{"id":2681,"date":"2011-11-30T00:25:19","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T00:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/11\/drink-self-delusion-one-night-stands-and-how-the-west-ends-new-darling-james-corden-was-saved-by-his-salvation-army-father\/"},"modified":"2011-11-30T00:25:19","modified_gmt":"2011-11-30T00:25:19","slug":"drink-self-delusion-one-night-stands-and-how-the-west-ends-new-darling-james-corden-was-saved-by-his-salvation-army-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/11\/30\/drink-self-delusion-one-night-stands-and-how-the-west-ends-new-darling-james-corden-was-saved-by-his-salvation-army-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Drink, self-delusion, one-night stands and how the West End’s new darling James Corden was saved by his Salvation Army father"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\nBy
\nPaul Scott<\/a><\/p>\n

Last updated at 12:25 AM on 30th November 2011<\/p>\n

As those who know him well will attest, the combination of James Corden and boredom is a dangerously combustible mixture. In his desire to alleviate the tedium he is the first to admit he is prone to going just a bit too far.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take, for example, one episode he recalls in his new autobiography about being on a long theatre run in New York a few years ago in Alan Bennett\u2019s The History Boys. <\/span><\/p>\n

To lift the boredom, the actor and comedian decided it would be a wheeze to send a text to Ruth Jones, his co-star and co-creator of the hit BBC sitcom Gavin And Stacey, to say he had lost his hand in an accident.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Smash<\/p>\n

Smash hit: James Corden with Suzie Toase in the West End show One Man, Two Guvnors at the Adelphi Theatre<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Back home in Cardiff, Miss Jones was understandably beside herself. So much so that she and her husband David knelt and began praying for her maimed friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, she tearfully started to formulate plans to re-write scripts for their television show so Corden\u2019s character, Essex builder Smithy, could be an amputee.<\/span><\/p>\n

Corden made her wait a while before finally admitting he had made up the whole thing for a laugh. No doubt it seemed like a good idea at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Ruth says I have a childlike streak in my personality that means I\u2019m in constant need of entertainment,\u2019 Corden writes of the bizarre incident. \u2018And so if nothing fun is happening, then I\u2019ll make something happen myself. I\u2019m not exactly sure why.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

She is far from his only victim. The chubby star cheerfully admits he\u00a0 regularly feigned nervous breakdowns in front of bemused room service staff to break the monotony while staying at hotels up and down the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

And once, when he was threatened with being thrown out of drama\u00a0 college in his home town of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, for skipping classes, he convinced\u00a0 lecturers his happily married parents \u2014 who were well-known members of the local Salvation Army \u2014 were going through a bitter divorce.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Happy:<\/p>\n

Happy: Corden with fianc\u00e9e Julia Carey, who is the mother of his eight-month-old son, Max<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is fair to assume, however, that such bad taste stunts are fairly thin on the ground at the moment. Because where the much-loved Corden is concerned, there is simply no time to be bored. <\/span><\/p>\n

Last week, the highly acclaimed stage comedy One Man, Two Guvnors, in which he stars with Suzie Toase as the food-obsessed minder to two Brighton crooks, had its West End premiere after taking a record \u00a34million in advance bookings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Added to that, 33-year-old Corden is already making plans to reprise his leading role in the show, for which he has won rave reviews, on Broadway next spring after its London run comes to an end. It started at the National Theatre this summer before going on a nationwide tour.<\/span><\/p>\n

Somewhere along the line, he also has to find the time to fit in getting married to Julia Carey (known as Jules) \u2014 the blonde mother of his eight-month-old son Max. He\u00a0 proposed to her, on one knee, on Primrose Hill, North London, on Christmas Day last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

And if that wasn\u2019t enough, friends say workaholic Corden is hard at work writing a new sitcom for the BBC that will be aired next year \u2014 and he is already fleshing out the plot of his first novel.<\/span><\/p>\n

The star admits he rattled off his just-published memoirs, for which he was reputedly paid a \u00a31\u2009million advance, in the space of a week \u2014 between his first child\u2019s birth in March and Jules and the baby leaving hospital to come home to the house they share in Primrose Hill.<\/span><\/p>\n

Certainly, Corden, who also hosts the Sky panel show A League Of Their Own, is living up to his tag as the hottest man in British showbiz.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which is all a welcome reversal of fortune for the heavyweight entertainer considering that two years ago \u2014 after a breakneck rise to fame\u2014 he fell victim to a series of unexpected flops that left his career floundering.<\/span><\/p>\n

