Jack Lowden considered actors who kept their accent between takes “bastards”. Then he realized that it could be useful. When a Scottish actor was forced into a Norwich accent for Stephen Merchant’s 2019 wrestling drama fighting with my family“I had a really hard time believing that accent,” he says. “I feel very embarrassed talking to people who know you don’t talk like that.” He retained an East English accent, but drew a line to keep his character: “I’ve always said that people who play method never act like an ice cream seller when they’re ‘nice.’ They always play someone who gets terrible.
Louden often has an accent problem because the 32-year-old actor rarely gets to play in his native Scotland. Whether it’s dealing with survivors’ guilt, like World War II poet Siegfried Sassoon in last year’s great film. blessing reviled by Terence Davis or regularly by Gary Oldman (“Great. Like a massage. Recommended to everyone”) as MI5 loner River Cartwright in the low-key Apple TV+ thriller slow horsesLouden is commonly found vocally in the South East of England.
This also applies to his latest project – albeit a cockney this time – but it’s only fitting that the emphasis is crucial in a story centered on class segregation. Gold This is a BBC re-enactment of the infamous Brink’s Mat heist in 1983, when six gunmen broke into a security depot near Heathrow Airport and accidentally stumbled upon £26 million worth of gold. As a result, the money laundering network has united industrial crime like never before.
Lowden plays Kenneth Noah, a buyer who ran the smuggling, melting down and resale of the surprise bounty alongside Hugh Bonneville and Dominic Cooper. Lowden unwittingly took on projects based on true events with artists such as Christopher Nolan. DunkirkAmma Asante United Kingdom and Steve McQueen small ax. He sees it as “a powerful reflection of what we do in these islands. We have a crazy and long history, so there are tons of stories and we are a very nostalgic group of people.
But, as recent history shows, Gold introduced a new problem: “There are a lot of people who have been affected and are still out there,” he explains. “At that time it was the biggest robbery in the history of the world, and many people were unsettled. We had to be very sensitive to it, making it interesting and dramatic at the same time.
The 1980s setting also called for “big, big hair,” which Louden points out is entirely his own: “I grew that hair out! And I grew up too – I made a lot of beef. It was three months of pain… …but it was worth it.
Like many of the real people he plays, Lowden doesn’t really look like Noye otherwise, and admits he “wouldn’t have dumped him straight away.” [himself]“. But he “really aspired to the role” after falling in love with the script, which featured a social comment: “It’s not just a heist story. Does it really make you wonder about the motives behind the Robin Hood element? With Kenny, he really believes in this feeling – he does it because no one else will give it to him. But sometimes it seems to me that you can consider it as a cover, a kind of pretext for committing crimes.
Lowden, who speaks of his north London home and feels fresh after a “Scottish dry January” (no alcohol before “Burns Night”), grew up in the village of Borders Oxton. Although his parents were not involved in show business, he and younger brother Calum were encouraged in the performing arts: Lauden grew up in the world of amateur opera, and Calum is now a soloist with the Royal Swedish Ballet. After being rejected from “drama school after drama school after drama school”, Louden was eventually admitted to the Royal Conservatory of Scotland. At the age of 18, he appeared in an Irn Bru commercial, which he describes as “part of your national service in Scotland”. fake school musicalthe YouTube clip survives, and there’s a moment on every set where Lowden finds a group of crew members shrugging their shoulders and declaring, “Yeah, they found my beginning.”
Fortunately, another outstanding job awaited her upon graduation: the National Theater of Scotland staged a war drama in Iraq. Black watchand the Olivier Award-winning role of Oswald in Richard Eyre’s 2014 adaptation of Ibsen’s novel. ghosts. When Lowden moved to the big screen, it came as a shock: “I was like, ‘What? There is no audience. It’s like a construction site.”
Luckily, it has reappeared in partnership with the titans of the industry. “[They are] very, very different, but what they have in common is that they all know exactly what they want,” he says. “For example, with Terence Davis, punctuation was not my preferred way of working… but this guy makes good films, so you have to rely on that. While Steve McQueen really wants to believe you. As long as he believes you, just do it. And Christopher Nolan is like – show me what you can do, your idea.
It may have been those lessons that got Lowden into the world of production before many other actors, but he claims it’s partly due to the “absolute boredom” of being the “least busy person” on set. His production company Arcade Pictures, founded by producer Dominic Norris and Louden’s girlfriend Saoirse Ronan, is currently working on an adaptation of the best-selling Amy Liptrot. ExitIt stars Ronan as a recovering alcoholic who returns to Orkney.
This is the first time the couple has worked together since they met on set in 2018. Mary Queen of Scots, and Lowden is visibly impressed by his partner’s performance. “My first love is actors,” he says, eyes wide. “And when you get a Ferrari like her, it’s important to do it right so Ferrari can shine. Don’t make Ferrari do what Renault Clio does. Terrible analogy, but they are like gold dust, good actors. If there is such a person, all you need to do is support him and you will receive gold. Oh my god, did we do it?
Having “one of the best actors in the world” at home actually makes preparing for an audition “much easier,” even if it means making fun of him from time to time: “Sometimes she’s better behind the camera than me, and that’s you, like:” Can’t, uh, can’t?”
There will be no such fear Exit, where Lowden is strictly absent. Despite stepping in at the last minute to play the bartender for the scene, he cut himself in the editing room this week. “I took off my headphones, ran and did it, and we already cut out! It’s hard…” he laughs, surprisingly optimistic for a man whose big moment now lies on the cutting room floor.
Lowden can be surprisingly candid about their relationship given that he and Ronan manage to maintain a relative level of privacy compared to other celebrity couples, but they seem to have a down-to-earth approach to the attention that comes with their shared fame. .
“I’m not an idiot,” he says. “You and I don’t think it’s strange. We are infinitely grateful for the level of control that we have… We are treated well, but we do not aspire to it. People are much worse off. It is also clearly made by ourselves. In any case, as long as we have each other, we are fine.