Success, truly, is an unpredictable beast. How else to explain the contrasting fates of James Corden and Mat Horne, best friends and former co-stars of the TV sitcom Gavin & Stacey?
If you were to predict which would join the celebrity stratosphere when the hugely popular BBC programme started in 2007, you would have felt safe betting on Mat — affable, attractive, sweetly appealing — who played the lead character, lovestruck Essex boy Gav.
Instead, it was James, playing Gavin's best friend Smithy, who made it. James — obese, outspoken and positively Marmite in the love-him-or-hate-him stakes — is now on the Hollywood A-list.
Mat and James's rock-solid relationship — their 'bromance' — was one reason for the show's success and James boasted he and Horne spent 263 days in one year working together.
However, other joint projects (including a sketch show called Horne & Corden) were critically panned and, after Gavin & Stacey's conclusion in 2010, the pair began leading separate lives.
James later reflected he'd become arrogant and overexposed.
But while resilient James reinvented himself as a hugely successful late-night talkshow host in America, earning millions and picking up celebrity chums from Prince Harry to Vogue boss Anna Wintour in the process, Mat's career has been less stellar.
So, as a Christmas special of Gavin & Stacey is announced, some 12 years after the show hit our screens, how different are the pair's lives — and have they really managed to recapture their special friendship?
RODEO DRIVE OR THE ISLE OF SKYE
James is a megastar now, thanks to his hosting The Late Late Show on American network CBS.
He has a lifestyle to match, most notable in his home — a £7.3million LA mansion in upscale Brentwood, bought in 2017.
He shares the 8,600 sq ft property with his beautiful American blonde wife, Julia, and their children: Max, eight, Carey, four, and Charlotte, 18 months.
There's a large swimming pool, as well as a spa, a wood-panelled library, a cinema room and gym.
James is a megastar now, thanks to his hosting The Late Late Show on American network CBS. He has a lifestyle to match, most notable in his home — a £7.3million LA mansion in upscale Brentwood, bought in 2017
Here, James tortures himself with thrice-weekly sessions with a personal trainer. His regime includes PlyoJam classes (a dance/exercise hybrid which is all the rage among the Hollywood elite). Actresses Reese Witherspoon and Kate Hudson are also in his class.
The Hollywood version of James is around two stone lighter than the old one.
He's been spotted shopping along the millionaires' paradise of Rodeo Drive and lunching in Beverly Hills restaurants. James drives a midnight-blue £157,000 Aston Martin Vanquish.
His old flatmate, British actor Dominic Cooper, said: 'He lives in this beautiful house, like something from Home Alone 2, you know, with three Christmas trees. We laugh about it because, my God, he used to live above a doughnut shop.'
In stark contrast, Mat, 40, appears to be doing the opposite. He owned a two-bedroom flat in London's Barbican, said to be worth around £1.15 million, but is in the process of relocating to the Scottish Highlands — to be precise, the town of Helmsdale, with a population of 700.
He said: 'I'm there the whole time I'm not working . . . I just want to be in the Highlands . . . I would go to Hollywood if something came in that I really wanted to do.'
Mat owned a two-bedroom flat in London's Barbican, said to be worth around £1.15 million, but is in the process of relocating to the Scottish Highlands — to be precise, the town of Helmsdale, with a population of 700
He also loves to spend time on the picturesque Isle of Skye — a world away from Rodeo Drive.
BULGING LITTLE BLACK BOOKS?
The vivacious James has a truly starry group of friends including singer Adele (who he knew before either were global celebrities), Prince Harry, Bono and actor Sean Penn. Such is James's friendship with the Prince that he even gave a speech and sang at the Harry and Meghan's wedding reception.
Mat, in contrast, doesn't move in the same celebrity circles.
MEGABUCKS AND MOONLIGHTING
James is paid a reported £2 million a year for The Late Late Show — yet he moaned that he was the 'lowest-paid talkshow host on TV' last year. Despite his quibbles, he's said to be worth £9.5 million.
Meanwhile, Mat works as a DJ to supplement his acting, and is said to be worth £1.5 million.
James is paid a reported £2 million a year for The Late Late Show — yet he moaned that he was the 'lowest-paid talkshow host on TV' last year. Despite his quibbles, he's said to be worth £9.5 million
PRAYERS AND AN ONSTAGE COLLAPSE
Considering James, 40, was once known for loutish behaviour and serious partying — 'I was just so lost,' he later confessed — it's all the more extraordinary that he's made such a lucrative comeback.
