That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Nick Mohammed

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

In this episode Gaby chats with comedian, actor and writer Nick Mohammed. They talk all about his Emmy nominated role as Nathan in the multi-award winning series ‘Ted Lasso’, and how he got cast as Joseph in ‘Intelligence’ alongside David Schwimmer. They also chat about how he first started out in the industry, his hilarious character Mr Swallow, his love of magic, his books and his family. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to that Gabby Rosen podcast, part of the Acast Creator Network. Nick Muhammad is my guest this week, most recently known and loved for his Emmy-nominated role of Nathan in the multi-award winning Ted Lassau and Joseph in Intelligence with David Schwimmer. He talks about filming with John Hamm and Tina Fey. We chat about his character, Mr Swallow, how he started out in the industry, his love of magic and his brilliant books about magic, and most importantly, his family. Nick is such a great guy with the best sense of humor

and another of those rare people who have that wonderful twinkle in their eyes. I do hope you enjoy listening. Please can I ask you a favour? Would you mind following and subscribing, please? By clicking the follow or subscribe button. This is completely and utterly free, by the way, and you can also rate and review on Apple Podcasts,

which is the purple app on your iPhone or iPad. Simply scroll down to the bottom of all of the episodes. I know there have been quite a few now. And you'll see the stars where you can tap and rate and also please write a review. Thank you so much. Hello. Hey Gabby. How are you?

I'm really well. And do you know what I've just been doing? And I just thought I have to share it with you. Yes. I've been hanging is really. So show biz lives that we really lead, hey. Yeah. I was hanging up my.

washing, listening to Mr. Swallow singing Jurassic Park and Phantom of the Opera. Oh, my goodness. I'm sorry. I mean, I can only apologise for that. Please don't because your Jurassic Park. Well, not yours, Mr. Swallow, of course, because Mr. Swallow is your ventriloquist dummy, I suppose, in many ways. Yeah. Mr. Swallow singing is a, please will you sing for, well, well, Mr. Swallow just sing for me to start this podcast off, please, because it will just,

Like, my day. Okay. Hang on. I mean, this is, I mean, it's not too early. It's half turn, so that's fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no, what's that? I mean, that's all I'm probably going to be able to manage at this point

without disturbing my neighbour. I mean, also, huge credit to John Williams. I mean, I feel like I get a lot of kind of attention off the back of this, but I very much stole his tune and had just put some very piddly little words to it. And I feel like I kind of reap some kind of. benefit but um hats off to the genius that is john williams of course you know what's so funny is that everybody will know mr swallow and love mr swallow but people who are tuning in because they're a huge huge fans of ted lasso will think what the hell oh i mean i've i've i've just started doing

a few kind of live gigs again and i did one before christmas and um yeah it was it was a kind strange old thing because it was the first time that I'd said, oh, I'm going to do a gig and then realised that actually people who were just fans of Ted Lass had come along. And obviously, they, they were not getting what they were expecting, which I quite, I quietly enjoyed. Yes. So do I. Do you know, that's the thing about surprising people. Oh, can we just just another little bit of Mr. Swallow? And then we'll leave, we'll talk about Mr. Swallow, but he doesn't need to, to sing again. But it just. Well, Al, Al, Al, So Mrs Swallow was basically based on a teacher.

It is my old English teacher. And I'm not named who she is because I don't want to cause any offence. And if I'm honest, I think she's passed away. Anyway, that's a little bit of Mrs. Swallow, but that is true. It's an homage now. No, you see, no, I shouldn't have laughed at that bit. And I laughed at that bit. I'm very sorry that she's no longer here.

I, she was incredibly inspirational. I mean, let it be said. this English teacher was utterly mad as well as in she, you know, she was, you know, she was everything kind of Mr. Swallow is. I mean, obviously I've exaggerated certain elements, but, but, you know, she was using her, I guess, her position as a teacher as basically a platform to just spout views about anything and everything. I mean, she used it as a, as this huge, yeah, platform to spout views on capital punishment, on race, I mean, she had, and she had really extreme views on lots of things. And if you dared to disagree with her, she would take it really personally and she would absolutely sort of jump down your throat.

And I remember, and she just loved the sound of her own voice. I mean, I kind of adored her as well as found it really funny because I remember we did Merchant of Venice. Was it a merchant of Venice or Mitterlandxtream? One of the Shakespeare plays for GCSE or in year nine. And she said, and she would sort of bury her head in the book. And the idea was that she would allow different, you know, pupils to sort of read the different parts. But she would never look up from the book.

So she'd like, right, who wants to play Bessani or I'll do that then? Who wants to play, you know, Silario? I'll do that. She never looked up. So she ended up playing all the parts in Merchant of Venice, but in that with, but with that voice. And so we could never really follow it or understand what was going on because she was playing Porsche and every, you know,

everyone in it basically, Shylock. You know, she's doing everyone. But yeah, an inspiration. and, you know, a great person. Did you pass your GCSE? Well, she left when we were in year 10, I think, halfway through year 10, and then we got a great guy called Mr. Watson, so I did. Yeah, I did pass.

