‘Ink’ Star Jack O’Connell on His ‘New Era’ as a Leading Man: ‘Thank F**k for Danny Boyle’

Jack O’Connell was feeling a little bashful. Seated outside for coffee, taking in the fresh fall air at the remote Salamander Resort in Middleburg, Virginia, the actor revealed that communication between him and Oscar-winning filmmaker Danny Boyle began long before he was cast as the lead in the director’s latest film, “Ink.” “I used to write to Danny a lot. I wrote all the directors that I admire,” said the 36-year-old star from Derbyshire, England. “Not cap in hand, trying to get anything out of them, just letters of appreciation, lovely stuff that’s affected me and inspired me. ‘I hope we get to do it someday.’ And, in Danny’s case, we did.” Technically “Ink,” in which O’Connell plays influential newspaper editor Larry Lamb after he’s recruited by outcast media magnate Rupert Murdoch to take over The Sun tabloid in 1969, is the second time the actor has worked with Boyle. The pair first officially met when he was brought in to play antagonist Jimmy Crystal in last year’s “28 Years Later,” directed by Boyle, and more prominently in January’s “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” directed by Nia DaCosta. “It was right before I went and shot ‘Sinners,’” he said, referencing another major turn as a villain that loomed prominently over cinema this year. “The initial meeting wasn’t an audition. I just didn’t have the role. It was a meeting discussing the role with Danny and Nia.” It was the first time Boyle had acknowledged O’Connell, though he had a sneaking suspicion that he had been on the director’s radar for a while, having starred on the same iconic British teen drama “Skins” from which Boyle had found the star of his Best Picture winner “Slumdog Millionaire.” “Listen, he cast Dev [Patel]. He knew about ‘Skins.’ I think his daughter put him onto ‘Skins’ in the first place. So whether or not he stuck it out for our generation, I don’t know,” said O’Connell. It’s been almost two decades since he first played fan favorite Cook as part of the second generation of the trailblazing E4 series, which ran from 2007 to 2013. “Skins” still stands out as an experience that helped shape his ethos as an actor. “I certainly felt like we were on the coolest show around. It was so amazingly written. The directors we had were brilliant. The whole model of the way that you audition en masse and then they find their characters. I love that,” said O’Connell. “It’s really quite pure, isn’t it? People are just getting the roles because of ability.” Andrew Ellis, Andrew Shim, Kieran Hardcastle, Joe Gilgun, and Jack O’Connell in ‘This Is England’IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection The “Ink” star first trained as an actor at a free program in Nottingham called the Television Workshop, which eventually helped lead to his first breakout film role in the coming-of-age drama “This Is England.” However, it was “Skins” that felt like a “crash course” continuing education. “You’re doing all the heavy stuff, the tough stuff, the really laborious side of doing a TV show like that. But also the fun and the joy that gets provoked by all the art, the amazing writing and everything else,” said O’Connell. He’s quick to remind that notable “Skins” alumni include not just Patel, but also writers like Emmy winner Jack Thorne and Tony-nominated playwright Lucy Kirkwood. But free programs like the Television Workshop are increasingly hard to come by, meaning there are less and less egalitarian-type opportunities in the United Kingdom for an actor from a working-class background like O’Connell’s to find their own “Skins.” Asked what he would tell the next generation of artists, the “Ink” star said, “I wouldn’t know what advice I would give nowadays, which is a shocking indictment.” What attracted O’Connell to playing Lamb in “Ink,” a role that has brought him to the Middleburg Film Festival to receive the Spotlight Actor Award, was the opportunity to address how the UK, and the world in general, reached this place of inequality. “We see this man just excavate his morals, and his soul, and his decisions, and this newspaper. Being the best-selling newspaper, he’s had to part with what makes people more human. To me, it’s a comment on capitalism,” said the star. “The beginning of hyper capitalism, post-war England, and individual opportunity versus looking after everyone else and your responsibility within society. That was all just getting ripped up.” “Ink” is an adaptation of James Graham’s 2017 play of the same name, with Graham also serving as the screenwriter of Boyle’s film. Another major factor in O’Connell’s decision to play Larry Lamb was working with the playwright and the director, who had come from a similar background. With Boyle, “I came to his work as a fan first, before I knew I was going to try and be an actor,” he said. “I remember watching ‘The Beach,’ and that made me want to go and see the world. And watching ‘Trainspotting’ and that made me want to never take heroin. But also the amazing soundtrack that’s in there and the fucking unforgettable performances.” ‘Ink’ star Jack O’Connell with screenwriter James Graham at the 2026 Middleburg Film FestivalShannon Finney With “Ink” they were preparing to tell what O’Connell sees as a quintessentially British story, and “what [Danny’s] films have meant for British cinema and British culture as a result is undeniable. Thank fuck for Danny Boyle. He is an artist by every stretch of the word. I would argue that his films have perhaps meant the most to us as a collective growing up. His work at the Olympics opening ceremony makes you tingle to watch it. It is fucking monumental.” Boyle is why O’Connell, an outsider to the film and TV industry in the same way Lamb was to the publishing industry, could still envision himself becoming an actor one day. “His style has been able to make you feel part of the film. It takes you along. You feel like you’re in the movie somehow. You don’t feel like an observer, like a spectator. They give you a feeling and mood as well,” he said. As for Graham, “We’re not too far from each other in a particular pocket of the UK. And although my town and his town famously don’t get on — that’s all to do with football and Brian Clough and whatever else — but he is a dramatist. He’s also interested in analyzing culture and the culture around him and examining it,” said O’Connell. “He’s a great spokesman for under-representation in the industry at home because eight percent of the entire industry are from our background.” The actor added, “Once he knew that I was somebody that could be trusted with his words, not someone who was going to try and fucking destroy them, we really hit it off.” Here the three were, as what some would call a band of outsiders, telling a story about these insurgents to the distinguished Fleet Street, where the most esteemed newspapers like The Daily Mirror were published. Playing Lamb was a bit of an exercise in what would happen if O’Connell’s comeuppance led him toward the dark side. “The intoxication of power is something that really interests me. And Larry, he began as a socialist, voted Labour, celebrated socialist politicians. He left Fleet Street having been knighted by Margaret Thatcher. … Talk about excavation, a whole U-turn politics there, colluded with Rupert Murdoch in tearing up the unions and workers’ rights. Sold his soul,” said O’Connell. Guy Pearce as Murdoch and Jack OConnell as Lamb in ‘Ink.’Anthony Dickenson “There’s a great contradiction with Larry that he begins as an outsider. Even within the duration of our film, he’s trying to become an insider. He wants to be part of that gang. In fact, that’s where he ended up, Sir Larry. So there’s a great contradiction in the man. So I can’t afford to go all the way ‘outsider with a chip on his shoulder,’” said the actor. With “Ink” following the successes of “Sinners” and “28 Years Later” so quickly, O’Connell has a newfound feeling of security and sense of becoming that sought-after leading man. “It probably is my most mature role to date,” he said. “I look back on my career and I just feel so fortunate. There’s not a single regret. So if this is a new era, yeah, brilliant, bring it on. A lot of my heroes, a lot of their work that I really celebrate, were around my age, so maybe that is inspiring and gives me cause to kick on.” Netflix will release “Ink” in select theaters across the United States on Friday, December 11. The film will debut on the streaming service on January 8, 2027.