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Watch out for ... Sam Riley

The British actor on finding his inner Ian Curtis.

By Mark Olsen, The Envelope

October 29, 2007

The English group Joy Division was never a huge commercial success during Ian Curtis' lifetime, but since his suicide in 1980 he has become more myth than man.

The new movie "Control," directed by noted photographer Anton Corbijn and based on a book by Curtis' widow, reframes his tragic tale of averted rock glory as a post-punk romance. Caught in a love triangle between his wife and mistress (played, respectively, by Samantha Morton and Alexandra Maria Lara), Curtis is portrayed battling the demons and problems, both internal and external, that drove him to his crushing fate.



In his first major film role, British actor Sam Riley, previously a musician in the group 10,000 Things, brings Curtis vividly to life. With his rock 'n' roll cheekbones and cigarette-scuffed voice, Riley has just the right balance of kitchen-sink realism and outer-limits glamour, and turns in a remarkably assured, emotionally nimble performance.

Most astounding of all, Riley sang the vocals for the film's live performances, nailing Curtis' hollowed-out baritone and distinctive elbows-and-angles dancing.

Only days after being feted in Los Angeles, Riley recently called in to The Envelope HQ from New York City as he completed a whirlwind U.S. promo tour.

Part of what's so remarkable about your performance is how you really humanize Ian Curtis. Was it tough for you to get behind the icon and find the person?

Well, all icons are everyman as well. But I thought Ian, more so than your classic rock star, was very grounded in normality, from his home life to his job that he was still doing.

And the script didn't approach him particularly reverently, and nor did Deborah Curtis' insightful book in the first place. So I was following that tradition to a certain extent.

And I just had to shut my ears to what people were saying, "You're playing an icon, don't mess it up."

I tried to ignore those people as much as I could.

Anton Corbijn shot some of the most famous photographs of Joy Division, so he knew Ian Curtis a little bit. Did he talk to you about Ian?

Anton moved from the Netherlands as a 19-year-old to find Joy Division because he loved their music and he wanted to photograph them. But being a Dutchman, and his first time in England, and the Mancunian accent being quite a broad one, he doesn't really remember a word they said. He couldn't understand them, from what he told me.

It was strange. We had an understanding of what we both thought Ian was, and we were fairly close to one another with that.

The only time we sort of panicked before shooting was whether I was getting this dance right. Although that is secondary to being convincing emotionally, to people that do know this band it's very important to get those live things as close to what Ian did on stage as possible.

But if you start to think about all the problems that he had then you naturally walk in a certain way or what have you…. Once we had an understanding, then I knew what Ian would do, what my Ian would do and what he wouldn't.

The documentary "Joy Division" that screened at the Toronto Film Festival shows the original footage of the band's first TV appearance on Tony Wilson's show and the similarity in your performance to Ian's is just uncanny.

Because of their lack of success at the time he died, and because of the era and the media, there isn't a lot of footage of them in existence.

There's the Tony Wilson footage, they did about three TV shows, which have good quality sound and visuals, but it also shows Ian at his most restrained. And there's some VHS footage of him in a couple clubs and things.

I watched all that almost constantly and tried to do it round the living room while watching him on television and in front of the mirror. I tried to film myself once, but I thought it was too embarrassing and I gave up on that method.

It wasn't really until I had the haircut and was wearing the clothes, something happened then. It allows you to go that little bit farther, unself-consciously, into being someone else.

And when I stood in front of the band and they were playing, we decided to play live, and you hear the drums and the guitars and it felt so real to me. I knew the sort of things Ian did, and I just allowed myself to go with it. It's impossible for me to describe.

How did you all come to the decision that the actors would perform the songs live?

It was always the idea to do playback, and Anton got us guys down for two weeks before we started shooting. I did a week rehearsal with Samantha and then Alexandra came for a week, and during the two weeks we were also spending every night and other hours during the day in the studio learning those songs so we could mime convincingly.

But Harry Treadaway, he plays drums, if it wasn't for his devotion to what is a small character in the movie, to getting it so right, I mean, we couldn't have done it if the drummer couldn't play.

And he'd been in a movie called "Brothers of the Head" and they'd done everything live in that, that's also a music movie, and he was so adamant.

I'd always wanted to sing, being a singer, and I was anxious that I'd be working so hard to make the off-stage stuff convincing and then we were going to ruin it by suddenly having Ian's real voice coming out.

So we got a set list together, and brought Anton down with one of the producers to the rehearsal room and played them a set and begged. And Anton didn't really need much persuading. He could see that it could add an element of authenticity.

I think this was honestly within five days of the first gig scene. We rushed the sound guy in, 'OK, total change of plan, let's work out how we can do this live.' Absolutely, being a band and singing those songs made it feel a lot realer.

I hate to bring this up, but the fact that you and Alexandra Maria Lara, who plays Ian's mistress Annik Honoré, are now a couple in real life, in a strange way, puts a positive, romantic ending on a story that doesn't have a lot of uplift.

From what I've heard from Anton, Annik, the real Annik, is very moved by the fact we're a couple. I think she likes the way that given a second time round -- their story -- there was a different outcome.

I can imagine that accolades were the furthest thing from your mind when you got the call to play Ian Curtis. Yet the role has already garnered you some awards recognition. How are you finding everything happening around the film?

When I was in my band, we were touted for major success and then achieved very little in the end. We had it whipped away from us.

I think that gave me a healthy cynicism and wariness of getting too pleased with yourself, which I think was part of the problem last time.

But I couldn't be more grateful or surprised or honored. My friends' text messages are keeping my feet on the ground, believe me, especially when they first saw the posters around Leeds. Which are exactly the sort of friends you need.