I Hate You | Interview with Tanya Reynolds (Charlie)

I play Charlie. She’s in her 20s and she’s… well, a bit of a dickhead. She’s a bit… lost. She’s working in a job she doesn’t like for this ridiculous man, an autograph collector called Bob Oxygen [Johnny Sweet] and she lives in a flat with Becca [Melissa Saint] who’s been her best friend since university. They love each other absolutely, but they’re incredibly co-dependent and can be quite horrible to each other too — but it’s all from love. They’re just not very well adjusted human beings, so they’re not very good at expressing their feelings to each other. And yeah, they just live in this flat and work ridiculous jobs with ridiculous bosses and it’s all just about them being ridiculous really.

How did you get the part?

I think it was November 2020, the end of the OG Pani D and I got sent the pilot episode or possibly an extract from it, I can’t remember. But I just read it and thought this is so funny. I did a tape for it, then I had a zoom with Robert [Popper] and Kenton [Allen, CEO of Big Talk Productions]. And just before Christmas, I got what I thought was a callback. But it was actually them going, ‘We really want you to do it.’

When did you meet Melissa, who plays Becca?

I did lots of chemistry reads with lots of actresses to play Becca and Melissa was I think the last one. As soon as she walked in, and we started – it just was right. She was so funny. And then when they offered it to her, we just kind of started hanging out a bit and we’ve become so close. Everyone thought that we knew each other before. We didn’t: there was just a lot of chemistry there immediately. Because we have so much ease and comfort with each other it feels like there’s there would be nothing off limits to talk about. Like, if I was struggling with something in a scene, for example, I could talk to her about it and we’d figure it out. There was an openness between us that just meant that we were we were both able to improvise and play around together. I mean, it’s probably doable if you hate your co-star but it’s much easier if you get along.

You’ve been in several hit comedies already. What stood out about the I Hate You script?

That it was just really funny. It’s actually quite rare to read things that are just funny, have no levels of seriousness to them and don’t take themselves seriously in any way. I was brought up on a diet of sitcoms like; Blackadder, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme and The Young Ones and then as I got older, obviously The Inbetweeners was huge for me, The IT Crowd, Peep Show, so it’s always been a massive desire of mine to be in a sitcom like the ones I grew up watching. It’s also quite rare to see comedies like that with female leads: I just really liked that this was just two girls who were idiots and being silly. And it was just funny. I don’t really want to take myself too seriously at the moment. So this is perfect.

What’s the dynamic between Charlie and Becca?

It’s like a level of comfort that you have with someone that you only have with maybe one or two people in your entire life. I recognise it a lot with a few of my friends where you love each other so much and you’re so at ease with each other: you don’t need to beat each other up.

What was it like working with Robert Popper and [director] Damon Beesley?

Really, really chilled. It was the most laid-back set I’ve ever been on: Robert and Damon were like little kids. So often we would do a scene and then I would go into video village, which is where the director and the producer and the script supervisor sit, and ask if that was okay. Damon and Robert would be there just dicking around playing games and drawing cartoons. I love them both. They’re just joyfully silly and, and playful. And Robert in particular — he’s got so much childlike energy. His brain is like a playground. He’s got this gorgeous kind of childlike imagination. He just thinks, ‘Oh, that’s weird.’ And then just does it and I love that in an in an adult, grown person. Both of them were so open to like, collaboration and ideas and you can only do that when everything is really, really chill.

How closely is I Hate You scripted?

Robert likes to keep to the script. There were more physical things that we improvised rather than the dialogue. There were some things that we kind of changed and tweaked, especially because there were a few things where we’d have to say, ‘Robert, a 20 year old girl just wouldn’t say this word.’ Likewise he would sometimes come over and be like, ‘Would a girl say this?’ He was quite good at asking us things. I remember when we were doing the pilot he asked if it was inappropriate to have them saying, ‘Your vag-esty.’ He was so tentative about it. And we both roared laughing. We’re like, that’s so funny. Of course you can write that.

The thing is, one of Robert’s many skills is he writes well observed relationships. I think that the way that Becca and Charlie behave with each other is exactly how most people behave with that kind of friend, or maybe not most people but certainly people our age: it’s just the language, the physicality, everything about the way they interact. I think it’s quite real.

Has any of Charlie rubbed off on you?

Yeah. I can’t say fair enough now without saying ‘Furry Muff’ like Charlie and Becca do. Impossible to go back.

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