This is Jamie Demetriou’s moment, too

Rinsing a deeply personal project until it’s well past its sell-by date? Jamie Demetriou can relate.

The Greek-Cypriot North Londoner was the creator, co-writer and star of Stath Lets Flats, the hilarious Channel 4 sitcom about a woeful North London Greek-Cypriot estate agent. After launching in 2018, on its second series the show won three BAFTAs, including Best Male Comedy Performance for Demetriou. But despite that momentum, the 38-year-old decided to knock the show on the head in 2021, after the third season.

“It’s an ongoing question mark in my head,” the actor/​writer says of the life and afterlife of the creation that was his artistic breakthrough. ​“There have been very few attempts to have a British comedy character last over the course of decades. [Alan] Partridge maybe being the only example… You step past the series two of a sitcom, and you’re Wile E. Coyote stepping off a cliff. Peep Show disproved that,” he acknowledges. ​“There have been great examples of third seasons of British shows. But then you get to four or five, and history doesn’t suggest it’s that easy.”

To pre-empt that feeling of diminishing returns, Demetriou smartly pulled the plug. ​“I needed a break. I’d been working on it for 10 years at that point. I started looking at my life in percentages, and I could see a Stath suit and a key draped along the majority of my adult chronology! Just blocking out all light!”

And so to Charli xcx and The Moment: a mockumentary that celebrates brat and its legacy but also satirises it. Two years on from the album’s release, in the world of movie Charli, that means a sea of sell-out collabs, integrity-challenging radio idents, naff stage props and crass brand-extensions. There are painful record company meetings, in-joke cameos from Rachel Sennott and Kylie Jenner as versions of themselves, and chat show appearances.

As the marketing has it: ​“It’s a movie about Brat and Charli and a tour but none of it happened but maybe some of it did.”

Charli plays a nose-tweaking version of herself. Demetriou is her manager, Tim. He’s a frowning punchbag confidante, permanently hunched over his phone, perennially on the receiving end of 24/​7‑busy Charli’s stress. Tim’s smart but caught up in a head-spinning vortex in which he can’t quite find a footing. The Moment is the sharpest, funniest concert film since This is Spinal Tap; Charli xcx has her cake and eats it, smearing it all over her, and our, faces.

Hi, Jamie. What appealed to you about the script for The Moment?

The first thing was naturalism. It’s really exciting to see people talking how people talk in Aidan and Bertie’s script. Which you don’t come across that often. And I was really enamoured by Charli as an artist, full-stop.

In amongst my being enamoured, this script felt like an extension of a reason to think she’s amazing. Because the decision to make it is part of the art. She’s chosen to make this interesting, funny film at this point [in her career], where most people in her position [would] decide to lock themselves in a safe bubble.

Then the third thing is: I don’t know whether it’s the culture or me, but I think a lot about… the choices you make in order to maintain a career in this industry. But then I also wonder how the industry is going to [continue to be successful] if people don’t make those choices that will maintain it.

What characterised Brat summer for you?

I spent a lot of time in Belfast! I was filming a new sitcom called Funboys by some brilliant young Northern Irish comedians. I don’t think that I was necessarily partying in the same way the Brat movement was inviting you to. I was probably [also] stewing over whatever script I was writing. But in the pockets between that, I was very much enjoying what Charli put out.

Apart from how he was written in the script, how was Tim described to you by Charli and her team?

The implication was that it’s an impossible job being her manager. The thing that really struck me was that these teams who work together, and work with artists, there’s a real love bond there. A real history. An immense amount of time spent together, which one could call a family. But within that family, the main objective is to work an insane amount of time! And not taking a huge amount of time to talk about what’s going on outside of work. [So] it was interesting to me that his love language with her was about caring for her, workwise, when there is actually a personal friendship and history between them.

What insight or intel did you get from Twiggy Rowley and Sam Pringle, Charli’s real-life managers?

I don’t think they were really down to advise me, per se. They were just observing the decisions I was making. But getting to see them, particularly on set, they maybe unintentionally inspired me to sympathise with how brilliant they are at their jobs! There’s a lot of stuff in the script that could suggest uselessness. But every member of that team is firing at such a high level. The moments that Tim’s struggling, he’s struggling because the industry is asking things of him that are not possible.

How long did you shoot for?

Three weeks in March last year. The day before we started shooting, I found out we were having a baby. I saw a few stills from the production, and in a few of them, you can see a shadow staring into the corner, contemplating his life. A six-foot-something Greek shadow with a bubble above his head with a baby in it!

There are great intense and funny scenes with you and Charli in the backs of cars. Talk us through shooting those.

There were about three days back-to-back where we were shooting in cars. Which was a real baptism of fire. I knew Charli a little bit from around, but we weren’t [close friends]. It was our first time having intimate time together. And inevitably, we were talking a lot about making stuff. About the projects we’re working on and frustrations. And then we were going into these scenes about feeling insane about having to make stuff! It definitely charged the scenes.

As for your own career-defining creation, Stath: where are things with him now?

I must say, in the last year or so, I’ve been tinkering with ideas that make it feel as though I would like to reconnect with [him]. Part of that being that my dad passed away in late October. He’s where my Cypriot-ness comes from. I feel this longing to reconnect with that. Stath is a great way to do that. And also a really lovely way of spending time with my sister and some of the funniest actors I’ve ever worked with. So who knows. There’s a good chance it won’t ever happen. But I definitely feel inspired to write about those characters again.

Have you been writing another, more fully realised project?

Yes. I’m making a pilot [for the BBC], hopefully in April. A new character in a new setting. I’m reluctant to give too much away, because it’s constantly morphing. But the top line is: Fight Club, but with talking instead of fighting. People trying to have underground chat…

Charli has multiple movies in the works. How did she hit the ground running as a comedy actor?

Uh, intimidatingly! If she’d never been a musician, you’d just say: ​“Oh yes, they cast this person because they’re a brilliant actor and comedy actor.” But with the addition of her being in the position she’s in… Those sequences where she’s practising dance moves in the mirror with [Interview editor-in-chief] Mel Ottenberg and the whole sequence with Kylie [Jenner]! It all feels like a very bold and exciting decision for someone in her position to make. She pulled it off massively. Like, beyond. It just feels honest the whole time.

The Moment is in cinemas from 20^th February