George Jaques is on a bit of a roll. George Jaques has been on a roll since he wrote and produced his first play as a teenager (he’s now a decrepit 24), but recent months have been especially dizzying.
His debut feature film Black Dog was nominated for the Sutherland Award at last year’s London Film Festival. (Jaques shot it over four weeks on a budget that wasn’t shoestring so much as battered old bootstrap.)
His second feature Sunny Dancer will boast the best and buzziest of young British actors, including Bella Ramsey, Ruby Stokes and Louis Patridge. Expect the first trailer to shatter the internet.
And on 19 August, Black Dog arrives on Apple and Amazon Prime to find the broader audience this extraordinary debut deserves. Depicting a road trip taken by two troubled teenagers – and so much more – the film embodies Jaques’s mantra of making the audience both laugh and cry. Oh, and there’s also another film and a TV show but he can’t talk much about those.
I caught up with Jaques on Friday morning over Zoom. He’s visiting friends in Devon: the shop run awaited after our call. (You can be one of the most exciting talents in British film and your mates will still send you to Tesco to fetch the booze.) His high-backed chair was very Bond villain – fitting for someone who’ll probably rule the world by 30. (And his mates will still be sending him on beer runs because that’s what mates do.)
We spoke about Black Dog, Sunny Dancer, artistic evolution and plenty more. Enjoy the conversation with a creative powerhouse and our future overlord. He’s a gem.
On 19 August, Black Dog launches on Amazon Prime and Apple. Must be a proud moment for you…
It’s so exciting. I've got some pretty big plans for that day about trying to make the film spread as far as possible. With little films like this, word of mouth is so important. I’m over the moon that it's getting a proper release.
It was really well received at the London Film Festival but now you are getting the broader audience that the film deserves…
It's a funny one. We walked out the festival with many four star reviews, a few fives, we sold out in two minutes. It was mad. And then you have to get distributors, which is challenging. We got Vertigo and everything took a while because that's the nature of British film at the moment.
It still feels like my film but I think on the 19th it won't feel like mine anymore. It will go out and it will be everyone else's. That's a really weird feeling. At the London Film Festival, you're still working because you're trying to get that distribution company, you're aware of everything that needs to happen afterwards. Now on the 19th it's released and bar doing some social media stuff, that's it.
We decided at a very early point that we were going to focus on digital because for a film like this, we can make a lot of noise on social media but also make a lot of noise among the film community. For me, it was making Black Dog accessible. With everything going on in the UK at the moment, I feel like we need more films about love and accepting adversity, you know what I mean?
Since the festival, people will have supplied their own interpretations of Black Dog. Have any of those interpretations deepened your understanding of the film?
Someone came up to me – they know my writing quite well, they've watched all my shorts. When I was making theatre I was focusing on socially conscious subjects, trying to make them a talking point and entertaining and provoking. And then I moved away from that; now I just want to make stories that make you laugh and make you cry. I don't care what genre, that's all I want to do. And this person was like, ‘George, a lot of the work you do is about giving people another shot at getting their childhood back.’ I thought that was really interesting.
My next film Sunny Dancer is a film about a group of young people in remission from cancer who go to a summer camp and it's all about the wild and feral things that happen there. But I guess in some ways they're getting another shot at being young again. Black Dog has that and the TV show I’m working on certainly has that. It’s quite a nice realisation that my work is almost growing up with me too.
I guess everyone wants to be a kid again on a certain level…
It is interesting. I didn't enjoy my school years. I didn't enjoy that part of life. My mom wasn't very well and I didn't enjoy school. I wasn't that into that. I think it's more about being so fascinated by people that have been forced to grow up too quickly because of grief or sickness. I think everyone slightly misses their younger self. It's a really interesting thing to write about because there's stolen dreams and there's misplaced youth and there's memories and there's moments that you wish you had done differently in hindsight. All these things.
