Stephen Fry - "When I Was 10, I Wanted To Be As Famous As Fred Astaire Or James Stewart"
The modern renaissance man on his favourite people, his love of rugby union, and his ambivalent attitude towards celebrity.
A version of this interview appeared in Jack.
A further word of explanation - this interview took place in Sydney in October 2003, while Stephen was promoting Bright Youth Things. Indeed, we caught up the day after England defeated Wales in their Rugby World Cup quarter-final, hence the closing discussion.
Are you and Hugh Laurie still close friends?
Absolutely. Actually, we've spent the past 16 Christmases together. His children have never had Christmas anywhere except at my house.
Hugh's found a different audience though the Stuart Little movies, hasn't he?
Yes, and I've found a new audience as the voice of the Harry Potter books. Sometimes we're walking down the street together and we'll get children with their parents coming up to ask for our autographs. We just look at each other and go, "We've become Uncle Hugh and Uncle Stephen! Whatever happened to us being cool dudes?!"
You're also old friends with Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent.
He's the nicest man. He's a unique talent. I used to do a radio show called Saturday Night Fry and Jim appeared on it. He has the most amazing way with words. One week, I asked him for his word of the week and he just leant into the microphone and said "slit" in a way that no man in 2,000 years of civilisation has ever uttered it before. He's fatal to work with because you spend the whole time pissing yourself.
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