Uncle's Nick Helm: I dispense advice to my young co-star
“When I am dead I hope he might say that Nick had some really interesting things to say about fame”
In Uncle, stand-up Nick Helm plays a feckless but loveable uncle whose friendship with his nephew Errol usually involves the youngster sorting his life out.
The dynamic between Helm and teenage actor Elliot Speller-Gillott is delightfully pitched in the BBC3 comedy, which returns for a second series tonight. But off screen, Helm says he likes to think that he is the one who confers some experience and wisdom on his young colleague.
“We don’t hang out all through the year but I feel very protective towards him,” Helm tells RadioTimes.com.
“Hopefully I pass on bits of wisdom. Elliot is a multi multi-talented person and very young.
“I talk to him about things. How I never rushed into anything and didn’t do much for ten years and how I think it makes me really appreciate what I have now.
“When I am dead I hope he might say that Nick had some really interesting things to say about fame.”
Helm says that Speller-Gillott is now into the kind of music that he liked when he was the same age.
“He listens to bands like Oasis and Blue which I was into when I was a teenager. But it is so long ago. It makes me feel old. It’s the same time difference as looking at your mum and dad’s old Beatles records.
“The thing about filming is there is a lot of sitting around and it is quite a relief that we get on so well.
“My favourite scenes in Uncle are just when we are sitting on a bench or driving in a car – just hanging out.”
Helm also had praise for his co-star, Doctor Who and Episodes actress Daisy Haggard who plays Andy's sister Sam, and who gave birth just five weeks before filming began.
“Watching her you wouldn’t think she had had two hours sleep and was breastfeeding between takes,” he said. “I don’t know how she did it.”
Helm added that he would like to make a third series of Uncle for BBC3 despite the planned move of the channel on-line.
Series two of Uncle starts tonight at 10pm on BBC Three
