- 5 years ago
A Boy Called Christmas star chats about his role as Miika the mouse
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00:00Mr Merchant lovely to see you good to see you happy holidays is that too early for that I don't
00:05know
00:05anyway no I think I think we can get away with that I've started watching Christmas films
00:09um yeah but I feel like you're someone who watches them all year round
00:13I feel you're watching I know they're going to be you know you're watching you're watching
00:16It's a Wonderful Life in June there are going to be so many things where I know I'm essentially
00:20just setting you up to come in and knock me down like that um but yeah I probably am uh
00:26it's a fair
00:28um but we can talk about a Christmas film now we can talk about A Boy Called Christmas
00:31which uh is one of the many Christmas films that I love what I loved about it is that it
00:35has that
00:36traditional feel doesn't it it's not trying to be kind of tongue-in-cheek or or or knowing anything
00:41like that it is a big traditional family Christmas film how long does it take you to to work on
00:48a
00:48film like that because you are voicing Mika the mouse I'm voicing Mika the mouse and like you say
00:54yes it's a I think it's quite a sort of it feels like quite a classic fairy tale in a
00:59sense it's
00:59the origin story if you like of Santa which I'm sure has been done before but I couldn't think of
01:03an obvious example of it um and uh it uh yes the people always say to me like any funny
01:10stories from
01:10the set never went to set what were the other actors like never met them because um I'm just yeah
01:16I'm in a booth recording booth much like this I'm uh just recording the voice and that goes on for
01:21months and months and months because they can kind of keep calling you back and if perhaps a little
01:26plot point doesn't quite make sense they can get you to sort of explain it and then they can animate
01:30the mouse sort of later so um yeah you sort of end up being one of the last people to
01:33finish I think
01:34but what's great about it like this is that I can show up sort of you know um I mean
01:39I've just I've
01:40just got boxes on underneath this this shot and um you know I'm getting I'm getting a pedicure
01:45um and uh you wouldn't know and that's the great thing about doing a voiceover is that no one can
01:49see you you can show up unshaven unwashed and uh in your pajamas and and uh and off you go
01:57then the flip side is the downside is that you don't have perhaps that camaraderie that you would
02:02have if you were on an actual set with other actual actors which of course you've done many times
02:08before so there are benefits but also perhaps it feels a little uh a little lonely sometimes
02:15it does feel lonely and also I think the difficult thing is you're trying to make I mean in this
02:19case
02:19I'm the mouse friend of young Nicholas who's the main character and you have to try and sort of
02:24establish a relationship with that person who has already filmed all of their material and now you're
02:29seeing it for the first time so you're trying to connect weirdly with this person on screen so that
02:33it feels like there's some real world dynamic between you and I think if I had just gone in
02:38and sort of read the script very religiously and just done each line one by one it might have felt
02:43a bit cold but I think because Gil the director sort of let me play around and improvise a bit
02:48and sort
02:48of try and kind of almost ad lib have a conversation with with um the actor on screen then hopefully
02:55it
02:55just feels perhaps a bit more a bit more organic uh I hope I mean I don't know but you'll
02:59be the judge of
03:00that when I uh when I first read that Stephen Merchant was playing Mika I just thought it's
03:06it's the pop star surely this is the role he was born to play singing Grace Kelly
03:13yeah no sadly it's uh it has very little connection with uh much loved you know uh pop pianist
03:20and singer Mika um is he still around is he still doing stuff I assume he is I think he's
03:24still going
03:24yeah he's still going yeah no he's um so your your Christmas plans I would imagine that the whole
03:31family is going to be sat around the TV watching a boy called Christmas um have you have you got
03:37like
03:37Christmas traditions in the merchant household is there a movie you always watch or something you
03:41always do are you going to be seeing everybody for the festive season we always like to put on a
03:46family Christmas film like Die Hard or you know American Psycho um you know um but no we well
03:54what I don't know if you've noticed but some of the work I've done before films and TV they can
03:58sometimes be a bit more adult than um perhaps family friendly and so it's quite nice I've done a
