I think if we're to teach our sons to be feminist if we're to teach equality if
we're to understand what poisons the well in men that what creates toxic masculinity
we need to understand and look under the hood of characters like Phil Burbank to see
what their struggle is and why that's there in the first place because otherwise it will just keep
repeating itself. You know you've got to jump in in the middle with any character you play with I'm
well i'm 45 i can't remember how old you are, you look a lot younger than me, but you
have to bring some life experience and lived life to a character no matter where a story begins so
i think from that you then build an empathy and an understanding for why the action and
the trajectory of decisions and choices and everything that then unfolds within that
two-hour story span which in our case is a linear narrative happens and it's all the work you do
on the person that you don't meet off screen before um the first page of the novel or the
script that that's the stuff that kind of you want you want to bring as the subtext or
just a knowledge of that character so it always feels like you're jumping in the middle and
I think you see enough in Phil's example of a man who
you see him you know straining to have something like normalcy, something like the routine or what
is expected to happen in that moment he's a very controlling character, so you realize through his
petulance at things not being under his control and circumstances being different to what he'd
imagined them or wanting them to be that there's something deeply damaged about this volatile um
angry man, something that's not being satisfied. I completely agree with Benedict you know a lot
of the work as actors we've done before that I mean I am a little bit older than you I'm 48.
So you know you've done a lot of that work previously and especially with
particularly with this story as soon as we meet Andy he's already saying sorry he's
already apologizing which i think was very you know that was that was a really clever decision
that we made straight away as soon as we meet him and we're with him on this journey for an
hour and 10 15 20 minutes immediately starting off by saying sorry. And for this particular story
it it's in the title it's a man at boiling points everything's just collapsed everything's
falling away from what he's had you know what i mean you can see he must have had a good life
he's he has been successful but now because of his his his addiction and his demons and his own fear
and self-loathing it's just slowly falling away from him um and you get to see in that sense the
masculinity... I had a backstory where it was kind of issues with his
father and stuff so it's him trying not to be what his father was but his father was an alcoholic
so for him it's it's always been a part of his dna it's been there since he was a young boy
um and to watch that kind of the upbringing that he must have had and he's trying his hardest not
to be like that with his son and then eventually you end up creating the same mistakes that you've
seen, do you know what I mean, that kind of indoctrinated background that he's come from
but then it's just as soon as it's as soon as we begin with this film as well it was you know
it was nine ninety percent improvised um over the process so everybody else is is on that same page
as me with the created character that we've all got and then you just throw it all up the air
and we play we have the structure of it like you know like what Benedict said it's the story it's
the structure that's within that story but then we all improvise and then you're just one big moving
machine I suppose in a way you know what I mean. I think you sound like you had a a tougher gig
in the sense but I mean very enjoyable to to to create that from scratch I was working off
this incredible blueprint of a book so within that though there are massive amounts of flashbacks and
incredible insights into who this character was as a child how his parents
treated him and what they expected of him the kind of pressure of conformity that was there very
early in his life that he pushes against again and again in in the film and uh and makes him the
person we meet in the beginning frames of it and I think all the kind of notepad
work, a lot of it was done was done through that, there's a there's one key relationship
with his real father figure um which you talking about your dad made me um your character's dad
made me think of which is bronco henry and that's really a pivotal pivotal relationship in this
man's life someone he was in love with and had a relationship with as well as him being his mentor
and tutor, but huge age gap and he was 19 when he saw him trampled to death in a corral so that
for me kind of keyed into that sense of arrested development um that results in this this sort of
this anger in this man this masculinity this need to prove himself as something other than this
true I guess um authentic self, which is a man who's loved another man and doesn't know
where to place that in the world and the time he lives in and the culture he's in
um but also within himself and his own body you can only really associate that with something
that's very deep in private in moments in the film where he's away from everybody else.
