Noel Clarke Interview, Part Two
In real life, if you get hit with a baseball bat, you might die. That's what happens in real life. In other movies, you get thrown through a window, you get rolled over by a car and you get up and you fall through a pool table, that's glamorising violence to me. Because it's making it unrealistic, it's telling you these things can happen to you and you'll be fine, but in real life, you get hit once, just get hit wrong with the wrong thing and you might die. And it wasn't glamorising, it was just reflecting what society was doing and I think, unfortunately, the film was right.
Do you have a favourite scene?NC: I think one of my favourite scenes is when Ben Drew and Arnold Oceng (Dabs and Henry) go into the basement flat and the other boys are playing the computer game and they kind of just sort of take it over. It doesn't move the story forward, it's not essentially really aggressive, it's just like teenage boys, you know, 'We're in here, we're more important than you, give us the controllers' kind of thing.
And then the continuation scene from that, when they're playing the computer games, because sometimes young people are demonised and stuff like that – it's a very small minority but the stuff they do is so awful it grabs the news – but we forget that they're kids and sometimes they just want to play computer games and sit down and have fun. And I like that scene because for a moment they're young boys again. Which is what I think some of them would really like to be if they thought they had a choice.
What do you want young people to get out of the film?NC: I want them to realise that if you give them positive things to do, they'll do positive things. Yes, some young people are demonised and some of them are quite rightly demonised, but on the flipside, you have a lot of good young people that are doing things and some of them really grab the opportunities to make music and stuff like that. But also, I want people to look at the bigger picture of the film and see that the message is there for the characters to not be afraid to be individuals.
[SPOILERS] You know, Henry doesn't want to be involved. Dabs hits him with a brick, but it's because Henry doesn't want to be involved. For every Dabs, you have a Henry, for every Jay, you have a Mooney, who wants to study at university, you know, for every Jay at the end you have a Sam who's going to go, 'You know what? I'm walking away'.
And I think young people need to not be afraid to be an individual. If all your friends want to play football and you want to write poems, write your poems! Sit on the football pitch and write a poem about them playing football if you need to, but don't be scared to do it, you know, don't be scared to be your own person. And also, at the same time, for those slightly negative young people that always have excuses – and I've heard a lot of them say, you know, 'Who knows about what I go through? I grew up with a single mother on a council estate. You can't tell me anything, you don't know'.
I do know. I was raised on a council estate, by a single mother and I'm making films. So now that excuse is not eligible anymore, you need to look at yourself and sort out your life, you know? A lot of them are quite rightly demonised but some just make excuses. Don't make excuses. Stop whatever you're doing that's negative, because you can't use that excuse, and find something positive to do. And I hope that's something that people take away.
Would you direct someone else’s script?NC: Yeah, most definitely, I'd direct anything. You could send me the next Care Bears movie, I'd do that, if it was good enough. I wouldn't like to be pigeon-holed as 'He does this sort of work'. The films I've done just happen to be the films I've done because that's what I've been allowed to do. But I'd be more than happy to write and create other stuff.
Also, to be quite honest – and I know some people might be annoyed at this – we've written about this genre and we've got a sequel, so anyone who's at home going 'I'm gonna write a film about gangs, I'm going to write a film about this', so anyone who's at home writing those films, face facts: you're not going to be as good as these films. You're not going to get a sequel. So you might as well stop that and write about a doctor or a lawyer or think of something new or exciting or different so we can start moving away from this sort of subject and show young people in a more positive light.
We have teen films coming out of America every week, which we flock to see and they make millions of pounds, so why are we not doing them over here? They're not difficult to do, you know, they'll get the audience, but we just don't make them. We need to be doing stuff like that. So hopefully, the fact Adulthood has created the history it has by getting the sequel, hopefully now we can just take that audience, the MySpace, Facebook, PSP, Wii, Nintendo, Playstation culture and take them into new directions.
Your films -Kidulthood, Adulthood and West 10- have given an opportunity for a lot of young talent, in particular black actors, to get into feature films. Was there anyone in particular who stood out for you?NC: Adam Deacon, who plays Jay. I think a lot of people overlook him because he is what he is. You see him and that's him, but he's a very, very talented actor and he's going to be doing good things. And there's a new kid in this film called Jacob Anderson who plays my little brother. He was only 17 when we did the film, I think he's just turned 18 now, but he's a fantastic prospect for the future.
And obviously, I set Aml Ameen on his way – a lot of people think he was in The Bill first, but he wasn't, he did Kidulthood first and they saw him and they took him and now he's on his way doing good things. And Shanika (Warren-Markland) and Red (Madrell), the two girls, they're really good talents and I think if they're allowed to, by the industry, all of them could do really, really well. They're fantastic talents and I hope that they're supported and do well in the future.