{"id":298354,"date":"2026-02-14T21:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T21:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/298354\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T21:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T21:18:07","slug":"harry-potter-star-johnny-flynn-interview-on-a-prayer-for-the-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/298354\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Harry Potter’ Star Johnny Flynn Interview on ‘A Prayer for the Dying’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJohnny Flynn<\/a>\u2018s on something of a showbiz roll.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou might know him as the star of British sitcom Lovesick, the delightful George Knightley in Autumn de Wilde\u2019s 2020 Emma adaptation, or as Dickie Greenleaf in 2024\u2019s Ripley series, next to Andrew Scott. Maybe the Brit caught your eye in 2018 miniseries Vanity Fair, Kate Winslet\u2019s recent directorial debut, Goodbye June, which hit Netflix in December, or even as the lead singer-songwriter at the helm of Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit (who have released six studio albums).<\/p>\n

\n\tIt might be that his upcoming slate intrigues you further: He\u2019ll be a series regular on season two of Paramount+ crime drama MobLand, play Russian philosopher and novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky opposite Aimee Lou Wood in The Idiots, and soon, Lucius Malfoy in HBO\u2019s hotly anticipated Harry Potter<\/a> series.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs if he couldn\u2019t get much busier, the character chameleon is continuing his storming run of form in Berlin, where Flynn and John C. Reilly \u2014\u00a0who you might spot on billboards promoting the film around the German capital \u2014\u00a0will debut Dara Van Dusen\u2019s A Prayer for the Dying. To call her movie a Western wouldn\u2019t be accurate, he agrees, though neither is it a straight horror or historical drama. \u201cI think it\u2019s safer to not see it as belonging in a particular tradition,\u201d says Flynn about the genre-transcending feature. \u201cIt feels like something unique to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSet in 1870 in the Wisconsin town of Friendship, Van Dusen\u2019s feature, adapted from Stewart O\u2019Nan\u2019s novel of the same name and inspired by the Book of Job, revolves around Jacob Hansen (Flynn). A hero of the American Civil War with Scandinavian heritage, Jacob finds himself unable to shake the violence he experienced as a soldier. Compelled to atone for his dark past, he takes on the roles of Friendship\u2019s sheriff, undertaker, and pastor, making a home with his wife Marta (Kristine Kujath Thorp) and their young child. But when an epidemic that the town doctor (Reilly) cannot contain threatens to obliterate what they\u2019ve built, Jacob must protect his residents by any means necessary.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think she had to fight quite a lot of battles to have it done in the way that she saw it in her mind\u2019s eye,\u201d adds Flynn about Van Dusen and the frenetic, unorthodox energy emanating from her film. \u201cIt felt like such a cool experiment. I\u2019m excited to see it land, because I remember while I was making it, thinking, \u2018Gosh, when I watch this for the first time, I\u2019m gonna be so emotional, because it\u2019s been such a powerful experience.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, with The Hollywood Reporter, Flynn gears up for a stirring Berlinale<\/a> premiere of A Prayer for the Dying. He discusses his monumental diary, touches on the debate around Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and her staunch anti-trans views, and gushes over getting to witness American star Reilly in a rare dramatic role: \u201cBecause we know him as a very fun person, I think it\u2019s uncanny and quite eerie to watch him in a story like this\u2026 But the reason why he\u2019s so good in those comedy roles is he plays the goofy stuff with such conviction. And that\u2019s kind of how he is. He\u2019s a man of extreme conviction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did A Prayer for the Dying come into your life?<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did it happen? It\u2019s been quite a long time, relatively, since we shot it. Like, a year-and-a-half. I was talking with the amazing Dara Van Dusen, our brilliant director, and I think it\u2019s out there because it was on IMDb, but another actor was going to play the role. Callum Turner, specifically. [Laughs.] Who\u2019s a friend of mine. But for whatever reason, he couldn\u2019t do it\u2026 Dara called me up and I think she had a feeling that I would connect with it. It\u2019s funny. It\u2019s interesting to see why they would have thought of me for a Norwegian-American in 1870. But it defies genre\u2026 It ticks every box for me.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat exactly appealed to you about this script?<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, there\u2019s so much to it. The novella is really good. After reading the script, I went to the book because Dara recommended it. It\u2019s a pretty short novella and it\u2019s got this amazing device, which I think in literature is called an unreliable narrator, and it\u2019s all in a weird tense. It\u2019s a very eerie thing to read, and it\u2019s all in his head, [so] you start to realize that the things he\u2019s saying are not really what other people are experiencing. That slow realization is really haunting, really powerful, and so I love that. And the script\u2026 I think Dara had been working on it for so long with the writer of the novel quite closely. She found this book when she was still at film school, and had written to the writer \u2014\u00a0this is 15, maybe 10 years back \u2014\u00a0and he\u2019d just had a really bad experience with adapting one of his other novels. So for some reason, her passion \u2014\u00a0this young, student filmmaker who hadn\u2019t ever made a film \u2014\u00a0grabbed his attention and I can see why. There\u2019s such a faithful sense of tone to the book, which is uncanny and scary. There\u2019s a dream quality. There are lots of moments in the film that we shot and you almost don\u2019t know if it\u2019s real or not, and you don\u2019t know what\u2019s in his head. He\u2019s having a kind of breakdown, and you have a sense of this trauma from a past that we don\u2019t really get to see \u2014\u00a0the Civil War, which I think was a really horrific thing for anyone who survived it.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not a Western. It kind of bends lots of genres around. I think it\u2019s safer to not see it as belonging in a particular tradition. It feels like something unique to me. But I grew up reading a lot of novels and watching a lot of films set in America at that time, and I was really into Westerns. And I think Westerns, historically, have been like a prism to look at a particular human condition, an emotional situation somebody\u2019s in. It\u2019s set up for how you do a character study and that\u2019s true of this film, even though it\u2019s not a gun-slinging Western. It\u2019s a psychological portrait of somebody who is having to hold everything together while everything around him is falling apart. Dara actually told me that the novel is originally based on the Book of Job, which I found exhilarating. I don\u2019t know if you know the story well.<\/p>\n

