How are you doing, Jo?
Yeah, Great having a cracking Day, it's been a it's been a good day so far.
How about yourself? Yeah, not too bad.
Not too bad. I saw Dune last night, so I'm still a bit
trying to get it over my head.
So that was quite an experience. The IMAX. So that was good.
Oh, can't wait to see that friend Sharon Duncan Bruce is in it.
She's very good, very good.
I met when I was doing the mimic and she's soaring high now.
Go on Shazzer!
congratulations on on the film, sweetheart.
Thank you. It's very, very good.
I feel like I saw a long time ago.
I think I saw it when it was a BFI flare earlier in the year.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, did
a couple of years ago, it didn't like seven projects since then.
I feel very, very confused with everything.
Yes, I think so, because obviously
she did that little independent Marvel thing afterwards. You know,
she she's amazing.
Like we went on Monday, I think it was Monday
that we had the screening of the BFI and everyone was so kind.
Honestly, it was lovely.
Scott - people came in and gave us great feedback.
We did a Q&A myself, Nell and Marley
So it's been a great film to work on
and be a part of and a great character to play. Yeah, I'm not scared.
I didn't I didn't realize you guys had a lot of Q&A already, which is great.
It's always nice when that happens,
especially now when people can actually come back to to see you in person.
Yeah, it was lovely.
It was like a little, you know, so Premiere,
I guess, and the tickets went out. So that was nice. That's good.
So take me back to when you first received the script.
How did it come about that, you know, Marley's worked beforehand, or was it just
one of those that just came in on the pile and you just read it and loved it?
Yeah, which it was I was it it
it was a it came in
send it to me with all the short films that Molly had done....
I looked I always do lots of research. So I did that.
Then I started to read the script, loved it.
It was really authentic and original and kind of fun.
And I really just kind of reached out back to my agent,
said, I'd like to meet Marley. I love the script.
I thought it was great and refreshing.
And I kind of met up with Molly and Michele, the producer, and I just knew
she was invested and smart and she had great taste in film.
She was a big fan of This is England.
And I loved the script and thought it was important.
I thought it was lighthearted and fun,
but I thought the story's within that were told really well.
And they were important and I just
I also found that my character, she's got her own journey within that.
It's quite similar to AJ'S,
where, you know, she's meant to be this kind of grumpy moany mum
Actually, she's quite a fun character to play
because everything is done with irony.
And she's also struggling herself to try and manage a family,
financial insecurity, a breakup.
And she has her own little little fling with the magician.
So that's what Sally does.
Yeah. Judging her daughter when she's a she's going through the same thing.
So I loved the story because it was all about family dynamics
and navigating relationships and the way that we basically the solution is love.
And we come together and we kind of accept everybody in each other, you know,
and let people do what they've got to do and just be there to support them.
Yeah, I do wonder
what it'd be like to date a magician, whether they'd always be like on
Abracadabra, you've done it.
Yeah, I don't give don't give Ricky Gervais
any ideas because you're right, they want to be shows dating a magician
can just picture him doing something with like a bit seedy, but very funny.
You know, he's good.
It's certainly it's such an honor to work with.
They be so good, so, so much fun working with those guys.
I love doing comedy.
That's why I love Sweetheart as well.
There was lots of although it's quite a deep sort of heavy story for a teenager,
it was done in a lighthearted sort of way, very nostalgic for me as well,
because I grew up
and went to lots of Butlins, Potins, all those holiday camps, and I loved it.
So Amalia's watched a lot of John Hughes films and was inspired by that.
And it just the colors and the design and the whole cast, really,
and the crew were just phenomenal. There's no money in that film.
So everyone was there for the same primary purpose.
And it was I love doing people's first feature film.
It's always an it's a magical experience because, you know, it's never going
to happen again for them.
And, you know, Dead Man's Shoes is my first feature film.
It wasn't Shane's, but it had a special experience with it.
And I like to experience that objectively for others.
And it's quite good.
So, yeah, it's good. It's good response we've had.
Yeah, I know. I'm sorry.
Sophia was telling me that you guys all were camped, literally camped out on the
on the caravan sites together while you were making it.
That must have been a that must be fun as well,
that you got to do some that gets a bond, you know,
doing something that you're actually doing as part of the filmmaking process.
Yes. And I spent my twenty eight pence on a can of drink, a can of pop
I got paid for the phone. So that was good.
What did you go for?
Yeah, I think it was fanta orange.
I don't know. It wasn't even time to describe.
No, I loved being there because in the morning you'd get up.
And, you know, this is sunrise.
Sunset at night.
Actually, I love all that stuff.
You know, as long
as I've got a comfortable bed and that can be clean and that can be fed.
I'm actually alright with stuff and those kind of experiences,
like I said, that not like Afterlife and all the rest of it
with all the nice frills.
But, you know, it's kind of like the location where we were on the holiday.
My my I think had a nice caravan in the morning.
You see the sun rising and then the beach.
And it was just quite magical and beautiful, like the sun and the ocean
was very inspiring to work beside. So that was nice.
It was quite glam.
Yeah, it sounds quite glam considering it was a,
you know, had 28p cans of Fanta
...cans of Coke.
I did want to ask you about. About Nell.
Nell, I hadn't seen anything before.
And she's fantastic in in the film.
And like Marley, she obviously new to the news, the process and everything else.
