Henry Rowley is describing his first day filming Robin Hood when the heavy metal music comes on. I think it’s heavy metal: there are thrashing guitars overlaid by a high-pitched roaring that sounds like a velociraptor having an epileptic fit. Quite why the previously silent and practically empty King’s Cross pub has decided to invoke such an apocalyptic ambience at three o’clock on a rainy Friday afternoon is a question only the staff can answer; I’m certainly too British to find out.
“Maybe they heard us doing this,” suggests Rowley, “and thought, let’s fuck with them.” He seems amused by the idea. (To be fair, it would be quite funny.) Anything that involves mischief will generally get the Rowley seal of approval. Were he working in a pub where two people were recording an interview, I’m not suggesting that he’d promptly stick Slipknot on the sound system, but I bet the thought would cross his mind.
Anyway, he’s not working in a pub, merely sitting in one while he tells me about his first proper screen role in the latest TV adaptation of Robin Hood. This version screens on MGM+ and stars Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham. Rowley plays Will Scarlet, best friend of Jack Patten’s Rob. “One of the lighter characters,” says Rowley of Scarlet, “which is nice because it’s quite a serious show.”
Rowley’s career has grown increasingly serious over time – that is to say, he now does stuff your mum might understand. He started out doing comedy sketches on TikTok, graduated to standup comedy, and now stars in Robin Hood opposite that nice Sean Bean. Everything happened at warp speed: he uploaded his first TikTok video in October 2021 and made his Edinburgh debut last year. At his current rate of trajectory, expect the second Oscar to arrive before the decade is out.
Our photoshoot took place at The Faltering Fullback in Finsbury Park, complete with Guinness, cigarettes and a motorbike. “The coolest, most masculine thing in the world that I somehow made to look dainty and feminine,” says Rowley. A day later we meet at the Star of King’s in King’s Cross to do the talking part of this feature (and screaming, if you count the music). In the interim, Rowley appeared on The Pub Quiz podcast and attended a friend’s birthday party. After the interview, he’s off to the gym.
He’s a busy man but his attitude is more ‘joie de vivre’ than ‘5am #grindset’ – although he’s inevitably skewered tech bros on TikTok. (“I work in tech; ask me how much I earn!”) Most of Rowley’s TikTok sketches involve him delivering a persona directly to the camera, often struggling to contain his own laughter. “People ask, ‘Why do you laugh at your own jokes?’” says Rowley. “If I didn’t think it was funny, I wouldn’t do it!”
His most popular sketches have all racked up millions of views. They include the difference between US and UK sports fans, Scottish incarnations of Harry Potter characters, dating a walking ick, and Minty, the husky-voiced posh girl at the afters. (“Guys! Guys! How dutty was tonight?” delivered in impeccable Sloane with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.)
Watch a couple and you’ll understand the appeal: Rowley is a brilliant mimic, constantly finding the sweet spot between characterisation and caricature. It’s amazing what he can do with a change in vocal inflection and camera angle. The subjects are widely recognisable, the humour is never cruel. Minty was inspired by friends at Bristol University, where he studied English Literature. Fortunately the friends saw the funny side.
There’s nothing remotely showbiz about Rowley’s upbringing. He grew up in Leicester, the youngest of three brothers. “Mum’s a counsellor, dad’s a doctor. I’m a neurotic hypochondriac as a result.” His first taste of acting came playing the innkeeper in the school nativity, telling every new arrival that they would find the baby Messiah in the rear barn with increasing irritation. “I end up screaming,” recalls Rowley. “ROUND THE BACK!”
He’s best friends with his two brothers, neither of whom shared his desire for the spotlight. “Nick works in PR and Alex is an accountant.” His parents are still a little confused by his career, a quote from his mum pinned to the top of his Instagram page: “Does anyone actually watch your silly videos?” However they are proud of him and the person he has become. “My mum says she’s not proud of what I do, she’s proud of who I am,” smiles Rowley. There is much to be proud of.
Square mile: How would you describe your career to someone who’s never heard of you? It’s quite varied…
Henry Rowley: It’s ridiculous. I’ll say comedian and actor, essentially. I’ve done a standup tour. I’m acting at the moment, which has always been the main dream. The stuff I do online is all comedy. I try to steer away from the ‘influencer’ word because of the stigma.
SM: ‘Content creator.’
HR: I hate ‘creator’! I think it’s so self-indulgent. Obviously it requires a lot of ego to film yourself every day for a living. I’m aware that I’m one of the people who does that but I think calling yourself a ‘creator’ is self validation.
SM: Do you feel like you need to be ‘on’ all the time?
HR: I did for a while. When people come up to me, I always make a real effort to try and engage as much as I can and be nice because they’re always nice. It’s always a really nice interaction. Even if I’m knackered or not feeling a hundred percent, it takes so little effort just to give someone a smile and a little bit of intent.
