Ed Hogg isn’t your run-of-the-mill, everyday movie star. Yes, he’s the luminous lead in Dominic Murphy’s trippy mindbender White Lightnin’ and November’s Bunny and the Bull, and yes, he’s shagged Carrie Fisher (on-screen, for a scene that – infamously – had him guzzling champagne by the bucket-load backstage and then vomiting post-clinch). But the 30-year-old Doncaster native isn’t like all the other fledgling Hollywood ankle-biters. For a start, he’s currently working in a pub on Tottenham Court Road. He explained the situation to us over a pint.
LWLies: So you’re on the verge of Hollywood stardom, but you’re working in a pub anyway?
Hogg: I don’t know about being a Hollywood star, but yes I’m still working in a pub.
LWLies: You’re British, but you’re very much American in White Lightnin’…
Hogg: Yeah it’s an Appalachian, West Virginian accent. Which kind of sounded a little Deep South, or hicky I suppose, but it’s very specific to that area. We had about 18 months from being cast to shooting, so I had quite a while [to learn it]. I did a lot of internet stuff, I went and met Jesco, spent some time with him. And I worked with a dialect coach, so all the good stuff. Dominic the director made me something for my iPod that was all bits from the documentaries of Jesco chatting, so that was great. Yeah I studied his kind of ramblings.
LWLies: The film is pretty dark, was shooting it a tough experience?
Hogg: [Umms and aahs for a while.] It’s my first kind of major role in a film, and when I look back now I just remember it being brilliant. It was a bit tiring, there were long days. But it was more thrilling than anything else, I was so excited. I mean I was nervous but just very, very excited to be involved in something like that. There were some days that were very hard, we were filming at night in November, it was cold and snowy. We shot in Croatia and in West Virginia, so we had Croatia doubling as West Virginia. Which is very good actually, it worked very well. We had six or seven weeks in Croatia, and then took the second unit out to Virginia and filmed out there for a few weeks as well.
LWLies: What was your initial reaction to the script?
Hogg: I loved it, it was the best thing I’d read script-wise, for the screen, ever, I think. Everyone I knew was going up for it, so it was very exciting. I didn’t know who Jesco was ’cos obviously he’s a real guy, and I just thought it was a cool story. I think men or boys of a certain age find a guy who is kind of wild and out there kind of cool. He’s a bit of a psycho, as well. I mean the real guy is very sweet. He’s very nice, but he’s kind of mad. They just made another documentary about him, actually. Jonny Knoxville has made a new documentary about him and his family, it’s called The Wild and Wonderful Whites, for MTV. He’s quite a guy.
LWLies: How was it meeting him?
Hogg: Brilliant! It was obviously very nerve-wracking because I’d built him up so much in my head. And I was doing another job at the time touring with the Globe Theatre. So I flew out and met him. I think we were in Philadelphia, and I flew out from there to West Virginia, to Boone County and met him. We just kind of got drunk and shot his guns. He had no idea where England was. I told him I was from England and he asked, ‘Whereabouts in America is that?’ It went completely over his head. He was very sweet, very kind and welcomed me into his house.
LWLies: What were the rest of the Whites like?
Hogg: They’re kind of normal, and the family dynamic is very recognisable, it’s just taken to an extreme when you hear what they’re talking about. His sister’s son had been kidnapped by her husband and she was wailing – this was all happening while I was there. The day before we got there, his cousin had strapped explosives to himself and gone into a strip mine and had a shoot-out with the police. This is all just normal life – Jesco tells it like it’s just normal life ’cos I guess it is kind of normal life there.
LWLies: So the film isn’t really that extreme in comparison?
Hogg: In some places it’s more extreme than their lives, but in others it doesn’t touch the reality of what’s going on, you know. Obviously Jesco’s never killed anybody in real life, but his father was murdered. His father was shot dead. I think there were 11 siblings, and there’s three of them left now. The rest of them have died from gunshot wounds and car accidents and drink related… His brother, Darcy, went into a bar to sell a gun and, fooling around, he put the gun up to his head and said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.’ And of course it was loaded, and he blew his own head off. They’re crazy. The whole family’s like that.
LWLies: How long was your visit?
