Director Interview

BBC Four: What were your initial aims with this film?
Moby Longinotto: I wanted to make a film about a young guy coming out of prison and what his life was like, the problems he faced and how difficult it was to not re-offend. I wanted to counter the popular press idea that all these people should be locked up.

I went with a naïve view that we'd show these people to be human and we'd get a nice character that people would like and we'd show that with more money and more help and more time they could do something for themselves. What I've actually ended up making is quite different. By the end of the film it shows this guy to be a complete bastard - there's no getting out of that.

BBC Four: How did you go about finding Natty?
ML: I went to a few prisons filming different characters. It was difficult to find people that we'd have been able to stick with - 99% of the characters fell by the wayside. It took months before we found Natty. I had no idea what he'd be like but I thought he looked good and he spoke well. When I met his girlfriend Siian I thought she was fantastic - she was really pretty and liked being filmed. We had a lot of problems with other people because their girlfriends or families didn't want to be filmed. With Natty, his mum and his family didn't want to be filmed, but I thought it would be a really interesting story to follow his relationship with Siian.

BBC Four: It must have been difficult being so close to such a volatile relationship...
ML: I was completely in the middle of it. I was there when he beat Siian up. I didn't film it; I was just pulling him off her. He was out of control - head butting her, he bit her on the arm, he tried to stab her in the face with scissors. When the police came I thought he was going to go for them but luckily he didn't. Part of me regretted not filming all that but I don't know if I could stand there filming while a guy beats up a girl. My morality got the better of me.

BBC Four: Were there any other issues about what you could or couldn't film?
SR: This is one thing I struggled with. All the action - when he gets into a fight or goes robbing - I couldn't film because it would become evidence. AlI I could ever really film was the gang talking about what they'd done which is never quite as satisfying.

BBC Four: How much time did you spend filming?
ML: I was there two or three days a week for eight months. At first Natty would tend to just use us as a taxi service. Eventually we went up without the car because otherwise we'd get no filming done, we'd end up just driving him all over Birmingham.

BBC Four: Obviously the story didn't go as you'd hoped, but are you happy with the finished film?
ML: I am. I hope people don't say that it's racist. It's called Bad Boy. It's a white guy making a film about a black guy. But that's the reality of it, it wasn't deliberate, that's what it ended up being. When I first met Natty I really liked him, and I still liked him by the end of the film, but I just think when other people watch the film they're not going to get any positives out of it at all. They're just going to say, "What a bastard." But there's nothing I can do about it. I didn't try to make him look bad deliberately.

Hopefully in the film the character you feel for and have some emotional involvement with is Siian. Even if you don't like Natty, I hope you care about Siian and her situation and that keeps you wanting to watch it.