Bear Grylls takes the WIRED Autocomplete interview and answers the web's most searched questions about himself. Can we trust Bear Grylls? Is Bear actually his real name? How many languages does he know? Who is his cameraman? How is he even still alive? Bear answers all these questions and much more!
SAG-AFTRA members are currently on strike; as part of the strike, union actors are not promoting their film and TV projects. This interview was conducted prior to the strike.
SAG-AFTRA members are currently on strike; as part of the strike, union actors are not promoting their film and TV projects. This interview was conducted prior to the strike.
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TechTranscript
00:00 I'm Bear Grylls and this is a Wired Autocomplete Interview.
00:04 Ready?
00:07 Who is Bear Grylls' cameraman?
00:14 The answer is there are a few of them.
00:15 An incredible team, our crew, unsung heroes.
00:19 They're amazing.
00:19 Work incredibly hard, carry all the heavy gear,
00:24 do everything I do, but backwards whilst filming.
00:27 Many of those guys were there at the beginning, still there now.
00:30 Brothers, we threw so much together.
00:32 I love those guys, yeah.
00:33 Who did Bear Grylls climb Everest with?
00:36 We took a small team of four soldiers.
00:39 Two of us got to reach the top.
00:41 We had four fatalities of other climbers
00:43 who were with us up there at the time.
00:44 The guy I reached the top with was a best friend,
00:47 served beside me in the British Special Forces.
00:50 Another unsung hero in my life, called Neil Lawton.
00:52 Still best friend to this day, I love that.
00:54 What was Bear Grylls' childhood like?
00:57 Kind of fun.
00:58 I grew up on a little island off the south coast of the UK.
01:00 As I say, my dad taught me to climb at a young age.
01:03 I loved those early adventures with him.
01:05 My dad's no longer alive now, but I look back on those times
01:08 with real gratitude, really.
01:10 He taught me so much of the important stuff,
01:11 which was follow your dreams, look after your friends
01:14 along the way, have a resilient, never give up spirit,
01:17 improvise, adapt, overcome.
01:19 That was from him.
01:20 Where is Bear Grylls' festival?
01:22 Yeah, we have a festival in the UK called Gone Wild.
01:25 Super fun, family adventure festival.
01:28 Everything from axe throwing to climbing to survival stuff,
01:31 mud runs to great music, great bands.
01:34 We've run it for a few years in the UK now
01:36 for veteran charities.
01:38 Gone Wild, look out for it, coming to the States soon.
01:40 Okay.
01:41 How is Bear Grylls still alive?
01:46 By the grace of God and a great team,
01:48 quite a lot of luck along the way as well.
01:50 But nowadays we really try and be smart.
01:52 You know, we're in the business of keeping people alive,
01:54 especially with Running Wild,
01:56 where we're taking real iconic big old superstars away.
02:00 You gotta get it right.
02:01 In the wild, you only get it wrong once.
02:03 There's always risk in the outdoors and in the wild places,
02:05 and you're dealing with rookies
02:06 and big rivers and big mountains.
02:09 How to survive Bear Grylls?
02:13 Gotta have a plan.
02:14 I know it sounds obvious,
02:15 but so many people go into adventures
02:16 without a plan of when things go wrong.
02:19 What happens if they lose their cell phone
02:20 or their battery dies or they're out of water
02:23 or somebody gets injured?
02:25 Prepare for the specific adventure.
02:27 Have the right gear, the right training
02:28 for when it goes wrong.
02:29 'Cause as they say, adventure only really happens
02:32 when things go wrong.
02:33 So how to survive Bear Grylls?
02:35 Talk quietly, dig deep when you need to,
02:38 be resourceful and never give up.
02:40 How many languages does Bear Grylls know?
02:45 A few and none very well.
02:47 I actually studied Spanish at university
02:49 and four years of studying Spanish taught me
02:51 that my Spanish is really bad.
02:53 I'm not a natural linguist in any way.
02:56 I've had to learn sort of basic,
02:58 I call it survival linguistics.