I think if we're to teach our sons to be feminist if we're to teach equality if we're to understand
what poisons the well in men that what creates toxic masculinity we need to understand and look
under the hood of characters like Phil Burbank to see what their struggle is and why that's
there in the first place because otherwise it will just keep repeating itself and while we're
thankfully moving into a space now where survivors are being heard and supported and protected
um we've got a way to go on that um still uh don't get me wrong but I think we also really
have to look at the root cause of the behavior that these people have suffered from and this man
trying very hard not to say anything about a very odd reaction that happened the other day
on a radio podcast over here without meaning to sort of stir over the ashes of that it's it just
it I won't get into the details of it if it's if it's hit the news at home it has it has here
um but someone really took offense to um I haven't heard it so it's unfair really for
me to comment in detail on it but really took offense to the west being portrayed in this way
um and beyond that reaction that sort of denial that anybody could have any other
than a heteronormative existence because of what they do for a living or where they're born
there's also a massive intolerance within the world at large towards homosexuality still towards
an acceptance of the other of any kind of difference and
no more so i guess in this prism of conformity in the sense of what is expected of a man in
in the sort of um the western archetype mold of masculinity and so I think to deconstruct
that through Phil, to look at that, it's not a history lesson and I mean need we
look much further than what is going on in Russia at the moment to understand
that somewhere in the mind-boggling idiocy of that man's megalomania is some damage there's
some damage there and we saw it in a president of the country that's hosting me at the moment though
you know these these people still exist in our world and whether it's on a doorstep or whether
it's down the road or whether it's someone we meet in a bar or a pub or i don't know um in a sport on
the sports field there's there is aggression and anger and frustration and an inability to control
or um know who who you are in that moment that causes damage to that person and as we
know far far more openly now as I was saying damage to others around them. I think that's one of
the great things we get to do as storytellers in culture is to be able to siphon it into metaphor
to sort of let it kind of let the light you know peek through the crack a little bit and just
hopefully it might touch someone or ignite a conversation about it that might reach something
like that it's it's much harder to go out and kind of billboard that as a problem because of course
the the massive aggression and defensiveness you'll meet with that as well as the fist or
the weapon or whatever it might be yeah it doesn't necessarily find um a good space and a time to be
aired in everyday life and I think that's why art and storytelling of any kind, whether it's a song
lyric or um you know someone speaking of their own experience a lived experience, or whether
it's a piece of piece of art or poetry or film can sometimes do that. Look I know a lot of it is
entertainment so don't get me wrong some of the stuff we do is entertaining massively hopefully
hopefully um but then occasionally you are allowed to either you know some be seen on screen or even
more appropriately come through that little empathy box that's in the middle of everyone's
living room and if you can penetrate through that and like Benedict said if you can cause
some kind of discussion or throw something up for debate which which breaks the normal of what may
normally happen in that household or you create a platform for someone to go 'mum do you know what' or
or 'dad I was just...' if you create that atmosphere then then you know to me that's
that's a gift and to be able to be in a position where we can put a mirror up to society and say
let's have a look at ourselves here for the second you know be it in whatever format that may be um
let's just take a little look at us for a second and see how we conduct with our fellow man
do you know what I mean and see are we kind, are we being sincere or where did
our motives from I think to be in that position is is a huge privilege and a huge honour for me and
just for me in particular do you know what I mean to be able to
to go down that road of being being an actor, a young lad that wanted to act,
getting on a bus and going to the Every Man youth theatre you know what I mean for me that
was a wonderful opportunity um and to meet lots of like-minded people do you know what I mean that
was where I got to meet kids with posh accents, kids who had purple hair and listened to Morrissey
whereas I was just a break dancer who had a nice pair of adidas trainees but you know that
was where we all got to have our place to to come and meet like-minded people into to be a part of
these stories and to take what we've learned there back into our households and and back
into our friendship groups. I think for me it was imperative in forming the man who I am today you
know what I mean it really was and hopefully what Benedict, I completely agree what he was saying
with that kind of it gives us that experience to be able to create this place for our children to
to try and raise the children to the best of our abilities you know what I mean but give them a
platform to be these rounded honest decent pure individuals you know what I
mean and and for me it's integral and it really is it's I feel so blessed to be able to do what I do.