“Sydney, ich vill play your shvantzes like didgeridoos!”

First came Ali G, then Borat. Now, fashionably late, welcome Brüno – star of the most
outrageous movie of the year. In a world exclusive interview to celebrate Brüno's visit this month, Time Out Sydney asked international and local celebrities to come up with the

questions. Here are the answers our lawyers allowed us to print. Compiled by Dan Rookwood

Scarlett Johansson asks: Brüno, how long does it take you to get ready in the morning? It can take a vhile deciding vhat to wear. Once ich took five hours choosing vhich of my little dogs vent best vith my shirt. In ze end zey vere taking up so much time, I had zem put down.

Miranda Kerr asks: Who is your favourite fashion designer in the world and why? Ich cannot say because all ze others vill kill themselves, und ich don’t vant zere blood on mein hands. Unless zat is zis week’s look.

Wayne Coper asks: Why are the best designers in the world all men? Ze same reason zat men give ze best blowjobs – practice.

Nicole Richie asks: Who is more talented – Dolce or Gabbana? Ich could not choose. It is like choosing between Paris Hilton und Kim Kardashian.

Kim Kardashian asks: Since you’re always on TV, what are your beauty tips to keep you looking so good? Ich put ein pillow in front of ze toilet und sing ‘Bulimian Rhapsody’.

The Chaser's Chris Taylor asks: Which Sex and the City character are you most like and why? Ich am most like Carrie because she has ein man’s face.

Australia's Next Top Model presenter Jonathan Pease asks: You meet Karl Lagerfeld at a party – what is the first thing you ask him? Ich vould say “Ve are so similar – you have hair like a pony, und ich am hung like ein horse!” 

Mischa Barton asks: Yourself aside, who is the most fashionable person in the world and why? Ze Pope. Because he just keeps going vith his own look.

Model agency diva Janice Dickinson asks: Who is the world's hottest model? It vould be Tiger Voods. He looks great in all his golfing outfits, und on top of zat he’s President of America!

Jerry Springer asks: Which religion is the most fashionable? Ich vas going to say Buddhism, but ich could not support ein religion zat encourages over-eating. Zere Pope, Buddha, is so fat he can only vear underpants.

CELEBRITY HAIRDRE SSER BRAD NGATA ASKS: Blonde mohawk to floppy highlights – where is your hair going next? Predicting vhat ich vill do vith mein hair is like trying to predict ze weather. It cannot be done.

Wil Anderson asks: I am going to Austria next month. What key German phrases should I try out? “Ich wollen du bleachen mein arschenhaller.”



UK designer Sir Paul Smith asks: Who is your style icon? Ich am always inspired by amazing people. Like vhen Princess Diana visited zose African children vith ze landmines. Ich vas inspired to be as thin as zem.

SIXTIEs supermodel Twiggy asks: What will be the hot look of 2010 in your opinion? Ich vould like to be vearing ze thighs of ein young Brad Pitt clone.

Former British heavyweight box er Frank Bruno asks: Which Bruno would win a fight – me or you? Me. Ich hast fought harder over belts zan you ever did!

The Chaser's Julian Morrow asks: Has your neo-post-uber-crypto-retro personal fashion philosophy ever landed you in trouble with the authorities? Ich had ein problem at customs in New York vhen ich was going through a phase ich called “Taliban Chic”.

Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada, asks: How do you cope with a bad hair day? Ich don’t know. Ich have never had one.

The Office's Rainn Wilson asks: What colour is Tuesday? Vell Tuesday is mein colonic day, so for me it’s every colour of ze rainbow!

Perez Hilton asks: You called your baby OJ. What other names were in the running? Pimp Baby. Ebony Spirit. Nubian.

Justin Hemmes, owner of ivy, asks: If you ran a club, what would the dress code be? Ich don’t care vhat people vear as long as zey are famous. So in Sydney, zat’s a pretty empty club.

HEIDI MIDLETON, CO-CREATOR OF SASS & BIDE, ASKS: What are you wearing right now? Ich am wearing only ze sweat of ze Filippino who came in to clean mein room.

Dita Von Teese asks: To what lengths would you go to get into a hot party? Ich hid in ein discoball und rolled my vay up a disabled ramp into ein pool party vhere ich nearly drowned.

