Make the call
Paddy Considine and Jodie Whittaker on Journeyman’s heartbreaking stand-out scene
HERE’S SOMETHING TO write to your MP about. Paddy Considine and Jodie Whittaker weren’t nominated for BAFTAS for their performances in Journeyman, Considine’s second film as a writer/director. Which, frankly, beggars belief. Because they are simply astonishing in this heart-rending tale of a boxer (Considine) who suffers brain damage, and tries to patch things up with his estranged wife (Whittaker). And nowhere are they more effective, and affecting, than in the film’s stand-out scene, where Matty receives a phone call from Emma and tries, desperately and falteringly, to win her back.
It lasts approximately three-anda-half minutes. Whittaker is never seen, only heard. And it’s nothing more than a close-up of Considine. But it’s just about the most powerful thing you will see all year.
Considine: The last thing I shot with Jodie in that house was the phone call. We’d been in this house in Sheffield for a couple of weeks.
Whittaker: I was on a day off. But we could see on the schedule that it’s not the type of scene where you can have someone else doing the lines. So I came in. I knew it was a really important scene.
Considine: She was upstairs on the phone, calling the house.
Whittaker: I couldn’t see what Paddy was doing. I wasn’t by a monitor. It was up to me to hang up, but Paddy kept saying, “Don’t go, don’t go.” He kept me on the phone, as Matty.
Considine: There’s a massive sense of longing to Matty, and that’s all I played. I was trying to remember a phrase. The phrase was, “Love of my life, love of my life, love of my life.” That’s what Matty was trying to tell her. He needs to tell her this and he can’t remember it.
Whittaker: The whole concept was amazing. I think we did two or three takes. But it’s one take that he used. He’s not really someone who does ten or 15 takes anyway.
Considine: After the phone call, Jodie comes running down the stairs. I’m the director and she runs to the director and says, “Was that alright?”
Whittaker: I was doing the very actress thing of coming down and going, “Was that alright?” I wasn’t there. I didn’t see it. I didn’t know. So I bounded downstairs, about to go home.