Tim Key: ‘Christmas will be drinks next to the wheelie bins opposite Costcutter’

Tim Key co-created and starred in perhaps the finest Briitsh film of the 2025. The Ballad of Wallis Island is a charming, melancholy, off-kilter indie comedy, in which Key, as eccentric double-lottery winner Charles Heath, hires his late wife’s favourite folk duo to reunite and play a private show on a remote island off the Welsh coast, was an unlikely critical and commercial hit.

Alongside Carey Mulligan and co-creator Tom Basden, Key walked a fine line between being awkward, affecting and annoying in a sublime performance.

In a big year for the funnyman, he also joined Domhnall Gleason in smash hit US mockumentary The Paper – a spritual successor to and actual spin-off from The Office, set at the Toledo Truthteller Newspaper. Key supplied the cringe factor in another fine, off-the-wall performance.

Less heralded was another eccentric role, as church mascot Pigeon Man in Mickey 17, Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi satire on tech bros and the mutually beneficial links between organised religion and politics.

We asked Tim Key about his big year – and discovered that he will remember 2025 for endlessly refreshing Rotten Tomatoes and reminiscing on his love for Gazza in Italia ’90…

What has been your standout moment of 2025?

Our film keeps taking us to all sorts of interesting places. We got to go to Sundance, Nashville and Munich. Watching it with a thousand people in Sundance was crazy. When you realise you’ve made something that people connect with, that’s been a constant surprise. It got released in Mexico, devastated those interviews were done over Zoom. 

What do you know about yourself now that you didn’t this time last year?

My gym closed that was a two-minute walk from my flat. Now the closest one is eight minutes away. I haven’t been to the new one yet, feels like that’s a bit of a walk. So maybe lack of any kind of self-motivation whatsoever?

What do you think the world got right this year?

Uniting behind Alan Carr was a good moment for our souls. I can’t remember everyone falling in love with someone over the course of five weeks like that since Gazza in Italia ’90.  

What do you think the world got wrong this year?

Well, it completely falling apart hasn’t been fun to watch.

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What is your cultural highlight of 2025?

I discovered William Boyd this year. Any Human Heart is an absolute pearl, and I love the man. Filmswise, I Swear blew me away. The writing was on the wall when I cried watching the trailer. Red or Dead, a play about Bill Shankly, I watched in Liverpool had me in floods. Tim Vine’s new movie, Rocker ’Brella Fella, that was the greatest 90 minutes I’ve ever had in a cinema.

Did you see Oasis?

I never did. But my friend Joe played trumpet in it and I think I met another man who played a brass instrument in it through Joe in a bar in Edinburgh. Not the same as going to the gig though.

Would you rather be a Traitor or a Faithful?

Faithful, then recruited. I think I might break down immediately if Claudia touched my shoulder. The thing to do is get your feet under the table, then get summoned to the turret.

Do you think your job is at risk from AI?

Yes everyone’s is, AI will destroy us.

What would your browsing history say about you this year?

Well, sorry to say, Rotten Tomatoes has taken a bit of a hit, that’s a website devoted to what people think about films. It’s difficult not to be interested if people are watching/liking your film. Other than that, the usual churn through Instagram, news, sport and Scrabble. Dismal stuff. 

What is the oddest family Christmas tradition you keep?

Me and my friends have established a route through North London, visiting each other’s houses with very set traditions in each. Always grapefruits with brown sugar – grilled – to start things off, always secret Santa and Nando’s at mine, always a selection of drinks next to three wheelie bins opposite Costcutter on the way up to Basmoss’s [Key’s nickname for writing partner Tom Basden]. Usually Star Wars.

Are you more or less hopeful than at the start of 2025? 

About the same. Just gotta keep plugging away. I write stuff and that’s difficult and rewarding, just getting the balance right. Unfortunately, it has to be really difficult to be in the slightest bit rewarding. So another year of torment probs.

What one thing are you looking forward to in 2026?

There has to be a holiday. Don’t know where or when exactly. But I’m sensing Sri Lanka and if not then certainly Copenhagen.

What’s your Big Issue for 2026?

I think in general shorter hair for 2026 and build myself up to the eight-minute walk to the relocated gym.

The Ballad of Wallis Island is out now on on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD. Tim’s Loganberry tour across the UK starts in February

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