NOVA 969’s Roso asks: Imagine Lindsay Lohan asks you for a date. What do you say? “Nein, you hast ein vaginen like ze waste bin at ein Chinese restaurant.”

RUSSEL BRAND asks: What do you look for in a pair of underpants? Ze usual – cocken, ballen, arschen, luben.

BOB DOWNE asks: How do you fend off a man with two dildos? Unless you have two arschenhallers, it ist going to get ugly. Joan Rivers asks: Who the hell is Brüno? Who is Brüno? Zat is fine coming from you. You’ve had so much surgery ze question should be: "Vhat is Joan Rivers?" MTV VJ Ruby Rose asks: What message do you have for the people of Sydney? Brüno will be in town, come und vorship at mein big gay church! Ich vill play your shvantzes like didgeridoos!
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Russell Brand - the full interview

Incorrigible raconteur. Disreputable bon viveur. Inexhaustible shaggeur. Russell Brand is the unashamed star of UK stand-up comedy, Hollywood movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and one of the biggest scandals in the history of the BBC. On the eve of his Sydney shows, he speaks exclusively to Time Out Sydney's Dan Rookwood

By Dan Rookwood.


Did you know your Enmore Theatre show sold out in 30 minutes here? I'm really proud and pleased that I can develop a following in another hemisphere, because stand-up comedy is more important to me than life. More important than eating, sleeping. I get a lot of interesting requests and comments on social networking sites from the people of Australia, some of which I'm very much looking forward to following up.

You've been to Sydney fairly recently, haven't you? Was that just a holiday? I came out to Sydney towards the end of last year and had an amazing time. I was only there for two days but it was terrific. A beautiful, clean, expansive blue-skied place. Yeah, I popped over for a few days because I was seeing an Australian woman, the ever lovely, beautiful Teresa Palmer [with whom Brand co-starred in Bedtime Stories].

What happened there? Nothing, really. I still adore her.

Do you have to change your act much when you take it to different countries? Yes, Dan, but good comedy is universal, that's why great comedians have international appeal, generally speaking. If what you're doing is incredibly parochial, it's difficult to succeed, but one has to temper the language, the references and learn where certain things have to be given more exposition.

Do you still struggle to get through customs these days? Yes. I get stopped quite a lot. Even though I've not taken drugs or had a drink and haven't been arrested for over six years now, I think I still have a gait and manner of a man who might be about to do something illegal.

Did you really travel with drugs up your arse? Yes, Dan, it's a necessity as a drug addict. It's more important than your wash bag really. There's no sense going away without drugs if you're a drug addict because it's not a holiday. It doesn't matter how nice a place you go to, you will still be shivering on the beach. I know you can get drugs on holiday but as an addict you need them as soon as you get off the plane, so you can't muck about.

When was the last time you were body searched? Seven years ago, when I was thrown off a plane in Barcelona for causing a ruckus. Not full cavity, thankfully, otherwise they would have found I was carrying heroin and marijuana. I generally travelled with drugs up my arse in the belief that if customs officers decided to pursue this unsavoury line of inquiry, my day would already be ruined, and the discovery of crack or heroin couldn't make it much worse.

When was the last time you were arrested? May Day 2001 when I stripped naked at an anti-globalisation protest. I've not been arrested or had any confrontation with the police since I've been off drugs. Obviously, not a coincidence.

You've been sacked in pretty dramatic fashion from most of your previous jobs haven't you? [See 'Brand on the Run' panel.] Perhaps most notably when you turned up to work at MTV the day after 9/11 dressed as Osama bin Laden and introduced your heroin dealer, Gritty, and his eight-year-old son to our own Kylie Minogue. Kylie was our guest on the show that day. Me, Gritty and his son Edwin went into the toilet and the two older members of our party smoked some crack. Edwin didn't have any. He was just a little boy and seemed quite upbeat about life. Children don't need drugs because they have sweets. We blearily swaggered out of the disabled toilet and on the other side of the foyer I saw Kylie, all famous and everything. Before I knew it, I'd walked across the foyer, made a kind of "wooh-ooh" noise – in a mum-across-a-neighbour's-fence sort of way – and said: "Kylie, meet Gritty". And there's me standing beside them, dressed as Osama bin Laden. I thought: 'It don't get much better than this.' And it didn't, 'cos they sacked me about two days later.

