Jamie Forman has enjoyed a career that has spanned over thirty years and has seen him move between movies and TV.
This week sees Empire State, which was released back in 1988, released on DVD and Blu-Ray for the first time.
I caught up with Jamie to talk about his first big movie role, working with Ron Peck and his latest movie release Ironclad.
* Empire State is coming to Blu-Ray and DVD for the first time later this month so for anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet can you tell me a bit about it?
Well it’s a bit of an iconic film really because we made it in the early eighties and it is set around the backdrop of Canary Wharf and around the Docklands development.
And Ron Peck, who wrote it with Mark Ayres and directed it, was very much in love with the area of the East End and had a great passion for it and his people and was very concerned about what would happen to everybody with this regeneration and all this new money coming in - there wasn’t really anything in it for them.
It had it’s ups and downs and it ended up running out of money when the recession hit, and here we are again we are building the Olympics and the recession hits and where is all the money going to come from?
But there was lots of nefarious money going into the Docklands at the time and I think that the film reflects what effect all of this greed and avarice that was being introduced into the East End was having on the people - and having on the people that mattered,
* You take on the role of Danny in the movie so what was it about the script and the character that drew you to the project?
Well Ron and Mark, when I met those two guys, I really wanted to work with them. And it’s a fantastic character because he is the one who is desperate, he has got a very greedy girlfriend - he is a bit of a cuckold really - and it’s representative of the desperation of when you are skint and there’s all this wealth being generated around you and there’s a girlfriend that wants more and more.
But he didn’t have the rules of how to go about and get it for her so he gets into a desperate situation and you can’t resist a role like that.
* And you have touched on my next question really the movie also saw you work with filmmaker Ron Peck so how did you find working with him?
Oh fabulous. He is a very gentle man. He’s a very passionate man about what he wanted the film to represent, he did a thing previous called Night Hawk which I really enjoyed and I thought he had a wonderful eye.
I gravitated towards to what he was trying to say because I am from South London myself and we were sat on the other side of the river watching all this money being pumping into there and thinking ‘what’s going to happen to us?’
* Empire State was one of your early movie roles…
I look about twelve in it (laughs). They put me on the front cover and I showed my sons and they just laughed at me.
…how did you find stepping into film after working in TV on the likes of London's Burning and Johnny Jarvis?
I had been a jobbing actor at that point but this was the time I had had a character with enough screen time to make me realise that it was movies that I wanted to do - this may sound a bit pretentious but I have always considered myself a film actor because that it s the medium that I am most comfortable with.
* The movie did court a lot of controversy when it was made - mainly due to the violence in the film - so what did you think about that at the time?
I think that the violence is about the situation more than it is about the characters in it and what they perpetrate. I think it’s more about how the ethnic population of the East End were being raped really and I think that’s where the real violence is - people coming in and stepping on everyone’s toes and taking over a slice of our history - and as a Londoner I felt very passionately about that.
I think what it’s trying to say look all this greed this is what creates all this violence. I think it was justified and I didn’t think that it was an overtly violent film myself at the time - bit it was perceived that why.
* You have just said that you feel more comfortable as a movie actor well you are currently on the big screen with you new movie Ironclad, it looked like a pretty brutal shoot.
Oh yes it was. What we wanted to do with it was not to have one of these sanitised versions of what the Middle Ages was all about we wanted it to be down and dirty and what it really must have felt like, especially the battle scenes they are very hard hitting, powerful and you feel like you are in there with them.
It’s not all shooting bow and arrows at each other from 100 yards it is up close and dirty - we were filming in the rain and in the mud all of the time so it wasn’t a bit stretch of the imagination to know what it must have felt like.
* So how did the role of Coteral come around?
I think that Jonathan English, the director, saw mw in Oliver Twist when I played Bill Sykes and I think he always had me in mind for the project since seeing me in that, which was rather nice.
When I read the script and I get to beat someone to death with a severed arm I though ‘how can you resist this?’ (laughs).
* In the movie there is good banter between the central characters so how did you find working with James Purefoy, Jason Flemyng, Mackenzie Crook and Brian Cox - did that banter exist on set?
Oh absolutely. Jason and I have known each other for year - and it was really nice to meet Mackenzie. And James I think he one of the great English leading men at the moment he is son handsome, so manly, he so there - and he is such a lovely guy.
We had this thing on set where none of us were going to wuss out, if anyone wussed out we made them put in £200 to charity.
And I know that everyone says this after they have worked on things but this was one of those special ones where everyone kick off together and really enjoyed each other’s company - and we all have mutual respect for each other.
Plus there were a couple of new actor, two Welsh actors, Rhys Parry Jones and Aneurin Barnard, who is one to watch for the future, and they slotted in really well, they were local boys because we shot it in Cardiff.
Cardiff is a great town - there are plenty of pubs and bars so it’s an easy place to bond with your fellow actors.
* What sort of training did you do prior to filming the movie?
(Laughs) Not a lot - I tend to get fit on the job really. I did a session with the stunt guys - I walked into the church hall and there were these three giant Hungarian stunt men.