What was it like working her?
Because as you say,
it's quite a just there's quite a lot in terms of the character.
But as you say, there's a lighthearted touch to it,
but there's still a lot better to her characters processing quite a lot.
So how do you think she she did and what was what she like to work with?
I mean, I thought she did, amazingly.
Like I said, you know, no budget. Everybody's there for the same reason.
I look to support an indie film and new filmmakers.
That's what happened to me.
And I think it was Nell's first feature.
I went to see a play she was in that she wrote and performed in herself.
And I just knew from that moment that she was like, it's
quite a magical, invested little actress.
She was very sort of professional.
She was really invested in the preparation, had a great imagination.
You know, she would talk we would talk a lot about the scenes.
We had lot of phone calls. I made a playlist.
She also did we did a back story together.
And we we noticed a relationship.
So it would be real on camera. And we spoke a lot to Marley.
She carried that film in a way that was so humble and graceful.
She didn't have much time to prepare, but she really committed to everything.
Like she had a hair cut.
She had a really lovely long hair to hair off.
She spent a lot of time with Marley
and myself talking through the character, and she did a lot of her own research.
So, yeah, hats off to a really she did a great job. It is a big
responsibility to carry a feature.
I've just done an indie film called Sweet Caroline where I played the lead
and I mean, every single scene.
And it's there's a lot of responsibility there.
And it's a very enjoyable job.
We're acting like we're not saving the world.
But, you know, you don't
take yourself seriously, but you want to take your role seriously.
If the you know, the audience the best experience you can
and you want to tell the truth within that role.
And I think that's what Nell found.
She she did everything she could to find the authenticity of A.J.
and I think she carried it off pretty well. Yeah.
And just in terms of the film coming out - where have a day is coming out at a time
today, we've got everybody's talking about Jamie next week.
This film's coming out and it seems that we're slowly but surely getting a lot
more films that are talking about diversity and embracing yourself and,
you know, being true to yourself and all that kind of stuff.
Even if you're a teenager, however, you're 60 or 70, whatever it is.
How important do you think that is?
That we're slowly
seeing more more of these things and they're being taken
maybe a little bit more seriously than they were 20 years ago?
I think it's great.
I would say that it's great.
OK, so what I love about this story is it's a female story by a female director.
It's great that that can happen.
A lot of it's very important.
You know, I what I love, though, about this and the whole human experience is
Tina is having an experience as well as you know.
And that brings us down to the bare principles of humanity
and the experience you go through spiritually, together.
Like it's it's it's really powerful
to see a variety of stories being told by a variety of people.
This is what life is and this is what we need film to be.
I loved it with the bastard.
You know, the new review in the way we've done things the having
to watch specific films to get people to watch different films,
because people will just watch
what they used to or just put something on that's got a lot of press and publicity.
Well, no, actually,
we need to have this variety because life is full of it, you know,
and it's all about the love really and telling stories that resonate with us.
I always feel good when I get identification.
There's different stories I go to for different experiences.
But this is one that I think will definitely appeal to a wide
variety of people.
It's not just about sexuality and first love.
It's about family. It's about struggles.
It's about, you know, your first holiday experience.
It's about it's about everything. And it's about.
I guess, you know, rejection,
fighting the odds, courage, you know, overcoming things and ultimately love
and the solution and navigate in that and that that that and then that having
a mother has and that and also with Isla you know, it was amazing.
And they were all brilliant. So it's quite a smart little film.
It doesn't throw it down your neck.
You know, it's like it's light and but it's got a good message.
Yeah, very well.
Message is, is this little film. It's great.
Before you go, I just did want to ask you about this, mentioned about Ricky
obviously doing Afterlife.
He's doing season three,
which is a bit of an abnormal thing for him because he doesn't tend to do so.
He hasn't done a season three of anything before. So
is he is he is he feeling the
pressure in a different way this time, or do you think he's delivered?
It's going to surprise me with just what he's been able
to deliver for for this first season three that he's ever done.
Is this where you must have loved us all to do a third season, right?
Or do you think.
I think he did it for the fans, right.
I mean, that's what he'd say, I guess.
This is such a great cast.
And somebody always says this himself. There's many stories in there.
I, I don't know how Ricky's feel, and I really couldn't speculate that.
It doesn't seem like he has pressure because he's very easy going and lovely.
And it takes a supercool it takes it in stride.
But I definitely know it would have considered it before we did it.
And I've seen it. And I'm telling you, it's phenomenal.
And I you know, I'm I'm a small part of the great whole, but
very grateful to be a part of something
so profound and wonderful, light hearted, funny and magical.
And it's it's it's a piece of relaxed genius, almost like effortless.
But what I start to read on Twitter from some of the fans and people
that analyze the story, it was like, wow, there's more to this than I even knew.
And I was invited into the, you know, the privilege of going into the edit.
And I'm honestly I'm excited for people to see.
It just keeps getting better and better, and so does Ricky.
So hopefully I will, too.
Of course you are. Come on now.
Come on. We get better as we get to not caring about what
others think and we start behaving better when we're not normal anymore.
One hundred percent. That's good. That's good.
Well, I wish you were the best, your sweetheart.
Thank you so much for your time as ever. So.
Yeah. Good luck with everything else.
That sounds very exciting. Let's do it again, Scott.
Have a great week. Thanks you. Thanks, Jo. They like to.