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Magazine Scans > 2016 > Un-Titled Project – Issue #08

To say Sam Claflin’s star is rising seems woefully inadequate; rocketing would be a more appropriate term. Certainly there has been nothing steady about the actor’s career path to date. Just months out of LAMDA he was notching up parts in prestigious TV shows, chasing this up with scene stealing roles in Hollywood blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Snow White and the Huntsman. Claflin, 29, isn’t someone who’s about to rely on a megawatt smile and ‘nice guy’ reputation to keep stoking his career, however, if you’ve seen his turn in The Riot Club you’ll know he’s not afraid to do nasty. 

It’s Claflin’s recurring role as the chiseled Finnick Odair in The Hunger Games series, however, which has really positioned him teetering on the edge of superstar status (just a cursory glance at the comments on his Instagram shows you the kind of mega-fandom a role like this will get you; ‘My future husband’, ‘You’re so cute’, ‘Love you so much’, the ubiquitous heart-eyes emojis). And yet despite Claflin’s very not normal career, he himself has somehow remained resolutely normal, preferring nights in with his wife or at the football with old mates, to party hopping and red carpets. In fact, he seems faintly bewildered by the whole fame thing, insisting in typically understated fashion that he’s not interesting enough to warrant that attention. What him in something and you’ll most likely disagree with him on that. Claflin exudes that indefinable, yet utterly unmistakable X-factor, which tells you maybe he won’t be able to dodge that attention for much longer. I spoke with him from Berlin on the eve of the world premier of the final Hunger Games installment, Mockingjay Part 2.

LAJ: It must be an exciting time for you right now.

SC: Yeah, more than anything it’s just good to see everybody again, because we finished filming about a year and a half ago and then promoted Mockingjay Part 1 last November, so it’s been a long year without seeing everyone everyday.

LAJ: How does it feel to revisit the Hunger Games after all this time? I get the impression it’s quite a fun set.

SC: You know what, the actual process of filming itself was incredible, a lot of fun – probably too much fun at times! But at the same time we all worked pretty hard. When we came back last November for Mockingjay Part 1, the premier and press stuff for that, it was like revisiting old friendships. So many of them live in LA so I don’t get to see them or hang out that much. It’s been nice to see everyone and catch up, reminisce and remind ourselves of what we did a year and a half ago. And I’m excited for everyone to see it.

LAJ: Do you tend to stay in touch with people after filming? I imagine it to be a very transient existence.

SC: I do but what I quickly realized after my first job is that every other actor goes on to another job immediately afterwards and meets their new family. You know what I mean? It’s weird. We try to keep in touch but it’s difficult because everyone has so much other things going on in their lives. I have my home life, my wife, my dog, all my friends and my family in London that I barely ever get to see when I’m away filming so I spend my life trying to catch up with what I’ve missed.

LAJ: What do you miss most about London?

SC: Hanging out with loved ones really. It’s just catching up, talking; that to me is priceless. You can’t put a price on sitting at home watching crap TV with your wife! It’s a rarity, but something that I cherish.

LAJ: You’ve been involved in huge franchises and yet you’ve not become Daily Mail fodder. Is that a conscious effort or just something that happens to have eluded you?

SC: My theory about that is I’m not looking for fame. There are so many people, as you call it the ‘Daily Mail fodder’ for example, who are seeking fame who will choose to do reality TV in order to get a higher profile and educate the masses about what they’re doing from day to day, whereas I like to keep my personal life personal. My career is absolutely a platform to enjoy but that’s not who I am. Who I am is who I am behind closed doors. I’d hate to think that loads of people would be judging me on what cereal I buy. I don’t think my life is interesting enough for the Daily Mail to be bothered either.

LAJ: Well they seem bothered by some pretty boring stuff. It’s at best boring and at worst really very intrusive.

SC: Well, I find it hard to believe the amount of times you see that X and Y are obviously dating because they’re having dinner with each other. It’s incredible to me that people actually swallow that information and, as I say, ‘judge’ people on it. That is unfortunately one of the costs, one of the downsides to what we do. I’m lucky, though, I feel like I haven’t found myself damaged in any way.

