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| An unexpected connection |
An estimated 1.4 million elderly people live alone in the UK, with very little by way of social connection, yet we rarely hear their stories. One of the short films longlisted for this year’s BAFTAs is Roy, the story of a man in that position who is so lonely that he has got into the habit of dialling random telephone numbers in the hopes of finding somebody with whom he can have a conversation. When, one day, he dials an adult hotline by mistake, he’s embarrassed and apologetic, but what could have left him feeling even lower instead marks the beginning of an unlikely friendship which turns his life around.
Sharp witted and keenly observational, the film is brought to life by actors David Bradley and Rachel Shenton. It was written and directed by Tom Berkeley and Ross White, a creative team still at an early stage in their careers and clearly a bit dazzled after having suddenly found themselves in the limelight. They’ve been working together since they met at drama school seven years ago, and I begin our chat by asking them how their partnership developed.
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| A growing friendship |
“When we first met, where we ended up working in the theatre, where we ran a theatre company together for about four years,” Tom explains. “And during that time we were both writing, separately, plays. We were interested in each other's playwriting at that time, and helping each other out quite a lot on those things. And then, as we came to the end of the theatre company, we decided that we wanted to potentially branch towards film and TV, and decided to do that together.”
“This was our début film both in terms of writing and directing,” says Ross. “We'd written a few speculative scripts together but this was our first time seeing something from an original idea through to production. It's been a bit of an odd experience but we’ve worked with really great people and we’ve had such a nice response.”
Often, when two directors work together like this, they settle into particular roles, like having somebody works more with actors and somebody who works more on setting up shots. Do they work like that, or do they both do a bit of everything?
“I think we're probably the latter: we both do a bit of everything,” says Tom. “I think it’s good because it's such a time-saver on set when we split off and one of us can speak with actors, another one can speak with the camera team. But we're both quite into the prep side of things, we're quite heavy on that. So we tend to know – if there's a note that's going to be given or something, we both kind of have the same idea at the same time.”
So what about the concept for this particular film? Where did that come from?
“We were speaking quite a lot about just the idea of connection, really,” says Ross. “Connection in what felt like a disconnected world. It was in pre-Covid times that we wrote this so that then grew in relevance, quite alarmingly, when we all went into isolation. We just wanted to spotlight this character who, I guess, had locked himself away from the world and show his pain a bit, but show that in a way that had humour, nuance and a bit of hope as well. So yeah, we just had this character that we liked, and when we had this idea of him accidentally calling this adult hotline, it felt like a really good place to start this really unlikely relationship that the film would follow.”
I note that, as I see it, there’s a difficult balance to strike with this sort of subject matter. Maybe it's changed a bit since the pandemic and people getting used to isolation, but certainly, older people being on their own used to be seen as pathetic characters to an extent. It's very difficult to tell that story without the risk of patronising them. Humour is one way that this film works around that. Was it something they were conscious of when making the film?
“I think that's pretty much hit the nail on the head, really,” says Tom. “I think we were aware that it was kind of sad, that these characters do often get pushed to the fringes of a lot of narratives. And so I think we wanted to give a spotlight and give a voice to it, but it could very easily be a depressing 15 minutes, which could be, you’re right, patronising or slightly...” He pauses, considering. “Yeah, I think the inclusion of the humour was probably the biggest thing that we wanted to do to try and strike that balance. When we’re writing we like being in that sort of no man's land between comedy and drama. I think that helped with both the characters and the relationship, but definitely from Roy’s perspective and our connection with him. We kind of joked about it being like a John Lewis advert. We never wanted it to become a John Lewis advert. I think the setup and the premise itself helped us to move away from that territory.”
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| Set decoration sets the tone |
Obviously David Bradley is an awesome actor to get in that role – it’s hard to imagine his Roy in a John Lewis advert. How did they get him on board?
