We all love a local success story — so when the chance came to sit down with musician turned actor Richard Goss, it was fascinating to hear about his journey from Swansea to the bright lights of Hollywood.
Goss can currently be seen in Netflix thriller ‘The Paradise Murders’ — which this week debuted at number three on the streamer’s films chart in America — as well as the Apple TV+ fantasy ‘Warlord’, alongside Lord of the Rings star Billy Boyd.
We discussed those projects and plenty more: working with Stanley Kubrick’s cinematographer, what he values about Swansea, and why being a Welsh creative forces you to fight harder for your dreams in the entertainment industry.
Richard, you’ve carved out a successful screen career on the other side of the pond. Do you feel growing up in Swansea has helped keep you grounded?
Thank you, and yes, absolutely. London, and the entertainment industry, can be fun and exciting, but also surreal, strange and at times completely insane worlds to live in. Swansea is my home and keeps me grounded.
Have you found that being a Welsh creative has forced you to fight harder to get to where you are? There are perhaps less opportunities than there are in London and other parts of the UK for talent to be trained and nurtured and a lack of acting career opportunities comparatively.
Yes, certainly at the time I started acting there weren’t many opportunities in Swansea or the rest of Wales, and I had to go to London to kickstart my career. I attended a Q&A with Michael Sheen and Matthew Rhys earlier this year at the Grand Theatre where they talked about this, and how they felt they had to leave Wales to get their talent noticed, before anyone would be willing to take notice back home, which is a shame as there’s such incredible talent in Wales. I know that they’re both planning an initiative to change this, so hopefully it’ll take off and help to shine light on local talent.
When did you first realise you wanted to pursue acting?
2010. I’d wrapped a tour in Japan with my band and was becoming increasingly frustrated with music. I’d been playing since I was five, and I was around twenty-four by then. I was watching a lot of films during and after the tour and found this to be far more appealing, so that planted the idea in my mind.
A little while later, I came back from a trip to Spain and watched the Michael Mann film ‘Heat’, and that was it, my mind was made up. That night I decided I was done with music, and I was going to pursue acting relentlessly.
Were friends and family in Swansea supportive of this career choice or did you meet some resistance along the way?
Friends not so much, but that’s life and you move forward. However, my parents have always been incredibly supportive of my career, whether it was in music or acting, so if I worked hard and it made me happy, they gave their total support. I’m very lucky to have them.
What was the theatre and arts scene like in Swansea growing up? Looking at the city now, do you think things have improved on that front?
I can’t recall too much of it from then as I was so heavily focused on music and never ventured into theatre or acting at that time. I do have fond memories of seeing a few performances of ‘Under Milk Wood’ at the Grand Theatre as a child. However, when I made the decision to start acting in 2010, I found it difficult to find any guidance on where to begin in Swansea.
I had a couple of private lessons with a drama teacher at Gorseinon College who’d recently graduated from RADA and returned home. He got me started with a few monologues and a book list of Stanislavsky and Stella Adler, so Rhys, if you’re reading this, thank you mate!
I think it’s certainly improved and continues to do so, as I’ve been auditioning for and meeting fantastic Welsh filmmakers lately. I auditioned last year for Gareth Evans, who I think is excellent, and he’s bringing a lot of work to Swansea and Cardiff, like the Tom Hardy film ‘Havoc’.
Tell us about your career journey. How did it all come about and were there many obstacles along the way?
I didn’t have a clue where or how to start so I got onto a few films as an extra. I thought it’d be a good opportunity to see how a film set works and learn as much as I could. One was ‘Cleanskin’ with Sean Bean. I got the Megabus to London, couldn’t afford a hotel so walked around the city all night until the 5am call time.
The other was the Warner Brothers film ‘Wrath of the Titans’, where I ended up doing some Special Action Performance work. I did a few weeks on that in the Brecon Beacons and met someone who was casting for a new adaption of the horror classic ‘Night of the Living Dead’. I was invited to audition for it and got the part, which was my first speaking role on screen. That was with the Swansea filmmaker Andrew Jones, who sadly passed away a few years ago. I’ll always be grateful to him and his wife Sharon for giving me that opportunity.
After that I couch surfed around London for a while working in bars, before I booked a role on ‘Rise of the Krays’ and it just continued to build from there. Small, incremental steps.
There were many obstacles along the way, but I prefer to focus on the positives, and my gratitude to everyone who’s taken a chance and booked me for roles in their productions.
What advice would you give to anyone, particularly in Swansea and South Wales, who wants to move into the acting and entertainment industry? For many it might seem like an unattainable dream or simply a world they have no idea how to get into.
