Johnny Harris (This Is England 86, Spartacus) stars as Neil in The Fades, writer Jack Thorne’s new fantasy horror series, which begins on BBC Three tomorrow night.
Afraid of nothing and afraid of everything, Neil is perhaps the unlikeliest warrior in the world. Generally unwashed and unshaven, Neil is an orphan who has left the conventional world behind to commit himself entirely to the Angelic cause. He lives on the edge, and quite likes it there because he can see everything. Teacher, learner, helper, Angelic, and a surprising mentor for Paul (Iain De Caestecker).
CultBox recently caught up with Johnny at the show’s launch in London to find out more…
So what’s The Fades about?
“It’s a show about a young guy called Paul, he’s the catalyst for the whole show, and he discovers he has powers. He thinks he’s mad, he thinks that he’s imaging things, then he realises he’s not. He meets someone who tells him that in fact he’s gifted and he’s special and he has a purpose in life – and that’s where we meet the Fades, the spirits of dead people.
“This young kid is connected to them, he can see them. He has powers around them and he’s told that he has to use those powers for a certain cause. Then he comes into contact with them and that’s where the show evolves.
What attracted you to the part of Neil?
“It’s the first time I’ve worked in this genre. I’ve not worked in the sci-fi/fantasy genre before. I got told it was [written] by Jack Thorne, who I’d worked with on This Is England, I was actually working on This Is England when I got the script. The second I heard it was by Jack Thorne, it was just a gut instinct: ‘I’m interested’.
“Then they sent the script through and it was quite wild, as I expected it to be with Jack, his imagination is out there! He’s not held back with this, I love that, there’s no limits to where this goes. Each time you turn the script it goes off in another direction.”