'Outlaw' - Nick Love Q&A

A conversation with the director of 'The Business' and 'The Football Factory' on the set of his new film.

Mar  8 2007

Hot on the heels of our interview with 'Outlaw' stars Danny Dyer and Rupert Friend, we've got a Q&A with writer-director Nick Love, direct from the set.

This seems like quite a big departure from your previous films.

It's a very big departure because you can feel shooting the film it's got much more poignancy whereas all my other films – although 'Charlie Bright' was different because it's a rites-of-passage film – but 'The Football Factory' and 'The Business', they are what they are, they're not supposed to be anything more. I think what happens is when you come to shoot this film you realise how serious the subject is – vigilantes taking the law into their own hands, England burning, that whole thing about fucking chavs taking over and people just going: 'fuck this man, this country has just gone to the fucking dogs'. You don't really understand that until it's happening.

Has the script changed since we last spoke to you?

No, no nothing's changed, I suppose the only difference is that the first draft I wrote was lighter. I mean some of it's quite full on – people getting their fucking knees beaten and stuff, but with motive. Not just going around doing it to people for fun. I think the other thing which is in the film but which was not really in the script so much is more about the men being emasculated and not really feeling where they fit in anymore and feeling that kind of existential malaise – just sort of working out what their place is – what are they actually doing anymore? There's more of that sort of stuff in it, and the script didn't really have that, it was much sort of break-neck get through it you know. The film has more power now.

It's already hit the headlines too.

Well the controversy so far is that we're banned from shooting in churches because of my other film apparently. I got banned from every single church in Gloucester and it seems to have also flared up a bit in the press. But I think that's probably also due to having bigger names actors. You know the whole thing about 'why are they doing this film?' By nature it's such a controversial subject because, I remember saying it with you, it's a subject that everyone's talking about, not this film, but this subject, people taking lives into their own hands, and just feeling that exasperated sense of injustice. People feel bullied by the system, or stripped of their voice – they are feeling so outraged by it now. But this is far from a Ken Loach film, it's very stylised. It's being photographed in a very cool way, it's almost like black and white, it's very muted and it's very slick and so that will be another thing that causes controversy. It's not shot in a Ken Loach sort of way.

You're prepared for that Daily Mail onslaught then?

The weird thing about those fucking dogs at the Daily Mail is that they will sort of love it and hate it, because it's what they talk about. You know, they talk about lawless area, no-go Britain, Blair's failed us. And in this film they're going like 'cunts like Blair', and ‘fucking let us down' and they say those words, you know what I mean? They'll suddenly do a u-turn when it all kicks off, they'll be going 'moron film'. What was it they called me? A Neanderthal and all this kind of stuff. They've said 'this guy shouldn't be given money to make films' and stuff. Obviously, with those films I can understand, but with this, it's like, they'll still say it, but actually there'll be people in there I'm who sure will going 'hang on, this is what we've been writing about for the last fucking five years!'

Is it good to have Sean Bean on board?

Yeah it's good. I talked with Sean about taking one of the lead parts and he was very up for it. He said 'obviously I want to have a look at the script before I commit to it', and so I knew that in December, when I was writing the script and we talked about it. At the end of the day, it was still really good of him to do it because he's fucking – well I know for a fact, because we're in the same agency – he turned down two million dollar pay-checks and other stuff to do this. But I think it's probably good for him because he's been able to express himself. Whereas the films he does in America, he gets lots of money and lots of nice variety, but it's just like 'do this, do that'. I don't know what he's like outside of this job but he comes to work everyday with a smile on his face and he loves it. And he's not got any special treatment.

Is it good having new blood in the film?

Brilliant. Yeah, I mean I love all my old boys and stuff and we've all helped each other in our careers and doing what we're doing, but it is really good because I think the other thing it really does is it makes it feel like work. And that's been good for me, I've been really enjoying myself doing this. When you've got your mates in films there's always a… I think you can get into a false sense of security with all your mates, so it's been good for me. I like the way that all my old mates have acted, and I would tell them if they weren't doing it how I thought was right, so I would never have any gripes about them, they're all great, but what you do see with people who don't know each other is there's so much more to discover, and they're all trying to work each other out, and it's a different sort of film. Unlike my other films, which have always been about lifelong friendships, this is about six people that come together for a month or whatever to do this thing and then go to ground again and so you don't want them familiar with each other.

Who does Danny Dyer play in the film?

He plays this sort of hen-pecked, bullied, harassed city boy, who's kind of walking down the gang plank in a marriage he doesn't wanna be in and is surrounded by things he doesn't wanna be doing. Then he gets involved in this thing because he actually went to school with Sean Harris's character and they sort of vaguely get in touch with each other again and he gets beaten up a couple of times so he wants to get involved with this kind of outlaw thing, and it's a life changing experience for him as he learns to stick up for himself. Because, you know we do a lot of talking about it and it's something that, in all of us, people don't want to fight back. When we see something that happens across the street people want to put their heads down, they want to look away from the violence, and it's in all of us, that sort of inability to engage. You fantasise about being stronger and you fantasise about if someone looks at you're girlfriend you want to be like – 'ay what you're doing, you fucking cunt, I'll fucking stab you' – but we don't, because we're all fucking terrified of like violence, and we're terrified of confrontation and stuff. And the amount of times with me, I've walked down the street and I'll bump into someone and they'll say – 'what you doing you mug' – and I'll just put my head down because I just don't wanna know. His character is like the epitome of someone who is walking away. So he gets involved in this thing and he has this experience and once he's drunk from the poisoned chalice he wants to go back out again. He's a sort of quiet hero in a way.

I hear you've been building up quite a fanbase online.

Yeah, I've sort of left it because I'm doing the film, but we've got a lot of people signing up to be extras, and we had to stop it because we've got too many and we don't actually need that many actors. It's interesting though when you come to shoot a film – this is the first time I've had this experience – and people know about it before you've started shooting. They're there because they've heard about it, and that is the power of the web, it is on another level now, what it does.

So high expectations?

I don't know, I just don't know. I've seen scenarios when films get all of the right publicity but they die a death, there's no telling what's going to happen. But I don't think about that at the moment I'm more interested in actually making the film right.

'Outlaw' is out on Friday.

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