By Gill Pringle
“We love Stephen,” Me Before You director, Thea Sharrock, laughs when FilmInk asks her about her Australian supporting player, Stephen Peacocke. “I don’t really know where to begin. He’s one of the nicest guys that I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. I’m sure that he wouldn’t mind me telling you that he fought very, very hard to be seen for this part.”
In Sharrock’s romantic drama (based upon Jojo Meyes’ much loved novel), Peacocke takes on the supporting role of Nathan, who is the nurse to Sam Claflin’s Will Traynor, an aristocratic quadriplegic who also comes under the care of Emilia Clarke’s working class waitress, Lou Clark. The Logie-winning star of TV’s Home And Away – who got hearts racing with his brooding portrayal of bad boy, Darryl “Brax” Braxton – is starting to gain international traction, first thanks to a supporting role in the Tina Fey comedy drama, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, and now even more so with the far more financially successful Me Before You.
The actor was very keen to snag the film’s small but important role of Will’s rugby enthusiast nurse, who is a New Zealander in the book. “When he was young, Stephen played rugby,” Thea Sharrock tells FilmInk. “He was good – really, really good – and he had an injury, which prevented him from possibly becoming a professional. There were elements of the story that very much resonated with him immediately. He was very open about it when we first spoke.”
The character of Nathan’s nationality was a vital part of his function in the story. “He certainly didn’t have to be Antipodean, but when we came to cast the film, I wanted him to be an outsider,” Sharrock explains. “I didn’t want him to be someone who came from Will’s world, so him being Australian really helped. You could tell that he was not the kind of person that Will had been brought up with, or had been working with. He’d come from a very different kind of upbringing. It was really important that the character of Nathan was a strong male presence that Will would feel comfortable with, and I think the cultural differences between the English and an Australian makes all the difference. Will doesn’t see him in any way as competition. You also have to think about somebody who is now confined to a wheelchair, who previously could do anything…and did do everything! So, if the person looking after him makes him feel uncomfortable, and reminds him of that in a negative way, that would be very difficult for Will.”
The 34-year-old Peacocke’s impressive physicality – which undeniably helped him make such a big impact on Home And Away – was another plus for Thea Sharrock. “I wanted someone who’s physically big enough to be able to lift Sam, when necessary, because again, that would make him feel safe,” the director explains. “Stephen certainly has that quality. But internally, he is a gentle giant. He really is! He was also incredibly hard working. He worked very, very closely with the physio that we had on set to make sure that all the technical things that he had to know, and do correctly, were done properly.”
But despite his good looks and charisma, a little luck also had to come into play for Stephen Peacocke to land his second major international role. “Stephen had just joined [major talent agency] CAA, who look after me, Sam and Emilia, so I got an email from his agent, saying, ‘I’ve got a suggestion for one of the other parts when you’re ready for it, and this is who he is.’ We actually looked incredibly far and wide for that part, because we could have had someone from Africa, or India, or Belgium…anywhere, really. The characters of Will and Lou had to be English, as did their parents, so this was the one part that we could look elsewhere for. But Stephen was the one who just fit the picture so perfectly. As soon as we found him, I made it very clear to the studio that this was who I wanted, and they were very supportive of it.”
Me Before You is in cinemas now.
