Jack OConnell on working class label: I could almost find those terms offensive
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I still don’t know if you guys are interested in discussing Jack O’Connell separately from Angelina Jolie, but let’s give it a whirl. After diving into several new interviews with Jack, I have to say… I think he should be included in your Hot Bloke List. Granted, he’s not a Tom Hardy and Idris Elba-level Hot Bloke, but Jack is definitely a charming bad boy. Here are some highlights from his Esquire interview:
Whether he likes his “working class kid from Derby” label: “I’m always referred to as a normal Derby lad, et cetera. I could almost find those terms offensive. I can consider myself a normal Derby lad, but there’s a tendency for that to appear like it’s an over-importance. I don’t think my example has been any harder than others who have done this path before me.”
What’s like being directed by Angelina: “She had compassion. She supported me throughout. If I’m watching her treat everyone as an equal, that made me feel exactly like that, too. I spent time with her in the rehearsal period. She set up meetings with my Mum and some of my family. So, by the time we got to the set, it felt like I had a bit of a friend. But it was a massive leap for me, a much more expensive realm of the industry.”
His mum is his manager: “That has its ups and downs. I love my Mum to pieces, but sometimes we have to have serious conversations.”
He was almost a footballer before an injury: “It was going my way for a while. Not to sound big-headed but I was banging them in left, right and centre.”
His juvenile criminal record meant that he couldn’t join the army: “Sometimes I draw from whatever military expectations I had for myself. That idea of discipline and hierarchy. It certainly gets me out of the bed and onto my mark.”
His legacy as an actor/celebrity: “When I was coming up five years ago, I used to open magazines and see actors and it used to make me cringe for them. It threw up the question of being genuine. If I look a muppet in old pictures in clothes I’d never wear nowadays, that’s f–king hilarious to me now, as opposed to embarrassing – as long as I speak definitively enough as an actor by the work I do. I don’t want immortality for myself, but I want to leave a print, my urine scent. Lifting my leg on the tree of history.”
I love that his mum is his manager. So hardcore, Jack! And I do think that with the English media outlets especially, actors get locked into these discussions about class. Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston and many more have all had to answer questions about their posh schools and their posh backgrounds, and now Jack is locked into a similar conversation on the other end of the class scale – he’s a working class kid with a criminal record and he’s probably going to have to talk about being working class for the next decade.
Oh, and Jack has an interview in The Guardian too and just the first few paragraphs had me laughing. Jack is the kind of bloke who will tell a mayo stain on his trousers to “f—k off.” Yes, a bloke of the people!! Long live blokes! The Guardian’s reporter also notes that Angelina did “all the background checks” on Jack before she hired him because she was worried about his reputation as a bad boy. He also sort of confirms that he’s dating Cara Delevingne, although that admission was like pulling teeth. He also talks about Angelina’s influence on him and how she got to know all his family and all of that. He seems to care about her immensely. You can read the full Guardian piece here.
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