8/12/18: Kevin Eldon is on Pointless Celebrities on BBC One. Here's some background. 

I recently interviewed the legendary Kevin Eldon for the Guardian to tie in with his eagerly anticipated debut BBC2 series It's Kevin. You can read the original feature here. It was greeted with enormous delight – the Arts Editor called the comments column a "tidal wave of love" while one commenter – is that a word? – said that it was the most positive comments section they had ever seen in the Guardian. Not difficult I know, but still nice for Kevin.

Eldon was very chatty and there were things he said which didn't make it into the Guardian feature so I thought it might be worth posting the entire interview transcript here. Sadly we ran out of time just as I was about to ask him if he really likes weak lemon drink in real life...

KE: Sorry I'm late. I was at a meeting somewhere else. I  went through Mayfair and it has got people in monocles and top hats. If I had 20 million pounds I still wouldn't buy a house there. They didn't seem very friendly.

BD: So, after 20 years here's your own show. What kept you?

KE: Let's not sling blame about. It hasn't taken 20 years. You've got to want to have one first and it hadn't even entered my mind until maybe two years ago. It all kicked off when I did the Edinburgh show in 2010 which was a personal challenge. I dared myself to do it because I'd never done it before. It was always easy turning up at other people's parties doing a little dance then relaxing and going home so I set myself the target of doing my own show.

If something is daunting and scary it is probably worth it, but about six weeks in I was really scared, but I got stuck in and was so relieved when it went OK. As a result of that a couple of bods from the BBC whispered into my agent's ear the possibility of having my own series. I was offered a pilot and did it, I more or less did what I wanted then thought there was no chance and to my astonishment they said yes. I'd tried a pilot before as (poet) Paul Hamiliton. Anyway, I forged on and last June they asked for a series but wanted it to be delivered by January. I actually nearly turned it down becase in that time I had to co-write another 2 and half hours of material, prepare it and record it, but then I thought 'oh shut up and do it' so I just cracked on. Having such a short time has advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes it doesn't quite work out but, it was a kick up the arse.

BD: The challenge isn't getting the army of Eldon watchers to watch, it's getting the people who have never seen you to tune in. Cameos from Julia Davis, Bill Bailey and other familiar faces should help.

KE: There is absolutely no strategy and hats off to the BBC. They minimally interfered. The exec producer was Mark Freeland who offered some apposite salient points but basically if we thought it was funny we put it in. We had a good producer, Richard Webb. What I found is that there are two kinds of producers and the ones that I find are no use to me are the ones who find everything absolutely hilarious. That's worse than useless. The ones that are really hard to please are the most useful and that was the case with Richard Webb. Your paragon is John Lloyd who was completely hands on. He used to write too, it makes it a team effort, I'll always praise him to the rafters. About a year out of drama school I sent him an unsolicited script and he phoned me up out of the blue to discuss it with me. I met him about 20 years later and reminded him and he said 'that's what producers do, they try to coax writers starting out.' Everything was 'written' and my influences were so massively obviously on my sleeves, it was  a Young Ones carbon copy with a bit of Python..

BD: Was it always planned to go out on BBC2?

KE: That's where I wanted it to go. Maybe a whorish side of me would have taken any commission but this is the spiritual home of good comedy – Milligan...Python started there. I guess today it is an almost unrecognisable beast but it is stll BBC2. In my dream I'd have done it in TV Centre but it was on an idustrial estate in Hendon. I was still really chuffed.

BD: I guess at 53 you are officially too old for BBC3? (Fact - Wikipedia at the time of writing is wrong by a year, he was born in 1959)

KE: I don't even know if I'm young enough to play a character's father on BBC3. 53 year old men don't get their first series on TV very often. I do recognize it is a slightly odd set of circumstances. Is it a record? Age does care to creep up on you.

BD: How well do you think you are known?

KE: I've absolutely no idea what kind of viewers there will be, so I honestly don't know. I haven't the faintest idea. At the moment I have a level of recognition which is pleasant and acceptabe. I have a couple of mates who are really famous and I don't envy them getting stopped every 200 yards to have their photo taken. I just hope people like it, I've done me best, it's not perfect but it's not bad.

BD: How many yards can you walk without being recognised?

