The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
David sees the light as he explores the dark side
Veteran actor David Hayman is no stranger to films featuring dysfunctional human beings and the darker side of the human experience.
The 73-year-old Trial & Retribution star featured alongside Michael Fassbender in Macbeth, and played concentration camp inhabitant Pavel in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.
Last week, he appeared in Channel 4 hit Help alongside Killing Eve superstar Jodie Comer and This Is England’s Stephen Graham, in a hard-hitting drama following a care home, its staff and patients during the coronavirus pandemic.
But despite his new British thriller The Ballad of Billy McCrae also being very much a film about real people and the ugly and cruel trappings of the human condition, the Glasgow-born actor remains optimistic about the fundamental goodness of the human spirit.
“Nelson Mandela said no child is born to hate,” David tells The Courier. “Every child is born to love. So therefore, they must be taught to hate, taught to be a bully, taught to be a racist, taught to be exploitative, taught to be a criminal. Therefore, in every bad person’s past, they’ve been damaged somewhere.
“I think all humans are capable of extreme acts of love and compassion. At the same time, given certain circumstances, those same human beings are capable of extreme acts of violence.”
Described by director Chris Crow as a “fly-on-thewall Jacobean tragedy for a post-Brexit Tory Britain”, The Ballad of Billy McCrae, which is released by Munro Films in cinemas today, tells the story of Chris Blythe (Ian Virgo), who returns to his hometown in Wales after losing a fortune in Canada.
Billy’s daughter Elen (Sianad Gregory) is a volatile and charismatic woman. She meets Chris and they fall in love.
However, quarry owner Billy (Hayman) is a dangerous man, and his daughter is a damaged and dangerous woman. The result is that Chris finds himself torn between love and hate...
David explains that the tense film was shot in Port Talbot, Wales, at the tail end of 2019, before lockdown. Its release has been delayed to await the reopening of cinemas.
What’s particularly “smashing” about the theatrical release, however, is that the film was made independently over just three weeks with a budget of just £110,000.
“It’s been produced by a group of businessmen and film-makers in Wales, who want to prove we can still make independent movies,” he says. “Nowadays, the big blockbusters are taking all the money and independent films have been pushed to the wall, which is a real shame. So it’s great they’ve had the courage to say: ‘Look, we want to make this on a shoestring.’”
There’s no doubt the pandemic has been a challenging time for the arts sector, and everyone is hopeful that the current reopening of theatres and cinemas will continue. However, the pandemic has also shone a light on the frailties of the care sector.
In Help, penned by BAFTA-award-winning His Dark Materials writer Jack Thorne, David played Hercules, an elderly resident prone to losing his temper during the Covid crisis due to his distress over the virus.
David admits he drew on his own experiences with mum Mary and dad David to make his Help role as realistic as possible. The screen star’s mum had Parkinson’s disease for 18 years and had dementia towards the end, as did his father.
More than that, however, Help was an opportunity for him to draw on those close-up experiences and, in a sense, pay tribute to his parents.
“I was blessed to have a mum who was an angel barely disguised as a human being,” he smiles. “We never had much money in the family growing up in Bridgeton and Drumchapel, but she always saw the best in people; she always had time for everyone.”
David says his mum’s spirit lives on through the humanitarian charity Spirit Aid he set up 20 years ago. It’s dedicated to children of the world whose lives have been devastated by war, genocide, poverty, abuse or lack of opportunity at home and abroad.
In the past 18 months alone, the charity has delivered thousands of pounds worth of food and supplies every week to desperate families.
In that regard, David finds it very humbling that the pandemic has helped bring out the best in people.
The Ballad of Billy McCrae is out in cinemas now