Your new film The Ballad Of Wallis Island scores an impressive 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. Who would you most like to hurl 96 rotten tomatoes at?
Do I have to hurl them at the same person, or can I split them? Can they be living or dead? Let’s take 40 to hurl at Hitler. I wouldn’t mind keeping 10 back just in case I need to hurl them at a random person. That leaves 46. How rotten are they? Maybe I’ll eat 10, which leaves 36. Is there anyone I can help you with?
Plenty. Although we’re on Zoom, so I’d need my rotten tomatoes to be virtual.
Well, I’m your man. I can go round if you like. Else I think I’ve done everything I need to. The other 36 go down the garbage chute, I’m afraid.
In Peep Show, your character was thrown in a lift in your sleeping bag and water-boarded by Mark, Jez and Super Hans. Have you ever been rudely evicted in real life?
I was rudely evicted in Edinburgh about four years ago, where I am now. They threw me out and my stuff was gone thank to some scandalous landlords. I think I managed to grab one bag of stuff, but when I went back to get the rest, it was gone. Definitely lost in that transaction was a very nice radio. The writing on the wall really was when I arrived and they had a toilet roll holder in the lounge. I don’t know what was going on in that place. You never know quite where you’re going to get with Edinburgh accommodation. I’m here now.
Who last addressed you as “Timothy?”
A nurse on Tuesday.
What’s the shortest poem you’ve ever written?
“Tanya Googled herself. Still nothing.”
You’re also about to star in follow-up to the US version of The Office, The Paper, which follows the staff at a small-town American newspaper. What would you do if you were editor of the Guardian for the day?
I don’t really read newspapers. I just buy them to do the crossword. I think I’d probably make the Guardian bigger again, because it’s small now. I’d make it an unwieldy, difficult thing to read, and put the cryptic crossword on the back page. The sports section currently is wrapped up in the culture section. I’d free that, because that’s the only bit that I really read.
You also play Sidekick Simon to Alan Partridge. What does Steve Coogan smell like?
I imagine Partridge smells lightly of Brut aftershave. Coogan: a more high-end aftershave.
What’s been your most cringeworthy run-in with a celebrity?
I guess it’s when you fanboy someone, isn’t it? I’ve since met Mike Atherton, the [former] England cricket captain, and he was lovely. But I was at a book signing in Cheltenham and – you tell me if this is cringeworthy – my friend and I followed him at safe distance to a pub and then sat at a safe distance on a different table. I think it’s really cringeworthy because you get people who pluck up the courage to say: “I think you’re fantastic.” But I didn’t even have that courage. I just sort of sat nearby. I wasn’t even close enough to tell you what aftershave he was wearing.
Please explain the virtues of the humble fig roll, a biscuit you have famously been pictured eating in the past.
It’s a fantastic biscuit. The best part is that you can kid yourself into thinking it’s healthy because it does have fruit in it. So the optics are good. It is not a dark chocolate McVitie’s digestive situation which you clearly know is bad for you because of the chocolate. Also, it’s a very nice hard biscuit. There’s some crunch to it, but it’s very good for dipping in coffee. It softens very quickly and I would say is certainly in my top three biscuits at this stage.
McVitie’s have recently come out and said you should be eating your digestives chocolate-side down.
I can see the benefits in eating them upside down. The tongue tastes more of the chocolate and the chocolate doesn’t coat the roof of the mouth. Is that the idea? I just don’t think that’s something I can get entirely on board with, unfortunately, so I don’t think I’ll be doing that.
When did you last cry?
I last cried watching a play about Bill Shankly, the former Liverpool manager. It was a beautiful production in Liverpool with a community choir on stage, very emotional, and the perfect play. I cried more or less throughout, amazingly.
Would you rather die at the bottom of the ocean or deep out into space?
I think both are pretty lonely, but space is more spectacular, isn’t it? Puts you on the map. It would be a decent death element to my Wikipedia page.