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George MacKay: ‘Playing Ned Kelly was exhausting – I felt very vulnerable’

Fresh from the Oscar-winning 1917, the actor is taking on his most challenging role yet

“There’ll be no more of this shit,” snarls George MacKay, eyes bulging like a young Iggy Pop. “I’ll give you the full 11 inches of my dick, just so you can know how it feels to get shaaafted!” His temple throbs. His mouth froths. He gets so excited that he spills some of his lemon and ginger tea on the floor of the photo studio we’re sitting in. “Oh dear,” he says, Iggy Pop transforming rapidly into an extremely apologetic, polite young man. “I’m just going to wipe that up with my bum.” And so he does – sliding across the floor while his black trousers soak up the drink.

A polite young man George MacKay might be, but at just 27 he’s had plenty of practice trying on other personas: a closeted gay activist in Pride, a singing Scottish squaddie in Sunshine On Leith and – most recently – Lance Corporal Will Schofield in Sam Mendes’ first world war smash, 1917. He is soon to play the notorious Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in True History Of The Kelly Gang, which is where today’s unlikely punk outburst comes in: director Justin Kurzel wanted his young actors to put a punky spin on the tale of the Aussie folk hero, so he booked a gig venue and told them to perform their own songs live as a punk band. MacKay is treating me to one of his self-penned numbers.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wcCGJc
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