But, yeah, by that point, and it wasn't just me. It was like loads of my mates do an impression of this. I was about to say the name then, but I went, of this teacher. And so they know who Mr. Swallow is, and they like that it's sort of taken on a life of its own now. Oh, that's so brilliant. Isn't it funny how teachers, there are some teachers. I remember when I was at Guilford, they're doing the acting course. And one of our vocal coaches, again, will remain nameless.

But she used to turn up with her dog that would run around the stage and a fag in her mouth. And that should be like, and her accent, she had a deep Scottish accent. She went, no, breathe in. And out while she had a cigarette in her hand. Wow. Can you imagine if, I just imagine if that went on today. I mean, like, it's mad. But I love all that.

I love, you know, I love all the characters that you kind of meet as you're growing up and how they can be very informative. And in this case, you know, you know, I kind of owe my career to her, really. But was it Mr. Swallow then that you did? Because you were, you were working. So you were temping in the day and you were gigging at night after footlights and everything and Edinburgh. But was that, was that as Mr. Swallow?

That was part of it. So I would do kind of various characters. I mean, I call them characters. A lot of them were just sort of me trying out different accents. But Mr. Swallow was definitely the one that was getting, I guess, the better reaction when I was sort of starting out. And then way back in, I think it must have been 2010, that was the first time I decided I'd been going up to Edinburgh for two or three years with solo shows. But I decided that I would do a whole hour of Mr. Swallow because prior to then, Mr. Swallow had like taken maybe like the last sort of 15, 20, minutes of the shows when I've been doing multi-character stuff.

But it had always kind of, I guess, gone down the best. So I thought, oh, let's just try and see if I can last a whole hour as Mrs. Swallow. And to be fair, I think it was quite a challenge for the audience to sit through an hour of some of the early Mr. Swallow stuff because I was effectively having to get, you know, just like launching in a like a verbal attack on them sort of throughout. But so yeah, Mr. Swallow was sort of part of that.

But it didn't become now pretty much the only thing I do live. is if I'm on stage, I'm always as Mr Swallow. So it absolutely took over from like 2014 onwards. I sort of effectively stopped doing like multi-character stuff and just focused on Mr. Swallow. So what would Mr. Swallow have said at the Emmy Awards? I think what do you mean if it was just there? Yeah, no, the idea that Mr. Swallow as a character

was watching you at the Emmy. up for an Emmy for Ted Lassau. I just, my head was doing all sorts of things while I was listening to you singing. I thought, can you imagine what he would have said to you in the car at the Emmys? I think he would have been like, what are you old?

I mean, I just, he wouldn't, I don't think he would have got it. I think like, I just don't get it. I just don't get it. I think he would have loved seeing Kate Winsler win for Mary of East Town, but maybe thought that she would have passed away now on the Titanic. He just would have made loads of mistakes about the kind of the format and the

process. But yeah, so, you know, huge Mr. Swallow fan. And actually, I remember when I got nominated, some friends had said, okay, if you win. And there was no chance I was going to win. But they were like, if you win, you've got to accept it as Mr. Swallow. And I was like, I can't do that. It's literally it was the first time I was in America. They would have had no idea what was going on. But yeah. Oh, we will. Obviously, we're going to talk about Ted Lassau. But also, you are wonderful.

So I'm very lucky to have interviewed you before. And what you do, you have that very rare thing of making someone smile. Now, I have got, so I have a pen and paper and I make notes before I interview somebody. I just sort of mental notes of things I want to talk about. And I have, I'm going to put this photo out. I'm going to send it to you somehow. I'll get your number afterwards because I did a doodle of while I was watching and I've realised you know what it is it's this huge smiley face with big eyes and that's what you do you just

when I knew I was interviewing you the first time or virgin I honestly for the whole week I was going oh my God oh Gabby don't be silly no no no because you you you do like to spread joy and because I'm a huge fan of intelligence see I'm laughing at the thought of of it. Intelligence with you and David with the swimmer. It's just, it's so silly, but it's my sense of humour. It's like, it's like you rung me up and said, Gabby, you know the things that you laugh at? Can I write that and put it out on telly just for you? Because that's how it feels. Oh, that's lovely to hear. Listen, oh, thanks Gabby. Honestly, that, that, you know, that does mean a lot. It's daft. It's faddened. It's really daft. I've always, I've always loved that. I mean, and I mean, you know,

