Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category
emily   –   May 17, 2016

Photoshoots & Portraits > 2016 > Flaunt

FLAUNT – Jack O’Connell pauses, rakes his knuckles across his knees, and shouts, with a northern English kind of muscularity, “Ooff.”

I’ve just asked him to describe his perfect night out—his version of a truly good time. The 25-year- old is sitting with me today to talk about the future. He doesn’t want to trip down the path Hollywood continually prods him along; to play the scar-faced bullyboy for the rest of his life. Had I asked him this question back when he was auditioning for parts at the Royal Court, in the thick of a year-long Young Offender’s Referral Order as a late teen, I suspect his answer would have been brief: “To stay out of jail.”

Instead, he talks about wide horizons. Good music, a decent crowd, a stunning backdrop. Oh, and nice quality beverages. “Not just tinnies.”

O’Connell—who stars this spring in Jodie Foster’s reality TV thriller, Money Monster—grew up in rural Derby. You can trace the trouble he got into there along the ridge of his forehead, where flesh is divided by thick, ruler-straight stress marks. It’s a toughness that has brought him film roles and fashion gigs; from a starring part in David Mackenzie’s drama Starred Up (2013)—where he plays a savagely hotheaded prisoner—to a Prada shoot with Craig McDean—where he appears in a taut, noisily patterned turtleneck, swizzling a gin tumbler. Shane Meadows spotted his leatheriness early on, casting him as bovver-booted gang protégé in 2006’s brilliant, bleak, fascism tome, This Is England.

There was always a strange sadness to O’Connell’s violence, though. In an early days This Is England audition tape, he raps as part of a three-piece hip-hop group, a knock-off designer tee jangling around his knees. “I’m a tough little cunt and I’ve got no hair,” he spits, almost melancholically. “I’ll put you down and I don’t care.” Then there was ITV’s cop soap The Bill, in which he depicts sexually abused 13-year-old Ross Trescot, who rapes a middle aged policewoman. For the largest part of O’Connell’s decade-long career, he’s played characters that are bad because bad things have happened to them: in turn, his performances are both brutal and beckoning.
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emily   –   May 12, 2016

Photoshoots & Portraits > 2016 > Evening Standard

EVENING STANDARD – A bright, crisp, spring afternoon in Mayfair and Jack O’Connell — dressed almost entirely in Dior, his scuffed blue suede Adidas the only nod to his pre-fame life — is sitting on a velvet sofa in one of the best suites at the Dorchester, reflecting on the downsides of stardom.

My whole life’s different,’ he says in his thick Derby accent. ‘I can’t live the life I grew up living. I used to enjoy going to the football, being around ordinary folk, or so-called ordinary folk, and family get-togethers. Now even they’re difficult. If I go to certain dos every f***er in there’s gonna want a photo.’ Then there’s the small matter of his (perfectly passable) ‘English’ teeth: ‘Whenever I go to LA, people tell me I should get my teeth done. Unless they want theirs f***ing rearranging as well I suggest they keep their mouth shut. My teeth are my teeth and I’ll be f***ed if I’m ever going to do a job on them just to serve their purposes. Well f*** ’em anyway.’ He gives a blast of infectious laughter. ‘I’m not Hollywood. There’s not a bit of me that ever wants to consider myself “Hollywood”.’

It’s hard not to think he may have to acclimatise. Just 25, O’Connell has stacked up an impressive collection of roles, including outstanding performances in Starred Up as a violent prisoner, and a turn as a British soldier lost in a riot in Belfast in ’71. This summer he’s set to go stratospheric: in July he stars alongside rumoured ex- girlfriend Cara Delevingne (more of whom later) in Tulip Fever and plays a Czech soldier in HHhH with Rosamund Pike and Mia Wasikowska. Before that, you can catch him in the Jodie Foster-directed thriller Money Monster, out today, in which he stars alongside bona fide Hollywood royalty Julia Roberts (‘a dream to work with’) and George Clooney (‘piss funny’).

