Avenue

Me by Greg Hemphill

Actor, writer and director Greg Hemphill (MA 1992) is best known for TV comedy shows such as the perennially popular Still Game, in which he plays a character decades older than himself. Greg made his Hollywood debut in 2024 in the film Deadpool & Wolverine, and he recently teamed up with his wife, fellow actor Julie Wilson Nimmo, for the BBC TV show Jules and Greg’s Wild Swim.  

What’s been the highlight of your career so far? 
Getting to work in laughter – I absolutely adore it. I think laughter is a form of exercise, and if you’re lucky enough to do a lot of it, hopefully you get to live a long life. Ford and I [Ford Kiernan, Greg’s writing partner and co-star on Still Game] just spend whole days laughing when we’re writing together – you go home with sore ribs. 

Still Game has remained wildly popular for over two decades now. When it first aired in 2002, did you anticipate its enduring success? 
No – I think every show’s a gamble. We first did it at the Edinburgh Festival in 1997 and got a great response, so we had a suspicion. We had a hunger and enthusiasm to make it a success, but looking back, if I was starting it now, I’d probably be terrified. 

How did the idea for Jules and Greg’s Wild Swim come about? 
We were doing a photoshoot for a kids’ show and Jules said, “Let’s do the shoot in the water” – even though it was December! She’d been wild swimming for a few months. I decided I’d go with her the following week, and we started to do it more and more. We went up to Loch Ness, which is incredible – you can be standing ten feet from the shore and you can’t touch the bottom, it gets so steep so quickly. As we were driving home, Jules said, “Do you think we could pitch this as a show? Just us talking and going to swim spots?” We’re not really traditional presenters. We don’t dress up and have our hair done – it’s basically us in dry robes looking manky, getting into a van and going. 

"You have this invisible friend that introduces you to people, which is wild swimming. It’s not so much about the locations, it’s getting to talk to folk and find out the myriad reasons why they do it – whether it’s for their aching joints, their mental health, or to help with grief because they’ve lost somebody.” 

How much did you draw on your own experiences as a father for your role in Dinosaur [a TV comedy show about a young autistic paleontologist]?  
I remember saying to the creator of the series, who plays my daughter, “What’s the relationship like between an autistic daughter and her father?” And she said, “You just have to embarrass me.” My eyes lit up and I said, “I can do that!” I thought of my own kids, and I love to embarrass them, it’s like a game. I’ll talk in too loud a voice or wear the wrong thing and they’ll say, “Dad, that’s just so cringey.” I brought a lot of this to Dinosaur.  

You spent a large part of your early life in Canada – was it a big adjustment returning ‘home’ as a teenager? 
I lived in Montreal from age five to 16. I came back and did A-levels in England, then I moved up to Scotland. I’d never really lived here, so I was coming to a place that was both familiar and unfamiliar. But my aunts, uncles, grandparents were all still here, and they’d say, “Come over for a Sunday roast,” and I’d bring my flatmates. So I had this lovely infrastructure of family that up until then, I’d only seen once every two or three years.  

"If I’d been a year older, I would probably have stayed in Canada, and that’s quite scary. You think about those ‘sliding doors’ moments – I wouldn’t have met Jules; our kids would disappear, like in Back to the Future – they wouldn’t exist.” 

You were Rector of UofG from 2001 to 2004 – what were your hopes for the role when you took it up and do you feel you fulfilled those? 
I wanted to be a hands-on rector – if a student had an issue, I wanted them to be able to come and see me. I had a Vespa scooter at the time, and I used to come out of my flat and scoot up University Avenue into the office – I loved it. The most important thing, I think, was the Freshers’ Address. I wanted to give people the biggest, warmest welcome I could, and try to give advice that I would like to have got when I was a student. 

Outside of your work, how do you like spending your time? 
I’m very erratic with my hobbies – I tend to get hyperfocused on something, then lose interest. So I used to play poker and got to a level where I was playing in the World Series in Las Vegas. I came back to Glasgow and basically never played again. Then I recently bought a banjo – I’m not musically gifted in any way, but I’m going to learn the banjo. And I love going for walks in the fresh air and being outdoorsy – I never had a dog growing up, but I couldn’t imagine being without one now. 

What is your happiest memory? 
You know how sometimes kids today have iPads or the TV when their parents are busy, as a kind of surrogate parent? My surrogate parent was a swimming pool, if you can believe that. I would come out of my house, walk across a baseball field and go to the municipal pool at Dollard-des-Ormaux [a Montreal suburb]. My parents worked during the summer, so we were kind of latchkey kids, but I felt completely happy and fulfilled in this surrogate family of lifeguards and other kids. Every day I would traipse to the pool, and at night they would show movies.

"Getting back into swimming now is like a second childhood. The wild swimming has connected me back to that golden age of 7–11, when I didn’t have a care in the world.” 

Who has been your favourite person to work with?
My pal Ford, who I adore, is not going to like my answer, but it’s my wife Julie. She’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, and that’s one of the things we love in our relationship – we genuinely laugh multiple times every day.  

How would you spend the perfect day? 
At a baseball game. It’s a strange sport – I think Europeans are a bit bamboozled by baseball. But growing up in North America, it was all about the sound of the ball on the bat; the summer; the smell of the popcorn and hot dogs. You feel safe and happy at a baseball game, like you’re in a bubble or a warm bath. 

 
Memories of Glasgow  

When I got to university, I was a bit of a slow starter. It was quite a big adjustment, living in the UK after growing up in a very casual high school in Montreal, then having to buckle down and do exams. I didn’t even have the courage to set foot in the GU Theatre Club till second year, which is ridiculous – you’re only there for four years, do it now, don’t waste time!

Once I got to Glasgow I was only doing the subjects I wanted to do – my degree was in Film & TV Studies. I had flatmates who were doing law, mechanical engineering, and they would say to me, “What are you doing today, what’s your lecture about?” and I would say, “Australian soap operas.” 

I had a lovely bunch of flatmates. We've stayed pals, and we try to get together every few years. We have a WhatsApp group and we do the quiz in the Telegraph together every Saturday morning. They were such a great bunch of people to navigate those early years with. 

Students nowadays often have to work two or three jobs and it’s harder for them to just goof around, sitting arguing about politics until four in the morning. That’s a luxury now. All of these things are just as important as the bit of paper you get at the end of it – the life experience is invaluable. 

The James Arnott Theatre up at the top of the quadrangles was my favourite place to hang out on campus. It was a little black, square room, four stories up. We used to go up there and read plays, drink beer – it was a lovely place. I remember someone put on a spooky play during the winter, and the atmosphere was incredible. I’ll never forget it – walking through the quads afterwards, totally creeped out. 

Greg says he’d still like to write a book: “Clear my diary and just be a hermit like JD Salinger – the story was that he had a tunnel that went from his house to his writing studio. I’d love to bury myself away for a year and come out with a book – something scary to do with the sea, and ghosts.”  

The second series of Jules and Greg’s Wild Swim is being broadcast on BBC Scotland this month. The first series is available on BBC iPlayer.

This article was first published in January 2025. 

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