Newcomers John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones and Simon Howard talk alien invasion
Attack the Block is a fast, funny, frightening action adventure movie that pits a teen gang against an invasion of savage alien monsters. It turns a London housing estate into a sci-fi playground. A tower block into a fortress under siege. And teenage street kids into heroes. It¹s inner city versus outer space.
Trainee nurse Sam is walking home to her flat in a scary South London tower block when she¹s robbed by a gang of masked, hooded youths. She¹s saved when the gang are distracted by a bright meteorite, which falls from the sky and hits a nearby parked car. Sam flees, just before the gang are attacked by a small alien creature that leaps from the wreckage. The gang chase the creature and kill it, dragging its ghoulish carcass to the top of the block, which they treat as their territory.
While Sam and the police hunt for the gang, a second wave of meteors fall.Confident of victory against such feeble invaders, the gang grab weapons, mount bikes and mopeds, and set out to defend their turf. But this time, the creatures are bigger. Much bigger. Savage, shadowy and bestial, they are hunting their fallen comrade and nothing will stand in their way. The estate is about to become a battleground. And the bunch of no-hope kids who just attacked Sam are about to become her, and the block¹s, only hope.
With Attack the Block set to hit our screens on May 11th, the leading five characters – John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard and Franz Drameh, all of whom have limited experience in this business, spoke to the Fan Carpet about their experiences on the film, and what it was like working with aliens.
Well guys, incredible performances all round – especially considering how inexperienced you all are in this field – must have been a great experience for all of you?
John Boyega: Yeah it was amazing. Franz has been working before so we learnt a lot from him.
Franz Drameh: Yeah, the job I did before Attack the Block was filming ‘Hereafter’, with Clint Eastwood and I’ve done a few other things, on the BBC and with Disney. But working on this film has just been amazing. Amazing.
How different are you all from your characters?
John Boyega: I think they’re very different, if they were just me, I wouldn’t be doing my job as an actor, so we did a lot of research to get the characters down to a tee. Personally, I watched lots of the Wire, looking at the character Michael, and then asking questions around my estate, trying to get the essence of this character. I mean, some of us have all lived in South London all of our lives, but I think there is a difference in living there and being part of what goes on there. So I tried getting into that and trying to get a sense of that world and bring it on to the screen.
Franz Drameh: Theres been a lot of movies to watch like the Warriors, Over the Edge…
Alex Esmail: Aliens.
Franz Drameh: Aliens. So I mean, we had a lot of reference points to kind of look at and get some ideas of what kind of movie we’re trying to emulate and pay homage to.
What was it like getting the scripts for the first time?
Franz Drameh: When I first received the script I just thought, how is this gonna work out? Aliens…In a South London council estate? Yeah okay. But then I read the script and I just fell in love with it as soon as I started reading it. Roles like this don’t come around very often and I just needed to be a part of this project.
John Boyega: For me, when I first got the script I was on my first job doing a play at the Tricycle theatre, and I got the script in a big, massive letter thing, and I thought it was a bomb. I opened it and it was covered in red and everything. I was like, they’re legit! Anyway, I opened it up and read it and literally fell in love with it, especially as I’m an 80’s movie fan – I wasn’t born in the 80’s, but 80’s movies were shown on Sunday nights on Channel Five, and I fell in love with them and I just cant believe that an urban film from Britain pays homage to those kind of films, which was amazing for me.
Simon Howard: For me, when I heard it was about aliens in South London, I thought, brilliant. It’s every kid’s dream for aliens to come, even if they’re not the big head, big eyed ones, they are still come kind of alien. The script was more like a book, I just loved reading it like. Every day, it was like a hobby. I would have it whilst eating, and still be reading it like it’s a book.
Alex Esmail: When I first heard the idea I was a bit dubious but I quite liked it cos it was different, and I liked the weirdness of it, but when I got the script – I learnt it straight away just in case! I loved the entire script.
Leeon Jones: When I first saw the script I thought, like, wow, this is great. As a kid, when your just playing around by yourself, you imagine stuff is there, like aliens jumping around and that the floors are crazy – this is what you dream of when your young, so to play a part in this, is just amazing.
Franz Drameh: The dialogue as well. I mean, I haven’t received a film before that has been so on-point.
John Boyega: I thought Noel Clarke wrote it!
Franz Drameh: I was thinking, who wrote this? Because they got the dialogue pretty spot-on!
How much of the dialogue was your input, or was most of it from the original script?
Franz Drameh: The dialogue was mostly by Joe – we came in and kinda helped finish up the final draft, and put our own little ideas and little character traits, but most of that was Joe. He did an excellent job on the script. We just tweaked a few things.