And it's probably very evident that, you know, ever since I was a kid, because some of the sense of humor is quite childish. It's the same with Mr. Swallows. Some of that's quite childish. But, yeah, I mean, with intelligence, I, you know, I effectively wanted to write like a live action cartoon. You know, I wanted to be sort of slapstick and silly and full of oddball characters and not, there was a slight feeling as well that, you know, there's been a real trend within comedy and, and don't get me wrong, I love a lot of these shows, but to tend towards comedy drama. And, you know, I think Ted Lassso falls into that bracket. you know, it can deliver emotionally and can I put out quite a powerful sort of thematic message and at the same time as sort of having jokes in it. But I just, I felt that the market was a little sort of saturated with, you know, quite meaningful comedies. And I just wanted to do something that was absolutely utterly daft and that it just unashamedly put comedy first and didn't try to sort of do anything but be very silly and cheeky and, you know, we weren't afraid of

prattfuls and falling off desks and things like that. See, that's why it was joyous. It reminded me of old comedies. Now, I know that you're a fan of Dad's Army and some mothers do have them and those sort of things. French and Saunders and, yeah. It was one, intelligence is wonderfully innocent. And I can sit down with my 14 year old.

I can sit down with my dad and we were all, we've all got the same sense of humor. Yeah. Probably laugh. That's something, how did you know to tickle people's funny bones? I don't know. I don't know if you do know necessarily. I think you just have to try. And, you know, even ever since I was sort of, you know,

in this sort of school playground and sort of doing sort of silly magic tricks and things like, you know, you just, I mean, I guess ultimately it's because deep down I'm some kind of attention seeker. And I just enjoy it. You know, I get great pleasure in, you know, having a laugh. you know, the best thing you can do is sit down with, you know, friends, family, you know, just have a really good laugh. And when something really tickles you, there's no other feeling like it. It's, you know, it's such a cliche to say, you know, laughter is the best medicine, but it really does. I mean, it really makes a difference. And nothing beats that feeling

when you've just shared a great joke or moment or something has just set you off. And that feeling you get afterwards, it's just, I mean, there's, there's probably a proper scientific thing that I don't know that it releases something in your brain or something that is just, just magical. And it's, it's a wonderful thing. And I've always enjoyed it. But it's very different when, you know, when you suddenly, or not suddenly, because I guess my career is sort of being quite a slow burn. But you, you know, you're, you're writing stuff that you know, even when I was starting out live, you write stuff and you hope that it's funny because it makes you laugh. Otherwise, you wouldn't write it down on the page. But, you know, the true test is then taking it out and hoping that you can communicate to it well enough,

such that, you know, an audience then gets it and you're sort of sharing that moment between them, because it sort of doesn't exist really without an audience disc comedy. And so, um, I think, you know, you're always learning. And I mean, one thing, and it's nice to hear that you can, you said that you can sit down with your whole family to what shows like intelligence and, you know, there's lots of shows that you do that with. Yeah, I'm Ted Lasser. I mean, there's quite a lot of foul language in Ted Lassau. Actually, I'm in intelligence to be fair, Yeah, but it's all... My daughters learn all of her language from your shows.

So thank you for that as well. Yeah, apologies. But I remember even with doing the Mr. Swallow, like the later Mr. Swallow live stuff, you know, you could see that the audience was a mixture of kind of sort of seven-year-olds up to 70-year-olds. And it was really interesting that, you know, a lot of it would translate to, you know, to all of them. And, you know, I mean, there'd be bits that certain ages might laugh at and some ages it might kind of skip up. over the heads or something, but on the whole, it was nice. And but again, I've always loved that.

I've loved watching mainstream comedies and, you know, sitting down with the family and watching them together. And, you know, I remember watching stuff when I was growing up, like, you know, the repeats of Dad's Army and Faulty Towers, but then later like Vicarodibli, French and Saunders, absolutely fabulous. And we're just, you know, just absolutely loving it. And, um, and I guess at the heart of it, there's, there's some sort of great sort of silliness.

They don't sort of take themselves too seriously, but they're just brilliant comedy. and sort of for everyone really. Do you sit down now and watch comedies with your kids? Do you let your kids watch your comedies? Yeah, they do watch some. I mean, they're still little. They're only six and four. So they've not really watched Teared Lassow as such,

but they've seen bits of intelligence, and they've seen all the Mr. Swallow stuff pretty much. And they like, you know, they know the Jurassic Parks are, which is quite sort of sweet and strange, I guess. and actually because I'm thinking of maybe doing a new live Mr Swallow thing which we might possibly go to Edinburgh with and go with the family and that'll be the first time I think they'll be able to sit through an hour of Mr Swallow I think they're at the right ages to kind of properly enjoy it

but yeah no I love it we have to obviously talk about David sure so your lovely story about how you met him I'm just, and I couldn't say this on the radio, but in the late 90s, the very first show that the three guys from Friends did outside of America was a show that we made called Friends with Gabby. And I had the three guys. And I had, they were secretly esconsed in a hotel in London. And they had code names because they were, it was massive. It was the big height of friends. Oh, yeah.

