Jack Whitehall’s career as a comedian and actor exploded 10 years ago with two TV shows: Channel 4’s Fresh Meat, in which he played posh boy JP, and the BBC sitcom Bad Education, which he wrote and starred in. Now he reprized his Bad Education role, the con teacher Alfie Vickers, for a one-off Christmas special that reunites most of the original cast. Whitehall, 34, recently created Audible’s celebrity interview podcast, Safe Space, and last year starred in the films Jungle Cruise with Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt and Clifford the Big Red Dog. He lives in London with his girlfriend, the model Roxy Horner.
When we next see teacher Alfie Vickers, he is taped to the whiteboard and being bullied by his students. That seemed very realistic – didn’t it? Yes, that was real.
And when the tape is removed, you crash pretty hard on the ground. Was that painful? Maybe what happened there is that I got too used to being on movie sets where they have huge budgets. And if you’re willing to do your own stunt, you’re very, very safe because they’ve thrown a lot of money at it to make sure you can’t get hurt. So yeah, that was definitely one where I was like, “If we get it from the first take, I think maybe we should move on.”
I think it helps if you throw yourself under the bus a few times
Do you usually do your own stunts then? Yes, I did all my own stunts in Jungle Cruise. My poor stuntman too, I felt sorry for him, it was the most embarrassing moment at the end of the shoot. Dwayne Johnson surprised his stuntman by giving him the keys to this amazing Chevrolet truck. He handed them to him in front of the entire cast and crew, and this huge guy from Hawaii almost cried. And I looked at mine and I was like, “I’m really sorry, but I have a candle. It’s a nice candle, it’s four wicks, but you just need to know in case you think you’re going to get some kind of vehicle.
Did this inspire the scene in Bad Education: Reunion where Alfie thinks one of his former students gave him a flash car? No, this is a real thing that happened to my father [Michael Whitehall]. He was the agent of the actor Peter Bowles, and after Peter had done a few series of To the Manor Born, he went into my father’s office and said, “Michael, I just want to thank you so much for giving me this job. It changed my life. And if you just swing by the window, there’s a surprise I want to show you on the street. And he came over and there was a white Rolls-Royce parked outside and my dad said, “Oh, God, Peter, I’m so grateful.” And Peter said, “No, no, the car’s not for you. I just wanted to show you that thanks to you getting me such a good deal, I can now afford a Rolls-Royce!”
BBC three Bad Education Reunion – Trailer
The concept of your Safe Space podcast is that if you talk about the most embarrassing things that happen to you, you feel better. Is this really true? Yes, there were a few [of episodes] – Jameela Jamil and Emily Atack – and then I was like, “Well, their PRs are going to connect, aren’t they?” And we were waiting and they weren’t. But I think it helps if you throw yourself under the bus a few times. Like, “No matter what you’ve done, I’ve probably done something worse. Let’s just get it all out there!”
In the episode with Judd Apatow, you talk about being a “man child” in the past. Will you ever stop doing embarrassing things? I’m definitely more aware of it. Even today, on the sofa on This Morning, when I told Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary a story about getting drunk and throwing up in the back of a taxi, a voice in my head said, “Are you too old to do you make material like this? It’s something you could probably brag about when you were 20, but now you’re 34. And you’re on This Morning: that’s certainly not going to impress anyone in their demographic. Come out with a little more erudite material, please.’
You’re back with stand-up shows in the works. What material appeals to you right now? well [the show] it came from just going on a particularly fun vacation with my girlfriend and then building this routine of basically going on safari with her. But alongside that, I’d like to do a show that maybe has a bit more substance. Again, trying to mature as a comedian, make sure there’s a little more purpose in the comedy. I would love to get two stars from the Guardian. This is the goal.
Whitehall with Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson in a scene from Jungle Cruise. Photo: Disney/AP
Two stars? What do you usually get? Well, I have five stars from the Guardian, but that’s over 10 years and five reviews. But I still rate this as five stars from the Guardian.
Do you see your career mainly in Hollywood from now on? The last time I was in LA, I was told there were two really good projects I was slated for. One of them was supposed to play a Chippendales stripper, and the other was addicted to heroin. And I said to myself, “These are two very different tasks. Will I go to the gym? Or maybe I should go and try to find a shady gentleman on some street corner? See if I can use a method for this part. And I didn’t get any of them, so that’s good. I didn’t have to go to the gym or do crack.
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Bad Education: Reunion is on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer on December 15, 9pm, followed by series four in January
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