On The Jonathan Ross Show this week, Jonathan is joined by former England cricket captain Freddie Flintoff, The White Lotus star Jason Isaacs, comedian and actor Rebel Wilson, renowned actor David Oyelowo and Bafta-winner Sophie Willan. Plus, music by Wet Leg.
Opening up for the first time on TV, Freddie Flintoff discusses his recent accident while filming and getting back into cricket: “I finished playing at 31 retired, started doing TV stuff, past two or three years had an accident, found myself back around cricket, which I’m loving. So I’m coaching the England Lions, which is the team underneath the England side.
“I think, with everything that’s happened over the past few years, that’s the one place I feel most comfortable. Cricket is embracing me again and my mates and everything. The TV was good. But I feel like I’m back home being involved in cricket.”
Freddie continues: “No secret that I had a car accident filming Top Gear. Afterwards, obviously there’s the physical scars that I’ve got. But then the mental side of it. I didn’t leave the house for probably six or eight months. The only times I was leaving the house was for medical appointments and surgeries.
“A mate of mine, Rob Key, who is actually my boss, known him for 30 years, he started inviting me to come and watch the cricket, test matches, but sit in a back room not in the crowd. I was wearing a full face mask for months. I started getting back into it and started to find my feet a little bit. Ever since I can remember, from being a kid, cricket was a massive part of my life.”
He adds: “That time when I probably needed it most, cricket embraced me again. I found myself back in it. The TV stuff, I still do the odd job, I’ve got bills to pay. But cricket now, back in coaching is my definite future, I’m loving it.”
Freddie says: “It’s what I’ve always known. I always wanted to play for Lancashire. I always wanted to play for England. It stopped pretty early when I retired at 31 through injury. I stumbled into TV. It was great, don’t get me wrong.
“Cricket is the one place, I’m there in the dressing room, I’m coaching these lads, forget everything that’s going on and be present.”
Discussing filming the upcoming Disney+ documentary he says: “At first it was quite strange. It’s something you live with. Since the accident, had the flashbacks, the nightmares and things… you’re talking about it, you’re talking about it quite a lot. I enjoy watching the cricket bits, wish there was more of them in it. The hardest part is seeing people talk about you.”
He adds: “I retired so long ago, it almost seems like a different life. Like watching from the outside.”
Speaking about getting back to cricket, Freddie shares: “I was struggling with crippling anxiety. I had to have about five or six goes at leaving the room. Had to have a chat with myself in the mirror. I think because I’d not done anything for such a long time. I’d not shown myself without a face mask to anyone. It was like starting again.”
Freddie is pleased banter has started back up amongst his friends saying: “I’d not left the house for a while, gone down to London to go to the office. One of my mates was there, I had a bucket hat, glasses and a mask and he said, ‘F*** me, it’s the invisible man.’ It’s always better when that starts happening. Back to normal.
“I’m more accepting of it now, it is what it is and move on.”
Freddie talks about winning the Australian version of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!: “It was the easiest month I’ve ever had in my life. I lost 10kg while I was there… I managed to cheat the system a little bit… I broke into the medical hut where I could get fresh water and fruit.”
Freddie elaborates: “I pretended I smoked. So every time I could leave the camp because you couldn’t smoke on the TV. So they left me the cigarette on a chair. I discovered the medical hut was 200 yards away. So I took a window out twice a day to get my fruit and water.”
Discussing hosting ITV’s hugely successful return of Bullseye, Freddie says: “Always loved darts growing up watching it, the great players. On tour, me and a mate of mine used to have connecting rooms. He had a board, an oche, he didn’t bring half his kit…”
He adds: “It was the first thing I’d done, it’s a format and a show I loved in the 80s. I’m no Jim Bowen. We’ve got a series later in the year and a Christmas special.”
Jason Isaacs speaks about filming The White Lotus in Thailand and discusses the uniqueness of all living together while filming saying: “We were there for seven months. The cast, crew, admin all in these gigantic beautiful resorts. All there breakfast, lunch and supper. You’d normally have an apartment or a house. We got to know each other very well. The people in my family, my screen kids, I fell madly in love with.”
He adds: “You do see people all the time. Some people didn’t leave the hotel, some didn’t leave their room… There were some weird people. Never appeared socially. What happened in Thailand stays in Thailand.”
Not sharing who he was talking about Jason says: “It might not be a member of the cast.”
Discussing the creator, Jason says: “Mike White is a phenomenal human being. No one credits him being the amazing director he is. You’re free to improvise and go off piste. He laughs, shouts out the most insane things for you to try. We all fold in like an improv troupe. A lot of it ends up in the show.”
He adds: “It’s very intense. The experience of living in Thailand. My character is miserable, suicidal, gets his entire personality removed.”
