- By
- Jonathan Shia
- Photography by
- Rokas Darulis
- Styling by
- Adele Cany
Grooming by Tomomi Roppongi. Photographer’s assistant: Damian Flack. Stylist’s assistant: Shade Huntley.
Fionn Whitehead Makes the Refugee Crisis Personal
Fionn Whitehead is no stranger to splashy projects—he made his film début as the lead of Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic Dunkirk and starred, earlier this year, in Black Mirror’s celebrated choose-your-own-adventure episode “Bandersnatch”—but the English actor can make just as big of an impact even in more intimate settings, like Sebastian Schipper’s new film Roads, which premiered last week at the Tribeca Film Festival. Whitehead stars as Gyllen, a teenage boy who steals his stepfather’s RV on a holiday in Morocco and sets off for northern France in search of his father, with a Congolese refugee headed for the notorious port city of Calais in search of his brother along for the ride. An intensely human drama about the growing friendship between Gyllen and William, played by Stéphane Bak, Roads addresses issues as intimate as family dramas and as vast as Europe’s immigration crisis, without veering into didacticism. “I think often with films that are about an important topic, when it’s really preachy, people just switch off,” Whitehead says. “It’s so much to take in and it’s such a barrage, whereas hopefully with the accessibility of this film, the fact that it is a story about the refugee crisis and the moral slip in. Hopefully, people will watch it for the film and as a natural byproduct, it will put it in their heads. If you’re trying to reach a wide audience, you need it to be a film and a story that people are invested in first and then tackle the topic as a part of that.”
On the run from his combustible family vacation, Gyllen first encounters William after being stranded by engine trouble at the side of the road not far from his resort. After the two later reconnect, they begin their journey north, dodging border police and a threatening drug smuggler as they ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar and head towards their destinations. Like many odd couples, Gyllen and William are a surprising match, the former’s heedlessness and the latter’s caution the consequences of both their personalities and their differing circumstances as an Englishman and a refugee. William is, understandably, nervous about being discovered, whereas Gyllen seems to take a certain pride in his foolhardiness. “It’s a fun character to play because he’s so reckless,” explains Whitehead. “If there is a way to do something that’s simple and a way to do it that is—‘crazy, risky, stupid’ is the line, Gyllen would always pick that option for the thrill and the buzz. It’s really fun to play a character who is a bit of a loose cannon—obviously much more fun than playing an accountant.”
While Europe’s immigration crisis has receded from view somewhat since its peak in 2015, Whitehead insists that the film is perhaps even more crucial now, nearly two years after it was shot, in reminding viewers that the issue continues, even if the news cycle has moved on to other problems and disaffection has set in. ”Often, crises become like fashion statements—they’re popular to talk about for a time and then all of a sudden people just stop talking about it—but that’s not because the problem’s gone away,” he argues. “There’s still thousands of displaced refugees but people move on to another thing to talk about. These are all issues we should be tackling obviously, but I hope that it makes people think about it and just puts it in their head. If that is all it did, that would be enough, just to have it in people’s heads so they think about it.”
If nothing else, Whitehead hopes that viewers will be struck by the immediacy of the issue. As opposed to the tumultuous mass of refugees often viewed from afar, Roads establishes William as a unique and relatable eighteen-year-old boy, with fears and dreams as powerful and valid as any other. “It’s so easy as a Westerner to watch a film or see a play about these topics, which is all great and it’s great to think about, but there’s a disconnect from the reality of the situation,” Whitehead reasons. “Hopefully with this film, even though it’s fiction, people are forced to realize that it’s a real thing and don’t feel removed from the situation and that it makes people really think about it.”
- By
- Jonathan Shia
- Photography by
- Rokas Darulis
- Styling by
- Adele Cany
Grooming by Tomomi Roppongi. Photographer’s assistant: Damian Flack. Stylist’s assistant: Shade Huntley.
