by James Corden
In her dressing room before the show we’d chatted about life and the jobs we used to do and Lily had told me she’d done some work experience once where basically her only task had been to laminate stuff; she’d loved it. She said that now she was doing other stuff, she missed the laminating; she’d found it therapeutic. (If you have never laminated anything, I would wholeheartedly recommend it.) The laminating was my ‘in’. I rang up a mutual friend, who gave me the address of Lily’s mum’s house, which was where she was staying at the time. I had an idea of how I was going to surprise her – it involved buying her a laminator. And I mean the greatest laminator money could buy, all the equipment and some laminating sheets and everything else. I wrote a note and I dropped it round to the house.
Later that day I got a text from Lily telling me that she loved it and it was so cool of me to have thought of it. I was beside myself. I knew she’d just come out of a really serious relationship and I’d been hurting like you wouldn’t believe over Sheridan, but none of that mattered then. I was like a lovesick teenager. Looking back, I reckon we were both just having a good time, enjoying the fact that we could flirt with each other and not worry about the consequences. But I wasn’t thinking that clearly then. Not even close. I’d already convinced myself that we were meant to be together.
I really wanted to date her, of course I did. Who in my position would not want to date Lily Allen? Phase 1 of my plan had been to deliver the laminator. Phase 1 was complete. Phase 2 was waiting for Lily to phone and ask me out. Phase 2 was not complete. I remember walking around with my tummy in knots, checking my phone every other minute for a missed call or another text, until, a few days later, Phase 2 finally kicked into gear. Lily phoned and asked what I was doing the following night.
‘Er, not much actually,’ I said about as nonchalantly as I could while trying to figure out how I could cancel the thing I’d arranged to do.
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’m going to the Teenage Cancer Trust comedy gig at the Albert Hall and I was wondering if you fancied coming with me.’
‘Yeah, cool. Why not? That would be great,’ I said breezily, trying to sound like I was down with the kids.
‘OK then, let’s meet in the Groucho Club and we’ll take my car.’
I rang Mat Horne; I rang Dominic; I rang just about everyone I could think of to tell them I had a date with Lily Allen. I’ve never been known for my subtlety.
So the next night there I was sitting in the Groucho Club, waiting for Lily Allen to show up to our date. Finally she walked in, sporting a new blonde hairstyle that really suited her. I stood up and was about to greet her with a hug when I noticed someone quite familiar over her shoulder. It was her assistant. That’s a bit weird, I thought to myself, bringing your assistant on a date. But then again, maybe she was just dropping Lily off, or meeting friends of her own here and was gonna say a quick hello and then go her own way, so that the date could begin.
‘Would you like a drink, James?’ Lily’s assistant asked me.
‘Erm, no, I’m good, thanks,’ I said, and then turned to speak to Lily. ‘So, is it just the three of us, then?’
‘No, actually,’ she said. ‘We have to pick up my friend Miquita on the way.’
So four, then, not three at all. Ah. How could I have got that so wrong? This wasn’t really what I had in mind. I mean, I’ve got a lot of love to give, but I’m only one man and three women … Let’s not go there. Lily, if you are reading this – that was not what I had in mind at all. I’d actually been thinking you and me, you know, quietly together, yeah? No, let’s not go there either. Moving on …
We left the Groucho Club and drove across town in Lily’s convertible, picking up Miquita on the way. We went to a gig but only stayed until the interval; then Lily asked me if I wanted to make a move. Right, so this was the part of the date where it would just be the two of us. I tried to play it really casually. ‘Whatever you want.’ Now, maybe that was my mistake right there. And that wasn’t the only one. The whole time I was hanging out with Lily, that’s how I’d be. I was so desperately trying to look cool that I’d go where she wanted to go, I’d do what she wanted to do, I’d drink what she wanted to drink – anything to please. I’d gone from being this assertive, cocky flirt from the studio couch to what was basically this obedient puppy. She’d ask me a question and I’d always answer with something along the lines of ‘Yeah, Lily, sure. Whatever you want.’ Not cool. Very not cool.