\n\tNot super well, but that\u2019s really cool.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. What happened in that story is that the devil and God are hanging out, as they do. [Laughs.] They\u2019re talking about who has the most loyal followers and the devil\u2019s like, \u201cLook at all these evil people that love me and do terrible things in my name. I\u2019m much more loved than you.\u201d And God says, \u201cLook at this guy. He does everything in my name and is the most holy person, and he has his beautiful family and his farm.\u201d And the devil says, \u201cKill everybody he loves, take away his crops and burn everything he owns, and then see how much he loves you.\u201d And God does and kills everybody and destroys everything. And Job still loves God at the end. In terms of theological philosophy, it\u2019s really interesting.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor those who haven\u2019t read the novella, is that maybe how you\u2019d describe this film \u2014\u00a0a test of faith?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is a test of faith. It\u2019s absolutely not necessary to know the story of Job or to even know that it\u2019s based on that, because I think that was just a starting point for Stewart, the writer. But it\u2019s a really interesting setup. And there were these towns that were wiped out by various illnesses that they didn\u2019t have vaccines for in the 19th century. There\u2019s an amazing book called Wisconsin Death Trip that the tone of this was kind of based on a bit, it\u2019s a picture book and there was a documentary that was a great reference. It\u2019s just like an unimaginable amount of darkness faced by these people who survived the Civil War.<\/p>\n

\n\tHad you met John C. Reilly before this?<\/p>\n

\n\tNo. Or, I say that but I think I met him at some point, very briefly. He\u2019s a good friend of the director that I worked for, Autumn de Wilde, who directed a film called Emma. He was around when we did that. I really love John and I have loved his acting for a long time. I find him very funny in his comedic roles \u2014 I would see him in anything \u2014\u00a0but because we know him as a very fun person, I think it\u2019s uncanny and quite eerie to watch him in a story like this. He\u2019s an amazing and maybe quite an underrated dramatic actor. But the reason why he\u2019s so good in those comedy roles is he plays the goofy stuff with such conviction. And that\u2019s kind of how he is. He\u2019s a man of extreme conviction. He\u2019s a really interesting person, and I really like hanging out with him and working with him.<\/p>\n

\n\tDara\u2019s vision is really palpable watching this film. Did it feel that way in the making of it?<\/p>\n

\n\tTotally. In a really brilliant way, because she\u2019s such a nice person, but she was, as all great artists are, uncompromising in realizing that vision. And I think she had to fight quite a lot of battles to have it done in the way that she saw it in her mind\u2019s eye. She worked really closely with our DP, Kate McCullough, who is really good. They do everything together and are very, very close friends. So that was a really important relationship. The camera movements are really unusual and I\u2019m sure you noticed the way the camera panned in those really fast, jerky movements. And only moved along certain angles\u2026 The camera was a character in the scenes that you were playing, partly because you could see it moving very quickly in the corner of your eye. [Laughs.] But also, it\u2019s a point of view. Like, sometimes you\u2019re in Jacob\u2019s head but it\u2019s a paranoid sense of what he\u2019s seeing, which I think the movement helps to achieve. But yeah, all of that is Dara being very strict on how she wanted it to be done. It was really exciting. It felt like we were doing something really unusual.<\/p>\n