Not to mention his relationship with Angelina Jolie, who cast him as the lead in her 2014 Second World War biopic Unbroken and has become a kind of mentor. Days before we met she flew to Sheffield by helicopter to see O’Connell in The Nap, the play he was starring in at the Crucible Theatre. ‘She just came up with a friend. Proper.’ She’s even met his family — after casting him in Unbroken, she took ten of his closest friends and family members out for a pub supper, which must have been a little surreal. ‘She wanted to meet my people,’ says O’Connell. ‘We all went to this place out of the way in Derbyshire, a pub where you can eat nice food. She came up on her own, man. She had some security people but they weren’t really involved and, yeah, we were all just sat around.’ Jolie, meanwhile, has said she’s ‘in awe’ of him and hailed his talent as ‘a gift’.
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emily   –   May 11, 2016

Photoshoots & Portraits > 2016 > Evening Standard

STANDARD.CO.UK – Jack O’Connell has gone from Skins to co-starring with heavyweights Julia Roberts and George Clooney in a dizzying rise to fame but the actor has vowed never to go “Hollywood”.

The 25-year-old says his former “ordinary” life is at complete odds with being recognised everywhere since landing lead roles in ’71 and Unbroken — when he gained a mentor in Angelina Jolie.

But despite his A-list status — set to be cemented with the release of his latest movie Money Monster on Friday — O’Connell says he refuses to succumb to pressure to “fix” his “English teeth” or strive for Hollywood perfection.

He told ES magazine: “Whenever I go to LA, people tell me I should get my teeth done. Unless they want theirs f****** rearranging as well I suggest they keep their mouth shut.

My teeth are my teeth and I’ll be f***** if I’m ever going to do a job on them just to serve their purposes. I’m not Hollywood. There’s not a bit of me that ever wants to consider myself ‘Hollywood’.”

In Money Monster, O’Connell is a disgruntled investor who takes a financial adviser, played by Clooney, hostage. He will also be seen in historical drama Tulip Fever with Cara Delevingne and Alicia Vikander and as a Czech soldier in HHhH with Rosamund Pike and Mia Wasikowska. The Derby-born actor, who counts Jolie and Brad Pitt as friends, said: “I can’t live the life I grew up living.

I used to enjoy going to the football, being around ordinary folk, or so-called ordinary folk, family get-togethers. Now even they’re difficult. If I go to certain dos every f***** in there’s gonna want a photo.”

He has been threatened by jealous relatives: “People assume I’m wealthy beyond belief. I ain’t. I need to work for a living. I have family members come out with claims, trying to threaten they’re going to the newspapers about me.”

He has been romantically linked to former Skins co-star Kaya Scodelario, Tulisa Contostavlos and Delevingne — who posted an Instagram picture of his neck covered in love bites with the comment #fittybum — but is currently single.

He said his fame usually helps with women, but added: “It depends on what I’m after. If it’s a bit more lingering than one night, then maybe not.”

emily   –   May 07, 2016

YAHOO – Rising British star Jack O’Connell has been on a roll lately, landing lead roles in high-profile dramas directed by Angelina Jolie (Unbroken) and Jodie Foster (Money Monster).

He didn’t have as much luck going out for the role of a young Han Solo in Disney/Lucasfilm’s upcoming Star Wars anthology story, and he expressed some clear discontent about the experience yesterday while promoting Money Monster in Los Angeles.

I love the process of auditioning, even the rejections,” O’Connell, 25, told Yahoo Movies a couple hours before it was announced that Hail, Caesar! breakout Alden Ehrenreich had been cast to play the iconic antihero. “It will refine you and make you stronger as an actor. Or sometimes it can be so tediously frustrating that it exhausts you as an actor. I think that applied throughout this process.

It didn’t go my way. I wish them all the best of luck. But I don’t know necessarily agree with the reasons given.”

It was first reported in January that there were about a dozen young actors in the running for the highly sought-after gig, with the shortlist including names like Miles Teller, Dave Franco, Taron Egerton, Ansel Elgort, Jack Reynor, and Logan Lerman. In March that list was reportedly whittled to three — Reynor, Egerton, and Ehrenreich, though Variety reporter Justin Kroll tweeted that O’Connell and Blake Jenner were also still in contention to land the lead in the 2018 film, about the early days of the scoundrel made famous by Harrison Ford in 1977’s Star Wars and helmed by 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miler.

O’Connell confirmed to us that he auditioned — once — and that was part of the problem in his eyes. “The most frustrating thing is when you feel like your full potential hasn’t been recognized,” he said. “Or, the imagination required for your potential to be recognized, isn’t necessarily there. And it’s very hard to convey all these things in one audition. But that’s the process, and I don’t think one individual will change that.”

