11/11/09 —  EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Many thanks to Jim for this thoughtful and engaging interview.  He’s the real deal folks!!!

The JSOnline Team

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Hey all at JSOnline!

Just want to apologise for not getting this interview to you all sooner. The first time it was sent to me it got lost in my hotmail so my apologies for that.

I also want to sincerely thank you for all the hard work that you do. The website looks awesome and I’ve been told that you won the best website in a competition recently which is amazing to hear! Nice one!

I hope everyone is well.

Much love,

jimx

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JSOnline: Your next film, Heartless, premiered at FrightFest and we understand it will be released later this year or early next year.  Can you tell us anything about the film or your character?   What were your biggest challenges for this role?

JS: Heartless is quite a unique piece of work. It’s a bit of a hard one to pin down really! I feel it’s really a modern fairytale, an imaginative look at all the random mindless acts of violence that plague the modern world. It’s as much of a love story as it is a horror story and is as tender and beautiful as it is scary and horrific. It’s even pretty funny places!

In England there is a huge amount of youth stabbings. Kids all walking around with knives, stabbing and killing each other over pointless gang related causes, mobile phone robberies etc etc Whilst we were making the film a young lad was stabbed to death at the end of my street after leaving a nightclub and no one has any idea why. It was seemingly unprovoked and the lad had no connection with the other boys that killed him! When you live in cities such as London, Manchester etc you are very aware of the threat of violence.

I play a young guy called Jamie Morgan. He is a very affected and sensitive soul, struggling to make sense of it all. For anyone who has picked up a newspaper and looked at all the madness that goes on in the world day in and out, the religious wars, kidnappings, shootings, stabbings, racial hatred etc etc and thought ‘I can’t take it anymore’…’what is wrong with the world’…………..well that is Jamie!

JSOnline:  In your recent thank you letter to JSOnline, referring to The Way Back, you said, “It was the most exhausting but exhilarating thing I have ever done.” The elements that you contended with while filming this movie must have been pretty extreme.  What was that like for you?  Can you tell us any particular story where you recall being pushed to your limits for this film?

JS: There really didn’t seem to be a day where we weren’t pushed to our limits!!! We spent long hours in the freezing snow, barely able to feel our toes and fingers. I don’t think anyone will ever truly appreciate just how cold some days were as it’s hard to ’see’ the cold on a cinema screen…but trust me it was freezing!!! We would spend our days dreaming of getting to Morocco where it would be warm and sunny, but when we finally got out of the Bulgarian mountains and into the desert it was just sooo unbearably hot that it was even worse! We also had to carry all our winter clothes with us through the desert so we were wrapped up in all this clothing or having to carry it on our backs. We would think about the people, who might have actually gone through this, everyday! It was an extraordinary feeling of just keeping going, and every day I knew that there was nowhere else in the world that I would rather be. I feel I saw some of the most beautiful sites and sunsets that the world has to offer, so as much as it was hard it was extremely exhilarating.

JSOnline:  What do you do to relieve the stress of filming on location and how do you prepare for a difficult scene?

JS: I don’t know really…i’m probably at my most happiest when i’m on location stressing over filming a difficult scene!

JSOnline:  Still talking about The Way Back, this movie was shot in some amazing locations — Bulgaria, Morocco, and India.  In which location(s) did you enjoy filming most?  Most of these places were pretty remote.  Did you have much access to the outside world (newspapers, internet, phone, etc.) in these exotic locales?

JS: It was amazing to spend time in all these places. Bulgaria was a very tough city to live in. The oppression of communist rule still lingers and there is alot of poverty there. I didn’t really like it there to start off with. The people seemed very closed and cold at first but I soon realised that once they opened up there were some fantastic people there. I remember my driver barely said two words to me for about 2 weeks, but then as time went on and we spent more and more time together, talking, listening to music etc we became really good friends. We spent so much time together it was quite an emotional goodbye! He was this tough ex Bulgarian wrestler nearly in tears as we said goodbye at the airport!!

