![]() In the scene where we’re doing coke, Shaun and I were doing what we did at parties: talking bullshit. Quite a lot of the film was improvised, including the famous “ Nice one, bruva!” scene. For a first-time director, he was brilliant. ![]() Justin wanted to make it real, so he let us riff and be loose with things. He had Rizla papers with his own face on them. Howard Marks, who filmed a skit called Spliff Politics, used to hang out in the hotel bar with the Super Furry Animals. We were all staying in the same hotel and, on days off, would go out together. Danny Dyer and I became really good friends. I knew Shaun Parkes, who played record-shop owner Koop, already – we played in bands together. It was like there were no grownups on set. It was very low-budget, but such fun to make. Five years after the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which had outlawed “repetitive beats”, it was refreshing to read a script that was just telling it like it was: people going out, having a good time, and not dying. When we read the script, we all thought: “Wow, this is our life.” I was in my mid-20s and clubbing a lot in London, at places like Turnmills and Bagley’s. The original trailer for Human Traffic John Simm, actor Or dancing your tits off in the metaverse with Mark Zuckerberg. The way things are going now, clubs of the future will be people with the most “likes” wearing their Amazon Prime headphones listening to a DJ on Zoom. I still relate to the characters’ soul-searching in the original film, but these days it’s just new levels of middle-aged shit instead of the pains of youth. I know there’s an audience out there hungry for a sequel, but it’s taken five years to get the rights, and now I’m trying to raise a budget. But, whatever the tabloid sensationalism at the time, I included no deaths as that was not my experience, nor that of anyone I knew. I purposely left out any scenes of dropping pills, and the film clearly discusses the paranoia and physiological effects of drugs. I was quietly amazed that the film attracted no tabloid controversy, in the age of the “killer E”. John and I left at dawn – and then he told me he didn’t have to work that day. ![]() There was one day when 25 scenes were cut because we were behind schedule, so everyone got hammered at the hotel bar. Let’s just say we wanted it to be authentic. To the extras it was a big party – but I can’t say too much about the actors. We shot on location in Cardiff, with the nightclub scenes at the Emporium, which has closed now. They were also all people I would want to hang out with – we made the film as friends. The first question I asked in auditions was: “Have you ever taken drugs?” It was essential the actors be a part of the rave scene. I had no interest in that side of things – I was just high on making my film. No public or private financier in Britain would back the film, so the producers raised the £2.2m budget from private investors abroad. I thought back to those soul-destroying moments and decided to exorcise the demon once and for all by writing about it. With regards to Jip, John Simm’s character, being impotent – that had happened to me as a student, with my paranoid, overactive mind. Photograph: Hector Bermejo/Metrodome/Irish Screen/Kobal/Shutterstock ‘There was nothing to represent us in cinema’ … Justin Kerrigan.
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