After a breakout part in the “Hunger Games” saga, as dreamy tribute Finnick Odair, and now a starring role opposite Rachel Weisz in “My Cousin Rachel,” the odds certainly have been in Sam Claflin’s favor.

Considering his winning streak, we’re holding out hope that a “Fifty Shades of Grey”-style rendezvous between him and the Hemsworth brothers – his idea, mind you – could be the British actor’s next major franchise. Till that blessed day comes, check out what the affable “Me Before You” looker has to say about finding the right gay role, how people are responding to his recent Hollywood body-shaming criticism and French gay porn.

I love seeing a woman in power, but, man, you really get jerked around in “My Cousin Rachel.”

(Laughs) Haven’t we all been there? Haven’t we all been in love and kind of swept off, though usually warned by friends? But, of course, Philip is a bit of a loner and left to his own devices, really. Love is blind, and it makes you do crazy things. (Laughs)

Growing up, what was your introduction to the gay community?

I got involved in musical theater at a young age and so that was an immediate part of my life. I mean, the second you kind of step onto the stage and embrace the arts, it becomes a part of you. And the second you open yourself up to becoming an actor and performing and exploring this industry in whatever capacity – any form of art, really – there’s an openness, and it’s a really wonderful and incredibly rewarding industry to work in.

Plus, you’re British.

(Laughs) It does really upset me that people aren’t open-minded. People are still hung up on such a traditional old-world life, and people should be allowed to love who they want and be who they want and speak what they want and believe in what they want. I think it’s a shame that people are so narrow-minded that they believe their way is the only way. It’s sickening, in all honesty.

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Huddling out of the brutal cold in an improvised crew canteen in central Tasmania – dressed in a natty red coat, grey britches and luxurious sideburns to play a hardcore soldier in the new Australian thriller The Nightingale – Sam Claflin is facing an awkward case of mistaken identity.

He might have had splashy roles in three big Hollywood franchises – Pirates of the Caribbean, Snow White and the Huntsman and The Hunger Games – but his clueless interviewer has admitted to thinking it was another boyish English actor in the recent World War II drama The Finest.

One moment Claflin is being called a “Hunger Games heart-throb” in the British media and starring in a bold film that is director Jennifer Kent’s follow-up to the horror hit The Babadook. The next he is being confused with Nicholas Hoult from the X-Men movies and Mad Max: Fury Road.

“We’ve had that before,” Claflin says cheerfully, not in the least offended. “I’ve met him a couple of times on social occasions and he’s a lovely guy. I’m actually a really big fan of his work and he has a tendency to get most jobs I go for.”

The 30-year-old prefers to see his X-Men rival as inspiration rather than competition. “I feel like he has the career I’d like to have,” he says. “He’s had more of an opportunity to branch out from playing leading men. He’s played some really, really interesting characters.”

In the nine years since he left drama school in London, Claflin has managed to land the odd role of his own. He played an idealistic cleric in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Snow White’s childhood friend in two Snow White and the Huntsman movies and a charismatic contestant in three movies in The Hunger Games series.

He took to a wheelchair for the romance Me Before You  and now plays a naive young landholder who is captivated by a glamorous widow in the English romantic thriller My Cousin Rachel.

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Confession: We’ve been low-key crushing on Sam Claflin, 30, Brit, unabashed romantic, and star of My Cousin Rachel (out June 9th) since he played Finnick in Hunger Games: Catching Fire. And when we saw him in Me Before You, well, we pretty much fell in love.

Only one problem though, the guy is happily married and a dad, so we’ll just keep that fantasy to ourselves for now. In the meantime, we caught up with Sam to chat about his relationship with his wife, his biggest insecurities, and what cracks him up. Behold:

IF YOU HAD A MONTH OFF, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Does my wife [British actress Laura Haddock] have a month off as well? I want to be with my wife, I want to be with my baby, I want to see my friends, I want to see my family, and I also want to be in Hawaii. That’s my happy place. With nothing to read and nothing to do.

DO YOU THINK S.O.’S SHOULD BE BEST FRIENDS?

Yeah. I mean, look, when I go to the pub to have a couple of drinks and watch football with my buddies, my wife doesn’t necessarily have to come with me and sit through a match. But of course she’s my best friend. She is someone who knows everything about me, and I couldn’t love someone I didn’t love as a best friend. You have to have that bond for it to work. It goes hand in hand.

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR HANGUPS?

