Hey, Adeel. How you doing? Well, thanks.
How you doing?
I'm good.
Thank you. Lovely to see you again.
Yeah. Yeah, we saw.
Yeah, we saw each other a couple of times a bit -BIFAs?
didn't we?
Was that. Yes.
I had the unique pleasure of interviewing before and after, which is a fun.
It was fun.
Your evening kind of changed
within, like, an hour,
but I was definitely looking into a bit of a bit of a haze.
Daisy haze but.
Yeah,, it's nice talking to you.
It was lovely chatting to you as well.
I would say again, congratulations on this wonderful, wonderful film.
Thank you.
It's such a it's such a lovely film for so many reasons.
I can imagine that was a very easy decision to say yes to this.
But then the added bonus being that you get to work with Clio Barnard
who is becoming one of cinema's shining talents, if you like.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So
it all
started with me just saying to my agent,
would she meet up with me if, you know, she was free?
And I would I would have just been happy if we could have just sat down
for a cup of tea and just had a chat, you know,
and not expecting a very slim chance that she'd say yes
for a meeting and even slim a chance that, you know, we would work together.
And I've been one of my films and then just one thing led to another.
And then she told me about, you know, the idea that she had for the film.
And then we had these transcripts of Moey, who Ali was based on.
And, and, you know, the more I describe it,
I've talked about it quite a bit to people.
The more I describe it, I just I'm trying to get it in a very succinct
one liner as to how it also happened, but it was just this really slow moving,
gradual thing where suddenly we're rehearsing some stuff
and some of the stuff is based in reality, and some of the stuff is just
from Clio's head.
And then blink and you're filming and it's still the same journey
or the same essence of what that is, which essentially was just like
a really lovely chat with, you know, it's that thing that sort of
it's just the through line throughout the whole process.
It's, it's really easygoing, open
kind, collaborative director
who created the space for us to do the work that we did.
Yeah, it's a good thing it wasn't a bad cup of tea
because that would have maybe left a sour taste in the mouth, literally.
At the Toronto film festival.
We first met and it was just supposed to be one glass of wine
because we all had different we had I had things to go in terms of
she had other things, but we just carried on chatting,
you know, just about our chat, chat, chat was just like, oh yeah.
Anyway,
so for you, as a, as a as a performer, what's the lure of working with her?
Because you said that about wanting to meet everything.
I was what was,
what was the initial thing for you in terms of the draw of working with it?
Why were you kind of so desperate
to even be in the same room as her, let alone make a film with her?
Yeah, something about
The Arbor initially, which
was kind of is sort of in essence, quite an experimental film.
You know, it's something that's kind of this
it had of sort of them verbatim sort of thing to it,
which essentially is like
messing about with the idea of where a performance
sits or lands or, you know, who's the performer.
If you're speaking the words of the actual people who
the characters are based on, you know, so this is really lovely thing of like
messing around with the idea of performance
and who's performing what and everything else.
And then when I saw the Selfish Giant, I saw the same thing in The Selfish Giant.
It took on more of a true traditional film
sort of thing, which was essentially
that those characters existed in some form or another,
but it was had took on the sort of fictionalized quality to it.
And I just found that sort of like just really interesting
way of
making a film or wanting to make a film.
And I just wanted to be in that really and just see what would come out of it.
And what came out of it was pretty much
more of the same, which was,
you know, an enabler sort of based on some real people.
But then the people that grew out, the character
and some of the bits of the story now enable like based on real events
that happened
and other
bits are sort of completely fictionalized and come and came from Clio's head.
And it's just this wonderful sort of process and, and,
and type of cinema that's unique to her, you know.
So yeah, just involved in that and yeah, yeah, it's,
I mean it's a wonderful love story for many reasons,
but it's one of those love stories that so kind of classic in terms of they
it transcends all of the things that may be perceived as barriers,
whether it's age, race, class, or that kind of stuff.
It's just it's wonderful
unique talent.
It's kind to blend those things
and try and have that love story kind of transcend.
in a really classic.
Why did you and Claire [Rushbrook] feel that when you were making it,
that it was one of those love stories, did kind of transcends all of the things
that might be seen as being prohibitive to there to that story?
Yeah, definitely.
You definitely feel like that's something that
but but just build on your point.
It does in a way that's
very easy and tender.
