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Your new series Fried - in a few words, what's it about?
Fried is a webseries set in London, a nihilistic psychological thriller
with dark comedic elements. What were your
sources of inspiration when writing Fried,
and is any of it based on personal experiences?
Quite a lot of it was based on my own personal experiences of living in
utter poverty in London, working as a waiter, bartender and call centre
worker between acting jobs, barely surviving on multiple minimum wage
jobs for many petty, spiteful supervisors and managers. I actually got
electrocuted at one of the bars I worked in and I incorporated that
specifically into the plot. Do talk
about Fried's brand of
humour! It’s dark, sick and twisted. If you can see the comedy in a film like
American Psycho, then you’ll find Fried has the same sense of humour.
It’s really gallows humour, laughing at how bleak and desperate the
situations are. Now how did the project come into being in the
first place? I was very frustrated with my career a few years ago, I wasn’t getting
seen for anything and the agent I was with at the time actually asked me
“what do you think you’ll do after acting?" - what a vote of
confidence! I fired them and decided to take charge and write something
for myself. I’d read about the actor & filmmaker Stuart Brennan,
who’d won a BAFTA for his feature film, Martin Scorsese executive
produced one of his films, it was so inspiring, so I reached out to him,
we met for a chat and he gave me advice and encouragement.
After that, I tried to write a few scripts, nothing really worked, so I
thought, well what do I know? What are my own experiences? I’m flat
broke, pissed off and feel like things are going nowhere. OK, let’s
write that into a scene. Two flatmates, on the sofa after work, talking
about how shit their day has been and how they’d like to kill their
manager at work. From there the ideas just flowed, I started taking more
and more of my daily experiences and writing them into scenes, pushing
them into extreme dramatic situations until it evolved into a
five-minute short, then ten minutes and ultimately the series as it is
now.
What were the challenges of bringing Fried
to the screen from a producer's point of view?
Jesus, where to start? Budget, non-existent. I put the whole thing
together with just £2,500 of savings, which took a year of additional
night shifts, weekend shifts etc. to save up. One week into shooting,
the global pandemic and lockdowns hit, which completely screwed our
schedule. Because we were filming in such small environments it was
impossible to work within the lockdown rules, so I had to postpone
everything and wait for months to shoot the next block. I’d ripped all
the furniture out of my room at the time and converted it into the main
living room set, with all the grotty depressing furniture and blacked
out windows, so I ended up living in the visual equivalent of a crack
house for a year. A few words about your overall directorial approach to your story at hand?
I’m easy going on set, I’m open to suggestions and ideas, however I
do have a strong vision for the project and what I want it to achieve,
and I won’t settle for anything less. I work hard and I want things to
be the absolute best they can be. You also play one of the leads in Fried
- so do talk about your character, what did you draw upon to bring him to
life, and have you written Robert with yourself in mind from the get-go?
Yeah, for sure, I wrote Rob for myself. He’s a character that’s
wild, out of control and indulges in all of his worst vices. He’s
manipulative. He’s the Devil, sitting on Dave’s shoulder, urging him
to take action and pushing him down a very dark, violent path. It’s a
lot of fun to play someone like that. It’s cathartic, to have the
freedom to really let loose. The story of Fried, and the character of
Rob are both very personal for me, due to all of my frustrations at the
time and real-life experiences, so I channelled all of that rage and
violence into the performance.
What can you tell us about the rest of Fried's
cast, and why exactly these people?
They’re all superb talents and the best actors for the roles. Jake is
incredible, without his performance, particularly during the final
scenes, it wouldn’t have worked. The way he sells it emotionally blew
me away. I loved working with him and felt we really pushed each other
to get the best out of our performances. He’s meticulous with his
rehearsals, I don’t think he missed a single line of dialogue. Andrew
(Preacher), Marcus (Supervisor) and Clifford (Therapist) were all
equally brilliant in their parts, they arrived fully prepared, the
character work was done so there was no need to adjust anything,
they’re consummate professionals and I’d love to work with all of
them again. Shoutout to all the actors and actresses who contributed
additional voice recordings for episode two as well, they were all great
and gave so many options to work on in the edit. A few words about
the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? The shoot was a lot of fun, I knew we were making something good which
bolstered spirits. The actors were all well prepared, they knew the
scripts inside out, which allowed Jake and I in particular to shoot long
dialogue scenes. Episode 1 for example, I think the opening scene of us
on the sofa talking is one take which goes on for around 4 minutes
before there’s a cutaway. We actually shot the entire 7-8 minutes
multiple times in one take, but we have the cutaways inserted then in
the edit, when they’re fantasising about killing their boss and
therapist. We rehearsed and run it almost like a theatre play, so that
made it really enjoyable. The $64
question, where can Fried be seen?
