Digging into what makes Johnny tick
The rise of fascism around the world – that’s all kicking up again
studded movie but it certainly turned Flynn’s head.
‘I loved in this story how these people in the 1930s, 0s, on the precipice of something awful and scary, in this last summer of hope, love, joy and discovery, connect to an age and a time long before them,’ he says.
Flynn’s character, Rory, is the cousin to Mulligan’s Edith Pretty, , upon whose land the find ind – a spine-tingling Anglo-Saxon burial ship – is excavated. When he pitches up, Rory takes photographs of the site and soon takes a shine to Lily James’s archaeologist. He’s also a pilot-in-waiting, applying to join the RAF. Flynn, 37, feels the story’s wartime backdrop is relevant to the present day.
‘A lot of what we’re going through now has some reflections in the past – the rise of fascism around the world, that’s all kicking up again,’ he says. ‘And when you look at the past and you study history, you realise that these things are cyclical. We can learn from that, we can learn from mistakes.’
When we chat, Flynn is at home – he’s married to theatre designer Beatrice Minns, with whom he has three children. Wearing a pair of fancy headphones, Flynn offers a reminder of his other day job – as part of ‘anti-folk’ outfit Johnny
Flynn & The Sussex Wit. He started learning violin aged six, taught himself guitar and can play the trumpet too too.
‘For ag ages I wouldn’t tell anyone anyon from the acting wor world that I was a mu musician, and vice ve versa, because I w wanted to be taken se seriously in both th things,’ he says. Flynn wrote the the theme tune to gentle BBC sitcom Detectorists and his h band has opened for Paul Simon, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. He was even offered the chance to support Dylan and Young when the veterans played together but had to turn it down.
‘That was the last day of filming on Stardust,’ he says. ‘I can’t support Neil Young and Bob Dylan because I’m playing David Bowie in a movie! I need to check my privilege!’ Flynn has described himself as a ‘country bumpkin’, though that’s just part of his selfdeprecating charm. He was born in South Africa but raised here when his parents returned to England. His older brother, by his late father’s earlier marriage, is actor Jerome Flynn (Game Of Thrones) and there’s a lot of good-natured teasing between them.
‘We were doing a charity the other day where I was playing an online gig,’ he says. ‘My brother was the MC and he introduced me by saying he taught me everything I know!’
During lockdown Flynn has been working – shooting The Score, a thriller inspired by seven of his own songs. He’s also playing 007 author Ian Fleming in Operation Mincemeat. And he’s set to co-star in Ripley, a TV show of the Patricia Highsmith character. That’s a lot more leaping – all of which has helped him avoid being pigeonholed.
‘I’m glad you said that,’ he laughs. ‘It’s a relief!’
The Dig is available on Netflix from Friday