Kylie is royalty here. To Aussies, that was ruder than Paul Keating goosing the Queen. I would argue with that. There is no way that any transgression toward Kylie Minogue could equal what Paul Keating did to Her Majesty. What he did to our queen that day – he might as well have took a five pound note and rubbed it round the rim of his helmet.

Have you seen Kylie since? No, I've not seen dear, beloved Kylie. The last time I saw her, I was dressed like Osama bin Laden and I was introducing her to a crack and heroin dealer. That might be why it's the last time I saw her. She might be seriously avoiding me.

Just last year you resigned from your BBC Radio 2 show after broadcasting messages you left on Andrew Sachs' voicemail [the actor who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers] apologising for having sex with his granddaughter. Thirty thousand complaints and condemnation from the prime minister. Nice work. Some commentators said it was the biggest UK media story since the death of Diana. Certainly in terms of newspaper inches - if that is any way to judge anything other than the size of your willy or someone's orbs - it certainly was big.

You apologised to Sachs, but have you spoken to his granddaughter since? No. I can't envisage circumstances where that would be required.

All these scandals don't seem to have held you back. It all just seems to have made you more famous. Yes, that's fair. If people want to sack me, they should be prepared for the consequences. Really, I'm a good person, I care deeply about people, I'm just motivated by a peculiar cocktail of love and vanity.

Given that you haven't been able to hold down a single job until recently, it's pretty impressive that you now have several on the go. Are you making up for lost time? Yeah, very much. I've got to do all of it, because I was unemployed and unemployable for such a significant portion of my life. I'm trying to make up for eight to ten years.

You were bulimic and into self-harm as teenager. Have you ever been diagnosed with any mental illnesses? Yes, depression and manic depression and more latterly, bipolar. Attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity. It's difficult to know which of those diagnoses are correct because most of the time I was very young and on drugs.

Are you happier these days – or is it still up and down?
Yes, much happier. This is the closest I have got to feeling fulfilled.

Your past drug addictions are well documented. Mainly by you in your autobiography, My Booky Wook. Are you still an addict? I would never, ever be arrogant enough to say that addiction has been conquered, I just don't take drugs anymore or drink, one day at a time. Hopefully it can go into a form of remission if one pursues a programme of recovery but I think addiction is a life-long condition.

How long have you been clean for now from both drink and drugs? Six years and two months.

Do you still get the urge to take drugs? Sometimes. When you finish work late or you've just done a gig and you think "What am I going to do now? Go to bed? That's when I miss it. You feel like you need an experience, some sort of punctuation: an orgasm, an epiphany, something.

How do you manage to control that addiction now? With some sort of transient erotic experience that's both consensual and blissful and conveys nothing but glory to the participants.

You're doing a million different things all at once. Is this indicative of an addictive personality? Yes, I think it probably is an indication. I think it's very difficult not to transfer whatever proclivity that leads a person into addiction into other areas of life: romantic life, professional life or even domestic life. Sometimes I've acted like a man possessed.

Is your ambition stronger than your addictions? Yes, it certainly is, Dan. I finally gave up drink and drugs because my ambition is the most powerful force within me. So once people convinced me that behaviour might become damaging to my career, I found it easier to think of it as a flaw that needed to be remedied. I'm keen to align my ambition with activities and projects that are valuable beyond self-fulfilment, because otherwise my life would be about shallow acquisitions of accolades and tin baubles when I could make it the happiness and fulfilment of huge numbers of people with just a tiny adjustment.

Talking of the fulfilment of huge numbers of people, your sex life is also well documented. Mainly by the tabloids. Are you a sex addict? I don't know. I think I have problems with addiction as we just discussed a moment ago, and this can be transferred to most areas of my life if I'm not cautious but you know, I don't like to undermine the experiences I have by putting that tag on it. I don't think it's helpful if I imply that everything I do is regrettable in an area. Frankly it isn't. A lot of it is bloody brilliant and lovely.

When was the last time you had sex? Well, yesterday.

Do you have a girlfriend at the moment? No.

