Danny Boyle has praised Jack O’Connell, comparing him to Al Pacino as he takes centre stage as a hard-nosed tabloid editor in his upcoming film Ink, which is set on Fleet Street in 1969.
The movie, based on James Graham’s 2017 West End play, sees media mogul Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) buy The Sun with the ambition of turning it into the biggest-selling newspaper in the UK with the help of fellow anti-establishment outsider, editor Larry Lamb (O’Connell).
Director Boyle explained that O’Connell’s previous work with him, playing sadistic Jimmy Savile-inspired cult leader Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal in 28 Years Later and its sequel The Bone Temple, is what convinced him he was the right actor to star as Lamb.
‘In the play, the darkness is reported off stage and yet I knew in cinema you would see it – then you have to find an actor who can take you there because you’re going to go into a very dark place with him,’ Boyle told outlets including Metro at a press conference during Venice Film Festival on Wednesday.
‘That was Jack’s unique gift in my mind because I’d seen it in 28 Years Later with an utterly reprehensible character, who’s still fascinating and interesting that you want to know a bit more about [him].’
He then added: ‘It’s an insane character and he’s got that ability to take you into dark places with it, like Pacino in The Godfather: Part II – he’ll hate me saying that. But to me, that was the inspiration. And I said to the production designers, try and make his office feel a bit like The Godfather.’
O’Connell, who delved into the British Library’s extensive paper archives as part of his research to play Lamb, said he tried to ‘envelop [himself] in the world by talking to the people that work there, especially at the time that we were recreating’.
‘Finding out that the pub they all drank at was known amongst them as ‘The Stab’, short for ‘The Stab in the Back’; the nature of it was that the knives were out and it was ruthless.’
Pearce also revealed that his fellow Australian, Rupert Murdoch, is ‘very happy’ that he’ll be playing him.
‘I had some messaging with Elizabeth, his daughter, and she did say to me, “Dad’s very happy that you’re playing him,”’ the Oscar-nominated actor shared.
The 58-year-old then joked: ‘But he hadn’t seen the film at that point, so we’ll see!’
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Graham, who adapted his play for the big screen, revealed that the businessman, 95, had come to see the play twice – in the West End and on Broadway – as he discussed the ‘tricky balance’ of trying to get access for research while having to keep ‘your independence, your intention and your distance’.
‘I remember what he was very good at was not really giving anything away, which I think was probably one of the secrets to his success over the years,’ the writer added.
He also said that Murdoch had been ‘charmed’ by a sequence in the play that’s replicated in the film of the hot metal press and ‘the dirt, the steam and filth that used to go into making a paper on a daily basis’.
‘He’s a newsman,’ he explained. ‘We think of [Murdoch] as a businessman, but I remembered from that he has a romance towards the news.
‘As to what he’ll think of Guy’s performance, I think he’ll be very flattered by the casting.’
Murdoch, who married his fifth wife Elena Zhukova, 69, in 2024, is still chairman emeritus of News Corp, which owns The Sun, The Times, Virgin Radio and The Wall Street Journal, as well as Fox Corporation, although he handed over leadership of the media companies to son Lachlan in 2023.
Claire Foy also stars in Ink as Jules Davies, an amalgam of female journalists working on Fleet Street at the time, with the supporting cast including Bertie Carvel – who was Murdoch in the original stage play – The Inbetweeners’ Blake Harrison and Chronicles of Narnia actress Georgie Henley.
Ink will be released in UK cinemas on January 8, 2027