I'll be brave and say that A Way Of Life will be a stand-out film in Welsh drama. This will put Welsh drama on the map 
The four leads in Amma Asante's Brit pic A Way Of Life are young, gifted and, er, Welsh. All deliver powerful performances in the acclaimed drama, which depicts a harsh world of racism and poverty in South Wales. They talk here about their experiences making the movie...
You're all playing racist youngsters living on the wrong side of the tracks. Could you relate at all to the characters you were playing?
Dean Wong: If anybody sees the film, they can relate to the characters we play. They'll have a group of teenagers in their area like this. When you think about your character, you think of somebody else. You read the script and you think: I know a boy like that, he lives down the road from me. I know what he gets up to and I know what he's like. You look at these people and say, "Yeah, I can do it like that."
Nathan Jones: I live on an estate, so when I was reading the script I'd go and have a chat with my next-door neighbour, just to get the slang right and so on. Wherever you go, there's certain crowds. Like Dean was saying, when you watch the film - it doesn't matter what class you're from - you'll know people like that.
What about the maternal side of your character, Stephanie? Was that easy to relate to?
Stephanie James: I like kids, so...
Gary Sheppeard: It was hard for us, because we did a few weeks' workshop with a doll and it wasn't until the first day of filming that we acted with a baby. And Amma would say to us, "You've just got to carry on, keep going when she pulls your hair or when she's climbing in your ear." I can remember, it was only five or ten minutes before starting shooting that we were introduced to the baby. You had a very short time to develop a bond with this little girl.
Stephanie: There's a lot of single mothers in Aberdare, but when we were shooting and you're doing a scene, the atmosphere and the intensity of it brings the character out in you anyway. I'd got to know the character through all of the workshops beforehand, so when it came to filming, it all clicked.
How much of a help was it that Amma had herself been a child actor?
Nathan: We just put our trust in her. We were just there to be moulded, you know what I mean? Other jobs I've done, the director had one way and there was one way only. But Amma knows the importance of input and is open to advice as well. I felt very confident with Amma directing us. I had no worries at all.
Stephanie: Because it was such a harsh film she wanted us to feel comfortable doing the scenes. If she had blocked us on every single move we had made, we'd have been rigid and not very comfortable doing it. The fact that we had input helped us relax.
How did you cope with the overt racism of your characters?
Nathan: Oliver Haden, who plays Hassan, is the most gentle, timid bloke you'll ever talk to in your life. To lie him on the floor and physically kick him... Although the language is scripted, it's not easy to say. You know it's acceptable to say for the film, but when she says "I want you to improvise this time", you've got to think in your head of racist language to shout at this person. It was really hard.
Gary: Before we got to know Amma - [who, of course, is] black herself - I felt really awkward, even though she'd written it. I personally still held a little back, saying, "I can't go that far, I might hurt her feelings." We had to trust Amma so much that it didn't bother any of us. But we had to work on that; it takes time for a relationship to develop.
Dean: None of us have got a racist bone in our body and during the shoot we had a really strong relationship with both Amma and Oliver. But what I found difficult was the chip shop scene where there's Asian people behind the counter, who had just come on to the set that day. Amma said, "Right, you've got to do an improvisation now, you've got to say all of these things, and you've got to really go for it." To say all of these things to total strangers was something else. Gary had a hard time doing it as well.
Gary: They weren't actors, were they? They'd just come in for the day. I had to chuck vinegar into this man's face, and it was really hard to do it because I didn't know them.
Is this a film that you as teenagers would go and see?
Stephanie: I would. Also, because it's set in Wales I'd go and watch it.
Nathan: It's a patriotic film, with David Gray's music, the scenery, the actors and accents... When you watch it, it gives you a good sense of being Welsh.
Dean: With films like Twin Town [set in Swansea] and Human Traffic [Cardiff], because they're Welsh movies we make the effort to go and see them. Twin Town is a classic Welsh film. What did you think of Twin Town?
Fun, but it didn't make me want to take a weekend break in Swansea. To be honest, pretty much any time I've see Wales on film it seems to be harshly presented...
Nathan: There's the three cultural sides to Welsh life in film now. In Human Traffic it's the club culture; Twin Town has normal everyday life; and A Way Of Life has the racist culture. It can happen anywhere, but these films just happen to be set in Wales.
Gary: Exactly. Because we're such a small country, you look at these three films that have come out of it, and people might think they're all on the same lines. It's different from, say, Hollywood, where they put out movies every single day of the year.
Nathan: I'll be brave and say that A Way Of Life will be a stand-out film in Welsh drama, because I don't think we have a really good Welsh drama. This will put Welsh drama on the map hopefully, because we've suffered a lot lately with funding problems. Hopefully this film will be a good influence.
You mentioned Hollywood there. You're all young and presumably ambitious. Is Hollywood part of the career plan?
Nathan: Touch wood. Hollywood, that's every person's dream.
Gary: Steph will have a best actress award in the BAFTAs, firstly...
Stephanie: In this profession I don't think you can schedule where you're going to go; you really do have to take each day as it comes. Because otherwise if it doesn't happen, then you're going to get let down in the end.
Nathan: I'm definitely hungry for it. I've got a taste for the film industry now, so I'm just going to put my head down, work 110%, and see what I can produce.
Dean: Acting's a hard business. Hopefully we can get more into it with this film.
You talked about having a Lord Of The Rings-esque tattoo to mark your time together on the set. Did that happen?
Nathan: We still haven't had enough guts to do it!
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