00:00I had those techniques kind of locked away in my head for years and years and years.
00:04I took an hour behind the catering van for a bit of a cry, but, you know, I'm pro crying. It's good.
00:09I just feel like saying to myself, don't be so hard on yourself.
00:13Guys, hello. Good afternoon or good morning. I'm not sure what time it is anymore.
00:17Didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I've got a one-year-old.
00:19Before we kick things off, The Wind That Shakes The Barley is one of my all-time favorite music.
00:23It's a beautiful, beautiful piece of work.
00:25And when I was trying to analyze this in my mind, it did feel like there were some parallels between that kind of Loachian toll that a film can take on it, can leave on you.
00:35When it's imbued with kind of a violence and a despondency, but then there's like a heart and a hope like running through it.
00:42So I wondered how the experience has been for you guys.
00:43Is it something that you wanted to imbue this film with and did you both get out of it unscathed?
00:48Well, I'm really glad you brought up that particular film because it was one of the great privileges of my career to work with Ken Loach.
00:59And working with him on that film profoundly altered my approach to how I act and also the sorts of stories that you hope you can tell.
01:11And in fact, we employed quite a few of Ken's very unique filming or, yeah, the way he makes films.
01:19We shot the whole thing in sequence, the film, because we could.
01:23And Ken insists on doing that because the actors and the crew experience the film emotionally as you go along.
01:29And Rebecca O'Brien said this last night, every scene is a rehearsal for the next scene.
01:34You know what I mean? Because you're living the film.
01:38Normally you can't do that because it doesn't make any sense.
01:41Like economically it doesn't make any sense.
01:43But Ken just insists on it.
01:45And then a couple of other things we did sometimes we would be team with him.
01:50He would just surprise us with stuff so that you get this very, very immediate, just raw reaction to what's happening,
02:00which, you know, that suited the style of the film.
02:02But so I had those techniques kind of locked away in my head for years and years and years since I shot that film.
02:08And I was really ready to employ them.
02:11So that's a bit of a seg or sort of a sidebar.
02:14It did make me feel at times like someone had convinced Ken Loach to use a drone or something.
02:20So you'd be in there and it's so realistic.
02:23And then suddenly you'd be like, holy crap, look at that shot.
02:25And then there's a kind of a film person.
02:27You're like, wow, have they done that?
02:29But then that'll take way too much time to talk about that.
02:31But that is also very, very organically connected to the way I write.
02:36You know, what Rebecca said last night about Ken's producing partner, about each scene being a rehearsal for the next.
02:43That's literally how I write.
02:44Yeah.
02:44It's not what A is and then what B is, you know, when you're kind of walling the screenplay together or the kind of collage texture of the novel.
02:52It's what the energy is created between A and B, what the characters or the reader carries from that into that.
02:57So that's what wobbles you.
02:58That's what shocks you, you know.
03:00I'll tell you what, for describing the way you write, whatever way you write is working.
03:04Because 2025, you're all right, mate.
03:092025, you've got what, your first novel, The Grief is a Thing with Feathers, and then Shy, now Steve, both being turned into glorious, technical,
03:17who are two of the most respected film actors working today.
03:20What is going on in your mind at the moment?
03:23This must be a bit of an awakening for you, in a way.
03:26And how has Killian been as a kind of collaborator in this process of bringing your imagination into, I want to say celluloid, but I guess everything's digital.
03:35That's nice, yeah.
03:36No, well, I'm very lucky because I am held very safely in the embrace of my collaborators.
03:44And I have a kind of honesty complex.
03:46So I am very, very honest to people about how I feel.
03:49I believe in the trust economy.
03:51I get a good vibe off you and we have a good conversation.
03:53Have the work.
03:53I don't want to control it.
03:55I want it to become something different.
03:56So I'm always in the process of letting go and then being delighted and surprised when it comes back to me in a different form.
04:01I love being translated.
04:03Working with, you know, we know each other really well.
04:05So there was never any alteration of the relationship.
04:10We talk a lot.
04:11We maintain a rigorous emotional and professional honesty with each other at all times.
04:16But his guidance of me into this process, I'd never written a script before.
04:21I'd certainly never been on set and had to understand the sheer scale of complexity of the operation.
04:26And he's in producer mode as well as actor mode as well as friend mode.
04:29That's a lot.
04:29And I think we've not only unscathed but genuinely enriched.
04:34I think we're in a beautiful place.
04:37This particular film, at that moment, I'd seen the thing with Feathers.
04:42I had a bit of medical stuff going on last year.
04:47We shot the end of this film as Kils is in sequence.
04:50So there was this kind of gathering storm.
04:52Shai was headed where he was headed.
04:54Steve was headed where he was headed.
04:56We were all very physically tired.
04:57I took an hour behind the catering van for a bit of a cry.
05:01But, you know, I'm pro crying.
05:03It's good.
05:03It was a great release.
05:04And it was a joyful cry.
05:05You know, I thought, right, I think we've made something that will affect people here.
05:08So we're just really feeling lucky, aren't we, to get to do this?
05:11Very.
05:11So, so grateful to Netflix that this is going to be on the platform,
05:15that so many people can see this.
05:17Because this is not a wanky movie for auteurs to go and watch.
05:21I mean, a bit of that.
05:23No, it is accessible.
05:24This is for people to see.
05:25This is for teachers and parents and teenagers.
05:27I'm all there since the kids came.
05:29The crying is very much part of my, like, birth right now when I watch the film.
05:32And before I get kicked out, quickly, part of the exercise in the film
05:34is getting these kids or these young men to kind of leave some advice
05:40for their younger selves.
05:41And I wondered, in this stage of your career,
05:43as you've had so much success and so much experience,
05:46so much life experience, what soundbite would you give to yourself,
05:49whether it's back from when you were a kid
05:51or at the dawning of your careers,
05:53what would you tell yourself in the same situation with the camera on you?
05:57I'll go with the classic.
06:00Read.
06:01Read.
06:01Read.
06:02Read.
06:04Read.
06:05The classic six reads.
06:07I don't actually know if that was six.
06:09I watched that back and be annoyed with myself.
06:10And Killian?
06:10I just feel like saying to myself, don't be so hard on yourself.
06:17You know, you're good enough.
06:19You're good enough.
06:20And I try and tell that to my kids
06:22because everyone's so hard on themselves these days, I think.
06:28It's because everybody else,
06:30they feel like everybody else is judging them and scrutinizing them
06:33and they feel like they have to present things to the world,
06:36but you don't, you know?
06:38Just give yourself a break more often.
06:41Comparison is the thief of joy.
06:42That's our official message.
06:44Beautiful.
06:45Gentlemen, we'll end there.
06:46I've taken up too much of your time,
06:48but I really enjoyed this really affecting piece of work.
06:50I hope to see like a billion more of these kind of movies.
06:52Thanks, man.
06:53I look forward to seeing what you guys do next.
06:56Wicked bang.
06:57Nap when they nap would be my advice to you.
06:59I can't nap when they nap.
07:00Who's going to clean the house when they nap?
07:02And he's going to do my taxes.
07:03Okay, well, tell your wife to nap while they nap.
07:05Yeah, I'll tell her and then she'll murder me.
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