Interview with Dylan Edwards for Wasted

5 July 2016

 

You star in E4's new comedy Wasted, tell me about the show.

So Wasted is about four mates who live in the West Country and do stupid things and get up to shenanigans because there’s nothing else to do. It has a lot of pop culture references and an energy to it which is something you don't really see anymore, it's more in the vein of those 90's shows like Spaced than something you see these days, so it's refreshing to see that kind of comedy being made and updated for audiences now.

Can you tell about who you play in the series?

I play Kent, who has been living away from his mates in Bristol for a year and in his words has been 'a world class DJ', howeverthat's what he presents to his friends,in reality he's probably just worked in a co-op and slept on a sofa until he got fired and into debt so had to come home.

Kent is a bit lazy to say the least, did you know anyone else like him in your younger days as you were growing up?

Actually yeah there's quite a lot of guys like Kent from where I'm from and they’re the kind of guys that when I go back now they're sort of still sat in the same pubs behaving the same way. They're good fun guys and I like seeing them again though.

How much of you is there in Kent and could you recognise yourself in him at all?

We look alike but other than that there's not much, no! I like playing him because he's quite different, he's so cocky and he says things that I'd never dream of saying and does things I’d never do. Danny and I used to always laugh because of the things that I'd come out with we thought ‘that’s outrageous how can anyone say that!’. Kent has no filter from his brain to his mouth!

As you're from the West Country yourself - did you draw any references from it whilst filming on the show?

Yeah I could relate, there's no one specifically that I referenced but it's all in there, there are similar characters in Devon and there were a few times where I'd be saying my lines and I'd think ‘Oh my gosh that sounds so much like so and so!’.

The show looks like it was a lot of fun to film…

Oh my god it was the most fun! It was such a freeing creative environment, it was very spontaneous there were lots of spontaneous moments because we were all allowed to throw in our own ideas so it was really collaborative. Every day something would happen that you didn't expect and it was just so much fun to be around that energy and just so funny. I belly laughed every day!

Kent and Rose have an on screen and off screen connection too...

We do yeah, we met in the chemistry read through and we discovered that we grew up really close to each other. We used to hang out in the same places but never knew each other, which is so strange! Then one day we were filming and I just mentioned the college I went to and it turns out her Dad taught me IT there!

What was it like working with Jon and James as there were very involved in the filming process...

Jon and James were brilliant, they have a different way of doing things and what I loved about their process is that they were there on set the whole time and constantly suggesting new ideas. It's quite an American way of working; it's much more in the vein of how Judd Apatow might create his comedy. On sets I've been on before, we've been doing it to the letter of the scripts, the writers are never around so people are wary of changing any lines, so having Jon and James there meant that they could say 'that's fine change that... let's try this' which was enormously freeing as an actor - it was brilliant.

What was it like working with Danny as well - you get pretty close early on in the first episode...

Yes we do, because of a certain scene in episode one! I'd seen Danny on stage in the play Jerusalem and he blew me away. I've been a fan of his and never met him so I was delighted when I walked into the rehearsal room and he'd been cast. Danny's such an incredible actor, Gwyneth is just awesome too and Rose is so talented and hilarious - she's quite new on the block and I think this will be pretty awesome for her. 

What was the funniest thing that happened on set? Any pranks?

Yeah - there were quite a lot! The whole crew were involved and would often play pranks. One of the funniest moments that I can remember was filming a scene at the village fete involving elderly Morris dancers. Gwyn and I had to do a funny walk for certain reasons and then these elderly Morris dancers were asking us why we were walking like that so we both didn't know how to explain it! Gwyn just came right out and said it and it in the end was the most horrific and hilarious thing!

Some of the stuff you get up to is quite ridiculous, did you have a hard time keeping a straight face?

Yes, this was the hardest I’ve tried to not laugh on set before because it’s so ridiculous and absurd. Sometimes people would throw in new lines that catch you off guard, it’s like being hit with a right hook and it just destroys you! But luckily it didn't feel as bad as it has done before with the added pressure of time and the crew getting mad, it was more like a big family on Wasted so if we were laughing, everyone was laughing which was great! There are lots of outtakes I’m sure!

You tend to do more comedic roles, is that the type of genre you enjoy more?

It's hard to say really, but the buzz you get from comedy is completely different to sinking your teeth into a gritty drama. As an actor you always dream of doing both and keeping both of those plates spinning but I guess you start getting known for one thing more than another. I guess it was always going to go this way for me as I've loved comedy since I was a little boy and I grew up on old American Comedies - lots of Mel Brooks and Buster Keaton so I've always been a comedy fan, it's definitely something that I enjoy immensely.

You recently appeared in an episode of Game of Thrones - would you have liked to have worked with Sean Bean on Wasted?

I was so jealous of Danny and I keep pitching ideas to the writers Jon and James about Kent doing a scene with Sean Bean. I keep coming up with new ways that I could be in the scenes with him, there's so many different ideas so I'm hopeful! Either that or I get my own spirit guide. I think we decided that Kent's would be Bruce Grobbelaar, an old goalkeeper from the eighties and Kent wouldn’t even know who he is! So he's like ‘ah great I don't even know this guy and you get Sean Bean!.

As you've worked on your own series online, the comedy Difficult Second Coming - what was that like filming it all yourself?

So my wife Natasha and I wrote, directed and are in it too, we got the help of some producers but we exec produced it as well and pulled together a lot of people that we know in the industry. It's very consuming but such a rewarding thing to do. We've written scripts before and some of those things are still in development, but with this we thought let's just make something, lets see what we can do and it was just amazing. We're so pleased with the results and the response has been amazing too.

Have you got anything else exciting coming up?

Other than impending fatherhood, we're making some more Difficult Second Coming and we have got some other scripts in development too so there's more of that on the horizon.