YEARS and Years frontman Olly Alexander snubbed a career in movies after
winning critical acclaim for his role in a Scots indie flick.
Pop star Olly was cast in God Help The Girl, before the London-based group
crashed into the charts.
And the 2014 flick — shot in Glasgow — went on to win an award at the
Sundance Film Festival and was also screened at the Berlin Film Festival.
But the project — the brainchild of Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch —
forced the singer to face up to his problems with anxiety, and saw him
decide movies weren’t for him.
Olly, 25, said: “It was so much fun. I had the best time in Glasgow. I was
there for two months filming and I fell in love with the city and the people.
“It was a low-budget indie film and Stuart is a great guy. I loved the end
product.
“The joke was my character was once a lifeguard, as he’s so skinny.”
His character was originally meant to be a proud Glaswegian — but Olly turned
him into Yorkshireman by default.
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He added: “I ended up using my own accent. I attempted a Scottish one but they
said it would offend the whole country. It was pretty bad. I’m sorry about
that.”
His co-stars in the movie have gone on to big things.
Emily Browning appeared in Hollywood blockbuster Pompeii and The Krays biopic
Legend, opposite Tom Hardy, while Hannah Murray is now in smash series Game
Of Thrones.
But Olly admits his personal issues meant he had to turn his back on the
silver screen and God Help The Girl confirmed it.
He admitted: “I had done some acting before and I had an agent.
“For the audition, you had to perform a song. So I wrote one and Stuart saw it
and said, ‘You can have the part’.
“But after I did I realised I’m much more comfortable writing music and
singing than acting.
“Acting just doesn’t feel the same and I can’t relax doing it.”
While most chart acts play it safe nowadays, Olly is outspoken — not only on
gay rights but on his own ongoing battle with anxiety, which has seen him
seek mental health treatment.
The band are riding high following their four Brit nominations and No1 debut
album Communion. Hit single King also topped the charts while other songs
Shine and Eyes Shut also fared well
But Olly is still riddled with anxiety that it might all end.
He said: “You never know if people are gong to like songs or not.
“I’m always nervous about it and it feels like a little victory when they do.
I feel like people get bored really easily.
“Just because we’ve had some chart success doesn’t mean people will care about
us in two years. We’ve all been blown away how well the first album did. But
there’s no telling the future.”
Now the band — which also features Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen — are
on their biggest tour all across Europe and the US.
They play a couple of venues in Scotland — The Ironworks in Inverness on March
28 and Glasgow’s O2 Academy on March 29/30.
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