Kirk Jones was feeling nervous. The director was two weeks away from shooting his new film, a biopic of the pioneering Scottish Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson, and he still hadn\u2019t seen his lead actor perform any of the script. Jones had been impressed by Robert Aramayo in the supernatural Netflix series Behind Her Eyes, and liked the actor when they met over Zoom.<\/p>\n
He then invited him to Galashiels, to\u00a0meet Davidson in his home town, where he was convinced Aramayo was the right choice for the role. \u201cI was confident enough not to feel the need to\u00a0meet 50 other actors and audition them,\u201d he says. But \u201cI didn\u2019t ask him to read\u201d, he admits. \u201cLooking back, I\u00a0think that was insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
His gamble paid off. When I Swear premiered at the Toronto International film festival in September, Variety<\/a> deemed Aramayo \u201cflawless\u201d, IndieWire<\/a> praised his \u201cstriking, star-making performance\u201d and Screen International<\/a> marked the actor out as \u201ca major big-screen talent\u201d. Aramayo is best known for playing Elrond in The Rings of Power, Amazon\u2019s megabudget TV prequel to The Lord of the Rings, although Game of Thrones fans will remember him as the young Ned Stark. But his latest film feels like a\u00a0throwback to a certain kind of British movie; like The Full Monty or Billy Elliot. I Swear is a social issue film, a\u00a0tearjerker and a feelgood comedy, too. It\u2019s a peach of a role for Aramayo, who portrays Davidson\u2019s various tics with technical nuance and sensitivity, and importantly, nails the campaigner\u2019s charisma.<\/p>\n A week before the film\u2019s premiere, I\u00a0meet Aramayo in the basement of the Curzon Soho cinema in London. The 32-year-old is unassuming in a beige Patagonia hoodie and jeans, square-jawed but still boyish, and clean shaven with a mop of curly hair. He greets me warmly, orders a cappuccino and launches into a self-deprecating story about how he\u2019s spent the morning making \u201ca terrible audition tape\u201d. A \u201cproud Yorkshireman\u201d and \u201cmassive Leeds United fan\u201d, Aramayo has lived in New York since moving there to study at 18, but retains his East Yorkshire drawl.<\/p>\n Walking the walk \u2026 Aramayo with Francesco Piacentini-Smith in I Swear. Photograph: Graeme Hunter\/Studiocanal<\/p>\n In the opening scene of I Swear, the adult John Davidson is awarded an MBE, and on receiving it, accidentally shouts \u201cFuck the Queen!\u201d Tourette syndrome is a neurological condition that induces physical and vocal tics such as twitching, shouting and spitting. According to Tourettes Action<\/a>, there are more than 300,000 people living with the condition in the UK. Aramayo says meeting Davidson was the first time he\u2019d encountered someone living with Tourette\u2019s, though he\u2019s quick to suggest he may have met others without realising it.<\/p>\n Davidson first developed Tourette\u2019s at the age of 14. When he was a teenager, he was the subject of the BBC documentary John\u2019s Not Mad. First broadcast in 1989, it is a time capsule of relative ignorance about the condition. I\u00a0Swear dramatises his attempts to pursue a normal life in spite of that ignorance, one involving employment, dancing and girls.<\/p>\n I talked to John about anything and everything. Not to impersonate him, to\u00a0find his energy<\/p>\n \u201cPeople used to call John Davidson \u2018Fuck off John\u2019,\u201d says Aramayo. Before making the film, he says, \u201clike anybody else who hasn\u2019t yet had the education, I\u00a0would have thought it was all about swearing.\u201d But coprolalia, or involuntary swearing, only affects around one in 10 people with Tourette\u2019s, he says: \u201cIt is far more complex than that.\u201d In the film, we see Davidson also juggling intrusive thoughts and OCD.<\/p>\n Aramayo, who does not have Tourette syndrome, started to do more research. He read Evie Meg\u2019s memoir My Nonidentical Twin and was struck by how the author \u201claughs with\u201d her condition and \u201chas fun with it\u201d, he says. \u201cIt\u2019s part of who she is.\u201d He also spent time with Davidson in Galashiels, renting a house nearby \u201cfor\u00a0about a month, maybe more\u201d. He accompanied Davidson to the local community centre, where he has a job as a caretaker, to understand the pride he takes in his work. They went on dog walks, watched football and attended choir concerts together. \u201cI just tried to get him talking about everything and anything,\u201d Aramayo says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to impersonate him, but I wanted to find his energy.\u201d<\/p>\n Now we\u2019re Tolkien \u2026 Aramayo in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Photograph: Landmark Media\/Alamy<\/p>\n A big part of that energy is Davidson\u2019s mischievous streak. Aramayo\u2019s performance is a dramatic one, but the scenarios in the film are often funny. At a job interview, his future employer asks him to make a cup of tea. \u201cI use spunk for milk,\u201d he accidentally blurts out. As a comedic set-piece, it\u2019s irresistible, but Aramayo doesn\u2019t play the moment for laughs. \u201cA lot of the situations you see in the film are things that John himself laughs at,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve been told those stories, and I know how he feels about them.\u201d The film\u2019s tone, he says, was something he and writer-director Jones discussed daily.