Daisy May Cooper: ITV dropped us, we were in crippling debt before BBC stepped in

Daisy May Cooper has shared that being dropped by ITV was "the last straw" after years of sacrifices made by her and her brother Charlie to get their mockumentary "This Country" commissioned.

The show, which followed the daily lives of cousins Kerry and Kurtan Mucklowe in Cirencester, Cotswolds, was inspired by the siblings' own upbringing. While living together in London, Daisy attended RADA, and Charlie worked at Topshop after dropping out of university.

Feeling homesick, the pair began doing impressions of people from their hometown. Upon returning to Cirencester, they honed their characters. During their time working as night cleaners, they wrote the first scripts for "This Country." Daisy told Davina McCall on the "Begin Again" podcast that they felt ashamed to work during the day, fearing judgment about their career paths.

"We had to be at that kind of rock bottom with everything else to be able to gamble like that," Cooper explained.

ITV initially gave the siblings a pilot episode, but Cooper recalled that the broadcaster rejected it, deeming it "so awful."

Following the rejection by ITV and their production company, Cooper admitted she worried about her brother's mental health. "I remember getting that phone call and Charlie just said 'I'm going to go out for a bit'. And I remember thinking he's going to do something stupid to himself because it was the last straw and it had been so many years and we sacrificed everything for this."

Further complications arose when their agent informed them they could not take the idea elsewhere due to a contract that had been signed. ITV had purchased the rights for approximately £500, and to buy them back would cost £300,000, a sum they could not afford. "We didn't have a pot to p*** in. We could barely afford to buy tobacco just to have a rolly that day,"

Despite these setbacks, Cooper remained optimistic. "I just knew that everything was going to be OK."

She then approached the BBC directly, sending the commissioner clips and the original script, requesting a meeting. The commissioner responded that evening, agreeing to a meeting.

In a striking coincidence, Phoebe Waller-Bridge had met with the same commissioner just before them to pitch "Fleabag." Both "Fleabag" and "This Country" were commissioned within the same hour.

"We said 'we've got all this debt' and he said 'don't worry about it we'll pay for it, we'll sort it'," Cooper added, noting they could have spent £300,000 to reclaim their characters.

"This Country" aired for three seasons between 2017 and 2020, earning Daisy a BAFTA for Best Female Comedy Performance.

Last year, Cooper stated that a return for "This Country" was unlikely due to her significant weight loss. She has lost ten stone and joked that she would only be able to reprise her role as Kerry if the character "had a tapeworm."

Cooper and her brother are currently working on a new unscripted project, though she reiterated that a "This Country" revival is not feasible given her altered appearance. "We'd have to say that Kerry's had a tapeworm and been stung by a bee."

Cooper has spoken about receiving messages suggesting she is "no longer funny" since losing weight. She expressed frustration with the notion that women must be overweight to be humorous, advocating for body positivity while also acknowledging her personal struggles with food addiction and unhappiness at her heaviest.

Her weight loss also impacted the filming of the second series of her BBC comedy "Am I Being Unreasonable?" Due to the 30-second time jump between series, her character's drastic weight loss and lip filler treatment created a visual discontinuity. Cooper humorously suggested adding a disclaimer to the show.