The former Friends star reveals five secrets from the set of his latest sitcom

1 I play Jerry Bernstein, a US government agent who has been assigned to the UK’S GCHQ as part of an intelligence-sharing initiative with the National Security Agency in America. Some people assume he’s based on Donald Trump, but while his sense of insecurity owes quite a bit to the ex-leader, his character is also a nod to some of the people who enabled Trump to enjoy power.

2 Jerry talks loudly for long periods, which is unfortunate as during filming I was suffering from hyperacusis, a condition that causes the sufferer pain when they hear loud noises. I tried not to be grumpy and everyone else was very understanding, but it did make it a very challenging shoot.

3 Although the series is fictional some of the situations draw on real life. The deletion of a whole database of important files referenced an occasion when Nick Mohammed, who created and also stars in the show as Jerry’s sidekick Joseph Harries, wiped a huge tranche of files when working for an investment bank.

4 We laughed so much at times during filming that we got a proper telling off from the producers. It was generally when we were a little tired, and some giggling had already set in!

5 Sitcoms tend to be pretty tightly scripted; Friends certainly was. But there were times on Intelligence when we did our own thing. In one scene Joseph had to carry out ‘torture practice’ on Jerry – there was a car battery involved, and it was quite physical. So a lot of that ended up being improvised, and the shorthand Nick and I have between us – developed over two series – really helped there.