John Thomson on Cold Feet comeback rumours and ageing well
The actor and comedian on whether there could be a Cold Feet special and why he’s never felt better than he does at 56.
The actor and comedian on whether there could be a Cold Feet special and why he’s never felt better than he does at 56.
John Thomson is quick to clear one thing up: despite months of rumours, Cold Feet is not coming back yet.
“A lot of it’s fake news, really,” he says of recent stories that the show was coming back for series nine. “Robert [Bathurst, who played David in Cold Feet] very shrewdly spotted that one and went, ‘It’s back for series nine in 2026? This is rehashed as we’ve done series nine.’ So, it’s not coming back for series nine because it’s done.”
That said, he’s not ruling it out entirely. Just the day before our interview, he was at a charity lunch with co-stars Fay Ripley, Jimmy Nesbitt and Cel Spellman, who plays Jimmy’s son in Cold Feet – a reunion that clearly left him feeling nostalgic.
“What I’ve been saying in interviews recently is, I think to test the water, it might be an idea rather than do a whole series – on the back of the success of Gavin and Stacey – to just do one special,” he says. “See how that’s received. And if that’s a hit, then make another series.”
He’s thoughtful about why the show still holds such a place in people’s hearts:
“I think it was a really rare thing that it was funny, but it was touching. I don’t think there’s really been a show like that since.”
That bittersweet quality, the ability to follow something tragic with something funny, or the other way round, is what he believes made Cold Feet special. “What you do is you do a very funny scene and then throw in something quite tragic. Or do something very, very tragic and then turn it on its head. Because that’s real life, isn’t it?”
Thomson appears bright-eyed, youthful and full of energy. At 56, he seems to have made peace with getting older, largely by refusing to act his age.
“I feel ageless,” he says. “I’ve got great hair. I’ve got lines, but they don’t bother me. He borrows a line from Clint Eastwood that has become something of a personal motto:
“Don’t let the old man in, which means if you let him in, he might want a residency.”
He laughs at the idea that getting older should mean giving up on style. “My biggest fear was that I would have to go and buy my entire wardrobe from Greenwoods. I was about to enter a world of beige and grey.”
In reality, he says, staying young is more about mindset than appearance. His 16-year-old daughter keeps him up to speed with youth culture, while their shared love of cinema has become a real bonding point. More recently, she persuaded him to try reformer Pilates.
“If you said to a lot of men, you’ll be the only man in a room and it’s a class you’ve never done before, they’d just go, no,” he says. “But I thought, let’s try it. It’s brilliant.”
Thomson has also made big shifts to his health over the years. He’s been sober for almost 20 years and is candid about why he stopped drinking.
“The best way of saying it was, when I controlled it, I didn’t enjoy it, and when I enjoyed it, I couldn’t control it,” he says.
He quit smoking too, after his doctor told him: “John, stop. It’ll give you 10 years back.”
During the pandemic, comfort eating led to a pre-diabetes warning on his blood tests. “My devil is sugar, chocolate,” he says. “So I said, right, I’ll reverse that. And I have. That’s not coming back.”
These days, he is more interested in small, sustainable habits than dramatic health kicks, which is what drew him to working with American Pistachio Growers to encourage midlife Brits to make simple lifestyle changes.
“The beauty of the pistachio is it keeps you off your phone,” he says. “It’s a two-hand job. And you don’t eat as many because you’re not just mindlessly snacking.”
There is a pragmatism to the way Thomson talks about looking after himself. After giving up alcohol and cigarettes, and getting his health back on track, he sees feeling good as part of the reward.
“Being sober, you want to look good,” he says. “So it’s almost a responsibility that I’m a walking advert.”
As our time wraps up, I ask what he hopes for the future. He pauses.
“I’m very much in the now,” he says. “I’m quite spiritual. I go into things with very low expectation because I always find that if you get too giddy, it’s a damp squib.”
He applies the same thinking to his career too.
“I just have to take it a day at a time, really. I hope the phone goes and you go, here’s an offer or you got that self-tape. That’s the only way you can do it.”
Thomson, it seems, isn’t planning to let the old man in any time soon.
Image credit and for more information about pistachios: American Pistachio Growers.
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