And I remember telling a couple of friends of mine and they're going, yeah, yeah. What you're going out to eat supper with, yeah, yeah, all right, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And they just swore at me. And I'd go into this hotel, I had to give the secret name. And then we'd be sitting there and then we'd, they recorded the next day. And I remember at the end of the recording, I mean, I have to say I adored each of them for their own. Yes. They each had something. I've kept in touch with one of them. And, um, but David was the most serious. And I mean that. I don't mean that in a bad way.

He wanted to make sure that the others were okay. He wanted he was the grown up. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that is still like that. Still true. He is so in like you say in such a brilliant way, he is so serious about comedy. He's serious about things being done professionally.

And he's serious about it being collaborative and sharing and whilst himself being an incredibly generous performer. And you know, it goes without saying impeccably funny. like the best comedy bones ever, and particularly doing physical stuff as well. I mean, he's just, and you watch Friends and, you know, we tried to, you know, try and include as much physical stuff in intelligence as we could just because we knew how much of a physical performer is, he was and is. But rewatching some Friends stuff, even now, you just think, God, he's funny, so funny, and he just gets it.

But such a caring guy. And we watched, we watched a Friends reunion, my wife and I, and we watched it not when it first went out, I think we watched it like a few months later and it was so nostalgic and just so brilliant. But you could see, and I had spoken to David about that personally, you know, both sort of before and after he'd filmed it. And it's just so, you could just see how supportive he was of all of those, you know, all, all five of them, I think relied on him in different ways in terms of, you know, just kind of the sort of spirit of collaboration and sort of checking in on all their mental health. And, you know, he's just such a solid and.

brilliant guy. Yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure and I'm so grateful for getting to work with him. You know, one of my first sort of big TV jobs really, you know, and to get to work alongside him has been incredible. Watching us, I was lucky enough because we went, obviously when we were sorting it all out, we went actually onto the set of friends. Yeah. And I can't quite believe that happened. It was really weird. We'd say we met them, we were talking to them all day while they were rehearsing and then we watched the show going out from the side. And, um, wow. But he was, it was, he was fine-tuning everything. And when we recorded our show, he was saying, right, can we do this here?

Do you think that's going to work? How about this? You know, he was, it was so careful. And I love the idea. So show with everybody how you two ended up working together. Yeah, well, so Julia Davis and I, who's a good friend and obviously a brilliant, brilliant comedian actor in her own right. She had had this idea of doing like a morning, well, actually earlier on, we had, her and Mark Witten were working on something and I've been brought in to do some like improv stuff with them.

And that, I mean, that was years ago. And then in like 2014, she had this idea of doing like a spoof of a morning television show. And yeah, we ended up co-writing this pilot for Channel 4 where we played, I guess, these slightly kind of rivaling morning TV hosts. But it really sort of centered around the idea of a, a woman in the media of a certain age, basically going through a massive midlife crisis and it being made suddenly very public in the media.

It's very kind of relevant to today, to be honest. But it sadly didn't, it didn't ultimately get picked up by Channel 4 in the end. But as part of that process, David, David had ended up seeing the pilot. I think we had Sony Studios lined up as a possible financier in the States. And I think David was working alongside them and they just sort of showed him

some of the stuff that they had on their slate. And he really liked it. And I just got, I remember getting a call from the producer saying, oh, David Schwimmer has seen the pilot, really likes it and would love to talk to you and Julia about it. And I was like, oh, okay. And he's like, oh, he's going to phone you at like seven o'clock.

I'm like, okay. And it was obviously ridiculously surreal. And I remember, I think we just had Finn. Finn had just been born and my wife was like next door with Finn and I remember like just at the end of the conversation just as David was about to sign off just sort of like bending the phone around towards her ear so she could hear that it was definitely but yeah so so we long story short is David came over and did some workshops with Julia and I um uh you know I don't know how he might have been involved in that show maybe as a director or as another sort of one of the other like a show

runner of that show or something like that but in the end it didn't get picked up but David and I had you know, hit it off. And he'd always said, oh, listen, if you ever have an idea where you think it could justify an American kind of, you know, being in a British sitcom, then, you know, do let me know. And it was about two years later, actually, if not a bit more, two, three years later that I had a script commission from expectation who made the show. And I wanted to do this sitcom workplace sitcom sets in GCHQ because I love the idea of a sort of bunch of oddballs, but who had this sort of massive, you know, this huge backdrop of national security. So even though they couldn't really function socially and it was very silly, they still had this sort of huge stakes in their world.

