“This is a film about people looking at other people and wanting what they have”: Sam Riley and Jack Farthing on Islands at Berlinale 2025
Films running out of competition, so-called Special Galas at the Berlinale, are all too often Trojan horses to reel in the big stars, if the other sections fall short of a glamorous, audience-enticing cast. However, this year’s edition offered a surprising amount of gems in this format, case in point being Jan-Ole Gerster’s English language debut Islands.
In a hotel resort on Fuerteventura, Tom (Sam Riley) teaches tennis to tourists who have grown tired of lounging by the pool all day. They tell him that they envy his life. A year-round vacation? He is living the dream! His daily routine of hitting balls during the day and going clubbing at night is shaken up by the arrival of a British family (Stacy Martin, Jack Farthing, Dylan Torrell), and suddenly, Tom sees himself confronted with different directions his life could have gone in.
The Upcoming spoke to the feature’s male leads, Riley and Farthing, about their way into these characters, their insecurities and subsequent building of facades.
What went through your mind the first time you read the script?
Sam: I thought, I really have to get this role!
And why was that?
Sam: Because, it was a lead role, partly. That’s just the truth, sadly. And because it’s such a fascinating character. I loved – I was fascinated by this guy’s life, by this idea of potential unreached opportunities not taken, paths going in different directions, self-destruction,…
Had you ever played tennis before taking on this role as a tennis coach?
Sam: No, I never played tennis before, not really, like for fun. The thing that was most important to learn was the serving, which I found the hardest. Weirdly, I played for the first time since the film a couple of weeks ago with my son, who plays tennis. Since we did some practice together before, when I was preparing for the film, he really loves it and plays and enjoys it. I was relieved when the scene was over.
In most of the scenes you have together, you are both wearing sunglasses. Obviously, it’s a way to shield you from the sun, but in a way also from each other. How challenging does it become to gauge each other’s reaction when you’re wearing sunglasses?
Jack: It’s interesting, I remember the last time we meet, Dave doesn’t take his sunglasses off at all. I mean, there’s something very natural about it, when you’re in an incredibly sunny environment. So it’s normal, but it’s also a statement, isn’t it? It is a statement, and it does change the way you interact with someone, and both of these – well, I mean, Dave definitely is a man who wears social armour. He tries to cover insecurity and worry and anxiety. And sunglasses are very good at doing that. I remember talking a lot about that last scene and thinking about whether he takes them off and really looks at him, or whether he doesn’t. And he doesn’t let him in, I think what we ended up with feels best. But yeah, Dave definitely postures. I don’t know how you feel about how Tom postures? But Dave definitely is trying to present himself to Tom.
Sam: Yeah, I think people assume a lot about Tom: that he’s a cool guy living the dream life, you know, like you do when you go on holiday and you see people that live there all the time, and you think, well, wouldn’t that be wonderful? People put a lot on him, so he doesn’t have to make as much effort. But I think to cover his social or private anxieties, he’s using alcohol and drugs and sex.
This whole idea of projecting onto other people and “the grass is always greener” follows us through this film. Is this something you can relate to?
Sam: I try not to do that anymore. I’m trying to become more aware of my gratitude for what I have in life. I think that’s the only way, personally, that I will find any serenity, is to try and be really thankful for who I am, where I am, what I am. It’s not very easy. I’ll be struggling with that for the rest of my life. But I think it’s not a bad thing to struggle.
Jack: It’s interesting that this is a film about people looking at other people and wanting what they have. The life of an actor is a great weird one for that, being surrounded by astronomical, inexplicable, very quick success and attention, wealth, adoration, completely undeserved adulation, and it’s very strange and disorientating to see and feel like they want it and not know what it means.
Sam: It’s another drug.
Jack: It’s another drug! Yeah, there’s a lot of addiction in being an actor, in wanting that. You have those short term, wonderful, profound, like nourishing, often emotionally destabilising experiences. And then they finish, and you come down, wait for the next. And it’s about exactly what Sam says about resisting that or trying to. Seeing it, and not being swept up and consumed by it, and realising… obviously, both Sam and I are incredibly lucky professionals and there is so much to be deeply grateful for. In our life and in our work.
Does this idea of men having to “put on a brave face” still play a part in these characters’ masking their dissatisfaction rather than having open conversations about it?
Sam: I think one of the reasons the film is called Islands is because the three of them are going through very similar crisis of – I mean, identity is a little kind of lazy, isn’t it? Of the spirit or the soul, or whatever. You know, dissatisfaction of a life not lived, or things unsaid, potential not reached, happiness always just out of out of reach. As Jack was saying, all people, men and women, put on a front for the world. I mean, women actually probably have to protect themselves even more. But what you can see as a viewer is much clearer. It’s like seeing a friend’s problem. It’s much easier to come up with a solution for them than it is for yourself. And as the viewer of the film, you can see much more about them than they can see about themselves, I think.
