Laurence interviews Jack:
LF: Thanks very much for joining us, Jack. I’d like to ask you a few questions if that’s alright?
JF: It would be my pleasure.
LF: Why did you become an actor? The “why” wasn’t meant to sound so loaded, by the way…
JF: I never wanted to work behind a desk. I couldn’t abide the thought of it. Although, eventually, that’s probably where I’ll end up. I liked the idea of being an actor, and then I wanted to be an actor because I liked being an actor. But initially it was definitely just because I liked the idea of it.
LF: What is the most striking memory from your childhood?
JF: Me and you used to play Lego, do you remember? We had boxes and boxes of it and I had to pick out three-ers and four-ers and give them to you.
LF: I do that with my own children now. “Get Daddy a
three-er. I’m building a spaceship!”
JF: That was one of my strong memories. That and when
Dad blamed you for breaking the hi-fi.
LF: He was changing the plug, and then the phone rang, and then the hi-fi didn’t work, and I was put forward as a sacrificial lamb and beaten for it.
JF: But to be fair you did also set fire to Lydia [their sister].
LF: Yes, I did try to kill Lydia. I think we should move on. Jack, how would you describe your personal style?
JF: Like you but better.
LF: Who is your biggest acting influence?
JF: Dad. He’s the best, as a general influence, and also as an acting influence. But I haven’t watched many performances of his. I’m saving them for when he’s
dead. Do you do that? People get really freaked out
when I tell them that.
LF: Do you have any stage superstitions?
JF: I used to listen to Ariana Grande before I went on
stage with Dear Lupin, and then I changed it to Katie Perry’s “Roar”; I feel like that’s a cliché, but then they
did hear me roar. I think that’s why The Stage didn’t
like the play.
LF: Did you not get a good review? I was once described as having a face that belonged in the winner’s enclosure at Aintree. But at least it was the winner’s enclosure. Jack, when was the last time you lied?
JF:
LF: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
JF: Take the rough with the smooth, I think.
LF: Which director would you most like to work with?
JF: Scorsese. Or Tarantino. I’d like to work with him
because I think he would be completely nuts. My favourite Tarantino moment is in Django Unchained when he appears as an American soldier with an Australian accent.
LF: What is your biggest failure or regret?
JF: Not going into professional football. Now that I’m 32
I think to myself, “I’m the same age as Wayne Rooney.”
LF: Who would you say is the biggest attention seeker
in our family?
JF: It’s a close-run thing between me and you. I’ve got a strong memory of you really upsetting Dad once because he was trying to watch a WWII documentary and you kept pretending to be a German fighter pilot. I remember Tom [another brother] snapped a pair of sunglasses he was given on his birthday and threw them into the neighbour’s garden. I used to write Mum and Dad letters saying I was going to leave. I was six and I’d slide them under the door. They used to say things like, “I’m going this time, you won’t know where I am.”
LF: They probably didn’t care. What is your idea of
perfect happiness?
JF: Sleeping well at night. I can’t sleep well at all at the moment. The other happiness would be having
James Corden sing me to sleep.
LF: And then watching someone take a hammer to him, perhaps? Which word or phrase do you most overuse?
JF: I say the word “like” a lot.
LF: What was your least favourite subject at school?
JF: Maths. I used to get presence slips at maths. Most
people got absence slips to say that they hadn’t gone
to class, but I went so little that I got presence slips to
say that I had gone to class! But then I did it for GCSE, and for A-level. I got a U in it at A-level.
LF: I got an X for one A-level — Japanese. Didn’t turn up. Finally, what’s the biggest cliché in the acting world?
JF: Nepotism.

Ivar London