Awesome / BRIAN BLESSED

• In Stephen Fry's Fry's Planet Word, he discusses William Shakespeare with Blessed, who notes that a lot of people don't really realise what "To be or not to be?" means because the phrase has become so famous. So he explained it to some university students by pulling a pistol, firing a shot into the ceiling of the lecture theatre, then holding it to his head and bellowing "TO BE, OR NOT TO BE?!!"
• The man punched a polar bear in the face and scared it off. Somewhere in Heaven, God is looking down and going, "Yep, that's how you make 'em". He also wrestled a silverback gorilla into submission. He had to literally grab it by the balls, but still. A. FULL. GROWN. MALE. GORILLA.
• He's training to be a cosmonaut, to visit the International Space Station. At seventy-six. SEVENTY. FUCKING. SIX. In Space, EVERYONE CAN HEAR BRIAN BLESSED HAM
• The fact that he attempted to climb Mount Everest, three times! That's determination.
  • The fact that the reason he's never made it all the way to the top is because he keeps stopping to rescue other climbers.
• While traveling in Venezuela, he survived a jungle plane crash.
• During a production of King Lear in 2015, he collapsed on stage, falling off a raised platform with a heart problem. After twenty minutes of being assessed by a surgeon and a cup of tea, he came back and finished the show. He carried on with the run for another week until having to withdraw on medical advice - but read the first part again.
• Claims in a 2015 interview with The Guardian that he once helped a woman giving birth all alone in a park back in 1963, complete with helping the woman clear the afterbirth out and biting through the baby girl's umbilical cord. Somewhere out there a 50-something woman is thinking to herself "so THAT'S who left the teeth marks on my belly button!"
• Once when on a jungle expedition in Malaysia looking for a mythical yeti-like creature (yes, really), he convinced an orangutan to pilot a canoe and take him on a 15-20 mile journey up a river. How did he communicate with the animal? He made what can only be described as "Boss Nass noises" at it until it started paddling.

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