Luke Treadaway, Iwan Rheon, Gerard Kearns and Rowan Athale discuss twists and turns

Though The Fan Carpet covered this title at the London Film Festival almost a year ago (when it was then called ‘Wasteland’) we now had the great pleasure of sitting down with three of the lead stars of The Rise, Luke Treadaway, Iwan Rheon and Gerard Kearns, alongside the director, Rowan Athale.

The film – which is an exciting heist thriller of four guys on a revenge mission – is out theatrically on September 20, and on DVD on September 30.

The film is fast paced and has the audience gripped from start to finish, with lots of twists and turns. When you first read the script, were you desperate to get to the next page?

Luke Treadaway: Yeah I was really interested to know what happened and it gripped me the whole way through when reading it, and I thought that Rowan had written a script that was really tight. A lot of films you wonder whether they’ll make it through, but this felt really tight and there was no fat on it. It was well written and the dialogue was very authentic, and it felt really believable. So yeah, that was good.

So how quickly does it take you guys to choose a project to get involved in? When you get the script is it often something you can tell instantly?

Iwan Rheon: I think with something like this you can, I finished reading the script and I was like, yes, I definitely want to do that. It was an immediate thing.

Luke: The audition obviously helps too – and I liked the way Rowan shot it. It was like he was making a little scene and we did it from different angles and I liked how it didn’t feel like an audition, it felt like we were getting a scene done.

Gerard Kearns: I was dubious, because it had been six years since I auditioned for it, so I found it hard to remember it.

Iwan: It took a while to make the decision to decide you were the right actor! I’m glad they did though.

Gerard: So when I got there I was wondering how it would pan out, then as soon as Rowan started the shots he wanted to do, I thought, fucking hell this guy knows what’s doing, this is awesome.

Six years….?

Rowan Athale: When we first auditioned Gerry, we got financing with a company who then went under. Then it took us about two years after that while I was running an advertisement agency to get the financing, but once we got it, we couldn’t shoot it until the following tax year, so we got all the money and everything had been signed, but we had to wait another 10 months. So altogether, to this point right now, it’s been five and a bit years.

I imagine you hope your second film won’t take quite so long to get off the ground…

Rowan: Oh, no. We’re shooting that in March.

Iwan: You haven’t even told me what part I’m playing yet.

Gerard: It’s called The Rise 2.

Iwan: We’re all really fat and ugly.

Though bearing a violent, epic story – at the heart of this tale is a man trying to win back the love of his ex-girlfriend. Does that make this a world more intimate, and one that’s more relatable to you guys?

Luke: Yeah, as you said, the heist is what’s occurring in their lives at the time, but as much as it is about that, it’s about them as friends leaning on each other and getting the strength and support from each other to try and dare to dream that they have prospects outside of the estate they’ve grown up on all their lives. That coupled with the fact that Harvey has got girl problems at the time, it means he has his heart to sort out as well, and the two together I suppose is what cause problems with the plan as it goes along, as he tries to juggle them both.

How important do you think it is that this story is set up north, therefore avoiding all of the East End cliches that come with this genre?

Gerard: Absolutely, and it’s a realistic. It’s not millions of pounds they’re after, it’s enough to start their own business. They’re not robbing the money to go to Saint Tropez, you know, that’s nice, and I totally agree with what you said.

The film is about four close friends, did you guys get on well off-set? Did you go out much?

Iwan: Yeah we’re all into music and stuff so we all go our guitars out and had jams, we went out…

Luke: We tore Leeds up one night. Went to Matt’s for a game of poker one night. Basically, we hadn’t met until a couple of days before we started and we got to Leeds. It was great because we all got on really well, it was lucky.

Luke, you spent a lot of time in a small room with Timothy Spall. That must have been fun?

Luke: It was, yeah.

Iwan: And what about the film?

Luke: You should see the deleted scenes. It was great, it was actually only about three or four days that we did chunk of the film, but it was nice having a break from this lot really.

Iwan: You missed us really.

Luke: I did actually. I kept texting.

Though The Rise is a unique, intelligent thriller, the marketing campaign and poster, for example, seems to be underselling it a little, as just a generic gangster flick. Does that ever frustrate you guys as actors?

Iwan: Yeah, I think the poster makes us out to be like football hooligans. Whereas we’re not. We’re actually a nice bunch of lads, and though we might be cheeky and a bit cocky, we’re not violent and they don’t go out beating people up.

Luke: There’s a strange sort of disconnect isn’t there, between the marketing department that have been brought on a month before the release of a film, and then obviously you’ve been there from 5am, cold in the morning, living the whole experience. As Rowan said before, he’s been doing this for five years and I don’t know what it’s like as a director, but obviously as an actor you never get the chance to be involved in the publicity and marketing campaign. It’s an interesting world, and one you see more and more of as you go along. Sometimes you think a poster really captures the film, and some people will look at ours and think, ‘I really want to see that’, but some people, like yourself, may not think it works for the film.

Gerard: You know what, I agree. It can be disappointing sometimes. You put your heart and soul into something and then it’s out of your hands and you don’t know what you’re going to get.

Luke: But that’s a standard thing, our poster is like This is England, Trainspotting… You can see who’s in it, the font is really big. They’ve got a few things spot on.

Iwan: My beard is great as well. Very similar to the one I had in the film.

Rowan, I’ve spoken to a couple of filmmakers recently who have decided to take on the marketing side of things themselves, is that anything you’d be interested in doing?

Rowan: Well you’ll have consultation involvement. You can’t manage everything single aspect of something, that’s mega, maniac behaviour. It’s not for me to do that. I don’t want to be that involved in it. There are people in specific departments and you’ve got to put your trust in people. I can’t sit there and say I’m the best person to dictate the marketing, because I’m not a film marketer.

Gerard: It’s hard with the poster though, because that’s so essential.

Rowan: True, but it should only be something you’re consulted on, rather than sit there dictating. In the same way I can talk to the composer about the style I want, but I can’t actually sit there and compose the music.

Gerard: That’s because it was your brother! [laughs]

Rowan: But you talk about what you want people to do, but you don’t specifically do it. The director is the one person who doesn’t physically do anything, you just talk to people about how you want things to be done. You are literally the only person involved in the film who doesn’t physically do anything, you just sit there [laughs].

Gerard: Do you think there would be a lot of directors who’d disagree with that?

Rowan: No I think most of them would agree with me to be honest with you. Don’t get me wrong, there are a million analogies to make, you know, you’re the captain of the ship but you don’t actually steer it, or have anything to do with the fuel, or fire the guns… You know what I mean.

Iwan: But yet you still go down with the boat.

Finally, your characters in the film are dreaming of starting afresh in Amsterdam. If you could move to anywhere in the world and start again – where would you most like to go and settle?

Gerard: South of France.

Iwan: Wales. Somewhere in North Wales in a beautiful little house in the middle of Snowdonia.

Luke: I’m very happy in London at the moment, but I like travelling.

Iwan: [Laughs] Don’t sit on the fence mate!

Gerard: South of France would be great for me.

Rowan: I’d like that.

Gerard: I just love France.

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THE RISE IS OUT TODAY IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE