This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
Jemaine Clement has no trouble recalling his first scene with Nicola Walker for their new comedy drama, Alice and Steve. “It was us singing karaoke,” he explains. “We were singing Total Eclipse of the Heart. It was 10 in the morning and we were complete strangers. That was our baptism.”
Awkward, embarrassing and with the potential to descend into chaos, the early morning karaoke session was the ideal way for Clement and Walker to start filming their six-part Disney+ series, a story about two life-long friends whose relationship descends into a full-on feud after he starts dating her 20-something daughter Izzy (played by Yali Topol Margalith).
“The script [by Sophie Goodhart] was from the producers of Baby Reindeer,” Clement explains. “I had just watched that and thought it was brilliant and brave, so I had trust in them.”
Still, any story that involves an older man being in a relationship with a younger woman is going to be fraught with risk – not least the ever-present possibility of losing the audience by coming across as a creep. Clement, 52, had the same fears.
“My biggest concern was, is it going to be too awkward to watch a man in his 50s having a relationship with a young woman?” he says. “When I’ve described the premise to people, some are still offended. Even people I know have called me a b*****d.”
To help prepare for the role, Clement watched The Rewrite – a romantic comedy in which Hugh Grant plays a college lecturer who has a relationship with one of his students. “I thought of Steve as a bit of a jerk, insecure and arrogant,” says Clement. “I was imagining kind of a bad Hugh Grant, but he ended up being nicer than I planned and more gentle.”
In the series, it’s made clear that Steve, struggling after a divorce, isn’t actively looking to date a younger woman and it’s Izzy who makes the first move. This feels like a preemptive attempt to counter accusations of an unhealthy power imbalance in the relationship, or at least to create a grey area ripe for drama. After filming the series, I wonder if playing Steve changed Clement’s own views on age-gap relationships?
“I know couples who have significant age gaps,” he says. “It might look unusual at first, but I’ve always felt after hanging out with them that I can see why they’re together. There’s something about them that matches.”
Being a writer himself, most memorably on Flight of the Conchords, was it a relief to only have to act in Alice and Steve and not worry about turning in the scripts? “I played around with it a bit and some of those things have made it in here and there, but it’s a huge relief not to have to write the script,” he agrees. “On a job like this, I don’t have to do anything other than be that one guy and that’s much more fun than writing.”
Clement is perhaps best known for what he does write, as one half of the New Zealand musical comedy duo, Flight of the Conchords, with his countryman Bret McKenzie. Nominated for the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2003, the pair went on to have a hit BBC radio show, which then became a cult phenomenon as an HBO TV series, winning a devoted global fan base between 2007-09. Flight of the Conchords formed after Clement met McKenzie when studying drama at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, where he grew up, but there was no guarantee he’d go into the arts.
“I grew up very poor and working class, but art was around,” he says of his childhood. “My dad always carried a flute around. My mum [who is of Maori descent] was a very good drawer and a big reader. And my uncles played guitar and trumpet and sang. But because we weren’t rich there was no expectation to be anything.”
Clement and McKenzie began performing together in Wellington in the late 1990s, developing their musical comedy act through live shows, which led to them being nominated for the Perrier at Edinburgh, which in turn led to that BBC radio commission.
“The BBC was fantastic because we hadn’t written anything long form,” says Clement. “I used to be a sketch writer before Flight of the Conchords, but for a TV show we had to learn how to sustain a story for half an hour. We got a chance to do that with the radio show, and then we felt able to write the TV show.”
What began as an oddball cult act playing tiny comedy venues in Wellington grew into a successful global phenomenon – in 2018, the pair sold out three consecutive nights at London’s O2 Arena.
“We get asked why it’s successful in the UK and US, and I think we just had a lot of influences from both those places,” he muses. He recalls watching The Young Ones as a boy and cites it as a key influence. “I don’t think I’d be doing this were it not for that show. I wouldn’t be talking to you. In Flight of the Conchords there’s a scene where Brett’s character is sad and my character tries to cheer him up by making the stove talk. That was directly inspired by us thinking, ‘If this was The Young Ones, the stove would just talk.’”
Having not performed for eight years, Flight of the Conchords recently reunited for two shows in Los Angeles. How did that feel? “It was really difficult, but it was still fun and it’s coming back to us,” he says. “It was kind of a memory challenge because I haven’t performed in front of people that much – I’ve been doing film and writing.”
He’s definitely been busy – in recent years Clement has appeared in huge Hollywood films such as The BFG, Men in Black 3 and animation Moana. Clement has worked with both Steven Spielberg in The BFG (who told him: “You guys changed comedy in America.”) and James Cameron, on Avatar: the Way of Water and its sequel Fire and Ash.
“What I love about both of those guys is they’re very elastic with how they work,” he says. “I’ll probably never be as meticulously planned as either of them, but they’re also able to adapt to the moment. It was very inspiring.”
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Alongside the blockbuster acting, in his post-Conchords life Clement made his directorial debut with vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, which he also co-wrote, co-directed and co-starred in with Taika Waititi, and later adapted into a TV show. In other words, he does a lot of different things – so what’s the method behind it all? Simple – there isn’t one.
“I haven’t decided what to do and I’m not sure what I’m good at,” he admits, “so I have a go at everything. I’m attracted to that challenge. If it makes me nervous, there’s part of me that finds it hard to turn down. I don’t think I ever want to be completely comfortable, but luckily I never am.”
Certainly, Clement should feel comfortable about how Alice and Steve will be received. It’s funny and thought-provoking, and was the breakout hit at the Canneseries TV Festival in April, taking the prize for best series. And perhaps we haven’t seen the end of this toxic friendship – along with co-star Nicola Walker, Clement hopes the series will be back for a second run.
“I had such a great time making this. I’d love to be back and working with those people again.”
Alice and Steve will premiere on Disney+ in the UK and Hulu in the US on 8 June 2026. Sign up to Disney+ from £5.99 a month.
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