Inbetweeners star shares new look ahead of filming and fans are baffled

James Buckley is gearing up to play Jay Cartwright again and debuted a return to the loud-mouthed character’s look in a recent Cameo clip.

The Inbetweeners fans this month got the announcement they’ve been waiting for, with a threequel film officially in production at Netflix.

The third instalment to spin off from the Channel 4 sitcom will see Buckley return alongside Simon Bird, Blake Harrison and Joe Thomas as Will, Neil and Simon.

As well as the core four, The Inbetweeners creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris are back to write and direct the film.

Production hasn’t slowed down Buckley’s prolific output on the personalised fan video platform Cameo and he’s undergone something of a transformation in a recent clip, presumably to play the wannabe legend once again. 

Buckley filmed a message for the British driver Ollie Millroy, who was pulled from a burning car after a crash while racing in Shanghai over the weekend.

The 36-year-old is now recovering in hospital and a friend organised the Cameo message, which Millroy’s wife shared on Instagram. In the video, Buckley has shaved the beard he’s sported in recent years and dyed his hair back to Jay’s trademark blonde. 

The new look was shared on a Reddit thread dedicated to the show, where fans were predominantly shocked at how similar Buckley still looks to the character. 

‘He looks identical wtf??’ wrote @littlelaghere, while @Bulky-Abrocoma-2258 agreed he ‘hadn’t aged at all’. 

There were also the inevitable jokes about what Jay might have been up to in the years since we last saw him, after fans started to speculate what the plot of the upcoming film might be.

‘He’s just got back from a gap year to Afghanistan, tried to get pure s*** straight from source,’ joked @Mysterious_Rush5933.

In the video for Millroy, Buckley said: ‘I’ll be honest Ollie, this sounds like a story Jay would make up. You’ve been in an accident recently. 

‘You were rescued from a burning car by Loek [Hartog, a Dutch racing driver]. I saw that on the news. Was that you? That was f***ing mental, mate. I want to wish you a speedy recovery.’

Having sustained multiple fractures in the crash, Millroy wrote in the caption: ‘It was worth the pain in the broken ribs to laugh a lot at this.

‘Thank you James Buckley for making us smile during this whole life-changing and traumatic time in hospital. Think we might have to now rewatch every episode of The Inbetweeners.’

Buckley was a relatively early adopter of the bespoke video sharing platform, joining in March 2020 in order to make some extra cash during the pandemic.

In his introductory video on Cameo, he offers to record birthday messages or ‘hurl abuse’ at friends with several of Jay’s catchphrases to hand, while also plainly stating that he’s ‘here for the money’. Buckley has indeed reportedly made much from the platform, becoming one of the most prolific British stars on there.