Chris Addison

TV to film crossovers have a tendency to be a bit rubbish. Were you wary of that when The Thick Of It evolved into In The Loop?

A little bit. Peter Capaldi in particular always used to refer to it as Mutiny On The Buses. But we weren’t too worried because the story’s so much bigger than one we could tackle on the telly. It’s also designed so you that you don’t have to have seen The Thick of It. Nobody who went to see Mutiny On The Buses will have gone because, ‘Oh, that sounds like an interesting new film by an up-and-coming director!’ There wasn’t any of that. Though it might look like ‘The Thick of It Goes To Washington’, it works, because that’s the purpose of the story. They don’t just happen to go away, that’s where that kind of politics is played out. And over all of that, it’s Armando [Iannucci] doing it, and if you had to trust one person to get comedy right, that’s who you’d trust.

How was the atmosphere different, working on a film set rather than TV?

Well, even though In The Loop was a low-budget film, The Thick of It is phenomenally low-budget so there was less of a sense of make-do about it. Plus we got to shoot in a motorcade in the States. There was one day where we were waiting for hours and hours for our outriders, because Dick Cheney had decided to do something. He’s well known for loving the motorcades is Cheney. If he was nipping to the shops for a paper, he’d go in a motorcade. So when me and Tom [Hollander] were going back and forth in a limo, over and over again, people must have been thinking, ‘What the fuck is Cheney doing?’

Is it possible to talk to James Gandolfini without thinking, ‘I’m talking to Tony Soprano’?

I was thinking how difficult it must be for people who became famous for one character, especially if you’re great big James Gandolfini, and you’ve been Tony Soprano for 10 years. There was one time in rehearsals where James and Armando were talking about various aspects of his character, his encounter with Malcolm, and whether he would play it relaxed or upfront. Meanwhile, Peter was sat there fiddling with the settings on his camera, completely in his own world. So James says to Armando, ‘Should I do it more like this?’, turns to Peter and screams ‘FUCK YOU’. He nearly fell off his chair. From nowhere, suddenly he’s got Tony Soprano in his face, telling him ‘Fuck you!’ It’s really hard to think, ‘That’s James, I expect he’s talking about the part.’ Your first instinct is, ‘Holy shit, Tony Soprano is going to kill me.’

Obviously you know Peter Capaldi the actor. Is it still intimidating when he’s in full effect as Malcolm Tucker?

I think it’s more intimidating in a way. I mean we’ve been doing this for years now and know Peter very well, and yet when he turns into Tucker, he’s terrifying. There’s a scene in one of The Thick of It specials, where he ambushes Ollie in a toilet. I remember him backing me up against a sink, to the point where my arse was wet. They shot that just after lunch and we were having quite a nice time, and then somebody shouts ‘action’ and suddenly, ‘Holy fucking shit, it’s Malcolm’. To go from an hour or so chatting with Peter, to being confronted by this man with these blazing eyes, threatening all kinds of things…I find it quite terrifying.

When you started on The Thick Of It, was the improvisation element daunting?

Yeah, especially since I hadn’t done any acting before. But everyone was a bit nervous really. At the end of the first day, Armando sat the five original cast members down together and said, ‘Every single one of you has come to me individually to say, “Everyone else is really good, I don’t think I can do it”’, so we were all in the same boat. The other thing I really should stress is how absolutely brilliant the writing is. That’s the rock the whole thing’s based on and that’s partly why we’re able to improvise well, because we know our fallback position is so strong.

Do you have a favourite moment from the series?

Oh God, there’s so many to choose from. I love anything that has Julius Nicholson in it. He’s a brilliant character. The first time I saw In The Loop, I involuntarily cheered when Alex McQueen (who plays Nicholson) came on as the ambassador. I loved the bit in the second special where Julius comes in and finds Glenn and Ollie at one another’s throats, and his Jaffa Cakes go all over the floor: ‘You fools, be careful! Those are good biscuits and they cost four pounds.’ Never fails to make me laugh.

The show contains some of the best swearing on television. What’s your favourite swearword?

Good question. I actually find that they’re less powerful now. For example the c-word is so prevalent now that it’s ultimately meaningless, whereas if you say ‘idiot’, it contains so much contempt that it completely trumps all the others. It’s time to go old school. If you really, really want to get across your complete dislike and contempt for someone, that’s the word for me: idiot. Swearing contains anger, and because it contains anger it can be dismissed. You can call somebody a cunt, and they could think, ‘Oh, he’s just annoyed’. The great thing about the non-profane insult is that it doesn’t contain anger. You have been weighed, you have been measured and you have been found wanting.

You’re a stand-up comedian as well as an actor. What’s the best heckle you’ve ever had to deal with?

Heckles generally aren’t very good, they’re just drunken. I remember talking about Africa for some reason, and an Australian woman stood up and shouted, ‘Yeah, but Australia is historically greater and has more prowess’. It was difficult to tell whether that was a heckle or an essay question. It was the sort of statement that should have been followed by the word ‘discuss’. That was the best articulated and yet meaningless heckle that I can remember.