"Someone put an apple in my mouth in the middle of a take"

Sam Riley is the Yorkshire-born actor who made a stunning debut as Joy Division’s tragic frontman Ian Curtis in 2007’s Control. Since then, he’s gone from starring in On The Road to playing Angelina Jolie’s avian flunky in Disney fairytale Maleficent. James Mottram caught up with Riley to talk about his latest film, She Is Love, an improvised drama that casts him as Idris, a one-time DJ who runs into his ex-wife (Haley Bennett) in a guest house ten years after splitting up

What was your experience of making She Is Love with writer-director Jamie Adams? Was it very guerrilla style?

We shot it in six days. I spent more time in quarantine, which I also spent with Jamie! I was coming from Germany, and I was doing two tests a day. And I realised how much of Idris’ weirdness was actually Jamie’s: ‘there’s a spider in my bedroom, I can’t sleep in there!’

The film’s end credits say it was made ‘with the participation of the actors’. How much did you improvise for Jamie?

We wrote it for him! And he would occasionally tell us things to say. There was a ‘scriptment’ and the circumstances, and then you go into a room. And sometimes he’ll throw in something . . . he sent someone in and they put an apple in my mouth in the middle of a take with Marisa [Abela, who plays Idris’ girlfriend]. I thought, ‘is this going in the film?’ But he was just trying to throw you, to try to break down your vanity or control over the situation.

Had you experienced extensive improv before?

Not like that. Sometimes he never said ‘cut’. And you’d go through awkward moments. It’s complete surrender. Sometimes you say something and you think, ‘fuck, that sounds stupid’. And then you have to just go on because the next ball’s coming at you. And hopefully, that will go somewhere.

Your character Idris is a one-time successful DJ and musician. You fronted the band 10,000 Things. Could you relate?

Yeah. Jamie [who was a music promoter] booked my band back in 2002 to play in Cardiff when he was living there. I don’t remember that! But I felt that this character was me if my band had been successful, and I hadn’t ruined my first relationship with being in a band. And if that had gone one direction, then I’d have ended up meeting my first love again. That’s why he’s called Loverboy as well, because that was his [Adams’] favourite song of my defunct band.

Music has been huge in your career, given you played Ian Curtis. How do you look back on that?

It was an incredible start to a career. It launched me up the food chain with the possibilities of being able to work in this business. And I met my wife on it. Control is one of those rare things: it’s a great music biopic. The story of a band is a difficult thing to get right, and not be clichéd.

What’s the most Hollywood thing you’ve experienced in your career?

When my American agents were trying to impress me when I first went over there, they said, ‘we’ve organised something we think you might like. Warren Beatty wondered if you wanted to go to his house and have breakfast with him.’ And I was like, ‘wow, yes!’ I had to drive there, which was terrifying. I’d never driven in Los Angeles. I had a really surreal two or three hours, chatting with him in his living room where he just told me all sorts of gossip and stories from the heyday of cinema.

Did he pass on any advice?

He insisted that you should make and produce your own movies. He said, ‘do you like the house?’ The house is gorgeous. He said, ‘Bonnie And Clyde paid for this’. And he said, ‘is your wife an actress? Well, here’s another tip: don’t ever do a movie with your wife where you’re playing in love with each other because no one wants to fucking see that!’

She Is Love is in cinemas from Friday 3 February.