KE: The length of Britain. I hardly get recognised. Unless I go to a band gig or Glastonbury I hardly get recognised. Mostly my experience is someone looking at me a bit funny and thinking I'm that bloke's cousin at the wedding. It's not a daily thing.

I wont say names but it can be so rude, like being woken up on a train to be photographed or getting your girlfriend elbowed out of the picture literally. There is an element where with certain kind of fame people think they own you. Very odd. Bill (Bailey) gets a lot of attention and is unfailingly curteous.

BD: I think it's more accessible than Stewart Lee's BBC2 series

KE: It's not a sketch show more a variety show. There is as much studio business and character stuff as well as sketches. It's got the sparkly staircase which puts it in showbizland. But it might slip under the radar. My girlfriend goes on Tweet (sic) and laughs out loud at some of the things that people say. It seems very nice. It's not Mrs Browns Boys - and for that we should be grateful – I'd be very happy to get Stewart Lee's figures and criticial reaction.

BD: And it's got puppets too

KE: It's funny, you write something and forget that they will be there in 3D when filming starts. I don't get to keep them. I showed them to my one-year-old daughter and she is more besotted with the puppets than she is with me. It's rather like being a God staring down at his puny creations.

Interview continues here.

BD: Your CV is pretty comprehensive, were there any that got away?

KE: I never worked with the Boosh boys. I think they always need people with no baggage. I had too much form and it might get in the way. They used people who were really good but without a massive profile I think that was useful to them so they could fit into that fantastic world they created. Like Rich Fulcher was pretty well known but fitted into their world brilliantly.

BD: But you have worked regularly with Mrs Julian Barratt, Julia Davis on Hunderby, Nighty Night, Lizzie and Sarah, Big Train and Jam. What is she like?

KE: I've got nothing interesting to say apart from the fact that we love each other and have always stayed in touch. All of us from Big Train have stayed in touch. We really value that friendship. She really makes me laugh. The stuff that she does can get so grim in subject matter and I know for a fact that she has no malice in her, she is just the sweetest woman and is very demur and modest. I often said 'where the hell does this stuff come from?' Maybe it's some kind of catharsis. She didn't write anything for It's Kevin but whenever we were filming if any of these brilliant guys had any suggestons we said 'great thanks.' I've always loved collaboration and working as a team and that was definitely the case in this show.

BD: It does feel at times like Son of Big Train. What was Graham Linehan's involvement

KE: He was going to be script editor but then got too busy with Count Arthur Strong and said 'you know what, I haven't really put enough into this,' but what he did was give us some early pointers about the direction we should take the show. It was getting to the stage where every item was an interview so if you think there's a lot now you should have seen the script then when it was all 'And my next guests is...'

BD: You worked with Scorsese on Hugo. How did that come about?

KE: Sacha Baron Cohen was allowed to improvise a lot of his scenes and he was doing scene phoning up someone from the police department to get someone to come and pick up the orphen, and he said 'how about a scene where we meet the guy?' and Marty says 'sure sure,' so I went onto this set at Shepperton which was basically 300 yards of a recreated Parisian street complete with traffic and 200 extras and improvised a scene with Marty. Nine hours for a 13 second scene. Afterwards the AD said 'would you like to meet Marty?' so we went into his caravan where he did his directing from via a bank of monitors. It was ne of those things about how someone is very, very famous but also the banality of him being a human being, a little guy with his shirt hanging out. Nothing grand about him

BD: Would you like to work in America?

KE: I keep going for castings for stuff if I'm interested. There's no harm in going for it. It would be very interesting to go over and see how it works.

BD: Would you like to do some straight acting?

KE: I did some Pinter with Bill Bailey onstage but it was the comic ones. There was a time about two years ago when I did a couple of TV police things and I just thought I'm not going to put myself through this again, talking utter produceral bollocks. There was nothing satisfying for me at all, but if something straight that was good came along I would do it.

BD: Please explain to my younger readers why your are known as The Actor Kevin Eldon

KE: That was Lee and Herring, it was like a news report, 'The Actor Kevin Eldon....who died today...' They just thought it was hilarious conferring some kind of gravitas on me. Similarly Richard Herring put about the rumour that I was Norm in the Twix adverts in the 1970s. It is hard to label yourself. Comedian to me does suggest someone who is a standup and I always felt I was a bit of a pretender on the stand-up front, though nothing gives me more pleasure than to be on a bill with  to join in the talk with standups. Doing standup is one aspect of my career if I got it right I'd be most proud of.

