Mar 25 2008 By Siobhan Synnot
SHE'S been ogled by James Bond, dated David Walliams and snogged Doctor Who - but Spaced star Jessica Hynes reckons
she is an unlikely sex symbol.
Jessica is best known for padding up as Cheryl in the
Royle Family or geeking up as desperate wannabe writer
Daisy in Spaced.
But, off-screen, the 35-year-old mother of three is
not just smart and subversive but also a bit of a
sultry siren, too.
Even the latest James Bond, Daniel Craig, has drooled
over the down-to-earth blonde's charms after the pair
went swimming together when they were rising stage stars.
“We were on tour together and, when I came out of the
swimming pool, he said to me ‘wow, Jessica, you've
got massive jugs’,” blushes Jessica.
It's not the smoothest one-liner 007 has ever uttered.
But unlike most of his future Bond Girls, Jessica was
both shaken and stirred by the compliment.
“I laughed and didn't know quite what to do,” she confesses.
“But I think he can be forgiven because he was only 18 or 19.”
Jessica also once went out with Walliams but was so
unimpressed by the superdating Little Britain star
that a tube of sweets ended up as the highlight of
their night out.
She recalls: “I went on a date with David and he was quite
boring. He ended up going out with my friend. But he did
buy me some Smarties.” Dubbed the funniest woman in Britain -
with two British Comedy Awards on her mantelpiece to prove
it - Jessica is now about to play it straight in Son Of Rambow.
The film is a family-friendly comedy drama set in the Eighties,
with the crowd-pleasing potential to be this year's Billy Elliot.
Jessica is one of the adult leads, a strict mum who is a
member of the Plymouth Brethren. This religious sect don't
make friends, or even eat with people outside their church,
reject televisions, radios and computers, and shun the
cinema or theatre.
So her straitlaced character is horrified when her son
discovers the joys of Sylvester Stallone movies, and
decides to make a badly misspelt sequel to Rambo with
the help of a video recorder and a bunch of 11-year-old
non-Brethren pals.
“The kids were so enthusiastic, and naturally bright and
real. Take after take, they were right there every time.
It was inspiring,” raves Jessica.
“It's a classic film and the best thing I've ever been in.
It's one of the best films of the last ten years and I
love it completely.”
However, she's not so pleased by plans for an American
version of Spaced - the series she co-created, wrote and
starred in with Simon Pegg The sitcom - which ran on
Channel 4 in 1999 and 2000 - is currently being adapted
for US TV by the creator of Will And Grace.
And Jessica slammed TV bosses Granada for selling off
the show without consulting her and Simon, which legally
they were not obliged to do.
“I think it would have been really courteous of them to
contact and tell us - but they didn't,” she fumed. “Maybe
Granada were worried we might not have said what they
wanted to hear so they didn't ask us.”
“It's the worst side of corporate moneymaking.
They do it because they can. They don't care really.”
“We made a programme for them that made hundreds of
thousands of pounds and under our contracts we don't
get a fraction of what they make out of it. They're
prepared to sell it to America without even telling us.
I think they are a**eholes really.”
She says American bosses plan to relocate the flat-sharing
geeks to San Francisco, and will be lifting chunks of
the original show's scripts and dropping them into the
American setting.
Jessica jokes that perhaps she should get revenge by
nicking America's most successful sitcom in return “I
just wonder if we should do a British version of Friends.
Just Briticise Friends, turn it into a two-day opera or
something,” she says.
“To be honest though, Spaced was of its time, and of
the time in my life when I was thinking about flat-sharing.
I'm not in that world anymore, I'm interested in other
things and I'm doing other things.”
And her nightmare cast in the new US Spaced? “Oh, that
would be Jessica Simpson and Freddie Prinze Jr,” she laughs.
It was a chance meeting at the auditions for Six Pair Of
Pants - a 1995 comedy show for Anglia TV - that led
Jessica and Simon to team up and write Spaced. But their
creative partnership was a stormy one at times Jessica,
who is a year younger than Simon, says there were huge
arguments with her co-star. Simon would kick chairs and
Jessica would stomp out of the room.
“We nearly did kill each other,” she recalls.
Although fans have pleaded for more Spaced episodes, the
two writers have gone their separate ways and, apart from
a six-line role in Simon's hit horror picture, Shaun Of
The Dead, Jessica says she hasn't been in contact with her
former writing partner until the US Spaced row brought
them back together.
“We have talked about doing a couple of things, but
we've gone in different directions.
Simon and I are still doing similar things - he's just
doing them on a stellar level.”
Despite the success of Spaced and her role as fish-and-chips
loving neighbour Cheryl in The Royle Family, Jessica
underwent a period of struggle after Spaced ended.
While co-star Simon moved on to movie success with Hot
Fuzz and roles in Mission Impossible 3, Jessica signed
up as the star of a disastrous BBC1 sitcom, According
To Bex, in which she played a put-upon PA.
Her confidence took a knock as viewing figures sank
to less than three million.
Afterwards, she fired her agent and resolved only to
work on projects she really believed in.
“I learned a lot from that. I'd much rather be poor
doing things I want to do than have a bigger house
and doing things I didn't,” says Jessica, who also
changed her stage name from Jessica Stevenson to
Jessica Hynes - to acknowledge her six-year marriage
to Adam Hynes, father of Jessica's kids, now aged
nine, five and two.
“Adam and I have been together a long time - I first
met him when I was 18 - but we haven't always been
married. Now we are and I really felt I wanted to
change my name.”
Anyway, on the rare occasion she gets recognised on
the street, she says, people never seem to remember
her name. “Usually, they say, ‘You're Cheryl off The
Royle Family’,” she says.
Since finishing Son Of Rambow, Jessica has been busy
writing scripts, including one about the suffragette
movement, and is about to star in Faintheart, as the
longsuffering wife of aman who spends all his time
re-enacting famous historical battles.
But one of her first roles under her new name of
Jessica Hynes was in Doctor Who.
A fan of both the series and Paisley-born star David
Tennant, she starred in two of the most touching
episodes of the revived series, introducing her to
a whole new generation of fans.
“My autograph-hunting mailbag has gone up
considerably,” she admits.
Jessica, from south London, played a school matron who
tempts the Doctor to give up his Timelord abilities
and settle down to a human life of love and marriage.
In other words, Jessica got to kiss Doctor Who.
“Loving telly as I do, I'd have taken any part in it,”
she confesses. “As it happened, I lucked out because
I got a great role and lots of marvellous scenes with David.”
Timelord David and Jessica hit it off during filming.
So when he found out she was writing a one-off comedy
called Learners for the Beeb, he pestered her to
include him in the first project she has written since Spaced.
They played a hopeless driver and a long-suffering
instructor. And they get to snog again. “The writer
insisted on it,” she grins. “What a drag!”
Son Of Rambow is out on April 4.
Taken From: dailyrecord.co.uk