Horgan, who’s best known here for creating the HBO series “Divorce,” as well as such darkly comedic British TV series as “Catastrophe,” “This Way Up,” and “Pulling,” the latter of which she created and cowrote with Dennis Kelly, echoed McAvoy’s sentiments. “But of course, at the end of a scene, or three takes or an evening or a day of work, we would be absolutely banjaxed (wiped out),” McAvoy says. “What was weird about this was it was surprisingly tiring, because you would rip through a whole 20-minute scene, and it would be, because it was so well-written, it would self-energize,” he says.
“I’d rather do long, uninterrupted dialogue that’s well-written than a sort of clunky, conventional movie where you get an easier time of it in terms of less dialogue,” McAvoy says. In a film with just seven scenes over 90 minutes, both actors say the work was rewarding and demanding in equal measure. “And if it does get emotional, if it does get heated, it’s coming quite naturally.” “And it’s not crash-bang-wallop, it’s not necessarily action-driven, it is character-driven,” says the actor who’s also appeared as Professor X in three movies in the X-Men film franchise. “It’s kind of my favorite kind of acting,” says McAvoy, whose early career credits include such films as “The Last King of Scotland” and “Atonement.” “Which is just chatting to the audience and then chatting to the other actors. Then the pandemic forces them into a bubble they can’t escape. Never married, they’ve stayed together largely for what they tell themselves is the sake of their young son Arthur. He’s a capitalist with his own company, she works for a charity that helps refugees. It’s the story of an unnamed couple (the characters are literally listed as He and She) who no longer love – or even like – each other. 27, is different not just as one of the first feature films to focus on the lost months of lockdown. “Together,” which arrives in theaters on Friday, Aug. “But you’d be gutted with this one if it got away.” Love and hate in lockdown “Some parts you get, or some parts come your way and you turn them down or you don’t get them, and somebody else plays them and you’re like, ‘Meh, all right, they were great, whatever.’
“And then what she said is exactly right, that feeling that you’ve got to do it when you’ve got that feeling of, like, ‘I will be gutted watching another actor do this, whoever it is,’” McAvoy says. “I’ve been a fan of hers for ages … and then this opportunity came along and it was like, ‘I’ve got to do it.’ “Getting to work with Sharon was magic,” he says. “You know, it’s practically a two-hander thing with James, directed by Stephen, with Dennis’s writing, and also, if I’m being honest, a 10-day shoot was like, mmm, that was a biggie.”įor McAvoy, many of the same motivations lured him from his stay-at-home lockdown with family and Zoom quizzes with mates. “And then Dennis told me that James was going to do it, and I just couldn’t believe that I was being given it to do. “And as I read it, I just, I would have been so upset if someone else had done it, you know?” Horgan says.