Conversations about an Inbetweeners reunion have ‘happened in various forms’, star Joe Thomas has revealed.

The comic and actor, who played Simon in the hit Channel 4 sitcom also suggested any comeback was likely to take the form of a third movie, rather than another TV series.

He said would love to get back together with his co-stars Simon Bird, James Buckley and Blake Harrison if the right idea came along, and believed they felt the same.

Speaking on the Always Be Comedy podcast, he said: 'We're all still around, we're all still in each other's lives. We all still like each other. And if it was something that came up, I think we would want to do it. 

‘I feel like we all still really like each other. We've all been able to go away and get various monkeys off our backs, in terms of things that we felt we needed to do other than the Inbetweeners to prove something to ourselves.’  

However, he said he felt like he had nothing to prove now and would just like to make things ‘with the people I like’.

‘But everybody's anxiety would be, "will it be as good?" That is what we would be going in with.’

He also said that he accepted that he would also be forever associated with the role of Simon, which he also played on TV from 2008 to 2010 and the two hit spin-off movies, released in 2011 and 2014.

‘[Co-star] James Buckley put it quite well where he said, "I think I’ve realised that this is the most popular thing I'm ever going to be in, and that's totally fine, because most people don't get to do a single thing like this.",’ Thomas said: ‘It's like saying I only won the National Lottery once.

‘I would always work with them again, because I genuinely, honestly love them, And also [creators] Ian Morris and Damon [Beasley] really made something of me when I had no right to expect that from anyone. The way in which we were mentored by them, and the way that they were patient, and kind…

‘It was like where people say the Spice Girls are more than the sum of their parts. I think we're a bit like that. There was something more than just all of us.

‘We took it for granted at the time, because it was just friendship. But to have that within the context of a show and for it to come across on screen is really cool. 

‘My main worry about doing it again is that I think I am now too closed… I’m too old and have too many boundaries up now. I was utterly guileless when we did that show.

‘Most of the time people… think they need to be impressive. Nobody was ever trying to impress anyone on that show. We took the piss out of Iain and Damon all the time, and they took the piss out of us. Nobody thought the people on this show were impressive or had any status.  We were trying to make each other feel happy. We were very much like, "you're a dickhead, but I love you and I want you to be happy."

In a comment that has extra relevance since Oasis announced their comeback, he said he hoped any Inbetweeners reunion would not be like when a band gets back together and ‘people say it's not the same’, but added: ‘I would hope that Iain Morris is such a reckless and unprofessional person, that he would manage to break down all that stuff and it would become the same again. You need a destroyer of pretence.’

‘I've been on lots of shows where people are going, "You know what? We're doing something really, really good here". No one ever said that on The Inbetweeners, we were just taking the piss out of it. We always underestimated the value of it.

‘If we could get that back, then I would always work with that. And those three other guys are just wonderfully talented. Buckley is one of the most naturally gifted comic performers I've ever worked with, Blake is not like Neil, that's just a beautifully drawn character he's created. And Simon's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met, to have somebody like that in a show just exudes knowingness and intelligence.

‘It was a real privilege to work with all that, and also Damon and Iain are brilliant writers, absolutely uncompromising’

Asked if any new Inbetweeners project might be a  movie, or a TV series, he said: ‘I don’t think they could do another series. You'd have to be a movie.  You'd have to have a very, very clever device for doing another series

‘A movie, I think works with the right idea. It would be challenging to do another series, just because of the timeline. But with the film, there are  all sorts of options. 

‘Also I don't know where they would place us in terms of age. I think we could play younger, but not that much younger. It would need to be about blokes, I think. And there's something about the adult world and how much more complicated it is than than the world of adolescence. 

‘Many things that are just taken care of when you're an adolescent. I think that adolescents feel things very, very intensely, and I think their fears and their hopes are perhaps even bigger than adults. But in terms of writing a comedy show, the variables are fairly limited, and they operate within fairly narrow parameters. It's basically  "Are we going to get into that party, or not?" 

‘Whereas when you're an adult, there's all this other stuff that you have to worry about. Like, how are they earning money?  Even just, how do they have time to see the other guys at the bar every day? That doesn't make any sense… but a world of school kids [the reason to hang our together is built-in]

‘That's why you need these set pieces, like the stag night or whatever. But then, of course, you're not dealing with normality anymore, because, by definition, it's a special occasion. So are you seeing them as they are, or are you seeing them as they are in Vegas, which isn't really what they are?

‘A film can be a special occasion. A film is about a disruption to normality, whereas the sitcom is about what normality is like. A film is a story with an ending. Whereas a sitcom is more like going down the pub with a friend who's funny, and it's just open-ended.’

• Listen to the Always Be Comedy podcast with James Gill and Tim Lewis here.