Life as an S&M Willy Wonka
'Forgetting Sarah Marshall's' Russell Brand on fame, addiction, abuse and sex.
March 13, 2009 -- Brit rocker Aldous Snow practically stole the show in one of the most memorable scenes in the film "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."
"I would rather have my testicles spread out like a wafer and then have them covered in a layer of honey and then have wasps come and sting me and then have them covered in another layer of vinegar and then have it worn as a swimming cap by a Nazi. I'd rather have that than spend another second with her," Snow rants in the movie.
Snow is actually Russell Brand, a British comedian, journalist, actor and now author of an international best-selling memoir, "My Booky Wook: a Memoir of Sex, Drugs and Stand-Up."
CLICK HERE TO WATCH RUSSELL READ FROM HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY
He dedicated the book to his mother, the most important woman in his life, then begged her not to read it. "She looked at the book with a welder's mask on," he said in an interview for ABC News Now's "Popcorn With Peter Travers."
He added that his mother is now proud of him, since she no longer gets calls from the police.
Brand is known to American audiences mainly for his role in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and his controversial hosting of the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, which saw a 20 percent spike in viewership.
As a result, Comedy Central awarded Brand with his own special, "Russell Brand in New York City," which premiered March 8.
Brand is far more famous in the United Kingdom, where he has hosted "Big Brother's Big Mouth" (a spinoff of "Big Brother"), his own radio show and performed numerous stand-up comedy gigs, which included an audience with Queen Elizabeth.
Brand is more infamous than famous. He was fired by MTV for dressing as Osama bin Laden the day after the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States, a move he now describes as "deplorable" but attributes it to being high on crack and heroin.
Drugs, for Brand, were "partially an anesthetic to numb away the pain of being," he said. He jokingly added, "In my 'Booky Wook,' there's a step-by-step guide to how you too can create these addictions in your own otherwise healthy life."
Brand quotes William Blake's "the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom," cheekily noting that while Blake isn't someone he would "quibble with, but that same road can also lead to poverty and lesions."
The comedian's current style consists of black eyeliner, tight jeans, gold cowboy boots and long, shaggy, hair reminiscent of Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow. In the book, Brand recollects a time when he kept a mouse named Elvis in his hairdo.
He dubs his look an "S&M Willy Wonka," a Willy Wonka who lived "a fully and giddy life before my current career as a drug addict, where the rewards were few and the payoff was terrible."
Not only was Brand a drug addict, but he was also hooked on alcohol and sex. While he's stopped the alcohol (and drugs), he said he still indulges in "a little sex, occasionally on the weekend. I still do enjoy the company of women very much."
Though he does not want to know what women want ("I don't ask them, I don't want to jinx it"), what he can give them is "authenticity and being in the moment," he said. "Everything else is an illusion."
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