MEL Raido (of TV’s He Kills Coppers fame) talks about appearing in nightclub movie Clubbed, finding the desperation and physicality of his character and living outside of his comfort zone as an actor…

Q. How would you describe the character of Danny in Clubbed?
Mel Raido: Danny is someone who is in a real bad place in his life – he’s in a job he doesn’t want to do, he’s in a marriage, which is not working, and he feels like he’s not being a good father to his kids. Then, one day he gets beaten up in front of his kids at a working man’s club and gets caught up in this fear of violence. He gets to overcome that fear by falling in with this group of bouncers at a boxing club and they take him on this journey.

Q. How hard was he to find as a character?
Mel Raido: Where was he hiding? Well, I was lucky because I had Geoff Thompson, who the film’s based on, to talk to. He was there a lot of the time on set, so I was able to dip in and out of his life, use his past and use him as a huge kind of sounding board.

Q. Did you bring much of yourself to the character?
Mel Raido: Yeah, I think you always bring a bit of yourself to any part you play as an actor. So, there’s a bit of me in there.

Q. How physically demanding was the role? Did you have to get into shape?
Mel Raido: Yeah. You had to make it feel as though this character could realistically be a bouncer, from where he started out – from someone who hates violence, who can’t fight, to someone who is able to hold his own in a place like Coventry, which was a hard place to be back then [in the ’80s].

Q. What kind of training did you do?
Mel Raido: I trained with Geoff [Thompson] a lot. He kind of showed us realistically what the fights were like back then and the techniques they used. For the boxing scenes, we also had to train a lot.

Q. Had you boxed before?
Mel Raido: As a kid, yeah. It was something I was kind of interested in.

Q. Do you have a newfound respect for bouncers?
Mel Raido: Yeah. They have a hard time on the door and their lives are constantly in danger.

Q. What did you find more intimidating – being in the ring for the boxing scenes, or the scenes with your kids?
Mel Raido: Oh boy. Well, getting in the ring for the boxing scene was pretty intimidating because when you’re boxing with another actor you can both get carried away [laughs] in order to make the scene look real. So, that was quite daunting, because you don’t really want to get hit. With the kids, it was nice working with them because you can then kind of imagine what it was like for Danny to be a father. I also want to be a father myself, and hope to have children of my own.

Q. Did you ever get hit accidentally?
Mel Raido: I took a few knocks. But it’s all part of it. There were no injuries.

Q. There’s an interesting moment between you and Louis when he tells you about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone in order to grow in life. Is that something you try and do anyway as an actor?
Mel Raido: Yeah, I think as an actor you need to keep pushing yourself and really keep the parts diverse. You don’t want to get stereotyped and you always want to be doing something different.

Q. How exciting and/or daunting is it to be headlining a film?
Mel Raido: It’s great just to be able to be a part of it. But I see this more as a kind of ensemble piece. It’s about a guy looking back on his life and the people and situations he meets.

Q. You recently appeared to widespread acclaim on TV drama He Kills Coppers. Did that open many doors for you?
Mel Raido: Well, I’ve been lucky enough to do the work that I want to do, and do the scripts that land on my lap. But when you play parts like cop killers and kind of gangsters, which Clubbed has an element of, you then try to stay away from those types of roles again because you know that they’ll very quickly try and typecast you. So, it’s about keeping your head down, keep moving and keep trying to play as many different parts as possible. Also, go for the work that inspires you and interests you, and work with the people that you want to work with.

Q. Who would be on your wish-list of actors and directors?
Mel Raido: Jesus, so many! I was watching Dennis Potter the other day. I know he’s not alive anymore but he would have been someone I’d have loved to work with. Alejandro González Iñárritu, who did 21 Grams and Amores Peros, is a fantastic director. Benicio Del Toro is fantastic actor. But there’s British actors like Michael Gambon and Albert Finney. They’re so old school.

Read our review of Clubbed

Read our review of He Kills Coppers

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