Oh jeers. It should people pay good money to see this movie. When
they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas, hot popcorn,
and no monsters in the projection booth. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring off.
I want you to know I've never drink so much as a thymbol full of
the milk they extract from you. Is that the way you think she should
be remembered is not good enough to eat me? Joel Hanson, good Morrow.
This is her plant based coffee shot. You're a coffee place and you
don't serve regular milk filk, no good. I'm mentioned that Joe is extremely
broken. No body, Noody. You have to make a playment now or
your dog? Do you think I can get anod bunch like one hundred against
my paycheck? But why don't you compete again? Work for Rudy. I'll
make you one. There were steam cow's milk. I'm not sure that with
that vegan thing. It's a good guy Lester Championships with a cash prize of
fifty thousand years innes less. I chew that nutter from National must that aren't
completely mental? What there's a coffee confetation not a milk competattion not milk has
turned her into another This year, we need a drink that wins it off.
Our signature drink, A Cibit cut eats the coffee chetti, pops out
the beans and created distinctively savory flavor. You could can't eat a bunch of
garlic chili paste. Oh that was me from you. I like it this
chi They are the very best of the best. This is exactly what I
need. Yeah, it is a coffee taste book takedown, Lisa all right,
yarns. This is the everest of coffee excellence and there's only one way
to scale it together. Don't think you had a business, Well, you
better win this thing. There. I am all in believe. Here's something
don't make you all believe now brewing. And by the way, I'm not
Morgan Freeman. Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of the Projection
Booth. I'm your host, Mike White, and this episode I am talking
with two of the stars of the new film Coffee Wars, which was written
by Randall Miller and co written by Miller and David Rawlins. I'm talking with
two of the stars of the film, Kate Nash and Tony Sebastian all about
their roles in the film. It is currently streaming and definitely something I would
recommend. Kind of a quirky, little indie comedy that needs a little bit
of love because it's got a lot to offer. Hope you enjoyed the interview.
Kate and Toby, thank you so much for joining me. I am
super excited to talk about Coffee Wars, but first I would love to know
can you tell me? I guess starting with you, Toby, can you
tell me a little bit more about your background and how you got into acting?
If memory serve, you come from a very talented family. I got
into acting. I wanted to get a drama school. I loved ds it
and plays as a kid. It's a teenager, and I started doing them
really at the same time as doing music. I didn't want to study music
very or music at a university as such, plans to go to dramas school,
and then I got on a music opportunity whilst I was at school,
and so I left schooling year early and I took that it was an obviously
I can really refuse. It was a major label deal that kind of turned
as a three or four years of recording between London Nashville. In LA,
I was really fortunate to have met a producer and writer who met him in
LA on a rising trip and he was from Nashville, so he invited me
to come over. The label at the time liked what we were doing,
and we were we just we kind of embarked on making a record. During
that two or three year period, I was really really desperate to get back
into acting some sort. I kind of missed the camaraderie and working with lots
of other people, like on a day's day basis. I loved collaborating with
the producer that I was working with, but I kind of wanted like more
collaboration as well outside of that in a different creative way. So I was
sending auditions out to agencies and to people not really hearing stuff for a while,
just because most people don't hear an thing. And then I was very
fortunate to meet my first E book acting agent was also head of music crossover
at an agency in LA and I then kind of she made it very clear
that she couldn't take me on because you can't just like skip a que and
just when you have works and done any training, and so I embarked and
kind of taking on these auditions that she'd send me very kindly, and then
when I added my first one, which was a twelve lines in a film,
that kind of sealed the working relationship, and then I was very much
back into that world, but now this time on a passion level and kind
of learning on the job. And then you come from a very musical background
as well. Yeah, kind of similar. Actually, Like I was doing
acting classes and then I found out about this school called the brit School,
and like my final year of GCSS and stuff, one of the girls in
the year above was going there and I heard about the school and I like
trapped her down and I was like, damn me this school because it's like
it was one of the only free I don't know now, but at the
time, it was the only free performing arts school in London, and I
just didn't really desperately wanted to go there. So I went to like an
open night with my parents, and I just really was attracted to the theater
department because I loved everything about students and what they were doing, and so
I applied for theater and I got in brit School and then after that,
I similarly wanted to go to drama school university didn't get into any of them.
