THEY won our hearts playing unlucky-in-love schoolboys in popular coming-of-age drama The Inbetweeners.
But luckily, life outside the screen looks different for Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison who shot to fame almost 20 years ago in 2008.
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All four of the stars from the Channel 4 sitcom are happily married or engaged – and earlier this week we revealed that the iconic yellow 1996 Fiat Cinquecento Hawaii will return.
Streaming giant Netflix confirmed The Inbetweeners reunion with a first look at the new film – a continuation of the hugely popular sitcom and its two record-breaking films – and the production is already set to begin this week in the UK.
The Inbetweeners creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris will return to write and direct the film.
They said: “It’s been super-fun hanging out with our friends again, and we’re going to work hard every week to ensure there are no problemos making this new film for humans.”
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Over a decade has passed since the last Inbetweeners film, which was set in Australia, hit cinema screens and a lot has happened to the stars in between that time.
Here we look at the love lives of The Inbetweeners actors and reveal the glamorous women on their arms – from a Soccerette to a co-star from the teen drama.
James Buckley
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Jay Cartwright was famed for catchphrases including “the p***y patrol” and “bus w***ers” – but according to James Buckley’s wife, he’s “nothing like” his Inbetweeners’ character “thank God”.
The 39-year-old met Scottish glamour model and Soccerette Clair Meek in 2010 after they flirted on Twitter and bonded over a Beatles tattoo on her stomach.
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She told The Sun: “James is quite shy but he’s very funny, really funny. He’s not a performer, he’s best when we’re having a BBQ with a few friends. That’s the best version of James.”
Clair said her family jokes that they are ‘still on their first date’ more than a decade later because after they met she went back with James to Essex and “never came back”.
She revealed it was James’s dress sense and Paul Weller hairstyle that initially attracted her, adding: “I’ve always loved that style.
“In a way, it’s very similar to Jay’s short fringe look. I think people find it difficult to get over such an atrocious hairstyle but I love it.”
The couple tied the knot in 2012 – with the TV star donning a kilt for their Big Day – and now they have two children together, Harrison and Jude. Both names were inspired by their love of The Beatles.
Oddly – or perhaps luckily for James – Clair wasn’t a big fan of The Inbetweeners before meeting her future hubby. She said: “I knew of the show and what it was but I didn’t tune in.
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“I didn’t watch it, which might have been a good thing. I did watch a couple of episodes after we met but to this day I don’t think I’ve seen every single episode. James and Jay are nothing alike thank God.”
In 2020, James and Clair launched their own YouTube series At Home With The Buckleys, which went viral during Covid-19 lockdowns, and have a book of the same name.
Now they have 283,000 subscribers to their videos, which comically document the highs and lows of parenting.
Clair is also an actress. Her last film appearance was in the 2018 flick Monster and she appeared in the films Vendetta, Scottish Mussel and The Comedian’s Guide To Survival.
Joe Thomas
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In one of many toe-curlingly awkward Inbetweeners scenes, Joe Thomas’ character Simon Cooper attacks his own penis after struggling to get an erection.
And his onscreen love interest in that awkward moment was Tara Brown, played by Hannah Tointon – who is now the TV star’s wife in real life.
Love blossomed on set for the couple despite their cringe-worthy onscreen encounters – which were filmed in 2010 – including one where she threw up on him before they were about to kiss.
Joe, now 42, told The Belfast Telegraph: “I can’t really see how those scenes kindled romance because they were all her being sick into my mouth… but I’m really into that so obviously it was fine!”
He said being on set was “quite an intense thing” and while it helped them to grow closer they were “not basing our relationship on the relationship of Simon and Tara in the show”.
Hannah, who is the sister of EastEnders actress and 2015 Strictly star Kara Tointon, appeared in The Bill, Hollyoaks and Doctors prior to The Inbetweeners.
Joe said he always felt Simon should have ended up with Tara, believing they had “a little more distance left to run” and she was “a nicer character than Carly”.
