Jack Thorne: “I was allergic to moving - the doctor said, ‘This might be forever.’”

0:02Jack Thorne:This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:12Hello and welcome to Full Disclosure, a podcast project conceived entirely to let me spend more time with interesting people than I would ever get on the radio. Jack Thorne, welcome. Thank you for having me. Have you brought your Emmy? I have not. What? I know, I know, I know. last week you received that for adolescence which we will work our way towards and indeed beyond but that must have been an exciting moment looking at your Wikipedia page earlier and you've got more awards than I don't know who I associate, you say more holidays than Judith Chalmers, who do you say more awards than? Jack Thorne possibly but was the Emmy very special more awards than Judy Dent

0:52Jack Thorne:I have not got more awards than Judy Dent I bet you have, was it a very special one this or do they all blur into one after a while It was a very, very special one. I've never been to the primetime Emmys before. I've never been nominated for an Emmy before. And being there and being there, I mean, it was amazing when the show won. It was amazing when Steve and I won for our writing. But to be there when Steve won for acting, when Stephen won for the best actor, that was amazing because he is an actor's actor. He's a writer's actor. He's a director's actor. We all love him. and everyone was telling us beforehand, Colin Farrell's going to win and that's okay.

1:32Jack Thorne:And then Steve won and it was just, on TV they showed this sort of, Ashley Walters literally leapt on top of him. And there was a brilliant tweet I saw afterwards which was just like, yeah, that's the British way. When we're happy, we beat each other up. And there was a real sense of Steve, he got absolutely mullered by everyone around him because we're all so happy for him. It struck outsiders and observers as an extraordinarily tight cast, even before it won those awards. And it had to be, I guess, because of the nature of doing everything in one take and the subject matter. And that's also because of Phil, our brilliant director, and it's because of Stephen and the atmosphere that was fostered on set, which was like we were having a really nice summer together, working very, very hard when we needed to.

2:23Jack Thorne:but spending a lot of time together when the cameras weren't rolling too. And yeah, it was one of those sorts of dreamy times when everyone got on and everything happened right, which you hope for on every single set but happens so rarely. And writing can be a very solitary business and a lot of your younger years were typified by solitude. Yes. You clearly love being part of a big, warm, lovely collaboration. Yeah, it's beautiful. and I mean I am a TV writer but I'm also a theatre writer and in theatre that's what we do we spend weeks together in a room going how does this work why doesn't this get fixed like this and the difference between adolescence and most TV shows is on most TV shows you're filming scene 16 of ep 4 and then scene 2 of ep 3 and you're talking to the actors, going through all the different bits and why they would be feeling this way in this moment, whereas actually there was a real freshness to the fact that we were telling the story each time from start to finish and we could see it and we could examine it and we could talk about it and that meant that everyone was able to play a role in the script and that sort of sense of shared authorship was just brilliant.

3:46And it means that you, as the co-writer with Stephen Graham, that you're not precious. You're happy. When you talk about co-authorship, it really is a sort of collaborative. Yeah, it's good. Where did the idea come from? When did you first say, who said to who? Let's shoot all four episodes in one take. That was Stephen.

4:04Jack Thorne:Well, it was Stephen and Phil. And that was right from the start. And they made this brilliant film, Boiling Point, which Stephen had sent to me when, before all the, you know, all the mixing and stuff had been done. to say what do you think of this so i was a massive fan of it already the idea of it and then he said yeah we want to do something on tv using the one shot and i was like great great struck me until literally this moment listening to you that it's a bridge isn't it between theater and television that because you're doing it in exactly the same exactly as a play but not filming a play it's specifically being filmed made for television it's not like going to one of those national theatre screenings but it is actually much closer to the the difference is that the director's eye is a lot more present what brilliant directors do in theatre and I've seen it the moment it happens when suddenly a director's eye appears and the whole stage transforms but in this the eye was very naked you were very aware of the decisions that Matt and Phil were making.

5:12Jack Thorne:Matt Lewis are brilliant DOP. And the first episode we shot was episode three, which is the episode with Jamie in a training center. And watching them make the decisions as to where the camera pointed during conversation, because that was possibly the hardest episode to shoot, because normally in those situations, you would be shooting it's it's exactly the same situation we're in now and there would be a camera shot on you and then they turn the camera around and shoot on me and then they do a two shot and then they do another two shot and then they do probably some sort of clever shots right and that would there would be five shots that told the story of the scene with this they were making decisions okay we're going to spend eight lines where we're not going to see what you're saying at all we're just going to spend it entirely on my face and see how i'm receiving what you're saying and then making the decisions as to where the audience's attention needed to be at any moment was extraordinary to watch.

6:16I said we'd work towards it, but we're up to our knees in it already. Yes, sorry. No, I love it. So we'll finish it and then rewind. So did you have, it's two rather obvious questions really, did you have any inkling while you were making it that you were making something that was going to be not just enormous but, you know, kind of epochal? and secondly when did you realize just how mad things were going after it started screening um the first question no and you're as part of something special sure i knew that that's a

6:49Jack Thorne:familiar feeling for you it's really not that that feeling of being part of something where i because we could watch each episode so even when i wasn't on set i was watching a live take yes um of through my computer of exactly what was happening so because we were seeing it being put together i could feel how brilliant the performances were i could see what phil and matt were able to do and i was going this is something this is something great um in terms of the madness um uh it it was it was within days yeah um and it it was all the you know the noise and everything from outside and suddenly people being wanting to talk to you and all that kind of stuff but it was also I got so many messages from friends from school and things like that and normally when you release things into the world you get a message from your mum you get a message from your sister, you get a couple of messages from people nice to you and then that's it you know, there's silence and then you're observing what the world is and then if people like it you'll bump into them three months later and they'll say I like that thing you did on the BBC that was really good, that really moved me or that did something to me here i was getting messages from people yeah that i hadn't spoken to in years saying i've just had a chat with my 14 year old that your show inspired and and and that was both amazing and then and then with everything else started to get a little bit scary um uh not not now sort of like oh i mean but just in that how do you navigate the size of it how do you navigate yes absolutely but but it's something i've wanted all my life and being part of it was amazing um and the reason why i say you should be familiar with the feeling of being part of something special is just anyone who's even cast a cursory eye over your cv presumably there is a familiar rigmarole for your credits like when people introduce you or talk to you they talk about harry potter and the cursed child in the west end they talk about this is england um um adolescence obviously now but previously his dark materials maybe the fades kiri on the telly and then films like wonder enola holmes the aeronauts is there anything that doesn't make the the usual list from your long list of credits that you wish did that you think actually does deserve no no i mean not really so there's a sort of the hierarchy is quite natural then the weird thing is and and you may have had this the brackets after your name change like you know that you know that when I was starting out it was always uh skins and shameless in brackets after my name and then it turned to Harry Potter and now it's turned to adolescence you know like you know so it's that sort it's watching that evolution that's really interesting and and you hope always there's going to be something coming up that that that replaces the brackets I don't know whether anything will ever replace adolescence frankly um and I'm okay with that Stephen and I said Stephen and I said on the night we'll never breathe this air again And we're going to really love breathing this air while we're here.

9:51Jack Thorne:That's lovely. That's so lovely to hear.

9:56Right, let's start at the beginning then, which I think was in Bristol. Yes. And a nice, happy family, but political family. I mean, you were conscious from a very, very early age of causes and principles, I think.

10:10Jack Thorne:Yes, yes. Lots of marches, lots of protests, lots of turning up to places, eating Welsh cakes on various different bits of this and bits of that. And yeah, my parents, my mum went to jail for the C &D. My dad was... What did she do? she sat in front of traffic they were filling the jails in order to protect people who were doing things on the front line they had this it was I think it was virtually exclusively CND women and then they were and the idea was that they would all take the prison time and that there would be a sort of statement in the fact that they were all in prison but a lot of people got put into houses instead of prison and some took fines instead of taking the prison.

