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- [00:03]
A
You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We're spending today looking back at some of the movies from 2025 that our Instagram followers engage with the most on our feed. Our next film marks the directorial debut of a talented actor, Harris Dickinson. The film is called Urchin. You might know him as the star of Baby Girl and Triangle of Sadness, but for this movie, he stepped behind the camera. The film stars Frank Delane as Mike. When we meet Mike, he's sleeping on the streets of London when a nice man helps him out of a difficult situation and offers to help him buy lunch. It looks like things might get better for Mike. That is, until Mike hits the man and steals his watch. Those ups and downs are characteristic of Mike's life. He lands in prison, but is given a potential fresh start when he gets out.
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B
He gets a job, but loses it. He gets clean, but the pull of.
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A
Drugs is too much. Urchin has been drawing a claim for its sensitive yet realistic portrayal of the cyclical nature of homelessness and addiction and the reasons behind premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where Frank Delane took home an award for his performance. You can rent Urchin now on video on Demand. Here's my conversation with writer and director Harris Dickinson and actor Frank Delane.
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B
Harris, how long did you have the story of Mike in your head?
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C
It's been around six years of developing it at the moment we started writing it. Up until kind of now releasing it? Yeah, around six years.
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B
And was it the original story? Is it the story we see on.
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C
Screen, or how did it develop there or thereabouts? I mean, it was always about someone kind of falling between the cracks, trying to paint a picture of someone navigating their way through a tricky system and ultimately kind of battling against themselves and tracking in real time as. As they unravel, in a way. But I think we worked closely with various different organizations and advisors and fields in prison reform and probation and had a lot of people weigh in on it and interrogate the material. So it was. It was. It was. It really felt like a big collaboration between lots of different people that had lived experience with it as well. So that was always important for the script and the development to really try and push it into the best place possible. And then, of course, Frank came on board around eight, nine months before we started filming, and we collaborated on the role together and found our way into it together as well, which was nice.
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B
Frank, what attracted you to the role of Mike?
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D
Well, it's not a character that you see every day in cinema. I think that Mike is a really broad character, as Harris said. The themes that Harris wanted to explore were big, meaty themes, and there was just so much to get my teeth into, and it's something that I feel very passionately about. So, yeah.
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B
Harris, you mentioned that you were working with different organizations. What was something that you learned or you experienced firsthand that you knew you had to make it, it had to make it into the film?
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C
Well, I think the interesting thing about Mike and the age and the point he's at, in his late 20s, something happens, particularly in the UK from, from 16 to 25, there's different support networks available. You're in a different bracket. Right. And as soon as you get past that, it becomes incredibly difficult to support people in the same ways. And so I think the one thing I really wanted to try and show is, and. And reject is the idea that we're blaming anyone. Right? We're not blaming the people that work in those fields. There's phenomenal work being done by all of those different workers and organizations. But it was trying to present a full picture of someone trying to reassimilate and how difficult that is once you've been either incarcerated or once you've lost your support network or you've kind of exhausted your options and people have given up on you and you've kind of given up on yourself. It's really a difficult battle. So I think we just wanted to try and get that across in the film and provide a bit of insight and empathy towards this.
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B
You know, Frank, what did you learn by helping out with some of those different organizations that you wanted to bring to the role of Mike?
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D
I think one of the main things I, I learned was there is no simple solution to. To complex problems. You know, there's a lot of. There's a lot of trauma that goes into, that goes. That. That informs Mike's decisions. And if you find yourself sleeping, sleeping rough, it's usually. It's usually because there has been a sequence of tragic circumstances that, that you find yourself in that position. And also the, the circumstances can be quite mundane, as, as in, you know, going through a breakup or, or losing a job. And I think that there are all kinds of people in, in all kinds of walks of life. And, and, you know, it's, it's there. There is no generic homeless person. You know, it's all of us. We. We could all find ourselves in. In that position, believe it or not.
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B
One step away, one bad decision away.
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C
Absolutely.
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B
It was interesting and I'm curious what your answer was going to be, Harris. You wanted to portray the folks who are in these communities in a way that was sensitive, but you also didn't want to sanitize it.
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D
No.
