Joe Thomas, the Inbetweeners star, has revealed a secret health battle that was made worse by the pressure he experienced while filming the popular Channel 4 show, and when a “breakdown” occurred.
Joe Thomas has revealed a secret health battle as he opened up about the pressure of filming TV hit The Inbetweeners. The star shared that he was struggling with his mental health and detailed a time when a “breakdown” was even caught on camera.
Alongside Simon Bird, James Buckley and Blake Harrison, Joe was one of the core four stars on Channel 4’s hit comedy series The Inbetweeners, which aired over three seasons and two films from 2008 to 2014, playing hapless romantic schoolboy Simon Cooper.
On their podcast, Joe and James Fact Up, Joe discussed his battle with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). In order to avoid having obsessive and intrusive thoughts that make you act compulsively, you must take action to temporarily lessen the effects of the intrusive thoughts.
The Inbetweeners was being filmed under a lot of pressure, Joe admitted to James. I experienced a lot of pressure. I recently developed crippling OCD, believing that I would fudge up the continuity.
I kept turning up and being told, “I’m so sorry, just worried that I might have made a noise with my chair,” and they replied, “Joe, it’s fine, we’ll let you know. “
He claimed that he had OCD before he started the E4 series, but that the producers paid for a therapist to come on set, who assumed it was a joke.
“It was just generally astonishing OCD… I had it when I left university and when I was on the Inbetweeners it was really, really bad to the extent where they paid for a therapist to come on set and she thought it was a joke. Because it was a Channel 4 show, she thought it was like a candid camera show and it was a stitch up.”
Joe continued to claim that he was “completely insane” because no one else was discussing OCD at the time. He continued, praising Ian Morris, the creator of The Inbetweeners, for his frequent blinking on camera. One of the things he was doing was to “pull my head together,” he said.
When asked about Ian, he said, “I felt seen, that is what it is… There were times when I was just irritated that I was making the show because I wanted to return to my own private worries.”
Joe’s twitches were eventually revealed to James as an outcome of his investigation into becoming a DVD extra.
At one point, according to James, “unfairly, this turned into a DVD extra when Joe was having a breakdown.” There is an outtake where Joe is having a breakdown in the first Inbetweeners movie, and he says, “Well, that did absolutely nothing.”
Joe explained that he would frequently request brief breaks to calm down. “I’d be like, “I can’t do it, can I just… it’ll take about six or nine seconds. “
James continued, “We put so much pressure on ourselves, but it was stressful.” When you consider it, it’s actually really ironic, but there was such a pressure to be funny. We had a burning desire to laugh.
The Inbetweeners may be returning to TV in 2026, as the production team and all four stars have expressed an interest in doing so. Talking to The Mirror, Joe said he’d take any opportunity to work with the team again. “I just love them,” he gushed. “I love being around them. And I’ve worked with them in other contexts as well – really I’ve taken every opportunity to work with one of that group ever since the show ended.”
*If you are struggling with mental health, you can speak to a trained advisor from Mind mental health charity on 0300 123 3393 or email info@mind.org.uk
Source: Mirror
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