I’m not sure Alwyn wants to talk to me so desperately, though in a slow and steady pint, he is very polite and easy on company. The 31-year-old actor has been on the verge of becoming a big star since leaving drama school in 2015, but his path to fame had a slightly different perspective from his path to acting success. His partner is Taylor Swift, one of the most famous women on the planet, so there it is. He is tall, handsome, with soft hair of the 90s. He is fast and funny and confident, low-key with fleece and jeans. For a while, we are the only people in the pub. He uses humor to ward off clumsiness and I suspect he likes the fact that no one can hear what we are saying. Alwyn is set to star as Nick, the married, modern actor who has an affair with a student, Frances, in Conversations With Friends. The adaptation is the second of Sally Rooney’s novels to be turned into a TV series, after the hit of Normal People powered by the lockdown. The director of both, Lenny Abrahamson, said he made Alwyn Nick in part because he was “psychotic.” “What does this mean?” Alvin is scratching his head. Tell me, Joe. “I will take it. I do not know! So much soul,” he repeats, with a hint of embarrassment. Rooney had a say in who played her characters. “I was told he did this and that,” he says, waving a thumb up and down. “I mean, I literally don’t do it like a gladiator or an emperor. He was involved in the casting and the monitoring of cassettes “. When he took the place, probably because of his soul, he contacted the author and they exchanged a few emails. The shooting was to take place in Dublin, where they were planning to meet, but later in the day he moved to Belfast. “It simply came to our notice then. But I sent her an email just like “Thank you”, basically. Thanks for the applause, Sally. ” Rooney’s books are full of very clear emails and texts. “He does a good email,” he nods. So how did you cope with the pressure to email her? “Many, many drafts. I did my best email. I just felt very good that I had her blessing. “ Alwyn had already read Conversations With Friends and Normal People, long before he joined the former. “I read Normal People before I realized they made a show of it and I remember when I saw it thinking, I would love to be in something like that.” The Normal People sex scenes between Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) became such a topic of discussion that people began to crave Mescal’s silver chain, as if they had run out of everything else about him. In Conversations With Friends, Nick has a strong relationship with Frances and Alwyn is quite regularly, albeit tastefully, naked in it. “We were guided to this by an intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien, who is excellent,” she says. “They are essentially choreographed. So they are like battle scenes. They are quite mechanical. And obviously it’s weird, funny, weird things to do with your friends. “But when Lenny is in the room, he’s joking, and there are 10 crew members around, and it’s very cold or hot, it just takes away all the sexuality.” “I felt very good to have Sally Rooney’s blessing.” Photo: Elliott Wilcox / The Guardian. Clothes: paulsmith.com After all, he says, sex scenes exist for a reason. “They are somewhat extensions of the talks, in their own way. Everyone, we hope, should feel slightly different and mean something different to those involved, and that is not just unfair. But, I mean, obviously, it’s a weird part of the job. “ Normal People and Conversations With Friends are different stories and different series, in many ways, but if their turn follows Mescal’s path, is it prepared for the idea that it can be pin-up? “I honestly have no idea about that,” he says. Filming ended just four months ago. I have not allowed myself to think, “My God, people will really see it”, so I have not thought about this side of things. Which is a boring answer, I know. “ Anyway, this is a serious drama, not a bonkbuster, and it deals with serious issues. Nick is married to Melissa (Jemima Kirke), a successful writer, and their marriage was not always monogamous. But when Frances (newcomer Allison Oliver) and her best friend and ex-girlfriend Bobby (Sasha Lane) get involved in their lives, the four of them are forced to ask adults questions about love, jealousy and honesty. Nick is definitely an intricate character who runs hot and cold and is hard to spot. “When you meet him, he is in a place of recovery – a storm has passed and he is slightly numb in the world. “And it just works, and we come across this version of it, but we don’t really know why,” says Alwyn. Only later in the series do we begin to learn who he is. “It can be a real enigma, and sometimes frustrating. It is quite distant and enigmatic and unreadable “. Subscribe to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the magazine’s biggest features, as well as a comprehensive list of our weekly snapshots I’m not sure Alwyn is distant, but he has more than an enigmatic and unreadable on him. He has been a consistently successful actor since 2016, when his first job was to star in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, directed by Ang Lee, opposite Kristen Stewart. She starred in smaller roles in a number of award-winning films, including The Favorite, Mary Queen of Scots and Harriet. He has campaigned for Prada and also won a Grammy, after collaborating with Swift on the Folklore album of 2020. Still, I say, I do not know much about you. A few details of his life are public, which he seems to prefer, but that means we have to start from the beginning. So you grew up… “I grew up in this pub,” he cuts in, smiling. “I was born in this garden and I never left. Very happy here, thank you. “ “Our relationship is not for other people”: with Taylor Swift in London, 2019. Photo: Blitz Pictures / Rex / Shutterstock He actually grew up near where we are today, in Tufnell Park, a well-to-do neighborhood in north London. His mother is a psychotherapist. “I never felt like I was lying on the couch and they analyze me every night, which is rather good. I managed to escape it. But she is wonderful with people and nice to talk to. “People always think it must be weird to have a mom who is a therapist.” Well, it’s interesting. “It simply came to our notice then. It’s an amazing job. In fact, I think that if I did not do that, I would be interested in doing so. “ His father is a documentary filmmaker and also teaches film production. He instilled a love for movies in young Alwyn by giving him stacks of VHS cassettes for his birthday and Christmas presents. “He makes human stories, human stories that look like the wall. “When I was growing up, he was often absent and I remember him being in these remote places a lot, bringing nice gifts for me and my brother.” Did you ever go with him? “I was never called.” It leaves a rhythm. “Do not worry, I talked to my mom about it,” he says ironically. He has two brothers, one older, who works for an NGO and one much younger, who was born in high school and just left school himself. Alwyn went to a private boys’ school, on a scholarship and fellowship. He enjoyed it and made a group of friends with whom he still talks all the time, even today. He did not really play in school. he mainly played sports. “I was good at football. Tennis. “I just like the track, in general.” It spins. “Just general.” Sounds so arrogant! ‘All of them’. “ I’m aware of people ‘s interest in my relationship and the more it is fed, the more you open a gateway to invasion. Were people surprised that they wanted to become an actor? “I feel like I gave a lot of hints that it wasn’t a bomb when I wanted to do it, but I think there probably was a sense, why?” He studied English and drama at the University of Bristol and then went to drama school in London. Shortly after his last showcase, according to the fairytale version of the story, he signed with an agent and was asked to audition for Lee, the Oscar-winning director of Brokeback Mountain, Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm. Was it really that simple? “It was so crazy,” says Alwyn. He sent a tape and got a phone call saying Lee wanted to meet him that weekend. “So they put me on a plane. “I had never been to America before.” He landed in New York, in the snow, and immediately went outside to find a slice of pizza from New York. “Within five days, I was out of school, I had a visa and I was at the boot camp in Atlanta. As it progressed, I managed to relax and enjoy it. But in the beginning, the first week or two of filming, I break myself. ” And then it ended. “Everyone else stayed in America. “I had to go home and walk the dog the next day, it was raining and I was back in this garden,” he smiles. “And life went on.” After Billy Lynn, Alwyn had a number of ugly characters, historical figures and sometimes both. He was a slave to Harriet and a Nazi son to Operation Finale. In The Favorite, she has a comedy series as Masham, which seduces Emma Stone’s Abigail, dances a silly dance with Rachel Weisz as Lady …
