#and for december i needed help to make the wings stable and my dad would be able to help but he was busy for like the entire month

[artsy-1diot]

ignore the sketch covering my true form (comfy clothes that i sleep in) GUYS ITSD WINGS

[juliehamill]

15 Minutes with John Bradley, Game Of Thrones actor and Morrissey fan

This past October I listened to John Bradley’s interview at the Morrissey/Maida Vale event on BBC Radio 6 Music.  He had been plucked from the crowd to talk about Morrissey live on air without warning.  The power of Morrissey is not always easy to articulate without saying something about him that has been repeatedly said before; or without drawing on words or lyrics that the artist himself has written.  I’m always looking out for people that can bring a new angle to Morrissey, and I found one in John Bradley.  I liked his words.  They were free, they were new, they were fresh, they were his own and I enjoyed listening to his very clever, eloquent and sincere perspective about what the singer meant to him, and the extremity of the connection.   It was great to hear somebody else crack Morrissey in a positive light.  We became friends quite quickly, in a rather polite and private manner, which, having now met him, I suspect is the John Bradley approach to most things in life.

The Game of Thrones antihero and I met at the beginning of December at the Ibis in Manchester for a ’15 Minutes’ interview that spun into two hours.  Up close his face is creamy coloured, soft, unblemished and unwrinkled.  A natural full rounded beard cuddles his chin.  His outlook on life is smiley, childlike and open, which he puts down to being ‘infantilized’.  I can see why people are very fond of twenty-nine year old John (particularly women, particularly my Game of Thrones-fan sister); he keeps his hat and coat on the whole way through the interview, like a boy on his first day of nursery.  He’s kind of like Peter Pan, but with a wisened encyclopedic brain.  

We talked in depth about Morrissey, a love for the seventies and eighties culture, an era when he was barely even born (and yet somehow seems to truly belong) his taste in music, his tea with one sugar, Bullseye, Dad’s Army, Primula cheese spread, his (and my) very favourite Vintage TV (Sky 369) and the popular appeal (and similarities to) the lovable Samwell Tarly.  His theory on the new album, Low In High School is that after years of sexual frustration and failure, Morrissey appears to be having relationship success: ‘Morrissey is experiencing his adolescence, finally.’

He likes Prawn Cocktail crisps, pineapple on his pizza and his favourite film is Raging Bull.  After a diet coke with ice and a hearty discussion of crunching crisps in time to music, the baby-faced mastermind waved me off with a smile before he flew back to Neverland-Wythenshawe.

JH: Please say your full name.

JB: My full legal name?

JH: You have an illegal name?

JB: My legal name is John Bradley West and my professional name is John Bradley.  It matters less now that it used to because you used to have to be part of the actor’s union.  I was part of it when I left drama school and they make you change your name if there’s somebody else already has it.  I just thought John Bradley was a nice way of maintaining some of me, and not having to change it wholesale.  Bradley is my middle name and acts as a first second name.  It’s also the name of my dad’s maternal family, their surname. It’s good to keep two thirds of my name and keep it in the family a little bit.  I owe my family too much of a debt to write them out of history!

JH: Are you named after anybody?

JB: I’m named after my dad, John, which is… I like the idea of that linear thing, handing on the baton of the name to the younger generation.  Although it does have its confusing moments when my mum is shouting on us!  If my mum was talking about me, I was always ‘Little John’.  Even now I’m twice the size of my dad I’m still little John and my dad is ‘Big un’. I took my mum’s surname and my dad’s religion.  My mum is Church of England and my dad is Catholic.  They both got what they wanted!  My parents are still together but not married which I think… there’s a lesson to be learned. They’re on very solid ground on their relationship and they know what they mean to each other.  They didn’t feel that they needed a ‘gesture’.

JH:  Are you taking your coat off?

JB: No.

JH:  Are you not staying?

