George MacKay and Percelle Ascott on why I Came By needed to be in London

The cast of new Netflix movie I Came By have revealed it was "magical" to make such an ambitious film entirely in London — where they both grew up.

Directed by Under the Shadow filmmaker Babak Anvari, the movie follows a pair of graffiti artists (George MacKay and Percelle Ascott) who enter the orbit of Hugh Bonneville's retired judge — a man hiding a dark secret. Ascott, whose previous credits include Doctor Who and Tin Star, said filming on familiar streets gave an extra level of excitement and intensity to the project for him.

I Came By is in UK cinemas now ahead of its Netflix debut on 26 August.

Video transcript

TOM BEASLEY: The film's a very London film. And obviously, both of you grew up in and around London. How important was that? I guess, did you guys have a role in shaping how London it is?

PERCELLE ASCOTT: Yeah, I think I'm just like, it's-- yeah, for me, it was quite magical because we're filming on locations that I grew up in. Yeah, especially places-- there was one particular location, the school that my grandfather went to. So again, it was just like, nice to kind of have that experience of being-- filming in your London.

But yeah, definitely I think in terms of really wanting to-- yeah, we were talking about where these boys were from, and finding that London, you know? And really talking about the kind of graffiti background, and all these kind of choices that make these characters basically. So I think it's so-- it was so fun to kind of shoot in London.

GEORGE MACKAY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it feels like the London that we know as well. It's not a kind of-- there's elements. You kind of get a couple of like, sort of postcard moments, but it isn't all kind of like, the London Eye and Big Ben. It feels very grounded. And as you said, the London that we know.

TOM BEASLEY: Yeah, it's one of the many ways in which this film is not "Paddington."

GEORGE MACKAY: Yes. Yeah.

TOM BEASLEY: It's interesting. It's that thing with London though, isn't it? We have these immensely opulent places, and then you've got, a street away, real deprivation.

GEORGE MACKAY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

PERCELLE ASCOTT: Yeah.

GEORGE MACKAY: Totally. And it feels like that's what the film's looking at is it's so multidimensional in terms of all-- sort of all social aspects of it. And so London feels the perfect setting because yeah, we all live on top of each other and intertwined--

PERCELLE ASCOTT: Yeah, melting pot.

GEORGE MACKAY: --with each other. And that melting pot feels particularly true of this city.