Galavant‘s Vinnie Jones spoke with Hypable about on-set hijinks, Gareth’s time to shine, and a final twist you won’t see coming.
What was your initial reaction when you first heard about Galavant?
Well, I wanted to get back into comedy… I grew up with thirty or forty guys in a dressing room, so you had to have your wits about to, sort of breaking people’s balls every minute of every day of the week. So I’m pretty good at that. Guy Ritchie saw that in me, so he put me in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and then Snatch.
So then I think we got away from it a little bit. When I came to Hollywood with you know, Gone in Sixty Seconds and Swordfish and X-Men, you know, I’m playing all these tough roles. And I’m like, I’m not being true to myself here. So we had a little think-tank with my managers and agents, and said you know, I’ve worked a lot now. Done seventy movies, I’ve got to do what I want to do now. And I want to get back into comedy.
And then [executive producer] Dan Fogelman brought this script out and I went to see it. And then you know, basically I said, “Look Dan, this is where I’m at and I’m gonna kick the shit out of you if you don’t give me the role.” So he had no choice.
Will we get to see Gareth starring in his own musical number before the end of the season?
Well, I actually did a musical number, but… when they tested it, they didn’t think that it was… they thought it was too early, too early in the story for Gareth to be singing. But saying that, I’ve got a bit of singing in the last one, so I get the upper hand on all the others.
But the other thing was, they were doing all this rehearsing with Alan Menken and everything, and I said, “I’m not doing this crap.” I said, “I’m not wearing tights and basically I don’t wanna be doing all this singing because I want to play golf.”
So Dan said okay. And Chris Koch, the executive producer, the director, he shit himself as well. So he said, “Let Vinnie do what he wants.” So those were rehearsing for their singing and dancing, and I was practicing my seven-iron.
These next two episodes I kept breaking their balls like, you know, “When are you gonna give me something? When are you gonna give me something?” You know, the last two episodes, Sunday night is sort of all about Gareth.
Can you give us any hints about the finale?
You see a bit of singing from Gareth, I will tell you that. And a brilliant twist coming, it is a twist that we didn’t even see coming. So it’s a fantastic twist, and hopefully it will leave everybody with a big smile on their face, and waiting for next season.
We’re trying to be very… you know, we ‘re all playing it down, we’re all trying to be very humble, you know? We think we’ve got a little gem here, and we’re all trying to be very humble. From the top execs at ABC to all the crew, the actors, you know, we’re all saying “We might have something here,” you know what I mean?
It’s Monty Python for me, you know, being British. I mean I grew up on [stuff like this]… And I enjoy it. I enjoy breaking Josh Sasse’s [Galavant] balls every day. For wearing tights, you know what I mean? I think [season] two, he should wear crotchless tights. Let it all hang out.
You share most of your scenes with Timothy Omundson’s King Richard. How did you guys develop your amazing chemistry?
We spent a lot of time off-camera together. I only live an hour from where we were filming, so I was taking Tim over weekends. I took him to a soccer match, you know, we were going fishing, to the pub. So we spent a lot of time off-camera.
And you know, we’re full of one-liners. Dan Fogelman’s full of one-liners, we were just constantly – with Josh, myself, and Tim, we were just honestly the whole time breaking each other’s balls. When one of us was on camera, you know, we were pulling the faces and trying to put the others off, it was hilarious.
Was that the general atmosphere on set?
Yeah, I mean, there was one scene, one memorable scene. It was the last scene of the whole shoot and we was all pretty tired, and we were trying to catch the tide because the boat goes out. And it was me, Tim, and Josh who were doing the last scene, and it was freezing cold. It was by the ocean, tide was going out, and we got the fits of giggles. You know, just stupid giggles. And Josh was breaking me and Tim’s balls off camera, so we were getting the giggles.
[The crew] was all panicking about the time and the tide and everything. We saw the funny side of them all getting irate, the director got a bit irate, and then he sort of semi-lost his temper, a little tiny bit. And then we broke his balls, and then he came back, he basically – I grabbed a hold of him, I said “This is a fucking comedy, you know, we’re having a laugh!”
He walked away, came back, pulled his shorts down, bent over and said “Okay, everyone can kiss my ass!”
But that’s where we were playing it. We were playing it as goofy off camera as we were on camera, honestly. And I know you hear that a lot, but we were. We had a great little time, we had a real fun time.
Do you have any hopes for Gareth in the rest of the season?
I think you’ll see that developing on Sunday. I was breaking the writer’s balls the whole time, saying “When is Gareth gonna be the main man here?” Just having a laugh. And they went “You wait, you wait, you wait!”
And then you know, the last two episodes I’m in, where the writer’s took my character, I’m very happy. I was happy, I was happy.
Objectively, who would be your pick for king – Gareth, Kingsly, Richard, or Madalena?
Oh, it’s Gareth. Gareth!… But you’d better tune in on Sunday, because you know, I think the show’s gotten stronger as it went. [At first we said] Oh yeah, this is a comedy! Yeah, and then it’s bloody funny, and it’s goofy, and it’s Monty Python. As people have accepted it more, the show has got stronger.
I thought last week with Ricky Jervais and with Weird Al and stuff like that, I think last week was one of our strongest episodes, you know? And I think next week, we’re all very humbly excited about it because it sort of brings it all together and there’s a fantastic twist at the end to keep everybody on a cliffhanger. So I’m excited.
Did you have a particular approach to playing Gareth?
One of my favorite characters from Monty Python was John Cleese, and I try and do it like he does, because he’s like mad and he’s funny, and he plays it all with a straight face. And I try and do a bit of that, because I loved John Cleese growing up. So that’s how I sort of play Gareth a little bit as well.
Any other stories from behind the scenes of Galavant?
We just had good fun the whole time, and it’s all in essence with the show, you know? It went hand-in-hand, hand-in-glove. We were just as funny off-screen, you know, having a laugh, practical jokes, you know, fucking with each other’s trailers and stuff like that. You know, it’s good, and the crew got involved, the crew were great. We was all one happy family.
And the thing is, I know actors say this, but we genuinely did. We had good fun, and it was like, “Oh, that was a lovely four-month holiday we just had in England!”
The season finale of Galavant, “My Cousin Izzy” and “It’s All in the Executions,” airs on Sunday at 8:00 p.m. on ABC.