Winning the Bafta for his debut short film, Dog Altogether, has clearly given Burton-On-Trent’s favourite son Paddy Considine a taste for life behind the camera.
Talking exclusively to us at the Sony Ericsson Empire Awards, he declared his intentions to helm his first feature, a hard-hitting drama going by the name of Tyrannosaur.
“I’m hoping to direct it later in the year,” he said. “I’ve got Olivia Coleman (Sophie from Peep Show) in the lead role, as we get further into the production we’ll start casting the other roles."
But what’s it all about Paddy?
“Well, it’s about a woman leaving an abusive relationship. But it’s not your run-of-the-mill, kitchen-sink drama, there are bits and pieces in there that hopefully make it a little bit different. Hopefully, we start shooting it at the end of the year.”
In the meantime, Paddy’s all set to team up with old mucker Shane Meadows again for a new project about… well, Considine can fill you in on that.
“We’re writing King Of The Gypsies,” he said. “We go away at the end of the week to write the first draft. I’m going to be the lead in it and I’ve got to spend the rest of the year spending five or six days a week training at the gym. That’s going to be fun for six months.
“The story is all about a bare-knuckle fighter called Barclay Dorman (don’t quote us on the spelling, Google couldn’t even help us) who’s the king of the gypsies. It’s based on a real guy but we’ll kind of embellish it, he’s a great character to start with but it’s hard to take a life story without adding elements to it and we’re all for making it brilliant.”
Watch out for a newly buff Paddy then…
“I’m going to be doing weights every day and eating loads of protein. It’s going to be fucking horrible but I’m looking forward to it.”
Soon to be ripped and looking to broaden his career horizons, just when we think we love him all we can, we go and love him a little bit more...
The Sony Ericsson Empire Awards 2008
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