Sam Locke is very much a proud ‘Valleys boy’ and wears his upcoming success in the film 28 Years Later lightly. He’s also a perfectionist, who made sure that his self-tape rig was lighting our zoom call so that it looked clean and bright without any glare or reflection. Once everything was to his liking we cracked on.
Actor Sam Locke
Sam was bitten by the performance bug early. Something clicked for him when he was at school in year 7 and, in his words, “something started to cook”.
A few years later he was doing a B-Tech studying photography, film and drama. The photography course was too mechanical to float his boat and he was left with the option of repeating the year or concentrating on drama. What next?
Like many artists he looked for inspiration for his next step in a pub; The Dic Penderyn, to be precise (named after the Merthyr rebel and Chartist). Sam had a choice, either forge ahead with drama or repeat the B-Tech year.
He downed his pint and crossed the street to the iconic (and now sadly closed) Redhouse Cymru. I don’t know whether it was the beer, the clarity that comes of making a decision or just following a spontaneous impulse in the moment but, from then on, there was no looking back. Within 15 minutes he was working on choreography with the group in the Redhouse. “This is where I’m meant to be”, he realised, and hasn’t looked back since.
Sam seems to get his ‘down to earthness’ from his Nan, Wendy, who is the one he goes to in order to work on his self-tapes. I’m not sure what kind of feedback he’s got from her but, as a Valleys woman, I am assuming that she gives it to him straight.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Doing the graft of getting noticed paid dividends and Sam is now working on 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a horror film, starring Ralph Fiennes, with script by Alex Garland and directed by Nia daCosta.
Sam didn’t know any of this as he made his way through the selection process. There were group auditions with 30 other actors all gunning for the same roles. It began with self-tapes and from there Sam moved onto live auditions with Des Hamilton, the casting director.
All the actors were given the same scene, which was to portray one of the ‘Jimmies’ (there are multiple Jimmies).
The casting process was a challenge and the whole process lasted three months. At the beginning Sam didn’t even know what character he was auditioning for. Eventually he was put up for two different characters – Jimmy Fox and Jimmy Shite (Sam got Jimmy Fox).
Sam Locke: reflecting on auditions
The selection process was gruelling but was worth it in the end. The graft was hard but enjoyable and I asked Sam what he would have taken away from the process if he had not been cast.
“Stamina”, he replied, without a pause.
“Stamina, being able to wait for a month to find out the result. During that month of waiting you just have to forget you ever did it to stop yourself from obsessing about it. When the second round comes in, it takes over your brain for a while and you’ve got to get rid of it somehow.
“It takes emotional stamina, you know, because you might not get the role. When the second round comes in, your brain gets taken over again and then you’ve got to get it out of your head again. It takes stamina, you know.
“And on top of that – being in the room with the people I was with was enough of a reward and opportunity. Even if I hadn’t got the part I would still have been in the room with Des Hamilton, Danny Boyle and Nia DaCosta as well as 30 wonderfully talented people. And, of course, the stories I heard and the memories to share with my Nan. You’ve got to enjoy the casting process because you might not get the role anyway!
“I count my lucky stars, but from the outside they don’t see all the rejections that I’ve faced and the outside voices saying that ‘this won’t take you anywhere’. There’s so much of an actor’s work that people don’t see. I’m incredibly grateful to be where I am and I don’t want to stop.”
Welsh and proud
I also asked Sam about the things that were important to him.
“Being able to be someone from Merthyr, and then wider to the Valleys and wider to Wales and being inspired to meet people. I’m a working-class boy who loves his town. I’m not trying to break away from my hometown but to blossom and inspire others. In 28 Years, I get to keep my accent which I hope will be really inspiring for other people to be proud of where they’re from.”
Sam said he was like a sponge on set, watching how other actors behaved and how there was a collegiate and supportive atmosphere where everyone was there for everyone else. Even though actors were not performing during a particular take, they would still watch and give their whole attention to whoever was being filmed.
Sam is ambitious and confident and is rooted in his square mile. When I asked him for one thing he would be proud of in a few years’ time he said, “To use the model of the camaraderie of being in the Valleys and make it available to everyone”.