To fill the void, he admits he resorted to drunken partying and nights with women whose names he cannot recall.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, however, the reformed Corden is insisting that he intends to do things differently. For starters, he will take Jules \u2014 a charity worker for Save The Children \u2014 and baby Max with him when the hit stage show transfers to New York in April.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, he insists he is cured of the arrogance that made his critics so relish the opportunity to kick him when he was down. It is, in truth, something of a Damascene conversation for the laddish Corden. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018For the first time in my life, I like being at home more than I do being on stage,\u2019 he says in his book. \u2018I\u2019m at my happiest when I\u2019m in my house with my doors shut, with my family.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n

It is the grounded and sensible Jules, 32, whom those close to him credit with Corden\u2019s transformation from hell-raiser to doting dad.<\/span><\/p>\n

They met two years ago at a charity party in London at a time when he candidly admits his sudden elevation to stardom, which saw him befriended by the likes of David Beckham, had sent him out of control.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Every single one of my dreams was coming true and yet I couldn\u2019t have been more miserable,\u2019 he writes in his autobiography, May I Have Your Attention, Please?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I think most of all I felt lonely, which is why I wanted to surround myself with people, even if I didn\u2019t know them. In one sense, I must have appeared supremely confident, walking around with my silly swagger and seemingly being in demand, but I was crumbling inside.<\/span><\/p>\n

One typical night, after shooting a
\nspoof of Beckham\u2019s famous Armani underwear advert for Heat magazine, the
\ncomic celebrated by getting drunk at a film premiere, then carrying on
\nto celebrity haunt the Groucho Club, in Soho, with drinking buddy and
\nfellow actor Dominic Cooper.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018That
\nnight (as with a few others like it), I don\u2019t remember what\u00a0 happened
\nafter I got there,\u2019 Corden writes. \u2018I don\u2019t remember drinking there or
\nparting company with Dom, but I definitely do remember waking up the
\nnext morning completely naked, in a strange flat, without a clue as to
\nthe name of the girl I was lying beside, or where the hell I was.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Nights
\nout followed an unerringly similar pattern. \u2018I\u2019d either stay with Dom
\nor I\u2019d wind up in beds I\u2019d never slept in before, with girls I\u2019d never
\nmet before,\u2019 he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I was
\nsingle at the time so I wasn\u2019t doing anything outrageous, but I\u2019d never
\nbeen a womaniser, and the longer it went on, the emptier my soul felt.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Rise<\/p>\n

Rise to fame: Corden, right, with his co-stars on the hit sit-com Gavin And Stacey<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One woman he failed to seduce, however, was singer Lily Allen. The\u00a0 couple went on a series of high-profile dates with the paparazzi in tow in the spring of 2008 after he shamelessly chatted her up on air during a recording of her ill-fated BBC3 chat show Lily Allen And Friends. Soon, the outwardly confident Corden was following her around like a lap dog.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I was so desperately trying to look cool that I\u2019d go where she wanted to go, I\u2019d do what she wanted to do, I\u2019d drink what she wanted to drink \u2014 anything to please,\u2019 he confesses.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019d gone from being this assertive, cocky flirt to what was basically this obedient puppy.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

His humiliation was complete when the singer invited him to stay over after a party at her London house and he followed her upstairs \u2014 only to be shown into the spare room. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I remember it as if it were yesterday,\u2019 Corden writes. \u2018Lying in that strange bed in Lily\u2019s house, staring up at the ceiling and realising how badly I\u2019d misread the signs. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018There was no me and Lily \u2014 it was all in my mind.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

He had more success with blonde actress Sheridan Smith, who played his sister in Gavin And Stacey. Even so, their messy on-off affair eventually fizzled out after two years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier, Corden\u2019s first proper relationship, with childhood sweetheart Shelley White, had ended after nine years \u2014 almost as soon as he found fame.<\/span><\/p>\n

Corden is the middle of three children. His father is a Christian books salesman and his mother a social worker. <\/span><\/p>\n

After appearing in the ITV drama Fat Friends, he had his first big break when he was cast by Bennett to appear in the 2006 film The History Boys. It was while a guest at the wedding of a member of Miss White\u2019s family in Barry Island that he had the idea to write Gavin And Stacey, which chronicled the long-distance relationship between an Essex boy and his Welsh girlfriend.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sitcom, which began on BBC3 in 2007, ran for three series and later transferred to BBC1. Its 2010 finale attracted 12.5\u2009million viewers. All of a sudden, Corden, who had been working shifts as a waiter at Bella Pasta to eke out a living, was leading man material.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the 2008 Baftas, Gavin And Stacey scooped an award and Corden won best comedy performance for his role in the show.\u00a0 However, showbiz circles were rife with rumours of his big-headedness and off-screen tantrums. <\/span><\/p>\n

