Skins Interview Videos

Kat and Lily (Emily and Naomi) interview - part 1

Kat and Lily answer the questions you wanted answering, because we gave you the chance to ask them...



Kat and Lily (Emily and Naomi) interview - part 2

Kat and Lily discuss filming skins 4, and whether they're anything like their characters.



Kat and Lily (Emily and Naomi) interview - part 3

Kat and Lily discuss the past (and how they'd love to have lived in the 50s) and their future (fame, acting and all that)








Interview with Merveille Lukeba - part 1

Congo's finest by way of South London; our Merv plays nice guy Thomas. But what would Thomas get up to if he wrote the script?


Interview with Merveille Lukeba - part 2

Merv answers more of your questions. Did yours come up?









Kaya Scodelario video with Elle Magazine



Skins wins BAFTA Award

Two interviews with Jamie Brittain about Skins around the world

 

Sippo from Finland interviews Jamie

 

1. You're the show's co-creator together with your dad. How did that happen?

 

It's as simple as he asked me for an idea for a show, and I happened to have one. I didn't expect anything else to happen, but everyone seemed to love the idea and we ended up making it. I wasn't a writer back then - or at least I had no experience writing scripts, but I ended up writing an episode for series one, and four years later, I'm lead writer. It's been very, very odd.

 

2. What’s your normal work day like?

 

Boring. Sorry. I get up late, let's say 10:30am, muck about for a few hours and finally get writing in the early afternoon - by writing I mean staring at the screen, looking at websites, compulsively checking my emails and drinking energy drinks. Then by the evening I panic because I haven't done anything and write frantically till the early morning. I do that for literally weeks at a time.

 

3. Skins employs young writers to keep the show fresh. What's it like working with them, many whom I assume are having their first ever writing gigs on Skins?

 

It's great, mainly because it's their first writing gig, they're busting with ideas. This is our secret to keeping the writing on the show fresh and exciting. Sometimes with young writers you get a bit of ego and arrogance, but we've been lucky and mostly steered clear of that.

 

4. The show is known for it’s uninhibited storylines involving sex, drugs and general mayhem, but has there been some stories / scenes you've thought might be a little too much for the audience?

 

No, not really. The show is generally pretty fun to watch I think and there's only really 'moments' of intensity rather than extended sequences. Some of the stuff with Effy in series 1 was pretty extreme I suppose, but that's about as far as we've gone. Saying that, the upcoming series 4 has some moments which may surprise the audience with their intensity.

 

5. The scene in series 2 where Sid, one of the main characters, finally breaks down at the dance floor after his fathers death was one of the best scenes ever shown on TV. Just saying.

 

Cheers. I wish I'd written that ep. It was Bryan and he was writing from deep in his soul - his Dad died when he was Sid's age and he wrote that shit on instinct. I think that's the best episode we've ever done.

 

6. The above mentioned scene with Sid has Crystal Castles playing live in it. Gossip, Glasvegas, Bloc Party, Little Boots, Florence and the Machine... all pretty hip indie bands and all have featured music on the show as well. How do you guys choose the tunes? Obviously music is an important part of the show.

 

We have shit hot music supervisors who spend hours a day listening to everything they can get their hands on, and then suggest tracks for certain scenes. Personally, it's when we dip into the outer realms of music on the show when shit starts to get interesting - we've used some pretty out there stuff - Grouper, various dubstep, The Fall, Animal Collective. I'm utterly obsessed with music and one of my favorite things is helping out with music on the show. We've got plans to use more unsigned music and have more bands appear playing live on the show.

 

7. “A skins party is a huge party in someone's house where nearly everything is broke, lots of people are having sex and almost everyone is either drunk or drugged up” states urbandictionary.com and even the video for "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga seems to borrow heavily from the infamous series 1 advert that probably started it all. What’s your take on these rowdy parties that the show has spun off in Britain?

 

Well...teenagers have always had wild, out of control parties for as long as there has been teenagers. Just because we've given them a name doesn't change anything. But I think certainly the visual power of these parties is extreme, but we were by no means the first to exploit it - music videos have been doing it for much longer!

 

8. It was announced yesterday that there's a US version of the show in the works now at MTV. How involved are you with it?

 

I'm not. Bryan is handling the whole thing. I may write an episode or two if it gets picked up for a series but for now I'm working on my own project in the US.

 

9. Will it re-use the storylines of the UK show or make up it's own?

 

That's a secret :-)

 

10. Sid & Cassie's storyline ended in NYC at the end of series 2. Any chance for them appearing in it?

 

Sorry, no. We're done with those guys.

 

11. Any plans for other localized versions? When can we expect to see Skins: Finland?

 

If the US version goes well, we may well see more versions around the world. If the Office can do it - we might be able too!

 

Arestia Dehmassi from A'n'EVibe interviews Jamie over MSN

 

Arestia Dehmassi: How do you feel now that 3rd series is over, it must have been kind of scary at the beginning having a whole new cast and all?