He told LadBible: “It was a bit of a shame that it fell apart and it’s just nice to be able to make it true in real life.”
In October 2022, Hannah gave birth to their daughter and according to her sister Kara, the couple were “knocked for six” because they believed they were having a boy.
Kara said: “What’s funny is that on Joe’s side there is only boys, even during the scan they accidentally said ‘he’ at one point, so they had gone along thinking it was a boy.
“Everyone playing the shape game etc said, ‘She’s having a boy,’ so when they eventually had a girl… it was really brilliant but it knocked them for six they hadn’t even decided on a girls’ name.”
Hannah has previously starred in big TV shows including Call The Midwife, Death In Paradise, Penny Dreadful and Mr Selfridge.
Blake Harrison
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Blake played slow Neil Sutherland, who often came out with ridiculous statements and was famed for his embarrassing robot dance moves.
Thankfully, he wasn’t throwing shapes when he met future wife Kerry Ann Lynch in 2009 during a pub crawl for co-star Joe Thomas’ birthday.
Blake, now 41, admitted Emily Atack – who played Charlotte ‘big jugs’ Hinchcliffe – was his unwitting wingwoman and he had never “given her full credit for that”.
He told Radio X: “We kind of locked eyes from across the room but I didn’t say anything because I was too nervous.”
Blake admitted he got “a bit of a confidence boost” from them staring at each other but instead of approaching her he “got up and left and went into a place over the road”.
“That was enough for me, I was like, ‘I think that hot girl over there is sort of checking me out. I feel good about this I’m not going to go over there and actually ruin it by realising I was actually wrong,’” he revealed.
Fortunately, Kerry Ann and her friends followed them into the nearby pub half an hour later and they struck up conversation over a game of cards, which led to their blossoming romance.
Blake revealed the theatre publicist actually thought he was “incredibly inappropriate” at first as she believed he was dating either Emily Atack or her sister Martha.
He added: “She was like, ‘Why is this guy staring at me when he clearly has a girlfriend?’ But it became clear that wasn’t the case.”
The couple tied the knot in 2016 in a stunning wedding alongside his Inbetweeners castmates in the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.
In 2022, Blake jokingly played down them tying the knot, saying: “The marriage thing I was like, ‘Eh, I’m already in, aren’t I?’ We’ve got a kid, we’ve been together a while, with the marriage thing I was like ‘This is fun but we’ve been together for 13 years.’”
The Harrisons, who live in Kent, have a daughter and a son. The Inbetweeners star keeps his kids’ faces hidden online and often shares gushing posts about wife Kerry Ann.
Simon Bird
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Thankfully, Simon Bird’s chat is a little better than geeky “briefcase w***er” Will McKenzie, who famously tried to impress a love interest by donning the voice of Star Wars character Yoda and saying: “Feisty one you are.”
The 42-year-old has been married to screenwriter Lisa Owens, who grew up between Glasgow and Hertfordshire, for 13 years.
They met while performing a comedy sketch together at the University of Cambridge and he popped the question in 2011 during a romantic trip to Paris.
Around the time of the engagement, a source told The Sun: “He bought a ring – sticking to traditions and spending a month’s wages on the sparkler.
“They went for dinner and he asked her to marry him. Lisa immediately said, ‘Yes’. They are looking forward to spending the rest of their lives together.”
The couple are extremely private and fans were unaware they had become parents until six months after their first child was born.
It followed a slip-up from Simon’s Friday Night Dinner co-star Tom Rosenthal, who told Heat magazine: “It would be like me saying his kid is s***.
“Luckily, his kid is actually bloody great. He’s got this bobbing head. And he’s got this ‘Simon Bird’ slightly judgmental air about him.”
Prior to that moment, no one knew Simon was a father.
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Later Tom said it felt like Simon’s son was “already patronising me” despite only being six months old before adding: “It’s great.”
The Inbetweeners star and Lisa have two children now and when they aren’t parenting, they work together. Simon adapted his wife’s graphic novel for the 2019 film Days Of The Bagnold Summer.