Sometimes I’ll feel a bit more shy and sometimes a little bit more awkward, whereas sometimes I’ll be really chatty, but that’s natural. I don’t beat myself up over it. I don’t feel pressure, but I’ll always make sure to give someone time and genuine connection if I can.
SM: Congratulations on Robin Hood. How was the experience?
HR: It was the best experience of my life, far and away. For me that’s been a lifelong dream, to get a professional acting role and to be on a proper set with the cast and full crew and everything. Being there was better than the expectation. On my first day on set, I was giddy. I couldn’t stop smiling and saying to everyone, this is the most fun I’ve ever had. It’s just play with more stakes.
It came about through my amazing agent, managed to get an audition for it and sent over a tape and then it was a very quick turnaround. I heard a couple months later that I got the role and they were like, ‘You’re flying out in three days.’ So it was really intense. Cancelled my trip to Mexico, went to Serbia, and had the best time ever.
SM: What kind of Will Scarlet do you play? There have been multiple versions.
HR: He’s a bit of a lothario. He’s got a lighter, slightly comic undertone. He’s not slapstick comic – comes on and shits himself. There are some comic elements and he provides quite a nice duality with Rob, who then becomes Robin Hood. Spoiler! He’s one of the lighter characters, which is nice because it’s quite a serious show.
SM: Do you get to brandish a sword or shoot anyone with an arrow?
HR: I dunno if I can say yes or no. I got to do archery training and ride horses and stuff, which was super cool. Hopefully I look decent, but if I fire and miss the target, I’m sure they can make that work.
SM: Is there any moment or scene that you particularly enjoyed filming?
HR: My first day was really, really fun. I got to do some stunt work, which was so cool on your first day. I was a bit bruised because we just really went into it. That was so much fun. It’s one of my happiest memories ever, I think.
SM: Did you hang out with Sean Bean?
HR: A little bit, yeah. He’s the loveliest man in the world. He’s absolutely delightful. He was so friendly and he’s obviously unbelievably talented as well, so it was really cool to be even associated with him in some capacity.
SM: How did you get into TikTok?
HR: It was kind of an accident. I didn’t really know what TikTok was, I just thought it was kids dancing. I’ve always done characters and silly impressions and things like that. I was doing this posh girl impression, Minty. My mates were like, ‘Post it on TikTok, it’d be very funny.’ So I did and it went really well.
Six months before I posted the Minty thing, I tried to become a travel influencer. I thought it would be the coolest job in the world, getting paid to go to five-star hotels, but I hadn’t been anywhere so I used holiday videos that I had on my phone. I think they’re still up there.
SM: Was there a video that blew up?
HR: It was quite quick. It was Minty, the posh girl at the afters, but it goes incrementally. I had no followers or anything so that got 30,000 views in a day. I remember messaging my mates in the group chat, look at this, and we’re all losing our minds. I kept posting and then one of those posh ones hit a million and the followers started to go up – and it just kept going. The more views, the more followers.
SM: Why do you think the videos blew up? They really strike a chord with people.
HR: What I found interesting with the Minty character was every single generation said there had been that husky-voiced posh girl at their uni. I think that was maybe a key thing. I went to Bristol so everyone was the husky voiced posh girl, it was based on some of my mates. Eventually I moved away from the posh thing because you realise, right, this will get very old, very quickly. I guess some people share my sense of humour. I find them hilarious.
SM: Part of the appeal is how obviously you’re enjoying yourself. Plus it feels like it’s coming from a place of affection rather than mockery…
HR: Yeah, it is never meant to be hateful. There’s a few characters where there is contempt: I did a series of ‘You’re on a date with a walking ick’. Quite a misogynist character. But I think everyone shares that because there are people like that.
With comedy, some people are going to love it, some people are going to hate it. That’s my sense of humour, so I obviously find it funny. People ask, ‘Why do you laugh at your own jokes?’ If I didn’t think it was funny, I wouldn’t do it! You know what I mean? I’m not going to be like, ‘Yeah, whatever. You can laugh. I don’t really care.’
SM: Did you perform from a young age?
HR: I did theatre as a kid. I think the first-ever play was the Nativity when I was four or five. I got the role of the innkeeper and my only line was to say ‘round the back’ over and over again. [To the shepherds, wise men, etc.] In my head, I wanted to be Joseph. I wanted to be the star.
My only direction was to get more and more angry as it goes along. And I end up screaming, ‘ROUND THE BACK!’ My mum thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s a little performer. We’ve got to get him into some acting groups.’ I started doing acting from there.
SM: What do your parents do?
