INTERVIEW MATT MAYTUM
‘I THINK I STILL DO FEEL LIKE AN OUTSIDER, TO BE HONEST’
Since finding fame as one of Skins’ breakout graduates, Jack O’Connell has been renowned for bringing a raw intensity to his roles. Next up, he’s channelling that charisma in Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, playing the legendary singer’s troubled partner Blake Fielder-Civil. ‘I don’t think you stop learning,’ he tells Total Film. ‘New challenges are always welcome.’
When Total Film catches up with Jack O’Connell in February, he’s on an uncharacteristically chilled break. ‘I’m just in Italy, in the mountains,’ he explains.
‘Just frolicking around in the snow.’ Not exactly what you expect if you’re familiar with his on-screen work, which frequently has a ferocious edge.
After doing classic Brit TV staples (The Bill, Holby City), O’Connell showed early promise in the likes of This Is England and Eden Lake. Born in Derbyshire in 1990 to an Irish father and English mother, O’Connell almost pursued a career in football before he found drama, his working-class roots making him something of a rarity in the British acting scene. His big break came with Skins, E4’s talent hotbed that had already launched the careers of Dev Patel, Daniel Kaluuya and Nicholas Hoult when he joined Season 3 as bad boy James Cook.
His film career was supercharged by a searing turn in prison drama Starred Up in 2013, followed closely by Troubles-set thriller ’71 and a Hollywood breakout in Angelina Jolie’s prestige picture, Unbroken, in which he starred as former Olympian Louis Zamperini, who becomes a prisoner of war in a true survival story. More US work followed, but he has found his best roles in recent years on the small screen, with Netflix’s wildly underrated western Godless (2017), and the BBC’s The North Water (2021) and SAS: Rogue Heroes (2022; Season 2 incoming).
Next up, O’Connell has another project that’s sure to attract a lot of attention. Back to Black - the Amy Winehouse biopic being made with the permission of the late singer’s estate - brings to the screen an indelible moment in recent British cultural history. Marisa Abela (Industry) stars as Winehouse, and O’Connell is Blake Fielder-Civil; the film examines Winehouse’s life through the prism of that all-consuming relationship. O’Connell was director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s first choice for the role and was cast first, meaning he was involved when they were testing actors to play Winehouse.
‘A good thing about those tests is, I like to approach my work openly,’ he says. ‘I like to try things, and I like to get it wrong. Getting it wrong sometimes, and figuring it out, and embarrassing yourself once or twice along the way, perh