I’m very insecure about my body. Hollywood has an ideal body with a six-pack and pecs, and that’s a lifestyle that’s just not sustainable for me. I want to be a happy married man and a really good dad who gives time to his kids. I don’t want to be spending hours in the gym. A lot of men are as insecure about themselves as women are, but it’s not as much shone a light on. There’s a sense that you’re not allowed to talk about it as a bloke, but it shouldn’t be that way. (The Slim, Sexy, Strong Workout DVD is the fast, flexible workout you’ve been waiting for!)
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From director Lone Scherfig and adapted from the novel Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans, the romantic drama Their Finest is set in the midst of the devastating Second World War, when movies became a crucial outlet to raise the spirits of the nation during wartime. Catrin Col (Gemma Arterton) is employed to write female dialogue, referred to as “slop” by her male co-writers, for original British Ministry of Information propaganda feature films with fellow screenwriter Buckley (Sam Claflin), and as the two work together, they realize that there can be just as much passion behind the camera as there is on screen.

During this phone interview with Collider, co-stars Sam Claflin and Bill Nighy (who plays the self-absorbed but charismatic thespian, Ambrose Hilliard, whose days of being a romantic lead are well behind him) talked about what attracted them to Their Finest, the story’s feeling of nostalgia, learning to work on a typewriter, how dreamy it was to work with co-star Gemma Arterton, and why people love the collective experience of watching movies. Claflin also talked about My Cousin Rachel and the experience of working with Rachel Weisz, while Nighy talked about playing a very nice man in The Bookshop, opposite Emily Mortimer.

Collider: What was it about this script that made you want to be a part of telling this story and playing this character?                 

BILL NIGHY: To be honest, it was triggered by the prospect of working with (director) Lone Scherfig. That was my initial enthusiasm. And then, when I read the script, it was a wonderful script full of humor and humanity, which appealed to me. It was also something that I’m interested in. I’m interested in making movies and I’m interested in that period. People in the U.K. have a very specific nostalgia for that time, and I thought it beautifully expressed the details of how people’s lives were, during that time, and the general feeling, and how people can remain compassionate in truly dangerous times, rather than like compassion during strategically invented dangerous times. It’s a timely movie, in that respect. But, the script was very attractive.

SAM CLAFLIN: For me, personally, I’d been fortunate enough to work with Lone Scherfig, and she approached me with this script. After having such an incredible experience with her before, I knew that no matter what she gave me, I would happily jump aboard. Honestly, I fell in love with the script. I thought it was a really unique war story, set around a very poignant part of our history, but with an insight into a world that I wasn’t overly familiar with, with filmmaking at that time. I loved the beautifully poetic love story between Buckley and Catrin, and also the humor that Ambrose Hilliard brought. So, it ticked every box for me, really. And Gemma [Arterton] was already attached and I’d always wanted to work with her. It was a no-brainer.

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HOLLYWOOD—Thinly disguised propaganda films played an important part in convincing battle-weary Brits to continue supporting the war effort during World War II. The British Ministry of Information mostly hired male writers to compose these morale-boosting melodramas but they also enlisted a few women, whose primary job was to write “female dialogue,” patronizingly referred to as slop, to tap into the hearts and imaginations of the ever-growing female workforce.

The dramedy “Their Finest,” based on Lissa Evans’ novel “Their Finest Hour and a Half,” tells the story of a smart yet nearly broke British advertising copywriter named Catrin Cole (played by “Tamara Drewe’s” Gemma Arterton), who is enlisted by the Ministry to partner with a male screenwriter to find a real-life story about home-grown heroism and turn it into an inspiring screenplay. Though her co-writer Tom Buckley (“The Hunger Games’” Sam Claflin) initially is reluctant to pair up with an inexperienced collaborator—a woman, no less—he has no choice. Up against a deadline, the duo is forced to settle on an incident involving twin sisters who set out to sea in their drunken father’s rickety boat to rescue brave, wounded soldiers during the evacuation of Dunkirk. Embellishing many of the details of what was actually a mundane event for the twins, Catrin and Tom spin together an imaginative tale of incredible heroism and sacrifice. Leading the production’s cast is self-absorbed yet charismatic Ambrose Hilliard (BAFTA award winner Bill Nighy), a one-time leading man who reluctantly signs on for a supporting role as kindly Uncle Frank at the urging of his longtime agent, Sammy (Eddie Marsan), and then the agent’s sister, Sophie (Helen McCrory).

Hilliard is joined in the epic story-within-a-story by heroic American pilot Carl Lundbeck (Jake Lacy), who doesn’t quite possess the acting chops of the rest of the professional cast, but who is hired because he can draw American audiences (and, by extension, the nation itself) to join Britain in fighting the Nazis. As the writers rework the material throughout the film’s production in South Wales, Tom and married Catrin cope with growing romantic feelings for each other.

During a recent stopover to promote the feature, adapted for the screen and directed by Lone Scherfig, stars Nighy and Claflin sat down together to discuss making the film, which delves into the important role cinema played in Britain’s war effort, working with their female director and co-star, doggedly trying to keep a straight face while filming one scene and filming on location in Wales.

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You may have seen your share of World War II movies, but you’ve never seen one like this. Rather than focusing on the front lines, Their Finest (in theaters today) follows a British film crew as they attempt to boost morale and encourage America to join the fight against Hitler by making a propaganda film after the Blitzkrieg.

If you’re thinking of Katniss’ “propos” in Mockingjay, you wouldn’t be too far off – which is apropos (no pun intended), given that Sam Claflin also stars in this movie as the rather prickly script writer Tom Buckley. Tom works with the Ministry of Information to write and produce their latest propaganda film, reluctantly recruiting Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) – a talented young Welsh woman and writer – to bring a female perspective to the operation. Though Catrin faces many challenges from the male-dominated ministry, Tom soon comes to appreciate her abilities – both for writing and for wrangling the veteran actor and demanding star of the film, Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy). What follows is a story full of love, laughter, an impressive film-within-a-film, and lots of surprises.

Fangirlish had the chance to speak exclusively with the incredible Sam Claflin and Bill Nighy about their roles in Their Finest, exploring the World War II time period on film, and their (perhaps surprising) pop culture obsessions.

It’s always fun to hear actors talk about their characters, but I thought maybe you guys could tell me about each other’s character instead – switch it up a little.

Bill Nighy: Well, [Sam]’s got a great character, and it’s beautifully written. It’s a wonderful love story. I loved reading it. I was jealous – I wished I was younger and I could play Sam’s part, but then I often feel that way. It’s a very dryly written, beautiful, and unexpected kind of leading man experience. You see someone in the time-honored tradition, I suppose, of initially dismissing the leading lady and then falling deeply in love, and that’s very fulfilled in the part.
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This Friday, STX Entertainment is releasing Their Finest, a new film from director Lone Scherfig (An Education, One Day). Adapting Lissa Evans bestseller Their Finest Hour and a Half, the romantic comedy is set in London in 1940 and follows a fictional propaganda film production about the battle of Dunkirk. Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games franchise, Me Before You) plays a film producer who is teamed with Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton), a woman from the British Ministry of Information assigned to bring a woman’s touch to the project’s screenplay.

CS recently sat down with Claflin to discuss his turn as Their Finest‘s Tom Buckley. In the below interview, he recalls the making the film’s movie production within a movie production and even recalls an amusing story about his audition years ago for Marvel Studios‘ Thor. Check back soon, too, as we’ll soon be bringing you another conversation with Their Finest‘s Bill Nighy.

CS: Heading into a film set in England during WWII, I was surprised by how light the tone of “Their Finest” is at times.

Sam Claflin: I think that anything set in that time is kind of expected to have that heaviness. I think that part of what really attracted me to that script and that world was the real sense of a “keep calm and carry on” motto that we now use way too often. It was sort of a fresh outlook on war and the fight that went on behind the scenes.

CS: While the tone of the film may be a bit relaxed, your Tom Buckley is sort of the reverse.

Sam Claflin: He’s the atypical leading man, isn’t he? He’s the person who maybe doesn’t quite tick every box on what makes a hero. That’s what attracted me to the uniqueness of him and the original kind of relationship between himself and Catrin Cole. There’s the fact that he doesn’t think she’s good enough when she is better than him. I think that’s quite poetic.
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Sam Claflin of the Hunger Games and Snow White and the Huntsman franchises stars in Their Finest, a historical drama about Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) and the propaganda film crew working in WWII London that employed her as a writer while the majority of the men were on the front lines. Claflin, who’s kept busy managing a successful career and being a new dad, is a huge movie fan himself.

“I could honestly talk about films all day,” he told us, when we asked him about his Five Favorite Films. “That list of five could easily fit between 700,000 that I like. The one thing, I have to say, I’m really upset in myself and quite disappointed by, is that my knowledge of a back catalog of films that were brought out a while ago is pretty lackluster. Purely because I try to keep up-to-date with filmmaking now and the filmmakers now and who I want to work with.” See which ones actually made the list right here:

NOTTING HILL (1999)

One off the top of my head — I think a film that I have watched time and time again — and every time I watch it I feel that I kind of see something new. I love Notting Hill. It’s by Roger Michell. There’s sort of an English charm — [and] I’m English. There’s sort of that slight insight into the kind of acting world Julia Roberts is playing. The kind of celebrity — I suppose especially me being an actor — there’s a lot of relatable qualities about it. I have a huge entourage of people who are really far away from this industry. So, there’s a sort of connecting dots between myself and them — always sort of very similar to the the world Notting Hill is based in.
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