Cinema AND TRAILER: God's Own Country Josh O'Connor interview

If people were to recognise rising British star Josh O’Connor, it would most likely be for his TV work, which includes ITV’s The Durrells and Peaky Blinders. But the latest role for the Cheltenham-born 27-year-old, as the lead character in gay love story God’s Own Country, could be about to change that. The film recently won the award for best British feature at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Director Francis Lee’s debut is a beautiful tale of the intense relationship that forms between Johnny Saxby (O’Connor), who works long hours in brutal isolation on his family’s remote farm in Yorkshire, and a handsome Romanian migrant worker, Gheorghe, (Alec Secareanu), who arrives to take up temporary work on the farm in lambing season.

The two men quickly and intensely begin to fall for each other, and the film becomes a tale of self-discovery and emotional-awakening, while Johnny also faces the future of his family’s farm hanging in the balance.

O’Connor, who trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and was recently named a 2016 Screen International Star of Tomorrow, talks about how the unavoidable theme of Brexit runs through the story,

What made you want to do this film?

“I read the script and fell in love immediately with the couple and the story of their relationship. I loved the idea of playing a part that was so different to myself and throwing myself into that and, indeed, doing it in a world that was kind of foreign to me. So I think that was the initial thing and then meeting Francis, it was like meeting the director that I needed to work with.”

It’s been called the “first great film of the Brexit era” - what message do you think the film sends in terms of Brexit?