Cass: Interviewing Gavin Brocker who plays Prentice in the film ‘Cass’. Right Gavin Q1, let’s have a bit of background about you mate, where was you born and where do you live and you know how did you first become an actor, and why?

Gavin: Right. Well I’ve always grown up in South-East London, in Plumstead, and basically lived there all my life. Working class background. I have been lucky enough to have a real good supportive family for everything that I have done. I’ve been lucky in that sort of way. Acting, I was never really like a child actor. It weren’t really something that I really considered it like a profession. It probably wasn’t until I was at the age of like 13-16 in secondary school where drama was the only class that I really enjoyed, drama and English. Everything else, it just didn’t appeal to me, it didn’t excite me, I was rubbish in the classes you know. I was never good at exams. But my dad, as supportive as my dad is, my dad said when I was leaving school, you should get into computers, computers are the thing of the future, that’s where the money’s going to be, get into computers. So I went to North-West Kent College to have an interview for a computer course and one of the women that were there looking through my NRA, my National Record of Achievement, and all of it was more or less full of lots of stuff to do with acting. And she said, there’s a place called the Miskin Theatre which though independently run is a part of the college as it can get you funding and a national diploma too. You should go there and you should have an audition. So I kind of thought about it. Went home, spoke to my mum, spoke to my nan, and they were like well go for it. And I started to feel a little bit excited about it. So I phoned up the theatre and they said, well look we’ve got one more audition date left, it’s in two days time. You need to prepare a monologue and come along. So I prepared a monologue from Jim Cartwright’s 'Road'. Skin-lad was the character. I went along and just gave it everything that I could and I absolutely loved it and a guy called Dominic Power who turned out to be a director of this college as well as a experienced actor said you’ve got to forget about the computers and you’ve got to come and do this, because it sort of comes natural with you, he was very clear, he was saying you know you should do this. I went home, I was like I really want to do this. And then from there at the age of 16 a whole new world opened up to me. You know looking at actors like De Niro, Gary Oldman, Sean Penn. Looking at the method, looking at Strasburg, Stanislavski, and just watching films, getting impassioned and going, my God, this is something that I absolutely love. And I love it, I love acting, I love the profession. And from there it was drama school. And now I’m just in ‘Cass’, which is great, so yeah. So that was how it started really.

Cass: So at 25 years of age a whole future in front of you, Gav. Where are we going to go now? Q2, What’s your CV to date then, what have you done film-wise and how did you come about securing a lead role in ‘Cass’? Have you got an agent? Did you know all about it?

Gavin: Yeah, well when my time was up at the Miskin I got into drama school. I went to Arts Ed and through my second year I won a Lawrence Olivier bursary award. It’s for people that have got a bit of talent and also struggling with a little bit of money. And I went up and I won the award and that enabled me to live in Chiswick for one year whilst I finished my third year at drama school. Anyway, to cut a long story short, a woman called Kim Poster. She’d seen my audition for this award and she phoned up Conway Van Gelder who are an acting agency, and they sort of followed me for the rest of my second year, and all through my third year and when I did my showcase offered me a place with them, which I was excited about, they’re a very good agency. Really I’ve been very, very lucky on that front.

In terms of my 'Cass', ‘CASS’ has been my first, well I tell you, it was my first sort of main role in a feature film. I did a film called ‘Incendiary’ with Ewan McGregor and that was a tiny part. I did a lot of TV things like ‘Torchwood’ and ‘Foyle’s War’, kind of BBC and ITV drama, and they were my two sort of biggest acting jobs I think to date in terms of credibility. ‘Foyle’s War’, I had you know a really sort of smashing part, great character, which I loved doing. ‘Torchwood’ was really good fun, it is a spin off from ‘Dr. Who’. I done a bit in ‘The Bill’, ‘Holby City’. I also did a play for six months, a play called ‘Beautiful Thing’ which was great. That was again my first probably kind of major job out of drama school. But I think like any of us we want more, you know you get a taste of it and you love it and when it’s good, it’s great. But when it’s bad, it’s bad. Because sometimes you know you’re waiting for ages or you’re waiting for the phone to ring. I am a person who enjoys acting both on stage or film – I love both for very different reasons. In the theatre you have to reach the person sitting up out in the back row. You know, if you’re on at The National Theatre you can afford to be a bit bigger, where in terms of your acting you know you can just open up a little bit more. You haven’t got to worry. Whereas I find in film you can’t lie, the camera don’t let you lie, you have to be honest when you’re on that big screen you can’t fool the audience. If you don’t believe, if you’re not there, then the audience ain’t going to believe it. Whereas theatre you might be able to get away with that little bit. But I love both, and it’s great to have the opportunity to do both.