HR: Mum’s a counsellor, dad’s a doctor. I’m a neurotic hypochondriac as a result. My mum does really funny impressions, she does people we know in a similar way that I do. She’ll make a character out of someone we know. She used to do a really good impression of my grandpa.
SM: Any siblings?
HR: Two brothers, both older. They’re my best friends. Best friends and biggest role models. Nick works in PR and Alex is an accountant. We would absolutely batter each other when we were kids, as every kid does. We’d fight but we always got along. As we got older, we became best friends more than just brothers. We’re all one another’s best friends in the world. It’s really nice.
SM: How did the family react to you becoming a TikTok star?
HR: They didn’t really get it. My Instagram bio is from my mum: ‘Does anyone actually watch your silly little videos?’ She didn’t really understand. And they didn’t understand it could be a career.
My mum says she’s not proud of what I do, she’s proud of who I am. She’s like, ‘I don’t want you to think that my pride in you is based on any achievement or any perceived success. It’s who you are. That’s what I’m proud of.’
Sometimes I’ll do something cool or get a great review for a comedy show. I’ll be like, ‘Mum, look!’ My dad will be like, ‘You’ll get bad ones as well, you know.’ He’s a worrier. ‘Beware! A rubbish one will come in!’
SM: Have you had any bad ones?
HR: I always get bad and good reviews. It’s comedy, it’s subjective. A lot of the time in any bad review I’ve got, I’ve sort of understood where they’re coming from.
There was one where I just thought that they were wrong. They said my show was all recycled TikTok sketches – I did one Minty sketch! All the rest were brand new concepts, brand new characters, brand new things. I thought that was just reductive.
But you have to respect people’s opinions. If you just didn’t find it funny, that’s completely fine.
SM: That does sound quite annoying. Almost premeditated.
HR: Yeah. Someone asked me recently about standup. They got a bad review but they felt it was one of the best shows they’d done. And I was like, ‘Well, then you’ve done your job.’ Because with comedy, if you have an audience of a hundred and you make 99 people laugh, and the one person who hates it is the critic who’s reviewing it, then you’ve done your job.
Whereas if you make the one person who’s reviewing it laugh – you get a five-star review, but everyone else hates it – then it’s an awful show. You’ve just got to go with it. Trust it.
SM: You only started standup a few years ago. Can you remember your first show?
HR: Yeah, yeah. It was in The Attic in Southampton. There’s a video of it somewhere. I’ve watched it back. I was so nervous and I just raced through – no timing, no delivery, I just read it out. But they were really nice, really supportive.
Every comedian there was so lovely and it was a really nice audience. They knew it was my first time. There were a couple of moments which got genuine laughs and there were a lot of pity laughs. But you need that when you’re starting out.
SM: Filming, standup, comedy – is there a medium you prefer?
HR: Filming is far and away my favourite.
SM: How come?
HR: The reason I’ve done the TikToks is an interest in people, it’s a study of people. It’s the same reason I studied literature. I think literature and music and all that stuff, it’s just a study of human emotion and feeling and psychology. And acting is a side of that – not only studying and creating but becoming. I really enjoy that. I love that process.
With filming you have this incredible real set and you’re in these amazing costumes and you’re working with these insanely talented people who are filming and lighting and everything that goes into it. And just being part of that massively oiled machine and getting to essentially play with your co-star on set.
You don’t know what’s going to happen because you have to ride off what they do, it can’t be too rehearsed. I just love all of that. It’s the most exhilarating and wonderful thing I’ve ever done in my life.
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SM: As an English Literature graduate, what books would you recommend if you’re trying to impress people? They have to be ones you actually like…
HR: Blood Meridian [Cormac McCarthy] – apparently Paul Thomas Anderson’s directing a film of Blood Meridian. I’ve got to do a Beats book because I did it for my dissertation – probably Naked Lunch by William Burroughs, but with a massive warning because it’s so messed up. And then As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. Maybe The Eye by Vladimir Nabokov. That’s really, really funny.
SM: Do you have a five-year plan?
HR: Never have, never will. I’ve got goals and stuff I would like to achieve. But if you have a plan, I think it can sometimes make you narrow minded to other opportunities that may arise on the periphery.
The standup came out of nowhere, that was never part of any plan. I got to do a tour out of it, which was amazing. If I was so focused on acting, I might’ve been like, ‘No, that would distract me.’ I do want to stick with acting, get as far as I can, but I’m not sort of tying myself to any rigid plan.
I’m writing a screenplay at the minute. It’s serious. There will be comedic elements, but it’s going to be quite serious drama. And I’m working on a comedy series, like a sitcom-type thing, which I’m figuring out. The screenplay is going further. I’ve just joined a little writing group with some actor and writer friends. It’s really fun.
Robin Hood premieres on 2 November on MGM+ with new episodes every Sunday.