 

Jamie Brittain: I feel good. To be honest, I wasn't ever that worried about the cast change - I knew it was going to work, because it simply had to. We had no choice but to make it work. And we worked really hard to make sure it did. I was never scared.

 

Dehmassi: When you were writing the 3rd series did you plan to make it a little different than the past series?

 

Brittain: It's more of an episode to episode thing than a series thing in my opinion. Each writer is pretty much allowed to write whatever they want, and that means that the tone can swing quite violently between episodes, which I think is essentially a good thing; you never quite know what you're getting with an episode of Skins. However, we always want to tell a different story each year, and in the telling of that story we employ a variety of different styles, which means that each series is, yes, different.

 

Dehmassi: Can you tell us a little about the writing process, from how you choose the writers to how you all work together?

 

Brittain: We generally employ playwrights as writers, who we find all over the place in London's huge theatre scene. They tend to be emerging talents, having had one or two professional productions of their stuff, or a couple of radio plays, which are numerous and very popular in the UK. That method means we often find ourselves with young writers who have never written for television before, but are full of ideas and are not jaded by years of working in what can often be a thankless industry. We also use writers from our contributors, who are young people brought in to help us out. After a couple of years in the writers’ room, they're pretty well trained, and, with a bit of help, have produced some of the best episodes we've ever done.
In terms of how we work together, we all just sit in a big room a couple of times a week and argue for a few hours. It takes a long time, but eventually we come up with the goods.
We're all mates as well, so we support and help each other loads.

 

Dehmassi: Skins is very in touch with their fans, from the interactive website to the forums, it's kind of crazy. What has the fan reactions been like with the 3rd series?

 

Brittain: Pretty good, generally. There's a hardcore that's pretty hard to please because they want more of the old lot, but generally everyone has seemed to enjoy it. We communicate a lot with our fans, and listen to them, and read their comments and mail. Sometimes we use their ideas, sometimes we don't, but we have a level of interaction that I think is pretty unique.

 

Dehmassi: I'm a big Naomily (Naomi & Emily Shipper, characters from 3rd series) fan, one of many; it is quite a big fan base. Did that surprise you at how well received they have been by fans?

 

Brittain: It was surprising! As you say, they were one of the most popular things about the new series. We're going to be focusing on them a lot more next year.

 

Dehmassi: Hooray!!! Many fans will be happy to hear that.

 

Brittain: I've just written their first scene of series 4 in fact.

 

Dehmassi: Want to perhaps share a bit of that scene with me? The first word… or sentence.

 

Brittain: Okay. 'I can't believe she's dead.'

 

Dehmassi: Umm, please tell me that is a joke.

 

Brittain: It is, couldn't resist.

 

Dehmassi: Must have felt good when Sid became such a popular character during the first two series. Everyone wanted to either be him or be his friend.

 

Brittain: Yeah. I can attest that the actual experience of being 'a Sid' was much less fun. I said in an interview a while back in an unguarded moment, that I created a character based on me that everyone would love and then everyone would love me.

 

Dehmassi: Haha, I think most writers do that though.

 

Brittain: Yes, I think so. Seth in the O.C.. Blatantly Josh Schwartz with better hair.

Dehmassi: Josh Schwartz really has a type though, with Chuck (Chuck), Seth (The O.C.), and Dan (Gossip Girl), it's quite entertaining.

 

Brittain: All his characters are pretty cool, one way or another. Sid definitely was not cool, in any way.

 

Dehmassi: Random question. Who would win in a fight, Sid or Seth?

 

Brittain: It would be a rubbish fight. Maybe Seth could have picked up some skills from his street fighting brother. So probably Seth. Mike (Bailey who plays Sid) will kill me if he reads that.

 

Dehmassi: It’s a very honest portrayal of teens, much more realistic than most teen shows. So how do you come up with them? Are they mostly based on your own experiences, people you know, basically what went through your mind, and the other writers when coming up with them and their story lines?

 

Brittain: Long question, deserves long answer.
The characters in Skins are mostly based on mine and my little sister's experiences. I can't speak for anywhere else, but being a teenager in Bristol in the late '90s, early '00s was a lot of fun teenagers were liberated beings, with complex and varied social and emotional lives, and the characters in Skins aim to represent that. That's all Skins does really, try to communicate that idea. In the first series, me and Bryan (Elsley) came up with a bunch of characters based on me and my sisters friends, very quickly, and set about it. We started with archetypes, and the complication and nuance came later. With series 3, we were much more interested in creating complicated characters from the off. But the characters, even though I often say they're based on me or people I know fly away from those origins very quickly. Like the guy who Tony is based on, one of my best mates - he has the physique, the intelligence, the strength and depth of Tony, but none of his cruelness or malice.
Does that answer your question?

 

Dehmassi: It does indeed. Were there any storylines that worked well on paper, but just didn't really work on screen?