In terms of my credits, ‘CASS’ will be my first movie film and how that happened was last year in 2007 my agent got a call and I went up and I met Director Jon Baird. As an actor you get sent scripts through all the time and you can spot when you get a script that you really get excited about and ‘CASS’ was something to get excited about. And when I met Jon we just really got on and I felt that there’s a connection there and I think I was in there about 45 minutes. It’s the longest I’ve ever been in for a casting. Jon's biggest note from day one, and that’s that audition date, was energy, energy, energy, we’ve got to find this energy and I didn’t think I nailed it on the first audition. I was worried, didn’t think much more of it. Gets another call and Jon wants me in again, wants to recall me, goes up again and I’m in there for another half an hour but I really did sense that Jon believed in me. Then I think a couple of weeks after the second audition, Jon phoned me up personally, not my agent, and said, you’ve got the job mate. And I tell you what it’s one of the happiest moments in my life, to hear that and to get the director to phone you and to go, you’ve got the job mate, oh, just what a buzz, what an absolute buzz.

Cass: L Q3, What’s it like actually going for auditions? Yoyou know, how many auditions does an actor go through and what advice do you give about going for auditions to any other young actor? Is there any tips? Does anyone help you out at all, other actors, saying don’t worry about it. Giving you little advices, little techniques or is it just something you train for and you’ve geared yourself up for, all part and parcel of the job. Is there anything you want to say that way about the auditioning?

Gavin: I think it depends on who you are as a person. I’ve been lucky enough again working on this film with people like Nonzo and Leo and Tamer who are all actors that have got a lot more experience than me. And I’ve also got friends around me that are actors. I personally think I beat myself up a little bit you know. I just think, oh God what am I doing, and why am I doing this, you know it ain’t working out for me or whatever and you constantly fret – because it’s a form of rejection. You turn up there and you open yourself up for being very vulnerable and it is a hard process. But lucky enough I’ve got actors around me that do say, look you’ve got to crack on, you know what I mean. You might go up for 100 auditions and you might get one, you might get none but we’re in it for the long run. For me, how I see auditions and I might be wrong in this, but my own opinion is that the casting director, the director and producer have all got tick boxes. Let’s say there’s the talent, whether you’re right for the character, your physicality, look, politeness, have you got a name in the industry, who have you worked with before. And if you miss out, if you just half tick one of those boxes, if you don’t fully tick all of those boxes, I don’t think you get the job. I think on most of them you have to tick all of those boxes and it’s a hard thing to grasp, certainly for the actor who has got to face up to that.

Cass: . Q4, Looking at your role and all that, your role as Prentice was a football hooligan, or part of the football hooliganism phenomenon, yeah. And in the real world you know people tend to think it’s a working class social phenomenon and were the sort of people who are involved? Now I know your character here was picked out for a reason to be part of this film, to be part of the group. So you know looking back on your character, how did your role reflect the real world of football hooliganism and you know has it given you a better insight? What do you want to say on that?

Gavin: I mean I think it’s given me a huge insight, certainly doing the research to it. I think class now in terms of 2008 is very, very different from what it was like in the 70s and 80s. I think now the majority of people are more middle class, you know, certainly out in the suburbs now. But back in the 70s and 80s there was more of the working class, you know, there was a clear distinction between upper class, middle class and working class. And I think probably me in terms of my naivety and ignorance you kind of feel right you’re going to get all your rough and ready types that are probably labourers, you know your workingmen, your painters and decorators, and they’re the ones that are going to be the football hooligans, they’re the people that you know the kind of people that are going to turn up on the terrace and look for these fights because their working they’re angry. But for me what was interesting about Prentice, he works in a bank, he’s probably a fairly middle class guy that even though he’s got this you know great job, he’s stuck in that office, he’s fucking bored. He’s got his mates, his close mates that he looks up to and there’s this built up kind of aggression inside him and the only way that he can express that is on Saturday at football. That’s the way how he can express himself, and probably his true self. And again doing the research and speaking to people, it wasn’t just your working class people, you had your middle class guys that would be going there and looking for a kind of you know a ruck. And I think that is an important part for Prentice.

Cass: Q5, What did you learn if anything from playing Prentice in the film ‘CASS’, the psychology of what was happening and when it was happening. Yeah, what did you learn then playing the role of Prentice about that sub-culture and would you feel that you now understand more than what you did before when you’ve heard people talk about and mention this buzz experience in football fan terms?

