Film festival goes out on a high note
● Gala screening of biopic about singer Morrissey ends 2017 event
One of Scotland’s rising stars has brought the curtain down on the Edinburgh International Film Festival, with his portrayal of singer-songwriter Morrissey.
Jack Lowden was joined by Downton Abbey actress Jessica Brown Findlay, who plays Morrissey’s artist friend Linder Sterling, and Laurie Kynaston, who plays his songwriting partner Johnny Marr, at yesterday’s world premiere of England Is Mine.
Borders-born Lowden – who is soon to be seen in cinemas in golfing drama Tommy’s Honour and Second World War epic Dunkirk – admitted he was a newcomer to the ground-breaking music of The Smiths frontman when he took on the role.
But now he wants to meet the man he played as a young lad struggling to pursue his dream of becoming a singer-songwriter in 1970s Manchester while working in a tax office.
Speaking on the red carpet in Edinburgh last night, Lowden said he immersed himself in the music of Morrissey and The Smiths.
He added: “I really chucked myself into and I actually can’t stop listening to Morrissey and The Smiths now.
“The film is set in the presmiths years, so in some ways that wasn’t too important, but I felt it was, as his music reveals a lot about himself and what he thinks. When he
0 Jack Lowden, fifth from left, with the cast of England is Mine on the red carpet in Edinburgh yesterday evening first got into Oscar Wilde, he suddenly realised he could say profound things in very simple ways. You can really tell that in his lyrics.
“I really want to see him live now. It’s very rare to get to make a film about a legend like that is still around. I’d love to meet him too.
“I just find him incredibly fascinating, enigmatic and beautiful. I listened to a lot of music he listened to, and watched a lot of films he liked.”
Born in Oxton, near Lauder, Lowden first found fame while studying drama in Glasgow by featuring in an Irn-bru advert sending up Disney’s High School Musical. He played Olympic hero Eric Liddell in a stage adaptation of film Chariots of Fire and was one of the main characters in the BBC miniseries War and Peace.
Lowden added: “If you’re fortunate enough as an actor to get a role like this, you try to see what you can get away with, and what you can and can’t do. I think his fans will learn a lot about him that they don’t know.
“It’s really a film about hesitation and what you always thought you might want to do and never done it. It should spur people on to do what they have always dreamt of doing.
“The film really shows Morrissey before anybody cared what he said, and when he was trying to work out what he wanted to be. It’ll be really interesting to see what people think of it.”
Brown Findlay, who played Lady Sybil Crawley in Downton Abbey, said: “I absolutely loved The Smiths before I started working on the film, so it felt like such an honour to be part of their story and to delve into that whole world.”