Shane Meadows: Prison might have led to better stories – or maybe I’d have ended up a really pathetic criminal
While This Is England director Shane Meadows is best known as one of the most unique voices working in British cinema, he has told Sky News he could easily have made a different name for himself had things been different when he was given a suspended sentence for stealing in his youth.
“I think worst criminal in history may have been on the agenda,” he joked, recalling how court clerks laughed when they heard details of how he’d been caught “stealing a breast pump, some chicken tikka sandwiches and a raspberry crush”.
He just “happened to spot the pump” and grabbed it, knowing a neighbour needed one – but insists he wasn’t being “Robin Hood” and was mostly “just hungry”.
“Who knows, maybe I’d have got better stories?” Meadows muses on what might have happened had he been sent to prison. “Or maybe I’d have ended up being a really pathetic criminal.”
After dropping out of school in his teens, had he not got into making short films on a borrowed camcorder, life could have been radically different.
Thankfully, Meadows was only given a suspended sentence, months before he made Small Time – a short film that was enough to convince investors to fund his first full-length movie.
Now, as he prepares for the cinematic re-release of his 2004 thriller Dead Man’s Shoes, the filmmaker is in a reflective mood. The film was originally released two years before he found fame with This Is England, the critically acclaimed film which would go on to spawn three spin-off TV series.
“It didn’t make a splash at all,” Meadows admits of Dead Man’s Shoes. “And then, I don’t know whether it was mates passing it around on VHS or DVD, it just became one of those films that people wouldn’t let go of and kind of discovered in a different way.”
‘It’s nice to see it through their eyes’
Paddy Considine stars in Meadows’ 2004 film Dead Man’s Shoes. Pic: Warp/Big Arty Prods/Kobal/Shutterstock
Starring Meadows’ long-term collaborator Paddy Considine, the thriller sees a soldier return home to take revenge on a group of drug dealers who abused his younger brother.
While you’ll find many of the same faces appear throughout his work, the Nottingham-based film director says casting at least one unknown on each project is essential.
“It makes everyone else stop being mardy. You know, someone comes in and they can’t believe they’ve been picked up in a car, they can’t believe the dinner is free, they can’t believe someone is saying, ‘do you want a tea?’ And then the rest of us kind of go, ‘mine’s freezing!’ You know, it’s like, they kind of bring you back down to earth and it’s nice to see it through their eyes.”
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Meadows is often compared to Mike Leigh or Ken Loach, but in reality remains a unique voice in film. His dramas are generally set and shot in the Midlands and his heavily improvised style has turned many of the unknowns he has cast into stars, such as Line Of Duty’s Vicky McClure and Brassic’s Joe Gilgun.
While he’s covered the impact of the Thatcher era on working-class communities, there’s plenty about the world we live in now that’s also caught Meadows’ focus.
‘Kids don’t feel there’s many options around’
“In the area where I’m in, in Nottingham, since COVID, kids have really changed,” he says. “There’s a saying, an African saying, which is: ‘A child who isn’t embraced by his village will burn the village to feel its warmth.’ And that, I think, is very prevalent at the moment because there’s lots and lots of kids who are spilling on to the street, children coming out of COVID, who’ve been trapped inside, not feeling like there are many options around. I think a phrase like that seems pretty apt.”
Meadows’ ability to read the temperature of the areas of England which don’t often make it on screen is, of course, part of the reason his films have, over the last two decades, come to be appreciated all the more.
Dead Man’s Shoes is out in cinemas from 15 September as well as being screened as part of the BFI’s Acting Hard season, which runs until 2 October
Angelina Jolie says although she appreciates being an artist, she would prefer for her legacy to be “a good mother” and to be known for her “belief in equality and human rights”.
The Oscar-winning actress stars as Maria Callas in the new Pablo Larrain film about the opera singer’s life.
Pic: StudioCanal
She has called Maria “the hardest” and “most challenging” role she has had in her career and put months of preparation into immersing herself into the world of opera.
Jolie, who recently reached a divorce settlement with actor Brad Pitt, told Sky News: “To be very candid, it was the therapy I didn’t realise I needed. I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out.
