The actor found fame at 14 in Billy Elliot. He talks about that film’s impact 25 years on, family life and The Uprising, his new historical epic with Andrew Garfield

The loud, wheezy hoot of the pit horn used to signal the end of the shift. Blaring across the town, it blew the changes. We'd all hear it. My father, as his father before him, was a GP in Ashington, a large mining town in Northumberland. Ashington was the hub of a network of subsidiary collieries including Woodhorn (now a museum), Ellington and Lynemouth, which both appropriately featured as film locations for Billy Elliot. Mining was in the local blood. To work 'doon the pit' was a proud profession and a natural family succession. ✍️ Alastair Irvine Article |