Rake-in-Progress: Finn Cole

In a relatively short space of time, Finn Cole has become one of Britain’s leading young acting talents. He got his first break aged 18, playing Michael Gray in Steven Knight’s hit T.V. show Peaky Blinders. One of his older brothers, Joe Cole, was already in the first series, and when an open audition came up for season two, he thought Finn would be perfect for the job. It turns out he was, and with only a couple of school plays to his name, Finn made the character his own over the next decade.

The younger Cole then joined another successful show, TNT’s Animal Kingdom, in which he starred alongside Ben Robson and Shawn Hatosy. But it’s his most recent project that is arguably his biggest and best. Last Breath is based on the true story of a team of deep-sea divers who, after a disaster occurs in the North Sea, battle to save the life of a crewmate, Chris Lemons, who is stranded hundreds of feet below sea level. It is a gripping, edge-of-your-seat experience played out between Cole (as Lemons), Simu Liu and Woody Harrelson.

How did you start out, and where did your passion for acting come from?
I started acting at school, so I would have been about 13. My older brothers were knocking around at Hollyfield [School in Surbiton] a lot in the acting department. I remember my first performance at primary school. I had a fantastic teacher called Mr. Hastings, and he would write these nativity plays and think outside the box and tell these beautiful stories. He wrote one about homeless people on Christmas Eve, and I was nine or 10 years old, and I remember thinking that’s actually something to sink my teeth into. I really enjoyed it, but never really thought I could do it for a career.

What was your first break?
Peaky Blinders season two came around, and my older brother Joe said I should audition. I looked into the open auditions in Birmingham, and I couldn’t afford it, so Joe said to film it on my phone and he’d send it to his agent. One thing led to another. I went in and met the team, and they were so brilliant. It wasn’t like anything I was ever expecting. I felt so comfortable in the role. It allowed me to do the work, and then get an agent, and all of a sudden it was happening.

You took to it all very quickly, then?
Even from the moment I stepped in the room with the cast, Shaheen Baig [the casting director], Colm McCarthy, the director, and Laurie Borg, the producer, I felt like I was in a world I wanted to be in, and I was comfortable. I felt like a real adult, and like a kind of ‘real’ member of society as opposed to just a teenager. I was 18 and I was still at college. I hadn’t done my exams at that point, so I did O.K. in the exams, but I didn’t do as well as I probably would have done had I not been on set with Cillian Murphy.

So your brother was integral in helping you early on?
Yeah, huge, and he still is. I like to think I’ve tried to support him in every way I can as well. It’s amazing having an older brother in the industry because you can ask all the dumb questions. He’s done a lot of it. He’s experienced a lot of it. Not only is he a really strong and talented actor but he’s always an inspiration for me as an older brother and how to handle the world. I always go to him for advice. So, yeah, I feel very lucky and fortunate to have had that.

Following your early experience, what do you look for in a script today?
It’s all about pacing. I always look for pacing. Cillian actually said this to me years ago. He called it the ‘kettle rule’. I would ask him about scripts, or I might ask his opinion on something, and he would say, ‘It always comes back to the writing’ — which is, if you feel like you’re halfway through a script and you need to make a cup of tea, it’s because the tea is more interesting than the script. If I’m ever losing interest or dropping out of something, it’s because it’s not for me. It’s not to say that it’s not good, but it’s because it’s not for me.

Can you talk about the premise of Last Breath?
The film is about a deep-sea diver [Chris Lemons] who gets stranded on the bottom of the North Sea while working on clearing an oil pipeline. The ship they were attached to uses a dynamic positioning system that got blown off course. And because you are tethered as a deep-sea diver to the ship through what’s called an umbilical cord, he got that snagged when the ship was blown off course. He was left there for, they think, about 30 to 40 minutes without air, a portion of which he would have had back-up air, and he managed to tether himself to a manifold that would have had a GPS location on it.

[Spoiler alert:] They retrieved his body, took his helmet off, gave him mouth to mouth, and he came back to life. He’s sort of a medical miracle because we don’t know exactly how he survived without brain damage, or survived at all for that long without air. There are many different theories the doctors have come up with. It’s a pretty incredible story about how the guys involved managed to save his life and how he managed to come back from that as well. It’s a real story and makes you think about your life and your priorities.

What did your training look like for the film?
We did four weeks of dive training, including our advanced diver training. I’d already done a good amount of scuba diving beforehand. My old man was a keen scuba diver — he would search for wrecks around the coast of the U.K. and do some pretty deep dives himself, some pretty sketchy dives with a friend of his before me and my brothers were born.

I watched the documentary, which was before I even knew there was a script, and I told my dad to watch it. A few weeks later I told him that I found out they were making a movie about it, and they wanted me to play Chris. My dad was like, What?! I couldn’t believe it. So he was super-chuffed.

I’d done a bit of diving with him in the past. We’ve always loved boats and being on the water. But the equipment we use in the film is completely different to the equipment you’d normally see. These divers live under compression, in saturation chambers, on a ship. They’re living at about 100 to up to about 300 metres under water. So they’re living at that pressure in a tank, in a tiny little space probably the size of this table, for a month. Depending on how deep they are, between seven to 10 days of that are spent decompressing.

What was it like working with Woody Harrelson?

Amazing. I always say this when I’m asked about working with actors of that calibre. And people are curious to know whether or not it’s difficult or stressful, and it isn’t. It just isn’t, because working with those guys makes life so much easier, and you can rely on them for anything. You can rely on them when the camera’s rolling, and when it starts you know for a fact that if the scene is between two people, at least 50 per cent of it is going to be handled brilliantly. Then you just have to pick up the other side. So it’s an absolute joy.

Woody loves doing what he does, and there wasn’t a day when he didn’t come into work with a big smile on his face. That’s a really good reminder to everyone why we’re here and how lucky we all are every day.

What’s the best city in the world?
I have to say London.

Favourite pub, bar or cafe?
Murphy’s pub in Kerry, Ireland.

Favourite cuisine?
I like so many. But probably Japanese.

Most influential person?
It’s probably going to be my dad.

Did you get to keep anything from Peaky Blinders?
No, nothing. Wish I could tell you I did, because if I could have kept something, it probably would have been a pocket-watch.

What are you most excited for this year?
Travel. Just more travelling and more biking. I’m really excited to do some bike trips anywhere. I’d like to go up to Scotland, and I’d like to go around Ireland as well. I’ve got some friends in Ireland, so maybe I’ll find someone to go do it with over there.

Read the full story in Issue 99, available now.

Grooming: Nathalie Eleni using MZ Skin and hair L’Oréal Professional Paris
Photography assistant: Jack Johnson
Fashion assistant: Elena Garcia
Special thanks to The Connaught, Mayfair