Tom Hughes and Jack Doolan
The stars of Cemetery Junction talk about their swift ascent and the new Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant project.

In a hotel in sunny Soho during a long day’s promotion for Cemetery Junction – the new film written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant – two of the film’s young stars, Tom Hughes and Jack Doolan, sit down to talk about their swift ascent in the acting world, and their sadness over the demise of The Bill. Taking turns to speak, they also manage to hungrily get through a sandwich or two…

For both of you Cemetery Junction marks your first major film roles, and you’ve certainly got a lot of promotion to get through – how are you feeling about it all?

Tom Hughes: We’re really excited about the film coming out. It’s quite a big deal for us – it’s my second film but it’s my first real major part in a film. For all of us, it’s really exciting.

Ricky and Steve have said that they did not want well-known actors taking on the main parts – that they wanted relatively unknown, up-and-coming actors for the film. What was the audition process like for the film?

TH: All three of us (Jack Doolan, Tom Hughes and Christian Cooke) auditioned extensively, really. It was quite a long process. Jack had been auditioning for quite a while and they’d constantly been bringing him back. He’d just done a workshop with five different Bruces and five different Freddies with just him playing Snork. So I think they were quite sure that they wanted Jack, but me and Christian hadn’t been in – I was up in Manchester filming and Christian was away, but suddenly at the end of February I got a call having gone in to meet the casting director just for a chat and I was only four months out of drama school at that time, so they didn’t even know who I was. I got a call saying they’d opened it back up again, and I happened to have a day off so I came in. Within about three weeks me, Jack and Christian were in a room together and it felt like something had happened. After our first meeting together Jack had been offered the part, and then four weeks later we all got offered it. Me and Christian snuck in through the back door really, it was quite nice. It was great because we knew each other before, me and Christian, because we’d done a job together, but we instantly hit it off with Jack – that kind of friendship that’s integral to the film was there from the first minute.

Do you think the chemistry between the three of you influenced the directors’ decision to cast you all?

Jack Doolan: Yeah, I think that’s the reason why the three of us were cast. Because I’d read scripts with so many different people I really got a sense of how different people were playing these characters. A lot of people had played the parts the same way, but Tom and Christian came in and played both the characters completely differently to anyone else I’d seen do it. It just felt right – the chemistry was right and we were bouncing off each other. From that moment when I walked out of that first meeting I knew that it had to be the three of us – in my head. Now obviously you’re never certain of anything in this business, but in my head it worked, and the chemistry had a lot to do with it. The chemistry is something you can’t fake either – it doesn’t matter how good an actor you are, you cannot fake that chemistry you’ve got with other people. Especially when you’re playing a group of lads as well, you know, because male friendships are a really complex thing – a lot more so than people realise. The dynamics of the group are quite complex.

Were Ricky and Steve quite clear about what they wanted for Bruce’s part then, Tom?

TH: I don’t know, it’s interesting. There was an article in the Observer the other day that Steve wrote about us and the casting process, and he said that originally I was playing Bruce a little bit too twitchy and edgy for what was their vision – which I completely get, but my initial response to the character when I read it was that… when I first met the casting directors they’d said that Bruce was kind of like a southern Liam Gallagher. I felt I could really do that, you know? That kind of confidence and cockiness – but there’s a vulnerability there that I thought I could really nail. When I read it just before I went to audition, I saw Bruce as Rhys Ifans,you know? Because he’s still got that sort of rock ‘n’ roll-style feel about him, but he’s got a comedian element as well. So that was where the ‘twitchiness’ came from, which I think may have been the individuality that Jack was talking about – that kind of sharp-edged thing where I wasn’t trying to be cool, I was trying to be a nutter. That maybe helped, but then once I got the part I realised that the real screen icons like Steve McQueen and James Dean – that guys that Bruce would have watched and tried to emulate – they have a coolness and a stillness that’s empowering and gives them that enigma. It became about being specific, cool and direct. Ricky and Steve spoke a lot about working with Samuel L. Jackson, and how when he was on Extras he didn’t really do a lot, but then when they watched it back it was just magical, because he does it all just by standing there and has that confidence to just do nothing. I think, especially British actors, we often feel we’ve got to fill the void, whereas there’s that confidence that some American actors just have naturally to just go: “I feel comfortable enough in this character and in my own skin to just stand here and I know that my own personal charm, whatever that may be, is enough.” That was quite a challenge, but it was great to overcome that, and it’s done me a hell of a lot of good as an actor.

Did either of you have similar experiences growing up to your characters in the film? Where are you both from?

JD: Well I’m from North London, so that thing of wanting to escape a small town doesn’t really apply to me, but I think you can take it as a broader theme of just wanting to make something of yourself – just trying to find your way. I think, especially for fellas around our age and in your early twenties, you’re at that stage where you’re trying to become your own man and I think it’s really important that everyone does find their own way. I don’t necessarily think that leaving a small town is the way everyone should go, but the message is that it’s important to find your own place in the world.

TH: I’m from Chester. It’s a city, but it’s quite a small city and it’s very much contained in it’s own world – it’s a walled city – so in a way I very much had that desire when I was growing up. I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be an actor, and that was quite rare as I don’t know anyone else growing up that had that vision as well. So I did have that urge to get out there, go to the Big Smoke, and see what the world had to offer outside the walls of our city. But I don’t think I felt like Freddie feels that the town is holding him back. I never felt that with Chester – I always found everyone very supportive and it was a great place to grow up. My mum had lived in London for 18 years, so she was more like Freddie as she was from a working class family who had grown up and gone to make something of herself. So I always had this in-built knowledge that there was something outside of the town, which I don’t think Freddie’s got, and he finds that out through the course of the film.

Did either of you study drama or go to university?

TH: I went to drama school – I went to Rada and left in July 2008.

JD: I was a child actor. I went to a place in Islington, which is sadly not there any more. It was a very famous children’s theatre called the Anna Scher Theatre, which turned out generation after generation of London actors, and most ended up in Eastenders or The Bill or something. So I went there and instantly fell in love with it. I did my first episode of The Bill when I was about seven I think. That’s what gave me the bug, but growing up I always felt that I wanted to be a bit different. There is this thing where if you’ve got a bit of a strong London accent then you just end up playing 18 different characters on The Bill over ten years. And it’s just been cut, so that’s the end of what was a real institution, as most actors have done it at some stage. Hopefully something will spring up in its place.

TH: A lot of people do Doctors now though. After I left drama school, one of my first jobs was in Doctors, so there’s always something where the younger guys can go and cut their teeth.

Do you have any advice for people wanting to get into films and acting?

TH: Well… I don’t really know what I’m doing.

JD: We’re all still really trying to find our own way, but I guess it’s just work rate. That’s the only way of doing it – it’s all about hard work.