BIG SCREEN: Q&A with the creators of The Inbetweeners

Written by Zen Terrelonge

The Inbetweeners is one of the most talked about British sitcoms and rightly so.

Set around a group of four teen outcasts complete with Jay (James Buckley) the compulsive liar, Will (Simon Bird) the geek, Neil (Blake Harrison) the moron and Simon (Joe Thomas) the weirdo – there’s someone everybody can relate to.

The programme follows the lives of the odd bunch at school, complete with all manner of torture and embarrassment that comes with growing up.

To rapturous applause, a film has now been made, which is released today so here’s the Q&A with the two genius creators Iain Morris and Damon Beesley.

With the film upon us, is it the film you had in your head?

Iain: I think so yeah, we’ve been really lucky because we made it independently, so there’s no one to blame apart from us if it’s shit, so sorry about that!

Damon: I think the key thing for us was to make it 96 minutes long, every good comedy is around that length. Comedy is harder to sustain, it’s about the right balance, there’s a weird science to it.

Why bring it to the big screen?

Iain: It just seemed like the natural, lazy thing to do. When you leave school, it’s usually the route that follows, a holiday with your mates.

Where did you go on your teen holidays?

Iain: I went to Kavos, that was with two friends and three is a bad number, we all drove each other absolutely mental.

On the first night, I nicked my friend Simon’s drink and he said I’m going to punch you in the face at some point on this holiday but I’m not going to tell you when, so however much fun we were having there was always an undercurrent of, Si is going to punch me in the face.

So in the film, the boys go to Malia, is that the place to be?

Damon: We did a bit of research into it and it seems so, Magaluf has been going a long time and that’s where we shot. I went to Malia 20 years ago but it was just fields and dinosaurs roaming the land, now it’s a long neon strip which felt perfect.

What type of films inspired you?

Iain: I’m a huge fan of American Pie, which I think is genuinely underrated. I love the huge, hilarious set pieces like having sex with a pie, it was beautifully set up, one of my favourite scenes in the film.

Where did clunge come from?

Iain: We were looking for a word that wasn’t so bad it would make people turn off, it’s a word that’s unique to that group. It’s the way that a group of friends have their own unique expressions that nobody else would understand.

What’s the difference between writing for a film and writing for a TV show?

Iain: I realised it’s all about scale, creating a bigger picture so that you can expand.

Damon: Depth definitely, there’s more room for it to breathe, at its heart there’s friendship.

Iain: Don’t worry, it’s not too tender, you won’t be that far away from some vomit or something like that.

Can we expect anything else from The Inbetweeners?

Damon: That’s it, it’s over. The two of us and our Executive Producer watched the film the other night and when it finished and the lights came up we were all sitting there bawling our eyes out. Iain cries over everything though.

Iain: I cried over a gig review once and my wife came over and she said ‘Aww, are you crying?’ then when she realised why I was and said ‘Just so you know, crying in our relationship now means nothing’.

What fond memories have you taken away?

Iain: On the last episode of series three, the boys disappeared into the woods and they had put Joe [Thomas] into a hole, covered him in mud and thrown rocks at him.

Of the four characters who are you most like?

Iain: I’m Will definitely. Unfortunately.

Damon: A lot of the things that happened to Simon, happened to me. We just made him more neurotic and odd , which made me realise I’m actually quite weird.

James Buckley recently claimed he had stunt pubic hair in the film?

Damon: Iain actually supplied some of the hair.

Iain: I had a really big beard at the time and I shaved it off for stunt pubic hair, it’s true. A bit weird but there you go!

The Inbetweeners Movie is released 17th August with previews and in cinemas everywhere from 19th August.

Check out the trailer right here.