*Crackle has adapted Guy Ritchie’s 2000 film “Snatch” into a 10-episode, one-hour original that stars Rupert Grint as the utterly posh, Charlie Cavendish. Best known as Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter film franchise, Grint also serves as an executive producer.
In addition, the series stars an ensemble cast featuring Luke Pasqualino (“Skins,” “The Borgias”) as Albert Hill, Lucien Laviscount (“Scream Queens,” “Honeytrap”) as Billy Ayres, Dougray Scott (“Fear the Walking Dead,” “Doctor Who”) as Vic Hill, Phoebe Dynevor (“The Village,” “Dickensian”) as Lotti Mott, Juliet Aubrey (“The Infiltrator,” “Primeval”) as Lily Hill, and Ed Westwick (“Wicked City,” “Gossip Girl”), who guest stars as Sonny Castillo.
EUR caught up with super-sexy Laviscount to discuss his “balls to the wall” character, and how this production brings something new to the genre. The British actor also weighs in on Samuel L. Jackson’s recent controversial comments about black Brits taking over American roles.
Check out our conversation with Lucien below.
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This series is so vibrant and simply FUN to watch, and it certainly seems like you guys had a blast filming it.
LL: I don’t think I’ve done a days work on this job, honestly. Everyday was a blast…walk into work with your best mates, cracking up laughing constantly and just causing so much trouble on the set at the same time. It was such an experience and I was so happy to be there, and we really rubbed off on each other. Everyone had a really good time shooting, even the people that came in to guest episodes, everyone was made to feel so welcome. It was a wonderful experience.
Talk about Billy Ayres and the ride he’s going to take viewers on this season.
LL: Billy is balls to the walls. He really doesn’t give two flying F’s, to be honest. He’s down with his friends and he’ll do anything he can to make sure they’re looked after and protected. The ride he goes on is… he grows a lot. He finds out a lot about himself. He falls so hard and picks himself back up, and that’s the best thing about Billy. He’ll take a few knocks to the chin and he’ll pick himself back up — emotionally and physically.
Describe your preparation to play Billy. How often did you have to hit up the gym?
LL: I said to Alex De Rakoff, the writer, during the audition, “Bro, if you give this part to me, I will be in the gym 2-3 times a day, and I’ll eat nothing but chicken and broccoli and whatever else I need to do to make it look believable.” And I got a phone call a couple weeks later saying “Lucien, you got the job,” and I was eating a Twix at the time, it’s my favorite chocolate, and I threw it to the ground and (I had) two weeks to get in the best shape I could for him.
What is it about Billy that intrigued you enough to want to be part of this project? Do you relate to him personally in any way?
LL: I think the beautiful thing about these characters that Alex has created is I feel like you can relate to everyone. Maybe not a Cuban gangster but there’s definitely parts of each of us in each of the characters that I definitely can relate to. But Billy I relate to the most because he’s straight-talking, straight-forward and I actually based him on my younger brother when I started preparing for the role. He’s just all about friendship and family, and with that comes responsibility that he has given himself to protect them, and that’s his vice. That’s what he gets off on as well. He gets off on protecting his family.
How is this production bringing something new to this story? What’s going to surprise viewers about this series?
LL: This is ten hours where you get to meet some of the most incredible, outlandish, stupid characters. This is something so unique with the fact that you get to know them over such a long period of time, and it’s going to be a helluva ride.
In three words, how would you describe ‘Snatch’ the series overall?
LL: Snatch, Crackers and Pop.
Okay, switching gears…. what do you make of Samuel L. Jackson’s comments about Black British actors taking roles from Black American actors?
LL: We all have to celebrate each other. If somebody does a good job, fuckin’ fantastic – praise them! It’s about love.
Do you think British film actors of your generation are living in a golden age of international success?
LL: I think coming from the U.K., or anywhere out of the U.S., we have to work twice as hard when we read a script because we’re not American, but we have to put an American accent on. When we come to this country, we can’t work at any coffee shop. We can’t work behind the bar because we don’t have the right papers to do that. We have three months to maybe book a job and all these obstacles are against us. So I just feel like we have to work twice as hard to get here to begin with and then when a lot of actors are here, people just don’t want to mess around. Not taking anything away from anyone else but I do feel like if I’m traveling from a different country, thousands of miles away from my family, my friends and everything I know to be normal and right and that makes sense to me — put me in a world full of difference to live my dream, then I’m going to work damn hard to do it.
Want more of Lucien? Head over to crackle.com to get caught up on episodes of “Snatch.”
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