“So, the challenge wasn’t the technical [side of opera], it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”
The biopic combines the voice of the Maleficent actress with recordings of Maria Callas.
Jolie believes it “would be a crime to not have [Callas’] voice through this because, in many ways, she is very present in this film”.
Who was Maria Callas?
Born in New York in 1923, Maria Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants who moved back to Athens at the age of 13 with her mother and sister.
After enrolling at the Athens Conservatory, she made her professional debut at 17 and went on to become one of the most famous faces of opera, travelling around the world and performing at Covent Garden in London, The Met in New York and La Scala in Milan.
Callas’s final operatic performance took place at Covent Garden in 1965 when she was 41 but she continued to work conducting master classes at Juilliard School, doing concert tours and starring in the 1969 film Medea.
Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, Maria focuses on the artist’s final years in the 1970s when she moved to Paris and disappeared from public view.
She died on 16 September 1977 at the age of 53.
Pic: StudioCanal
Jolie on changing motivations as an actor
Maria follows the life of an artist fully consumed by the art she creates and even remarks that “happiness never developed a beautiful melody”.
Reflecting on her own life in the spotlight, Jolie said she noticed her own career motivations change over the years.
“There’s this kind of study of being human that we do when we create, and we communicate with an audience because our work is not in isolation – it’s a connection.
“I think when I was younger, I had different questions about being human and different feelings and now as I’ve gotten older, I understand some things and now I have different questions.
“It’s a matter of life, right? And so maybe that’s interesting that this now is a character really contemplating death and really contemplating the toll of certain things in life that I, of course, couldn’t have understood in my 20s”.
Jolie at the New York Film Festival in September with three of her children (L-R) Pax, Zahara and Maddox. Pic: AP
A family affair
Two of Jolie’s children, Maddox and Pax, took on production assistant roles during the filming of Maria and witnessed their mother perform opera for the first time in public.
She says the film allowed them to create new experiences together and for her children to see her approach to playing a difficult role.
“Everyone in my home, we all give each other space to be who we are and we’re all different.
“I’m the mom, but I’m also an artist and a person and so my family has been very kind and gives me their understanding. They make fun of me, and they support me and just as you’d hope it would be.”
She adds: “When you play somebody who is dealing with so much pain, it’s very important to come home to some kindness.”
Maria is in cinemas now.
Tom Holland’s dad has confirmed his son’s engagement to Zendaya – revealing how the 28-year-old meticulously planned the proposal.
Zendaya, also 28, sparked engagement rumours when she attended last Sunday’s Golden Globes wearing a sparkling diamond on her ring finger.
Neither star has publicly addressed the rumours but Tom’s comedian father, Dominic Holland, has now confirmed the pair are set to wed.
He wrote in a post on his Patreon account: “Tom, as you know by now was very incredibly well prepared. He had purchased a ring.
“He had spoken with her father and gained permission to propose to his daughter.”
“Tom had everything planned out… When, where, how, what to say, what to wear,” he added.
Zendaya arrived at the Golden Globes with a noticeable piece of new jewellery. Pic: Invision/AP
Dominic also noted that while most men worry about being able to afford an engagement ring, he suspects his actor son was “more concerned with the stone, its size and clarity, its housing, which jeweller”.
Tom and Zendaya met on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2016, when they played the titular hero and his love interest MJ, respectively. Their romance was confirmed in 2021.
In his post, Tom’s father admitted fears over whether being in the spotlight could put a strain on the couple’s relationship.
He wrote: “I do fret that their combined stardom will amplify their spotlight and the commensurate demands on them and yet they continually confound me by handling everything with aplomb.”
“And even though show business is a messy place for relationships and particularly so for famous couples as they crash and burn in public and are too numerous to mention […] yet somehow right at the same time, I am completely confident they will make a successful union.”
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Zendaya rose to fame after landing a role in Disney sitcom Shake It Up, and became a household name after starring in Euphoria.
Holland – who has starred in three Spider-Man films opposite his now-fiancée – made his stage debut in Billy Elliot the Musical in 2008.
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