![]() Unless you’re a maniac, you know it’s an alchemy: cast, director, a tone you can write. J It doesn’t mean you’re walking round like Orson Welles. Peep Show meant we weren’t failed writers, which was a big thing. S It’s difficult to get it into perspective because it probably isn’t a big deal for the rest of the world. J It does feel a bit like the end of something… The Roman empire… The Visigoths. Jeremy has changed more, because he’s had to face up to being a failed artist. Mark telling Jeremy in series one that everything he wants is never going to happen has always tickled me. S It’s the low-key moments, rather than the dog eating, that stuff. J I really like the one where they go to a play. What have been your favourite bits? I feel that you will always meet Jeremys Jesse Armstrong It’s about six months full-time from beginning to end of the writing process. We’ll have a Peep Show plot party with Dave and Rob to get their feedback. Then we go to storylining in detail, which might take a couple of weeks per episode. From that you hopefully have a whole series, knowing where they’re going and a thematic shape of each episode. J We have six weeks where we talk about anything. Please let it be something at least some people think is good.” S That first desire was for it not to be a disaster: “Fucking hell, we’ve got our own show. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Other What was your plan when you started? One of my favourite moments was in season three when Mark tells Jeremy he’s proposing to Sophie and Jeremy thinks: “How does this affect me?” That self-absorption.īedroom antics: Robert Webb and David Mitchell. S I remember early on in the show we wondered: ‘What does your actual consciousness sound like?’ Today we’re trying to write jokes for them to think in their interior monologues. Hearing their thoughts really gives an access to their self-interest… Wouldn’t that be a good first step to getting on Top Of The Pops? Which, by the way, doesn’t exist any more.” His lack of endeavour is what is both appealing and irritating about him. If we were being Mark Corrigan about it, we’d say: “Go to your room, Jeremy learn how to plug in your drum machine that you bought 10 years ago. He wants to be on Top Of The Pops but he’s not interested really in how you get there. When we created the character, he was a wannabe and we were pretty much wannabe writers. J I feel that you will always meet Jeremys. He’s having to renegotiate how he fits into the world. But it’s causing him some internal problems. S Jeremy gets encouragement from the culture around him to think he can carry on being a good-time guy. Peep Show meant we weren’t failed writers, which was a big thing Sam Bain How are Mark and Jeremy coping with middle age? S Mark is reading Napoleon’s letters in this series, and Jesse got me to read various biographies. ![]() J I’m wearing a polo neck today, so that makes me look more wise. Jesse’s got a lot of wisdom, a lot of knowledge. ![]() S Although, you’re still my hero, and I’m a bit like your valet. To also have them commenting on that is good. We already play with the discrepancies between what you think and what you say. There’s that saying: “No man is a hero to his valet.” It’s the same between flatmates. J There’s no bullshit between Jez and Mark: they really know each other. Photograph: MJ Kim/Getty Images In the first of the new episodes, Jeremy nails Mark’s pretensions… I think Jeremy knows on some level that Super Hans isn’t the real deal. J He has thought up his own nickname, which is something a certain type of person does – doing your own branding. S We’re keen to remind people Hans isn’t quite the legend he thinks he is. He’s a more extreme character in Mark’s world, just as Hans is in Jeremy’s. J Johnson performs the same function for Mark. Then he was someone for Jeremy to aspire to and for the audience to think: “Where did that guy come from?” S With Matt King cast in the role, Hans became more complete than when we started. Has he become more progressively more important? The new series begins on Super Hans’s stag night. Apart from anything else, it makes us less sad to think there’s the possibility of working with them again. We’ve talked about going back to it in 10 years, if Dave and Rob were available. S We did originally end it with them meditating on a hill in California, but then Mad Men did it, so we changed that. J We don’t change things greatly in the new series. It had been reported that we had been cancelled and apparently some top executive at Channel 4 said: “Fuck you, we’re not going to be dictated to by the media.” Sam Once we heard we were recommissioned out of spite. We were lucky Channel 4 allowed the show to find its audience. Jesse When we started, we were shooting a conventional sitcom but shooting it in a very unconventional way.
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