Why not? I think it is because of the momentum of my work, because I'm obsessed and devoted to my work and because I'm still not ready to commit emotionally to one person and that I don't want to put myself in the position where I have to lie to someone because I'm not ready to stop sleeping with different people... I'm not ready to make that sort of monogamous commitment. But a lot of my friends have kids now and I really love their children and I love hanging around with their children and playing with their children. And I think it would be amazing to have that kind of relationship.

So you do want to be a father one day? Very much, yeah. But given my own family history, I don't want to do that now.

You've had an interesting relationship with your own father... He did his best, groping through fatherhood without a template.

But he took you on holiday to sleep with prostitutes in South-East Asia when you were 17!
On the plane on the way home he said: "I went away with a boy and came back with a man." Some of the attributes of a man included 'I have now had a prostitute stick her finger up my arse while sucking my cock.'

You've been named The Sun newspaper's Shagger of the Year three years running – to the point they named the award after you. How do you feel about that? This shagging I'm doing is truly worthwhile and obviously world class – like when my football team West Ham retired Bobby Moore's number 6 shirt. To have the Shagger of the Year award named after me is quite an accolade – just to know subsequent shaggers who take on that mantle will always, always just have to bask in the glint of glory afforded by my enormous obstructive shadow.

How many women have you shagged then? I never, ever am going to say a number ever again in response to that question and any journalist that puts it to me will receive instead this boring speech that you are about to receive: I love and cherish all the people that are involved in my life and I would never denigrate them by reducing them to statistic on a government chart. The truth is, I just don't know, but whoever I'm with is the only person in the world. Unless there's more than one of them, and then they're the only group of people in the world.

Come on, how many in an average month? I've never had an average month. If I had my whole month that was average, I'd kill myself. I'm only interested in extreme experiences.

Is it almost too easy to seduce women now that you are famous? Well, if people sort of already know you, you don't have to do so much of the getting-to-know-you quiz most people do when they meet each other. I'm just a bloke from Essex with a terrific haircut who's been given a Wonka ticket to a lovely sex factory because of the ol' fame. I love it when I meet a woman and her sexuality is dancing across her face so it's apparent that all we need to do is nod and find a cupboard.

You say that sex is the one physical pursuit you are good at... Well, it's chemistry innit? It's not like it's table tennis or anything. I think sex, when there's a chemical connection between people, I think it can be supernatural. That's why I think it's appealing: it doesn't have to be gruntin', snarlin', curl-lipped warthogs. It can become transcendental, truly a union through the physical which is beyond the physical. You say I'm good at sex like as if I could do a video of sex moves. Although now I say that out loud – Russell Brand's Sex Moves Video – me in a leotard and a sweatband on with an erection poking through my lime green tights is what the world needs now.

What's the most ridiculous rumour you've ever read about yourself? There's loads. That I was caught waving a sword around in the London Underground, knighting homeless people with a sword. That was a favourite. A lot of them involve swords, strangely. I haven't even got a sword.

You're famed for your style. I know this is normally a question heavy breathers ask women on a sex line, but what are you wearing right now? Well, I'm having my hair done at the moment, so I've got a cape on and a towel around my shoulders, nice tight-fitting J Lindeberg jeans, a rather thick faded brown leather belt, a J Lindeberg sheer t-shirt, Stephen Webster rings on both my index fingers and a Stephen Webster crossed hammers emblem of West Ham United and I've got my hair slicked back with a conditioner in it.

Are you at your house at the moment? I am. Yes, just with the lady who does my hair and makeup and her friend who cuts my hair. I'm just walking in the bathroom to do a bit of wee out of my award-winning penis.

What are you doing with the hair these days? Still a bird's nest up top? In my normal life I don't bother to do anything to it. I just leave it as it is to do what it wants. But when I do shows I back-comb it into a ludicrous, follicular mist so it forms a nice silhouette, a nice halo.

How would you describe your style? I'm an intergalactic bejewelled pirate, a spindly sex stick, a he-witch scarecrow dressed by Dior.

You wear a lot of black. Does this reflect your inner personality? You know the Morrissey lyric: "I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside". I am very fond of that. But I think it's simply because it's easier to get dressed.

