Ben Miller interview
Moving Wallpaper star Ben Miller talks about the second series and what it's like to play Jonathan Pope...
It was strange seeing everyone again, it is exactly like being back at the first day of school. Everyone immediately slipped back into the various roles they had before; bully, bullied, teacher!
The director's probably the one who gets bullied at first, a bit like a supply teacher with the rest of us misbehaving! Of all the shows I've done it's probably the one with the absolute best cast feeling. I don't think that generally has any bearing on how good the show is, the two things just always seem to be completely unconnected. We really do all get on really well, it feels really relaxed and you feel as though you can try different things.
We had a bit of a get together with creator Tony Jordan and some of the writers with all the cast and just chatted through the stories from the last series and where our characters were. It was only really very general, but it was nice to be slightly involved in the development of the characters. In-between the series I've moved house (needless to say that was fairly traumatic!) I've shot Primeval for the third series and I made a physics series for Radio Four about the Halldron Collider.
Playing Jonathan gives me quite a bit of wishful thinking as he gets to do all the kinds of things in his life that I would like to do in mine, including being in charge. As you know, at the end of the last series there was a bit of a cliff-hanger as to whether Echo Beach was going to get commissioned or not and that's where we start the second series, with the team waiting to find out what's happened to the show. Without giving too much away, it quickly transpires that they are not going to be making Echo Beach again and in fact they are going to be making something else... the fun of this series is that they are going to be making this kind of zombie drama thing called Renaissance. Kelly Brook and Alan Dale in it and the costumes are amazing, it is so much fun.
I would have loved to have been a zombie in the show! I have already been a zombie and Jonathan kind of develops a zombie impersonation in the new series... he will be a zombie at any opportunity! If, hypothetically, there was a zombie apocalypse I think I would do something that no one ever seems to do in zombie films - I'd pretend to be a zombie! Everybody seems to scream and run away but I would call the zombies' bluff and act like a zombie, mingle a bit, long enough to get away.
There was a bit of deja vu returning to set. After the first series the office had been completely dismantled and every little bit of paper had been taken out of it - they put it back pen for pen, matchbox for matchbox like it was before we left, and it was a really bizarre feeling. I mean, we all age in a year and you never really notice how much a person ages in a year because there are such tiny little differences, but when the background is exactly the same as it was a year ago, your brain can somehow spot the differences - it was an odd feeling.
I have a great scene with Raquel Cassidy (Nancy, Jonathan's boss) that kicks the whole series off and it's fantastic fun: Jonathan somehow misinterprets a situation and believes that Nancy would re-commission Echo Beach if he has sex with her, and I just make ridiculous advances and it all descends into a huge fight! Nancy definitely comes off best, Jonathan doesn't even get to land a punch! It's a great way to start the series!
We also shot a scene where Jonathan has this moment where he tries to impress some Americans and basically tries to shoot basketballs all the way through the day and has a number of catastrophic accidents; they were really fun to do. One such incident involved mistaking a real brick for a fake one... which he promptly throws at one of the sound guy's heads!
As for my background, I know I was heading down the physics route but I didn't ever think I would be a physicist. It sounds bizarre but even though I was going for a PhD in Nuclear physics I was doing it for fun. I always knew I would have to find something else to do - believe it or not, I thought about being a musician at one point and even I got a band together - that didn't really work out though.
So I thought I would try my hand at comedy and acting and that really did work out, so I stuck with it. By the time I was doing my PhD I had to decide what I was going to do. When I was at university, I did a bit of acting and thought "this is my thing, this is what I'm good at, thank God!" I was interested in physics but I wasn't exactly a gifted physicist. It was fun to find something that you really love and feel that you're good at.
I still really love the subject, which is why I did the series for Radio Four. The series I made is a slightly jolly introduction to physics, it tells people how we got to where we are now, and the opportunity to meet great physicists was a privilege too.
In the future I would love to see Jonathan make a Sunday afternoon telly drama, Midsommer Murders-esque. Or let's get Jonathan to produce an episode of Coronation Street!
On a lighter note I must say I haven't been mistaken for Rob Brydon for a while, I've been OK recently! It's the longest time in my life that I haven't been mistaken for him! I did an episode of QI with him and I actually kissed him!