11:00Jack Thorne:But my mum, for some reason, and my mum's a little lady, you know, like, you know, my mum, for some reason, was identified as a cheerleader, as a, do I mean cheerleader? Or ringleader. Ringleader, ringleader's the word I'm working. They both work. Yeah, yeah. There were no pom-poms, to be clear, on this protest. So she was given two weeks. How old were you at that point? I think it was before I was born. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but that's the sort of, you know, those are the stories that get repeated time and time again. But, you know, like, you know, she was they were involved in everything all the time.

11:33And that has an impact on you, knowing that you're growing up in an environment where people believe they can make a difference.

11:41Jack Thorne:Yes. Yes. In fact, they expect they expect us all to be trying to make a difference. My dad, after he retired, was at the Citizens Advice Bureau and then stopped because he was 70 odd. And he was like, I should stop now and enjoy my retirement. And then six months later, started again because he said, I couldn't read the paper if I wasn't trying to change the world. And that's my dad all the way through. He believes it. And he expects us to believe. That's a beautiful credo. Yes. yes and it's hard to be the child of those parents sometimes and I think we've all struggled in our different ways but we also admire them all hugely because they walk the walk they walk the walk yeah yeah yeah it wasn't a humorless house though by any stretch of the imagination no I've got a story about your father dressing up as a traffic cone I don't know how that was he did a pantomime type musical called Motorway Magic in which he played Auntie Connie who yes was a pantomime dame and yeah no dad dad's full of life but I wouldn't say it was like the dinner table was like us all laughing all the time it wasn't one of those houses comedians talk about growing up in houses where you were always competing to be the one that told the joke and got the laugh we weren't that type of house at all we were quite serious and determined.

13:16But the politics or the activism sat alongside the thespianism, did it? Yes. I mean, your dad sounds very much like someone who would quite like to have gone onto the stage himself.

13:26Jack Thorne:Yeah, absolutely. And he also wrote. So, yeah, no, absolutely. It's all making perfect sense now. You're not a mystery at all, are you, Jack Thorne? I'm a Nepo baby. The jigsaw pieces are falling into place quite beautifully. Bristol Street Theatre. to this so you're i think seminal experiences if that's the right word to use going to see toad of toad hall when you were six yeah that was a moment i got i i had to leave because i started crying you were traumatized i was traumatized when toad um crashed his car i was very sad for toad and uh and then had to had to be taken out because i was so sad for toad so i mean that's a funny anecdote but it also shows that your relationship with the what was happening on the stage was was was quite complete and quite odd for a six-year-old to really feel that the action was completely real and unfolding inside your head as well as in front of your eyes yes i'm uh and i still struggle with that i still um uh express emotion far more readily watching things than i do in real life yeah for some reason my brain I was when I was going when we were going for the prizes I watched The Ballad of Wallace Island on the plane and honestly I was a mess I was a horrible horrible mess I just couldn't see anyone when they were coming around with food I was just kind of like looking away because my face tears and snot dripping down in all sorts of different places.

15:03It was awful. But you're not repressed.

15:06Jack Thorne:I'm odd. And I'm very comfortable with being odd. But neurodiverse. I'm neurodiverse. I'm autistic. I process emotion in slightly weird ways. I think a lot of people do. But yes, my wife knows that, you know, sometimes I smile when I should be frowning. Yeah. Sometimes I laugh when I should be crying. you know like you know that i do struggle with those sorts of ticks at times um which um can be annoying for her but but she does get it sure do you lose yourself like that when you're writing do you do you do you find yourself sniveling and go for when you're in the process of creating are you in that same are you in a similar place sometimes and on a good day on a day and uh um i worked with a script editor once who said oh that's strange because we were working you know doing last minute revisions to something and i was like what's strange and she says oh you're moving like them so when i was writing i was somehow moving like the characters um uh i don't know what that is no nor do i but it sounds great yeah yeah again an illness an illness of sorts not an illness of sorts it's but it is it's a it's a diversity of yes isn't it i suppose um so school primary school I think you move when you're nine so you went to two primary schools presumably that can be quite a difficult experience for a kid yes yeah yeah I mean I was I remember the moment when suddenly I wasn't popular anymore and why wasn't I popular anymore

16:50Jack Thorne:I think that you reach a certain point where being bright and sunny and skipping around the place becomes less interesting to other kids. And I was someone who didn't. I think people grew up a lot faster than I did. And then I was surprised by their sophistication. And I was on the outside of that sophistication. And then I didn't quite ever work out a way to climb back into it. But yeah, no, I was a very, I was very comfortable and happy as a child. And it might have been to do with the move or it might have been to do with other things. But then suddenly it was like, oh, these people are speaking a language that I don't quite speak.

