THE BRITISH ISSUE JOE DEMPSIE shirt and trousers YMC JOE DEMPSIE

PHOTOGRAPHER WESLEY MORGAN STYLIST ROSIE WILLIAMS MAKEUP ARTIST RACHEL SINGER-CLARK STYLIST’S ASSISTANT MAGDA ZURKOVA INTERVIEW ELEANOR FAZAN

We’re being dripped on by rain in a studio hidden away on a north industrial estate. The Hawaiian shirts belie the miserable, and frankly quite British, weather outside. We were going to go to a nice cafe nearby, but it was closed, and the only alternative a greasy spoon packed with truck drivers and other workers from the estate. And while there’s nothing wrong with a good old British caf’, it doesn’t feel quite the right place for this chat. So Joe Dempsie and I are here, talking about , the best of British culture, and his beloved Forest…

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“I always relate everything back to football This idea that there is a level of power that because it’s what I understand,” laughs Joe supersedes elected government, made up of huge Dempsie, the Nottingham actor who, as we speak, conglomerates and corporations who influence is preparing to appear on our screens in eight- policy,” says Joe. “What starts out as a familiar tshirt TURBOWOLF part espionage thriller, Dark State. “Forest have tale of white operatives taking out middle eastern necklace STYLIST’S OWN been trying to get into the premiere league for ‘enemies’ becomes something very very different.” years and years, and every season the quest begins again. But I just know that if we did get promoted This is the type of TV show where you won’t be we’d get hammered every week and then relegated. able to sit flicking through your phone. The story So you have to remember in life that the journey is cerebral and the plot is complex, and there are is as joyful as the destination. Stop living in big action moments too. “We worked with a team of the hypothetical future and enjoy the moment.” Moroccan ex-secret service men and a stunt team lead by a Frenchman called Deep State is his first lead Fredrick,” says Dempsie. role. His first role where “Stop living “There are cars exploding, there’s no hint of boyishness and we got to play with about his character. He rose guns. It’s how you wanted to fame in , as happy- in the it to be like when you were go-lucky Chris Miles; played a kid. Sometimes I have to the brutish yet loveable stand back and pinch myself Higgy in ’ hypotheticaland think, is this really This is England; and in me? There was a moment on Game of Thrones he’s King Game of Thrones, in the Robert Baratheon’s bastard future and penultimate episode of the son Gendry, capturing the last series, when we were imagination of fans who standing there, the ragtag never forgot him, even in enjoy the bunch they’d assembled to his three-year hiatus from go beyond the wall. And the the show. While these roles portcullis opens and there are dramatically different, moment” is snow all around and we Dempsie has always been wary walked out into the blizzard of being typecast. “Now I’m and we all looked at each 30 I think things are going to get more interesting, other and were like, ‘This is what it’s all about!’” and I want to get more interesting with it. I want to be braver and bolder in my choices.” Of course, when Joe was still spending his Saturdays at the Television Workshop in Nottingham, all Cue Deep State, in which he plays Harry Clarke; that seemed very far away. Other alumni include an MI6 operative stationed in Tehran on a mission Samantha Morton, Vicky MclCure and Jack O’Connell, to assassinate five prominent assassinate nuclear and while London kids might have Rada (and used to scientists. As the narrative unfolds they realise bag the best roles) this is the place redressing there’s a mole in their unit, but as Harry starts that balance. It produces actors with a rawness looking into it he finds himself on a kill list to them, the kind of actors who lend themselves drawn up by MI6 themselves. “The story relates well to tales about ordinary British life. to a lot of what is going on around us today.

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NOCTIS | 062 NOCTIS | 063 THE BRITISH ISSUE JOE DEMPSIE shirt FROM A SELECTION, SLOW VINTAGE, MELROSE AVE. necklace STYLIST’S OWN “I’m not a working class actor, but I do tend to superhero, dressed in latex! The Tim Burton films tshirt DINOSAUR PILE UP get cast in a lot of those roles,” he says. “But came out when I was a kid and they were just so jeans LEVI’S if truth be told, I miss the more hopeful working dark.” He’s passionate and cites his parents as class stories that used to be about when we were his biggest inspiration. “In the face of a lot young. Films like the Full Monty and Brassed Off, of adversity they have always supported me. They that weren’t all doom and gloom. But part of what said I had to get a proper job. The deal was, do cinema is is holding a mirror up to life so films your A-levels and you can do whatever you want. like I, Daniel Blake are necessary these days. But My sister has Cerebral palsy so has been life it either seems to be that very bleak reality, or changing for them, but they’ve never held me back.” a slew of nostalgia. The Brexit Vote horrified me. And this pinning for a bygone Britain, that I’m He took his parents – and sister – to Los Angeles, not sure existed, doesn’t really interest me. I’m to the premier of Season 7 Game of Thrones. “We’d a child of the ‘90s. Of course I miss Gladiators, been on a family holiday to the States where and Power Rangers. But I was a child. Of course I was 15 or 16 and spent two days there. We life seemed easy and simple, but does that mean stayed opposite the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood when I get to be 55 I should be telling everyone Boulevard, and we opened the curtains and there it should like it was in was a premier happening ’95? It’s not the reality out there. I’d been at the we should be aiming for.” “In my workshop a few years, and had had a few roles, and was Having said that, British just starting to think that drama is important to mind I’d hit I could make a career out Joe because it happens of it. So it was a really to be really good right nice full circle for them.” now. “There was a time a wall...” about five years ago that I Now he’s filming the final thought, that’s it, I’m going to LA now and do series. “The security on set around scripts is the American thing and get an American agent and like Fort Knox. We have a special app and encrypted try and and make it. In my mind I’d hit a wall emails, no printed anything. Everyone has a code and that casting directors knew me and knew my name incase call sheets get leaked. Way back in work, and maybe there wasn’t that much stuff on mid October the scripts randomly arrived in our offer. But now I appreciate all the brilliant inboxes on a Friday night. I spent the weekend brilliant parts and the quality of the scripts. frantically reading it, and there were moments There are extremely talented shapeshifting actors when I audibly gasped. Can you imagine? I KNOW HOW out there: , Paddy Considine, IT ENDS! The whole thing. It’s quite a weight to Olivia Colman, Anne-Marie Duff, Maxine Peake. carry around. It’s like carrying around top-secret And Jack O’Connell, he’s a friend of mine.” information, classified. It feels like I’m an MI5 agent.” Good practice for his latest role, then… Joe is a fan of Black Mirror, which he describes as a masterful study of where we could be headed; Batman is his favourite superhero, “It’s just preposterous! A bat who is a man, who is a

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