-Our next guest is a very funny comedian and actor
you know from "Fleabag."
He's the creator and star of the excellent series
"Stath Lets Flats," which is available on HBO Max.
Let's take a look.
-And should we wait for Mommy to go in
or are we just going to charge in?
-Me and her mum are separated.
-Oh, God.
♪ A-one, two, three-four, five ♪
That was sort of a song for her 'cause she's quite young.
♪♪
Oh, and there's a chair!
...lettings!
This is a feature up here that we tried to get rid of,
but in the end, we decided we loved it.
And as you can see there's an absolutely...shower.
-Please welcome to the show Jamie Demetriou.
How are you, Jamie?
-I feel quite nice.
Lovely to meet you, Seth.
-It's lovely to meet you as well.
We have a friend in common, Ike Barinholtz.
And he was the first person who told me about your show.
And the title is such -- I've gotten used to it.
I love it now.
When I first heard it, it's very frustrating because I --
I literally had to have him spell it for me.
because "Stath Lets Flats" is such a weird earful.
Do you love the title or do you regret it?
-You know, there are times -- [ Laughs ]
There are times in your life where you take your eye
off the ball, and naming my show something that I find hard
to say definitely feels like one of them.
I mean, I do remember pitching the name "Stath Lets Flats,"
and the room sort of going quiet
and us going, "Okay, so we definitely won't call it that."
[ Laughter ] And then sort of hard cut to
it coming out on TV, and we're all like,
"Oh, how did we -- how did we let that happen?
No one was into 'Apartment Dudes'?
None? Alright. Cool."
-Well, so your character -- it does -- it is very clear
that it spells out what's happening in the show.
Your character's name is Stath
and you let or rent flats, apartments.
So it all makes sense.
I'm wondering. You did not have any experience letting flats.
Did you have to shadow people who did this for a living?
-Oh, not so much shadow.
I just booked some -- I booked some viewings of some properties
that I didn't necessarily want to rent or buy.
And it is the gift that keeps on giving.
It's like they knew I was coming and were like,
"We need to give him some inspiration for his show
'cause -- let's do the dumbest thing we can possibly do
because it's a waste of time for him if we don't."
So, yeah, I had all kinds of -- I mean, I went into one place
and the -- it was freezing cold,
and I said to the guy, "Is the heating on?"
He went, "Yeah, it is, actually."
And I was like, "Oh, that's not great, is it?
Because it's so cold. And is the window, like, rattling?
It looks like it's got some cracks in it."
And he said, "Right.
I know what you're thinking.
And you're thinking that it's cold and that the heat
is not working and that the window is bad.
And I understand why you think that.
But trust me, none of those things are the case."
[ Laughter ]
"None of those things are true."
No reason, just that.
So there was born a TV show.
-Have you received any feedback post it airing
from those in the apartment arts?
Do people like the show who do this for a living?
-"The apartment arts" is being used.
[ Laughter ]
I mean, I think because, you know, by the very nature of
those characters, they don't have a huge amount of
introspection going on.
So when they watch the show, they immediately deflect.
Like, the amount of times I've been into a Realtor's office
or a letting agent's office as what we call it
and they've been like, "Oh, my God.
You are -- Your character is exactly like this guy
who works in our office, who's an idiot."
And more often than not they're pointing at a guy
who seems really sweet and is just trying to eat a sandwich
in the corner of the room, and I'm like,
"I think I might be more like you."
[ Laughter ]
-I did not realize this, but your sister in the show,
who is fantastic, is your sister in real life, Natasia,
who I also knew from "What We Do in Shadows."
I mean, it must be outstanding getting to work with each other
for no reason less than how talented she is.
-Right. I think that's it.
The privilege is, first and foremost,
working with her as an actor.
You know, I probably would have wanted her to be in it anyway
because she's my sister, but the true luck of it all
is that whether or not she was my sister,
I'd need her for that role because she's just unreal.
And we have, like, a --
you know, it's so much easier when you have a sure hand.
I mean, most of the cast are my pals or people
I came up with and we share a sensibility.
But with Tash, it literally comes down to, like,
if she's ever being given direction, you have, like,
a sure hand of experience, like, history together.
So I can be like, "You know when our cousin in Cyprus
dropped us off in the middle of the highway
because he said he needed to go and buy a fish,
and then he asked us if we liked fish, and we said no,
and he drove off?
Can you pull the expression that he pulled as he drove off?
Okay?" And she's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got you."
[ Laughter ]
-I also -- I think this is -- what I'm saying is a compliment
because I never would make the connection with
how you looked in "Fleabag" with how you look in real life.
But you played Bus Rodent in the first episode of "Fleabag"
with maybe the most distressing fake teeth I've ever seen.
How was that experience?
Because obviously that is --
that's one for the history books, that show.
-I mean, yeah. Right.
I mean, I learned so much from Phoebe on set.
Her manner and her kind of -- you know,
it's a bar to be reached, so it was a really amazing experience.
And I'm just so happy it took off in the way that it did.
You know, the teeth thing is interesting.
I went into a lot of casting calls after it came out,
and there would always be a sort of 15-second silence,
where you could tell the casting director wasn't listening to
what I was saying because they were waiting for me
to open my mouth wide enough to look inside.
[ Laughter ] They'd be like,
"Hey, how are you? You're from..."
[ Laughter ]
"They're not real. Yeah. Okay. So let's --"
I'm like, "If I -- you know, if that guy did exist, you know,
he's going to have a hard time bagging some roles."
-He got the one, and that was gonna be the last one.
-Right. He's like, "Oh, my God.
Look at this script." [ Laughter ]
-I'm so excited to hear that you're working on scripts
for a third season now.
It's such a great show.
So great to meet you. Thanks so much for being here, Jamie.
-Man, pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.