Simon Howard: We just tweaked little things, like, would Moses really say that certain line? Or, would Dennis say that cos he’s hot-headed?
Franz Drameh: Yeah, that kind of stuff.
How does it feel to see your faces on posters? Has that got tiring yet!?
Franz Drameh: It is never gonna get tiring!
Alex Esmail: It aint ever gonna get old man.
John Boyega: Very humbled by it though.
Simon Howard: Because you know there is no way it can disappear, it’s there forever.
Alex Esmail: It’s like all five of us are kind of captured in time now by this film.
You talk about the dialogue being really spot-on, how important do you think the authenticity is to the film?
John Boyega: Well, the film is set in South London, around South London guys, so I think one thing about this script, and about this story, is that it captures people. It captures the boys as human beings, not just as people as with their hood’s up, who wear the same thing. They all have certain elements. It’s about people, and to get that, you had to have the South London swagger, and an attitude, to make the audience, especially those who live in South London, say, ‘I know that guy!’, do you know what I mean? So that was very important.
How much CGI was used within the film?
Leeon Jones: They were just big, wolf/gorilla looking things, and they were real, and actually quite scary. When you see them jumping on people, they’re jumping on people, seriously. It does bring fear into it and it brings realism into it.
Alex Esmail: When I first heard it was gonna be aliens, I was expecting completely CGI – when we saw them, it was just like, they’re there – holy hell what are they!?
John Boyega: There were three of them in a corner when I first walked in, and they all had a cup of tea. Heads on!
Did you guys do any of the stunts yourselves?
Franz Drameh: Personally, at first, I was really adamant about doing everything myself. I wanted to be Jackie Chan. I was like, yeah man, just put me on that ped and let me crash into that, and do this. Until you get hurt, and then you realise why the stuntman is there and you think, okay, I’m just gonna take credit for what your doing!
Alex Esmail: We did quite a bit on our own though.
Did anyone get hurt?
Franz Drameh: Not seriously!
John Boyega: There was an explosion behind a flat and I literally done the leap, which was flipping nuts, and hanging onto the rail… That was me, and that was like having wedgie by God in mid-air which wasn’t comfortable, but its all for the job – I signed up for it!
What would you really do if Aliens invaded an estate you lived on? Would you fight? Or play FIFA?
John Boyega: I’m going back to Africa man!
Simon Howard: I’m playing FIFA.
Leeon Jones: Just go the opposite way and start running. And keep running.
So not one of you would follow your characters and stand up to them?
Franz Drameh: Hell no. I’d leave those aliens for the military, man.
Alex Esmail: I’d probably go to my friend’s house. It’s more secure than mine!
And I don’t want to cause an argument, but who is the best on FIFA?
John Boyega: Leeon.
Franz Drameh: Leeon.
Simon Howard: There’s no argument.
Franz Drameh: No argument. But when you play something for eight days a week, and yes I did say eight days, cos that’s how much he plays it.
Leeon Jones: I play it casually man.
John Boyega: Casually, okay. But yeah – he is a beast at it.
So, considering this film was the first cinematic experience for most of you, as it was for the director as well, what was it like having people like Nick Frost on set, a more experienced head, that’s been doing this for such a long time?
John Boyega: Yeah… Nick is interesting. He is an interesting guy. People ask about his professionalism, but Nick would shout out “Moses, don’t bum me!” just before a shot.
But you know, he’s a funny guy and it was funny having him around on set. He bought a certain amount of boyish energy which was good for all of us. We just had a wild time. It was amazing.
Did the more experienced actors give you any tips?
Franz Drameh: I think a good tip that Nick gave all of us was if your not too clear about something, do not be afraid to ask, or stop it and say ‘woah really comfortable with this.’
Simon Howard: There is one thing as well that I can remember that helped us a lot, that Nick done, which was basically before that a scene stars, to fast-read the whole scene.
John Boyega: Personally for me, there were some scenes where we had to like, cry. That was real energy do you know what I mean? And once Leeon started crying, I was like, oh shit, now the tears are coming!
Alex Esmail: All of us were crying at one point, and it was just stupid. After a while at least, sitting there, finished the scene… still crying.
Lastly, how different was the finished feature to what you initially saw on the script? Was it any different to what you thought it would be?
Franz Drameh: I think it’s just been better. When I was reading the script I did think it would be good, but I didn’t think that it would be as good as it’s turned out. I was pleasantly surprised when I first saw the end product.
ATTACK THE BLOCK IS OUT TODAY FROM OPTIMUM RELEASING