17:35Jack Thorne:Was it puberty? No, it was before that. It was before that. Yeah. And just that, I mean, I love that image of suddenly it no longer being enough to be dancing around happily and merrily. But kids are trying to be cool, were they? Yeah, absolutely. And you didn't speak that language. I didn't speak that language. And my kid is now nine and I'm now watching him very carefully, hoping that he manages that jump better than I did. I think 10 is a very hard age for a boy. I think girls have gone through that earlier. but I think boys there's a moment around 10 where they start to realize that friendship isn't a given but did you stop being popular or did you become unpopular I think it's more that I stopped being popular and then and then and then so it didn't quite work out how to how to be popular again yeah what were you like in class I think you've described yourself certainly in your secondary school as the clever kid that clever yeah yeah yeah a bit of that and a bit of you know a bit mouthy at times um and a lot more comfortable in the classroom than the playground certainly and i always liked teachers you know and i always had quite good relationships with my teachers and i was very lucky with the teachers i got i think um did and you you enjoyed studying you didn't struggle with your studies i loved it lean towards the arts obviously no history history history was my thing that i i english never really grabbed me oh really um but uh history the stories in history was always the thing I was drawn to you know like you know Italian unification things like that where I got really excited by it and was really excited by working out who everyone was and how it all worked and how the you know how how the story changed and I think it was just literally I liked the stories of it rather than I necessarily observed the movements of it so you must have had good teachers I've got Mr Sharp and Mr Norris on my yeah yeah yeah yeah oh that's an amazing list well well done whoever's researched this you know i mean like you know how dare you um but yeah no uh they and they and they're both they were both amazing and i've i've seen them since and said thank you i hope they realize how grateful i am to them um i hope they're listening to this because if they didn't realize before then they will do now and they have witnessed your success your subsequent success so i mean that notion of the story then being the real reason why you would love history it i mean it could have been literature it could have been drama it just happened that these teachers were probably better storytellers than yeah yeah i think i think so and they um and and they were both interested in drama too actually uh both both i met for the first time doing the newbury community play where they were both in it sharpie mr sharp um uh played a dance shooter with a french accent whilst my mum was one of one of the dancers that he was instructing so when did you start indulging your own sort of ambitions in that direction where did you join the the the theater troupe yourself as well no that was because my parents were doing so you were just sitting in the audience but no no i wasn't i was in it so you did but not because you particularly wanted to just because i could sing and i was quite a good i was quite a good boy chorister so i sang a song in the in the play i sang a song about the pelican which is a pub in newbury it was this guy came and wrote a play about newbury and about the Civil War.

20:56Jack Thorne:And it was a play that involved everyone in the community. It was a cast of, I would say, at least 70, creating this show together that told the story of that time. And I was one of the 70, and so I sang a song about the Pelican Pub. But there's no sense here of, you know, in the film of your life, this isn't the moment where your little eyes settled upon the playwright and thought that one day... No, no. Okay, you're just there because... No, I wanted to be a politician or an actor. So you were very politically active from quite an early age as well. The two go hand in hand. I mean, I think, didn't Tony Blair want to be a politician or an actor?

21:36Jack Thorne:Or a rock star, actually? He wanted to be a rock star, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tomato, tomato. Absolutely. And, yeah, no. And I did lots of politics. And how? So you joined the Newbury constituency Labour Party at a young age? Yes, and I was a young Labour officer. left and my mum resigned because of Harriet Harman sending her kids the London Oratory. Not even a private school, just a selective school. Yes. Wow. That's pretty hardcore, isn't it? Yeah. My mum walked out of friends' houses when they started talking about how good private school was or how good they wanted their kids to go to a grandma or any of that stuff.

