Advertisement

Little Birds' Hugh Skinner & Raphael Acloque on queer sex and interracial love

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Digital Spy

Rainbow Crew is an ongoing interview series which celebrates the best LGBTQ+ representation on TV. Each instalment showcases talent working on both sides of the camera, including queer creatives and allies to the community.

Today we're speaking to Hugh Skinner and Raphael Acloque about their roles on the Sky drama Little Birds.

Historically, LGBTQ+ people have been forced to hide and suppress who they really are, so it should come as no surprise that LGBTQ+ characters aren't particularly visible in historical dramas either.

Of course, there have been some exceptions to this rule – Maurice and Downton Abbey both spring to mind – but it's only recently that queer dramas like Summerland have begun to organically centre their queerness in an historical narrative.

Enter Little Birds, a new drama from Sky that explores the hedonistic heyday of Tangier in the 1950s. Inspired by Anaïs Nin’s collection of erotic short stories, Little Birds revolves around a queer love triangle which boldly pushes against societal expectations, both then and now.

We sat down with stars Hugh Skinner and Raphael Acloque to discuss this luxurious era, exploring why it's so important to see an interracial queer love story unfold on screen.

Photo credit: Sky
Photo credit: Sky

Little Birds takes place in such a unique time and setting. How did you both prepare to enter the world of Tangier in the 1950s?

Hugh Skinner: Initially, I looked a lot at the period, and obviously, Tangier in the ‘50s was a kind of Mecca for gay men. They were all there. Joe Orton, Tennessee Williams – I’d read Orton’s diaries, and he went there with Kenneth Williams and Kenneth Halliwell. Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch there.

So I started with that. And then I was trying to work out what the headspace was, in terms of the shame at that point. By all accounts, after the war, the ideals of family and marriage were held in higher esteem than ever, and gay men were often front-page news – not in a celebratory way. So I was trying to get my head around that.

Raphael Acloque: I've tried to find stuff about gay Arab men in the '50s, and you're never going to find anything... Of course, whether you were white or Arab or Black in the '50s, it was the same difficulty – being able to love whoever you wanted to love.

But for an Arab, especially because it's so taboo in those countries – and still today – it was complicated to find anything to research. The difference between my character and Hugh's character is Adam has no shame whatsoever about anything. I don't think he thinks in those terms.

You're always looking for a struggle when you're preparing a character, because you're like, "What's his conflicts?" And interestingly enough, his conflict had nothing to do with being in love with another man. His conflict was more towards the colour of his skin, and the fact that he was completely oblivious to how people could see him.

I was advised to read a novel called Beer in the Snooker Club. It's about two Egyptian men. They've been educated in England, and they don't really know whether to identify with Egypt or England. So it was more about what it means to be a citizen of the world.

I prepared my role more towards this, simply because Adam is in love with Hugo, and he's not questioning that at all – until Lucy arrives.

It’s ground-breaking to see an interracial queer love story play out in a period setting like this. What did that mean to both of you personally?

HS: It was hugely exciting. It was one of the things that made me really want to do it.

Photo credit: Sky
Photo credit: Sky

Hugo is so mixed up, and in such denial about that side of his life. I don't think he, in this story, questioned that as an issue. I think he's just having such a phenomenal time with Adam, he doesn't think it's going to be something that ever comes to the surface. He's put all his eggs into this basket with Lucy, and he really, really thinks that that's going to work.

RA: About the interracial thing – my dad's white; he's Corsican. My mother's Algerian. She's North African. So being half-Arab and half-white... the interracial question has been at the heart of my life. So it's always interesting to show that on screen.

As for the queer representation, I think what's good now is, there's more and more representation for the queer community. And it is a reality, because there's also interracial relations within the LGBT community.

It's important to show that too, instead of just showing white people with white people, black people with black people, Arabs with Arabs. This is the reality of today. It's super, super, super important to show that on screen, because people need to see that the world is no longer just binary.

HS: What's slightly gobsmacking is that it's not on TV more often.

RA: Exactly! Exactly!

It was also very progressive of the show to introduce your characters via an intimate sex scene. What was it like to film these kind of moments on set?

RA: Well, Hugh was incredibly awkward... [laughs] No, I'm kidding. Honestly, he's a dream partner. I was very fortunate to work with him. Sometimes, I bothered him with a couple of questions like: "So, as a gay man, do you think that…"

HS: I was more than happy to teach you.

RA: Yeah, I know, I know.

HS: Having been really professional through the whole job, it'd be really awful if now's the moment we're suddenly really inappropriate [laughs].

RA: [laughs] Can you imagine? No, it was great working with Hugh, and also with Fady [Elsayed]. In terms of the approach? No, we did not have an intimacy coordinator.

