Podbit · The Louis Theroux Podcast
Ridley Scott optioned Marco's life. Russell Crowe was cast. Marco flew to Australia and spent ten days with Crowe — everything filmed, everything recorded. Then Ridley and Russell fell out. Marco had to choose. He chose Russell. Then he declined to renew the option: better they make the film when he's dead.
Where this was said
At 50:10 · chapter starts 47:50
The political detour begins with the tabloid headline: did Marco endorse Nigel Farage? His answer is immediate and definitive — he has never voted in his life and does not endorse anyone. Farage is a customer at his hotel in Bath, the Rudlow; he is polite and comes across as honest and clever. That, Marco insists, is all there is to say. The conversation then pivots to a far more striking political relationship: Marco's regular lunches with Margaret and Denis Thatcher. Denis was understated and supportive. Margaret, Marco found, was always more interested in your thoughts than her own — a quality he found striking in someone of such conviction. Her question to him about leadership — 'When you promote someone into a senior position, what makes you make that decision?' — prompted his answer that they must promote the company, not themselves; a principle Thatcher repeated back with evident approval, holding her finger in the air rather than pointing it.
Marco had regular lunches with Margaret and Denis Thatcher. He remembers her as always interested in your thoughts, not her own. Her question to him: when you promote someone to a senior role, what's the deciding factor? His answer — they must promote the company, not themselves — made her pause and repeat it back.
Ridley Scott signed Marco Pierre White up for a biopic with Russell Crowe attached to play Marco, but Marco eventually declined to renew the option, preferring any film to be made after his death.
The entire plot of the original Terminator film depends on the phone book. The Terminator looks up 'Sarah Connor,' finds multiple listings, and starts killing them one by one. No phone book, no movie.
Rico has already appeared in Den of Thieves, Den of Thieves 2, and Roadhouse alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Dave Bautista. Jason Statham is developing a specific role for him. Working alongside elite actors taught Rico something about himself: the emotional suppression that makes him a great fighter is exactly the material that makes great acting — if he learns to stop pushing it away.
Trump joked that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. personally ran over, butchered, and delivered the evening's beef tenderloin to the dinner — then topped it with a punchline about RFK wanting to serve raccoon roadkill as an appetizer. The crowd's laughter at jokes targeting his own administration signaled a rare night of good-natured self-deprecation from Trump.
Jimmy Tatro is playing the nemesis-son to Will Ferrell's washed-up golfer in The Hawk, his fifth project with Ferrell and Ferrell's first lead TV series. The real highlight: Molly Shannon, playing his on-screen mother, drove off set on the last day with Chief Keef blasting from her subwoofers.
Alan Ritchson walked into a Thor audition with his sides still in his hand, half-assed it on a spotlight-lit stage before two silhouettes in a dark theater, and bombed so completely that the casting director broke protocol to call his team. The feedback? He had no craft. That one sentence sent him to acting school — and changed the trajectory of everything.
Alan Ritchson walked out of his Titans audition so sure he'd booked the lead that he called his wife and told her he was going to buy a Tesla. She said he hadn't booked it. He went and bought the car anyway. His instincts were right — he was offered the role — just not the one he wanted.
Reacher drew 56 million global viewers in a single week of Season 2. Alan Ritchson points out what makes it unusual: unlike ensemble shows, almost all of that visibility lands on one person. It's an anthology with a rotating cast built around a single titular character — and the scale of it is something even he calls unprecedented.
Motor City has no spoken dialogue. Every major leading man in Hollywood — Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman, Gerard Butler, Adrian Brody — was attached at some point. It was greenlit nine times. The concept was simple: Greg Silverman wanted a film everyone in the world could watch with the exact same experience, regardless of language. Alan Ritchson read the script and called it a masterpiece.
Working with Arnold Schwarzenegger showed Alan Ritchson what 100% recognition looks like. People feel Schwarzenegger before they see him — like a meteor approaching. Alan's wife wants a strict no-photos policy around family. Arnold stops for everyone. The contrast was a master class in how gratitude should manifest when fame is inescapable.
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