In the film Payback Season, actor, director, writer and BAFTA-Orange Rising Star award winner Adam Deacon plays the lead role of Jerome Davies, a young man who has risen above his harsh beginnings of life on a council estate to achieve celebrity status as a premier league footballer.
Adam describes the role: “Jerome is living the high life, he’s got the lovely car, the penthouse flat, but fundamentally his family are still living on a council estate, and he has to go back there. I think Jerome’s dilemma is trying to balance his old life with the new life. Old friends start appearing and before you know it he’s involved in extortion. Jerome has tried to leave that life behind him. For me, it was really nice to play a ‘normal’ character; I wouldn’t call Jerome humble, but he’s just trying to do his thing. I also enjoyed playing a character who spoke proper English,” he laughs. “I am not playing the typical ‘d’you get me Blud’ thing, we were actually asked to tone it down.”
“I think it’s a great story as well, you don’t often get to hear about what happens to people on the other side, and I am sure this sort of thing goes on…it’s a great part to play especially after Anuvahood. It’s also nice to get a romantic role, in some of my films I get a girl, it all goes wrong and I’m gone, so it was really good to have a proper romance for once, and Nichola is a lovely girl as well,” he says.
“I definitely believe it’s a story that needs to be told; I am strong believer in films having a proper story, it’s no good just having a kid running round with guns and knives, we have to start thinking out of the box”
Deacon is currently writing another comedy film. “I made a lot of films last year for other people, and this year I have kind of got my heart set on an Adam Deacon film,” he laughs. “These are exciting times.”
Deacon has come a long way from his Stoke Newington School where he was deemed “a joker”, his natural antipathy to academia exacerbated by the “madness” at home. At 12, noticing his enjoyment of music and drama classes, his head of year suggested he apply for the weekly after-school course at the nearby Anna Scher School. He took a Saturday job to pay for a preparatory summer school and was immediately fast-tracked on to the course by Scher herself, who he portrays as a cross between a mentor and a fairy godmother.
“She’d get the rowdiest London street kids – who were in trouble with the police and stuff – and get them to read scripts properly,” he says. “There were kids there with jobs on EastEnders but she never let anyone act starry, or do stuff for money: she wouldn’t let kids do adverts before they were 16, in case they didn’t know what they were selling. I owe everything to that woman. If that opportunity hadn’t been there for me at a young age, I might have ended up inside,” he says ruefully.
Deacon, from Hackney, East London, began acting at the age of 12. His early career included work with Y Touring Theatre Company, with which he appeared in a number of tours including Cracked by Nicola Baldwin.
Deacon made his name as the lead in Noel Clarke’s Adulthood and co-starred in West 10 LDN, a Kidulthood-like TV program made by Noel Clarke. He has also starred as ‘Bones’ in an MTV show called Dubplate Drama. His next role was in 4.3.2.1, a heist movie, released in June 2010 which also starred Tamsin Egerton, Emma Roberts and Noel Clarke, who directed the film.
Recently Adam co-wrote, co-directed and played the lead role in Anuvahood, which was released on March 18, 2011. The film is described as, ‘A pulls-no-punches, coming-of-age story centering on one directionless hopeless shotter, who finds his true worth in the face of urban adversity.’
Adam has featured in various music videos including; Bashy’s “Who wants to be a Millionaire” and Chipmunk’s Chip Diddy Chip. He is also a musician and musical performer most noted for his two tracks on the soundtrack to Adulthood. The tracks are: ‘Adamhood’ and ‘On It 08’.
His television roles include The Boarding School Bomber and more recently The Royal Bodyguard starring David Jason.