Greg Davies on foot fetishists and why size doesn't matter

Do you eat in front of the telly?

When you’ve got a mate staying with you, you revert to university eating as well... I’m eating more crisps now than I ever did as an 18-year-old.

So, what’s your sofa like?

I have a huge sofa, befitting of a man of my stature [he’s 6ft 8in]. I call it the sofa of doom, because it’s so big and it envelops me so well, I’m inevitably asleep within ten minutes of sitting on it.

Let’s assume you are awake – what are you watching?

I don’t watch an awful lot of television. It’s a very strange thing, and I don’t know a lot of people who work in telly who watch a lot of it. I’ve just come out of the writing process for Man Down and I can’t watch anything that’s even vaguely comedy-related when I’m writing. I’m a sponge, and I just want Man Down to maintain its voice. The last thing that I watched in earnest was the Scandinavian drama series The Bridge.

What’s the most outrageous story that you’ve ever read about yourself ?

I think a lot of people wanted to engage with me when my ex [the MP Liz Kendall] was running to be Labour leader... If you decide that you’re not going to discuss your private life, then it’s really easy to deal with. There are loads of inaccuracies about me and my previous relationship that I couldn’t care less about. But there’s somebody online that keeps changing the size of my feet! I don’t know what they’re up to...

Your feet?

Yes. They’ve gone from a size 13 to a 17. I think I’d be a human right angle if that were the case. I’m just sort of slightly mystified as to their motivation! And why somebody is changing the size of my feet online is just one of those mysteries. But it really explains the amount of times a journalist has said I’ve got size 17 feet and you think, “You’ve just looked at my Wikipedia page before this interview.”

Maybe there’s a Greg Davies foot fetishist out there. Are people ever aggressive with you?

Some of my friends in this business have received awful online abuse, but I’ve so far pretty much avoided it – and I’ve largely avoided meeting hideous people in the street. Most people tend to be charming. Maybe it’s because I’m tall and they assume I have some level of strength, I don’t know. I’ve only ever had one experience – when I was about 18 I was in a public toilet and man came in and started shouting at me – he thought that because I was tall, I was hard. I was desperately trying to think how to respond when my 5ft 2in friend hit him with a motorbike helmet.

If you could make a TV show about a challenging activity, what would it be?

I’d do one about peat stacking. I did it as a summer job – so dull. So if I could turn that into a successful TV show I’d become the emperor of all television.

Greg Davies stars in Man Down on Wednesdays at 10pm on Channel 4