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B
How did you balance that?
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C
Well, I think it was important also to not victimize Mike too much. Right. In a way that allowed the audience to unjudgmentally go on his journey and present him in a way that wasn't overly heroic or. Yeah, like you say, overly sanitized. So it was showing the truth of it, trying to depict it accurately, but allowing humor as well and allowing levity into a story like this, because the mics of this world deserve that as well. And, you know, I've spoken about this countless times. It's like when someone has been to the kind of the. The brink of their own experience, whether that's their own morality or their own behavior, they're often the most exuberant, funny people, you know, as. As we know. So that. That was really important for us.
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D
And.
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C
And Frank constantly spoke about dignity and stuck up for Mike in ways that we all should. So that was. That was really vital to the kind of formation of him in this film.
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B
My guests are writer, director, and actor Harris Dickinson and actor Frank Delane were talking about their new movie, Urchin, about a young man named Mike who's trying to rebuild his life after experiencing homelessness in London. Frank, how do you think we're gonna talk about Harris? Like he's not here. How did Harris's background as an actor help him as a director?
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D
I think I really appreciated Harris's background as an actor with his directing style. It allowed him to really. Well, to jump into scenes with me, and we could rehearse it a lot. And also, there was just a sort of understanding of the. The things an actor goes through to. To achieve character. And it was just like having this extra support network, if, you know, we could. As Harris said, we really built Mike together. And Harris is an actor's director, which I think is a rare. A rare. Becoming a rarer thing, at least in my experience. He. It could be. You could come in and just have one line, and Harris would be there with the actor or running it until he got it right and just really holding space for the creative process and for exploration and also knowing where the switches are in each actor and being able to flick those switches. And he certainly pushed me in ways that I've not been pushed before, and I think that's a testament to his understanding of the craft of acting.
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B
All directors have to make decisions. That's a big part of being a director. Decision after decision after decision. What is a decision that was a.
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A
Little bit hard to make, but that.
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B
Worked out for you on this film.
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C
Which jacket Mike wore? The costume. The costume decisions are the hardest because they're the. They're interesting, though, but they're a big commitment. Yeah, you commit to that and then you say, well, he's wearing that throughout the whole film because he's not necessarily the kind of film where he's going to keep changing costume. And so you commit to that and you say, well, we're in now and is it right? But no, I mean, I kind of said that in jest, really. It's. It's. It's. It's the last minute changes that you have to really account for and that no one can really warn you about. You know, you're on set and you lose a location. We were doing a lot of unit moves. We were doing a lot of night shoots. And there were times where we were on the go shooting somewhere and our locations manager would come and say, oh, by the way, we've lost the location for the next scene. What do you want to do? And you have to figure out what the next move is for the night. Are we gonna do it on this street corner or are we gonna find a new. Are we gonna fabricate something? Should I just rewrite something? So it's those moments that you can't really prepare for. That took me.
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B
But I do wanna ask about the clothes and I wanna ask Frank about. There's a scene where you're trying on a sweater, a jumper. And it's a very sweet scene because the woman in the shop, we assume it's a thrifthand shop, is rolling up your sleeves. Like she's making sure that it fits you right. And you're very sort of proud of it. And then she goes and she gets you these loafers and you're really into these loafers. What was going through Frank's mind? Why was that important to him? That his sweater fit well and that his loafers fit well?
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D
Mike's mind, I assume you mean rather than Frank's. Frank's mind, sorry, Mike's mind. Although I suppose it was one mind in that moment, I guess. Although we probably shouldn't get too deep into the psychology of character versus versus actor, I think, you know, the.
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B
The.
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D
The Harris and Harris wanted to. The story that we wanted to tell in that moment was. Was one of. Of. Of again, dignity and feeling good about Yourself, you know, feeling, feeling proud of yourself. Having a bit of money, having a bit of money to spend on, on something you like, which when you don't have any money and if you haven't had any money for a long time, that though that those things can be, can be robbed of you. The experience of going into a shop and finding a nice jumper and really feeling yourself and feeling good and maybe experimenting with a new pair of shoes that you wouldn't usually try and a kind of. Yeah. Wanting to, wanting to show, show yourself off a bit. And yeah, I think that that was, that was the story that Harris was, was tapping into in that moment.