And then I thought, oh, well, it would be fun if, you know, an American from the NSA came over to work alongside this quite quintessentially British team. And, you know, there's this big culture clash in the way that the NSA work and the way GCHQ work. And yeah, and obviously it was like, well, surely David. And so I sent him maybe even just the outline, not even a script, I think. So did you just, what did you text him? Did you WhatsApp? Yeah, I think I did. I think I had his agency mail as well because we've been, I think, like I had that

through when we were working on morning as broken stuff. And so I, but I had his number. So I texted him and said, look, I'm going to send your agent a treatment. But just, you know, it's this and just let me know what you think of it. But no pressure, you know, just. And he just got back like kind of the next day and said, yeah, great. When should we shoot it? And I was like, oh, well, it hasn't even been commissioned.

like into and then fortunately you know he was then attached and um i wrote the pilot um and uh yes sky you know picked it up and then yeah then yeah we then we went for it and made two series and hopefully we get to do some more this year or is that is that it's possibly a secret but i think we're all hoping we all get to do some more this year okay we've just broken the secret but i just thought there. I think last time I bullied you and you had to say, I think it's all far. All that stuff's fine, isn't it? I don't think anyone's going to, you know, it ended on, it ended on the biggest cliffhanger did season two. So I think, you know, we got a, we can't just end on that. Yeah. No, you have to do more. And I just, I love it.

But it might be, but it might be, but it might be something a little different than what people are expecting. But yeah, but that's all I'll say. But yeah, hopefully there'll be more. Oh. Now, no, you've got, you, now you've done that. You, you don't expect me to just leave that. Well, I am going to leave it. Oh, okay. All right, we'll leave it because I'm now, everything is going in my head. Let's go to, let's go to Ted Lassow. Yeah.

Honestly, I remember, so Hannah is a very, very, the goddess. She is a goddess. That's what I always call her. I always have done. She is. I've known her for 100 years. I was going to say, do you know how to know each other? Yeah, it strikes me as you two have very similar in you are both goddesses.

But listen, she is the goddess. And she is fantastic. Yeah. Hannah contacted me and said, she was saying, oh, Ted Lasso is about to go on air. And I had Brett, who is now impossible to get hold of. But Brett got in touch with me. He did. So a year earlier, he'd done another show.

And he contacted me and said, hey, Gabby, can I come on your radio show? Yeah. Then I got, hey, Gabby, there's a show called Ted Lasso. Can I come on radio. So I had Hannah and Brett come on. And then Brett said, will you come on my podcast, all that? Yeah. I mean, now it's the...

Mega stars. Absolutely mega stars, aren't they? But all of you, Ted Lassau is a phenomenon that we, so we miss it. I have to, I know that sounds really corny, where intelligence makes me just fall about laughing. Ted Lassow plays on my heartstrings and I miss it. I miss Ted. I miss Ted. I miss all of you.

It's so wonderfully written that show. And I genuinely don't know, you know, coming at it as a writer, you know, I obviously didn't write on that show, but I do not know how they manage to walk this tightrope of being able to deliver equally on laughs and emotion and drama as, as that show does, because it really is triple threat in that respect. And often you'll find that, you know, something will dominate or will undermine the other and and see you're going to get a bit of a mishmash of a show, but it just walks this incredibly fine line.

And it's, I mean, yeah, I mean, that show has just changed my life, really. You know, in all kinds of ways. I just think it's such a wonderful, you know, the spirit of the show, the kind of the message behind it, you know, the people who've got in contact off the back of watching that show saying that it has in a really positive way affected their mental health, you know, and allowed them to talk about things that they wouldn't usually talk about. And, you know, they took a lot of comfort that, you know,

it came out during lockdown, which I think, you know, is at least not the sole reason for the show's success, but I think people discovering at a time when they were particularly receptive to some of the messages, the positive and hopeful and optimistic messages in the show. You know, definitely, you know, the pandemic plays a part in that. But yeah, I mean, it's just taken on a life of its own that show.

And, yeah, we're about to go into season three. And yeah, I'm really excited and kind of nervous and all sorts of feelings. It must, but it's sort of, Ted last. So, Afterlife, The Crown, I mean, the Downton, I'm putting in that, and I know they're all very different shows, but they've become world phenomenons, the shows that the world is talking about. That must, do you not think about, I remember speaking to lovely Kerry Godleman about afterlife. And when I said to, does it blow your mind? She said, actually, Gabby, can you not say that?

Because if I think like that, then I can't handle it. Does it feel a bit like that about Ted Lassow? Yeah, and I don't think of, as in we kind of all almost kind of have a pact that we don't really think about it that much. And that comes from the top, really. I remember when we started filming season two, and particularly in the UK, I think season one, some people had discovered it. But, you know, Apple TV wasn't really as ubiquitous as, I mean, I think it's a lot more commonplace now. It's certainly commonplace in the States, and it was already kind of a hit in the States. But I think the UK was quite slow to catch up.

