The Inbetweeners actor James Buckley has reflected on the show’s recent ill-fated reunion special, revealing he didn’t find making it an enjoyable experience.
At the beginning of the month, James and his former co-stars came together to mark the 10th anniversary of The Inbetweeners with a one-off special titled Fwends Reunited.
However, the episode was panned by fans of the show, while James himself issued an apology shortly afterwards to those who felt “let down”.
Speaking on his YouTube channel Completed It Mate, James shared his thoughts on the episode and, more specifically, where he thinks it went wrong.
Discussing his discomfort while filming it, he explained: “It became a thing that wasn’t a celebration of this good thing I did in my life, it was me being taken the piss out of for hours on end.
“I didn’t have the personality or the intelligence to cope with it, especially when you’re up against someone like Jimmy Carr, who’s super quick and super funny. So I come across as a complete moron through the whole thing.”
He went on to say that he felt caught between himself and his Inbetweeners character, admitting he felt like he had to behave like Jay to appease the fans watching in the studio audience.
“There was this bit where it was like, ‘Well they’re all here and they want you to be Jay, so do it’,” he recalled. “When the audience was there, I didn’t want to seem like a stick in the mud.
“I didn’t want to go, ‘Can we stop for a second because I don’t know what the fuck’s going on here – you’re talking to me like I’m Jay from The Inbetweeners. I’m really not’. So that was another one of the reasons why it was a disaster.”
Fwends Reunited marked the first time the four stars of The Inbetweeners had been on screen together in more than four years.
While The Inbetweeners TV series came to an end in 2010, the four actors later appeared in two spin-off films, the most recent of which was released in 2014.
Watch his full interview below...