Anyway, we left the gig and I was still hopeful because it was just the two of us. I was getting all ready to spend some quality time alone when suddenly, as we were walking back to her car, about twenty paparazzi ran up to us and started taking our pictures. I’d had a bit of experience of this sort of thing, but nothing like this; there were all these guys calling our names, asking us to hold up, snapping away like you see on the telly. Only this was me, and this type of thing didn’t normally happen. In the car I told Lily it felt pretty weird, but she just shrugged it off. ‘James, it happens all the time,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, you get used to it.’
Used to it? Did she say I’d get used to it? What did that mean … ?
We went to a casino where Lily played roulette while I just watched. After that, we headed back to the after-show party at the gig. The photographers had all followed us to the casino; when we came out, they followed us back to the gig. And I don’t mean on foot. As soon as we were in the car, this whole fleet of scooters assembled and started tailing us across London. I have to admit to quite enjoying it at first, though it soon got a little tedious. It’s so intoxicating to feel as if you’re at the centre of something, that what you do on a night out is suddenly worthy of being news. Basically, there’s a lot of attention coming your way – I think we’ve already established that this is something I’ve been known to revel in. In just one night, we became one of those ‘are they or aren’t they?’ couples you read about in magazines.
The truth is, I probably went out with Lily four or five times in total, and not once was it actually a proper date. I guess we were friends – like she’s friends with lots of guys – although for my part I definitely wanted more than that. I had been so heartbroken that the idea of going out with someone like Lily only made me fancy her more. However, it’s for that reason, among others, that I’m sure Lily didn’t really have much interest in me. I was nothing like I’d been on the TV show. That was a totally different guy. On the odd occasion when I actually thought there was a possibility of something happening between us, I just turned to jelly.
I remember one night we went to a party and, from there, on to the Groucho. We were sitting having a drink when out of nowhere, she suddenly said, ‘Do you want to come back to my house?’
I was so stunned I just stared at her. ‘Back to your house, sure, yeah, why not? Whatever you want.’
I nipped to the toilets to try and calm myself down. Here’s what was going through my head right then: Well, she has been giving me really flirty eyes and now she’s finally asked me back to hers. OK. This is good. I guess ever since we met each other at The History Boys thing we’ve been building to this. Thank God she finally asked me back. I was never gonna ask her back. All right, be cool, be cool. How am I gonna play it when we get back …? Oh, man. This is good.
What I didn’t know was that while I was thinking about what it might be like when we got back to hers, Lily was inviting about forty other people from the club back to her house for an impromptu party. I didn’t even share a cab back with her. No, in my cab was me, Noel Fielding, the legend that is Louis Weymouth and Robbie, the lead singer of a band called the Big Pink. I sat, slightly dejected, as Louis tried to cheer me up with his hilarious stories. When it came to the crunch, there was no relationship. There was no Lily and James. It was all in my head. It didn’t matter if the national newspapers were talking about us, the truth is that we never even shared a kiss. I don’t think there was ever a time when it was just the two of us alone anywhere, except perhaps the o
dd moment driving, but that doesn’t count.
The last time I went round to her place was when the reality finally dawned on me. That night, it was Lily and me and a couple of her friends and we were sitting around chatting and drinking until, eventually, Lily let out this massive yawn, looked at me and said, ‘I think I’m going to go to bed now. What about you?’
My heart stopped. This was it. After all this time, all the false dawns, this was the moment.
So she walked up the stairs with me padding behind, my mouth dry, my stomach churning, my hands sweating: I was all kinds of sexy. Play it cool, I told myself, you can do this. She is just a girl, just a girl. It was all going through my head now: Jesus, did I smell OK? How was my breath? What underpants was I wearing? Were they clean?
Finally, after what seemed an eternity of staircase, we got to the landing. There was a bedroom on our right and Lily pushed open the door. My heart was pounding: it was so loud I could hear nothing else. Slowly, languidly, she turned to me and looked deep into my eyes.
