CRAIG ROBERTS | INTERVIEW
First appearing on British screens in Casualty and The Story Of Tracy Beaker, 2010 film Submarine exploded Craig Roberts onto the worldwide movie scene. Still only 29, the Newport-born actor has added writing and directing strings to his bow: his second feature film Eternal Beauty, like Submarine filmed in Wales, stars Sally Hawkins as protagonist Jane. Billie Piper, Alice Lowe, David Thewlis and Morfydd Clark are also among the cast. Carl Marsh had a chat with Craig.
Having seen the film, I found it quite refreshing that you didn’t seem to patronise Sally Hawkins’ character, Jane.
Amazing. Great. Yeah, that was the intention, certainly – to have half the world, or possibly half the audience, have an idea of how they feel about it, and then flip that on its head. At least, you know if you’re not on board with it by the end, then it’s not really worked. So that’s good to know that you know it’s not doing that!
Would I be correct to say that you wrote this screenplay with Sally Hawkins [below] in mind from the start? I can’t think of any other actress that could have pulled off this performance – by watching to the end, you don’t notice that her character has schizophrenia. The last words she said stuck with me: “It’s boring being normal.”
It was definitely written with her in mind, 100%. There was a time when she possibly couldn’t do it, and so the movie wasn’t going to happen. I just couldn’t see anybody else in that role once Sally said she’d do it. She was attached to it for two years before we actually shot the picture, so there was a lot of back-and-forth of ideas, which was such a wonderful experience. And, I mean, I think I got the greatest actor in the world for that part, so I was really lucky.
And the rest of the cast, you’ve also got David Thewlis in there, Billie Piper, Morfydd Clark…
Morfydd Clark, she’s killing it, she’s amazing, and she’s actually taking over the world. And quite rightly so!
Alice Lowe as well, and Penelope Wilton. However, my question is how someone like yourself – still relatively young, and directing only your second film after 2015’s Just Jim – got them all on-board? Most Hollywood directors would snap your hand off for this cast.
Erm… money [laughs]! No, money was definitely not the reason for getting people to do this film. I think it comes with Sally being attached – I think everybody wants to work with her. People had read it without her in mind, and they didn’t get it. Then when people saw that Sally Hawkins was playing this part, it just clicks with people – they can see the tone and can see the character. People wanted to be a part of the world once Sally had attached herself to the project, and maybe wanted to explore the theme and get it out there; it’s a powerful thing to talk about, schizophrenia.
Where did you hone your directing skills? You didn’t go to film school or anything, right?
No. I didn’t go to drama school either. I fell into acting by complete luck. I started doing an improv class after school and got a job from there, then became an actor. Then I did Submarine, which changed my life and [its director] Richard Ayoade opened my eyes to many, many films, and I fell in love with cinema.
Then I felt like I got to a place where I wanted to make stuff, where I felt like I could tell some stories – and I wanted to explore that. I started writing to direct; I wanted to be a director, and an easier way to do that was to write. It’s tough to prove yourself as a director because you have to direct some things! As an actor, you can record yourself acting, but with directing, you need a whole crew of people to show that you can direct – and you need a lot of money. That’s why I started writing, so that I could actually make something, and that was Just Jim, which we made for about £300,000, which was more than enough to do absolutely anything.
I’ve picked up skills off certain directors as I’ve gone along whilst acting, by watching certain techniques, but my greatest education has been in acting – when you go to film school, you don’t get taught how to work with actors. You get taught about the lenses and all that stuff, but anybody can read a book and can read up on all that. Working with actors is a different beast. I feel very grateful that I have that experience as an actor to become a director, because it’s not easy to make the transition from acting to writing to directing. I wanted to separate them and just to give it my all, really.
words CARL MARSH
Eternal Beauty is released in cinemas on Fri 2 Oct