Bitterness, really is Paul Kayes explanation of what drove his satirical red-carpet interviewerDennis Pennisin the nineties.
It wasnt how I expected to forge a career.
Of all the things I thought Id end up doing, it wasnt that.
Discs in the early nineties.
I hadnt done any acting at all up until that point.
It was a bit of a nightmare.
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Some of Pennis targets presented their own risk.
Kaye had other reasons for being reluctant to approach some stars in Pennis mode.
Steve Martin, for instance, or Woody Allen.
I loved the idea of it, he says.
That felt very natural.
It was a lovely feeling for a couple of years, feeling like Robin Hood.
Kaye though, didnt plan to make Pennis an institution.
I really had no illusions of sticking around in the industry.
Pennis was a one-album band about celebrity.
It was really a reaction toHellomagazine.
There was only one magazine of that ilk on the shelves back then.
I mean, we certainly lost the war, he laughs.
Towards the end of it, PRs were coming along and offering people to me, he says.
We were coming from a very similar direction I think.
She did it brilliantly.
There was something in the air at that time.
The great thing about it was meeting Tom Hanks and Charlton Heston and all those kind of guys.
We were going right for the top drawer and it was exciting.
It was very exhilarating, up to a point.
Pranksters are still making headlines.
What did Kaye make of that?
I lovedthe Sepp Blatter one, he answers diplomatically.
And hes managing to get on the front pages of newspapers, so hes doing it.
Does Kaye have any regrets about doing the Pennis character?
No, no, no regrets, he says.
My only regret is that I didnt get into acting ten years earlier when I was handsome!
Acting was an early dream of Kayes.
I did have an inkling that I wanted to be an actor back in 1987 when I was twenty-one.
SeeingSid And Nancywas a memorable night in more ways than one, Kaye recalls.
Me and my friend were randomly attacked leaving the cinema as we were walking up Parkway.
My friend Pete was punched in the face and this guy started beating him up.
I jumped on him and he threw me into the road and I almost got killed by a bus.
A traumatic evening all round.
I didnt think of acting again for another decade.
I knew Simon [Pegg] and Edgar Wright.
Edgar actually did the title sequence for Dennis Pennis when he was about seventeen.
In 2007, Kaye popped up in an episode ofEastEnders.
I played a vicar in a Free Tibet t-shirt, he remembers.
His co-star June Brown was amazing, he says.
The popularity ofEastEndersgave Kaye his first real taste of public fame.
The day after his episode aired, he remembers being at an airport.
Encounters with the public havent always gone well for him, he says, laughing.
In recent years, Kaye has carved out a niche playing shambolic, black-market wizards who enjoy a drink.
Howell is fantastic, he enthuses.
Hes a complete alcoholic maniac which I used to be, but now its just a day job!
I spent twenty years researching the part.
He hasnt had a drink for around nine years, he says, but the memory is still there.
Kaye says he enjoys going big with comedy characters.
Its a sort of celebration of silliness.
Probably the strangest thing in series two is turning into James Buckley, I inhabit James Buckleys body.
Nobody talcs anymore do they?
Well James Buckley does.
Thats one of the main reasons I wanted to grow up when I was a kid.
One big, comedic role in particular was the highlight of Kayes working life.
I loved every single show that we did, he says.
Kaye was able to draw on his days in bands to perform a song in the role.
It was a beautiful song,Telly, it was like an old Ian Dury song.
OnMatilda,Kaye happily shared a dressing room with Bertie Carvel, who played fearsome villain Miss Trunchbull.
Because hes RADA-trained and I never trained, it was fascinating watching his process.
I learned a lot from him.
More stage roles followed in the wake ofMatilda, a sort of homecoming for the former theatre designer.
Youre witnessing a ten year old girl carrying the show every night.
I mean, the whole shows about the courage of a child.
Kaye played Jim, father of real-life survivor Holly Winshaw.
A small role, but one he made truly moving.
Id never done anything that came with such a big sense of responsibility, says Kaye.
I met the father who I played, he was on set a couple of days.
I just sat there thinking Oh shit because of how many tears had been shed onThree Girls.
I was worried I was crying too much in it, but Philippa thankfully found enough dry-eyed takes.
Ill miss the boys.
We all got on so well.
A great little gang.
Kaye filmed his season seven scenes in Iceland and Northern Ireland.
[Spoiler alert] My death, or my ruckus with the zombie polar bear was filmed in Belfast.
I was fighting with some guy in a green suit holding a flaming wheelbarrow, he laughs.
It couldnt get further from what ends up on telly!
He was like one of the Pythons or something, that great British eccentric imagination, says Kaye.
We actually got thrown out of the crematorium that he was cremated in.
The people in the crematorium saw us doing it on CCTV in their office and we got chucked out!
Something tells me Pratchett would have enjoyed the farce of that, I say.
Im very much of that mindset.
If everybody loved something, theres got to be something wrong with it.