 

Brittain: Maybe very early on, the Mad Twatter stuff. We weren't as good as we are now, and the show was still taking shape but it wasn't a disaster or anything.

 

Dehmassi: Were there any storylines that you really wanted to happen but didn't. Anything you felt should have been on the show and you fought for but it didn’t happen?

 

Brittain: Not really. I was dead against a few things though.

 

Dehmassi: Like what?

 

Brittain: The singing at the end of series 1, I was against that. But then I saw it and it's so sweet and nice and refreshing and original I was brought round.

 

Dehmassi: No, you were against it at first! But it was just so genius.

 

Brittain: It's easy to say that now. Back then, we were this little show and we thought it would only last one year and it seemed like such a risk! But, as I say, I was proved wrong.

 

Dehmassi: Will there be any Lost Weeks and Unseen Skins on the Skins website to tie us fans over till January?

 

Brittain: Yes, there will be a ton of stuff, which is being worked on at the moment. There's also the film that the competition winners are making, which will be coming soon.

 

Dehmassi: So all hope is not lost for fans during these next few months... I really don't know how I will survive...

 

Brittain: No, there'll be loads of stuff.

 

Dehmassi: So what has been your favorite storylines so far?

 

Brittain: I loved Chris and Jal, Tony's recovery, Naomily and anything with JJ. Very proud of JJ, we worked for days working him out and where he would go. Months, really.

 

Dehmassi: Do you have any thoughts on the cast. I know you mentioned before about Jack O’Connell and how the moment you met him you knew he should play Cook. What about the others, including the previous cast.

 

Brittain: All of them?

 

Dehmassi: Well okay no. You decide.

 

Brittain: Casting takes ages, and sometimes people present themselves immediately as the right choice, other times it's more like 'oh, he could bring something interesting to that Character', or 'she might make a good **** if we did this'. Bailey was a drama student in Bristol and just came along and we thought he was great. I liked him instantly. Hannah was just such an interesting person (the Audrey Hepburn watch on ankle was something she actually did) and an obvious candidate for Cassie early on. Ollie (Barbieri, plays JJ) had never acted before, but he's a natural and so likeable but offbeat, he's great for JJ. Same for Lily (Loveless, plays Naomi). Is that enough?

 

Dehmassi: Yes. Thanks. What about some interesting facts about some of the cast? Specifically the current cast members.

 

Brittain: Lily plays the drums, Ollie the ukulele.

 

Dehmassi: Do the cast members ever add their own little things into the show; you mentioned Hannah did with the Audrey Hepburn watch. Are there things you end up rewriting because they add more to their characters?

 

Brittain: Sometimes, like little fashion quirks, yeah we do. We also re-write a lot based on the way the guys act and speak.

 

Dehmassi: Do you ever write a character with a certain actor/actress in mind, and then they end up playing them? Like with the many amazing guest stars you have had on the show?

 

Brittain: Totally. All the time.

 

Dehmassi: Anyone in particular that you really wanted to meet?

 

Brittain: Mackenzie (The Office) and Mark Heap (Spaced, Lark Rise to Candleford) in series 2.

 

Dehmassi: Should probably mention the American version, don't really know what to say about it seeing as how it is in its really early stages.

 

Brittain: No, other than to say it's happening, I guess next year, and we're all very excited.

 

Dehmassi: So next year is when pre-production will begin?

 

Brittain: I really don't know. My guess is it'll be on next year, but that's just a guess.

 

Dehmassi: Let’s wrap this interview up with some personal questions like, do you have any plans to write another show, perhaps one outside the realm of teen drama, because I think you have mastered that art quite well.

 

Brittain: Thanks! Yes, another show is on the way, but it's about as far removed from Skins as you can possibly get.

 

Dehmassi: Oh do tell!

 

Brittain: I would tell you everything...

 

Dehmassi: ... is there a but?

 

Brittain: ...but I'm still developing it at the moment. It's a three part drama about two writers. Real ones, meaning that it's whatever the TV equivalent of a biopic is.

 

Dehmassi: Interesting. So it's more of a TV miniseries.

 

Brittain: Yep.

 

Dehmassi: Well good luck. Last question, I promise! What are some of your favorite TV shows? You mentioned before that you like your American shows, any UK ones perhaps?

 

Brittain: The Thick Of It, The Wire, The Shield, Boys From The Blackstuff, Heart Of Darkness, The Crow Road, Nature Boy, The IT Crowd, Father Ted, Red Riding, The Devil's Whore to name a few.

 

Dehmassi: Grand. Thanks for the interview.

 

Brittain: You didn't ask me about the 'big news' I twittered about the other day.

 

Dehmassi: Well will you tell me?!

 

Brittain: No.

 

Dehmassi: I figured you wouldn’t! Way to crush a girl’s heart!

 

Brittain: :)

 

Dehmassi: I think that’s the perfect way to end the interview, with heart ache. When will the news be released?

 

Brittain: Couple of weeks.