James May, 59, who appeared on BBC series Top Gear alongside Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson from 2003 until 2015, was speaking ahead of the latest special of the trio’s series called The Grand Tour: A Scandi Flick, which is released on Amazon Prime on Friday, September 16 and takes place in the Scandinavian Arctic Circle. In a game of “would you rather”, James’ humorous answers revealed more about the trio’s love-hate relationship that comes across so well on screen, in an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk and other publications.
When asked who he would rather be stranded on a desert island with, “Jeremy or Richard”, James wanted to cheekily ditch them both, as he immediately responded: “So I don’t have the option of just being on my own?”
But after some thought, James jokingly went on to say: “It’s tempting to say Clarkson because he’d probably die sooner. But I think actually I’d go for Hammond because he’d be more useful.
“He can build me a car or a helicopter or whatever else he can do.”
Humorously, when asked the same question about James and Jeremy, Richard answered in a similar manner, saying: “I would rather be stranded on a desert island alone than with either of them.
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“I would rather look into infinity alone,” before going on to say that he would be forced to choose Jeremy, joking that there would be “more material to work with”.
In another inventive question, James was asked if he would rather spend a day working on Jeremy’s Diddly Squat Farm, which is the focus of his series Clarkson’s Farm, or at Richard’s car workshop.
Quick as a flash James said he would prefer the car shop as he “doesn’t know anything” about farming, referring to it as “big gardening”.
He said: “I think it would have to be Hammond’s car workshop because I’ve got some idea what I’m doing, whereas farming I don’t know anything about.
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“In my view, it’s just big gardening, which I don’t really like.”
Despite their on-screen rivalry, it’s clear both James and Richard love to film The Grand Tour specials.
When asked if he would never do another series of “Our Man In…” or “The Grand Tour,” James took a moment to think.
He said: “That’s a very difficult one. The Grand Tour specials are big but Our Man In is me, I can just do pretty much exactly what I want.”
“It’s basically how much you like Clarkson and Hammond’s company isn’t it,” an interviewer interjected, to which James replied: “Well I don’t particularly.”
The star continued: “The point is [The Grand Tour] is good for making television. We are first and foremost work colleagues with a job, so it pains me to say but for the purposes of this interview I’ll give up Our Man In.”
In one of the final questions, James and Richard were asked if they would rather spend two days in a dark room alone, or listen to Jeremy talk about farming for two hours.
Both of them chose to spend an extended period of time in a dark room.
“I would quite enjoy being in a dark room for two days,” James said. “I could do quite a lot of constructive thinking over two days. I think that would be quite good for me.
“I might try it anyway actually.”
Ahead of the new series of The Grand Tour, Jeremy spoke about an “alarming” crash that James got into in Norway, leading to him being rushed to hospital.
Writing for his column, Jeremy explained: “There’s always a big and alarming crash in The Grand Tour of course, but this one was different because the person who was gingerly lifted from the wreckage by paramedics and carefully driven to hospital in the back of an ambulance was not Richard Hammond. It was the slowest driver in the history of motoring – James May.”
James suffered from a broken rib and after a few days of recuperating he was able to join the others in their adventure across northern Scandinavia.
The Grand Tour: A Scandi Flick is released on Prime Video on Friday 16 September.