What with your quasi-camp persona and foppish appearance, people might look at you and assume you're gay. But you once masturbated a man to prove conclusively that you are not, didn't you? I did do that whilst on crack and heroin, Dan. Whilst on crack and heroin I did a lot of things as part of a TV programme. I didn't do it out of my own curiosity. Jackass was a big deal at the time and I was charged with promoting that in UK so I decided to do more of a psychological Jackass where I'd do stunts of a more cerebral nature. So I went to live with Nazis to see if I could change them, I went to live with a prostitute to see if I could make her fall in love with me and then see what it was like to have sex with a prostitute if you knew her. And I did wank off a man to see if your innate heterosexuality can be overcome by committing a homosexual act. It can't, incidentally. I also tried to seduce a little old lady and had a bath with a homeless man. It was a funny couple of months. I'm curious about the fringes of psychological experience.

You don't have to bathe with homeless people anymore, now that you are a Hollywood star. I'm in the fortunate position of being able to do things that I really want to, which means primarily concentrating on stand up comedy, movies, writing and doing less television. I've finished filming The Tempest. I am making a documentary on enlightenment with Oliver Stone and Albert Maysles. Then I am working with Judd Apatow and Jonah Hill on Get Him to the Greek in which I reprise my character Aldous Snow from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It's a buddy movie. Then I'm remaking the film Arthur, the Oscar-winning Dudley Moore film with myself in the title role. I am execuitive producing that and am involved in the writing and casting of that currently. That's being written by Peter Baynham who co-wrote Borat. And I'm writing the second part of my autobiography - My Booky Wook 2: This Time It's Personal. So that's the next year...

Do you think you have broken America now? I think it was broken when I got there. I'm going to fix it.

After calling George W Bush a "retard cowboy fella" at last year's MTV Awards, are you going to be hosting any more awards ceremonies? Yes, but I am not at liberty to say what. The one that is the most obvious thing you can imagine – that's what will happen.

The Oscars? I will present the Oscars one day.

Do you think you're capable of winning an Oscar one day? Yes. I would like to think so, otherwise there is no point acting. If people are giving out Oscars for acting and I'm doing acting I sort of think well, I'd like one.

So you're basically becoming a global Brand? It's worth striving for the extremity, Dan, for all of us know mediocrity in some form in our own lives. I don't think there's any limit to anything really. Except time.

One man Brand
Russell Brand performs his show Scandalous at the Enmore Theatre on 17 March and the Hordern Pavilion on 18 March. His autobiography, My Booky Wook, is out now; his stand-up DVD, Doing Life Live, will be released here on 5 March; and his Ponderland show will be shown on Seven later in the year.

Brand on Time Out
"Time Out was like a Bible for me as a new stand-up comedian, finding the tiny little pubs where you'd perform in front of 20 or 30 people, none of whom would be listening. I was 23 when I first did stand up, and in only my fifth stand-up gig ever I was in the finals for the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year. At that time I was properly a junkie, properly mental. Although I didn't get first, second or third place, Malcolm Hay, the Time Out London comedy critic, dedicated most of his review to my performance and compared me to Bill Hicks and really gave me hope that stand-up comedy could be a route worth pursuing. It really inspired me and it fairly contributed to my subsequent success and because of Malcolm I got the best stand-up award from Time Out in 2006 so I have a predisposition to like you and your publication."

Brand on the run: notes on a scandal
1999: Pretends to have AIDS to explain away an unauthorised holiday while working at a language school
2001: Gets sacked from MTV for introducing his drug dealer to Kylie Minogue while dressed as Osama bin Laden, the day after 9/11
2002: Makes cable TV show Re:Brand, in which he masturbates a man on camera, lives with a prostitute and a Nazi, tries to seduce an 81-year-old woman, and has a bath with a homeless man. Check it out on YouTube
2002: Gets sacked from Xfm radio for bringing a homeless man in to answer readers' letters that he would read out on air from a pornographic newspaper
2002: Gets sacked from Steve Coogan film Cruise of the Gods for using prostitutes and trying to coerce the cast into doing the same
2002: Gets arrested for the 11th time - on this occasion for stripping naked at an anti-globalisation protest
2002: Risks leg amputation when thrown through a glass door at the Edinburgh Festival after a gig turns sour.
2002: Checks into rehab for drinks and drugs
2005: Check into rehab (or "winky-nick") for sex addiction
2008: Calls George W Bush "that retard cowboy fella" at the MTV Awards
2008: Resigns from BBC Radio 2 after 'Sachsgate' receives 30,000 complaints and a rebuke from PM Gordon Brown


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Soprano solo

Why The Sopranos is the best TV series ever made.