JB: I am staying.  People in Manchester leave their coats on.  We just like leaving our coats on.  Look at interviews of all those Manchester bands.  The coats are on.  I think it’s because in Manchester if you’ve not got a bit of money and you’re going to spend it on anything, you’re going to spend it on a good coat.  

JH: Can you describe yourself in a sentence?

JB: I’m still trying to live up to the pressure of a young me.  

JH:  What kind of pressure did you put on your younger self?

JB: It was kind of pressure by second hand. I seem to remember I was quite a bright kid, a good kid.  I didn’t really cause anybody any problems.  I liked staying in with my mum and dad and I had my friends as well.  My sister is thirteen years older than me so I didn’t really see her as a sister relationship.  I kind of felt that she commanded a bit more respect than a sibling would.  I grew up with very strong female role models in my life.  Then my sister had my nephew and he’s only a little bit younger than me. I was four when he was born so I have a sibling relationship with him but in a longer way round.    

As a kid I was constantly shown off to adults.  I was no trouble, and clever, and so I would be brought out to talk to adults all the time, in an exhibition of how mature I was for my age.  My parents were late thirties when they had me. I’ve always been exposed to a much older landscape.  From an entertainer’s point of view I liked doing it.  I lived my life on stage, even then really.

JH:  How did you entertain everyone?

JB: I used to go into the hall and make a costume from my mum’s clothes.  She had a blue overcoat that looked like Mr Bumble and I put that on and put her boots on.  It was never my dad’s clothes!  I’d come out and walk up and down while people clapped.  There was no substance to it.  I liked being looked at and being the centre of attention.  It helped enormously in terms of proper acting.  I was late getting started with complex emotion. I was happier at home pissing about for my family than I was out talking to girls.  I remember being at drama school and they said, ‘you're very good and entertaining but you’ll never access the vulnerability you really need until you’ve loved something and lost it.’  I realised there was a lot of colours on that palate that I didn’t know. I needed to fulfill that prophecy and try to prove to people.  I’m still infantilized and my insecurities are still there.

JH: You do have a baby-faced vulnerability to you, even now, at twenty-nine, if you don’t mind me saying so.

JB: I do have that and it’s a comfortable place for me to exist.  I don’t drink either.  I don’t like it, genuinely but also I think that would be another concession to adulthood. The child me is still the best me so I still try to be the child me.  I don’t think adult me is quite an appealing prospect.

JH: When you came out of drama school, Game of Thrones Samwell Tarly was your first audition, and you got the part.

JB: Yeah, it was my first.  The audition was from episode four of season one when Sam is telling Jon his backstory and why and how he’s got to the wall. That was such a lovely scene to audition because there’s so much character in it and it’s the full justification for that character.  When he first arrived he was a source of great mystery and frustration and he incurs the wrath of people because he’s arrived at a place that’s very inhospitable and he’s expected to physically fight and physically survive.  He’s completely ill equipped for life up there. It’s only when he explains that he’s in an impossible situation because his father hates him so much and has basically told him, ‘Go there or I’ll kill you!’  That’s when you realise what it’s like to be this man; he doesn’t know where to turn, or has any choice in life.  He’s displaced.

JH: Do you share similarities with Sam Tarly?

JB: I think there are a lot of similarities, yeah.  Good casting directors are able to pick that out of people.  They can see stuff in you that you can’t see in yourself sometimes.   Despite growing up in a family that showed me a lot of love, I still had a lot of self doubt.  I was always the last person to believe something good about myself, and the first person to believe something bad.  People ask me what have I learned as I’ve gone along with playing the character Sam, and it’s not about what I’ve learnt, it’s about what I’ve un-learnt.  It’s not about taking things on; it’s about stripping away stuff and finding out who you really are in your core.  That’s just as important as learning sometimes.  I make jokes about things to protect myself.  I’ll mention my weight before anybody else and I try to be funny all the time because I think that’s a side of myself that is appealing.  I push that side of myself forward because I want to distract everybody away from the things that I don’t like.  So as soon as you start to analyse yourself like that, you can see that sort of stuff in that character as well.

