Stefan Pape talks fatherhood with James Buckley and Joe Thomas

As the Inbetweeners, the crudest and rudest comedy of the year, hits our screens on August 19th, The Fan Carpet caught up with its perpetrators, James Buckley and Joe Thomas.

Buckley, who plays the highly-vulgar Jay, discusses his future life in parenthood, whilst Thomas, who plays the awkward and clumsy Simon, talks to us about the end of the Inbetweeners, and why its always him who ends up doing the stunts no-one else wants to do.

 

You must both be so pleased with the film as a finished product?

Joe Thomas: Yeah, we’re delighted with it, we saw it last week and we think it’s really great. We’re really proud of it and just hope that everyone else likes it too.

James Buckley: I wouldn’t be sitting here if I hadn’t enjoyed it. I think I’d be sitting in a room crying somewhere. But luckily enough, it turned out alright.

Joe Thomas: We’re delighted with it.

 

 

Did you ever envisage when you were first cast in the Inbetweeners that you would be sitting in a swanky hotel in London promoting your new feature film?

James Buckley: Definitely not. I never really thought about the future once when we were making that first series. I was just making something that I thought was funny, I completely forgot that what happened next would completely depend on whether people liked it or not. I didn’t think about that at all while we were filming.

Joe Thomas: No we didn’t expect it at all. I don’t think the show has a big hook or anything to sell it and the first series were just every day stories, the characters are quite run of the mill, they’re the sort of people who are nothing special in a way.

James Buckley: At the time we were filming, Skins had just come out and that was really cool and popular and showed these kids off in a trendy, romantic light and we were doing the complete opposite to that I guess. I thought that maybe we were doing the wrong thing.

Joe Thomas: The show didn’t seem to be reaching dramatic climaxes particularly just a lot of stories which were one thing after another so I suppose we didn’t know what the money shots were, or what it would be which would make it standout or make it memorable. I think the vision was, in a way, just Damon (Beesley) and Ian’s (Morris) to realise that people just liked seeing, and had an appetite for, characters that appear to be normal and are recognisable, so you don’t need to over-dramatise life, you can just reflect life and that’s interesting enough. It’s more interesting in a way if it seems to ring true but I think it took me a while to realise that that was what was making the show successful. Now it’s obvious but not at the time.

 

Ian and Damon have said they based the characters slightly on themselves, or on people they knew. Do you think the way they’ve written the characters has changed through the series because of you guys?

Joe Thomas: I would say it has, yeah.

James Buckley: I think between the first and second series, just the way they wrote the lines, they took into account how we speak naturally, and how we had portrayed the characters in the first series, so I think it made it slightly easier for them to write specific lines.

Joe Thomas: For example, what Simon Bird is like when he is excited, becomes what Will’s like when he gets excited. Or what I’m like when I’m frustrated and someone is winding me up, becomes what Simon is like. There are definitely speech patterns that we have which they have used.

 

You’ve said you weren’t expecting the show to be as big as it has become – how are you coping with fame?

James Buckley: I think we’re lucky because of the characters we play. They aren’t malicious or aggressive in any way, so we’re quite approachable I think to people on the street, and they don’t have any problems coming up to us and quoting bits of the show, or telling us how much they like it.

 

Do you consider yourselves heartthrobs?

James Buckley: I don’t consider myself a heartthrob.

Joe Thomas: No, although I think that if that were the case it would prove that television can just make anybody a heartthrob! I think we’ve been cast because we look like normal people and that’s how we see ourselves.

James Buckley: All four of us don’t really go out clubbing in the West End of London or anything like that. I’ve still got the same friends I’ve had since I was four years old in nursery school. Fame hasn’t had that much of an affect on my life, apart from people being quite pleased to see me if I’m walking down the street, which is a lovely way to live your life.

 

Does that extend itself though to people shouting “bus wanker” when you’re with your Mum?

Joe Thomas: Yeah we do get a little bit of that! That’s our fault though, I mean, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

James Buckley: We do encourage it a bit don’t we?

 

Will your catwalk show haunt you for the rest of your life Joe?

Joe Thomas: I think it may do, I mean, there’s no going back when you’ve done nudity. Once you’ve done it, that becomes the new reality.

 

Are you just the one who won’t say no to anything?

Joe Thomas: I suppose I am. I don’t think I embarrass easily, and if I do it’s not in that way. I’m not embarrassed by nudity.

James Buckley: Joe is just really committed, and will do something if it will be funny. I’m slightly more self-conscious. I didn’t agree to a scene in the film where Jay has his shorts pulled down by a swimming pool, so I had to have a cock double.

 

 

Did you approve the cock double?

James Buckley: I didn’t get the choice. People keep asking me that – as if there was a line-up of men I could choose from. I just imagine that would be quite a depressing situation to be in, just seeing what cock I liked best. I think I would have been very confused by the end of it.

Joe Thomas: I think full frontal nudity is a big ask though to be fair.

 

Was there an emotional moment on-set where you guys realised it was all coming to an end?

Joe Thomas: It would have been nice if there had been but it felt a little bit like when you finished your exams and you think there’s going to be this big emotional explosion, when actually you just wanna get home and go to bed. I think the premiere is kind of like the big finish.

James Buckley: We’ve done all the work now and we’re setting it free. I guess we’ll all just pat each other on the back and wish each other luck and…

Joe Thomas: Never see each other again.

 

Will you all be keeping in touch?

James Buckley: Yeah of course. We’ve gone from doing nothing, to being in this show. It’s been a journey that the four of us have shared and that I’ve really enjoyed and it wouldn’t have been as good as an experience it hadn’t been with any other people. I’ve had other jobs but there’s nothing as funny as making the Inbetweeners. It’s just the best job ever. You turn up, you muck about, you take the piss out of the writer’s beardy little faces, and they film, then you go home and everyone loves you for doing it.

Joe Thomas: It is like a family.

 

Is it quite fitting for you, James, to be finishing playing a school kid now that you’re going to become a father yourself?

James Buckley: It’s very strange. I think people were really confused when the news got out that I was having a baby. They were like, “what? Jay from the Inbetweeners is having… a child? The 17-year-old foul-mouthed boy?” Obviously, I’m actually a man in my mid-twenties and I’ve got an apartment, and a girlfriend and I live a very normal life. I should explain that I’m not Jay from the Inbetweeners.

 

What kind of a Dad do you think you’ll be?

James Buckley: Oh, I’ll be right cool man. I can’t wait, it’s going to be loads of fun. I’ll be hands-on.

 

How old will the child need to be before you let it watch the Inbetweeners?

James Buckley: I dunno. Hopefully I would have done other stuff by then! I’d like to do something that my child would be able to watch and just say, your Dad is actually sort of cool and has got quite a cool job. This is what he does. I’d love if it my child thinks I’m cool, that’s what I’d like most, in the whole world at the moment.

 

Joe, do you think you’ll be following in James’s footsteps anytime soon?

Joe Thomas: I don’t think I’m ready for fatherhood.

James Buckley: Joe’s too old now.

Joe Thomas: I am. I don’t have sexual feelings anymore. I remember those days. I don’t think I’m ready yet, although I do want to have a family one day and I definitely wanna have kids.

James Buckley: They’re great aren’t they?

Joe Thomas: They’re just really great. It’s nice when your young and then when you’re not young anymore, the best thing is to be around other people who are young.

James Buckley: Definitely. I can’t wait for Christmases to be exciting again, and birthdays and things like that.

 

Would you consider asking any of the other Inbetweeners to be Godfather?

James Buckley: One of these boys? These three idiots? Nah.

 

 

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