Paddy McGuinness only realised he was claustrophobic during filming the ‘Keith and Paddy Picture Show’.
The 43-year-old ‘Take Me Out’ presenter and comedian teamed up with lifelong friend and ‘Celebrity Juice’ host Keith Lemon for a new ITV five-part series in which the pair rope in their showbiz pals to recreate some of the world’s most iconic Hollywood movies – from the likes of 1987’s ‘Dirty Dancing’, ‘Jaws’ (1975) to parodies of ‘Star Wars’, ‘Rocky’ and ‘Ghostbusters’ – injecting a sizeable chunk of slapstick comedy into the scenes too.
Speaking during a Q&A, which took place after an exclusive screening of the ‘Dirty Dancing’ first episode, and hosted by George Lamb at Prince Charles’ Cinema in London’s Leicester Square, Paddy revealed: "I never knew I was claustrophobic until we started this. When we did ‘Ghostbusters’ they put me in full prosthetic make up like Bill Murray’s character and they spent three hours this (particular) morning putting all this prosthetics on – THREE hours! I got up and went for a wee and someone came into the toilet and said, ‘are you alright’ and I scratched my face like that [shows scratch movement] and I couldn’t feel my skin and I just immediately just ripped it all off and walked back into the make-up room and went ‘you alright, what the f**k’s going on here. That’s it I can’t cope with it. But he (Keith) loves it."
But Keith – known out of character as Leigh Francis – is renowned for dressing up in tight fitted outfits for various comedy projects.
He interjected: "I love it so much I went into the toilet and I picked it off the floor and I stuck it to my back’.
Paddy explained he doesn’t like to be restricted.
He said: "Literally they’re (prosthetics are) more restrictive than (you think). I watched a documentary on Channel 5 about weird sexual fetishes – as you do – and there was a guy there in a gimp suit and he had just one breathe hole and the lady would block the hole now and again just to make it more pleasurable and I was watching it thinking he (Keith) would love that – that’s right up his street – anything restrictive I didn’t like that at all."
When it was suggested that kind of suit could be used in a second series of the show, Keith added: "If we do ‘Pulp Fiction’ I’ll be the gimp!"
And it’s not just the prosthetics that molded them into shape so that they could impersonate the iconic actors and actresses – as Keith admitted he needed to give up bread so that he could get into the best shape for the ‘Dirty Dancing’ grand finale lift.
He said: "I haven’t eaten bread since September that’s why I look so svelte but that was so Patrick (Paddy) could pick me up."
But once they’d wrapped on ‘Rocky’, the diet stopped for Paddy. He added: "As soon as we finished Rocky, the last day we finished filming that, I was like DOUBLE cakes!"
‘Keith and Paddy Picture Show’ starts on ITV on May 6.
Paddy McGuinness was claustrophobic doing Keith and Paddy Picture Show
