Episode 97
June 1 , 2020
97. Hollywood Military Adviser, Paul Biddiss; Correcting George Clooney, Pinewood with Brad Pitt, Tenerife with Matt Damon and Surviving Emergency Chute Landings
There aren’t many people who would correct George Clooney but, on his first film as an extra, this led to former paratrooper Paul Biddiss having a huge change in career from surveillance and bodyguard to Hollywood military adviser. He’s since worked with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Sam Mendes and more. He’s been chased by a baboon in Kenya, charged by elephants in the Masai Mara, wrangled huge snakes in Malaysian swamps and most importantly, to him anyway, has found a KFC in every worldwide location.
On this episode we cover:
Being ‘stuck’ in the beautiful in the Cotswolds in Oxfordshire
24 years as a paratrooper
His 5 sons (yes really!)
Desert, the arctic and urban hostile environments
Being chased by a baboon in Kenya
Being charged by a bull elephant in the Masai Mara
Not being the greatest of travellers
Seeing Table Mountain from his window
Finding KFCs and gyms all over the world
How he went from Paratrooper to Hollywood adviser
Entering the security industry as a bodyguard and surveillance
His first job as an extra – Monuments Men
Correcting George Clooney
Working on Fury with Brad Pitt
Filming the BBC’s War and Peace in Lithuania
Filming the Jason Bourne movies in Tenerife
Watching two old women having a fight with a flip flop
Dodgy tourists in Playa de Las Americas
Refusing to give Matt Damon a barbell in the gym
Filming sci-fi Foundation for Apple TV in Malta
Doing surveillance in between shooting
Maintaining a distance between him and the Hollywood stars
Being ‘the grey man’
Following dodgy blokes round the M25
How the surveillance jobs work
Women being more surveillance aware and harder to follow
Having an apartment in Croatia, for six months for work
Zagreb doubling up for Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Mexico and more
Filming in everything from high rises to swamps in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore for Sky One’s Strikeback
Grappling with a massive python in Malaysia
Finding the KFC in Kuala Lumpur
How chains like McDonalds can feel like an Oasis after weeks of foreign food
Watching Blackadder from incredible locations in hotel rooms
Being the military adviser on Sam Mendes’ 1917
Lisa visiting her great-grandfather’s grave in Ypres in Belgium
Jumping into France with over a thousand other parachutist
His miraculous survival after having to pull the reserve chute
Whether or not he feels fear
Not being into music and ‘having no soul’
His father being an ex paratrooper
Filming the Suez Canal scene for The Crown
