Martin Delaney
Martin Delaney is an actor who has found success in both TV and film with projects such as Beowulf and Grendal, Zero Dark Thirty and The Shadow Line.
He has just completed work on Amar Akbar & Tony, a movie that sees him work with first filmmaker Atul Malhotra.
We caught up with him to chat about the film, working with Atul and the rest of the cast and what lies ahead.
- Amar Akbar & Tony is the movie that you are currently working on so can you tell me a little bit about it?
Amar Akbar & Tony is about three best friends living in Southall, they have been neighbours as kids and they have grown up together. It is a coming of age comedy/drama about these three friends set in West London in the Asian community.
Tony, my character, is an honorary Asian who is obsessed with Asian women and really wants to be part of that world. It has been a lot of fun to shoot and we have had some really great moments on set.
But we all think it is a really interesting project and we think that it is an accurate portrayal of West London life.
- You take on the role of Tony in the film so what was it about this character and the screenplay that really ignited your interest?
I really loved the piece when I read it, I thought it was great. I was up for a couple of projects at the time and I just thought that there was something about this that was really earnest and truthful; it felt like you were really getting a glimpse of West London life. It is a multicultural film and is set in that society but it feel really accurate and truthful.
When I met director Atual Malhotra I remember thinking ‘I really love his ideas and his drive for this’; he was determined to make a Brit film but he commented a lot on British Asian movies that have come through.
They often involve characters who are trying to turn their back on an element of their heritage or their life but this was much more of a celebration of this world.
Tony is largely responsible for the comedy in the piece; I have done a lot of comedy TV over the years but I this is the first lead comedy role I have done in a movie. So going back to that work and doing a bit of comedy really appealed to me.
Because Tony has got vulnerability about him and is quite a sweet guy - he is the clown of the group - but at the same time I felt that he was really likeable on paper. He has a lot of enthusiasm and he tries really hard but he doesn’t really see where his flaws are.
Tony spends the whole film trying to find the one and yet he doesn’t see where he may be failing; he is the guy who will go up to the tallest and the hottest girl in the club and hit on here in a really bad why but doesn’t understand why they wouldn’t work out. It is humours in the movie but it is also endearing that he doesn’t get it.
- You have been working on the film for some time so how is it going?
We just wrapped last night. We have got some pickups to do in a couple of week’s time but the official main unit wrap was last night.
It has been manic because it is an indie film so the budget is smaller to some of the features that I have done in the past. But it is a great piece.
I know it is a bit of a cliché but we have just had the most amazing team and the crew and the cast have bonded so well over the period we have been working; it really does feel like a family unit.
The crew have just been amazing - there is a lot of talent there but the sheer tenacity of these guys just getting through the shoot has been amazing. I really do admire then and I have a lot of time for them.
They were a real blessing to have on it to get us through. We have come to the end of our main unit but hopefully we will be together again for odd bits and pieces.
- You have talked about your character of Tony already but how are we going to see this character develop throughout the film and what sort of journey does he go on?
Tony is not driven by money and he doesn’t really have any big aspirations for his life; his goal through the whole movie is he wants to find the right person and find love. There is a childish element to that when he is younger and the way that he goes about it but as he gets older you do see a change in the way that he deals with it.
The boys go through a big change at one point at the final stages of the first act; there is moment in the movie which sends the boys off on their own path. So there is an element of them growing up.
There is a big thing that happens which means that Tony has to deal with things slightly differently. Ultimately his goal in the movie does stay the same but the way in which he goes about it is different.
- Atul Malhotra is in the director's chair so how are you finding working with him - bearing in mind he is making his debut with this film?
Atul is very experienced in working with his team and camera boys as he has done a lot of television. This is his first feature and this is essentially his baby; he has written the piece and he also helps drive the funding to get the movie made.
I love him as he is just great to work with. I have really enjoyed working with him and I really believe in him. I don’t usually rushes at the end of the day but I have seen some rough cuts of some scenes that we have shot and it just looks lovely; without any grading done to it or any music attached it already looks really nice.
I got a good feeling from Atul when I met him during the meeting for the part and I just really liked his passion for the piece and the reasons why he wanted to make it. And as an actor I just felt that I really wanted to be involved in that as I felt that it was something important and heartfelt.
So getting on board was key for me and I really wanted to get on board. He is one of these directors who doesn’t pull any punches, so he will say ‘Martin I don’t think that really works’ or ‘let’s try that now’ - he is quite specific, and I really admire that.
If Atul makes a movie ever year for the rest of his life I want to be involved in it; that is quite rare to find a director that you really like and you want to always work for. He has just been amazing and a real pleasure to have.
- How collaborative a filmmaker is he when it comes to developing characters and ideas with the actors?
We had a rehearsal period of a couple of weeks, which is a bit of a luxury on film. From Atul’s point of view he really wanted to pin down characters and build the chemistry between the boys.
We knew that we were going to be up against it when we started shooting so it was crucial that we had everything down and we had asked all the questions we wanted to ask by the time that we started shooting. That really was a great process for us because it meant that we could ask a lot of character questions and a lot of story questions and really find important moments in the movie.
He would be really open to the odd line change - as long as we kept to the sense of what the scene was about then he was open for discussion and an alternative bit of dialogue.
He wasn’t ultra rigid but it was his piece and he was obviously going to stand by his reasons for ever single scene and the direction he wanted to go in, I admired him for that.
- We are also going to be seeing you in Judas Ghost in the autumn so can you tell me a little bit about that?
Judas Ghost is a movie that I did last year. It is by a writer called Simon Green and he has a series of horror books that have a big following in the States; he is a British guy and a New York Time best seller.
