Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach Page #5

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The starting point is, "What is the core of the story?"

Are the people valid?

Are they true? Is it significant?

Is it worth telling?

Then you've got to find people who can bring that to life.

Then there's the qualities of the character, their age, their class,

where they're from, all of which you can't hide,

and you look for someone who can listen.

He's trying to find some essential quality in the actor

that he can use.

It's less about acting, it's about, sort of...

you as a person, I think.

I think you want actors who don't put up defences.

You want actors who let you into their minds, into their thoughts,

into their weaknesses.

And many actors erect defences. They have...

They'll develop a technique,

which is about giving the impression of something,

and presenting something,

but you want to get beyond that into who they really are.

So, vulnerability is a really important quality.

But then you have a responsibility not to exploit that,

you know, they have to feel safe.

They have to feel safe in order to allow themselves to be vulnerable.

When Carol came for her audition,

she had a gift of intimacy that's quite unusual.

He saw her...

I suppose, her talent, to be completely there.

She was a nice girl, Carol.

I think her big mistake was going to America.

She should have stayed here.

Carol White had a quality.

She was undefended,

and that worked when she was with people who cared about her,

who loved her like Ken and I did.

But then she was seduced into Hollywood,

and they don't take prisoners there.

And she got into drugs and emotional difficulties,

and she died really quite young.

Theatres have a magic about them.

We had a theatre company used to visit every three weeks.

I used to go and hang around like schoolboys do,

just for some connection to these mysterious, magical people.

But Dad had a passion that I should be educated,

and was fierce in his instruction

that I couldn't go out on weekdays.

Only 60 boys a year passed the exam to go to the grammar school.

It was a ladder for bright, working-class kids to get out.

We had an election in school, it would have been the '50 election.

To my shame, I stood as the Conservative candidate.

Ken and I escaped.

We were lucky.

Why not my friend down our street who had to go to a secondary modern?

So when a novel called A Kestrel For A Knave

arrived on my desk, we read it in one day.

And we said, "We're going to make a film of this."

It went to something that Ken and I were very, very affected by.

The fate of working-class adolescents.

The central idea was that all kids are remarkable,

and we learn something about one boy who is cast as a failure

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