The calls for James Nelson-Joyce to be the new James Bond – or “double-O Scouse” as he has put it – are becoming louder by the second.
When the Standard brings it up he widens his eyes and says, “That’s one that’s been mentioned, it was a bit of a surprise,” before clarifying, “It’s a long-shot, I leave all that stuff to my agents.”
Well, we for one hope he does land his licence to kill, since he is one of the most exciting actors around. Evidenced this year in A Thousand Blows and most especially in the excellent This City is Ours, BBC’s hit drama in which Nelson-Joyce shows some killer leading man chops as Michael Kavanagh, the gangster going to war over his Liverpool drug territory.
His character switches between a loving boyfriend to Diana (Hannah Onslow), to his duties as second in command to Sean Bean’s drug lord, Ronnie, which involves a lot of extreme violence.
“Michael is wearing all these different masks and having an identity crisis,” he says, “His survival instincts are don't show your vulnerabilities, don't show your weakness, don't be soft. But for the first time in his life he's allowed to be himself with Diana and he likes that.”
Kavanagh has fertility problems, and is first seen at a clinic having his sperm count tested; hardly your average gangster introduction. But it’s digging beneath the hard men that interests Nelson-Joyce, and at which he clearly excels.
“Michael’s never been loved this way,” he says, “Real love. He wants to raise a family in a safe environment. He wants his missus to be safe and loved and cared for, and not have to look over his shoulder, which is what the world he's in brings. But he also wants to fight for his place, because he believes that the the business is half his.”
Nelson-Joyce says he wasn’t fussed about being number one on the call sheet, “it was the complexities that came with the character and the storylines that followed. He does some nasty stuff as it goes on, but I like the little details that help audiences understand why.”
No spoilers here, but when have you ever seen a gangster kill someone, then tenderly tidy up the body? This is the kind of thing which comes from Nelson-Joyce.
“When we walked through it, I was like, I want to be tender with him, I want to be soft. If you watch it, I take the wine glass out of his hand, and make sure none spills on him. Then put his hand back down gently. Little touches like that are important. And before, when I'm waking him up, wanting him to know it's me.”
This feels like pure instinct over training, and indeed he says, “I’m not from your traditional acting background. I’m not intellectual, I’m emotionally intelligent but there is that imposter syndrome.”
A working class boy at a rough school, he got into acting because his attempts to be the next Jamie Carragher wasn’t quite working out and he fancied his English teacher; he’s show off in class to get her attention and she thought he had a bit of acting talent. She signed him up for a speaking exam and he duly received the highest mark ever in the North-west.
His teacher pushed him towards Community college next: “If I'm being honest with you, it was a choice of going to a building site with loads of hairy ass blokes, getting up at 5:30 in the morning and mixing cement, or go to this community college where it's like full of mostly female art students. It wasn’t a hard decision.”
He was suddenly immersed in a new world and started connecting with the work of people like Jimmy McGovern. Then came Stephen Graham.
Famously, when Nelson-Joyce was young, he approached Graham in Nando’s to say he was a fan and to ask for acting advice. The two have been in touch ever since, and the two recently appeared in A Thousand Blows together.
“We speak near enough every day, and text every day,” he says, “I was around his house last week and he's someone who’s always been there when I’ve needed someone in my personal life. Work-wise the same. That man is the brother I never had.”
For us viewers, it does strike you that there’s a similar acting style with the two men. That willingness to take risks with their characters, add in details, and add an extra level of intensity that separates their work from the rest. Whether this is down to them coming from working-class backgrounds is hard to say, but it’s certainly tempting to see in their instinctive work a certain edge that is lacking in the current parade of British actors who have smoothly glided through the elite schools.
Nelson-Joyce is passionate about bringing in more working-class voices into the creative industries, but rather than it being any class warrior thing, this is simply about fairness. He is fully on board with Ed Sheeran’s recent calls to give kids from poorer backgrounds better music education and provisions.
“Television and theatre and the arts in general is going to become very beige if it gets cut off to working class people,” he says, “People at private school, elite school, they're getting all the best art stuff you can imagine, but where are working class kids with raw talent going to get the chance to perform it?
If this was the case 30 years ago, you wouldn't have Adolescence on your telly now, and you wouldn't have This City Is Ours. We just want equal opportunities. If you're from a privileged background, great, you've got it, but let’s make the playing field slightly more flat.
As a kid, you can only dream to be something that you can actually see.”
He wants more kids to be able to experience something as transformational as he has. It’s been hard work to get a foothold but good for him, he thinks, acting has been cathartic and developed him as a person.
“It certainly gives you a moral compass,” he says, “When you do research, it opens your eyes into society and culture and what what's going on in the world. I've learned more about myself being an actor than I have anything else. I've realised, I used to put a bit of a front on when I was younger. And that was to protect myself. I was scared to be who I am.
But now I'm just like, yeah, I love watching the History Channel. I love my Mozart vinyl collection. Little things like that. This is me, and if you don't like me, then that's cool, but I think I'm all right.”
As the future, Bond might happen, but the role Nelson-Joyce really wants to play is George Best: “He was a man of many complexities. The first celebrity footballer, but he was a loner. He was this lone man who everyone wanted a piece of. That’s who I want to play.”
This City of Ours is on BBC iPlayer now
