I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning

May 23, 2026

Cillian Murphy, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, Peaky Blinders: Immortal Man, Titans

CANNES DISPATCH
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS
As told to JANE CROWTHER

‘This is beautiful, man,’ Jay Lycurgo sighs as he looks across the water from the Hyde Beach Club on the Cannes Croisette. He’s in town with his cast, including Anthony Boyle, Joe Cole, Daryl McCormack and Lola Petticrew, to premiere Clio Barnard’s latest, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning. Based on Keiran Goddard’s novel, the film follows a gang of working-class Birmingham friends as they turn 30 and evaluate their lives. Jay plays Oli, the clown of the group who deals drugs and samples his own stock. Though he’s arguably in the worst position of the friends, he’s also a ray of sunshine and a bright spot in the film. ‘He’s the most optimistic addict,’ Jay tells me. ‘He’s a little puppy. He’s the glue for the whole team. He’s one of those friends that everyone wants. He’s someone that you can ask for help, and ask for reassurance. If you need a little love, you go around his house, and he’ll make you a nice, little cup of tea. And everything will be alright. And he’s a good dancer, too.’

I ask if there’s aspects of him in the character. ‘ The dancing? Yeah, I learned that from my dad,’ he grins and does a Dad dance on the sand. ‘But I always try and be a good person. I don’t want to sound wanky, but that’s the truth. I just feel like, at this time, it’s a waste to not be nice.’ He’s recently played Elijah, Duke Shelby’s right-hand man, in Peaky Blinders: Immortal Man and even there gave a gang member heart. Before that, he came to attention as Tim Drake in Titans, and alongside his Peaky co-star Cillian Murphy as the troubled teen the titular character helps in Steve. I ask what the Croydon-born actor wants from his career.

‘A yacht,’ he laughs, pointing at the vessels moored in the bay. ‘No, I feel like everything that is supposed to happen, is going to happen. And I’ve worked with some great people, man. I do love collaboration. I have a big football background, with my dad being a footballer in the ‘80s [David Johnson]. I look at acting as a team sport. We’re all in one scene. We’re all trying to create that goal, and create a good scene. That’s what it is. You never know if you’re going to win or lose the game. But in acting, you get to go again.’

His fatalism came to play in his early days of wanting to be an actor. He dreamt of going to the BRIT School but failed to get in and flunked drama at school. Later he landed the course at the ArtsEd drama school. ‘I was always good at the performing. ‘A’ for performance. But the writing, I was dreadful. I remember being in class, and for two hours just having a test in front of me, having no idea what to write about. And at the end, one of my teachers, she took my paper, and she was like, ‘You’re never going to get into drama school’. She ripped it up…’

Though that particular teacher didn’t champion him, he puts his success down to mentorship. ‘When I wanted to go to drama school, one of my teachers said, ‘You should go. You’re pretty good at acting’. But I wouldn’t have done that off my own back. I was 17. I had no idea. So, it’s having those people to push you in the right direction.’ He counts his Peaky co-star Barry Keoghan as an inspiration. ‘That dude, he’s different, man. He’s so brilliant. I’ve never seen a guy just be so free-flowing in a scene. I just feel like in acting, all we’re trying to do is be as immersed as possible, and I can see Barry workshopping the scene, and it always just turns out extraordinary. He’s got balls. He’s very brave in front of the camera.’

Jay’s performance in Steve could also be called brave, and gained awards traction. For him, playing a volatile teen at a residential reform school had a personal link. ‘My dad works in alternative educational units, and it was such an incredible moment to be able to do a film that was about his work. I love things that are really visceral. The one thing I will not be nonchalant about is going for it. And that’s the one advice I’d give to anyone. Don’t be scared. Be brave. That’s what I want to do in a scene – just let everything out. Because you can’t do that in everyday life.’

Filming I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning in Birmingham was a thrilling experience because of director Barnard’s workshopping and embedding process. ‘It was so immersive. We were in a small town in Birmingham. All the locals signed up to be in the film. One of the first scenes we did was Oli’s birthday. All the extras are there, and all the actors, and we just let loose, man. We just danced. I’m really excited for everyone to see the intro of the film, because that was real. That was authentic. That was the first day of the second week of filming, and you can see that that’s when everything started to come together.’

Jay also likes to use music to find his character and motivation. ‘Music is my stimulant. And then it’s just about letting go. And trust is really important. Back to that collaboration: I need to be able to talk to you to feel safe, because I’m about to do something really vulnerable. That’s really important. And then there’s the other side, when the director will be like, ‘You’re not getting it.’ And then you get into the competitive side. And you’re like, ‘Alright. I’ll show you’. But it’s all trial and error. Just keep going. You’ll find the truth, hopefully.’

Born and bred in Croydon, and still living there, Jay tells me that the area has a bad reputation but he loves it and considers that his happiness there and in his career has been all about having the right people surrounding him. ‘I have a great family. I’ve got two sisters and my brother. When in doubt, they’re going to keep me grounded. But my dad will always say; ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship. It’s all about working hard. This stuff can go at any moment, man. I’m grateful for it, and that’s genuine. I love creative people. I like doing this. Until I don’t want to do it anymore, then I stop. But I’m still curious about it. I can’t help myself. It’s a great team sport. Fail at what you love.’

Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS
As told to JANE CROWTHER
I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival

Dispatches

ANTHONY BOYLE

May 23, 2026

I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, Manhunt, Masters of the Air, The House of Guinness

CANNES DISPATCH
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS
As told to JANE CROWTHER

‘It’s a bit of heaven here,’ says Anthony Boyle as looks around the craggy coastline of the Cap Antibes, at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, a few miles away from Cannes. The Belfast actor is in town for his first Cannes Film Festival with Clio Barnard’s latest, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning. Based on the book by Keiran Goddard, the film traces the fortunes of a group of five working-class Birmingham friends as they try to gain a foothold on adulthood as they turn 30. Like the social housing constantly being razed around them, late-stage capitalism has brought their individual dreams crashing down. Anthony plays Patrick, a father and food delivery driver whose marriage to Shiv is tested, his Socialism ideals seemingly a pipe dream in a financially polarised world where opportunity doesn’t knock. ‘It’s about austerity. It’s a bit like a Ken Loach or a Mike Leigh film. Clio directs in this way where she looks at the working class in England, and gives a voice to the voiceless. It’s the kind of film that I would have watched on Film 4 late at night, like a Quadrophenia or This Is England, when I was a kid going, ‘I want to be in that. That looks like a world that I recognise.’ I never wanted to be a movie star or in one of these big Marvel films. It was this kind of social realism that I always looked at, and thought, ‘God, I’d love to be a part of those films’. I’m just so buzzed to be in it.’

To achieve the Brummie accent, Anthony embedded in the Midlands before shooting started and can still swap his Irish lilt when I ask him. ‘I was working with a dialect coach, and I couldn’t really get it down. I Googled the place in Birmingham where it was from, and I found a video of this guy going, ‘I’m Fucking Ginge from Brum.’ And I was like, ‘I need to find this guy.’ So I get him on Instagram, and I message him; ‘Lad, I’m an actor. I’m trying to get your accent. If I fly to Birmingham, can we go for a pint?’.’ Ginge agreed and Boyle went for a ‘wee pint’ at the local boozer, got drunk and ended up hanging out with him for a couple of days. ‘He gets his mates down – graffiti artists, bareknuckle boxers – and I get embedded into the community. That’s how I got the accent. I just stayed in that community. And that bar, The Crown, we ended up using that as our production office. We based our whole film out of that bar. And we get the people in the bar in the film.’

As someone who’s nailed accents for Masters of the Air, Manhunt and The House of Guinness, Anthony finds the process of living the role before he films helpful. ‘I go to wherever we’re filming, and I try to get there a couple of weeks early and just find people. People on the street. Bars are good. Football matches. Wherever you go, just strike up a conversation. It’s funny, when you go into places, people are really open and willing to talk if you show an interest in their story. If I come in there with care, and I usually do have a lot of care, and I show the people off in a good light – they’re usually really open.’

The irony is not lost on him that he’s talking about social realism while looking out at a bay filled with super-yachts. He laughs. ‘There is a beautiful thing about premiering this movie in Cannes to this audience in this bourgeois and moneyed place. People are going to see it. We’ve already had people from France and Italy say, ‘Oh, this area of Birmingham feels like a place in Greece. It feels like a place in France. It can be somewhere in America.’ So I’m really happy to be premiering it here.’

He has his eye on the water and decides to go for a swim. But in the suit he’s wearing. He clambers up to the diving platform jutting out of the cliff and removes his jacket and shoes, sits on the edge looking down. ‘We’ll get naked afterwards, Greg!’ he jokes, before standing and jumping into the sea. He returns to the surface, gasping. As he treads water I ask about his producing career and what he’s currently producing. ‘I’m producing hypothermia right now,’ he laughs. ‘I produced a TV show called Close to Home, written by Michael Magee, a lad that used to sit beside my brother at school. It’s about Belfast, and this young guy who goes off to Liverpool uni. He comes back to Belfast. He was promised that something would be different for him, and it’s not. It’s all the same old shit. It’s my favourite novel. I’m so buzzing that we got to make it. I called the writer, and was like, ‘Lad, I’ll give you £50 if you let me play you in your movie’. He said, ‘We’ve got a picture of you up on the wall. We want it to be you’. It’s just one of those serendipity fate moments, you know?’

He’s just finished shooting The Altruists with Julie Garner, an eight-part drama for Netflix about real-like Crypto dealers Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, who were accused of stealing $8 billion. Anthony plays Bankman-Fried and found common ground as both of them are dyslexic. As usual, Anthony approached the role by spending time marinating in the world he’d be playing in. ‘He was doing something really interesting. He was transferring funds on his PlayStation while also playing World of Warcraft. So he would be more upset at his XP points dropping in his game than he was losing $500 million. We were emailing each other while he was in jail. He was in the same cell block as P Diddy. What I thought was really interesting is, like, even through the emails, I felt just how intelligent he was. I felt like he was almost profiling me. The things that he was giving me, the examples he was giving me, were so intelligent and so clever. I was really taken by him.’

He clambers out of the sea, his suit pooling water at his feet and a happy expression on his face. ‘That was heaven,’ he says again as he grabs a towel to dry off. Luckily he has another suit for his premiere…

Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS
As told to JANE CROWTHER
I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival
The Altruists will be on Netflix tba

Dispatches

JAY LYCURGO

May 23, 2026

Dispatches

ANTHONY BOYLE

May 23, 2026

2026 © hollywoodauthentic.com