Ant and Dec Q&A

Chris Tilly gets ready to rumble with the stars of 'Alien Autopsy'.

Apr  5 2006

Having first electrified TV screens as PJ and Duncan in 'Byker Grove', Ant and Dec went onto forge a successful career in music before finally becoming the kings of light entertainment with stints presenting 'Pop Idol', 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here' and 'Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway'. The likeable pair are now making the leap onto the big screen with 'Alien Autopsy', the true story of two lads who fooled the world into thinking they'd found the infamous Roswell footage of an extra terrestrial being sliced and diced. Here, they talk about making the transition from TV to film.

Did it take you guys a while to get back into the swing of acting?

Ant: It took us a little while to change our Saturday night presenting head to our acting head.

Dec: In a Worzel Gummidge style.

Ant: But it was all down to [director] Jonny Campbell really, he made sure that we had a lot of rehearsals where we'd just sit and talk about the script and the characters and try to keep it real. One thing we noticed from very early on with film particularly is the more real you can make a performance, the funnier it will be. We never really played anything for laughs and the comedy comes out of the situations they get themselves into. The whole film almost takes over their lives and they go on a rollercoaster ride, so it wasn't that difficult. I think it would have been harder if Jonny hadn't spent a lot of time with us and coaxed that out of us.

Dec: He put us through an acting boot camp really – he stopped us being light entertainment performers and made us think more about what we were doing. We toned things down a bit, because he reminded us that it's going to be on the big screen. It was just a different discipline really; kind of changing gear a bit performance wise. But it was an enjoyable process to go through and we learnt a lot.

How did you first become involved with the movie?

Dec: Well we got sent the script and thought it was a great story. We've been sent many scripts over the last five or six years, and decided this was the one we wanted to do, and they said 'brilliant, come in and audition'. And we were like 'What?', and that immediately punctured any little bit of ego that we might have had. But that was great, because it was clear that they didn't just want it to be an Ant and Dec vehicle. The film was going to be made whether it was us or not,

Ant: And that's exactly why we turned down other films, because that's what they were, they were Ant and Dec vehicles, kind of what you'd expect.

Dec: That's why we enjoyed doing the screen test and when we got the call going 'you've got the part', it was kind of like, ‘Woo-hoo!’ And we were just chuffed to get the role and chuffed to be part of what we think is a great story.

The film is set in the mid-1990s – did you enjoy dressing up in that gear?

Dec: That was really weird because it's not that long ago, but when you start looking back to magazines...

Ant: ...when you start reading old copies of The Face and Sky and Select and it was all Britpop, and Blur and Oasis, you see it was different. Even little weird styles of jeans and stuff.

Dec: Oh dear, the jeans.

Ant: But they change so subtly that you don't even notice until they ask you to wear them.

Dec: Like bum-bags – they wanted my guy to wear a bum-bag and I said no way – my character would never wear a bum bag. And the soundtrack is great as well – there was some really good music around at the time.

You seem to have stayed quite grounded through the years – how have you managed that?

Ant: I think it's because our careers kind went through a few ups and downs over the years. We did 'Byker Grove' and then we reached 18 and were written out. After that we had no immediate work so you realise how quickly how things can change. Then we had a music career which spanned for three albums and then suddenly that came to an end and it's surprising how quickly those invites stop coming. We realised quite early on how fickle it can be and how one minute you're friends with someone and the next you're not, so I think the easiest way was to just do what we wanted to do and stay with our close friends. Because we learnt all of that early in our career, I think that's probably why we haven't gone down that other road.

Dec: All those parties are really boring. And a lot of people that go to them aren't that interesting either. We'd much rather have a pint down on the river with our mates, watch the footy, chill out and have a laugh.

What was it like working with Harry Dean-Stanton?

Dec: Brilliant, I mean, to go out to LA and have ten days shooting the film was exciting anyway, but…the first time we met Harry I think he'd had a late night and a relatively early morning and he came in and didn't know who we were, didn't give a damn who we were, took half the week to learn our names, but he's just a legend, he's a living legend. And he's a real professional; really generous when performing with him, and he ended up taking us out on the last night and we were just humble to be in his presence in a drinking hole in LA

And what about Bill Pullman?

Ant: Bill Pullman, was great too. He'd done his research and he'd found out who we were and what shows we'd done and we got on really well with him. He puts you completely at ease. I thought I'd be really intimidated by him because we'd had four weeks worth of filming by that point so we thought we were really getting into the swing of it and then suddenly a Hollywood actor lands on set and everybody goes…

Dec: 'The real talents here!'

Ant: But he's such a lovely bloke and wasn't intimidating at all – he just fitted in and put everyone at ease.

It should be a real contrast when you do the press abroad and people don't know who you are. Are you ready for that?

Ant: We've not actually thought about that until today. We kind of had experience of that back in the days when we were PJ and Duncan and were releasing records in the Far East. We had to go out there and give everybody our history and let people know how we became friends. I'm sure we'll have to go through all that again, and trying to explain our career in 10 minutes is going to be pretty difficult. So there will probably be echoes of the music days. It will be interesting to see the reaction to us as actors in a film.

So what's next for you guys?

Dec: We did this film because it's a great story and they are two great characters, not because we wanted to make the first film in a movie career. We just wanted to be a part of this film. So we're going to see what happens. If we don't make another film then we don't make another film, we've just really enjoyed this one.

'Alien Autopsy' is out on Friday.

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