TIFF: Paddy Considine interview

The last time I spoke with Paddy Considine, shortly before the release of Shane Meadows’s improv comedy Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee in October 2009, the 37-year-old Midlands-born actor was pulling himself out of a period of serious self-doubt. His career – which began so brilliantly with Meadows’s A Room for Romeo Brass and Dead Man’s Shoes – had, in his eyes, been going nowhere. He was struggling to cope. Multiple trips to Hollywood had left him feeling out of his depth. ‘I was losing it, and fast,’ he told me then. ‘I was thinking: I’ll just leave quietly by the back door. There was something missing from my game.’

It’s hard to reconcile that cowed, cautious individual with the man I met last month in the plush environs of Spring Street Studios in north London. With his directorial debut Tyrannosaur picking up a couple of Sundance awards, this is Paddy reborn: a bullish, at times disconcertingly overconfident individual with a rocker’s quiff and a mile-wide grin. Easing comfortably into a leather armchair, he dismisses those earlier doubts out of hand. ‘Oh no!’ he laughs. ‘The moany actor!’

Then suddenly, he’s serious. ‘The thing is, if I try to talk about acting, I come off as moaning. But I’m privileged.’ He considers this for a moment. ‘I think it’s all about control. Acting is vulnerable because you’re not in control of anything. You have to give up a lot of your trust, it’s up to somebody else what they do with what you’ve given them. And a lot of the time, I’ve given them better performances than the final result.’

And what better way for a frustrated actor to regain that sense of control than by seizing the reins himself? Tyrannosaur is an unusual first film, a bleak two-hander about a furious, alcoholic loner, played by Peter Mullan, and his odd relationship with an abused charity shop worker, played by Olivia Colman. It’s a supremely confident debut, giving credence to Considine’s proud claim that the movie sprang fully formed from his imagination, without the aid of any of the great directors he’s worked with.

‘I had encouragement from James Marsh and Gary Oldman, who both read the script,’ he admits. ‘But I never called anybody for help. It might sound egotistical, but I knew the film I wanted to make. There was nothing anybody could have told me. I wouldn’t have listened. I didn’t want anything coming into my universe.’

As Considine admits, this could – and, at times in our interview, does – come across as arrogance. But that is to underestimate how personal Tyrannosaur is. ‘These are my arguments with God and faith and people,’ he insists. ‘My thoughts on my mother. My thoughts about society. I’ve been these characters. I don’t hurt people, but the way I feel about the world can make me feel afraid, but also aggressive. So I write this character who smashes things in broad daylight, ’cos he can’t articulate how he’s feeling. I want to do that, but I can’t. Which is for the best!’

Peter Mullan in 'Tyrannosaur'. ©CHANNEL FOUR TELEVISION/UK FILM COUNCIL/EM MEDIA/OPTIMUM RELEASING/WARP X/INFLAMMABLE FILMS 2010

It also helps that Considine admits Tyrannosaur was far from a one-man show. ‘We became a very tight family. There were lots of laughs, lots of camaraderie. But when it came time to go “Right!”, everybody tapped in.’

Chief among those ‘tapping in’ were lead actors Mullan and Colman, both of whom deliver performances of extraordinary intensity. ‘My wife would say Peter is a father figure,’ Considine enthuses. ‘In some respects that’s true. I’ve always admired him. There’s no bum notes. He’s never not believable. I joke that I only cast Peter Mullan because Lee Marvin’s dead, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s from that ilk. Those guys are hard to find, the Lee Marvins, the Jack Nicholsons. There was nobody else.’

We expect this kind of raw, confrontational performance from Mullan. But the surprise is Colman, a comic actress familiar from Brit comedy series Peep Show whose role here is far removed from that kind of cosy humour. ‘She became phenomenal, ferocious,’ Considine remembers. ‘A revelation. She has a quality – a natural spirit, she’s loveable and kind. No edges. No angles. Happily married with children. In love with her husband. So I was truly honoured to see her transform. I was in awe.’

So, with his old uncertainty swept away, is Paddy ready to quit acting altogether, and make his home behind the camera? The jury’s out. ‘At the end of the day, my life isn’t about other people’s work,’ he asserts. ‘I’ve got to stop giving stuff away. I’ve got my own stories to tell, and a great need to tell them. I’ve got these images, these thoughts in my head and I need to find a way to cope with them.’

So what happens now? ‘Well, I’ve written my next film. It’s a ghost story. Again, it’s not so conventional, I don’t want to give people quite what they’re expecting. I’ll admit, sometimes I’ve paid the bills with acting. You know the phrase, “It’s one for the money, two for the showreel.” I don’t want that as a director. I don’t want to compromise myself. There’s a big old wide world out there. I want to explore it.’

Tyrannosaur screens as part of this year's Tokyo International Film Festival, on Oct 22 and 25. Paddy Considine also co-stars in Blitz, out now