Miles Jupp: ‘I really must try and formulate some opinions on stuff…’

[prev] …acting at the moment and I really love doing that, so I think that, in a way, before, it was a chance to do a little one-man play or something, but maybe that itch is getting scratched by the acting. When you’re involved with pitching and writing, you’ll constantly be told: ‘We don’t like this, we don’t like that, this needs to change,’ the process is quite complicated. So the idea of thinking a thing then just going out onto a stage and saying it, it’s great, great to be able to operate in a totally unfiltered way.

It sounds as though it’s a decision based on confidence and maturity, as much as an artistic decision
Well, it’s about finding your voice. It takes time to work out what you want to say about stuff and what you think about stuff. When I started I was 20, I was at university, and I didn’t really think anything! I probably didn’t really have any politics… And then suddenly you get to a point when you can react to stuff that you hear. The more you do, all the bits that people think of as disposable: writing lots of jokes about that week’s views, panel shows, doing jokes about the utilities industries for an awards show, it’s a form of training, it’s exercise. You get better at writing, you get better at turning it around, and of course it all feeds into everything else.

‘A very important thing in life is realising that there are things you want to do that are achievable, but it might not initially occur to you’

Your father was, still is, a church minister. Not that he was in the pulpit cracking jokes, but is it safe to say that oratory runs in the family?
Yes, I would see my father a minimum of once a week addressing a large number of people, so I would not be overawed by that situation, I would see it as something that’s achievable. A lot of people, the most nervous you see them is when they have to do some public speaking, making best man speeches and whatever. There are people I know who are actors and I’ve never seen them more in despair then when contemplating the idea of having to stand up and be themselves. A very important thing in life is realising that there are things you want to do that are achievable, but it might not initially occur to you. When you’re at school, you’re so institutionalised you keep waiting for people to give you permission to do things, but when you grow up you think, ‘Oh, I can just do that now. I’m in charge!’ Well, to an extent…

‘At its heart, Rev tried to be as real as possible…’

I’d like to talk about Rev, because I think people just weren’t expecting it to be as good and as lovely as it was, plus it viewed people of faith with such warmth and perspicacity, which is unusual in this day and age. What are your thoughts on it?
When it came out, people within the church thought they would become an easy target, with a lazy string of jokes at their expense. But it was more nuanced than that, wasn’t it? It was quite… [cont]