[Director] Stacie [Passon] was incredibly present, and always made sure to listen to any reservations that we could have, or any idea that we could bring to try to make a scene more tasteful. Having seen the results, she did film that with a lot of taste, and she did edit it with a lot of taste. And I'm grateful for that.

Photo credit: Sky
Photo credit: Sky

HS: Also to add to that, Stacie had obviously done Transparent as well, which has phenomenal sex scenes. So we had so much confidence in her because of that.

And also, I was lucky enough to see Juno Temple's scene where she shoots that erotic film... She was so fucking liberating, and just went there. It was weirdly amazing to watch. It was really exciting. I was just like, "Wow, she's just brilliant. She got so into the character, and didn't give a fuck, and just went for it." It was really inspiring.

That sense of freedom definitely comes through on screen. On the flip-side of that, did you find anything particularly challenging about the shoot?

HS: It's not a particularly exciting thing to say, but when you're shooting six hours out of order, it's really just keeping track of the story. And then, as ever, learning that, and covering up the working, so that you're not sort of hammering everything home, and you seem like a real person. You're doing the work, and then covering it, and putting a lid on it.

RA: Again, because you're talking about all those layers of representation... As an Arab, it's always a tricky thing to read the scripts, because, I have to say, my community is not always pleased with how we're being represented on screen, with the terrorists trend and stuff.

With Adam being an Arab, and with him being gay... You always have to stop yourself from second-guessing a line that you're going to say, or a situation, like: "Is the representation right now the correct one?"

So I think the biggest challenge was to shut that off for a moment, and think, "OK, you're in good hands. You know this character. This character is Arab. Yes, he is." But what I liked about him is, he's never a victim. I keep saying that, even when he gets beaten up or something. He's never a victim, and he never acts like one.

What I like about him is, he always glides above judgement and that kind of stuff. It was a very compelling thing to play, because we don't have that many opportunities to find strong, interesting Arab cultures that are simply just human beings.

Both queer representation and Arab representation are not where they should be still. Things are getting better, and Little Birds is a great example of that, but it's still not there. So what do you both think the industry needs to do to improve this?

Photo credit: Sky
Photo credit: Sky

RA: You're asking me a question that I've sort of never asked myself. I think maybe sometimes, as an actor, you're sort of being selfish, and thinking, "How is my community being represented?" So it is a good question you're asking now, because it forces me...

Here's the thing. It's very interesting, because I was talking to a friend of mine – she's a French actress – and she has a film coming out soon. She's playing someone from the trans community, and she isn't. And she was telling me, "I think I'm going to get in massive trouble because I'm not trans. I'm not a trans actor, and I'm playing this character."

And I was like: I get the point. But I think, also, the question we should start having in France is, why not give trans actors just any role? Do you know what I mean? I think it's part of the progress we need to work on.

To me, there's a necessity in this industry to make sure people from minorities are able to transcend the fact they’re from a minority, they can play any character. I think it's very important.

Photo credit: Sky
Photo credit: Sky

Because ultimately, we’re all human beings. That’s what matters. And that’s what we’re trying to do on screen. We’re trying to play human beings, and trying to work with as much honesty as we can.

HS: This is why it's so complicated, I think, because they're two separate issues, almost. I think there's the issue of inclusion, and the issue of casting. We need to have a better level playing field for all the minorities, all the groups. We need a level playing field for that. But then, also, I think it's almost a separate issue.

Because I think the inclusion of the characters is so important, and needs to get better. I always think, if I'd seen – or if any of my generation had seen a film like Love, Simon when you were a teenager, we'd probably all be different people. Instead, we were clinging on to Batman Forever. It didn't have anyone gay in it, but it was screamingly homosexual and fantastic, even though we didn't realise it at the time, these people living double lives in tight, fluorescent suits.

What I love about Little Birds when watching it is it does have all these characters, and it touches on incredibly complicated things with everyone being in this place at the same time. It's so complicated. But then, also, it's a really fun melodrama as well. It's colourful and brash and mad and freewheeling.

RA: Any kid who's 13, 14, or 15, regardless of who he wants to be in love with or the colour of his skin or whatever; regardless of the minority he's from, regardless of his age, needs to be able to turn on his TV or go to the cinema, and have access to something that talks to his heart and his soul, and make sure that he can see something and say, 'OK, I'm seeing this, and this talks to me, because this proves to me that I'm not alone in this world.'

Little Birds is available to watch on Sky and NOW TV.


Digital Spy now has a newsletter – sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox.

Looking for more TV recommendations and discussion? Head over to our Facebook Group to see new picks every day, and chat with other readers about what they're watching right now.

You Might Also Like