It’s only because I’ve learned that about myself that I can play Sam.  At drama school they told me that I should play heroes, and I think I can do that.  The heroic archetype.  Because of that rodomontade – something I was comfortable with – was something they thought I could do.

JH: Everybody I’ve spoken to that watches Game Of Thrones seem to go, ‘Ahh!’ when I say the character’s name.  Is he universally liked?

JB: No… there are people who hate Sam Tarly. Women seem to like him but a certain type of man doesn’t like to be reminded of their own vulnerabilities and they believe that men should be super strong and super stable.  Men like that really hate characters like Sam.  The thing about the character that I find interesting is that people say, ‘You turned brave.’  I think he was always brave.

JH: He’s very kind-hearted, the way he takes the woman and baby under his wing.

JB: When we were filming those scenes with Hannah and me the director said, ‘What you’ve got here is that you’ve got two birds and they’ve got a broken wing each.  They can’t fly on their own but together they have a full set.’ 

JH: Is that how you like to be directed?

JB: Yes, poetically like that with metaphors and similes!  Sometimes you’re just looking for a key to things and if you get imagery like that it can really unlock you, stay with you.  These characters are very detailed and from moment to moment you’re in a different place. When Sam goes home to his family in season six that’s him in a different environment to what he’s ever been before. Sam is forbidden to have a wife so she’s not my wife.  But he’s a rule breaker; he’s very subversive in his own low-key way.

JH:  In the show, Jon Snow knows nothing.  Tell me something that Jon Snow actually knows.

JB: Jon Snow doesn’t even know who his parents are!  But I can tell you that he does know how to get great volume on a head of hair using just water.

JH:  Ha ha!  Is there a character that’s not in any of your scenes that you admire?

JB: I love Khaleesi. I really admire her. She’s had such a journey.  If you take her to be what she was in season one which was a bargaining tool whose sexuality was exploited in such a despicable way and now she’s achieved so much and is a leader of men.  She conquers men.  She will dominate them, intellectually, spiritually, in every way.

JH: I had a feeling that she might be your favourite so I did bring a Khaleesi hairpiece and was wondering if you could put it on.

JB: I’m up for that.  

JH: You can decide if the picture stays in the interview.

JB: I can’t see me going for that, I’ll be honest.

JH: Do you like to be recognised?

JB: I get recognised quite a bit.  I like it, it’s interesting.  People who watch it really like it so if they do recognise you it’s nice things to say.  But people who don’t watch the show have no idea who you are so that’s quite a nice way to be, really.

JH: When did you discover music?

JB: I got into music at around thirteen or fourteen and I was quite happy with my outlook. I was fairly infantilized as an early teen.  When I left school and went to sixth form college a lot of these feelings started to bubble up; feeling slightly isolated.  That’s when Morrissey starts to make sense.  When you’re feeling adrift, his hand comes out of the dark and says ‘you’re not the only one feeling this way.’  

Then, when you find this community of other people who like Morrissey, everything you feel is okay.  That’s why people stick with him because he is a friend in a time of need.  Morrissey is able to let you know that a lot of the things you’re feeling, you’re not the only one feeling them.  I think that’s why Morrissey is such a favourite with a certain type of person.  

Morrissey sneaked up on me all at once.  I started off the way most people start off, with greatest hits.  You listen to it and there are so many greatest hits that you can’t believe you’ve avoided it for so long.  I think it was one of those three for ten pounds CD things at HMV and I liked ‘Panic’.  It was a Smiths Best and then after that I branched out.

Before Morrissey I connected to music on a visceral level.  I liked things like AC/DC and I still do, but I realise now that I was just getting a sound from them.  I didn’t really care what they were saying, their opinions or what the lyrics were, but I liked the sound.  They didn’t represent what I feel about the world.  It was surface and shallow and I enjoyed the sound of it.  The lyrics are very insubstantial.  If I’m going to get base about it it’s the difference between having sex and falling in love.  When you fall in love you realise that everything you had before when you thought you were in love you were not.  You just wanted to be.  Before Morrissey everything else was a quick fix.  I connected with him on a much more permanent level.  It opened up a chapter to my life and my own self-discovery.