And I remember when the first sort of load of, I guess a year ago, the first sort of load of awards sort of noise started kind of coming towards the show. And I think Jason had either won the Golden Globe or screen actor. He'd won something. And the next day on set, you know, everyone was like giving him around. He's like, oh, no, no, no, we just, we've got work to do. Come on, that's just. And, you know, there's a real kind of humility and sort of humble quality to him and Bill Lawrence,

you know, all those kind of great, kind of creative, you know, brilliant, shows and they just, you know, they like creating good work and they're just genuinely touched that it has, you know, translated to so many people, you know, across the world and they're just really grateful for that. And it does mean that there is suddenly pressure on the show when you sort of think about the amount of people watching or the scope at which, you know, it sort of, it's sort of, it is now. But I guess that that pressure is kind of a privilege in a way because we're just very fortunate that those castings worked out of particularly speaking for me and for brett and anna you know we're just so lucky that that all worked out and we get to be in this wonderful show with wonderful

people and it's a show we can genuinely be proud of because it has got such a a strong positive message you know this i i i think i hope that it'll endure that show you know however many seasons it ends up being but um i think it's you know it's one of the good ones and we just feel very very lucky to be a part of it but but no i think it's important to not dwell on how popular it is because it's and you know you get a flavor of it through social media and you know i went i was filming in in the states uh when the sort of season was season two was coming to an end and i was out in sort of you know the middle of the desert really i was in new mexico in albuquerque filming and um and it was weird i kind of couldn't go out without being recognized and it was just odd because i was just like i'm

I literally feel like I'm in the middle of nowhere that people have seen this show and want to talk about it and, you know, want pictures. And I've never really had, you know, even at the height of intelligence going out, you know, I've never had that. And partly because I stay quite private. But it's just, you know, it's, yeah, it's absolute phenomenon, really. It's mad. So, but you got you got a bit of abuse, and not you, but Nate, because Nate turned. But that's how brilliant the writing is. and you're acting, of course, you go hand in hand.

But I remember... Well, no, I think the writing is what leads it. But you're very... No, hand in hand. Hand in hand. But I've seen Jason talking about that as well and saying that the reaction was extraordinary. It was like, Nate can't do.

What? Because Nate everybody fell in love with and then Nate suddenly turned. Nate was not very nice. And the reason why I just talk about the writing, you know, really highlight the writing is that that was, it was so planned, you know, right from the off. They were like, oh, you knew. Oh, yeah, I knew from, yeah, from before even seasons two and three had been picked up, you know, before we were making like episode three of season one

and Jason sat down said okay, so this is the story, the sort of three season arc effectively. And, you know, we absolutely need to fall in love with him in season one. And then by season two, to hate him. And I was like, okay. And, you know, they absolutely stayed true to their word as writers. And I feel, I felt that, you know, the, like you're saying, on social media, there was a lot of Nate hate. And, you know, there's been some stories saying that I got, personally, that I was kind of like, you know, got got some kind of hate. And I didn't at all. I didn't absolutely everyone I got, who was on Twitter, you know, always respected the fact that it was an acting job. But they absolutely, but couldn't step. But then you hear that.

those horror stories, don't you? People not quite seeing the difference between an actor and the character. But they, you know, they absolutely detested where Nate had gone. And I just responded by saying, well, that's correct. You know, you should be feeling that because what he has done is absolutely scandalous. And he's absolutely biting the hand that feeds him. And, you know, he's turned on the person who sort of managed to sort of break him out of that sort of shell, really. So, you know, it's, we're in the middle of his journey. I don't know for definite where it's sort of. heading. Yes, you do. You just said, yes, you do. Sorry, you can't lie like that. You caught me out. You caught me out. I haven't done an interview in a long time. So, I don't want to know.

It's not like I'm going to ask you. With intelligence, I was intrigued with this, because I'm so invested, as a family, we're so invested in Ted Lassow, that I don't want to know. I'm just going to wait to lap it up. And also, in fact, while we're speaking, Hannah was on the airplane. But yes, Yesterday I spoke to Hannah and she told me a wonderful story. Charles, she told me, because I said, can you please tell me something about lovely Nick and on set? And she left me a voice note that I won't play because there's a whole message to me. But then on it, so she said, I have to just remind you of Rebecca's, the funeral. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

She said you can't look at each other in the eye and you completely and utterly. lost it. No, I find, I don't know what it is, but there's this sort of a sparkling, you kind of have it with certain actors, it's like it definitely a sparkle in Hannah's eye. I think Jeremy, who plays Higgins, he's got it as well, where you can just, you can just sort of see this sort of almost like, like, almost like a raised eyebrow, but in the eye, like, you can see that they're kind of twinkling underneath. And it just sets me off. And I, I just love trying to sort of prod and provoke and try and sort of just switch things up a little bit by just trying to make them laugh basically.

