“Monty Python” Star Michael Palin Reflects on His Career

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Where did you first get the urge to perform, to make people laugh, when did you first kind of know in your bones that this might be something you’re good at?

MICHAEL PALIN, ACTOR AND COMEDIAN: I think it happens very early on. I mean, I always knew I was curious and wanted to go to places where other people say, well, I don’t know. Let’s not go that far. But I wanted to go there. So, that was, I think, the traveling thing. I think it was also a feeling that I kind of saw the world very often a little step back from my friends. I’ve enjoyed being teams of sport and all of that, but I was — I enjoyed looking at the world from the outside. And I think that was part of the performing thing. I was able to, you know, mimic the masters at school, which is where a lot of things happen. So, I made people laugh quite easily. I could just do a voice and this is wonderful. I’ve always felt myself comfortable with being the observer, looking at the madness of the world that we’re all in.

AMANPOUR: I mean, I’ve read that your dad was a — you know, a bit sort of harsh, had a stammer, wasn’t particularly encouraging.

PALIN: Well, you know, my father, his stammer was, I think, the real problem throughout his life. And he never — he was never able to deal with it. And so, that made him very, you know, techy and he would get, you know, quite sharp sometimes. But he had a sense of humor. And obviously, he loved — you know, and having your son around. But my mom was really the great influence, if you like. She would just sort of feet on the ground, nothing fazed her at all, despite all, you know, the things she had been through.

AMANPOUR: And she liked the idea that her young son was going to be an actor or a performer or a writer?

PALIN: Yes, she was happy with it. My father wasn’t at all. My father was deeply concerned that I might end up in the acting profession. So, he was not keen for me to act. My mother on the other hand was very happy. I used to — when he was out of an evening, when I was quite young, I would read her sort of chunks of Shakespeare of me playing all the parts. Can you imagine that? She had to be a wonderful mom to listen to all this going on.

AMANPOUR: And she was your audience? You’d do it for her?

PALIN: She was the audience, yes. Well, I think so. She may have nodded off a bit. But what I can remember later was when we did the “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” my mother was a keen churchgoer, but she defended absolutely our right to do “The Life of Brian.” Because I told her, it’s not about Jesus. Jesus is not Brian. It’s about the church, it’s about some people just accepting what — doing what they’re told. And she would take people on in that little place where she was living once she retired. She wouldn’t — you know, despite her religious background, she would say, no, nothing’s wrong with this, it’s all about the intolerance of the church. And people would go, yes, Mrs. Palin.