It's a funny thing to say about yourself that you "have a kind of short-hand with David Hasselhoff" and you only get to say it once you've played his fictional assistant for two years.
Ella Smith
David and the rest of my "Hoff The Record" cast-mates re-grouped in 2015 to film series 2 and pick up where these ridiculous and brilliant characters left off; pretty much on the brink of collapse.
As co-writers on the show, we get to storyline and improvise scenes that we think might be funny to put Hoff through. But whilst all the laughter and one-liners are fizzing along nicely, it's easy to forget that the subject matter for grabs is, at heart, a real person: a dad to his kids; a Hollywood showbiz legend. He's also a natural at comedy.
That's the balance to find; to respect and play with Hoff's very essence. He's been pretty gracious and fun about that so far and so now, as a group of improvisers who know him well, we've learnt which of his doors to push and which ones are rightly closed so that we can all have harmless fun and make a special, comedic show.
He has graciously put up with a lot during filming, but the one thing I know he'll never truly learn to love is any cheap dig suggesting he's gay (he's not and we need to aim higher) and the British weather. When you watch the show, a little secret; Hoff's almost always got his thermals on. What a guy.
Hoff the Record Series 2 starts on Friday 6th May at 10pm on Dave, catch up with the first series on UKTVPlay.
Tagged in David Hasselhoff