Interview: 'Stonewall' Star Jeremy Irvine on LGBT Youth, Method Acting and That Infamous Trailer
Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 6:00PM
Jose here. When I show up at the Stonewall Inn to speak to Jeremy Irvine I see him hanging from the scaffolding outside the historical locale with his co-star Jonny Beauchamp, they’re all smiles and jokes, their camaraderie is evident and I’m slightly surprised they’re not acting more solemnly given they’re carrying the weight of representing one of the most-talked about movies of the year. I expected to find them seated Congressmen-style, preparing grandiose statements about social issues. Expectations are indeed the operative concept at hand when discussing a film that has generated so much controversy even before opening, so I’m glad Irvine is able to find some levity. When I meet him again inside, he’s devouring a scone, “it’s a muffin actually”, he explains, as we sit in one of the booths of the legendary tavern. “That’s what you do in New York isn’t it? You drink coffee and eat muffins” he says with a smile.
Irvine became an overnight star with his leading role in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, and went on to appear in adaptations of famed novels Great Expectations and The Railway Man, I was surprised to see him land the lead in Roland Emmerich’s period piece, but it’s evident that he has an extremely likable quality, that leads filmmakers to think of him as a perfect audience surrogate, who they use to traverse through oft dense plots. Despite his succession of leading roles, Irvine has kept a very low profile and has confessed to prefer spending time in a pub with his mates, than attending big Hollywood premieres. Perhaps that’s why he seems so at ease at the Stonewall, where he proves to be quite candid and open about touchy subjects like the film’s infamous trailer and how he approaches people’s expectations.
JOSE: War Horse, The Woman in Black: Angel of Death and now Stonewall. What’s your fascination with period pieces?
JEREMY IRVINE: I don’t know! Apparently I like costumes (laughs). I don’t go after specific genres really, if I read a script and I’m still thinking about it a few weeks later, then that’s a pretty good sign. When there’s something that connects with you, you just know. Actually when I got the script for Stonewall, I’d just done three movies back to back. I had just finished shooting a movie in Budapest and I said to my agent “I need a break”, and then a couple of days later they sent me the script and said “you have to read this”.
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Jeremy Irvine photographed at the Stonewall Inn on 09/21. Credit: Jose Solis
JEREMY: I was in about 20 pages and I said “yes, absolutely, this is really important”. There was a fact at the end of the script that said 40% of the homeless youth today in America are LGBT, and I thought that was massive!
JOSE: Did you know much about the Stonewall riots?
JEREMY IRVINE: I thought I was aware, but then as I did my research I was ashamed to realize how little I knew. Another big reason for chasing this role was because we are all very aware of many other turning points in social rights movements, so why not Stonewall? Why isn’t it being taught in schools? That’s the big question today. It’s a bit gross actually.
The film industry can be very US-centric and movies actually travel all over the world, and in countries where homosexuality is criminalized it’s quite likely they’ve never even heard of the Stonewall riots.
Absolutely, we had a great film in the UK last year called Pride, but I think things are going in the right direction. Hollywood could be better about certain things, like for example casting more LGBT actors, especially transgendered actors. My mom works with homeless youth back home, and it was that 40% fact that struck me. It’s something I can’t get my head around.
I was shocked to read that in the title cards at the end of the film as well.
I was walking around the Village last night, went into a bar and wondered how many kids had experiences like Danny’s or the other characters.
You’re known for going all “method” as you did for The Railway Man…
Jeremy Irvine in 'The Railway Man'
(Laughs) I find the word “method” a bit ridiculous. We all do what we can to do our jobs, as long as it doesn’t affect the other people you’re working with too much. At the same time you try to immerse yourself but you can’t be in character all the time. This one’s set in the 60s, what happens when my mom calls me? Am I going to be like “what’s this strange talking brick”? This was a very immersive role in terms of the ensemble dynamics, we were basically all living together, so reality started leaking into our off-set life as well and gave Roland the opportunity to let us improvise. We’d set loose and went a bit feral, he’d finish the scene and let the camera roll. Some of my favorite bits in the film are improvised lines, Jonny Beauchamp is one of the most fluid actors I’ve ever worked with, the camera rolled and we did our thing.
Being immersed in 60s culture, did you find yourself falling in love with Judy Garland records or anything of the sort?
We were all listening to the music of the time, there were a lot of songs that definitely got overplayed. The fact that the movie’s period doesn’t mean you approach it differently, you do your research. This is a human story, you read Shakespeare to see we still fall in love the same, we still feel the guilt the same, we’re only just people.
Speaking of Shakespeare do you want to do more stage as well?
I was actually in the Royal Shakespeare Company when I got War Horse. I only had a couple of lines, but I thought that was as good as it got. I did my two lines, stood in the back of the show and saw great theatre actors. I trained to be a theatre actor, the whole movie thing has been the cherry on top!
Is Broadway in your future?
I would love to! In fact I’ve been reading some scripts, it’s all about finding the right thing.
The principal cast of FALLEN (2016), adapted from the YA hit novel
I’m probably not allowed to ask anything about Fallen right?
Oh you’re welcome to! I can tell you what I can tell you.
Go for it!