LAJ: Do you feel famous? Do you feel the fame – or perhaps success is a better word – has changed you in any way? Even if it’s just affording stuff.

SC: I have a house and I have a car and I have a little more money in the bank than I was used to when I was 17, but at the same time my ideals are the same and the way I live my life is exactly the same. I still have the same family and friends but maybe the clothes that I buy are a little nicer than the clothes I used to buy back then. I personally don’t see myself at all as famous or as interesting. I do a job that I thoroughly enjoy and hopefully people will continue to watch the sort of films that I take part in, but I’ve been quite fortunate in that I manage to keep myself to myself; I’m very rarely accosted in the street and I still get public transport all the time. It’s one of those things where I feel like I’ve got away with it really – but I don’t know why I wouldn’t! I’ve also lived vicariously through the Jennifer Lawrences of the world, the Jonny Depps and the Kristen Stewarts, and seen how they don’t choose the fame side of it either but that can be something that comes with the job. You can’t prepare for that or expect that, it’s just one of those things that happens to some people and some people it doesn’t; Daniel Day Lewis, for example, one of the most incredible actors of our generations, manages to live a peaceful and quiet life, out of the press.

LAJ: I do wonder if there’s a certain double standard in terms of gender. You mentioned a couple of women who’ve suffered terrible invasions of privacy.

SC: I definitely think generally it’s harder for women. I have a wife and I’ve witnessed the kind of scrutiny that a lot of women have to deal with. Even young girls having to aspire to a certain look or a certain way of living, I think that’s wrong. I turn up to an event in a blue suit which is nearly identical to the blue suit I wore the week before – in fact I could wear the same suit and change the tie and it would be fine. But if a girl even dreamt of wearing the same dress twice, such a faux pas! I don’t understand why women have to go through hours and hours and hours of hair and makeup and potentially still get it ‘wrong’ when nobody really cares about the blokes. That’s where a lot of the inequality lies I think, in how people judge each other.

LAJ: To go back to the Hunger Games, one of the things that’s great about it is it’s got a kick-ass female lead. I think that’s really important.

SC: Role models come in every shape and form nowadays because we have so many platforms to speak from. Katniss Everdeen is a reluctant hero, she’s someone who doesn’t know what she believes in or who she is but the moment she does there’s a fire in her belly. I think that’s one of the most important messages of the Hunger Games: be who you want to be. Everyone should be entitled to their own opinion, their own vision [of what a role model is].

LAJ: Who were your role models growing up?

SC: My career path and dreams and goals changed drastically at the age of 16. I always wanted to be a footballer through my childhood, so David Beckham or Darren Eadie from Norwich City, they were my idols. Then I decided I wanted to be an actor, and my knowledge of film was pretty lacking at the time so I wanted to be Robin Williams or Al Pacino or Robert De Niro, one of those guys. Whereas now, honestly people who inspire me now are the Jennifer Lawrences of the world, people who are even younger than me but still are able to speak truly, speak from the heart and be honest about what it is that they want to fight for, or what they believe in. They’re not afraid of people judging them. I think that’s something we battle with every day unfortunately.

LAJ: What advice would you give now to your younger self when he started out acting?

SC: I’ve definitely grown in confidence but I’ve always been quite an insecure person, quite afraid and paranoid about what people think. It is one of those things where I wish I had a little bit more self-confidence. I’m sometimes afraid to speak up if I’m unhappy. I think for me, it would be to fight my fight and say what I believe in. At times I’ve always wanted to be perceived as the ‘nice guy’ but you realize that not everybody’s always going to like you, or everything you do, every decision you make. Your identity is changing, you feel like a chameleon because you want me to be like this and you want me to be like that. Now I feel like I’ve found who I am, my identity, and I’m going to go with that.

LAJ: So how on earth do you cope with things like the fan backlash when you were cast in Hunger Games? I feel like if I think someone gives me a funny look on the bus it can ruin my day!