JH:  Do you think Morrissey’s work has improved with age and experience?

JB:  I think Morrissey is better for words. Ideologically every album and statement is different. You’re never quite sure what you’re going to get. He never ever gets dull.  I don’t agree with everything he says and he probably wouldn’t agree with everything I said either but musically, lyrically, he’s unparalleled.

JH:  Do you think that there are any replacements for the radical singers and artists of the eighties age?  Who will replace Morrissey… John Lydon…  Boy George and other mavericks?

JB: Ah!  You say Boy George… I was watching Vintage TV…

JH: Oh my God that’s totally my favourite TV channel!  369! It’s our go-to when there’s nothing else on.

JB: I love that channel!  So, Culture Club were on.  They just look so interesting.  They sound interesting but they look so good.  Visually, the eighties seemed to be the peak of interesting looking people and then it regresses with Brit Pop when the uniform became waterproof coats and guitars.  When you think of an individual now there’s so much record company stylisation behind the scenes.  Some artists feel they have to hang on to their younger selves.  The guy in AC/DC wears exactly the same clothes.  Francis Rossi in Status Quo still wears the same clothes. They serve a purpose with their fans. There will never be that flutter when they put the needle on the record.  They’re not scared of what they might hear.  That’s why Morrissey is still so exciting.  I went to see Robert Plant last night.  He sounds like he did when he was young, but then I realised that what it was that he sounded like he was old when he was young.

JH: I think many bands sound older when they start out.  If you listen back to the first Smiths album, I think Morrissey is trying to sound older than he is.  His voice seems lower and deeper.  

JB: That’s true, Morrissey has really expanded his range through the years.  I think there will definitely be replacements for those very unique performers but the real question is will those replacements be allowed into the mainstream public consciousness the way the more challenging artists were in the past? Everybody knew The Sex Pistols. They, and punk in general, were a bone of contention between the youth and the older generation but they were allowed to break through into general popular culture.  I think a lot of artists when faced with the choice between being a challenging voice with true principles and genuine anger but being forced to maintain esoteric, underground status OR being hugely successful and mainstream and get millions of followers on Instagram, I believe that there are still a healthy number of people who will be true to themselves with they are more likely to stay underground than they were in the 70s/80s. I think most of the authentic, angry, exciting and challenging artists are in the Grime world and those voices are so powerful and that talent is so potent that it couldn’t stay out of the mainstream for long. Stormzy and Giggs and Skepta and many others have managed to be absorbed into the popular consciousness without being sanitised and I think it’s just about the most important music out there at the moment for that reason. 

JH:  You’ve been a fan of Morrissey for twelve years. What makes him so enduring?

JB: It’s that people are constantly rediscovering him at a time of their life when they really need it.  It will throw up devotions and confusions. You’ll always need that voice. Nobody has ever spoken to the disaffected in quite the same way.  It’s not money, girls or drugs.  If that’s not you, you can sometimes feel on the outside of music. Morrissey was the first real person to say ‘your weakness can be a huge strength.  It’s okay to be different.’

JH:  Let’s talk about Morrissey’s new album, ‘Low In High School’.  

JB: When he announced his new album I was very excited about it.  I was scared too!  A lot of people are happy to tell me that my love for him is misplaced.  People want Morrissey to be their Status Quo.  They want Morrissey to be the same every time. True artists don’t do that.  True artists challenge.  All great artists present their case:  ‘Just think about this for a second.’  A lot of people get so boxed in by their own beliefs that life becomes an echo chamber.  It’s only through challenging your opinion that you realise how strong it is.  I was delighted that I genuinely love this album.  I think musically it is very brave.  It’s challenging and there’s production and instrumentation that really is surprising. Every single one of his albums is very different and every single one of them has a place in time.  