And then I was working at Nando's and I fell down the stairs and
broke my foot, and I was just like laid up with this broken foot,
feeling sorry for myself because my friends were going off and doing exciting things
and I felt very left behind. And so I decided I was going to
book my first gig. I was going to write songs, record them,
make a my Space page, and then when my foot was healed, I
was going to like go live with my MySpace page and I was going to
book my first gig. And so it was this kind of incentive, I
think the broken foot that doing a gig with something I always really wanted to
do. But I was quite intimidated by it, and I was quite nervous
about it, but you know, I got to that point where being scared
was better than being incredibly bored, and so I just like took the plunge
and did it. And then I was just very lucky that I came up
at this time during my Space where we had so much freedom and kids in
London were really just deciding what was or kids all over I guess, not
just London, and it was everywhere. But we're sort of deciding what was
going to be popular in music. We had no playlisters, A and R
people in control of it, no algorithm, no gatekeeping. So I was
very lucky to kind of come up at that time and have success with my
first record. And then me and Toby actually share a manager. Margaret Polack
is our manager, and she's quite a magical person, and she was bonding
with her daughter. Her daughter was into my music, and she bought tickets
for her daughter to see my show. I was happening to be playing in
LA and she was like, great, I'm going to bond with my like,
you know, teenage daughter and sort of looked me up and read that
I was interested in acting, and so she came to my gig and then
she's very much about like synchronicity, and wept. She wanted to meet with
me and then asked if I wanted to, you know, start doing auditions,
and that was sort of in two thousand and I want to say eleven
or twelve, and yeah, And then I made a record in La and
which is where she was based, and I ended up like flying up there
a lot and then moving there for about nine years I lived in la and
so that's kind of how I got into acting. I think the first thing
I saw you and was Glow and you were just amazing in that. Well,
thank you so much. Yeah, Glow was It was a dream job.
It really was one of those jobs where like this is just so insanely.
I feel so lucky to be part of this with all these women and
wrestling and in the eighties, and like, we laughed so much together on
that job. So and you know, I feel very lucky to have worked
on Coffee Was Is Tobe, because it's an amazing thing to go to work
and laugh, you know what I mean, laugh every day, best best
And we just laughed very much. This guy makes me laugh so much.
He makes me laugh just thinking, don't look at me and laugh. You've
got funny bones. He's got funny bones. It's a funny guy. It's
a funny fucker that I can't help it. Oh JF. I'm not funny
at all, a lot of dad jokes. But that's kind of where I
finished from my comedy. Toby, how did the role for Coffee Wars coming
to you? So I worked for a Japassit directors. Sharon have feels I
have worked with you well beyond three four projects prior. I think it's three
projects prior to Coffee Wars and one in the sport role the first time.
The second one we're quite more actually working with how it hands on approach to
the audition process. So I was, I was. I was kind of
good friends with Sharon after those two or three projects. And she told me
that she had this comedy. I think i'd remembered it differently, the conversation
i'd have the on the phone. She was like, this is how I
remembered the conversation. And clearly she didn't say this, but she had said,
I've got this rom com and it's like it's a really sweet rom com.
It's kind of and she obviously wasn't like I've obviously remembered ro it's a
really sweet rom com, and I want you to for this like this kind
of like this kind of a sick guy and this she'd mentioned a wedding.
I got this completely wrong, but it's not the same movie. I made
it up. Obviously, it's my imagination. And then I got the role
to and and I was like, how do you do this? Like,
just how do you play this guy a normal? He's not normal at all?
And then actually before I knew I got the job, I went to
a comic con for Game Thrones and I was really really hoping that was going
to get this meekly copy wars and Kate knows as well as anyone, but
that healing of auditioning to something and well basically all the time when you liked
something and then you're like you dream about you dream about it, you almos
quished that you never actually did the audition, so that you could just live
in this world of dream daydream forever that you got the role. Anyways,
I kind of went to this comic con the Game of Tracks, and on
the way back I got a miss called from Randy and I've never been like
the amount of miss calls or a director, which forre like, especially if
I haven't got the movie, why would you want to talk to me?
And then like a day later I got given the role. And then the
character I thought he was just like a guy that kind of like plizzled a
little bit and you know, sprung back and forth in and out shot,
but he just got more ludicrous kind of mental really, he just brought into
life in such a like physical way. I think as well that you just
like it was like pushing. As soon as you started doing all this bad
stuff. Randy was like, right, great fun. I remember our first
day me too, Yeah, I really remember it and like sitting seches.