If you’re going to do it, then go for it 100%. It’s an incredibly challenging and competitive industry, so you must love acting and storytelling enough to get you through the challenging times. Learn everything you can about not only the craft but the business side, attend networking events, film festivals, workshops, get to know people and make genuine connections, reach out to directors and producers, most will be willing to write a message back or give some advice. Create your own work, write short scripts, film them on an iPhone, learn how to edit and colour grade them, push them to festivals and online.
There’s also a far stronger indie filmmaking scene now in Wales than when I started out, and many bigger budget productions being brought there so there are a lot more opportunities for local talent to shine.
You’ve written the short film ‘A Choice’ along with the well-received mini-series ‘Fried’. Is writing something you want to focus more on in the future, or do you gravitate mainly towards performance?
Principally, I’m an actor. Writing came about from necessity as, at the time, I wasn’t getting cast in anything, so I needed to write a screenplay to showcase my performance. I do enjoy writing though, and am currently working on several screenplays, including a full feature film version of ‘A Choice’, and one called ‘The Offering’. It’s a psychological horror involving a Faustian pact between an arrogant, fame-hungry YouTuber and The Devil, and it’ll be primarily filmed in Wales. That’s all I can say for now!
You also directed ‘A Choice’. Again, is directing something you would like to do more of or is this mainly the case when working on scripts you have penned yourself?
I don’t particularly enjoy directing and prefer to work with more experienced and more talented directors than myself, but I do like to have strong input and collaborate if it’s my own script. Finding the right people to share the same vision for it is the key.
What inspired ‘Fried’ and where can we watch it?
‘Fried’ is a psychological thriller with dark comedy elements. It’s set in London and was inspired by my own experiences of living there in utter poverty, and the minimum wage jobs you must do between acting roles to get by. I’ve worked in some truly awful places and companies, and was once even electrocuted during a shift at a bar I was working in. Rushed to hospital, thankfully I made a full recovery, but I was extremely angry about the way the company handled it.
The rental market there can also be Dickensian, where you end up unwittingly living in grotty flats with absolute maniacs. So, I wrote many of these experiences into the screenplay and then turned it up a notch with inspirations from ‘Filth’, ‘American Psycho’, ‘Fight Club’ and of course, the classic ‘Withnail and I’.
In short, the story is about two men who moved to London to ‘make it’, instead ending up trapped in minimum wage hell, living in squalor, and ultimately murdering their micro-managing work supervisor and unsympathetic therapist. I promise you, it’s more humorous than it sounds! It’s available to watch for free on YouTube @friedseries
After years of such things as the Marvel Universe dominating cinemas, it’s refreshing that independent pictures like ‘Obsession’ are achieving such acclaim both by critics and audiences and with box office takings. Do you feel we’re entering an exciting time for cinema? Is the industry in a good place following Covid?
It’s exciting in the sense that it’s far more accessible to make your own movie nowadays, the kit has never been more affordable and people making shorts on YouTube can quickly become the next big thing, which is all fantastic.
Blockbusters and comic book movies still have their place, as does streaming, but it’s great to see more risk taken with independent films. I think the industry is still feeling the aftereffects of Covid somewhat and readjusting from the writers strikes. It’ll keep evolving and adapting. But I’m excited for the future of it!
What kind of cinema or television are you drawn to as an audience member and what sort of stuff appeals as an actor?
I love crime thrillers like ‘Heat’, ‘The Godfather’, ‘Carlito’s Way’, ‘Breaking Bad’, ‘The Wire’, as well as medieval pieces like ‘Vikings’, ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Game of Thrones’, those are usually my favourites. Older films like ‘Papillon’, ‘High Plains Drifter’, ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’, ‘The Great Escape’, ‘Amadeus’, ‘Rocky’, real classics. Anything with a strong story, characters, great direction and music!
More recently I really enjoyed the Mads Mikkelsen Danish film ‘Another Round’ and the new French language adaption of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’.
I love comedies too, the older ones like ‘Porridge’, ‘Frasier’, ‘Bottom’, ‘Blackadder’, ‘Rising Damp’, ‘3rd Rock from the Sun’, ‘King of Queens’, fantastic shows. The film ones like ‘Airplane’, ‘Hot Shots’ and ‘Naked Gun’ too, they don’t make enough of those anymore!
All of those appeal to me as an audience member and an actor.
You can be seen on Apple TV+ in the fantasy movie ‘Warlord’. What can you tell us about the film and how was your experience making it?
I loved every second of being on ‘Warlord’. It was physically hard, as we were filming outdoors in Northumberland, in December, during snowfall, but it added to the raw feeling of the set and scenes. Getting to meet and work with Billy Boyd (Pippin, from ‘Lord of the Rings’) was incredible. My first time meeting him was so memorable. I’d been filming a fight sequence in a medieval castle courtyard, wrapped for the day and went to get changed out of costume and makeup, and he was sitting there and introduced himself. Really lovely, down-to-earth guy. We had a few drinks one evening and chatted about his experiences on those films, about guitars and music as he also tours in a band and had a little bet if my Elven ears would remain on longer than Orlando Bloom’s did (ours won — two whole days before they needed reapplying!). Ryan Gage from ‘The Hobbit’ was there too, he was fun to work and chat with. Even on my off days, I’d come to set to watch them work on their scenes.
I’m also a huge gamer and was playing Baldur’s Gate III at the time as it had just been released. So, to then find out I was sharing scenes with three of the actresses from the game (Jennifer, Aliona and Devora) was exciting. I had some scenes with Georgina from Harry Potter too, so the whole shoot was a real medieval fantasy get-together.
Was working with Doug Milsome (Stanley Kubrick’s cinematographer) one of those pinch me moments?
Absolutely. Doug is a legend. He’s worked on everything. ‘Robin Hood Prince of Thieves’, ‘Last of the Mohicans’, a few Bond films, ‘Great Expectations’ with Anthony Hopkins. One hell of a career. He’d tell us all about his time working with Kubrick, how he began working on ‘The Shining’ back in the day, all the way up to ‘Full Metal Jacket’. He wasn’t aware of the Shining’s sequel, ‘Doctor Sleep’, so was shocked when I showed him some of the scenes and how they’d recreated the Overlook Hotel.
You star in the thriller ‘The Paradise Murders’, which is currently on Netflix. What can you tell us about the film and your character and what drew you to this role?
I’m incredibly excited for this one because this week it debuted at number 3 on the Netflix films chart in America. Hopefully it’ll get a UK release soon too. The film is a thriller about a murder at a beachside luxury resort. I play Jarrod, an aggressive, thuggish character, alongside his on-screen partner Isla, who’s a little too pushy and friendly with the guests. I won’t say anymore in case it’s a spoiler for anyone who watches!
I initially auditioned for a different role and wasn’t quite sure if the character was guilty of the murder or not, so I ended up doing two different tapes for the director and producers. That’s always fun, playing two opposite versions of a scene and trying to make a strong choice when you’re not given much information to work from. They cast me a week later in a different role, Jarrod, so I took American accent lessons with a great coach and then flew to Bulgaria for production.
One of many cool things was that it’s a five-star hotel which was mostly closed off for filming and we got to stay there on location — wonderful! I also got to work with Al Sapienza, he played Mikey Palmice in ‘The Sopranos’, and he’s been in ‘Suits’, ‘Dopesick’, ‘Reacher’, tons of cool American productions.
What attracts you to a particular project? Is it the story or subject matter, the way it’s written or the character you’ll be playing or a combination of these?
It’s a combination of all of those. Script and character are so important for an actor to bring the words and scene to life in a believable way. I think writers are extremely underrated within the industry and not praised loudly enough.
There are of course many perks of being in the entertainment industry, but what would you say are the hardest aspects of your career?
The unpredictability of the industry can be challenging to deal with at times. You’re financially unstable most of the time, you need to always be available and flexible to drop anything to go audition or jump onto a film last minute. You’re on top of the world one day, on a huge set, doing what you love amongst your peers, people who all share your drive and ambition, and then the production wraps and you’re back in your flat wondering what the hell just happened and it’s time to start job hunting again.
To go back to one of your earlier questions, I would advise anyone wanting to break into the industry to be prepared for all the above; to know your own resilience and your own mental, emotional and physical strength.
How often do you manage to get back to Swansea and what do you miss about the city when you’re away?
I bounce back and forth between Swansea and London all the time, depending on my schedule and productions, and maintain a base in both cities. When I’m away in London, I miss the tranquillity of walking along the marina, the Mumbles, Brynmill and the Gower. We have one of the best coastlines in the world as far as I’m concerned and especially during the summer!
What’s next for you?
I’m developing several of my own scripts to go into production, the most likely one is ‘The Offering’, aiming for the end of this year. I’ll be acting in a short action piece in Germany soon with a stuntman friend of mine which I’m training hard for, and I’ve been auditioning for a bunch of films in Europe and America, so fingers crossed for these!
Richard, thank you for your time — and here’s wishing you continued success.
‘The Paradise Murders’ is streaming now on Netflix, with ‘Warlord’ available on Apple TV+. Goss’s self-penned mini-series ‘Fried’ is free to watch on YouTube.