It's quite unprofessional. But Hannah is really receptive to it. But it did get to the point in that scene where, you know, we're genuinely, obviously meant to be upset and I meant to be offering condolences because it's her dad's funeral. But we couldn't, we actually physically couldn't look each other in the eye to do the scene. So I was like looking just off, like just to the left of her eye line. But then that was making her laugh more because then I was still speaking to her,

but just not really looking at her. She found that just looked even weirder and made a laugh. So yeah, she's, you know, yeah, she's a one. But, you know, I mean, I feel like I get it in the firing line because often I had, particularly in season one, had a lot of scenes with Jason and Brendan, who played Ted and Coach Beard. And, you know, they go back as in the Jason and Brendan go back, you know, forever. And, you know, from like their old improv days. And they're so, you know, they can just bounce off each other.

And because they're the creators and writers of the show, They'll just change the ends of scenes without telling me and they'll just throw in extra things and I'll just get caught in this firing line and usually end the scene by bursting out laughing and not being able to handle it. So yeah, so you know, I'm not the only guilty one. But yeah, it was good to hear that and I remember that. I will send you the recording because she absolutely loses it on the voice note saying that you couldn't, you had to say something about training wheels coming off a bike and she was doing an impression. Yeah, yeah. What is it? Yeah, it's like, yeah, I'm trying to sort of say this really serious quote like,

fathers are the training wheels of the bike and then I sort of fizzle out. I can't remember it word for word, but yeah, it was, I remember it was a funny day that day. That's a joy. What a joy to be able to go to work and feel like that? I know, very lucky. Solicitor and GP and then suddenly this Emmy nominated some, just, and as you say, you're filming, was that the Maggie Moore film? that you were filming. It was.

Yeah, it was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was. I mean, please. With Tina Faye and John Slattery. Yeah. And John Ham and John Slattery was directing it, which is a dream, absolute dream.

I mean, you know, I love all of them. And yeah, I don't know how that came about. It was just sort of, yeah, it was really weird. I remember getting sent the script and they're like, oh, they're really interested you for this part. It's like, do I have to audition? And they're like, well, maybe. Just have a meeting with the director.

But I didn't have to do any of the lines. And I just chatted to John Slattery for about half an hour. And we just chatted about, we didn't really chat about the film. We just sort of chatted about nice stuff. And then a few weeks later, they were like, oh, yeah, no, they've offered it to you. And I was like, what? So it was kind of, yeah, that was mad. And then I just went to the desert for six weeks and kind of desperately missed the family.

So it's sort of a mixed, sort of a mixed emotions for me. But the work, I was really proud of, you know, unlike anything I'd done before. It was, of course, sort of tarnished by the absolute tragedy of the rust shooting that. that happened, you know, only miles up the road. It was different films to what we were doing. But some of our crew knew the crew on that. And so it's just, you know, it's sort of not a very nice time to, you know, being the thick of all that.

And, you know, there was certainly an atmosphere of crikey. This is dreadful and so deeply tragic. But yeah, other than that, sorry to be the turn down. So you're stuck in the desert. You're missing your family. You're working with John Hamm and Tina Fey. People are stopping you in the street because you're and this awful thing's happening.

I know. It's actually the season finale of Ted Lassau. It was a real mixed bag of things kind of going on. But, you know, I don't want to sort of, you know, take any... No, but that's what I mean. Going back to, you know, your solicitor dad and GP mom, and then a few years later, I mean, you say they were doing Edinburgh. I mean, you went off to Durham. You joined the footlights.

You did all of those things. then wow, you're in the middle of the desert and people are wanting you. Isn't it wonderful what life can do? It's a strange odd thing. And like the best thing, like my mum and dad have always been really supportive. And it was definitely, you know, a bit of a big deal when I decided to, because I was doing a PhD at Cambridge and I decided to quit or to, and like I still did an infill, but I decided to just not do the full kind of three year thing. And I said, oh, I think I'm going to have a go at doing comedy, which, you know, and they were like, you're going to do. what in the, but they were still very supportive of it, but they were naturally, as I think any

parent would be, you know, a bit like, okay, okay, well, you know, you see how that works out. Because, you know, there was absolutely no guarantee and there wasn't any guarantees. And, you know, as soon as I moved to London, I had to very much get a normal job. I was gigging in the evening and in the summers doing Edinburgh, the festival, but I wasn't really earning a living from it. And it was, there's a number of years, you know, five, six years before I turned professional and, you know, it was not really until sort of 2012, I guess. I sort of kind of count my self as doing this for a living. And, you know, so I don't mean, you know, doing it 10 years now. So now it feels a little bit more normal. But the best thing about my mom

and dad is that they do not, and rightly so, they do not sort of treat any of that sort of glitzy stuff, any different. They will treat everyone the same. They're not kind of sort of starstruck in any kind of way. They're not kind of, they don't really, you know, I could be, you know, I was really fortunate and so lucky and grateful to sort of go to the Emmys, but I could have just sort of been going, you know, to Wagamama and that's not to like, kind of like do Wagamama or anything, but they were just like, they were just like, oh yeah, right, how was it or what was the food like? Oh, okay, right, okay, see you later, but you know, it's, it's all very, oh and what they've been up to and gone to church and this person says hi.

