Interview: Jamie Blackley
18th September 2013
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Jamie Blackley (The Borgias, Misfits) plays central character Mark in uwantme2killhim?, a dark true story about how the emergence of the internet affected a generation of teenagers. Here he talks about the film...
Did you actively pursue uwantme2killhim? as soon as you knew there was a chance of being cast?
It is very rare that you read something and have that kind of reaction, and just imagining that I would be in it was incredible. It was just one of those jobs that gave me a jump out of the seat moment. It was the longest shoot I've ever done, the toughest shoot I've ever done. I have a lot of dialogue and I came out of it thinking that I had achieved something and learned a lot. It was just really great!
How much had you known about the real story?
I knew nothing of the real story when I first read the script. But when I got the part I was sent the Vanity Fair article. I read through that and it was amazing just to compare the two – the script and the article. What really happened is even more unbelievable and shocking than what is in the film. So that was incredibly interesting. But in terms of what I took from that I don't really know because we can only take things from ourselves and the script, make sense of it and make it believable.
How hard was it to step back a few years to portray a schoolboy?
It was kind of difficult. I was about 19 or 20 when we made the film. So it was a bit weird to think of how it was when I had been back at school. I thought, my goodness it was that long ago. I had to think about how when I was at school I'd have reacted differently to things. Toby and I went back to school for a day and that was really helpful. They are big on drama there so we attended a class with the kids. We became friendly with the kids and chatted with them. It was surprisingly simple once the kids, who gave up their half term, came in.
It must be intriguing to consider that some day the two real boys will see the film?
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