JH: I feel that the album is more like a score.  A war torn musical.  Complex, experimental, I love the musicality of it.

JB: Yeah I agree.  I actually think that melodically in terms of the vocals it’s one of the more satisfying records he’s made for a long time.  He sounds incredible.  ‘Jacky’s Only Happy’ is the one from Maida Vale that I knew would be a standout.  ‘All The Young People’ is gorgeous.  It’s a very clever album and everybody is playing to capacity on it.  I love the middle-eastern flavour of this one.  He’s very good at capturing those moments, those stories in his life, from being in one country or another.  He sounds happier!  There are points in it where you feel that he’s more content.  He’s talking about love more and sex more!  The imagery!  I’m embarrassed.  I blush!

JH: Says the actor from Game Of Thrones… I’ve definitely heard worse than ‘shaven cave’ on your show.

JB: Yes but you expect it from Game of Thrones.  That’s the good thing about Morrissey.  This is representative of what he feels about life now.  He’s having a kind of adolescence finally.  He wants to talk about it.  You’re used to young men talking about it, but not a man in his fifties.  I love that he’s talking about it now.  The sexual side is opening up and it’s nice to have a more mature person’s perspective on it.

JH: He has danced and hinted about frustration it for years, ‘I want the one I can’t have’, ‘Reel Around The Fountain’, ‘the More You Ignore Me’, ‘Dear God, Please Help Me…’

JB: Yes but those were about sexual failure, this new album is about sexual success.  I wonder if people will take solace in that because they haven’t been sexually successful and now even he is, at last ‘in every shaven cave’, in every single one, there’s not one he hasn’t been in.  It’s that progression.  If AC/DC is about sex and Morrissey is about love, now he’s discovered sex and saying he has experienced it in ‘Home Is A Question Mark’ but it’s still not enough, he’s still looking for the one.  It’s still about the yearning but the search continues.  When you start to experience sex you realise it’s not what’s important. It shows a maturity in Morrissey. Maybe he’s not quite as Maladjusted. Maybe he wants a more conventional life now.  Maybe it’s not enough to go through life on your own. He is properly realising the importance of it.  Having a relationship with him is so twisted in a way.  You want him to be happy because you love him so much but then if he’s happy he might not be my Moz anymore.

JH: Are you going to any of the shows next year?

JB: Yes!  I got tickets to all the London ones.  I have eight tickets!

JH: If Morrissey walked in to the Ibis right now, what would you say to him?

JB: I’d say, I hope you realise how much people love you.  I think he does know.  But I really hope that he knows the effect that he has, and how many people he has saved. I hope he knows how valued he is. Part of him does find solace in playing the underdog and the victim and part of him does luxuriate in that.  Just once just sit back and reflect on how important you are.  The people who don’t like you, will never like you.  But the people who love you will love you more than they love anybody else. I was talking about Samwell in similar terms.  Now that he has this child and Gilly and how that has affected his outlook.  All his life he wanted to be accepted, he was despised at home.  As soon as you fall in love and find people you care and love about, you realise it’s better to be loved by a few.  A lot of people really hate him and everything he stands for.  The people who love him, really love him.  That’s more important than everyone liking you.  It’s apathy and indifference.  The opposite of love is indifference.  

JH: If Morrissey was coming to your flat what snacks would you put out for him?

JB: Well first of all I’d take all the pictures down.  I’ve got three pictures of Morrissey in my flat.  One of him and Johnny, and they’re cuddling.  I’ve got a really cool Morrissey picture, a white canvas with eyebrows and quiff in colour.  Boiling the famous visage down.  I bought last week the signed test pressing on the Sunday at the pop up shop.  I’ve got that in my office.  Morrissey and Johnny’s autographs!  So anyway, snacks.  He’s vegan. He doesn’t like vegetarian food, garlic and onion, things like that.  I’d go for chip sandwiches, no butter.  There was a story I heard about him and I hope it’s true.  A record company took him out in Los Angeles and they took him to the best vegetarian restaurant full of artists and creatives and all that. He got up and they thought he had gone to the toilet.  Half an hour passed and they were like, ‘Oh, he’s been gone a long time.’  So they went out looking for him and they found him on the street eating a big cake. 

