interview
Jake Wardle074 | w w w.sci fi n ow.co.u k
“i was at secondary school and it sucked,
it was boring. I had a lot of creative energy
in me, and I found out about this cool thing
called YouTube where anyone anywhere can
upload anything.
“I’d always mimicked accents. Just kind
of instinctively, like a parrot. I had this
YouTube channel, so I was thinking maybe
I should do a video where I do all of my
accents. I sat in the shed and went through
all of them. In the first week it had two
million views, it was crazy. It just blew
up. The fame from my YouTube was
more than Tw i n Pea k s. Nothing has ever
surpassed that.
“I was starting to get a bit fed up with
university. I thought maybe I should look
into screen acting. When I had that thought,
I got a message in my inbox. It was from a
producer [Sabrina Sutherland]. She said: ‘I
work for a film director, and he loved your
accent video and he’s interested in casting
you in one of his films.’ We exchanged
emails for a little bit, then she said: ‘By the
way, the director I work for is David Lynch
and he wants to Skype you.’
“We Skyped and he told me how much he
loved my video. He said he’d love to have
me in a project. We Skyped every two to six
months, it was really casual. All of sudden
Sabrina emailed me and said: ‘David wants
to talk to you.’ He said: ‘Have you ever seen
Tw i n Pea k s before?’ I said no. He said: ‘It
doesn’t matter, we’re making a new one and I
want you to be in it.’ I finished university
in about June 2015, and production began
in September.
“His directorial style is very focused.
He’s got an idea, he’s got a vision, and he
wants to achieve that vision. He explains
to you everything you need to know. He’s
very clear, and he goes very deep. I don’t
ever remember getting confused about what
he wanted me to do. At the same time, he
allowed me a level of flexibility with the
script, which he apparently didn’t give other
actors. I was allowed to edit it, to make it
more British.
“The first line in the whole show was my
line. In the original script, when they walk in
the Road House, James says: ‘Pretty great in
here, isn’t it?’ and Freddie says: ‘Yeah great,
it’s ace.’ I said Freddie would probably say
‘yeah, it’s decent’ or ‘it’s the dog’s bollocks’.
David liked ‘the dog’s bollocks’.
“When I came back from Tw i n Pea k s,Helen Goldwyn from Big Finish sent me
a message on LinkedIn saying: ‘Are you
interested in working for us?’
“One of the Big Finish producers, Joseph
Lidster, then got in touch and said: ‘We’ve
got an audio play coming up, The Tony And
Cassandra Mysteries, are you interested?’ I
said yeah, course. We recorded with three
other actors and it was great fun, there was a
great atmosphere. Five different characters,
all American. My cup of tea... and I finally
got a job from LinkedIn!”The Tony And Cassandra Mysteries
Series Two is available now from
bigfinish.comfrom uni
to twin
peaks
Jake Wardle Was famous
before he had left
secondary school for
his youtube accent
videos, and found a neW
audience as magic-gloved
freddie sykes in tWin Peaks.
recently he has entered
another suPernatural
universe With a turn in
dark shadoWs sPin-off,
the tony and cassandra
mysteries, for big finish...
intervieW Martin ParsonsWardle on set with the
master himself.