Russell Brand is interviewed in Playboy’s “20 Questions” section for the June issue. He’s promoting Get Him To the Greek, which comes out sometime soon, I’ve just started seeing the ads for it on TV. I have to admit, now that I’ve read the full piece, Russell is very lovable. I wouldn’t let him within ten feet of my vadge, but I like to listen to him and read his interviews. He’s not brilliant, but he’s very funny and witty, and there are many priceless verbal gems thrown around in his normal conversation. The full piece is here, and here are the highlights – I included a large part of the interview, just because I did enjoy it so much:

PLAYBOY: You’ve starred in several stand-up comedy specials, you hosted the MTV Music Video Awards, and you’re appearing in your second Judd Apatow-produced movie this summer. Why aren’t you a household name yet?
BRAND: I haven’t been here long enough. Aside from the bits you just mentioned, I’ve spent most of the past few years in England. I’ve actually been focusing on becoming a household name in Russia and China, because that’s the future. I hope you enjoy this innocent era before your empire collapses.

PLAYBOY: In your memoir, My Booky Wook, you describe a childhood and early adulthood filled with heroin addiction, bulimia and sex with prostitutes. While you were living it, were you thinking, Oh man, this is going to make great fodder for comedy someday?
BRAND: I sort of did, yeah. I had enough foresight at the time to think, This is pretty horrible, but it’ll make for a good story. That was the only thing that made it tolerable, to have a bemused detachment about it. I think finding the humor in your life is sometimes the only thing that makes it bearable. You can contend with that sense of sadness by opposing it, by overwhelming it with comedy. It’s a useful method for navigating through sadness and misery.

PLAYBOY: Your father bought a prostitute for you during a trip to Hong Kong when you were just 16 years old. Was that experience terrifying or exhilarating?
BRAND: It wasn’t as irresponsible as it sounds. It was just the consequence of a night of drinking. I was in no way coerced. It was actually one of the most exciting things that ever happened to me. I can still recall everything about that night—the women in their high heels clinking across the floor and the smell of perfume and booze. I’ve had a strange attraction to prostitutes ever since. I just liked hanging out with them and talking to them. Prostitutes are some of the most fascinating women I’ve met in the world.

PLAYBOY: At least until recently you had a tremendous appetite for groupie sex. What are the reasons you wouldn’t sleep with a fan?
BRAND: It’s just aesthetics. When I was at my most promiscuous, I was like a charging locomotive. My selection process was outsourced. I had a team of experts who took care of finding women for me. They had very specific instructions. It was as if I was talking to a wine steward. “I’m looking for something French, a bit fruity, smells of oak.” [laughs] I’ve reached a point in my life where I understand empirically that this is not the answer. When you sleep with loads of women, it becomes a bit pointless and futile.

PLAYBOY: You went to rehab for sex addiction. Weren’t you just surrounded by nymphomaniacs?
BRAND: Not at all! The majority of people in sex rehab are just disgusting men. There aren’t hot blondes ripping off their clothes and saying, “I’m gorgeous, and I just can’t get enough c-ck!” It’s just sleazy men wanking off in dark corners. Let’s not shy away from it: They’re pedophiles. Pedophiles and perverts. I’m sorry if I burst your bubble and took some of the magic out of it, but you had to think about it for only 10 seconds. I was there for a month.

PLAYBOY: You’re engaged to pop singer Katy Perry of “I Kissed a Girl” fame, and you’ve talked about your relationship with her in your stand-up comedy. Does that mean she has free license to write songs about you?
BRAND: I don’t like to speculate on her creative process. That’s not my jurisdiction. God knows what she gets up to in that laboratory. I suppose if I talk about her a lot, it’s going to be odd if I decide at some point to go, “Listen, I changed my mind. This is private.” I’ll make jokes about it, but the rest of the time I try to keep my relationship with her close to the chest. It’s the first time in my life I’ve had something I’ve cared about this much and wanted to protect.

PLAYBOY: You’re starring in a new movie called Get Him to the Greek, in which you play a rock star who’s also a drug addict and a sex fiend. Aside from the rock star part, how is this character not based on you?
BRAND: Admittedly, we do have some similar characteristics. We have the same face, voice and body, for instance. We were both drug addicts, and as you pointed out, we both enjoy sex a great deal. But Aldous Snow, my character, is actually markedly different from me. While we were shooting the film, the director was constantly stopping me and saying, “No, no, no, not like that. Stop playing yourself.” I’m very verbose and fast; Aldous is much more cool and laconic.

PLAYBOY: You first portrayed Aldous Snow in the 2008 comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which he is just a minor character. Are you ready for the pressures of being a leading man?
BRAND: Absolutely. To tell you the truth, once you’re in a film, you have to be on the set an awful lot regardless of how much you’re in the script. I’d much rather be acting than sitting around in my trailer, thinking of new ways to masturbate.

PLAYBOY: This is your second movie playing the same character. Would you mind if Aldous Snow becomes more famous than you?
BRAND: If that happens I’ll destroy him. [laughs] Honestly, no, I’d be fine with that. My ego is big enough to compete with an alter ego. I actually like the idea. I can just pin all my bad behavior and poor decisions on him. “Oh goodness no, that was Aldous who was caught drunk driving. I never would have agreed to be in those terrible commercials. That was entirely Aldous’s idea. He must value money more than integrity.” I can remain in the Van Gogh school of tortured genius, and he can deal solely with the commerce and the tabloids.

