'This is England' - Andrew Shim Q&A

Chris Tilly catches up with one of the stars of Shane Meadows' powerful new film.

Apr 26 2007

Andrew Shim made his film debut playing the title character in Shane Meadows' 'A Room for Romeo Brass'. The two again collaborate on 'This is England', in which Shim plays Milky, the only black member of a white skinhead gang. Chris Tilly caught up with him to discuss the role.

It sounds like you were involved with the film from the start so how did that happen?

I've known Shane since 'Romeo Brass' – I think after we finished shooting I went down to do some ADR work on the film and he invited me to go and watch a football match with him and we just became very good friends from that day. One day I was in the pub with him and he just said he was thinking of a film – nothing was finalised but he had a really good role that he wanted me to play, and obviously I said yes. I didn't really think much of it because ideas come and go in his head all the time, but every time I saw him it was 'oh, oh, I've just thought of a brilliant scene' and all that ended up being 'This is England'.

What's the acting process like with him?

It's really, really laid back. The first draft of the script and the final finished article of the film is very different. It's got the same sort of guidelines but it changes massively. With Shane, you could wake up one morning and a scene you thought you were meant to be shooting is not being shot anymore and it's something completely different. There's a short scene in the film where we're all in a swimming pool and none of us knew that we were swimming. Some of the younger cast came to my trailer and told me that we were swimming tomorrow, and I was like 'wicked, nice one', thinking that they were going to the swimming baths or something. But they're like 'no, no, no, all of us are going!' And I was like 'you what? Since when?' And that's basically what Shane is like. Improvisation is his biggest weapon really. You'll read the script before shooting the scene and you'll know where it starts and where he wants it to end, but you give your own input to whatever goes in the middle, which is good. It makes an actor feel like they're part of the actual making of the film and not just a pawn in the production. It's good, but the only struggle was that in the majority of the scenes there's probably about seven or eight cast members, and when you're all improvising, everyone is fighting for screen time. It must make it a nightmare for editing, but we got through it.

Did you have much say how Milky looked because you seemed to have the coolest clothes?

That's what everyone says! I was well chuffed with my clothes and even my car was brilliant. Basically, we had a whole day of hair, make-up and costume before the shoot. The hair's not far from what I've got now to be honest, I'm just missing the big lamb chops, but I might implement them in my future life at some stage. The hair wasn't a problem at all. Then we went down to where they were doing the costumes and I tried the first one on and I was thinking, yeah, this feels the dog's bollocks this does! With my big crombies and things like that, I loved it, so I went with the first costume they gave me. Shane was happy with it and it turned out to be one of the best costumes in the film.

Were you able to help out Thomas Turgoose [who plays Shaun] on the film, having been the young kid on the set of 'Romeo Brass' yourself?

I know the way Shane works, and I know the way Shane casts, especially when he's casting for himself, like a character to play him almost, and he said he saw the same thing in Tommo that he saw in me when I was not far off Tommo's age. When I first saw him audition, I just looked at Shane straight away and said 'that is the kid', because he is amazing. In the film he was obviously fantastic, but as with all children he has his ups and downs. His ups were normally when he was high on Coca-Cola, which we had to ban him from because he was getting a bit too out of control. It was like he was on whiz! Then he would hit a massive low once all the e numbers left his little piss-pot. Seeing him now compared to the audition tapes on the 'This is England' website, he's changed completely. But the good thing is he hasn't lost his character, he's just got respect and morals and things like that. Coming onto a film set where it's very laidback, and Shane is probably the most laidback director you'll work with, you've still got to hit marks, you've got to get up on time, you've got to work long hours and stuff like that. If a scene's not working, it does take its toll on you. I still get annoyed with it sometimes, but you just don't show it. You've just got to be professional and I think it's done wonders for Tommo.

I spoke to Stephen Graham a little while ago, and we spoke at length about that painful and violent scene the two of you share at the end of the film. What was it like from your point of view?

When Shane told me about this scene he had in mind for me and Stephen, as soon as I heard about it I was well up for it. I probably wasn't prepared for how physically and more emotionally draining it was going to be. We shot it for three days which is a long time to shoot any scene anyway. Emotionally, it was really, really tiring and upsetting because to get the emotion to come across on screen we tried to make it as real as possible. Not just with the physicalness of it, but also Stephen was saying things about my family and I was doing the same to him, just to get the emotion into things. That's why it's a really, really powerful scene. Now that I see the finished article I'm really chuffed that we did it and managed to pull it off, but I know how much we had to sacrifice to get it. And not just us, the whole crew. Danny Cohen the DOP and all his crew and costume and makeup and whatnot, they all helped to make that scene what it is. I know it took a lot out of them because it's so real – Tommo, bless him, when he was chucked out of the room, he thought it was real, he thought it was actually happening, so when he's crying, he was actually crying.

The film is set in 1983, but a lot of the issues still seem relevant today.

That is very true. That was England in 1983, this is England in 2007, and not a massive amount has gone away. A lot has changed, but not a lot has been erased so to speak. It was the Falklands War back then, now it's the war in Iraq. The world is very, very messed up right now. Racism is more hidden behind closed doors, instead of back in the early '80s, when it was more blatant. Fair enough it may not be so much black or Asian people, but I have a lot of friends from Croatia and Albania and places like that and they have to deal with a lot of racism. So it's definitely not gone away.

'This is England' is released on Friday.

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