Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor, household name for Peaky Blinders, won Golden Globe for playing Oppenheimer.
On the island
Eight records
Verb. This was a cassette that we had in the car when we were kids, so there's four of us and we'd be all squashed in the back … I know every single lyric from every single song … now I truly appreciate it.
Verb. … a piece by a piper called Seamus Innocence called The Wandering Mistra. [Corrected to canonical title/artist.]
Verb. … a band from Cork called the Franken Walters. They were big … around like the mid nineties, and I was obsessed with them … it's just a cracking, cracking pop song.
Verb. … I was about 10 or 11 when Joshua Tree came out … the first time I ever experienced fear or danger in a piece of music.
Verb. … I went through a big queen phase again in the eighties. This particular song has always been one of my huge favourites … just to feel good, it just makes me feel good.
Verb. … this particular tune was revolutionary for me … they put out this album … sometimes musicians, their courage in the face of the industry … they've always made me braver, I think.
We Can Work It OutFavourite
Verb. The Beatles are my kind of musical touchstone … I love Paul's hope and optimism and then John's kind of acerbic sort of realist middle eight … it's perfection.
Verb. … one of my favorite albums of last year was by an artist called Lisa O'Neill … I thought I should play some of Lisa's music.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:01How do you get into the right frame of mind to show us rather than tell us what a character is feeling [in Oppenheimer]?
Well, I think that's always been the sort of acting that's intrigued me, is when you can see the character thinking, seeing the face as a landscape … I knew it had to be an interior kind of performance and a small performance … I knew immediately that it wouldn't be an impression … you bring an element of yourself to it and then you put it all in the mix and it becomes Chris's version and my version of Oppenheimer.
Presenter asks
3:07So you're going to be on the red carpet for Oscar night. I know that's not always your comfort zone.
Yeah, I I I have struggled with it in the past and you know it's not something I'm ever totally at ease with, but I think you you you have to like choose to enjoy it … Yeah, you'd be in Egypt not to enjoy it, you know? Just go with it. That's my attitude.
Presenter asks
8:52What was your relationship with your dad like growing up? Did you have any shared interests?
I think we connected probably most strongly over music. When I started playing in bands and stuff, he was the dad that would drive us around and help me set up the amps and everything.
The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Works of Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
This is a really pretentious choice... I have the complete works of Samuel Beckett at home... I know I need to read it all, and I will. And this would be the perfect opportunity to start at the start and end at the end.
The luxury
I'd take a guitar if I could... I mess around... it would keep me going if I could be creative in some way... I think I get very agitated if I couldn't make something.
Presenter asks
10:27You were offered a five‑album deal but your parents refused to allow you to sign it. How did you feel about it at the time?
I don't know if I was that heartbroken. I should say I was heartbroken, but I think I just took it on the chin and just moved on. And there was a month in my life, which was July 1996, where we got offered the record deal, we turned it down. I was stupidly doing a law degree and I failed it. And I met my now wife and I got a part in Disco Bigs all within one month. So that was, I think, when things clarified for me and I thought, okay, the music that avenue has been shut down, but this other avenue is opening up.
Presenter asks
25:16How did you convince Stephen Knight you were the right actor for [Tommy Shelby]?
I mean, I wasn't the obvious choice physically … I don't know if I convinced him in the meeting, but … apparently afterwards I sent him a text saying, Remember, Steve, I'm an actor. And I do believe that. I do think it's our duty as actors to transform to whatever the part demands.
Presenter asks
26:03What do you remember about [Helen McCrory]? You and Helen had met before Peaky Blinders ever began, I think.
Yeah, we met, well my goodness, like back in the nineties I auditioned for her, I remember. And I even remember then she was just brilliant … she kind of brightened up every … set. I loved her. And I still I still really miss her, you know.
Presenter asks
28:43How easy do you find it to switch off after a job, especially the intense ones?
It's difficult, but I have a very, very understanding family. They kind of know when I'm re‑emerging, you know, and I stop walking like the character … but you're neither like the character or the civilian. You're sort of just figuring it out … It's nothing like people love to make it like this big methody thing. For me, it's not. It's just trying to figure out what to do with my time.
“Music was the first thing that really woke me up to the arts or to creativity.”
“The best feeling. That sort of nonverbal communication that you have with your bandmates and with the audience when it's just something electric, something is happening in the room. It's like a tingle, it's something kind of transcendent really. And I felt bizarrely comfortable up there for a relatively shy kid, you know.”
“Sometimes more than my acting colleagues or acting heroes, sometimes musicians, their courage in the face of the industry or the decisions they make … like John Lennon or Sinead O'Connor or, you know, Radiohead … make you brave. And they've always made me braver, I think.”
“I do think it's our duty as actors to transform to whatever the part demands.”
“To have a really secure, solid base is important … You have to have that safe place, I think I certainly do, where it's just like an island of comfort and ease.”