By Alfie Allen arrived the first day he was due to start filming Game of Thrones to discover he wasn't meant to be there. "They said 'we might as well put you in then'," he tells me while laughing, describing how he felt "confused, nervous and lost" on the day that kick-started his acting career.
It is not difficult to imagine the happy-go-lucky Allen in a situation like this: slightly bemused but happy to go along with it. When we speak, in a hotel in Soho, London, it becomes apparent that things tend to roll off his back. He has a wide-eyed look, but a relaxed and self-deprecating manner. The vitriol over the way Game of Thrones ended didn't seem to faze him, nor the lyrics to his sister's song, 'Alfie' ('I just can't sit back and watch you waste your life away / You need to get a job because the bills need to get paid') thirteen years earlier. He did politely ask for it not be made one of the album's singles, but when it was he wasn't too upset.
The son of actor Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen, Allen grew up in Islington, North London, his childhood dream to become a racing car driver. He wasn't pushed into the arts, saying that his parents wanted him "to do anything with passion", but does recall directing a pantomime once as a kid which put him off for a while. When it came to doing his A-levels he decided to move to Fine Arts College in Hampstead, the alma mater of actors Helena Bonham Carter and Orlando Bloom.
When Game of Thrones came out in 2011, all that most people knew about the actor that played Theon Greyjoy, the young ward of Ned Stark, was that he was pop singer Lily Allen's little brother. He had appeared in a smattering of film and theatre roles, most notably taking over from Daniel Radcliffe in Equus, but was virtually unknown save for his famous sibling.
Nine years later and the actor has left the white walkers behind him, this month appearing in Taika Waititi's satire Jojo Rabbit. The premise is a strange one. It follows a 10-year-old named Jojo Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) living in Germany towards the end of World War II. Despite his young age, Jojo is a die-hard Nazi supporter whose imaginary best friend is Hitler, played by Waititi himself. He chastises his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) for questioning the regime and panics when he discovers she is hiding a young Jewish girl in the house to keep her safe. Allen plays Finkel, the second-in-command to army officer Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell), with whom he runs a haphazard Hitler Youth camp.
Was Allen confident it could be pulled off when he first read the script? "Not really," he laughs. "Obviously the script is hilarious but I couldn’t really visually picture what was going on." Still, he was drawn in by, as with Waititi's 2016 film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, the way that the film took you "on a journey through the eyes of a child". When the director offered Allen the part, over the phone while he was cooking a stir-fry, he let out a strangled yelp of a yes as his response.
Allen believes that the film works by "fooling you into a sense of security" before pulling the rug out from underneath you. "It’s such a delicate subject that you already feel like a naughty child walking into the cinema, so you’ve already got this sense of naivety and innocence instilled in you." Still, while the humour of Jojo Rabbit is meant to be uneasy, the satire has come under fire by some for failing to adequately confront the consequences of prejudice and hatred amongst the "smug" laughs.
I ask what the mood was like on set, having to play something so dark, and sadly relevant, for laughs. "It was an unspoken thing all the time," he says. "You arrive and you’re in a warehouse full of Gestapo and Nazi uniforms and so immediately it felt dystopian as f**k. Definitely there were some points where I thought ‘that didn’t really feel right’, but you know that you’re in the hands of somebody who is going to make it work."
Last year Jojo Rabbit won the People's Choice Award at Toronto Film Festival, the same prize which Green Book picked up before going on to win 'Best Picture' at the Oscars in 2019. Jojo Rabbit could well do the same, with Waititi's film earning six Academy Award nominations earlier this week. The problem is whether the film can cut through the criticism with the message it wants to resonate with viewers.
Waititi has said that he "never wanted to make something that was very easy", and that being divisive creates conversation, but whether he can control that conversation is another matter. "We’re trying to hammer home that it’s an anti-hate satire," Allen says, clearly aware that the messaging isn't entirely simple. "It’s a movie steeped in positive messages and it’s about love."
This message is best seen in the relationship between Rosie and Jojo, and Allen, who recently became a father for the first time himself, thinks this is where the heart of the story lies. "This is a story about a single mother and her trying to do best for her boy," he says. "I think that’s beautiful."
Despite the dark context of his character, Finkel is a markedly more comic role for Allen, who made a name for himself playing a man who has his penis cut off as a form of psychological torture. "It was so fun getting to do something so comedic and mess around with timing. Being on Thrones, especially with my character, they didn’t really allow much of that," he laughs.
Allen ended his time on HBO's behemoth series with an Emmy nomination, a recognition which some – unfairly – were surprised to see. "I’d said goodbye to Thrones but then I got to end [the show] on a positive note," he says.
It seems, for him at least, that the negative reaction to the final season has been blown out of proportion, saying he, "can’t really remember ever having that much of a negative experience with any fans."
He does admit, however, that he learned how to stop the series from dominating his life. "I think that pressure that I might have put on myself just disappeared in series four or five," he says. "I think it just became a normal part of my life."
Theon had one of the most satisfying arcs of the series, going from despised traitor to pitiful prisoner, and finally, redeemed hero. Not all fans agree, however, and Allen becomes animated as he remembers a particularly bitter encounter he recently had.
"Somebody came up to me the other day in the street and was like ‘Oh man, the arc of your character, and the whole way Game of Thrones ended was just so disappointing!’. I was just standing there and he came up to me to let me know it was sh*t," he laugh nonchalantly. "I was just like ‘Thanks man!”
'Jojo Rabbit' is out now