Gavin: Well, I find myself, after doing ‘CASS’, trying to work out what hooliganism is, it was a horrific time for football violence. And I still don’t know where I stand on that. But I find myself now after the film questioning hooliganism because I can understand, and certainly in the time of the 70s and 80s in terms of the repression, I can understand it and being in that frame of mind. Without sounding like a prat, I like to believe in terms of method acting, I don’t believe that you should be hurting anyone when you’re doing the job, but I had take myself into those big fight scenes, you know when we were fighting Newcastle, we were fighting Stoke, and fighting the Arsenal and you know kind of having a go with you know actors Paul Kaye and Bronson Webb, I had to go for it. And I found after most takes I was up, I was ready to go. And that feeling, that feeling, you know when you’ve got the cameras rolling, that feeling of, it might be a plastic fucking pole, but it’s you hitting someone, getting that revenge back, feeling a part of the group with your mates going into battle. There was a feeling that I couldn’t have acted, I couldn’t have tried to imagine what that was like, it actually happened, for good or for bad I had that feeling inside me. And it is that buzz and for that I think that I’ve learned for myself, just in terms of the culture, how the day would go. That buzz is something that will never go away from me for the rest of my life, never.

I mean again I’m not going to come on here and promote football hooliganism, but when people have talked about the buzz before I would have gone, you’re just mad mate, what do you mean? You can’t go and just beat people up, you can’t . I was lucky enough to be in a situation where we are filming, yeah, and that’s a sense of this isn’t real, you know we get to all sort of shake each other’s hand, but the buzz that come from it was, you can’t buy that, and for me that’s what made it real. Afterwards, after that Newcastle scene when we just put it on the wide camera and we just kind of went for it, the emotions. It was like the tears, but it was tears of excitement and just, I mean being with your pals, being like that unity, and understanding the feeling of this is for me, it’s sort of a lower version of like a war. As ridiculous as that might sound, but you are going to war. That sort of being a part of the team, you know being a part of the ICF, you know and just thinking what that feels like. You know, win, lose or draw, but you’re still standing there with your men, you’re still standing at the front line. Now, I absolutely understand that

Cass: Just to wrap on that, I think, because I want to move away from the film here, but just to wrap on that. Looking back, Q6, is what would you say are your best memories making ‘CASS’ and looking back what was most important?

Gavin: My best memories: one, I was lucky to be working with a group of people that were all putting 100% in to making that film. And I ain’t doing that to big up the film or to big anybody up, I absolutely genuinely mean it. Lovely people, nice people, but were also committed to making the best that we possibly could do. The research that went into it, the meeting up beforehand, you know that rarely happens, and everyone was on board. Walking around West Ham and going to the pubs and going to the Cockney Rejects gig. I mean that was an experience in itself you know. Those experiences you can’t buy. And because of that care, because of that we want to get this right, because we’re going to take the actors through this as best as we can, that for me was probably one of my favourite moments in terms of the work that was going on behind making it. And doing it with really great people that I enjoyed the company and that I could sit in a pub and not talk about the film ‘CASS’, not talking about football, talk about anything, which also is a luxury. For me, the importance of the film, well the most important thing for me is the story. And my favourite scenes are probably the scenes that I’m not in, in terms of the real intimate scenes with Elaine and the mum and dad. They are just amazing and that for me makes this a complete different film and that’s important to me.

Cass: Q7, All right, what is the most frightening situation you have been in? Describe in detail what happened.

Gavin: Well I think probably the most frightening experience for me was when I was in primary school when I was nine or ten. Then I played chess, there was like a chess club after school. My mum would come and pick me up on every Friday. And then when I was coming out the school, a group of kids come running up the road and said your mum’s just been run over. So I come down the hill and I see my mum in the road and there was no like blood, there wasn’t like sort of gore, it wasn’t anything like that. I mean she had a cut on her face and like you know her leg or whatever, but there was not blood. But seeing my mum, and I’ve still got the clear image - and that, being a nine/ten year old, was a scary, scary time you know because someone that you care so much about ... Then when the ambulance come and they were asking her questions like, can you just tell me what your name is and your date of birth, and she couldn’t answer it, she couldn’t answer it. And that was the real scary bit, because I was like, what the hell’s going on here, this ain’t right. You know that was a very petrifying time. And lucky enough touch wood, she ain’t been affected, she’s good as gold now, she’s got everything but I think that initial fear is where you don’t know what’s happening. Something literally has just gone bang and it’s a change and you don’t know where it’s going go. Your mum’s in hospital, she’s lost her memory, you know what I mean, she can’t answer even her own name, she can’t say her date of birth. So that was probably the most scariest.

Cass: Q8, Most famous person you would like to meet and the person who’s inspired you or has been the most influence in your acting career?

