'People are down': Chris O'Dowd on returning to London – and whether he thinks aliens exist

Actor and comedian Chris O’Dowd has described moving back to London from the US, finding people in the city are “down” after a decade of cutbacks.

The IT Crowd star returned to London from Los Angeles with his wife Dawn O’Porter and their two children a year ago.

“It’s just gone through 10 years of austerity, and you can feel it off it,” he told Sky News.

“People are down, is the impression I’m getting. I don’t know if it’s because of the divisive political culture or whether it’s because people are broke as s**t because they haven’t put any money into public services for so long, and now they’ve said they’re not going to do it either because they’re not going to raise taxes, so I don’t know what they’re going to do. But everybody is… it would be hard to say it’s improved.”

Asked if he sensed any optimism that things would change for the better, he replied: “Not yet.”

O’Dowd said the decision to return to the UK “wasn’t because Trump got in or any of that crap”, but that he wanted to “get out before the political cycle starts, because it just gets a bit heated”. He added: “It actually didn’t this time, because he won so easily.”

The Irish star was speaking ahead of the premiere of his new Sky Original series Small Town, Big Story, which comes to Sky and NOW on Thursday 27 February.

Set in the fictional Irish border village of Drumban, the dramatic comedy follows Wendy Patterson, portrayed by Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks, a local girl who found success as a TV producer in Los Angeles. She returns with a film crew in tow and is forced to confront a secret from decades ago – visitors from outer space.

So does the show’s creator believe in alien existence?

“I find it hard to believe we’re it, we’re just too imperfect,” O’Dowd replied. He hails from Boyle, County Roscommon, which is considered a “UFO hotspot” in Ireland.

“In the vastness of the universe, or the multiverse or whatever we’re existing within, it seems highly unlikely that you and me are the best we can do, no offence,” he added.

Patterson’s show-within-a-show, titled I Am Celt but described as Lame Of Thrones, appears to satirise Hollywood’s often inaccurate portrayal of Ireland.

“Some of them can be heavy-handed, or a little bit off-piste,” laughs O’Dowd. “I think the thing to remember is we’re guilty of it too.

“Whenever I hear Americans being depicted from Irish people, very often they’re stuffing themselves with cheeseburgers and they’re morons. There’s got to be a bit of give and take with that.”