We are Elijah Wood and Samuel Barnett from the BBC America series Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Ask Us Anything.

How have birds negatively affected your life?

Sam: I have been pooped on, several times, by seagulls. Not only in my hometown of Whitby, where I grew up, but also very recently in London. They have seagulls in London and they always shit on me.

Have you got the couch unstuck?

Elijah: Okay, so here's the thing. This I only know from having worked on the show and there being a fair amount of discussion of the books and elements of the books, that may or may not be in the context of the show we were making. I actually met somebody who had that very same question for me. They said "are you doing the thing where your couch gets stuck in the hallway of your apartment building? Is that where it is?"

I was like "I don't know what you're talking about..."

They were like "ya know, from the book."

Oh right! So no, that couch doesn't actually feature...or even that scenario, doesn't happen in the context of the show. I feel like there was an early draft where they did put it in there.

Sam: The couch thing...I remember the same. I remember there was a version, where there was something to do with the couch. In the books it is a brilliant thing that max probably would have come up with because in the books this couch gets stuck and they try to work out, they even created computer models to work out how and you can't. Even the computer goes, it’s physically impossible how this couch got into this position in the first place, so getting it out is impossible. You find out during the mystery, how it got there in the first place, it's quite cool!

Elijah: Did the building...shrink?

Sam: I believe there was a time machine that opened a door. There was a door in the hallway in the wall earlier on, which was there because the time machine was used. A doorway appears in the hallway because of the use of the time machine. The guys back the couch into the doorway that wasn't there in the hallway to turn it around and get it upstairs.

Will you be returning to the Harry Potter series like several recent articles have suggested?

Elijah: …Yes. And, I will be playing a new character that has not made it to the books as of yet, but has been referenced in slightly obscure ways, which is the long lost brother of Harry Potter: Jerry Potter.

Elijah, will you ever forgive me for the pic below...?

http://i.imgur.com/PwHkNoq.jpg

Elijah: I will not only forgive you, I will applaud you, sir. That’s really fantastic. That’s a real thing, this really happened. I was, I met this girl at a signing, it was a Comic Con kind of convention, and I gave her a hug and I did rest my face into her breasts.

Sam: Why? Why did you do that!

Elijah: I just hugged her and I just went down and her boob was right there.

Sam: Oh god!

Elijah: And, you know, it’s a natural thing that a head does when the boob is present.

Sam: Sure, sure.

Elijah: Can’t help it.

Sam: I know.

Elijah: But, to put Sam and Frodo into the photo is genius, so, my applause to you, sir.

If you could ask Douglas Adams 1 question about the characters you guys are playing, what would it be?

Elijah: Sam, correct me if I’m wrong, but my character is not in the books.

Sam He’s not.

Elijah: So I have no questions about my character.

Sam: I have so many questions about my character. I actually don’t know where to begin. I would ask Douglas Adams about Dirk’s relationship history and, you know, is he gay? Is he straight? Is he all things? No things? Asexual? Because that has not been tackled.

Elijah: There we go.

Elijah, you will now be involved in two projects that stem from the works of my two favourite writers, Tolkien and Adams. I'm also a big fan of your work on the LoTR movies.

My question is: If you had to choose between living in the Shire and being an interstellar Hitchhiker, what would you choose?

Samuel, if you could choose to play any character from the Lord of the Rings, who would it be and why?

Thanks to both of you for doing this.

Elijah: Oh I'd live in The Shire. There's nothing more cozy and comforting than that environment, the comfort of a hobbit hole, the roundness of the ceilings, the warmth of the hearth, good friends, good food, delicious beer. It's a lifestyle that is extremely hygge, it's the Danish word for cozy, it sort of means a lot of things but cozy is the easiest word to extrapolate from it.

Sam: What is Cate Blanchett's character called? Galadriel, hands down Galadriel. Great character, she's not necessarily good-

Elijah: -but she also does ultimately have guidelines that guide her more because the elves are quite selfish.

Sam: Ah yes, I want to be an elf! I love the elves, you go "oh I'm a little unsure of you, are you good? are you.. not good? Where do you stand?" and they are very selfish. They've also got that magic stuff going on, that real deep magic. They're connected to everything, to the stars, to the earth, to everything. I love the elves! I want to be Cate Blanchett!

