Your new film 'Scenes of a Sexual Nature' hits the big screen shortly… When you watched it for the first time, how did it make you feel?
Catherine Tate: I was just so delighted - it is by turns moving, funny and a little bit uncomfortable. But I think that's a good way to spend 90 minutes. I think that's quite unusual in a film, because there was no big studio influence, or interference. They've managed to put on screen exactly what there was on the page. I think that was the big draw for everyone to be in it anyway, it was a fantastic script.
Did you know each other prior to making this film?
Catherine: No, We met on the day.
It was quite a short shoot overall, wasn't it?
Adrian: Yeah, two days.
Did you find that difficult?
Adrian: I'm very, very difficult.
Catherine: And I'm very easygoing, so we buffed up against each other quite a lot.
Adrian: It was fine. We wanted to just catch, if we could, a nice, truthful, honest moment that takes place in human relationships. Hopefully the audiences, when they watch it, will go 'That's me', 'That's you', 'I know that guy' or 'I've been there'. We wanted to get that happening. So when we met on the first day it was so quick, we just talked about this and that and went for it. And because there wasn't a great deal of time to prepare, everything you see on screen is what we discovered while we were doing it. All the little plays and moments and things, we actually just did them in front of the cameras.
The pair of you play what seems to be a very well suited, yet happily divorced, couple. Do you think your characters made a mistake?
Catherine: I dunno. There's a restlessness that comes in relationships, and even though they are completely suited and very compatible there might be another side of it where they go, 'Well, you're great, maybe I could get greater!' It's just that unfortunate thing that from an outside eye you look in and you go, 'Don't split up, because what's out there is probably not as good as what you've got', but you can't learn from other people's mistakes, you just do what you think is right.
Adrian: Some people found our scene very, very sad because it confirmed for them that the questions they were asking, what they were looking for, was absolutely the wrong way to go about things.
Which couple are you most intrigued by in the film?
Catherine: I suppose I would like to know what happens to all of them, but the one that I was most intrigued by was probably the Mark Strong-Polly Walker relationship. You're kind of kept waiting to see if what you're thinking is really right. I think there's a really clever part in the beginning where she says, 'I'm not allowed to smoke' and he goes 'but you're a… smoker', when what he's really thinking is, 'but you're a prostitute, you know?'
Did you enjoy filming on Hampstead Heath?
Adrian: Yeah! I've been on Hampstead Heath twice before, once for a concert and once because a friend of mine has a house that backs onto it, so we went for a walk one Sunday. It's a part of London that I don't visit a lot but it's a lovely place.
Catherine: I'm quite familiar with Hampstead, because I'm a Londoner, so I've had many a Sunday in the school holidays up on Hampstead Heath. But of course it's nice to film in London anyway. Just being at home when you're working is nice. But also I do think that Hampstead Heath plays a bit of a role in the movie, because it's so present, and I think if you are familiar with north London at all there will always be moments where you say, 'Oh, I've been there'. It's such a vast place, but there are little pockets of it that I think people like.
What was it like filming in such a busy place? Did you find yourself getting annoyed by the public?
Catherine: People were pretty compliant really. It was a bit like guerrilla filmmaking; you just had to grab it. We were lucky with the weather, with the people and the conditions. You're so exposed out there, you've got the flight path and everything. I think it all came together, because it could have been a nightmare.
Do you get recognised by the public a lot?
Catherine: I don't get it as much as people would think I do, although I've just been filming in Yorkshire, and I was surprised then. I know that people know what my show is but I didn't think they'd know me up there. I thought they probably wouldn't be interested in the show, but the recognition I got was really amazing. I was really touched and a bit overwhelmed by how much people knew the show and how much they liked it. But where I live in London, I think they're too posh to watch the telly. They look at you and go, 'Do you work in Waitrose?'... You know what I mean?!
What about you, Adrian?
Adrian: I hide a lot of the time. I wear a baseball cap, I have done for years. I'm so glad that baggy jeans, trainers and baseball caps have become normal street fashion. I normally have a cap on when I'm out doing my business, so people don't stop me a lot. Most of the time it's people who think they know me... 'Hey, how are you?' Then they think you're just being rude when you don't recognise them back.
