Anders Hayward Is a New Kind of Triple Threat

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The Scottish town of Fraserburgh is a damp, windswept fishing port of a little over ten thousand people on the remote northeastern corner of the United Kingdom, almost five hundred miles—and many, many worlds—away from the cosmopolitan glow of London, where the dancer-turned-model-turned-actor Anders Hayward was raised and still lives. But in Scott Graham’s new film Run, released last month after a festival tour that started at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, Hayward seems comfortably at home as a drag-racing teenager in that faraway northern town dealing with existential ennui and family drama, even with a burr so thick it requires subtitles. “The accent is such a huge part of it. I feel like that really gets you into character because it’s so different, it’s almost like you are learning another language,” the 25-year-old laughs. “I think the characters really emulate the town. It’s a dark, harsh accent and those characters are quite harsh and brutal.”

Run, a gritty and intense film about Hayward’s Kid, his girlfriend Kelly, and his father Finnie on a long, dark night of pursuit both psychological and automotive, is in many ways a surprising choice for a model’s first feature, a severe and challenging début for someone better known as yet for fronting campaigns for Burberry, Prada, and Hermès. Models, understandably, often get cast for their looks, relegated to one-dimensional objects of lust or jealousy, and Hayward says it was the depth of the role that drew him to the project. “Coming from a dance background where I felt all of my dance work was character-based, I’m fascinated with characters and I felt like Kid was really interesting,” he explains. “I felt like it was a good opportunity for me to really push myself to do something totally different from anything that I’d done before. I’m drawn to these really complex characters, they’re a lot more interesting to play than the high school jock or the pretty boy. The character just really resonated with what I want to do and what stories I want to tell.”

On the verge of adulthood, Kid finds himself trapped in Fraserburgh, following in his father’s footsteps into a dead-end job at a local fishery, unsure of where to go, what to do, or who he is. His sole escape is the dimly lit open road, where he races back and forth, ultimately—and symbolically—ending up after a loop right where he started. One night, his father Finnie, played by Game of Thrones’ Mark Stanley, commandeers both Kid’s car and, later, his girlfriend in an attempt to recapture his own long-gone youth. As with Kid’s midnight spins, the final result gets the older man nowhere new. “It was the best thing that I’d read in a long time,” Hayward says about the script, which first-time director Graham also wrote. “I felt like I really had to do it. It was such a concise script. It reminded me a lot of Scandinavian films in the way that not a lot happens but it’s about character and it’s about people and that’s what I really love.”

For an actor who speaks insistently of the importance of connecting with his characters, Hayward, whose own life diverges sharply from Kid’s in most respects, says he was able to turn to someone surprisingly close for inspiration: his own father. “My dad’s from Wakefield, which is a mining town up in Yorkshire and it’s quite similar really,” he elaborates. “It’s a very small town, it’s a very tight-knit community. I put myself in his shoes at Kid’s age, which made it a lot easier. I don’t feel like I have a lot in common with Kid, but I took inspiration from my dad and how he would’ve felt at that age being in that town. I think that really helped me to find a way to relate to him and why he does certain things and how he feels about being stuck in this tiny town and having all this weight on his shoulders and feeling like he needs to prove himself.”

Hayward’s recent shift into acting can be seen as just the latest development in a life that has been driven by a constant need for creative expression—whatever the form may be. He began dancing at the age of five, following an older sister into the studio as a way to keep himself occupied. “My mom and I would wait for my sister and I was just a ball of energy causing havoc in the waiting room so she threw me into a jazz class and I really liked it,” he laughs. “I could just run around and jump and do all this crazy stuff. Then as I got older, I felt like it was the only artistic thing I was vaguely competent at so I just took it seriously and then I really found a love for it after that.” He went on to study dance at London’s celebrated BRIT School and was ready to attend the London Contemporary Dance School when he was scouted as a model in the Topman store at Oxford Circus. He walked the runway for Prada, Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Lanvin the following summer before starting classes that fall.

With his dance background, it’s no surprise that Hayward quickly became a favorite of many designers for the way he moved down the runway, and his modeling career quickly picked up until he was soon forced to choose between his work and his studies. He took one year off from classes, then another, and eventually decided that he would have to pursue dancing independently while he focused on his increasingly busy job. Luckily, he began to be hired for advertisements and editorials that highlighted his agility and grace, including a lavish 2014 Burberry holiday commercial in which he danced in a classic trench backed up by dozens of other performers. Soon enough, he started choreographing and directing movement for shoots as well, first on himself and then on others for magazines like Dazed & Confused, WSJ, 10 Men, and CR Fashion Book. “It was so amazing and liberating to be on the other side and actually have to make choices about certain creative decisions, which is something that I’d never really thought about as a model,” he says. “It was good to be in the conversation of like, ‘Maybe we should do this or do that,’ and ‘What direction do you think we should go in?’ It really pushed me to pursue it more.”

Whether on the page, the stage, or the screen, Hayward says that all of his outputs feed off and influence each other in constructive ways, each requiring different mental and physical muscles, but all towards the goal of imagining himself as someone else. “When you’re doing an editorial, it’s liberating because you really push yourself and you do stuff that you would never normally do,” he explains. “I approach it in the same way as dance, where I always put myself into different characters or the movement comes out into a character that’s not myself. When you’re given a script as an actor, you have to take what you’re saying into account first before you think about your body language, so there is a different process, but I think they cross over in terms of how I use my character. As soon as you put on a different costume or a different outfit, you feel different. You look at yourself in the mirror and you’re like, “Ok, right, I’m going to be this person today.’”

With his first feature now out, Hayward says his plan for the next few months is to find the right balance between his various pursuits. “I’ve made a conscious decision to only take projects that I feel passionate about,” he says. “I’m not doing anything for my portfolio just to fill space.” He mentions that he would like to eventually collaborate with some writer friends to create a narrative-based dance work, but acknowledges that the project is still in the very early idea stages. As for his acting, he is approaching it with clear eyes and level head as well, taking every opportunity as it comes to learn and grow. “It’s still relatively new to me so I’m still in that honeymoon phase. It ebbs and it flows,” he says. “I’m finding a real thrill in acting and it is really informing me. Every character, you learn something new about yourself because you’re playing someone totally different. You’re picking up different mannerisms and you’re picking up different traits so you are just more informed. My most passionate thing is just creating characters. No matter what it is, whether it be dance or modeling or acting, character’s the most important.”