BD: You've already done arenas, working with Bill Bailey when he does his Kraftwerk encores.

KE: That's unrepresentational of any real situation. I'm going on after he has worked them up into a frenzied state of mind so I'm going on to an arena full of really happy people and making them happier. For a lazy man its the perfect job, to pitch up at the end of the set. I'm not an easy live perfomer. I'm ok after after afew minutes but before going on I'm all nerves, from mild anxiety to really uncomfortable jitters. I want to crack that and do what Stewart Lee does – have half a pint, read the paper, eat a meal and saunter on, unlike me, just pacing, pacing around.

BD: You are a Chris Morris regular, from Jam to Four Lions

KE: People ask me what he is like and half expect him to be some sort of cold satirical ogre, but you could rarely find a warmer more engaging man. He has become a friend and he would help you out of any tight spot. The thing about Chris that lways impresses me is his relentlessly energy. He has such enthusiasm and zest so when you are working with him or socialising there is a bubble of ideas and he is incapabale of talking in cut and paste speak. He cant use cliches he has to invent new phrases of his own. What he does is break moulds because he looks at things from new angles, which is such an antidote from any of that lazy formulaic stuff. Plus great attention to detail, so in Four Lions he did years of research about Islam jihadists and converts because he wanted it to be based on the truth.

BD: After It's Kevin wll you go back to being The Actor Kevin Eldon for hire?

KE: I can't speak for Chris but I think he would want to use new people. I would always be happy to work on something that is a) good b) people I respect and like. Just have to see what happens, I'm involved in a sitcom next, that's something I need to crack. Writing and possibly appearing.

BD: Do you ever think you miss out on parts because of your age?

KE: I don't think so. I tend to go for age relevant parts. It's probably fifty times harder for women as far as age is concerned, so you can't really moan about ageism as a bloke when women are getting it in the neck all the time.

BD: What was it like working with Steve Coogan? I'm a big fan of your kitchen salesman Mike Samson who meets Partridge in the Travel Tavern lift

KE: It is peculiar – three days work in 1997 and better remembered than things I've done recently. It seems to have taken on a life of its own. I hardly recognise myself it's so long ago. Peter Baynham and Armando Iannucci and I went down to the basement at Talkback Television and did hours of impro. We taped it all then they all watched it over at the end of the day and anything they like they use to get a plot development or get a joke better. Then I got a script out of that. I remember on the night of filming they were doing rewrites after the technical reherasal so it kept getting changed, very organic. At the last minute Peter Baynham shouting 'say "it's like cars this"' which makes no sense at all but feels like the kind of nervous conversation that might happen in a lift. Which is one of the reasons Baynham is coining it in the States now.

BD: Tim Burton cast you in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory alongside Mark Heap

KE: I went along to the audition and had three lines. I did it about 8 times. It's a weird world the Hollywood movie set. You are in a tent with chandeliers and attractive young people asking you what you would like. You can see how it would go to your head. But anybody who takes it seriously is mad.

BD: You seem to be a bit of a talisman. Everything you have been in has been a hit except maybe Hyperdrive?

KE: But I did meet the love of my life on that, Holly, so without Hyperdrive my daughter would not have been born. Holly was the art director and has a terrific comedy pedigree. Her father was the Monty Python designer Robert Burke.

BD: Anyway, back to my first question. why did it take so long? how does it feel when you see people you've worked alongside becoming superstars?

KE: I don't think I was lacking in confidence but I was not ambitious or sharp-elbowed. It's an absolute truth if you start comparing yourself with others you go mad. Go your own way, plough your own furrow. I think people who look down on others with didsdain are not very happy. Set your own targets according to your own needs.

The main objective of doing this job is to do good work well with nice people and any fame side is the down side. I'm happy if the rent is getting paid and I'm doing the best I can in work I like.

BD: You've got a kind of punk ethic, you don't like compromise.

KE: I did that ITV series Great Night Out recently. I was flattered to be asked then found myself doing something I didn't want to do saying lines I didn't want to say. I was filled with shame.

BD: You should have had an inkling it would not be right, you've done all your best work on the BBC and C4 and it was on ITV.

KE: Yes - my girlfriend said 'don't worry, your friends won't be watching this'

Kevin Eldon is currently in EastEnders (6/3/18)