Actor speaks Cameo, doing a reunion... and the darkest time of his life

James Buckley has revealed he nearly missed out on landing his breakthrough role of Jay in The Inbetweeners - thanks to a mistake from his agent.

But speaking to Spencer Matthews on his podcast, Big Fish, he opens up about the time of his biggest professional success was marred with the tragic early death of his best friend.

In answer to the perennial question of whether there will be an  Inbetweeners reunion – he said ‘no’ – but did say he’d like to work with his cast mates again.

Talking about almost losing the job that made his name, he said: ‘I got a phone call from my then agent. She said something like "I've got some good news and I've got some bad news. The good news is that they're going ahead with The Inbetweeners" – or Baggy Trousers as it was called then.

‘I was like, "brilliant, I’m going to be in a sitcom. Absolutely amazing". She went "bad news is that they're recasting."

‘I said, "There’s no good news here." I then got in touch with Damon Beasley, one of the co-creators of The Inbetweeners, and I said "I heard that that is going ahead, congratulations. And I know you guys are recasting, but if there's another part, I'd love to come in and do a job for you."

‘He replied saying no, "We want you to be Jay. Did your agent not tell you this? We need to see you tomorrow to talk to you about this and we're going to audition a load of other kids at the time."

‘If I'd never have sent that message and sort of hustled a little bit, I would’ve never turned up to the meeting the following day.’

Watch the clip here:

Buckley said the fact The Inbetweeners became so popular meant ‘I've had way more success than my talent should allow. I've over-excelled.

‘If I never act in anything else again, I still feel like I've achieved everything that I set out to do. Right now, the thing that I concentrate on is my wife and kids. They're my favourite people in the world. I do really like them, which is handy because we spend a lot of time together.’

He said that fans still shout out catchphrases from the Channel 4 comedy at him – but he not only accepts that, but has made a decent amount of money exploiting it on Cameo, the website where you can pay celebrities to record personal messages.

‘I love that people are still crazy about that show,’ he told former  Made in Chelsea star Matthews. ‘My life is, I walk down the street and complete strangers are pleased to see me, and that's because of The Inbetweeners and that's because of Jay. 

‘Now you talk about the typecast thing and it has its pros and cons. And I suppose it's my job to make an effort to try and break that mould and to try and maybe go down different avenues in my career, which I am open to. 

‘But I do think that  being an idiot and making people laugh on television, I think that's what I'm good at. I think that's the only thing I'm particularly good at. So, it depends on how you feel about it personally.’

He said he has recorded up to 40,000 Cameo messages at £40 a time, making him more a ‘Cameo millionaire’.

‘I'm in the business of making people happy,’ he said .;I don't want to rip people off. I charge 40 quid. You know, two mates can go in 20 quid each for their other mate down the pub and I call him a bus wanker and take the piss out of him or something like that, and it makes a lot of people happy. But I am one of the most, if not the most, requested person on Cameo.’

 But on the subject of whether there will be an Inbetweeners reunion, he said: ‘My answer is always the same. I always go "look at me, look at a state of me, look how old and haggard I am, and I'm the youngest out of the boys".

‘I'd love to do something different with the boys, but this was the one job in my life that ticked all the boxes. I loved doing it. I thought it was good. I'm proud of it. I got to do it with my friends. I had so much fun doing it and loads of other people loved us doing it as well.’

Turning to discuss the lowest point in his life, Buckley said:’ I lost my best friend in my early 20s, just as The Inbetweeners was starting to become a thing, and that is something to this day that still confuses me.

‘I still don't understand the timing of it, the fact that he was someone who I was really, really close to and who I enjoyed being with a lot.

‘I don't laugh as much any more now that he's gone and the fact that we were so young, and we were at the stage of our lives where you're just supposed to start making your way in the world. That was meant to be the beginning of our lives. 

‘We'd done school, we'd kicked around a little bit, signed on for a bit, worked on building sites, and he was a rifleman in the Army and he did a tour of Afghanistan. Absolutely fine, by the way. He was a rifleman, so he wasn't there to be a mechanic or to be an engineer, his job was to basically be shot at, that was what he was, a professional ‘shoot at me’ person. 

‘He did a tour and came back absolutely fine. He was like right in the Helmand Province and came back absolutely fine and then there was an accident at home in his barracks, and he got hit by a car and he died. That to this day still really confuses me. It still really, really upsets me. 

‘I can be in a car on my own, I can hear a song that I remember me and him listening to while sitting there playing Championship Manager or something like that, and I'll just I'll break down. I’ll start crying.’

• Listen to the full interview on the Big Fish with Spencer Matthews podcast on Global Player now.

Published: 13 Jul 2023