MATT MICUCCI: What made you want to turn this story into your directorial feature film debut?
YANN DEMANGE: The script! It's that simple! I was looking for something special because, you know, after your first film you may never get to direct a second one. So, I got sent this one, and at first I was a bit skeptical when I heard it was about Northern Ireland because I thought there already had been a few masterpieces made about the subject. But I read it, I loved it, I loved the way it was written, I loved the way it humanised everyone and made everything so universal. And it really made me care about the boys. I realised that it is a film about the Troubles, but it transcends that.
MM: Did you have to do much reserarch? Was realism important to you?
YD: Well, I am a French born Londoner, so for me the troubles was like white noise. It was part of the fabric of my upbringing, but up to very recently, I didn't understand it. The thing that drew me the most about the screenplay were the characters, but after that I was award of the fact that I would have to do my research. So, I watched archive footage, read as much as I could about it, went to Ireland and spoke to the families of the victims from both sides. That also made me realise that most of the key players in this conflict were in their twenties. They were just boys.
MM: Jack O'Connell delivered an amazing performance.
YD: During the late parts of the scriptwriting, I collaborated with Greg Burke and in order to make the script - which was already one of the sharpest ones I had ever read - seem more real, we found ourselves taking off a lot of the dialogue. What was amazing was that Jack was completely up for it. Usually, if you cut so much dialogue from your leading actor your would get phone calls from agents, but Jack was completely up for saying less and loves to be able to communicate without saying words.