SC: I think it’s how you take that negativity and what you do with it. For me, I read a few blogs, a few messages regarding my casting that were pretty negative, very negative; I was completely the wrong guy, people were upset that Zac Efron didn’t get the part! What I quickly realized was that every single fan had a different idea of who they thought was perfect for Finnick. I didn’t look like the Finnick in the books, but the magic of movies is that I can dye my hair, get a fake tan, go to the gym for a couple of months and change what I look like. There was obviously a quality I had that the director and the producers agreed upon and said, “that’s our guy”. What those negative comments did was spur me on to work harder and prove them wrong. All I can do at the end of the day is try my hardest. I would never ever see myself as a heartthrob; I’m just a guy with a job.

LAJ: Your life must have been gym and protein at that time.

SC: Basically! I was pretty dull. One of my good qualities is that I’m very, very determined; once I start something I have to see it through. The Hunger Games was the first time when I really realized my true drive. The great thing was we were in the middle of Atlanta where none of my family or friends from home were, so I had no distractions. I literally had the gym and protein to keep me company.

LAJ: Do you still go to football with your friends?

SC: Yeah we just went to the NFL game at Wembley. I hang out with my mates and share my experiences with them as much as possible. At the London premier of the Hunger Games this week, all my friends and family will come. It’s a little tradition we have.

LAJ: Speaking of being likeable, you played an absolute monster in The Riot Club. Congratulations on being utterly vile…

SC: Good! It’s the only time I cheer if someone calls me that.

LAJ: Do you think there’s a certain level of privilege that dominates the world you’re in? Maybe it’s in anything creative, it’s easier if you have money to fall back on.

SC: I think for me, honestly, money opens opportunities. I grew up in Norwich, went to a reasonably rough school, had a very, very thick Norfolk accent until I was 18 and started doing youth theatre. I got more heavily involved in that and noticed that actually a lot of the friends I knew in the youth theatre didn’t really have the Norfolk accent even though the youth theatre was based there, so I kind of started to get rid of it. I went to drama school and I’m an amalgamation of all my friends’ different accents, a bit of Norfolk, very posh when I need to, actually the truth is I am from nothing really. The preconception is that the better-educated people do succeed. I have a lot of friends from that world in the industry, and I don’t feel like it changes anyone, but I’ve had very different life experiences. I’ve found actually is that most characters I get asked to read for are more upper class elite, but that’s totally not where I’m from. It’s a tough question because I feel like one way or another I’m going to tread on someone’s toes, I think it’s obvious to the world that there aren’t as many opportunities [for people with less money], because education is so expensive, especially drama school. I was on a scholarship but at the same time I was working as a care-taker as my drama school to pay my way, whereas someone who comes from money doesn’t have to do that, they can focus all their attention on the education and not have to worry about when the paycheck’s coming in or what they’re going to eat for dinner. Comfort, I suppose, is the difference.

LAJ: Did you have a backup plan?

SC: Yeah, I always wanted to go into teaching. I always liked the idea – which is why I got into acting – of inspiring people. My mum was a classroom assistant at my old high school and she always said, “If you can change one child, one mind a year, it makes the whole job worth it”. That always appealed to me. Now I’m an actor, I’m fortunate enough to receive letters from fans that me and my mum sit and read through. [It’s amazing to hear that] I have inspired certain people, especially at my old school for instance, they’re like “Oh my god I can’t believe you’re in movies!” because that was me when I was younger, it was a dream so far-fetched that I never even imagined I could be doing movies.

LAJ: Do you feel that you’re at a stage now where you’ll always get work or do you ever think “Oh shit I might not ever get that again”?

SC: I only called my agents the other day because I just literally finished another job a couple of weeks ago and I have a few things potentially in the pipeline for next year but nothing’s 100% set in stone. It’s something to constantly worry about! [Laughs] Where I’m at in my career at the moment I feel like I’m between a rock and a hard place. I feel like I’m trying to move forward and play even more interesting roles, but all those parts go to people who are already trustworthy – the Eddie Redmaynes, the Andrew Garfields, the Robert Pattinsons – people who can sell films. Whereas I’m still, in a sense, untested. It’s difficult definitely because the parts that do inspire me will then go to someone better than me.

LAJ: I’m not sure if it’s ‘better’ so much as redefining how people see you. I mean, look at Sienna Miller, she’s totally repackaged herself. Half of the battle is getting other people to see you in a different way.