Morocco and India were just mindblowing. To be immersed in such diverse culture was just amazing. Hearing prayers being sung over a loudspeaker at 4.00 in the morning was a pretty cool way to wake up…luckily we had to get picked up at 5.00… otherwise I might not have been so keen!!

As far as contact with the outside world, I never really take much notice of the news and stuff when i’m away filming. It’s nice to switch off from what’s going on in the world, especially when you’re out in the wilderness as we were. I remember the harsh reality of coming home after such a life changing experience. All this culture that I had been immersed in, all this natural beauty and then coming back and being bombarded with all this media hype about the winner of X Factor…..great!

JSOnline:  What was it like to work with stars like Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, and acclaimed director Peter Weir?  Any stories you’d like to share with us?

JS: It’s always amazing to work with people who are literally the best at what they do. To spend alot of time with an actor like Ed Harris is worth 10 years at Drama school. He is the only older actor who has ever sat down with me and shared his knowledge and experiences. He told me the most important thing to know about acting and i’ll always remember it.

Colin’s great too. Can’t really say enough good things about him. So talented at what he does and alot of fun to work with. We skinned a deer together and so feel bound by that experience for life!!!

Peter was amazing. Always full of so much enthusiasm. He took a fall in one of the caves we were filming in and Fractured his knee and spent alot of the shoot in a wheel chair or a walking stick. Not good.. as we were always out in the wilderness climbing rocky mountains, knee deep in snow or struggling up a sand dune. He never let it bring him down. The doctors were constantly telling him to sit and rest but he just could never sit still! He’s like an over enthusiastic child!

The tone in which he wanted the acting was something quite new to me. He simply wanted us to just ‘be’…if that makes any sense. Not to give too much away. He was so against the film taking a melodramatic turn. There were so many moments where any other director would have turned on the emotional tap but Peter wanted to keep a lid on it at all cost. The emotion is there buried deep in all of the characters and it was about trying your best ‘not’ to show it. I thought that was really interesting.

JSOnline:  It seems that you’ve often been challenged with learning new accents for your roles.  In The Way Back, we know that you play a Polish prisoner named Janusz, and in past performances you’ve chosen to maintain your character’s accent throughout the duration of a project (even when not shooting the film).  Was this the case in The Way Back and did you find the Polish accent difficult to master?

JS: Peter had a very definite idea of how he wanted the accent to sound. As much as these characters were to be Eastern European he wanted to make sure that our own voices were not lost. As these accents are very strong It’s very easy to loose the character in the accent, so I worked very hard to create a Polish flavour of my own voice. To do a strong Polish accent would have made it difficult for the audience to understand and there was no way that we were going to subtitle the whole film like they did in FDMW so the accents were made to be very cohesive at the same time as being authentic. I have seen a few of the scenes from the film and I was very pleased with how it had turned out. I really think Peter made the right choice.

The great thing about the story is that they were prisoners from all over Eastern Europe…Poland, Latvia, Yugoslavia and Russia so English was in fact their common language. What’s great is that there are times in the film when I am speaking to someone else from Poland and I speak in Polish…which was a whole new learning experience!

It was difficult to do what I had done in previous films as communication was often pretty tricky when working with such a diverse  mix of people. It wasn’t the same as being in Belfast, playing a kid from Belfast and surrounded by the accent the whole time.  Speaking broken English in a Polish accent to someone from Morocco was not really possible so we jumped in and out of the accent. My driver was from Bulgaria and had spent alot of time in Poland so I would speak with him in a Polish accent each morning before getting on to the set.

JSOnline: Guadians of Ga’Hoole seems like a nice departure from live action films.  We understand that it’s being shot in 3D and according to Zack Snyder himself, the animation for this film is “mind-boggling.”  Have you finished the voice work for this project and can you tell us what the experience was like, voicing an animated character?  Can you tell us which character you’ll be playing?

