u/moldothuy

He and Campbell are now best mates, though he says they have yet to reap the rewards of recognition: “We were in a restaurant and one of the waiters offered us free cake. Me and Stuart were like, ‘Maybe they saw the show and just wanna give us free food.’ When the waiter came back I said, ‘How come you gave us a free cake?’ And she went, ‘Oh, cos we’re shutting soon and they’re out of date.’ We were like, ‘Oh. OK.

From Mitchell’s recent interview:

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/mitchell-robinson-interview-half-man-working-class-b1287306.html

[About how Ruben become different with the young verion of him, more broken, incredibly sad]

How did you work with Stuart Campbell to calibrate past and present Ruben with that level of anger and sadness that you mentioned?

RG: Yeah. Well, I thought it was very important that he didn’t… that the characters changed. So the characters… without giving me too many points, the characters do undergo significant sort of change during the show. Niall’s not the Niall in his youth, and Ruben’s not the Ruben and his youth. And as a result, I actually kept four, five, and six from the young lads because I didn’t want, for example, Stuart to realize how broken Ruben gets. And I didn’t want Niall to know that somewhere down the line, he false pray to excesses, shall we say. And I hope that’s not too much of a spoiler.

And so, as a result, I kept it back. I wanted it to be the youthful versions of these characters. And I wanted Ruben to be that kind of charismatic unhinge guy you kind of knew at school, you kind of want to be him, but equally you’re scared of him. And I really wanted to hone down on this vivacious youth aspect of vivacious adolescence. And that was what I drilled down into it with. And I always wanted to… it was always about truth with Ruben because there was always something about… and it was always truthful with Stuart and I.

It was always talking about the truth about what’s he feeling? What’s he feeling? What’s he feeling? Because I guess I worry that actors came in… a lot of the actors who audition came in and they played the state. “I’m an angry guy, and I’m starting to fight with you.” But really, I felt like even when Ruben was being angry, he needed to be real in a way and sad. And so it was always chatting Stuart through that. And he brought so much himself, of course, but I needed it to… I needed him to kind of… It was about youth and capturing the reality of his internal struggles.

“I love Jamie. He has a very bright personality, and I think that really helps the set. He makes the effort with everyone.

I’ve been on sets where there’s a very clear divide between the lead actors and the rest of the crew. Jamie breaks those barriers down. He knows everyone’s names, and that really helps.

As showrunner, I’m having to man the ship and keep everything moving, and it really helps when a lead actor does that. People are used to me coming around, talking to them about all the nuts and bolts and how we get the show where it needs to be. But when somebody like Jamie, who doesn’t need to do it, who could just turn up and be in front of the camera, goes around and does it, it means a lot to a lot of people. I think it makes people really care and be invested.

So, alongside all his talents and how much he brought to the piece, I was very grateful for having him on set as a person.

It was a hugely challenging shoot. Jamie has spoken about this at length. We were pressed for time every single day. We shot a lot of pages every day and really pushed ourselves.

I also found myself in a situation where I was writing, acting and showrunning all at once. There were times when I would give Jamie script changes that were pages long, and he would always somehow learn them by the next day. I think he’s a very good line learner. I know that sounds obvious because actors need to learn their lines, but you could almost give him ten pages the day before and he would come in having learned it. I guess that’s what you get with the amount of experience he has.”

“I was certainly interested in painting a a sort of deep psychosexual undercurren to the pair of them. I think they they have a lot of feeling for one another that they almost can't explain. But it's from a very deep place and it's so confusing for them and it's so sort of unexplainable that it veers into all kinds of areas including the sexual, including the kind of damaging, including the fraught and tense and including the joyful and all these kinds of things.

I feel they feel a phenomenal love for each other that almost defies explanation in a lot of ways.

And I think sometimes when we look back on our lives and we think about the defining relationships that we've had in our lives, they're not necessarily always the good ones, the pure ones, the supporting and loving ones, they are the ones that I think have this kind of painful inconsistency at the heart of them. the kind of unexplainable and the painful along with all the joyful loving fun things as well.

And so I think they exist in a place which it's almost like they can't express the love for one another that it almost causes them to bond in ways that are very sort of homoerotic and destructive and all all kinds of things.”