Ant & Dec Go Wide in Aliens Film

Cheeky Geordie chaps Ant'n'Dec, familiar to all UK residents for SMTV:Live!, Byker Grove, Pop Idol and I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! have now moved into film. Alien Autopsy tells the story of two men who discover the legendary tape showing the alien autopsy performed after the alleged Roswell crash. As the media frenzy descends upon them, it seems their lives will never be the same again...

The film also stars Morwena Banks, Omid Djalili, Bill Pullman and Jimmy Carr.

"We're very nervous about it, we've never had a film come out before. This is our first one but hopefully not our last" said Declan, speaking at the Royal Television Society Awards.

    AUTOPSY FILM 

The £5 million Alien Autopsy is a comedy-cum-spoof docudrama based on a true story, in which they play Gary Shoefield and Ray Santilli, two geeky British UFO enthusiasts who in 1995 convinced the world that they had film of an autopsy performed on an alien after the 1947 Roswell incident in the New Mexico desert.

Alien Autopsy is directed by Jonny Campbell, who previously directed Phoenix Nights, Shameless and Spooks.

  CELEBRITY AUDITION

He had been looking for two actors or comics for the lead roles, but the were found by his wife Sonja when the two of them watched I'm a celebrity. "That's your pair," she said. Campbell described her female intuition at that point as "a Cinderella's slipper moment."

Campbell admits to some initial doubts. "I thought, 'Hmm, not too sure about that,'" he says. "But when they read for the parts, it was obvious that the chemistry they have on TV translates to the big screen - they have something that I can only describe as star quality.

 "On set, when they were playing scenes opposite people of real calibre, Harry Dean Stanton and Bill Pullman, they looked like they belonged there, as if they had been doing it all their lives. And the American crew - and I place a lot of store by this - absolutely loved them because Ant and Dec were incredibly professional and dedicated to their task."

TWINNED FOR SUCCESS

The pair are known for their business savvy. Paired with their talent, it made them millionaires long before their 30th birthdays in 2005.

They turned down roles in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Shaun of the Dead before deciding that Alien Autopsy was the right calling card into Hollywood.

Campbell is certain the pair can pull it off: "I think they can charm the Americans as much as they have charmed us over the past decade." He foresees a lucrative career path for Ant and Dec. "When you consider how few Hollywood comic actors can play off one another - off the top of my head I can think of only Jim Carrey, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson - you realise what a niche they could have.

In some scenes Ant and Dec improvised beautifully while still telling the story, and that takes real skill. My only regret is that I had to cut some of them. But just wait for the DVD."