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First of all, why don't you introduce yourself to those of us who
don't already know you?
Hi Everyone, I’m Steve, I’m an actor
from London, if I’m known for anything it's probably a role I had in One
Direction's last music video together called Night Changes where I
got to manhandle Zayn Malik and then shower him with spaghetti (that was
a fun day) and it received over 200 million views on YouTube, the power of
One Direction is ridiculous! I’m just a normal working-class actor who
is trying his best to carve out a career in the industry. How would you describe yourself
as an actor, and some of your techniques to bring your characters to life?
I would describe myself as a fluid and
considerate actor, that sounds pretentious, doesn’t it? Lol, what I mean
by that is that I love to work with the directors, actors and even writers
if they are on set to create the best story we can. Don’t get me wrong I
do the prep work on my own to create my character, but I think if you are
too set in your ways and have a certain way of actioning and delivering
your lines it doesn’t leave much room for other actors to work with. In
terms of techniques I don’t really follow a specific one, I kind of took
the pieces from all of them that worked for me, I create a backstory, give
my character objectives, stakes and obstacles in relation to the story and
hopefully that gives my character a thought process for everything they
do, but for me the thing I do most when someone says action is to listen,
listen to the other actors and the vibe of the scene, and as long as I’ve
done all my prep then my character and my lines flow naturally within the
context of the scene. You
seem to have been a busy man as of late, so why don't you talk about some
of your current and future projects for a bit?
Sure, at the minute I have a few
projects that I’m working on, I’ve recently just shot a Punjabi short
film called One Way Glass with quite controversial themes about
religion, temptation, relationships and how it all survives in an openly
liberal place. I’ve finished shooting a new webseries which will be
released next year which focuses on women’s wrestling, I play a
character called Harris who runs a wrestling federation called the
Utopia Pain League or UPL for short, it's shot like a mock reality show
where celebrities who have made career ending public mistakes/offences
get sent to the UPL to fight against professional women wrestlers to try
and regain their status. Also, in August I start filming a brilliant indie
feature film called Card Dead written and directed by Tim Thorne,
the film is about revenge, retribution and poker, I play a professional
gambler called Billy Seage. Its being shot in the South West of
England and is the sequel to Tim’s first film Killing Lionel, which
has just secured worldwide distribution through a Las Vegas-based producer, and Card Dead
seems to be following in the same footsteps.
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You've
told me you think about going to the US for pilot season - now for the
uninitiated, could you explain what pilot season even is, what it means
for you as an actor, and how you plan to go about it? So basically, every year in
America they have 4 months of casting and shooting a load of pilots for
new TV show ideas with the hope that it will get picked up by a studio to
run for a season. It’s a great way for shall we say, relatively unknown
actors to become known and boost their status as an actor. Right now,
I’m focusing on getting a working visa for America so that it's easier
for the productions companies to hire me in LA if I were right for a role.
I’ve recently had problems with this very thing so I’m making sure it
doesn’t cost any more jobs in the future! What
got you into acting in the first place, and did you receive any formal
training on the subject? In terms of acting, I actually
went to drama school quite late, I always wanted to be an actor from a
young age, but I was 25 when I decided that I was going to try and make a
career in the acting game. I got told (by a teacher no less) at 16 that acting
wasn’t a viable career and should get a “proper” job, which is kind
of what I stupidly did for the next 8 years. I worked a few different
office jobs but felt so unfulfilled, yeah I was making good money but
there was something missing, I didn’t want to do something I didn’t
love just for money, so at 24 I decided to audition for a small screen
acting school located at 3 Mills Studios in Bow East London, got accepted,
quit my job and have since been slowly and steadily working in TV and film.
Can you still remember your
first time in front of a movie or TV camera, and what was that experience
like? I remember being in front of a
camera very well actually. I had acted and performed all my life on stage,
and in classrooms but never on camera, on my first day at drama school
they got us to walk in the room, hit a mark and say our name, favourite
film and a fun fact about ourselves (I thought it was an ice breaking
exercise, I guess it kind of was) then they got us to do the exact same
thing but this time with a camera inches away from your face, I literally
could barely say my name, it was so alien to me to have a camera in my
face. What drama school taught me the most is how to be intimate with the
camera and how to make it work for you to create your best performance.
What can you tell us about your past filmwork and
your evolution as an actor?
I’ve been on large big budget sets
such as BBC’s
Cuckoo and One Direction's music video and smaller indie
ones such as the webseries Horizon, and short films such as Killer
Bird by 23 Half Films, and all of them although different budgets were
all so professional, I’ve been lucky enough to always work with very
talented and professional individuals, no bad experiences as of yet!
(Touch wood!) And each new project teaches me something different about
myself as an actor, the main thing they all teach me is to trust in your
process, be bold and confident in your choices, making films for me is
collaborative, I like an open forum on set to make sure we make the best
project possible, it’s the reason every single person is on that set, no
one wants to make rubbish films. Actors (and indeed
actresses) who inspire you?
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This is always a hard one, I have
actors whose careers I would love to have such as Leonardo Di Caprio, but
inspire would probably be Tom Hardy, I just think he really invests
himself into his characters, every emotion and thought in his head is
portrayed in his performances, that’s the sort of actor I want to be,
maybe not his cast type but emulating the way he becomes his characters. Your favourite movies?
My all time favourite is
Shawshank Redemption, it's probably the only movie that no matter how many times
I’ve seen it, when it’s on I literally cannot turn it off, I’m fully
focused on that film until the credits roll, which can be a nightmare when
you switch it on accidently at midnight! ...
and of course, films you really deplore?
Deplore!! I’m not sure really,
I’m a big comicbook fan so I think I get annoyed when they make a bad
superhero film, Marvel seems to have got it right but
DC struggle, and I
have no idea why because the DC
animated movies are absolutely brilliant!
A prime example is Suicide
Squad, they literally had a ready made script/storyline from the animated movie Assault on Arkham and that
would have translated brilliantly on screen, but they chose this really
complicated, nonsensical storyline that just didn’t hit the mark, let's
hope James Gunn does a better job with the second one!
Your/your movie's website, Facebook, whatever else?
https://horizonwebseries.com/
http://www.carddead.co.uk/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5203548/
Instagram: @steveaaronsipple
Facebook: Steve Aaron-Sipple
Thanks
for the interview!
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