SC: That’s exactly right. I think that’s what I’ve been trying to do, like with The Riot Club, showing I can be nasty; with Love, Rosie, I can be goofy. I’ve just done a film called Me Before You where I play a quadriplegic, it’s got a much more serious tone, but at the same time it’s a light drama that deals with some very important issues. I feel myself opening up and growing as an actor and a person.

LAJ: So fulfillment for you is about variety?

SC: I just want to challenge myself, that’s all I ever want to do. I’d like to have the opportunity to prove to other people – and myself – that I can do it, to play different characters. I don’t want to rock the same haircut and look exactly the same and play the same character in different movies. The career of someone like Christian Bale, who physically transforms for each role, you feel like you don’t know who Christian Bale is because every role that he does is so, so different, you don’t feel like he brings any of himself to those parts. It’s just this completely transformed character he comes up with. That’s what I’m trying to achieve.

LAJ: I’m sure you will. So now you’re on tour with the Hunger Games premieres. How long will that go on for?

SC: About three weeks. The premier in Berlin, then London, then Los Angeles, then New York, then I’m briefly in Miami and then I’m back for Christmas.

LAJ: I’ll look out for you wearing your same blue suit! At least you can pack light.

SC: [Laughs]. Yeah, exactly!

The cutest thing ever happened last night. Sam Claflin and his megababe wife, Laura Haddock, turned up to the UK premiere of Mockingjay – Part 2 with a big surprise… the pair are expecting their first child! *squeal* We caught up with Sam in London today to chat all about the end of Hunger Games, what’s next for him and how he’s feeling about fatherhood.

Firstly, massive congratulations! Your announcement last night was pretty special… It’s all very exciting and it was amazing for Laura and I to do it on the world stage. I’m very, very lucky, that’s all I can say.

It’s the end of an era. What will you miss most about playing Finnick? I honestly was just happy to play someone who was so layered and complex. Basically every film that we did, I felt like I was playing a different character and that as an actor is a real dream come true.

How did you feel when you were shooting your final scene? It was a very tense few weeks in the run-up to that scene so it felt like another big finale for me. I was so insistent that I did all my own stunts but the truth is Jackson Spidell – who’s my stunt double – is on another level at using Finnick’s weapon in the latest movie: a massive stick. It was actually a trident but I honestly hated the fact that for the entire film I had to run around with a stick and everyone else got machine guns.

*MAJOR spoiler alert below*

What can you say to all the Finnick lovers to help them mourn the loss and move on with their lives? The great thing is that he has a baby, so the spirit of Finnick will forever live on – and he dies for what he believes in. He sacrificed himself for the good of the world, so I think there will always be a part of him that will live in everybody.

How do you feel about the fact that one day your little boy or girl will be able to watch you in the Hunger Games films? I think it’s really exciting and that’s exactly what’s so amazing about shooting movies – that you’re forever sort of immortalising a moment in time and encapsulating this experience. Also because I can walk away from this project with my head held high, feeling like I’ve done myself proud. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some incredible actors and people I have admired since I was a kid, so to go through that on screen and be able to show it off later down the line is quite special.

What do we reckon to Finnick as a baby name? *Chuckle* I don’t think Finnick would really work, sadly. In fact, I’m not sure any of the names from The Hunger Games would really suit a child but I suppose it’s probably more and more popular. A pet maybe? Finnick the fluffy dog or something like that? It’s a good solid dog name.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is released in the UK on 19 November

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Post-apocalyptic life looks remarkably mundane to 29-year-old Sam Claflin. “I just got back from my parents’ place in Norfolk”, says the Brit actor. “Waking up to the bin men driving up the street kind of puts it all into perspective.”

Perspective is useful when you’re coming off the back of a dystopian pop-culture phenomenon like The Hunger Games, in which Claflin plays trident-wielding tribute Finnick Odair. The final instalment – Mockingjay Part 2 – hits cinemas in November. In case you’ve mistakenly written it off as Twilight-lite, the series of young adult novels turned film franchise combines a surprisingly sharp critique of social inequality and reality TV with surprisingly sharp weapons, as subjugated teenagers from poor districts are forced by their metropolitan overlords to fight to the death, Battle Royale-style, in the name of Saturday-night entertainment.

