James Corden: ‘David Beckham’s birthday trip was supposed to be a surprise’

Not five years ago, James Corden was just that guy from Gavin & Stacey – funny, clever and charismatic, but, you know, Smithy, basically.

Now he’s so important, he has the A-list on his sofa every night and had to blow out Becks’ 40th.

“I [couldn’t] make it to his birthday weekend in Marrakech,” he tells us on the phone from LA, in the only spare 20 seconds of his day. (As well has being the host of The Late, Late Show, he has two children under five.)

“We have a show on the Monday and there were no direct flights back to LA. I think it was meant to be a surprise. If we’re talking about it, it’s clearly been blown now!”

Posh is going to kill him.

It’s mad to think that the former Smithy is the toast of Tinseltown: he’s had Tom Hanks, Mila Kunis, Mariah Carey and Kristen Stewart on his chat show, and the YouTube video of his spoof pants ad with Becks got five million hits. But James hasn’t let it go to his head. Despite being the busiest man on earth, he still found time to record another series of his beloved sports panel game, _A League Of Their Ow_n – including an amazing stunt where he and team captain Jack Whitehall recreate the upside-down fighter jets scene from Top Gun. “We captured the homoeroticism of Top Gun, I think,” he tells us.

We never doubted it for a second.

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40 photos of Becks looking hot to celebrate his, erm, 40th birthday!