David Attenborough has recalled working with Björk in 2013, calling her “a very original person” with “strange music”.
The broadcaster spoke to NME to celebrate his new Netflix film, the documentary-cum-memoir A Life On Our Planet, and remembered his first impressions of the Icelandic musician.
“I have to be quite straightforward and say I’m not into the music scene really,” Attenborough began. “But when I worked with Björk [for a 2013 Channel 4 documentary] I took her interest in me as a considerable intellectual compliment.
“She’s a very original person and said some very nice things. I mean it’s strange music but it’s very original music!”
He continued: “She’s very up to the mark and very concerned with the relationship between human beings and the natural world.
“I don’t know whether that’s a prominent characteristic of the Icelandic character, but I suspect, having been in Iceland, she has a relationship with the natural world which some of us urban dwellers of the South don’t have.”
Explaining how the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has impacted the fight against climate change, Attenborough said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has caused, and will continue to cause, immense suffering.
“If there is hope that can come out of it then that may arise from the whole world having experienced a shared threat and found a sense that we are all in it together.”
Summarising how the tools and people in positions of power could help turn the tide, the naturalist concluded: “The same unique brains and communication skills that fuelled the development of our civilisations now have access to technologies and institutions that allow all nations of the world to collaborate and cooperate should we choose to do so.”
‘David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet’ is in cinemas now and available on Netflix from October 4
