Paul Weller and Johnny Harris shout to the top
Today, Johnny Harris, one of Britain’s best character actors, is looking very sharp. Tailored navy blazer, knitted silk yellow tie and light blue Brooks Brothers button-down.
He’s making an effort, he says, “because it’s Weller”.
Paul Weller joins us, a few floors up in a Central London club, looking tanned, tired (he’s just back from LA) and less formal (Lee cords, leather loafers). During the interview, his tailor will drop off some clothes for the shoot that is coming later. That feels very Weller.
Paul Weller, or the idea of Paul Weller, has been a dominant thread in popular British culture for almost 50 years. He has just turned 66 and has been the Modfather longer than many of his fans have been alive.
Through it all he signalled that the elements many people want him to remain locked into – hits of The Jam, a feather cut and Fred Perry top, music that is tied in the past – are not for him. Forward, never looking back; ever changing moods for the changing man. He has been clear and not spoken in code. His direction of travel was set 42 years ago. He split The Jam when they were dominant in the UK and on the cusp in the US. He was just 24.
Harris and Weller first worked together almost eight years ago on Jawbone, the dark but redemptive movie written by Harris about a former boxing champion who is trying to lift himself back from alcoholism, homelessness and hopelessness. The film, which echoes some of Harris’s own story, saw Weller write his first soundtrack. The pair have been friends ever since.
Harris own breakthrough came as Lol’s (Vicky McClure) monstrous father in This Is England ’86 and has seen him move through roles that varied from playing one of the dwarves in the big-budget Snow White and the Huntsman to currently starring alongside Ewan McGregor in A Gentleman in Moscow.
Today, he’s talking about his work as a director. He has created the video for Weller’s forthcoming single I Woke Up. Shot in black and white, it details a day in the life of a homeless man in London, told simply and without hyperbole, but ending with a call to help St Mungo’s, the charity primarily focused on getting rough sleepers into a bed. “It was a strange mix in the song, a kind of an optimism and an acceptance at the same time. And that’s a rare combination,” says Harris. “There are many types of homelessness, we know that. And it would have been easy, I think, to go out and just present visceral images of ho
