Corden’s Got Talent but fame can be a heavy burden

James Corden has good reason to remember 2007. It was the year Gavin and Stacey first hit our screens and he won a British Comedy Award for Best Newcomer.

But he wasn’t the only one making a name for himself.

On June 9 of that year, ITV aired Simon Cowell’s latest money-making exercise for the first time. James was one of the 5.2 million people watching the audition of Britain’s Got Talent as a wannabe opera singer from Port Talbot walked on to the stage.

So began a journey that, six years on, still sees Paul Potts as the show’s most successful winner in terms of album sales (Susan Boyle is the most successful contestant but she didn’t win BGT).

“I remember his performance well and that was the reason for doing the film really,” says James, who plays the tenor in new biopic, One Chance. “It’s hugely moving and emotional and 125 million people have watched that clip on You Tube.

“But I was reticent about doing the movie when I first heard about it. In my head I had visions of an actor playing Simon Cowell saying, ‘I’m gonna make you a star’.”

“Then I read the script and met director David Frankel, who did a great job with The Devil Wears Prada. He talked about how the audition clip was great as it is but that it would be even better if we knew exactly what it had taken for him to step on the stage that day.

“He described Paul’s story as `Rocky for opera’ and after that I was pretty much in.”

Paul’s fight to establish himself in the opera singing ranks rates alongside Stallone’s character for being a battle against the odds. The son of a Bristol bus driver who moved to Wales in 2003, mobile phone salesman Paul always had interests a bit different from those around him.

The love of opera, along with his wonky teeth and waist size, made him a target for bullies when he was growing up, something which resonated with self-confessed “chunky unit” James.

“I think everyone will have experienced some verbal bullying at school, it could be you’ve got the wrong shoes, the car your dad drives, or the bag you’ve returned from the summer holidays with.

“But if you’re big at school you are always a target and what I tried to do was make myself a bigger target, so I was going to say the things people would say before they even got the chance to say it, because then they couldn’t hurt me.

“People get scared off by that sort of confidence but Paul chose to run from the bullies and there’s nothing that’s going to make them chase you more.

“So I know the feelings Paul goes through at school but I dealt with them in an opposite way.”

The first time I met James, for the movie release of The History Boys, it wasn’t just his size that made him the biggest personality in the room.

But talking to him at the Corinthia Hotel on London’s Whitehall last week, the 35-year-old seemed to have become a well-rounded individual with interesting views on the fickle nature of the business he’s in.

He’s gone through many maturing moments. Including marriage to charity worker Julia Carey, fatherhood (they have a son, Max) and, career-wise, the souring of his friendship with Gavin and Stacey

co-star Mathew Horne after the failure of their BBC3 sketch show.

“It changes the way you look at the work,” he says of his reaction to Horne & Corden’s demise. “I realised you have to take it seriously, you don’t have a God-given right to make a show.

Something like The Wrong Mans (currently receiving rave reviews on BBC1) took, on and off, three years to write whereas we put that sketch show together in four months.

“It showed me that the harder you work, the luckier you will get.”

It quickly became apparent that no amount of hard work was going to turn James into a tenor to match Paul on One Chance. Based in New York while performing in One Man, Two Guvnors on Broadway for which he won a coveted Tony Award James employed a singing coach to help him prepare for the role.

“I thought I’d be able to do the singing but after about eight or nine sessions I realised I wouldn’t even make it as far as the auditions on Britain’s Got Talent,” he smiles.

“So all the singing in the film is Paul’s voice over mine.”