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| Richard Ashcroft & Liam Gallagher |
The funnyman and pal Stephen Merchant turned to the iconic duo when casting and scripting their superb coming-of-age comedy/drama set in early 70s Reading.
Ricky found that British actors are generally split into two categories, with half destined to play posh society types and the others primed for violent, wife-beating roles.
Hell bent on bucking the trend of gritty UK flicks, Ricky and Stephen got to work on making their characters rock star cool.
The Extras star revealed: "We didn't want it to be one those really gritty 'isn't England a bit depressing and crap and normal' films.
"We wanted it to be a bit more glorious and evoke those possibly false memories of every day being sunny and brilliant and fun. That's how I remember my childhood.
"We cast about a thousand people to try and find these Jimmy Deans and John Travoltas - half of them will be Mr Darcy one day, and the other half will be going, 'You f****** slags.'
"So we had to look to our rock stars like Richard Ashcroft and Liam Gallagher. That's where we rule the world." Stephen added: "This country's always been very good at making rock stars, and rock stars are unashamedly cool.
"But somehow British films are less like that. It's like we're a little bit more embarrassed to be like that. We need to be self-conscious and make things seem gloomier and grittier.
"But that wasn't my experience of growing up. Everything seemed very cool to me."
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