{"id":615739,"date":"2026-09-05T23:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T23:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/615739\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T23:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T23:22:13","slug":"luke-mcgregor-i-dont-like-pokemon-it-really-feels-like-animal-cruelty-to-me-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/615739\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke McGregor: \u2018I don\u2019t like Pok\u00e9mon. It really feels like animal cruelty to me\u2019 | Television"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re on the new season of Shaun Micallef\u2019s Origin Odyssey, where you explored your Scottish roots. What was the most Scottish thing you got to do in Scotland?<\/p>\n

Eating haggis while wearing a kilt. If I was playing the bagpipes in between that would have been the only way I could have been more Scottish. I genuinely really love haggis. There are a lot of foods that I thought were terrible, but it turns out my parents were just terrible cooks.<\/p>\n

I understand it was once illegal to be a McGregor in Scotland?<\/a><\/p>\n

For a while, yeah. Which is a hell of a thing to be. I\u2019m glad that law is gone now. A lot of people changed their names because of it, which makes the McGregors a lot more complicated to track now. A lot of them went for names that were completely different, but it would be funny if they tried to get away with being McGooglers.<\/p>\n

Is Shaun Micallef nice to travel with?<\/p>\n

Yeah, he\u2019s Shaun Micallef \u2013 it never turns off. But it was interesting trying to get him to do small talk. I\u2019d ask him mundane questions like, what do you do in your downtime? What do you read? What do you think of that car? Would you have a car that colour? To try and find out bits about him that I don\u2019t see on TV. He got me to stick my hand up a cow\u2019s bum as a way of getting in touch with my heritage. I was there with a vet, it was to check if they were with calf. But I did it! I\u2019m a bit of a germaphobe, but I was more worried I was going to be get kicked in the nuts. Which would make great TV.<\/p>\n

Speaking of animals \u2013 what was it like having Robert Irwin put that snake put on you at the Logies?<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t warned, so it was a big surprise. I trust Robert, I assume that he has done that many times. But there was a point where it was starting to constrict my neck a little and it felt like it could go either way. I don\u2019t know if it made me more or less scared of snakes. If it wasn\u2019t Robert Irwin, I probably wouldn\u2019t have gone with it. But I trust the Irwins around animals. They know what they\u2019re doing. Hopefully.<\/p>\n

\u2018There was a point where it was starting to constrict my neck\u2019: McGregor wearing a snake at the Logies. Photograph: James Gourley\/Getty Images for TV WEEK<\/p>\n

Is there anything that you learned when you made Luke Warm Sex<\/a> that has stayed to you to this day?<\/p>\n

Communication was the big one. In sex scenes in the movies, there\u2019s a lot of unsaid interactions. They\u2019ll start kissing and move to the bedroom with almost no talking. In real life, communication is amazing. Even with sexual positions \u2013 you don\u2019t know if someone has a sporting injury. You don\u2019t know if there is something they like or don\u2019t like. There\u2019s very few activities where it would be absolutely insane to try them without discussing it first. I used to think, incorrectly, that talking would take the sexiness out of sex but it really doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

What book, album or film do you always return to and why?<\/p>\n

Ghostbusters. I\u2019ve always liked the idea that there\u2019s a supernatural thing that exists in the world and science is the thing that solves it. These four guys are pretty much plumbers, really. You just call them because your walls start bleeding. I feel like that\u2019s how it would go \u2013 you\u2019ve still got bills to pay, you\u2019ve still got to get your kids to school and you\u2019d get someone with a proton pack to take care of your ghosts.<\/p>\n

What has been your most embarrassing run-in with a celebrity?<\/p>\n

When I met Judith Lucy for the first time, I hugged her and she didn\u2019t hug me back. That was when I realised we\u2019d never met. I was a big fan and a comedian at that point so I thought, I\u2019m one of the group now. I assumed I\u2019d met Judith Lucy because I\u2019d seen her so much. But she didn\u2019t know who I was. She just had her arms by her side the whole time. That was quite embarrassing.<\/p>\n

If you had a sandwich named after you, what would be in it?<\/p>\n

Lasagne. And the bread would be garlic bread. That\u2019s the legacy I\u2019d like to leave, above all else.<\/p>\n

Who would you like to play you in the biopic about your life?<\/p>\n

My friend Ronny Chieng does an impression of me, but I\u2019ve never got to see it. So I\u2019d probably cast Ronny. He\u2019s very busy nowadays. I probably wouldn\u2019t be able to afford him any more.<\/p>\n

If you could have learned one lesson earlier in your life, what would it have been?<\/p>\n

Seek professional help. When I was younger, I had anxiety, OCD, ADHD \u2013 all these things were there ready to be diagnosed. But I was young and I thought that my problems were all unique to me and no one else had ever gone through this. Then you go to a psychologist who says: \u201cAbout a million people have had this before and this is how we treat it.\u201d Oh! Great!<\/p>\n

What is your most controversial pop culture opinion?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like Pok\u00e9mon. It really feels like animal cruelty to me. These animals are stuck in a sphere and then they come out of this sphere and they have to fight? I don\u2019t know what their lives are like inside the Pok\u00e9 Ball. Is it some sort of paradise in there or do they not want to be there? I know it is popular but Pok\u00e9mon feels like cockfighting to me. Well, I look forward to getting cancelled because of my Pok\u00e9mon views!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019re on the new season of Shaun Micallef\u2019s Origin Odyssey, where you explored your Scottish roots. What was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-615739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}