On the Red Carpet: With the cast of Empire of Light

The newest release from writer and director Sam Mendes is Empire of Light, a romantic drama set in a cinema on the south coast of England during the 1980s.

It’s a film about love, loneliness, compassion and connection. Humanity really. And that’s what Hannah Onslow, who plays Janine in the film says she took away from it. “I hope the audience enjoy it first of all, but also take what they want from it. Everyone takes something different but for me what I always take from it is loneliness, and the need for connection. How we need connection to thrive and survive. I hope people take that away, because for me that’s really powerful.”

It’s perhaps no coincidence that those are the themes of the film, and the theme of so many of our lives for the last couple of years. “He wrote it during lockdown.” Hannah says. A time of intense loneliness for many of us, but also a time where racial tensions were high, change was being fought for. And that is something we also see in the film, as was the case in England 1981.

How is it to go to work and act that, when you’re living it when you go home too? Tanya Moodie, who plays Delia in the film said it’s “Exactly that. I feel like as a Black woman I’m sort of a political being. I mean essentially we all are, but you know, this is something that is very much a lived experience for me. And in a way I consider that a privilege. It’s not a burden, it’s a privilege.”

Micheal Ward plays Stephen in the film, and whilst Tanya who plays his mother really was around to see 1980s Britain, Micheal wasn’t born until 16 years after this film was set. So I was curious, did he know how similar 1981 Britain was to 2022 Britain? “When I was filming it, it was a lot of research, and I worked very intimately with my acting coach Gary Nurse, who had lived in that period. He’s a lot older, a lot more wise, so everything that we was talking about, everything that was in the script, I was quite meticulous about it and understanding that experience. And I guess when I was filming it, I know what 2022 is like, and then I got to know what it was like before. And to realise we’re making progress but we’re still so close to that? I guess I just focus on the positives, and understand we are making progress, and every small step is something special.”

At its heart though, this is a film about love. It’s a love letter to cinema. It’s melancholic but in a really beautiful way. And as for what drew them all to the project, the answer was simple. Two words in fact. “Sam Mendes.”

Empire of Light is in cinemas nationwide now.