What can you tell us about Bill’s Included?

Bill’s Included is a traditional sitcom. It involves my character, Bill Beam. Rght at the beginning of episode one, he comes home to discover that his wife is having an affair with their gardener. She leaves him, and he's left alone in the house, and he doesn't like being alone. 

He sees that there's been a fire at the local university halls of residence and

there's a housing crisis. So, he has the bright idea of renting rooms to students. He ends up with four students who come to live in his house, and he does his very best to be their friend. He calls himself a land friend, not a landlord. And then, of course, we get into all sorts of scrapes.

Would you say there are any similarities between yourself and Bill?

We're very similar height. 

I can be guilty of being a bit of a people pleaser, not to his extent. I think what we've done in this is take some of my traits and just exaggerate them for comic effect. 

When we started the project a few years ago, it was quite a different character and then the more we developed it we decided it was a good idea just to lean more into me and elements of me and just amplify them.

What drew you to the role?

I haven’t done a sitcom since Gavin and Stacey and I missed it. 

It was my friend Steve Coogan's company Baby Cow, they started to develop some scripts for me. This must have been four or five years ago, maybe more. It went through several iterations until we ended up where we are now.

How would you describe Bill's relationships with his lodgers? 

I suppose he has a slightly different relationship with each one, because you've got the four different types of students. Hetty and James are the two warmer characters and then you've got Christian and Zara, and they're a bit more cynical, a bit more worldly. 

He wants to be their friend, he wants to offer them advice but, in many ways, he ends up learning as much from them and they help each other out.

While he’s being this land-friend/landlord and trying to keep the house running smoothly, he's also on the lookout for new romance and he's having to get on with other parts of his life. He's very fond of his next-door neighbour, Siobhan, played by Sam Spiro, and they have an understanding, and as we're watching it, you think, he really ought to be with Siobhan. They seem to really get on with each other, really understand each other.

Did you have any standout moments from filming?

Yes, in episode six, Bill is feeling very left out so he buys a Mazda MX5 and I had to drive that a little bit and I did enjoy it because I'd never driven one of those before.

What was your relationship like with the younger cast on set?

I remember that at the end of filming, one of them said to me, ‘Thanks for being nice and for spending time with us between setups.’ My reaction was, ‘Well, of course I did. We're all actors on this show.’

A few of them would say, ‘I grew up watching you on thetelly,’ which is an odd thing to hear because you don't really think of yourself that way. I mean, you're aware to some degree that you have a certain status, but mostly you think of yourself as just an  actor doing the job. 

I remember one of them saying that to me, and it made me think, ‘Oh, yeah.’ From their perspective, they might assume that the well- known bloke isn't going to spend time with them, but that's not how it is. We're all actors

together. I loved being around them, partly because of their energy. They're young, and that's great. 

It was also interesting to hear their perspective on the industry. They knew who was being cast in what, who was directing which projects, and it reminded me of how I used to be.

Did you recognise elements of yourself in them?

Well, a little bit, yeah. They'd remind me of myself sometimes. I remember we were walking back from lunch one day, while we were rehearsing, and they were talking about a part one of them had been up for but hadn't got. 

I said, ‘Do you ever have that thing where you walk past a bus advert for a film and suddenly think, "Oh God, I auditioned for that,' even though you'd completely forgotten about it?" I said that it doesn't really matter after a while, and they replied, "Well, that's because you've got so much going on."

 At first, I thought it was more to do with getting older and becoming a bit more mature, but I think they were right. I do have lots of different things going on, and that changes your perspective. When I was their age, I would've remembered every audition and every missed opportunity. And, to be honest, I hadn't got to where they are now. I wasn't appearing in a BBC One sitcom. At their age, I was still scrambling around trying to get seen by casting directors.

How would you say Bill’s Included compares to some of your previous work in comedy?

He [Bill] is a good-hearted, well-meaning character and the roles I'm best known for, Bryn, Keith Barrett they all have that quality. I've played other roles, I played a very malevolent chap in a thing with Tom Burke about Napoleon, I played Kenneth Tynan – complex character. But the ones I'm known for tend to be affable, even in The Trip, although I'm caustic in it to Steve and catty, I'm essentially this affable me. So, it’s similar to those, but the situation is different. But it's not a Daniel Day Lewis-like transformation it has to be said.

And what do you think audiences will enjoy most about Bill’s included?

What I hope they'll enjoy is just being in that world with these very appealing characters who get up to all sorts. A lot of the shows that I've had the most success with Gavin & Stacey, Would I Lie to You? you like spending time with those people. Within that you always want a sharpness to the comedy, little bit of edge to it.

• Bill’s Included launches on Friday November 20 on BBC iPlayer and BBC One.