The big interview: James Cordon

James Corden arrives and it’s as though an old friend has walked into the room. He’s all handshakes, and “all right mate, how’s it going?” and exuding bonhomie.

Indeed, he’s so friendly, I forget we’re here for an interview and not a friendly chat down the pub – which is the spirit with which he enters the room.

I confess to him, almost immediately, that I wasn’t sure what he would be like. Having read interviews where he appears guarded and even a little truculent, and having seen all the tabloid coverage of him falling out of nightclubs and generally being badly behaved, I wondered if he would be likeable.

I tell him all this and then quickly add that I then read, in the midst of all these cuttings, that his favourite film is Jerry Maguire and, as soon as I had read that, I knew that we would get along.

“Oh I love Jerry Maguire, one of my favourite films ever,” he says and we’re off, quoting bits of the film to each other. We spend about five minutes saying “don’t you love that bit where...” and “my favourite part is when...”

The laughter subsides and there is a moment where we both realise that we’re there for a specific purpose. I’m about to start the interview proper, when there is a shift in the air and before I ask my first question Corden throws what the Americans call a curve ball.

“What d’you mean you didn’t know what I was going to be like, then you read I liked Jerry Maguire and you knew I’d be okay?” he asks. He asks the question not in a combative way, but as though he is genuinely hurt by what I have said.

Just the stuff that I’ve read, I explain quietly, hoping to move past the moment.

“What sort of stuff? I don’t know what you mean?”

I backtrack, quickly. Realising I have nowhere to go, I opt for honesty and say that all the stories of him falling out of nightclubs drunk and the like have perhaps coloured my view.

“Yeah, but who isn’t getting p***** and falling out of clubs when they’re 22? I don’t think that I’ve... I’m aware I’ve made mistakes... I don’t know... it just saddens me that you would think...

“If reading a story about someone falling out of a club makes people judge me – there were 100,000 people at Glastonbury this weekend doing just that and if something like that tarnishes someone’s view of me. .. I don’t know...”

I feel awful at the prospect that I have offended him. He appears to be genuinely upset that anyone would think badly of him. He is also someone who is desperate for validation and approval, so many of his sentences left hanging in the air and many others finishing with the phrase “D’you know what I mean?”.

Wanting to make him understand that there was no judgement when I read all those stories about him, I confess that I too have fallen out of clubs.

“Well there you go. That doesn’t make you a bad person. I’m sure lots of your mates think you’ve got a great job, but you’re just you, a guy going to work.

“This is what I do, it’s just my job, but people elevate you. It’s a strange way to make a living. Then he adds quietly, “It’s a long time since I fell out of a club.

“At the time I had broken up with a long- time girlfriend. I was single for the first time, I was 26 and I was a little bit famous. That’s a bad mix.”

We’re at the National Theatre, an hour before Corden takes to the stage to star in a play by the Hull writer Richard Bean called One Man, Two Guvnors, an updating of Carlo Goldoni’s mid-18th century play, normally translated as A Servant of Two Masters.

It has received phenomenal reviews and there is more than a hint of pride when Corden later says that he can’t think of a play that has received five stars from both The Sun and The Guardian.

“I can’t even think of a play at the National that has even been reviewed by The Sun,” he says, a look of delight on his face.

He deserves to smile. The play is very, very good – Richard Bean’s script is note perfect and Nicholas Hytner, director of the National Theatre, is right on his game.

Corden’s performance is unmatchable in its comic timing and is the beating heart of this production.

He is very careful, all the way through our interview, to hand out praise for the success of the show to everyone involved, name checking the associate director Cal McCrystal several times, who he feels has been overlooked in some of the praise dished out to the play. The truth is, however, that whenever Corden is on the stage, he owns it.

It isn’t the first time Corden has experienced success at the National Theatre with a Northern writer. He was in the original cast of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys.

“I remember we had a preview performance of The History Boys and Nick (Hytner, the director) told us to enjoy the moment, because we’d probably never have a success like this again.

“Then it happened with this play, at the previews, and he said to me ‘okay, now you’ll probably never have a moment like this again’.

It would take a gambler to suggest that Corden won’t experience such success again. Although only 32, his career has been full of meteoric highs and one or two lows that he would probably rather forget.

It began when he was cast in the musical Martin Guerre. He was 18 years old and was essentially standing at the back in the ill-fated stage show.

From there he was thrust front and centre, cast in Fat Friends, the Leeds-based comedy drama written by Kay Mellor. It was there he met Ruth Jones. He talks about her with such warmth, saying she is his “best friend”. The pair of them collaborated on a show, Gavin and Stacey, which first aired on BBC3 and went on to became one of the BBC’s biggest comedy hits.

“I have the most fond memories of Leeds,” says Corden. “Shooting that show was – it changed everything, changed my whole life.

“Gavin and Stacey was formed in a bar in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Leeds. I wouldn’t have met Ruth and if it wasn’t for that show, and if I hadn’t have met Ruth I wouldn’t be here today.”

Through the interview he talks warmly of many of the people who have been there at what he calls “the tent poles of my career”.

He calls Alan Bennett “the best person I’ve ever met”. He talks with enormous pride about what all the young cast in The History Boys have achieved, but the one person he skimps on the pride when discussing is himself.

With the highs of Gavin and Stacey he became somewhat ubiquitous, presenting the Brit Awards, appearing on game shows and, as sure as night follows day, a media backlash followed Corden’s rise.

It clearly left him a little hurt by the suggestion in the media that he had become a little big for his boots. It is hard to imagine this sensitive, chubby young man (he is a big lad, but nothing like as corpulent as you might think) being victim to the sin of pride.

“I don’t really consider myself a writer,” he says. But he won a BAFTA for his writing.

“Yeah, but the BAFTA told us that we wrote something that was quite good, it doesn’t tell you that you’re a good writer. tI have to write other things before I can consider myself that – and I hope I do,” he says.

Is he enjoying the praise he is receiving for his present role?

“Richard has written a script that, unbeknown to him, plays to all my strength and none of my weaknesses – of which there are many.

“I just feel so lucky. At the end of the show I bow last and there have been a few times where I stand in the wings thinking ‘I’m at the National Theatre and I’m about to walk on and take a bow’. I just feel so fortunate.

“My character has a line in the play where he says “only the man who never does nothing never makes no mistakes.

“He goes on to say ‘judge me as you wish to be judged’. “I feel there’s some truth in that.”

I wish I’d had that in mind before I opened my mouth when I first met this talented young man who deserves all the success he has had – and one suspects, will continue to have – through his career.

Audiences around the UK can see One Man, Two Guvnors, when a special NT Live performance is broadcast live to cinemas on Sept 15. Full details at www.ntlive.com – it will be broadcast at cinemas including Bradford, Leeds, Hull, York, Sheffield and Richmond. The National Theatre production tours to The Lowry, Salford, Oct 11 – 15, details on 0843 208 6005.