‘You can sleep in there,’ she said, pointing to the room opposite, and then pecked me on the cheek. ‘Night, night.’
And that was it. Off she went into her room. I went into mine and closed the door. Never have I felt like such a douche bag. Who was I trying to kid?
I remember it as if it were yesterday: lying in that strange bed in Lily’s house, staring up at the ceiling and realising how badly I’d misread the signs. This was never going to happen. This had been a bit of fun on the TV and that was all. There was no me and Lily – it was all in my mind. I suppose I felt more foolish than gutted. Looking back now, though, I can actually say I’m glad that’s all it was. I like Lily very much, she’s a friend, and I know that if push came to shove that night, I’d have been awful in bed. I would’ve been so nervous that nothing – and I do mean nothing – would’ve happened, so I want to take this moment to say thank you to Lily, for sparing a lovesick fool that kind of embarrassment.
CHAPTER 19
BEST MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT:
‘Lose Yourself’ by Eminem
BEST FILM TO WATCH ALONGSIDE:
8 Mile
BEST ENJOYED WITH:
humble pie
DESPITE THE LACK of any real sexual chemistry between Lily and me, all of the newspaper interest had meant that my profile had gone up considerably. I was on the cover of Esquire magazine and various newspapers were describing me as the hottest property in television. It was so strange, yet very exciting … I’m finding all this stuff hard to write if I’m honest. It was only a few years ago and yet it seems so far away. I can remember the moments from school that I’ve already written about much more easily than I can recollect this period. I was in a haze, I guess, a whirlwind where everything rushed by me so fast.
Every article that was written seemed to push me further and further away from the person I had always felt I was. I remember Ruth Jones calling me one day and asking if I’d seen that morning’s Daily Mirror. I hadn’t. She suggested I might want to but also warned me to sit down when I did. She was right: it did come as quite a shock to be staring at a double-page spread announcing me as a ‘babe magnet’. There was a series of photographs of me with various different women, only one of which I’d had any sort of thing with, but it was making me out to be some kind of love god. It felt as if both tabloid and broadsheet were proclaiming me as a ‘hot’ thing – in different ways and in different contexts, but ‘hot’ either way. I have to be honest and say that I found it all. I’d been waiting for so long to be the guy, the thing, and suddenly it felt as though that was happening.
I was on and off with Sheridan again throughout this time, most of 2008. Each time we got back together the love would be more intense, and then, of course, the break-up would be all the more heartbreaking. When I was single, I would go out all the time. And I mean, all the time. I couldn’t really see the point of staying in.
The night that Gavin & Stacey won The South Bank Show Award for Comedy sticks out in particular. I loved The South Bank Show. Every Sunday night, growing up, I would watch it with my family, really enjoying how openly people would talk about the love they had for what they did. I must have watched the episode in which Damon Albarn from Blur goes and looks around his childhood school about twenty times. For whatever reason, it struck a real chord with me.
The ceremony took place on a late January afternoon at the Dorchester Hotel. The awards were, and still very much are, a wonderful thing to attend. It’s an amazing buzz to be in a room with a whole mix of people from Tracey Emin to Ken Loach. Art and artists everywhere. Year after year I’d watched the ceremony on TV and seen the likes of The Office, The Royle Family, Steve Coogan and Little Britain all win the award for comedy. So for us to win and follow in the footsteps of that lot was mind-blowing for me. I celebrated by having a glass of champagne on my own. And when I say a glass, I mean a bottle. And when I say on my own, I mean On My Own. I’d lost Ruth, who I think had gone to the bar with Alison Steadman, and I couldn’t get hold of anyone I knew, so I just sort of wandered around the room drinking. I got to speak to Vic Reeves, which was fantastic, and I met Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys, who was incredibly nice and humble, but sooner or later the realisation hit me that I didn’t know any of the people in the room – or any of the people I was climbing into a taxi with later. (I didn’t know where we were going either.)
