Blake Harrison interview

Blake Harrison has quickly become one of the UK's most recognisable sitcom actors. With the second series of The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret about to arrive on UK TV at last, we took a chance to catch up with him. A transatlantic phone call was in order, as he's currently in America for the US pilot season...

So Blake, you're over in America right now?

Yeah. I'm in LA at the moment. Just kind of out here to see what's going on with it all. It's good fun actually - it's also much warmer than back home.

I'm going for a few auditions and stuff. It's not a huge focus point of my career or anything like that, it's just that I've just finished Way To Go and Big Bad World [a sitcom coming soon to Comedy Central], so as I've done two British series back-to-back and as I've got a bit of American representation I thought I'd come out and see what the situation is.

So, I'm just out here for a little while having a go at things. Ultimately - and this is assuming I'm going to come back to the UK very shortly, ha ha - I want to do a bit more theatre and pursue a bit of drama really, in all honesty. If something happens over here, great, but I mean it's hard enough getting jobs in Britain, let alone coming to America and trying to get jobs in a country that's the size of a continent where everyone wants to be on screen. The amount of British actors I've seen out here is incredible. It's kind of crazy really, but it's kind of good fun.

That's a good attitude to have, to be fairly care free about whether it happens or not.

Yeah, it's not like I've achieved everything I've wanted to achieve back home anyway. I want to do more theatre, I want to get into bits of drama, I want to do more comedy too - I want to do different characters and a bunch of different things. I don't want anyone thinking I'm an actor fobbing Britain off and going 'I'm going to America because it's bigger and better' - I don't think that way at all. There's a hell of a lot more I want to achieve back home - that may be slightly more important to me actually.

Although you've taken on some dramatic stage roles, your TV credits have been mainly sitcom to date. You seem keen to tackle some drama on television though?

I would love to. I think with acting, you're so lucky to be doing the job in the first place, but the best thing about the job, I think, is that everything is temporary, and I like the idea of working for four months and playing an idiot on a comedy show like The Inbetweeners, and then going off and doing a play, and then a drama and then another comedy.

I think most actors want to do the thing that they're not doing at the moment - actors are quite fickle really. I know plenty of actors who've done a hell of a lot of theatre and say 'I'd kill for a TV comedy job', whereas I'm thinking 'I've only done TV comedy and I'm desperate to do theatre'.

Ha ha. Well, just to stick to the topic of comedy for a bit longer... The reason we're chatting now is because Series 2 of The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret is about to start on FOX. This was a sitcom you filmed a couple of years ago, but - although this second series was shown in the US - original channel More4 didn't broadcast it. It must be nice to know it's finally getting its UK airing?

Yeah, I'm really excited FOX have picked it up. I hadn't done Way To Go or Big Bad World or I think The Inbetweeners Movie by this point, but I remember thinking at the time 'this might be the best work, on a personal level, that I've done'.

In the second series my character kinds of ends up splitting down the middle a little bit, and I end up playing two characters in one, and that was kind of a huge challenge but a lot of fun to do. So when, at the time, I found out it wasn't going to get aired in the UK I was pretty gutted, as I thought I'd done something there that I wanted people to see, you know, something different to The Inbetweeners, which I'd done before - yeah, so I'm pleased it's finally being shown.

It's got such amazing people in it. David Cross and Will Arnett - two of the best comedic actors going. Plus Jon Hamm also appears, as does Spike Jonze. Sharon Horgan as well, representing the British side of things. A really cracking cast list, even the people in guest spots, like Peter Serafinowicz and Janeane Garofalo.

A really top cast, especially for something that was half-funded by British money and, as I'm now finding out here in America, the money Britain throws at TV is like a penny compared to the Americans! I think who is in this is a real testament to how David Cross is seen in the comedy world, so when he asks 'would you do me a favour and be in this low budget British comedy?', they're all like 'yes, of course we will'.

Viewers can come to the new series fresh having not seen the first, but what can existing fans expect?

It just kind of gets crazier. David Cross wanted to create a comedy where something really mental happens at the end of it, and you're like 'what the fuck is going on'. It's very surreal and it's very strange and it just gets weirder and weirder, yet stuff from Series 1 makes a lot more sense, based on what my character is doing in Series 2. I think it's quite exciting to watch and see the turn of events and the almost catastrophic climax to it.

We're guessing there won't be a third series of the show due to the length of time that's passed. Do you think Series 1 would have built more of an audience had it not been tucked away on More4?