Elijah: who doesn't?

Hi! Elijah, how many times a week do you get mistaken for Daniel Radcliffe? :)

Elijah: Hi. Relatively, I mean, almost once a week? I mean, this is if I’m like, out in the world a lot and taking into account anyone recognizing me for anything. I would say it’s like, 70-30 in regards to people recognizing me than recognizing me as Daniel Radcliffe. So, common. It’s pretty common

Sam: That’s really common.

Elijah: It’s pretty common.

Hey there Elijah,

While filming Wilfred, did you see him as a human in a dog costume or could you actually make yourself believe he was a dog to help get into the role?

Elijah: That's a very good question. I always saw him...as a man in a dog suit. But I think my character was somewhat aware that it was a figment of his imagination or that it was somewhat internalized. He was very clued into the fact that no-one else could see him but that everyone else did see a dog. He knew that there was a dog there but that for him Wilfred existed and he didn't exist to anyone else. To get deeper into it, I don't think I believed that Wilfred was a magical creature. I think Wilfred thinks that he is a magical creature that has existed for centuries. I think my character did not believes that, and I don't believe that. I see him as an extension of myself.

Hello Samuel and Elijah. How much of Douglas Adams's writings had you been exposed to prior to taking on this series?

If you had prior experience what is your favorite of his works and why?

Thanks. I cannot wait to watch you both.

Elijah: I have no pre existing relationship to Douglas Adams. Growing up my brother read Douglas Adams in school. He read "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" and "So Long, Thanks for All the Fish." I was aware of him through my brother loving his books but I never read any of them.

Sam: I had read some of the Hitchhiker's books, I hadn't read "Dirk Gently", I'd seen the 70s TV adaptation of Hitchhiker’s. I knew of Douglas Adams because in Britain he was just such a well known character. When I read the Dirk Gently books, my favorite was the third, unfinished one. Not only was it the beginning of a great Dirk Gently story, it's also full of Douglas Adam's writings about life, the universe, and everything, and it's really charming.

how can I watch this show in Canada?

Elijah: Bacon witches! What the fuck is a bacon witch?

Sam: I want a bacon witch and I want one now!

Elijah: Oh, it could be a bacon sandwich, but “baconwich”. I want a fuckin’ baconwich!

Sam: But there must be something different about it though.

Elijah: Is it like the same as a bacon sammie? Which is a very big British thing.

Sam: Well, this is what I’m wondering. Is it a bacon sandwich, or is a baconwich a take on a bacon sandwich that has something particular in it or added to it.

Elijah: Is it a Canadian thing?

Sam: It could be a Canadian thing. Is it like the bread is between the rashes of bacon and—

Elijah: The bacon is the bread.

Sam: Yas! We got it. Could you tell us if that’s right? But you can watch Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency in Canada from December on Netflix and indeed on Netflix’s global territories.

http://imgur.com/yCNKjam

What kind of tea do you like? What kind of cross tea promotions will we see throughout the series? Where can we buy tea at locally?

Sam: I like Chamomile and Spiced Apple tea by Twining’s.

Elijah: A combo. So, it’s Chamomile and spiced apple.

Sam: Yeah, so it’s a combination of the two. It’s delicious.

Elijah: I like Chamomile

Sam: That’s Twining’s. If they, I don’t know, want to send any boxes.

Elijah: I love loose-leaf tea. So, I love, probably my favorite is Lapsang souchong, which is a smoked tea. It’s very earthy and smoky. And I also love Yerba Mate. Yerba Mate is a South American tea, very popular in Argentina and different parts of South America. Often drunk out of a gourd with a metal straw so as to filter out the leaves. Very earthy and grassy.

Sam: Never heard of that.

Elijah: And it’s very high in—

Sam: Antioxidants

Elijah: That, and caffeine.

Sam: Ohh.

Elijah: Super caffeinated.

Sam. Oh, not for me then.

Elijah: Not for you.

Sam: No

Elijah: No. But you can drink white tea. Which as if not more filled with antioxidants than green. So white tea is actually even more strong. So if you have a cold, white tea is the thing to go for or Yerba Mate.

I heard you use to or still do play WoW, is this true?

