Suffering for his art — it’s George, the youthful yogi
FOR his latest film, George MacKay had to be proficient at rock climbing, archery, butchery, various academic pursuits and Esperanto. No challenge there, then.
‘ The most daunting thing, though, was the yoga,’ he said, his eyes revealing the suffering that he endured.
The British actor started learning yoga several weeks before he joined Viggo Mortensen and his screen siblings — played by Annalise Basso, Samantha Isler, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks and Charlie Shotwell — in director Matt Ross’s film Captain Fantastic.
It’s the story of a father, played by Mortensen, who has raised his children, progressively, out in the woods and away from 21st- century comforts and trappings.
‘I thought: “How difficult will it be to learn yoga?” ’ MacKay recalled at a party following the film’s rapturous reception at a gala screening in Cannes. ‘I’m pretty fit. It won’t be a problem.’
Instead, the 24-year-old told me, ‘it was two-anda-half months of sweat and torture’.
As Bo, the eldest of the film’s children, MacKay had to look as if he’d been studying yoga all his life, and he does pull it off.
Following his scorching performance at the Old Vic in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker, he’s enjoying a season that’s showcasing his considerable acting chops.
MacKay got his big break when he was just ten after an acting scout spotted him and he was asked to appear in P.J. Hogan’s 2003 film adaptation of Peter Pan. He played one of the Lost Boys.
Since shooting Captain Fantastic a year ago in America’s Pacific Northwest, MacKay’s movie brothers and sisters have become close.
In fact, they all went to see him in London at the Old Vic as he performed with Timothy Spall and Daniel Mays.
That family closeness comes through in the movie. ‘ We spent two weeks in boot camp, and that’s where the bonding began,’ George said.
I was totally engrossed in this story of where counter culture meets conventionality.
Captain Fantastic opens in the UK on September 9.