hi hero. hiya. how are you? how are you doing? we spoke before, haven't we? we talked eight
months ago to this day. i looked it up. eight months to the day, wow, nice. i was going to ask,
so you had the answers. it's been a while. how are you? good. you've been up to a lot too.
i have, yeah, i have. um, it's weird, people keep saying, you're so busy, and i've been
chilling for the past, like, two months. so, i like to pretend and keep that facade
and idea that i've been busy but i've actually just been doing very little, it's been lovely.
you were just at a soccer match, no? yeah, i played in the charity football match,
charity soccer game, yeah, that was fun. it was my friend's, uh, have a go-- have goat-- have a..
wow, i'm tired. they don't have a goat, they have a brand called yongo, and there's a
great guy called chris who does charity work for great ormond street hospital, and they
organize a charity match that i played in on the weekend, so yeah. big up them. we've, uh, i don't
know how much money they raised just yet, but no, great work from everyone, so i'm excited to hear.
do you like playing soccer? i love playing soccer, yes. uh, it's kind of all i do when i'm back home.
it's, like, go away and act and then to decompress and be hero again, it's just, like, play football
and chill out, yeah. so just chilling and soccer, that's what you've been up to. exactly.
so, we have "first love", it's coming out, did you film at ucla? like, were you in l.a.
that whole time? yeah, actually, we did film in ucla. we shot all around l.a., um, and it felt so
natural and nice, because every set wasn't, like, covered, you know, i feel like a lot of the time,
you walk into a movie set, and it doesn't look like the movie set, it looks like a-- it's just
trailers everywhere and makeup trucks, and, you know, people in high vis jackets and covid
departments and... right. obviously, we had all the good health and safety regulations in place,
but it was so nice to go to ucla and feel like, oh i'm just in ucla, i don't feel like there's
lights up there and things, and the same for all the shots even inside, and there was so little
lights used and marks used, and it was just a natural light, and it just felt so real. so, to be
able to shoot all around l.a. and go to the campus but not have it feel like a film set was actually
really really cool and, you know, helped with the acting to really be there in it. yeah. were
the students around, do you feel like you could have gone to college at ucla, like, in america?
uh, yeah, maybe. you know what was hilarious actually, when we finished,
i'm sure they do this, that every year, but when we wrapped, when we literally wrapped the film,
we shot the final scene, um, at ucla. there's, like, some long obviously like brick concrete,
like, staircase, and everyone was, like, lined up along it, and people were going down on, like,
skis and snowboards, and people were taking some hard hard falls, but i don't know if jim
would have participated in that, but he could have definitely been a student there at ucla.
nah they have fun down there, i wish i could have stayed longer. yeah, ucla has some fun traditions,
so i was like, didn't know if you were caught up on the american college experience. yeah. did you,
did you go? how do you, how do you know all of this about ucla? i have,
i'm like 10 minutes from campus, i live, so my friends go to ucla. um, but they have, like,
the undie run, so, like, literally, like, it's a whole thing. because they just graduated too,
so all the traditions and everything are happening right now. that's fun. that is fun. um, yeah, no,
i do, i do enjoy those traditions. i'm jealous of of you guys in that sense.
and you have an english accent now so how was mastering that? did you have to practice?
oh, the american, yeah, yeah, yeah. so, i've done, i've, i've done an american accent once before in
"the silencing", but it's, like, southern and it's a smaller role, so yeah, i was,
i was, i was very worried about my american accent when going into this.
and i kind of thought i'd have more sessions with my dialect coach and they got cut short, and then
she, her name was joy, she was lovely, and she was very helpful, but i did feel like, on the last day
before we started filming, i called her up and i was like, can i just go through it once with
you? and i read the line, she was like, hero, that's not, that, that's, it's not terrible,
but you've done better, like, you're just nervous, get out of yourself and you'll be fine. and yeah,
quickly you just get into it, and you're like, well, i'm here now, aren't i? what's done is done.
but i've only heard positive feedback anyway, so i'm, i'm glad i think. um, credit to joy,
she helped me get there in the end. but i'd be lying if i said i was confident going into it.
because people on the trailer were like, oh my god, like, he sounds, like,
this is so different than all his other roles, like people are really excited to see this one.
i'm so glad. i'm really excited for them to see it too. i've already showed it to, like,
four friends, and, um, i'm proud of this and really excited for everyone to see it, yeah.
are you a track star in real life? i know last time, you said boxing, i think, that you would do,
but are you--? yeah, i've started doing a fair bit of boxing just for that fitness and i love doing
that as well. soccer's always been my sport, but yeah, when you go to school, obviously, they put
you in, you do the athletics and stuff, and yeah, i was pretty good. i was quick when i was young,
and then in, like, secondary school, so like through my teens, i did like 400 meter race,
and i think jim runs long distance, so it's a bit different, but i was all right. i was quite,
i think, i came second in cross country. james bates beat me by a hair, i'll never forgive him
for that. yeah. i love it. so, what, besides this film, so you're kind of, you're the sweet, like,
sweeter boy than your previous roles, which a lot of people are also commenting about too. so
when you first read the script, were you excited to dive into this kind of role?
definitely. i think part of the attraction... i didn't want to do another romance specifically,
and then the script came in and it was so good. i was like, okay cool, maybe we should do this, you
know, you're not doing coming-of-age romances when you're 40, so just take them now while you can,
and if it's a great script with a great team, you should do it. and i just felt like, the only
thing i was apprehensive of about doing another romance was putting myself in a box and doing
the same thing over and over again and not kind of diversifying my portfolio and showing my ability
to do other roles. and then when i kind of delved into it, i was realizing this is, this film could
not be more different from "after" in terms of it being a romance. jim could not be more different
from hardin, so i was no longer scared of doing the same thing again, because it's so far from
that. and. um. and. yeah. i think that was part of the allure to playing him and part of what enticed
me to play in him was because of how different he was from "after", from hardin and "after", so.
what is one thing that you and jim are alike in real life?
um... would you, like, write a note to,
like, uh, write a note to the teacher like a fake note? would you do-- that's pretty coo, isn't it?
i feel like that's quite unlike jim as well. i feel like he was like, okay cool i'm gonna do
this, like i don't think that's something that he would do all the time, i think he just felt
like he had to pull out a bag for anne. um, but no, i feel like, how are we similar in real life?
maybe with the, you know, we both like, like to do a bit of track running, but i feel like, um,
i feel like he cares about the people who are close to him, and i feel like i do too. um,
i would like to be a bit more concise with my words like he is. sometimes i
just go on a roll and i'm just, especially on these interviews, i just talk for days,
and i think he's really good at just that listening and being concise with his words
and only speaking when he really needs to. so i could, i could learn from him in that sense. yeah.
well congratulations on this next, you know, chapter to come out in your life.
thank you so much, i really appreciate that. it was so nice to talk to you.