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t nervous about showing the level of humour that comes from a\u00a0condition where you have no control over what comes out of your mouth,\u201d Jones explains over Zoom. But, he says, \u201cit\u2019s not Carry On Tourette\u2019s\u201d.<\/p>\n Before the film had been greenlit, Jones was considering casting an actor with Tourette\u2019s. He tested a few scenes with Davidson, but the result was \u201cnothing short of a disaster\u201d. He felt uncomfortable asking Davidson to suppress his tics, and worse, to tic on cue. He says Davidson found the experience uncomfortable, too.<\/p>\n \u201cI did have trepidation, of course I\u00a0did,\u201d says Aramayo. The actor\u2019s union Equity recently criticised<\/a> the casting of a non-disabled actor in the lead role of a\u00a0new production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, while a 2025 study<\/a> found that 80% of disabled characters on TV are portrayed by able-bodied actors. When asked how he plans to handle any scrutiny he might receive for portraying a condition he doesn\u2019t have, Aramayo chooses his words carefully. \u201cLook, it\u2019s inevitable. But if we\u2019re talking about casting, we\u2019ve got to talk to the director, and to John, and the people who cast me in the role, and I was just really excited to play John,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Aramayo grew up in Hull in the 1990s. His mother worked in safety clothing, stamping the names on high-visibility jackets; his dad, he says, made sofas. At school, he was a\u00a0performer who would often impersonate his teachers. \u201cIn a naughty way, yeah,\u201d he says with a grin. \u201cI had one Irish maths teacher \u2026 I got sent out big time.\u201d When he was nine, he joined Hull Truck theatre\u2019s youth programme. He\u2019d seen his older sister, who was 11 at the time, in Richard Bean\u2019s production of Under the Whaleback, which also featured an actor called Paul Popplewell (24 Hour Party People, Casualty). \u201cI was like: \u2018Wow. He\u2019s cool.\u2019\u201d At school, acting didn\u2019t feel like something he could pursue. But with Hull Truck, \u201cthat\u2019s when it started to get serious\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n The path to becoming an actor was clear: audition for the London drama schools. \u201cI wanted to do that,\u201d he says, \u201cbut at the same time I wanted to try different things.\u201d When he guilelessly Googled \u2018Best drama school in the world\u2019, the first result was Juilliard School, the performing conservatory in\u00a0upper Manhattan. \u201cIt was stupid of me,\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cI was, like, 16.\u201d<\/p>\n Two years later, Aramayo was standing outside his new dorm room with his dad and sister when he saw two American college students with blue wheelie bins, running towards them at speed. \u201cThey were screaming: \u2018Welcome to Juilliard!\u2019\u201d he remembers. \u201cIt was like they were coming to attack us. We were just three people from Hull.\u201d<\/p>\n Step in the right direction \u2026 Aramayo and Kirk Jones. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole\/Getty Images\/IMDb<\/p>\n New York City was a culture shock, and an education. Aramayo was reading classic US plays such as Thornton Wilder\u2019s Our Town, and studying Nietzsche. \u201cYou were just trying to get your head above water,\u201d he says., insisting that he\u2019s \u201cnot an academic person\u201d. Outside lessons, he worked for the university \u201cpainting or filing to try to earn some extra money\u201d. His big city dream was expensive. \u201cBut it was good for me to learn that, and to survive on a budget,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n His first year out of drama school was so exciting it \u201cblew my head off\u201d, he says. He landed a part as a sergeant in\u00a0a\u00a0six-part HBO series about the adventurers Lewis and Clark. It starred Casey Affleck, and involved three months of prep in Canada, in the woods. The production shot for a month, \u201cand then it all went bang\u201d, he\u00a0says. Production was halted due to\u00a0creative differences and the series was ultimately scrapped. \u201cI didn\u2019t understand the fragility of it.\u201d Work, he realised, could disappear as quickly as it arrived. But \u201cI got Game of Thrones<\/a> straight afterwards\u201d, he admits.<\/p>\n Despite appearing in several shows with cult followings, Aramayo insists he rarely gets noticed. When Behind Her Eyes came out, audiences were rattled by Aramayo\u2019s irreverent heroin addict, and the show\u2019s supernatural twist ending. \u201cI had some really funny interactions with people asking why I stole souls,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d say, \u2018I\u2019m sorry!\u2019\u201d He chuckles. I warn him that soon, it might start happening again, with all the praise and potential awards buzz for I Swear. Aramayo is not so sure. \u201cYou get a flurry of that stuff, and then it goes away very quickly,\u201d he says firmly. \u201cThen you\u2019re back to trying to get a job.\u201d<\/p>\n Aramayo hopes the film will ring true for the many people with Tourette\u2019s he\u2019s encountered during the past year. \u201cI just hope some of them watch it, and they\u2019re happy with it,\u201d he says. And as for Davidson? Jones says when he screened the film for him, \u201cthere were lots of hugs and kisses\u201d.<\/p>\n I Swear is in UK cinemas from Friday.10 October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kirk Jones was feeling nervous. 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