PLAYING THE MAN
WHETHER HE’S PLAYING A GAY FARMER OR PRINCE CHARLES, JOSH O’CONNOR REFUSES TO BE PIGEONHOLED. WE MEET AN ACTOR ON THE CUSP OF EVEN BIGGER THINGS
The actor whose name is on everyone’s lips.
IN 2017, GOD’S OWN COUNTRY – a low-budget indie film by first-time director Francis Lee – became an unlikely hit. Set in rural northern England and with a cast of newcomers, it followed the burgeoning romance between two men: a struggling farmer and a Romanian migrant. O’connor’s performance as the former was so visceral that even his audition had the director fooled: surely there was no way a person could portray the pain, anger and Yorkshire accent of this character with such integrity without coming from a similar background?
In Josh’s short career, he’s already picked up a BAFTA Rising Star nomination and a string of challenging parts, from a disaffected teen in the offbeat Bridgend, to an aristocratic misogynist in The Riot Club. Now he’s Marius Pontmercy in the BBC adaptation of Les Misérables (on Foxtel), and Prince Charles in series three of
The Crown. ELLE speaks to the British actor-on-the-rise about going method, the importance of LGBTQ cinema and his surprising schoolyard hero…
FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT JOSH O’CONNOR
1. “I WANTED TO BE A FOOTBALLER… BUT ACTING WAS WHAT I WAS GOOD AT. As a kid, I wasn’t particularly academic, so when you’re told, ‘You can do this’, it felt right. There was a girl above me at school, Tahliah Barnett, who really inspired me. We did Bugsy Malone together. She was the only person of colour at our school and had absolute belief in whatever she did. Now she’s known as FKA Twigs…”
2. “AT EVERY EARLY AUDITION I WAS TOLD I DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH ‘LIFE EXPERIENCE’. Before getting a place at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, I applied to all the big drama schools and they’d all say it. At one audition, this woman didn’t even look up from her desk and said, ‘You’re 17. How can you be an actor when you have no life experience?’ I said, ‘There are three-year-olds in Africa with more life experience than me, and probably 40-year-olds with less. How can you gauge experience by age?’ I did my speeches and left.”
3. “WITH EVERY CHARACTER I ASK MYSELF HOW MUCH OF A STRETCH IT IS. For Johnny [in God’s Own Country], I had to throw myself into it so I didn’t recognise Josh anymore. I’d talk in the accent and work on the farm, so when they called action I could lift a sheep like a regular farmer. It was draining, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat for the right role.”
4. “I LOVE LEARNING FROM OTHER ACTORS. On the first day of rehearsals for Les Misérables I walked in and Dominic West is on one side of the room, and David Oyelowo’s on the other with Lily Collins. Then I got on set with Olivia Colman – it was epic. I worked with Annette Bening and Bill Nighy in
Hope Gap [out later this year]; they play my parents, who are going through a split. It looks at the effect that has on a couple and their child.”
5. “IT’S A REALLY AMAZING TIME FOR LGBTQ CINEMA, with Beach Rats, Call Me By Your Name, God’s Own Country and 120 Beats Per Minute.
God’s Own Country was made for $1.7 million and it’s been a critical and commercial success. That’s the next step – when queer cinema isn’t being made as a niche but as a commercially viable product. There’s an appetite for it.”