They were lucky, Ross says. “I wrote him a letter that explained that we'd written this script. We wrote it with him in mind, you know. When Tom and I write together, it really helps to have that kind of – even if it’s a sort of pie in the sky dream of an actor. Just a kind of voice to shape the character around. He was sort of the voice of this character. So we wrote him and explained and we said, ‘Look, you know, we'd love you to come on board. Would you read the script?’ And he did. He's such a generous guy, and he took the time to read the script and thankfully for us, like it, and then, yeah, come on board. It was a gift to work with him, you know?”
They learned a lot just from watching him work, they explain, and I ask if he brought a lot of other things to the character beyond what they'd written.
“He did,” says Tom. “He brought a lot. The film very rarely leaves that characters face. I mean, there's only a couple of frames when you're not actually looking at him. We wanted quite a lot to play out in these long scenes, these long shots, just to help get the essence of how trapped he is, and this kind of monotonous sort of routine that he’s in. It was the consistency that he brought to it which was the most astounding thing to watch, especially when we came to edit the film. We realised that everything was usable. And there were these little choices that he was making in each in each different take that we'd done, which brought different qualities throughout. But yeah, he was just so fantastic. He’s obviously at the absolute height of his craft and it was great to witness.”
How did they handle the bits where he's talking on the phone? Did they have Rachel’s voice there at the same time?
Ross is full of praise for the star we never see. “Rachel is so dedicated as an actress and wanted to be with us on set. The whole film is their relationship and the kind of chemistry they have together. So although we could have done that all in post production, we sort of pitched this to Rachel and said, ‘Look, we think if you're with us for a few days, that will really make a difference.’ And she was absolutely all over that, and wanted to be there. So yeah, she was off screen, we had to hide her away a bit, but they could hear each other as they're having this kind of phone conversation. And it was amazing to see how quickly they developed this chemistry that I think comes through in the relationship.”
How did they come to cast her? It’s really difficult in that kind of role, especially if the original plan didn’t involve having the actors in the same place?
“Well, Rachel is quite an inspiration for us anyway, as a filmmaker, because she won the ultimate prize, winning the Oscar for her short film The Silent Child,” says Tom. “I think from that time, she's sort of been, you know, on our subconscious radar. And obviously, being a voiceover part, it was going to be very specific in terms of the quality. We wanted there to be a kind of a maternal quality to the voice whilst also feeling genuine in that character. And there's lots to her as a as a character that we wanted to come through, even though it’s all told from Roy’s point of view. And so we were there listening away and watching scenes of her without looking at the screen. And there's just a great sort of emotive quality to that. And we knew that she was also very well versed within the short film world as well and would hopefully bring a lot of passion to that as a form.”
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| She sunk his battleship |
Something that is really important in short film in general, but that comes through particularly well here. is the way that the set design and the costumes contribute to the story.
“Yeah,” says Ross. “Props to our fantastic production designer, Rachel Denning, who did a great job on the whole set. We're in this one location for the whole film so we just wanted to make sure that it felt lived in and sort of specific to Roy. A lot of that also was about location scouting and really trying to find the right kind of framework. We looked at, I would say pretty, much every Airbnb in England at some point, before we settled on this fantastic place just outside Stratford upon Avon.
“We spoke with Rachel about these kind of warm tones, this autumnal kind of feeling. I think those colours give a bit of warmth but it's also quite claustrophobic in a way. And that just felt really apt for Roy at the start of the film, but it could also allow us to kind of warm up that as he comes out of his shell.”
So finally, how do they feel about being on the BAFTA longlist?
“Oh gosh!” says Tom. “The whole process has just massively exceeded all of our expectations, from starting with it being our first project so I mean, it's a huge honour, and also, we've been so fortunate to travel with the film around the film festival circuit over the past 18 months and just to see the quality of short films that are coming out at the moment. To be recognised alongside like nine other films that we've seen – we've seen most of those on the way and absolutely loved them – we were just gobsmacked to be in the conversation with them. So yeah, we're we're over the moon really. We couldn't really have asked for anything more."
