The news that Jamie Vardy had failed to make the BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist, despite bookmakers slashing his odds on winning the award after his record-breaking goal against Manchester United last Saturday, went down surprisingly well with the man himself. “That’s fine by me,” Vardy says. “I hate wearing a suit.”

The Leicester City striker shakes his head and smiles at the madness of it all. These are strange times for a former factory worker from Sheffield. He is exchanging tweets with members of One Direction one minute and Ruud van Nistelrooy the next. On Saturday night he returned home from a restaurant, turned on the TV and there was Bastian Schweinsteiger talking about him in the same breath as Miroslav Klose, Germany’s record goalscorer.

Little more than 24 hours later Adrian Butchart, the British screenwriter and the man behind the Goal! films, revealed that he was exploring plans to make Vardy’s rags-to-riches tale into a Hollywood movie. “Wowzers. What’s happening in life?” Vardy says, breaking into laughter. “But if that’s what they want to do, then so be it.”

Perhaps another story that surfaced was designed to keep his feet on the ground – not that Vardy seems to need any help in that respect. Stocksbridge Park Steels, the non-league club where Vardy rebuilt his career after rejection by Sheffield Wednesday at the age of 16, plan to name a 450-seater stand after him. “The chairman must be crackers,” Vardy says. “And, put it this way, I’d have never seen it coming when I was at Stocksbridge.”

Who could have seen any of this coming? John Morris, Vardy’s agent, has long been banging the drum but few people wanted to entertain the idea that a non-league footballer in his mid-20s could go right to the top. As recently as 2012, Vardy was playing for Fleetwood in the Conference. His landmark goal against United came almost four years to the day since he scored in front of 768 people at Gateshead. “I can remember that,” Vardy says. “I managed to take it around the keeper and nick it in to get us a draw.”

How times have changed. These days Vardy is an England international, his name is plastered across the back pages as one of the most sought after strikers in the country and, courtesy of that angled shot that flashed past David de Gea at the King Power Stadium, the 28-year-old has gone down in the record books as the first man to score in 11 successive Premier League matches.

Jamie Vardy credits his fiancee, Becky, with calming him down and improving his diet and lifestyle. ‘Go to bed at a certain time? You’re not going to if you’re on your own,’ he says. Photograph: John Robertson/The Guardian

The celebration that followed that goal was full of raw emotion, although it was difficult to know exactly what Vardy was shouting as he wheeled away. Cringing as he relives the moment, Vardy clears things up. “Because the Man United fans were singing Ruud van Nistelrooy, I said: ‘Me, me, all effing me’ ... Live on Sky. Again. I need to calm down a bit,” he says, smiling and burying his head in his hands. “I was just lost in the moment, that’s what it was. And, to be fair, I saw the replay of the goal and you can actually see a couple of Man U fans clapping.”

One record ticked off, now on to the next. If Vardy scores for the 12th successive league game, against Swansea at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday, it will equal Jimmy Dunne’s achievement, which stretches all the way back to 1932. “This is the top-flight all-time record and it’s set by a Sheffield United player, so being a Sheffield Wednesday fan I’d love to beat it,” says Vardy.

After Dunne comes Stan Mortensen, who scored in 15 consecutive appearances for Blackpool in the 1950-51 season, although on two separate occasions during that run he missed games through injury. Vardy looks almost weary as Anthony Herlihy, Leicester’s head of media, explains that story. “The records are coming from nowhere,” Vardy says. “I was told this week that Messi scored in 21 successive La Liga games. I was like: ‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Someone will be bringing that up soon.”

Vardy, to be clear, is not complaining. He is living the dream and was overwhelmed by all the congratulatory messages, which came from across the sporting spectrum and beyond. “I didn’t even try to look on Saturday night,” he says. “My phone was just vibrating in my pocket constantly. I left it all until Sunday morning and then worked my way through everything, which is not easy when you’ve got Twitter, WhatsApp, text messages, Instagram, etc. But some of the messages were unbelievable.”

Roy Hodgson, who was at the United match, left a voicemail and sent a text – “I made sure I replied to him,” Vardy says, smiling – yet it was the gracious response from the man whose achievement he had just eclipsed that meant the most. “With Ruud van Nistelrooy holding the record before, you can’t get much better than that – it was a brilliant message from him.”

Vardy also received a signed shirt from his team-mates and said in a post-match interview that it would end up in a frame or his wardrobe depending on the messages. “It’s in the wardrobe,” says Vardy, in a manner that suggests it was never in doubt. “The boss gave me another one on Monday, a special one just from him, which will also be going in the wardrobe. I can’t elaborate on that but he’s had it printed out with his nickname for me, which can’t be repeated unfortunately.”

