New Town Killers Update: Richard Jobson on Casting Alastair Mackenzie, Interview with Stacey of I&TFT

Right, back to business, and time for a proper update on the upcoming New Town Killers. Reminder, the trailer for the film opening in the UK in June can be seen, here. Director Richard Jobson recently gave a new interview where he discussed (finally huzzah!) his star, Sigma Films own Alastair Mackenzie. In the lengthy, detailed and frankly very good interview, Mr. Jobson discusses the motivation and reasoning why he sought to cast the beloved star of Monarch of the Glen in a role of this ruthless person.

PB : The other well-known name in the film is Alastair Mackenzie who is best known for Sunday night television and being in ‘Monarch of the Glen’. Was it a conscious decision to cast him against type ? RJ : Actually I thought I cast him to type because I wanted him in that character to be someone who had gone somewhere like Glenalmond, the private school in Perthshire, and who came from a very privileged background, as Alastair also does. When I met him I thought there was no point in testing anyone else for the part because he was so much that character. I just wanted him to build on that character’s incredibly privileged history, but also to make him very vulnerable. His Achilles heel is his ambition. He wants the big piece of the cake, but he doesn’t understand what the big piece of the cake means, so he makes a Faustian pact with Dougray’s character and pays the price for it.

He briefly mentions A Woman in Winter, which stars Jamie Sives, and notes of the film itself: "Words and finding a connection with words are very important to me. The difference now is I want there to be a story.I think 'A Woman in Winter' might be the last really abstract thing I will ever write. It was probably the bravest thing I have ever written because it dealt with really big themes that I might add genuinely interested me. In the sense of how I am going to use the words and the characters and where I am going cinematically now I really want the stories though to be about something."

A second interview worth the read is definitely with Stacey C, the lead singer of Isa & the Filthy Tongues. The group performs the title track to New Town Killers, which is now available, and in the interview, Stacey mentions Richard Jobson and the film.

Richard Jobson, who is now a movie director, loved our album so much that he asked us to write the theme song for his new movie 'New Town Killers'. Richard wrote the lyrics and we wrote the music. It was amazing to hear my voice on a huge screen at the premier in London last October.

We had a lot of contact with Richard Jobson, plenty of drinks and discussions... but mostly we talked about what it was like at the beginning of punk - he was in a punk band in Scotland in 1976 which was unheard of back in the day! London was the epicentre of punk at that point and none of those London bands even had a single out till October/ November 1976 and their LPs came out in 1977... so Richard was right there at the beginning. I think the Skids had their first single out in summer 1977 - 'Test Tube Babies', it was called! We have a lot in common with him. The boys in the band came from a similar town. You know, the kind of town that's industrial, unemployed and bleak.