I didn't have the usual sixteen to eighteen thing because I was running a company and putting theatre shows on and all that stuff. But I love my life now and I don't feel like I missed out. But I definitely didn't have that normal route a lot people have. I found it interesting that someone found that common theme.
I used to say the problem with young directors and writers at the moment is so many of them go, ‘here's my style, this is what I do.’ And I was like, you can't do that. You've got to look at a script and go, what's the best way to tell this story? Every story is different. When I made my first short film, I looked at that script and I went, this is how I'll tell this story. Same for Black Dog and Sunny Dancer – it’s a different language.
If you watch all my work, you might be able to pull some things out: oh, George likes using handheld camera work when he shoots young people because it keeps energy up, or George looks at people getting another shot of their childhood. And I find that really exciting because I learn as much about it as you guys.
Style inevitably evolves over an artist’s lifetime. Look at Picasso…
Style changes and you grow up and you change the way you shoot a scene. How I shoot a scene now is different from how I would've approached it when I was 18. You're searching for answers when you're writing. There's things in life that don't make sense or you find cruel or you find weird or you find funny. You explore those things. And that will always change and in five years there'll be something else I find fascinating or I'll revisit something. That feels really special.
What can you tell us about Sunny Dancer?
It’s my second feature. It stars Bella Ramsey, Louis Partridge and Ruby Stokes. It follows a group of misfits in remission from cancer who all have gone through something that's so traumatic. But this film is wild and it's feral and it's funny and there's not a single hospital scene. I was so sick of seeing all these cancer films that had long drawn out scenes of someone who's really ill. That’s obviously a lot of people's experience of cancer but I wanted to make a film where cancer was the least interesting thing about them. They have these skills, this whole life, because they are still teenagers.
We're so used to seeing people in hospital gowns being really unwell. Of course that is a part of it, but where's the films where they still want to go out and snog each other and party and have a close to a normal teenage life as possible? Even though this horrendous thing has happened to them, that's so cruel and so unfair. Obviously my mum had cancer, as you know, so it was very close to my heart. I just wanted to make a film that is basically a mix of Lady Bird and The Breakfast Club. It's this new film that we've not seen before and I feel so excited to be making it and making it with such exceptional people.
It's an amazing cast. How did you get those people on board?
That's just the beginning as well. I can't say who else is in it but it’s just the start. Ruby and I worked on Black Dog together, so when I was writing the script I had Ruby in mind. Everything she touches is exceptional, a remarkable actor. And Louis, I've known for a long time so I also had Louis in mind.
Bella's character, Ivy, I didn't have anyone in mind. My casting directors suggested Bella. We sent them the script and Bella read it and loved it and got on a Zoom with me. I've been on those Zooms as an actor – you are nervous because you're meeting the director and you want to impress them. But when you're a director, you want to impress the actor too and make sure they do the job.
At the beginning, I sheepishly went, ‘do you like it? Do you want to do this job?’ And Bella was like, ‘yeah, love it.’ And then we talked about everything other than the film! They're one of the most talented people I've ever met. They're an incredibly special talent. Everything they stand for, everything they do, is incredible and I cannot wait to bring the best of the young British talent together.
How do you know Louis? I saw him and Kit Connor at the launch party for Black Dog.
I grew up in Tooting and there was a local pub called The Althorp in Wandsworth. My dad happened to meet Louis's dad – this must have been about 2017, 2018 – and discovered both their sons were actors. This was before Enola Holmes had come out, before Louis was doing what Louis does now. I think I’d just made my first short. They put us in touch and that was it. I remember watching Enola Holmes come out and Louis's career going stratospheric.
He's an amazing, nuanced, incredible actor, but also one of the loveliest people. He's remained the same kind man I met way back when. He's watched me grow as a filmmaker, as an actor and I've watched him grow as an actor and it's so nice to be on set working together. It's an incredibly exciting role for Louis and I'm really excited to be partnering with him.
Do you also plan to work with Kit? You guys have known each other since childhood, right?