\n\tWill you be on the ground in Berlin?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, I\u2019ll be there. I\u2019m arriving on Friday, so I\u2019m really excited. I\u2019ve seen it on my laptop, and I\u2019m really excited to watch it in a room with people\u2026 The first time you [watch] something that you love, that you worked on with other people, and sharing it in that way, it\u2019s really thrilling.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt felt like such a cool experiment. I\u2019m excited to see it land, because I remember while I was making it, thinking, \u201cGosh, when I watch this for the first time, I\u2019m gonna be so emotional, because it\u2019s been such a powerful experience.\u201d And holding that energy of Jacob was quite a thing at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy was it so emotional for you? If you\u2019re comfortable elaborating.<\/p>\n

\n\tI usually find the experience of making any film quite a powerful, emotional thing, because I fall in love with the people around [me]. You make all these friends, and you become a family, and you\u2019re telling a story. Especially if you have faith in what you\u2019re doing. It becomes a beautiful way of communing with people that you didn\u2019t know a couple of months before. And then as it comes towards the end, you know that it\u2019s never going to be that same group of you again doing that same story. You can obviously get together and do another film, but it\u2019ll be something different.<\/p>\n

\n\tHave you been to the Berlinale before?<\/p>\n

\n\tOnly once before, for the very first film I ever did in 2005 or something. Jesus! Anyway, a long time ago, like 20 years exactly.<\/p>\n

\n\tA full circle moment for you, maybe. <\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. Let\u2019s hope it\u2019s not my last one. I really like it a lot there. I love Berlin as a city, but I remember it being a really, really cool place during the festival. And last time I went, there was thick snow. So I\u2019m hoping for snow again.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re doing such a vast range of projects recently. Is that diversity something that\u2019s guiding you at this stage in your career?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. It\u2019s nice to hear that reflected, because I think that is something that I\u2019m looking for: variety. For me, it\u2019s about doing as many different types of things as possible, working with as many different visionary directors and actors and crew and DPs. The thrilling thing about this job is that nothing is the same, and there\u2019s the opportunity to really be quite diverse. The joy is testing myself in new roles and seeing if I can pull something off, and feeling something very different from within. I\u2019m doing this job at the moment on a TV show called MobLand. That\u2019s one of the more different things I\u2019ve ever done. But it\u2019s really fun to be a psychopath, apparently.<\/p>\n

\n\tI know you have The Idiots as well, playing Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Have you shot that already?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, we shot that in the summer. That was also an amazing experience. One of the best times I\u2019ve had doing a project, and again, because of the relationships with such interesting people, the directors \u00a0Ma\u0142gorzata [Szumowska]\u00a0and Micha\u0142 [Englert] and Aimee Lou Wood, who I love.<\/p>\n

\n\tI have to ask about Potter too, because THR spoke to Lox Pratt, playing your son, Draco Malfoy, recently. He said you have a lot of aura. How has the whole experience been so far, with that wild fanbase too?<\/p>\n

\n\tSomebody told me about your piece on him and then I had to ask my kids what that meant because I had no idea.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a really good thing!<\/p>\n

\n\tApparently it is, yeah. I\u2019m really chuffed to be aura, and I\u2019d say the same about him. He\u2019s a really, really cool guy and he\u2019s got a lot going on and he\u2019s super nice, he\u2019s really good and he\u2019s grounded. It\u2019s great to see that kids aren\u2019t having to deal with stuff that they probably would have had to deal with years ago. I think, hopefully, these guys will have better treatment than previous generations.<\/p>\n

\n\tObviously, there\u2019s quite a lot of stuff around Jo [J.K.] Rowling. I suppose that\u2019s been quite interesting to navigate, the conversations there \u2014\u00a0but all important conversations to have. The people working on this are really, really great and create a really special atmosphere, [like] Francesca [Gardiner] the showrunner, and Mark Mylod and various directors. There\u2019s such care. I\u2019m basically not in the first book. Lucius is hardly in book one at all, but I\u2019m in the first series. So it\u2019s quite a thing to go do a day and then have a month or so [off] and come back and everybody\u2019s got these really tight relationships. But it\u2019s such a welcoming environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnny Flynn\u2018s on something of a showbiz roll. You might know him as the star of British sitcom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[132852,28158,139246,93,14293,61,1042,60,93131,270],"class_list":{"0":"post-298354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-berlin-2026","9":"tag-berlin-film-festival","10":"tag-berlinale","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-harry-potter","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-international","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-johnny-flynn","17":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}