Gavin: Probably the most famous person that I would like to meet / work with because in terms of the influence that he’s had over me would be Robert De Niro. The main reason being because when I was 16 I basically got introduced to De Niro films and that had such a massive impact on me. I mean just life changing and I’ve never met the man and think it would be a real dream to ever work with him. So that would be who I would love to be able to meet. I’m not really someone that gets sort of star struck, still if I met Robert De Niro and if I got to work with him well I’d cut off my right arm to be honest.

I say in terms of the biggest inspiration in terms of watching another actor, it would be Robert De Niro, people like Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Daniel Day Lewis, Dustin Hoffman. But Robert De Niro for me is the absolute peak, and that’s my biggest inspiration. Probably personally, it’s one of my best mates, a guy called Neil Maskell who was in the films ‘Football Factory, Atonement, Rise of the Footsoldier’. He is my pal, he is the one that introduced me to people like De Niro, you know taking me back to his gaff to watch the films, and just a very, very intelligent man in terms of being inspired. I think there’s not a day that goes by that he don’t inspire me as a mate. And again I’m lucky to have someone like that in my life to be honest.

Cass: Q9, What about interests away from acting. Have you got any hobbies or anything you’re in to big time?

Gavin: Apart from acting, I mean I’m a big football fan, I’m a Charlton Athletic supporter my uncle and my cousin are big Charlton supporters and they took me I think from the age of five or six. I remember the first game I went to see, it was against Crystal Palace and we won 2:1. I remember just sort of walking out – the stadium now has changed so much, but just that atmosphere it was just magic, you can’t beat it. And whenever I walk out now from the stadium you just get that – again it’s that other little buzz that we keep talking about the buzz being a sort of magic word, but it’s a different, different buzz.

My happiest football memories – Charlton-Sunderland in the play-off final in the nineties. It was 4:4. It was like 1:0 Sunderland, one all, 2:1 Sunderland, two all. Went into extra time. 3:2, three all, 4:3, four all. Penalty goes 6:6. Sasha makes a penalty save. We’re up in the Premier League. First time in my life Charlton, we’re going to be playing top flight football. Absolutely the best game that I’ve ever seen, at Wembley Stadium. I was cuddling people that were round me, that I didn’t know. Fantastic. Another great experience. This one’s for you Cass and I’m adding the 4:0 win at the valley last season against the Hammers.

Cass: Oh, Jesus. That 4:0 I was there. You lot weren’t even singing when you’re 4:0 up and we were singing like Scunthorpe, Scunthorpe, here we come. Typical East End humour, yeah. Those that were still there for the second half, yeah singing Scunthorpe here we come.

Cass: Q10, What’s your new projects? What’s new, what do you have in the future and what are your hopes and ambitions as an actor?

Gavin: At the moment I’ve just filmed Holby City. I’m waiting to hear on a couple of other jobs. In terms of my goals, my biggest goal is that I can just carry on earning a living as an actor. And if I can do that and I’m lucky enough to keep doing the work that I’ve been able to do, then that would be great. I’d love to do something else with the crew and everybody involved with ‘CASS’. I think depending on how the film’s going to go you know I’d like to think that there’s something else after this with all of us because I’d like to think that we’ve created something special. And that shouldn’t just break. And the biggest thing I think is doing something that teaches people about a subject they are unfamiliar with. There’s going to be a lot of people that watch this film that are going to come into it and have their own minds made up already of what it’s going to be like. And I think as an artist or a writer or a producer, it’s to kind of hold up a mirror to society and go, you know what, this might not have happened in your life, you might not have an opinion about it, but this actually did happen. And I’m talking about in any sort film and all my favourite films are about things that matter, if I’m lucky enough to do jobs that are just educating and inspire people and making people think, showing them an experience that they might not necessarily be familiar with, it would fulfil my desires really as an actor.

Cass: Q11, You’re a proper London boy, yeah. So what’s your favourite part of London, and why? It could be a restaurant, could be a building, or it could be some sort of event that goes on or whatever, what’s your favourite part of London?

Gavin: When I come in and I come into town for castings and I walk through Trafalgar Square, I walk down at the Embankment and I’m by Big Ben and I go, you know what, fuck me I take this for granted. I mean it’s, it’s a proud feeling and a feeling that we take for granted I think, certainly I think I take it for granted you know. I walked into the National Gallery the other day, the art gallery, and I’m going works of art in my home town that you just don’t realise is there.

