Admit it. We’ve all been there. After a particularly dry spell you end up going out, getting blind drunk and wake up the following morning next to the woman of your dreams only for her to up and leave wearing your favourite pair of jeans and passing you a fake number. You’re gutted to have been so brutally shaken off. And you want those jeans back. Yeah. We have been there. But can this really be the premise for an entire TV show? MTV think so and I Just Want My Pants Back, based on the novel by David Rosen, has turned out to be a surprise hit with its hilariously honest approach to modern day dating. Wonderland met its star, Peter Vack, who plays hopeless romantic Jason who wants to get the girl – and his jeans.
Jason has phenomenal luck with the ladies and is bed hopping each episode – are you as successful with women in your own life?
If only I could be as successful as Jason! The cool thing about him is if you look at the raw facts of his life you would think he is a player. A smooth talking Don Juan type, but I feel like his success with ladies comes from a much more pure place and each new sexual encounter Jason really believes “This could be the one”. He’s not a womanizer even though he does get a lot of action.
Are those characteristics that you can relate to as well?
Being a pure hearted romantic? Oh yeah. [laughs] I mean I’m not exactly like Jason, but I’m definitely a romantic guy. Although there are probably people who would read this and go “No he’s not!”
Oh really? You have some bad history?
I have no history. My reputation is completely unblemished. And I want that written in print! Peter’s reputation is unblemished!
The sex scenes in the show are always a bit awkward – are they just as awkward to film?
It’s interesting. I do think that the show touches on this sort of fantasy of how sexy your 20s are and how everyone seems to idealize this urban lifestyle of young, cool, attractive people hooking up all the time. And I like that Pants shows you that world but it shows how awkward and bizarre it is. There is definitely an underbelly of the single free life that is you might be talking to someone in a bar and they seem normal and then you get home and your in bed and you realize that the world is full of weirdos.
In the UK, Pants means underwear what would the show be like if it was titled I Just Want My Underwear Back?
That’s funny. It would be a totally different show. It would be about a guy who has one pair of underwear that got stolen and then he was uncomfortable having his bear bottom on the harsh denim of his jeans. It wouldn’t be a comedy but it would be a deep meditation for someone expressing their dislike for freedom ‘down there’. I want to be constrained. At least that’s how I feel. It’s really important for me to wear underwear.
The way the show is written is very realistic and honest and seems very genuine – do you feel you could be friends with Jason and everyone?
That’s the thing that first struck me – especially between a male female relationship like the one with [Jason and] Tina (played by Kim Shaw, Jason’s best friend). It’s something so specific and interesting what happens when a man and a woman are just friends with no romantic tension and I think Dave Rosen just nailed that. When I read the script I thought I was reading a transcript of two friends with real history. That’s the kind of truth an actor is looking for in a script.
According to your twitter, you are Piers Morgan’s understudy – how is that going?
Normally he’s fine and he doesn’t need me to go on, but sometimes he does but then I kill it. It is just a side gig but I like it. [laughs] It was meant to be a throw away joke and be funny but I guess I do actually like him. That’s the thing about Twitter. You write something very off hand and “You mean I actually have to answer for what I write?” That’s why I’m not very good on twitter because I’ll come up with something I think is funny to but then I’ll think about it for half an hour and end up not tweeting it which I think flying the face of the whole tweeting handbook. I think I overthink for twitter.
Don’t deliberate, just let it out.
I think those are great words to live by – “Don’t deliberate, just let it out”. I think you should end the interview with that. If there’s something we came to it’s that.
I Just Want My Pants Back is on MTV Tuesday’s at 10pm.