Miriam Margolyes trashes 'Mama Mia' (and discusses Dominic Cooper's member)

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 5:21am

Miriam Margolyes, you know, famous for playing Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films and starring in Wicked and playing all of Dicken's women on stage, was back on Graham Norton's BBC chat show a couple of weeks ago. Did you see it? I just caught up on it and haven't laughed this hard at a talk show appearance in years. Margolyes is blissfully unaware of modern pop culture. On her last memorable appearance on Graham Northon's show, Will.i.Am was one of the other guests and, of course, she had no idea who he was. She said some really embarrassing things about how fascinating he was because she herself didn't have any black friends.

This time, the other guests were Dominic Cooper and Lily Allen. At times, I think she has to be putting us on, but it seems genuine. She insults Dominic's work in The History Boys to his face and tells him what she really thought of Mama Mia. She has no idea who Lily Allen is and later in the show she offers Graham unsolicited stories about her menstrual period and about the size of Dominc Cooper's cock. God, I hope Graham has her back every season. Apparently, Margolyes is doing I'll Eat Your First in Australia later this year. That is decidedly odd casting.

BRIEF CLIP AS A TASTER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCVkyJVdED0

FULL EPISODE HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_kIerX3vio





Updated On: 3/17/14 at 05:21 AM

[tazber]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 6:17am

Love her!

Thanks for sharing!

[VeraCharles3]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 6:49am

Thanks HorseTears

Love Miriam. She is totally "off the wall"

I shall enjoy watching this when I get back from work. Dominic Cooper being on too, makes it all the more interesting - I do like him (pant, pant). I can fast forward through Lily Allen.

[VeraCharles3]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 7:28am

HorseTears, Taz, anybody!!!

Just in case you may be interested here is a link to Miriam on the BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/600f1768#b00dm5mm

Not sure if the link will work in the US, apologies if it doesn't.

It is one of the only "serious" interviews I have heard Miriam give - she talks about coming out to her mother and her mother then suffering a stroke a few days later. A horrible thing to happen but Miriam says she feels guilty for telling her mother something her mother couldn't deal with.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 8:00am

It works! Thanks!

I love watching Miriam on the Graham Norton show. Every time she appears, she does something so jaw-droppingly amazing that it makes me love her more.

[Addison D.]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 8:13am

I confess I had no idea who she was prior to this thread. (Hmmm....'blissfully unaware' of pop culture, interested in Dominic Cooper's penis. Maybe I should change my avatar to Miriam Margolyes?)

A quick check over at IMdB, however, reveals that I'm a fan of her work. Thanks for the link--I can't wait to see Mrs. Manson Mingott dishing c0ck with Graham Norton!


ETA:
from the linked program:

"I know better than they do; that is the truth...Their grammar is often bad..."

OMG--I really should change my avatar!

Updated On: 3/17/14 at 08:13 AM

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 8:26am

Great interview! I enjoyed the whole show. Thanks for sharing it!

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 8:37am

Ha! Addison, the way she forcefully corrects the grammatical mistakes of both the host and the other guests makes me think she's more of an ATC'er.

Vera, thanks for the BBC radio interview. Nice to hear a different side of her.

I also went back and checked out an earlier appearance from 2011 in which British comedian Jimmy Carr, Stanley Tucci and Bruno Mars were the other guests. In this appearance she:
* Gets furious at Wynona Ryder for "stealing" her Oscar nomination for Age of Innocence.
* Farts on the other guests and talks about it during the show.
* Talks about offering a bj to an American solider on the street when she was student
* Calls the stars of The Social Network "arseholes"
* Claims she was the first person to ever swear on television
* Discusses flashing Martin Scorsese.
* And generally makes Stanley Tucci uncomfortable

Oh, GOD BLESS this woman. Despite the farting, she is a breath of fresh air compared to the over-rehearsed, scripted celebrities who usually appear. Wish more people in the public eye had this much personality. Although I feel bad for any comedian who has to appear alongside her. Poor Jimmy Carr could barely make an impression next to such a fiery, funny woman.

MIRIAM, S. TUCCI, JIMMY CARR, BRUNO MARS ON GRAHAM NORTON - 2011 (P1):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXXRyFBYLms

MIRIAM, S. TUCCI, JIMMY CARR, BRUNO MARS ON GRAHAM NORTON - 2011 (P2):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N1VVEM998E

MIRIAM, S. TUCCI, JIMMY CARR, BRUNO MARS ON GRAHAM NORTON - 2011 (P3):
http://youtu.be/Bik9PkvRxSs

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 10:59am

She is also gay and has been with her partner for 40 years, a Jewish defender of Palestinian rights, and she wrote and performs in a SUPERB one-woman show called "Dickens' Women":

http://miriammargolyes.com/dickens_women/

(The link has a link to her YouTube channel.)

[Eris0303]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 1:20pm

Can't forget Blackadder :)

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 2:52pm

I can't blame her for being obsessed with Dominic Cooper's penis. Who isn't? I remember being particularly miffed watching that movie he did where he told his twin that his co@k was too big and then they didn't show it. How can such a major plot point go unseen?!?