22:18Jack Thorne:My mum was very, very against all that stuff. and so she left and then a woman called Stevie Hessler was talking to me we were at Yvonne's house it was the woman who lived across the road and you know one of those sort of like you know suburban little parties and she said to me your mum's left so now you've got to join and I said okay and I joined the party and then I went to every meeting and I was made young labour officer of a tiny tiny party i think we got 1100 votes at the by-election i mean we were we were a very very small party but but full of very very people that were incredibly passionate and what what did you bring to that i don't think i'm providing anything at all uh i just i just i just excited to be there I remember us doing a debate on whether to make a statement about St Helena and the citizenship of St Helena and getting very involved in whether we as a newbie constituency Labour Party should send a delegation.

23:29Jack Thorne:What is our line on St Helena? It was that sort of thing. And I loved all that. Why do you think you loved all that? What do you think it was that appealed to you? I think I was made to feel important. You know, like, you know, if you're the young person in a group of adults and they listen to what you say, that's really nice. But also I think that idea of being part of something that's trying to change. My dad couldn't be a member of the Labour Party. My dad was a planner, so it wasn't appropriate for him to join. So it was literally just me going along on my own. and that thing of being separate from your parents, being interested and interesting to someone, I think I found very exciting.

24:10And possibly that kind of enthusiasm, that merriness, that joie de vivre that had become unhelpful to you when you were 10 or 11 suddenly became quite a nice attribute to have again in this sort of company? Maybe.

24:25Jack Thorne:Or am I being a bit too pat? Maybe. I think all that stuff had died a death by that point and I was a bit more greasy and unloved than skipping around. But you did speak. You enjoyed speaking. I enjoyed speaking. And you were good at it. No, I wasn't good at it, but I enjoyed speaking. And I enjoyed just being part of a discussion. So those two horses are now running, the actor and the politician. Yes. So when you came to choose your A-levels with a view to going to university, was setting your sights on Cambridge part of that process? No, not at all. What was that about? And I did, I swapped between seven different A-levels in my first term of sixth form.

25:09Jack Thorne:My school were very nice. Why? Yeah, I started off doing maths, economics, English, and drama. Yeah. And I ended up doing economics, politics, and history. No, I wasn't doing economics. I was doing history, drama, maths and English. And I just dropped them all because I've just realized I didn't belong in any of those places. And then basically, Mr. Sharp said, okay, you can join the politics class. And then my dad said, I think you should think about economics rather than maths because you're struggling with maths. And they allowed me to swap across that. so i did them all in my first term so no i wasn't and i wasn't um even in my house i wasn't the you know i mean i wasn't supposed to be that my sister my older sister joe um she was she was the one that got the best gcses in the school and was on her way and all that kind of stuff i got okay gcses but i wasn't expected to to do you know oxbridge or anything like that so what happened i really loved those three animals once i found those three animals it was i i flew like you know they were they were just the ones that suited me um uh and uh and i really loved economics um uh and so just suddenly i felt like i i i had somewhere where i was clever in the right way and uh and yeah and clever in the right way and then by the by the end of my lower six it was like oh okay you're you're doing really well have a crack at Oxford exactly um there's a sort of dichotomy here isn't there because you're fully engaged with that side of life and doing things like joining the Labour Party and doing the theatricals but I've read that at the same time you you were painfully self-conscious and very shy and and yeah would sometimes eat your lunch alone in the library while other kids around you were chattering away a bit of that yeah a bit yeah yeah so So that doesn't quite make sense, does it?

27:17The idea that in some contexts you can be very much meshed as a cog. And yet in other contexts, even in the same building, just in a different room, you're not meshing with everything around.

