The Indiependent sits down for a chat with writer/director Jamie Patterson and star George Webster, whose latest crime comedy God’s Petting You is a twisted yet humorous dive into the depths of Brighton’s underworld. The pair discuss the behind-the-scenes of their filmmaking and why they wanted to make a film like the ones they would “sneak downstairs to watch as a kid.”
Charlie (George Webster) is a functioning heroin addict. He attends group addiction therapy only to meet his dealer there (Joe Wilkinson), who is inconveniently moving to Winchester. Things get more interesting when a woman with a fancy moth tattoo on her chest (Skye Lourie) enters the group. She is a sex addict, and soon Charlie and “Tattoo Girl” (as she is credited) begin a relationship. Shortly after, they hatch a plan to rob Tattoo Girl’s “well-endowed” porn-star boyfriend.
The Indiependent: George, what was the first thing you latched on to with Charlie’s character?
George Webster: I think the first thing that kind of made me go, “huh?” was the way that Jamie had written Charlie’s background. He struggles with addiction, but that doesn’t define him. There’s more to him than that. He’s got a life, he’s semi functioning, he’s got a job.
When I was doing research into the character, you find people all over the world who deal with that. Who, you know, they are heroin addicts. Yes. But they’re also boyfriends, partners, husbands, wives, bankers, whatever. I found that quite interesting that this doesn’t sort of demonize addiction, but it doesn’t say it’s a particularly good idea.
Where did the idea for God’s Petting You come from?
Jamie Patterson: it was inspired by those films I used to sneak downstairs to watch as a kid. When I was way too young and Mum and Dad would’ve gone to bed, I would watch True Romance or Natural Born Killers, or Pulp Fiction or whatever. All those movies that at the time and whatever, there was hype around them. I always wanted to make one of those movies.
The idea of Jimmy (Benedict Garrett) and him being a porn-star, I started with my bad guy. I was like, okay, well then, I also wanna have this sort of love story and I want those characters to kind of be f***ed up. I wanted everyone in this movie to kind of be a little bit f***ed up.
And there’s a particular scene in it where someone gets slapped with something. That was actually one of the first scenes that came to me. I compared this to like, when Tom Cruise does a movie and he says, “I wanna jump out of a plane, I wanna do this” and then they write the film around it. I was like, I want someone to get slapped in the face with a willie.
What was it like getting slapped in the face with a willie?
GW: Did you write that question down?
Yes.
GW: Great. Love it. Um, yeah, it was kind of shocking.
I remember when we did a few table reads and the script had gone through a couple of different incarnations but that scene always read funny.
Suddenly the day we get to film it, I think I tweaked it before anybody else thinking “this is actually quite dark”. I’m like, covered in blood in the scene. I’m crawling across my broken living room with this giant man in front of me, and yeah, it was, uh… there was also the option to use a prosthetic.
JP: But you were adamant, weren’t you? “No, I want real d**k”.
GW: I wanted that d**k in my face. And I did regret that subsequently, but at the time I was like, look, I have a d**k. It’s not a big deal. It’s like, fine, you might as well do it for real. A fake one is gonna look fake no matter what, you might as well just get the story for Graham Norton one day. I don’t think I’ve been the same since.
Jamie, why does Brighton play such a prominent part in your films?
JP: I just think it offers so much as a location: a lot of my movies have been in Brighton, and I feel like I’ve shot lots of different sides of Brighton as well. I’ve done the sort of more fun, “here’s the pier, here’s the lanes, here’s this sort” and this was interesting to me because it was kind of like the slightly darker side of Brighton.
I think I’ll continue making movies in Brighton because I still think there’s sides of it that I haven’t shot. It’s constantly evolving like anywhere in the world. It almost becomes more and more interesting every single day. I’ve shot one film in London, and it’s always intimidated me just because of the scale of it. It’s just a completely different world to me. So, yeah, I wanted to stick with somewhere that I really knew.
I don’t think we ever commit at any point to saying the film is set in Brighton. I don’t want to say this was the Brighton I grew up in because I didn’t really sort of see that side, but it’s, uh, it just offers so much. I felt it complimented our story. I felt like it needed to be a smaller city, a more claustrophobic city, if you like.
Why was Skye [Lourie]’s character credited as Tattoo Girl?
JP: That was a big conversation that we had in the development stage. It was inspired by movies like, Drive, Kill Bill, Layer Cake, this idea of the familiarity that comes with a name. We had a huge list of names for her but when we introduced this character, it all started with this tattoo. It was kind of the element of mystery that that brought we thought was fascinating.
We really wanted to hold onto that throughout the movie. Almost like playing with this idea of is it real? Is it fake? You know, or is [Charlie] high? Is this whole thing one big f***ing trip or whatever. And then as soon as we started like giving that character a name, we lost a little bit of the mystery with it.
So, we kind of all made the decision that we weren’t gonna give her a name. That felt like it was giving that character more power and making that character more powerful.
The film was shot in only ten days, what was it like filming in such a short amount of time?
GW: It was exhausting. With stuff like that, I feel like your body gets you through it. By day eight, I think my body had shut down and there’s some scenes in there where you could hear that my voice is just gone and I’m really trying, but there’s like nothing coming out.
It’s mentally exhausting, but you’re also in a small team and everybody’s coming in rain or shine and pulling together: it’s just a joy at that stage. You spend so much time dreaming of making stuff and waiting to make unique and interesting things. When it comes along, you’re like, yeah, we’ll just give everything to it. So, yeah, it was enjoyable pain, I’d say.
One of the most notable parts of God’s Petting You is the strong leads and supporting cast. Did you write these parts with certain actors in mind?
JP: I think we kind of knew, I knew we wanted to get Jordan [Stephens] in for a bit. I knew I wanted to get April [Pearson] in for a bit. Joss [Porter], Alice Lowe – I had always wanted to work with Alice. With Alice, we shot everything in one day. It was our first day shooting, so we did like 16 pages with her in the day and it was insane.
Joe Wilkinson was a late idea. I remember we were like, oh, it’d be cool if we had a scene with Joe and maybe he was at these meetings or whatever. And we were like, that’s great. I remember we wrote that like in a day. Then we just sent it to Joe, I was like, “I don’t suppose you’re around tomorrow to come and do this” and he was – it was amazing.
I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to work with some incredible actors who I can just drop a text to and be like, “hey, got this fun little part – would you be up for it?”. I think everyone we asked said yes, which was great.
What’s next for you both?
GW: I’ve got two shows coming out this year. One is on Paramount Plus: a period drama called The Doll Factory, based on a book, filmed it last year. I’m really excited about that. Then I think later in the year, a show called Masters of the Air. It’s going to be on Apple TV. We filmed that ages ago, but it’s a big old beast, so it’s taken it a hot minute, but I think that’s coming out towards the end of the year.
JP: I’m just getting ready to head to America to do my first American movie. That’s the biggest thing I’ve done. I’ve got like 26 days to shoot this movie. It’s a road movie we’re shooting in LA, Pennsylvania and Texas about a guy who literally drives across America.
I’ve been to LA, and I’ve been to New York, but like, I don’t know what Idaho looks like. I know what Philadelphia looks like because of Rocky. I’ve wanted to make movies in America since I was a kid, so I’ll give it my best shot and see what happens.
There’s no one that gets slapped in the face with a willie in this one though.
Words by Kieran Webb
God’s Petting You releases digitally on 9th June 2023.
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