Stars In Their Eyes
With the British film industry suddenly back in business, which of our young guns are next for superstardom?
by David Cox - ID Magazine June 1996
With Trainspotting and Small Faces, British cinema has finally provided us with a core group of young actors who seem to exist as big-screen presences first and foremost. With television tending to serve as our equivilent to America's independant sector, it's difficult for stars-in-waiting to establish themselves as film actors without first having to shake a TV-derived image. In Ian Hart, Ewan McGregor, Kate Winslet and the actors [in this article], we seem to have what constitutes a new wave of genuine British 'movie' stars.
We've been here before, of course: Tom Courtenay, Albert Finney, Rita Tushingham and Rachel Roberts were our Trainspotters back in the late 1950's and early 1960's. These were actors who connected directly with the working youth of the day, and the films they were part of - especially Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, A Taste Of Honey, and The Lonliness Of The Long-Distance Runner - were huge domestic successes. The British film industry hasn't really enjoyed the commercial benefits of a star system since. It's made more than a handful of exceptional films, but these don't sell themselves - as any publicist will tell you, it's faces and personalities that really capture the public imagination. The young actors of the 1980's were stuck in films that weren't sexy or contemporary enough to really connect. Only Tim Roth and Gary Oldman managed to avoid the period pitfalls and break out as exciting, versatile stars. Of course, there was Hazel O'Conner in Breaking Glass and Bob Geldof in Number One, but for some reason the kids just weren't biting.
Today, we don't have to look back to the past because our contemporary popular culture is thriving. As during the 1960's, when Alan Sillietoe, David Storey and John Osbourne provided filmmakers with vital source material, we have the likes of Irving Welsh and Jonathan Harvey (whose hit play Beautiful Thing comes to the screen next month) leading a burgeoning crop of novelists and playwrights. The confidence surrounding our music industry helps as well. Trainspotting wouldn't have come alive with audiences the way it did without help from Underworld, Pulp, Blur and Leftfield, while Jarvis Cocker's directorial aspirations are hardly a secret.
Ultimately, there's a new heat to British film which our young actors not only bring with them, but also benefit from. British movies are better - more stylish, more complex, more vital - than they have been for some time, and the showcase they can provide an emerging actor is now flattering rather than embarrassing. Between them, Trainspotting, Small Faces, Benjamin Ross' The Young Poisoners Handbook, Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Nothing Personal, Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies, Hettie MacDonald's Beautiful Thing and Stephen Frear's The Van feature an astonishing array of versatile young talent in a wide range of roles.
Any one of the actors in these films could go on to be a major star - who would have predicted this time last year that Ewan McGregor would ever become such a ubiquitous presence in newsagents throughout the country? Jonny Lee Miller has already made inroads to Hollywood with the dopey but entertaining Hackers, which raises the question of how long we'll be able to hold on to any of our new stars. Hopefully, as our own films improve and more opportunities arise for British actors at home, taking the Hollywood route, while always a temptaion, won't seem like such an inevitability.
Some of the faces [in this article] will already be familiar, some will be making their debuts in the coming month. One way or the other, we feel you'll be seeing a lot more of each of them in the near future.
KEVIN MCKIDD - He's been lucky enough to have starred in both Trainspotting and Small Faces, two of the best British films for years. Not bad for someone who only just graduated from Edinburgh's Queen Margaret College in 1994. And the best thing about being involved in our film industry? "You mean as well as the money? Seriously, though, it's great that films like Small Faces and Trainspotting have been getting away from that retro thing. These are stories about modern British life, and not just English either. I think it's that diversity which makes it so exciting."
JONNY LEE MILLER - You'll already know him as Sick Boy from Trainspotting and have seen him more recently as Dade, a computer freak in the cyberthriller Hackers; you may have seen him popping up in tabloid gossip columns over his marriage to Jon Voight's daughter and Hacker's co-star, Angelina Jolie. You'll inevitably be seeing more of this Kingston-born 25-year-old in both the press and the big screen. However Jonny has one complaint about his new-found success: "I haven't done anything with an English accent yet," he sighs.
JAMES FRAIN - "There's a lot of optimism around the British film business at the moment, " enthuses James Frain, himself one of the many reasons to be cheerful. Born in Bishops Stortford, this 27-year-old got his feature film break in Richard Attenborough's Shadowlands in 1993. Since then, he's kept busy with roles in big budget Transatlantic projects like Loch Ness and An Awfully Big Adventure, as well as Tales From The Crypt and Red Meat. You'll next see him in the gritty and controversial Nothing Personal, as the leader of a loyalist paramilitary gang in '70's Belfast.
MARIANNE JEAN-BAPTISTE - Like many of her co-stars in Secrets and Lies, Marianne has previously worked with Mike Leigh, one of British cinema's finest exponents. She worked with him in his most recent play, It's A Great Big Shame in 1993, and has made a seemingly effortless transition to the big screen. "A couple of years ago there were very few British films being made, apart from the Merchant/Ivory style period pieces, and even fewer dealing with gritty social issues and youth culture," explains Marianne. "Today there are certainly more doing that but certain aspects, like black youth issues, are still being ignored."
LARA FRASER - Last seen in Small Faces, this 20-year-old Glasweigan trained at the Royal Scottish Academy before landing a part in TV's Taggart. Lara can be seen in Stephen Poliakoff's The Tribe later this year, and is a strong supporter of the new wave of British film: "Despite the lack of government support, the likes of Small Faces can exist and be proved to be successful. Films get made with ludicrously low budgets and crazy schedules because there are people in this country with a passion for filmmaking."
SCOTT NEAL AND GLENN BERRY - With starring roles in Beautiful Thing, an urban fairytale based in South London, these 17-year-olds tackle the previously taboo subject of teenage gay love. London-based Scott makes his feature film debut following TV roles in the likes of Eastenders and Grange Hill, while Glenn, from Romford in Essex, studies alongside Scott at Anna Scher Theatre. "British filmmakers are great at making social statement films that are real without the gloss and glamour of the Americans," believes Glen. "Our movies are character-based, not action and bombs," adds Scott. "The industry is on a high at the moment with the world clamouring to see our products."
I must give a BIG THANK YOU to frain fan Eileen who so graciously paid money out of her own pocket to obtain a copy of this interview.
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