'$100 F***ING MILLION' Brendan O’Carroll turned down megabucks deal to make US version of Mrs Brown’s Boys

The actor also chats about hilarious new show All Round to Mrs Brown's

He’s created the nation’s favourite sitcom, won a National Television Award four years on the trot, written a record-breaking movie and sold out world tours – now Brendan O’Carroll is expanding Mammy’s empire with an all-new Saturday-night entertainment show, All Round To Mrs Brown’s.

“There is no blueprint for it. It’s not a sitcom, it’s not a talk show and it’s not a music show – it’s all of them,” says Brendan, as he and his wife Jennifer Gibney (who plays Mrs Brown’s daughter Cathy) sit down with TV Magazine the morning after filming the first episode of the BBC1 series, which combines celebrity guests, sketches, audience interaction and musical performances.

“Am I nervous? That’s one way of putting it. Terrified would be more accurate!”

As with Mrs Brown’s Boys, the whole show takes place in Agnes’ house – with music at local pub Foley’s – and there will be a variety of celeb guests interviewed by Cathy (while Agnes interferes, naturally).

Over the next six weeks, they’ll meet stars including Ross Kemp, Louis Walsh, Adam Woodyatt, Pixie Lott, Steve Backshall and Kevin Bridges (who even brings his own mum along, as is the custom for one celebrity each week).

There is, however, one famous face who is banned from ever stepping foot
in Agnes’ house: US President Donald Trump.

“I would rather pour paraffin on myself and set myself on fire than give that man one second of airtime,” says Brendan, 61. “Mammy would have no interest in him.

She’d be like: ‘Is there nothing else on the feckin’ telly than Trump, Trump, Trump?’ If that man picks his nose, it’s in the f***ing news.”

That taster of Mammy’s colourful tongue begs the question: will her signature swearing be toned down for the new series?

“Nobody has asked me to,” Brendan shrugs.

“Agnes is just being Agnes. She has an opening monologue at the beginning of every episode and in the first one we shot last night, she says ‘f***’ and nobody [behind the scenes] said a word.

You can’t sanitise Mrs Brown.

Besides, there is a very Irish way of saying ‘f***’ that is just like an exclamation mark to emphasise something. How can that be offensive?”

While the BBC has never had an issue with Agnes’ potty mouth, Brendan admits that, in the early days of the sitcom, he was pressured to lose one magical ingredient that the show is now famous for – leaving in the mistakes.

“I really wanted to keep them in, but the producer said to me at the beginning: ‘Brendan, I would suggest to you that the sitcom format was invented for a reason.’ I said: ‘Yeah, but let’s break it,’ and he warned me it could be a disaster,” the comic reveals.

“I said: ‘If it goes terribly wrong, f*** it, but if it doesn’t, then we’ve brought that [style] to the BBC.’”

It was the Beeb’s gamble on Mrs Brown that gave Brendan his biggest platform, but once the multi-year deal for his festive specials expires in 2020, could he be tempted to take his comedy series to another channel – or even an online service – for the right price?

“We have never done TV for money,” insists the funnyman. “I am not even joking – I don’t even know what we get paid by the BBC.

I honestly have no idea. We are very lucky because we do the live tours and that has made us financially very stable. Touring is our life and I would drop everything before I stop touring.

“There is cash to be made [on other channels], but we aren’t motivated by that. Believe me, I like being comfortable but when is enough, enough? Our tour went on sale last August and 250,000 tickets were sold by Christmas.

"So we are not waiting on the BBC for money.”

Jennifer, 52, nods in agreement.

“We like being part of the BBC family,” she says. “It has a lot of prestige and it’s iconic. We live in Florida and people even know it there.”

Speaking of their life over in the US, Brendan reveals that he has no ambitions to make an American version of Mrs Brown’s Boys.

“Oh, f*** no,” he laughs. “[US network] NBC offered me ridiculous money, $100million [around £82million], to do the series in the States.

It would have been for three seasons of 24 episodes each, but during those seasons, I couldn’t tour, I would hardly see my grandkids and I’d have to work with a team in a writers’ room that I would basically be locked in.”

But surely it must have been agonising to turn down one hundred million dollars?

“I will tell no lie, I was going between ‘I don’t f***ing want to do this’ to ‘100 f***ing million’!” admits the star, who’s known for his incredible generosity, always donating money to charity and feeding the homeless at Christmas.

“We have a goal to build a block of apartments with a clinic in Dublin for homeless people, and $100million would not only pay for that, it would keep it going for 10 years.

"But when I broke it down, I figured half of it would go on taxes, so that’s 50 million, I wouldn’t be able to tour or work for the BBC, so that takes it to 35 million, which over three years works out at $11million [£9million] a year. We can f***ing earn that without having to change our lives.”

And family, of course, played a big part in his decision to walk away from the money.

“Jenny and I have a strict rule that we work six months of the year and take six months off,” reveals Brendan, whose son Danny (Buster), daughter Fiona (Maria), sister Eilish (Winnie), daughter-in-law Amanda (Betty) and grandson Jamie (Bono) are all in the Mrs Brown cast.

“We don’t work when the grandkids are off school.”

“The deciding factor was that the grandkids would have been three years older than they are now and we can’t get that time back with them,” adds Jenny. “This is the time that they want to be with Granny and Grandad.”