jack
Now here’s a celebrity with whom I actually had some history. Jack O Connell is from Derby, and I spent my teenage years in Derby.
Derby is a place with both major positives, and major negatives. On the one hand, a place totally surrounded by some of the most classically beautiful English countryside, on the other a city seemingly hell bent on staying somewhere between “depressing” and “average’.
I first met Jack in one of Derby’s many pub (that’s one thing is does fairly decently). I was in the west side of Derby for a change and he was drinking in the same pub as me, The Markeaton if I remember correctly. Over the years I would occasionally see him around and as his career grew would hear his name more and more.
For people of a certain age, Skins was the defining show of their teenage years. I felt squarely into that age bracket. He did Derby proud when he starred in a film alongside Angelia Jolie, and somewhere on set taught her the phrase “Aye up me Duck!”, which is Derby for “Hello”. She then repeated this phrase on stage at some awards show and wrote her name into every Derby history book forever more. The clip became a proud badge of honour for every person in the town.
My shoot with Jack was a nice one. He was in to promote a new movie and after his witty, midland boy interview with Lauren Laverne he came out into the green room. He didn’t remember me but it soon became clear to him that I had indeed, drank in enough of the same bars as him to consider me a safe pair of hands. I was flying to New York a few hours after this soon, so my partner was alongside me patiently waiting for me to finish so we could leave. I took advantage of another pair of hands and had her fire my trusty Profoto Clic through some slats by a small window. This provided just enough light to to give it a soft glow, with a bit of interesting detail across the frame.
I’m always happy to see Jack doing well. As much as I may have somewhat negative thoughts on the place, I’ll support anyone from there.