Elijah: That is not true...I don't love... like massive multiplayer RPGs. It's kind of not my thing in regards to video games. It's wasn't ever a world I jumped into.

Whats the difference between a duck?

Elijah: A duck and what? I duck and a cat? A duck and a mallard?

Sam: Duck and cover?

Elijah: Yeah. Duck or I’ll shoot?

Sam: Duck a l'Orange? What?

Elijah: What?

Sam: What is the difference between a duck? Well, it depends on how close they’re standing together.

Elijah: LOL

Thanks for doing this, guys. Douglas Adams is one of my favorite authors of all time and Dirk Gently's series has been under-appreciated by film/tv.
What was the biggest challenge in bringing Douglas Adams' hilarious verse to film considering it's mostly his wildly creative and thoughtful descriptions of things and scenes, not always pure dialogue, that gives him such a memorable voice in literature?
Elijah, was was the challenge of playing a character lives in his own head as much as Dirk?

Sam: You cannot truly adapt Douglas Adams to the screen because most of the joy and pleasure of Douglas Adams is in his observations and his take on life and how do you translate that into character and plot and action. What Max has done is take a lot of elements of the books that super fans of the books will be able to see in the show, loads of easter eggs throughout each episode that the fans of the books will get. But you don't have to have read the books to appreciate the world that Dirk Gently's in and that Max created. To me actually, we do pick up from really where the third book, which is unfinished, we sort of pick up from there in Max's world, so it doesn't disconnected from the book at all. In fact, the first two books are referenced in the first episode. I feel that what we've done is create a modern version of Dirk, who still absolutely retains the spirit of Dirk's character and of the the books and of Douglas's writing, but is driven a lot more by character and plot.

What are your thoughts on Brexit?

Sam: how long have you got? So Brexit, I feel this is a disaster. In the UK we are just very much hoping that America will learn from our mistake because we all thought that common sense would prevail and that the voices shouting the loudest about leaving were perhaps the minority, and we were wrong! It may be that a lot of people didn't vote because they thought we'll never leave Europe and it's now very much true that people who did vote to leave Europe ended up actually not wanting to. They were just were doing it as a protest vote and thought they never would. It's a disaster for our country, it's backward thinking, it's narrow minded, and, as you can tell, it's not like I have really strong feelings about it...I'm horrified.

Elijah & Samuel- what are your favorite music albums and books of this year?

Elijah: I really love the new Goat record. They’re a Swedish psych band heavily influenced by international music, African music. I love the band and I thought their new record was beautiful. And also A Moonshaped Pool by Radiohead. And books, I haven’t read anything new this year. So, yeah. I’m a little behind in my reading of novels, lamentably.

Sam: My favorite album this year has been Christine and the Queens. I’m gonna try and pronounce that, Chaleur Humaine. It’s all very French. And I’ve been a bit remiss with my reading party from just being so busy. But I’m reading a really good book at the moment about the gut, which apparently is our second brain and has far more of an effect on our thinking and feelings than we think it does.

What is your personal answer to life, the universe and everything?

Elijah: ...live with integrity, be true to yourself...lead with love.

Sam: I can't follow that! I'm just gonna say meditate, be president, and watch Dirk Gently Detective Agency.

Elijah: And don’t forget yourself. It’s really easy for people to be, for a variety of reasons, to be concerned about the exterior and others and how you fit into the world and what your standing is and what people think of you. None of those things matter. All of those things will fall into place if you’re true to who you are and you take care of yourself.

Sam: Oh my god, I have nothing to add that’s beautiful.

Samuel: I'm a huge fan of the History Boys, just a great show. Any great memories from the film version and are you still in touch with your fellow classmates?

Elijah: How did you manage to stay so grounded in the industry after starting at such an early age?