He has got set of books called the Ghost Finder series and this is a spin off rather than set around his main characters. The Ghost Finder series is a Doctor Who meets horror/vibe as it is quite supernatural and has that Saturday night feel to it.
This series of book is about a group who find ghosts, hunt them down and do battle with them. The idea in this is that we are a splinter cell and we are making a training video and it goes a bit wrong. I went to a screening of that in Bristol and it looks very slick.
Our director Simone Pearce is a real young talent - he made a couple of features - he was incredible to work with. I feel that the movie captures the feel of the book; which is sort of a bit of tongue in cheek and a bit of humour.
While it is jumpy and frightening it is not gory in a brutal way. Hopefully it will find it’s audience and the fans of Simon Green’s work will enjoy it. I am looking forward to seeing how that is received.
- This will be only the second time that you have tackled a horror film so how did you find stepping into that genre?
It is a genre that when I was younger I was really into and I loved Psycho. It is one of those genres that directors tackle often because there is a market for them and it is an easy route to market in terms of selling.
It is not stuff that I watch a lot of as I have got older - I enjoy it still but there is such a broad spectrum of horror movies being made and I guess a part of me is particular about the ones I watch. It was great fun to be involved in it.
Movies are really about a manipulation of the audience and so there are moments when you really want to shock them or get them to feel that energy and I really like seeing that process and how it comes together.
- We also saw you appear in Zero Dark Thirty so what was it like getting to appear in a film like that and see how someone like Kathryn Bigelow works?
It was amazing, it was an incredible film. I had been in a similar film Flag of our Fathers by Clint Eastwood a few years earlier and there was a similar feeling when I got attached.
I loved The Hurt Locker and Point Break and a friend of mine was in K19: The Widowmaker; so I have followed her work for quite a while and really been a big fan.
I auditioned for one of the Marines initially and I am about a foot too short and a about a foot too narrow - but I was really excited. It was very hush hush at the time but I knew that it was a project about Bin Laden.
I didn’t hear anything but then they came back and said ‘we really liked you but you were just a bit clean cut so we are looking at a CIA guy’ - I ended up playing an national security advisor.
Kathryn is just the most charismatic woman that I have met for a long time and on set you just get the sense that she knows what she is doing and she knows that she wants; it is amazing to see a strong female director on set who knows exactly what she wants in every scene.
It was such an amazing project to be involved in and to be working alongside actors that I really admire. Mark Strong is a lovely guy. I have been a big fan of Joel Edgerton ever since I saw him in Ned Kelly.
I have always thought that Joel was a great talent but it did take him a while to blossom; I remember them talking about him in Hollywood quite a few years ago. Then all of a sudden he had this massive impact and was in everything.
So not only was it great to be involved in a project with such great actors but one that tackled this subject matter; you knew that it was going to be very talked about at the very least.
- Throughout your career you have moved between TV and film but where does you heart lie going forward? Would you like to focus on film more?
It think so. I really love TV as well; I really do enjoy both of them. It is the pace of film that I really enjoy as you get to spend a bit more time trying to find the character and you do get a little bit more time on set. Both really do appeal.
But what really does appeal to me about film is that you are just trying to find those moments. I like the idea of storytelling and I remember sitting watching movies when I was younger and it was escapism.
We use to sit in our house with the lights off and we weren’t allowed to say a word while we were watching; it was like having a cinema in the front room. I really enjoy the cinema experience - you can have the surround sound in your living room but I still like going and sharing that with people.
Film is a bit more important to me in a sense that I do have that emotional attachment to it and I like the idea of escaping into the story. But I really do love working in TV as I have been fortunate to work on some great projects.
Hopefully I will just keep that balance. The career that I want is about variation as I want variation in the roles as well as the type of project that I do as well. I can’t put where I want to be but it is more about the variation and the style that I am doing; that has always been important to me.
I have been fortunate so have been able to have that variation so far - considering I have committed every other cardinal sin in acting I am very lucky (laughs).
- As well as acting we have seen you co-produce documentary Wrath of Gods so how much is behind the camera something that interests you?
Absolutely, it is something that has interested me a lot. Wrath of Gods was something that was made when we were shooting Beowulf & Grendel; that was a movie that I shot in 2004/5 with Gerard Butler and Stellan Skarsgard.
Wrath of Gods was going to be a making of for the movie that we were on but we realised that we had such a story in the footage that we got; shooting in Iceland was just such a challenge.
I don’t know if you have seen a film called Lost in La Mancha but it is about a film that Terry Gilliam was making with Johnny Depp and all of the problems that they faced in terms of financing it as well as all the local problems they went through during filming; that is what we had with Wrath of Gods.
We had problems with getting the set ready on time i.e. the Viking ship. We also had quite extreme weather conditions to contend with even through the summer. So there were all these variables that we were up against and it was the sheer passion of everyone that got us through.
Wrath of Gods captured all of that and meant that we had a really interesting piece on how filmmaking is done and how tough it is.
I really enjoyed that part of things as I always wanted to be a filmmaker as well. I am actually an associate producer on Amar Akbar & Tony; which is a deal that we have worked out recently. It is something that I believe in and I want the film to do well.
Movie making is important to me and I really enjoy that other side of it. I have always been the kind of person tat observes other people doing their roles and I just find it really interesting.
And it is because of all of these unsung heroes that we get these things made and it is incredible that we can get all of these things to come together.
- Finally what is next for you?
I have been attached to another project for a while - but we are not sure when that is going to go. I am actually meeting for another nice movie at the moment; we are just in talks about.
I have been attached to this 1066 movie for a while so with any luck that will get a green light and we can start on that. In the meantime it is just waiting for those to secure themselves and get in place. We will just have to wait and see.