Take Trafalgar Square and you know now we’ve kind of got things like the London Eye. But I mean like Big Ben, Nelson’s Column all in London. Even coming up today, coming up for a casting or whatever and I walk through this City, I wouldn’t move away from this. You know and I hope we stay like this – I hope we don’t knock down our old sort of Victorian buildings. I hope we keep stuff. I hope we don’t make it into this new futuristic world. I hope we keep to our roots.

Cass: You just passed by and I sort of slung these questions at you, but that’s how I like to do the interviews so is there anything I should have asked you and didn’t?

Gavin: No. I’m interested in asking you a question I think, and I would ask you. Do you think if you would have grown up in somewhere like Manchester or up north, you didn’t grow up in London, do you reckon you would have had the same route? It’s an ambivalent question but ...

Cass: No, it’s a good question, yeah. Because I was faced with it when I met my real brother and found out after all them years of slagging northerners, my roots are in Doncaster. And when I went back there after meeting my real brother who’s 6ft 5. Who would be the mirror of me but not the same kind of background. He had a terrible reputation for fighting, yeah. But he’s quite an intelligent guy and quite a mild, you know what I mean, yeah. So we’re so alike. We suddenly realised when we sat down and had that first day together, yeah, and I would have been 38 years old, 38-39, and when we looked back on our lives, it was almost a parallel. And he got told all about my life which you’ve discovered in the film, yeah. Aside the personal issues of being bought up in a white community you know what I mean, there wasn’t too many black people in Doncaster, you know Yorkshire, you know what I mean. But there was a lot of parallels in that he had to fight for everything and because of him and his brother’s size you know what I mean, you can become someone with a reputation double fast, yeah. Because everyone knew who he was and everything else. Basically his words were basically, thank fuck we never knew each other even if we are brothers because we’d have been twice the trouble, you know what I mean. Yeah, so you suddenly realise if I was with them, you know them three brothers and I make the fourth one, it wouldn’t have not been unlikely, as you’ve seen in the film you know what I mean, there would have been a history there of battle after battle. Maybe a few less battles with four brothers. I was quite shocked to find out my routes led to Doncaster. It was a working class background, a small black community, yeah amongst the white community, yeah, and you know the brothers, all over 6ft. Big and powerful and you know reputations come fast. So yeah, there were parallels you know what I mean. And you know you always think that your life can be so bad or this, that and the other like and if anyone cares to listen to your life or anyone’s life, yours, you know, always seems so dramatic. But you have to realise out there, there’s always someone worse off. What sort of hit home for me, shocked, as much as my life story shocked people, you know what I mean, they my brothers could have a few stories themselves. Sometimes it’s not always better on the other side. Sometimes you’ve got to take what you got, you know what I mean, and work the best off that kind of thing. But yeah, it was an interesting thought. Basically I think if I was up north where I was actually born, there’s huge similarities with my real brothers who lived up there.

Another extra question I meant to ask you, which always baffles me, as your a Charlton fan, and we know Charlton fans because they shared the ground at Upton Park, yeah. Who do you see as your derby? I mean we’ve got issues now, the today’s generation of West Ham fans now see Tottenham as their real derby, yeah. But the 70’s and 80’s generations I go back to, it was always Millwall and even Man United game before Tottenham, if you can work that one out. I’m an old seventies man and I always thought the derby with Charlton fans was Millwall, as it was only down the road, yeah. I live in the Crystal Palace area in South-East London and I’ve a lot of Charlton friends as well and this Palace and Charlton rivalry, you know what I mean. So I don’t personally as a hammer’s fan, as an outsider, I feel the passion but I don’t understand where it comes from and I know it is very young recent so I don’t even know where the history lies. |I mean as a Charlton fan do you sense this rivalry. Is that the derby for you? Would you speak for the fans, or do you see that one, and do you know why? Is it Palace or is it Millwall, or is it because you don’t play?

Gavin: Yeah, well I think now it is Palace. I think, the unfortunate thing for Millwall and Millwall supporters is at the moment they’re in League 1. It's very rare – unless we get them in a cup draw. I mean we haven’t played Millwall in years, you know, years. I’m sure if they were to come up and we were to find ourselves in a league game, I’m sure that the rivalry would be quite strong... But I think now Palace though. I mean I’ve been there the other week when we played them off the park and embarrassed them. What were they doing? But you know you can feel it, I mean in the fans I mean there is venom there, there’s a real big rivalry there. I would say now certainly in 2007-2008 Charlton’s derby is Crystal Palace. I mean it’s an absolute, I mean there is that venom. And there’s such, that great feeling to win that game you know and to sing to those supporters. We didn’t shut up in that game, so yeah Palace I would say is the rivalry.

Copyright © Cass Pennant 2007 - 2008