Actor Ben Wiggins on waiting around, landing his role in Netflix’s You and his big stroke of luck in a Maidstone pub, writes Marijke Hall

Actor Ben Wiggins is no stranger to playing d**ckheads.

Look at his back catalogue of characters and you could say he’s pretty au fait with delving into the mindset of someone distinctly unlikable.

Take Roald Walker-Burton, the aristocrat he plays in the fourth season of Netflix megahit You, who’s ‘mostly known for his boats, one-night stands and alarming knife collection’.

He’s a cocaine-sniffing, champagne-quaffing snob you’d hope to avoid should you ever visit the high-end establishments he frequents.

Fortunately, on meeting Wiggins, there’s no sign of those knives, or a d**khead come to that.

“I often get cast as not a good guy - I’m hoping that doesn’t reflect on me,” he laughs. “I must audition well as that type of character. I hope that’s not some deep-seated problem, that I’m actually really nasty on the inside. It is fun walking on camera and being a kn*b, though.”

Wiggins couldn’t be more different to Roald; he’s a genuinely nice guy with infectious enthusiasm and an easy laugh. It’s something pointed out by those who meet him.

“Someone recently said to me ‘I’ve just watched You and it’s brilliant because you’re so nice in real life, it’s great that you’re able to act that well’,” he says. “Then another person came up to me and said ‘I just watched You and I totally understand why they cast you’. I was like ‘What?!’.”

Wiggins, who grew up near Maidstone, first came across the psychological thriller during lockdown.

Intrigued by the narrator-led style of the show, he remembers turning to his brother and saying how fun it would be to work on.

“All the actors would be sitting in the green room chatting, saying ‘These people are awful, it’s so much fun!’.”

— Ben Wiggins

“I wondered if they’d do more seasons and then, two-and-a-half years later, here I am in it - so whatever I was putting out to the universe clearly worked.”

Series four of You is shot in London and centres on main character, stalker and killer Joe Goldberg under the alias Professor Jonathan Moore, played by Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley.

It shows him falling into a crowd of unlikable, classist, rich kids while staying in England.

It’s almost a parody of the elite classes, mocking the wealthy and affected through vulgar and pretentious characters. Wiggins admits it was great fun shooting it.

“I’m playing a billionaire and someone who is so wealthy that everything around him is basically meaningless and a waste of time because when you’re that rich, what’s fun? You can do whatever you like. So I had a wonderful time doing it.

“All the actors would be sitting in the green room chatting, saying ‘These people are awful, it’s so much fun!’.”

Much of it was shot on location around Knightsbridge, Kensington and Chelsea and so of course the cast had to look as good as the setting.

Wiggins explains: “When I first got the role they said they were going to take me costume shopping and I told them I really don’t like shopping, and they said ‘We think you’ll enjoy this’.

“I met them in Green Park and we went to Savile Row - I couldn’t believe it. I put the suit on and thought ‘Oh, this is amazing’.”

Wiggins says acting had always been at the forefront of his mind while growing up, much to the dismay of his parents, who thought it was ‘a phase’.

“From a very young age I loved it,” he says. “I’ve got four brothers and I think it might have been a desperate scream for attention.

“At school and university I was always into plays. I think the conscious decision for me to become an actor was made quite young. I was desperate to perform and that massively carried me through my life.”

He gained a place at the University of Exeter to study drama, but his parents stepped in and convinced him to do a ‘proper’ degree, so he studied politics and psychology instead.

However, no sooner had he left than he auditioned for drama school - something for which he admits he was horribly unprepared. Being unsuccessful, he tried his hand at auditioning through a casting call website.

Without an agent, though, it was tough to bag a role. Without a role, it was tough to bag an agent.

But while working in a pub just outside Maidstone, he was struck with some unexpected luck when a customer came in who had just sold his house to a casting director. He said he would put Wiggins in touch.

“I thought ‘That’s not really how it works, but why not?’.

“I emailed over my head shot and limited CV and this casting director put me in touch with an agent. I explained to her that I’d actually written to them already to invite them to a show I was going to be in at the Edinburgh Fringe and they had told me their books were full, but she just said ‘Leave it with me’.”

She was right. The agents called him in for a meeting and once he got himself a role in a play, they came to watch, signed him up and the rest is history.

So what about his parents? Are they convinced yet about his chosen career?

“They are proud, it’s just a world they are very unfamiliar with and they think unless you’re in Hollywood, on the red carpet at the Oscars, then you’re not really making it as an actor.

“I have side jobs, I don’t make all my income from acting. Not a huge number of people do.

“Up until recently my dad would say ‘It’s Ben, he’s trying to be an actor’ and I’d say ‘No, Dad, I am an actor, I’ve worked professionally for the last 10 years’. But they are proud and they know how happy I am.”

Wiggins says he feels incredibly fortunate and grateful with some of the roles he’s had over the years in shows including The Witcher, Mary Queen of Scots, Grantchester and Hollyoaks.

During December and January, he was also in the Shakespeare play As You Like It at the new Soho Place Theatre - the first play he’d done since before lockdown when he was doing Coriolanus at The Crucible in Sheffield.

“Having not done it for so long due to lockdown, it was terrifying at first. It felt so strange to have a live audience again, but the buzz and the rush is just so exciting - there’s nothing like it.

“Having said that, I do love doing TV and film - there’s just a lot of waiting. You want to be working with a cast you really like, and luckily with You the cast were phenomenal and we all got on like a house on fire, so waiting in the green room was really fun.

“There’s a very famous quote from the actor John Candy, who said ‘As an actor I’m not paid to act, I’m paid to wait’. About 10 per cent of your time is on camera doing your thing and the rest is waiting for a light to be set up, a boom to be moved, or whatever.

“They don’t always tell you that - everyone thinks filming is so glamorous and it is lovely and exciting, but there’s lots of waiting. But it’s all worth it for that time that you’re actually shooting.”

The 32-year-old says You was a pinnacle in terms of roles he wanted to play but that there are others he would love to be involved in, such as Netflix’s Sex Education.

“Netflix is turning out some fantastic shows at the moment and I’ve had auditions for some of them, but they sometimes turn out to be ‘the one that got away’. I had an audition for Bridgerton a few years ago and got quite far but then didn’t get it.

“I love a fantasy show, like when Games of Thrones came out, every actor wanted to be part of it.

“But what would I like to be in? I’m still at the point in my career when I’d say anything. Is that OK to say? Send me the jobs!”