Multi-talented actor, comedian, singer, writer, producer and television host James Corden loves to laugh. His father, he shares with HFPA journalist Janet Nepales, was quite funny. “I think laughter is the best thing you can do. I think to smile and to make someone laugh or to be made to laugh by someone else I think it’s an absolute give. I think in many ways it’s what we’re here for, to pick each other up and carry us through and I think it’s underrated sometimes how important it is to do these things.

Corden remembers that his schoolmates were funnier than he was. “At some point something changes where people kind of grow up and they get jobs and they stop being silly. And I just think I never did and never have and never really want to.”

Now he can be seen in the Netflix musical comedy The Prom, directed by Ryan Murphy. “It’s just one of those phone calls, particularly when you’re hosting a late-night talk show at that moment in your life that you are not really sure that that call is going to come. And it was a phone call from Ryan where he said that he thought that he was just about to buy the rights to this Broadway show that I think had a really profound effect on him.”

Corden plays Barry Glickman, a narcissistic Broadway actor who convinces his actor friends to go to an Indiana town to support a teen who wants to attend the prom with her girlfriend. “Ryan told me about the story of the show and he told me about the character and he said when can I get to New York to see it? He said that the writers of the show had met and that I was the first name that came up for the role of Barry. Ryan and I had spoken a few times about the prospect of working together when we had met at various things. And he told me that Meryl Streep was going to play Dee Dee Allen and she had also suggested me for this role.  And so it’s just one of those things where you are kind of like well this can’t be real, this can’t be happening.”

Corden describes Murphy as a director who knows exactly what he wants. “We talked a lot and I really owe the entire thing to him, like he just guided me through this in every single way, he guided me through it in a way that I will always be indebted to him.”

Listen to the podcast and hear what kind of musicians he has in his family; what kind of advice his dad gave him and how he supported James’ dreams of pursuing his career in show business; how he describes his mother; who is the quiet one out of his siblings; when he decided to become an entertainer; what he learned at the Jackie Palmer Stage School’s after-school stage club; who are his comedy influencers; why the TV show Fat Friends was important to him; was he ever bullied in school?; how he got to know Dominic Cooper and why he has played an important role in James’ life; what were the challenges of portraying a gay man who is still dealing with the trauma of his own coming out in The Prom Carpool KaraokeCinderella