The stunt director basically said this is what we are going to do and this is what is happening - I’m pretty good at it because I have done many fight scenes over the years so it all came quite naturally to me really.
* Ironclad was only the third film for director Jonathan English so how did you find working with him?
Oh he was fabulous, very easy it was a difficult for a lot of reasons, not the actual work itself but for logistical reasons and the weather; it was always raining.
He is a very calm guy, which helps, because we are all running around like lunatics and there are cameras all over the place, he is just sat there saying ‘that was great’ and ‘can we try this one more time’ it was all very relaxed and he is a very easy guy to work with.
* You have enjoyed a career that has spanned thirty years so how do you choose your roles now compared to when you were just starting out?
If the character is well written, well thought through, has a good arc and if it’s a character where I feel I can bring something to the film rather than the film bringing something to me then that’s the way that I judge it really.
* Throughout your career you have working in both TV as well as movies so how do the two compare?
I try to bring an edge to the TV stuff - I don’t like run of the mill TV stuff - if I think I have seen it before then I tend to shy away from it.
But I am an actor and I just enjoy working, and I enjoy working with other actors and directors and I love bring writers visions to the big screen - I just take everything on its own merits really.
* Finally what's next for you?
Well I am working on a film of my own, I set up a production company about ten months ago, I have some very good partners Peter Heslop, who was a producer on The King’s Speech, working alongside me and.
And we have put together a film that I have always wanted to make about my father’s life in the sixties, but a truthful, dark examination of that world that he came from, live in and that I grew up in.
This will be my directorial debut and we are approaching a couple of lead actors at the moment, and either one of them would be very good if they wanted to do it.
* Is directing something that you have always been particularly interested in?
Well I wake up in a cold sweat think ‘oh my god what are you doing? Are you mad?’ but people have urged me to do - everyone has been saying that ‘no one knows this role better than you, you should direct it’.
I’m going to surround myself with the best technical people I can get and I’m just really looking forward to and I’m really excited about it.
Empire State is out on DVD and Blu-Ray now.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Jamie Forman has enjoyed a career that has spanned over thirty years and has seen him move between movies and TV.
This week sees Empire State, which was released back in 1988, released on DVD and Blu-Ray for the first time.
I caught up with Jamie to talk about his first big movie role, working with Ron Peck and his latest movie release Ironclad.
* Empire State is coming to Blu-Ray and DVD for the first time later this month so for anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet can you tell me a bit about it?
Well it’s a bit of an iconic film really because we made it in the early eighties and it is set around the backdrop of Canary Wharf and around the Docklands development.
And Ron Peck, who wrote it with Mark Ayres and directed it, was very much in love with the area of the East End and had a great passion for it and his people and was very concerned about what would happen to everybody with this regeneration and all this new money coming in - there wasn’t really anything in it for them.
It had it’s ups and downs and it ended up running out of money when the recession hit, and here we are again we are building the Olympics and the recession hits and where is all the money going to come from?
But there was lots of nefarious money going into the Docklands at the time and I think that the film reflects what effect all of this greed and avarice that was being introduced into the East End was having on the people - and having on the people that mattered,
* You take on the role of Danny in the movie so what was it about the script and the character that drew you to the project?
Well Ron and Mark, when I met those two guys, I really wanted to work with them. And it’s a fantastic character because he is the one who is desperate, he has got a very greedy girlfriend - he is a bit of a cuckold really - and it’s representative of the desperation of when you are skint and there’s all this wealth being generated around you and there’s a girlfriend that wants more and more.
But he didn’t have the rules of how to go about and get it for her so he gets into a desperate situation and you can’t resist a role like that.
* And you have touched on my next question really the movie also saw you work with filmmaker Ron Peck so how did you find working with him?
Oh fabulous. He is a very gentle man. He’s a very passionate man about what he wanted the film to represent, he did a thing previous called Night Hawk which I really enjoyed and I thought he had a wonderful eye.
I gravitated towards to what he was trying to say because I am from South London myself and we were sat on the other side of the river watching all this money being pumping into there and thinking ‘what’s going to happen to us?’
* Empire State was one of your early movie roles…
I look about twelve in it (laughs). They put me on the front cover and I showed my sons and they just laughed at me.
…how did you find stepping into film after working in TV on the likes of London's Burning and Johnny Jarvis?
I had been a jobbing actor at that point but this was the time I had had a character with enough screen time to make me realise that it was movies that I wanted to do - this may sound a bit pretentious but I have always considered myself a film actor because that it s the medium that I am most comfortable with.
* The movie did court a lot of controversy when it was made - mainly due to the violence in the film - so what did you think about that at the time?
I think that the violence is about the situation more than it is about the characters in it and what they perpetrate. I think it’s more about how the ethnic population of the East End were being raped really and I think that’s where the real violence is - people coming in and stepping on everyone’s toes and taking over a slice of our history - and as a Londoner I felt very passionately about that.
I think what it’s trying to say look all this greed this is what creates all this violence. I think it was justified and I didn’t think that it was an overtly violent film myself at the time - bit it was perceived that why.
* You have just said that you feel more comfortable as a movie actor well you are currently on the big screen with you new movie Ironclad, it looked like a pretty brutal shoot.