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C
There's also something quite sweet about the idea that they both believe they're in a slightly more higher class situation. The idea that she's, you know, in the script it said in her mind she's working high end retail.
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B
Right.
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Because maybe once upon a time she was.
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A
Yeah.
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And now she's in a charity shop in East London and clothes are no more than £4. But still there's an idealistic element to it where it's like me and you, we're in front of a mirror, we're on Savile Row fitting a suit, you know, and there's something quite sweet about that.
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B
The film kicks off with kind of a tough moment. Mike attacks this man under the bridge, a really nice man, and steals his wallet. Frank, what's going on with Mike in this moment that he decides to attack and to rob this person?
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D
Well, I think desperation has its own language that maybe we, yeah, we're not all tapped into if we're not desperate. I think poverty has its own language. You know, in that moment, Mike is, is not in his right mind. He is coming off drugs or needing a fix. He. He's just been robbed himself by. And I think that. But yeah, he in that moment has worked himself up to a place where he feels like that is his only option really survival.
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B
When you think about his hopes and dreams, what are they?
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D
Well, Harris and I spoke a lot about this actually, and Mike talks about it in his, in the film. He has a aspiration to be a. Have a limousine chauffeur service. Yeah. So I guess those are his.
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C
That's his remembering the scene. Oh, I remember, yeah, yeah.
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B
What was your thought behind that? Because at the time I thought, oh, what, what? You can't really get much together, sir. You can't. You don't have that much together.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Talking about a chauffeur service.
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C
Well, that's what I mean. It's. It's slightly sad, isn't it? It's like. It's overly ambitious in a way, but. But is it, you know, let's not. Let's not limit. And also, it's sweet in that moment that she says to him, oh, you want to drive the cars? And he goes, no, no, no, no.
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B
No, I'm going to manage.
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C
I'm going to manage, I'm going to oversee. And so there's definitely a sort of some sense of arrested development with Mike and so many people in that position that potentially aren't in the best place to be able to fulfill their dreams, which is sad too.
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B
In the film, Frank, Mike has this one great night. He goes out with his co workers, they go to karaoke. He doesn't drink, he's doing well.
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A
What does this one really great night mean to Mike?
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D
I think it really means the world to him. In many ways. I think it's the happiest night of his life. As you say, he's clean, he's made. He feels included in a new group of friends. These girls want him around, he's got a job, he's got a secure accommodation at that moment. And, yeah, they go to this karaoke bar. And I think he really feels, well, whole again, as the song says.
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B
This was shot in 28 days, right, Harris?
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C
Yeah.
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B
What was challenging about that?
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C
What was challenging? We had 36 locations.
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B
Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that's a lot.
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C
It was foolish of me, to be honest, but we made it work. We had an amazing crew that really facilitated this in the best way possible for us and worked super hard to, you know, roll with the punches. But what else was hard? I mean, a lot of actors as well. We had a lot of different roles coming in and out of the story. Playing small but important parts of Mike's journey. That's hard. The sort of collision of tones and bringing people into the same world.
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B
What's exciting about 28 days shooting?
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. And especially, like, we. It was the summer. I mean, it wasn't that hot because it's London, but it was the summer we had. We had short nights, so we was. When we shot night stuff, we had from around 10pm until 4:30am because that's when the sun would start to rise. So it was. It was a short period of. Of night time. So it really meant that there was this energy fueling the shoot of, like, we've got to get this in the time allocated. But it was, it was, it was. It was polarized because There was also times where it was more considered. We had a. We were at the hotel, we. Slower pace. We had time. We weren't rushing. So it was a perfect combination of tones and feelings and energies.
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B
I wanted to ask you. There's some kind of trippy parts in the film. Cells looking down a sink, sort of falling into this cave. It could be the mind who knows exactly where it is.
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A
The rest of the film is so.
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B
Grounded in reality and you have these. These little areas of trippiness. I guess the way I'm gonna put.
