Fleabag’s Andrew Scott has laughed off his The Hot Priest title after moving onto a new ‘challenging’ role in the Sam Mendes movie, 1917.
The 43-year-old has been cast as Lieutenant Leslie, and will star alongside the like of Richard Madden, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch and Mark Strong in the World War One flick.
When appearing on the red carpet at the movie’s premiere, the actor spoke about the upcoming movie and how it’s a far cry from his work on the Phoebe Waller-Bridge comedy.
Joking about his fan-given nickname from the award-winning series, Andrew teased: ‘Oh it’s just a phase. You know, that’s what happens.’
Referencing the time he was in Sherlock, the Irish star said: ‘It was Moriarty before. Now it’s the Upper East and you know, that’s just part of the fun.’
When asked what it was like switching things up for the tense historical hit, he told us: ‘That’s the challenge of being an actor. You like to mix it up as much as you can. And it was brilliant.
‘I’ve worked with Sam [Mendes] before. This is my third time working with him, we worked in the theatre together and we did a Spectre together. So I was just really pleased to be asked back.’
Cinematographer Roger Deakins made sure the movie played out as though it was shot as one continuous take.
‘You can’t rely on pickups or edits,’ Andrew confessed: ‘You have to go right through if you’re doing a 10 minute scene, and you make a mistake in the seventh minute. That doesn’t matter. You got to start right from the beginning because it has to be perfect.’
Even if there were tiny mistakes, the cast and crew were all sent back to the start of the scene.
Andrew revealed: ‘Anything from a cigarette lighter. I said “hip over the wall” instead of “hop over the wall.” That was in minute nine and you think, “Okay. We’re going to start the whole thing again.”
‘But it becomes a real thrill as well.’
His co-star Dean-Charles Chapman also commented on the way the movie had been filmed and joked a number of mistakes were left in the final cut.
‘Some of the scenes last nine, 10 minutes long, you know, and you sort of pray that nothing goes wrong, but if it does go wrong it doesn’t matter because that makes it authentic,’ he laughed: ‘So there’s a lot of slipping and tripping in the film, but it looks realistic.’
1917 arrives in UK cinemas next year on 10 January.
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