The performance won him the Un Certain Regard best actor award at Cannes
Describing himself as an “incredibly shy” person who loves the work but struggles with its attendant demands – interviews, conventions, fame – Frank Dillane contracts visibly when asked about his process for inhabiting Mike, the addict living on the streets of London in Urchin.
“I’d like to keep that between me and my character,” he says. But it is not his intention to be evasive or awkward, or to emit an air of the intangibility-of-acting mystique when discussing his vanity-free performance in the writing and directing feature debut of actor Harris Dickinson. He simply feels it is not his place to talk of homelessness and addiction.
“Harris and I did a lot of research together,” he begins, haltingly. “We went into prison. Harris and I both worked with charities – I worked with the Single Homeless Project, and Harris with Under One Sky. One of the things I came out understanding is that it’s very mundane, how people end up sleeping rough. It can be losing a job, losing a family member, having a breakup. Whatever it is, it’s you, it’s me.”
Produced by Dickinson’s Devisio Pictures, launched with producer Archie Pearch in May 2024, Urchin tracks Mike’s bumpy road towards redemption. Imprisoned for assaulting and stealing from a man who is trying to help, Mike, now clean, re-emerges into society seven months later. His path is tramlined by probation meetings, a place in a hostel and a job in a hotel kitchen. But Dickinson, drawing from his own experiences of growing up around people dealing with addiction and mental illness, takes Mike’s journey in unexpected directions, the narrative left‑turns complemented by flourishes that punctuate the social realism.
Mike, too, exhibits behaviour that might startle viewers. “Audience doesn’t give a shit,” counters Dillane, then pauses once more, apologetic, realising his sentiment could be misconstrued. “I mean, audience cares deeply… but audience cares about understanding and why you did what you did. There are all sorts of characters in cinema. Mike is pretty PG if you take the pantheon of antiheroes. Yes, he does behave in ways that are not good, but when you hold up his history, the cards he’s been dealt… desperation has its own language, poverty has its own language. As an actor, you have to lean into the humanity of your character.”
Urchin represents a long-awaited leading-man feature film breakthrough for Dillane, previously best known for supporting film roles or on television. Premiering in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in May, the performance won him the sidebar’s best actor award, and he went on to earn a leading performance nomination at the British Independent Film Awards. Picturehouse Entertainment released Urchin in the UK in October, and 1-2 Special in the US.
Performance is in Dillane’s blood. The son of actors Stephen Dillane and Naomi Wirthner, he graduated from Rada in 2013. “I was brought up around theatres, I love storytelling, but there was definitely a moment where I thought I’d do other things,” he stresses. “I spent a long time resisting it. But it kept on pulling me back. And I’m so grateful for that.”
Now 34, Dillane repeatedly refers to himself as “a baby” when discussing his work in his twenties, admitting that “my shoulders were not broad enough” when he was cast in shows like Fear The Walking Dead and Netflix’s science-fiction series Sense8. More recently, he has appeared in Starz anthology drama The Girlfriend Experience, Apple TV gothic drama The Essex Serpent and as an enigmatic highwayman in Disney+ historical fantasy adventure Renegade Nell.
Perspective on characters
Dillane says he is ready and eager to try roles and productions of every shape and size, and confirms that Mike in Urchin has led to him “getting more offers and being seen for different things. As long as the character and the film has a good heart or is interesting or intellectually stimulating or emotionally expansive, I’m happy,” he says.
“As an actor, it’s important you develop your whole life. Your range of choices come from your range of experiences. You need to have experienced love, loss… It’s been great to get to this moment in this condition. I feel healthy, I feel happy. I think I can have a perspective on characters.”
Next up is the role of John Willoughby in Working Title/Focus Features’ Sense And Sensibility, director Georgia Oakley’s follow-up to the Bafta-nominated Blue Jean, which shot in the summer. Dillane is part of a dynamic cast that includes Daisy Edgar-Jones, George MacKay and Esmé Creed-Miles.
“I am interested in having a different take on Willoughby,” says
Dillane. “I want to explore his youthfulness. Everything when you’re young is limitless and endless and possible, and there comes a time where you suddenly hit a brick wall. Life catches up with you.”
He ponders. “I think that we can get stuck in love looking a certain way. It’s like, ‘A seductive man looks like this.’ Well, I don’t know.” He smiles shyly. “I’m trying to put a different light on it.”
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