Rob Brydon has shared his feelings on Gavin & Stacey co-star James Corden’s divisive public image.
In a wide-ranging new interview with The Times, the Welsh comic actor insisted: “The James Corden I know is not the person I sometimes see being reported on.”
“He gets a lot of stick,” Rob continued, before saying that the former Late, Late Show host is someone he’s “hugely fond of”.
Rob plays Uncle Bryn in Gavin & Stacey, the sitcom which James co-created with Ruth Jones and which put him on the map here in the UK.
During an interview on Desert Island Discs more than a decade ago, James shared that Rob once gave him a stern talking to at a time when his popularity was waning, and he was feeling “lost” in his personal life.
“This door had opened to a world that I thought looked like fun and where people go ‘you are amazing. You are great. Can I have a photo? Do you want a drink?’,” James recalled.
“So you just end up on this path of 3am cab rides with people you don’t know heading across London to someone’s house, who you don’t know, with a group of people who think it’s amazing that you are there. This is an intoxicating thing to be part of.”
James added: “It is a strange thing when you go through these periods when you can do no wrong. You can start to think you are more of a dude than you really are. I had a swagger in my walk, yet the work that I produced at that time wasn’t good enough. I don’t think it was as bad as people were saying, but I feel like I met them halfway and definitely deserved a little bit of a smack, I guess.”
At the height of his “spoilt and brattish” behaviour, James said that Rob “took him for lunch” and gave him some tough love, telling him: “What are you doing going out all the time being photographed with all these people? This isn’t the you I know. But it is the you I am having to defend to people.”
James has since become a household name in the US, thanks to his long tenure as host of The Late, Late Show and appearances in films like Into The Woods, Cats, The Prom, Cinderella and Ocean’s 8.
However, in more recent years, James has been embroiled in controversy once again, after he was accused of behaving in an “extremely nasty” manner to staff on two separate occasions at a New York restaurant, and copying old jokes by Ricky Gervais on his talk show.
James later apologised for his behaviour at said restaurant, and claimed he’d “inadvertently told a brilliant Ricky Gervais joke” on his show.