I think the movie was finished on Saturday, so we’ll see it next year. It was a very cool process. I think people have been more excited about this film before it comes out, than any of my movies that have actually come out (laughs). It’s nice to be in something people are so passionate about.
Touching on the topic of passionate, would you care to comment on the reactions people had to the Stonewall trailer?
There was a very misleading trailer, I was not surprised at the reaction that it got. I watched it the first time and asked myself “where is Marsha P. Johnson?”, she’s a big part of our movie. There were no black or transgender people in the trailer but they are in our movie. It’s nice to show the movie to people, I’d first seen it a week before the trailer came out and I wanted to tell people to wait till they saw the movie, “it’s a two minute trailer, I promise you the movie is different”. We premiered in Toronto and had a Q&A after, and the first question was a lady who went “what was all the fuss about?” I’m looking forward to talking to anyone who was upset by the trailer…
You have one of them right here.
(Laughs) Right! I understand why people were offended. I think this movie is 20% about the Stonewall riots and 80% about homeless kids trying to survive. Roland’s heart was in bringing awareness to the LGBT homeless issue and to use the Stonewall as the backdrop.
The trailer controversy wasn’t helped by the fact that now you can see previews, trailers, behind the scenes footage of films constantly on your phone, computer, tablet, cabs, billboards...do you feel that knowing too much about movies before they come out is counterproductive?
When I spoke to Roland about it he said the thought process of that trailer had been he was so sick of trailers that gave away the whole movie. He didn’t want to give away the movie and I understand that. I think it would have been nice to have some scenes with Marsha in it (laughs), but you know the best thing to come out of this is I was at a bar last night and people would come up to me to talk about the film to ask about this and kept mentioning Marsha, so I wonder how many people who have never heard her name before, or Sylvia Rivera will do more research on them. Films like this usually disappear or end up on Netflix later, so the publicity has actually helped us get a stronger reaction.
I don’t want to freak you out…
Please do it (laughs)
….but are you affected when you do a movie like this that you know will have people saying “he’s not American” or “he’s not gay”, or even a movie like Fallen that has such a passionate following of people who have imagined what the character is like? Do you worry that they won’t like you?
You just don’t think about that stuff, but also I’m an actor, I remember once I released a statement and people were like “who the fuck are you to be talking for the LGBT community?” and I’m really not, I’m just saying people should see the movie, I’m not trying in any way to be a spokesperson for the LGBT community. With movies like Stonewall, the thing is people need to see them so they will make other movies like this, otherwise we’re only going to have Marvel movies for the rest of time. Doing a movie we hope we do a good job, so we do our best. No one ever sets out to make a bad movie…
Stonewall opens in theaters tomorrow.
Jeremy Irvine, LGBT, Roland Emmerich, Stonewall
Reader Comments (11)
Cute photo. and fun that they did the interviews right at Stonewall!
I certainly hope they're not expecting people to learn anything about Stonewall from this movie. Yikes. What a dope.
This movie is seriously seven different types of offensive. I saw an interview in which the director was insinuating that the white, cis, straight-appearing main character is more relatable to the straight audience since he didn't make the movie for gay people, and how the character can somehow teach the other characters that they don't need to be homeless and can study--as if the reason they're homeless is because they didn't study. And that's not even mentioning the things he said about the trans women of color who should've been big parts of the movie but weren't.
Oh, man, I feel almost as bad for poor Jeremy for being part of such an ill-advised recounting of the Stonewall Riots as I did for Elizabeth Berkley when Showgirls was released. (The latter of course proved to be stealth genius though.)
I like him. He has a lot of star quality.
So Jose, you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but do you feel satisfied by his attempt to diplomatically explain the movie's push back (if not dismissal) of transgender and black involvement in the Stonewall riots?
Personally I'm not, but reading this review actually feels like the dude really isn't proud of that to begin with but is too classy to tear down the movie when he's supposed to be promoting it.
Damage control mode extraordinaire.
Emmerich's tone deafness is shocking. This is the last subject with which you should be trying to make the audience feel comfortable. This was his chance to get away from popcorn filmmaking and do something lasting and artistic. Well, he blew it. He started out with disaster movies, but this is his biggest one yet.
Nobody is ever happy with a movie based on a historical event but is boycotting the movie a wise choice? How many mainstream Hollywood movies with leading gay characters have played at your local cinema lately?
Jaragon - Damned if we do, damned if we don't. If we don't see it, we run the risk of gay movies not being made (tho, with the bad publicity, the scathing reviews, and the frequency of other gay films being made--even just in this calendar year, that's a risk I'm willing to take); if we DO go see it, we run the risk of telling them we're ok with them making films like this. I'd much rather tell them I'm NOT ok with this and not waste my hard earned money on this flaming pile of doodoo.
If the movie flops (which it will), I don't think anybody's going to be saying "well let's scrap all those films about gay people we have in development!" I think it's quite clear that the film is just BAD. 9% on rotten tomatoes isn't a great movie that doesn't have an audience. It's a bad movie that turned its audience off by being so bad. It'd be like if Fantastic Four's flop status meant all superhero movies stopped being made. Besides, Carol and the Danish Girl should do a fairly decent trade this season.