Mint, the new drama from Charlotte Regan, is so simple in concept it\u2019s almost hard to make sense of. It\u2019s a story of impossible love, between two people whose families are bitter crime rivals, so their romance simply cannot be. This is absolutely, brazenly Romeo and Juliet, the oldest love story in the world. How it comes to feel so original, so magnetic, is mystifying. The dialogue is so spare, the look of the piece so unalloyed, there\u2019s nothing sweet about it.<\/p>\n
It reminded Emma Laird, who plays Shannon \u2013 the female half of the couple \u2013 of Twilight<\/a>. The supernatural series was, she says: \u201cthe first romantic story that I attached to. It felt like Mint could be what Twilight was for me, when I was growing up, romantic and beautiful and naive and cinematic, a whole world made of those things. It\u2019s so much more than the story of Shannon, it\u2019s so much bigger than the characters.\u201d It reminded me a bit of Heathers<\/a>, but not for any reason it doesn\u2019t look like the film, it\u2019s funny \u2013 but in a different way \u2013 and it doesn\u2019t end the same. But it just reminds you of the first romantic thing you ever saw, the first time you understood what romance was.<\/p>\n Director Charlotte Regan: \u2018I\u2019m always drawn to working-class characters.\u2019 Photograph: Kate Green\/BAFTA\/Getty Images for BAFTA<\/p>\n Shannon is the daughter of a Scottish crime family; luminous and exquisite, strong-minded, ostensibly carefree, but with an edge of undefined yearning. \u201cPut the crime aside,\u201d Regan says, \u201cand she could be a famous footballer\u2019s kid \u2013 sheltered form the world.\u201d Benjamin Coyle-Larner, better known by his hip-hop stage name Loyle Carner<\/a>, makes his acting debut as Arran, the prodigal son of a different crime family, returning from London, where he grew up in a complicated gangster exile. Their eyes meet across the tracks of a down-at-heel train station, Shannon in fake fur and satin, Arran in street wear, the pair of them as incompatible as they are irresistible to one another.<\/p>\n \u201cArran and Shannon don\u2019t recognise each other,\u201d Coyle-Larner says. \u201cGirls like that don\u2019t exist where I grew up. Guys like Arran don\u2019t exist where she grew up. It\u2019s like looking at an animal from a different part of the world. Not so much love at first sight, more like interest at first sight. \u2018Wow, what\u2019s this? I need to find out more about this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Charlotte Regan, who goes by Charlie, won the Grand Jury prize for World Cinematic Dramatic Competition at Sundance three years ago for Scrapper, her debut as director auteur, about a 12-year old girl reuniting with her father, following the death of her mother. That film \u201cwas about class, about a working-class upbringing. Mint is less so,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I\u2019m always drawn to working-class characters, and I love them being in worlds that I\u2019ve not seen them in before, or shown in ways I\u2019ve not seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n Laura Fraser as Cat and Lindsay Duncan as Ollie in Mint. Photograph: PHOTOGRAPHER:\/CREDIT LINE:House\/Fearless Minds\/BBC<\/p>\n Before Scrapper, Regan had been directing music videos since she was 15 years old \u2013 no-budget and low-budget to start with. By the time she was directing for names such as Mumford and Sons and Stereophonics, she was making some of the most surreally moving music videos you\u2019ll have seen (her video for rapper Wretch 32, His and Hers, features two actors giving such sparse, basically mime performances, that the lyrics plunge into the psyche like an epic poem), and the form remains her obsession, \u201cthe way they tell visual stories before film or TV does. I love romances or dramas where I feel what the character is feeling, and a lot of that is visual storytelling. If Shannon\u2019s swept away, I want to see that \u2013 I don\u2019t just want to be told that in dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n The drama is a swirl of visual effects, flashbacks told in Super 8 fragments. Whenever Shannon sees Arran, sparks erupt all around him, which sounds so cheesy but is in fact completely tear-jerking. \u201cI did a project not long before Mint, where we shot on Hi8, the VHSy-looking camera, and it was such a different way to experience something,\u201d Regan says. \u201cI almost felt as if I was watching my own home footage. It broke down that barrier of knowing you\u2019re watching film or TV. We always knew that would be in the language. Also, bloody money-saving, innit? It\u2019s cheap, the old VHS camera \u2013 it looks good no matter how you shoot it. It looks cinematic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Incompatible and irresistible\u2019 love \u2026 Mint. Photograph: PHOTOGRAPHER:\/CREDIT LINE:House\/Fearless Minds\/BBC\/Anne Binckebanck<\/p>\n Laird, 27, startedout as a model, which she did for seven years, though her acting CV is long enough now that that hinterland seems a long time ago. She was in 28 Years Later<\/a>, The Brutalist<\/a>, and her debut TV role was in Mayor of Kingstown for Paramount+. She paraphrases her entire career to date, half-joking, as: \u201cI\u2019m just hiding behind all these men, God love them. I got three jobs in and my agent would go: \u2018This is something you should be in the mix for.\u2019 And it\u2019d be: \u2018Glen Powell\u2019s girlfriend\u2019, \u2018this person\u2019s partner\u2019, \u2018the love interest\u2019. I\u2019m glad I started my career like that \u2013 I learned a lot on the job, I\u2019m glad I eased into it. But what\u2019s the character there?\u201d<\/p>\n Coyle-Larner, meanwhile, has had an entire career in music, nominated for three Brit awards and the Mercury prize nearly 10 years ago, when he was 22. He went to the Brit School in Croydon and always wanted to act. \u201cI saw myself maybe being in plays or writing plays,\u201d he says, \u201cbut life happened.\u201d He was at the Drama Centre in London when his stepfather died suddenly in 2014. \u201cI had to make some money, made some music, was cool,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve been open to acting for the best part of a decade, and everything that got sent to me was just a stereotype. It was someone who looked like me, but didn\u2019t reflect the complexity of a human being, of a young man. Everything was expecting me to be somebody who sold drugs, or was a deadbeat father. When I read the early version of the script from Charlie, it was emotional in a way, to see her see that someone who looked like me could be reflected in this way \u2013 with nuance, to be delicate and vulnerable, emotionally strong at times and weak at others, and not be built for this tough-guy life.\u201d<\/p>\n So much of the action happens on Laird and Coyle-Larner\u2019s faces. A close up of Shannon, lying in a park, smoking weed, lingers on her face so that you feel as if you\u2019re reading her mind. \u201cIn doing American TV, they put a face filter on you and you\u2019re this perfect being. It\u2019s all: \u2018Oh, blemish? We\u2019ll fix that in post.\u2019 What was difficult for me, and my vanity, was seeing my spots, and my lines, and my pores. I get acne. But I\u2019m so glad she kept that in. I think it\u2019s a huge part of the show that we\u2019re seeing this real young woman.\u201d<\/p>\n Coyle-Larner in Mint: \u2018It was emotional that someone who looked like me could be reflected in this way.\u2019 Photograph: House\/Fearless Minds\/BBC<\/p>\n \u201cThere were always more words in the script,\u201d Coyle-Larner says, \u201cand then me, Charlie and Emma would sit together on the day, and say: \u2018Which bit is actually needed and which bit is for fun?\u2019 Charlie would always say: \u2018If you could say it with your eyes, that would be better.\u2019 So there was a lot of pressure on my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n