04:03few of these things now where it's quite nice to have family friendly uh films or TV stuff that
04:08that you can sort of watch sort of comfortably with the family at Christmas particularly my younger
04:11niece and nephew and so yes I like that I like the sort of tradition of Christmas they will
04:15all come around and I will force them to watch the film um props give us our directors not not
04:20directors but actors commentary as we go and um and then uh yes and and it's all very traditional
04:26you know it's it's it's turkey and the whole kind of all the trimmings although of course last year I
04:30got all that planned and then um Boris cancelled Christmas so um I ended up with an eight person
04:34turkey for just me and my girlfriend and she doesn't eat turkey so um I'm still working for it now
04:39I've got some in the freezer I might just reheat it this year
04:46I suppose you've you've probably I don't know if you're going back to Bristol to see your family
04:50but obviously you've spent a lot of time there this year anyway making The Outlaws so how was it
04:55spending that much time back in your home city I guess the most time you spent there you know since
05:01leaving university probably well one of the appealing things about doing um the show in
05:07Bristol was that thought that I could go back to my hometown obviously in my mind there'll be sort of
05:11a ticker tape parade when I arrive um and I guess because we were there during COVID I assume that's
05:16why it didn't happen um but uh no I was hoping that sort of I'd sort of spend a lot
05:21of time with
05:21my family and and uh some old reconnect with some old friends but yeah like I said because we were
05:25there during COVID I ended up sort of having to isolate in this in this little flat that I'd rented
05:30so um you know instead of it being a kind of family affair it would sort of um you know
05:36it was my uh
05:37my parents kind of coming by and dropping off you know a roast dinner on a Sunday outside the house
05:43and then running away you know from from your teenage you wanted to be a filmmaker and find the
05:48chance with The Outlaws to to make uh uh something there and to film in these locations well I actually
05:56made a couple of short films when I was there and um and some of those locations reappeared particularly
06:01stuffed down by the dock side I felt I remember once being down there trying to make a little sort
06:07of film probably in my teens and we had these black uh water pistols that looked very much like guns
06:14and um and we're running around filming and the police actually pulled up and and pulled us over
06:19and sort of got jumped out the car and said you know uh drop the guns um you know and
06:25it's all quite
06:25intimidating um I mean you know we had a camera and water pistols so we weren't any real threat but
06:31um
06:31but yeah some of those locations that we'd done we'd filmed there uh we got to use this time for
06:36real with proper with proper people filming it so that was quite nice yeah like there's something and
06:40also I felt like I knew all of where the characters would live I knew sort of what jobs they
06:44would be
06:44doing I felt like I still understood the city even though it's changed a lot I still felt like I
06:48sort
06:48of understood where everybody each of the characters came from and that was quite that was quite nice
06:53seen lots of uh celebrity praise lots of celebrity tweets about the show I liked uh Richard Osmond
07:00Gary Barlow big fan as well which is a good to see um I was trying to think back for
07:06using back for
07:07good in the office Christmas special I was trying to think back to like the first bit of celebrity
07:15fandom you would have had because you know um I'm guessing it would have been for the office
07:21when that first ran on BBC two I'm trying to think who who maybe do you remember who like the
07:26first
07:26famous person who came up to you or said to you one way or another oh I love your show
07:30who that might
07:31have been well I I think it tended to happen more for Ricky because he was the sort of face
07:38of the show
07:38whereas I was one of the backroom boys so I don't think they necessarily would recognize me um
07:45but you know I would occasionally be with him and you know we ran into Steve Coogan once and he
07:50was
07:50very complimentary um and then we started going to award ceremonies and you know and you know people
07:56would sort of come up uh you know again people that we admired you know that sort of um you
08:02know
08:02like um I don't know whether it was like you know Paul Whitehouse or you know just you know
08:06people that we'd sort of we were big fans of um and then I guess Ricky started sort of meeting
08:12even
