The Old Oak is a pub struggling to do business in a cash-strapped former mining town in Northeast England. Unemployment is high, and there is a housing shortage, so many locals are unhappy when Syrian refugees are relocated to the town. The Old Oak, seen as the last vestige of the town’s old ways, becomes the centre of conflict between the locals and the new arrivals when the landlord, TJ (Dave Turner), befriends a young Syrian, Yara (Ebla Mari) and begins to help the residents settle in.
Written by Ken Laverty and written by Ken Loach, the film follows the duo’s long-established trend of using non-actors and community players, including the film’s lead actor, Dave Turner. We sat down with Turner to find out more.
You never intended to be an actor, but you had two small parts in previous Ken Loach films, I, Daniel Blake and Sorry I Missed You before you got the lead in The Old Oak; how did that happen?
Paul Laverty, the writer, kept in touch with me and asked to go for a cup of coffee. We discussed things that were happening in the Northeast and Brexit. In my opinion, Brexit has enabled casual racism to become more prevalent. I have been working in a pub since I retired from the fire service in 2014, and I mentioned to Paul that when you stand behind the bar, you hear people on the other side who feel entitled to make racist comments. The conversation then progressed on to how, since the end of the coal industry in the Northeast, a lot of the local villages have just been left to rot with no investment.
A few months later, Paul rang and asked me to drive him around the Northeast and show him some of these villages, which I did. Then I got a call asking me to drive Ken Loach around the villages? We drove around some of the old pit villages in Durham on a lovely sunny day with the cricket on the radio. I was aware that something was happening, but then COVID hit, which blocked Ken’s plans. After COVID relaxed, I was asked if I would go in and do a few scenes. I realised early on that it was different to the previous films. When I got the phone call from Ken saying we’d like to offer you the part, I had to sit down. I asked him what he meant by the part, and he said it was the main role. He realised I was panicking because he quickly said, “Well, it’s an ensemble piece; there’s seven or eight characters, so don’t worry”.
Rebecca O’Brien, the producer, rang me a couple of weeks later to talk about the finances and all that, and I told her that Ken mentioned that it’s the part but that he also said it’s an ensemble. I asked her what he meant. She told me it was the main part and that Ken spoke about the ensemble not to frighten me. She said it’s all on you and then laughed.
You only got a little information about your character, TJ. How did you get to grips with becoming a character with little background information?
All I was given was a rough thumbnail sketch of a man whose marriage had broken down and who was estranged from his family. He was running the pub in an old mining village, and the pub was really struggling. From day one, you get a little bit more. As with all Ken’s films, some days you’d come in, and you wouldn’t know what script you’re going to have, and sometimes, even the same day, you didn’t know what you’re going to be doing in an hour because he wanted that instantaneous reaction.
So, Ken really keeps you on your toes?
Oh, yeah. It means you can’t relax. Because I’ve got nothing to fall back on in terms of experience, I couldn’t reference this against anything. It’s all new to me. It took two weeks to understand the full process. By the end of it, I’d become TG. I know this sounds weird, but it overtook my personality to the extent that the week after, when we finished filming, I went away to Crete for four days and just lay by the pool and drank lager to try to get my own identity back.
When you train to be an actor or have previous experiences, you learn to distance yourself from your character and mind your head. You didn’t have that. Were you exhausted by the end?
One of my main relationships in the film is with the dog. I did about 1000 miles in the months leading up to the filming to establish the relationship with the dog. The guy who owns the dog came down to see me on the last day of filming, and I walked past him, said sorry mate, laid down on the grass and fell asleep. I was exhausted. I had nothing left. I was shattered. I’ve got a lot of respect for people who do this for a living; why they want to put themselves through this is beyond me.
What is it like to be directed by the great Ken Loach?
This is one of the most difficult questions I get asked because my answer would be he doesn’t direct. He trusts you. My anxiety levels were off the charts on my first day of filming. I was so nervous. I was constantly needing reassurance. I spoke to Suzanna on the crew and made her promise me that she would tell me if I was shit. She asked if Ken had said anything negative, and he hadn’t. Suzanne told me that if Ken was unhappy, he would have had a word with me. Ken creates an environment and then trusts you to do it. He must be mad to trust people with no experience.
Talk to me about the relationship between Yara and TJ. You have such beautiful chemistry. Did you spend time with Elba off-set?
I did three short scenes with three different actresses from the Middle East. Two of them were a little bit older. It helps that Yara and TJ are miles apart in age because there’s no chance of it being assumed to be a romantic relationship. The other two actors were brilliant, but Ebla shone. After the first weekend of filming, I was sitting at home, Ebla was sitting in a hotel in Newcastle. I wanted her to see more than the inside of a hotel room. I wanted to show her around, but I needed to find out if it was culturally appropriate. I asked the production team, and I was very politely but strongly advised that that’s a lovely idea but not a good idea. It wasn’t anything to do with culture, though; they didn’t want me and Ebla to have a familiarity, so when we were on screen together, we were strangers.
It wasn’t until we’d done five of the six weeks of filming that we had a Saturday afternoon get-together for the cast and crew where I found out more from Ebla in half an hour than the previous five weeks. It was a way of keeping us apart. The relationship you see in the film is reality because I was getting to know her, and she was getting to know me. I really appreciate what you say about the relationship; that means a lot.
Ken Loach is famous for using non-actors and people from the communities they represent, in this case, people from the Syrian community. What was it like hearing their stories and learning what they had gone through before coming to England?
It was very, very humbling. There is a lady in the film, and she uses a wheelchair. It was explained to me that in real life, this lady had lost all her family in an explosion, including her husband, and she lost her legs. It was the first big shock to my system. You see it on the news, and it’s terrible, but it’s over there. Many of us tend to be narrow and focus on our own life and environment. On the first day of filming, there was a big scene and one of the young people was a 13-year-old boy with a scar on his forehead and it was shrapnel. He was standing next to his cousin when his cousin was blown up, and you suddenly think a 13-year-old has gone through that.
I was fortunate to meet some families; I had dinner with them. We had this fantastic coordinator, Sham Ziad, who liaised between us and the Syrian cast. I had dinner with one family living in this tiny flat, and they showed me photographs of the home they used to live in. It was beautiful with olive trees. They lost all that and had so little, but they put on enough food to feed 100 people. It gives you more awareness. This role has changed me as a person. When you’ve experienced and witnessed what I’ve seen, if it doesn’t impact you, there’s something wrong with you. I hope I’m more understanding than I was two years ago.
Do you hope people will see the film and change how they see refugees?
I don’t believe that a film can change the world. All I hope is that people will see the film with an open mind. We tend to focus on the difference between ourselves, where we come from, and our skin colour rather than what unites us; we’re all human beings. All the talk about stopping migrant boats is repellent; they are human beings. How desperate must they have been to put a child in an inflatable dinghy to come to a new country? They are doing it because they want mobile phones and hotel rooms, they are doing it because they have been terrified out of their own countries. I hope it gives people a little bit of optimism and hope, that they see people struggling and understand them more and become more open.
Interview by Cara O’Doherty