Russell Brand: How to Achieve Real Happiness

BBC Newsnight, October 2010

In an interview with  the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman, comedian Russell Brand revealed that his deepest wish is to use his fame to create something more valuable and beautiful than the "trivial things" he is known for.

He spoke of the sham and emptiness of celebrity and consumerism, and how, having achieved fame and wealth, he wished to inspire others to not be seduced by these images and to instead aspire to greater things.

When asked how people would do this he spoke of Transcendental Meditation, which he has practised for over a year, and the work of Hollywood film director David Lynch, who has a charity which teaches the technique worldwide and with whom Brand said he’d been spending a lot of time.

"He believes through Transcendental Meditation we can access a unifying field of energy, from which all energy comes, be it physical, atomical, or intellectual. Perhaps if we were all more in tune with more beautiful ideas we wouldn't prioritise such peculiar ideas and notions. Perhaps if we popularised, through the techniques of branding and consumerism, a different idea … perhaps the world could change."