So we're going to have a face up yeah from day one. Yeah,
that rivalry is brilliant. So that's that's basically it. I really want that's
to play Nemesises again because it's really fun. I know, we have to
think of something. I've got sent the script and yeah, from casting it
sent through the script to my manager and I auditioned for it, and then
I've read it and I was like, really can see myself doing this,
which doesn't often happen, I think, And I was like, I think
I've really got a chance, because so many times I get an audition and
I'm like, oh, I'm not going to get this. I guess I'll
convince myself that I could. And then and then and I'm so resistant to
it because you just so feel like, oh I'm not going to get this,
like why bother? And then you have to convince yourself to be like,
Okay, there's a chance, you know, there's like a once in
and there's a one in a million or something chance I could get this,
So let me, let me work on it, and then let me convince
myself. And then by the time you do it, you're like, I
really want this, I really really want this. I really think I could
get it. Maybe this is meant to be. Maybe I really could be
you know, and then you obviously don't get it. But with this,
I read it and I thought, I really think I could get this.
So I was like, I really want to try, like because I feel
like this is me. It's really easy, Like I can read this so
easily, Like I feel like I could do this. I got confidence in
the audition for some rare reason. And so then I think my audition was
in person the first one, I think, because Randy's in LA and I
was in LA. So I went to Randy's house and did the audition in
person. Yeah, So I went to the director's house and did the audition
in person, and his dog was there, who's a little bit testy,
and his dog laughed at me, and I was like, yes, the
dog has proved to me like this is a good sign. And yeah,
it's always so nice when you actually get to do the audition in person with
someone attached to the film creatively, because there's just so much better chemistry and
like they like, you know what they actually want because they're there to tell
you, so they can kind of go, oh, yeah, do it
more like this, or try it like this, or how push that little
further and you like you know that you're actually within the right direction of what
the film is aiming for. So that's really nice. And then I think
I had a second audition and then I found out that I got the role,
like after the second one, after the callback, Yeah, which was
very exciting. Did you guys have to do any research for your roles?
Learn how to make coffee, learn more about environmentalism, how to day or
hair green, any of these things. We did get coffee lessons. We
got psalm in London. I think did you get the same from Lama Zuko?
I don't think I was invited? Okay, probably not, probably,
Sorry, So what trip we went to Lama Zuko and you got a coach?
Yeah, we went on a coach. It was actually every other cast
member was there. I as seemed you were in the back somewhere, but
maybe were was it packed lunch all inclusive kind of Really it was Marks and
Spencers vouchers and we got all free. We've got to pick exactly what we
wanted from one suspenses. So anywhere myself and the rest of the cast and
the entire crew went. Everyone went. Traveled to Italy. Yeah, we
got on first class flight to Italy and then stayed in a hotel. My
family went to the Vatican. Actually yeah, actually we went into I slept
in the Vatican. I was invited to slip in the Vatican. Yeah.
Anyway, so we went to Italy, went to the Vatican. The entire
cast and career, apart from Toby. We were given coffee like espresso lessons
and how to make coffee and how to kind of tamp and make an espresso
drink. And I was amazed because I didn't realize how much goes into the
recipe of an espresso, like the way the detail in it is essentially why
you go into a coffee shop and you're like, this is an amazing cup
of coffee and going to another one and you're like, yeah, that's okay.
And it's because like it's a real art and there's a real like like
recipe, and there's a knack to like making a great coffee. It's a
skill as it was educated. And then we did have which Toby did get
to experience. We had some of the Serbian ampions an't we ampiens like teaching
us on set, which is great. How was your artwork maybe? How
did that come out? Was it a screech out or it was an elephant's
cosk or a Western screech out? Toby, you mentioned the camaraderie that you
missed with acting, and it feels like a movie like this. You know,
Kid already mentioned the whole idea of laughing every single day on set.
I mean, how was that working with such an amazing group of people.
Well, it was a miserable experience. It's very tough working with Kate,
you know, trying to get a lam about other you know, just I'm
joking. It was amazing. It wasn't the best. It was. It
was very funny, and I think that I think when I was at school,
I really loved I loved it all that thing, but I loved comedy
the most just because it never really felt like it felt so detached and so
far away from reality, but zero boundaries and comedy, especially if you're given
kind of reigns by whoever is creatively in controlled to like run with things and
ad lib and improvise a bit. And that's exactly what this is. And
this is probably the first time I worked on the projects that was this stilly
and this money. So it was magic. I loved it. A look,
how much of the movie is is you guys versus how much was actually
on on the page when you started? I'd say like ninety percent of it.
Ninety five percent of it, right, Kate was on the page,
but they were depending on the character. There were people that Sally Phillips just
went off and just like Sally Phillips did, and it was genius because she
is a genius, you know. Yeah. Yeah, A lot of the
script is great, and it was very conversate, It was very natural.