You know, it's such it does it in such a subtle way and you don't realize
that that's what it's doing until maybe you reflect on it a bit afterwards or
you suddenly sort of in its grip or something, you know, and,
and that's what I liked about it more.
The fact that it was, wasn't too loud about that.
You know, it's not sort of using that as a way, you know, sort of signposting.
It was just very easy and gradual and
and yeah, I like to I liked it for that reason, but I liked it
more because it wasn't that wasn't at the forefront of what it was doing.
It was sort of a part of what I was doing.
Yeah.
How did you.
Obviously, there's a lot of other stuff going on in this movie,
but one of the great scenes, I think, is at the beginning of the movie
where we see you on the car dancing you you had phones and all that kind of stuff.
What were were you
listening to the music that she eventually put over, what you were dancing to,
or did you have kind of a playlist that got you in that zone?
I think I was listening to Sylvan Esso, so
they put another track on on top of it afterwards.
But again, that that car scene is not another
example of Clio's sort of directional process that she does like.
That wasn't scripted, you know, that.
And it was something that we sort of found
as the story was going along, that
that that's something that
would be needed for this story.
And I think that's just such an amazing thing, you know, like
because it suddenly became this sort of
it became sort of like quite a focal point for the character in a weird way,
you know?
And it was and it's just sort of the magic of like being in the process
required like going, oh, that's, that's what we're doing now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it speaks so much
to the character and the sort of like this undercurrent of like
frustration or tension or
like unexpressed emotions and stuff like that.
But again, we were on set and it was like, oh, we'll
just going to drive a car on the field
and you're gonna have a dance on top of her, on top of her,
you know, really not to spoil it for anyone, but yeah,
as you do
Yeah, I was that was that.
This is a bit of a more fun question.
You always thought it was that much of Ali's Man Cave music
collection that was in line with your own tastes, or was there.
Yeah. Was there a lot of your own kind of.
Did you put your own kind of slant on that bit of it?
In some ways A bit, yeah.
So early conversations were just like the kind of what music
I like and listened to.
So she got a bit from for me.
And then Connie Farr who's like a the music person,
and she had some suggestions and Clio had some suggestions as well.
So it was like a mixture of it all really.
But as it did look in all the old,
you know, tracks that were played, like I'll be all over with all of those songs.
Like I love it all, you know,
you know,
the punk to the, to the, to the rap, to,
you know, the hip hop and everything is like, I loved it.
Oh, I thought it was really good selection of songs for one film.
It's a pretty good soundtrack, to be fair,
that would be a fantastic little Spotify playlist
to look at that album.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, that we got after that.
My first thing I do when I've I've left you as a, as a final question.
I can't leave about asking you about working with Claire
because as you say, the two of you
have this wonderful chemistry and it seems quite natural in the way that
Claire wanted to shoot and the way you guys kind of perform it
What was it like bringing that to life with her?
Because, you know, in some parts of your career, you very rarely
get to do not just the love story, but do it in this way.
And to be this intimate and to be this kind of easy ease with each other.
Yeah,
just I think maybe the process that we were involved
in sort of reflected
the sort of emotional journey that we were going through in the sense
that, like, we have a chemistry test and of quite early on and
and then the chemistry test, it's like this strange thing
where you're sort of your heart's rattling a little bit anyway
because you meet somebody for the first time and weird to look back on it
thinking about it like it was this wonderful alignment
with that and the actual journey of the film, you know?
So it's like
and there's a point in the film where those sort of feelings
or bad themselves down and you know, Ali realizes
that he's with someone who can just be really comfortable in and,
and be with, you know, and for me, that was sort of mapped
out of the film as well.
You know, there was the moment in the film,
I was just like Oh, I think I know what we're doing here,
you know, and sort of reflected on, on screen as well.
But I think, again, just
I think that's clear.
You know, Clio sort of set up that space in a way that
we were allowed to feel those feelings and allow for them to
you know, be expressed in a way that they were. So,
yeah.
And I don't know if Claire still feels the same,
but that's why she'll take away from from that experience with her.
Yeah.
Wonderful. It is a wonderful film.
And I wish you would luck with it.
I hope it does very well when it when it finally arrives
Yeah.
I love it.
So it's got to do and yeah, good luck with everything.
Thanks so much for time. Bye.