BY JOHN HISCOCK
When James Corden headed to America to take up his new job as host of the Late Late Show his friends warned him it would put an end to his thriving acting career.
– James Corden
“They said, ‘Well, that’s it. You’ll be done as an actor,’” recalls James, who had starred in the TV series Fat Friends, Gavin and Stacey, The Wrong Mans and appeared on stage in The History Boys, One Man, Two Guvnors and co-starred in several movies.
“They said I wouldn’t be able to act in anything anymore, but I thought that if I could build a different talk show as a performer and not as a broadcaster, I would have a chance.”
And that is exactly what he did. His Carpool Karaoke, in which he drives around Los Angeles with a celebrity while singing pop songs, has made him a star around the world and led to roles in a string of Hollywood movies.
His breakneck schedule sees him working seven days a week on a variety of projects, including his nightly talk show. Since moving to America, he has appeared in Into the Woods, Ocean’s Eight, Cats, Peter Rabbit, hosted the Grammys twice and is currently filming the musical comedy Prom with Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep, in which he plays an American for the first time.
“It was inconceivable to me that it would be so sort of – easy is the wrong word – but that it wouldn’t be an issue,” he says of his U.S. acting career so far. “But I’m very, very grateful that it isn’t.
“This is an absolute picnic of an existence and I am painfully aware that this won’t always be my life. It just won’t be, it can’t be. So, the worst thing that could happen is that I will look back on this phase of my life and think ‘Oh, I wish I had enjoyed it more.’”
We are talking at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills during a brief break in James’s working day. He had come straight from rehearsing a dance number with Nicole Kidman for The Prom and was going on to a creative conference to discuss future Late Late Shows before filming that night’s program with Jamie Lee Curtis. He is also promoting the movie musical Cats in which he plays Bustopher Jones, alongside a starry cast.
“When I look at the names in the cast I think this is ridiculous! It’s even more ridiculous when you are with all these people and everyone is pretending to be a cat,” he laughs. “We had one day, which was me, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, Idris Elba, Sir Ian McKellen, and Judi Dench, all shooting a scene together. Now, that in itself is quite extraordinary. Then when you add the layer of everybody pretending to be a cat, you really can’t help but feel you’re on some kind of hallucinogenic.”
He will be on British television at Christmas in the Gavin and Stacey Christmas special, which he has written with his co-writer and co-star Ruth Jones.
“We always talked about maybe doing a special for Christmas one year and then we decided, ’Well, let’s just kind of hunker down and do it and see if there’s a story there.’ And then after a few arduous weeks of writing it while I was doing the Late Late Show we came up with what we thought was a good story and we were taken aback by the reaction to it. When we announced that we were going to do it, I remember my dad calling me and going ‘Mate it’s on the news,’ which is bizarre to me that bringing back a comedy show on the BBC would be on the news, but we are immensely proud of it. I really hope that people like it on Christmas Day because we really gave it everything.
“The show will be almost exactly ten years on from where we last saw them and there are a few surprises in there that I think people will like.”
Cheerful and friendly, he is bubbling with enthusiasm when he talks about his life today.
“It’s been the most glorious ride,” he says. “I couldn’t ever have predicted that it would feel like this. We have been on the air for four years, we are the fastest growing linear show in the history of YouTube, we have the four most viewed clips in the history of late night television and we have won nine Emmys in four years – it’s been an absurd run.
“If I could go back and tell my 12-year-old self that this would be my life, his head would explode.”
He is just as enthusiastic but not so optimistic when talking about West Ham, the football team he supports and has followed all his life.
Because of the time difference he gets up at 4am on Saturdays to watch when the West Ham game is on television. Otherwise he’s tuned in at 7am. “We usually get beaten but I’m used to it,” he tells me.
“It’s hard to talk about football without talking about West Ham for me. But I am a big sports fan and I will watch anything; I’ll even watch curling for a day. All of it matters to me. Baseball is the only one I can’t get into because I feel like I am watching a group of people I don’t know having a picnic. But everything else, I am all into, win, lose or draw.
“Me and my friends used to say, ‘Win or lose, we’re on the booze.’”