The cast is also unexpectedly heavyweight: Jennifer Lawrence, Woody Harrelson, Phillip Seymour Hoffman…and, or course, Norfolk’s own Sam Claflin. It’s fair to say he’s now in a different league. “It’s been an incredible springboard for my career”, he says, “It’s allowed me to walk into rooms that I couldn’t before. It’s definitely opened many doors. Many windows too”. Ones presumably marked ‘Hollywood leading men only’.

The Hunger Games is an omnipresent force in Hollywood these days. But when Claflin first walked into the casting room a few years ago, he didn’t even know what he was auditioning for. The script for the second instalment in the trilogy in which his character was introduced bore the secretive working title Idiom rather than the actual name of Catching Fire. “I’d seen the first Hunger Games movie but I wasn’t aware that it was a trilogy, or that there were books,” he says. “It wasn’t until I received the scenes that I had to audition with and saw there was also a character called Katniss. I’d heard that name before, so I did a Google search on ‘Katniss’ and ‘Finnick’. I had a lot of research to do the night before…”

In the process, Claflin also learnt that he wasn’t exactly the “six-foot, tanned, blonde, green-eyed god” that Finnick is described as in the books. But he didn’t let that unwelcome discovery intimidate him. “I never had any doubt in my mind that I was wrong for the part,” he says. “So I went in there all guns blazing, thinking “What have I got to lose?” The same self-effacing attitude was in effect when he auditioned for 2011’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the big-screen break that took him from small-screen obscurity: “Part of me was like ‘This is so not going to happen – as if I’m going to be in a Pirates movie!’ I went in not expecting anything and somehow it worked out.” And then some. Hey, if you’re scared to shoot, you won’t score.

While Google was Claflin’s friend before the Catching Fire audition, it soon became his enemy as trenchant fans reacted less than enthusiastically to his casting. “I remember reading Sky News thinking, ‘Oh, bloody hell!’” he recalls, “I couldn’t avoid it.” But again he turned a negative into a positive. “It could have gone two ways,” he says, “It could have made me very depressed and angry. But a part of me trusted that the producers and casting director and director knew what they were doing. And I’m very determined. I knew I had a long way to go physically, but I also knew I could do it and I wanted to prove it to the doubters. It spurred me on to work harder.”

For Claflin, that work started three months before filming. Although he didn’t quite have to starve himself for The Hunger Games, his menu choices were strictly rationed. “I was in a hotel and I didn’t have a kitchen,” he explains. “So I just constantly ordered chicken and asparagus on room service because I was too worried about eating anything else. That and an omelette for breakfast was literally all I ate for months. It was depressing, I can’t deny. But once I saw the results, it inspired me to keep going.”

Liquid Diet

The food was less of a struggle for Claflin than the drink, or lack therof. “I didn’t have any alcohol for three months, which is a record for me,” he says. “As an Englishman, beer is a big part of my life.” But he could at least remove himself from the temptation: “Because I was filming in Atlanta and not England, I didn’t have the distractions of my friends or family saying, ‘Oh go on, just have one’. There’s nothing worse when you’re not drinking than the smiling face of your wife or best mate on the opposite side of the table.” There probably are worse things than being driven to drink by the delectable actress Laura Haddock (of the Inbetweeners Movie fame, whom he wed back in 2013 after meeting her in another audition room) but we take his point.

Hatton’s Law dictates that, for every unsustainably extreme regimen, there is frequently an equal and opposite reaction. Such was the case for Claflin. “I finished filming the latest Hunger Games in June 2014, went straight to Glastonbury and it was all downhill from there,” he admits. “I started to put on weight and didn’t really realise until I got cast in a film that was starting in January this year.” While Me Before You (out in 2016), in which he plays a recently wheelchair-bound adrenaline junkie who is assigned Games of Thrones‘ Emilia Clarke as a carer, didn’t exactly call for rippling abs, he needed to return to slender. Well eventually: “I knew I had to lose weight in January anyway, so I thought ‘Why don’t I just keep eating and drinking until then?’” Before long, Claflin found himself in a place that will feel familiar to many of us: “Waking up one morning in January when it’s grey outside, not wanting to get out of bed, much less go to the gym, realising that I had a long way to go.” Three stone in three months, to be precise. Like any good actor though, he soon found his motivation. “Once I started training again, and I was waking up fresh, eating well, drinking well – lots of water, which I’ve never been able to do – I felt so much healthier and better within myself,” he says. “Plus, because I wasn’t drinking as much, I had less to burn off the next day. It was a win-win. Exercise makes me feel better about myself. It aides me and it aids the camera too.”

