Dylan Edwards explains to BCG how his life, and the backstory of his character Kent, are somewhat similar...

Hi Dylan. Can you introduce Wasted for us?

Wasted is about two guys and two girls who live in the West Country. It's kind of about these four friends who get up to things, when there's really nothing to do. It focuses on the procrastination of these twentysomethings and their shenanigans.

Is the setting something you identify with?

Yeah! I'm a country bumpkin. I was raised in Devon, so it's very close to home.

In the important period of life where you're doing GCSEs and A Levels, I was busy not being busy. Slacking off! I completely identify with these characters... it's actually frightening how some bits in it are perhaps a bit too close to home.

They've got some good characters in there which remind me of characters from home. There are some moments that are like, "Oh my God, that's really like so and so"...

So the show starts with Kent returning home to catch up with his friends, his tail between his legs with his DJ career in the big city having failed. Was there any risk of that for you, when you went off to pursue an acting career?

Not only did I come back, I came back twice! I went to university three times, completely not knowing what I wanted to do.

Acting is such an unusual path to choose where I'm from. There's no acting community. It was something which I never saw coming, because I was going off to become an engineer. That's where I went first of all, to study engineering.

When I came back I decided that, no, I actually want to be an actor. I went off to do an acting course, but I didn't really know what I was doing. Then I had to come back, having dropped out of my second uni. I spent a year working in a power tools factory in Devon... that was the part of my life which is really like the show. I've got all these ambitions and goals, like Kent going off to Bristol to do DJ'ing... and it just completely didn't work out.

God knows what Kent actually got up to when he went to Bristol, or even if he made it to Bristol... I've been talking to the writers about that. I think he probably just went away to work in the Co-op and slept on people's sofas, but eventually ran out of money and got kicked out, so came back home.

So when you were working in the factory, did you still think 'I've got to be an actor, somehow'...

I did. That period of my life was absolutely brilliant in so many ways. I was surrounded by some of the funniest and most brilliant people I've ever worked with. The banter we used to have! I used to get in all sorts of trouble... I have a very short attention span, and I used to get distracted and spend half a day plotting practical jokes.

They used to call me Mary Poppins. They knew I wanted to do acting, and they were all really supportive. But at that point I hadn't auditioned for drama school and I didn't really know if I was going to get in to anywhere. When I did, they were so behind me... it was really lovely.

Even now I get messages from them - they're watching me do things, and following my career. I still go back, and I've still got some really good friends there that I keep in touch with.

So what did it feel like when you had your first 'big break'? Presumably 'Phew!'

That hasn't happened yet! I don't think you can ever feel like "Phew!"...

I think the moment you think that, it'd be kind of dangerous. You've got to always feel the need to keep going, to keep working really hard, to make your own work. It'd be a bit dangerous if I suddenly went "I'm sorted now". I've never felt that.

I think my first job was Ben Wheatley directing me in Ideal - that was the first gig I ever got. I got to work with him again on High-Rise, which was really nice. But I think Pramface was the moment where I was able to stop doing temp work, and I've worked as an actor ever since.

I remember that moment. I was working as a runner in Soho at a production company and going up for that audition. I kept getting call backs, and when I finally got it, it was amazing.

You must be gutted Pramface was cancelled? It was popular. It seemed to be axed for political reasons...

I wasn't gutted, because it had had three series. Just to get more than one was brilliant.

I think Chris, the writer, wanted to do one more, but as happens with channels, new people come in and someone took over [at BBC Three]. They want to put their stamp on the channel, and they start commissioning new shows, and I think that's fair enough really... it's good to let everyone have a shot. It would have been nice to have done one more, but that's the way it goes.

So back to Wasted. Did you get to meet Sean Bean, who features as the spirit guide for the character Morpheus?

We were kept well away from the set... I was trying to wrangle my way in!

I keep trying to pitch to the writers that, if they do a Series 2, Kent has got to get in with Sean Bean some how. We've got to engineer it that Kent and Sean Bean are in the same room, because I was well gutted!

We got to see all the clips, and Danny was telling us all about it, and now I've seen some of the Sean Bean moments they are just brilliant. It's so cool of him to come on board and be so humble and fun and up for sending himself up like he does.

So you'd be up for making a second series?

This job has been the absolute best job I've ever done. I've had so much fun making it, and so much fun playing with the other actors, I would kill to do another series!

I'm really excited about Wasted... I've never really been as excited about a project before as I have been with this one. I think Tom [Marshall], the director, has done an absolutely incredible job and it's got a real energy to this... it's just trying to be silly and funny. If you want to tune in and have a belly laugh, it's a really good show for that.

Whilst we wait to see if it gets another series, what's up next for you?

So me and my wife Natasha O'Keeffe, who is also an actress, made a web series called Difficult Second Coming, which you can watch online now via its own website.

We've made three episodes of Difficult Second Coming, which we wrote and directed ourselves. It's gone down really well, and we're going to make some more later this year, and also developing it into something a bit longer too.

I'm working on various other projects too. I'm always writing, so I've got various projects on the boil, but Difficult Second Coming is the one we're focused on at the moment; making more of those.

It's great fun just to be able to do something like that, to be in a position to call up actors that you love and just say 'do you want to come and do this?'. You haven't got the budget that you've got on TV, so it's very much favours, and me and Natasha have to put in a lot of hours. it's very time consuming, and it can be a lot of stress to organise, but it's such nourishment... you don't have to go and audition and you don't need permission to make it, you can just say "let's do this!".

Wasted is on E4 on Tuesdays at 10pm.