It was only one audition, but the experience was nonetheless grueling, O’Connell explained. “That process kind of contributes to the overall exhaustion that you have to face as an actor. It’s part and parcel of the job, and the roles that are worth getting are the ones that you’ve got to fight for. As the way I see it, it’s only so often that you’re given a role that you’ve always wanted to play.”

As O’Connell admitted even before the Ehrenreich news was announced, “That ship sailed.” But the actor probably won’t have to worry about too much more disappointment along the way. After two highly acclaimed performances in the war films ‘71 and Unbroken, O’Connell will undoubtedly earn more praise and attention for his role in Money Monster. The Brit nails the outer-boroughs New York accent as Kyle Budwell, a blue-collar man who takes a financial talk show host (George Clooney) hostage after a bad stock tip decimates his life savings. And in a raw and intense performance, he pretty much steals the movie from not his Oscar-winning co-stars Clooney and Julia Roberts.

Money Monster opens May 13. Look for our full Q&A with Jack O’Connell next week.

emily   –   April 29, 2016

Photoshoots & Portraits > 2016 > Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES TIMES – There aren’t many young actors who wouldn’t be intimidated by costarring in a film with George Clooney and Julia Roberts and directed by Jodie Foster.

Except maybe for one who’s just finished working with Angelina Jolie.

When Jack O’Connell put himself on tape for Foster’s financial thriller “Money Monster,” he’d recently completed filming Jolie’s WWII movie “Unbroken.” The British actor was the lead in the 2014 film about Louis Zamperini, an Olympian who was captured as a prisoner of war. And after the movie came out, O’Connell found himself bombarded by questions about Jolie.

“The one I can’t really hack is, ‘What’s it like to be with said famous person?’ because I’m not sure what that is as a question. It’s not very specific,” the actor recalled by phone from London. “But that movie did help me promote myself in the States with work that I’m genuinely proud of.”

His pedigree impressed Foster, who said she auditioned hundreds of twentysomethings to act alongside Clooney and Roberts. She was looking to fill the part of Kyle Budwell, a blue-collar worker who takes financial advice from a popular television personality named Lee Gates (Clooney). When one of the TV host’s stock picks turns out to be a bust, Kyle loses $60,000 and, in a rage, he turns up on Gates’ set with a gun to take the production hostage.

“At first, I was concerned Jack might be too young,” Foster said of the actor, now 25. “But he has a face that’s lived and this amazing combination of someone who can be threatening and primitive but is also really lovable.”

“Money Monster” — which will debut at the Cannes Film Festival next month before it hits theaters on May 13 — marks the first film O’Connell has made in the United States. To prepare himself for the role, he spent time in Brooklyn, hanging out with firemen, riding on their truck and listening to their strong accents. He spent less time researching the stock market, which he said he has never dabbled in on his personal time.

“This was a guy who was promised some version of an American dream and the pot of gold, and he doesn’t get that,” said O’Connell. “There were certain crew members, including Jodie, who were rooting for Kyle and believed in his situation. That helped me to understand his reasoning.”

On set, Foster said, Clooney took O’Connell “under his wing.” “I don’t think Jack is impressed particularly by movie stars,” the filmmaker noted. “But George has a lot to impart to somebody like him, and Jack was open to listening.”

So what advice did Clooney offer to his young costar? O’Connell wouldn’t reveal any secret nuggets of wisdom but said he took the most away from learning that the 54-year-old still wrestles with insecurities at work.

“When you see an actor like George Clooney making the same mistakes that you do and asking the same questions you might ask,” said O’Connell, “it’s very reassuring to know that you don’t stand out as being difficult.”

emily   –   March 13, 2016

Jack has recently done a photoshoot for Mr Porter. Check out the outtakes in our gallery!

Photoshoots & Portraits > 2016 > Mr Porter

MR PORTERMr Jack O’Connell can’t stop rubbing his head. “Sorry,” he says. “I’ve just had me hair cut. It’s a bit addictive.” A high-and-tight – very high, very tight – he refers to it as his “publicity tour cut”. The on-set hairdresser demurred at first, telling him that he couldn’t cut it any shorter without getting the clippers out. Mr O’Connell’s response? “Best get the clippers out, then.”