Elijah: Oh, I credit everything to my mother. I started working when I was eight, so it was far more important that my mother, to her, that she raised me as a good human being, than my success in the industry. She just drilled humility into me and created a strong sense of family and a strong sense of normalcy and a base for my life, for which I was defined by those things. And the person that I was becoming and trying to be the best person that I can be and, you know, sort of never allowing myself to overly define myself by the thing I was doing, but rather have a relatively strong separation between the work and my life. I think all of that created a foundation. So, by the time I was eighteen, and I was off doing it on my own, I felt very much a complete and whole person that didn’t need the industry or

Sam: I am very much in touch with my fellow classmates. The History Boys took about three years of my life, which was a bit like being at university with all of your best friends for three years. It was incredible. My memories of the film were just the most extraordinary hot summer that we filmed it over, which in Britain, is quite unusual. I just remember laughing an awful lot, and hanging out with Alan Bennett on set, who is a legend back home, and just kind of going “oh wow, there’s Alan Bennett”. I have funnier memories from the play, because we did the play about five hundred times and we started playing practical jokes on one another. Like, putting a sponge football in the teacher’s briefcase so that when the briefcase opened the sponge football flew out and hit him in the face and we all completely lost it and the audience totally baffled as to what was going on. We did a lot of stuff like that. From show 400 onwards. It was one of the best times of my life.

What is the best/funniest practical joke you have seen happen on the set?

Sam: I can not think of a practical joke that happened on the set. I mean, I have had practical jokes done to me. The best one the classic bucket of ice water on a slightly ajar door, and you push the door open, and the bucket shits on your head with ice cold water. So I’ve—

Elijah: It just shits all over you.

Sam: It shits right on you. But do you—that’s weird—but do you remember anything on set? Practical joke wise?

Elijah: There were no practical jokes. It wasn’t like we weren’t laughing or having a good time, but yeah, there sort of wasn’t time?

Sam: There wasn’t time. There was not time.

Elijah: We were actually quite cognizant of the fact that it really wasn’t about a month out from wrapping that we started having, like, bloopers. Where there would sort of be like, gaffes, sort of mistakes that we would then laugh.

Sam: Because we were relaxed enough by that point. Things had started running well.

Elijah: It took about three months to get into a groove, in a way. It was a tough shoot—always fun, but it was a tough shoot so it didn’t really like, that thing of the whimsy of “let’s fuck around” didn’t really come in until we were almost finished and we started like “oh this is good for the bloopers”. But literally like, you could make a reel in like, of the last three weeks of work and that would be where everything is because everything before that was hard. It was tough.

For the both of you, if you could pick the next POTUS, but it had to be a fictional movie/TV/book character, who would it be any why?

Elijah: What about Atticus Finch? From "To Kill a Mockingbird," I mean he's a lawyer but he's so moral and just. Atticus Finch, which would be appropriate right now considering that racism is at the core of our- or at least talked a great deal about. I don't know, that's the first thing that came to my head. I didn't want to pick a pre existing president from a novel, TV, or a film, but rather a character that is not related. That's the first thing that came to my head.

Sam: I'm afraid I instantly went for Judge Bartlett or his wife. Or, and I know she's not fictional, let's have Michelle Obama! Let's have Michelle Obama!

Elijah: Can we just also be real and have Elizabeth Warren. How about Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Warren to double ticket!

Sam: Yes! That's great! Come on!

Elijah: I love Elizabeth Warren so much and I love Michelle Obama! Can it be 2020 now? Can we all just take a cryogenic sleep for the next 4 years?

Sam: Yea! Can we like pretend that this like this isn't happening.

Elijah: Let's just move on to the next bit where we actually have a really wonderful candidate that we're really excited about. That can rule for 8 years! Yes I said "rule."

Sam: Dictatorially, for 8 years.

Elijah, You are also a math PHD, I know because I took a class from you. How did you get so good at math?

he goes by the name Charles.

Elijah: In an alternate reality that we both exist in, I did teach you, and you were a very good student. However, in the reality that we’re now speaking in, I’m terrible at math.

Sam: Lol, What is happening!

Elijah: I have no idea. I don’t love math. I’m not one of these people that has the brain for which math comes easy. It was always a struggle for me. I got great grade for and did well in school with math, but it was sort of in one ear out the other. It was never anything I retained, nor enjoyed. And I often am fascinated by people who, that are not only brilliant with that side of their brain, but love it? Like there’s this guy called Robert Schinder who has a band called The Apples in Stereo and he is very, I guess you could call him a mathematician, he’s brilliant at it and he loves it. He carries around notebooks to do equations for fun!

Sam: I hate him.

Elijah: It’s brilliant.

Sam: I don’t really hate him, but I hate that. ‘Cause I can’t do that. It’s not my brain.

Elijah: Not my brain at all, no.