Joe Thomas Inbetweeners interview
Friday 20 November 2009
We absolutely LOVE The Inbetweeners on E4, so we were thrilled to chat to Joe Thomas, who plays Simon, about The Inbetweeners movie, shattered dreams of basketball stardom, and working for free... 
Hi Joe! So you’re promoting the vinspired National Awards 2009, what’s that about?’
The awards are basically to recognise all the young people who are doing voluntary work. I think often there’s quite a lot of negative stuff in the press about young people and little emphasis on the good work some do. There’s a whole world of people doing good work! I’m ashamed to say I haven’t really done any. I feel a bit embarrassed! I have some mates who do it and they enjoy it. One of them works in a retirement home and…
A retirement home? Isn’t that a dodgy scene with Jay on The Inbetweeners?
[laughs] Yeah, and then this guy punched a fish… No really, I do have friends who do it and they do enjoy it. I mean, you don’t enjoy it in the way you enjoy having a bath and watching TV, but still.
What’s the worst job you ever had?
I had a paper round I did every day when I was 14, come rain or shine. I got £12 a week and at the time, I was like ‘Amazing!’ It compared favourably with pocket money, which was about £3 every six months. I wasted it all on a basketball hoop that I couldn’t put up because I didn’t have a pole. So I put it in a tree which wasn’t high enough and the ground was bumpy with the roots, and we played a couple of times, then left it to become covered in lichen. Two years of a paper round for that. Maybe I should do more voluntary work, because I don’t do good things with money when I have it. I’d only spend it on another basketball hoop. I’m 5ft 9 and I come from Essex, I’m definitely the sort of person who could become a professional basketball player, right?
Or you’re the sort of person who needs the practice.
Actually, I think I was pretty close to getting into the Chicago Bulls, but they were worried about my schoolwork and I didn’t want it to affect the band I was in, you know. It could have been so different.
So The Inbetweeners has been commissioned for a third series, when do you start filming?
From March next year to the end of April, it’s actually still a way off because it takes so long to write. The writers are working every day and there’s only two of them.
Is it more daunting to do now the audience is getting bigger?
Definitely. The first one was just, ‘Oh my god there’s a camera’. With the second series we thought we should probably learn our lines, and I thought maybe I should think a bit about my character, you know, find out what he’s like! We do feel the pressure of making it good, but it’s the writers who are day-in-day-out trying to make it funny. We just turn up.
Is there going to be an Inbetweeners film?
I heard there was vague talk about doing a film, then it said on Radio 4 we doing it, then someone told me and I asked the writers and they said, ‘Yeah maybe!’
That’s, er, definitive… We read a quote from the creators of the show that said you and co-star Simon Bird are writing some of the script?
[laughs] That is a massive exaggeration! Very kind, but a borderline lie. Simon and I do write together, but with The Inbetweeners they like to cast the net wide for stories and we just try and remember stuff that happened to us when we were children. It’s really hard because it’s normally stuff you bury – it’s embarrassing or boring or tragic. When I was trying to think of storylines I was still trying to think of stuff where I looked cool, but that’s the opposite of what it’s about.
How’s fame affected you? Do you feel like a celebrity yet?
Well I went abroad this year and no-one knew who I was at all, so it made me realise how much I’d got used to people talking to me in the street. Like, hello! I got a bit weepy… For me, I’m kind of a fan of the show myself because I love how it’s written and that it’s funny, so I understand people liking it.
Speaking of celebrity, we found stills of your naked scene on a website called Fit Males.
[sounds slightly embarrassed] Is that true?
Yup!
Right, okay. [pause] That’s erm, amazing, I didn’t know that. Yeah… wow. Well, I mean there are ample opportunities for people to get stuff like that - we’re putting it out there. What do we expect?!
Still, bit weird. But other than that, you don’t get any horrible people shouting things in the street?
No, it’s always nice. I think if someone hated it, they just wouldn’t say anything! It’s more like: who’s more embarrassed, them or me? People are always lovely, polite and nice and don’t want to bother you, and it’s cool actually. It’s just a relief that they like the show.
By Amy Swales
Joe Thomas was speaking at the finalist announcement for the vinspired National Awards 2009, for more information visit http://nationalawards.vinspired.com