PLAYBOY: There’s a scene in Get Him to the Greek in which Aldous admits that being famous is essentially lonely and empty. Do you feel the same way?
BRAND: Yeah, I do. And I wish more people would understand that. I certainly don’t mean that fame is all about sitting atop your mansion and feeling sorry for yourself, because obviously loads of it is really good. But fame is in no way a solution for being a bit sad or lonely. It’s mostly unfulfilling unless you’re very careful about yourself. The courage and determination it takes to become famous can be a detriment if not balanced with some kind of spirituality or self-awareness. I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by people who’ve known me for quite some time, and they are resolutely, pigheadedly, obstinately determined not to let me lose myself in the illusion of fame. [pauses] I’m thinking about firing those people.

PLAYBOY: Many Americans have preconceived notions about British people. We think of them as overly polite and dreadfully afraid of embarrassment. You’re not any of those things. Are we wrong about the British?
BRAND: I don’t know that you can define a people by a landmass. I suppose there are characteristics that all British people have in common, but you could say the same of Americans. I’m surprised when [Forgetting Sarah Marshall co-star] Jason Segel talks about me and says, “Oh, he’s just this wild, freespirited person and doesn’t give a f-ck what anybody thinks.” I do care what people think. I care that you think British people are all repressed, for a start. So I guess in that way I have constructed a comedy personality that’s partly a reaction to the very stereotypes you’ve mentioned. But it’s not as though I’m deliberately trying to address this stereotype or that I feel as if English people are being unfairly judged. I just desperately don’t want to be one of those people who is awkward, embarrassed and slightly repressed.

PLAYBOY: You once stuck a Barbie up your ass during a show in London, claiming it was a protest against consumerism. Is it possible there’s a less personally invasive and painful way to protest consumerism?
BRAND: If there is, I haven’t found it. [laughs] If I remember correctly, I chose the Barbie doll because it represents the oppression of women, the stereotype of femininity, the commercialization of sexuality, blah blah blah. But what I learned from the experience, at least in hindsight, is that if you’re going to make a satirical point involving putting things in your rectum, be selective. Don’t take requests from the audience. I ultimately went with a Barbie doll because of the shape. It goes in easier, if you know what I mean.

PLAYBOY: When you hosted MTV’s Video Music Awards a few years ago, you called President George Bush “that retarded cowboy fella.” Were you surprised by the backlash?
BRAND: When I said it, I thought, Well, this is a statement nobody can possibly have a problem with. I thought it was a very populist thing to do. It was meant as a compliment. I wasn’t remarking on Bush’s mental retardation but the fact that Americans are so forward thinking they wouldn’t object to putting a man with his limited intellectual capabilities into political office. It’s quite a compliment that you let Bush run things for as long as you did. In my country he wouldn’t have been trusted with a pair of scissors.

PLAYBOY: Didn’t you get death threats because of the joke?
BRAND: I did, yeah. I was surprised my agency forwarded them along to me. It was like, “Look at all these death threats you’ve been getting!” I was also getting sexy letters with messages like “Hello, Russell. Here are photos of my t-ts. I wish you’d come around and f-ck me.” But they never passed those along to me. Those letters they just burned. All I got were the death threats. I never took any of it seriously. If you think about it, a death threat is really futile, given the nature of mortality. If you want somebody to die, just wait.

PLAYBOY: You also made some jokes at the VMAs about the Jonas Brothers and their vow of premarital abstinence. Is it safe to assume you’re not a big proponent of virginity under any circumstances?
BRAND: I’m not morally opposed to the idea of sexual abstinence. It’s just not practical for me, because I’ve got to have sex. I do think legitimate abstinence can be a good thing. I abstain from drugs and alcohol, so I understand the impulse. It’s the public nature of it that I find interesting. Michel Foucault, the poststructuralist French philosopher, said that in Victorian society, the preeminence and celebration of chastity was in fact the mirror of hedonism. In other words, if you’re constantly drawing attention to your abstinence from sex, you’re also drawing attention to sex. With somebody like Mick Jagger, it’s all about sex, sex, sex. But with the Jonas Brothers, it’s no sex, no sex, no sex. You see what I mean? The emphasis is still on sex.

PLAYBOY: You’ve been arrested 11 times thus far in your life. When you reach double digits, does getting arrested lose some of its magic?
BRAND: It definitely does. It becomes routine and a little humdrum. You start unthinkingly raising your wrists to be cuffed. And you bow your head automatically as they put you into the back of a police car. Occasionally you’ll encounter an overly vicious policeman who perhaps gets a bit rough with you, and that’s when it gets exciting again. It’s quite similar to promiscuity. You take pleasure in small details, the shape of an ankle or a distinctive eyebrow. Everyone has something magical. Every police officer has something unique about him or her, some part of the arresting technique that makes it special.

PLAYBOY: You’ve twice been voted PETA’s celebrity Sexiest Vegetarian Alive. Please explain how being a vegetarian is sexy.
BRAND: Being the world’s sexiest vegetarian is akin to being the world’s most lovable pedophile. In a way it’s as much a condemnation as it is an endorsement. But I’m proud to be considered sexy, let alone the world’s sexiest in any category. If I were nominated to be the sexiest man on this sofa, I would happily accept that title.

[From Playboy]

See? Isn’t he interesting? It weirds me out that he’s serious about Katy Perry, and that they’re planning their wedding. You’d think that Russell would go for someone with a bit more substance. What am I saying? “Prostitutes are some of the most fascinating women I’ve met in the world.” Obviously, he has a type. No, I jest. I think he probably really cares about Katy. I just don’t know how long it will last. And what happens when it goes south? Yikes.

Header: Russell in LA on May 7, 2010. Credit: WENN.