Rebel adds: “I liked the stripping down bit…”
Jason, who has said he doesn’t like talking about it, admits: “The show is so fabulous, seems a bit odd to talk about my d*** the whole time…”
Jason goes on to discuss his upcoming film, The Salt Path: “They’re amazing people. It’s a true life story. It’s such a privilege to play them. The mystery, miracle of his [Moth Winn] condition.”
Comparing the South West Coast Path itself to his time spent on beaches in Thailand Jason says: “That coast [in the UK] is better - it’s amazing.”
Talking about Harry Potter Jason says kids don’t really recognise him: “They don’t really recognise me, I rarely walk around with an elf.”
Nodding to the upcoming TV series, he adds: “Soon I’ll be passing the torch on. Fantastic actors being cast. It’s going to be great and it [being recognised] won’t happen anymore.”
Asked who he’d like to take on his role, Jason says: “Danny Dyer?”
Rebel Wilson talks about being newly married: “My sister has a side hustle as a wedding celebrant. The show wedding was in Italy and then we got legally married in Australia. My sister, she had a busy week, she married me and then she married my mum the next day. We didn’t pay her, she’s really upset about that.”
Rebel also talks about her daughter: “Her name is Royce. I probably shouldn't have named her after a British luxury car brand, she’s a bit high maintenance. She’s 2 and a half now. She’s conned me into massaging her feet before she goes to sleep. I was doing it last night for almost an hour. I said, ‘I should have called you Volvo.’ I don’t know why I got suckered into that.”
Rebel admits she struggled to be taken seriously in Shakespeare plays when starting out in acting, but now has a role in a brand new spin on Romeo & Juliet, entitled Juliet & Romeo. She explains of the film: “They’ve flipped it a little bit. If you love the classic story you’ve got that… [but with a] kind of a different ending. In the original they die in the end… they may or may not live at the end… it’s a pop musical take on Romeo & Juliet.”
Rebel adds: “I’m very serious in this movie, maybe it’ll open up a whole new [world for me]. The songs are so catchy. You’ll be blown away by the songs.”
Speaking about hosting the 2020 Oscars Rebel wryly says: “I was in a hit movie, Cats… so they said, ‘Would you like to present but you have to dress as a cat?’ I had a dressing room backstage at the Oscars. That’s the place to have it. Brad Pitt had just won his Oscar. He was so gorgeous and he was holding his Oscar. He needed a moment. I said, ‘I’ve got to get dressed as a cat, do you want to come with me?’ He said, ‘Yes, do you want me to escort you to his dressing room?’ He just needed a moment… He just came with me to my dressing room for me to get transformed into a cat.”
Rebel adds of the film: “I saw a version without any CGI cat effects… I found that version way better than the one they put in the cinema. They should release the one of us in the tight body suits. At least I got to go to the Oscars as a cat.”
David Oyelowo reveals his mum never understood that when he was acting it wasn’t real: “I did a play called A Taste of Honey… In the play, at one point - and I’d just got married in real life to my wife - my parents came and sat in the front row, dressed head to toe in Nigerian regalia and at one point I have to kiss the girl. I’m kissing her and I hear, ‘Put her down! Put her down!’
“After the play she’s at the stage door, saying, ‘Do you know you are married?’ [I’m saying] ‘Yes, and my wife was in the audience, she knows!’”
He adds: “Dying was another thing. She came to see me in a film, Jack Reacher, big premiere, Tom Cruise… magnificent, literally my parents, I walk out, I see them, she’s chatting to Tom Cruise and she says: ‘Why didn’t you tell me you died? I did not like this film… my son died!’ [I’m saying] ‘I’m literally stood here!’”
Speaking about his new show Government Cheese, David says it meant he had to face his fear of snakes while filming: “I have an apoplectic phobia of snakes… We were going for a take, the camera woman suddenly jumps out of her skin and says ‘Snake, snake, snake…’ snake wrangler runs in, pulls a giant snake out of the grass. Everything in me is going ‘Get out, get out, get out’ and they are like, ‘OK, lights, roll…’. They picked up about three snakes a day. They were venomous. Some were rattlesnakes.”
Sophie Willan chats to Jonathan about winning two Baftas for comedy series Alma’s Not Normal saying: “We were filming the series. The first Bafta was for the pilot. I wasn’t expecting it.”
Due to Covid the ceremony was remote, and Sophie is seen in a video running around the streets yelling she’d won a Bafta: “I woke them all up. [They thought something was wrong so I had to say] ‘I’ve just won a Bafta.’ I screamed at the tractor at one point.”
Sophie says of the series: “In Bolton they love it. That’s quite nice that they don’t feel annoyed by it.”
Sophie further jokes: “We’ve got [The White Lotus star] Aimee Lou Wood repping Northern women. I’m hoping she’s going to be the gateway. I love her.”
At the end of the show Wet Leg perform.
Written by TomSouthwell on Apr 18, 2025