Stephen Mangan has said he entirely forgot that he starred in a film alongside his wife of 18 years.
The 57-year-old actor, known for his roles in The Split and I’m Alan Partridge, has been married to fellow on-screen star Louise Delamare, who has starred in Holby City and the Channel 4 drama No Angels, since 2007.
Speaking on Jessie and Lennie Ware’s Table Manners podcast, Mangan said he and Delamare were introduced by Scottish actress Michelle Gomez, whom he starred alongside in the sitcom Green Wing.
Gomez was friends with Delamare and introduced her to Mangan at a party hosted by Channel 4, but the pair never exchanged details, leaving him unable to call her afterwards to ask her on a date.
“I had to do two or three months of detective work to try and get her number,” Mangan said.
“And eventually I realised we’d been in the same film together.”
He continued: “The lowest-grossing film in British history. It made £94 at the box office. It’s called Offending Angels and it starred Andrew Lincoln.”
The film, released in 2000, tells the story of Sam and Baggy – two “slackers who waste their time having nonsensical affairs” – played by Lincoln and Andrew Rajan respectively.
Delamare played an unnamed “lady in a pub” in the British romcom, while Mangan played another minor character called Fergus.
Offending Angels was picked up by sales agents Ardent Productions and received mixed reviews following early press screenings.
The film, which had a modest £70,000 budget, became notorious for taking less than £100 at the box office, despite having sold out screenings at Gothenburg, Raindance, and Emden film festivals.
This was due in part to Ardent’s CEO, Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, leaving the media industry just ahead of the film’s release, to take on full-time duties as a working member of the Royal Family.
Back in 2002, The Independent’s Anthony Quinn wrote “it is almost impossible to convey the woefulness of Offending Angels” dubbing it “a Chinese water-torture of a movie”.
Mangan and Delamare have been married for 18 years and share three sons; Harry, Frank and Jack.
Together, they run a production company, Slam Films, which was behind the 2019 Sky Arts comedy Bleak House Guest.
