Jack O’Connell has expressed his disappointment that the Shaun Ryder biopic Twisting My Melon – in which he was due to star as the Happy Mondays frontman – has been halted due to creative disputes.
Speaking to NME, the SAS Rogue Heroes actor revealed that he had laid down vocals for the Mondays’ Madchester anthems in preparation. “We even started recording some of the tunes like ‘Step On’ in the studio, so the train had left the station. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t come together in the end, but never say never!”
As Ryder recently told NME, problems on the ITV adaption of Twisting My Melon, which is based on his raucous 2011 autobiography, arose because of a creative disagreement between screenwriter/director Matt Greenhalgh – who also penned the scripts for the Ian Curtis biopic Control, John Lennon’s origin story Nowhere Boy and Amy Winehouse film Back to Black – and the film’s American funders. O’Connell echoed concerns that the US focus was “disheartening.”
“It really frustrated me about the film industry here that we don’t want to champion such an obviously important story because they wanted to know how it would land in America,” he said. “I just thought we could just focus on making it great here and whatever happens after that is secondary.”
O’Connell was talking to NME ahead of the second season of the BBC’s SAS Rogue Heroes, where he stars as poetry-loving livewire killing machine Paddy Mayne, who is based on a real-life war hero. Created and written by Peaky Blinders impresario Steven Knight, the thrillingly high-octane series follows the exploits of the misfits in the Special Air Service during the Second World War, with this season seeing the action shift from the conflict in North Africa to mainland Europe, and Mayne assuming control of the SAS following David Stirling’s (Connor Swindells) capture.
Read the rest of our chat with O’Connell below, in which he reflects on the reunion of Oasis, working on music videos with Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller, as well as the legacy of Skins.
In the first episode of season two of SAS Rogue Heroes, SAS co-founder Dudley Clarke declares that “the European campaign is going to make Africa look like a tea party.” Is it fair to say things get more intense?
Jack O’Connell: “We’re stepping up, which the audience will notice. It’s a different type of warcraft. We get a kick out of showing you things you’d never discover even if you were to study the topic of the SAS. Paddy Mayne is one of the most enjoyable roles I’ll ever take on – to portray that level of conflict and complexity. It’s hard to know who he is, no matter how much you read up about him.”
The SAS in this series is a gang of kamikaze, debaucherous, fuck-ups. It’s almost as if Fat White Family were sent to war…
“Yeah! I think the Fat White Family are this SAS personified. [Laughs] Brilliant! As Steven Knight says, these are the people that, in peaceful times, would have probably had no place in society. They’d be locked up or ostracised. But in war, these are the people you want right next to you.”
SAS Rogue Heroes explores the class difference between blue-collar Paddy and the privileged military bigwigs. As someone from a working class background in the famously posh world of acting, could you relate to that?
“100 per cent! God, yeah! I take immense pleasure in exploring that and delivering some of the dialogue about that – written by Steven Knight, a working class feller. Beyond my own example, it’s so applicable today. Class-based boundaries exist and they affect us all. It’s omnipresent and we’ve got to make sure that art isn’t just a rich person’s pastime. That fight is constant.”
For the first series, you underwent a rigorous SAS bootcamp with real servicemen. Did you require a refresher course for season two?
“We were well-initiated by the time season two happened, so there was no out-and-out refresher course, but this shoot is challenging. Unless it’s something death-defying, we don’t use stunt doubles, so the running-around, bangs and blows are done by us. You need to be in good shape because the schedule is battering.”
For the first season, the cast all bonded over karaoke. What were your go-to songs?
“A lot of Robbie Williams! Because we were all confined to one hotel in Morocco as we shot during COVID, it was like being Banged Up Abroad, so all sorts went on!”
As an Oasis superfan, how are you feeling about the reunion?
“Made-up! I’ve been wanting it to happen ever since they broke up and now it’s a reality. I’m fucking beside myself!”
Did you manage to get tickets?
“Not yet! But I’m hoping there might be an ‘in’.”
You danced in the video for Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ 2020 single ‘Blue Moon Rising’…surely you could WhatsApp him for the guest-list?!
“That was dead cool man, so I’m hoping because of that, there might be a ticket laid on for me! Noel invited me down to his studio when he was recording [the 2023 album] ‘Council Skies’, and that was fucking mind-blowing just being in there. They were already hard at work, there was a real momentum, and I just turned up in the middle of it and was blown away, as you can imagine. Nuts! What the Oasis story means to young lads like me growing up is seeing fellers from the types of places we’re from, conquer the world. It’s amazing and important.”
Talking of musicians who went on to rule the world, you were due to play Shaun Ryder in the adaption of the Happy Mondays frontman’s autobiography Twisting My Melon. Sadly, Shaun recently informed us that it had been scrapped. How far did you get with the role?
“I didn’t know he [Shaun] had said that, because I know the scriptwriter, Matt Greenhalgh, and he’s hellbent on making that story. I’d be very surprised if it never gets made. It deserves to be. What we were up against with that was getting the amount of funding that it sorely deserves – there’s no point telling the cheap version of it – and it was really disheartening.
“We’d done several meetings with British-based production companies, hoping they’d take to it the way we did, and I just felt like we were getting ripped off, and I’d only want to tell the version of that story that I think Shaun deserves – not just the knock-off. And it really frustrated me about the film industry here that we don’t want to champion such an obviously important story, because they wanted to know how it would land in America. I thought we could just focus on making it great here and whatever happens after that is secondary. But that wasn’t important to these guys – and really disheartening.”
Did you hang around with Shaun Ryder to prepare?
“Yeah, I got to meet Shaun and hang out. We even started recording some of the tunes like ‘Step On’ in the studio, so the train had left the station. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t come together in the end, but never say never!”
Were you sounding like Shaun Ryder when singing those Madchester anthems?
“No! [Laughs] I was doing my best Shaun Ryder impression, but there can only be one!”
You directed your first music video this year – Paul Weller’s ‘Nothing’. A big moment for you?
“Listen, I loved every second. I was massively fortunate that Paul approached me with it – that’s as rare as a lightning strike – and I jumped at it. I shat myself a little bit about the reality of it! Paul, bless him, was able to join us, which I’m glad of because his involvement turned out to be more than I’d anticipated or hoped for. It’s a solid music video that I’m proud of, and I’d love to direct more.”
“Not to make it all about class, but for someone like him to open the door and offer an opportunity to someone like myself, in an industry were family ties can get you a long way, is fucking priceless.”
This year marked the 15th anniversary of you appearing on the front cover of NME as part of the second generation of Skins (Headline: ‘Sex, drugs and MySpace… how TV’s best show made music better’). Apparently you were taken to Glastonbury for an official cast-handover from the old guard to the new one…
“So many people still speak to me today about Skins, which I love. It goes to show the impact we had. I’d do well to remember Glastonbury! The new lot met the old lot and it was fucking monumental! In Skins, we [the cast] were hard to accommodate – we literally went through several hotels. We were just a gang of teens in Bristol, and it was a phenomenal time, where there was more of an emphasis on enjoying the ‘now’ as opposed to capturing something for the internet. It feels like another era.”
‘SAS Rogue Heroes’ series two is available in full on BBC iPlayer from 6am on New Year’s Day and airs on BBC One from 9pm that night