On the YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@friedseries
Anything you can tell us about audience and critical reception of Fried?
It’s been phenomenal. It’s had around 50,000 views so far with no
marketing, purely word of mouth, and critical reception has been equally
great. It’s been favourably compared with Withnail & I, Filth, the
dialogue has been compared with Guy Ritchie, which is a huge compliment
for me, especially as a first-time writer. It’s received
multiple 5-star reviews and won 38 awards on the festival circuit. I’m
beyond grateful and proud for all it's accomplished, and to everyone such
as yourself who’s taken the time to watch it. Any
future projects you'd like to share?
I’m working on a few feature film scripts. One is called A Choice,
which is about a couple trapped in an addictive, toxic relationship.
I’ve shot a short version of this already which will be released in
the coming months. I’m also working on a psychological horror script,
and a revenge drama set during the medieval crusades. What got you
into acting in the first place, and did you receive any formal training on
the subject? i was a musician for twenty years. I started off at the age of four,
playing classical violin, did my grades, played concerts in orchestras,
then I switched to heavy metal guitar when I was fifteen. Toured in a
band for years until I was around twenty-four. I was in Japan at the
time and beginning to get tired of it. I was watching films all the time,
and it was appealing more and more to me, so during the summer of that
year I went to Spain for a break and made the decision there to become
an actor. I couldn’t afford drama school, so I just started emailing
producers and casting directors saying that I had twenty years “stage
experience”. Spent months couch surfing around London until I found a
small room to rent and have been acting ever since. I’ve since studied
many techniques privately, including Meisner, Strasberg and Stanislavsky.
I enjoy classes and learning but I already had a good degree of
confidence to audition and perform from so many years of live
performances.
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Of late you've also picked up writing,
directing and producing, like with Fried
- so what prompted that move? And which side of the camera do you actually
prefer? Necessity. I wasn’t getting any acting work, so I made
Fried. I’ve
had some good acting work since, and I enjoy the process of creating
something myself. There’s the element of control which is great too.
I’m first and foremost an actor, I love acting, but I’m enjoying
writing, directing and producing too. Anytime I’m out of acting work,
I’ll go make my own. What can you tell us about your filmwork prior
to Fried, in whatever
position? I’ve acted in 23 films before Fried, various ones for
Netflix, Lionsgate,
Warner
Brothers. I’ve been fortunate to meet and work with
great people. How would you describe yourself as an actor,
and some of your techniques to bring your character to life?
I become obsessed with the text and details. I read an interview with
Anthony Hopkins where he said he’ll read the lines 250 times until
it’s fully absorbed into the subconscious, and he can say them without
thinking. I employ the same process. Maybe it’s because of my
classical music training, I’m extremely disciplined with it and will
put in the hours to research and rehearse, even if it’s by myself. For
me, I don’t see any other way to do it. For techniques, whatever works
in the moment that’s required. Using your own traumatic events can
work for the occasional one-off moment in a scene but it’s not
particularly healthy to mentally re-live those moments over and over. Actors,
filmmakers, whoever else who inspire you?
Actors: Christian Bale, Jack O’Connell, Anthony Hopkins, Richard
Burton, Daniel Craig, Robert De Niro, Daniel Day Lewis, Al Pacino.
Filmmakers: Chris Nolan, Robert Eggers, Martin Scorsese, Brian de
Palma, Clint Eastwood. Your favourite movies?
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The Godfather, Heat, Amadeus, There Will Be Blood,
High Plains Drifter,
The Dark Knight, Papillon (the Steve McQueen/Dustin Hoffman version,
though I did enjoy Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek’s remake), Serpico,
The Founder, The Shining,
The Lighthouse, The Lord of the Rings trilogy,
so many more to list! ... and of course, films you really deplore?
I’m not a fan of musicals. Dear God they drive me insane. Your/your
series' website, social media, whatever else?
https://www.youtube.com/@friedseries
https://www.instagram.com/friedseries
https://twitter.com/friedseries
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12862780
https://www.instagram.com/richardgossactor/
Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?
Just thank you for taking the time to interview me and to watch Fried. I
have no marketing budget to work with, there aren’t any big names in
it, and its heavily dialogue-driven in a mostly single location.
That’s a tough sell to get people interested! So I'm truly grateful
when people invest their time into this. Thank you! Thanks for the interview!
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