Russell Brand talks 'Get Him To the Greek'

The Brit comedian on sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and staying pure for bride-to-be, Katy Perry

Trying to get hold of Russell Brand is a pain in the ass, as I find out when the 35 year old returns to London for a junket to promote his new film, 'Get Him to the Greek'. The assembled press are loitering in a tourist-trap pub on the Thames. We’re waiting for the rain to pass so we can get on with the interview scheduled to take place on the roof terrace. Brand comes over to introduce himself and then compliments my choice of nail-polish colour. I don’t realise it at this point, but this is as close as we’ll get to having a chat in person. After the better part of three hours, the interminable drizzle washes away our chances of a chat. With no back-up location in place, the journalists and cameras are sent home. No matter, we’ll meet up the following day…

Except we don’t, because later that night Brand and his co-star Jonah Hill are flown back to the US, having had advance warning that the volcanic ash cloud might leave them trapped in the UK – these days Brand is far too precious a commodity to be marooned in London when he should be pushing his latest smuttily entertaining caper all around the world. After a series of delays we get hold of him the next day, on the phone from New York. Katy Perry’s husband-to-be is charming but knackered, and he’s feeling a tad introspective.



We hear documentarian Albert Maysles ('Grey Gardens') is doing a feature on you.
Albert is a consultant on a documentary that we’re making about the way fame, celebrity and consumerism is corrupting the current generation and turning people into consumer-cyborgs. The loss of big ideas – socialism, spirituality – these things have been sidelined. It’s more I’m a person who’s sought out success and fame and now that these things are happening, I’m questioning the validity of them.

So do you feel an obligation to use your celebrity status for good?
It’s a tentative toe in the water of altruism and humanity. I feel hugely compromised and hypocritical because I’ve had a life where I’ve been exposed to things I can’t forget – poverty, suffering – and I know those things continue to exist, and the further you indulge yourself in success, the more you feel this is stupid. I get a twinkling awareness of spiritual utopia through meditation; there could be some better way – and I don’t think it’s through the acquisition of stuff.

You once said that you don’t have the ‘necessary attributes’ to be with one woman, but now you’re monogamous. Have you matured, or is it down to your fiancée, Katy Perry?
It’s both. I suppose I was getting a bit older and was ready to change. So it’s significant that I met someone that I thought was worth changing for.

So you never get tempted any more?
No. I’m really… I’m in love.

Is this the first time?
Yeah, probably. I don’t know, maybe not, but it is certainly the first time I’ve been prepared to work on myself as a consequence of that.

You’ve been sober for seven years. Do you celebrate your sobriety anniversary?
Yeah, if I’m not working I acknowledge it. I’m really pleased and proud.

Is it difficult? You must go to lots of parties.
A bit. You sort of get used to it. What happens is, you start to arrive at a point where you ask yourself: Why am I at this party?

Are you a homebody these days?
I’m working all the time. If you say, “Why do you want to go out?” for me, it was always to get off my head and to fuck people. But if you take away those two things I’m just a man in a room where I can’t hear what the person I’m talking to is saying. I suppose if you’re a person that really likes dancing or hanging out with your friends – I don’t know. For me it’s really a bit pointless.

Are you going to have your autobiography made into a movie?
Michael Winterbottom wanted to do it but that was when I was thinking about playing myself. Now I don’t want to play myself.

But as Aldous Snow, you’ve pretty much played yourself – in this film and 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'.
I know. For God’s sake: give me a break! But if we could make it without me being in it, that would be good.

Who would play you?
Natalie Portman.

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