You know, it's they do not, it's great. It's great. it's really good because and it's same with my wife actually my wife's a music teacher not part of you know acting or anything like that so we can just talk about completely different things and share these sort of weird and wonderful stories from each of our lives without it being you know no one's blowing hot air up my bum basically if anything they're blowing very very cold air no but that's that's properly not no but it's it's that's normal i've always said i'm very lucky because my best friend who's been my best friend since we were 16, she's never said, oh, who did you interview? Who did you meet? Oh, where did you? She always just says,

how's work? It's, oh, yeah, no, work was great today, thank you. Oh, yeah. It's that. Likewise. Likewise. And like, you know, just occasionally like, ooh, this person said this because they bought this and, you know, or they saw you had a DVD or something, you want a DVD extra or something. And that's always like a nice little, a nice little thing to kind of get like nice little nugget. But yeah, on the whole, it's just very, very straightforward. You know, even when I was in New Mexico, it's just like, oh, so what's the food like? Are you going to meet up with any of your relatives?

And I was like, well, they're in Canada and I'm in New Mexico. So, yeah, no, it's all good, though. Now, magic is the other thing, which is such a huge part of your life. So I was watching you doing magic because you were talking about your book online that young magicians and the thieves almanac. And you did a three card trick. Oh, yeah. Blue and red.

And I don't know how you did it. I watched it again and again and again. I called my youngest and I said, because she loves magic. So what's this? And she said, oh, I know how it's done. And then she told me. And I said, no, that's not how she would actually. I don't think that is right.

Oh, wow. No, but here's the thing about magic. We all want to guess how it's done. but nobody really wants to know. Yeah, that's a sweet spot, isn't it? That's that when magic is good, like, you know, there's plenty of quite naft magic out there, which is sort of almost like a puzzle

that is almost waiting to be solved and inevitably solved because there can be no other way. But I think good magic, you know, and I'm not talking about that three card, that's great if you're fooled by that three card trick. Oh, I love it. I mean, like proper kind of good magic, you know, when you're seeing it, especially when you're seeing it live,

when you're like, I just don't know. or how, you just buy into that suspension of disbelief because we know there must be a method, there must be a method because, you know, real magic doesn't exist or so, so we say. But yeah, I love it. It does exist. It does exist, it does exist. But I've always loved that.

The magic circle or whatever, but so you, of course it exists. But I, again, it goes back to sort of childhood and sort of making people life. I've always loved that, that feeling of not knowing how something works and, you know, being able to sort of full, you know, full people, but with magic and sort of sharing that kind of moment of astonishment or amazement, you know, when a trick reaches its conclusion. You know, I love that feeling and I still love it, you know, both performing it, which I do less now that kind of acting and comedy has taken over, but I still, you know, I'm still always reading about magic and I love going to watch it and see performances and, you know, I just, yeah, I adore it.

I will carry on doing your magic. I just, we always ask people about what makes them belly laugh, I'd like to slightly switch this for you. Because when was the last time you completely, you know, when you laugh cry, when you probably lost it? Probably like only like probably a few nights ago. Like where my, because my wife makes me laugh the most. And it's often like quite late at night. Like we've quite tired, you know, after, you know, the kids have gone down.

We've eaten and then we've maybe watched a bit telly and we've chatted and then kind of, we'll kind of go to bed and then this is. This isn't going to be like a dodgy story, by the way. I just sort of realised it sounds like this. I was keeping quiet. I was thinking, always going. The set up for something. And she'll just do that, she just does this thing.

She'll find this really funny now that I'm broadcasting this. But she does this thing where she will kind of go to the side of my side of the bet. Like pretend that she's sort of like getting really kind of cozy. But sort of just nudging ever so like inch by inch kind of closer to my side of bed. And I'm like often like just sort of just reading or something. But to the point where she kind of just gets so close that I'm basically been pushed out the bed. And I know that she's sort of doing it. And she just finds it so funny because it really riles me up. And I often get, because I'm quite tired, just delirious with

like, I just don't like, like we're still doing this. And even thinking about it now, making me laugh. But yeah, I often kind of cry laugh at that because it is just utterly bonkers. And at the worst point of the day to be kind of trying to expel that much energy and like that. I mean, it usually makes me, I just fall asleep instantly after that because I'm so tired from cry laughing. But you know, many other couples might do something else to make themselves fall away instantly at that time of night. But I love that your wife is trying to push you out of bed. It makes you laugh so much that you fall instantly asleep. Nick, in every single way, you've just made my week.

You really have. You are such a joy. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. Thank you so much for listening. Coming up next week, the singer-songwriter Jack Savaretti. That Gabby Roslyn podcast is proudly produced by Cameo Productions and music by Beth McCari. Could you please tap the follow or subscribe button?

And thank you so much for your amazing reviews. We honestly read every single one of them and they mean the world to us. Thank you so much for listening.