MAN ON TRAIN

The bit-part players who stand out

ELLIOT JOSEPH AND ANNIE YOUNG IN THE CONJURING 2

Here’s a bit of Hollywood magic for you. The scene in James Wan’s The Conjuring 2 where nervous coppers Heeps and Peterson are flummoxed by a chair that moves as if of its own accord was filmed on both sides of the Atlantic; Hollywood for the interiors and London for the exteriors. “I grew up not far from Enfield,” says Elliot Joseph, who plays Peterson. “It was weird to end up back there in those circumstances.”

Both actors are ex-pats. Joseph, who started his career on the other side of the law with a one-line appearance as a ruffian in The Bill, pursued the classic London-la route to fame, and is currently plugging away on his own projects. “I do a lot of writing,” he says. He has a documentary and an indie feature in the works. “It’s going to need some funds,” he says of the latter. “But I’m pretty good at making stuff happen.”

Annie Young, meanwhile, has spent much of her life shuttling backwards and forwards between England and the States, studying at NYU and RADA. Not for her an apprenticeship on The Bill — instead, she got her start as part of a huge backing band for Alice Cooper on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. “My school in California had a music programme, and The Tonight Show asked them to send over students to do School’s Out,” she says. “We hung out with Alice Cooper for the day, which was very surreal.”

The bulk of their The Conjuring 2 commitment was a lengthy single shot involving that pesky moving chair which, as it turns out, didn’t move by itself, nor did it require the fanciest CGI money could buy. “The chair was just pulled with a wire,” laughs Joseph. “There was one take where it broke.” Ah, that old Hollywood magic.

THE CONJURING 2 IS OUT NOW ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DOWNLOAD