Yeah, we were at school together. I'd love to work with Kit. Kit is incredible. We were in Hamlet together at school, or maybe it was Macbeth. Kit was younger than I was but we did that together and Kit went to all my plays in the original beginnings of Athenaeum, he’s seen all my short films. I'm desperate to work with him and find that role and be reunited. Maybe we won't do Hamlet together. I feel like we've done that.
Jaques with Keenan Munn-Francis and Jamie Flatters on the set of Black Dog
Kit and Louis are both global stars. An increased profile is inevitable as your career progresses. Do you want that for yourself? Or is it something that fills you with trepidation?
That's a really good question. I feel very lucky because when I got my first lead I was 18. [An Amazon show that was ultimately cancelled before shooting.] That could have gone really massive and in some ways I wasn't ready back then.
When we announced Sunny Dancer, it went viral, it was everywhere. But it's for the right reasons, it's for the work. It's not because I want to be famous or anything like that. I just want to make great work. And if fame comes with it, it comes with it. It’s been amazing watching my friends navigate it, like Louis and Kit. How they haven't changed and how they remain kind and navigate some quite big stuff in the press. You either want to be an actor or you want to be famous – all my friends want to be actors.
Obviously you’re still at the beginning of your career. Do you have any long-term goals, maybe looking ahead ten, twenty years in the future?
If you look at what Margot Robbie is doing with LuckyChap Entertainment: Margo brings the partnerships with amazing directors and amazing actors and she puts them together. They have an overhead deal with Warner Brothers, which is really exciting.
When I started Athenaeum, it was a theatre company. We had in-house actors and it was so collaborative. We rehearsed the plays in my mum's girlfriend's basement. It was mad. I look at everything I was trying to do with Athenaeum and I go, well I want to be talent-led, I want to have relationships with amazing actors and directors and writers.
So I can call an actor friend of mine and go, ‘what do you want to do next?’ And they tell me and I go, ‘well do you want to write it? No? Okay, well here's a brilliant writer, here's an exceptional director.’ I want almost to bring that theatre company energy back and be a hub for talent. That’s what I want to keep growing as well. Build projects from the ground up with amazing talent and amazing collaborations.
Young talent was so overlooked for so long. We used to get told when putting a film together that young actors don't have value. If an older actor in their fifties says, ‘I'd like to write a film’, everyone tells them to go ahead. If a young actor wants to write a film, they're like, 'sure, sure. You don't want to stick to your lane?' Why? Just because they're 23 doesn't mean they can't write. Everyone can write.
I want to work with incredible young talent. Keep creating things that I'm proud of, things that make you laugh and make you cry. That’s the goal, existing alongside my filmmaking and my acting, is keep Athenaeum growing as this hub for talent.
You told me about the words inscribed by your door at home: “the goal was never to be famous. The goal was to make good work and be in good work.” Is the inscription still there?
Still there! And I have an office now – the inscription is just above the office door. I’m working with Embankment Films on Sunny Dancer, Hugo Grumbar is my executive producer. I've never felt so respected and excited by a company. They just go, ‘George, who is the next big one?’ And I'm like, ‘these guys!’ They get so excited by it. They're incredible and I feel so lucky.
I learned a lot about the industry making Black Dog. All those lessons, all the things that I learned informed Sunny Dancer but it wouldn't have been possible without Black Dog. Black Dog is the thing that nearly broke me. But it’s also the thing that made me.
It's the film that everyone told me was impossible. You can't shoot in four weeks. That's mad. You can't do a road trip on that budget, you can't do that many locations. And we just went, why not? Let's just give it a shot and we'll work it out. And that was really tough in moments but it was also the best because you learn so much, so quickly. We're the little film that might.
That's why I'm excited for the launch. Yes, we don't have millions to do all the TikTok dances and big campaigns but we've got a lot of people that love our film and a lot of support. Let's bring it on and get that film out there.
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Watch Black Dog on Apple and Amazon Prime from 19 August. Buy it here
