I’m sat in the living room of my house share, suddenly aware of the mess that surrounds me. It’s simply not fit for a BAFTA nominee to sit in. To save myself embarrassment, I frantically rummage around the cupboards and find two throws to cover the white sofas and make the place look ‘professional’. The proverbial cats and dogs are hammering down outside as we set up our podcast gear. For two men, like Ieuan and I, who struggle with tech, this has been one of the biggest challenges of running our podcast. We have, however, after many months, mastered the setup. Amit sends an email to say he’s arrived early but that he can wait in the rain under his brolly if we aren’t ready. This politeness and his charm are not an act, as we find out throughout the episode. We all enjoy a brew and a brief chat in my kitchen. Is it me, or does the kitchen seem like it’s in a complete state now too? We’ve sent some of the questions to Amit in advance, and he’s raring to go.
Let's dive in!
"For me it’s exciting to work with people who have new ideas."
SFBQ:
I suppose a good reason to continue doing shorts, even for an actor in your position is that you can develop a relationship with a filmmaker that you believe in and hopefully things will progress down the line as you do bigger and better stuff together. So it’s a good investment of your time in that way?
AS:
I don’t necessarily look at it in a business perspective like that but you just don’t know where someone’s career might go. For me it’s exciting to work with people who have new ideas. Its much the same with agents. If I were to move agents I would go for a younger agent who is starting out, is really hungry and wants to prove something. I guess in a similar way with filmmakers. They have something to prove and its exciting to be in their world and be involved in their project.
SFBQ:
As an actor are you potentially more free to experiment and explore new things and break new ground for yourself in your craft on shorts?
AS:
Yes! Definitely. To take risks and try new things and to really experiment. I always find that I have the confidence to do that on the set of a shorts.
When you’re on a slightly larger project, where there’s 20 execs sitting by the monitor. The stakes are a bit high and you don’t have that confidence possibly, or you’re not given that opportunity or there’s just not the time to do that. With shorts you have that opportunity much more.
SFBQ:
Do you think that you’re not given the opportunity or is there a possibility that you have to suppress these instincts as everyone’s got an opinion. Whereas on shorts everyone is just there to experiment and you feel you can just go for it?
AS:
Yeah, maybe it is the fact that a short is very much a writer-director’s kind of medium and on larger projects, there’s just so many people involved. There are just so many voice and it is very rarely about the actor and director working on the script.
"I think you just have to be very efficient and, well, develop the confidence to embrace your interpretation and really express it."
SFBQ:
I’m so curious about that. How does that affect your performance?
AS:
I think you just have to be very efficient and, well, develop the confidence to embrace your interpretation and really express it. And if there’s pushback, then fine. At least you’ve tried. But I think now I’m getting older. I have more confidence. And maybe it’s the type of roles I’m going up for now to say, you know, this is my interpretation and there’s more opportunity to collaborate. Whereas when I was younger, it was more a case of, okay, just do this, stand here and say a line and you’re very functional.
SFBQ:
So the older you’ve become the more you can look at the scene and work out the different ways to play the scene and actually have the confidence to go in and do that?
AS:
I guess you’re developing your instinct, by working with other actors and directors and putting yourself in those situations. And yeah, embracing yourself. For example, ‘Big Ears’ is about my ears that I was extremely insecure about when I was a child. It’s very much a statement of embracing your weaknesses or what you thought were your weaknesses and using it to create work, I guess.
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This is just an excerpt of our conversation. You can check out the full episode here.
It was an absolute delight to have Amit on the show and the first time that my parents had heard of the person we were interviewing.