JH: Ha ha!  I don’t believe that!  

JB: A big old cake!  But if he was coming over I’d do a bowl of chips and a loaf of white bread.  He’d love that.  Stay on safe ground.  Recently I was in a hotel that only had cheese and onion crisps.  I thought, you can’t pick a divisive flavour.  If you’re going to have one flavour it surely has to be plain.

JH: I agree.  What is your favourite crisp flavour?

JB: Good question.  I quite like prawn cocktail.  Crazy isn’t it?  I used to have them for the novelty value then I found myself having that flavour all the time!  The full pink Walkers.  One Christmas I created a lovely little canapé for myself.  I got a Ritz cracker and put chive Philadelphia on it and then put a disc of Matteson’s smoked sausage on it then put a little Skip on top of that.  We got texture, we got flavours, bosh!

JH: Have you thought of going on Come Dine With Me?

JB: Yeah of course!  I thought about adding more to that canapé, but it doesn’t really need anything.  It has everything.  It’s a real journey.  I probably wouldn’t do reality programmes but I did Celebrity Mastermind recently… can’t tell you the outcome… you’ll have to watch it.

JH: Can you tell us your specialist subject?

JB: No.  It’s on Christmas week.  Cancel all plans.

JH: I’m going nowhere.  Will tune in with chips and bread. 

(John’s episode of Mastermind is episode 3, on air Friday 29 December, 2017)

JH:  Do you play the drums?

JB: I do but I’ve hurt my wrist so I can’t play at the moment.  I never wanted the drums to be widely known about.  As soon as there’s a professional pressure to do something it stops being quite as much fun.  I don’t want to be a drummer in a film or for the world to watch me play the drums. It’s really a physical therapy for me.

JH: I love the hi-hat on ‘I Wish You Lonely’.

JB:  Yeah I’m a big fan of the hi-hat.  I met Matt Walker at Maida Vale 6 music.  That was a weird old day.  There’s something really instinctive and beautiful about the physical flow from a professional drummer.  

JH: Drummers like to tap on everything, don’t they?

JB: Absolutely.  Even down to crunching crisps in time to music. Seriously! ‘Frankly Mr Shankly’ is a good song to crunch crisps to. I like cheap crisps.  I like Discos.  I like the uniform nature of Discos.  The cheaper the crisp the more uniform the shape and the more expensive the crisp the wackier the shape. 

JH: Expensive crisps are hard to eat, they can hurt your mouth.

JB: They are very hard to eat and a lot of them expensive crisps are folded with big bubbles on.  I like a cheap crisp.   

JH: Who is your favourite actor?

JB: Oh!  I’ve never been asked that before.  When I was a kid it was Leonard Rossiter.  I loved his energy.  I have a soft spot for Rik Mayall.  That clowning and lack of self-consciousness.  You don’t want to be thinking about how good you look.  He was just so giving to an audience.  He did everything in his arsenal to get a laugh.  Too many actors strive to get something out of it from themselves, he was just in it to please the audience.

JH: What’s your favourite comedy show?

JB: It’s still probably Dad’s Army.  It worked so much when it was on because it can never date as it was set in the past when it was on.  It will never be Robin’s Nest on a seventies couch.  It was always old and dated.  From a writing point of view there’s seven characters and so distinct.  They all clearly fulfill a purpose in that show.

JH: You have full sideburns.  Have you ever tried that Windsor Davies style of moustache?

JB: I can’t do it!  I don’t shave anything.  It just grows like that .  The tash is all right but the beard just grows down.  It would be nice to have a proper beard as an option.  

JH:  I like it.  Shows your cheeks.  What’s your favourite book?

JB: I love 15 Minutes With You.  I do!  I didn’t read a book that wasn’t about football until I was sixteen. People assume I’m bookish.  Let me have a think… I’ll go for Diary of a Nobody.