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C
It, why I like to speak about it as if with the parting reality or suspending reality for moments, which is, I think, a natural part of coping mechanisms with all of us. Right. Like the resistance to. To absolute reality. And that's not whimsical or overly pretentious. That's just the truth. I think we all go to places in our mind in order to escape, particularly when we're dealing with stories around someone who has been through extreme trauma. You know, that does stuff to the brain chemistry, and we cope with it in unique ways. And I just think a story like this deserves that. And for me, when I was developing it, I always. I've always had an interest in that kind of storytelling as well. Magical realism, more surreal elements, escapist cinema, fairy tale, fables, folklore. For me, it's just what I'm intrigued by. And it felt like, why not break the form of ordinary social realism and go somewhere else with it, you know?
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B
Have you seen Rose Byrne's new movie.
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C
If I Had Legs?
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A
Yes.
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C
Not yet. I was just talking about it, though. Yeah, I'm excited to see it.
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B
There's. There's a whole bunch that's similar.
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C
Okay, yeah.
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B
About the two films.
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C
Yeah. Okay. I'm excited to see it. Yeah.
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B
Audiences. Audiences. Frank, how do you think. How do you hope audiences will view Mike? And people like Mike? And maybe people like Mike, they pass on the street.
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D
Well, I think that something human beings do, and maybe the most dangerous thing a human being can do, is to imagine that someone who looks different from you or sounds different from you, always from a different place than you is not a human being also. And if this film can. Can stand in resistance to that. That impulse in us and humanize another person who maybe some people don't give the time of day to, don't even acknowledge, I think that that is a massive achievement for this film. So I suppose that just like a little glimpse into the. Into the idea that it's all of us, we are all. Mike is You, Mike, is me. There is no other person. There is no homeless person. There is no refugee. It's you. It's me. It's.
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B
When I see people in New York, I'm like, that's somebody's child at one point. Harris, are you gonna make another film?
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C
Yes. I hope someone will let me.
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B
That sounded like it took a little while.
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C
Yeah. No, I just. It's a. It's a huge time commitment, isn't it? And I absolutely have something else I want to make next. But it's just. It's just there's so much of my life and commitment and time and stories and dedication in this film, and so you just. You kind of have to refill the pot, you know, in order to go and do it again.
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B
I heard you were playing the piano out in the hallway.
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C
Sorry.
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B
And everybody's like, oh, he's playing John Lennon. He's playing John Lennon.
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C
I wasn't playing Beatles songs. I was just tinkering away. And I hope you didn't hear it live on radio.
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A
Didn't hear it live.
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C
Ought to be embarrassing. What is your preparation, screaming on the piano?
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B
What's your preparation been like for that role playing John Lennon?
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C
It's just been a lot of music. Yeah, it's been like a year of music rehearsals, really. Just learning to play the instruments. Kind of like school just going in every day and just getting it done, you know, there's no. No way around it. That's it. Yeah.
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B
You can go play the piano if you want now.
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C
Yeah, yeah. Frank's a musician as well. Frank's.
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B
Oh, really?
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C
Frank's cooking up some bangers. Yeah.
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B
Is that true, Frank?
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D
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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C
I've.
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D
I need to release some stuff. I've got some stuff sitting here waiting to be released.
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C
Sorry, Frank, I outed you, but the world needs to know, man.
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D
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah, I. Well, we were playing the piano the other day, weren't we, Harris? When we were.
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C
Oh, at the premiere. Yeah, the premiere.
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D
Yeah.
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C
That was very joyful.
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B
I'm glad it was joyful.
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C
Yeah.
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A
That was my conversation with writer, director and actor Harris Dickinson and actor Frank Delane about their new movie, Urchin. You can rent it now with Video on Demand. Up next, the documentary the Librarians follows a group of librarians dedicated to curbing book banning. Director Kim Snyder and New Jersey librarian Martha Hickson join me to discuss.
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B
This is all of it.
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E
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F
This is Ira Flato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, the science Friday team has been reporting high quality science and technology news, making science fun for curious people by covering everything from the outer reaches of space to the rapidly changing world of AI to the tiniest microbes in our bodies. Audiences trust our show because they know we're driven by a mission to inform and serve listeners first and foremost with important news they won't get anywhere else. And our sponsors benefit from that halo effect. For more information on becoming a sponsor, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.