Rob Brydon Initially Resisted Playing Himself in The Trip, Now Stars in Season Five Set in Scandinavia

Rob Brydon, 61, said he and Steve Coogan were both opposed when director Michael Winterbottom first proposed that they play heightened versions of themselves in The Trip. Speaking in London before the season five premiere, Brydon recalled thinking the concept was "a bit passé," but concluded Winterbottom was right because the device makes viewers more curious about whether the pair really behave that way. Brydon, known for Uncle Bryn in Gavin and Stacey and raised in Baglan, Port Talbot, described the show's competitive mimicry of figures such as Michael Caine, Al Pacino and Hugh Grant as purely comic rather than combative. He said the characters are sometimes close to the real men, built from small tweaks and grains of truth exaggerated until they become funny. The series has filmed in different regions since its 2010 debut across north England, with later instalments in Italy, Spain and Greece. The new run, The Trip to the Northern Lights, moves from Swedish hotels to remote Norwegian fishing huts in search of the aurora borealis. Brydon said conditions were mild apart from the Arctic Circle, and that the scenery was so breathtaking the cold did not matter. He told The Times that filming involved stripping down to their underwear frequently, with plenty of saunas and cold plunges in Nordic waters, which he called wonderful. No release date has been announced.