This was not a one-off; it was happening almost every night: parties after parties after after-parties. House parties of people I didn’t know; back rooms of pubs and other crappy dives. I wish I could remember more about it so I could better understand why I was behaving like that. Every single one of my dreams was coming true and yet I couldn’t have been more miserable. I think most of all I felt lonely, which is why I wanted to surround myself with people, even if I didn’t know them at all. In one sense, I must have appeared supremely confident, walking around with my silly swagger and seemingly being in demand, but I was crumbling inside. The woman I thought I loved was with someone else at this point and it was killing me. Everything I did – all the showing off, all the partying and drinking – was just compensation.
They say you should never believe your own publicity, and they, whoever they are, are absolutely right. But the truth is it’s really, really hard not to absorb some of it, at least when your picture is being plastered across the covers of major magazines and when everyone and their uncle is lining up to tell you how great you are. I’m sure that if I’d been more grounded and surrounded myself with the people who really cared about me, I might have behaved differently. I’d gone from talking to my dad almost every day to not speaking to him for weeks. I was ignoring the people who had known me growing up, who had been such a huge part of my life before all the fame stuff. I don’t know why; I wish I did. It’s something that will always confuse me. Why didn’t I just stop and look around at what I had and see how lucky I was?
This was the spring of 2008. I was coming up to thirty and my career was all going as well as I could have hoped. The second series of Gavin & Stacey was running and the viewing figures were way better than the first series and steadily growing. I said earlier that a few people had made comments about how well Mat and I bounced off each other on set. Well, after the success of the second series, we began talking with the BBC about the possibility of doing a sketch show. Mat and I were really up for the idea, but on the condition that we’d make a sketch show that our parents wouldn’t want to watch. It had to be something for us.
Originally, I thought we should try and make a pilot. We’d not made one for Gavin & Stacey, but then Ruth and I had lived with the characters for so long, and we were working with such experienced actors, that it didn’t feel as if we needed one. This was different, though: this wasn’t a sitcom with a developing story; this was a series of sketches. Time was a big factor, though. Mat and I had both just been offered the leads in Lesbian Vampire Killers (which, remember, we’d auditioned for after series one hap
pened) and so we, the BBC and the producers decided to push on without a pilot. So, we had to write and shoot the sketch show, shoot the movie, and Ruth and I had a BBC1 Christmas special of Gavin & Stacey to write. The rest of 2008 was shaping up to be plenty busy.
But the cherry on top of the cake was about to arrive. I awoke one morning in March to a few voicemails and text messages, all saying congratulations. I didn’t know what they were for until I scrolled further down to find one from our producer, Lindsay Hughes, which said, ‘Well done. You’ve been nominated for a BAFTA!’ I honestly nearly fell out of bed. The first thing I did was call Ruth Jones. I couldn’t wait to share the excitement of it all with her (and I also just wanted to check that this wasn’t a massive wind-up). Some people had predicted we might get nominated after doing well at other awards dos, but I never thought it would actually happen. I found it hard to believe that our show had been nominated for ‘Best Comedy’ at the BAFTAs. Except, well, it wasn’t. Ruth told me that we hadn’t been nominated as a comedy, no. The show was up for the Audience Award for Television Programme of the Year, and I had been nominated for Comedy Performance. It never even crossed my mind that I might have received a nomination for my performance. I always felt that if anyone from our show was going to be nominated, it would be Ruth. Her performance as Nessa is, in my opinion, astounding. So understated and yet rich to its very core. It couldn’t be further away from who she is as a person and, when I catch moments of the show now, I am still in awe of what she did with that character. It felt strange to have been nominated when she wasn’t. I guess the only slight disappointment was that we hadn’t been nominated in the ‘Best Comedy’ category. It seemed strange to be nominated for a massive award like the Audience Award, alongside shows like Britain’s Got Talent, The Apprentice and Strictly Come Dancing, and not to have been recognised as a comedy. But, with all the other good news, it wasn’t something I was going to dwell on.