03:00 Which way?
03:01 North.
03:03 And it's got me out of a few scrapes for sure.
03:06 How did Bear Grylls understand Modi's Hindi?
03:10 When I took the prime minister of India away,
03:13 you see him speaking Hindi, me replying in English,
03:16 and then I'm kind of nodding away as he's speaking.
03:18 But I've got simultaneous translation going on in my ear.
03:21 But it's always a little bit behind.
03:23 So it kind of looks a little bit weird,
03:24 like I'm nodding at weird places
03:26 and the whole thing is a little weird sync.
03:29 It was hard because it was raining as well.
03:30 The earpiece was really cracky.
03:32 So it was like, static in the ear.
03:34 But we figured it out
03:36 and he speaks actually pretty good English.
03:38 My Hindi is not very good.
03:40 How long was Bear Grylls in the military?
03:44 I spent four years in the military
03:46 from the age of 19 to 23.
03:48 I got to spend three of my years there
03:50 with the British Special Forces,
03:51 where I got so much of the survival training as well
03:53 and made friends that endure to this day.
03:56 Is Bear Grylls' "Running Wild" real?
04:01 It's a baby of mine, that "Running Wild."
04:03 And I think the testament to it
04:06 is always the sort of stars we attract
04:08 and the people who want to come on the adventures.
04:10 Is it real?
04:10 It is real.
04:11 And I think that's the heart of all adventure.
04:14 Can Bear Grylls be trusted?
04:17 I hope so.
04:17 You know, I've made mistakes in my life, for sure.
04:20 Done bad things in my life, for sure.
04:22 But I hope I'm trustworthy.
04:23 I try to be trustworthy.
04:24 So Will Ferrell, Bear Grylls episode.
04:28 Will Ferrell was the first adventure show
04:31 I did with someone else.
04:32 It was the first one where we took big Hollywood star away.
04:35 We pushed him really hard, probably too hard.
04:37 Still to this day, if I see Will, he goes,
04:39 "Oh my God, that journey, that was a bull buster."
04:42 You know, Will on that episode was incredible, actually.
04:45 You know, we were right at the tip end of the Arctic,
04:47 tough conditions.
04:48 He was in at the deep end in every way.
04:50 He never gave up, kept smiling most of the time.
04:53 And I think if we'd kept running wild at that intensity,
04:56 we'd never have had a season two.
04:58 So we learned, keep them short, keep them fast,
05:00 keep them a million miles an hour,
05:01 but make them achievable.
05:03 You know, we're not there to break anyone.
05:04 We're there to build people.
05:05 And that's definitely become the DNA
05:08 of the show over the years.
05:09 What has Bear Grylls achieved?
05:13 What have I achieved?
05:15 Good family, three great boys,
05:17 still married to the girl I met when I was 22.
05:19 Good friends, still smiling, still going,
05:22 still doing what I love.
05:23 I never take that for granted.
05:25 What island is Bear Grylls filmed on?
05:28 We live on a little island off the Welsh coast in the UK.
05:32 We've owned it for years now.
05:34 Our boys have been brought up there.
05:35 Off-grid, about two miles offshore,
05:38 one little house, wild place.
05:40 To get on and off the island,
05:41 we have a little rigid inflatable boat,
05:43 offshore craft that we just bomb back and forth
05:45 to the mainland in.
05:46 Getting supplies is always a bit of a mission,
05:49 but also kind of fun.
05:51 What does Bear Grylls eat at home?
05:54 Sorry to disappoint,
05:55 it's not all tarantula, scorpion, snakes, and rat brain.
05:58 A lot of red meat, a lot of liver, a lot of eggs,
06:01 a lot of fruit, a lot of honey.
06:03 Try and stay away from the junk stuff as much as we can,
06:05 the processed food.
06:06 Eat like our ancestors.
06:07 Throw in a little bit of wilderness food every now and again
06:10 just to keep everyone on their toes.
06:11 What has Bear Grylls eaten?
06:13 Had a good breakfast.
