Russell Brand was on The Today Show earlier this week to promote his upcoming memoir sequel, Booky Wook 2. I’ve only heard Russell interviewed on NPR and was so impressed with how witty and creative he is. He’s just a damn funny guy, and in this interview with Meredith Viera (above) he cracked me up just about constantly. Brand talked about his book, about his upcoming Arthur remake with Helen Mirren, and about his romance with Katy Perry. When Brand brought up Perry he got a little wistful and I got the impression that he loves her very much but is already feeling constricted by the thought of marriage. He doesn’t seem like the marrying type, but Katy is and he probably doesn’t want to lose her. Anyway Brand had some nice things to say about Katy both to Meredith and to the press at an event promoting his book. People has some details, and it sounds like he was just cracking jokes as usual:

“We’ll do a sex tape! Give them what they want!” Brand, 35, joked Tuesday at an event promoting his new book, when asked if he and his pop-star fiancée, 25, might ever work on a movie together.

In other words, don’t expect it to happen anytime soon. “She’s very good at what she does, and I feel it’s very distinct from what I do,” Brand says.

He adds: “It takes up enough of my time to be in love with her. Negotiating in films is very, very hard. Imagine trying to direct someone you really love – it would be a [expletive] nightmare.”

Speaking at a New York Times event about his autobiographical sequel, Booky Wook 2: This Time It’s Personal, the comedian and actor talked poignantly at times about his love for the Californian pop singer.

“I’ve found someone who is singularly important to me, so it means compromise, growing up and all the things they tell you in school,” he says. “Love between two people is the most spectacular yet ordinary thing in the world.”

Of the couple’s upcoming wedding, he promised there will be no crazy extravaganza. “We’ll get married in front of our friends and family,” he says, “and keep it sort of normal.”

[From People]

That’s sweet. I wonder when these two are going to get married and if they’re on the same page when it comes to planning their wedding.

MSNBC has an excerpt from Brand’s book and his writing flows quickly and is full of laugh-out-loud moments. In the chapter online he’s describing his first experiences on the set of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and how he tried to hit on Kristen Bell and then Mila Kunis but was dejected to learn they had boyfriends. Here’s how he explains striking out with Bell and then finding out that Kunis’ boyfriend was Macaulay Culkin.

There I was, joking and winking and possibly jigging by the catering lorry, when Segel sidled over like a handsome oak tree and said, “How’s your boyfriend, Kristen?” I packed up my sideshow sharpish, like a snake oil salesman when the townspeople realise their teeth have gone yellow, and pitched up by Mila Kunis. I was running some pretty good gear — stuff that would have thighs being flung open from Truro to Aberdeen — when Mila casually revealed she too had a boyfriend. Then in a needlessly vindictive twist of the knife she added that her sweetheart was the little boy out of Home Alone. Initially I was disgusted, thinking her some kind of sexy, female nonce, then I remembered that fifteen years had passed since then and he would probably be an adult by now.

[From Booky Wook 2 via MSNBC]

I haven’t read Brand’s first book, but I’ll definitely pick it up now. He’s such a character and I loved him in Get Him To The Greek.