Filmmaking is a consensual process and the three of us, Pat, myself and Dave Hughes, sat in on all the auditions and we just knew, when Nicky Bell walked through the door he bore such an uncanny resemblance to David Bowie on the front cover of the Low album that I think we all knew we had found Carty.
Similarly when Liam Boyle came in and read for Elvis he brought a real enigmatic, slightly fatalistic element to him that, in our heart of hearts, we had always been looking for and hoping for. Once we got those two characters and physically offered them the parts it was just a case of really working with them and immersing them in that role and that mind-set and slowly helping them bring it to life.
I think both of them have done a monumental job, given that they are both first time actors in a major motion picture, even more so and I think that they are really hot newcomers and I would love to see them get some awards and be recognised for it.
- How easy was it for the actors to relate to characters that are from an era that they aren't familiar with?
I don’t think the ear made a shred of difference, whether that’s because it’s such a universal rites of passage story, with them both being northern lads themselves and from similar backgrounds they certainly empathised with the characters they were asked to play.
In terms of their emotional journey I don’t suppose it would matter if it was set in the seventeen hundreds or set in the future that adolescent rite of passage is fairly consistent and has similar pains and anguish and similar ecstasies as well and they both embraced that very naturally.
In terms of the nuances of the period they had myself, Pat and Dave who were all, more or less, teenagers in that period, Pat is slightly younger but remembers it very specifically. So we were always there to help them if there were any questions about the period that they were uncomfortable with, by and large they took to it very naturally I felt.
- The book and film looks at football hooliganism and gang culture so what was it about this subject that interested you?
Again I think it’s the universal nature of a certain time of adolescence, that search for identity and the need to belong, the need to exist to within a gang is a curiously male thing that I haven’t really seen investigated in film from the point of view of that specific Liverpudlian and northern culture.
I think the closest think that we have had are films like Quadrophenia and This Is England, in a different sort of way investigates the radical politicisation of young people, but this is more about a lifestyle and a philosophy.
The football violence is there it’s massively there as a reason for Carty getting involved with Elvis in the first place but having said that it does very much create a backdrop for the film and the novel and more about their relationship and neediness and what they need to get from each other rather than just being about a gang or gang life.
- The book isn’t autobiographical but did you see any of yourself in the characters when you wrote it? And what about now.
I certainly didn’t when I wrote it, in fact the last thing that I had read before I wrote Awaydays was Damon Runyon’s On Broadway and I think that, more than anything, is responsible for the narrative style it‘s very immediate present tense and first person.
Looking back on it I suppose it’s inevitable that there would be shades of yourself in anybody’s first novel, although it’s hard to specify where as I can see little inflections of Elvis that I recognise in younger versions of myself and there’s occasional inflections of Carty.
But across the board there’s a mind set and way of seeing the world, which is possibly the way I was seeing the world myself as a teenage, but there was certainly no conscious decision to sit down and fictionalise my own life story. I have written seven or eight novels now and it’s something, no matter what the subject is, I still get asked ’is it about you?’ If it were I would have had a very interesting life.
- So what do you think of the overall adaptation of the novel?
I’m very very pleased with it I think it does everything that we set out to do and everything that I hoped the film would do. It delivers a hugely emotional story in an engaging and entertaining way and it’s unflinchingly realistic and has a pulsating soundtrack.
I think there is something for everyone; I have been amazed by, not amazed really but gratified, by the female viewers that have really engaged with the film, any intelligent viewer is going to get a lot out of it.
- Despite being very pleased with the film if you could go back and change anything what would it be?
I would have the Morris dancers back in, I would fight tooth and nail to stretch that money a little bit further and have the Morris dancers back in.
- Finally what’s next for you?
We are in the middle of shooting Powder, which is another of my novels; it’s a rock and roll story about an indie band that goes from obscurity to having everything. We are just about to head off to Ibiza and shoot that element of the novel. So it will be done by mid October and hopefully out in the cinemas next year.
Awaydays is out on DVD now.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw