George MacKay: ‘I trained as a Cornish fisherman with Callum Turner – it’s tough work’

Callum Turner and George MacKay’s trippy new sci-fi odyssey sees the pair transform into Cornish fishermen stuck 30 years in the past.

The British movie, created by Mark Jenkin, follows two strangers, Nick and Liam, who cross paths when they both agree to join the fishing crew of a reappeared local boat – the titular Rose of Nevada – to raise some extra cash in hand.

But all is not as it seems for what starts as a harmless voyage out to sea soon takes a strange turn when they arrive back at their same old dreary town, only 30 years in the past.

As the two men become entangled in a fishing trip tragedy that has haunted the residents for decades, both soon find themselves at odds as they reckon with whether they are trapped forever or if there’s a way back home.

There are plenty of sequences of Nick and Liam at sea with the ship’s hardened captain, Denver, played by Francis Magee, battling the elements, hauling heavy nets of sea creatures, and shifting icy boxes of goods up, down and all around.

Chatting with Metro at the premiere at the London Film Festival, the 1917 star shared what it was like learning about (and trying his hand at) the intense world of local fishing.

‘It was great. We learnt a good bit. Lee Carter – the fisherman whose boat we were using – was amazing. We never went to go and do a shift with Lee because those guys work all hours as well, every day of the year.

‘I watched a lot of stuff on it, we spoke to Lee, and just the stories we would get – it’s an intense way of living, it’s an intense way of life.

‘Just even then, to be on the boat itself, to feel when your hands get cold, the weight of the machinery, all the stuff that they were using.

‘I learnt by osmosis and picking bits up from what was told to us, but it’s a serious way to make a living. It’s tough work,’ he shared.

In the movie, his character Nick is a loving husband and father desperate to be reunited with his family. As a partner and father himself, he drew from his own experiences to inform his character, Nick.

‘I just love that he’s just a bloke trying to do the best for his family in what audiences will see becomes a very strange scenario. Ultimately, he’s just trying to keep his home and keep his family.

‘I’ve got a family and I’m learning the topsy-turvy nature of what that is like, so I really connected with this guy who’s a father and a partner, and that being the centre of his world and trying to keep that at the centre of his world when everything is going a bit nuts around him in the film.

‘That bit really rang true, and it was a pleasure to play Nick because of that.’

It was also a pleasure starring opposite Fantastic Beasts star Callum, someone George has greatly admired in the industry.

‘I’m such a fan of Callum as a man, as an actor, the work he’s doing, the choices he’s making, and what he’s doing right now is so exciting.

‘I was so thrilled to be doing it with him because he’s properly top drawer, a really, really great fella,’ he praised.

As for Mark, he shared how, through showing the stark differences in the same coastal English town over 30 years, the movie unintentionally showcased how these areas have been left behind.

‘The contemporary context is what it is. Places are run down. There’s a lot of poverty, there’s a lot of dereliction. We’re in a post-industrial landscape, so yeah.

‘That isn’t the point of the film, but in terms of building a context of the modern day and the time slip going back 30 years – it’s either side of the effects of austerity.

‘I wanted to draw attention to the stuff that, now, is totally normalised. So now, for most people, it’s insignificant that there are food banks on every street.

‘But by putting it in a film, [you] give it a bit of significance because you see that the food bank 30 years ago was a post office, which was the heart of a community.

‘We used to have all of these things that we’ve lost…’ he reflected.

Rose of Nevada premieres at the BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday, October 15, and Saturday, October 18. It will arrive in UK cinemas in 2026.

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