James Buckley’s wife Clair has admitted she’d never actually seen The Inbetweeners before they got together – which is probably for the best, let’s face it.
James, 35, starred in the hit E4 comedy as Jay Cartwright, a sex-obsessed teenager who constantly claimed to be a maestro in the sheets, despite being inexperienced with, ahem, the ‘clunge’.
Now a dad-of-two, these days James is a Twitch streamer and YouTuber, with his online series At Home With the Buckleys detailing married life with wife Clair, who he wed in 2012.
Advert
In a new interview with the Sun, Clair revealed how their two kids, Harrison, 11, and Jude, nine, are approaching their teenage years – meaning they’re coming up to the perfect age for quoting Jay’s hilariously crude lines.
“Harrison and Jude both know dad was in a programme called The Inbetweeners, they know it was rude and obviously they know the other boys from it too,” she said.
“I’m sure when they became a certain age they may want to check it out or maybe they won’t be interested because their dad is in it.
“I’m definitely not recommending it to them, if they find it on their own that’s up to them. I’m not sure they will come to us to discuss it.”
She said they wouldn’t be ‘getting into trouble’ if they started quoting their dad’s catchphrases, but also won’t get a ‘free pass’.
But while their two sons are semi-aware of James’ past at the forefront of British TV, Clair admitted she’d never actually seen the show he is most famous for when they met.
“I knew of the show and what it was but I didn’t tune in. I didn’t watch it, which might have been a good thing,” she continued.
“I did watch a couple of episodes after we met but to this day I don’t think I’ve seen every single episode. James and Jay are nothing alike thank God.”
Clair said they'd only been dating a few months when a ‘big group of elderly people’ came up to James to say how much they loved The Inbetweeners.
“I couldn’t believe the age range of fans from 15-year-olds to guys in their seventies,” she added.
“We get approached in normal places like the Asda car park, while walking down the street or at LegoLand but people are respectful, I’ve had to learn to take good pictures for people.
“James really enjoys the Cameo requests too, the most common ones are for weddings but he’s done a few proposals as well, which is hilarious to me, I don’t know if they said yes.”
But while the fans love Jay Cartwright, James has said there’s no amount of money would make him play that character again.
As a guest on The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X, the host asked the actor: "If the people who wrote The Inbetweeners said 'We’ve got a script… It's basically what everyone's up to now, do you want to see it?' You’d say yes?"
James, who starred as the iconic character in three seasons and two films, bluntly replied with: "No."
Chris Moyles then hit back: "What?! Would you not?" to which James explained: "Not because I don't think I would have an amazing time doing it, because I know I would.
"I love the boys, I love the writers. Doing The Inbetweeners was the best job in the world.
"All we did was muck around all day long and they filmed us doing it, and at the end of the day, we might have had an episode, or a TV, you know, or a film or something. It was the best job in the world.
"But it might - you know, as I'm getting older - it's looking like it might be the only thing that I do professionally that is universally loved.
"There's not enough money in the world for me to spoil that."
Topics: Celebrity, TV and Film, The Inbetweeners, James Buckley
Jess Hardiman