Hogg: I was literally there for just a day. I would’ve liked to spend longer with him, I’d like to go back and see him again. He was living in a trailer in the middle of the woods when I met him. Incredible guy.
LWLies: Did he show you his dance moves?
Hogg: Oh yeah. We took a camera for filming me meeting him, and as soon as you put a camera on him he performs, he’d get up and dance.
LWLies: Would you say White Lightnin’ is more an interpretation of his life?
Hogg: They took the documentary The Dancing Outlaw, and his actual life, and they pushed it. Jesco talks a lot about how he’d like to take on those men who killed his dad, and they kind of made the things he talks about into reality. All his crazy ramblings they made real. The first half’s fairly true to life, he was in and out of reform school, he was in an asylum for a bit…
LWLies: You’re not really sure what’s real and what he’s imagining…
Hogg: A lot of people miss that, they just take it all on face value. But those murders I think are in his head. You don’t know if he’s high, or paranoid or what.
LWLies: How was Carrie Fisher?
Hogg: Amazing, again. I must’ve watched Star Wars a million times growing up, I mean it’s on every Christmas. It was wonderful to meet her, she was absolutely fab. Very patient, she was lovely to me.
LWLies: You were sort of living out every guy over 30’s fantasy: getting to sleep with her in the film…
Hogg: So I’m told! I get told that by everybody… the gold bikini… She was wonderful. She came in a week after we started filming, and two and a half weeks we filmed together. She’s obviously done a lot of films, she knows her way about and she knows what she’s doing. She just sort of held my hand through some bits. She’ll tell you stories if you want her to tell you stories. There’s a scene where I hold up a soldering iron to her face, and she talked me through that, told me what I should be doing. That was her showing me what to do with my voice. So yeah she was great.
LWLies: How did you get into the dark places the character required?
Hogg: I can’t jump in and out of it, but I don’t think of my relatives dying or anything like that. But you do have to get yourself into that kind of mind-space. Dominic had this technique called high knees, where I’d jump on the spot for three minutes, and then I’d scream and shout a bit at the top of my voice. And then you’d play the scene. It’s a bit embarrassing, but it really works to get you to a certain place.
LWLies: Has the character stayed with you?
Hogg: It’s been done a while, it’s been a year and a half since we filmed. It kind of goes out of your life for a little bit, and then it’s really exciting when you see it again. But I’m so proud of it. You feel like you’ve been through something when you watch it. It’s almost black and white, it’s kind of bleak. And the music’s so great.
LWLies: Have you always wanted to be an actor?
Hogg: No. I wanted to be in a band, I was in a band when I was at school. Porno King was the name of the band. So I was about 18 and that’s all I wanted to do. So I left school and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I was going to go to uni, took a year out, and then just fell into acting then. My sister was doing an amateur dramatics thing and I’ve not looked back since, really.
LWLies: Are you interested in doing more theatre?
Hogg: I still do theatre now, it’s the most immediate. I like being in film, I like going to watch a film, and I’m in it, and going ‘wow’. But, actually, I think doing the physical kind of acting, being on stage, is better. Because it’s happening, it’s instant, there and then all the time.
LWLies: Do you plan to juggle both?
Hogg: I don’t have plans, I just do whatever I can. I work when I can. At the moment I’m very lucky, I’m starting another feature on Tuesday called Ollie Kepler’s Expanding Purple World. It’s a sweet film, kind of odd. British. As soon as that finishes I’ll be at the national theatre doing a play called La Class. So at the moment it is working, you just got to work when you can and do as much work as possible. At the moment I’ve got no bloody money!
LWLies: Do you have a dream job?
Hogg: Theatre-wise I like working with a director called Daniel Kramer, and I like to do what he wants to do, he always does exciting stuff. I don’t know what would be my dream job. At the moment I’m really enjoying being in British independent films and doing exciting things. Just to be doing that more, really. To play interesting parts.
LWLies: What characters are you drawn to?
Hogg: I tend to get cast in edgier roles, edgier people. I don’t really get many romantic leads! So I guess those are the parts I’ll play for a little while.
LWLies: Would you want those romantic leads?
Hogg: No, I enjoy the parts I’m playing. I like doing anything, I like just having a go, you know?