Yes, this really seems to be the case with Jack’s character: we recognise him right away as one of those men who have kids, but haven’t grown up themselves.
Jack: The kind of overgrown man-child, that’s not dying out; it’s stronger than ever. It’s peaking –
Sam: Hopefully peaking and then falling off.
Jack: Yeah. It’s a classic model, isn’t it, that man, who doesn’t want to let go of things. I’ve always thought of Dave as someone who found his identity in the kind of hedonism of drinking and taking drugs, going to raves. And that’s where him and Anne met, that’s where they began, and then she got her shit together, so he had to. But he lost something in that process. He lost what he thought what he had. He had that freedom, he had that identity, and he had that “Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.” And then suddenly, everything matters. And I think he can’t do it. I mean, most people work out how to deal with that, and Dave has just struggled with what that means for years. So that was a really rich and interesting thing for me to play with.
Since the film plays with a certain flexibility of identity, I was wondering what were the key aspects that allowed you to really understand your characters?
Jack: It’s always different, I think, finding out what a character is really about. I mean, I do feel like I had quite a clear, immediate gut reaction to him on the page. Jan-Ole and I talked a lot about Fredo in The Godfather.
Sam: Did you?
Jack: Yeah, about the tragedy of, you know, the sibling that doesn’t quite achieve, who’s pursued by failure, and people think he’s a bit of a joke, and the energy that that gives him. And actually, the actor who plays Fredo, John Cazale, said – I remember reading and it stuck with me as well – that, “You find what the character is ashamed of and that’s who they are.” We find that pain and that’s who they are. And with Dave, that felt quite straightforward. There are so many things that he is struggling with as a person. The most obvious one is this possibility of infertility and like, what that means to him, what that means for his family, what that means for all these things. So yeah, that was kind of lovely, to find the pain that drives someone and then you cover them in their shell of bravado, of joy, like, “Yeah, everything’s great.” Just immediately, there’s something compelling to play, and I hope to watch as well. What was your way in?
Sam: I don’t know, but I love what you said about the actor. It’s so true.
Jack: Yeah, isn’t it so good?
Sam: He was only in Best Picture movies, wasn’t he? Well, as Jack said, one of the reasons why I also wanted to do this was that I felt that happen, as I read it. I felt immediately like I understood this person, and could relate to it. I think they both feel like failures. But in Tom’s case, people are always putting on him how cool he is, or what a successful thing it is, so he can hide behind other people’s misinterpretation of him. Maybe to some extent, he can use what everyone assumes about him as his front, but behind it, he’s obviously very fragile and self-sabotaging. I think it’s this idea of not having made it. This Nadal story. On the one hand, everyone calling him Ace, for example, it’s like a cool thing, but, you know, for him, it must always be the memory that he never made it.
There is also this element to Tom of being an observer, that I’m guessing speaks to an actor?
Sam: Yeah, I like watching things, watching people. I like seeing how people behave. I love it. I like watching reality TV – it’s all coming out now –
Jack: Here we go.
Sam: …more than I do other stuff, ’cause I like seeing real people. I like sitting in cafes and watching people walk around, doing stuff. I love listening in to family conversations at the tables next to me. One of the things that I learned from the great people I worked with is that a lot of the acting is, whether you really are listening to what the other person is saying. The other thing that I learned right back with my first film, when I worked with Samantha Morton and Alexandra, my wife, is that if you’re working with great people, it’s just easy. It’s very easy to be in the moment. Working with Jack and Stacy and being at that scene in the restaurant and watching them argue with one another felt like – not like a reality TV show – but it felt like I was watching two people really having that relationship. And if you just do the thing, switch off and be in the moment, then it’s really easy when you’re working with good people.
There is this assumption that shooting on location at a prime holiday destination must be a dream, but at the press conference it was revealed that the hotel you filmed at remained in full operation and it proved rather challenging to work around?
Jack: Yeah, it was. I mean, there were moments when it was complicated because you’re trying to make a film in a hotel full of people trying to have a holiday. Inevitably, it doesn’t always work smoothly. And it requires a certain amount of commitment and energy from everyone making it, because you’re without some of the things that you normally rely on, like trailers to do make up in and that stuff. But really, what it gave us was so much for free. It gave us so much truth and energy, just the temperature of the place, the authenticity of the people who go to those kind of hotels. I mean, that’s a gift.
Sam: We were working in a hotel, the one we see. We were all staying in a family hotel as well.
Jack: And we shot of some of that in there –
Sam: Shot some of my apartment stuff, yeah. We all stayed in the same hotel as one another, saw each other around the pool, and saw one another at breakfast. It was immersive.
Jack: Yeah, it was lovely, but also a bit strange. You know, when you’re in a place like that, it’s impossible not to feel like you’re on holiday. And then you think you’re not on holiday. It is quite destabilising. But you know, it was probably all useful.
Selina Sondermann
Islands does not have a release date yet. Read our review here.
Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival coverage here.
For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.
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