He’s no stranger to the shaven-headed look. For his first major role, in Mr Shane Meadows’ This Is England, Mr O’Connell donned bovver boots, acid-washed denim and a Harrington jacket to play teenage skinhead “Pukey” Nicholls. This time around, though, he’s not out to make a fashion statement. “It’s just more practical, innit?” he says, running a hand back and forth across his head. “You don’t have to worry about it. With so many cameras around, you can’t help but become a little self-conscious.” Such is life for one of this generation’s most promising young actors.

In the 10 years since This Is England, the noise surrounding Mr O’Connell has been building steadily. First, he landed a plum role in cult teen TV drama Skins, as the charismatic lager lout James Cook – which he jokingly describes as “not much of a stretch at the time”. He followed this with a series of critically acclaimed movie appearances in films such as Harry Brown, ’71 and Starred Up. It wasn’t until 2014, though, when he was hand-picked by Ms Angelina Jolie to star in her second directorial project, Unbroken, that the noise became deafening.

And you get the feeling that this could just be the start: things are likely to shift up another gear in May when he takes the new ’do on tour to promote his next project, Money Monster. The movie tells the story of Lee Gates, the brash host of a business TV show and supposed guru on all things Wall Street, who is taken hostage live on air by an angry investor, played by Mr O’Connell, who has just lost his life savings on a bad tip. The cast and crew give a fairly accurate representation of the kind of company that Mr O’Connell now keeps: the movie’s director, Ms Jodie Foster, and his two co-stars, Mr George Clooney and Ms Julia Roberts, have five Oscars between them.
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emily   –   October 21, 2015

DEADLINE.COM – EXCLUSIVE: Nicholas Hoult and Jack O’Connell are circling A Life In The Day, the Tony Gittelson script about the life of Brian Epstein, who discovered and managed the Beatles from 1961-1967, before he died of a drug overdose at 32. Justin Chadwick (Tulip Fever) is in talks to direct the project, which David Permut will produce through his Permut Presentations banner along with Dylan Sellers’ Rivers Edge Films.

Rivers Edge has a strategic partnership with Kevin Frakes’ Palmstar Media that has Palmstar funding Sellers’ overhead, production and development costs. The two companies are committed to jointly produce four to five films with budgets between $20 million-$40 million.

This is still a fluid situation with no deals set, but if it all comes together, Hoult would play the flamboyant and gay Epstein, with O’Connell the brilliant but troubled John Lennon. The intense relationship between the two men has been the subject of much debate and analysis over the years. As recently as this week, Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono mused about the possibility that Epstein and Lennon had sex with each other. She was quoted in the Daily Beast as saying, “It was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship.”

Chadwick, coming off the Weinstein Company period drama Tulip Fever — which also stars O’Connell — has a number of projects he’s choosing from with A Life In The Day believed to be near the top of the list for what would be his next project. Hoult is currently in pre-production on Sand Castle opposite Henry Cavill and Luke Evans. O’Connell has George Clooney-starrer Money Monster in post.

Chadwick is repped by Independent Talent Group in the UK and UTA in the U.S. Hoult is repped by 42 in the UK and UTA in the U.S. O’Connell is repped by Conway Van Gelder Grant in the UK and CAA in the U.S. Tony Gittelson is repped by ICM Partners and Donaldson & Callif.

emily   –   October 21, 2015

BBC.COM – Actor Jack O’Connell is to play a troubled snooker professional in a new play staged in the sport’s spiritual home, Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre.

The Crucible hosts snooker’s annual world championships as well as being one of the UK’s leading theatres.

The worlds of snooker and theatre will meet with the world premiere of The Nap, written by Richard Bean, who is best known for One Man, Two Guvnors.

O’Connell has made his name in films including Unbroken, ’71 and Starred Up.

Those performances helped him win the rising star prize at the Bafta film awards earlier this year.

In The Nap, he will take the role of Sheffield-born snooker player Dylan Spokes who, according to The Crucible, has to contend with “his ex-con Dad, local gangster Waxy Chuff and the snooker corruption squad”.

The play is described as a “comedy thriller” and will be staged next March, just before the snooker world championships, which take place every April.

