• 2 years ago
'The Old Oak' is a special place. Not only is it the last pub standing, but it's also the only remaining public space where people can meet in a once thriving mining community that has now fallen on hard times after 30 years of decline.
Transcript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:02 Thank you.
00:02 Have a good day.
00:04 Collaborating with directors like Ken is a real gift.
00:07 And it was a dream come true.
00:10 His legacy over the last 55 years
00:14 is the most important director this country's ever had.
00:19 Nobody is able to tell the truth in the way that he does.
00:23 He's somebody who is a protector and a champion
00:26 of the working classes.
00:28 And off we go.
00:30 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:34 Every film is a gamble, sometimes a reckless gamble.
00:39 So you have to have a good relationship with the writer.
00:41 You have to agree, what's the root of this?
00:44 And Paul sees it with absolute clarity.
00:48 The three Northeast films, they weren't
00:50 imagined as three films.
00:51 But in fact, I think each one called for the next one.
00:55 We started off with Vag Daniel Blake.
00:57 The Sorrowly Miss Stuart and The Old Oak.
01:00 We're touching on communities.
01:02 He's mining the villages and refugees.
01:05 We've been in this village all our lives.
01:07 And we're supposed to share it with that lot
01:09 who don't even know them.
01:11 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:12 You better delete that photo.
01:13 Right now.
01:15 The two sides of a reaction within that small community
01:20 is the essence of the story.
01:21 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:24 When you eat together, we stick together.
01:26 Yeah, your mother always said that.
01:30 Ken didn't want to employ professional actors.
01:33 He wanted ordinary people.
01:37 We had three villages that we combined
01:39 into one for the film.
01:41 The privilege of meeting those people
01:43 and being able to try and include their experience
01:46 into the story.
01:48 Every one of those people carries a history
01:51 that is extraordinary.
01:55 Working with him, it's like nothing else.
01:58 Because a lot of time, you're not given a script.
02:01 It's exciting and enthralling in all the right ways.
02:04 Because he shoots everything chronologically,
02:06 he made my job very easy.
02:08 So he was able to set up the circumstances.
02:11 And then you were just reacting to it.
02:15 He's a genius at handling people.
02:18 But he brings things out of you that you didn't know you had.
02:21 [APPLAUSE]
02:24 [WHISTLE]
02:25 [CHEERING]
02:26 This is Ken's last film.
02:28 And I'll believe that when I see it.
02:31 Hope is political.
02:33 Because if you hope, then you have confidence
02:35 that you can change things.
02:38 It takes a strength to hope, to build something new,
02:42 something beautiful.
02:44 Ken does something that's very unique and important.
02:48 He carries such a strong moral compass within him.
02:51 He gives a voice to people that don't have one.
02:54 And that's essential to the British film industry.
02:59 (engine revving)