08:12bigger names so one of the reasons we managed to do extras and pull in all these big names for
08:16extras was because Ricky had sort of run into like Kate Winslet you know in an airport or Samuel L
08:22Jackson on a talk show and sort of said would you do this show we're doing and because they were
08:26fans
08:27in fact when we heard Samuel L Jackson had seen The Office I mean we're absolutely blew our mind the
08:30idea that he'd sort of watch the DVD there's something about Sam Jackson in his slippers in his house
08:34sort of peeling the cellophane off the Office DVD you know and putting it in the machine it just seemed
08:39so
08:40bizarre to us and then of course David Bowie being the most extraordinary um you know and again the
08:46idea that those superstars sort of just do something as trivial as watching TV but of course they do I
08:52mean what else are they doing you know they've got they've got a lot of downtime as well so um
08:56it was a bit of a slow burn yeah so Gary's obviously going to be very excited that there's a
09:01series two
09:03already already done isn't it it's like it's not just commissioned it's already made
09:07it's already filmed we filmed two series back to back because we got shut down like so many
09:12other productions because of the COVID pandemic and then we when I basically said to the BBC look
09:16I'm twiddling my thumbs can I feel like I write another series um whilst you know whilst I've got
09:22downtime and they said yes so we came back and shot two series back to back which on the paper
09:26on paper
09:27seems lovely and a great vote of confidence but proved to be an absolute nightmare as you'd imagine
09:31because that was 12 hours of TV it was pretty relentless and uh exhausting for everybody but
09:36um what was good about that is it sort of allowed us to address anything we needed to to fix
09:40in the
09:41scripts for series one that could sort of we could resolve in series two we were able to go back
09:44and
09:44kind of make changes so I like to think that the two series you know really connect together and they
09:48sort of the the second um sort of picks up exactly where the first one ended very much like a
09:53weekend at
09:54Bernie's 2 which starts uh exactly uh moments after weekend at Bernie's 1 ends which has always been one of
10:00the
10:00great influences for me I enjoyed watching you in the audience
10:09well that is one of the perks of being you know in showbiz is that you sometimes get those nice
10:15invites um I I think I was the only person in the UK that didn't get invited to the James
10:19Bond premiere
10:20but um I did get invited to an audience with Adele and uh and that was very pleasing um and
10:27uh yeah
10:27get what's and Samuel L Jackson was there you know how things would come full circle I said uh oh
10:31hello Sam and uh you know that's always pleasant and so um yeah it's nice it was lovely that and
10:36she you know absolutely incredible I mean just an incredible performance but also you know I'd read
10:40that the tickets for her Hyde Park concerts were going to be very expensive I thought getting free
10:44while you can um obviously people were standing up and dancing a lot but you know to to rolling in
10:50the deep things like that can you do that or are you worried about the people behind you
10:55well it's not so much I'm worried about the people behind me it's when it's being filmed
10:58because when I dance I am like you say you know about a foot and a half taller than everybody
11:04else
11:04so I'm very visible and it makes me very self-conscious and I always worry because I am so
11:08tall I look like a substitute teacher at a sort of year eight disco you know and so I tend
11:14to sort of
11:15stay sat down when everyone's on their feet dancing which then if you cut to me makes me look like
11:19I'm miserable like I just don't want to I don't dance you so um yeah so I tend to but
11:25occasionally
11:26you just have to get on your feet because either the tune's really good or um or you're giving
11:29someone a standing ovation and you don't want to be seen not joining in a standing ovation because
11:33that really does not look good so Outlaw series two is done so you you've got time on your hands
11:41now have you got you things happening you're writing you're planning things what's going on
11:46I'm so exhausted from having done two series of the show back to back I don't want to complain
11:51it is very it's a very privileged position to be and I know it does sound like oh no my
11:55diamonds are
11:56too heavy as my girlfriend would say but um but no I am I am exhausted and so I will
12:01just be putting
12:01my feet up uh watching some Christmas films um drinking some eggnog and uh and just relaxing really
12:08yeah until the new year
12:09yeah until the new year