After his scenes were left on the cutting room floor in the last Johnny English movie, actor Ben Miller says he was surprised to be asked back to appear as Bough in the latest outing for the bungling British spy.
Watch our interview with Ben Miller
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Speaking to RTE Entertainment, Miller, who plays Johnny’s loyal sidekick in the comedy franchise, said, "I reacted with disbelief when I heard I was returning.
"I was in the first film and I did a scene for the second film that didn’t make it into the final version because it was basically too funny so I couldn’t quite process it to begin with and then you get the script."
In Johnny English Strikes Again, which is released on Friday, October 5, Rowan Atkinson returns as the bungling 00 - 7 to take on a mastermind hacker when a cyber attack on Britain exposes the identities of the country’s undercover agents, leaving English as the Secret Service's last hope.
"When they hit on this idea of analogue versus digital it all really clicked into place," says Miller, who has also appeared in Paddington 2 and Death in Paradise.
"There’s this cyber villain and the UK is under attack so they need an analogue old school person to defeat this tech giant and who’s more old school than Johnny English and who's more old school than Bough?"
In the movie, the third in the franchise, Emma Thompson pretty much steals the show and acts everyone off screen as the British Prime Minister. She’s fond of a tipple and given to temper tantrums but the question is - is this fictional PM doing a better job than the real one?
"The real one has got the hardest job you could possibly imagine and Emma Thompson manages to channel some of that frustration in the film," says Miller.
"It was fantastic doing those scenes with Emma but also kind of terrifying because you were really being given a proper telling off by a grand dame of British film so you kind of felt like you were being put in your place."
Johhny English Strikes Again is in cinemas on Friday, October 5