I wish I’d never watched an episode of The Sopranos. Because then I’d have 100 hours of the best TV ever made to look forward to. As it is, I am facing the end of an intense eight-year relationship. This week, the final episodes of The Sopranos come out on DVD. It’s one final big ‘hit’ before, like Christopher Moltisanti, I embark on my own 12-step recovery programme. It is time to break the code of Omertà: My name is Dan and I am a Sopranos addict.

The Sopranos is like the best film you’ve ever seen, only better because it lasts for 86 hardboiled episodes. In scope and style, in the classy quality of writing and acting and editing, in the sharpness of humour and violence, it is the most original and powerful TV drama ever made. That is not a glib generalisation, it is an objective fact. It has constantly and consistently sprouted ever-more compelling plotlines and developing recurring jokes, themes and characters to reward the addict without ostracising the first-timer.

In Tony Soprano, it has the ultimate anti-hero. He’s the head of the two pivotal New Jersey families: the don of a mafia business he runs from the back of his Bada Bing! strip club, and the father of his long-suffering wife Carmela’s two kids, Meadow and AJ. He is palpably human and vulnerable with clear failings as a father, as a husband, as a boss, as a man. He’s a murdering, philandering, corrupt brute. And yet… and yet you cannot help but love him.

As a leader, he is universally respected, even by his enemies. And with good reason. He’s a bad man with a keen sense of what is right; at once unscrupulous but heavily principled. Those in his sphere of considerable influence live their life according to his warped moral code. “What would Tony do?” He makes judgments with the Wisdom of Solomon, the ultimate wiseguy.

Creator David Chase and his team of writers have developed characters to an unparalleled degree, evolving in the manner of a sprawling, multi-layered social novel. We’ve seen Tony gain weight and lose hair, we’ve kept vigil at his deathbed and sat in on sessions with his shrink Dr Melfi. Like Carmela, we’ve turned a blind eye to his voracious appetite for extra-marital goomahs. We’ve seen relationships grow, disintegrate and sometimes repair; kids grow up, parents die off; cancer scares, drug addictions, depression; problems and threats subside and reappear. And we’ve seen every conceivable hue of teal pantsuit from Carmela, every hilarious Italianate hand gesture from the silver-winged Paulie Walnuts – “Madonn!” And has any man ever communicated so much through different gradations of downturned mouth than the always-dapper Silvio?

We’ve formed real attachments to all these characters, knowing from bitter experience that the writers have no room sentiment. They can kill it off with a .38, savagely club it to death with a pool cue, God forbid. And now, they’ve killed off the entire series. With this final box-set, it’s all over. Bada-bang!

It is fair to say that here at Time Out Towers, we have been counting down the days to this release like a jailbird Mafioso – but we’ve done our time fair and square. We’ve studiously steered clear of any plot spoilers, avoiding any articles written about it, sticking fingers in our eyes and la-la-lahing whenever anyone who impatiently downloaded the final episodes began talking about it.

We’ve been hungry for it, like a dressing gown-clad Tony, bathed in the light of his vast refrigerator as he burrows inside for leftover gabagool. When the DVD company sent us a review copy, three of us stayed late on a Friday night, waiting for the courier to deliver it. When it finally arrived, we played paper-scissor-stone for first dibs. I won.

Couldn’t we all watch it in the office? No, that wouldn’t do. It would be like drinking a fine wine from a plastic cup. It would be disrespectful. We have developed Sopranos rules and routine at home. My girlfriend and I have watched every episode together. We have to watch the opening credits in full and I sing along: “Woke up this morning, got myself a gun…” Afterwards, we dissect the episode. And I swagger and swear a lot in cod Noo Joy-sey. Whaddya gonna do?

I don’t know what I’m going to do now. Find a new box-set, I suppose. But I haven’t quite reached the final denouement of The Sopranos yet. I’m making it last, savouring ever last drop. All due respect.
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