JS: I was really excited about doing this as I had always wanted to be the voice of an animated character. I had been offered to be in some other animated projects but they seemed to be the same as a lot of the other ones that I had seen before and not really interesting to me. I really wanted to hold out and find something special so when ‘Guardians’ turned up I was over the moon! I play the character of Soren in the film. It was alot of fun to do but so different from anything I had done before! You really have to use your imagination as there is no reality infront of you at all. There were moments when I was flying and in full battle, fighting owls coming from every direction, when in reality you’re standing in a dark room with a microphone! I found myself doing all the actions whilst I said the lines so I was constantly flapping my arms!!!….I would hate to watch myself doing that on video tape!!!

I have seen bits of the animation that Zac showed me whilst I was out in LA. He said that even the stuff I saw wasn’t 100% done and that looked unbelievable.  If you’re gonna be in animation film you want it to be directed by Zac Snyder!

JSOnline:  Many of your fans are interested in seeing you do a romantic comedy.  Have you read any scripts in this genre that interest you?  If you could choose a leading lady to star in a romantic comedy with you, who would it be?

JS: I haven’t really read a romantic comedy that I like. The ones that I have read all seem to follow the same formula and they all seem the same to me. I’d do any genre if I thought that the script was good and there was something interesting or heartfelt about it.

As far as a leading lady in a romantic comedy hmmm… Charlyne Yi!!

JSOnline:  So far it seems like you’ve ‘flown under the radar’ of the press and media, but with your upcoming film roles that’s sure to change.  Have you considered what your impending stardom will mean for your personal life?

JS: I honestly never really think about it. People have been asking me that question since I first did a film.  Everytime I do another film everyone always says ‘…how are you gonna deal with the fame when this movie comes out’….and then the movie comes out and my life is exactly the same!!!

JSOnline:  One thing that all of your fans seem to agree on is that they would love to hear more of your music!  The most popular videos on JSOnline are the two featuring your original songs, Make Your Mind Up and Mistake the Enemy.  Your fans would like to know if, or when, you might write and record more music?

JS: I would love to have the time to work on more music but it’s getting harder to do that, as I am away alot. Me and my girlfriend started messing around with some ideas, for fun more than anything, and recorded them as kind of Bedroom demos as it were. We both love writing and playing music and so whenever we were at home we would just mess around. We never really intended to work together like that but we just came up with all these songs. We played them to some people and everyone seemed to love them. I love that the music just came out of having fun and out of ‘rainy day boredom’ than trying to write an album. I hope we get a chance to finish them off soon!

JSOnline:  Can you tell us something about Tragic Toys?  Do you and Mickey plan to collaborate and record music together in the future as part of Tragic Toys?

JS: Yeah well Tragic Toys is what me and Mickey have called the music that we do. It’s been a lot of fun and the music is very reflective of both of us. Who knows when we’ll get a chance to finish it. Things are pretty busy for us at the moment.

JSOnline:  Besides the songs featured in Crossing Over, we understand that you’ve also done soundtrack work for Heartless.  How has working on films, both as an actor and a singer/songwriter, enriched your overall experience in these films?  Do you see yourself continuing to collaborate on soundtracks in the future?

JS: The fact that I did some music for ‘Crossing Over’ and sang on some of the tracks for ‘Heartless’ was never intentional. The reason it came about in ‘Crossing Over’ was that I was playing an english musician in the film. They gave me this song to sing for the scene in the club and I really didn’t like it. I decided that I would ask the director if I could write my own song as I felt that it could be more interesting coming from me as the actor playing the musician. The director was really into the idea, so he put me in a studio with a group of really old school LA rockers and we recorded a track that I wrote called ‘Mistake the Enemy’ in a day! It had to have a fairly simplistic feel to it as it had to sound like a four piece band singing up on stage. For that particular project I would say that it enriched the experience because I was ‘playing’ a musician so it was interesting to write and perform a song from the point of view of your character…in my case a young atheist!

