Stephen Fry wants to be a Faithful on The Celebrity Traitors – because actors are "terrible liars"

I don’t know. It’s a complete mystery to me. I think it was probably because I’ve done so many things in my life that almost anything I get asked to do, I’ve done something like it. With this, I’ve never done anything like it before. I just thought it would be a new experience. Everybody kept telling me it was a very good show and it sounded interesting. I watched and I had to agree, I did think it was very good.

Do you like playing games? And are you competitive?

If I do play a game, I like to play it well. I get annoyed if people don’t really throw themselves into it. As for being competitive, I don’t mind losing at all if I’m beaten because I’ve been fairly outplayed.

Would you like to be a Traitor or a Faithful?

Oh, a Faithful! I don’t like the idea of having to plot against people. It’s annoying to have to find that side of oneself, because in order to play well, you have to be a bit mean. You have to decide to kill people, you’re conspiring with others to do it and you can’t trust them either. So, you’re just under much more pressure. You can see from the previous series that being a Traitor is really quite stressful.

Are you looking forward to the Missions?

It’s very hard to say. Some of them may be tedious like being back at school, forced into compulsory physical education. It will be interesting to see if we can work together. There are players who are strong and sporty, who will be good at strong sporty things, and then those of us who are less strong and sporty will have to try and hope that we can use our wits in some way.

Have you done anything to prepare?

No, what can one do? Watching every previous episode wouldn’t help because the people are different. It’s all about the people with this game.

Would you say you’re good at reading people? Will you be able to spot a liar?

No, absolutely not. Nobody else will either. The idea that you can be good at reading people is absolute nonsense, just like astrology or anything else woo-woo. You just can’t do it. You know, empiricism proves it. People time and time again ask those whose job it is to interrogate and to find out the truth, and it’s simply not possible. We can all be convinced of something, even though the facts tell us otherwise. These notions of, ‘I just knew, it’s the way he lifted his glass, his eye was doing that thing’ – all nonsense.

Do you have a good poker face?

Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. Some people look as if they’re lying when they tell the truth and look as if they’re telling the truth when they’re lying. I think the only thing you can go by is when someone makes a mistake, they make a slip, or they themselves at the Round Table choose to get rid of people, and they’re mysteriously spot on in their choice – when the only reason you can think why they would want to get rid of that person is because they have some treacherous reason. But that’s about it. I’ll try to use reason a bit, because instinct is no good.

Do you think acting skills can play a part in how you play the game?

People think, oh, they’re actors, therefore they’re better liars. Actors are terrible liars! It’s not an actor’s job to lie. It’s an actor’s job to tell the truth. There are also those who are in the sporting arena, and they’re known for their competitiveness. You can’t succeed in sport unless you have a drive that is way beyond that of a normal person. So those are kind of two interesting elements. I don’t know what they’ve got in mind for us, but they’ve obviously considered all of this and will find fun ways of torturing us over the next few weeks. We’d better get used to it, I suppose!

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