John Cleese admits he can’t even “begin to understand contemporary society”.
The beloved 75-year-old comedian had his heyday in the Seventies and Eighties with the Monty Python series and films including 1988 release A Fish Called Wanda.
When it comes to modern technology and communicating with people via social media over the Internet, John hasn’t a clue as to proceed with such things.
“I don’t begin to understand contemporary society. Nobody has yet been able to explain Facebook to me,” he admitted during a Tribeca Film Festival news conference on Friday, according to Page Six. “I just don’t know why anybody would do it and that’s quite scary because you’ve got to be in some sort of touch with your audience… If you don’t understand your audience, the best thing to do is get out.”
John appeared at the festival to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his comedy classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, alongside castmates Eric Idle, 72, Terry Jones, 73, Terry Gilliam, 74, and Michael Palin, 71.
The five men make up the surviving members of the 1975 feature’s cast.
An audience member asked the group what they think about rumours circulating through the British press that they dislike each other.
And John responded by calling out one newspaper in general.
“I think it’s because something like the Daily Mail, which is my pet hate, it operates on trying to make people anxious and slightly depressed because that’s how they sell more copies,” he noted, before referencing a scathing review published by the Daily Mail in July 2014 about their Monty Python Live (Mostly) show at London’s O2 Arena. “When it actually came out, it was a huge success. They pretended it had got mixed reviews because they don’t want people to be happy. We made a lot of people happy and they made us happy. We went out and had a good time … and at the end of it, I thought that was marvelous and of course that’s not going to sell. So, the Daily Mail tried to spoil it by pretending it hadn’t been a success and it’s kind of sick.”
