Jamie Demetriou

“I'm actually going to start with Secrets & Lies, Mike Leigh. Hello England. This to me just feels like his juiciest work. There's just something in him kind of utilizing naturalism for like really heavy drama. He also just doesn't waste a character, which I think is, in my experience of being an acting person, quite a common pain you feel. I think that guy in his films always is given a proper something to do, which I think is so generous but also like beneficial to the film. I love this on...”

“The Celebration, Festen. Takes me back to the days where I tried to define myself as being the guy who liked Dogme 95 stuff. I'm still that guy, but I don't define myself by it. I just think that the amount of extra business that goes on when making stuff these days, it's useful to remember that you don't have to and that the kind of obstructions that they created for themselves obviously ended up being like insanely fruitful creatively and the product is actually like soap-style drama.”

“These I picked because they're three contemporary performances that I just think changed the way I want to act or inspired me to do better. Jeff Daniels in Noah Baumbach's Squid and the Whale is taking a kind of person in the world via Baumbach's incredible script who is seemingly one-dimensional. He just has no ability to introspect. I think it's one of the funniest performances, but it requires so much introspection from the actor to kind of get it over the line.”

“Sandra Hüller in Anatomy of a Fall. I mean this Sandra Hüller that year with Zone of Interest as well just immediately became like, you know, the person that I will see anything in. It feels like a classic from a million years ago already. I just think her dedication felt like a new, it really felt like a new level of naturalism. I just can't fathom how she did what she did in that film.”

“And Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love. I think as time passes people are becoming more and more obsessed with Adam Sandler's Performance in this for good reason. On the surface when I think about that film I'm thinking that he's playing the most anxious man in the world, but then when you actually think about it he's the most confident character who's ever existed. Like the things that he's willing to do demonstrate that he has like there's no simplicity.”

“Worst Person in the World, a recent classic. Kind of demonstrates that cinema does have a future despite my gut feeling there might not. It's really rewarding to see, you know, I've put a lot of new stuff in here because I do think that it's important, I'm excited to see like where all these directors go and what they do with their stuff and how their work kind of holds cinema up.”

“Oh, lovely stuff. Of course, seen a million times, loved a million times. I'm not sad that this, Being John Malkovich by Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman, is going in my bag.”