As for ‘Heartless’ the songs didn’t come till after the filming. Phil the director had written a load of songs and when we listened to them neither of us could deny that some of them felt so personal to my character Jamie. As though they were his own private thoughts. I was asked if I would sing one of the songs, but both me and Phil were very unsure whether it was the right thing to do or not. We decided that I would record a track and we’d both see how we felt about it, and if either one didn’t think it was the right thing to do then we wouldn’t do it! We had to both make sure that we weren’t just doing it for the sake of it and that it was creatively justified. After Phil heard the recording we decided to use it and then Phil asked if I would sing on another 2 tracks after that. We realised that the music had become a part of the story and it made perfect sense!

I was very excited to find out that the only other person to perform one of Phil’s songs was PJ Harvey… so I was very honoured!

JSOnline:  Your fans love the character of “Jude.”  From your interviews we know you’d love to work with Julie again.  Would you ever consider doing a sequel to Across the Universe if she was willing to direct it?

JS: I really don’t know! I think that sometimes these things are best left alone!

JSOnline:  Are there any other directors that you’d especially like to work with in the future?

JS: There are so many amazing people that I would like to work with and everytime I am asked this question I can never think of any!

Spike Jonze

Michael Winterbottom

Harmony Korine

Jim Sheridan

Stephen Daldry

Martin Scorsese

Darren Arronofsky

Lynne Ramsay………to name a few!

JSOnline:  In Across the Universe you took up drawing and sketching.  Have you used what you learned to create any artwork since then?

JS: I haven’t done any drawing since ‘Across the Universe’. I got so into it when I was making that film and was drawing everyday. I set up a painting studio in my apartment in New York and I remember it used to freak Evan out when she came round because there would be all these drawings and paintings that I had done of her all over the walls of the apartment! I actually started to get pretty good and I made a promise to myself that I would continue drawing once I had finished the film. I can honestly say that I haven’t picked up a paint brush or a pencil since!

JSOnline:  We’ve read that you wrote plays as a child and also wrote and performed a one man show while you were at the University of Salford.  Do you have any aspirations for working behind the scenes as a writer or director?

JS: I guess…maybe?? There’s so much going on in the acting world right now that I really don’t feel that I can think about it!

I actually went to college thinking that would be something that I would like to get into. Once I had finished at Salford I had made and Directed a few short films that people seemed to really like, and was all set to go to film school. I was actually asked by my University if I would come back as a guest Director to make a film with the students. I was all ready to go and do it , and had even written the whole idea of what I had planned to do. I remember it was called something like…’A Queue for Who’s Who?’  I then got offered a part in a tv drama called ‘Thursday the 12th’ so I ended up doing that instead. I gave my whole script and all my ideas to someone else so that they could do the project with the students instead!

It was actually because of a short film I had made that I ended up being in a band back in London!

JSOnline:  You’ve consistently played a wide range of characters — each very different from the other.  Is diversity something you take into consideration when choosing a project?  What attracts you first to a script – is it the character, the story itself, or the people involved in making the film?

JS: I suppose if I feel I have already played a similar character then I would be much more wary of being involved in the project. I like to explore different avenues and try different things. I remember playing an autistic character in a tv programme over here in England and then from then on every job I got offered was to play a character with similar mental difficulties. It’s very easy to be put in a box so it’s important to try and keep it moving!

As far as what attracts me to a project… well it’s a combination of all of those things. Sometimes you can read a script and love it but the people who are making don’t feel right, sometimes you just wanna work with certain people. Sometimes you feel drawn to the story and the message it gives or it’s social and political importance and sometimes you fall in love with the character and that is all you need.

JSOnline:  Is there a character from a movie or a book that you’ve always longed to play?

JS: I always wanted to be the kid from ‘Where the wild things are”…..I guess I missed out on that one!

JSOnline:  Your recent films have given you a very high profile in Hollywood lately.  Is a move to the U.S. to be closer to the industry a possibility, or will you keep London as your home base?

JS: Actually the more I travel around the more I love London. I like the cold and I like the rain. I love the London parks and pubs and I miss english television when I am away. I love that London is a little rough around the edges!

JSOnline:  Is there anything you could share about yourself that might surprise your fans?

JS: I have been possessed by Demons!!! x