06:14 A lot of Greek yogurt and honey, some fruit,
06:17 coffee, bit of juice, ready to go.
06:19 What accent does Bear Grylls have?
06:22 I don't know, I get British, I guess.
06:24 Sometimes people go, "Are you Australian?"
06:26 Obviously that takes a great compliment
06:28 because we love Australia,
06:29 even though we do beat them often in the rugby.
06:32 So yeah.
06:33 Where did Bear Grylls get his name?
06:36 You know, it's Chris and Edward.
06:37 My sister then said that was such a boring name.
06:40 She called me Teddy, Teddy Bear.
06:42 I don't know, as a kid, I didn't really like it.
06:44 I always wanted a normal name,
06:46 but actually I look back now
06:47 and it could have been way worse.
06:49 Where has Bear Grylls traveled to?
06:51 An occupational hazard of my job is that we do travel a lot.
06:55 Done a lot in Wyoming for Running Wild,
06:57 Scotland for a couple of trips,
06:58 some jungles, Costa Rica, Central America,
07:01 some mountains in the Alps in Europe.
07:04 Home in Wales, a little island in the UK.
07:07 Good places.
07:08 When did Bear Grylls meet President Zelensky?
07:11 Yeah, a few months ago I got to travel to Ukraine
07:14 to spend time with him,
07:15 walk around the city a little bit,
07:17 hear a little bit about his background,
07:19 his life growing up for a show called War Zone.
07:22 Real privilege for me to do.
07:23 That was a special one.
07:25 When did Bear Grylls start his career?
07:27 I don't know, I never really kind of think of it as a career.
07:30 I suppose the answer is I started a life of adventure
07:34 when I was a kid with my dad, former Marine climber.
07:37 Taught me a lot of this stuff when I was a young boy.
07:39 But in terms of TV stuff,
07:41 I suppose started at age about 26.
07:45 Somebody approached me from Discovery Channel and said,
07:48 "Could we do a show where we drop you in difficult places?
07:50 "You show us how to get out of there."
07:52 A privilege.
07:53 So that's that one.
07:54 Bear Grylls, bee sting.
07:57 I was stung by a bunch of African bees once
08:00 trying to get some honey out of a nest.
08:02 And I think the lesson is in the wilds,
08:04 it's not always the big things that are gonna get you,
08:05 it's often the little stuff.
08:07 Mosquitoes, some angry bees.
08:09 My face ballooned up.
08:10 My family said actually bear is an improvement.
08:13 Bear Grylls, jellyfish sting.
08:16 I think this is probably about a Running Wild episode
08:18 with Mel B from the Spice Girls.
08:20 And I got stung by a jellyfish
08:22 and she ended up peeing on my hand.
08:24 I think actually I've learned over the years
08:26 the advice actually is tenuous.
08:27 I'm not sure pee actually does very much
08:30 apart from sterilize it a little bit.
08:32 And she was adamant it was gonna work.
08:34 Bear Grylls, healthy.
08:36 Feel pretty good.
08:37 Feel fit and strong.
08:38 We have a great outdoor fitness company.
08:41 It's veteran run called Be Military Fit.
08:43 So I train with that community most days.
08:45 Just short and sharp, half an hour.
08:47 I consider it as part of my job.
08:48 I gotta try and be strong and as healthy as I can.
08:52 Work in progress always.
08:54 Why is Bear Grylls, oh dear, here we go.
08:56 Oh, that's nice, inspirational.
08:59 Learned in life you can only try and live from this
09:03 and try and follow this and try and speak from this.
09:07 Share the struggles, share the doubts,
09:09 the failures as much as the successes and the wins in life.
09:12 Know the value of great friends.
09:14 Try and keep the rest of it simple.
09:16 That is all the boards.
09:19 Thank you for the lovely questions
09:20 and for all of you guys watching.
09:22 Keep going.
09:23 Respect for all your adventures.
09:25 Courage, kindness, never give up.
09:26 We got it team.
09:27 (dramatic music)
09:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]