The Nap will be directed by actor and The Crucible associate director Richard Wilson. Next week, Wilson will reprise his role as Victor Meldrew in TV sitcom One Foot in the Grave at a one-off fundraising event for the theatre.

The venue’s new season also includes new musical Flowers for Mrs Harris, based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Paul Gallico; revivals of A Raisin in the Sun and Waiting for Godot; and the regional premiere of Contractions by Mike Bartlett, who wrote BBC One’s recent drama Doctor Foster.

Sheffield Theatres artistic director Daniel Evans said: “This is, without doubt, our boldest season to date. We’re announcing seven original productions: three new plays, a new British musical, a regional premiere and two major revivals of 20th Century classics.”

emily   –   September 24, 2015

GQ-MAGAZINE.CO.UK – Jack O’ Connell caught our attention when he was cast in Skins back in 2009 and since then he’s established himself as one of the most talented British actors of his generation. Not to mention he’s worked alongside some of the biggest names on the planet from Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken to George Clooney in next year’s Money Monster. Here’s a preview of the bad boy of acting’s cover interview and shoot…

On George Clooney (his co-star in Money Monster):

“On all fronts, in terms of the events he goes to, the charities he represents, the humanitarian work that he does. He set a good example for me. He’s a good man. We had a good laugh.”

On his past brushes with the law:

“I still have to remind myself to stay focused. Less so these days, but I am still nervous of what happens in my own time. I might react badly in certain situations that might hinder my future. So at the moment I’m between jobs. And I’m looking forward to getting back under it. I’d hate to find myself in a predicament that would potentially compromise what I’d like to achieve.”

On trying to stay out of trouble:

“You always encounter wankers and sometimes they get the better of you. I heard this saying about arguing with idiots. It goes: ‘Never fight an idiot. You’ll never win, because they bring you down to their level.’ So I’m trying my best not to be an idiot.”

Read the full article in the A/W ’15 issue of GQ Style, on sale on 24 September in print and as a digital download.

Photoshoots & Portraits > 2015 > British GQ Style
emily   –   August 11, 2015

DerbyTelegraph.co.uk – DERBY-BORN Hollywood star Jack O’Connell is to receive an honorary degree from his home university.

Jack, who will become an Honorary Master of the Arts, is one of six people to be selected by the University of Derby for the honours which will be presented next January.

The ardent Derby County fan said: “I feel a sincere level of gratitude for this honour I am presented with by the University of Derby. It’s an achievement, and one I feel I can be proud of. Up the Rams.”

Starting his acting life in productions at St Benedict Catholic Academy, Jack, 24, made his film debut in 2006 in This Is England – three years after he took the part of James Cook in Skins.

Jack’s film credits include Eden Lake, Private Peaceful and 300: Rise of an Empire. His breakthrough came when he gave critically acclaimed performances in the independent films Starred Up and ’71. Jack received consecutive nominations for the ‘Best Actor’ award at the British Independent Film Awards.

It was 2014 which saw him make the transition to Hollywood, taking his first leading role in the major studio picture, Unbroken.

The film directed by Angelina Jolie saw Jack portray Louis Zamperini, the Olympian athlete and Second World War veteran.

Jack received the New Hollywood Award at the Hollywood Film Awards. He was presented with the accolade at the ceremony in Los Angeles by Angelina Jolie, who famously introduced him with the East Midlands phrase, “ay up me duck”.

Jack also received the prestigious BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2015. Next year, he will be seen in Money Monster, a film directed by Jodie Foster, starring alongside George Clooney and Julia Roberts, and Tulip Fever with Alicia Vikander. He is due to start filming new project HHHH this year.

The other honorary degree recipients are: Rt Hon Sir John Mummery, a former Lord Justice of Appeal (Honorary Doctor of the University); Professor Ashwani Gupta, University of Maryland (Honorary Doctor of the University); Richard Gerver, former superhead and speaker (Honorary Doctor of Education); Donna Kellogg MBE, former Olympian and badminton coach (Honorary Master of the Arts) and Eileen Fry, former researcher and director of the Multi-Faith Centre at the University of Derby (Honorary Doctor of the University).

Each year notable people, with a strong connection to the university or to the city, are chosen to receive an honorary degree at the annual awards ceremonies, which is when the university’s students graduate after completing their courses.

Photoshoots & Portraits > 2015 > Derby Telegraph