Jack Whitehall on Clifford, a NSFW version of Jungle Cruise and Aussie travels with his dad

Making the transition from expletive-laden stand-up to family entertainment was always going to challenging for Jack Whitehall.

Making the transition to family entertainment was always going to challenging for Jack Whitehall.

The British comedian is best known for his sweary stand-up and more grown-up TV fare such as Fresh Meat, Bad Education and the hit Netflix road-trip series, Travels With My Father.

Recently he has been branching out though, doing it for the kids in this year’s Disney action-adventure Jungle Cruise and now in a big-screen adaptation of the beloved children’s book, Clifford the Big Red Dog.

But sometimes old habits die hard, and given the number of NSFW outtakes he did with the similarly profane Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson, he’s pretty sure there could be a version of Jungle Cruse somewhere that would make the kiddies’ ears bleed.

“You definitely have to keep the lid on things a bit,” he says with a laugh via Zoom call from Los Angeles. “There’s definitely an R-rated cut of Jungle Cruise that’s out there in the ether. There’s a version of that film that definitely would not have made the certificate.”

Jack Whitehall as Uncle Casey in a scene from Clifford the Big Red Dog.

He says he was much better behaved for Clifford, in which he plays man-child Uncle Casey opposite the giant titular CG canine, but this time was nearly brought undone by the language barrier between his native England and his colleagues across the Pond.

“I think I accidentally said the word ‘bollocks’ in the one of the scenes, which was in the cut for quite some time,” he says. “And eventually, someone Googled it and realised what it meant and that it was a little bit of English slang that accidentally snuck into the movie and no one had thought to take it out.

“Fortunately, the finished piece is bollock-free. It’s very family-friendly and will not have any of my smut anywhere near it.”

Jack Whitehall as Macgregor, with Emily Blunt as Lily (centre), and Dwayne Johnson as Frank in Jungle Cruise.

Whitehall is full of praise for his junior co-stars in Clifford, particularly 14-year-olds Darby Camp and Izaac Wang, who he says are far more poised and together than he was at their age. Whitehall, the son of television producer and agent Michael Whitehall, made some early forays into acting himself, but the results were less than stellar.

“I was absolutely terrible,” he admits. “I got cut out of a few things. On one thing I got recast and was demoted to being an extra in the back of the shot. And then I also filmed something where they dubbed my voice entirely because for some reason on the day I developed a speech impediment and was unable to say the line right and they dubbed me with another child’s voice.”

Jack Whitehall with his junior co-star Darby Camp, and director Walt Becker on the set of Clifford the Big Red Dog. Picture: KC Bailey.

And while Whitehall admired their boundless, youthful energy in the sweet and inclusive story about a young a girl and her feckless uncle who find themselves trying to wrangle the brightly-coloured, oversized mutt in New York City, he was less impressed with their timing and music selections.

“There was quite a few times when we were on the makeup trailer at six o’clock in the morning and Izaac and Darby were playing Justin Bieber quite loudly. During the day, I would say I’m a Belieber, but at 6 o’clock in the morning, I think I’m more of a Bel-atheist and so I had to ask them kindly if maybe we could wait until eight or nine o’clock until we start playing Justin Bieber. And then the following morning, it was One Direction instead, so I don’t think the message quite got through.”

Jack Whitehall and his comedy hero John Cleese in Cliffored the Big Red Dog. Picture: KC Bailey.

High on Whitehall’s list of priorities for signing up for Clifford was the chance to work with his comedy idol John Cleese, who plays the kindly, mysterious and magical Mr Bridwell. Whitehall says he’s always related to the physical comedy as well as the buttoned-up, class conscious, highly strung characters made famous by the Monty Python great, to the point that “all of my career thus far has just been a homage to him”.

“He’s the reason that I do what I do and I was very nervous about meeting him for the first time,” Whitehall says. “But he is an incredible presence and he is avuncular and funny and even though he’s in his 80s has this incredible mischief and a big booming laugh as well, which is the ultimate reward if you can make him laugh. That absolutely melts you.”

Jack Whitehall and his father Michael (left) filming Travels With My Father in Australia last year.

Whitehall has fond memories of his trip to Australia early last year for the final episodes of Travels With My Father, in which he and his curmudgeonly dad Michael have crisscrossed the globe as unlikely and hilarious travel companions. The pair just managed to sneak the visit in before the coronavirus pandemic shut down global travel and they were swiftly put into lockdown when they returned to their homes in London, having just weeks earlier wrestled with emus and danced with drag queens.

“If anything, it was probably a perfect timing because at the end of filming a series of Travels with My Father I am like ‘OK, I need a little bit of distance from my dad now’,” Whitehall says with a laugh. “It’s a little bit intense to be on the road with him for that long. And then, lo and behold, we go back to England and it was literally a law decreed by the government, that I couldn’t see him for a couple of months and I think both of us were fine with that at that point in time.”

Clifford the Big Red Dog opens in cinemas on December 30 with sneak peeks on December 18-19.