[Scripps2]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 6:08pm

Dominic Cooper must be one of the few British actors who've made a name for themselves recently without getting their****out.

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 8:24pm

^ It's only a matter of time.


I still don't understand the... physics of his anecdote about his****flapping out of his jeans onto that table. How on earth does that happen -- even if you are exceptionally well hung?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 8:32pm

Also, was it a zipper or button fly? How does it just flop out? And why wasn't he wearing underwear? And where is the video? So many questions...

[willep]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 8:41pm

I believe he said there was a hole in his tight jeans...and I am guessing he wasn't wearing any underwear.

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 8:43pm

Still, that would have to be a pretty big hole. If only Robert Stack and Unsolved Mysteries were still around. I need a dramatic reenactment of the scene. Starring Jamie Dornan.

[Addison D.]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 8:44pm

"I believe he said there was a hole in his tight jeans...and I am guessing he wasn't wearing any underwear."

That's right. And he was still up from the previous night out, so he might have forgotten to strap it back on to his thigh...

Updated On: 3/17/14 at 08:44 PM

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 11:00pm

^Don't tease me!

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/19/14 at 4:35pm

I've known Miriam casually (she's a friend of a friend) for decades and I can promise she is exactly the same in person. Only more so.

Any party she attends is sure to be hilarious! And, yes, she will say anything. (Just to be clear, I am saying I find her adorable! Despite her candor and a wicked sense of humor, I've never found her at all malicious.)


Updated On: 3/19/14 at 04:35 PM

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 3:48am

Gaveston - how fun! I bet she's a riot at parties. Or even 1-on-1. As much as I enjoy catching up on these appearances, and as benevolent as I'm sure she intends to be, two things do nag at me: Her attitudes/assumptions about black people (just watch her appearance with Will.i.Am on Graham Norton to see what I mean) and the frequent sweeping Anti-American statements she makes in British and Australian media. The comments about black people are, I know, a product of her upbringing and class, but it's 2014 and she's been in showbiz most of her life, no excuse really. And her anti-American stuff is just reductive and pandering speech from an otherwise intelligent and cultured woman.

Speaking of cringe-y things said about black people, here's her 1989 appearance on Terry Wogan's chat show. If you get past a couple of questionable comments, it's a really fun appearance as well. You can also see that, like any good party guest, she's been recycling a few of the same funny anecdotes for decades!

YOUTUBE - Miriam on Wogan (1989)

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 7:59pm

I never noticed the anti-Americanism, horse tears (which isn't to say you are wrong). The parties (large and small) where I've encountered her were a good mix of Yanks and Brits and nothing she said seemed particularly biased. (My husband and I are clearly Americans.)

Maybe she's disappointed that she has never achieved the recognition here that she enjoys in Britain. (Her FOX series back in the late 1980s was a train wreck--no fault of hers.)

As for black people, I think that's schtick. I once mentioned a young actor friend of mine who had done a film with her and she responded with a full 20 minutes on how talented he is! My friend happens to be black and there was none of the schtick we hear on Graham Norton; in fact, she never mentioned his race. I think she's just playing "dotty old lady" on talk shows these days.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 8:38pm

On Wogan she does sound excited about her American, sorta, success. Of course that was a while back.

I agree that the racial thing is shtick--embarrassing really but Chelsea Handler and many others do the same thing much more poorly. Either way I don't think you can excuse it, if you even want to excuse it, by her age or upbringing. She was born in the same generation as my mother, is a lesbian, and obviously has an open and liberal mind. She thinks it's funny. My (much) older grandmother lived half her life in England and her and her friends do not speak that way. So, as Gaveston said, it's part of her act. And I think it's more than fair to call her out on that, as much as I love her as an actress and personality.

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 11:25pm

Sorry for my lack of clarity. The anti-Americanism is not really on display on the clips I posted. I loved her appearances on Graham Norton so much that I went on a Miriam Margolyes YouTube binge the other night and watched 3 or 4 hours of her appearances on a variety of programs -- from chat shows, to panel shows (both high minded and low) and on several of them she made broad, sweeping generalizations about Americans and their lack of education. Because, of course, all Americans are uneducated yokels. She was pandering to British and Aussie audiences and it was a shame to hear such tripe from an otherwise smart, cultured woman. But, she's hardly alone in this nonsense and I can overlook it when she's this fabulously entertaining.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/21/14 at 7:44am

You can't really judge Miriam as anti-black or anti-American or anti-Semitic.

She just says things from a place of devilish innocence.

Updated On: 3/21/14 at 07:44 AM

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/21/14 at 8:32am

I think the "innocence" is played up, but no one can fault her for being a bit of a ham. I'd love to see her guest on Fallon, Ferguson or Ellen. I bet she'd be a riot there as well. Letterman would probably be wise to avoid. I don't think their senses of humor would connect.