But he only pulled back from the brink after an intervention from his parents, Malcolm, a musician- turned-Christian-bookseller, and Margaret, a social worker, both members of the Salvation Army.
After telling him they were praying for him, they helped him turn his life around.
It was his performance in the play One Man, Two Guvnors in 2012 which won him a devoted fan in Vogue editor Anna Wintour — and sowed the seeds for his current success.
After watching One Man, Two Guvnors on Broadway, CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves asked James to pitch for a late-night slot on the network.
The rest is history and James's debut show was in 2015, with first guest Tom Hanks. In a brilliant segment, James had Hanks act out every one of his films in seven minutes. It was an instant sensation on YouTube — something which became key to James's appeal.
Mat works as a DJ to supplement his acting, and is said to be worth £1.5 million. He has by no means been unemployed since Gavin & Stacey, working on Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes and the Agatha Raisin TV series among others, and in theatre productions of Moliere's The Miser, and Charley's Aunt
The pioneering of the show's Carpool Karaoke segment — where James drives celebrities around and sings along to songs playing on the car stereo — has been another masterstroke.
Guests have included everyone from Madonna to Michelle Obama while YouTube clips have garnered millions of views — indeed, James has notched up a staggering five billion views of his show online, and has 10.5million followers on Twitter.
He owns the rights to Carpool Karaoke through the production company he runs with Ben Winston, son of Lord Robert Winston, the fertility pioneer. Winston told me: 'The key is not to try and make a talk show every night. There are plenty of them, and it would be a waste of James's vast talent.
'We make a variety show each day and now broadcast nightly in 155 countries. I think that's because James and the show is original.'
Like James, Mat also found it hard to cope with life after Gavin & Stacey. In 2009, suffering from exhaustion, he collapsed onstage during a performance of Entertaining Mr Sloane at London's Trafalgar Studio.
But while James managed to bounce back, Mat struggled.
He later said: 'I didn't have the personality to deal with it. Didn't have the skin to deal with it. James is very good at absorbing all the negativity he got and still gets. But whereas he was able to advance, I retreated.'
In an interview, he added: 'That period of attention didn't sit well with me. It's nice to be recognised for your work, but it became about something else. I was never interested in being famous.' He admitted to finding fame 'pretty empty, really'.
Mat has by no means been unemployed since Gavin & Stacey, working on Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes and the Agatha Raisin TV series among others, and in theatre productions of Moliere's The Miser, and Charley's Aunt.
Hollywood it ain't — but Mat admits to preferring the stage over the big screen (considering that one of his last roles with James was the atrociously received 2009 movie Lesbian Vampire Killers, who can blame him?).
Mat — who has 233,000 followers on Twitter — has also turned down undoubtedly lucrative offers from reality shows I'm A Celebrity and Strictly Come Dancing.
A FALLING OUT, BUT THEY'RE STILL PALS
After the crushing experience of the public's backlash against them, for a few months of 2009, the pair did not speak.
The following year, James said their relationship was 'slowly improving' and noted: 'We never fell out, it was never that. We were one person for a long time.' Mat was among the guests at James's wedding in 2012.
Mat reflected in 2013: 'We're still friends. I still talk to him all the time. But I don't think we're necessarily seen as the same thing any more. There is a disassociation that's healthy. I don't have anything bad to say about him. I will work with him again.'
He told another interviewer in 2017, with some feeling: 'Jealousy isn't something I do . . . I am thrilled about the success he is having.'
This week he gave a clue to the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special, saying: '[Gavin's] a little bit tired . . . and he's a dad with an almost grown-up child.'
DEPRESSION AND A LOVING CHILDHOOD
Mat was raised in the outskirts of Nottingham by mother, Glenis, a nursery nurse, and father, Brian, the manager of a lace factory.
He needed therapy for depression and 'pretty much nearly had a nervous breakdown' when he went to secondary school, explaining: 'I was dealing with incredibly powerful adult emotions at quite a young age.'
James was raised in Hazlemere, Bucks, and is glowing about his upbringing: 'The confidence I have got all comes from my parents.
'They said whatever you want to do, you should go for it. When you have an upbringing like that and you have parents who say whatever you do, we will love you, then you can't help but have bucketloads of confidence.'
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