Nor was his boorish behaviour always conducted away from the cameras. While collecting his Bafta, he proceeded to attack the judges for failing to nominate the sitcom for a best comedy award.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Instead of applause or nods of agreement, I was met with silence, shock and disbelief,\u2019 he writes of the audience\u2019s reaction to his outburst. \u2018Now, of course, I can see why and how it must have looked. I\u2019d ruined the moment and belittled myself in the process. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018The two awards had given me this huge sense of entitlement and I\u2019d acted like a fool. More than that, I\u2019d taken the gun which a lot of people already had pointed at me, and loaded it. Who on earth did I think I was?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

His comeuppance, when it arrived, was brutal. On the back of Gavin And Stacey\u2019s phenomenal success, Corden and his co-star Mat Horne, who played Gavin, were commissioned to appear in their own BBC comedy sketch show.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Mat<\/p>\n

Mat Horne and Corden in a publicity shot for their BBC sketch show Horne and Corden, which was universally panned<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What followed was a classic case of hubris. The scripts were crass and cobbled together. And when Horne And Corden eventually aired in March 2009, the critics wasted no time in dishing out a kicking to its stars. One famously branded it: \u2018The worst show that\u2019s ever been made.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n

Ratings tumbled and it was dropped after just six episodes. But if that wasn\u2019t bad enough, the\u00a0 failure coincided calamitously with two further career setbacks.<\/span><\/p>\n

That same month, the two men made their big-screen debut in the disastrous Brit flick Lesbian Vampire Killers, which flopped at the box office and was described as \u2018profoundly awful\u2019 by the Times film critic. To make matters worse, the movie\u2019s hostile reception came on the back of the pair\u2019s equally panned appearance as joint hosts of the Brit Awards a month earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

Corden admits he did not take the rejection well, retreating further into a constant round of partying and hedonism. He rarely returned\u00a0 to the flat he owned in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, preferring instead to check into the Soho Hotel at 4am to sleep off the night\u2019s excess. Meanwhile, he began buying new underwear every day because he couldn\u2019t be bothered to do his washing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I had drifted so far from family and
\nfriends that I didn\u2019t really know how to pick up the phone and talk to
\nthem any more. I was lost and needed to find myself\u2019<\/span>
\u00a0<\/div>\n

\u2018The person I had become wasn\u2019t the person I wanted to be,\u2019 he admits with disarming honesty. \u2018I had drifted so far from family and friends that I didn\u2019t really know how to pick up the phone and talk to them any more. I was lost and needed to find myself.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, as he nursed yet another hangover, his worried parents, Malcolm and Margaret, arrived out of the blue at the flat in North London where he was staying with an actor friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

He recalls: \u2018I hated them seeing me like this. I could barely look them in the face. Then, all of a sudden, Dad came over to where I was sitting on the floor, knelt down and put his arms around me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I can\u2019t begin to tell you how it felt. I couldn\u2019t help but cry. I felt so embarrassed at the way I\u2019d been living my life, the lack of respect I\u2019d shown myself and my work.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Corden adds: \u2018Every tear that left my eyes made me feel a little lighter. Dad said a prayer as he kissed my forehead, and Mum came over and joined the hug. I\u2019ve no idea how long we stayed there, but it felt like a lifetime. When they left later on, Dad turned to me and said: \u201cYou\u2019ve so much to be thankful for, James. I know it\u2019s been a tricky year, but you can\u2019t carry on like this.\u201d \u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Family<\/p>\n

Family values: Corden with girlfriend Julia Carey and their baby son Max on Primrose Hill<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is only recently that his mother confided to him that after they had driven away, James\u2019s tearful father had to pull over, traumatised by witnessing his son\u2019s desolation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The result of that emotional day was a frank and honest self-examination which \u2014 as Corden reveals with admirable candour rarely seen in celebrities \u2014 led to a genuine sense of contrition on his part.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was to prove a dramatic turning point. Within months, he had met fianc\u00e9e Jules and, earlier this year, the couple moved into their five-bedroom Primrose Hill house.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, spare evenings are passed at home eating take-away sushi, being in bed by 10pm and taking turns to get up for baby Max. Neighbours even whisper that Corden can now be seen being put through his paces by David Cameron\u2019s personal trainer Matt Roberts.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for Corden, he insists he has never been happier, and given all the angst that fame has caused this talented performer in the past, who would begrudge him his new-found peace of mind?<\/span><\/p>\n