Wallace and Gromit boss reveals he BEGGED Peter Kay to return for Xmas special – as he shares behind-the-scenes secrets
CREATOR of Wallace & Gromit, Nick Park has revealed he wrote begging letters to Peter Kay to tempt him out of retirement for new festive flick Vengeance Most Fowl.
The comic’s stint as Inspector Mackintosh in the upcoming Christmas Day film marks his official return to TV after four years away.
But little did he know, Peter was already plotting a comeback at the same time with his very own tour.
Ahead of the film’s release on the BBC, Nick revealed a few behind-the-scenes secrets at the London premiere.
Speaking to fans, Nick said: “What we realised, or were aware of, was that all Mack did was just shout a lot.
“So this [new film] was a great opportunity for us to really explore the character, find the comedy of his exasperation, and his rather misplaced old-fashioned views on how policing should go down.
“So it was just really nice to expand the character with Peter, and make it a bit more rounded.”
Revealing how he managed to get the comedy icon on board, Nick revealed that it was begging letters that finally did the trick.
He said: “I actually wrote to him, I wrote a letter to him.
“It was just to try and talk him into doing this again, you know, because of how wonderful he was in Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
“We told him that we’d expanded his character more in this one, he’s got a bigger role in this one.”
Peter devastated fans in 2017 when he cancelled his long-awaited comeback tour due to “unforeseen family circumstances” and went on to take a five-year break away from the spotlight.
He was last seen on TV with Car Share in 2020, so Nick and the Aardman Animations team knew it could be a big ask for him to return for the new flick.
But Nick went on: “He was just about to begin his giant tour as well, which we didn’t know at the time.
“So we did it while doing that, in between gigs.”
Elsewhere, Nick even revealed that the look of Wallace and Gromit was almost very different to what fans are used to seeing today.
In a surprising admission, he told how Gromit was initially supposed to be a CAT.
The TV creator said: “Well, actually, in the very beginning, when I was at film school making A Grand Day Out, one notion was to have Gromit as a cat.
“But I just found the dog easier to make out of Plasticine – the cat legs just wouldn’t get going!
“Dog legs you could roll them like worms.
“I feel like a dog is a little bit more forgiving, too. Yeah, there’s a lovely relationship between humans and dogs.”
Peter will join Ben Whitehead who voices eccentric inventor Wallace, along with Reece Shearsmith who plays Norbot, a smart gnome Wallace designed to do jobs around the house, and Lauren Patel as PC Mukherjee, Chief Inspector Albert Mackintosh’s plucky young protégé.