Firm Self-Belief

Increased confidence is handy given that the shirt-off shot is a nigh-on unavoidable occupational hazard for the modern box-office actor. “It’s not something I’m comfortable with, but that’s the industry and the world we live in,” says Claflin. “And I can safely say that I’d rather cast someone with a six-pack like Zac Efron – where you know thousands of girls will go and watch him – over Sam Claflin, who has a couple of fans from Norwich, from his old school, that he’s paying.” There are many who would beg to differ. Besides, athleticism is not alien to Claflin. A talented footballer in his youth, he was enrolled in his beloved Norwich FC’s school of excellence until fate intervened and he broke his ankle at age 16. Perhaps it was fate, too, or just good casting that he went on to play Duncan Edwards in United, the BBC series about the ill-fated Busby Babes. Or that he’s been picked for the film adaptation of The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw: The Robin Friday Story. If you never saw him, Friday was a maverick striker for Reading and Cardiff in the ’70s. Blessed with sublime skill and cursed by substance abuse, he retired prematurely and died at just 38. “They say that if George Best was the first celebrity footballer, then Robin Friday was the first rock star,” explains Claflin. And he won’t have to worry about getting into shape: when Friday did turn up to training he was usually drunk and occasionally carrying a swan (yes, really). “It was a different world,” says Claflin. “The players didn’t live on Lucozade. They were drinking cups of tea and having cigarettes at half time. The story is the opposite of how fit he was, It’s how unfit he was!”

Speaking of fit, new kit is becoming a pre-occupation for Claflin. As a burgeoning, photogenic actor, he often finds himself at fashion shows and shoots like this one. “I didn’t have a clue about fashion growing up, although I thought I did,” he says. “Now I do, but I still don’t really understand it. Sometimes I look at something on a runway and think, ‘why is that fashionable?’” One brand he does get in both senses is Burberry, at whose recent menswear show he sat on the front row (next to Radio 1 DJ and scenester Nick Grimshaw, who subsequently tweeted that Claflin was “the best-smelling person. If you see him in the street, give him a sniff”). “Burberry is simple, elegant and really easy,” he says. “I’m still learning as I go though. There are definitely more fashionable items in my wardrobe than before. But I’m a comfort man at heart. I like jeans, a T-shirt and a pair of trainers.” For a man who professes not to be particularly fashionable, he gives remarkably good red carpet. “Usually someone tells me what to wear,” he downplays. Film premieres, like borrowed clothes, don’t feel entirely comfortable to him. “The nerves get the better of me and the adrenaline takes over,” he says. “I’m wearing a suit and shoes that I have to give back later, and a tie up to my neck that’s rubbing on my stubble, and my hair’s not quite how I’d imagines and I’ve got tiny bits of make-up on…It’s so not me.”

Perhaps the most important role that Claflin has learnt to play is that of the self-assured, successful actor, “Especially at the beginning of your career, when you walk into that waiting room, you’re sweating profusely and going over your lines. You knew them last night, but why don’t you know them now?” he says. “And you sit opposite someone who’s much better-looking and more suited to the part. I must have auditioned hundreds of times before I got my first job. And part of me was saying, ‘Maybe this isn’t for me’.” But the other part of him won out, and eventually he secured parts, which emboldened him to bag more and bigger roles. Before you know it, you’re in Pirates of the Caribbean, or The Hunger Games, or – according to rumour and IMDB – Star Wars spin-off Rogue One (although even using The Force won’t make him confirm or deny as much). That’s the trick with confidence: to quote noted philosopher Tupac Shakur, if you believe, you can achieve.

“I don’t know what it is,” says Claflin. “I’m obviously doing something right. But I’m happy that I don’t know what it is.”

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 is released nationwide on 19 November.