Sir Ringo Starr told Inbetweeners actor James Buckley that being in The Beatles was “f***ing” amazing because he got to travel the world in his 20s and “girls absolutely loved me”.
Sir Ringo Starr revealed what he most enjoyed about being in The Beatles to Inbetweeners star James Buckley
The two British stars got to meet on the set of 2016 American comedy film Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping when Ringo came in for a day to shoot a cameo.
James is a self-confessed Beatles obsessive who called his and wife Clair’s two sons Harrison and Jude after late Beatles guitarist George Harrison and the Fab Four song Hey Jude, and can remember being desperate to quiz drummer Ringo about life as a member of The Fab Four.
James was thrilled when Ringo was more than happy to talk all about life in the band along with George, John Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney.
Speaking on his Joe and James Fact It Up podcast, James said: “I met Ringo Starr. He was in a film that I was doing and I wasn’t in that day and the director told me, ‘By the way we’ve managed to get Ringo Starr to come in and do a cameo. It’s this day.’ I was like, ‘F****** hell, I’m not in that day.’ But I thought I’m turning up, I’m just going to sit around and watch Ringo Starr do whatever he does. This was in California.
“Obviously my kids are called Harrison and Jude, and wherever I go it’s a known fact that Buckley likes The Beatles, I must bang on about it. I think at one point the director went up to Ringo Starr and went, ‘James is here and he’s British.’ I think that’s all he said. I just wanted to be in the same room as him, I didn’t approach him or anything like that, and at one point it was like ‘Right, let’s take five, let’s have a five minute break and then we’ll get back into it.’ And he just walked up to me and went, ‘How’s it going brother?’ I went, ‘Good, thank you Ringo Starr, good.’ Then I said, ‘Oh, listen, my kids names are Harrison and Jude, I’m such a huge fan.’ And Ringo was just well up for chatting about it.
“I was a bit like, f***ing hell the last thing this geezer wants to talk about is The Beatles, probably. But he absolutely loved it.
“There was a bit when I was like, ‘I bet you don’t want to talk about The Beatles do you? I imagine it’s a bit annoying.’
He was just like, ‘Listen, I was in my 20s, I was in the biggest band in the world, I travelled the world, girls absolutely loved me, it was f****** amazing, it was absolutely amazing. I don’t mind talking about it all, whatsoever.’
“So I just ended up asking him loads of questions. I was like, ‘When you were recording this I heard this rumour…’ And he was like, ‘That’s not true.’ Pretty much everything wasn’t true, everything was lore.”
James, 38, says there isn’t a day that goes by that fans don’t want to speak to him about him playing Jay Cartwright in The Inbetweeners and he has a lot of respect for Ringo, 85, for being happy to indulge people about his life in The Beatles 60 years ago rather than be dismissive of it.
He said: “He summed it up to me and it’s the same way I feel about The Inbetweeners.
“The Inbetweeners was such a great time in my life which is why I don’t mind talking about it and I’m still proud of it.
“Look, I’m not going to compare The Inbetweeners to The Beatles by any measure, but I don’t mind talking about The Inbetweeners.”