Without breaking any confidences, it would be fair to say that Claudio Ranieri thinks Vardy talks rather a lot and that Leicester’s manager prefers, in the nicest possible way, to tune into a different frequency now again. Ranieri knows, however, that Vardy’s background noise is a small price to pay for a man who has scored 14 league goals this season. Or, to put it another way, as many as Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney and Raheem Sterling put together.

Vardy points to several reasons behind his red-hot streak, including being deployed as an out-and-out striker. “If I’m played out of position I’ll always give 100%, but everyone knows I would rather play down the middle,” he says. “I also think for myself, and the club as a whole, the year’s experience last season has done us the world of good. The confidence in knowing that we can give teams a game, which showed in the run-in when we pulled away from the relegation zone, helped us all out and we’ve just carried that on.”

While the story of Vardy’s emergence from non-league football is well-documented, it is not just how far he has come that is remarkable but that he spent so long playing so far down the pyramid. Vardy had the best part of seven years with Stocksbridge, who were in the eighth tier, and it is a measure of his lack of self-belief in the early days that he once skipped a training session because he was so nervous about moving up from the reserves to the first team.

“When I did get into the first team quite a few scouts came, one of them was from Sheffield United and he turned up twice and I got a straight red card both times, so I don’t think that helped,” Vardy says. “But that’s just how I was on the pitch. I was small, so the only way I was going to win challenges was by being aggressive. That’s still what I have to do nowadays. I’m playing against centre-halves who are 6ft 4in and 6ft 5in, so I’m not going to win that many headers. I might as well let them have the ball at their feet and try and nick it off them that way.”

Vardy, by his own admission, is a “pest” on the pitch. He tears across the turf chasing lost causes and is one of those rare players blessed with stamina as well as searing pace. “I remember at school we went to an army camp for a day. We did the official army bleep test and I got to level 14.5. I think the closest person to me that day got to level 10. Fitness has always been one of my strengths. I can do all the long-distance runs. When I was at school and we entered the competitions I used to do the 100m, 200m and the 1500m as well, so it’s never just been a pace thing.”

Jamie Vardy shows off his signed shirt from the game against Manchester United. He got another from Claudio Ranieri and says: ‘He’s had it printed out with his nickname for me, which can’t be repeated.’ Photograph: Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images

Being so lean helps. Vardy weighs 73kg (11st 7lb) and with that wiry frame he looks as if he is not carrying an ounce of fat. “I’ve got hardly anything,” he says. “Luckily I’ve not had to do much gym or anything like that, it’s always been this is how I am. The weight never changes.”

His lifestyle has altered, though, and Vardy puts much of that down to Becky, his fiancee, who has “definitely calmed me down”. Vardy has had his problems in the past, including an unsavoury incident in the summer, which he deeply regrets and apologised unreservedly for after he was caught making a racist remark in a casino, but he is determined to stay on the right path now. He talks about the values instilled at their local primary school and also the conversations he has had with Becky about bringing their children up the right way.

“She’s changed me. She’s such a calming influence,” Vardy says. “When I was living on my own, for a footballer it’s easy to do the things that you’re not supposed to, or not what the sport science team says. For example, if there’s a packet of crisps, you’re going to eat them. The same with a packet of sweets. Go to bed at a certain time? You’re not going to if you’re on your own. Having Becky and the kids there is brilliant for me.”

Their wedding takes place in May, which is earlier than originally planned because of the possibility that Vardy will be in England’s squad for the European Championship finals. His best man is David Nugent, the former Leicester player and a centre-forward whose strike-rate for England – one cap and a 90th-minute goal against Andorra – takes some beating. “He texted me when I got the call up in May, saying: ‘No pressure, one game, one goal!’” says Vardy, chuckling.

Listening to Vardy rowing back over his story it is hard not to smile at how much his world has been turned upside down. There is a Bentley parked outside, a goalscoring record that has stood for 83 years in his sights and a place in that England squad firmly within his grasp. Yet he comes across as fiercely proud of his roots – “That’s made me the person I am” – and says that the former Fleetwood team-mate who described him as someone “who doesn’t care whether he’s on two grand or two quid” was spot on.

“That’s true,” Vardy adds. “My life has changed, but I’m not money-motivated at all; that’s the last thing on my mind. I just want to play football and that’s how I’ve always been. To be honest with you, that shows in my performances, that I’m in a happy place, knowing that I’m doing the job that I love.”