Ummm... I don't know. If the show was, for example, shown on E4 on Thursday night at 10pm it definitely would have got more of a fanbase and more viewers, but I think David had an idea of what he wanted to do with the whole thing and, when you've seen the end of Series 2, you'll see there's not many places to go. So, erm... I think this was a passion project for him that he was really into and really enjoyed, and he wanted to do two series and put it out there. It's a model of comedy that's worked very well with The Office and Extras and things like that. 'Two series and out' - I think it's not a bad model to have.

Can we talk about Way To Go for a moment? The premise at the centre of the show - assisted suicide - is quite an emotive subject to base a comedy on. How long did it take you to say 'yes' after you'd seen the scripts?

It was an incredibly quick decision because, when reading scripts, you can see as the characters come and ask me to kind of help them in their lives, they're written like a drama in a sensitive way - and as someone who wants to get into that side of things a bit more, and to use those kind of acting muscles, for want of a less wanky expression, I was looking at the scripts and thinking 'this is funny with a character that's not necessarily what I'm known for and I get to do some scenes where I can work on my dramatic acting', and that's exactly what I wanted.

Before the show aired a couple of people complained about it, but they complained before they'd even seen it. No one who has seen the show has ever, ever said to me - and I get a lot of tweets and stuff - no one has said it's offensive, and no one has said to me that it dealt with the subject in the wrong manner.

Americans [Way To Go creator Bob Kushell is American] are not afraid to throw in some really genuine sentimental scenes. If you look at things like Scrubs and stuff, you're laughing at this incredibly zany comedy and then someone dies and they're sad for a minute and then there's another joke. But that's how comedy should work - it shouldn't just be 'oh we're a comedy so we only deal with things that are light hearted and funny', no we can deal with serious stuff - we can make them funny, but we can also deal with them in a sensitive and appropriate manner. I think it's very small minded of some people to think 'you're a drama, you can deal with whatever subject you want, but you're a comedy so you can't'. Well, you can: you can get good writers involved and good actors involved. I think people should appreciate comedy more for being able to deal with difficult subjects.

Indeed. Series 1 ended on a bit of a cliff hanger. Is there going to be a second series of Way To Go so we can find out what happens?

I was with Marc Wootton [Cozzo], Ben Heathcote [Joey] and Bob Kushell the other week and talking about how we all really wanted to do more. We're just waiting on the word from the Beeb really, and hoping they give us the go ahead.

We all really believe that the show is a good show and that we've got a story to tell and I think it's controversial and exciting and it's doing something that I think other shows aren't doing, by focusing comedy on a subject matter like that.

As you mentioned above, you've been working on Big Bad World recently. Is that all filmed now? How's it looking?

Yeah, all filmed. I haven't seen any of it. I'm over here in LA at the moment, but I'm assuming it's still in the edit at the moment.

I can say I had an absolute blast filming it. Caroline Quentin and James Fleet are just amazing - they're very funny and brilliant. As are the guys playing my friends - Seann Walsh was brilliant, particularly considering that is the first acting he has ever done! I thought he was cracking in it and he's really, really funny. And David Fynn, he's been around for a while now - like a big turd, ha ha - no, he's brilliant. His character is fantastic and I think he'll come out incredibly well in it.

Awesome. Something to look forward to then. Final question Blake - perhaps a little rude. Based on the success of a certain film, your bank account is no doubt in such a way you don't really have to work for quite a while, yet you're clearly keen to keep on working, almost non-stop...?

I always want to keep working - I think any time I've gone two weeks without work I'm starting to think 'What can I do? Can I write something? Can I do something? How can I get some work on the go...?'

As long as I can continue paying the bills, I don't think about the bank account too much. I'd, um... yeah, I'd work for free if the project was good and the character was something I'd never done before and would show a different side of my ability.

But, it's lovely for you to say that I'm constantly working but I can assure you there are times when I'm not! I see what I'm doing now as a kind of break. I'm auditioning for things and some days are harder than others, but I'm in LA in the nice weather and I'm getting to chill out every now and again too. My girlfriend came over and we went to Vegas and so it is kind of a break, but when I go back [to the UK], which will be sometime later in March, I will be looking to kind of crack on with some work, if there's anything available!

'The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret' Season 2 starts Tuesday at 10:30pm on FOX.

Our guide to Todd Margaret