27:28Jack Thorne:Yeah, I wouldn't say that. I don't know how to describe it, really. No, I was sort of just an outsider that wanted to be an insider. And where I wasn't able to make a connection, I sometimes hid. You know, because hiding was easier than accepting the fact that I didn't belong in this group of friends or didn't belong in this discussion. and um and i did find uh that type of life um quite uh difficult to penetrate and so yeah that that sometimes i i avoided so settling on becoming a politician or an actor is almost like attack is the best form of defense if i could push into these areas then i'm going to i'm going to overcome these issues yeah yeah but also but also i think if you looked at i mean you know certainly if you looked at actors i know actors better than i know politicians you know politicians very well but you know they're they're often they're often outsiders yes you know they're often people that don't know how to fit in and uh and uh and i think you know uh and and that's that's what gives them their ambition in some ways uh so yeah yes the drive you're right actually

28:55young labour conference in 1997 was where one of these dreams dissolved yes yes yes because you

29:01Jack Thorne:met a bunch of politicians i thought i'm not having any of this well the weird thing was so the the the students um the young labour students or whatever they were called labour students i don't know the name of the organization had had basically decided who it the big the big thing while we were convened was to select our officer for the nec and it was a stitch up that it already sort of been decided and they were all so of a breed that was really difficult to to see you know like you just sort of watch them and they and they and they moved in a certain way And it was, I think, young people sometimes reflect something more boldly than older people portray.

29:58Jack Thorne:And I think that that sort of Mandelsonian spirit had penetrated the students so heavily that they were all sort of behaving like they understood the world. They were all sort of, you know, and I just found that against what it wasn't. It wasn't how we were in Newbury CLP. Well, no, but it also wasn't how you were at home. It wasn't what politics was for. No. Gamesmanship and backroom meetings and deals. Exactly. And I think it was just the sort of slightly negative aspects of Blairism became massively magnified at young level. so you didn't become any less political you just became less enamored of politics yes and i just thought maybe this isn't the world in which i will get on maybe i'm not built the way that they are built and if that is what is necessary in order to make your way i don't think i'll be able to make my way in that in that in that in that in that quite high levels of self-awareness as a teenager even when you're being self-critical but that that sort of this this isn't i can't do this isn't from i mean a lot of kids as teenagers don't really have much concept or accurate concepts of where they fit into the world i was very very ambitious yeah and i think i've always been very very ambitious for what something such status maybe a bit of status but yeah just the idea of um notice i want to be noticed exactly you know or or or just i want to feel like i've done something yeah you know like you know i want to accomplish something and i need to work out how i can accomplish it and you know going to cambridge was part of that you know you got into cambridge that the the summer of 97 yeah yeah and and was that a big deal it was a big deal because there weren't many that went from the school and so we all got our picture taken and putting the paper but also it was a big deal for my dad and uh and you know pleasing your dad you know that's that's uh you know someone should write a play about it it was a vindication for your dad and for no i wouldn't say it was that i just think i just think it was i just think he wanted it and and i was really pleased to be able to deliver it and you know i remember going up from my interview and you know and we shared a room um uh in a little in a little uh b &b and then um he just said all right then bye i'm gonna walk around and just see the sights and then i'll see you at five and that feeling of walking away from him and just kind of going okay this is on me now but knowing that I would really please him if I got in and I would please myself and I didn't really understand what it was I chose Pembroke the college I went to because it had three people in the social and political sciences department and I assumed that meant that there was more places there so I thought oh it would be slightly easier to get in there than anywhere else but there wasn't any sort of, no one had talked to me about it no one no one at school really understood it it was just me and my mum going through the book and her going well there's three of them here so should we go for this one and it was like okay and then turning up and there was a kid from manchester grammar school who had every every issue of politics today which he then opened up his briefcase he had a briefcase and took out every issue of politics today and was looking through them to prepare for his interviews and i was just sat there going i'm gonna i'm gonna really struggle here wow but then i walked into the room and they were interested in the newbie bypass and they were interested in things that i knew from newbie clp and and i was suddenly talking about the labor party because and they were they were they thought who's this odd kid that's interested in politics like this who's this old kid that's done practical politics because they didn't have many of those walking through the door and i think that they went okay we'll give it give this kid a shot um much to their regret I'm sure later when I failed to be the ideal student but you know there were reasons for that tell me about the moment you found out you'd got in was it a sort of envelope through the door with mom and dad watching on no no um I just um uh so I'd been failing driving tests um I'd failed you make it sound like a hobby I'd failed five of them and um and uh four of them had been with this woman um valerie joy yes and uh and mrs joy took me on the on the sixth one and on the fifth one i'd failed by driving i did everything else perfectly and then i drove the wrong way down the road i drove on the right hand side of the road all the way down the road and she said i'm sorry jack i've got to fail you for this and she was as upset as i am i was and so um i uh my family all went to Bristol for the day but I stayed behind because I had my sixth driving test I passed my sixth driving test Valerie was very pleased for me and very pleased she wouldn't have to see me again and then and then I walked down the road from the driving test centre and walked in through the door and the and the envelope was on the map and I opened the envelope saw the result and just yeah just was on my own trying to work out how to respond to this you know the it was an amazing amazing morning and then i phoned them they were in a phone box because it was before mobile phones but but all they phoned me at a certain time to find out if i passed and i said i've got some other news too and it was just it was it was a great day oh that's lovely um and then you get to cambridge and i think understandably you you struggle a bit you've gone from a state school you'll be in the sort of um midst of great privilege and you've gone from being a clever kid to being um a normal kid yeah and i think that's what a lot of kids go through at oxbridge that feeling of just like oh the thing that defined me is now no longer relevant yeah because these other kids are extraordinary and that thing of realizing you know it's the same as at the labor party conference it's the same as with acting suddenly going oh this isn't i'm not special in the way that i thought i was special you know like you know i've got to find a new thing you know and that and that thing of just going he's the way that he processes information the way that he um i i just i i found it shocking in the extreme but i don't think i'm alone in that i think a lot of people find that shocking we've had i've had people tell me the same thing in this room as part of this series.

