Interviews: Muscle director Gerard Johnson and actors Craig Fairbrass and Cavan Clerkin

After a debut at the 2019 London Film Festival, Gerard Johnson’s testosterone pumped Muscle arrives in selected UK cinemas and on digital this week.

Known for his uncompromising thrillers, the director has set his latest offering in an environment he knows well – the gym. It’s the story of Londoner, Simon (Cavan Clerkin) who has moved to the North East but is facing his life fall apart as he increasingly hates his job and has an increasingly fraught home life with his girlfriend. He joins a gym to get himself back in shape, where he meets Terry (Craig Fairbrass) who become his personal trainer. But he finds his life taken over and heading in an uncomfortable direction when his new friend becomes his lodger ….

Talking to The People’s Movies’ Freda Cooper, Johnson talks about how he based the film on place he knew and how he decided to cast Cavan Clerkin, thanks to the actor’s spectacular audition. Clerkin reflects on how he’d always wanted to work with the director and the physical transformation he had to go through for the role, while Fairbrass reveals that, after doing so many gritty thrillers, he doesn’t worry about being typecast – and has his say on Clerkin’s suggestion that he’s a natural comedian!

Muscle is in cinemas and online from Friday, 4 December.

Read our review of the film here.

About the Author

Freda Cooper

Editor

Freda is a Senior Writer at The People's Movies. A lifelong movie fan and a film critic for over ten years, Freda’s natural habitat is the darkened rooms frequented by fellow cineastes. She can also be found asking questions of some of the biggest names in the business – from Cate Blanchett to Daniel Craig or Mike Leigh to Pete Docter – or crafting reviews for a number of sites and publications, including The People’s Movies. And listeners to BBC Local Radio can catch her views on the latest releases. She always – and probably always will – cite The Third Man as her favourite film of all time. Her top ten? That’s a moveable feast …..

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