Nothing ever felt there was a few things that we might be able to say,
oh, can we change this or what about this? What about this
way of doing it? Which I think we did have like flexibility, but
at the same time, like the script is already really good and just kind
of flowed felt really natural, didn't it. Yeah, it felt good,
but really good. Yeah, Sally Phillips is amazing. I loved her when
she was on The Past Master. Same thing with Hugh Dennis. Those guys
are great. I mean everyone is so good, Like it's such a good
cast, Like it's really it was lucky to get such great people in the
home in the movie. Everyone also had their own kind of hype of comedy
that they brought to it. You know, it's like no one did something
that someone else was doing. Everyone brought their own thing to it. So
they're like they're like levels of silliness. And within those levels silliness, you
had ry assume that sarcasm sap stick comedy. Some people would provide some physicality
that slap stick in the middle to have a dry response, so you'd have
like a mix of sarcasm and it's just like so funny. And you people
like Sarsha who like, even before she speaks, her eyes, the way
that she pulls like the faces just funny ad adorable at the same time,
and the same with a wine as well. Ad you start, oh Freddy,
Yeah, yeah, Freddy was brilliant pushing out his chest and yeah,
it's very funny dancing with his pecks. The great fair to do that,
wouldn't it? It would be great we should learn Do you think you have
to get a dancing school to learn it? You definitely have to train for
a couple of years together level of Peck. Din't think it's at the right
time for me to start now. I'm not sure if it's like you need
it, do you know what I mean, You've got other things to give,
other skill set. I think that ship sail, doesn't it? Kate
pecks where they are. I think the coffee helps. I think that brings
level of intensity at least thinking about these people are being highly caffeinated because you
are, Yeah, you're all up there at like nine ten eleven and just
like really ringing it every single scene that you're in. I think so too.
It's like this hyper reality where everything's really colorful and everything's really intense and
people are and the movie is like fast paced and snappy, and you're right
like when you watch it, I've you know, obviously watched it a few
times and I'm like, oh, yeah, it is this kind of long
set up before you're really in the story of like what's happening now, But
it all feels so like choppy and like fun and fast paced. I think
it really suits the world of like coffee. You know, did you have
any challenges working on this, because it feels like you just had a ball
working. It was hot, we were sweating a lot. That was the
only real thing because yeah, we had great crew and we had a lot
of laughs, but we were all just like that scene in the Underground,
like Coffee, very hard. Let Toby go insane, you know, the
Stott when he came out of that like so king screaming, like I got
a video of three people drying me with the head d dry between takes and
always didn't work really at all. It was like pointless. It's pointless.
It's so hot in there, and you have to have to send these fans
off before he starts shooting. You know, you'll be waiting for the cameras
to roll and like you know, obviously the lighting and everything, and also
it's intense. We're all jumping around that scene. You know, we're like
the music's playing and it picks up, but we're all like and everyone's like
chanting, but we look good in it. I was like worried that we
were going to look completely I think the heat sweat it out, all the
facial puff. But you know, like I think so like you know,
for examples, like you Jackman did like two days of like drinking no water
before somebody's shots in Lama's aparently to get like yeah, to get like really
gorned, to get really gone, to look like you hadn't eat because you
can. There's like obviously you drink water to get rid of water, but
then at being like the final you really really want to do it. I
think that's the thing that people do. Don't grab beyondest this is what I'm
saying now anyway and pretend that it's real. Yes, I check it,
and probably listen to me, and don't anyone ever do this. Okay,
I'm not drink water for two days. You do not drink water. But
anyway, I think that that's probably what happened with the amount of I mean,
I don't know how much you were sweating, but I was sweating a
lot. So you know, I guess if there's anything to learn from it,
turn your house into a sauna before shooting. I love the economic mammal
of this movie. This whole idea of all of the proceeds from the movie
going to environmental and animal welfare causes. You didn't get paid at after this,
correct, Yeah, you just donated your whole salary, right, No,
we did get paid, but any profits from the film are going towards
charity. And the umber of film is like very like an animal activists and
he's very passionate about animal rights and veganism is like his big sort of he
invests in all these different vegan outlets and wanted to reach people through comedy.