 JH: Favourite film?

JB: I really like Raging Bull.  I watched it again quite recently and it’s a hard grueling watch.  DeNiro is always more than you expect from him.  In that film he’s physical and macho, but then you realise how sad and vulnerable he is and how jealous and threatened he is, all the time.  I’ve just been watching Mad Men and Don Draper is very similar to that.  He’s so unhappy.  He might be successful with work and women and seems to have it all.  I like characters who are the last person you think would be vulnerable.  

JH: Do you see any members of The Smiths around Manchester?

JB: I’ve seen three of the four, I’ve not seen Andy Rourke.  I saw Morrissey in concert, I saw Johnny in concert, and then I saw Mike Joyce in Tesco in Altrincham.  There was something about seeing him just doing his shopping. Those hands that did all that stuff. Wow.  I just can’t believe that I would encounter someone who had such an influence on my life.  

JH: What’s your favourite Smiths song?

JB: It changes all the time but currently… oh god… I’m reluctant… but I’m going for ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me.’  Just because of the scope of it and the theatre of it.  It’s really an epic that.  One of the jewels in their crown.

JH: What’s your favourite Morrissey song?

JB: I love ‘Tomorrow’ but out of all of them I’d go for ‘Speedway’.  When I’ve seen him and he closes a concert with it; it’s always a moment.  Such a draining of the emotion of him.  By the end of it I feel he’s losing control a bit. Gets really sad.

JH: What’s your favourite Smiths album?

JB: Strangeways, Here We Come.

JH: Favourite Morrissey album?

JB: Vauxhall and I.

JH: Favourite drink?

JB: Tea.  Milk and one.  You get laughed at in London for having sugar in your tea.  I like it really strong and ideally from a pot and ideally sugar lumps. I like tea paraphernalia.  A pot for one should have three teabags in it. I don’t enjoy tea I’ve made myself as much as tea that is made for me.  I love room service tea.  The teapot and all the bowls and all the spoons… there’s something really therapeutic about all those components.  I love the process.

JH: Favourite pizza topping?

JB: I’m going to say pineapple.  I love a Hawaiian pizza.  Even saying the word ‘pineapple’ is making my mouth water. It’s one of those things that really shouldn’t work but it does.  I like tinned pineapple rings.  If you put a pineapple ring in the dead centre of the pizza then cut it across the middle, everybody gets a piece.

JH: What do you like to do on a Friday night?

JB: I like to stay in with my girlfriend and watch Bullseye or Stars In Their Eyes.  You can accept these as game shows on one level but they can be hilarious.   I don’t really go out anymore because I don’t drink.

JH: What’s your favourite thing your mum says?

JB: My mum has some sayings that I’ve literally not heard anywhere else.  She says, ‘If he decides to go on holiday with her I’ll kill my pig.’  Kill my pig?  It’s like,  ‘I’ll be surprised but I’ll also furious about it!’

JH: Has your mum got a pig?

JB: No, she killed it…  Sorry Moz! I’m just joking.  She never had a pig.

JH: If your mum and dad were here now, what would they say about you?

JB: They’d tell YOU that they were very proud.  Acting was a dynamic that existed before and if I was to talk about my development or success it would be a signifier that those days are over.  We’re all much more comfortable with sustaining the illusion. Everything else is a construct. Failure is not something I’m mad on. You have to be reminded of what is really you.

JH: Please would you write a note to my mum?

JB: I’d love to.

JH: If you went on ‘Stars In Their Eyes’ who would you be?

JB: ‘Let It Be’ era Paul McCartney!

JH: Finally, for my sister, two questions: 1.  How high is that wall?

JB: We filmed it in a quarry.  The first hundred feet of it is real.  The rest is built on CGI.

JH: And, 2 - If you had a pet dragon, what would you call it?

JB: Mozzer the dragon.  Do you think he’d like that?

JH:  Absolutely.  

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