James Buckley says agent nearly lost him ‘The Inbetweeners’ job
James Buckley has revealed that he almost lost out on his role in The Inbetweeners because of his agent.
Buckley ended up playing Jay Cartwright in the 2010s comedy, making his name as one of the four main stars.
Now, speaking on Made In Chelsea star Spencer Matthews, Buckley revealed that he almost missed out on the gig.
He explained: “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’.
Buckley went on: “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.”
During the same podcast, Buckley praised Cameo after the video recording platform made him a millionaire. Last year, the actor became the first non-US celebrity to make $1million (£920,000) from Cameo.
Elsewhere, Buckley’s co-star Joe Thomas (Simon) said he believes the US remake of The Inbetweeners failed because they didn’t cast “weirdos”.
“It’s ironic because actually in a way we were bouncing off that American genre of teen comedy,” he said. “They did it first and we were riding on their shirt tails or whatever. There’s a sense of loserdom and failure in British comedy that kind of is represented in The Inbetweeners.”
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Will Richards
NME
