70 In-spire
LS
Were you at all prepared for how successful Zero Dark
Thirty would be?
When making a movie like this, you have a sense of the
how big it's going to be yeah. I mean, just imagine hearing
that you have a role in a movie about the killing of Osama
Bin Laden only a couple of years after the fact. Then to
hear its being made by Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal-
the team that won an Oscar for The Hurt Locker. Looking
at the signed on cast list, it was filled with people I
admired like Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Jason Clarke
and Mark Strong to name a few, so the natural reaction
was, "woah- this is going to be huge!"
You have had success both in front and behind the
camera and more recently you landed yet another lead
role in Judas Ghost, where you play the character Jerry
Mackay. How much have you enjoyed playing this
character and do you have any more projects in the
pipeline?
Yes, last year I worked on a supernatural horror piece
written by New York Times bestseller Simon R Green.
Simon has a series of books called The Ghostfinder series.
Our movie Judas Ghost is a spin-off from the franchise.
I play Jerry Mackay who is the leader of a team of Ghost
hunters. He is arrogant yet charming and it's his ability to
keep his head, as well as his sense of humour in tough
moments that make him a good leader.
He was a lot of fun to play. We actually have a screening
of that at the end of this month, which I am looking
forward to attending.
I am currently making a movie called Amar, Akbar and
Tony; A coming of age comedy drama, about three friends
growing up in Southall, West London. I play Tony, a
Londoner who is of Irish family, much like me. Tony's
life is influenced by his British Asian best friends, to the
point that he is pretty obsessed with Asian women. I loved
the script when I read it and I think our Director Atul
Malhotra is a joy; he makes me feel confident every day.
We're currently in week two of a tough yet pleasurable
shoot. The cast is just awesome and I love working with
the two boys- Rez Kempton who plays Amar, is like
a brother! Sam Vincenti who plays Akbar keeps me
entertained all day, every day and the three of us have a
chemistry that fills me with confidence. We're joined by
some super talented, beautiful girls: Karen David, Laura
Aikman and Goldy Notay, all of which are so much fun!
Laura and I have worked together before and it was a
pleasure to see her on the project, even if she does tweet
too many pictures of me looking stupid! Our unsung
heroes are of course our crew- a team of individuals who
work so crazily hard to make something special, with
limited resource. It was an honour to work with them.