When hes singing, he magically switched to Ronan Keating.

Can you believe it?

Its a surreal thing to have that claim.

There are fewer Postman Pats in the world than there are James Bonds.

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Thats true, I hadnt thought of that.

You make a very good point!

Ken Barrie was the original Postman Pat of course.

But in a second, he switched that famous voice on.

To embarrass the kids a bit?

Well, I already started doing it last night after we went to the premiere.

Then thats probably even more weird though.

This bloke with curly hair whos got that voice!

Its a weird one.

Its not really sunk in yet how Im going to cope with the legacy of being Pat!

You got a flavour of that at the premiere then?

I did, I did.

I got little awe-inspired and slightly scared kids coming up to me.

I think it confused the issue a bit more!

We had little crossover.

Am I on safer ground with yourself?

Where do you stand on, say, Jossys Giants?

I dont know it.

What about The Family Ness?

Youre not a Family Ness man?

Ive never heard of it.

When was it on?

In the 80s and 90s.

What were you watching?

What were your kids TV programmes?

I was reading Dostoyevsky!

[Laughs]

Surely you saw Mysterious Cities Of Gold?

Er…

Did you have a telly?

We did, we did!

We did have a telly!

[Laughs] We were only allowed to watch the test card!

You did a film ages ago called Supertex thats one letter out from kids TV at least.

Unfortunately, its not likeSuperted!

No, it wasnt!

Watership Down, I did three series of that for ITV.

Which was interesting, because we ran out of the book within about three episodes.

So there were lots of dad, Im gay kind of storylines.

And Ive doneBromwell High, a Channel 4 cartoon series, although its more adult.

But yeah, this is my first venture into five year olds icons territory.

And its a delight really, because most of the stuff I do is frankly filth.

Youve got killer robots in there, for instance.

Plus an anti-capitalism thread!

I showed my three year oldSuperman IIon Saturday.

You think hes worried about killer robots?

I tell you whats interesting… when my eldest was four, hed watchedJurassic Parkon telly.

But I took him to seeMatilda The Musical, and we had to take him out half way through.

What was scary wasnt just the man playing Miss Trunchball, but the fact that hes just over there.

But when the man is in the same room as you, thats a whole different deal.

I had to take him out.

He said daddy, you should not have taken me to see that!.

And then we went home and watchedJurassic Park!

Id better get back to the film.

There was a year-long delay in the production of Postman Pat: The Movie.

You were one of the first signed up to it.

What was the cause of the hold-up?

I dont really know!

They had a couple of rewrites on the script, but then thats standard procedure for a movie.

And I think it was more the animation just took a lot longer than they thought.

Being part of an animated film is unlike any other acting experience Ive had.

Normally, acting is a team sport.

I went into a basement in Soho on my own here, for two days, two years ago.

I recorded my entire part on my own.

I only met Rupert Grint for the first time yesterday!

And I met the woman who plays my wife for the first time yesterday.

So did you have any interaction at all in those two years with any of the other cast?

Did you not have to come back and re-record dialogue?

I came back once more to do a bit of ADR.

A few extra noises, perhaps a speech had been rewritten.

But there was very little, actually.

Most of what you see is what I did, in isolation, two years ago.

I know some of the cast.

David Tennant is a friend, and Ive seen him many times since.

But we didnt actually get together and work on it.

It shows what an amazing job the director does.

Its all in his head.

He knows how its all going to look, and we didnt really have an idea.

They showed me a drawing of how Pat would look.

But we didnt know how scenes were going to work.

Its very hard to do one part of the conversation!

Tell me there was a draft of two of a more radical Pat?

It could have been quite cool, couldnt it?

If hed got a tattoo on his forehead or something.

Hes such a fundamentally nice character though.

Thats both an advantage and a problem!

Its a problem if youre writing a 90 minute film!

You cant have someone being nice for 90 minutes, thats not interesting.

So Postman Pat 2: The Bastard then?

[Laughs]Postman Pat: The Arsehole!

But it is the challenge.

You dont want him turning into something hes not.

I think what theyve done is very clever in this film.

He never loses that niceness, he just cant see whats happening around him.

[Were told by the publicist that we have to wrap things up.

We realise we have spent too long talking about Jossys Giants.

I would love to do moreDirk Gently.

I think a financial decision was made.

Ive not given up hope, but people dont like taking in orphans.

Would you crowdfund it?

That would be good.

Finally, your favourite Jason Statham movie?

I dont think Ive ever seen a Jason Statham movie.

So youve never seen Jossys Giants, or a Jason Statham movie?

I think that gives me quite a lot of Brownie points, doesnt it?

It gives you quite the contrary!

Im going to go and sob now.

[Laughs]

Stephen Mangan, thank you very much.

Postman Patis released in the UK on 23 May.