think you know he was probably getting a little bit fed up with me because you know he’s giving me the information and I’m not sort of putting it to use.
JC: He’s jealous, because your helmet is now more famous than his. [laughter] I’m talking about the one he wears in X-Men, that Magneto helmet.
MF: Yeah, yeah.
JC: Before you arrived, we had a bit of a problem. We’ve got some footage here of the preparation, which we never had to do before. [TV screen shows people removing ice with shovels]. This is the second to last corner and it was just sheet ice. So we sent our boys out there to go and try to get rid of most of it for you. [MF: Ja] And it didn’t really help.

"And it was just sheet ice."

MF: Well, I mean, I can’t really blame the ice, to be honest.
JC: Who’d like to see the lap?
Audience: Yeah.
JC: Here we go. Let’s have a look

[36:53 they watch the pictures from the on-board camera while MF was driving.]

JC: It looks dry. Was it slippery?
MF in the car: Sweating!
MF: It was only really that second-to-last corner where the ice was really playing. A few times, there was a bit too much squealing, it was like a pig. [car squeals around the corner]
JC: That’s good. Keeping that tidy, very tidy, actually through there.
MF in the car: This is always a tricky one.
JC: Little bit wide. [when MF turns a curve to wide]
MF: Yeah, way wide on that.
JC: A little bit. Not too bad.
MF in the car sings unintelligibly. [laughter in the audience]
JC: And Hammerhead. How are we going to cope through?
MF: I cut that a bit by the looks of it. I say nothing. Wide again, is it.
JC: I’d say that was all right. Actually. I reckon. Yeah, all looking smooth as hell.
MF in the car: Sweating like a cornered nun. [Laughter in the audience]

"Sweating like a cornered nun."

JC: Sweating like a cornered nun?! Where did you get that from? [the car drives over the grass] Yep, two wheels off. Ooh, you can’t cut that corner, can you? No, that’s tricky.
MF: I kept cutting that. That was a problem.
JC: And that was all right through Gambon. And there we are across the line!

[Film showing the lap stops at 38:00] 

[Applause and cheering]

JC: Where do you reckon?
MF: Ehm I said I’d be you know be happy with a one forty-five I suppose...
JC: A one forty-five?
MF: Somewhere around forty-five. But I don’t think that’s gonna happen now. [The camera shows signs with lap times from other celebrities who drove a lap around 1.45]
JC: Well, it was... That ice on the second to last corner...
MF: You let me down gently, I like it.
JC: Michael Fassbender, you did it in one... forty...two... [Audience: woo!] point eight. [Applause]

"You did it in 1.42,8"

[JC puts the sign with MF name and time on the wall with all the lap times. Best time Matt LeBlanc 1.42,1 and Rowan Atkinson 1.42,2 and above John Bishop 1.42,8]

That is the third fastest time we ever had!

JC: That is the third fastest time we ever had! [They shake hands] That’s all right! And that was with ice on the second-to-last-corner!
MF: Wow! I wasn’t expecting that at all.
JC: That was a fantastic time.
MF: Pretty happy with that, ja.
JC: I am thrilled you could come, today. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Fassbender. [Applause and cheering]
MF: Thank you, thank you. [They shake hands again.]

[Ends at 39:15]

 I was on holiday and was able to watch a re-run of that show (plus they kept it for a week in the internet player). So I couldn't resist putting a transcript of that part here in my blog. Just for fun (and for keeps)