36:46So you wanted to be special, but not in a modest way, in a mattering way. You wanted to be the best at something.

36:55Jack Thorne:Yeah, I think so. But yeah, I don't know whether you'd describe it as immodest. I think probably... Modest. I think it's probably slightly immodest. But, you know, I think it probably is one of the darker aspects of my personality. But it is there. And I recognise it. and I think it's the thing that keeps me working. And so I'm grateful to it, but I don't see it as an asset. Do you not? Well, I do see it as an asset, but I also see it as something that is probably, I don't know. We're funny about ambition, aren't we, in this country? And I'm slightly scared of my own ambition at times. Yeah, but you need it to do half of the things you've done.

37:40And you have a similar experience now with acting. you get cast as edgar in kingly which is a cracking role yeah um and you see someone else on the stage who makes you realize oh i can't do this either yeah yeah yeah yeah plus i was

37:52Jack Thorne:very tall and so you're standing there on stage and you're a big guy and you're the one that because sort of you catch the lights almost automatically because you're so big and then yeah i was opposite ben silverstone played edmund and ben silverstone is a terrific actor he still is a terrific actor and uh and i just kind of went all right okay you're the one i'm not the one um uh i need to rethink good lord yeah again quite a ruthless pragmatism to your yes yes ambition yes yes yes yes did you not have that yeah i had the same thing with michael sheen really i wasn't on stage with him mate that would be a bit of a stretch but my first year at lse he was in when she danced with Vanessa Redgrave the Isadora Duncan play yeah and I think they plucked him from the final year at RADA to play the role and I wanted to be an actor at that stage in my life and I said to my girlfriend in the interval I'm not gonna be an actor because I want to be him yeah that's exactly what you heard yeah I want to find something I'm I want to be really what did he do do you remember that do you remember the moment you saw two performances I saw I I saw Mark Rylands play Romeo when I was about 16.

39:01Wow. But he was physically very different from me, and he was doing things that I didn't think were the sort of things I would do as an actor if I was better. He just seemed to inhabit a different space.

39:15Jack Thorne:How old was he when he was doing Romeo? I don't know. I don't know. It was on a tour. I mean, I was at a very posh school, but it was one of those tours that was designed to take the RSC to the regions and they build a little theater out of scaffolding. I remember watching that, and probably I was just too young or my ambition wasn't well formed enough to have thought shit I'm never going to be that good why am I even bothering with this but there was something about the way Michael Sheen was when he wasn't talking something about the way that he was so completely present when not just waiting for the opportunity to deliver a speech or waiting for his next line he was so present I just thought that's mad I could never do that Have you told him that?