Carter, Wednesdays from 13 June, 9pm, alibi/HD (CH 126/200). Also available for 7 days in Catch Up > Channels > alibi

Carter is the brand spanking new detective show starring Jerry O’Connell (who you may recognise from Stand By Me, Jerry Maguire, Billions or Piranha 3D). But this is by no means your standard detective show.

We’ll walk you through it. O’Connell is the real-life actor. In Carter, he’s playing an actor. Playing a detective. Who actually becomes a detective. Don’t worry if you are confused – O’Connell feels it too. “If you think about it too much it makes you dizzy. It’s really meta,” he tells us.

And we can confirm, having seen a sneak peek of the first episode, that it works. Harley Carter – played by O’Connell – has a public meltdown in Hollywood, which forces him to move back to his sleepy Canadian hometown. Here, he reunites with his childhood best friend Sam Shaw (Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Chicago P.D.), who is a detective. One thing leads to another, and Carter’s life starts to imitate his art.

“He’s almost like Ricky Gervais’ character in The Office,” O’Connell explains. “He thinks he’s a lot cooler than he is. It’s fun to play that vanity. You can never get tired playing that emotion.”

But O’Connell himself is nothing like that… right? “He’s a lot of me. For six years I worked as a detective on a TV show [Crossing Jordan], and you do think you are the tough guy,” O’Connell admits. But we wanted to get to know the real Jerry O’Connell a little bit better, the only way we know how. We sat down with the screen star to find out just how showbiz he really is…