Nobody expected the movie spin-off from E4's cult sitcom The Inbetweeners to become such a huge, record-breaking hit back in 2011. The lads' reward was that they got to film the sequel in Australia, which comes out this week. Simon Bird (Will), James Buckley (Jay), Blake Harrison (Neil) and Joe Thomas (Simon) share some stories from the set of forthcoming summer comedy The Inbetweeners 2 in the second part of our exclusive interview.
"It was worryingly like a holiday," confides Simon. "Lots of times we thought that."
"Another nice thing about shooting in Australia is the show’s really popular over there," adds Joe. "The Aussies love that bantering, ‘pally’ style of comedy – knockabout vulgar humour that’s also kind of warm. Australian humour is really like British humour. We were surprised by the number of people who recognised us. We got stopped a lot. We didn’t really want to come home, to be honest."
Before you start to feel too jealous of the talented young quartet, it wasn't all plain sailing. In the tiny outback town of Marree, they were plagued by swarms of flies. "They’re constantly after your eyes!" shudders Joe. "It must be the moisture, because everything else in the environment is dead or dying. But the director was saying, ‘Don’t worry, I can’t see the flies’ and I thought I could feel four flies in my eye socket!"
The big showstopping scene in The Inbetweeners Movie was where Neil cajoled Will and Simon into attempting to pick up some girls in a Malia nightclub with their excruciating dance moves. Can we expect more alarming hoofing from Neil this time round?
"Well, we’re sworn to secrecy – it’s another spoiler!" says Blake. "But yes, there will be some dancing. It’s funny, none of us expected that scene in the first film to become such a hit. There are moments in the second film to rival that – more of them, I think. The problem is now we’re all such great dancers..."
So finally, if The Inbetweeners 2 is another big hit, as seems very likely, what are the chances of the lads returning in some form? "Personally speaking, I don’t think it will return," says Joe. "We’ve been told it won’t be," adds James.
"I think Iain and Damon [creators Iain Morris and Damon Beesley] are officially out of ideas," elaborates Simon. "Obviously, it’s their baby and they think it’s come to the end of its natural life. And that’s not how I intended that sentence to sound!"
The Inbetweeners 2 opens on 6th August. Would you like them to make a third film? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below...
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