And I'm vegan as well, and I actually turned vegan because of a movie,
because of Upja. So I think that like movies can really have an
impact because I'm like an example of that, And so it's like a fun
way to like spread a good message and not I don't know, like there's
a lot going on in the world. So it's nice to be able to
laugh instead of being like, yeah, shouted that, and to make my
character sort of the butt of the joke a lot of the time and like
a bit of a mess, and like you're not exactly going she's doing the
right thing all the time, and you're like questioning some of her methods,
which I think is really good, but you still like her and you still
like want the Coffee Bit crew to like succeed. So it's a good way
to do it, I think. And it's making it very feel very human
and like like it's not about being perfect or so it doesn't take itself too
seriously, which is how really if you want to get like really important messages
or if we want to make positive change in all aspects of the world,
I think that doing it through comedy is a very smart way of doing it
so that some people who maybe might feel attacked if you did it another way,
don't feel like they're being patronized, and instead they could be taught and
you know, made up aware of stuff. And what's brilliant about it is
that, as you said, Kate, even as the movie, like as
the movie goes along, there are even moments where brilliant Ray Ray and Sammy
Philis like in here guns Joe Hounson with a watery nut juice, you know,
and also taking like it's going back and forth throughout the whole thing.
So there's a message throughout the whole thing, but it does take turns and
it feels like a very it's a very soft way of approaching these things and
very comical and happy. I know the movie is streaming now. Did it
have a theatrical run? No, it didn't have a theatrical run. I
think a lot of movies have done that sort of since the pandemic, you
know, like realizing your way to beat audiences. It's more like that more
people will see it, unless you're like, it's huge, huge, huge
franchise that has guaranteed bums on seats. If you're an entity and you get
to go straight into a streaming platform them, it's like the whole world is
really on there, a good chunk of it. Anyway, in terms of
that swere it would have been cool though it really, I know it would
have been cool. There is something magical about the cinema, but also people
like to consume to stream and so so what's the next up for you?
Guys? Kate, what are you working on now? Actually me and Toby
both are doing a show, but separately on different days at O'Meara in London.
Yes we are. Mine yours is soon, isn't it? When is
yours? Mine's on the twenty fifth of this month and mine is on the
first of June. I'm doing a Girl Talk anniversary show which is like my
third album, it's ten years since it came out, and then I'm going
to go into like a run of some festival dates this summer and I'm going
to release some new music soon. Yeah. So I'm just kind of working
on music at the moment, which is like nice. I have said show
at a Mirror on the twenty fifth of this month, but I also have
most first UK tour, doing small tour across the across England's week art the
nineteenth or April. The twenty second of April. The nineteenth is Bristol,
twenty second is Manchester, twenty is London Mirror and the twenty eight is Oxford
hometown gig. After then similar stuff to Kate. Really most likely a couple
of festivals. I'll have a single out the summer. In June, I'm
doing a film in London, shooting in film in London that should be and
then I don't know, maybe getting ready to write some duo acting with Kate
Nemesiss. It's called nemesisis Nemesiss nesis Emesis Is. It's going to be a
massive franchise, Nemous Nemesis. Yeahsis, Well, I hope you have a
cooler summer in the UK than you've had in the past. When was it?
Date? Was it? Lost? Was last year? It was I
wasn't actually here for it, but it was. It was like off record
was an it was horrible apparently. Yeah, So I was here. I
basically went on holiday once or twice between like June and July and August.
I was in London in most of a month with my girlfriend. We kind
of only moved to London September twenty twenty one, so we've only been here
but less than a year. And we're like, we're gonna have our burst
summer, like in London London summer, Like that's what everyone's talking about.
It's gonna be amazing. There's gonna be friends everywhere, barbecues, dancing,
having drinks. It's gonna be so happy. So they're like fifth of August
of something like a fasturday. I was like, so, where's all our
friends at? And they all decided to go on holiday in August. So
it was like so hot. It was absolutely boiling. I feel like it
was just bad luck on our part, but I think that the heat last
August it was pretty insane because it's like no relief. You know, I'm
going to seaside and got a beach. There's your relief, you know,
kind of like just sitting in the middle of the fifties leg. Well,
hopefully this year goes better. But thank you both so much for your time.
I really appreciate this. Thank you so much for having us to a
really nice chatting. We've got am My Brezian coffee and beas gonna find the
video, find those extra cops to film. They've got an album, but
I'm coffee. You did a girl and find a later. She'sst like a
bug. Lad Perfume was made right on the ground. They've got an album,
but I'm coffee juice. See don't but tell the juice. All the
fathers ain't a finger, saying a body titians dollar wise accused of drinking water
and was finding gaping fifty dollar bill. They've got a coffey in myself a
whole lot of coffee it They've got an awful of coffee. Want to manager
se all the father said, I think I say when they haven't ex me
saying a copy. Catchis the play bacles where I sat up there. They've
got an awful lot of a lot of it. They've got an awful lot
of comment. You got an awple lot of comment. You got a owle
lotar comment, right, you got a ole dollar tom, I got a collar comment